Hello and welcome to Exchange for Media. COVID-19 has put the entire nation under a lockdown. These are indeed very difficult times, not just for us, but for many countries across the globe. The impact of such a lockdown on economy and business is inevitable. While each one of us is doing our bit, there are leaders who are strategizing to ensure that the impact on business and economy is contained to a large extent. We at Exchange for Media, over the next few weeks, will bring to you leaders who we believe are beating all odds to keep the momentum of the industry and the business on the move. To begin with, I have with me Mr. Emey Parthasarty, CEO of South Asia and I am Chair of the World. Sir, welcome to the show. My first question is, what according to you are the most important qualities a leader must display in unprecedented times like the present? I would think that the most important thing is being human. I mean, people are going through a lot. It's a situation which has never happened before. So the first and most important thing is to see each employee first as a human being and as a colleague and as someone who's going through difficult times and yet trying to do a lot for the clients and for the company. So I think that's the most important aspect and apart from that, I think it's the best time to actually lead by example. Don't expect anything from anyone which you wouldn't do yourself and I think that's very important as a quality. And then finally, I think it requires a tremendous amount of energy and stamina because it is not easy doing what you do, whether it's because of the uncertainty because you're cooped up in the house, you don't have the camaraderie of your colleagues. So to overcome all this, you need to... Sir, if you get a little louder. Yeah, overcome all of this. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Is that better? Yeah. Okay. So I think what I was saying is that the third and perhaps most important one is also that you have to have a lot of energy and display a lot of energy and stamina because things keep changing, you have to keep altering and for all of that, you need to be strong and energetic both in body and mind. So I think these three, humanity... How are you keeping the morale of your employees high? So I don't think it is just me. I think there's a lot of spontaneous initiatives which people in the company have done and I'm grateful to them because this has shown up that there's a whole bunch of leaders in our company and each of them have shown initiatives. I'll give you some examples. We had something called the Purple Throne where everyone had to post a picture because, you know, Mindshare is purple, right? So everyone had to post a picture of how they've done up their workplace at home and we got close to 100 responses with like some really cool workstation that you could never have had in the office. Then there are people who are conducting yoga classes. There are happy hours meetings where we, you know, just chat about anything and everything. There's a lot of stimulation for the brain. There's a lot of things happening which are keeping people engaged and the great thing is I don't have to do it, you know. People are spontaneously coming up with these ideas and that's just great. I think the most important is as long as you have constant communication, people will be motivated. What this crisis has especially taught us today is the independence of businesses and people from all walks of life. Do you think this is perhaps the most important management lesson we need to hold on to once we emerge out of this crisis? You know, there are lots of lessons which we will take out of this crisis and I think it will transform the way we work even after we come out of this crisis. A lot of things will change for the good and for this thing. I'll give you a simple example. Someone told me and I hadn't realized this that when you talk on the phone, you end up being a lot more curt and abrupt and to the point. Then you are meeting someone face to face. So very often that can sound quite rude and it can sound that you are a bit uncaring. So just this simple task of how do you communicate on the phone I think is going to change after this crisis and people are going to be a lot more empathetic and do that in a much better way. So I think absolutely deep understanding, appreciation of people, the importance of communication, of empathy and I think prompt and meaningful responses, right? Because it's not that I can walk across to someone stable and chat. So if I get a mail, if I get a WhatsApp, if I don't respond within an hour, it means either I don't care about that or you know, I'm deliberately ignoring. So you have to be doubly careful in terms of responding fast, whether it's to Is there an increase in productivity? I think it's a bit too early to say whether it's increased productivity because it's also a time when the kind of work we are doing is very different from the kind of work we do in normal times, right? Today, what am I doing? I'm doing probably five different scenarios and war gaming and things like that rather than actually building and executing plans. So it's a different kind of work. So productivity we will know I think maybe after a month or two to see what the difference has been in productivity. But I know that I've been far more busy now than I was when I used to go to office because there's Is that also include household course? Luckily, luckily, I haven't had too much of that to do. But yes, for a lot of people, I know how much of their time goes into just, you know, Jhadoop Pocha Bhartan and Khana Vanana. My full empathy and what shall I say, praise for those who are able to manage both. Sir, I also wanted to understand that while TV and social media consumption is high now and advertisers are still shying away from any big campaigns. How are you tackling this present crisis? What steps are you taking to ensure the brand grows stronger despite the challenges? Yeah, see, it's a very tricky situation because you have to do a find the right balance between keeping in touch with your consumers and ensuring they don't lose the brand connect. But at the same time, if your product is not available on the shelf or if you're just unable to give the consumers the access to your product, right? And therefore, do you store some money in your work chest two times, you know, when there is actually an opportunity for consumers to experience your product? How much do you do for that versus how much do you use to continue to keep your brand top of mind? And it varies from category to category. It varies from brand to brand. But what we are doing is for most of our clients, we are plotting out multiple scenarios, like I said, you know, and you're not trying to look at a lot of decision trees saying, if then else, kind of planning. And more importantly, the other plan which you're doing for a lot of our clients is this recovery planning. You know, what do you do when the situation actually improves and are we prepared for that? So there's a lot of introspection, a lot of suggestion. And at the same time, lots of small and simple ideas for brands to engage with their consumers across categories through social naming the brand. Can you give us any example of like, how are you making the recovery plans or what kind of advice are you giving to brands? See, the first advice is that there should be a recovery plan. And I think that's the most important thing because and clients are doing it themselves as well, right? They are also planning as to, you know, if this thing lasts till the end of April, till the end of May, till the end of June. In each of these situations, the recovery plan is different, right? So that is the first point which we're trying to manage. The second, I mean, without, I wouldn't want to take out client examples as such. But for a number of clients, we are proactively looking at suggestions on what can be done during this period through small but meaningful gestures for their consumers. Things which will make a difference at this time for them. And which it's very important to not look like you're being opportunistic or taking advantage of it in any manner. So a lot of kind of thoughtful initiatives which consumers might appreciate is what we're trying to bring to brands. Unfortunately, I can't give you more detail because a lot of it is work and progress. What, as an industry expert, what advice would you want to give to youngsters when they're sitting at home and are trying to manage and cope with the situation? I think the first thing I want to say is that this tool shall pass. And it's a, it's a, it's a temporary phase. I think, I think it's a, it is a, it is a test of people's energy, stamina and character. There is no one watching over your shoulder to see whether you're actually spending your time on Facebook or you're spending your time on work. I think people have risen to the challenge beautifully. And I think it's proving that, you know, there is no need for, you know, for genuinely skilled and motivated people. There's no need for external push or motivation. They're coming up with some brilliant ideas. And, and I think it will be recognized, you know, people showing initiative, showing energy at this time will really, really be appreciated. It will stand out. And that's the only thing. So keep the spirits up. Know fully well that this tool shall pass and, and have fun. I mean, I mean, it's a great learning time. It's, you'll learn things which you've never learned before sitting in the office and chatting with your friends. So, so use the time and remember the good parts, the good learnings from this time is the only thing which I can, I can advise.  I mean, if you can give me some idea on that. It's very hard to put a number to it because there is no fixed end date inside. One can only learn from other markets and other markets, let's say China has had perhaps the most remarkable recovery, right? Even today there were graphs, which I know, for instance, that our company, the employees are back in, which is true of most companies. And the market, at least from second half of April should be going towards normalcy. But that means that it has been three months of non normalcy in a market like China. Now, will that be three months in India? Will that be more than three months? We don't know. We are hoping that we will recover as fast as, you know, or faster than China has recovered. In which case it won't be perhaps that bad. I mean, everyone's today's prediction is that the GDP growth will be at two and a half percent on an average between two and a half, 3%, which is a 3% drop from where it was projected earlier, which was five and a half to six. So we all know that, you know, there is some kind of a link between add, add X and add industry growth and GDP growth. So you know that it's going to come down, you know, perhaps by one and a half to two X of that. So, so it's too early to say, but yes, will there be an impact? There will definitely be an impact. We'll just have to see how to minimize it and plan it.  So thank you so much for talking to Exchange for Media and be at home and be safe. Thank you, sir. Thanks a lot. Bye bye.


