Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from around the world. Our headlines, protests held across the Philippines as President Duterte completes five years in power. Indian farmers convene parallel parliament in New Delhi, a struggle completes eight months. US President Joe Biden's signs deal with Iraqi Prime Minister Khadimi to end US combat missions in the country. And in our final story, we take a look at the Delta variant of COVID-19 and the need for sustainable pandemic response. In our first story, two activists were reportedly shot and killed by police in the Philippines on July 26. Right's group Defend Bikol stopped the attack's network, stated that they had been spray-painting a slogan on a bridge. Police later claimed that the activists had fired on the patrolling officers. The incomplete slogan read, Ours Duterte, and was part of a series of protest actions across the Philippines on Monday. The day marked Duterte's final state-of-the-nation address. Thousands of people gathered to denounce the human rights violations and killings in the country. Right's group Karapatan has documented 25 massacres under the Duterte administration. Of these, 36% were farmers fighting for land. Been in July 2016 and June 2021, 414 people were victims of extrajudicial killings under the supposed counter-insurgency operations. At least 1,090 human rights defenders had been jailed as of March 2021. The Philippines currently has 715 political prisoners, 489 of whom were arrested under Duterte. Indigenous people and peace consultants have also been targeted in violent threats by the police in the military. Killings in these cases are justified by the police who claimed that the people either fired back or were resisting arrest. These incidents exist on top of widespread killings during the country's drug war. The Philippines Human Rights Commission had stated back in 2018 that estimated 27,000 people had been killed. Former ICC chief prosecutor Fatah Ben-Sauda had requested authorization for a formal inquiry into this period. Duterte, however, reiterated threats to kill drug dealers during his formal address on Monday. Meanwhile, as reported by Rappler, over 2,700 protesters gathered in Metro Manila denounced the rights abuses in the mishandling of the pandemic. Protests were also held in regions including the Bicol region, Bacalot, Citi, Kalibo and Cebu. We now go to India, which has now marked over 8 months of the historic farmer struggle. Thousands of farmers are continuing their sit-in after first arriving at the three borders of Delhi in November 2020. In the latest phase of their protest, 200 farmers are holding a daily sit-in demonstration of the Jantar Mantar monument. Called the Kisan Sansar, the Kisan of the Farmers Parliament, the action is taking place just as Indian lawmakers convene for the monsoon session of the parliament. Farmers have remained steadfast in their demand for a complete repeal of three farm laws imposed by the government in 2020. Calling them a death warrant, they argue that these laws will boost corporate interest agriculture. They have also demanded a guaranteed minimum support price for their produce. Farmers are now holding daily discussions on the laws amid heavy police presence and paramilitary forces as well. 200 women farmers also held a special session on July 26 to highlight their role in agriculture. The sit-in was moderated by the Communist Party of India, Marxist leader Subhashni Ali. Protesters demanded that the government take back the Essential Commodities Amendment Act. The sit-in protests have also focused on state-regulated agricultural markets or MUNDIs. The new laws have introduced private traders in the market claiming that this will eliminate the middlemen. However, not only will this lead to a lack of oversight, it will also erode the MUND economy, which employs people as laborers, etc. Critics say. The Farmers Parliament will now continue throughout the monsoon session of the parliament. In our next story, the US has signed a deal to close its combat mission in Iraq by the end of 2021. US President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadimi signed the agreement in July 26. However, this has not been a complete withdrawal of the 2,500 troops currently deployed in the country. Biden stated during a press conference that the US will be available to train, assist and help to deal with the Islamic State. This does mean that the country will end its combat mission in Iraq after over 18 years. The US-led military coalition invaded Iraq in 2003 under the guise that the Saddam Hussein government owned weapons of mass destruction. These weapons were never found and the US continued its invasion till 2011, when a majority of the troops were pulled out. However, soldiers were redeployed in 2014 with the growing threat of the Islamic State. With the withdrawal of the IS from Iraq and neighboring countries, demand for the removal of foreign troops has increased. Popular opposition grew after the assassination of Iraqi Commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Iranian General Qasim Soleimani. The Iraqi parliament had then passed a resolution to ensure that all foreign troops would leave the country. Anti-imperialist activists and opposition members have denounced the latest deal as a betrayal of the popular demand, saying that it does not go far enough. Some have also claimed that it is an attempt by Qadimi to boost his popularity before the upcoming elections. Iraq had witnessed a series of protests earlier this year against unemployment, lack of services, etc. And in our final story, we look at the Delta variant of COVID-19. Just as countries in the west are opening up, this variant is driving the surge in countries like Indonesia. It is characterized by a higher rate of transmissibility. It is important to note that COVID-19 vaccines have so far proven effective against severe infections. However, some evidence is now showing that the Delta variant can infect even fully vaccinated people. Public Health England stated that out of those hospitalized with the variant, 22.8% had been fully vaccinated. Experts are now calling for the continuation of measures such as social distancing and masking. Here is Dr. Satyajit Rath to talk more about this issue. We have been pointing out that because the Delta variant has been selected for better transmissibility, that a virus can transmit better, certainly allows it to spread from person to person more efficiently. But it also allows it to spread from cell to cell more easily in the same body. And as a result, all the parameters that you are pointing out that it spreads more quickly. Therefore, larger amounts of virus progeny are generated more quickly. And even that the proportion of seriously ill people also is likely to increase a little bit from 10% to 12%, 13%, 14%, something like that. All of these are explicable by that property. So all of those are speculations that are beginning to be supported by the evidence now as you point out. And therefore, the so-called non-pharmaceutical interventions, in other words, masks and physical distancing, remain important. The crucial issue is that over sustained durations, livelihoods, particularly for marginalized communities, need to be protected while providing physical distancing and masking, particularly providing efficient masking, which we have not been doing. We've simply been using one, two layer fabric masks. All of this, it is upon the state and the governance and administration to come up with sustainable policies for. And the good news unequivocally is that the mRNA vaccines, the adenoviral vaccines are all protecting very well against even the so-called Delta variant, as far as hospitalization, serious illness and death are concerned. So 90, 95 plus percent protection is being seen against these, if some claims are to be believed. Certainly, despite the fact that 50% of the population, of the adult population in the United Kingdom, in Britain and in the US, is vaccinated, 95 plus percent of hospitalized seriously ill and or dying patients of COVID-19 are the unvaccinated. Oh, absolutely. And let's keep in mind that when we are talking about the percentage vaccinated in the United Kingdom or in the United States, we are saying, oh, 50% are vaccinated. That doesn't mean that 50% of the residents of every street are vaccinated. What it means is that there are communities where pretty much everybody is, all adults are vaccinated and there are communities where hardly any adults are vaccinated. And as a result, inequity is sharpening in the measurement of COVID vaccination. And as a result of that, in unvaccinated communities, the virus is beginning to run rampant. That's all we have time for today. We will act tomorrow with more news from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.


