Greetings, and welcome to the Introduction to Astronomy. In this video, we are going to look at the Flat Earth Society and what their understanding of the nature of the world is. And one of the reasons we want to look at this, why would we study something like this in an astronomy class when really flat earth ideas of the flat earth are not really astronomical? Well, the idea is that we really need to look at other ideas even if we know that they are wrong. So I would believe that the flat earth people are completely wrong, that the earth is not flat, that it is very much spherical, and that we have significant evidence that has demonstrated that over the centuries. But we really want to be able to truly understand the nature of this, and it helps in any discussion to be able to look at the arguments that an opposing group puts forward and to be able to better understand them and to be able to argue against them. So what do I believe? Well, I would say that yes, the earth is round. The earth is not a flat disk in any way. And we need to look at this. This has been proved by many observations, including NASA flights. So what I am looking at here that I just wanted to clarify, I am not in any way endorsing the arguments of the flat earth society. I am simply putting them forward the way they explain things and then showing the methods that are used to explain those in what astronomers will tell you are the correct observations and what we actually see, what NASA has given us, and what observations here on earth explain. So I don't want you to take what I'm saying is saying that I am arguing for a flat earth more that I am trying to get you to think about the different arguments and not just saying this is ridiculous move on, but to actually think of their arguments and to be able to refute those arguments. So let's start out by looking at some of this. And what we want to look at first is what is the model of the flat earth that they use. In many cases people will think of this as a flat piece of paper. And that's when the sometimes we think of it as being completely ridiculous because how would we sail around the world? We could not travel around the world if the earth were flat, the oceans would fall off the edge. And in reality that is not what the flat earth people believe. They actually look at there that the earth is a disc, so a circular disc, the north pole being at the central portion of the disc here, and then the Antarctica stretched around the outer limits in an impenetrable ice wall. Well that would explain why the oceans do not fall off. The water is held in by this great ice wall at the edge. So this means that we can do things like circumnavigate the world. We can travel around the world and never reach an edge. We can go from one point to another around it and come back to our starting point. So it does not argue against that, but it does need this impenetrable ice wall, meaning that there is no way to travel across Antarctica, that if you leave on one portion as you would on the earth you will not come back around the other side, that you simply cannot travel this as it becomes more and more impenetrable as you get deeper into the world. Now, let's look at some of the evidence for a spherical earth and some of the things that we're going to look at, and this is not a total, this is not every possible example. I just wanted to go over several different things that we could look at for the fact that the earth is spherical. We can look at things like observations from spacecraft. We can look at lunar eclipses, the eclipses of the moon. And we can look at observations of the stars and the constellations. We can look at some other observations, the sun, time zones, shadows of the sun, seasons, a few other things we can look at. And then finally we can look at gravity. Now there are a lot more than these. I'm not going through every possible argument and trying to demonstrate or refute every possible argument that comes forward. I simply want to look at some of these and give an understanding of them. So let's first of all look at what observations we have from spacecraft. This is some of the most direct evidence. First of all we traveled to the moon back in 1969 and images will show that the earth is spherical. The astronauts could watch the earth rotate. So you could see it going through different sections. We could see the different parts of it. We could see that the earth was clearly not a flat disc. We also have images from the International Space Station. So when we look at those we cannot see the entire earth from the International Space Station. It is in a low orbit. But you can see the curvature of the earth off in the distance. So we have some images like this where we can see the entire space station. And if you want to question how we could get an image like that, well this was taken by one of the shuttles that was either arriving or leaving the space station. So as it was near the space station looking back and able to get an image of it from earth. Now this is really some of the most direct and distinct evidence that we have that the earth must be a sphere. However, the argument of the flat earth group would be that space flight is impossible. So everything like this is fake. And everything that NASA does is a hoax. We've never been to the moon. We've never been up in space. The space station does not exist essentially. So it is an argument that essentially you have to accept to accept a flat earth is that everything that NASA has done is a hoax. Now certainly as an astronomer I don't believe that. So the evidence right here is sufficient for me to believe that the earth is spherical. But if we want to give that and start to look at that argument and not argue this point because if someone truly believes that NASA, everything NASA does has been fake for the last 60 years, then it's not something that you're going to convince them of. So we have to look at other arguments as well. So let's look at some of the other arguments that we talked about. And one of those is lunar eclipses. Well one of the arguments from the ancient Greeks was that during a lunar eclipse the earth shadow cast upon the moon is always observed to be circular. So when we look at the lunar eclipse we see the shadow being cast here. It is always a part of a circle. So we're seeing the earth shadow. The earth shadow is circular. Well a disk could cast a shadow that is circular. Only in certain orientations other times it would not be circular. It would be elliptical or it would be other shapes. The only object that will always cast a circular shadow is a sphere. So the Greeks knew that the earth had to be spherical simply because every lunar eclipse, the shadow was always circular. And what is the flat earth explanation? Well they call what they talk about a shadow object which is what is causing the shadow. So the shadow that we're seeing here in their argument is not the earth's shadow at all but some other mysterious unseen object that would be causing this. Now in order for this to be scientific it has to be something that we can test. So how can we detect this object? Certainly we can predict eclipses with very high precision based on a spherical earth and its orbit and the moon's orbit and the positioning of the sun. We can predict them down to the seconds. So the fact that there could be some other mysterious object, we have to have some scientific way of being able to test this. Otherwise it can be a belief but it's not something that we would consider science. Now we also mentioned that for example looking at the stars and the constellations can give us some ideas of the earth, the earth has to be spherical. And one common thing is that we see different stars when we travel to different locations on the earth. When you are far north you can see only certain constellations that are very far north on the celestial sphere. If you travel further south you start to see other stars that are not, would not be visible from that location. So it's a very easily explained in a spherical earth. We're only seeing a small portion of the sky. So from any given location we can see the half of the sky or so that is up above that. And we can't see anything that is down below. So for those of us in the northern hemisphere, stars near the south celestial pole are completely invisible to us. We never get to see them. However if you traveled along there down to South America you would then be able to see these. So that's one example of being able to see them. We can easily explain that in a spherical earth. We can also note that constellations in the southern hemisphere are upside down. If you've ever traveled south of the equator and looked for example at the constellation of Orion, which is one that is visible from both the northern and southern hemispheres, it is upside down in the southern hemisphere. And that is because of course you are looking from a different perspective.  You are essentially upside down and therefore Orion is going to look upside down. Now how is this explained in a flat earth? Well they don't believe again. They don't believe NASA observations. So they argue that the stars are much closer and that you're not seeing the entire sky. So from our location here you can only see a part of the sky and on a flat earth if you traveled further along it you would be able to see different portions of the sky. They believe that the universe is much smaller than astronomers have been able to determine. The upside down appearance is just due to the perspective of motion. So if you are looking at something from one direction and you move to another direction things can change their appearance. So it's all a matter of perspective and things being a lot closer than astronomers will teach us. Now let's look at the sun and the flat earth. So in terms of the sun there are a number of different things that we can look at. Why would the sun first of all why would the sun not be visible to the entire earth? If the earth is flat then the sun is either up above the horizon and visible to everybody or it's down below the earth and visible to nobody. So why would it not be the fact that the sun is always visible or never visible? Well in this case they'd argue that the sun is really much closer than I will teach you. I'll tell you that the sun is 93 million miles away. They may argue that it's only a few thousand miles away and it's much closer and it's directed more like a spotlight. So instead of hitting the entire earth at once it would have a section that it is illuminating and as it moves around as it moves around here then you would have the different sections of this of the earth being illuminated at different times. Again that is against every observation that we have made but it does explain at least why the sun would not be visible at any given time. The other thing that we notice is that the length of daylight changes with the latitude. So during the summer we have longer days during the winter we have shorter days and we have different seasons. In this case again the sun is close enough but its pattern changes. So in the summertime it's actually a little further towards the north pole and making a smaller circle around here. In the winter it's a little further south and would make a larger circle around here. So depending on how you adjust the changing of that you can sort of make rather convoluted argument that the seasons could still be explained. So you can still do that but of course it's not as easy as explaining it with simply a tilted earth that can very easily explain the seasons. Now looking continuing to look at the sun we had a little more that we wanted to look at here and what we have is