Hello, this is Nick from Laptop Media, and today we will show you how to open the late 2023 M3 version of the Apple MacBook Pro 14. If you are curious to see the internals of this expensive device, you have to undo eight pentalobe screws. After that, you need to use a suction cup, press and attach the cup to one of the two bottom corners, then pull up very gently until you feel the release of one of the two internal clips. You have to do the same for the other corner. With that out of the way you can use a pry tool to lift slightly the bottom side of the plate. The last step is to push carefully the panel forward, this will detach it from the top placed hooks. Please remember, it would be of great help to us if you just hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. That would motivate us to make even more and better videos for you. Finally, we can have a sneak peek at the hardware under the hood. Since the memory is integrated into the SOC and the NVMe is soldered, there is nothing you can do aside from watching the parts. The battery has a capacity of 69.6 watt hours. It lasts for 16 hours and 40 minutes of web browsing or 14 hours and 17 minutes of video playback. Yes, that's a great result. You can choose between a 512GB, a 1TB or a 2TB storage version. The base model of the laptop has just 8GB of unified system memory, but you can opt for a 16GB or even 24GB of RAM. That's the cooling system. Nothing fancy here, just one fan, a single heat pipe, one heat sink and a heat spreader.


Hello and welcome to the session. The given question says, given that p is equal to x plus 2y divided by x plus y plus x divided by y, q is equal to x plus y divided by x minus y minus x minus y divided by x plus y and r is equal to x plus 2y divided by y minus x divided by x plus y. X plus p into q divided by r as a rational expression. Let's start with the solution. Here we are given that p is equal to x plus 2y divided by x plus y plus x divided by y and also we are given q is equal to x plus y divided by x minus y minus x minus y divided by x plus y. Now, according to the board mass rule, first we have to multiply p and q and then from the product we have to divide it by r. So, first let us find the product of p and q. Now, p is x plus 2y divided by x plus y plus x divided by y and q is x plus y divided by x minus y minus x minus y divided by x plus y. This is further equal to taking LCM of the first curly bracket. We have y into x plus y and the numerator we have y into x plus 2y plus x into x plus y multiplied by now LCM is x minus y into x plus y whole divided by this and the numerator we have x plus y whole square minus of x minus y whole square. This is further equal to in the numerator we have x y and from here also we have x y. So, we have 2 times of x y plus 2y square plus x square divided by y into x plus y into now here we have x square plus y square plus 2xy and from here we have from the next bracket minus of x square plus 2xy minus y square whole divided by x minus y into x plus y. This is further equal to 2 times of x y plus 2y square plus x square this divided by y into x plus y into here we have cancel x square with minus x square y square with minus y square we have 4 times of x y whole divided by x minus y into x plus y and this is further equal to 2 times of x y plus 2y square plus x square canceling y with y here we have 4 into x whole divided by x minus y into x plus y whole square. Let this be equation number one and this is the value of p into q now we have to find p into q divided by r. So, we further have 4x into 2xy plus 2y square plus x square divided by x minus y into x plus y whole square divided by r which is x plus 2y divided by y minus x divided by x plus y right. So, this is further equal to 4x into 2xy plus 2y square plus x square whole divided by x minus y into x plus y whole square divided by taking the LCM here we have y into x plus y and here we have x plus 2y into x plus y minus x into y this is further equal to 4x into 2xy plus 2y square plus x square divided by x minus y into x plus y whole square into since dividing by a number is multiplying by its reciprocals here where we have y into x plus y divided by on simplifying this we have x square from here we have xy plus 2xy and minus xy gives plus 2xy and then we have plus 2y square now cancelling the common factors 1x plus y cancelling with x plus y here this bracket is equal to this bracket so on cancelling we have further 4xy divided by x minus y into x plus y which is further equal to 4xy divided by x square minus y square hence p into q divided by r on expressing as a rational expression this is equal to 4xy divided by x square minus y square so this completes the session by intake care


What's going on guys, welcome back to another video. Today is Facebook and Friday week 21. So if this is your first week tuning in, then essentially the way this works, every single Friday I do a video like this where I show you two proven Shopify dropship in products. When I say proven products, I mean products that are winners, products that are selling right now. So if you're watching this and you still haven't got your business off the ground, what you're about to see is two great options to do just that. And how do I know they're winners then? It's because of everything I'm going to show you in this video. I'm going to show you a company which is selling each of these products and is selling it successfully. So these are products that have been advertised for numerous weeks, have hundreds of comments, hundreds of thousands of views, positive comments from people showing that they've bought this product. If you want the best chances of success in your business, the easiest way to do that in my opinion is to pick a product that has evidence it is being sold successfully. So in this video week 21, I'm going to show you exactly what those products are. I'm going to show you the Facebook ad creatives that are selling those products. I'm going to show you the Shopify stores that are selling those products and I'm going to show you where you can source those products from as well. So essentially you'll have the entire funnel, the entire business, the entire setup to selling these products profitably. And with that being said, thanks for tuning in guys. Hope you enjoy it. I hope you find it valuable more importantly. Let's jump straight into product number one. So this is product number one. It's a fairy tale castle pet house. As you can see, it's a kind of cute quirky pet house for your cat. The reason why I want to feature this then is it is because it is from one of my favorite all-time drop shipping businesses, which is Funny Fuzzy UK. These guys have a pretty good track record of selling different pet products and being able to make them a success. So if they're paying to advertise this product, there must be something in it. Don't just take my word for it though. Let's take a look at the evidence behind the product. I can say whatever I like, but unless the evidence is there, then everything else is irrelevant. So Funny Fuzzy UK, I highly recommend you head over, follow their page, like their page. And then that way you'll get to see their ads so you're more likely to see them. This is a post which started February 25th of this year. So it's only been going for a couple of weeks and they've already got some pretty decent engagement. So four and a half thousand reactions, 500 comments and nearly 300,000 views. So the engagements are pretty good. However, engagements don't always equals purchases. So what we're gonna do is we'll have a quick scroll through the comments and there's two things we're looking out for. So number one is how recent is the comment. If there's loads of comments within the last kind of 24 hours, we know it's still active and therefore it must be working. And number two, we're looking for people who have said they've bought this product and even better yet, posted a picture of the products they've received. So let's take a look at the comments then. We're gonna start with newest to see how recent they are. So when you see hours, that's always a brilliant sign.  Something else to keep in mind as well is if you wanna know where to sell the product. So for example, if you come across a product that's super saturated, there's lots of sellers, go through the top kind of like half a dozen, maybe even dozen comments and see what country those people are in. Because if everybody's selling it, say really successfully in the US and none of those comments are from people in the UK or from Australia, then you know you have a proven concept of products that people want to buy. So what you can do is you can take inspiration from the businesses, replicate it in a similar way, but obviously just put your own spin on it but then focus on those other countries which they're not saturated in. So we've seen lots and lots of comments from recent times. Let's go for most relevant. These are usually the ones that people have reacted to. So it's usually the ones where people have posted pictures and that sort of thing. Whereas link to purchase, please. So that's somebody who's looking to buy one. Do you think you'd like this? Finally have a dream shop, please for the kitties. So straight away Maxine from one week ago. Let's just open up some more of these. Tommy's new house has arrived, he loves it. And there you go, that is advertising goal. That one comment from that person who has proven the business instant social proof because they've received the product and it's as good as they say it is will definitely have helped these guys make some money. As we move down, love this, I like this. Love that softness inside. Another person who's ordered one. So ordered the gray one and the black and white sofa for my cat can't wait to see if he will like them. So I think they've actually bought two of them. So what we can take from this basically is that it's a relatively new product. It's only been going for a couple of weeks and already we can see in the comments section there's quite a few people who have actually bought this product, people seem to be loving it. They're asking questions, they're commenting on how cute it is. I definitely think this is a great product if you're still looking for a product to commit your business to. Let's jump onto the Shopify store and see what it takes and what sort of design, what kind of product page is working. You may have seen Funny Fuzzy on my Shopify channel, my YouTube channel before. It's a very typical layout and this one for this product is no different. So all of the information is pretty much hidden. It goes straight into the reviews and what you actually have to do to get some information about the product is use these dropdowns here. And as you can see, it's very short, it's very sharp. There's not actually that much information about it at all. And the reason if I had