What's up everybody it's Stas here welcome back to another video so in this video we're going to be doing an overall market update taking a look at the Dow Jones the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq we're also going to be doing a trading update talking about what I personally did in the markets today as well as some stocks and ETFs that I'm watching right now and looking to trade in the month of October in 2019 you guys UGAZ being one of the top ones that I'm watching right now and we're also going to be breaking that one down in depth in today's video as well as natural gas so if you enjoy this video if you do find value in this video feel free to go down below hit that like button consider subscribing and don't forget to join our StriveSmart Discord group chat and our StriveSmart Facebook group that's how you can be further connected with me and the entire community and all of those links are down below and quick Instagram plug at StasSurface I'm doing a giveaway on my Instagram in a couple of weeks so follow me there as well so without further ado guys let's hop right into it the markets just closed literally two minutes ago the S&P 500 ticker symbol SPX closed up 26 points up 0.9% here and today we got some good news some optimism surrounding the trade war that China is willing to come to a partial agreement here if no additional tariffs are added or something like that there was just some optimism surrounding the trade war and we all know at this point guys when there's optimism around the trade war the market takes that very well the market typically does very well and when there's negative aspects surrounding the trade war more tariffs are slapped we get some news from Trump on Twitter whatever may be negative you know the markets get hit to the downside so today was one of those days that we did get a bit of brief optimism ahead of the meeting here tomorrow Thursday in Washington and that ended up shooting the markets up again 26 points for the S&P up 0.91% and we can see here on the 4-hour chart guys we are holding this overall uptrend of this trend line that I have drawn out here at a higher low so that's a good sign for the bulls out there but on the broad perspective here on the 4-hour we can also see you know despite the trend line being held at a higher low we are also in the process of making lower highs and we are seeing a head and shoulder pattern here on the SPX just like on the Nasdaq and the Dow Jones right and I've been talking about that a lot over these past couple of videos so if you've been following the channel for a while now you know what I'm talking about right if we go to the 1-hour chart you can see we actually closed a bit bearish today although we did have a very good day I'll show you guys that in a minute here on the one day one minute but on the hourly chart you can see lower high was confirmed pretty much here at the dump today towards the end of the day and you can see it's a lower high based from the previous from the previous before that and so forth right and now if we break below the 50 SMA support and we start to push to that lower low and especially if we break below 2900 that's going to be the continuation of the downtrend in my opinion and we may be going back down to 2850 and so forth below that which if we go back to the 4-hour chart you guys can see you know if we get down to 2700 that general area a big level of support is going to be around 2733 so if we go back to that one day one minute you guys can see how we gapped up this morning very nicely after yesterday's abysmal day in the markets right we went from 2892 at the close yesterday all the way up to around 2910 so we gapped up about 20 points we uptrended for the entire day all the way up to around 2930 and then we saw that aggressive dump and that aggressive dump again is what is making this lower high here pretty much confirmed if we fully break below this 50 SMA it will be 100% confirmed but as of now we are seeing that level of weakness right here in terms of the markets but hey if we end up popping out of here tomorrow let's say we end up running above 2950 that's going to be pretty good from the bullish perspective but again from the bearish perspective if we break that 50 SMA that's not going to be looking too good right on the five day five minute you're seeing a bullish cross here but if we get the dump below that's going to be bearish for the S&P 500 right now Jones industrial average today up 180 points up 0.7% on the five day five minute you guys can see that same bullish cross that we saw on the SPX which is the 50 SMA crossing above the 180 SMA we're making higher lows that's a pretty good sign but then again if we're zooming out a bit to the four hour which again it's why it's so important to take a look at multiple time frames you can see that we are struggling a bit despite what that five day chart 10 day chart 20 day chart may tell us we can see here that this is a head and shoulder pattern right the left shoulder the head the right shoulders and formation now sure we held above 26 to today we closed above it which is a very strong level of support but we're still seeing downwards pressure here as we are trending below moving averages both the 180 and the 50 SMA so I think guys especially since we closed pretty weak today you guys can see this if we break the 50 SMA will be technically a lower high you know I think if we end up breaking back down into 26 to level you know down back into the 25s that's going to be bearish that's going to be the Dow pushing to that lower low continuing that downtrend right so some upcoming levels of support here despite this very good green day that we had it's still worth looking at downwards levels that we can get to especially if the trade war you know sees some more tension which I personally think it will well we may be going down 26,000 right that's one level to watch 25 6 that's another one 25 3 right and ultimately if we get all the way down here this would be the completion of the right shoulder especially if we break this level but ultimately this major level of support is around 24,800 dollars so watch that guys watch these upcoming levels right especially as today as things could get rocky here with these trade conversations so going to the NASDAQ here guys up 0.9% right now up 71 points today very very good but you can notice how we're still seeing a right head and shoulder pattern left shoulder head right shoulder if we zoom in a bit you guys can see we're struggling under this level of resistance at around 7700 to around 7700 we closed below that level and we're at a lower high from the previous trending under the 180 SMA as well and now it seems like we're going to be heading below the 50 SMA and hold that level as a resistance the way the market is looking right now so these are not good signs right despite us having a pretty solid green day today and you have to realize guys the markets tanked a lot yesterday so the fact that we are having a bit of a green day today is kind of like almost a rebound to yesterday's craziness we sold off aggressively yesterday at least 1.5% average across the three major indexes and today we got a rebound of around 0.7 to 1% which really we didn't recover all of our losses from yesterday which is why I'm thinking it is a rebound right if we recovered all of our losses from yesterday and some that might be a bit of a different story so if we look at the NQ back to that four hour chart guys again we're seeing a descending pattern here lower highs the next level of support that I may be looking to see NQ go to is going to be around 75 90 we talked about this one we held it a couple of days ago we held it a couple of weeks and months ago back in the summer months of August right or at least summer here in the United States I know it's different for others in Australia but I don't know if anyone's watching this video from Australia but nonetheless if we break 75 90 we go down about 7400 that would be another level of support 72 9 that would be another level of support and if we get all the way down to this level we see a massive sell off in the stock market we get down about 7000 this is going to be the completion of the right shoulder and if we break this level guys which would be very detrimental for all the bulls out there we may be going down even lower right so overall that is what I'm looking at right now in these markets that's the breakdown that's the technicals for today if you guys have anything to add feel free to do it down below in the comments section let me know your thoughts of today's performance of the markets in general trade talks what's going to happen tomorrow the rest of the week I'd love to know what you guys have to think from your point of view so let's talk about you guys and natural gas typically I'd be doing a trading update right now but honestly guys I did no trading today I'm waiting to see if this is setting up for a monstrous red day tomorrow this is what I'm waiting to see right now which is kind of why I didn't trade I'm waiting for my opportunity tomorrow to see if we do end up dumping from this rebound day again we saw a rebound today it wasn't anything crazy we didn't recover our losses from yesterday so I wanted to see if we dump here right on the S&P this is what you're looking at if we dump here you know I'm going to be able to trade TVIX SPXS these are two that do well when the markets are selling off especially the S&P and when there's a lot of volatility in the market so I didn't see any opportunities today I didn't want to hop into a swing trade and get caught in a bull trap so I'm waiting I sat on my cash and I'm looking to get into a potential short in this market if it does end up getting rocky tomorrow so now that we did that really quickly let's transition to you guys and natural gas so you guys right now you guys saw the title of this video should you buy you guys before this pop well first and foremost guys you shouldn't buy any stock any ETF any ETN that you don't understand that you have not done the research on for yourself right that's first and foremost don't buy anything just because I'm talking about it in a video or just because you hear it on the news from Jim Kramer or any of these other news outlets or any other youtube channels right you shouldn't buy anything unless you fully understand it this is just my personal opinion what I'm personally thinking right now so you guys trades based upon natural gas for those of you guys that don't know natural gas slash ng this when it goes up in price you guys goes up in price at a 3x rate it's a 3x leveraged ETN right let's say natural gas goes up 2% you guys is going to be up 6% right that is how that works and we saw a massive rally in natural gas this past couple of weeks starting at the 202 level back in the beginning of august we rallied all the way to 270 and a lot of