evelop new opportunities that's been achieved but to say that they knew that going into Syria that they would be able to do that in turn I'm not sure is the case I think in 2014 2014 or 15 before the Russians entered the conflict I think it's questionable as to whether Iran's strategy was working but once they developed an air proxy through the Russians things shifted in their direction they've been successful but it has this program has limits I think right now their view is that as long as they have achieved these goals and there is no opposition in any area they have crossed many red lines they will continue to push more red lines in the future okay thanks Candace well I mean I don't think I'll say anything terribly different from Karim or Norm or what was said earlier on our panel in the morning I mean deterrence is destabilization and destabilization is deterrence in this instance and so there's a obviously a heavy investment in locally grounded forces sometimes migrant forces in the case of Syria in particular we've seen a very heavy investment of course in Shia Hazaras from primarily from Afghanistan or at the border regions and there are some historical links there that are really important that I think Norm has just sort of alluded to and Karim as well which is that you know Iran has this distinct advantage in having a very thin purely Persian Shia majority but actually a very large and very diverse minority of Kurds Hazaras etc etc that they can tap into that aren't integrated fully into Iranian society for lots of reasons and that are useful conduits for advancing armed conflict in places like Syria Yemen and elsewhere that's the armed group side and we can talk a little bit more about kind of I think the various brigades that are operating in Syria in particular I think they're a really interesting study actually in the kind of continuation of this investment in revolutionary ideology sectarian ideology and identity as a means of expanding the deterrent force in the region it's very critical but the other side I think that we don't talk about very often is the sort of soft power side which is the number of television stations that are owned and run by Iranians in places like Afghanistan Bahrain and elsewhere this is really actually I think often underestimated is the sociological and social impact of local media that is in either the Persian language or speaks to the Persian identity or speaks to the Shia identity this is true also in social media and there I think we've seen some very interesting developments vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia in the last couple of years this summer we had a bunch of protests as we all know in Iran particularly in the east again a trouble spot because of kind of the ethnic makeup there and we saw online you know battles between bots and the deployment of Saudi bots and Iranian bots facing off against each other messaging around identity around you know events on the ground I think we'll see a lot more of that and I think the big piece of the strategy that we have to talk about in the future okay so stay in the kind of the strategy level for a minute they've got proxy forces deployed four plus decades in Lebanon Syria Iraq and Yemen most recently so is this a coordinated effort by someone at the governmental level of Iran overall or is these just independent activities in different areas to disrupt and to advance nationalism and counter imperialism and counter the West I mean coordinated or not coordinated this strategy go ahead this is a whole of government effort it's obviously authorized by the supreme leader of Iran it's led by the Quds force which has been transformed since 2011 it's something more approximate to a combatant command but the elements of Iran's military which have been involved in this effort include their militia their navy their aerospace forces their ground forces just in small numbers Iran has demonstrated a capacity which is seldom seen in Middle Eastern conflicts and that is self-control it is willing to put serious skin in the game it has lost approximately according to public reports more than 2000 personnel more than a dozen generals it keeps fighting but it keeps its forces small its focus remains on developing proxy forces that are willing to do what Iran needs but the level of direction is not always precise one of the difficult words that is often thrown around is proxy and if you want to have analysts or think tanks work themselves into a frazzle ask them the definition between the difference between proxy surrogate and partner and come back four days later and see who's still moving on the floor but Iran has created a transnational Shia militancy which is capable of fighting on disconnected battle spaces against different foes simultaneously with different degrees of discipline effectiveness and capacity and it has done this again using this whole government effort by providing a cookie cutter approach of capacities which begin with trainers ground training and finally ending up with advanced missile technology or UAV technology I'd like to do a footnote on Iran's foreign ministry which is generally irrelevant on regional issues Javed Zarif has only one goal and that is to blunt and he does this effectively blunt Western or international pressure against Iran's activities while they build put facts on the ground and he does this effectively so again it's led from the top but it does involve multiple elements okay You know you made a comment on that they have the asymmetric advantage of all people from the region west of India can be in support is there a unity of effort is this controlled I mean from the top and dispersed in these different geographical areas where the fighting has taken place Well I think Norm put it well that at the top of the pyramid you have the supreme leader I argued that he wields a sword and he wields a shield his shield is Javed Zarif blunts as Norm said against international pressure sanctions his sword is Qasim Suleimani of the Quds Force and so you know Suleimani is one below the leader and then they use Hezbollah very effectively as their contractor and subcontractor it's easier for Arab Lebanese Shiites to train Arab Iraqis or Houthis in Yemen and the ways of warfare then it is to send Iranians there and increasingly you know as a society few Iranians want to go and spend time in places like Yemen or Syria they want to go to Dubai and so they subcontract that sure Hezbollah but it's become an effective efficient model and a lot of this goes back to something Norm said earlier which is who else wants to be on the ground in these places when you talk to members of Congress in the U.S. they'll say you know we want to do nation building at home we don't want to send our sons and daughters to these places likewise Iran's adversaries regional adversaries young Saudis and Qataris and Emiratis they don't want to go and inhabit these kinds of places so Iran is very good at exploiting recognizing power vacuums exploiting those power vacuums and they in contrast to their Gulf Arab rivals you know the quality of life for the average Iranian has never been the primary or even secondary consideration of the Iranian regime they're willing to spend and they've spent billions booing the Assad regime at a time of enormous you know economic difficulty within Iran so you know that that is I think what distinguishes Iran from its regional rivals Candace you were going to say well I was thinking you know one thing we didn't really talk about is the unique moment that we have in which you have Iran working cheek by jaw with Russian forces in Syria and the degree of coordination that was required particularly in Palmyra in 2015 Derazor even Aleppo between the proxy forces on the ground be it Hezbollah or some of the Hazara Niva Fatima you and Brigades and so forth with the Russians really illustrates certainly a heavy investment in reviving that relationship strengthening