There being none it is now time for our members statements member from here on Bruce Very much, mr. Speaker. It's my pleasure to rise today to applaud over 540 volunteers family and friends who helped organize the 66th annual turkey supper in Belgrade this past month Belgrade is my home Hamlet if you will I was lucky enough to be home along with over a thousand others from our broader community to share a delicious Thanksgiving meal and I can tell you over a thousand pounds of turkey 1600 pounds of potatoes 224 turnips 1080 pies there was surely no shortage of excellent food and in fact there was even second helpings of dessert But seeing people come together for a tradition like this unlike any other is truly humbling It so clearly emulates what it is to be a community and I'm honored to be part of that To give you a sense of this community Belgrade is a hamlet of approximately 200 people and it says a lot that in 2014 they can attract a larger community of over a thousand people To give thanks and celebrate the bounty of the harvest this community support is truly valued because it is the one key Fundraising event of the year for the Belgrade Community Center as a member of this house I have the honor of meeting and interacting with so many volunteers and organizations across my riding and province And seeing the passion selflessness and generosity of these individuals day in and day out is truly remarkable Volunteers are the cornerstones of our community And we would not have amazing events like the Belgrade fell supper if it weren't for them, and I thank them Thank you speaker. Thank you members stay bits the member from Parkdale High Park Thank you, mr. Speaker, and I know that our leaders are coming in a few minutes to speak But I just wanted to to say because I know we're all thinking the same thing a real Great vote of thanks to our incredible sergeant at arms and to all of our security Staff here. I know that we're feeling their presence and many many members are saying thank you to them in their own ways And we should probably do that more often than on today So I just wanted us to say thank you to them and give them a round of applause actually. Thank you I also wanted to mention. I'm a United Church minister as many folk know and Today on Twitter. I was absolutely moved by the incredible outflowing from all of our faith Organizations all faiths across this country calling for calm calling for peace and calling for love. Thank you Thank you members statements the member from brettin's finger Thank You mr. Speaker mr. Speaker I've had the opportunity over the past few weeks to attend a number of Diwali celebrations also known as the festival of lights Which is celebrated by the Sikh Hindu and Jain communities Diwali ushers in new beginnings And there's a time to celebrate with family and friends Diwali is celebrated in many ways through prayer and worship the lighting candles in a Grand a grand feast but most of all it is a time to be with loved ones and be thankful for what we have It was wonderful to see all the families that came together in our community to celebrate I would like to specifically thank the premier for joining us and attending the 34th annual Diwali gala Organized by the Canadian Museum of Hindus in the civilization. It was fantastic to have her in Brampton I've also had the opportunity to attend the South Asian focus and Indo-Canadian art councils Diwali festival of lights It was a great event and I'm fortunate to be a part of it Speaker we've also had the opportunity to celebrate Diwali here at Queens Park There's a success and a wonderful time to share this Festification with my fellow colleagues and their guests. I want to wish everyone a very safe and happy Diwali Thank You mr. Speaker I'm proud to rise today to recognize the work of organizers of the Shabbat project a unique international grassroots Jewish identity movement That unites all Jews to observe one full Shabbat together as the sun sets this Friday evening Jewish people around the world will come together to observe Shabbat the Jewish Sabbath a day of rest Jews from all walks of life and all corners of the world will unite to celebrate Shabbat in a coordinated manner The Shabbat project was introduced in South Africa in 2013 Following its success the international Shabbat project was born. It now has 1500 partners in 340 cities around the world one of the unique aspects of the initiative is that all fractional identities all denominations affiliations ideologies and yes, even political differences are put to the side The tagline of the Shabbat project is keeping it together this Thursday I am privileged to take part in one of the GTA community events I along with 3,000 women across the GTA many from my own riding of Thornhill will be participating in a Hala bake Hala is a ritual bread eaten on the Sabbath evening. I look forward to sharing in this most commendable experience I thank the many volunteers and grassroots community organizers for their tireless efforts in preparation for this Shabbat Shabbat Shalom Members, Davids, the member from Hamilton Mountain Thank you speaker today as the house will know the Ombudsman released his report on his investigation into unlicensed childcare in Ontario An investigation I called for in January of last year I had intended to use my statement today to comment on that significant and important report However, due to the events in Ottawa this morning, those comments will be made at a later time And I would like to use this statement to express my condolences and support for those directly affected by the situation in our nation's capital As Remembrance Day approaches, today we are reminded of the dangers faced by the Shabbat Shalom We are reminded of the dangers faced by our armed forces and in this case right here in our own country I understand the soldier who died this morning was a reservist from my hometown of Hamilton I am shocked by this event and I extend my sincere condolences to his friends, family and colleagues Also today members of the police association of Ontario are visiting Queen's Park And I had the pleasure of meeting with some of them from the Hamilton Police Service To take their presence for granted and it is time like this that we truly appreciate the job they do And remember that their job is to put themselves in danger's way to serve and protect us They deserve our sincere gratitude As elected representatives we think with concern of our colleagues in Ottawa We stand with them to uphold our democratic traditions and to ensure the important work we do on behalf of the people who sent us here continues Thank you Thank you Speaker, it's with a heavy heart that I rise today to honour a good friend, a wonderful husband and family man And an honourable local leader In the early morning hours of Saturday October 18th Jean-Paul St. Pierre passed away peacefully at his home in Russell, Ontario My heart and the hearts of everyone who crossed paths with GP as everyone and most of us called them Were deeply saddened upon hearing the news Our thoughts and prayers immediately turned to his wife Jocelyn and his family It's near impossible to comprehend the feeling of loss for them during this difficult time Johnny as I heard her call him on many occasions was a true gentleman in every sense of the word As Mayor of Russell Township, as warden of the United Counties of Prescott Russell And as Chair of the Eastern Ontario Wardens Caucus He led with compassion, respect and understanding These qualities which he brought to his public life were mirrored in his personal life as well He was always warm and kind, always willing to listen or help And his doors were always open It was very generous He was passionate about the game of golf He was one of the top golfers in Glen Gary Prescott Russell And I will always regret that I never did have the opportunity to join him on the golf course Alongside the residents of Russell Township in the United Counties of Prescott Russell I want to offer my sincere condolences to Jocelyn and her family We have lost a wonderful person, a strong leader and a true gentleman We have lost a great man We love a true gentleman, a true leader And he was a friend Thank you Member Statements Member from Holm Mr. Speaker, I rise today to tell you about a special program in Halton But before I start, I just want to let you know that our thoughts and prayers are with our friends, neighbors, family and colleagues in Ottawa during this very difficult and challenging time This is a time for all of us to come together and we have in this house And I want to once again emphasize that our thoughts are with our colleagues and friends in Ottawa Mr. Speaker, I rise today to tell you about a very special program in Halton For ten years, a small team of volunteers have been gathering once a week in schools, gyms, churches and halls in my riding and surrounding areas to pack boxes Now, these aren't ordinary boxes, these are containers chock full of the freshest vegetables Halton has to offer It's all part of a terrific initiative called the Halton Fresh Food Box Program I recently dropped into a ten year anniversary celebration for this great program For a decade, this wonderful initiative has been providing needy Halton families with tasty, delectable, locally grown fresh veggies The idea is to get young families and those in need of assistance like seniors, newcomers and the less fortunate access to the best produce grown in our backyards The program is funded in part by the Ontario Trillium Foundation The Halton Fresh Food Box Program makes it easier for residents in our community to put healthy, nutritious and delicious food on the table And that's important because when the food on our plates is from our own backyards, it not only tastes better but it keeps our communities, families and our local economies healthy Thank you Yes, thank you, Speaker Just last week in Kitchener Waterloo, the 36th annual Oktoberfest concluded after nine long days of the Barbarian Festival Which is the largest Barbarian festival in North America outside of, of course, next to the largest Barbarian festival in Munich, Germany Over the course of the nine days, tens of thousands of people experience truly what it's like to be German in Kitchener Waterloo with a strong tradition of German culture in the region of Waterloo 22 million dollars