to guess why this works so well, I'd say it's because there's not a lot you can say about this product really. The video and the way it looks says everything. People wanna buy this, not because of what material it's made out of or what the functions of it are, people wanna buy it because it's cute. So in that instance, as they've kind of read the room pretty well, they've kind of realized that people don't really care what the description of the product is because the image and the video of the product is what sells it. So these guys are selling the products as we can clearly see for 50 pounds reduced down from 58.99. If we head on to Aliexpress, I was able to find a pretty decent supplier for you guys if you wanna use them. They're called Hoopat, they've been in business since 2015, probably one of the longest running Aliexpress suppliers. They have absolutely great ratings and reviews and they're also considered a top brand. So this is what the supplier has to offer. You can buy the products for 2169 that is delivered. So that comes with free shipping to the UK with an on time 15 day guarantee. So definitely good enough to at least test the waters with this product. And what we can also see is it comes in lots of different customizations and color schemes and designs, all that good stuff. They even have ones for rabbits there. So that could even be a new target market that you could expand out into. And it also comes in different sizes as well. The way this transforms then in terms of profits if we do the numbers. So let's just call it 23 pounds for the sake of making it easy. They're selling it for 50 pounds. So what's that about 27 pounds in terms of profit and what you can use to acquire your customers for where you can spend. So all in all, a great product, a great business, a great creative, definitely something viable here. And like I've said a couple of times already, if you haven't got your business off the ground yet and you're looking for a product, so invest a couple of hundred dollars into to test, then this one has to be in your top three. Definitely something I'm gonna consider testing myself. A quick note then, before we move on to product number two, if you're enjoying the video and you wanna see videos like this every single week, I upload every single Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 4 p.m. UK time. So if you are enjoying it and you wanna see more of my content, make sure you hit that subscribe button. That being said, let's jump into product number two, which is from a company called Two Tiny Feet. This particular post has been active since December 26th of 2022. So again, it's only maybe three or four months old. It has two, it has basically 3,000 reactions, nearly 2,000 comments and 700 shares. And I'm just gonna go ahead and play the creative for you now. So it's basically a voiceover with some nice music. I'm talking about all the different features and benefits of the product. Essentially what it is, it's kind of like Balenciaga's for a kid, but obviously without the branding, it has like an anti-slip rubberized sole, but then the rest of the kind of shoe slash sock, but then the rest of the shoe, it's like a shoe slash sock combination. So the bottom half is shoe and the top half is sock. So a pretty clever product, definitely one that has like a true kind of benefit to it. Like we did before then, let's check out the two things. The number one is the newest. Let's have a look what we've got. One hour, one hour, one hour, one hour. Two hours, three weeks, that's because it's got a reply on. Five hours, 20 hours, 14 hours, 14 hours, 16 hours, 16 hours. So these guys are actually spending quite a bit of money on this and for it to get that level of comments and engagements all within the last 24 hours. So that alone should tell you that it must be working. However, let's go for most relevant and see if we can find somebody who's actually bought some of these things. So let's see what we can find then. We're looking for people who are not just inquisitive and interested in the products, but want to try and find people who have actually bought these. Maybe they'll fit in just in case. I love these shoes. Everyone asks where I got them. So straight away, there's somebody who's bought them three days ago. The fact that other people are showing interest in asking them questions is a positive sign as well. This person here says she loves them. Elena from one day ago said these shoes are amazing, using both of them for her boys. The other thing as well about this product is, sorry, I thought I was going to read that. The other thing, great thing about this product is, somebody isn't just going to buy one pair. They're probably going to buy two, three, or four pairs, especially since they're machine washable. So when one or two pairs is drying out, you need someone's backup. So it's the sort of thing where you could offer bundle offers and before you know it, a parent is spending say 40, 50, maybe even 60 pounds with you. Speaking of money then, let's take a look at their Shopify store. Straight away we can see not your typical kind of design and layout. They're probably using gem pages to create something like this. A great looking Shopify store. And the best thing about it is you wouldn't know if it's a drop shipping store or a Shopify store without doing your research. So there's like a typical kind of, because I've been doing drop shipping for so long and seen so many stores and some advertisers as well, or some consumers I should say, when they come across stores, if they just using the same default template fonts, like same color scheme, same imagery, consumers can spot a drop shipping store miles away. If you have like a custom design theme and layout like this is super professional, instantly it's going to set you apart from any competition. Likewise then we can see there's a few different designs all in all. So 23, 22, 23. We'll check a couple of other different sizes. 21 either. So they're all the same price by looks fit no matter and what size you're going for. I did find a quite a few supplies on AliExpress so we can get kind of like an average. But basically they're selling the product for, let's say 20 pounds a pair, 22 pounds a pair. If you do a search on AliExpress for non-slip, baby shoe socks. As you can see, there's lots and lots of different supplies selling this product for less than a pound. So you have these guys which are selling for a penny in lots of different colors. These guys have actual designs on which is quite cute. These guys have what looks like quite a nice solid product or a higher quality products I should say so a bit more expensive. These guys as well have like a different tag at the bottom probably making it easier to get on. This is quite kind of like a bland one. Basically there's lots and lots of different supplies for this product. They're all in and around sort of one or two pounds delivered. These guys are selling it for basically 20 pound plus that. So all in all a pretty decent product with some decent profit margins and again definitely a viable one for your drop shipping business. So with that being said then guys I'm going to wrap the video up. They're the two products I wanted to show you. I've got another two great products to show you next week as well. So if you want to see those, make sure you subscribe. It will come out a week today. So on Friday, I hope you've took some value. I hope I've got you excited or given you a path to go down with one or either of these products. If you want some help getting them launched, leave a comment down below, leave a question. I read every single one. I'll get back to you. Thanks for watching guys and I'll see you in the next one. Cheers.


Hi, I'm from Salkett, we're visiting Germany. Today, we're going to talk about our project called this Patan Collection. This is a collection of design patterns for smart contract and it consists of coding patterns and their descriptions for smart contract, the draft plan. It's currently also support ERC and smart contract weakness classification history. As most of the developers know that design patterns is very important to see the draft development not only for coding efficiency, but also to avoid the amount of ability when developing a secure system. And in my experience, I found that there are a lot of design patterns on the internet spreading around the internet, but it's having gathered into the one place as a reference resource like, for example, like design patterns by the data form that's making the design patterns hard to find. We list these resources in our project to be there and to be important for looking into all those design patterns that we can find for all scale levels of developers and also to create our net community to improve the design patterns together in the long place. So now we're looking into the privacy, project and privacy. So there's three things involved. So the last column in this picture is the content resource. It can be our blog post, our ERC or smart contract weakness classification stuff. Or you can also even create a call request directly to our privacy. The main column is the component included in our project. The format that creates the mount json output and human-medium resource, like a mount-down output out of the design pattern resource. The left column is client that reads the json file for whatever it is. So we're going to explain one of the clients developed by Highcore, it's called Pied. Yeah, like I had mentioned, we can use the json output for dev tools and we work on like in for one dev tool, it's called Pied. Pied is a tool to analyze and interact with smart contract structures. So that's how it looks like. And now if you click on this icon, you will see a list of all the patterns reported. They are organized by tags. So if you filter for the security tag, you will see all the patterns which are related to security. So I will now select the state machine pattern. And on the right side, you now can see a sample implementation of this pattern in the middle and you can see a text describing this pattern. It's always has an abstract problem solution, reference section and there are comments where you can discuss something about this pattern. So if you see some disadvantages or so you can leave a comment. And on top you see a graph representing the contracts involved in this pattern. If you select one, you see on the left side the structure of this contract. And to understand it better, you can also deploy the example and play around with it. So now I will deploy back the team of this pattern. Now this contract has an address and you can also read the state variables and you can also send transactions. Like this now and yeah. Now the stage should have changed and yes, it changed. And yeah, that's it already. If you want to get involved then you can make a pull request. Thank you.


Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LPF. I'm right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. I'm DJ Douter 5 and we're recording this on Sunday morning, June 25th, 2023. As usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello Wombat. I'm the Wombat. I got ants. You got ants. It is what it is. I'm going to clean up. And we also have, as a special guest, a Boudreau from Kentucky. Is that correct? Yep, the fellows. Yep. Digital Freethought Radio Hours to talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. Conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faith, God's holy books and superstition. And if you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in your town, well, you're just not a guarantee it. In Knoxville, in the middle of the Bible Belt, we have a group of over a thousand of us. We're the Atheist Society of Knoxville, or ASK. And we'll tell you more about us after the mid-show break. Be sure to stick around. Wombat, what's our topic today? Why can't we testify in court and basically the history of religion and atheism when it comes to litigation and serving ourselves in our judicial circles? Before we get into that, I'd like to do a quick little roundup, see how everybody's doing, and then we can go into the meat and potatoes of the show. Boudreau, we start with you. How you been, my friend? I've been good. I've been working hard to rearrange my schedule to make sure I can get on more calls. So, nice. Nice. I'm trying to do that. I've got a orange theory. I can see that, but I used to do that Sunday mornings, but now I've kind of moved it to Sunday at noon.  How's your enterprise of selling Star Wars toys and disc golf discs going? Man, I don't think I have the patience. I've got to put stuff out there and it's just nothing. I think I still have something on there that's just one of those eBay indefinite just sits there and it gets nothing. So, I'll wait. I don't know. You ever thought of sweetening the pond just making it cheaper so you could just get rid of the stuff? Yeah, I have. But you're just like, nah, at this point, it's not sentimental. I might as well just keep it. Yeah.  So, I don't want to cry. I don't want to cry. No, it really isn't a conversation all the time. You and my wife might have a conversation all the time. Okay. I've been doing pretty good. I've been doing some car repair, but more importantly, more interestingly, commercials come out from my company where I'm the star of it. They did a whole filming session at my job. Just used me as a talent and we got to do a bunch of walkthrough, a lot of b-rolls. We got to go to a local school where we do some volunteer work, get some shots of me talking to the kids, and then going out to a disc golf course and doing some shots over there. It was really fun and the final commercial came out felt really good. Maybe feel really special. The end of the fiscal year is this month and in July is when it will be released. So, I'll be happy to share it with everybody once it's out. But so far, I'm really happy to just get some, it feels good to be in a place where you feel recognized and appreciated. That's all I can say. Cool. And yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Larry, what's up with you? Don't just tell me motorcycles and video games or I'll be really jealous. Motorcycles and video games. Oh no. Matter of fact, there's no motorcycles this week. It's been raining all week. In the 15 year old, you could meet the, the, the, the 80 year, how 70, how old are you? 73. 73 year old version.  You're old. It's like, no, video games and motorcycles.  Do I still have to go to school? It's like. You have to work though. I still have to work. You still have to work. Larry, would you mind introducing the topic? Oh, yeah. Well, it, the way I have it down is why, why don't we argue religion in court? Um, you know, we go to courts to determine truth, you know, about matters, legal and otherwise. But we never bring religion into court. I mean, other than maybe swearing on the Bible. Lately people have been swearing on all kinds of books that they have not held that a Bible had to be used. Matter of fact, a lot of times it makes no sense. Why would I go to court and swear in a Bible? Right. So just why don't we go to court with these religious claims and try to determine the truth of them? We, I think we have in some examples, but before we get into more specifics, Eric, do you have ideas of like why. Why there's so much religious pageantry around the legal system, you know, like swearing on Bibles, taking oaths. The idea that, you know, you could be a Hindu and you show up at an American court and you're like, uh, can I get a different book? And it's like, oh, that we don't do that here, sir. Like this is a brand. And God, we trust on the back of like books and, and the way how we refer to like certain judges and stuff like that. Any ideas? I'd have to say the old, the only game in town, you know, we've said the same thing about, you know, even universities and some, some older, you know, academics were rooted in religion because that was the only game in town back then. And many, many years ago. So it's kind of when, you know, reports are set up. I imagine, you know, religion was just such an important part of it that, you know, it had to have a seat. It had to have a relationship.  Why can't we put those into the court of law system and, and, and handle it that way, you know, like, have someone make an argument for some religious claim and say, objection. No, your evidence. Got hoping to do it. Yeah. Well, it is a long time ago, a couple hundred years ago, we used to allow. Yeah. What they used to call spectral evidence. Sure it is. And of course that led to witch trials and burnings at the stake, things like that until they finally put, I think it was Governor Higgs, if I remember the name correctly, put an end to it, saying, you know, there's nothing to really back these up anybody can make a claim. Sure. And, you know, unless you can back it up with evidence, then why believe the claim. Especially when somebody's life is at stake. I'm sorry, go ahead. So we know like which trials but like that's going on today, like if you look at honor killings going on in Middle East, like people are using religious grounds to hurt and harm people needlessly, and I find it to be really disgusting.  I wish we could just take it to court and be like, Hey, everybody. This is our new standard of evidence. Let's just, you know, this is going to be in benefit for everybody, whereas otherwise we're like stuck to listening to other people's agendas. I like, Bujo, how do you feel about medieval Europe. You remember nights.  For medieval Europe, Star Wars, I feel like there's some sort of parallels there. But I, I also find that for medieval Europe, it was heavily early the most powers that would be were, you know, predominantly Christian. And the, and let me know if this is fair I'd love to hear if this is fair interpretation, but it court cases or matters of the truth were not based on science but were handled by the church. And so, in a lot of cases, if you didn't conform to the Christian faith, such as if you were a Jew or Muslim, you might be excluded from testifying in court altogether and your testimony or atheist. Oh, oh, that's that's especially now that's just an immediate death sentence.  We're not as bad as those heathens over there. Anyway, the idea would be like if you're, if you're a Christian you have like an extra advantage in testifying in court because you have a credible you'd be seen as more credible but if you're Jewish or Muslim and you're trying to testify especially in a European stage you'd have a much harder time off. And at times, I find that to be, let me know if that's fair. I find that to be a way to keep people in your faith, particularly if you're in that circle, because if you're not, and someone says, Oh, his land is my land. It's like, that's not true. This has always been my land. It's like, no, this guy is not even a Christian. Look at him. Look at him. He's he's undeserving. God told me that this was hit my land.  Dang it. How's that evidence? Yeah, God in Israel is the real estate agent. What do you guys think? Is that fair? It's kind of like middle school. It's kind of like the cool kids. It's kind of like, you know, if you get into, there's a group of people that everybody kind of mysteriously, even maybe subconsciously decided that they're all the cool ones. And if you're not, you know, part of their team, part of their, their party and whatever else, yeah, you're, you're, you're one of the outcast. Eric, Eric, we're delving into some personal things now. Who are the cool kids at your school? How are you not the cool kid? Real school, I feel like, I don't know, I was a group in Wisconsin and I was a skateboard punk kid.  I was a punk. Yeah. The punk kids were the cool kids. I don't know. We were, we were probably the outcast. Okay. Yeah. There's no such thing as a mainstream punk kid back in like 80s or whatever you had it. That was like, you were the, that's the, it would make cartoons and movies out of you guys. That's everyone aspires to be now. They want, it's like, how can it be an outcast? What do I have, what hair, what color do I have to dye my hair to stand out and be an outcast now? Yeah. And you had long hair. You have, you used to have like a crazy long mullet sort of thing going on too, right? You had the beautiful long hair pulled in the ponytail. Oh yeah. Yeah. This guy's didn't real.  Or, you know, or you're, you're with the cool kids and you realize, ah, those kids are much cooler. I had the advantage of when I was in high school going to a lot of different schools. And when one school I was misinterpreted as one of the cool kids and all the cool kids did was sit on a bleacher the entire lunch period and that's it. And they barely even had like any meaningful small talk. I'm like, this is boring. I would rather play yo-yos and basketball or Pokemon. You guys wasted my time. I'm going to go hang out with the not so cool kids and I had a lot more fun. And then overall I felt like I was more cool just being myself.   But I want to pull this back to medieval Europe just real quick because I think it's a racket and I feel like that's how it's set us up for today. And that's essentially you if you're if you're in Muslim controlled territories and go to court and you're Christian, you're at a disadvantage. And that helps people in that area stay Muslim.  So it helps that that that culture stay Jewish.  And it helps people who have to conform for another reason to a particular dogmatic system, not because it's true, but just because it's the powers that be. And I feel like that trickles down from Europe trickles down to colonial America trickles down to English common law and all the way to modern society, where you still have this effect of this large group saying, you want to be seen in front of your peers as a moral, upstanding person because we have a monopoly on those things, credibility, loyalty, family values, morality, ethics.  