that relationship taking advantage in some ways of the log jam that we have now in the Security Council in the UN very critical and of course that plays well for Russia on a lot of different levels we see with the Astana process I mean the U.S. is really nowhere to be seen the EU has only just begun to kind of get into the conversation as we saw in Turkey late last month in Istanbul so I think that's a key part of the proxy kind of strategy it is not to say and I think it's important to make a distinction between allies, partners and proxies a difficult one to do but I will note in our glossy briefing paper that you can get out there we do try and make some sort of distinction and I think the distinction is with allies there are a set of rules of the road there are agreed terms there are rules of engagement there are often technical military technical agreements that kind of spell out what's supposed to happen with proxies the greatest advantage you have is not to spell those terms out that is the strategic advantage of using a proxy force is that they cannot be restrained or it appears that they cannot be restrained or that they're on their own that there is some sort of autonomousness in their actions and their motivations so that's another thing that I think Iran has played very well is this sort of again going back to the identity politics of these many many many disposable heroes I think that's right that most people would like to go to the Dubai Mall rather than go fight in Syria or elsewhere and that exploitative I think prowess is very illustrative of the strategy at the same time I think we shouldn't forget that it also demonstrates the limitations right of its conventional forces that in fact it could be a terrain issue but it is also an issue of just the ability to raise a conventional force in the same way that some of its local competitors might that is a constraint and it is something that is certainly opens a window to some sort of counter on our part I think on the U.S. part and that we have to be creative about that and really look at it in its eye okay so and taking up this point I want to ask the panel the question is an earlier panel today said that when the West looks at employing proxy forces there's this danger of loss of control that you can't control the direction you're going in so you laid out a clear strategy of disruption countering imperialism countering the West advancing nationalism so are these forces somehow you're arguing they've got autonomy and but is there some level of control and direction of these proxy forces in these four geographical areas to move towards an ultimate outcome that that the Iranians want to have in the region or is it just they've employed these forces and they're letting them go what's your what's your assessment of of a level of control is this earlier assertion that you can't control them a good assertion or not they're they're certainly under control but the word control is the next phase if any of the analysts or think tankers have survived after discussing these leaves today saying you know I'm with you thanks to come so they'll spend three or four days talking about what the word control means and and and frankly about the ability to have an outcome and a move in the direction now now that is actually very precise you've just saved a lot of think tanker lives because you will have based on very little limited information people talk about Iran's level of control over Lebanese Hezbollah which is far from absolute versus their control over the Houthis which is far more than people suspect but it's it's really more of a what is our goal at the end of the day and our goal is to fight the war in Syria well Lebanese Hezbollah is there you don't need to have a lot of control as you're integrating the Fatima Yuhn and the Iraqi elements together in a battle space Iran does not and that but with control they do have they have generals on the ground Afghanistan but also using their expeditionary forces which many of these circuits now I'll fill in to train Bahraini militants you have now Iraqis training Bahraini militants and Lebanese Hezbollah training Bahraini militants your goal is to create problems I always go back to the Al-Qaeda issue when Iran captured hundreds of Al-Qaeda operatives leaving Afghanistan in 2001 it permanently shifted the course of the war in terror and it was unpunished for it it captured hundreds of personnel coming from the Kandahar and a few from the Dorempic camps interviewed them fingerprinted them took their pictures and said go home and cause trouble now had they said we will put you all in a plane and send you back to the security forces of your various countries imagine what the war in terror would have been like that's a very different thing so doing the same thing with Houthis the only difference is you don't give someone a ballistic missile and tell them do whatever you want with it you may do that with claim wars a few types of UAVs a few types of small arms but once you get into serious UAVs anything requires training anything requires precision and cost and a footprint that requires control and that's when each of these elements you need to look for the technology and the nature of the fight I'm not sure this is an answer to your question but as Norm was speaking it occurred to me that another big advantage Iran has and the region vis-a-vis both its Sunni rivals and vis-a-vis the United States is that in most places where it wields power projects power it's simply trying to either disrupt the United States you know oppose Israel but it's not really in the business of trying to govern you know it's not its interest is not good governance and so if your goal is to simply you know sabotage U.S. efforts you know sabotage Saudi Arabia counter your region arrivals that's a lot easier than actually trying to build something positive and constructive and so you know I Norm has seen intel that I haven't seen I just say I having spent a year in Lebanon as a Fulbright scholar years ago when I was working on on based in Tehran and in Lebanon at that time 10 years ago there was a lot more question marks about Hezbollah's independence from Iran I would argue now Hezbollah is almost a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards I don't not saying that Iran micromanages micromanages Hezbollah but I think they do macro manage them and I haven't seen any example of Hezbollah taking a decision which would in any way be contrary to Hezbollah I think there's a lot of things which are counter I would argue to Lebanese national interests I haven't seen them do anything that is counter to the interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran so we've established they've got a strategy they have a whole government approach they've got some top driven direction they've got forces on the ground achieving effect so this is a policy forum what's the West do about it what are the West's policies that can counter this work in the region the first thing it does is give up the fantasy regime change as the silver bullet I really I have to emphasize that there's no plan afterwards it never is there wasn't in Afghanistan there wasn't in Iraq there isn't one now for Iran so you have to try and you know picture what regime change in Iran would actually look like there was a peace in foreign affairs this month by Secretary Pompeo how to confront Iran and I was really struck by how many echoes of the sort of in fact many references to the Soviet Union right as the as the parallel though I think people forget exactly what happened with the Soviet Union I mean not only did the government collapse but the economy collapsed and actually sort of the psyche the national psyche of you know several hundreds several hundred million people so we have to really think about what it means to set as our strategic objective regime change in Iran behavior change is something quite different how we get there