people were arguing through my research of this that this was a rally that came a bit early right because typically we see natural gas as heating demand starts to ramp up in the winter months as really the cold months start to come through across the united states the midwest northeast this is typically when we do get that rally as the demand for the natural gas goes up and as the price starts to go up right so the fact that we got it here in my opinion was a bit early now we're starting to get the dump now we're starting to see more production more injections of natural gas so that is decreasing the the price you know the supplies going up now we're starting to break through a bunch of these levels of support right we broke 248 we broke 240 we broke 230 and I talked about a couple of videos ago how if we were to break 230 this would be a good play for D gas which is the opposite of you gas which goes up whenever natural gas is going down right so that would have been a good play if you weren't trading that and I'm sure a bunch of you guys did right because now we're filling the gap down to 220 so I think here in the short term right and based on my analysis based on my research I may be completely wrong right but I think here in the short term there is going to be a bit more downside pressure as we start to see more injections as we start to see more production here for the next couple of weeks that's what I personally think two three weeks so that means that natural gas may have a bit more downside here in the next coming weeks maybe down to 220 this is a prominent level of support that we see we held towards the middle towards the end of June we held that level then we rallied from there we got all the way down to 220 or 202 rather which honestly if we break 220 in the short term we may be going down to 210 I don't know if we get back to 202 but that is a level of support that we have to consider right now and in the short term guys again these next two three weeks you know this might have some downwards pressure D gas might do well but then as demand starts to kick in I'm thinking maybe in November or something like that we start to get you know some cold weather across the Midwest across the northeast which I know it's coming I'm from New Jersey we typically get it in November mid November December those time periods right there you know hey maybe natural gas starts to rally from there and we may be able to get some good money by trading you guys which again goes up whenever natural gas goes up so at this point all I'm saying guys is this could be a decent opportunity to take a look at you guys here as things are starting to shake out because if you look at the chart realistically last time we got down to these levels we almost doubled really we went from 10 to 24 in the matter of a couple of weeks and this can definitely happen again again if we get that demand if we get that natural gas rally in these cold months and the fact that we're getting close to that level at $10 where we doubled I think it's just worth watching right now just watching you guys watching natural gas to see how things shake out I personally don't like swing trading these leverage ETFs I don't recommend it if you go on the website you can see that they don't recommend it but let's be honest guys there are people in the community let's just let's just be honest there's people in the community that swing trade this they don't care that you're not supposed to do it they just want to make solid money and honestly at this point I think you could make some pretty solid money but it's very very risky because let's say we do get that run down to $2 on natural gas let's say you buy in here at that point you're going to be down here holding this bag holding it down 20 30% and that's happened to a lot of people which is why it's risky to swing trade this but if you truly believe that there's going to be a natural gas rally here in the next one to two months I wouldn't think it's stupid to start buying a little bit of you guys maybe here maybe a little bit down here that is if you are into swing trading leverage ETFs I personally don't do that maybe I play it in a in a in a funny count that I have a little bit of money in maybe I throw in maybe a couple hundred maybe a thousand dollars that I'm willing to play with maybe I'll do that and maybe I'll document it with you guys here on the YouTube channel but if I'm playing a lot of like a big position like I typically do on my swing trades I'm not looking to swing trade something like this because the risk is just too crazy I'm looking to day trade it but hey if you have that money the play money that you're willing to lose or if you're just risky you're a risky person risky girl risky gal or guy whatever you can swing trade it that's up to you but me personally I'm not but I just figured to just let you guys in on that just my personal opinion and kind of how you can look at this so that's it you guys natural gas just expect not expect a rally I'm not saying there's going to be a rally but just understand that there could be a rally and there's a lot of money to be made and just watch it at you know right now watch the price action keep an eye on these reports tomorrow Thursday every Thursday 10 30 eastern standard time am there's a report that comes out and this affects the price of natural gas and affects you guys and of course degas so that's kind of my two cents those are my thoughts right now I think there's a lot of potential but there's a lot of risk as well just do your own research guys do your under diligence don't buy because I'm thinking about buying in my play account that I'll show you guys on the youtube channel and you know best say guys just some food for thought so let's talk about some other stocks very quickly here I do have two three two or three more that I want to talk about that I'm pulling up here on my phone so let me just pull these up I think one of them was Nvidia let me just pull it up right here Nvidia NVDA so NVDA right now is looking pretty decent right we got a break out of this 178 level and honestly at this point last time we got we got above 178 we filled up to 186 dollars we've actually done this multiple times in the past we did it once about a month ago excuse me and another time back in the March month into the April month of 2019 right we broke above 175 we ran up all the way to around 186 which is roughly the channel that we're in right now so the fact that we held this 50 SMA we also held the 180 SMA here on the four hour we're showing some momentum to the upside here I think this could definitely fill the gap there's potential from 180 to 186 which offers around a 3% margin of profit but let's say we maybe even pull down and retest this level that could maybe give you a better entry point but then again that might not be the best sign if you're looking to trade this as a momentum play for me personally I'd like to get in in the 180s and fill up to 186 on a momentum swing if we get down maybe start testing these levels at that point this can be slowly turning into a bearish pattern right which is something that I wouldn't want to trade but anyway Nvidia is looking pretty decent right now from about 175 to about 185 definitely seeing some potential there Tesla is at a resistance right now that I'm thinking if it breaks there's huge potential for a overall breakout in the stock right if we pull out the support resistance tool very quickly we draw out this level here you guys notice how we're at this level of resistance at around 244 245 that we were getting rejected at multiple times over the past couple of months you guys can see here in the beginning of July we got rejected all throughout the uh what month was this the end actually more towards the middle actually of September all the way to right now literally right now we've been getting rejected by this level so I think if we pop we'll fill the gap up to 260 no problem I think this could definitely happen I think it's worth watching hence why it is on my watch list so another one that I'm watching not too good of a uh technicals here but we are getting a pullback this could be a bit bearish so I'm looking at this as a potential maybe a short play but if we hold the 180 SMA here support this could be a play where maybe we hold 52 fill back up to 55 this is more of a whichever direction type of play that it takes right and by that I mean you know if we end up breaking this 180 SMA this could be a short option right a put option maybe we can go short on the stock but let's say we launch off this 180 SMA and ultimately break the double top this could be a very bullish move that if we zoom out a bit to the one-year chart you guys can see if we break 70 or 55 dollars I've been talking about this for weeks on at v sporadically across these videos we could end up filling up to maybe 61 to 62 dollars so I think this is worth watching this is probably more of a play that's not going to be good in the next couple of days this might take about a week or two to wiggle out to play out but I still think it's worth watching ticker symbol ATV eyes so that's pretty much it for this video guys I don't want to drag it on too long the basis of this video was you guys and natural gas and of course the overall market update so if you guys found value in this video if you did enjoy it feel free to go down below hit that like button consider subscribing if you do want to see further content for me and don't forget to join our discord group chat and our facebook group and follow me on instagram there's going to be a giveaway on the instagram in a couple of weeks here that you want to be a part of so I'll catch you all in the next video thanks again for watching peace out


And now, an Ig Nobel Prize favorite moment with Jean Berko Gleason, my angry German. When here, I gave the welcome welcome speech in what we call my angry German. And it was recorded on the internet. And the next year, one of the winners was actually a German from Germany. And after the show was over, he came up to me at the party and he said, so where are you from? And I said, what do you mean? I was surprised you didn't speak in German. Where in Germany are you from? And when he asked me where in Germany I was from, and I realized that an actual German thought that I was German, that really made my day. That's the best thing ever that a German from Germany thought I was German. And of course, I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people laugh, then think. This historic Ig Nobel favorite moment video stars Jean Berko Gleason, who delivered the traditional welcome welcome speech in many Ig Nobel ceremonies. The 30th, first annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will be webcast September 17th, 2020. Details about the Ig Nobel Prizes can be found at www.improbable.com. I can't speak German today. It's too hard.