And that's on what the peer judges judging you like a peer, a panel of your peers, judging you that puts you at a, I would say, at a high stakes disadvantage when your welfare could be at stake. And I find that to be really unfortunate. Yeah, especially during the time of the Inquisition. Let's not forget that the Inquisition Inquisition lasted 400 years and only ended in the 1800s. Right, it wasn't a long time ago. And I also say this to I brought up colonial America there. There are instances where only approved denominations of Christianity were allowed to testify. And so you could say, hey, I'm a Christian. Well, so if you ask people in America now, like, I'm a Christian, it's like, what do you mean by that? What that can mean? That can mean so many different things like I'm non-denominational. That's typically maybe sometimes the follow up answer or I'm a third street Baptist, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you know, I take a little bit of this and that and my wife's ex-wife is like, you have back in colonial America, you have to be very specific brands of Christianity or nothing was allowed. And then there was like a very set list. And so it was less bifurcated as it was. And they were divided by regions and really areas, you know, right. Right. And we didn't get to Mary. No, probably not. No, no. And so yeah, in Tennessee, we have a little bit of that now. There's Church of Christ, which sounds like it's just a regular church, but it's actually a straight up, very strict idea of what Christianity is and is not like a non-inconventionist God.  You can't do XYZ. You have to marry within the church. It's very interesting. And some of my friends who we've had talks with have come out of that religion and realized how bizarre that there were different versions of Christianity that they were never exposed to. Because for them, you're either in the church or you weren't in the church. In the information bubble, as it were. Right. And there was no such thing as other Christians. Like this was the group who was going to heaven and not.  You had so much accessible to you and you didn't even know that.  It's like, which Bible is that? Or we don't swear. Sorry. We don't swear into that's not my Bible. What is this? Who are you guys? This is very bizarre. I've only talked to people who agree with me since I was born. But yeah, up until 19th century, for English common law, that's what we're that's what we're improving upon even today. You have to take an oath before you testify in court. And that was up to the 19th century. Now you don't have to now you can just give a firm right. It's different for every state and some states try to sneak in more God stuff. Let me guess the southern ones. Yes. So you can look at some of the us that are like in California and of course I would say California has probably the best one because it's like, yeah, I will, I will tell the truth. I swear to be blah, blah, blah. But in Tennessee, there's like some it's like a long preamble and there's some stuff they sneak in or and I'll pull it up in the second half to show if anyone's interested in but more than likely you can check it out yourself. Your, your edicts for swearing oaths in court just vary from state to state, even to the point where, even if I had to give that oath, I'd be like, listen, I'm an atheist, I don't want to say that. And they'll be like, aha, you're an atheist, therefore we know you're not telling the truth. I'm just like, well, if it's that's the case, then how do you know I'm an atheist, because you said so, but you know I can't tell the truth. Aha, I'm confused now everyone's confused now so bizarre.  I wouldn't give it any credit for helping people tell the truth but you have to, you have to picture that you're, if you're on the stand and you put your hand on the Bible and say something, you've got a jury of your peers right that jury of your peers is made up of people seemingly selected, right, and odds are, half of them are or more. Well, let's maybe depending where you live, they're more likely to be, you know, half or more religious, right, especially so. So, even as if you want to. The question is, do you want to make your point and make, make a stand on the stand so to speak, or do you want to have those people believe what you're saying, and if it's a ladder, you're better off just put your hand on a lion and pretending like you believe, right. Yeah, Larry, what do you think Larry, well I was just, I was just going to say depending on how far back in time you're sending him, it could be worth your life, whether or not you put your hand on the Bible and swear on it. Yeah, is that was that what you're saying I was going back in time to like the 1800s. Yeah sure why not. I think I was reading that the first admitted atheist wasn't even until like the mid 1800s. Now of course it, that's just the term I mean, obviously there have been atheists well before that but and then, but but I think like the first like group. I was reading this, the other day so I think that's right like something like 1860s or something which is amazing. So yeah, don't nobody's calling themselves an atheist anytime before that. Right. Yeah, well, I think it was Aristotle was put to death on the charge of atheism, but I really think it was more that he was just the taker and they said that he didn't believe in the gods that they believed in. Right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it goes all the way back over to them. And the weird thing is, is he was tried by people who did believe in that system, including not just his peers but like the authoritarians the judges who hold those beliefs and we have that same disadvantage even today because there are judges who, you know might be very smart very legal practice but from a young age, we're operating under a deep cognitive bias that could be reinforced by the fact that they are smart, and they are capable, but are operating under really poor dogmatic thinking when it regards to religious belief. And so they may harbor bias or by our prejudices against atheists and so when you say that in court, the judge is like, Oh, I don't like that I'm like you're supposed to be impartial come on dude. What's going on, Larry, what do you think? I just wanted to correct myself before all of our listeners corrected me it wasn't Aristotle, it was Socrates. That's what I thought you were talking about, but Aristotle was also great. Socrates. Okay, can I turn the table then and ask either one of you. Hey, you go into the court of law today. And you're asked to swear in a Bible, you've got a jury of your peers over there and you're really trying to convince them of something. Yeah, you risk it and do you say I'm an atheist I don't want to do the Bible thing or you just play along. Yeah, because if I would I would admit it because I have so much media of me out here already admitting that I am that I wouldn't want to set myself up for an easy trap saying oh he's just pretending he's godly, because he's just trying to win your favor over like I can say, you know, it is what it is. But the less I try to hide something on a court stand, you know, the better.  And here's where I'm at and this is the strategy that would come up with I'm not going to try to set myself up to pretend to be someone I'm not. I think that could be easily something to take advantage of by like a prosecution team, particularly with. That was the classic. And here's answer right there. Oh really.  Look at that. You do the same Larry. Yes, absolutely. I mean, you can probably problem this thing up and down and you know make it to where it was, you know, a fringe case to where like the whole jury is very clearly religious and, and you're trying to you're trying to convince them that your best friend didn't murder or whatever and you have very flimsy defense and all that and I think there's you could find a fringe case where I would be like, you know, I'm going to play it safe and I would just say I prefer to just wear on the Constitution doesn't copy of the Constitution. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really good. That's great. That's a good way to play it. Larry should be my defense attorney. I always said he should be a lawyer in like a Matlock ask TV show. Well, I went to college in my to become a lawyer but I was disillusioned after a while. Give me the Constitution I love America so much you can say that on the stand that's fine. I think Sarah Silverman as a really neat quote about about swearing on the Bible she's like, you know when I tell the truth I tell the truth. I don't put my hand on a book and make a wish. Yeah. And I don't know if this is fair. I don't want to make the conversation too awkward but it would be the equivalent of me like trying to pretend I'm not black while I'm on the stand. And I don't want to hide who I am. And if some people have a problem with that that's their problem. Right. And I don't want to like go through my life step tiptoeing on eggshells I'm just gonna be like there's pavement right here. I like walking out pavement if you're an actual that's you. That is a you problem sort of thing not a my problem to make you happy sort of thing right and and as true it is is there's nothing wrong being black there's nothing wrong being an atheist fact I find that the movie the most intellectually honest position. Specifically, no stick atheism someone claimed they know that God doesn't exist I might have just as many questions of them, as I would for any of these. Right. But it's like the literal best position to be in and if you just, if anyone's confused about that you can have like a one minute diagram session where you just say no stick agnostic atheist no stick agnostic theists, and they'll be like, that makes sense. One's about belief and one's about knowledge. Right, right. And they'll be like, Oh, I guess I should learn what an atheist is from another atheist rather than just my pastor, which is another whole topic we could cover someday. Oh, where do you get your information about atheism. Yeah. Hey, we'll go into potentially that and some other issues with long quitting custody familial battles, the ownership of morality but we'll do it after this break. Sure. This is the digital free thought radio hour on w o z o radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. Hello and welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm doubter five and we're on w o z o radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's take just a moment to talk about the atheist society of Knoxville. ASK was founded in 2002 we're in our 21st year now and have over 1000 members. We have weekly in person meetings every Tuesday evening at Knoxville's old city at Barley's taproom in Pete's area. Look for us inside at the high top tables or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck. Um, ask we sorry if you'd like to join us email us at ask an atheist at Knoxville atheists.org, or let's chat s e at gmail.com. You can find us online at facebook.com meetup.com or Knoxville atheists.org which is our website, or you can just Google Knoxville atheists is just that simple. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and do a search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. All right. Right. Where do you want to pick up. So I wanted to talk about how this has affected us in the real world and and by us I mean us like globally right but in modern times so I pulled us some examples of custody and familial law cases. Where family law cases, including like who can raise a child, right? What can that be based off of normally when I see stuff like this I'd like to say like, can the child be raised in a safe environment is the is the parent capable of raising the child in environment where they can afford to give the child access to the things they need to help care, food, shelter. The last thing I want to be a considering factor is the parents atheism, or or religious or non religious belief honestly, and we've had examples even up to the 90s late 90s where cases, oftentimes in the south but sometimes even in New York and stuff like that have ruled against the parent solely based on the fact that they're an atheist and I just want to cover some of those examples with you. This is an example in 1996, from a ninth of a Texas court. When I say 90s, when I say the 90s you guys are like oh the 90s but the kids, some of the kids who watch your show are like wow was it black and white back then I'm like no no no space jam job. First one drop it's like oh the one for Bron James like no no no no let me show you some cool stuff. Anyway, that was a case in Texas, it ruled that a mother couldn't raise her child after a divorce because of her atheism. That was the relevant point to determine the custody and the court considered that the mother's lack of religious belief was the main factor for deciding that the child's upbringing would have been based on a lack of moral and spiritual development quote unquote. And I'm like whoa that's so bizarre but anyway that court's decision was later reversed. Larry what do you think. Yeah I think I would appeal, appealed on the fact that a spiritualism couldn't be proven and ask them to prove it in court. In court. That's right. If they're going to use that to take my child away from me you darn right I'd carry it on up to the Supreme Court. Yeah, proving court that this is an actual thing before you can decide that. You can't have my kid. Right. Thankfully that court's decision was later appealed, reversed and on appeal, and they emphasize that religious beliefs alone should not determine custody arrangements. Can you imagine though being 1996 in the Texas court and being like hey you can't raise your kid because you don't believe in God like.  I like hanging out with him he has a daughter I like hanging out with the like the little baby. And one of the things he keeps talking about is like stuff that's in the news.  I, there was this guy who shot like 40 guys in the school, and I don't know why I really see what killers are coming about. And then there was this weird thing with annual talk about. I don't know if I can say this I need pedophiles. And I'd be like, Oh my gosh that's terrible.   It's a strange line to draw. I like hanging out with him either way it's great. I'm hoping he's enjoying this time in Florida I don't know if he watches this show I think I've sent him some weeks before. Anyway, um, this was a quiz that happened in. Oh my gosh. 2002 New York case. Matter of Giler and Giler. So, Mary couple. This is an involved couple going through a divorce in New York. The court considered the mother's atheism and the father's religious beliefs as factors in the custody determination, and the court ultimately granted the custody to the father, citing concerns that the mother's atheism would negatively affect the children's religious upbringing. Well I guess it would. Well said Larry well said Larry. Thankfully, that one was also reversed on appeal due to various procedural errors that were not explicit. Now we're not even explicitly on the issue of atheism so she got the appeal and a technicality on that point but that's 2002. What do you think. That sounds suspiciously like they had to repeal it because they had to overturn it because of her arguments and magic. But they didn't want to say it. They didn't want to say we're we're we're overturning this because she's right that religion shouldn't be a factor so they fall on a technicality or right. I wouldn't be too surprised if that's actually what happened. It turned out the judge was just two kids in a trench coat. That happened again. Okay, okay. We'll reverse that. The kids were like we love God. Dang it. That's why two voices are coming out of the judge anyway. I haven't done the case this is also from 1995 but there's there's several of these I pulled up a list just using Google search and I found that in New York in 1995 matter of Patricia M. The court considered a mother's atheism as the main factor for determining custody. The court expressed concerns about the mother's atheist beliefs suggesting that they could negatively affect the children's moral and spiritual development. However, the decision was eventually overturned on appeal with the appeal of court emphasizing that a parent's religious beliefs should not be the sole basis for custody decisions. So this is something that's been going on for a while. You know, it didn't take me a long time to pull up these examples, and I'm sure it's not just in the area of custody that that this is the only issue. The fact is we have judges who are were okay with this for a period of time. And we have to go to an appellate court to reverse it. You know, we have presidents who would probably be okay we have senators who would probably be okay with these initial decisions. And what is it going to take to change the culture of understanding of re of getting this out. What do you think Larry. Well, I've harped on this many times and you're probably tired of hearing about it but let's hear about it. We don't have to know I was saying they should appeal it on the case of spirituality, but basically they're saying that it's the morals and and the truth of the religion basically, but all of its touted on. It's all built on your soul and where it goes. Right. And there never been any good evidence that there's an actual soul that it that they exist or anything exists after the person's death. I think that should be litigated. We should why don't we'll, the thing is, and I would you tell me if this is true is it Sam Harris who says anything else presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. It might be pitch but pitch. Yeah. Okay, it's a classic pitch. I'm just saying like, would that motivate anyone to stop believing that conclusion that souls don't exist we put the matter to court is someone said hey, that's belongs to me because it's my soul. And you stole my soul so you owe me XYZ amount of money, and we prove in court that I can't possibly steal a soul because they don't exist. I'm not guilty of stealing someone's soul. Yeah, it's not so much what verdict the the court would take would give on that but I think it would be the evidence that would be made public throughout the course of the trial, because everybody would follow the trial I mean it would be one of the most public trials most followed trials, and all of the evidence that will be brought forth would be digested by a lot of people. Okay, that would help the case. So we would need to be like a celebrity sort of thing where it's like this guy stole my soul. Tom Cruise. And people will be taking it to court and this is like the court on the soul. And so it's like I didn't I can't steal soul and they would show how little evidence there is out there for a soul. And it was like Dr McDougal's soul experiments but it only had a, like, six people that he experimented on and only had to throw out two of them and, and the weird. The, the entire case for the soul was that the body weighs less after you die. And that was not conclusively proven. And even if it was it doesn't mean it was a soul. People don't realize how much your weight fluctuates in the day just from water right just from drinking water it goes up my body weight goes up seven pounds fluctuation just from drinking water I'll wake up, and I'll be, you know, 245. By the end of the day I'll be like 252.  When you break down fat, one of the components is CO2 and water, right. And when you breathe out you have CO2 in your in your exhales, but you also have water that moisture comes from breaking down fat. So you're breaking down matter, and you're also letting out water, along with gas, all of those have weight, and you're doing that all day long.  It's not just like they're dead, their body still goes to systematic functions where they're shutting down completely. And so if you wait like with a dead body that recently died, another four hours or so, like they might weigh, what was it the two grams that they said was less when a body's like. They used like this timber thing and with beams, you know, to weigh an entire body and then determine it was only a couple of bounces on a couple of particular cadavers. Yeah, I wrote on it on my site, digital free thought.com if anybody wants to follow up on it. What's the margin of what's the you were talking about.  What's the margin on the test like that that would be something I'd love to check. Yeah, or the precision of the instrument or yeah. And the sample size. In this case is only like 34 people. Yeah. Yeah. Cause of death, you know would be a factor of that's an ostrich. I didn't catch him at the exact moment of death too.   No, you shouldn't. I did put in the chat for the, for the people that might watch this on YouTube and bless us with comments. It was it was hit and said it and it's called Hitchens razor in fact. Okay. Nice started without evidence can be dismissed. Now, here's the other thing that or here's the other shoe I would love to see. I'd love to see people be open to the idea of Christianity or being on trial and like listening to the evidence that's presented and being swayed by maybe a lack of evidence, but also I'd love to just see the stigma of an atheism and atheists just go away. I don't think that happens until we have more outspoken atheism by people who aren't motivated to, to debate and argue, which there is a realm for that, like there should be people having debates and there should be people have an argument. But there should also just be car mechanics who are just atheists, you know, they're an atheist, and it's not a big deal. And you just do what you got to do and bring your car to them and you don't say, can you please pray to God and fix my car is like, can you please use your engineering talents to like fix my car and they fix the car. Hey, thanks, Bill.  You just like, Hey, thanks for fixing my car. You're really smart. It's like, Oh, thanks. I appreciate that.  You should be aware that in a melting pot society like us, there's just different people from different cultures, different societies. Some have religious beliefs that are very different than yours and are still good people. Some don't have any religious beliefs beliefs at all. And there's still good people. Good people are everywhere. You don't need your religious beliefs to be a good person. Like if you just had that if we just had that and people could have the freedom to express themselves religiously or not, but not associate that with morality or credibility that comes from when you're in court. I think we can come. We can make a lot of standing forward but we don't do that unless we're open about who we are. What do you think? No, I think you're absolutely right. And I know we talked about for about, you know, coming out of as atheist and job world can be tough for some people or risky or, or maybe we even think it's risky. I've gotten a lot better about kind of leading with with my thoughts on on religion when I meet people now and I want more brave about it. It's a weird weird just use that term but I think it's right. Yeah. And I think the key thing that needs to change is getting more secular atheist, non religious people in political spheres.  