I'm going to leave to Karim and Norm I'll just skip the beat how do we counter it what should we do what's the right policy well if you again if if you kind of reverse engineer this and say that the places where Iran wields power and influence Syria Iraq Lebanon Yemen all countries embattled by other civil war very weak governments fractured societies places that do have strong governments you know less sectarian friction you see far less Iranian influence you know that is much easier said than done to rebuild fractured societies and it's a challenge when you're the United States as opposed to say Russia and China and that when you care about or you purport to care about democracy and human rights it's much more difficult to just go partner with an absolute dictator and say you know establish a hundred percent control and rid your country of any Iranian elements but but that's the bottom line is that if to echo something Norm said earlier it's not that Iran is so strong it's that a lot of the countries in the region are so weak and Iran is taking advantage of that so you'd have to take it country by country start with Lebanon I would argue you need to have a Lebanese military you know strong cohesive Lebanese military and in Iraq likewise I think you would need a strong Iraqi military to kind of counter the Shia militias and this is a strategy which is beyond something that the U.S. can achieve it would require also the help of our partners but it's to engage a lot of the Shia Arab countries and leadership and societies and think about ways in which they can put their Arab identity before you know for a long time now they've put the Shia identity before the Arab identity the Saudis have made an effort to reach out to some Iraqi Shia leaders like Muqtilesad to try to see if you know their Arab identities can come first you know I think that's a welcome strategy but it's not you know it's going it's actually going to take quite a lot of time and focus to change the way societies have been looking at themselves the last decades well we've been rebuilding countries uh no we're trying to for decades now we've been in Lebanon for a strong period of time 16 years or 17 years in Iraq and Afghanistan what what's the policy counters to you know here's one rebuild failed states but what do you think norms so what's policy rebuilding failed states requires a lot more than any one external country can give and I think it's almost fruitless to discuss that but with Iran you need to do first you need allies they have always responded to multilateral economic and diplomatic pressure but that doesn't mean you go through the UN there's no question that the Russians and to a lesser extent the Chinese have blocked every significant diplomatic pressure against the Iranians for for more than a decade and the idea of going to the UN Security Council and asking for an investigation I think I can name four or five that the Russians have consistently uh reluctantly tolerated allowed to undergo the undertaken uh declare invalid and and hope for another crisis so you need allies but I would not look at you in security council you must impose the cost on Iran and ultimately for policy makers you really only have three options you have diplomacy does anyone think talking to Zarif about ending missile strikes on Saudi Arabia will work this has got to be a yes or no question and not a 40 minute conversation then you have war is anyone in favor of sending 700,000 U.S. ground troops into with our colleagues from other partners into Iran okay you have a problem with that so now you've got sanctions and that hurts the Iranian people and in theory presses the government to say economic destability instability provokes a security political instability which is that is our price worth this price but you also have the option of precision military strikes and there is in the west you know different flavors of this you'll have people say we must do more diplomacy usually that is spoken by people who are sitting in again you know we're in a think tank next to a Starbucks where the greatest threat is how hot is the coffee but if you're in a country where you have 211 missiles falling on you you have a different perspective as to the pace of time and I should note that in those countries there are thousands of Americans and Europeans and other nationals and missiles don't choose targets so the consequence of if Iran is involved with the missile there's no one who doubts that Iranian supports proxies they are a tool of Iran nobody thinks Qatab Hezbollah is not an Iranian element if they attack an American to hit Qatab Hezbollah means Iran has a lot of Qatab Hezbollah needs to go through you need to punish Iran directly you really only have a couple of options heavy sanctions with international support for going UN Security Council because the Russians or Tomahawk missile strikes now there will be a day after but keep in mind that if you don't do that because your consequences are always what happens if we do this what happens if we don't what happens if we don't I would suggest people ask what was the last red line for which Iran was punished since 2011 think about that if you're in the Quds force right now sitting in front of the supreme leader and you say we would like to attack the next Saudi ambassador in Washington we would like to extend troops to Nigeria to help the Shia there what is the consequence the international community will impose upon the Quds force I'll close on one more point when you look at Lebanese Hezbollah in 1983 how do you all think we're doing so we're often asked is Lebanese Hezbollah question I put to some people is an Iranian proxy is it a member of Lebanon's polity is it a terrorist organization and the answer people give is all three which is the wrong answer because you've now just produced months of policy wrangling and no one is going to say we will stop the policy work the worst work etc etc we've done that for how many years how do you think we're going to do against Qatab Hezbollah or the Houthis when the Houthis are extending themselves into Djibouti at some point in the future did we have a chance to stop them now by just saying the problem is cutting off Iranian weapons and money what happens if you cut off Iranian weapons and money to Lebanese Hezbollah that's not always it sounds easier if I'm saying this easier than we all know it is I don't mean to do that I've been in these conversations for 35 years but simply to say diplomacy will get us there and no one wants a war well you need something and you must have your lines pay a price for their actions so that you provoke a debate among their senior most leadership to say do we want to do that again okay I want to follow up on a point to me you said they need stronger militaries so our special forces work on a document to buy with and for does that work that's what we've been using we've now expanded into advise and assist so we're twisting the names around we've had mission creep across conventional forces special forces and even special operations forces so does buy is buy with and for a viable doctrine and a viable policy to try to build the military power while you do maybe precision strikes and put other elements of national power pressure on Iran I would defer to Norm on that because he's had experience on the ground working with these militaries I think your problem is Iran has the largest ballistic missile force in the region Saudis spend more money than anyone else to reach it they're number three or four in the world for military expenditures as the Saudi military expenditures deterred Iran no so if you were to make the Saudis Saudi Air Force stronger is that going to deter Iran what about their cyber force one of the problems we face is in some ways we're we're not there aren't military rivals in essence looking for superiority their word rivals also a tough word intelligence community argues about a lot of words as you