Are you brainwashed about India? Probably. I'm sure I still have some prejudices and wrong thoughts in there. I don't. I never have. Lies. Any wrong thoughts about anything. Ever? Yeah. You're perfect. You're better than your dad. He's a racist. Well, I...  I'm Corbin. I am Ashley. I am not a racist. Good. That's the bare minimum for me to meet. Bare minimum. I shouldn't even need to be said. Just letting you know. Please follow us on Instagram! It's a long video. I hope it's a good video. Twitter me that. It's a long video. Well, it's 12 minutes. 12 minutes? Good grief. Alright, get a hammock. Who knows how it'll be? I hope it's good. It's been recommended. Shrap in. Get a full glass of chai and join us. Won't you? It's called Let's Check If You're Brainwashed About India. Alright. But it does have a white person talking. So that's weird. That is weird. Maybe she's just really smart about India. Who knows? There are people that are really smart about India that are of all colors. Here we go. Many of you have seen people of India and origin in your country. Yes. How do you perceive them? Like people. And how do you perceive India? Many of you think of India as a country of poverty, slums, debt, rapes and caste system. And many of you got introduced to India. Through the famous movie. Slamdok Millionaire. Or Gandhi. And then there are some of you who know India for its Bollywood and yoga. Well, it is not entirely your fault that you think this way. And there is no doubt that India does have its own origins. But India is definitely not what we are showing our countries. Like many of you, I was also a victim of the mainstream media in my country until I ended up living in India and started to kill me, observe this country. And of course, to understand India and its mechanism, one really needs to have fine-tuned senses. Next time you see Indians in your country, remember that their country is being transformed into something like this. However, you are mostly shown only that. And of course, many of you were never told that for many years India has been one of the fastest growing major economies of the world. Are you worried that Indians are stealing your jobs in your countries? No. You are not fully informed. Perhaps you do not know that Indians are also providing thousands of jobs in your country. And they are doing it in different parts of the world. There are more than 800 Indian companies in the UK which employ around 110,000 people. In the USA, Indians owned firms employ more than 600,000 employees. Have you noticed that when the media in the west talks about rapes in India, they rarely talk about the rape rate statistics? You mean they give you all the news? It is because India is nowhere close to the western countries in the rape rate. Yes, I am aware that while talking about rape, one must consider things like underreporting, marital rape, homosexual rape, false filing, law of rape, conviction rates and many other factors. And that is why I sincerely recommend you to dig a bit deep into this and analyze where your own country stands before you become a victim of the mainstream or fake stream media. Fake stream? That's really like that.    And it is difficult to believe that the boys who are hired by these rich women are in some cases not underage. India has always been a multicultural society, and yes, in one way or another discrimination may exist in India too. But wait, which country is crime-free? Is your country crime-free? Is there no discrimination in your country? Yes. India is a country where its minorities are allowed to thrive and grow in numbers and also in percentage. India is a country where many government traditions like genocide, Sikhism, Buddhism and Hinduism were born. And the people of India have even accommodated the ideologies and religions that did not originate from their own land. When I first heard of Indian caste system in my country through our media, it was not even mentioned that in India not only the minorities, but also the members from those societies which are also known as low-caste end up becoming presidents, vice presidents, prime ministers and chief ministers. Has the media in your country told you about this when they talked about Indian caste system to you? Has the media in your country also mentioned that India has already had a female president and a female prime minister? I know that in many so-called developed countries, many law-skilled immigrants from poor countries are purposely and temporarily brought to do low-class and dirty jobs. These poor people are kept in sub-standard conditions and after the job is finished they are sent back to their own countries. The developed countries make the most of their strong currencies and their own citizens shy away from doing small jobs. That happens here. These developed countries are so smart that they perform oppression on the humans that they import and then later very cleverly they dispose them. Can we call it exploitation too? Indians are extremely self-critical and they are genuinely concerned about their problems. They do have the intentions to fix their problems and they do not shy away from talking loud against their democratically chosen governments. That is so true. But you must remember that when Indians talk loud about their problems it does not mean that they want to replace India for anything else. True. And it must be pointed out that Indian media has not really started ridiculing the Western countries yet. Even though many Western countries love to present themselves as some kind of role models, these Western countries continue to forget that they can also easily be ridiculed for their wealth inequality, crimes, intolerance, rapes, poverty and even hunger. Perhaps Indians are more interested in self-correction than ridiculing others. For sure Indians know very well that tragedy is not a competition. Indians are not only providing jobs around the world they are even feeding many hungry and poor outside India by their philanthropic work through their temples and Gurdwaras. And very importantly, they are not expecting anyone to embrace Buddhism, Genesis Sikhism or Hinduism. There is no doubt that India does need to improve its modern waste management infrastructure as many of its streets continue to look dirty even though an average Indian produces far lesser waste than an average American or European. Also the per capita emissions from India are so low in comparison to the USA or China and Indians are no more close to the West when it comes to historical emissions. For all these years you were told about the poor sanitation of India but you were never told that Indians were also the pioneers in the ancient sanitation system not before the western countries were civilized. But of course it shouldn't matter today. Even after 70 years of its independence India is still not open defecation free. The government of India is running some massive scheme to build millions of toilets and only time will tell if that is going to be enough or not. Not many people know that when it comes to defecation some citizens in the western countries have a strange addiction or rather a disorder and this is where a potential exchange can take place between India and the West. India can bring the latest sanitation system techniques from the West and the West can benefit from the auditing yoga from India that can help those western citizens who are suffering from such disorders or addictions. But of course it can only happen if the western societies are brave enough to address their embarrassing problems and not to sweep them under the rug as it is very well known that such kind of disorders and addictions have been reflecting in the western adult film industry as well. Not many people know that India has nuclear weapons and it is said that India has the fourth strongest military. This is an old video. India does not believe in muscle flexing like China or the USA and neither it believes in expansionism. And yes India is not a world leader in everything. It's not a world leader in earning money by selling weapons. It stands nowhere when it comes to earning money by selling crude oil. However, its space agency, ISRO does earn money by sending satellites in space for a very cheap price fulfilling the satellite dreams of poor countries and also by helping the advanced countries which want to save money. India is not a leader in the porn industry and neither it is a top destination for sex tourism. Mostly Indians are just very simple and kind-hearted people and only some of them know that their land was the richest in the world for thousands of years and it was gradually pushed into poverty as it was exploited, looted and colonized by its innovators and colonizers. And these unfortunate victims who have just tasted their independence after centuries of oppression and atrocities are finally rebuilding their country in an extremely democratic environment that may slow down things a bit for them but at least their system attempts to involve everyone in the rebuilding of their nation. The good news is that India's rise is unlikely to cause any country a demographic trouble as India's dormant institutions are not interested to convert you from your religions. Not just that. We are not really going to face any ground supremacy. Even though Indians themselves come in all skin colors and features it is also highly unlikely that Indians will hate you. Even though many of you may have developed prejudices against them because of the mainstream media houses which for some special reasons are overplaying and sensationalizing their problems. Indians are a gentle, accommodating, compassionate, hospitable and yes, they do not have a fake smile. Their smiles are still very real and most importantly they are forgiving. Look how they even welcome the people from the land of their ex colonizers in their country even today. Before you comment on India remember that the countries which were never colonized will not easily understand what it means to suffer from a post-colonial identity crisis. India may have its imperfections and in this process of rebuilding it will make its share of mistakes and it will learn from them. Perhaps we also need to learn how to build a relation with Indians with mutual respect without feeling superior or inferior while focusing a bit more on ourselves to address our own embarrassing problems. See you again. The best part of the video is her sincerity. She's like, I moved to India and I learned this. People that aren't obviously we've now been quite educated in India for the past months. What she said a lot of people from America or Western civilizations will think a lot of these things.  Won't even know it's Asia. People think that sincerely they're not the same color as us so they're probably terrorist because they're from the Middle East.  That's what it is. And then they think that they're stealing the jobs and all this kind of stuff. Educate yourselves. Well, that's what I said. She said it takes bravery for the countries to do this and I said humility. Those changes don't happen. You're not going to get a country for example like America who we love our country but our country has a lot of issues. One of our biggest problems that we are genuinely guilty of and one of the things that most people don't like about Americans is how arrogant we are. Merk.  You can't accept you're not teachable if you're not humble. To me the greatest attribute of a human being is humility because every other good quality comes from being humble. You can't have the qualities of being a forgiving person or being a loving person or being an empathetic person unless you yourself recognize you're not all that and you've got stuff to learn. I'm a mess too.  To say I'm not prejudiced you just haven't seen it yet. Yeah. Thankfully there are a lot of Americans that aren't like that that are humble that really are hearkening back to the roots of our and we understand in our history it's amazing how freaking much we've forgotten it but we are born out of a country that was oppressed by Great Britain. Great Britain oppressed us? Right. But then we did that to the people who were here. What? Now we have no empathy for countries like India who were oppressed by the same oppressor and her voice her presentation is very lacking but she gets the bonus points on the grace because I think this is just a really sincere, genuine I think this girl really got transformed and wants the whole world to know like we do about the truth about India because we do. Guys, America has a long way to go on a lot of things and one of them is their stereotypes that they have of India and Indians. Well not just India of everywhere the stereotyping that is done across the board. Even here internally the blanket statements about people groups where an entire group of people is just blanketed with them whether their skin color or that political party like people in California is talking about the south or talking about the east coast people in New York there's tension everywhere. Not in America though. Because we're the best. Number one, America. Pow, pow, pow, pow. That's my impression of an American.