is generated through its economic impacts throughout the nine days of the festival Raising millions of dollars for not-for-profit charitable organizations within the community And Speaker, this couldn't have happened without the resolve and dedication of the hundreds of volunteers that work year-round to ensure that Oktoberfest is one of the best and brightest festivals in Ontario I had the pleasure of attending opening ceremonies bright and early on Friday morning I was honored to be attended and joined by our interim leader, Jim Wilson, who participated in this year's keg-tapping festivities But again, I'd like to thank the volunteers for its 36 years of success and...prost And tell them about your leader Thank you Members, David, it's the member from Northumberland, Quincy West Well, thank you, Speaker It's my pleasure to stand before the House today and share my experiences as a guest at a full-day kindergarten classes at St. Anthony's Catholic Elementary School in Port Hope I'd like to thank Principal Egan, Ms. Rackas, and Ms. McAllister, who were a delightful host and provided me the opportunity to meet their classes of clever and energetic kindergarten students St. Anthony's one of 32 schools in my writing that offer full-day kindergarten In the words of Principal Egan, this program supports the philosophy of developing the whole person by establishing a strong foundation for the early years by providing young children play-based learning experience This enables them to make a smooth transition to grade one and to improve their prospective success in their lives beyond school And a more school-good news speaker, tomorrow afternoon I will have the pleasure of welcoming to the legislature students from grade four and five of Ms. Morrison from VP Carlswell Elementary School in Trenton and Mr. Milligan's grade 10 civic class from Campbellfort High School It's always a pleasure to introduce young minds to new experiences and adventures Thank you, Speaker I thank all members for their statements, I appreciate them, and now I think I'm going to turn to the member from Northumberland


We begin by praising Allah, by thanking Allah, by reminding ourselves we weren't made for this world and by warning ourselves that we're returning to Him. May Allah be gentle with us and may that return and may that reunion be one of joy and not one of remorse, Ameen. Islam is here to elevate us. Have we been elevated? Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the messenger of God Taras, innama b'u'ithtu li utammima makarima al-akhlaq. I was only sent to perfect beautiful character. Has our character been beautified? Ma kana rifqu fi shay'in illa zana, wa ma nuzi'a min shay'in illa shana. Anything that has gentleness with it is more beautiful. And anything that has gentleness removed from it is uglier. Have we become gentle souls? Gentle hands, gentle tongues, gentle eyes, gentle ears, gentle movements. Has Islam done its work with us? Islam is here to elevate. Have we allowed it to elevate us? And of course everything, Allah is the actor. Allah huwa al-haq. Allah is the real. Allah is the truth. Have we allowed this beautiful light to do its work on us? Has it transformed our hearts? Have we allowed it to marinate enoughs that we each have? This ego inside of us is our greatest enemy. But it has levels. An nafsul ammarah besuq, an nafsul lawama, and an nafsul mutima innah. The nafs, the ego, the spirit, that what? That commands me to do wrong. But when we train it and tame it, then it elevates to the reproachful. The one that reproachfuls. Ah, why did I do that? Oh, I shouldn't have done that. Ah, and we feel guilty and there's an agitation inside of us when we do something wrong. A natural agitation because their fitrah is there. And then we tame it more and train it more and it becomes an nafsul mutima innah. The tranquil, the serene self. Oh, you tranquil soul, spirit. Return, return to your lord, return to your master, return to your caretaker. Happy with him and him happy with you. Fad huli fi aibadi. And enter into my servants, my servanthood. And enter into my jannah. Allah. Allah. Do we live to serve ourselves or to serve Allah? What do we receive joy from? What do we live for? The nafs, the nafs. Ad dunya sa'a fa ja'alha ta'a. Wa nafsul tama'a amil alimha alqana'a. This world is a flash to God's way, hold fast. Your ego wants more than it has. Tame yours to like what it has. So when we tame this ego, what happens is it can elevate five stages. And nafs, alqalb, al-akilb, al-ruh and as-sir. So the nafs can elevate, right? The nafs, when we tame it, when we tame it, first it can become a kalb. The kalb, because the kalb, it flips. Sometimes I do this, sometimes I do that. Sometimes I feel, sometimes my angelic side, sometimes my, the demonic whispers come. And then the kalb, it flips, and then the akil. Allah gave us the akil, the akilha, to tie it. To tie this ego. It's not in charge. You're not in charge. You don't get to do whatever you want. I don't, I don't abide, I don't accept. I don't imbi, abide this false freedom notion, this false notion of freedom. To do what I want, when I want, how I want, where I want. That's not freedom. That's a false freedom. Freedom is not obeying your desires. It's your desires obeying you. This is the Islamic way here to elevate us. Every beast and animal goes and fulfills their desires and does whatever their instinct says. But we're here to say, my soul, I'm an elevated human being. We ennobled the children of Adam. Have we allowed Islam to ennoble us? Because these are choices we make every day. And I'm not talking about this grand, mysterious way. I'm talking about our daily decisions. The Sahaba, the Sahaba were a group of converts. And they came with these raw traits. And their daily lives were transformed. Their daily, their daily interactions were transformed. Where they know, now I have a master. And that master is Allah and I live for him, not just for myself. I don't live, I live to serve Allah. I obey Allah. And so this, when we tame this and the Aqil, the intellect, the mind that Allah gave us to tame the inner dog of anger and the inner pig of desires. The king, the intellect tames them, then it can elevate.  And it experiences Raha and experiences comfort. And then we taste the sweetness of faith. I say this, I ask Allah to forgive me. When we all experience the sweetness of faith, let's seek forgiveness from Allah. He's indeed the most forgiving. All praise is due to Allah. All praise is due to Allah. May Allah's peace and blessings be upon our master Muhammad, his family, his friends and his followers. All praise is due to Allah. We're here today, every Friday to remind, to do this reminder. And with zikr, reminders, we experience the insan, the uns, the anisa, the intimacy and closeness. So we have the level of Islam, iman, ihsan. So we begin with Islam and it can be elevated. And we continue. And ihsan, this highest level, ihsan is excellence and beauty. And the question is, how do we reflect? How do we, as Muhammad, as Ahmed, as Khadija, as Zaynab, whoever we are, whatever our name is, wherever we come from, how do we reflect this divine beauty? Does our character reflect it? You know, on Fridays, we wear our Jumu'ahs finest. Allah swt cares about form and substance. What does that mean? That means Allah cares about the inward and the outward. What does that mean? Allah swt sent a Quran with lofty meanings and beautiful meanings, but he sent it in the most beautiful form. It sounds melodic. It sounds beautiful. It touches people who don't understand it because Allah cares about the substance and the form. Allah swt sent us the most beautiful messenger. Right?  It elevates us. It elevates us. We're here to say, Ya Allah, elevate us. We're here to say, Ya Allah, let this Islam that you sent this guidance, this light. Let it do its thing and take me to a higher level in all aspects of my life. Even as an employer, I want to be the most beautiful employer. I go to this place and I encourage everyone to go there. It's called Windmill Farms and it's in San Ramon, close to San Ramon, close to the In and Out and close to Costco. And the owner, may Allah bless him, he's from Yemen, right? He's a beautiful man. And so one day I went there and it's owned by a Muslim gentleman, Masha Allah. And I went there and then there was a lady working there, may Allah bless her. She was from a different faith, from a different culture, from a different background. And I said, what's the name of the owner? And she said, his name is Jawad. And I was like, oh, that means generous. And she said to me, yes, sometimes too much. Wallahi, I've only been going there like a month or two after I discovered this place. I refused to buy fruits and vegetables from Costco anymore. All right. And I encourage everyone to go there. When I go there, I swear my aunt went there. He said, this is a gift for you. He didn't charge you anything. When my other aunt went there, he said, this is a gift for you. Every time I go here, take this mango, it's a gift. Take this strawberries for a gift. And he's just, he's elevated as what? As an employer, as a business owner. Because of Islam. He's even to his employees. He's too generous to his employees. Allahu Akbar. So has Islam elevated us as a husband? Has Islam elevated us as a wife? Has Islam elevated us as a brother? Has Islam elevated us as someone who's been harmed? So I can reciprocate. I don't reciprocate harm. Has Islam elevated me as someone, as a son? As a father? Has Islam elevated me as a daughter? Has Islam elevated me as a student? Has Islam elevated me as a teacher? Has Islam elevated me as an architect? As a lawyer? As a doctor? Physician? Has Islam elevated me as a poor person? Where I can still have refined character and dignity? Has Islam elevated me as a rich person? Where I don't fall in love with my money? And I share it with others and I'm generous? How do we, how do we just think that Islam is this thing that I come? Oh, I pray, I make wudu. Oh, I fast. Oh, I'm done. Islam came to elevate us, to take us from where we were, these Bedouins living with whatever and to make us into these refined exemplary human beings, right? So that we can give the one who's stingy and greedy to me so I can connect the one with the one who pushes me away so I can forgive the one who harms me. This is our Dean. This is our religion coming to bring the best of ourselves, the higher calling and even physically. Has Islam elevated me? Do I smell nice? Do I use the miswak, like the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, your prayer is worth 70 times more using the miswak. Matharatun l-alfam, mardatun l-rab. The miswak is purification for the mouth and pleasing to the Lord. Allah, using the miswak brings happiness to my Lord. That's all I get to do, brush my teeth and it brings happiness to my Lord. Allah, Allah, Allah. Why is brushing our teeth bring pleasure to our Lord?  