can tell we really do the the wars are more of paper rock and scissors we train militaries in the region to look like us we being the British or European partners etc etc the Iranians train militias to look like Iran so if I were to ask you to name with the definition of be carefully limited a Saudi proxy group in the region you cannot if I ask you to name all the Iranian proxy groups Shia and Sunni in one breath you cannot that's it I'm not sure how you get the Saudis to the point and I'm not even sure we should be in the business of creating more proxy groups in the region we're we want to be the good guys and we don't want to create groups that create another version of Hezbollah in these fragile countries instead we should strengthen state institutions and teach Iran that there is a price to be paid for its external adventurism and that lesson needs to be taught in Tehran and not going through the endless number of your Yemenis Iraqis Syrian Syrians would and this last question I'm going to ask I'm going to ask you all of your ready to ask questions but would would an information operation of any kind of sort of in the Cold War radio for your voice of America that that talked about American values Western values during the height of the Soviet time would any kind of information operation help in the region with getting people to move away from some of these extreme acts of violence and moving toward a more peaceful region would that work at all yes but pardon me yes but okay I mean I think you know when we think about information operation we look at for instance the state department's global engagement center which has struggled to find its footing for a number of years now and probably will continue to do so for a couple of reasons one governments have a difficult time being credible interlocutors in the public space today period anywhere in the world especially our government but two we're thinking of the problem often I think in the wrong way the problem is not messaging that will be received by the right group of Shias who will then suddenly rise up against the powers that be in Tehran if that's not going to happen a commitment to destabilizing messages that has some moral implications for the United States and also of course you know moves into a free speech area that I think we don't easily trample on even in today's climate one antidote really in this gray zone information situation that we have today truth and the big truth will be when these sanctions start to really pinch you will see the migration of Iranian money into offshore devices you will see the formation of new organized crime blocks you will see more coordination and cooperation between actors particularly state-run corporations that have a vested interest in a particular industry particularly oil that is where everybody needs to be watching and all the messaging needs to take place around the money that's really being stolen out of the pockets of average Iranians that's the real messaging campaign the investment has to be in not so much disinformation or better messaging but actually clarifying who's doing what to whom and what it's costing the Iranian people let me just accentuate that exact point which is one of the things I think we've done poorly as a government is simply make public all that Iran is spent in the region whether that's on Assad on Hezbollah on Houthis this is a source of real anger for many Iranians in fact over the years among the slogans people have been chanting when they take to the streets is forget about Syria think about us forget about Palestine think about us and I've always thought that the US government to the extent you know we have we have information facts about the billions spent subsidizing Assad the Houthis should make that information public second when it comes to you know an information campaign the most potent tool we have in our toolkit vis-a-vis Iran is Voice of America's Persian language service which is an absolute disaster and it has been a disaster for about 20 some years now and everyone knows it's we spent about 20 million dollars a year on this and the joke is that the Islamic Republic will be reformed quicker than Voice of America's Persian language service no one really has ownership over it and it's not journalists who are working there it is government bureaucrats in a building which resembles you know 1950s Soviet Union so I would say do with the Voice of America what BBC does you know there's a kind of a they have they actually staffed BBC Persian with journalists and this is a country Iran which has so many talented journalists who have had to flee the country who are desperately looking for work who would love to come and work in Washington and it's just been woefully managed this is a tool we have to potentially reach 40 million Iranians and we're just you know throwing it away great how about some questions please right here down front hi I'm Ken Mayercourt the missiles that the Houthis have been firing into Saudi Arabia supposedly were supplied by Iran but at least one military expert claims that their Russian scud missiles supplied to the Yemeni military ages ago that have been modified by the Yemenis if they are in fact supplied by Iran how does Iran get them to the Houthis there is absolutely no question whatsoever Iran has provided advanced missile technology to the Houthis period nothing else to be said how they get them there you just have to look at a map they've either dug a tunnel from Tehran into Sada they're coming through Oman or they're taking large missiles and technology and putting on boats through the maritime blockade and going into Houdaida and Salif if you think about the latter then it becomes all the more important for the Arab coalition to ensure that the Houdaida port and Salif ports are at least controlled sufficiently to ensure that only humanitarian supplies come through the country because Iran can easily set up transshipment points of some sort in East Africa there have been public reports that some activity has been going through Oman and some reports that perhaps that has been recently constrained but as you look at missiles it's important to think that people are more important than missiles when you're sending in a toy like that you need a technician to show you how to use it you need training you need care and maintenance and those Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian personnel are again only entering three ways they're coming through that Jules Verne tunnel they're coming through Oman where they're coming through the maritime blockade Hi, Selena Hayes appreciate the comment on the messaging but I find with messaging you must have an understanding on how the audience that you're messaging to how they receive information how we receive information here in the US is obviously different how they receive information in Iran and I also would say that different groups within Iran probably receive messaging differently so while I think Voice of America revamping that is a great idea do we even understand how messaging is received there and I also refer to gender and generational so you know there's differences on how gender different men and women receive messaging and then different generations within a country receive messaging are we looking at different groups on how they would receive our messaging because I think we'd have to have a different narrative for different groups I'm not talking about messaging I'm talking about just news and information messaging sounds like we're going to send propaganda to them what's unique about Iran is that if you look at the Arab world media landscape there are hundreds of satellite television channels from Jazeera, Arabia, etc Iran has state-owned television they have these Los Angeles Exile channels they have BBC Persian which on a much lower budget than Voice of America has a much wider audience and then there's a one or two broadcasts from London which