What's good, y'all? Chris from Justice Breaks doing another recap while our labels print for another three-boxer of 2023 at Topps Chrome. Random team number nine. The next three-boxer from the case that Joe opened up just a little while ago. And another great three-boxes. Nice Gabriel Moreno green on the rookie. That's at a 75. Having a nice couple moments. Tristan Costas for Fracter. Riley Green on the teal. That's at a $1.99 for the Tigers. Green, Lunen Sosa. Blue, Gerard Cole. Let's go to the fun stuff, though. Green, Javier Assatt, 69. Nice. At a 75. Rookie Otto for the Cubs. Gold. Launched into orbit. Pete Uggio. Spoilers. Miguel Cabrera. That is $11.50 for the future Hall of Famer. I'm at a Peter Lonzo base refractor variation. Otto, nice hit for the Mets. And they're not seeing double. Orange Galactic. Six out of 25 on the Peter Lonzo Auto. Double-dibbing is the Mets. Nice hits all around. Got more three-boxers that will be winning tomorrow. That was the last break of the night on Fnatic's Live. Justice Breaks. Thanks, y'all. Have a good night.


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Good day. My name is Ray. Today we're going to be talking about the origins and geographic features of the Philippines. So practically, we're gonna try and situate where the Philippines is located at in Asia and in the world. We're gonna look at scientific theories on the origin of the Philippines as well as origin myths of the Philippines. Then we're gonna talk about geographic features and characteristics of the Philippines and finally we'll answer your question How did these features shape us and our history? So what you see before you is something very familiar. The Philippines is located in Asia and the southeastern portion of Asia. It's bound in the north by Taiwan, in the west by the West Philippine Sea, in the east by the Pacific and in the south by the syllabus sea. Recent developments in politics, however, have changed some of these boundaries and you could say this is practically what it looks like today. The Philippines is home to 7,107 islands. But the number actually fluctuates and so it's really much closer to a recent count of 7,641 islands. The reason for this is that sometimes the islands submerge because of climate change or they discover new islands or they could be taken from us. Approximately it is 1,000 square miles from north to south. The land surface is 114,830 square miles. The size and diversity of the features of the Philippines translates into things like cultural diversity, biodiversity, the presence of subcultures and cultures and a strong maritime culture. But we'll be talking about this later on. The Philippines has seven mountain ranges. The largest and longest and most majestic of these is the Sierra Madre which you see before you. The tallest peak is Mount Apo which can be found in Davao. Over here in the island of Panay, we have Mount Majaas as the tallest peak. The lowest peak, on the other hand, can be found in the southeastern part of the Philippines which is the Philippine Deep. Being part of the Ring of Fire, the Philippines is also home to many volcanoes. Some of the most iconic and majestic ones are what you see before you, Taal Volcano, Mount Mayon which recently erupted and Mount Pinatobo which erupted in 1991 and was the second most devastating eruption in the century. The closest to the island of Panay is the Dormant Volcano Canlaon. It's also the tallest peak. The Philippines is what you would regard as riverine. That is to say that most of our aspects of wave life and most of our aspects of culture and our resources come in and around or are related to the river. Some of the most majestic rivers that we have are Kagayan, iconic ones like Pasig River or over here in the island of Panay we have the Halaor River, Ilu Ilu River which cuts across the city and Panay River. The climate of the Philippines is tropical. Don't get yourself fooled though. It is home to some of the most harshest conditions. For instance there is the dry season and the wet season. The dry season happens somewhere between November and May and the rainy season happens between June and October. There's a saying in the Philippines that if it rains it pours, if it doesn't it droughts. Next we move on into the theories about how the Philippines came to be. So one theory which was formulated in 1596 is the continental drift theory. It argues that the world was one large land mass called Pangaea and that over the next series of millennia the continents gradually drifted away from each other. So where does the Philippines fit in here? Sorry for the pun. The Philippines actually floats away from Pangaea in the same way that the other continents floated away. Another theory is the land bridge theory. This theory argues that the Philippines is connected to mainland Asia and that 25,000 years ago you could walk across to Asia using these land bridges. When the ice melted the water levels rose and the land bridges were lost creating the archipelago that you find today. This theory was critiqued by both Fritjof Vos and Landa Hocano. Fritjof Vos in particular argued that an analysis of the crust in the Philippines and China does not show any connection. Another theory is the folding and folding theory or diastrophysm theory by Leopoldo Faustino and this theory argues that the earth's crust constantly shifts, bumps into each other and moves away from each other and that the islands in the Philippines today are a product of these constant shifting plates. Another theory proposed by Bailey Willis is the volcanic origins theory and he argued that much like the islands of Hawaii the Philippines is a product of volcanic eruptions. One other theory that teeters between myth and science is the argument that the Philippines was part of a lost continent of Mu. So if you are aware of the legend of Atlantis supposedly there is another continent in the Pacific called Mu which came crashing down and was lost to the sea forever and the Philippines is one of those which remained of Mu. Moving on we talk about the mythological origins of the Philippines. One common feature of myths about the Philippines is the idea of divine creation. These kinds of myths argue that God in his infinite wisdom chose to create the Philippines and its people. In here you can see a sense of exceptionalism that the early inhabitants of the Philippines acquired. You may also find another form of myths about the Philippines as being born out of the result of a quarrel between divinities. The most familiar of this is the quarrel between the earth and the sky and how the kite or the eagle or the falcon in some cases caused the sky and the sea to have this big battle and at the end of it the Philippines was born. In some other cases you have the argument between two giants and they throw stones at each other and these stones become the islands of the Philippines. You also have an Atlas type narrative which is to say that there is this big massive divine being like the biggest giant you've ever seen and the Philippines is either part of his body or it is his body which is decomposing or the giant could have probably dropped something and it came crashing down, splintered into pieces and became the islands of the Philippines. To understand the topography of the Philippines one of the best examples I would like to use in particular is the campus of Miagau. If you look at where the campus of Miagau is it rests on top of a hill. If you go down you'll see the coastal plains close to the town. Immediately to the south you will find the sea and immediately to the north you will find mountains and all the communities that live here interact with each other as determined by these particular features of topography. So the Philippines is home to the same kind of diverse topography that you will find here in this in this campus. The Philippines has the fifth longest coastline in the world. It's actually so long it's longer than continental US and you can probably understand this cost some form of problem for the defenders of the Philippines during the Second World War. They simply had no idea where the Japanese were going to land because of this extensive coastline. It's also home to a lot of coves, alcoves, groves, and bays and harbors. Maybe one of the most iconic ones that you know about is Manila Bay itself and it gives you an idea about how history is shaped by a certain geography. For instance, the Americans fought with the Spaniards over Manila Bay and the Americans fought with the Japanese over Manila Bay and whoever controlled Manila Bay practically controlled Manila. The Philippines also has a number of lakes. Some of the most iconic of these are Laguna Lake which you see before you, Lanao Lake and Ta'al Lake. There are also waterfalls and some of these are most the most iconic and scenic beauties that are used in postcards and pictures. For instance, Pagsanhan Falls and Marya Cristina Falls. The Philippines is home to 10,000 species of plants and ferns and 900 species of orchids. It's also home to some of the smallest animals of their species such as the Philippine Tarsier, the Tamarau, and the Pilando. If you talk of marine life, the Philippines is home to 2,000 species of fish, 10,000 species of shells, and it's home to the Pandaka Pigmea, the smallest fish in the world. The minerals that you can find in the Philippines are not only diverse, they're also abundant. Gold, for instance, is something that we have been harvesting and mining since before the Spaniards ever came. We also have iron, copper, silver, platinum, chromium, manganese, lead, zinc, petroleum, asbestos, clay, gypsum, lime, salt, sulfur, marble, and