This is what Islam is. This is what Islam is. So we ask ourselves today on this Friday, have I been elevated by Islam? What part of me, what aspect of me do I need to elevate? Maybe it's my wardrobe. And there's this thing called true beauty and false beauty. True beauty and false beauty. Not everything is equally beautiful. I'm sorry, maybe this is politically incorrect. Not everything is equally beautiful. It's not whatever I feel is true. Truth is not defined based on feelings. Although that's the common cultural current today. Truth is not defined on feelings. And so when someone spends $250 on a pair of genes that are torn here, here, here and here, I'm sorry but we've been a little bit... That's an idea of false beauty. And it's not our fault, we're all victims. We're all victims to what we've imbibed in general. But this is the thing, this is the point. When we can't tell the difference between true beauty and false beauty, then it might lead to not telling the difference between truth and falsehood. That's why, inna Allah katab al ihsan ala kulli shayt. Allah prescribed and commanded beauty and excellence on everything. On our character, on our everything. On the way we look, on the way we act, on the way we talk, on the way we dress, on the way we interact with others, the way we forgive others. And this is the invitation today. This is the invitation today. To identify what part of myself would please Allah for me to elevate. And maybe it's as simple as brushing my teeth more, or taking more frequent, smelling better, frequent showers. Or maybe it's a little more difficult. Maybe it's my character with my wife. I argue too much with the beauty that comes off my tongue. Maybe I use vulgar language. Maybe it's the beauty that I let enter into my ears. I use vulgarity. Inna Allah katab al ihsan ala kulli shayt. Allah prescribed beauty, excellence on everything. May we be people of beauty, insha'Allah. May we allow this faith that Allah sent, this light that Allah sent. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, may Allah allow this light that He sent to elevate us, insha'Allah. Amin. May we live Islam and experience Islam. Amin. May we allow this gift that Allah sent, this gift of guidance that guide us. Amin. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Allahumma salli wa sallim wa bariqa ala Sayyidina Muhammad. Ya Allah, Allahumma ghfirle al muslimina wa al muslimat. Wa lul mu'minina wa lul mu'minaat. Al-Ahya'i minhum wa l'ammat. Ya Allah, Allah mahdina fee man hadayt. Wa aafina fee man aafayt. Wa tawalla na fee man tawallayt. Wa bariqa na fee ma aatayt. Wa qina wa usrif anna sharra ma qadayt. Fa inna ka taktib al haqt wa la yiqda alayk. Ya muqalliba al qalub thabbit qalubana ala dinak. Ya muqalliba al qalub thabbit qalubana ala dinak. Allahumma inna ka aafu'un tuhib al aafu'u fa aafu'u anna. Allahumma inna na salli wa al aafu'u wa al aafu'u wa al mu'afat al daima. La ilaha illa an subhanaka inna kunna minna al-zalimin. Ya Allah, we turn to you in this moment. We turn to you on this Friday. We turn to you as individuals. We turn to you as a group. We collectively do toba to you. We collectively repent to you. We ask you to be pleased with this congregation, pleased with this group, pleased with this mosque. We ask you to restore harmony to our homes and harmony to our marriages and harmony to our inner universes and our hearts, harmony to our schools and our foundations and our institutions and our mosques and to our countries and to our country and our communities and our cities and to restore to the ummah and to the world. Ya Allah, we ask you to remove oppression and to help those who need help and to guide those who need guidance and to clothe those who need clothes and to feed those who need food. Ya Allah, we turn to you. We ask you, Ya Allah, to elevate us gently with gifts and not through tests, to elevate our children, to elevate our offspring. We ask you for us to have the most refined, elegant, beautiful reflection of the divine, reflection of your mercy, reflection of your love, reflection of your beautiful characteristics and traits. Takhallaqu bi-akhlaqillah.   We'll continue to try until the day we die. Ya Allah, help us and give us victory over our own self. Give us victory over the whispering demons and devils. Give us victory over materialism and love of money and love of prestige and love of reputation. And give us victory over our stubborn passions and help us overcome our weaknesses and difficulties. And we ask you for everything good that our messenger, our beloved Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, asked you for and we seek protection from every harm that the messenger Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam sought protection from. Subhana rabbika rabbi al-Azzati amma yasifoon wa salamun aala al-mursaleen walhamdulillahi rabbi al-alameen Inna Allah ya'unu bil-adli wal-ahsani wa ita Ida qurba wa yinhan al-fahshai wal-munkari wal-baghi Ya'idoukum la'allakum tadakkarun Uthkur Allah al-Azim yathkur koum wa shkuruhu ala ni'amihi yazid koum Wa aqim al-salah I bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Come to prayer, come to success, The prayer has been done The prayer has been done Make our rose straight Turn to the creator As a group and as individuals inshaAllah And after the Salat we have with us Brother Nathan to do his Shahada inshaAllah All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all the worlds. The Most Merciful, the Most Merciful. The Lord of the Day of Judgment. We worship you and we seek refuge with you. Guide us to the straight path. The path of those whom You have bestowed upon them and those whom You have bestowed upon them is the sun and the moon. And the stars and the trees are the stars and the sky is the moon. Do you not hide in the moon? And do you not lose the weight of the story and do you not lose the moon? And the earth and the moon are the fruits in it and the fruits of the fruits. And love is the pure and the pure and the pure and the pure. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all the worlds. The Most Merciful, the Most Merciful. The Day of Judgment. We worship you and we seek refuge with you. Guide us to the straight path. The Most Merciful, the Most Merciful. The Most Merciful, the Most Merciful. The Most Merciful, the Most Merciful. The Straight path. The path of those whom You have bestowed upon them and those whom You have bestowed upon them is the sun and the moon. Man created from clay, like a double-headed pig, and therein is no skin and no skin. And He has the answer, the world's sea, and any expert. Peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah Bismillah. As-salamu alaykum. Nathan, welcome. How are you feeling today? Good. Alhamdulillah. Welcome, welcome. All right. It's an honor to have you. Thank you. Thank you for coming here today. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. Thank you for coming here today and honoring this group. It's a beautiful Friday. It's a blessed Friday. Insha'Allah, Nathan, we will do the declaration of faith and testify and declare in English and then in Arabic, insha'Allah. And no one's forcing you to do this? No. You're comfortable? You ready? Any questions? No questions. Alhamdulillah. Okay. Bismillah, Alhamdulillah. So repeat after me, please. I, Nathan Zabados. I, Nathan Zabados. Hereby declare, announce, testify, and bear witness that there is no God, there is no one worthy of worship, accept Allah, and I declare, and I affirm, and I testify, and I announce, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah in Arabic. The second time. Final time, everyone, if you'd like to join. I'll make a prayer for you, Nathan, Bismillah, Alhamdulillah, As-Salaatu Wasalaam, Rasulullah. Ya Allah, please accept Nathan as one of your beautiful servants, Ameen. Ya Allah, we ask you, we ask you, Ya Allah, by your beloved names and beloved messengers, to elevate Nathan in this world and the next. Ameen, elevate him inwardly and outwardly, and to fill his life and his home with joy and happiness and openings and victories and success and blessings and guidance and smiles and family and friends. Ya Allah, we ask you, Ya Allah, as you say, be, and it is, you do as you please, you do whatever you want, Ya Allah, to take this moment and to let it transcend time and space, Ya Allah, to go into the afterlife, Ya Allah, and to go to every unseen realm, so the angels are celebrating, and celebrating Nathan's moment, Ya Allah, Ameen. Ya Allah, we ask you in this moment, Ya Allah, to take care of all of us by this moment we're turning to you in sincerity, Ya Allah, and to grant us, Ya Allah, all of us, all forgive all of our sins, Ya Allah, and grant us all, Ya Allah, that real moment to gather all of us in heaven, Ya Allah. We declare, we know that paradise is real and the Hellfire is real, and we ask you to grant Nathan and to grant all of us paradise without judgment, Ya Allah, and to make Nathan a gentleman and a scholar and an example and a role model and to make him and to give him a beautiful life and a beautiful afterlife and a beautiful life in the grave and to make his journey in every realm and in every aspect a journey of light, Ameen, and a journey of joy, Ameen, and we ask you for everything good that Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam asked you for and seek protection from every harm that Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam sought protection from for our brother Nathan and to fill his life surrounding him with love, Ameen, Ameen, Ameen, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen, Al Fatiha. Nathan, they might come give you fist bumps, no hugs allowed, only fist bumps.  Alhamdulillahi, jizakumullahi khayr, thank you so much Nathan, inshallah.