are very effective but VOA probably has the largest budget of all the overseas outlets and it has perhaps the least impact so I'm just talking about information now in terms of how people receive information when the protests in 2009 in Iran happened only one million Iranians had smartphones with mobile cameras the more recent protests January of this year now 48 million Iranians have these and the app which has become the most popular one is called Telegram so it's much more difficult for the regime to control information control communication but the reality is still a majority of people get their information from television and it's not these days if you produce good television then the clips are shared on Twitter and Facebook and Telegram and social media but in terms of what we can as the United States do I'm not even talking about messaging propaganda etc just create a first rate news program a news outlook I would monitor after the BBC or NPR and I think that can be the most effective thing we do can I add to that actually I just I want to sort of point out there is something to be said for your point is well taken which is that we don't know a lot about the audience I say you know the weeb here being the United States primarily I think there is still a great deal of sort of a huge deficit in our knowledge of what resonates what's meaningful what narratives are important to pay attention to but again you only know that I really you know I'm a former reporter what can I say I really believe that investing in you know just public institutions like the media is a really critical part of understanding what's going on in a place so to Karim's point there's no message really gendered or otherwise that's going to get through in any sort of meaningful way the message is there's something else other than the reality that you see on your on your state-run TV and that's that's a very powerful message we've seen that work in the past and we know it's power and we can't control the outcomes and I think we have to be prepared for that but we have seen it work and it would be foolish to think that investing in bots is going to do everything for us it's just not please hi Jeff Morley um the Trump administration was clearly depending on Saudi Arabia as a pillar in its Iran policy how will the Khashoggi affair affect the ability of the administration to advance its Iran policy I'm interested in hearing from all three speakers impact of Khashoggi and his murder in Turkey on our relationship with Saudi Arabia I think you have to first begin by saying what does Saudi Arabia do in the Iran coalition if you want to use that phrase you have a lot of outlandish statements in the west Saudis are pushing the administration to war with Iran or Israel it's usually Israel or Saudi Arabia is urging a war with the administration with Iran and that's just goofy that's just not true the Saudi effort is even when you talk of the word rivalry which is a difficult phrase a difficult word because the Saudis have not attempted to control Damascus or Baghdad in the exception of maybe the Hashemites in hundreds of years and no one has controlled Yemen for a very long time so maybe there's a competition and maybe there's a sense of pushing back on Iran's influence in the region Saudi main involvement is to ensure that there is sufficient oil in world energy supplies to prevent any sanctions on Iran from hitting back on us and the Saudis have done an admirable job for all of those who predicted earlier this year that there would be $200 barrel oil I predicted $83 just in case you wrote it $83 right now is what I said so I'm off to the Saudis are talking about cutting oil production now oil predictions are pretty squarely but when people say we want to use the Saudis in our campaign against Iran what else do we want them to do? We want them to develop some inroads into Iraq to support the Sunnis maybe provide some funding for our operations in Syria but what do we really expect to see? That Saudi land forces are somehow in Basra or Saudi air forces are hitting the Beqaa? I don't really understand when people say what the Saudis are going to do in the coalition they have a limited important powerful role and they're playing it the Khashoggi issue makes it more difficult regarding Yemen and I think the danger there is if the Saudis if they're in a war they can't win, lose or endure and they leave peace may be a bad thing for everybody in one extent except for the 12 million Yemenis who desperately need food and medicine I get that if Iran is able to fly C-130s in or planes in to Sana'a airport the way they fly into Damascus or Beirut what does that mean to the Babel Mandab which has more than 15 percent the world's trade 4.6 million barrels of oil a day about 12 percent of the world's rice I think that's the number submarine cable with all the internet traffic from western Europe east to England to Asia what does that mean to have that on that on that body of water and I think I think you have to wonder where is the Saudi what are Saudi going to go in Yemen and how is our interpretation of the Khashoggi issue and the terrible humanitarian tragedy which our entire generation along with Syria and Libya deserves a stain how that will play out I apologize for taking so much time well a couple of things one at the beginning of the Trump administration it was clear that the this team believed that the Obama administration obviously tilted too closely to Iran and from a global perspective whether you go to China or Russia or even our European allies when they look at the Middle East it's much different than how we view the Middle East they view especially you know even European Union they would argue that Iran is actually one of the few stable actors in the region they would argue that it's a source of stability in Saudi Arabia has been fueling radicalism Iran has been opposing I'm not making that argument I'm arguing that's the perception and I think the view that the US was trying to push is the Saudi Arabia being you know a positive actor in the region fighting against radicalism and trying to reform itself into something positive was totally destroyed by Jamal's assassination and I knew Jamal and so I think it just makes it much more difficult for the United States to convince our allies and countries around the world that we should be pressuring and isolating Iran right now because I think far more countries around the world including many of our allies believe that Iran is actually much more upstanding regional actor than Saudi Arabia I mean there's no question that this opens the way for a Congress that has been teetering on the edge vis-a-vis the policy in Yemen to begin making a push to certainly limit the mission I think we can anticipate that that will happen to what degree we don't know but I think that I certainly expect some sort of curtailment I think it actually highlights once again this fundamental challenge that we've been wrestling with since 2001 which is just the moral credibility of the United States when it comes to human rights in general and the protection of journalists and the right to free speech has been completely eroded and you know we've allowed that to happen collectively we can't really point to the government it's all of us in this room outside there's just no excuse for the kind of abdication of our own moral conscience that leads to backing somebody like MBS who then goes and murders not just Jamal but you know several dozen others we now know that this is a concerted campaign on behalf of the regime what do we say about that do we keep investing are the arms deals that we're going to make are they really worth it at the end of the day our moral credibility is the shield it is the shield and yet we continue to throw it on the ground step on it allow others to step on it we have a real challenge here I think with the Khashoggi case in particular really highlights that for us but it's not the last time that we'll see this unfortunately so I wish I could say otherwise but I suppose the the silver lining is that we will see a change and a shift that I hope will result in some sort of cessation of violence in Yemen well thank you all very much for your attendance this afternoon thanks to the panel for an interesting discussion we'll watch for those key watch words that cause the movement of furniture and things thanks everybody have a great afternoon thank everybody here for for many of you came for the whole day so thank you we have a small reception outside we also want to thank Raytheon and Chris Boyle for you know basically supporting this event and thanks to all of you for coming and thanks to this last panel