The Dominionists are trying to populate all these offices with Christian believers of a specific type with intent with intent to do that. That's the goal for them. They know that affects it's like have a lot of kids and get your stuff. Get your kids in office where they have political slayings and certain power circles. That's scary. That's not representation. Yeah. So we've had, we could get rid of a lot of laws. Some laws that we don't follow anymore but we still have them on books are associated with things like blasphemy and so on me and and we recently passed legislation in Tennessee layer I don't know if you saw this in your last voting that made slavery illegal, because we had some like very loose terminology it was like slavery is legal, unless if and it was like there shouldn't be an unless there shouldn't be a factor statement there. It's like, well, what if they did something really bad it's like you should never own a person as property period like, well, I mean it's still going on though in prisons. You frame a person to get them in prison and then you work them for no pay what's the difference. They're owned as property, but we can talk about that a bit more in maybe a different episode but my idea is the the law was stipulated in prison ownerships where prisoners would be. What kind of prison, what kind of prisoners could be subject to what laws we had hired to them but not slavery not slavery like there's no excuse to have slaves period like indentured servants dude. And I agree. Yeah, like that is that's something we should just be against, and then we can talk about everything else afterwards but like no slavery and so there was some but blasphemy laws are still on the books, at least in our state. And I don't know if Kentucky has them but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. I think Kentucky is a little bit more forward on a lot of these aspects, but even in the 20th century we've had a lot of cases where we try to protect free speech for people who make blasphemous, or even offensive statements on religious sensibilities and our courts have ruled for and against a lot of those cases. And I got another list but the idea that should free speech cover blasphemy as probably the best in the best sense, or should we have a bit more consideration and how it makes people feel when you blaspheme against their God and you guys think about that. Are we going to outlaw the speech based on how it makes people feel. I mean that's that's the problem and you know. No, we shouldn't blasphemy should not be illegal.  Oh, very good point very good point very good point but what do you think about that. I was just quickly trying to look to see if Kentucky had any and it's, it's a radical I don't want to get, get into on on the call but yeah. I was kind of feel like it's on the level of thought crimes you know I mean it just seems way invisible, you know, invisible harm right. We have a global atheist news review that we do sometimes with john Richards and the idea was is, is, hey, is there a difference between blasphemy and assault, and yet I would say so I would say like one is me saying something and the other one is me harming a person and I think those are different things so like, if you say hey tie I'm going to take your holy book. I'm going to buy 30 copies of it and I'm going to burn it outside in with my friends I'll be like well you. That's your property you can do whatever you want thank you for the money. Right. Like that's me in my head. Feel free to come back you're my best customer for this week. Larry if I want to buy 100 copies of your book and burn them in like my garage. Would you have any umbruns against that, or would you be like. Okay, yeah, because in my mind that is a different thing than me harming somebody. And I understand the sentiment of why I'm burning a book and I don't necessarily like or agree with that maybe sometimes it makes me feel isolated or vulnerable, but as the act of doing whatever you want with your property, I don't care. That's that's why you bought it from me if you stole a book and burn my book that belonged to me, I would have a problem with that you took something from me but if you legally got it, you can do whatever you want with it. And so, in one case I find free speech to be, I have the ability to express myself in a way that doesn't cause any immediate harm to anybody, I should be allowed to do that. It may not make everybody happy. I, and I granted it doesn't mean that I'm free of getting consequences that might come apart from it. But as far as the act itself being illegal. I think that is a stretch particularly when it falls to something that we can't demonstrate to have taken any risks to begin with. Right. Like if I, if I blasting the thunder god and a bolt of lightning strikes my house I'd be like, maybe there's something to this. But if I blast him God and like literally nothing happens and it's like maybe God doesn't have a problem with it so why are you so upset.  It's like why are you upset like this could be just be my problem. I know I know there are areas where free speech has its limitations like you know screaming fire enough and cause inciting a riot or causing like people and a state where people can get hurt like we know there are limitations on it, we know that like I can't say with intent that I'm going to harm someone on the show or face to face that's a threat we can we have protections against stuff like that. But if I said, I am going to burn a book or buy a flag and burn it. I that that will come with considerations of man you did a mean or you did a something I really don't approve of, but you have the right to do that. Like that is a right that we are willing to protect as part of this country to do it, even if we don't agree with it which I find makes a lot of the stuff in this country. Some of the things I'm proud about like, like the right to have that process rest to express yourself the right to speak freely on stuff like that against even powers that might be. What about defamation of character. You know, obviously that you know that there should be some protection against somebody you know saying something. Yeah, live. So, and I'm just I'm just trying to stir an argument really, but I mean is there any kind of weasel that into into religious point to like a few spoke so bad about someone's God is that is that, you know, God, God is us we are Jesus is there some definition of character claim I don't know. So I would say have the God send me the court notice. Exactly. Right. And let's have it be a stretch. If there was a cult leader who's like, I am God, and I'd be like, okay, at least this is something that we can directly talk to it I'll be open to that but if I'm making fun of your, you know, your, your holy being, your dead prophet, right. Let the prophet handle it, you know, like, don't, don't take up arms for that person, instead just focus on what you can control in this life. What do you think we drove. I did, I did hear in the past that Isaac Hayes left the show South Park, because South Park's continuously made fun of Scientology son. He was a Scientologist, but I did recently read I don't know if it's true or not that he that that wasn't actually the case. He got he got pretty sick, I think, and had to show that reason so it may have been there were some truth in it, not a whole lot of truth but I mean they're someone who, you know, seemingly got mad about them making fun of Scientology and and maybe in part left left the show kind of right, you know, that's his right. And it can be a scary thing too is particularly when like the violence and media following any acts of blasphemy, right. And we see that from Christians we also seen it from Muslims to more famously, but the idea that I am we may be hesitant to say something due to clashed back from the living bodies who might take advantage, vengeance for that doesn't make that God belief anymore real doesn't make that God anymore offended or accurate or or exist, exist, existential. It's just, I'm afraid of people who have very low critical thinking capabilities coming after me and cause me harm, but I'm not doesn't make me anymore believing in that God, right. And I that's the full list and I think Larry you hit the nail right on the head where it's like when I sing a song saying God is the only God and he range from heaven and earth we sing. I was like, wait a second, you're, you're, you're blaspheming against literally every other pantheon of God's that are out there. When you say that one thing is the God's the only ones like. That makes sense if I can praise my God at the at the by dissing everyone else. Isn't that blasphemy in its own right and why is it that it's only when it's against the God of the nation who has the power that we care about it's because there's a racket. And, and, and it's institutional. And it's only something that we can steadily water down, as we make more people aware that their God doesn't make them these moral pariah or moral pedestals of perfection, you know, like, you can be a good person without your religion. You can be a good person with a different religion, and you can be a good person whether you have your religion or not. And so, the more we understand that the less we can have court cases, deciding whether we transgress against these gods, or if we should have our kids just based on where we're at on our religious spectrum. I think we overstepped one big example, which was this. Is it the Snokes case, the one where evolution was put on trial. Scopes, scopes. Here, it just just out the Knoxville about 60 minutes in a date in Tennessee. Yeah, late or I'm sorry. Larry, would you want to cover that real quick. Well, this is back in 1925 I think it was that they had a evolution was a big deal in Tennessee and they were trying to keep it from being taught in schools. Right. So they made it against the law. And this, this high school teacher, huh, because of God. Yeah, yeah, the many the religious people made it against a lot of teachings, teach it in school. But this teacher wanted to challenge the law. So he made a point, he notified the sheriff that he was going to do it and the powers to be and they had a photographer there and he started teaching evolution and they arrested it. And he eventually lost the trial. Of course, he'd have to here in Tennessee. But he appealed it and never had to pay the fine and was overturned on a technology later. But there's still a museum intent in a date in Tennessee that you can go visit any weekday. I think they close it on Saturday. But about a hundred miles down from the Ark Museum. Blue Joe. Yeah, more like 150. A little Tennessee Kentucky load there. But the courthouse still stands and it's in the basement of the courthouse. Wow. It's I make a like an annual pilgrimage down there on my motorcycle every year. Wow, nice. Okay, guys, we're at the end of the show. We still got a bit. I'm at 51 minutes, 52. Yeah, that's enough time to plug some stuff and say hey everybody have a blue drawing plug for next week, or check out. Well, I don't have anything like that but I did want to point out that I read this recently to Albania is the, the only is that I know of. The first atheist state. Oh, yeah 1967 they were walking in the former socialist government declared Albania the world's first atheist state. Well, good. Have they had a war or anything since then. No. Well, good job, Albanian that's a new thing in my pocket feather in my hat. My thing would be when you solve car problems, you don't, you don't open up a Bible. I hope you don't and if you have an engineer who is get another engineer, but the the idea is like