If you're not walking into an A24 film expecting to be both disappointed and satisfied at the same time, I don't really know what else to tell you. Ooh! That's a hot mug, guys! Hey guys, this is my review for The Green Knight. This is a film directed by David Lowry. This film follows Gwayen, King Arthur's nephew, as he goes on a quest a year after having an encounter with The Green Knight to go and meet him on his own terms. And to perceive the blow that he gave to him meeting him one year prior. Admittedly, I was actually pretty excited for this movie when it was announced last year. I think it was even announced in 2019. Obviously due to the pandemic, it was delayed from 2020 to 2021. And I'm a sucker for anything to do with the Arthurian tales. Anything to do with King Arthur, I've always been interested in it. Whether it's bad or good, I always just have this kind of soft spot for that because it's some of the first stories I ever read about when I was a kid. So to see a different take on it, on the whole idea of knighthood and honor, and being a noble man, noble knight, is always cool to see. Even if it's done in a very different way than most stories do. And that's what this film does. If you're going into this film expecting for some sort of swashbuckler, or some sort of action medieval movie, that's not what you're gonna get. What you are going to get is a very thought provoking, very artistically well endowed visual film. The cinematography in this film is absolutely top notch. The costume and production design, the sets is very, very well done. The Foley and the music are done incredibly well. The Green Knight has fantastic sound mixing. And the music is also very, very good. Pulse you into this very personal tale with Gwyn talking about the statutes of knighthood. Now admittedly I say that the story is an Arthurian tale, but unless you actually knew, you wouldn't know that this is a King Arthur story because it doesn't rely on that. It doesn't hold onto that. It admittedly I was a little bit disappointed in that bit, which is a commonality for a 24 films. It's not going to give you what you expect. Even if you think you know what you're going to expect, you never get what you expect with these movies. And I guess that's kind of the reason why I'm always drawn to them. Are they always great movies to me? No, I did not like Midsummer. I didn't mind Hereditary. I thought they come at night was quite boring. Those are just some examples I can throw out. That's what you get when you walk into these movies. You're not going to get the normal cinematic experience. You're getting an indie film with a pretty decently sized budget. I feel the Green Knight does take full advantage of that budget and it does it well. Is it a movie you're going to want to put on all the time? No, not entirely because a lot of the narrative is kind of hidden for your interpretation. But at the same time, it's also talking about the actual statutes of being a knight, friendship, generosity. Now admittedly, I did have to look up a video talking about it. And I would definitely suggest Think Theory. He has very good videos, very insightful videos about movies and television shows that require a little bit of guidance along terms of understanding fully every aspect of the film. But the instant that he mentions, which I cannot remember right now, but all of the statutes of the Star that the Knights of the Round Table have, they all coincide with elements of the story. And even without that knowledge, you still get that. Queen is a knight who wants honor for the sake of honor rather than actually doing what is the honorable thing, being a selfless, caring person. He has these abilities to do so, but he constantly fails in his travels, while on the way to the Green Knight. Dev Patel is great. Dev Patel holds this character together because normally you would not really like a guy like this. And Dev does portray those factors. He does have a kind of a jaded character. You're not 100% on his side all the time. And there are moments in the movie where you just don't like him. And some of the actions he does are quite questionable and kind of scummy. You see him go through these changes. And at the very end of the film, you get this payoff, this sense of this journey actually meaning something. Now, admittedly, it does take a while to get there. This film does have an incredibly slow burn. And you are for the most part held in because of the visuals, from the landscape to the creatures and the beings and the things that he comes across to the people he meets along the way and the little challenges he goes through. But admittedly, it is slow. It's really freaking slow. And at the end of the film, there's this kind of revelation slash sort of hypothesis that it gives that puts everything together and it made me really like the movie. I felt like everything that you would watch had really come to pay off at the end. That you had gotten a good sense of what the film was going for. Now, is this a movie for everyone?  I know for a fact if I showed this movie to my dad, he would be asleep within 20 minutes. If I showed this to a few other of my film friends, they would either one love it or two think it's hipster trash. And I guess technically speaking, they're both right in those senses. It's a great movie, but it's definitely not made for everyone. It's not a mainstream film and it is a big pompous of itself, but that's what these movies have to be to get that kind of message across. Either way, I would definitely suggest seeing The Green Knight.  Even if you don't like some of them, I would totally suggest watching it because it's a movie you're not going to experience again at least for a little while. So in the end, I'm going to give The Green Knight a five out of seven. I have some issues, particularly the rewatchability in this movie is almost none. The kind of reliance on your interpretation of everything may be a bit heavy-handed, but I did enjoy that aspect. The pacing is god-awfully slow and that does hurt the film a bit and it kind of coincides with the rewatchability. But either way, I did enjoy it. I've still been thinking about it and I watched it like a week ago, so I can definitely give it points for that. Anyways guys, hope you enjoyed the review. If you did, leave a like and if you're interested in more, subscribe. Otherwise, see you guys next time.


Hi and welcome to International Ideas presentation on what we call internally GSODI, the Global State of Democracy Indices. My name is Lisa Hogman. I work in the communications team and together with me here today I have Melida Jiménez who works in the democracy assessment and political analysis team. And behind the scenes we have Joe Nounen who will show us the website that we will be talking about. But Melida, why don't you start talking a little bit about the background. What is this a democracy indices sort of, tell us. So in 2016 International Idea embarked on this project which is called the Global State of Democracy project where we started to kind of develop the first large democracy assessment publication for International Idea and as part of that I want to show it of course because that's my role, I work in the communications team. So this is the big one. Yeah, that's the big publication and we also have overviews and translations in four different languages and a website and a beautiful website where we present the content of the report and we also have the Global State of Democracy Indices which was kind of developed as part of this project. So in 2016 we started to conceptualize and design International Idea's first quantitative democracy measurement. We have in the past worked with qualitative country democracy assessments and we have that is really based on this book and this is the second edition but this is really qualitative questions. Exactly. And these are kind of this framework, the framework of the state of democracy is designed for in-country qualitative analysis so we have to kind of make the journey from an in-country qualitative framework into a quantitative democracy measurement and we launched the democracy, the indices in November 2017 after two kind of hard years of working in the world. It's a long journey going from something qualitative into having numbers on all countries in the world. But what are you measuring? Could you say something about the topics that you're looking at in these indices? Yes. So first I just want to mention that the indices in its first edition covers 155 countries and it includes country data from 1975 to 2015 and what we measure is democracy through kind of international ideas own definition and this means that we look at the representative government, we look at fundamental rights, checks on government, impartial administration and participatory engagement. All of these attributes are kind of taken from the original state of democracy framework but adapted and modified in order to kind of fit this quantitative tool. And each attribute also has sub-attributes and so you can go further down and look at more specific. Exactly. So we, apart from the five attributes that I just mentioned, we cover 16 sub-attributes and underneath there we have 98 indicators with data from various sources. Okay. Very interesting. There are other indices around. You've talked a little bit and I can see how this is a bit different because you're looking at the broad definition. Some other indices have been criticized or accused of a Western bias. How do you handle bias? So we kind of, if we take it from the conceptual perspective, by having a broad definition and a broad understanding of democracy we hope to be able to capture kind of the democracy in its most diverse way. So as you know, no democracy is kind of like the other ones. So what we try this to, based on the state of democracy framework and based on international ideas, kind of understanding of democracy, try to be as inclusive as possible into and in our measurement. And also as you know, in some of the other measurements they kind of look at very more narrow definitions of democracy or just specific kind of characteristics. And I think that's why some people sometimes kind of say they're biased, et cetera. In addition, we've tried to kind of, in the way that we designed indices, try to include as many data sources as possible. And like also as I mentioned, we include data both over kind of a large number of countries, but also kind of over time. So hopefully by that we're also able to kind of go beyond maybe some of the biases or some of the challenges that we've seen with other measurements. Okay. And now I'm actually going to ask you an unprepared question for you because you mentioned it. Idia doesn't collect the data itself, does it? It's other people who collect the data. So I mean, as everyone knows, there are so many good data initiatives around the world. There's so many good data collection going on. And what we have done is that we have tried to find the most suitable indicators which will measure our concept. So we've taken indicators from many different, both kind of academic initiatives and other types of initiatives. And all of this information and all kind of the data sources, et cetera, are available on our website as well. So cool. So you have numbers on countries and you measure their democracy. Can you compare countries? So basically, the indices are kind of carefully designed to actually look at democracy from a comparative perspective. This means that it encouraged users to not only look at their country but to look at their country data in comparison to either what's going on in a region, in the region or another region perhaps, who have had either similar political developments or similar experiences with conflicts, et cetera. So while we do have kind of scores per country and individual country scores, we encourage everyone to look at the data from a comparative perspective and also not only compare across regions and countries but also compare over time because that's when also you find a lot of different nice variations and interesting developments. Okay. Because in some countries, I guess it's more obvious you have development that works very fast in other countries such as in Sweden where you might have very slow but you still have development and it could be hard to see it if you don't have these numbers. Yes, exactly. And I think what's important with this example that you just brought in is that in a way by having data that goes all the way back to 1975 and there are also other measurements initiatives that goes beyond that time is that you kind of see that democracy takes time to build. So it's not something that goes from you build in 2016 and then you're done in 2017. It actually takes time. So even if a country like Sweden doesn't have the most exciting variation over time, it still shows that to keep high levels or lower high levels of democracy, it's not something from one year to another. No, no. You can look at the trends. So those who are just joining us now, I just want to repeat that my name is Lisa and I work in the communications team and together with me, I have Melida Jimenez who is our expert and is talking about our global state of democracy indices. I also want to encourage you again to add your comments and your questions in the comments field and we'll do our best to reply as soon as possible. But I think it's maybe time to have a look at the website because it's much better to understand what it is by looking at how it's organized. Will you present it to us? Yes, I will. And I'm looking forward to it because we've actually spent a lot of effort and time to make the data accessible and user-friendly as much as possible so you don't have to be like an advanced statistician to