that shadows are different lengths. Well here's a very easy one sounds like it's very spherical. If the earth is a sphere then an object at this location would cast no shadow this on its passing straight down upon it whereas an object a little further north would be casting a slight shadow in this case seven degrees. This is the example of what Eratosthenes did in terms of measuring the circumference of the earth. So it's a very easy way to show that the earth must be spherical and telling us that even the ancient Greeks knew that the earth had to be a sphere. And again similar to the other one the flat earth explanation is that the sun is much closer than astronomers tell us. So we are making up essentially all these observations about the sun being 93 million miles away and it's only several thousand miles away and as you might imagine if something is much closer so if we have the sun much closer to us it could be straight overhead here whereas casting a shadow a little bit further away because of the perspective. When the sun is as far away as I will teach you it is then that would not be possible. All the rays would be coming in parallel and the difference is due to the curvature of the earth. So that explanation explains why the sun could not be overhead on one part of the earth but be overhead on another part of the earth. Now the last thing I wanted to look at here is how does gravity work on a flat earth? Well gravity would crush a disc earth into a sphere. So if gravity works as Newton and Einstein tell us the earth would have to be a sphere you could not possibly have a disc that strong. And that is part of the explanation those who believe in a flat earth believe that gravity is far worse far sorry gravity is far weaker than astronomers and physicists will tell you. So gravity is nowhere near as strong and therefore the disc does not get crushed. However that also causes another problem in that if gravity is not as strong how are we being held to the earth? And one of those is that what they believe is that first of all I said gravity is much weaker but the earth is accelerating upwards to simulate gravity. Now this is actually something given to us by Einstein. Einstein gave us the equivalence principle which says that there is no experiment we can do that would tell the difference between being on the earth in a gravitational field and being accelerated upward in a rocket. So if the entire earth were being accelerated upward how this could happen is very is nothing we can explain or test so again it's non scientific if it's not something that we can test. But there is honestly no way to tell the difference between these two situations. We also have to look at gravity always pulling down no matter where we are on earth gravity pulls down whether we're standing on the northern hemisphere or the southern hemisphere gravity always pulls towards the center and we again have to look at how that works in a flat earth. So gravity being much weaker and a flat disc accelerating upward could simulate gravity although imagining the immense energy needed to accelerate and to constantly accelerate the earth up through space is really difficult to wrap one's head around or to be able to explain. So looking at some of these you know what are some of the explanations well some of the explanations that they give they really involve a disregard for scientific observations. You pretty much have to believe that everything that NASA has given us over the last 60 years from launching satellites to launching space missions to the international space station anything else has been faked. Now to me that is very difficult to believe because that is not only NASA that is also the Soviet Union and Russian spacecraft but also now Chinese and Indian and other countries that have also set spacecraft into space and been able to see this so it is not just one organization that would have to be keeping this conspiracy together but it would be all of these and of course back in the 1960s this would be hard to argue that the U.S. and the Soviet Union who were admired in a deep cold war at the time would be able to agree to convince the rest of the world that the world was actually a disk that the world was not actually a disk but was really spherical that would have been a conspiracy among two very distinct enemies at the time and we also have to believe that all the measurements that I give you all the distances that I give you in this class are incorrect and fake so the things are actually much much smaller than we see here so let's finish up as we do with our summary and what we find is that again the flat earth proponents do make a number of explanations to explain how astronomical observations can be explained on a flat earth many of these will work but are also more contrived and difficult to explain and in some cases not possible to test and if you remember in a scientific theory in order to be a scientific theory it has to be testable we can make a great argument but if it's not something that could be tested it is not considered a scientific argument again most of these mean the complete disbelief of observations that have been made by NASA and measurements made by astronomers so we have to consider that all of this is fate has been faked and is a great conspiracy to convince people that the earth is spherical when it is actually flat and I will argue that the scientific evidence I've talked about some here we can look at other many others that you can look at as well it is really overwhelming so that I would argue that very clearly the earth is a sphere so that concludes this lecture on the flat earth society we'll be back again next time for another topic in astronomy so until then have a great day everyone and I will see you in class


So YouTube team keep it clean. What's going on is Ingraven here with another video and saying that we've been saying literally all season long, stay ready so you ain't gotta get ready. And the Ravens, as ready as they were roster-wise, they just couldn't stay ready. And it was literally impossible for them to with all the injuries that they had, literally everywhere. They had injuries at the running back position, wide receiver, offensive line, secondary, the linebackers. I think defensive, well, they had some inexperienced guys who did get hurt, but defensive line, the guys that were expected to play actually pretty much stayed intact. Oh no, Derek Wolff, so nevermind, defensive line too. So yeah, literally everywhere. They've had injuries that they've had to deal with. And then more recently on the offensive line with Ronnie Stanley, with Ben Cleveland, it's just been rough, man. And then Alejandro Villanueva, he's not even fully back healthy yet. Even though he played last week and he's probably gonna play this week too, but they've been really banged up, as you all already know. So they worked out Ben Carpenter, 32-year-old guard. He played, he was drafted by the Seahawks in the first round way back when. And he has also played for the Jets and he played for the Falcons. And I think who reported it? It was Phil Yates. He said that he actually played 13 games for Falcons last season. So he has some recent experience playing. And this would be an indicator of Ben Cleveland status. I mean, he's gonna be out for at least the next three games. Could be more, but it'll be at least the next three games since he got put on a short-term IR. And cause Hardball confirmed that yesterday that it's not season ending, but it's short-term. So with that being said, you can almost expect them to bring in some offensive linemen.  They did protect this week on the practice squad. They protected David Sharp. And so that lets you know how important and valuable he is to them. And they still have Andre Smith, of course. So yeah, they got some options, but they're very limited with their options since guys are still down and guys are still hurting. So we'll see what they end up doing as far as the offensive line. If they end up signing Ben Carvin to, or if they end up signing somebody else or promoting somebody else, we'll see whenever that happens. So anyway, y'all stay on the lookout. Later tonight, we're gonna be dropping the Chargers and Ravens preview video. So watch out for that. And then tomorrow, being Saturday, we'll end the week. We'll question from subscribers. Then I see you on Sunday for the live stream during the game. We out.


Well, we're going to keep going on a few more things. All right, so the first tee was what? Second tee? Third tee is technique. So here's what I see. I go along the country, around the country, bring guys in. Some guys here come into our program, top of fruits in the country. They're so fast. Their speed is unbelievable, how fast they are. And it's a blessing and a curse. Because in high school, the speed carried them through. The third tee, let's say you love to lift weights, you eat weights in high school, or you shave since your freshman year. And you just weigh strong in everybody. Strength becomes a blessing and a curse, because a lot of times we'll use it to dominate our opponent. But we're not learning, but we should be learning. The third tee is technique. So I think you can, Edison, they can, confidence is first, but you're in trouble with technique, or sorry about that, but technique is king. Technique is king. Being in good position is critically important. Technique always matters. If you're really fast, assess your position when you're getting in. How you hand fighting, how you hand through his hands. All right, so, let's keep going. So we're gonna go, we're gonna go, oh sorry, you look like this guy, come here, come here. Same body. All right, so I got a wrist, I got an inside top.  I don't want to go over anything. I didn't let go of his wrist, I didn't let go of the inside top.  Simple wrestling, wrestling 101. A controlled tie, a little fake.  Simple.  I'm just gonna pull him down. You have two options. Stay on the wrist and pull it. Watch my lead toe, please, watch my lead toe. Notice how it stays behind my knee. I'm not doing this, it stays behind my knee. I pull him down into the front headlock.   If he doesn't bite your fake, so in this scenario, when I fake, he bit on, he lowered, he got lowered, so I just pull him right into my armpit. Okay, if he doesn't bite on it, I get a released arrest. If he bites, don't release the wrist. I'm assessing. I'm so focused on what I'm doing out here. Let me ask you something. Anybody here on the house that has a garage? Does anybody have a garage door opener? Does anybody parts their car in the garage? Okay, so here's what I'm talking about. And when you're out there wrestling, you're so focused on the next position. In your garage, as I said, you get in your car, you start the car, and you open the garage door opener. You click the button, and the garage door starts to come up. Do you fly out? What do you do?  Right? So look, I push, and I think I'm assessing. I'm constantly, I'm in high alert. Are you with me? This is the difference between good and great. This is the number one differentiator. The number one differentiator. Can you stay focused in the moment? Or is your mind thinking about how tired you are? Or are you thinking about how important this match is? Other than just what? Just wrestling. Speaking of the wrestling. Inside tire is, look, I hit a little fake. He doesn't buy it. Look, he doesn't buy it. See his head height? I can feel his head height.  I think, I assess. Oh, it's right there. Pull him down. Run him. Questions? I know it's basic, but it's really important. Same position, stay powerful. Push him backward, fake. Either pull him directly down or snap him. One, two, three.