The U.S. chose this conflict. Notes from the edge of the narrative matrix. Just your regular reminder that the U.S. Empire, A, had solid intelligence that this war was coming, B, knew they could prevent it by making very reasonable low-cost concessions like promising not to add a nation to NATO that they didn't want to add anyway, and C, chose not to. It's 2022 and people still believe the U.S. is pouring weapons into a foreign country to protect freedom and democracy. As like being 57 and still believing in the tooth fairy. The U.S. Empire has had a standing policy of preventing the rise of any rival superpowers since the USSR collapsed, by which I mean the policy was explicitly laid out in writing within months of the Soviet Union's dissolution. Both Moscow and Beijing have refused to kiss the imperial ring, and crippling Russia is an essential part of hamstringing China's rise. This was all planned years ago. Gilbert Doctorow described back in 2017 how Moscow and Beijing have formed a mutually beneficial tandem based on their respective strengths, Russia as a major military force who was willing to confront the U.S. Empire, and China as a rising economic superpower. Empire managers had previously expected that Moscow would be forced to pivot to Washington and become a member state of the Empire. The fact that it chose Beijing instead to retain its sovereignty is what set this all in motion. This was all planned years in advance. It is no coincidence that we were hammered with narratives originating from U.S. intelligence agencies which inflamed hysteria about Russia in the years leading up to this, most of which had nothing to do with Ukraine. I mean for Christ's sake, even the one narrative that did involve Ukraine occurred because a CIA officer, ridiculously labeled a whistleblower by the MSM, just so happened to be in the right place at the right time to get it rolling. So we're all going to suffer financially and live under the risk of total obliteration via nuclear war in a long-planned confrontation geared toward obtaining total planetary domination, just because a few manipulators in the U.S. government decided that would be a good thing. It doesn't need to be this way. Never did. There's no good reason why nations can't just get along and work together for the common good of all. The only reason that's not happening is because of this insane desire to dominate and control instead of collaborate and thrive. Again, pouring weapons into Ukraine is not how you save lives. You save lives by accepting Russia's conditions. Pouring weapons into Ukraine is how you try to draw Moscow into a long, bloody insurgency like the U.S. did in Afghanistan and Syria, which will cost thousands more lives. Russia's demands will be met whether Kiev agrees to them or not. Those demands, including Ukraine must change its constitution to guarantee it won't join NATO or the EU, must recognize Crimea as part of Russia, must recognize that Eastern separatist regions is independent. The only difference is agreeing to them now saves thousands of lives. Kiev cannot stop Russia.  Western governments are making no real secret that they know this is an unwinnable war for Kiev. They had more faith in the Afghan regime's ability to hold up against the Taliban than they do in Ukraine, and rightly so. This is just wasting human lives. This is a proxy war to advance U.S. unipolarist objectives. Nothing more, nothing less. If you still support it because you like the U.S. empire, then just say that.  It was correct to oppose the dangerous agendas that were rolled out by the U.S. empire in the Jingoistic hysteria after 9-11. Doing so didn't make you an Osama bin Laden lover, and it didn't mean you supported the killing of Americans.  It is correct to oppose the dangerous agendas being rolled out by the U.S. empire in the Jingoistic hysteria of the Ukraine war.  I'm old enough to remember when disagreeing with someone's opinion didn't mean they're a secret agent conducting psyops for a foreign government. It says so much about where we're at as a civilization that one of the most outrageous, controversial, and incendiary things you can do on social media today is criticize the most powerful government in the world for its role in starting a war. It's laughably absurd to demand that only Putin be criticized for this when already so few are criticizing the Western actions that led us here. It's infantile and insulting to the intellect. It deserves not the slightest shred of respect. It deserves only disdain and rejection. You don't get to saturate the Western world with a single homogenous and plot-hole riddled pro-NATO narrative, ban media outlets who dispute that narrative, and then still scream at people for criticizing NATO actions that led to a war. That's not a thing.   Whatever your other concerns, agendas, desires, or ideological preferences, none of them will matter if nobody is left on earth. For anything else you fear or desire to be at all relevant in the future, war between nuclear superpowers must first be averted. This is self-evident. Western powers initiating de-escalation and detente is the only sane option on the table, and those who are calling for it are being shouted down, censored, and marginalized while hawkish escalations and brinkmanship are being advocated by the entire political media class. Putin is responsible for Putin's decisions. The Western Empire is responsible for the Western Empire's decisions. Putin is responsible for choosing to invade. The Western Empire is responsible for choosing the actions which led to that decision. Not complicated. It is the Russian people's job to hold their leaders to account, and it is our job to hold our leaders to account. The Western Empire could end this any time and pursue de-escalation and detente. It is choosing not to. That choice is costing lives and leading us toward nuclear war. You have power.  I repeat that it would really help if we switched from calling it a no-fly zone to calling it a directly attack the Russian military zone. When people tell me a no-fly zone or other military attack on Russia wouldn't lead to nuclear war, I like to ask them, are you willing to bet every life on Earth that you're right about that? Really press them on this one. Make them answer and make them justify their answer. It's very revealing how in the minds of empire apologists, the conflict under debate is always comparable to World War II, the one war that the U.S. can justify having entered into 80 years ago, instead of all its many other wars since that it can't justify at all. All the talk about World War II lately reminds me of how the Soviets beat Hitler while the U.S. needlessly nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki and burned 100,000 civilians alive in Tokyo and then used its global narrative control to take credit for winning the entire war. When you refuse to fully examine your Western privilege, defense will look like an attack. When you refuse to examine your Western privilege, you can talk about your trauma all the damn day long while inflicting vast amounts of trauma on families in the name of not giving in to Putin. When you refuse to examine your Western privilege, you can claim a country on the other side of the world that you didn't know the name of last week is something you're willing to blow up the world for in order to not give up, like it was ever yours in the first place.     When you refuse to examine your Western privilege, you indulge in a kind of political monk house and syndrome where you are a perpetual victim that is always being bullied. When you refuse to examine your Western privilege, you can read one New York Times think piece about a situation you knew literally nothing about five minutes ago and assume that your new found opinion is the only opinion that exists and every other opinion needs censoring. We don't make a big enough deal about how MSNBC fired Phil Donahue for not supporting the Iraq war. Couldn't ask for more damning evidence that mass media institutions care about running propaganda and not truth or facts or holding the powerful to account. Corporate media have every incentive to beat the drums of war as loud as possible 24 seven from ratings to maintaining access to government officials to defending the status quo that their politic cratic owners have built their kingdoms upon. Anyone who wants to make money in news media knows that in order to do that you've got to consistently demonstrate that you will always promote the interests of the oligarchic empire at every opportunity. Donahue just didn't play the game.


I'd like to talk about modularizing context. In the previous example, we created two contexts, say person context and an organization context. We then stacked those on top of each other, both on the consuming side and then on the providing side in our application. But if this were a full-size application, it's very unlikely that we would have all of this in one place. So let's look into a strategy for modularizing our context and just for the sake of it, this component as well. So open up our file directory, give ourselves a little bit more room over here and we'll start with person context. We're gonna delete that line. We then create a new file called person context and in it we can paste our line from before. Context requires react, so we'll need to import that. And to finish this module up, we'll need to export both our context provider and our consumer. Now because person context here is just an object, we can destructure both of those components right off of it. So we're importing react, we're using it to create new context, which returns an object with a provider and consumer components, which we're then exporting. And we're exporting them as named exports. So back in our application, we need to import them. Import provider and consumer from person context. Now up to this point, we've been using property access syntax for both our providers and consumers. But the way we've imported them, that's no longer necessary. We've already split those out. So I can take person context off of this and also the provider. And we're back to success. But in doing that, we've kind of made this too generic. We have a little bit of problem. We're just using provider and consumer here. But now we can't really effectively moduleize this one, the organization context. Now fortunately, ES modules has a nice way of allowing us to rename things locally. So we'll call this as person provider and import this as person consumer. We'll need to update our app here and here as well, both the consumers and the providers. Now, if you missed that, I'm gonna reiterate. Here, I'm exposing these as just the generic provider and consumer. That's how they get exposed for import. But app side, wherever I include these, I can rename them on the fly by saying, I know you exported this thing, but I'd like to refer to it as this other name. In our case, person provider. Now we've freed up the namespace for us to moduleize organization context. Let's start by deleting the organization context in our application, creating a new file, organization context, and pasting that in. Again, we need react, so we'll import that. And again, we'll use object destructuring to pull off both the provider and the consumer. Finally, exporting those as provider and consumer. Back to our app, we can import those now. Import provider as organization provider and consumer as organization consumer. Finally, import those from dot slash organization context. Now we can update our business profile to organization consumer and our app to organization provider. Finally, the Pista resistance, this component here. We'll copy, delete that, create another file, business profile, paste that in. This file will also require react and export this component function. Now we're seeing these little squiggly errors, meaning that these are not defined, both the organization consumer and the person consumer. So we need to require those as well. We'll import the organization consumer as organization consumer from the organization context file. We'll just copy and paste that to get the person consumer from the person context file. Now we're getting a new error, so let's follow that. This thing business profile is not defined. That's because we removed it without defining it. So let's import that business profile from the business profile file, which leads us back to the business profile components. Click that and we can see that organization consumer is not being imported. You can see that here as well as the person consumer. Let's import that. Import consumer as organization consumer from the organization context file. That clears up better and now we're getting the person consumer error. So we'll import consumer as person consumer from the person context file. Now we're back in business. Now we have one thing left that we can do. Here we're importing both the provider and consumer for person and organization, but in this file we're really only using the providers. So we can delete those now. That was a lot of code motion. So I'd like to review what we have. We have an application and at this application level we are providing context values for a person and an organization, Michael and learnreact.com. Those contexts are not in this file. We've modularized them by putting them in different files. In the case of person, we're importing the provider as person provider from this file, person context, which we're doing the same for the organization, importing the provider as organization provider from the organization context. Both of those have their own file. In the case of the person, we import react. We use object destructuring to pull off those two components, the provider and consumer components from our created context. And we export those as named exports on this module. Exactly the same for the organization context. Now, additionally in our app, we import this business profile component from the business profile file. If we look at that, it imports react as well as the consumers from organization and person. We're assigning them to local identities of organization consumer and person consumer. If they were named just consumer, we would not be able to use both of them. Now, again, this is a prop list component. All of the data that it's getting to render out this H1 that we're seeing here is provided via context.