Under the topic of consumer behavior, we are going to study the assumptions of consumer preference ordering and the assumption difference stability we are going to study today. This property allows that the consumption function or the any function because this property is derived from the mathematical derivation. This property says that any function that has to be measured, so the rate of change or the slope of the function of that any point can be measured that will give us the property of differentiation. And if we say in other words, any function or graph that we have to calculate the rate of change, so until there is no property of differentiation in it, we cannot apply that rule on that. Now, if we look at differentiation, we call differentiation as derivation in mathematical terms. Now, for derivation, the convexity of our curve, the continuousness of both the properties will have the property of differentiation, then we will be able to apply the rules of optimization. Now, if we look at this property on our consumption functions or utility functions, then if we say that this property tells us that the utility functions can be differentiated and that differentiation will be the required order for which we want to do it and this assumption also tells us that if we are applying this property under this, then the indifference curve or its surface will not have a sudden jump in it or if we look at it, the gap will not come and the sudden jump will not come, then if it is downward sloping, then it has to be regularly downward sloping and if it is upward or positive sloping, then it will go in the same form and if there are jumps or upward movements, then its slope will change, it will not remain the same. That is why when we have to calculate the required rate of change or we have to do the compensation, then we have to calculate the inward movement of indifference curve along with it. And that is why we have the important examples in which we mean real analysis in mathematics, that it is a branch, if we calculate it in the same way, then we apply the derivative and we apply it, we are applying the method of Taylor series, we are taking optimization techniques in it, so the basic sense of all these functions is that we assume the possibility of the function differentiation, then only it is possible, if we want to explain this property mathematically or graphically, then we can say that any curve that is explained on the x-axis and at the same time the other commodity that is explained on this y-axis and the combination of these x1 and x2 properties, if we draw two lines and here we keep the quantities of the different commodities, I keep the quantities and make a combination that we say that here x1 was 1, here 2, here 3, here 4, so in this way we have various commodities and in the same way we say that here we have y1, here 2, here 3, here 4, so the combination that we will make in front of us, so when we see the commodity of x1, then we have the commodity of x2 in maximum amount, so if we see from here, then one commodity is increasing in this form, suppose we say that it goes up to 20 and in the same way the 20 of x2, if we start from here, then in the same way it will come downward in the same way, now the various combinations of these, now if we plot them in the form of this curve and basically if we see these combinations of points which we draw that this was one point, this is one point, these points we do not draw on the curve, rather we have already kept all the combinations points on our graph and after that the curve is basically that line that is going to join all these combinations of our preferences or the selection models or we can say the various combinations which the consumer has selected, if we see here then this consumption bundle can be A, this is B, this is C, this is like this and now the budget line of the consumer is constrained, if we see under that and we draw this constraint, then where this equilibrium point is given, then we say on that curve, then this slope, the tendency of this line to this, this to this and this, the rate of change we are calculating means this rate of change is change in X2 with respect to change in X1, I mean if we take one unit of X1 commodity, then for that we have to sacrifice the commodity of X2 and similarly if we see it going backward, then we can say that if we go along with its movement, then we say that the commodity will have to sacrifice the commodity of X1, so in that form if we see, then we will change in X1 with respect to X2, then this slope and if we have to do this curve, then until in our function which we cannot calculate the very small amount of rate of change, which gives us the property of differentiation, then we cannot solve this function, so this property is the basic essence, if we see it in this way, then the ratios that we have have come to us, then it means that these ratios can be in a bigger amount, if we go in this curve, then if we see it now, then this amount is a good characteristic and similarly this can also happen and this too, so in optimization technique, if we see it, then until here it has been decided that we have to calculate the rate of change and there will be various amounts for it, now how much these amounts should be, for that if we see, then the mathematical rule that comes to us, that change in X2 with respect to change in X1, keeping in view when utility of the consumer is kept constant and when we calculate it, we now calculate its limit and limit mathematical tool tells us that it is a small point that not equal to zero but change in X1 is approaching to zero, i.e. we say that change in X1 is approaching to zero, so this means that the same curve that we have calculated here, so if I clear this one change, that this was such a line and for this we had this one part, so rather if we say it, then if I say it in a magnifying form, then we can say that actually this part, this is the part of the curve, then if I look at it from a minor angle, which we understand that if we are looking at something through a lens, then if we see it in this form, then we can magnify it and see, so in this way, this is a very small point and in this way, if we look further, then even smaller than this, it means that slope is basically measured with respect to to change in X1, when this change in X1 was approaching to zero, that if we just do a little more than zero, then we will say that this is coming to us in that form and when we will do this movement, we will see the points in the left word in the difference curve, then we will see the derivative, then its absolute value increases, now if we look at the increase form, then from here when we go to the downward form, then in this we will see that our denominator was X1 and our numerator is the change in X2, while changing from here, it is moving from here to here and this rate of change, if we calculate this, then basically, this is our substitution of X2 with respect to X1, then the substitution of this rate of change is called the rate of substitution, so if we look at this rate of substitution, then if we say that this is the marginal rate of substitution of good 1 with 2, good 2 comes to us, then we explain it