I think the last couple of years for brains has been characterised by quite a lot of change. Restructuring, even though we're a long term stable and quite successful business, sometimes you have to recognise that change is required. We're continuing to grow our coffee number one business. We bought this business about three and a half years ago, it had 14 stores and we're just about to open our 50th so we're very excited about that. We employ over 2,000 people across the business and in particular probably around half of those jobs go to young people. We want to continue to grow so we will continue to develop at a great pub estate, continue to grow our coffee business and very much developing the brewery as effectively as we can.


101 days of summer is approaching. For Memorial Day weekend, through the Labor Day holiday, we enjoy all types of warm weather events. But summer is also a critical time for injuries. More mishaps occur during these 101 days than they do throughout the rest of the year. In the summer of 2014, there were 22 fatalities between the Navy and the Marine Corps. Whether you're just working or just enjoying the summer, anybody not accustomed to heat is at risk for heat-related illness. That is why safety is so important. While participating in events, remember to stretch prior, stay hydrated, wear proper gear, and know your limits. If you're planning to take a trip, remember to use trips. Trips is an online risk assessment that helps you recognize and reduce travel risk. For more information about summer safety, visit the Navy Safety Center's website.


I will make water transport effective," says the SDP governorship candidate, Kunle Uthman. Tonight, we discuss the Lagos governorship race and the SDP's plans for 2023. I have done well, says Bahari. And this is Plus Politics. I am Mary Anacorn. 15 of the 18 political parties will be fielding candidates for next year's governorship elections in Lagos State. The parties, according to a list published by the Independent National Electoral Commission, the All Progressive Congress, APC, the People's Democratic Party, PDB, the Accord Party, the African Action Congress, the African Democratic Congress, amongst others. Now, the Social Democratic Party, Lagos governorship candidate, Mr. Kunle Uthman has promised to make water transportation effective if voted into office in 2023. Uthman, who also lamented the filth and dirt in the state, promised to create mass jobs for use by engaging them in cleaning Lagos. While joining us live in the studio this evening is the SDP governorship candidate for Lagos State, Chief Kunle Uthman. It's good to have you join us in the studio. Good evening. Nice to be here. Great. So, a lot of promises being made. This is nothing new to the political scene. Promises are always made if you finally get into office. But let me start from the basics. Why do you want to be the Lagos State governor? Well, good evening. I'm an indigent of Lagos State. My father is from here. My mother is from here. I did my primary education at the Riti Primary School in Nikoi. From where I proceeded to the prestigious Methodist Boys High School. So, I spend the better part of my life in Lagos. So, I can feel the pulse of the city. And not just the city itself, but I agree I was in Nikoi, it could do at several times when I grew up. So, I have a good understanding of what this state involves. And I remember as a young man, Lagos as it was then and what it has become now. And I believe that we have to do a lot of cleaning up. There's been a vast generation of a well-planned city with infrastructural facilities with good roads, pipe-borne water to a dirty city, a toxic city, and insecurity where we can no longer move without fearing. So, I believe that me, I am one of the best-seated persons to clean the state up because I have experience. And I was in government when I was 35 as personal assistant to the minister of transport and aviation under the ING. From there, I proceeded to become the personal assistant to the minister of power and steel. So, I understand Nepal and its problems. And during the period of Babatunilash Rajifashala as governor of Lagos State, I also served as a commissioner in the Lagos State Judicial Service Commission. And also, more importantly, I was part of a team of people that were brought together to look at the state and put up a mega city formula for the state and all the indices of mega city, I understand it. I understand policy control. I understand that 12 years ago, some of us, we sat down and we looked at Lagos from the perspective of Lagos as it should be. And we drafted out the policy control, building control for the state to ensure that buildings will never ever fall. But it was, it's quite traumatizing. And before the 12 years after these policies were put in place, we have been having collapse building every time, everywhere, especially during the tenure of this governor. We sat down one day, 21 story building came crashing down. 21 stories, my dear. Not two, not four, 21, it came down. And there was loss of lives. We sat down one day again. Abutimita had his own problem. Mengya had his own problem. Last week, seven story building came crashing down This is not the Lagos of our dreams. We want a place that will be secured for our people, for people who also come from other parts of the country to do business here, to live here. We want them to feel secure because Lagos is a cosmopolitan place and it is the Komai Sha, nerve center of the federal republic of Nigeria.  And we believe that this government, this particular one has failed the people. Every morning, we hear people from urban medicine to acquire four hours from everywhere in Lagos there is traffic red luck. I experienced it myself. I went to acquire and between the Lagos, let you where I live, it took me six hours. So we have a city that is not planned. This planlessness is not only the island, you go to Korodu is the same story. You go to Badagri is the same story.  It is a disjointed city where the sporadic development without a proper articulated plan for the city. And I believe that it can no longer be business as usual. That this particular APC government in Lagos that has failed us, it is a true. It's been coming from Kuala Meditinubu, came to Fashala after that was Hamburg and then the court rate is the present governor. I believe that he should leave and let us have a better city for posterity and for a better environment. There's no healthcare facility in the state. We have water everywhere. We don't have ferries on the road. When I liked it, I teach Jack one day was in government. As civilian governor in this day, there was ferry on the road, Babakikere, Itafaji. They used to come between CNS and other places. There is this development going on at the Dango Teri finery and other developments in Deki Free Trade Zone. When they start operations, we don't know how we are going to move in that axis. There ought to be a coastal road. We have heard about Fort Mainland Bridge. Promises nothing is happening. If you want to go into a papa, it takes you forever to go in and to come out. So there is no vehicular movement and I believe that we can develop the water transportation. The state is dirty. The state is toxic. And there's about no projects everywhere. Sandgrass market was brought down by government a few years ago. Nothing is going on there, nothing, no development. They just dug the place and all the markets we may not bear on the streets. We go from Tinnubu, go towards Martin Street, go down, go to Dusemo, turn into Jankara, smelly, toxic, traffic gridlock everywhere. A part of Jankara completely abandoned. The market has not been built. And when I was a child, I used to go there. So you see, we have legos of, it's not a plant city. And if we want to attain the mega city of our dream, it has to be planned. There has to be good transportation. There has to be good health facilities. There has to be good roads. There has to be, everything has to be in order. We go everywhere in the world and what we see in legos, you can do far, far, far better. I commend him on this Okada issue when he decided to rationalize Okada people and ban them from certain areas because they had become a societal nuisance. But that is not enough. It's more than just throwing people into employment. We have to create jobs. We have to remove agboros from the road, from the parks. We have to ensure that we can move. In those days, you can move from any part of legos at any time of the night. Go to the nightclub at 12 o'clock, midnight, we are moving from one place to the other. So there is an urgent imperative need that we are going to do this. And the SDP government has a manifesto which we believe is going to be a contract with the people. It is a development from the presidential manifesto of the party itself. You know, we have a person inside the world. We have a manifesto at the center. We also have a modified room for the state and we are going to ensure that this manifesto is a contract between us and the people. We do security, later security get worse. We are going to improve the value of the currency, all these promises, as will not be a government of promises. We are going to do it and we are going to put a timeline. Okay. I see that you have named almost all of the problems that legosians are facing. I like it. I like that you've seen all the problem spots. But let's talk about the realities on the ground. Yes. How to go about these things. Let's start with the most teething of problems, which is the roads, the infrastructure. You get close to VGC. You see how bad that spot is. They're trying to fix the road we hear, but then it's causing a whole lot of traffic and then the rains are here and every single place is flooded. Two days ago, if I'm not mistaken, it came, it was raining for hours and both sides of the Lekiekwe Expressway was flooded. So my question is, what would you do about this? Because again, we see parts of legos, beautiful erected buildings, but then there are no drainage systems. But there are building plans for these facilities. I mean, sometimes malls and then the sides of the road that leads to the mall has no drainage system. And the ones who have drainage systems, those drainages have been blocked. Can we really blame government on its own? How about the people who live in Lekos and what are you going to do about it? Government will be held core people and responsible because we see the whole concept of a city, even an estate is to be planned and you don't distort the master plan. You ought to know that this particular area will have X number of roads. You're putting all the necessary facilities. What