Thank you all so much for coming out and joining us this afternoon at Hyatt Park. The drills and skills clinic started as a one-week basketball intensive clinic and over the last 10 years has grown to include six sports, basketball, soccer, tennis, golf, cheerleading and flag football over two weeks. The program has featured volunteer coaches from Benedict College, Oakley High School, Jay Johnson, and also the University of South Carolina. A wonderful staff at the Department of Parks and Recreation here at the City of Columbia has coordinated this program since it began in 2010. We've had the incredible opportunity to help shape and mold 3,000 children in this program. Our registration is now underway for the clinic that starts later this summer. It's open through Wednesday, July 31st. We really want to encourage, take this as an opportunity to encourage folks to sign their children up. Open the boys and girls ages 6 through 13. The clinic is going to be held from August 5th to the 9th from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the following sports. Basketball, soccer, and tennis. Basketball, boys and girls ages 6 through 9. I'm here at Hyatt Park and boys and girls ages 10 through 13 at Greenview Park. Soccer will be at Greenview Park, also ages 6 through 13, boys and girls. And tennis also at Greenview Park, boys and girls ages 6 through 13. Folks can go to the City Recreation Centers, also go to the website, parks and facilities, page online and register there. The City of Columbia Parks and Recreation Administration Office is at 111 Recreation Drive. Oralwood Park, we want to encourage folks to also feel free to go by there and pick up applications. If you need the call, the phone number to call is<PHONE_NUMBER>. Again, it's<PHONE_NUMBER>. The very first thing that I asked the city to do when it became mayor in 2010 was to come up with some type of summer camp experience. I didn't do a lot of summer camps growing up. My children participate in the camp every single year, but still amazes me how many young people don't have that opportunity. And this is open to every child across the city, across the Midlands. And we've had a chance to really tap into some incredibly gifted young people. And being able to see these gifts manifested, not just through athletics. We're able to see the leadership skills developed, their understanding of the importance of teamwork. We come across other talents that we didn't know that they had, whether they'd be in the arts or some are gifted public speakers and don't know it. But we subscribe wholly to the idea that genius and talent and gifts are distributed evenly across our population, all across the city and across the world. But opportunity is not always. And it's our job as parents, as leaders, as coaches, as community, as just as citizens to make sure that every single child has the opportunity to do the great things that we know God has in store for them. That's why we do this, because we love these young people. And we're so excited to make sure that this year, the 10th anniversary of the mayor's annual drills and skills clinic is a success. So bring your babies out, bring your young leaders out. The future is here. It is strong right here in Columbia South Carolina because these young people and because of the men and women who make this program a successful each and every year.


Welcome back from that report. Highly engaged employees hold very favorable opinions of their place of work. When employees feel connected to their teams, love their jobs and have positive feelings about the organization, they are going to want to stay and put in extra efforts to help the organization succeed. These brand advocates speak highly of their company to family and friends. They encourage other employees around them to do their best. Now my guest, Samson Robert O'Core is a trained and qualified human resources and marketing management professional from the prestigious Emo State University ORE. He brings an in-depth wealth of experience from different sectors, including insurance, manufacturing, financial logistics, food and beverage, textile, luxuries, power generation and steel, transport and logistics constructions and chemicals. He is a profound people's manager as well as a development specialist that enhances organizational brands using employer branding and culture. Alignment, many thanks for joining me, Samson, on Business Insights and Plus TV Africa. Thank you very much, Justin. The pleasure is mine. Let's just write into it as it is. Now there are several definitions, you know, aspects to employee engagement. In your perspective, how can you break it down so that we can understand very well? Okay, thank you very much for this lovable opportunity to actually raise this medium in the need to actually reach out to the public. Now, in context of what we're treating right now, I'd like to address issues from the true root word or root meaning. First of all, let's look at what employees are all about before even mentioned alongside with what engagement is. So an employee in a nutshell is just an example of when an individual has been contracted after going through processes of questioning called in quotes here interview and found worthy to feel a particular sport, obviously because he or she has actually met all the criteria set for that particular role. These are ways to talk about the knowledge, the skill and the ability. So such a person is actually, you know, given the documents to state that okay, fine, going from these moments, you will have to work for us and all terms and conditions also to will be included in that document. Outlining these are the periods that you're going to work and these are the days or the number of days you're going to work in the week. These are the set objectives or goals from the organization that is required of you to meet and what that is understood. Now, such a person, he or she is regarded as an employee committed to a brand working on the auspices of a non-railer to achieve that organizational goal. Then now treating what engagement is. Now engagement is just like a term when you say, I'm giving you a particular thing and the purpose for giving you these haven't explained that to you and you have said yes. Now, if you have said yes in the information, okay, so keep up. Now I understand this thing. Then I am committed to actually drive this alongside with you. And there is a mutual concept between myself and the opposite. So that ordinarily is what I class as engagement. Now to now make the two together, employee engagement is in a situation where an employee has been duly officially contracted to deliver on a set goals or set objectives and find the roles and time period he or she is supposed to deliver on this what was that goal. And I have said yes and I am running without vision. So it means if I stay longer needs that makes me engage and it means that I am happy and if I'm delivering results it's also too happy. All right. Still trying to understand the whole engagement of employees as it were. There are talks about M3Cs. I don't know how true that is. I hear that you need to consider the career, the competence and the care. Just how do all of these work all in hand in hand? Thank you very much, Justin. A particular individual to fill a role will not be duly considered for a particular role and later engage if he or she does not or fails to meet a set parameters set by the system. And these parameters are hinged on competencies. Competencies or possibly skill sets as defined by the system or by the job role. So these are the things that I need an XYZ for you to have, for you to deliver on these sets. So if you have two out of three most likely you might not be considered as the right fit to actually consider yourself as being engaged or possibly being employed. All right. Okay. So what exactly or why exactly do we really need to engage employees and for people who are having hard times in engaging the employees, how can they improve upon it? Okay. So it's very necessary for employers, individuals that are looking for third parties to actually fulfill or meet their set goal, engaging the opposite in the sense that because you cannot do it all by yourself or possibly you can do it, but you need a time to also to concentrate on other things. Hence you need the opposite to actually coming into the system or into your space to have that delivered for you. So it is very necessary for people to consider, from the opposite side, helping them to achieve ordinarily what they would have achieved and if it's not taken also to so far, the set goals that they have, that they have measured. But in the long case as well too, sometimes certain things get to go wrong during the course of when an employee is in court right now said to be engaged in the sense that, okay, at first an employee has fulfilled all requirements and he or she has set or has been set online or in sprint and obviously the activities are starting. Then comes maybe one or two factors that may have triggered negative impression or perception that could have demotivated such an individual. Before you know it, this particular person tends to disconnect or possibly fail to run with that particular pace he or she has started with. Now, one has to be very careful also to when you are in this contractual agreement also to make sure that you actually fulfill your own part of the bid is for you to make sure all necessary resources are provided and from time to time keep on checking the contracted individual by documents that he or she is in a high spirit, he or she is also on the right track to actually run with the vision and most likely also to produce results. So what we see in the long of these days right now is that most employees halfway or even before the journey gets to a reasonable distance, they get themselves themselves are discolored and obviously because of one thing or the other, either attitudes, the attitudes from fellow employees or possibly leadership style or organizational culture. The majority of these lies on organizational culture and possibly some certain characters or features within the system. Alright, something I was going to talk about. Thank God you mentioned the issue of organizational culture and you know, team spirit and all of that, because sometime on this show I talked about workplace toxicity and how some people, you know, don't tend to work very well with others just because of some sort of disconnect and it's actually affecting productivity. So let's still look at all of this vis-a-vis motivation, team bonding and team building. How do you bring all of that into play in employee engagement? Okay, so from the onset, we have to be very careful when we try to draw up plans to engage people to do surveys or commit the service towards inextricable money in the sense that necessary parameters as factors have to be put in place. You don't get to wait until an individual gets disconnected from what has been discussed from the onset. Other than that, it should be classed as being reactive to such circumstance. So now to be a bit proactive for most organizations, I would recommend that you hold up to the time when your ball rolling. I'm sure you get it right in a way. Now, if it is an existing organization, experience would have been in your favor, having worked with different individuals. You have experience of how classes of employees or categories of employees will be here. Let me just pick an example. Imagine right now you have just employed, for example, right now a human resource practitioner just like me and he or she is made or set to achieve some certain results. One of it will be to ensure your drive employee engagement. You make sure you set the cultural rights. And this particular individual also to balance welfare, motivation and the likes of them. And this particular individual has been doing this over a period of time. Now, this particular professional has been fulfilling, helping other employees and the organization to grow meeting needs. And he or she also too is not being paid attention to. In code right now, our target has been recognized. Now, over and over, this individual has mentioned to the organization, okay, I have fulfilled, I have met and I