adobe stone. Probably the lasting testament of our relationship with gold can be found in the Oton Death Mask which you see before you. The Philippines is also home to many scenic beauties. Some of the most iconic ones are the Ifogawa Rice Terraces, the Hundred Islands which you find in Pangasinan, the Chocolate Hills, the Underground River in Palawan, one thing that happened to the Chocolate Hills, unfortunately, is that during a recent earthquake, the topsoil shifted, revealing the earth beneath it, and so the color has already changed. The most important question to ask about this lecture is how does geography affect history? How does the land affect us? One of the consequences, for instance, is occupational. For example, take a look at just the sheer number of islands that we have. We have thus adapted to this multitude of islands by having a strong maritime culture. Fishing, boat building, communities which live far from the sea have adapted hunting, foraging, or even farming. For instance, among the Ati or Aita community, you can still find hunting very much alive. The geography also affects the kind of industries that we have. For instance, where clay is abundant, you have pottery industries. In terms of our culture, we are practically very ethnically diverse. Maybe the best example to think about how diverse we are is to look at beauty pageants, especially the international ones, where they tend to feature the best of the Philippines. Many of the costumes that have adopted elements from different cultures across the Philippines, sometimes on their own, sometimes combined with each other. This diversity creates a very vibrant Philippines. On a more serious note, one of the social political consequences of the Philippines is that we develop some kind of regionalism. That is to say that the Philippines is divided according to regions, usually in and around ethnolinguistic groups. And therefore, when we try to think or imagine or draw lines of affiliation around a concept of community, it is based along these same regional lines. In that sense, it's very difficult to have a sense of nationalism. It should be said that the Philippines is the first country in Asia to declare itself a nation, the first to conceptualize nationhood. However, we have experienced what you could probably say as a delayed sense of nation. And you can see that happening today because, well, many of the problems that we're facing today emanate from a lack of this sense of nation. Another consequence of the geography that is social political in nature is that it was easier for foreigners to occupy and colonize us, divide and conquer, as they say. Finally, maybe this is a little bit more subtle, but it's also observable. There is an uneven development of communities between upland and lowland communities here in the Philippines. Although these communities might be closer to each other, it can be really difficult to get one community to access information, services, ideas, or even basic resources. Finally, we go back to where we started. Let's take a look at everything that we've talked about today. We have tried to situate the Philippines. We have tried to talk about the geography of the Philippines. We have talked about the scientific theories on the origins of the Philippines, as well as origin myths about the Philippines. And finally, we took a look at the consequences of the geography of the Philippines to history. It is with the intention that this could serve as a framework for understanding later on in your course why Filipinos behave the way they do, why things happen the way they did, and how history is shaped. Thank you very much.


It's coming in as slow as it can. How's it? Uh-oh. Reverse, quick. Quick. Senator, Mayor, and guest, it's just a delight to have you here with us today at IBM Indicat, the home of the IBM company. This is where it all started in the early 1900s. In fact, in 1911, three small companies merged into the company that later became IBM. I understand that 1911 was a very good year. In those days, we started with the clocks, as you reminded me, downstairs, and that's an old time recorder, and it was running this morning when I was in here. It's patented in 1898, and is still doing quite a good job all of these years. From the time recording business, and through about four decades, where the punch card was invented here, and machines to process them, and one of the big early contracts, as you probably know, is a social security contract, and then into other government, commercial, and business endeavors. During that four decades, we were doing all mechanical work. It was not until 1949 that we developed the first real accounting machine. And if you would come with me, I'd like to take you through that period from the mechanical technology right through high tech. I'll take you right here. This was the technology, if you will, for the first accounting machines. It's very heavy and bulky and slow, and through the years, we made progress, and had smaller ones that do the same job with high tech relays and mechanical counters. But it was not until the invention of the vacuum tube that we were able to get into widespread commercial endeavors for computers. These are the vacuum tubes that IBM used in their computers in the early 50s. This vacuum tube has two circuits in it. The other part of the machine that was important, besides this logic element, and this is a magnetic drum, these two elements made the computer in 1953. Now this is a good time to tell you and show you the tremendous change that's been brought about by technology. This small module has ten times the storage capacity of this large drum. This module has one million bits of information, and it was developed by our Burlington, Vermont development and manufacturing team, and I'm proud to say that the substrate, the white substrate that is on it was developed and manufactured here at the IBM facility in Indicott. Now this is not an engineering curiosity where we made one. It came right off the high volume semiconductor line in Burlington, Vermont. The logic story, a million bits of information in this one little chip. It's a half inch square. You can see that the chip is almost as big as the carrier. The logic is almost, is certainly just as important and as impressive. This is the logic circuitry that replaces the vacuum tube. These have between 10,000 and 70,000 circuits in one module. This module was developed at our East Fiscal New York facility, and the machine behind you here is the one of our 1953 vintage vacuum tube computers. The circuitry that you hold in your hand, it would take 46 of these to duplicate. So you can see the amazing changes in technology. 46 of those spread out would equal what's in your hand. And then came the inventions of transistors, and transistors revolutionized our industry. We went from relays to vacuum tubes to transistors, and the small transistors were able to make commercial machines that were extremely beneficial to business. And we developed these kinds of machines that could process checks and payroll checks at about the rate of 370 a minute, and that was the kind of state of the art that we had back in the 60s and 70s. Through the next decade, we made transistors smaller. You can see the technology got smaller, and smaller means more reliable, less costly, more productive. And now we were able to take the transistors and put several of them into a package and mount them in an electronic area. So now we are doing functional things. All of the electronics in one element does a specific functional task. And we live with this for the decade of the 70s, but what you really came here to see is the high technology of today. I'd like to show you right here is the 4381 computer. That is the most advanced computer that we make here in Indicott. I'm happy to say that you have two of them installed in the White House, and I checked this morning and they're running. These are the boards that are used in that technology. This is one board, and I told you you had in your hand 70,000 circuits before. This board can interconnect 330,000 circuits, and the 330,000 circuits make the entire logic of that computer, and it's used by business and government, universities for engineering, scientific work, and commercial work. The inside of this board is extremely complicated. It has 20 layers of circuitry. There are over 30,000 holes drilled in this board that we're going to plate through later. It has almost a mile of printed circuit wiring in one board, and that mile of printed circuit wiring, the wires are very thin. Each wire is about the size of a human hair, and I'm happy to say that our reliability has improved to the point where we have shipped thousands of miles of these lines over the last year without a single defect, and that was a defect that was common to the prior generations and prior technology. Now, you really can't tell much about the board from looking at it. You have to really get a chance to look inside of it, and if you step over in this way and just look for a moment at this picture, this is a blow-up of a small section of that board. In fact, it's only a half inch. It's blown up 30 times, and if you look at a half inch blown up 30 times, you could see each of the 20 layers in this direction. These are some of the 30,000 holes that are drilled and plated in the board, and these are some of the mile of printed circuit lines that are in that board, and now what I'd like you to do, I still can't show you the details that's necessary to see the human hair.  