solving problems typically involves understanding what you're working with and looking at it in a very objective in a way are very objective context where you don't assume what the problem is from the start, you just try to gather clues and try to look at it as objectively as possible. And there's something really rewarding with how we do that and lead to having cars that work that we should learn and apply to other things outside of just car repair, because I guarantee you there's probably some academics who are very, very good at being a car repair person, but strongly believe that a piece of text in their Bible is absolutely true, just because a pastor said so, or because their parents raised in that particular way, where that the Bible says so, or that the face. Yeah, but we don't have that standard for when we go to work when we go to work we have a different hat on. And so like my main thing is if if you've ever done car repair if you ever solve if you ever like even opened up a key lock or figured out why a key works or why cars do what they do or how to get stronger in the gym, you're you're oftentimes looking at examples that were based on trial and error, figure out what stuck and then learning from that process and coming up with better iterations to lead to a better process that is science, believe it or not. And so whatever your religious circles may have said to take a light off of that. And that's the scientific method, and we all participate in it every day every single time we try to get closer to the truth. And so you don't need to have dogmatic answer or dogmatic excuse or a different standard to understand what's true or not you don't need that Bible to figure was true, you have all the tools available to you, and you may not get all the answers you want. But sometimes that's good to because weather, and I'll say this as my final point, like my car repair. I found out that I had an oil leak, but and I didn't want to have an oil leak. I didn't want that, but it was the true answer. And now that I know where the oil leak is I know how to fix it. And so sometimes, when you look up something you'll find something uncomfortable, and you'll find something that doesn't make you feel happy or something, find something that make you have to do more work afterwards. But that's a good thing, because that's what science can help you do it can show you where you need to fix.  And I found like that's such a great thing. So use that method all the time because there's no benefit to having a double standard in your life, particularly for something as important as what you think will happen to you, how you'll interact with other people and stuff like that. So that's my that's my pressing logic. Learn from the methods that you're already using that that's the best standard to address all your questions in life and continue to operate on that single standard. All right, Larry, what do you got? Just the request that if you feel that someone has stolen your soul, be sure to take them to court. There you go. A lot of people would want to know, you know, that's okay if that's a thing because I'm sure they want to take their own case to court. So be sure. You can find my stuff at digital free thought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for radio show archives. I'm trying to find my text here. As Larry finds it out, I want anyone to sue me that I just taken this the soul of the pope and I put it in this container or tick tax. It's in here right now the pope soul is in this toothpacks, the toothpick pack. I should have weighed it first. The soul of the pope and put it in this thing. Feel free to sue me and and we'll see if we can give it back to him or not. But I am in possession of it now and I stole it. You admitted that on the show. Yeah, excellent. Well done. You can find my book atheism what's it all about on Amazon. My YouTube channel handle is at doubter five. If you remember clergy, but have come to see that the claims of religion are not justified and have lost your faith. There's help for you at the clergy project. The link is clergy project.org.  The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hell's and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your life. And we'll see you next Wednesday night at seven o'clock on W O Zio radio. Bye everybody. Bye.


Can you name me the retired Yankees numbers 1 through 10? Definitely. Number 1. Billy Martin. All right, number 2. Derek Jeter. Yeah, Rigg. Number 3. Babe Ruth. We're humming. Number 4. Lou Gehrig. All right, number 5. Joe DiMaggio. He's feeling it. Number 6. Joe Tory. Yes, sir. Number 7. Mickey Mantle. He's hot. Number 8. We got Bill Dickey, and we got Yogi Berra. Extra credit. Not to brag, not a big deal. Small flex, small flex. We got Roger Maris. And number 10. I think that's Phil Rizzuto. Scooter, holy cow. Can you give me a little extra credit? Give me a little number 15. 15. Zett. Is that Thurman Munson? It is Thurman Munson. 16. Whitey Ford. 20. Jorge Posado. 21. Paul O'Neill. Give me 23. 23. Don Mattingly. Can you give me 32? 32. Is that Elston Howard? Elston Howard, from the clouds. Can you give me 37? Is that Stengel? Casey Stengel, number 42. That's Moe. 44. Reggie Jackson. 46. Andy Pettit. 49. Gidry. And 51. Bernie, baby. That's Bernie. This guy knows his Yankees baseball. Good stuff.


Hi this is Nicole from the Emmy Farm. I was one of the lucky online participants to learn how to make a festive centerpiece courtesy of produce made simple. Now it's your turn to learn from Betty from Stems and Forks. Stay tuned until the end for a materials list so you can try this at home too. So welcome everyone to the produce made simple holiday centerpiece workshop. This workshop was hosted by our friends at produce made simple. This is the the centerpiece we're going to aspire to make. So we are going to start with this branch. Any type of branch works. You just want to find a hole that can kind of grip the branch so it doesn't move too much. And then the next thing you want to do and this is for any sort of floral centerpiece is you want to fill it in with greenery. This goes to the other side of the branch. So as you can see it's asymmetrical but it's always balanced. So asymmetrical meaning that whatever you do on one side you will do on the other but they will not necessarily be equal. So we're going to take that cedar and first start with the little branches and slide them in the chicken wire. And the reason why I'm using chicken wire is because it's recyclable. I mean you just need to give it a quick rinse under hot water and you can reuse it again. I'm removing the bottom leaves of the branch. The reason for that is when you put it in your vase or your box here and fill it up with water it avoids that rotting smell that you get after a few days with flowers. We are going all the way around outside and a little bit in the middle because I don't want like a big shrub on top. I just want a nice base to cover up the chicken wire. Ontario mushrooms are grown all year round which makes it fabulous because I'm obsessed with mushrooms. I mean I love photographing them. I love cooking with them. I love arranging with them. Oh I forgot sorry the branch this log lay that across. This one doesn't have to be secure just because it's quite heavy. The next thing we're going to add is our star ingredient the mushrooms. So I'm going to start with the shiitake mushrooms take one of the wires so I'm just inserting the wire into the stem and then I'm doing one of these little use and what I'm going to do is I'm going to tie it around the branch. By doing this you're just adding a little bit more interest making the arrangement more unique because we put some mushrooms on this side we're going to have to put some on this side as well so I'm going to attach a mushroom on this branch here. The reason why I'm using the shiitake is because the stems are very fibrous so we can handle the wire so I'm going to put one up here and now what we're going to do is take some of the smaller oysters take your skewer insert one end into it so you've now created a stem for your mushroom so if you have a large one I mean it's this is very beautiful but honestly this is this the textures on the underbelly is just stunning so I would actually take the skewer and stab the top part of it and have the ruffles show. There's no exact formula for this it's just pretty much making sure that the balance is right also you don't want it you know one corner to overpower the entire arrangement. So cremini mushrooms I just discovered this today I didn't know this at cremini mushrooms are baby portobello mushrooms did you guys know that I had no idea so if you guys don't have the creminis just use the shiitake sen and in this case I'm I want to show the caps I want it to look like a bit like a flower like a daisy and I want to do different levels I want some low some high now what we'll do is we've got four mushrooms there we're going to swivel this around and do the balance part here so again take your skewers so you could see I've got some that are a little taller some that are shorter sorry oh you can just do this so if this is the shiitake so you just have a cap right yes just do that actually that's cute too that's really cute it's like a button now you should have a box with some oak moss some Ontario oak moss this is where I kind of just fill in a few gaps and now some mahogany pots I should and I like it when one is a little taller than the other I believe you got some grape berries as well these guys these berries are more for filler it's just to add in between the mushrooms to break it up now not everyone received the same kind of nuts and pine cones but there should be an assortment that looks similar to this so let's put four of these little nuts and three acorns on the other corner again you do not want to see the wire so really insert that guy in the banana leaf I mean it's not necessary to put this in but I just like it for a little bit more height and drama uh pompous grass so we're gonna insert that hmm you know I think I might insert it where the branch is actually the ilux berries so these little red berries these are what's going to give it its festive touch they do not need to be touching water they last very well even when dry and this one I will actually poke it up because I just want to add a splash of something festive and christmasy if you received one of these actually you could just insert the whole thick branch in and then you receive some rose hips these could go anywhere you like wherever it needs a little splash of color you could just insert these and I think we're done I think that's it guys here we are it should last a good week you'll notice that the mushrooms will start drying but they're they look fantastic dried as well amazing all right well thank you so much everyone for joining us and a massive thank you to windmill farms for all your generous mushrooms and produce made simple for hosting this workshop and don't forget to visit produce made simple so thanks again thanks guys thank you happy holidays take care bye bye at the end of the workshop I love to see the creativity from our group with Betty's direction we all made something we were proud of check out these amazing designs if you want to try something similar at home here are some materials you should have to hand you can forage for many of these but others are easier to buy from a florist or craft shop good luck and have fun from the team at produce made simple