have achieved so and so milestones. However, if I also do get my own work activity reviewed and what's called appraised. Now, if organization pays a blind eye to these, a whole lot of the time you see these individuals that get it demotivated and a whole lot of exceptions that coming in. So it is advisable for organization to put in place certain factors, certain resources that will help improve the motivation of the interest of the organization and the interest of motivation in the system. The reason is when you're employing a new employee, ensure that you your own body process is delivered maximum day to the fullest. Other than that, what we see in most organization is an employee is brought into the system and maybe one or two days, he or she is made to go through induction. And before you know, they already have some where else the system should have been that this individual is taken by hand, obviously through a body. Maybe other employees in the same unit or possibly somewhere else, I mean, someone else who has more experience in that particular role, so that this individual will get to see or will get to know how activity is, how he or she can achieve results. Then it brings it about if this individual do out and will achieve results. Other than when these things are not fully met at this individual along the get this engagement or this comment. All right, something that we'll take a quick break. Now when we come back, we'll be looking at retention of employees, especially right now, where there's this and Jack Basingham and lots of people are actually leaving their jobs in search of greener pastures. Let's see how we can actually motivate and actually talk about productivity as we should be doing when we return from this quick break. It's still business insight and plus TV Africa. We'll be right back to join us again. All right, welcome back. It's still business insight and plus TV Africa and we have been looking at employee engagement and something Robert O'Kara is my get. He is an HR and marketing and professional and we has been trained so much insight on the show today. Many thanks for staying with us, Samson. Thank you very much. All right, just before the break, I talked about employee retention. Most of businesses, aside from the fact that most people would actually want to go look for greener pastures abroad with the Jack Basingham and all of that. Some organizations are actually having it tough retaining their staff. Could it be that they are not well motivated or what are the issues or what can you actually advise? Okay, so it's not here, not there, but for me, I will plus it as a mixture of different factors. Let me be very frank with you. I set aside some certain organizations that have fantastic processes, fantastic leadership and also to genuine purpose for doing business. A whole lot of the time, most organizations that are in the system are actually doing some exciting things that are not really in compliance to maybe obviously standard practice or possibly that are not meeting the objective or the expectations of people that works for them. Now, it is, I wouldn't say it's a surprise that we are seeing people living, working or possibly let's look at it contextually, living in a geographical landscape of Nigeria to Europe, obviously for greener pastures. Let's press this part. Now, a whole lot of the time, I think people believed that better remuneration, better culture, better benefits are better made available in those developed organizations simply because of where they are presently, most likely either they are not recognized or it is totally absent all of these things. Now, you and I can also do resonate with the fact that the foreign exchange of our dear country today is no longer smiling as it is right now, most likely impacting on the strength on their ability of the lead to currency that you earn in terms of salary or income at the end of the month, meeting the basic and primary needs of people. To a large extent also to, these are also to force before people will actually take on the so-called jacquard syndrome or moving from one organization to another, they would have gone through series of difficulties, series of challenges. Imagine if an employee is entitled to let's say about 20,000 Naira, as only the 20,000 Naira in X, Y year was better and after X, X year, the economic standard status started to change. So the so-called 20,000 Naira may not fit into this year's X, X, X years. That the 20,000 Naira may not just be realistic anymore because of the current realities. Exactly. So and even if an employee had gone through an organization, it would be to management or leadership to make them understand that I think I need a raise, obviously I need you to look at me, even if you don't want to look at it from the perceptible emotion, emotion-based, okay, used performance-based management system to great my work and have me evaluated, most likely at the end of time I feel I should be able to or get entitled to a raise that can at least help me, drive me reasonably through months, running into months and out of months. But if it's, I mean, even if it's not recognized or if they're not given attention, they start considering what is the next opportunity for them to actually take a leap from where they are to somewhere that is able more better and these things actually cause a retention problem in our system here. Now to be very frank with you, we have so much a large percentage of organization here in this country whose in nature, there's something we call turnover rate or turnover rate and so much is so much evident in an organization, simply because that obviously they are not looking at the directions where they need to pay attention to, which in case is within the system for them to actually control. And I bet I will advise also to organization, if at all they are listening to this show that they should all sit down, people need to sit down and look at what exactly can they do to actually have Mr. A and Mr. B omit to them or to their activity for a longer period because they tend to also to benefit from this. Imagine when A and B jets out from your system, obviously recognizing the number of years of experience they have gathered and how much they have delivered over the years to another organization. Obviously they are pulling or they are taking something out from you, having done it somewhere and continue with productivity over there. So who is losing right now? It is company A on this other side. So we need to look back and check what we have in the system. If actually employees are actually getting satisfied with their stay in the system and these you can actually achieve by conducting a survey. All right. And our advice also to professionals as well to begin to conduct survey to take to determine where or identify where people are no longer becoming happy or satisfied with organization before it turns red. All right Samson, there is so much to say concerning employee engagement specifically when we talk about the retention and productivity, but time is never ever your friend there when you are actually having so much from. But then we have to call it a wrap on the show for today. We must say a very big thank you to you for all of the wonderful insights that you have provided on the show for today. We do appreciate them. Thank you very much. All right. My guest has been Samson, Robert O'Curry and we have been looking at employee engagement and vis-a-vis retention and productivity. And that's the size of the show for today. I am Justin, Accademy Business Insight will return to your screen same time. Bye for now.


So what is honesty mean in the culture? What does honesty mean for a altruistic morality? Well, if altruism honestly means don't lie to other people.   What's the reason? Well, altruism, Christianity, every religion, every moral code out there tells you not to lie to other people because it's wrong to hurt other people. It's wrong to deceive other people. You're hurting, you're doing harm, you're doing damage by denying other people the truth. It's all other focused. That is the focus of the virtue of honesty in all other moral codes that I'm familiar with anyway is on others, is on the effect it has on the other. It's on your duty to take care of others, to help others.  So the focus, the orientation, and the whole way in which we think about the virtue, we think about the concept of this honesty is what is the effect going to be on other people?  Rand's orientation is completely different. Objectivism is not primarily oriented to the other. The only of the virtues that is oriented towards others is justice. And even there, it's oriented towards the value others represent to you. The goodness or badness is in the context of your life, your values, your happiness life. But it is about judging others. Honesty is primarily focused on self. It involves other people because part of honesty has to do with what you communicate to other people. But the main orientation of honesty and objectivism is towards what you do with reality. Honesty is, as a positive, an orientation towards facts, towards reality, towards truth. Honesty means have an act of mind, search, look, always be interested in the truth. Not what your tribe tells you, not even what Ein Mann necessarily said, but what is true. That should be your orientation. What are the facts? Now what's convenient? Now what's nice? Now what's consistent with everything else I believe right now or consistent with my emotions are going to cause me to feel well, feel good, but what is actually true? As objectivists, to me what objectivism actually means, both epistemologically and morally, what objectivism actually means is being a truth seeker. I mean what it means in action for you is to seek the truth and to understand why the truth is so crucial to your life and your happiness. No happiness, no life is possible without the truth, without knowledge, without facts. And that's what honesty highlights and in that sense honesty is very related to rationality, to reason. Because rationality requires honesty. It requires using only the facts. It requires not letting untruth, not letting falsity enter your thinking process. It requires that you focus your mind on reality as it is, not as you wish it to be or not as other people tell you it is. Again, related to independence, seeking the truth is something you have to do for yourself. So honesty means having a, you know, it requires having an active mind. It's about seeking facts. It's about constantly being ready to think and to engage and to pursue new ideas, new thoughts, new facts. It's about being curious. It's about resisting stagnation, stagnation of the mind, stagnation in any aspect of your life. It's about engage, engage, engage, think, think, think, look around, discover new things, figure new stuff out and then integrate. It's about being rational. It's about taking ideas seriously and taking values seriously and understanding the relationship between facts and values. Values come from a certain set of facts. The moral values of objectivism come from what facts? What are the facts that lead necessarily to the objectivist morality? What are the facts that lead necessarily to the objectivist morality? Well, the facts are the requirements of human survival. What specifically, what specifically is required for human beings to survive, to thrive, to achieve happiness? That's a factual question. It's a scientific question. Given the nature of human beings, what kind of activities are going to lead to success? What kind of activities are going to lead to thriving? What kind of activities are going to lead to flourishing? And what to death and destruction? Those that lead to success, values and virtues, those that lead to destruction, we want to avoid them, vices. That's the standard. The standard is reality. The standard is fact. And in everything, every decision, every value that we choose, moral value or otherwise, it has to be based on some fact about you, about reality, and everything needs to be evaluated based on that. Again, this is the application of reason, rationality, to living and honesty, orients us towards only the facts, only the facts. And it reminds us that all values, all our