I see that. It's truly amazing. It's so small that you can only see it under very high magnification, and when I take you down into the factory, you'll see how people have to cope with and work with those size geometries every day. The changes over the years are truly impressive, and you know that. We live in a time of change, and this is the kind of change that has been brought about by very innovative people working on the thresholds of technologies. But to demonstrate what technology can do, the small computer that you see here in front of you is one developed here at Indicott. That computer has twice the capability of all the machines behind you from 1964 back, and it's really a computer that sits on your desk. Now, perhaps it's a little unfair to compare technology over such a long period of time. But since your inauguration in 1980, we started the 4300 series. The machine you see here is one of the later models. From 1980 to today, we've improved the performance three times, improved the reliability, and dramatically improved the cost effectiveness of that machine. That is the kind of productivity that our customers have become used to in the data processing industry, and that's the kind of productivity that we must continue to provide. We have seen a tremendous number of changes since the early 1900s of the time clocks up until today. The pictures that you see behind me is the site that we have today, and we've grown from 1,300 people back in the early 1900s to 15,000 people that work right here in this area. Back in the early 1900s, it was predominantly manufacturing. Today, about half of our people are involved in development at advanced technology and advanced manufacturing. And we are expanding. We're planning and growing for the future. Behind me on my left are three buildings that we just broke ground for right here in Indicott. And we're expanding our technology, and all of that growth is for advanced technology, development, and advanced manufacturing engineering. Over the years, we've seen a number of changes brought about by truly innovative people. These innovative people who developed this technology and exploited this technology and not only built machines, they built an entire industry, an industry that employs over a million people, an industry that's vital to our economy and our national defense. And we are extremely proud, as Americans, to have been a part of that growth. So much of it started right here. And now, Mr. President, if you'll accompany me, we'll go down and see the most advanced technology in the world in this very building. I'll take one last look. That? That is what I'm looking at. 150 times. The board that you saw upstairs is right here inside of the machine. And I'm sure you recognize one of the modules that you've held in your hand. Now, this is where we do the final test of these operations right here. And these are the people who do the work. And these machines are actually tested by our people with the assistance of computers. And we have a computer just like this one that's in a data processing center a few blocks from here that has the capability of supplying all of the data that we need to test all of these machines for these technicians. And I can test as many as a hundred of these computers at a time. And that's how we get the technology and accuracy and reliability that we need. This machine has gone through practically all of its tests. And it's ready to graduate. And some lucky customer is going to get this machine. And what we'd like you to do is to participate and do the last piece of the final test. Yes, I do. If it doesn't work, we're both in trouble. Now, this is one of our test stations if you'd sit down please. I'll explain exactly what we're going to be doing here. We want to test this computer and we're going to use it with the computer that's over in the data processing center. We have done practically everything to test it until the last final steps. The step comes in a couple of pieces. The first thing we're going to do is test this printer. And I know it works because this morning we printed out a message. And then we're going to test this console to make sure that this processor is okay. Now we could have programmed this in any number of ways. You could write your name or anything else. What we've decided to do is have you push one of the keys. And obviously, because you're Irish and I'm Irish, you have to push the green key. That's all. One key. Now what's happening is some good news. We heard the printer turn on. And this is one of IBM Vindicott's printers. And it has a message for you. I know this is going to work because we built this in one of our other buildings. We manufactured the printer here as well. And now we should be seeing some snow. I think we're going to get we got some good news. The president has passed. Congratulations. The machine works. It's graduated. And you've graduated. On this other printer, last season you printed out a souvenir for you to take away. Now I have to tell you it's not all good news. You took 31 seconds. Our operators normally take 30. So you have to try harder. This is a program which sounds to me the honorable Dave Martin. Dave Martin. I'd like you folks to try now to currently bring your attention to a young lady who is no stranger to the community since we are in Tidecobb Stadium in our home village of Vindicott, New York. Of the residents of the village of Vindicott, I welcome you to our community. Industrial background represented by the workers of this valley. The people of the community this area has long been called the valley of opportunity. I know that when Mr. President is re-elected in November you the United States the nation of opportunity. It's a great pleasure to introduce a friend of ours. The United States Mr. President we're proud of you because you've made us proud of America and have led that path once again. These are no ordinary times and we cannot settle for any ordinary person to lead us. Our president brings great strength to our nation and to our party. He has made the nation begin to believe in his burden of taxation that a recovery without inflation eliminated much unnecessary governmental regulation slowed the growth of federal spending. Reception of course as I said already you've dedicated yourself to justice, liberty and economic growth because of your efforts people in this valley and throughout New York State lead fuller freer lives. But you may never get dropped 7% the steepest decline since 19 evil nation has fallen to communist aggression and the people have seen the kind of success stories in this valley multiply a million times over. Mr. Reagan


We investigated the Hepatoprotective Effect of Celebenin, SLB, to ischemia reperfusion, IR, rat model by evaluating the histological expression of Fars-Fars-L, HMGB1 and CD45 markers and SLB pharmacokinetics. We found that SLB reduced the expression of these markers in liver tissue under IR conditions and improved its pharmacokinetic properties in ischemic animals. The results suggest that SLB has a protective effect on the liver during surgery. This article was authored by Alexandra Kateserusha, Georgia Valsami, Nikolaos Kostomitsopoulos, and others.


In the summer of 2015, lawmakers in St. Louis passed a city ordinance that would have gradually raised the minimum wage to $11 by January 2018. That meant 38,000 workers in the city would have seen their wages rise, and those who stood to benefit most were women and people of color. But this local law was essentially derailed by conservative state lawmakers. That same summer, the Missouri legislature passed a law blocking all local governments from passing further minimum wage increases. Then in 2017, state lawmakers passed a second bill that retroactively nullified the St. Louis measure. That meant dropping the city's minimum wage from $10 to $770. This situation, where a higher level of government passes a law blocking a lower level of government's laws, is called preemption, because one law preempts the other one. It happens frequently between different levels of government, and often it's innocuous or even beneficial. For example, the federal minimum wage sets a floor for state and local minimum wages.  Preemption is used to stifle progress across issue areas, including gun control, environmental regulations like plastic bag bans, and public health measures like smoking bans or during the pandemic mask mandates. The common thread is protecting corporate interests and preventing policies that would help workers, consumers, and communities. When it comes to workers' rights, preemption is especially common in the South and Midwest. These states have a history of racist actions and policies, and when preemption is abused, it prevents localities from enacting policies that address the still present legacies of inequality and exploitation. Let's take a closer look at the state legislatures in the South and Midwest that are passing these preemption laws. They're majority white, majority men, and mostly Republican controlled. The policies being preempted, such as the minimum wage increase in Missouri, paid sick leave mandates, and fair scheduling requirements would particularly improve economic conditions for black workers, other workers of color, women, and immigrants. So by preempting those laws, state lawmakers are directly harming these communities. What can be done? Local communities, advocates, and lawmakers can push back on a harmful preemption, whether it's forming coalitions to advocate for rolling back, weakening, or preventing such laws, or having local governments via lawsuits to challenge the state-level preemption. We need to do everything we can to support workers and advance economic justice. It's time to stop preempting progress.