has happened in Lekiekwe area is complete distortion. Some of those areas were agricultural areas marked for development that have been converted to estates. So that conversion itself, you have to hold government responsible. As to the issue of approved plans, we have begun to realize in this state that there are many buildings that are springing up everywhere and there are no plans. The seven story building that came down, we know for a fact now from information coming out that there was no approved plan for this building. And the interesting aspect of it was a stop order was placed on that building three times for them to stop work. They never did the continued until building came down. The material information is this and I am asking the legal state governor to kindly oblige us the information. Who is this man that owns that building? That's the seven story building because it's not enough for the commissioner to say, I resign. We need to know. We need to find out the people that were negligent. Legal state government is with their with all this information. And believe me sincerely, it is very irresponsible for them to do so. We need to know. Even if the governor was doing of that building, he needs to disclose I'm the owner so we can deal with him in the proper way. Transportation. Transportation is not wrong. It's a holistic statement that involves all sorts of modular movements. Now you have road transportation. You have rail transportation. You have water transportation. The majority of the people on the road ought not to be on the road. The equate access, you have water there both ways. So you can develop the waterways in such that you have ferries, move people from point A to point B. They can move them from a point in the equate and drop them at CMS at the right time. So it's going to be development of the waterways. We can no longer sit there and assume that all of us must be at the road at the same time. Also, you remember there was a time in Lagos that they had a park and ride system. The park and ride system involved that you pack your car in a certain place. You board your bus, you get into the city. When you close for the day, you enter this another bus that brings you back to your car and you drive away. We need to reappraise that. And are we monitoring our roads well? For me, we are not. And we are not developing other modes of transportation. Look at the Monorail. If you go to CMS, they have been disturbing traffic now for the last two years. Baba Tunefash, his excellency started the rail system. His excellency, Akimian body continued. His excellency, Baba Tunefash, some will look, has not finished it. He's a Monorail. In other parts of the world, he's more than a Monorail. What you have is a more tiring system, such that rail is moving from A to B, B to C all at the same time. We travel abroad, we see all these things. So we cannot continue to talk about road transportation. And one of the problems with our roads is the fact that there is no proper supervision. We have a last mile that is highly indisciplined. When last mile was brought into the system, they were disciplined code that were able to measure and monitor traffic. Last mile means monitoring traffic. But what they do now is not to monitor traffic. They do every other thing that is not their business. So what we now need to do is to reform last mile. It has to be reformed. We have to train them better. And we have to bring in more people into last mile.  They have human movements 21 hours of the day. Now, in such places, we need a shift system, a three-shift system. Some people resume at eight, they close at four. Four, they close at 12. 12, they close at eight. So they have traffic monitoring agencies in both places at every time of the day. And you pay them well. Because what you're having is a last mile that is not, they don't have the incentive to walk. Last mile, they can stop and check your papers. They ask you to open your bonnet. They do all sorts of things. So we will fear last mile now more than we fear the police. So the last mile that we have now is an aberration. So we cannot just sit down and say road, road, road. If we have traffic managers on the road, that I'm showing that traffic is moving. Even in the back spots, the traffic will move. But who are the shops? Who are the shops? Last mile, because we could reform. I mean, we do respect. Last mile is an agency. The police has been reformed and over reformed and reformed and reformed again. But we still have the same output. So if there is not a monitoring system that checks to make sure that people are doing their jobs, what's the essence of this reformation? The police is the Nigerian police. It's a big, humongous organization. Either or not, we deserve up. State police is a different matter. But for Nigerian police, last mile is Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, Lagos State. So it's not our business to go and monitor traffic in Oyo or in Plateau or in Jigawa. It's, we have a geographical zone where we cover. What we need to do, we have to bring in more people into last mile. We have to employ more people. What bringing more people into the last mile? I don't know how that solves the problem. The people you already have clearly stated that they're underpaid. And so bringing in more people means that the wage bill goes up. Already have they been able to pay them well because renumeration is also somewhat of an encouragement here. You have actually a mind to wage. The first problem is not wage. The first problem is this is a very large state. It's not a small state. Absolutely. Not taking of last mile for VGC or taking of last mile for leki. We're looking at the state from a holistic perspective. There's problem everywhere. We need to have a system that caters for the interstate. We need to have a last mile that can align with the local governments. We need supervisory agencies from all this level. In terms of known, but we don't have enough, coupled with the indiscipline of Lagos Traffic, Lagos Drivers. You find them, they just face traffic and there's great luck. If you go to the echo bridge, you know there was fire recently. Therefore they are repairing a part of the bridge. On that part that is not repaired, you find downfall, you find all car riders facing traffic and it makes movement in that area completely unmatchable. So you need some people there to ensure that certain things don't happen. Incentive to last mile, for crying out loud, working in the sun is not the easiest job to do. They put you and I in the sun, we're not going to be that comfortable. But we have an agency that is for traffic. We need to develop the water. We need to develop the railway. We need to create alternative road transportation. So that, and you don't even need to come into the city every day. You see one car, one man is driving for vacancies. You see another one, two people, three vacancies. So there is underutilization of those workers. So that's why I suggest that we go back, we go back to the drawing board and consider the issue of monitoring traffic and the park and ride system. And one of the problems again on our roads is the street traders. We have street traders, we have watchings on the road. We have women who are carrying children to beg for money. We have people selling galadies and selling all sorts of things. So you need a system whereby you get them off the road. The problem in Tinumbu and other areas, even in Agbara, down to Badagu, is the number of people that are trading on the road. The road is not a place for you to trade. So you need to create an avenue for them to trade elsewhere. It is not unlikely that you can have what they call a Sunday market. If you want a Sunday market in Lagos Island, for example, you close down Bad Macaulay, you close it down to Idumata. So that on Sunday, there's Liverpool trading Sunday market in England. In London, you go back to shop. People go there every Sunday, you meet yourselves. We can introduce that in different parts of the state. But on a Monday to Saturday basis, when we are going to work and we need to move properly and within time, we cannot allow street urchins. We cannot allow women carrying children beg on the road. We cannot find people who are selling, they sell chicken, they sell paper, they sell tomato. You can almost buy everything that you want on the road on your way home. It is not normal. You don't see that in any other society. So there's need for information. Let's talk about taxation in Lagos. That's another heavy problem for people. All kinds of people are coming for taxes. Sometimes you pay two times for the same thing. And you can't even sometimes tell the difference between a government official, as opposed to these others who pose as, and they have all kinds of names for these taxes. What would the SDP government do to change that situation or monitor it and make sure that people are not necessarily ripped off of the hardened money? Taxation in Lagos is abnormal. It seems like they have a set of people who sit down in a corner and on their bad day, they will introduce one form of tax. There's a state of multiple taxation and that is not the way it should be. But we also know that in our eternally generated revenue in the state, there's a company that is collecting the money that collects a percentage. There is no reason why alfabetta should collect a dime in our state. We have a Lagos state internally generated revenue service. It is the duty of that organization to collect tax and to keep the money in the state. We don't have an obligation to pay to anybody. Why do you think the Lagos state government introduced alfabetta into the system? Well, there was a time when the allocation of Lagos state was withheld by the further government. And the reason why that happened was they felt that they could not create LCDAs, standing side by side with local government, that the constitution of Nigeria did not recognize LCDAs. So the money was withheld. And at that time, and we must praise the ingenuity of the government at that time, what they tried to do was to ensure that they widened their tax nets and such a way to collect as much as is humanly possible. And it was the wisdom of the people then to bring in this tax agency. But we have left that situation. The money was released to government. Allocation has been paid as and when necessary to the Lagos state government. So that organization has been completely relevant in the system. So we don't need to pay them anything. We have the manpower for that. We remember the- So if you worked after, you would make sure that the government cuts ties with alfabetta? No, I would have seen the contract