get access to the data or understand it. Yeah. So here we are on our website and at the top banner, you will find a lot of kind of information behind the scenes of the indices, which means that if you click on some of these tabs, you will find a methodology document, also the code book, the technical procedures guide, which is kind of where we in a very transparent and accessible way present exactly how you go about to constructing the indices. And apart from that, you also have the different links to different other resources such as the publication. But I now want to kind of show you how we visualize the data on our website. And the first that you will see when you go into our website is our world map. And the world map is designed to kind of make it very accessible to just, you know, at your first look, understand the data and the different developments. The cursor at the bottom allows you to kind of go back and forward in time so you can see the different variation across the world and you can zoom in and zoom out into different countries or regions and also kind of move the cursor over a country to get the specific country score. And sorry to interrupt you, but right now we're looking at representative government, and it's the world map. So it's one of the five attributes, yeah. Yeah, and then you can also on the left side kind of choose other attributes or other sub attributes and kind of move forward and just get a kind of quick overview of what's going on. And this is kind of a good way to just, if you just want to quickly have access without maybe having, you know, the scores, et cetera, still have a good sense of what's going on in the world at that time for a particular attribute. Okay, and we also have a feature where you can kind of compare the attributes or sub attributes. And what you do first is you kind of choose your geographical location. In this case, we've chosen Latin America and the Caribbean. And then you choose your attribute that you want to kind of drill down into and look into what's going on in this region. Here we've selected fundamental rights and we can also then select the sub attributes, access to justice, civil liberties, social rights and equality. And this is actually a good attribute to kind of show you how international ideas in this differs a little bit from other measurements because it has this very inclusive kind of attribute which includes, for example, social rights and equality. So this is kind of our way to try to broaden the definition of democracy. And this is also a way to show that some of the sub attributes have a different development over time. It looks like the, I can't see which one, but the lowest one is moving faster in recent times. So you can compare the different sub attributes. Exactly. And then you can look at a region or a country's development and then see where are the peaks or where are the downhills. And then most often you would kind of need to look into the region's history or some of the current events and look into, okay, what actually happened in this year or what was moving in many different countries at the same time. So this allows you basically to kind of drill down into the data for a particular country or region. And then we have kind of the third feature at our website and this one allows you to compare countries and regions over time. And this is a little bit what we discussed earlier in terms of looking at the data from a comparative perspective. So what you do first is you kind of choose the attribute that you want to look at. And here we've selected civil liberties. And then you can just select the different regions. So you select the kind of Africa, East Africa and West Africa. And then you can look over time, how has these developments kind of looked in these regions. And this allows you to not only kind of have an understanding of that particular attribute, but also kind of choose and select the countries of your interest. So it might be so that you're doing a project or you're doing some research on a particular country, and this feature is particularly useful to kind of select a couple of countries and compare different attributes and different developments. It also has a feature where you can kind of download your graph, the graph that you have kind of selected yourself. And this is particularly useful if you're writing an article or you want to include this in some of your work or analysis. It's very easy accessible and you don't need to kind of know any statistical programs or etc. You get a good image that you can use. And lastly we have a feature which allows all the users to kind of get a good snapshot of the data for a country or a region. And again, we have the timeline with the cursor where you can move back and forward. But this is more of a kind of a snapshot because it focuses on the scores for that particular year that you have selected and a particular country. It allows you to also compare with the regional and global levels. And you can see here that then it's again, it will be like the one year score, but it will still give you kind of the context and that's why how that country fits into a region or sub region. Yeah, and how it fits with the other developments. So because in some instances you can be like, so what does 0.43 means? Right, but you put that score in in comparison with the other scores, then it gives a little bit of a meaning. Okay, this is how it is in the rest of the Caribbean or in the world, etc. And it gives you a little bit more of a context for those of you who can be puzzled by the different meaning of the numbers. Me, myself, I'm sometimes a bit confused as well. But this is really how you can compare a country or a region with itself over time. Yeah, and put some meaning behind the numbers in particular so that 0.43 means something. Yeah, we also have a feature on the website where you kind of can go in and again for those of us who like numbers, we can just look at the scores directly and find that very amusing. And you know, there are others who won't find it amusing, but for those who do like looking at scores, you can look at this table and you go into the website and you move the cursory back and forward to the year that you want. But also you can download then your table or download the whole raw data set for those who are interested. Okay, so you could use that data to develop your own models. Yeah, okay, that's very interesting. Yeah, sorry, did you have more? No, that's it. And I would also encourage everyone to visit this website and kind of play around, explore the data, let us know if there's anything you would like to learn more about. And also if you have any questions on how to understand the data, the website and the data in itself. And in general, the global state of democracy indices, it's not for international idea. It's for the users out there and it's for everyone who are interested to analyze democracy over time and in different countries. So enjoy and have fun. I'm not going to let you off the hook that easy. Because you're talking about others doing analysis, but India spent a lot of time and effort doing its own analysis last year and with the report and using the indices. Were there any interesting conclusions? What did you come up with? Yeah, so last year we had, once we were done with the indices after a lot of work, we also had the opportunity to kind of have a first shot in analyzing the different trends and different developments. And we have presented this analysis in the first chapter of the global state of democracy report. And one of our key findings is that with our data, and especially with a diverse definition of democracy, is that we don't find the same type of decline in democracy that we've heard in other reports or in other analysis. On the contrary, it's a little bit more positive at the global level and we've seen progress over time. So at the moment we're looking at kind of the highest levels of democracy around the world. However, of course, our data also shows a great deal of variation at the country level and that's why also we kind of emphasize on digging down and exploring the data and looking at the different regions, subregions, etc. But at the global level we see a positive picture. What we also found in our analysis was that the levels of impartial administration haven't moved significantly since 1975, so the levels for that specific attribute remains stable or stagnant. And what is impartial administration if you could just sort of more plainly? It measures kind of the levels of corruption, which we in our measurement calls absence of corruption and it also measures predictable enforcement. So in general, kind of elements related to the rule of law and anti-corruption. And those are the elements that based on the first initial findings in our data, we see that countries are still struggling with as much in 2015 as they did in 1975. Maybe for different reasons, but still one of the elements in a democracy that seems challenging for countries across the world. Something that they have in common. On a final note, what does the future look like for the indices? You said it covers up until 2015, are you planning on adding more data? We're currently actually working on updating it and we're now trying to update the indices with data to 2018 with release in 2019. So we're adding three more years and it's going to be very interesting for us to see what the data shows in terms of some of the most recent country developments and some of the most recent kind of political crisis in different areas of the world. Okay, thank you very much for joining us and thank you to all of you out there. Please add your comments, we look forward to answering them.


Ssssss... that's drunk? Want to know what it's like to play Mohawk and headphone jack? Okay, here we go.   I'm gonna be sick. I'm gonna be really sick. Look, I get it. There's a gazillion platformers out there. There's only so much you can do to stand out before resorting to tactics like having the background rotating around as your character runs around in circles. But I mean, how on earth can anyone play this for even a few minutes without getting nauseous? I think this is one of those cases where even the dev team and whoever tested this were so desensitized to the spinning that they completely forgot the kind of effect that it would have on the gaming public. And it's kind of a shame too because this is a perfectly good platformer, all things considered. It's not anything that's gonna approach even stuff like Sky Blazer or already Lightfoot or even Coolspot, but it'd still be at least decent. You play as Mohawk, who in a stunning coincidence has a Mohawk and also happens to be a distant relative of Dr. Manhattan based on their appearance. And the goal of each of the 14 levels is to collect enough CDs to unlock the exit leading to the next level. And these discs are everywhere, so you have to traverse as much ground as possible. If you want to give this game your own environmentally friendly story, you can pretend that Mohawk is picking up AOL free trial discs that have been discarded by the millions over the years. You destroy enemies by pressing down to go into the spiky form. I'm guessing it's supposed to be your Mohawk protecting you. There's also oversized CDs you can find that unlock extra music, which is a nice touch. And of course there's power-ups as well, like the wheel, the spring, and the wings. The levels here are impressively huge, complete with hidden areas that are practically a requirement to find the further you get into the game in order to unlock the next level. The rate of speed that you can zip around at is pretty impressive too. I'm telling you, this could have been a pretty decent game had it been handled right. And that brings me to the L and R buttons, which allow you to rotate the level yourself to a certain extent. It's a nice idea, but it barely helps because it doesn't give you enough control. Personally, I think the game could have potentially worked if you could rotate everything yourself manually using the shoulder buttons and maybe have a balance between your forward movement conjoined with when you rotate. It would at least give the player more control and make this game a lot more palatable. Instead the game plays you instead of the other way around, and that's the biggest disappointment here. This could have been a Sonic 2 type game utilizing precise twitch controls, but instead we got this mess. Mohawk and Headphone Jack isn't totally without merit though. The soundtrack is pretty good and the sprite animation is well done. Like when you die, you just kind of fall apart. And some of the levels work in some interesting ideas like these pipes that zip you around or these water sections. And like I said, the levels are huge and force you to explore every pixel for any kind of hidden area or in some cases even to find the exit when it appears. And there is a password system here as well. Hey, maybe I'm the weird one for getting nauseous from all this spinning. Maybe you're not affected by this kind of thing, and if you're not, you'll find Mohawk and Headphone Jack to be a decent playthrough, a totally different kind of 16-bit platformer. But I have a feeling that the crazy rotating is going to be a deal breaker for a lot of people. It's just way too disorienting, especially in a game that's predicated on exploring and finding items. It can be hard to tell when you've already reached an area, and when you're just going in circles. There are some good ideas in Mohawk and Headphone Jack, they're just not put together all that cohesively. I'd love to see someone try making a new game like this, but without all the motion sickness. So yeah, I'd pass on this one, unless you're immune to dizziness and vertigo.