Okay, the event is starting and we're live. Hi, I'm Daniel Kinster from Wikimedia Germany. I'm the chair of the, I was going to say the Architecture Committee. No, the Technical Committee now, TechCon for short. Welcome to our webcast on the new TechCon truck. Right, I have a little presentation prepared. I will share it with you now and then we will walk through it briefly. It's not a very long presentation and then we'll hopefully have time for questions via IRC. If you are not on IRC and want to be, it is the channel of Wikimedia-office on fimo.net. Okay, so let me see if I can get the screen share going. So the TechCon charter a few months ago, or for a long time actually the Architecture Committee and later the Technical Committee has been wanting to give itself a charter where we write down what this committee is all about and how it functions and what its duties are. And about a month ago, shortly before Wikimedia, she got around to writing and passing such a charter. So I want to tell you a little bit about it today. The Technical Committee today is Brian, myself, Gabriel Giuseppe, only recently he just joined us last week, Rowan, Tim Teemo and Victoria, and Kevin is often helping us out with notating in other organizational duties. What's the idea behind the Technical Committee? The idea was originally and still is really to have a place to resolve tricky technical questions. Too often things just get stuck because there is nobody around to actually make the tough decisions. So a few years ago... Looks like we lost Daniel. Okay, we did. We'll stand by for him to come back. I see an opportunity for post-production here now. Yeah, I can edit this out. So maybe, can you hear me? Maybe I can give a bit more color. Yeah, we can hear you. Oh, okay, good. So until Daniel comes back. So Daniel made this presentation at Wikimedia in Montreal last month, but obviously not everybody is able to attend Wikimedia, so we thought it would be helpful to share it here again more broadly and also record it so that folks can have access to it afterward. Partly, the reason why we decided to do this was a specific set of questions that came from the community about the new tech hub. People had questions, so it would be helpful to get everybody together here to give our views for how this piece has changed recently. Obviously, the architecture community has been part of the present leadership to the technical community of the movement for a long time, and the opportunity here for us was to make it even more effective, and this is what we, this is what we tried to do. So all the changes that Daniel would be speaking of are consequences of that desire to make things, to make the community more effective in its support of the foundation. So, yeah, I don't know if Daniel realizes that you think about, maybe Kim, you can send him a quick note. I pinged him on IRC. The thing is, if you're presenting full screen and you are talking, you can go on for 20 minutes without realizing. So, let's see, maybe I can go ahead and share my screen also. Shall I just share my screen? I have the presentation from over here. Well, I think we need a plan B. So if you have the presentation and you want to continue, Victoria, I think that would be great. Yeah, so presumably you can not see it just yet, right? Sorry? I see your screen share, Victoria. But not the presentation. No. Okay, so I need to screen share it differently. Just give me one second, and I will do that. So here we go. And here's the presentation, and I should put it. All right, so starting from the top, and of course, let's note that there is an embedded technical joke here, but I'm sure most of you have already seen. So this has already been covered by Daniel. So the committee is a place where we aggregate some of the most senior people in the technology part of the community, and they are there to help the rest of the technology community resolve tricky questions. And as you see, of course, from the constitution, the committee, there are folks there like Brian and Tim that have been here since the first line of code world has been written. So we have a great deal of legacy and of knowledge into what powers of the movement they are. The way that the committee has worked so far is primarily through the RFC model, where you know, somebody is trying to do something that makes sure how to do it, that like advise support from the architecture committee, as it used to be, and that would support those submitting RFC, and the Archcom would eventually get around to it and respond to the advice. One of the things that was not working very well was it wasn't clear whether the RFC would in fact be executed, if you like, by the Archcom or whether they were just there to provide advice. And clearly, this was a significant question. And in the technology committee as constituted now, we are very clear that we don't have resources in this committee to be executing on RFCs, but what we do have are some, as I said, the most senior technologists in the community that can advise others that are undertaking projects that are big and significant for the movement. So in order to capture the intent for how the committee should now be functioning, we spent, I think, and Kevin can correct me on this, we spent of the order of the quarter, I think, debating to try and come up with a charter that is much more accurate in supporting its intent and communication about the intent of the community. So this charter was approved, I think, about two months ago, roughly, and has been subsequently shared. So if we start working through it, first of all, the mission of the committee is to go to place behind technical decisions. And what does that mean? Well, these are decisions that are strategic, that are cross-cutting, or they are hard to undo. So this is how the committee defines what high impact meant. And in addition to that, there's a bunch of stuff that perhaps don't fall into this kind of categories right off the bat. But there are also other aspects that the committee is responsible for as the guardian, and that is the integrity of the code base, the consistency or approach, the stability of the code base, as well as its performance. So this is really the university in which the tech home is operating. And I guess we've been operating like this now for, I wouldn't say, the last month or so. So the purpose is really to provide technical leadership These are the people that we trust the most with the technical foundation of our work. And we want to make sure that they are able to provide advice, not only to the projects that they are working on, but more broadly into the evolution of our code base. And in many ways, tech home acts as an extension of the city of the foundation. And I knew that kind of very literally. When I joined the foundation, there was, there still is, a radial pent up kind of decision choices. I've had to make big choices about our staff. And I very deliberately get virtually nothing around those decisions, because I don't believe that in our movement, in our foundation, we'll be consistent with our principles to have one person make these determinations. But it is much more appropriate and actually I continue to much better outcome to have that responsibility shared with other very senior technology experts in the foundation. And that's really the tech home in a nutshell. I mean, it captures the most senior than the technical expertise that we have and applies it in support of the mission. And also, we wanted to make sure to affirm that the tech home is not something that is exclusive to the foundation, kind of far from it. In fact, Daniel Pizzlers, you know, he's not an employee of the foundation. He's an employee of, hi Daniel, welcome back. He's an employee of the media in Deutschland. But we would like to make it so that the tech home addresses and is open more broadly within the volunteer community. So Daniel, now that you're back, we'll take over from here. And I'm happy to present, continue presenting so that we don't have to worry about that. Okay, I have no idea where I left off because apparently Google decided to just kick me out. And I didn't notice until I was actually finished presenting. So I see that you're on the purpose slide. Yes. Should I just pick up from there? All right. Sorry about that. Let me get the screen share going. Oh, shall I share my screen or shall we keep using yours? Let's just use mine to avoid any more needling of Google. All right. Sorry. Before we continue, because I assume we'll cut this piece, there's a question on IRC. So who's taking the questions from IRC? So I can't see the question. So because I'm sharing the screen. So maybe Daniel, what do you take the question? The question is lack of resources to execute IRFCs. How about fabricator? For the first one, I kind of have an answer. The second one, I have no idea what to say to that. That would need a little bit more elaboration. But I would prefer to finish the presentation first. It's like five minutes. And take questions after that or answer questions after that. We can collect questions all