they won. They won. If they like, they take me to go and taste the veracity of that decision in court. I will receive it on day one by an executive order. And number two, if you remember, there was a time they told this lucky express road. If you remember very well, we used to pay toll, the lucky express road, and then the Osborne eco-eurode. And there was this, there was this, there was this incest problem. And after the incest, there were issues about collecting at both points. And it was the contention of people like us who knew that it was, it was like an abnormal tax. If we have to apply road, just to move from Osborne to Lucky, is a very short road, it was a short bridge. And we have to pay at that time, 400 naira. Per trip, if I pass that place three times a day, I pay 400, 400, 400, 400. It was not a daily pass. And it was, it was, it perpetrated action on people who lived in that access. And that access is not just a where it is a, it's not unlucky, it's lucky, VGC, abramadation are down to it. And government was gracious enough to listen to the protestation of the people. And the money was not, it was not introduced. We commend them. But you see they brought again another one recently. They say it's parking, parking tax or parking charge. We can continue like this. The case where in the time in this country whereby people are, people are, they are starving. People are hungry. There's no money. This will be said to the naira per liter. You can buy a carousel. You can eat bread. Then they say you should come and pay for things. We have to be reasonable in the way we traumatize the people. We have to find a way of generating money for the state. It cannot be tax, tax, tax, tax. It must stop. So for me as a, for our own governments, one of the things we will do is to look holistically at the tax regime of government. And to see the possibility of abandoning most of this. All right, finally, let's talk party politics. The STP is not as popular in Lagos as opposed to the PDP who's the main opposition. And of course, the ruling all progressive Congress. What makes you think that you stand a chance? You see this question of popularity. I agree with you. But there is no statistical basis for it. But what I will tell you now is this. I don't believe that the man who springs 12 hours on the road every day or who springs nine hours of the road is going to think about party. When he's going to cast his vote. He will likely think about the most efficacious person who can come into government and make a change. Because- But that person is being brought to the fore by a political party like it or not? I tell you, I've not allowed me to finish. You've not allowed me to finish. The political party is an instrument for electioneering. Do you agree with me? It's an instrument. I want to contest. I cannot contest as myself because the law does not permit me to do so. So I will go to a party and I'm contesting for STP. Remember, STP was MK Abiela's party. It's not on moon. It was a party between that Abiela but back then I can give it used as the vehicle for their campaign and election. This was in 2020. Yes. We are the people that still experienced that time. We're not dead. And remember also that there were people who could not vote in last election. People who were 14. 14 is them. Now they are 18. People who are 15. Now they are 19. They are going to vote. And you can see what the incest taught us that we cannot let that neglect the youths of this country. We need to understand that they are not going to vote from the perspective of Babasope Abiela or no. They are going to vote from the perspective of what they can see on the floor as people who can save them and their destiny. Okay. The dollar today is 709 out to one dollar. Today, 709 out to eight dollar. There was a time in this country, the dollar was 18 out of, 18 out of, I mean, 18 cover. One nine out for one dollar in this Nigeria in our generation. But now imagine people who engage in all forms of foreign exchange, cost of tickets, going from Lagos to Abu Jannah is about 85,000 to 100,000. How much do you pay to travel? Are we going to stop all this because we cannot manage our system? Anything that is dollar big, bread is 1,100, kerosene diesel. Where are the refineries? And you're telling me party. This is no longer party. This is going to be the particularity of people who can save us and save our children and save our destiny and restore the dignity of our country in the community of nations, my dear. We cannot be party. Okay. We're going to look at people and I can tell you as you go on your monitor, we are going to compare from the nooks and all the nooks and crannies of the state. We are going to carry the message of OV2023. All right. Well, I wish you all the best. Thank you very much. You have the pains. Well, Chief Kunle Oztman is the SDP Governorship Candidate for Lagos State. Thank you so much for speaking with us. We appreciate your coming. It's my pleasure. Thank you very much for availing me the opportunity to send the message of hope to Nigerians everywhere. All right. Well, we'll take a quick break. When we return, we'll be talking about the assessment of the Buhari-led administration as the President himself gave himself a pat on the back. We'll be right back.


Here's a little tip regarding two-sided tape. I was using the wrong kind of tape, and I'll demonstrate that for you. I think actually it's carpet tape. Very, very sticky, has a slippery surface here. First mistake that most people make is just cutting it off every time you get to the end, and then that makes it difficult to peel it back the next time. If you are going to peel it back, it helps a lot to use a sharp razor. In this case, I've got the Maker's Knife. I love this because it's so handy to carry in my pocket rather than have to go to my vest or something to get my box cutters. So what you want to do is pull the tape back and then cut the underneath tape, not the top one that you peel back. And so you cut that, and then you leave a tail hanging.  That's what I don't like about carpet tape. Anyway, don't cut off that tail, leave that. So here's a tape from IPG, I think that's called Entertape. Entertape Polymer Group, and it's recommended by another YouTuber. So I got a little tail here. I put that down, press it down before you peel anything back. Because I got a tail here, then I can peel this back and then cut the underneath tape. Don't cut the tail. Then you still have the tail for next time, so next time you can put it down. Now, you don't have to leave it that long. You can go ahead and rip it off, just leave some extra edging there. Alright, so here's these two tapes. And they're both going to hold stuff down very well. And they feel reasonably tacky. Now, let's watch this. Here's my tape that I recommend. I'll put a link below, it's from Taylor Tools or Tay Tools.  It does the job it needs to do, but when you want to get it off of your workpiece without leaving a lot of residue, it comes off. Here's the two-sided carpet tape, or another brand. And first of all, it's sticky as all heck, leaving residue underneath. It's hard to get a hold of. Once you actually get a hold of it, if you don't rip it, then you got to kind of peel it back all the way. I hope you saw how much easier the other one was. And if I can ever get a hold of it here, finally I'm going to get a hand on it. I can rip it off with some effort, with some effort.  Now, when I feel those two, I've got a sticky residue here and I don't have one where the other one was. So that's my recommendation on a tape. Look for the link down below. Or just go to TayTools.com and buy it directly. I like to have, I think, the 2-inch version, but you could also get the smaller. The second thing I recommend is get yourself a whole box. You can get like a box of throwaway brushes that can be used for gluing and certain kinds of painting and all sorts of things where the quality of the brush is not important. And you can literally get a hundred of these for not very many dollars. I forgot what I paid for them. I'll put the link from Amazon down below, but I highly recommend having a whole box of those available just to use for a lot of different things. Even more useful for me are these, you know, a whole large quantity of tongue depressors. What can you use them for? A way I can use them to spread glue. I needed, in order to do this logo on here, I needed to get this level with something else. I needed a little shim, but everything else in my workshop was too thick. So I was able to put one or two of these underneath to shim up some work. So they're useful. They're useful to stir glue. They're useful as a shim. They're useful for spreading glue. They're useful for stirring up, you know, polyurethane or boiled linseed oil or whatever mixture you do. Get yourself a zillion of those. I'll put the link below. So these are called CarLash, K-A-R-L-A-S-H, spatula, 100 pieces. So I got 100 of them and I just keep those handy.


I'm here with the spare heat shield and trust structure. It is an exact replica of what's flying in space. The top heat shield is eight feet in diameter and four and a half inches thick. You can see that the top surface has a white coating that was specially designed for solar probe to reflect energy. It's a lot like being in a white car in a hot day as opposed to a black car in a hot day. You'd much rather be in the white car. The whole heat shield is sitting on a titanium frame that connects to the spacecraft and the system keeps Parker solar probe at a cool 85 degrees as we approach the sun. Now I'm gonna show a little demo. Hey Jim. Hey Betsy. So here we've got a cutout of the heat shield. It's the same thing, four and a half inches thick, carbon carbon on either side. Carbon carbon is a lot like the graphite box that you find in your tennis racket or in your golf clubs, but it's just been super heated. The inside is a carbon foam. It's only about 3% dense. It's one of the reasons why it's so lightweight. Okay. Let's give this a try. Okay. This isn't gonna hurt, is it? I don't think so. Okay. I'm gonna get the front surface blowing red hot. It's not quite as hot as it's gonna be at the sun. We can't quite do that, but it's pretty hot. I can certainly even now start feeling the heat. Jim's gonna be able to touch the backside though with his hand. Ready for me to try? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Wow, that's very cool. I don't feel any heat at all coming through. Nothing? Nothing. I certainly feel heat. I'm starting to get gray red on the front side here. Nothing here. And that is the heat shield technology that keeps Parker Solar Probe safe at the sun.