in that form, in which we say that if we calculate the change in X1 with respect to X2, and in the second form, if we did one, then we did change in X2 with respect to change in X1, now if we look at this, then with this change, the negative sign that we show, then this negative sign is actually explaining the slope of this curve, that with the passage of time, now when we go to this change, then if we look at the denominator in the change, then this is X1 because the change increases and X2 decreases, so over the time this change is becoming a declining show, and if we calculate this in the upward movement, then in the same form, the numerator is getting smaller and the denominator is getting bigger, then the negative sign is showing, so this negative sign is showing the slope of this change, and when we say that when we say keeping utility constant, this means that the function or curve along, we have to calculate it, our basic assumption is that utility of that will remain constant, so if we do not have a constant in the form of utility, then we will not be able to include the property of its substitution, and therefore now if we look at this, then utility of one commodity that is expressed by this, and similarly utility which we calculated in the same way through the other slope, and if we divide these two together, then our marginal rate of substitution is explained in front of us, so basically if we look at the marginal rate of substitution which we are calculating, if we look at of commodity one to two, this basically is the rate of change or the marginal utilities of commodity x one with respect to commodity x two, so this will give the further explanation of the consumption function bundles utilization and the consumer behavior.


Cymru i wych yn y ddechrau Cymru, sydd yn y ffynishio'r ddechrau i ddechrau'r ddechrau, a'r ddechrau'r ddechrau sy'n ddim yn y ddechrau cyffredinol. Wel mae'r format yw'r thymau arwain, mae'r cyfnodnod yn drwy dŵr cyfnodwyr ar y eu cyfnodd. Mae'r eich cyfnodd, os yw'r cyfnodd honno'r cyfnodd yng nghyd-fyrd ac yn ysgoledr yma. Mae'r ysgoledr yn apio. Mae'r ysgoledr yn ysgoledr yn 2021, yna i'r ysgoledr cyfnodd a'r ysgoledr cyfnodd ynghylch. a bywda'r ffordd o'r analys o'r cyfreithio'r cyflwynisi awddento'r cyflwynisi. A'r cyflwynisi awdd Scotland段 iawn llawer i'w cyflwynisi awdd IntoTV sy'n rhynau Ymgwrs ddim yn edrych y ddiweddio ar y Covid-19, ac mae'r cyflwystiaeth i gyffredin i gweithio'r cyflwynisi. Rhaid, yna'r cyflwynisi awdd yn gweithio'r cyflwynisi awdd nad oedd y cyflwynisi awdd o'n cyflwynisi awdd ar gyfer gweithio'r cyflwynisi awdd. So Stuart, rydym yn ymlaen i gael. Rhywodol, rydym yn gallu i'r madyn yn ddylocir yn y ddwyg, dyma'r ddrech. Mae wedi bod yn ymlaen i'r lleidol. Mae'r llwyddiad yma, Stuart Napier. Mae'r ddweud i'r ddweud i'r ddweud i'r ddwylo gyda'r anolidau yn y Gweithgawr. have not been there for nearly three years now and in that time quite a lot has happened but also not happened in the sense that Covid suspended the abilities to carry out our face to face interviews and the Scottish crime injustice survey field work was paused. But the results I'm going to present today can mark the end of that adjustment process and these are the first set of results that we have since Covid, so just to give you yna'r bwysig o'r arddangos ar y srfeno, os yn ystod am gweithio. Felly я'n dda i'n ddim gweithio ag yw'r gynhyrch squaddiad. Erw nesaf am ddysgu femkin ar gyfer se Auntie's, fe gweld pan nhw'n ei gwybod arweithio llanff�byddol oherwydd eogel gw'r bwysig o'r ddysgu ar fy hwyl, ac e'n rhaid ato gwythiadtyn i'w ddefnyddio yn ei ddweud. Pwy o'r arddangos ar y srfeno, ond mae'n lleol os ymlaen o'r bwysig ar y tafnod, A oe'r ceiswch ar dda, nid oes rydw i'r cyfrifio cyfloghau 10 oes yn cyfryd 15 oed, i'n gwybod yr unig o'r gwirio cyfloghau o'r cyfrifio cyfloghau o'r 100,000 oes gwybr hwnnw. Felly, o'r cyfrifio cyfrifio cyfrifio o'r cyfrifio cyfrifio yn cyfwilio cwbl yn rhan o'r cyfrifio. The structure and format will be familiar to many of you in the sense that the SCJS is a nationally representative survey of adults across all of Scotland, and in the latest sweep we conducted just over 5,500 interviews. We measure two broad categories of crime, which is violent and property crime, but third will be coming with the next release, where we'll have the first results of our fraud module. I should just note that when I say violent crime, this refers to non-sexual violence. The separate self-completion section is where we do gather data on sexual offences, as well as other more sensitive topics like partner abuse, drug use and stalking and harassment. We also ask respondents their opinions and attitudes towards many crime injustice related issues, such as the police. So, a kind of timeline of recent results published in 2021, the 1920 SCJS was the last pre-COVID survey, which was the end of a four-year continuous run of releases, and was still the most recently available data until a couple of months ago. During the time where COVID restrictions were in place and face-to-face interviewing was suspended, we launched a telephone survey and we conducted that to fill a data gap left by the suspension of interviews. But once we were getting the go-ahead to resume our fieldwork, the 21-22 SCJS began in November 21, with the results being published at the end of last year in November, of which most of the findings today will focus on. And right now we're still conducting interviews for the following survey, which we'll be wrapping up just in a couple of months, and we'll cover the 23-24 period. So going straight into the results of our latest survey, the main overall headline finding is that we continue to see a long-term reduction, both in the volume of crime scene as well as the prevalence of victimisation amongst the population. We estimate that just under half a million crimes were experienced by the Scottish population, which represents a decline of over half since the start of the current form of SCJS just over 15 years ago. Similarly, a smaller proportion of adults were the victim of a crime, with a prevalence rate of exactly 10% estimated, which is again down by over half since 2008-9. But as we all know, crime is not experienced evenly across the whole population, and these findings tell us that we saw higher victimisation rates for younger people at 15%, disabled people at 13%. We also saw higher victimisation for people living in the most deprived areas and those living in an urban area when compared to the relevant comparative group. So this long-term reduction is reflected elsewhere. We see that SCJS and CSCW track fairly closely over the long term, and now pretty much in an identical position with the latest findings. I think, in fact, the results that CSCW published a couple of weeks ago also found a prevalence rate of exactly 10.0%, so definitely very similar pictures on both sides of the border. If we look at what types of crime were recorded in the latest findings, we again find that the majority of crime detected is property crime at nearly three quarters of all crime. Within these categories, we find that the most commonly seen type of violent crime is minor assault, followed by attempted assault, and we see much lower prevalence for the more serious types, such as robbery or serious assault. In terms of property crime, it's a bit more evenly spread amongst different types, with vandalism and other household theft found to be the most common here. Focusing a bit more on violent crime, as with all crime, it's seen a long-term reduction over the last 15 or so years, both in terms of the volume, which is down by 58%, and the proportion of adults estimated to have experienced violence is more than half, and it's now down to under one in 50 adults. In the last year, by having an interesting finding, we saw a statistically significant reduction in the prevalence of violence, so the proportion of people who had experienced