the time, of course. Yeah, let's do that. Makes sense. Okay. So Victoria, will you change slides while I talk? So I'll just move to the next one. All right. Yeah. Scope of the committee. The idea is that the technical committee is really about all the software that serves Wikimedia users. Of course, this includes first and foremost MediaWiki plus all the extensions that are deployed. But it also includes things like mobile apps. Our focus is particularly on software and system architecture, but also on performance, security, database, and so on. Of course, well, in the end, it's all about quality, ensuring software quality. And that also includes automated tests. It also includes documentation or conventions for documentation, coding conventions, and so on. Can you just slide, please? I can't. Right. Not a scope would be documentation for Wiki users or Wiki owners. So things not aimed at developers. The tools used by developers, even, well, we may have recommendations there or opinions, but in the end, it's up to anyone what they want to use to develop the software. Similar team processes or other social aspects of collaboration are not something that we have any authority on. Also, anything running on the Wikimedia Cloud Service, formally known as LABS, is out of scope. Of course, if you write something there and you want input from the technical committee or your opinion, we are happy to give an answer. But the idea behind having the Cloud Services, we need to give people a safe place to work on software without being slowed down by the bureaucracy that we need to keep the live cluster running. So there's no requirement for anything running on LABS to go through the technical committee. Next, please. One important aspect is that we try to establish the technical committee as part of the software development process in general and make it so that a review of the software and system architecture becomes a normal part of the design of any new feature or subsystem, just like security review or performance review are. The established RFC process is the default process for this, but it is not the only way to interact with the committee. It's currently the only formalized way, but just by an email and then we can talk. Also policies and guidelines that affect how code is written or how quality is insured are in scope of the committee and the committee should be involved in the development of such policies. I keep trying to change the slides and it keeps not working. The committee's authority is derived from the authority of the CTO and as such any final decisions by the committee are authoritative and any conflicts should be escalated through the CTO. That doesn't mean that everything that the technical committee says is set in stone. We may offer opinions and recommendations, but in the end, if there is a definite decision, then it does have the authority of the CTO, which is actually probably the most important, the most important thing that we now have with the charter because previously the committee did not have any formal authority whatsoever. Anything we could do was hope that people would listen and we cannot still hope people do this. It's also important to note that technical committee decides based on its own expertise informed by input from experts and from the community. Now we can go on. Thanks. The technical committee is self-selected, so we decide ourselves who should be a member and who shouldn't be a member and we are pretty free in that except for the fact that the CTO is always a member of the technical committee. It would simply be silly to do it otherwise because otherwise you would have two bodies that essentially exercise the same authority, but no close interaction between the two that would just be annoying. Our goal in selecting new members is of course to find people with lots of expertise and lots of experience in the area of media wiki and related software. We try to cover as many different angles of this as possible, so it's not only people like me who have been working on media wiki for a long time, but also people who know about the operations side of things, people who know about mobile devices and so on. We are currently still very much focused on media wiki core, but we try to expand the kinds of expertise we cover. I think on the last slide we have a few questions that may serve as an inspiration to what we could talk about over the next half hour or so. These were questions that came up while we were discussing the charter draft on media wiki.org, but we can also talk about other things if you like. That's my presentation. I hope it was informative and the break wasn't too horribly long. I'm still very sorry about this. Now for the questions. Do we have? I see some things on IRC, but it's probably better if someone else collects them and asks them. Maybe I can... There was one question earlier that I said I could answer now. I forgot what it was. It was about the lack of resources to execute IRCs. I can talk about that a little bit. In the past it was often the case that someone came up with an idea for a feature or how things should be changed internally and read that through the architecture committee and then nothing. We can say that looks good and then nothing happens. That is actually a pretty important point in terms of expectation management. This is still so. The architecture committee, no, the technical committee, sorry, I'm still stuck in the old ways, the technical committee does not have any authority over resourcing and doesn't have any resources on its own. The committee members also don't have a lot of time reserved for doing committee work. We estimate roughly four hours a week. Certainly no time to actually do software development. We have now been saying that if you bring an IRC, it should already be resourced. If it is not resourced, we will probably not discuss it because that's just a waste of everyone's time. We have not been very strict about this in recent times, but I will try to be a lot stricter about that aspect and answer the question. So I think just to quantify that point, the committee does not have its own resources and either it can do allocation of resources on behalf of other teams. That is something that happens locally, but where a team has a plan to build something that would fall in the strategic, in the crosscutting, in the Cartoon to category and affect also stability and security, the things that we talked about, then that needs to be discussed at the technical committee. So that's the place where we make sure that we don't make decisions by locally optimizing what is good for this particular project that we're working on, that might at the same time create, take the baggage, break other things in other parts of the company. So the tech home is really the guardian, as Daniel was saying, of the integrity and really to some extent, the future of the software platform that we rely on. Okay, are there any other questions? Kim, if you're talking, you're muted. I'm not talking, there's no questions so far. If there are no questions, one other thing just to get out there to remind people, we have of course a depth summit coming up in January, the 22nd, the 23rd of January, and I sent out a heads up about the whole day, I can't say. The technical committee will have a great deal of influence on how we select topics and how in general we run depth summits, both this coming January and in the years, calling that to make sure that we use that event and the investment that we're making in terms of resources and people time and so on, the best way possible, the most productive way possible for the future of the movement. So in this particular case, a good subset of the technical committee will be participating in the program committee for depth summits. So in other words, what I'm saying is you can expect to see the role of the tech home to grow over time significantly to cover really some of the core methods and tools and projects that we pick to work on as a community again in support of our overall mission. So leadership and technology leadership and foundation and the movement is much more pluralistic than it would be in any other in any company. And the tech home is how that gets personified. I see no more questions. I think that's great. I want to thank you Daniel for preparing this great presentation and the team for creating and publicizing the event. Also the team that recorded it here for posterity, let's make it available to people that were not able to be here today. And yes, we will wait for more questions as they come in. Apparently there are some on the YouTube channel. Does somebody ask those questions on behalf of the people on the YouTube stream? Okay, so there's one question. What does it take minimum to be a member of the tech home and kind of volunteer like me be part of this committee? Hence how should we apply? So volunteers can be part of the architecture committee. In general, we go looking for people and we don't, so far nobody has had the idea to actively apply. The question is, so if someone applies, the question is then, are