Let me just state the ground rules very briefly. The President will be first. He will be on the record, brief opening remarks, Q&A for 15 minutes, followed by the Secretary of State, the same thing, Don Regan, the same thing, and will be over in an hour. We'll have a transcript available in Room 45 for everyone here, and we are going to release the transcript today to the press out there in the White House press room at about 6 o'clock. Mr. President? All right. Please sit down. And welcome to the White House. It's a particular pleasure to have you here so soon after returning from a meeting with General Secretary Gorbachev and that meeting marked new progress in U.S.-Soviet relations. For the first time on the highest level, we and the Soviets came close to an agreement on real reductions of both strategic and intermediate-range weapons. For the first time, we got Soviet agreement to a worldwide figure of 100 intermediate-range warheads for each side, a drastic cut. For the first time, we began to hammer out details of a 50 percent cut in strategic forces over five years. We were just a sentence or two away from agreeing to new talks on nuclear testing. And maybe most important, we were inside of an historic agreement on completely eliminating the threat of offensive ballistic missiles by 1996. I can help remembering being told just a few years ago that radical arms reduction was an impossible dream, but now it's on the agenda for both sides. I think the first thing that's important to do is to put these talks and what occurred into perspective. You'll recall that just over a week ago in talking about going to Iceland, I said that we did not seek nor did we expect agreements. We described our trip as a base camp before the summit to be held here in the United States. And if there was a surprise in Reykjavik, it was that we discussed so much and moved so far. No one a week ago would have thought there could have been agreement in so many areas. While we didn't sign a document and there remained significant differences, we must not mistake the absence of a final agreement for the absence of progress. Historic gains were achieved. As you know, after a great deal of discussion, our talks came down to the Strategic Defense Initiative, SDI. I offered a delay, deployment of advanced strategic defense for 10 years while both sides eliminated all ballistic missiles. But General Secretary Gorbachev said that his demand that we give up all but laboratory research on SDI, in effect kill the program, was non-negotiable. And now the Soviets have made a strategic defense program for years. They've breached the ABM Treaty. And as I noted last night, may be preparing to put in place a nationwide ABM system. For us to abandon SDI would leave them with an immediate permanent advantage and a dangerous one, and this I would not do. Abandoning SDI would also leave us without an insurance policy that the Soviets will live up to arms reduction agreements. Strategic defense is the key to making arms reduction work. It protects us against the possibility that at some point when the elimination of ballistic missiles is not yet complete, that the Soviets may change their minds. I'm confident that the Soviets understand our position. They may try to see if they can make us back off our proposals. And I am convinced they'll come back to the table and talk. So here's how I would sum up my meeting with Mr. Gorbachev in Iceland. We addressed the important areas of human rights, regional conflicts, and our bilateral relationship. And we moved the U.S.-Soviet dialogue on arms reduction to a new plane. We laid a strong and promising foundation for our negotiators in Geneva to build on. And I'm disappointed, of course, that Mr. Gorbachev decided to hold all agreements hostage to an agreement on SDI. During our Geneva summit we agreed to move forward where we had found common ground, especially on a 50 percent reduction in strategic arsenals and an INF agreement. I hope he'll at least remember that commitment in the next few weeks, because for our part we'll seek right away in Geneva to build on the dramatic progress that we made in Iceland. Now, I think you have a few questions. Mr. President, who's going to do the charcoals for Mr. Gorbachev, and one more friend of Soviet leaders with whom you had had dealings? Do you stand by that characterization, or do you think Mr. Gorbachev is perhaps engaged in a little duplicity in the right to say it? Well, I'm not going to use the word duplicity there, but I do say, having had an opportunity these past several years and before him to speak to, well, not their outright leaders, their general secretaries, because they kept disappearing, talk to other Russian leaders. And I think the very nature of the talks that we had in this one, and the fact that we were finding ourselves in agreement, and the extent to which we would disarmament him, that yes, he was more open than I have experienced before. And it wasn't until we then got down to this proposal of theirs with SDI that we ran into a roadblock, and finally, and he made it plain then, that everything that we'd been talking about was contingent on our agreeing to that one, that one phase. But there's no, I'm not saying to you he's an easy mark in any way, he's totally dedicated to their system, and frankly I think he is, I think he believes sincerely their propaganda about us, that we're beholden to industrial and military complexes and so forth. Mr. President, now that you've left that phase clear, is the summit a, how important right now is this summit that was originally scheduled for after the election? Is there a chance that it will be a summit, or does it matter? Well, he brought up the matter of summit and referred to it several times as if he was expecting to be here for the summit. I have to say that our negotiators, arms negotiators have gone back to Teneba. All of these things have gone with them, and it contains all of the notes and memorandums from all of the meetings as to the extent of the agreement that we had reached with regard to the various types of missiles and so forth. And so I have to believe as they continue to look at that and see that there was only one major point of disagreement that we had that I, I'm going to continue to be optimistic. Because it will be a precedent on the subject of the one sticking point that was loomed so large and began, you can just explain to us your reasons for the way you handled it on one point in particular. When it became apparent that all of the concessions that you know, Secretary Grosjeff was willing to make in the opposite area were contingent on this demand with regard to SDI, did you feel that you had an option of saying, we'll get back to you? We'll study this. We'll, we'll turn it over to our experts. I'll give it some more thought. If you had that option, you clearly didn't take it, you decided to make clear to him then and there and subsequently in public that you were rejecting it. Why was that necessary, particularly given the fact that you told us here only a week or so ago that no great agreements were expected out of this meeting?  No, actually, as a matter of fact, he himself from the very beginning had said that what we were talking about is the necessity for coming to some, to some agreements that would then lead to being able to sign things and finalize things at the forthcoming summit. So actually, we progressed in those discussions farther than I think either one of us had anticipated we would. And with SDI, I think that is the absolute guarantee. First of all, I'd pledged to the American people that there was no way that I would give away SDI. And looking at their own record, the ABM Treaty, they're in violation of that now. Now, the ABM Treaty, which he kept referring to as if it was the holy grail, I asked him once what was so great about a treaty that had our government saying to our people, we won't protect you from a nuclear attack. That's basically what the ABM Treaty says. On the other hand, we know and have evidence that they have been going beyond the restrictions of the ABM Treaty with their Krasnoyarsk radar, which shows the possibility of being able to provide radar-directed missiles in a defense not just for one spot, Moscow, as the treaty had provided. We never, of course, took advantage of the fact that we could defend one spot. We didn't think that was a very practical idea, but that they are embarked on a strategic defense initiative of their own. And we feel that, first of all, there are other countries, other individuals that now that everybody knows how to make a ballistic missile that could be in that are, well, some have them already, others developing. It's true that we are the two that endanger the world most with the great arsenals that we have. But this would be the guarantee against cheating. You wouldn't have to be suspiciously watching each other to see if they were starting to replace missiles. This would be the guarantee against, in the future, a madman coming along. I have likened it, and I explained it to him in this way, that right after World War I, and I reminded him, and I was the only one there old enough to remember these times, the nations got together in Geneva to outlaw poison gas. But we kept our gas masks. And thank heaven we did. As now, years later, poison gas is being more and more recognized as a legitimate weapon. Are you saying, sir, that he left you no choice but to say yes or no there on the spot that you had no option to say, very interesting, we'll study it, we'll get back to you? There wasn't any need of that. There wasn't any way that I was going to back away from that, from SDI. Are you confident that we are going to have another shot at you? I can't say that I'm confident that I have any practical evidence other than the fact that he, several times, referred to the forthcoming summit that would take place here in the United States. The only mention I made of it at all was at one point, I asked him legitimately, I said, would you like to propose a date, suggest a date for that forthcoming summit? And at that time, his reason for not doing it, he said, was because, well, until we, our people have all worked things out and we know about how long it's going to take to make the plans for the summit, why I think we should wait on naming a date. And that was the last time that it was mentioned. Were you not after the deadlock or before the deadlock? Oh, that was before the deadlock, yes. And as President, I'm puzzled about something. You two gentlemen, you saw for nearly 11 hours, obviously there was harmony between you two. And