Hello, welcome to the Judge Ben show. My name is Ben Joseph. I'm a retired Vermont Superior Court judge This is a program in which I talk about the legal issues in Vermont today, I'm Very very pleased to tell you that my guest is Larry Christ Who is the executive director of the Vermont parent representation Center? Wow Yeah, good morning judge. Good morning, and he and Trina Beck and Bill Young who used to be commissioner of the Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services have published a Report that is just Well, I hope a lot of people will get to read it I've asked the station to project The office telephone number for Larry. So if you want to get more information in a copy of the report Which is broken system broken promises? And that's it's a very appropriate title This is an analysis of the current situation in the What they call the substantiation process at the Department of Children and Families It's I Guess can tell you how many details and important details. I'm gonna try to get into today Larry would you please explain what this process is if you can sure in 25 words or less 25 words or less Substantiation is a strange word most people have never heard yeah heard of the word But what it really means is you've been determined to have done something you've been found guilty in essence without a judge But you have been you have been found guilty of in this case child abuse or neglect. That's the Substantiation process it begins when a report goes to DCF of Alleged abuse or neglect or a concern the department does an investigation and then the investigator and their supervisor The two of them make a decision as to whether as an example you are guilty You're guilty. I mean that's how it works You are now guilty and you have the right to an internal administrative review Which DCF operates itself DCF again is the Department for Children and Families that is Vermont's child protection agency. Okay, and Then you after that review if you are not successful and most people are not Then you can appeal to the Human Services Board, which is a a more formal appeal process But the reality is even though the burden of proof is on the state to show that you did this The system is set up in such a way that if you can't defend yourself You are not likely to be successful in your appeals so each year Vermont DCF substantiates between 700 and 900 people each year of that number about only one third Appeal their substantiation. No one knows why because it's a confidential process I have we have some ideas as to why it's only a third of the people but In effect of that third of an appeal only about 10% of those people are successful in their appeals The number of people who appeal on to the Human Services Board is much much smaller than that But it is a difficult number to know because that's a confidential It's not a confidential process, but the outcome is often confidential Are these people giving it? Is this like in the criminal system where people get a public defender lawyer to represent them? No, you're you're not afforded an attorney and that is one of the major drawbacks to this system There are many drawbacks, but that's a major drawback because most people don't understand how to defend themselves in any kind of hearing And clearly when they get to the Human Services Board They don't know how because the Vermont rules of evidence are used there and the state DCF's position is basically prosecuted By the Attorney General's office, so you as an individual with no training in any of this have to compete in that environment now What our report showed and so folks understand the report was done as a test of the system This system to our knowledge has never been tested before it's been in place for a very long time And that is a big part of the problem. This system is antiquated. It was not designed To do what we ask it to do today and I can go into a greater detail with well If someone is associated and they appeals field They go on to something called the registry they go on to the child protection registry That is a registry that's maintained by DCF It has the names of all of the people who who have been Substantiated and who've lost their appeals are never appealed Currently there are roughly 25,000 names on the registry Statistically, it's a it's a huge number, but remember statistics are not always what they seem But that's one of every 26 Vermonters is on a child abuse registry now That's 25,000 people over a period of Decades, but some come on some go off if they if they are successful with an appeal for expungement to prove to the state that they Won't do whatever it is that they were Substantiated for in the first place, but the number stays about at this juncture about 25,000 and What our report was done was to test the system to say does the system Accurately determine whether people have been have committed abuse or neglect We went into this process and as I said We can't find any record of this system ever having been tested before or even been being tested anywhere else in the country So my hope when we started this test was that we would accept the first 15 appeals that came to us And my hope was we would lose them all Because that would show us that the system works that it identified Abuse and neglect it identified the person who did it and it put them on the registry the way the system is supposed to work What we found was just the opposite At the end of the 15 cases we had won all 15 cases Which which was an extraordinary number What caused me great concern was to say no one wins 15 cases the first 15 cases they take It just is it doesn't matter whether you're good or not or lucky No one does that so we added five more cases because I kept thinking maybe there's something wrong and how this process is playing out We won the next five cases then we added five more So as you see in the report, we have now completed 27 appeals over a two and a half year period and we've won all 27 and What we've found is in the report that the state cannot accurately determine whether someone has abused or neglected a child and Consequently we have an unknown number of people I mean based on our study you could say a hundred percent of the people on the registry shouldn't be there But we know that's not true. There are children who are abused and neglected in Vermont And that was the other half of our concern if a system is placing the wrong people on a registry It probably is making the same mistakes when it investigates the people who should be on the registry Yeah, and what our report showed is that if you have the resources if you have the money to hire an effective advocate You are probably not ever going to be put on the registry because the system is that broken But that can cost a lot of money The there is a cost range and for your first round of appeals with DCF If you were to hire an attorney who is capable and will devote the time to it It will cost you at least ten thousand dollars If you appeal on to the Human Services Board, it can cost you twenty thousand Or it can cost you we have a couple of cases were over fifty thousand dollars in Time attorney time has been put into and non-attorney time has been put into these cases The average for a monitor can't afford ten thousand much less fifty thousand Now what I'd like to do though is go back And look at what is the heart of the problem and the heart of the problem is this Substantiation system and the use of the registry were created about Thirty years ago Maybe a little longer for a totally different purpose It was created one to be able to tell the federal government What the level of abuse and neglect was roughly? But more importantly it was designed so that state government SRS then later DCF Would know when someone applied for a child care license or a foster care license No, we don't want to give this person a lesson I mean a license because we believe that they abused or neglected not that we know but we believed Because it was not looked at as a judicial proceeding It was gathering information and would a reasonable person believe that this person did what is alleged not we can prove it But what a reasonable person believe no preponderance of the evidence no preponderance of the evidence It's something called the reasonable person standard now you and I both have a fair number of friends and Most of our friends if not all are reasonable people wouldn't you say that I hope so that means we agree on everything No not with my friends But we're all reasonable people and that's the problem with the standard that we have carried forward over the 30 to 35 years Where these the system doesn't have to prove that you did anything It just has to show that somebody might think that you did something Whereas today and this is where the the shift came About 25 years ago The legislature and his wisdom said wait a minute. We have this registry of child abusers that only the state can see No, that should be available to employers So the legislature made it available to employers The problem is that once you do that you change the nature of how the registry is used It's now you being used to take away a property interest and a liberty interest as An example if you are on the registry you can't be a teacher Jesus you will not Get your teaching license or if you have it is a good chance you will lose it You can't be a therapist. You can't be a pediatrician. You can't be a childcare worker You can't be a parent who goes on field trips with your children's class if you are on the registry The moment that happened then commissioner bill young raised the issue with the legislature some 25 years ago That the system had to change it had to be based on a Proponderance of evidence so that you could actually prove that this happened and there needed to be an appeal process for people Well, here we are 25 years later. It is still the reasonable person standard however When you lose your DCF hearing your review and you appeal to the human services board The standard changes because the human services board uses a preponderance of the evidence so you can have DCF that Doesn't investigation Decides that they think you did it If you appeal to the human services board, you're not put on the registry at that time Well, let me back up a second You can be put you know, no you are put on the registry So you are on the registry until you win at the human services board Meanwhile, you've lost your job Or you're a student as an example who's who's about to graduate with an education degree. You can't be a teacher not not as long as you are on the registry and At the same time you can't as I said you can't volunteer at schools You can't do a host of things to the degree even that if you're a building contractor And you want to bid on a bid at a school project? There's a question as to whether the school will let you Will let you do that project. Well, because you can't go on the premises Well, you can't be around children in theory and you can't be and and in fact, there are situations where as an example a university that will go unnamed might be recruiting for maintenance people and in the athletic department But because that university has or had a child care program they have to run your name through the registry Which means you can't work in the kitchen. You can't work on a on a cleanup crew. You can't do any of those kinds of things So what is really what we found is that because the department continues to use? the reasonable person standard people go on the registry wholesale and Then to get to get off the registry it requires a huge endeavor at the human services board Most of these and people will ask well, this is only so far 27 cases These cases take months and years for the appeals We have had some cases that have been going on for two and a half years Before it's finally decided this person did not do what it is the state said that it did now Let me add the other piece of