we actually currently looking for a new member and is, does the expertise that the person offers actually fits? In general, we are looking for people with a lot of experience with the development of media wiki and related software. And the likelihood, so it's quite likely that it will be someone that we already know. It's possible that someone would just show up and tell us how great they are and we'd say, yeah, excellent, we need exactly that kind of expertise right now, so join us. But honestly, I think it's a bit unlikely. Yeah, so in general, what's the minimum requirement? Well, we should, you should convince us that we can trust you to understand the consequences of any proposed change that any proposed change could have in your area of expertise and can assess it with respect to its merits and its strategic impact. Can I take a stab at this question as well? Because it's a, actually it's a great question. I mean, I would say that the number one criteria is kind of technical seniority and respect thereof in the technical community of our movement. So that's like the number one criteria. So the committee that Daniel was saying earlier is consists of seven members now. Ideally, we'd like to have about 10. So we are actively kind of considering and looking at new members. One of the things that we look at as well as seniority is balancing the areas of expertise so that we can cover kind of the entire kind of domain, if you like. And also, I would say that the committee is self-selecting as Daniel was saying earlier. What this means is in order to become a member, the existing committee members have to re-vote you in. And, you know, I'm kind of new to this, I haven't been there last year, but the way that I interpret the workings of the committee on this topic is that there's always very deep and social conversation. And in every case that I'm aware of consensus for new members. So I guess it's possible that, you know, a member or two may disagree about extending an offer to become a member for somebody, but I've not seen it happen yet. So this committee seems to have a way of working that is very collaborative and very consensus driven. And I expect that to continue in the case. Having said all that, if somebody feels like they have the time and the primary skills that are needed to participate, we should absolutely let, you know, one of the committee members know just be aware that the bar is kind of high.  Don't, others don't get disappointed if the answer is no, maybe the answer is not now, maybe in the future. Again, you know, this is driven from the basis of seniority, respect and organization, community, as well as coverage of skills that we need to have. Yeah. Conel just mentioned something on IRC that I think is actually a pretty good point. It says, you would think that people wanting to join TechCom should be active, should be people who are already active in reviewing IRC, so who take part in the public meetings and are active on the respect of fabricated tickets. And I think that is probably true. That is a good way to show that you're qualified. And it's also a good way to actually practice and get into more practice. This is not like a sports event, right? But basically getting an understanding of how this process works and what the criteria are in all these things. Do you have a question for them on the YouTube stream? There is one participant, but I am not understanding the questions. I'm not sure if it's for the R-Com. Sorry, I'm also in the old school, in the TechCom. And I apparently have hit my limit on comments in YouTube. So if you can access the URL, you can see yourself, maybe you will understand. I guess just one more comment. On my side, I would welcome diversity in the TechCom. As usual with matters technical, we're not very diverse. I would love to address the balance both in terms of gender and having more gender groups there, but also in terms of having volunteers be part of it as well as staffers. And one of the things that I would like us to do, and I think for some of the hackathons, or for the great opportunity to do that, is to become acquainted and bring up the members of the TechCom community to a level that they can join. I would love to see that. Yeah, one of the things about volunteer contributors is always there's a kind of intrinsic bias there. If you are a highly skilled experienced volunteer, you probably got an offer or two from Wikimedia at some point. So essentially, if you are a highly skilled experienced developer, chances are that you will become an employee at some point, which kind of means that there are not that many highly skilled and experienced volunteer developers.  Any more questions? I don't see any of the IRC. It sounds like we've covered most of the questions that we've had. Kim, are you ready to wrap this up? Yes, I think so. Okay. So thank you everybody. Thank you, particularly to Daniel for our post-presenting and preparing the presentation, persevering through the global challenges that we've had. I really appreciate everybody's support so far in changing the charter, putting new members. I look forward to making the TechCom more and more kind of a key forum for significant decisions for movement when it comes to technology. I believe there are, you know, like most of the way there, we just need to bring it over the edge. And I am kind of really thrilled to have the opportunity to work with them. I feel humble, you know, working with people like Daniel and Brian. Every time I show up on these meetings, I am surprised at the depth of knowledge and expertise. In fact, even I always learn something. Thank you, everyone. Have a great day and please follow up with any more questions either to myself or Daniel or any other member of the committee. Thank you all.


We're gonna vlog on turkey day. We're gonna vlog on turkey day. We're gonna vlog on turkey day.  I'm gonna show you guys my Thanksgiving outfit. So I'm wearing my turkey skirt because I couldn't wear it at work because I usually wear this like the day before Thanksgiving break. And just a tank top energy invest because let me tell you it's hot outside. It's what, 78 degrees? Isn't that supposed to be the mountains, the forest, where it's cool? We put all our stuff out here to saw. We're wearing like a scarf or any of that junk. I'm just wearing something comfortable because it's hot. And we're cooking. And what are you doing, Jack?  What are you doing? Yeah. So yeah, I got my turkey skirt on. I'm editing vlogs. And cooking. And my dad brought me a Starbucks this morning. Yes. Thanks, daddy. You're the best. What did you call the Frappuccino? A crab from Chino. A crab from Chino. If you live in Northern Arizona and you know where Chino Valley is, then you'll get that inside joke. If you don't, I'm not gonna say anything. So I made mashed potatoes and they're just sitting here in the crackpot. And then I'm gonna make green bean casserole in about 30 minutes. We've got some stuffing here, ready to go in the oven. We've got some cranberry sauce. We'll lift the lid on the turkey. We got some snickerdoodle cookie. Ooh, they're kinda hard. Uh-oh. We'll lift the lid on the turkey. And then over here, I think we're gonna make fried green tomatoes, yuck, sounds like. And then in here, we smoked a turkey. Cajun seasoning. And then we have a ham in the oven as well. We don't really like turkey that much in this house, so. We like ham instead. Come on, turkey day. Hi babe, happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. So I had a question for you guys. Uh, if I did Vlog Sember, I think that's what they call it. Would you guys be interested if I did Vlog Sember? Jennifer said she was gonna do it, so now I'm kind of like, I wanna try and do it. I probably wouldn't be able to do a video every day. I think that I would probably end up doing like a video every week. Just because editing and posting a video is a lot of work. And I don't know. I don't think I could commit to this every single day. But I think I could commit to once a week. Also, I wanna know if you guys are interested in seeing like everyday vlogs. I'm gonna do like beauty related videos. I'm gonna do like mama related videos. I might do like, I don't know, favorites videos, things like that. I just wanna know if you guys are interested in seeing them. I think I've said before, but like my YouTube channel started with just like my princess videos. And then I kind of got into my teaching stuff, but it's mostly just been about like, what's going on in my life. So I don't know, are you guys interested in that? Thumbs up this video if you guys would like to see makeup videos, hauls, favorites, mommy stuff. I do wanna do a what's in my diaper bag video. Maybe I'll film that today since I'm all done up and cute. And just things like that. So let me know down below if you guys would be interested in that. If not, totally fine. I'm probably gonna do it just because I love making videos. It's a fun hobby. And yeah, Alice, what are you doing? But yeah, let me know because I'm really interested in doing that. So I think it would be fun.