yet, in the final analysis, SDI became a major hangout. I get the impression that all along, Mr. Gorbachev never indicated to you that this was hanging back there in the dark. And my question is, was he simple? I'm not going to use that word to say that, because where this came up was both of us, finally at a point, proposed that on Saturday night that our teams take all of these voluminous notes that had been taken in all of the meetings and discussions with all of the things that had been discussed. And they go to work that night, and they did, and they worked all night. In two groups, well, I mean, there were two, their groups and our groups, but two on each side, one of our groups was dedicated to putting together all the discussion that we'd had on human rights and regional conflicts and so forth. They worked till, as I understand it, about 3.30 in the morning. And the other group was to go through all the things to come back and find where had we really been in agreement, where there was no problem between us, and where were the sticking points that had not been resolved. And I guess that group worked till about 6 in the morning, didn't they? And then Sunday we went into that, what was supposed to be a two-hour meeting and wound up being an all-day meeting. They brought back to us, put together the things that we had all proposed and that seemed that we could agree on and the places where we were stuck. And that was the first time really that it became evident about SDI, because what I had proposed early on was what I talked about here. I told him that what we were proposing with SDI was that once we reached the testing stage we would, well, before that, that right now we were ready and willing to sign a treaty, a binding treaty that said when we reached the testing stage that both sides would proceed because we told them, frankly, that we knew they were researching also on defense, nor was that ever denied. And we said we both will go forward with what we're doing. When we reach the testing stage, if it's us, we'll invite you to participate and see the test. And if it develops that we have and or I said, or if you have perfected a system that can be this kind of defense that we're talking about, then we share so that there won't be one side having this plus offensive weapons, but that we eliminate the offensive weapons and then we make available to all who feel a need for it or want it, this defensive system so that safety is guaranteed for the future. I don't want to use the word to see, but I still puzzle you, it seems to me that you wouldn't agree with Mr. Gorbachev as you agreed, if you'd known that once you got to the amount of dollar he would sprain this all on SDI or nothing at all. Well I think this came out of the summary then that came back from our teams to us where all of this was put together in a kind of an agreement. And what they were denying SDI openly, what they were doing was framing it that in such a way that in a ten year delay they would literally kill SDI and there just wouldn't be any. I'm trying to remember all the things that were said, it was just that they were adamant that and the use of words, it came down to the use of words and their words would have made it, not just a ten year delay but would have meant that we would come to the end of the reducing the weapons and we, well SDI would have been killed and we proposed wording that the research that we were carrying on would be carried on within the provisions of the ABM treaty and this wasn't good enough for them. The law says I'm through here but you can take them up at the Secretary of State. Alright thank you very much.


Hi Pagan perspective and welcome to my esoteric moment here on the interwebs. My name is Danny and I'm 25 years old. I live in Madison, Wisconsin and work a pretty typical 8-5 Monday through Friday job. On the weekends I love to head home and help my parents out on their farm. I also do a ton of community garden work. You can see that a great deal of my blog esotericmoment.com focuses on the farm and garden work I do. It's a great passion of mine. I was raised Irish Catholic by a long line of Irish farmers with a few teachers sprinkled here and there. While my family could be considered devout Catholics, it was upbringing enriched by many family traditions and stories that most would consider to be pretty Pagan. It was also a very agrarian focused life. Celebrating the seasons and staying in tune with the landscape was as spiritual and important as attending church on Sunday. I did a lot of exploring and discovering in middle school like many individuals about faith and religion. Paganism spoke to me then. I remained a Catholic though until I went to college which was ironically a Catholic university. The Catholic Church has undergone a lot of political and spiritual changes in the last decade. I felt that the Catholic Church no longer reflected my personal relationship with divinity. So I went searching again. I found a lot of the standard beginning Pagan books and resources. My first steps as a Pagan were very wicca-esque and kept to myself. Eventually I found Druidry through Philip Cargum's books. It was like coming home fully. Druidry is a path that allows one the independence of free thought and critical philosophical analysis while embracing the mystical nature around us. For me this means cultivating a personal relationship with divinity or the goddess through a connection to the natural world. It calls me to be an activist for the environment and civil rights. It calls me to find balance in the world and to live a simple meaningful life. It is a practical, messy, muddy, immensely joyous and creative path. I've practiced as a solitary Druid until this year. I'm currently working through the bardic course of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids or O-Bod link in the doobly-do. The community and resources found in this course and organization have been tremendously helpful. I'm enjoying the process a great deal. My practice still combines a few elements of wicca into it. This is often called Druidcraft. I usually just call myself a Druid, although sometimes I'll still use witch as I practice a bit of magic. While my personal channel is fairly new, I have been an active subscriber, commenter, and community member of YouTube for many years. I just finally have the time and resources to devote to regular video making. I've been a long time fan of pagan perspective and love the discussions that occur on the channel. Joining the collab would allow me to give back to a resource that I greatly value and allow me to engage in the online pagan community in a richer way. I also know that it's been a while since you've had a druid on the channel. I believe that my different path and my rural perspective will help bring a little bit more diversity to the channel. Thanks for considering my audition to pagan perspective. If you want to see me on Twitter or Instagram, social media of any type, there are links down below and I look forward to hearing all the new voices on the collab channel in 2015.


So we've seen that we can calculate a pressure-based equilibrium from the Gibbs free energy change for a chemical reaction. So now that we've introduced the Gibbs free energy, let's see what that can tell us about the temperature dependence of the equilibrium constant. And in particular, that'll lead to something called the Van Tof equation. So to start with, let me write down, instead of this pressure-based equilibrium constant, which has some units of pressure, one over pressure, pressure raised to some coefficient for, depending on the reaction, there's units of pressure raised to some coefficient. For the moment, I'd rather deal with a unit-less equilibrium constant. So let's imagine we've converted this pressure-based equilibrium constant to a Kn, Kbn, Kln, Kx, for example, one of the equilibrium constants that doesn't have units. So I can either literally just drop the units from this expression and get rid of them and this is a unit-less quantity. I can instead think of, for example, if I want a Kx, that would be the Kp divided by a pressure raised to the delta nu. So that's going to end up cancelling these units of pressure, for example. But by whichever way we want to think about it, this K, whether it's a Kx or Kn or something, is either e to the minus delta g over RT, or it's e to the minus delta g over RT times some multiplicative constant. So if we use this unit-less equilibrium constant, we're going to be interested in temperature dependence of this quantity. But to make it a little more convenient, I'm going to take the natural log of it. So on the right side, I don't have e to the minus delta g over RT. I just have, and I'm going to write that as delta g over t, and then the 1 over R dependence separately. Because next what I want to do to talk about how those quantities change when I change the temperature is I'll take the temperature derivative. So on the left, I'm taking the temperature derivative of log K. On the right, the reason I pulled the 1 over R out separately is they don't depend on temperature. And then I need the temperature derivative of this quantity delta g over t. That quantity, temperature derivative of g over temperature, might look familiar, should look familiar. That's something that we understand using the Gibbs-Helmholtz relation. The Gibbs-Helmholtz equation tells us that the derivative of a Gibbs free energy over temperature is an enthalpy over t squared with a minus sign. So that's, I've only taken the result of the temperature derivative. I now have to multiply by negative 1 over R.  So that's what I've got on the right side. The left side is still derivative of log of K with respect to temperature. So Gibbs-Helmholtz is what led us to this result. This result itself is called the van Tof equation. That's given us the beginnings of what we were after when I said we were interested in the temperature dependence of the equilibrium constant. It tells us when I change the temperature, the rate at which the log of the equilibrium constant is changing with temperature is proportional to the enthalpy, inversely proportional to the temperature squared with this proportionality constant of 1 over R. So I'm going to leave the results at this point, but we do add some more things to say about the van Tof equation. In particular, what I'll show you in the next video is an alternate way of arriving at the same van Tof equation result as well as why this equation is useful and how we can use it to tell us about how equilibrium constants change as we change the temperature.