this and this is really a critical piece when that investigation the initial investigation happens and The system decides that you should be substantiated Children are often removed from the family Because at the same time those same allegations are converted into an affidavit That is sent to family court So you can have two processes happening the family court has opened a chin's case a child in need of services In which the child has been removed from the home because the person allegedly did x y and z that they're substantiated for Those two processes can go on for a year a year and a half two years in your own experience You've seen cases go longer than that Before it's ever determined that wait a minute There wasn't any proof that this thing actually happened the trauma that happens to children in this instance is as great as Can be experienced by a child They're removed from the family the family has lost their child for a period of time and in our study 50% of the families had the children removed because of the allegations that The system said you did the this and this and Every one of those cases it was proven that wasn't the case it didn't happen The person did not do what they were alleged to have done The state couldn't prove that they had done it and in many cases the state knew in the very beginning that they couldn't prove it If it got appealed to the human services board, so you can have cases in which there's a couple of Parents of a child and one is angry at the other and makes a false allegation Yes results in the kid being taken away and put where with their foster home well, they can they can be placed with grandparents they can be placed with other relatives or they can go into foster care and And we and I say that almost lightly they can go into foster care That is a hugely traumatic experience. Imagine a child is taken from their home Move to a completely different home with completely different people people. They've never met before other children possibly there And one of the things that is you know equally concerning is they might go through two or three foster homes Before any of this is resolved and it's determined. Oops, we made a mistake now most of the children in this case were removed from homes for a period of weeks or months, but there were some who've been removed for years and Well, look to be to be taken away from your your mother for weeks. It can be a dreadful thing It can be really awful at absolutely and and I think again the other Really real concern that comes out of this report is that if the if the system can't tell that someone didn't abuse a child It's equally likely that the system can't tell that someone did abuse a child So potentially you have people who have abused children Been accused of it and when their appeals because they have the resources to hire somebody who can ably defend them and In our instance None of these people had the resources to be able to hire someone well these services were all provided In what's referred to as pro bono. It's a we're a small nonprofit We didn't charge people for these services and other Attorneys who were listed in and non attorneys who were listed in the report gave their time to work on these cases In some cases gave Thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars of their time because they felt like this system Doesn't work and we need to show why it doesn't work and that's what the report tries to do It doesn't blame people doesn't point fingers at individuals. It's a system problem And we can change all the people in the world in the system But if it's a bad system that is based on antiquated concepts, it's going to keep producing bad results And it's time to fix it well Years ago when I was practicing law in Philadelphia, there was a common expression which was Money talks and bullshit walks now. Is this money is this about money? it That's a really good question and and the answer I don't mean to be Embarrassing anything. No, no, no it to a great degree. It is if you are a person who does not have a Lot of economic resources. You don't have money yourself. Your family doesn't have money and You are it's alleged that you've done this stuff and you are substantiated It is very unlikely that you are going to be successful in your appeals the process And we have actually tried with a few of these individuals who we work with Especially as we got toward the latter part of this project to say okay What happens if we give the information to the individual the parent and they then take that information and Defend themselves We found they couldn't do it Just having the information is not enough Understanding how to present the information Understanding how to look behind the allegation to say alright. What else happened here? So as an example, there are people here who lost their first DCF appeal Because the department said well, we have video recordings of these victims and Those victims said x y and z happened What people will see in the report is when the cases went to the human services board were appealed there It turns out there either were no recordings or the recordings were for lack of a better term Unusable because either you couldn't hear them or you couldn't see them or both But more often than not it's that the recording didn't say What the report said? Let me just get this straight if the person's name is on the registry it stays there indefinitely It stays it stays there indefinitely Until the person is able to apply for another appeal for what's called expungement to have their name removed However Expungement is governed by several things. The first thing is there's a time frame when you're put say I was put on the registry for x y and z Thank you for not putting me there. Okay. Good. I you know, I want you to be the judge There's a time frame in which it is you can Larry you can appeal and you can ask for expungement in a year in Five years in 15 years. It actually goes that far Wow So but what happens when you get to that period is that? Statutorily there are about seven criteria that are that you use that are used to judge you as to whether you have in essence shown that you're rehabilitated However it is completely at the discretion of the commissioner of DCF as to whether you should be expunged or not And we were not going to work with expungement cases originally But as we kept winning these cases we said we really need to look at expungements at what as well And what we found was I believe I remember correctly There are three expungement denials in this report the only three we got we had all three overturned and Which is incredibly difficult, but the but the standard is you have to show that the commissioner abused his or her discretion in making a very subjective Decision and we were able to show that that was exactly the case But none of these people could have done that themselves. Oh That's not surprising. They didn't understand what to look for and how to gather the information So the bottom line again is we're using today a system that was never designed for what we're trying to use it for investigations Too frequently are misdiagnosed Information is viewed in in in a way that says oh well this shows the person did it whereas if you ask the next question About that information example a person says look this individual witnessed my child falling off a picnic table It was accidental young child if you talk to this person they can tell you the child fell The department and law enforcement worked together in many of these cases. They interviewed the witness Did you see the child fall off the table and the witness says no I didn't that's it questioning ends However when we went back and looked and re-interviewed the witnesses and said okay You told the department and law enforcement that you did not see the child fall That's why I didn't see the child fall Were you there when the child fell? Oh, yeah, I was there I was swinging my own child with my back to the picnic table But I saw the child get on the picnic table and then I heard the child cry as he fell off the table And I saw the parents pick the child up and cuddle the child etc But no I didn't see the child fall off, but yes the child fell off the table Well all that had to happen in the investigation was simply to ask the next question You were listed as a witness. Why would they have listed you as a witness? Oh, because I was there when the child fell off the table And I saw the the results of the just saw the child go on the table And then I saw the child lying on the ground crying and being picked up That was common. It was incredibly common and in other instances. What we found is that is That a child would have made us made a statement The statement would be this is what happened to me That would be written in the report it would go forward in a hearing and end the Substantiation and then what we would learn is the fact that the child later recanted to a therapist and the therapist contacted the department and said This person made a recantation and I believe it and Given the history of this child. I fully believe it, but that information was never put in the report and There was another Substantiation that was overturned now. This is this is hard work. This is terribly difficult work What I mean be this is the investigations Investigators are under a huge amount of pressure But it can't the system can't work this way. It can't Continue to remove children and disrupt families Because it thinks something happened. This is something is this something that needs legislation absolutely much of what and I'm not blaming DCF DCF operates within certain guardrails, which are the statutes that they operate under the statutes are antiquated and and there needs to be basically a Reform of the substantiation system which has to happen Statutorily so is there anyone in the legislature now who has a responsibility for this system there? No, actually there is no one in-state government that has responsibility for this system other than you have a governor a Secretary of Human Services and a commissioner and a deputy commissioner of DCF. Those are the four people there really is no other Adequate oversight of the system if you want to complain about the system you have to go to one of those four people and There's not an independent body that looks at at complaints There there's no other outside group and this is in my mind the only System that operates in confidentiality and without oversight well, I want to appeal to Anybody who's watching the show Who knows someone in the legislature or one of these four persons that you describe? That can ask for some response here This cries out for for for a change in the way that it operates It just cries out for it and the number of children that are being removed from their homes and the trauma is just obvious It must be so difficult for a kid to say well, you know, that was last year. Why am I still here? Yes, and I think what we what we often fail to realize is that this is about children and families and We need to make sure that children are protected We also need to make sure they're not improperly removed from their families and we need to make sure that families are Supported in general but particularly are supported when it's alleged that they did something none of those things happen in our current system and It's it is not difficult to fix the legislature can fix these things Can do it this session and there will be bills that will be coming forward to address The specific issues raised in the report and I would suggest to people, you know, you hear our report How interesting can that be I haven't had a person yet who has read the report who hasn't come back and said I couldn't put it down when I started reading. I couldn't put it down It's 47 pages, but it's an easy 47 pages to read And I would suggest that people who are interested in this subject They just have to go to the web page which is on the screen www.vtprc.org And you can download the report or you can view it online It's you know, and it is called broken system broken promises because that is exactly what we have We have a broken system That is trying to provide promises of fairness to children and fairness to families and it doesn't work Thank you. Thank you. Thank you I hope that if you're watching the show and you think there's anything you can do about this Contact your contact your legislator and say what's going on with this? I think it's something that just needs to have a real focus people have to be aware of this I have not been aware of any of this and I've practiced law and done a lot of different things And I never was contacted about anything like this. No and in part of the problem is the entire system is shrouded in confidentiality Ideally, it's to protect children and innocent people but what it does is it protects the system that doesn't get it right and Unfortunately, no one can see that Seeing these 27 cases is more cases than anyone or any group has ever seen at one time And it's because of seeing this many cases that we were able to learn all of the problems in the system When you see one case here, and then one case a few years later, you can never make the connections This report does that Thank you. Thank you for what you're doing and Thank you for watching. I hope that you'll Take it to heart and figure out something you can do to help a lot of kids are really being hurt by all this and not to mention Many of their parents. Thank you so long