What works meeting to order please. Let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Let the minute show that older person Donahue is excused from the Finance and Personnel Committee meeting. I think we know each everybody here so we can dispense with the introductions. And number two items for discussion and possible action. 2.1 resolution number 1719-20 December 2nd 2019 direct referral.  And do we want David from somebody from your department want to handle the discussion or okay I guess I'll just come up here you'll be a little bit easier versus from over there since it's a committee meeting really this is just some you know formalization of the purchasing how we're going to finance the carts as well as the purchasing of the carts we've had this discussion has been at several committees already and I have Thomas from the the attorney's office who is instrumental in the actual lease document as part of the 2020 budget if you recall we went through a budget process and it was determined that entering into a lease financing arrangement for the cart purchase was the most advantageous way of excuse me financing the carts it's a it's an expensive endeavor to to supply 38,000 recycling and garbage carts it's a two million dollar purchase in a sense and the the company that we that we vetted and chose is the toad or cart that we had if you recall maybe at the old county chambers where we had the carts on display when we were going forward with the program and the proposal the toad or cart is basically the industry standard it has a 12-year warranty on it and it's got a great track record in terms of durability it's one of the only carts that use a rotational type of molding process where many of the other carts are injected molded so I guess to further give you a little bit the the carts are are competitively bid on a national contract so we were able to piggyback on this contract we've used this this it's called source well now it was formally the national joint powers alliance these national contracts were able to leverage the larger national type of contracts and get that competitive pricing at a local level of Sheboygan so we're rapidly approaching 2020 and the the trucks that we've purchased are at the manufacturer the chassis and now they're being assembled with the actual packing mechanism in the arms so we're we're getting close and before before you know it may will be here so I guess I'm happy to answer any detailed questions or if you have something more detailed in terms of leasing and contractual language if you don't mind I defer to the assistant city attorney Ryan thanks David again I have a few questions so feel free to just kind of shoot off them wherever I guess I know we briefly talked about sizes of carts there was two different sizes and I know a lot of different constituents that I've talked with you know talked about oh you know where am I going to put this we're you know are these sizes too big can I get a smaller one do you can you just kind of talk us a little bit more about that too and then I'm also curious about the how we're going to distribute these carts and then if there's any costs associated with you know distributing those and getting those to to our constituents and you know through this process if there's if there's ever been different difficulties of you know how people request you know their cart numbers and just kind of what your office and DPW if you guys have been getting any feedback and concerns to you guys and any topics like that would be awesome very good first of all there is no additional cost the cost that is part of the purchase includes setup and delivery as well as an inventory they do that okay yes so they they have a company they contract with that will come they'll come in loads roll them out and they'll be inventorying in terms of the serial number per address so we'll have a good tracking mechanism moving forward in terms of the size it was determined that for standardization go with the one size the 95 gallon size listening to the cart manufacturers what they've said is when you start offering different sizes the trend is people they think oh I don't it's too big I don't want this big big garbage can I don't have room for it and what happens is you'll have more requests to go up size in terms of they want to go to the larger because they find oh it fills up pretty quick so what we've learned from the cart manufacturer is go with the one size in the beginning and after about a three to six month trial period if it becomes a burden or if they find that it's just not doable we could entertain moving to to the smaller 65 gallon size they find that the request to go smaller is much less than the opposite direction of going from smaller to larger that's what they that's the trend we're listening to the experts they're the ones that deliver these and that's been their experience from the industry so in terms of footprint though the footprint of a 65 gallon versus 95 basically takes up the same floor space it's just when it when it goes to the height level as well as a little width it's a little bit wider at the top and a little bit taller but the bottom where it sits on the floor is virtually the same from a 95 to a 65 so that the the thought process is oh it's just too big I won't have room in in reality they're virtually the same yeah okay Ryan yeah thanks David Marcus thank you chairperson I have some questions on why you chose to lease these versus an outright purchase versus some other types of financing could you explain how that went and why we went this route I will give it my best and then I may have to defer to maybe Thomas as well as the city administrator as well as our finance director here this evening but when we looked at it two million dollars is a lot of money so it's at we've we've used some cash in for purchase of the vehicles for instance we had cash in the motor vehicle fund and we supplemented it with some borrowed funds one of the issues with terms of bonding for the carts was you know it again it would go against our other borrowing for road projects and infrastructure projects so we didn't want to take away from the capacity in other words for that type of priority within our capital improvements leasing is kind of a form of bonding or a financing so it does add to the debt but in this case given that there's a 12-year guarantee in the leases for 10 years it helps give us a steady cash flow and if you recall we generated a revenue of a four dollar per month per resident fee that we can attribute directly towards the recycling carts so that lease payment it helps for budget for the budget in terms of tracking here's this lease here's the revenue that we're receiving so cash flow wise it works really to our advantage as well thank you Betty you had a question I did not oh you came up okay Jim thank you David I think that the two million dollar figure that we've come up with here actually is a little bit less than we actually the initial estimate isn't it it is and we also within the two million we also if you recall we received about a two hundred and seventy three thousand seventy six thousand roughly two hundred and seventy we'll just round it off to two hundred and seventy thousand recycling grant that will help offset this purchase as well so that's going to be part of our initial down payment is within the lease another question is reading over the document I believe it said that after 10 years we can purchase the if we wish we can purchase the carts for was it thirty seven thousand dollars or something like that uh or did I misread that I'm going to refer to the assistant city attorney Thomas okay so one of the one of the unique features about this lease and it's it's pretty typical of a capital lease like this where the expectation is at the end of the at the end of the time period for one dollar total we will end up outright owning all of the the carts so a lot of times when you think about a lease you think about like a car lease where you're paying for the value of that car for 36 months here the lease schedule is based on the full cost of those of those carts and then the the the rest of the the title transfers at the end of the 10 years for just one dollar and then to follow up on that then at the end if we bought if we buy those those carts and they still got a couple years left on the warranty but eventually that we're going to have to replace them I guess owning those things and we want to transition to new ones let's say after the 12 year warranty what on earth are we going to do with the 37,000 carts before you know and then we're going to get the new ones uh Jason do you want to talk about cart lifespan Jason Jason will explain a little bit more about the lifespan so the lifespan will be longer typically they're seeing up to 20 years so best practices is you start after the warranty and start replacing a small up percentage of 10 percent and then go through um there's a much a larger municipality that kept deferring that and deferring that in the state and now they have carts that are 25 and 30 your age and they're going to have to replace them all at once so if we can digital deal after 15 years the 12 or 15 start replacing them in smaller amounts and then um do that over the life cycle well I want to I won't need a new cart tell them about at least 92 years old so I won't worry about it now Jason let's hope I make it that long it'll be good I believe total carts in Detroit have been averaging over 20 years so Ryan um I know we briefly talked about replacing parts I mean sometimes wheels come off the lights might fall off do we when we're purchasing these do we get like a I don't know like a bulk set of just replacement parts or yeah I'll have carts and what I can do the body is 12 years the lid and the wheels are 10 years so you can replace some I stock the broken ones and then when I get enough I send them back and then they'll send me send me to the new ones cool thanks Marcus thank you this is a question for Thomas could you uh clarify was that a dollar for 37,000 carts or a dollar per cart one dollar total for 37 for all of the carts and I think it's it's a big 37,000 carts total roughly okay thank you yep Jim I have a point of order that I want to ask the city attorney being that we're meeting as two as two committees attorney Adams does each committee have to make their own motion or do we make one motion and we all vote on it each committee would make its motion although if one committee chose to simply defer making a motion for the other that would mean one less document to deal with but I think Meredith is prepared to deal with both okay thank you because that council you're going to have to accept one and file the other okay my recommendation is that both committees would would make a motion to accept so it's on record and then in council one committee could accept it and then the other committee could accept to file if that would work right or could have fun and accept one and deny another one oh there you go that's why we don't recommend joint meetings I'm just kidding okay Jim any uh any other questions I have nothing else okay did you want um I would entertain a motion from a finance committee member I make a motion to approve Marcus you second yep we have a motion and a second from the finance and personnel committee and that's to approve the release all in favor from the finance and personnel committee I vice chair votes aye motion carries okay for public works looking I move to accept the recommendation for public works for public works thank you for that motion acceptance uh any any questions seeing none all from public works all in favor aye any opposed eyes have it all right so we have accepted on both finance and personnel and for public works I move the public works adjourn I move that finance and personnel committee adjourned second second all in favor aye aye we're both adjourned