The Nevada Air National Guard's 152nd Airlift Wing and Wyoming Air National Guard's 153rd Airlift Wing completed their annual week-long Modular Airborne Firefighting System, or MAFS, certification training on Sunday, at the Channel Islands Air National Guard Station, California. The two guard units flew continuous sorties during daylight hours throughout the week, which began on April 10th and concluded on April 15th. Here, military air crews were guided by U.S. Forest Service lead plane pilots into a flight pattern to drop water along a simulated fire line. Once certified, these C-130 crews can be called upon to support the Forest Service in aerial firefighting when civilian crews are over-tasked and a military surge capacity is required. It's a very dangerous mission. By the time MAFS is requested assistance, generally speaking, we are in a situation where resources are running thin, fires, especially in the southwest and the west coast here. They've been astronomical the past few years and so MAFS has been asked to engage and when we're doing that, there's no time for that relationship building. Ground crews consisting of personnel from several federal and state agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Cal Fire, and others also participated in the certification training. This year's training was split into two iterations. The second, which will occur in May of this year, will be attended by the California Air National Guard's 146th Airlift Wing and the Air Force Reserve's 302nd Airlift Wing from Peterson Space Base, Colorado. Throughout the week, air crews flew a total of 53 sorties totaling nearly 78 hours of flight time, while dropping 102,500 gallons of water over 242 practice drops. This annual training is funded by the U.S. Forest Service. From the 152nd Airlift Wing Public Affairs, I'm Master Sergeant Garrett Wake.


Hey guys, what is up? Welcome to my channel. So for today's video, I'm going to be doing review swatches and demos of the three new Charlotte Tilbury supermodel lipsticks. So if you want to see all that and you're interested, then just keep watching. So Charlotte Tilbury just released three new limited edition lipsticks. She calls them her supermodel lipsticks online. This is how she describes the little collection. Supermodels have always known how to maximize their beauty with neutral colors. Now Charlotte Tilbury has bottled iconic supermodel DNA to give everyone everywhere the ultimate nude lips. So these are supposed to be really pretty nude lips that is supposed to flatter everybody. There's supposed to be a color out there for everybody. Now all three of these are a matte revolution formula. If you aren't aware, her matte revolution formula is spectacular. It's very moisturizing. It smooths over the lips so that you really can't see the lines and it glides on the lips with ease. Very pigmented. One of my favorite matte lipstick formulas of all time. If you don't know, I'm a huge Charlotte Tilbury lipstick connoisseur. So I have a lot of swatch videos on her range that I would suggest you check out if you are curious about her other colors. So these lipsticks retail for $34 each, but she also sells them with a matching lip liner online for $52. The lip liners aren't limited edition. They are in her regular line. I did have to end up picking up two sets of those duos and then I did already have one of the lip liners. So really quickly I am just going to talk about the colors real quick and show you the swatches so you can see what we're getting into. So the first one we have is Super90s. Super90s comes with the Love Trap lip liner. Definitely if you want a more deeper brown nude lip, this is the color for you. Next we have the Lipstick Supermodel which comes with the lip liner in Super Size Me. This is definitely more of a pink color, so I would say this is more flattering towards the lighter skin tones. It's more of a pinky rose nude, really beautiful. And then we have Super Sexy with the Hot Gossip lip liner. As you can see of the lip liner and lipstick duos, I would say these two are the least similar, but this is going to be the brightest color. I feel that this is going to look super fabulous on medium and deep skin colors, but this also is going to add the most brightness to the face of the three. I would describe this as a pinky cognac. Just so you are aware, her lip liner formula is one of my favorites. It's very smooth, it glides onto the lips with ease, and it really does apply a direct line as well. Where you put it, it's very precise. So this is a very good lip liner formula. And as I just mentioned, her matte lipstick formula is the best of the best. They are amazing. As I swatched these three, I did notice that they were very consistent with her regular line. If not even more moisturized. Anyways, let's get into the demo of these lips. All right, so let's start off with the first duo. So I started off with Love Trap lip liner. I just use this to line the outer part of my lips. Love Trap is described as a peachy brown to reshape and resize the look of your lips. And honestly, I feel like this did a great job of making my lips look fuller and very consistent with the rest of the Charlotte Tilbury lip liner formula. So I'm not going to talk about it. It's a great formula. So let's talk about this lipstick. So this is Super 90s. So it is described as a deep, tiny brown for a sultry, naturally gorgeous lip look. I have to say the formula of this is absolutely beautiful. It glids onto my lips with such ease. And for a matte lipstick, it really isn't emphasizing any lines on my lips. If anything, it's really just smoothing them. This is such a great everyday color. For me personally, I love neutral lip colors, leaning a little bit more brown. So this is my ideal everyday lip color. Very comfortable. It glids on super smooth. My lips look fuller. They look soft. They look smooth. And this is just a great everyday lip. So Super 90s is definitely 10 out of 10 for me. All right. So here is the second look. So this one started off with Super Size Me lip liner, which is a deep new pink as described on the website. And I would totally agree that it definitely is much more pink. On the top, we use Super Model, which is described as a matte nude rose. I would say pretty accurate. So this particular lip is a little bit lighter. It is more cool, is more pink than Super 90s. If you're looking for a more wearable lip color, I would go with this one of the three. This is going to be the lightest and the most natural. But it's really beautiful. Again, same formula. Glid on the lips. I really like this. I prefer Super 90s just because I really like that kind of brown lip. But this is really pretty and really great for everyday. So again, Super Size Me lip liner and Super Model lipstick. So for the last lip look, we have the Hot Gossip lip liner, which is a tawny rose pink. It's a little bit more deep than the last lip liner. I would say of all the combos, this is the combo where these two colors are the least alike, but they do work perfectly fine together. But this is definitely missing the brightness in the shade. And then of course, we put the Super Sexy color on top. This online says it's a matte nude rouge. I would describe this more as a pinky cognac. Really pretty, definitely the brightest of the three. This still isn't very bright, but this is going to add the most life and the most color to your look. I would say of the three, this is the brightest. Obviously, it's not super bright. It is still really a nude. I think this is going to look really good on medium and deep skin tones. But of the three, this is the one that's going to brighten up and add the most color to your face. I really like this one. I think it's really pretty. So yeah. Okay. So now we have a better idea of what we are working with. So I did go through my lipstick collection from Charlotte Tilbury and I tried to find colors that were the most similar. The reason why I'm doing this is maybe you have a color that is very similar to one of the new colors. And if you want to save some money, maybe don't pick it up. Or just to give you some reference to see what you have and what you don't already have. I would say this isn't her most unique release of colors. I did find a lot of similar colors for each of the new lip colors. Anyways, I'm just going to let you see for yourself. So the most similar shade I could find to Super 90s was actually Birkin Brown that's in her line. And you will notice right away that Birkin Brown is immediately much more of a deep. Whereas Super 90s is a little bit more subdued, a little bit more chocolaty. The Tad is a bit more warm. So this is Super 90s and Birkin Brown. So here we have the most similar shades that I could find in her range to Super Model. So this is Bond Girl and this is Pillow Talk. The biggest difference I would say is between Super Model and Pillow Talk. Pillow Talk is just a lighter version of Super Model, if you ask me. They are quite similar tones. This is slightly more pink. But I think if you like Pillow Talk and want something a little bit deeper, you will really enjoy Super Model. Now I thought Bond Girl was very similar to Super Model. I think built up Bond Girl, you can get a much deeper lip. But if you pat these on, they're going to look very similar. And Bond Girl also is slightly more red in tone, but ever so slightly. So I think on the lips, these two are going to look very similar. The next color we have here is Super Sexy. Now I have to say of the three new colors, I would say Super Sexy is the least unique in her line. That's the one I definitely found the most similarities to with her other colors. There actually was more than just these three, but I found these three to be the closest. So we have Amazing Grace, Coachella Coral, and Walk of Shame. Amazing Grace is obviously the most different because it has a complete different finish. This is very shiny and moisturizing. But I did want to add this in because the color is similar. This is slightly brighter. But if you do want a more moisturizing formula, you might want to go for Coachella Coral. So the second one here is Amazing Grace. Again, slightly more brighter, slightly more pink, but very similar in tone. And the last one over here, I found to be the most similar. This is Walk of Shame, maybe a shade deeper. But honestly, if you have Walk of Shame, I don't think you need to pick up Super Sexy if you're trying to save money. So I mean, you can see for yourselves and always remember on the lips, no changes aren't that noticeable. So anyways, I hope this helped. Alright, so that about sums everything up about these new lip colors. I will link everything that I mentioned and everything that I'm wearing down below for you guys. Overall, I think this is a beautiful collection. Super 90s is my personal favorite. I think that Super Model is going to be great for a lot of you guys. I feel like that's going to be a popular one. And Super Sexy, just so you know, is a beautiful deep nude lip on me personally. I love it with the look that I'm wearing with just mascara and then really pretty skin. I would definitely recommend picking up the lip liner and lipstick duo just because they do go very well together and it really allows you to shape and make your lips look fuller. You can totally pass if you want to but I found that I liked each of the combinations of the two. It really allowed me to change my lip shade. So overall, I give this release a 9 out of 10. The only reason it's not a 10 out of 10 is because I did find quite a few similar colors within the range but that being said, formula is on point, color choice is on point and overall execution is really amazing. So Charlotte Tilbury, you did it again. I love your brand, all of my subscribers know it too. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. I hope you found it helpful. Remember to like this video, subscribe to my channel and I will see you guys in the next video. Bye guys, have a great day.