knowledge, must be connected to reality. And if I hold ideas, and I get really passionate about them, but I don't have them anchored to reality, am I being honest with myself? If I'm not convinced really, fully, because they're not fully integrated, because they're not completely connected to reality, how honest am I being when I become this passionate advocate for the ideas? So, to be honest is to be honest primarily with yourself. And to be honest with yourself means in thinking, in valuing. Are my values connected? Are they integrated? Are they connected to the facts of reality? Are my concepts defined? Do I really understand them? When I say capitalism, or when I say egoism, do I know what I really mean? Do I fully have those ideas concretized in reality and integrated into everything else in my life? What do I really know? So, honestly, interestingly enough, honestly requires immense introspection. It requires the ability to think about what do I know, really? And what do I just imagine I know, feel like I know, have a vague understanding of. And when I'm really, really excited and passionate about fill-in-the-blank, voting for Biden, or voting for Trump, or voting for... Have I really thought this through and considered every element and every aspect of what I'm doing, particularly if I'm going to be passionate and become an advocate for this? Do I really understand all the implications? That's what honesty requires of every single one of us. In every single activity we engage in in life. It requires us to be honest with ourselves about what we know and what we don't know. What we really know and what we kind of know. What have I accepted because Ayn Rand wrote it? What have I accepted because Iran said on his show? And what have I accepted because I've really thought it through and understand it? Again, this is independence, and it's honesty, and it's rationality. They're all one in the end. We'll talk about this at the end when we talk about pride. We'll talk about the unity of the virtues. But in a sense, all the virtues are one thing, about you and reality.  And then when it comes to kind of values, honesty requires that we ask the question, why is this a value to me? Am I sure that it's a value that truly enhances my life, that it should be a value? And then what have I done to achieve it? I say I want to make a lot of money. Or I say I want to be successful in my career. Or I say I want to be fill in the blank. Or that I want to achieve fill in the blank. Or I want to buy one day fill in the blank. What have I actually done? What am I actually doing? Am I living a life that is actually going to get me there? So it requires, it demands that we constantly think, evaluate, and that we don't just accept our lives as it is. That we challenge ourselves. Now, so some definitions. Thank you, Kano Piaz, Kano Piaz. He didn't ask a question, but sent over a couple of dollars. I really appreciate that as a show of gratitude. Thank you, James. I'll get you a question in a little bit. If it's a question, yeah. A couple of definitions, because I think they're interesting. It's just commitment to reality and facts. It's just commitment to reality and facts. But it's interesting that in Opa and Ayn Rand, they almost always define honesty in the negative. The focus of honesty is on the rejection of. So in Opa, the subtitle of the topic of honesty, which again, I always say, if you really, really, really want to understand these ideas, read Opa and listen to Leonard Peacuff's courses, lectures on the virtues. That's where you're going to get the original. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual, would be any man or woman who is willing to think. Meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life has been guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, whims or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist. All right, before we go on, reminder, please like the show. We've got 163 live listeners right now, 30 likes. That should be at least 100. I figure at least 100 of you actually like the show.  But at least the people who are liking it, you know, I want to see a thumbs up. There you go. Start liking it. I want to see that go to 100. All it takes is a click of a thing, whether you're looking at this. And you know the likes matter. It's not an issue of my ego. It's an issue of the algorithm. The more you like something, the more the algorithm likes it. So, you know, and if you don't like the show, give it a thumbs down. Let's see your actual views being reflected in the likes. But if you like it, don't just sit there. Help get the show promoted. Of course, you should also share and you can support the show at your own book show dot com slash support on Patreon or subscribe star or locals and show you support for all, for the work, for the value, hopefully you're receiving from this.  You'll know what shows are on, when they're on. You'll get notified. So, yes, like, share, subscribe, support. Like, share, subscribe, support. There you go. Easy. Do one or all of those please.


It is now time for Member's Statements, the Member for University of Rosedale. Thank you, Speaker. I recently received a letter from Rosedale High School of the Arts, one of the many excellent high schools in my constituency. The letter was written by students at the school and was about the Ford government's cuts to education. Attached to the letter were 16 pages of handwritten signatures, nearly 400 students signed their support. I'd like to share some of their words here. The Ontario government's changes to education threaten the learning experiences of students across the province. These changes have been implemented under the impression that all students learn the same way. It is not fair to assume that all students will benefit from going back to basics or from learning online. The Ontario government is depriving students of excelling in courses that they are passionate about. It is also unjust that students are encouraged to attend post-secondary institutions upon graduation, but are being denied the necessary loans and grants that will get them there. Here's how the letter ends. We are writing to you to speak out against the changes as our education is what determines our future. Speaker, the passion and dedication of young people in my community is an inspiration. Our students know that education is the key to their future. They've said so right here. It's a shame the Ford government doesn't agree. Thank you. Thank you. Member Statements. The Member for Aurora Oak Ridge's Richmond Hill. Thank you. Well, thank you very much, Speaker. Speaker, yesterday was the Yazidi New Year, also known as Ceresal. It's with great pleasure and privilege to rise and wish the Yazidi community in Ontario and all over the world a happy New Year. Ceresal, which literally translates to Head of the Year or Beginning of the Year, is celebrated on the first Wednesday after April 14th. This day is also known as Charchambasaur or Red Wednesday. This rich and historical celebration dates back 6,769 years, Speaker, and it centers around fertility and renewal. Every aspect of this auspicious event is a symbolization of the history of the story of creation, immortality, death, rebirth, and incarnation in the renewed cycle of life and fertility. The Yazidi community all across Ontario and all over the world began their celebration of this ancient tradition on Tuesday evening. During this festive period, celebrants dress in colorful clothing and decorate their homes and communal areas with bright colors and symbols of fertility and renewal. This sacred day is not only viewed as the beginning of a new calendar year, but it also time when the body and the spirit are also renewed. Speaker, last night I joined Sheikh Mirza and other members of the Yazidi community in Richmond Hill as they celebrated their arrival of the new year. I had an absolutely fantastic time. Once again, I would like to thank the Yazidi community for inviting me and I wish them all a happy new year full of joy, healthy, and prosperous. Sada Salam. Thank you, Speaker. Speaker, on April 1st, managers at the neighborhood group in Beaches East York woke up to a cruel joke. Out of the blue, they received a memo to let them know that the Youth Job Link Program funded by Employment Ontario had been abruptly canceled effective immediately. This meant the immediate loss of a frontline worker whose job it was to help young people figure out how to get their first jobs, grow their job search skills, and plan a career. She was working with a caseload of 50 youth. This frontline worker lost her job with no notice, it just evaporated. On Friday she had a job, on Monday she didn't. Think about the cruelty of the process for a moment. For months, the neighborhood group asked their contacts at Employment Ontario about the status of the program. For months they were met with silence, then suddenly the notice that it wasn't going to be coming. Meanwhile, the neighborhood group is left to pay lay-off termination and notice period costs. The Premier campaigned on a promise that no one would lose a job, then that no frontline worker would lose a job. I would like the Premier to look into the eyes of the woman who lost her job on the 1st of April and admit that he has failed to meet that promise, and into the eyes of the youth whose path to employment just got that much harder. All across Ontario, 300 youth job link frontline workers learned via equally cruel processes just how empty the Premier's promises were. That's not okay, Ontario. Thank you. Thank you. The member for Willowdale. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On Tuesday at 1.30 in the afternoon, my community of Willowdale will fall silent to mark a difficult anniversary. A year ago on a sunny April 23rd, the first truly warm day of the year, Willowdale suffered a tragedy none of us could ever have imagined. A man intending to cause harm and terrorize our community drove a rented van up onto the sidewalks of one of the city's busiest streets, ending the lives of 10 people and injuring 16 others. Like many of us, like many of my neighbors, this event shook me to my very core. We were scared. We had been attacked in our home on the streets we walked every single day. It was a terrible reminder that even in an amazingly diverse neighborhood, a loving and supportive community, we can be vulnerable to unimaginable hate. There is no place for such hate in Ontario. But in this most terrible moment, our community came together. We stood up against those who sought to divide us. Within moments, everyday heroes in my community leapt into action. They delivered first aid. They gave each other shelter and comfort, and they reached out to strangers to let them know that they were not alone. This is what makes Willowdale special. This is what makes Willowdale so great. Mr. Speaker, this morning we rose for a moment of silence, and I want to thank my colleagues on all sides of the House. And while I believe it's important, Mr. Speaker, to mark this day, to take a moment to also remember we must act. We must continue to be everyday heroes, to comfort our friends, to stand up against intolerance and hate, and to bring our communities together. Mr. Speaker, we must. Thank you. Thank you. Member Statements. The Member for Parkdale High Park. Thank you, Speaker. The Ford Conservative government's 30% cut to legal aid funding is discriminatory, xenophobic, possibly unconstitutional, and a blatant attack on the rights of people already pushed to the margins of society. Legal aid is accessed by the most vulnerable to ensure their rights are upheld and that people gain a sense of security and dignity. People such as low income tenants and seniors facing illegal eviction from big landlords, domestic violence survivors, workers fighting workplace discrimination, and people being cut off social assistance. Studies show that every dollar retracted from legal aid leads to a three to five dollar increase in areas of government expenditure, such as homelessness, health, family breakdown, and incarceration. Eligibility for legal aid was already so low. A single mother working a minimum wage job 40 hours a week already doesn't qualify for legal aid certificate. This government has also seized all funding for immigration and refugee issues. This means Canadian citizens and permanent residents seeking to reunite with their spouses or migrants and refugees in immigration detention will get no help. Refugees fleeing situations of serious harm will get no help and could be deported and face persecution, maybe even death. We are not a province that believes only the rich should have access to due process. We are appalled that this government thinks so. We call on this government to reverse their decision and ensure Ontario is a place where everyone has access to a fair legal process. Cuts to legal aid means that this government is making Ontario a place to grow inequality and oppression. Thank you. Thank you. The member for Scarborough Guildwood. Thank you, Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to present a member's statement on behalf of member from Simcoe Gray. Member for Scarborough Guildwood is seeking unanimous consent of the House to make a statement on behalf of the member for Simcoe Gray agreed? No. Heard a no. Member's statements. The member for Berry Springwater. Oral by Dante. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to take this opportunity to talk about Jason Hellman, an exceptional young man in my riding of Berry Springwater or Medante and Berry Innisfil. He's known throughout the area. He's a pillar of our community. He's an avid volunteer and active fundraiser, a special Olympian and a man of many talents. Well, Jason has volunteered for a number of different causes that Terry Fox run is the closest to his heart. For the past three years, Jason has run his own community fundraiser called Razors of Hope. Every year, Jason raises money from within the community and holds a headshaving event. He shaves his own head in support of the Terry Fox run. Last year, Jason raised over $5,000 on his own. He's hoping to beat that goal this year. Jason embodies what it means to be a good citizen. He is kind, he's caring, and he always puts others ahead of himself. Thank you to Jason for all your hard work supporting our community and inspiring local youth to follow in your footsteps. On May 11th, he'll be doing his event at Berry City Hall. Please join me in wishing him success as he begins another year fundraising for a great cause. Member Statements, the member for Flamborough-Glanbrook. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to talk about yet another multi-million-dollar private sector investment in the city of Hamilton and more specifically in my riding of Flamborough-Glanbrook. On April 9th, Striker Canada celebrated the opening of its new headquarters in Watertown, a nearly $100 million commitment. This 130,000 square foot building will be the new home of their corporate offices and operations employing over 200 people. This move allows Striker to consolidate all aspects of their business under one roof. Striker is a world leader when it comes to medical technology and equipment. They offer innovative products and services in several areas, including orthopedics and neuro technology that helps to improve patient and hospital outcomes. For years, Striker Canada has had a huge impact on the way health care is delivered in the city of Hamilton. For example, they supply hydraulic stretchers found in all Hamilton ambulances. Striker is also the company that built a robot that is used by surgeons at St. Joe's Health Care in Hamilton to perform the first ever partial knee replacement surgery in Canada. And I'm thrilled to see companies that use 21st century technology and innovation like Striker call Hamilton home and expand their operations in our very own backyard. Once again, Speaker, I would like to congratulate Striker on the opening of their new headquarters in Watertown. And I wish them all the best as they continue to create state-of-the-art technology in our health care system. Thank you. Member Statements, Member for Brampton East. Thank you, Speaker. The Conservatives' cuts to education hurt both students and teachers. Schools across Brampton are already chronically overcrowded. These cuts will take things from bad to worse for our students' quality of education. These cuts have a real impact in our city. Peel will see over 360 teachers lose their job. Over the past few days, my office has been flooded with phone calls from teachers who have just learned that come September they will be out of a job. Teachers like Preeti, she's a young mother. She's been working tirelessly to be a teacher. For more than seven years she's been doing post-secondary education and volunteering. Finally last year she landed a permanent position only to learn on Tuesday that that permanent job is now gone come September. A job she cared about that she was passionate about. She made investments in her life because of this job. And now she doesn't know how to manage the upcoming year financially. And despite losing her own job and being put in such a precarious situation when I talked to her she was more concerned about the students and their education. She already has 27 kids in her class and she finds it hard to manage. The other classes in her school have as much as 28 to 30 kids in their class. Under these conservative cuts that class size is bound to grow. Teacher deserves better, students deserve better. We need to build a society where we strengthen education, support our teachers and provide them opportunities for our students not tear down their future. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Member's statements. Is it a point of order? Member for Scarborough-Gilwood standing but I don't believe you're entitled to do a Member's statement today. Anonymous consent to present in Toronto a year ago. Member for Scarborough-Gilwood is seeking unanimous consent of the House to make a statement in recognition of the lives that were lost one year ago. Agreed? Agreed? No, there's a no. There's still time for one more Member's statement from the government side. Member's statements. Member for Scarborough-Gilwood. Seeking unanimous consent of the House to present a Member's statement to commemorate the lives that were lost, the 10 lives that were lost. Not to grant at this time. Reports by committees.


Saber Guardian. So it's a multinational live fire exercise here in Shabla, Bulgaria We got the Bulgarians the Serbs and then ourselves here So we'll be firing our Avenger weapon system, but they'll be firing both air defense as well as aviation assets So it's going excellent. We really brought out our best team here I mean Charlie batteries is solid solid battery all the way through we really don't have any weakness out here We are our firing crews are excellent our central guys have air picture up the whole time. We got our medics on site We got everybody we got a supply our our whole team is operating to this to the standard and beyond So we're really doing well out here. We're excited to be here I've been in the army for four years so Spent five years in the Marine Corps as an intelligence analyst got out went to school and then became a 14th of law in 2017 and Just wanted to try something new Working on an Avenger crew is pretty fun. Anytime you get to be on the truck. It's pretty fun But shooting is the most exciting thing about the Avenger.  His name is PFC Salazar He's from California. He's a good guy real laid-back. He does what he's told and when he's told to do it. I Really didn't have anything to do Cuz I want to college for like a month I was like, yeah, that's boring. So I dropped out and then just doing the army Sonnebele. He's a good team chief. You know, it's good working with him. Like we have a good connection There's always jokes and everything with him and Whenever he's not around I'm pretty sure he trusts me with getting the job done by myself The bond is extremely important Like my gunner should be able to read me and I should be able to read him Sometimes we don't even need to verbally communicate because we just know what the other one's thinking. So the bond needs to be good there needs to be shared trust and confidence and the others ability and I think we have that in Charlie battery here


Hi there. This is Shepard, and I am a shooting instructor, small business owner in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I have the Jackson Hole shooting experience, and we serve high net worth visitors to Jackson Hole. We serve them up the best possible experience that they and their family could enjoy for a day. And we are looking for some people to help us book clients and schedule coaches, answer the phone, make sales, that kind of thing. And if you think this is something that might be of interest to you, please keep listening. I think the most important characteristic for the person that would be successful in this booking guru position would be a person that is bubbly and happy. And when somebody talks to you on the phone, do they often comment that they can almost hear you smiling over the phone? Is that you? Or do you just bring laughter and joy to a room? Not in a nerdy, geeky, annoying salesman-y way, but just in a fun people person kind of way. Are you happy and cheerful? That's the biggest thing for this job. The other thing that's imperative is attention to detail. We can never once over the course of dealing with thousands of people's names, we can never once spell T-O-N-I as T-O-N-Y. That just can't happen. We have to be absolutely perfect detail oriented. We have great systems in place. We'll train you. You'll be using a Salesforce system, Google Calendar. Those will be the primary systems and Gmail, of course, Google Docs, that kind of thing. If you are willing to learn, even if you don't know anything about those programs, if you're a quick learner, great with people, understand some basics of technology and are excited to learn more, this could be a fun thing for you. One of the great things about this position is its flexibility. We would like you to be in Jackson Hole in our office at least one day a week. If you'd like to be here every day, that's fine as well. The schedule that we plan on is three days on, four days off, four days on, three days off. That'll get you 80 hours, a little bit more actually, every two weeks. It should work well for you. Let you have a lot of days off and work well for us. We do need to cover the phones for 12 hours a day, seven days a week. So we just want to make sure that that's happened and you can work remotely the other days. I think somebody that lives, you know, within an hour or two of Jackson Hole, doesn't want to spend the money on the high cost of living here. Just as long as you're in the office a little bit so you get to know the coaches and that kind of thing, we're going to be happy. One important thing is that you don't have any unprofessional background noise. Never, never, ever once can we hear a, I don't know, a motorcycle revving in the background or cursing in the background or a child yelling or screaming. This has to be a perfectly professional background noise wherever it is that you are. So if you can make that happen and you're the awesome person we've described, it's probably worth chatting a little bit more. And I don't know. I don't know what the proper amount of pay would be for this. I think that if we were in many parts of the country, it would be anywhere from $9 an hour to 12 an hour. In Jackson Hole, I think the person that would be doing a similar job would be paid 15, 16 bucks an hour. We're prepared to pay anywhere from $18 to $20 an hour for the perfect person. So you're not going to start out with that, but you'll get there quickly if you're the right person. If you're an order taker and that's all you do, you're not good at helping convert people that are interested into trying out our service, it's not really right for you. This is not just a sales clerk kind of thing. You have to be willing to sell, definitely not in a high-pressure way, but you've got to be willing to help people get into our experiences and help them have a great time. I hope this is interesting to you and something you might want to investigate further. Please do be in touch with me. Let's talk about it and see if we could work out something that would work for both of us.