What is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and are we in danger of it? You hear this brought up often times by people just wondering either if they've done it, if others have done it or just to get clarification in the Bible. And that is what is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. There are some that even go so far as to say that if you deny what they're doing in their particular ministry, if they have claimed some sort of move of the Spirit and then there are those who may be skeptics and say that we have some sort of reservations about it, then in denying them or just being skeptical, are we also in danger of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? Well, the answer to that question is absolutely not. Let's go ahead and jump to the scriptures and let's just see what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is. So we're going to go to Matthew chapter 12 starting in verse 22.  Now, the Bible didn't give any indication as to how they knew that he was demon possessed other than him being blind and mute. And so maybe there was some sort of outward manifestations. We just don't know, but we do see the result of that. So let's continue verse 23. All the crowds were amazed and we're saying this man cannot be the son of David, can he? But the Pharisees heard this. They said this man cast out demons by bells above the ruler of the demons. Now, real briefly, the people were asking, seeing they literally saw this miracle occur. And what did they say? First of all, they marveled, they knew, they understood that something had happened. And then they stated, this must be, is this the son of David, the one that we've been waiting for? This must be it. They're saying so in an affirmative fashion, in an affirmative questioning way, but out of jealousy, out of spite, out of evil. The Pharisees go the opposite route. They state that no, he does so only by the power of the devil. This is really important to see what's happening here. Then verse 25, he says, knowing all their thoughts. And so before we continue, Jesus is knowing all of their thoughts. That's important. Jesus said to them, any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste. And a city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? Now, I want to make this point also, if a believer, if another brother in Christ has an issue with you or you have a problem with another Christian or professed Christian, and you disagree, that is not the same as a house divided. Disagreeing or having skepticism about what someone has done or said. That part acts in many cases healthy because it causes us to go back and look at the scriptures for ourselves and to verify just like the Bereans would go and search what Paul told them. And Paul committed them for doing so. We also see Paul coming against Peter. That was not a house divided. We see Paul and Barnum as having this breakup, this split because of John Mark. That also was not a house divided. Again, these things can happen. And so don't let anyone tell you that because you disagree with another person or you have some sort of skepticism about what they're saying or doing, that is not the same as what we're talking about here. That is not a house being divided. As a matter of fact, the Bible tells us that iron sharpens iron. So sometimes we need to come together and say, wait a second, help me to see what it is you're seeing. Amen. Back to it though. Verse 26, If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?  For this reason, they will be your judges. Now, real briefly, Jesus makes a statement that if I cast out demons by Belzebub, well, then how then do your sons cast out demons? Meaning we don't know if he's affirming that they actually do. But if that's the case, then he's saying that these people of yours who are not followers of mine, they're doing it also. And so what do you attribute that to? Verse 28, he says, but if I cast out demons by the spirit of God, the kingdom of God has come upon you. How can anyone enter the strong man's house and carry his property unless he first binds a strong man? And then he will plunder his house. He who is not with me is against me. And he who does not gather with me scatters. And so Jesus is making it known that not only are you not with me, more to the point you are against me. Now let's keep in mind that it's already stated that Jesus knew their thoughts. That is very important as we go into the next verse in verse 31. And it says, therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the spirit shall not be forgiven. So what we need to do is first figure out what the word blasphemy means. We throw that term around, that's blasphemy, that's blasphemous. And then we'll say that that is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Well, a couple of things. First of all, when we say blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, one thing that it is not, it is not not placing your faith in Christ. Is that a sin? Sure. Is it unforgivable sin? Well, in so much as if you don't place your faith in Christ. Well, sure, that sin will be unforgiven. There is no forgiveness once you go back. But all you have to do is place your faith in Christ. But this is something that there is no coming back from. People who place their faith in Christ, who have the spirit of a living God in them, cannot. And we'll get to more of this in a second, but cannot blaspheme the Holy Spirit. And if you have not placed your faith in Christ, that also is not blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, because that can be remedied. That can be forgiven once you turn around and place your faith in Christ. I just want to make that point clear. Now, we need to now determine what does it mean to be blasphemous or to blaspheme? The word blasphemy simply just means to speak against. It's an intentional defaming. In other words, you're speaking derogatory or slanderous. That is from the heart that speaks of motive, but it also speaks to you knowing full well the difference. Remember, in this case, they know that a miracle had occurred. The people saw it, they saw it, they heard of it, and they didn't deny that something had happened. They didn't deny that a demon was cast out. They didn't deny that the man who was blind and mute now can speak and see. No, they just simply attributed for their own benefit because they were against him. As a matter of fact, he says they're his enemies. They did that for that reason. Now, to give a little more light, have a little more light shed on the intent and understanding of these people, Nicodemus in John chapter three brings up something that I don't think gets talked about enough, but Nicodemus is alluding to the hearts of the Pharisees in his encounter with Jesus. Chapter three, verse one, now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. And so Nicodemus is informing us, Jesus already knew because the Bible says that he knew their thoughts, but he's letting us know that those Pharisees, they know full well that he has come from God and he said, why? Because nobody can do the things that he's done unless he's from God. But still that did not stop them from saying slanderous words. Their hearts are on display. One of the reasons that the Bible indicates that they were against him was because Jesus was bringing about more disciples. He was leading more disciples and leading more people to be baptized, though he himself wasn't baptizing. And so these people were jealous. They were angry. And so what would they do rather than accepting him as Messiah, as their savior? What they did instead was to intentionally slander his name. Let's go back to this passage in Matthew and let's finish reading. He says, whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him either in this age or the age to come. Now there are some that believe that last year the Holy Spirit can only have occurred at this point in time.  That would be a little bit different than someone like myself. Let's say if I disagree with what someone has said or done or claimed that they have brought somebody back to life without any proof or they have pulled a demon out of someone's back, what have any of these things, any of these fanciful things that may be true, but if I ask for some proof or some evidence, if I'm skeptic, does that mean that I have blasphemed the Holy Spirit? Well, no, I have not. This is, especially in this case, we see it happening as the Holy Spirit working in the Lord, the power of the Lord working in Jesus and so they know full well. Well, I don't know or neither would anyone else who's a skeptic would know full well what's happening. It's not as though we've seen something and deny what we've seen. No, we have not seen it. And so if you make these claims and we say, wait a second, something doesn't seem to be lining up. Well, just to disagree with another brother or another person's claims does not put you in the category of blasphemy. As a matter of fact, again, let me say it again, a person with the spirit in them, the very same Holy Spirit in you, if you are a believer, cannot blaspheme the Word of God. Will not intentionally state what he knows to be true and call it something else. It is an intentional, slanderous act against what the Holy Spirit is doing. There were people who did not know who Jesus was. He revealed himself in many cases through his deeds, his powers and signs being on display. And so they came to, hey, I think we've got something here versus someone who has never seen him but then when the power of the Spirit comes in and we see the work of the Holy Spirit, as we see here, well then that would be blasphemy. That's saying, no, no, no, I know what you are, but I'm gonna tell everyone else that you're something different.  It's an intentional act that Christians will not do if they have the Holy Spirit in them and they do if they have it. So I hope that's been helpful. It should be clear that this blasphemy is whether it can be done or not. It is certainly something that is intentional and it's not us disagreeing with someone else. It is not us not accepting Christ, although you will not be forgiven if you do not accept Christ, but you can be forgiven. That's the key, you can be forgiven if you do place your faith in Christ. But the people who blaspheme the Holy Spirit, they simply will not place their faith in Christ. And that is the difference. Amen.