it, but not the volume of incidents estimated. So this suggests that perhaps with violent crime it's becoming even more concentrated towards high volume repeat victims, rather than being more evenly spread across the whole population. In terms of the profile of these incidents, we see that the vast majority feature a male perpetrator, and in over a third of incidents, the perpetrator is under the influence of alcohol. And just under one in five, it's reported that a weapon was involved, and in the most recent findings just under a third came to the attention of the police. This may appear low, and it is a bit of a reduction from previous years, but I'll pick this up in more detail in a few slides. Looking within groups, this is a similar story to all crime. We only find one difference when it comes to violent crime, and that is that younger people are more likely to experience violence than any other age. You can see the graph in the top right showing the change in violence prevalence for 16 to 24-year-olds, and over time it's reduced by nearly a factor. A similar reduction, or no reduction at all, has been seen in the other age groups. This may indicate a generational effect when it comes to how violence is experienced. We can see a similar story in terms of the perpetrators of violence, and noticeable shifts can be seen in the age profile. 15 or so years ago, the peak age group of offenders was 16 to 24, but now the proportion of offenders is gradually increasing with age. So it's quite a radical shift in the profile of offenders in the last 15 or so years. So whether or not this does indicate a genuine generational effect is quite difficult for us to say. We could still do some analysis to determine if violence is typically perpetrated and experienced between people of similar ages. Straight away this might seem like quite an insurative finding given that in nearly a third of cases the violence was experienced. The perpetrator of the violence was the current or former partner of the victim, and many of the other commonly seen categories are someone known to the victim as well. Moving on to look at property crime, a similar story to all crime, given it makes up the majority of all crime. We see long term reductions in both the volume and prevalence of property crime, falling by more than half again since 1989. The same groups as all crime are the ones that are more likely to experience property crime, so that's younger people, disabled people, people who live in deprived areas and people who live in urban areas. One of the other main modules we ask about is perceptions of crime and safety, and kind of echoing the long term reduction in crime detected. We see long term reductions in crime and how people perceive the crime rate in their local area. So people continue to perceive the crime rate more positively, with a higher proportion of people believing that it's either gone down or stayed the same within the last two years. But it's still processed that people are a bit more negative about crime nationally compared to crime in their local area. In terms of feelings of safety, again a continuation of a long standing scene trend, where people are feeling more safe, but at the same time there does remain quite a significant gap between males and females in terms of how safe they feel. So like I said I was going to move on to talk about crime reported to the police. So the last few slides have kind of been a continuation of previously seen trends, but a couple of these areas have changed quite significantly from the previous findings. So the first that I'll talk about is the reporting of crimes to the police. And as you can see in the 21-22 data we found a sharp drop in the proportion of crimes that came to the attention of the police, which is now down to the lowest figure in our time series since just 29% of crimes being reported to the police. At this point it's just a one-off result, so whether or not this continues remains to be seen. And we'll monitor this going forward to see if this is just a shock to the reporting rate or it will continue in this way. But a couple of reasons that we might exercise caution when looking at this is firstly, while it's a great thing that crime is decreasing overall, it does mean that now we have fewer people to actually interview who have been the victim of the crime. So our estimates are based on fewer or less data, and it makes it more prone to fluctuations and a bit more volatile. The second reason for caution is that we're not seeing a comparable drop in police-recorded crime in Scotland. If there was such a significant drop in SCGS crimes that were reported to the police, we would see a similar size drop to police-recorded crime. We're kind of seeing that police-recorded crime is pretty steady over the last couple of years in Scotland. One reason that this might have happened is that people behaved different during the pandemic. So a reference period for these results does cover time periods where COVID restrictions were in place. We kind of have two sources of data to look at that. The first is the telephone survey and also these findings. But both of these indicate that COVID restrictions were not really a significant factor in why someone may have reported their crime to the police. So it's quite hard to estimate if COVID was really at play with this given the data we have available. But the suggestion is that perhaps it wasn't the main reason. Another reason we can look at is whether the type of crime that we've picked up has changed over time. We've maybe seen the biggest drop in the reporting for violent crime, which fell by 14 percentage points. Last week we discussed some of these findings with some academics. Susan McVie, who some of you may know are fairly prominent Scottish criminologist, suggested that this might be due to the fact that the severity of violence has decreased. Naturally people are less likely to report something that they perceive to be less serious. And we do collect information on how serious the victim thinks the incident was. And we do intend to look at this and find out if this was a reason for why there was a drop in police reporting. Interestingly, we did see a large drop in the proportion of violent crimes reported to the police with a female victim. And this nearly halved since the last survey, but the same necessarily wasn't seen for male victims. There was a reduction, but not to the same extent as female victims. We don't know exactly why this might be, and it would be interesting to hear from some of you whether or not your data or your research kind of indicates that maybe female victims of crime might be less likely to report to the police. But when asked why they didn't report a violent crime to the police, the most common given reasons for both males and females was that they either dealt with the matter themselves, they felt it was a private matter, not something to be brought to the attention of the police, or that they believe the police wouldn't have bothered with the incident, or either that they've had previous bad experience when dealing with the police. These last two points are quite interesting. Again, this is based on quite a small number of responses. This is something that moves about quite a lot year to year, but it did lead me to think whether people have started to feel differently about the police, and that may link in with the lower reporting rate. So that's the other area I'd like to focus on. It's a fairly complex question to answer around to what extent, if any, people feel less confident in the police from one survey source. But what we can say is that the SCJS proportion estimates in isolation have decreased quite consistently for confidence in the police. We see people answering that they're less confident in the police to carry out their duties and are less likely to think that they act fairly or engage well with the community. Now, as you can see on the right hand graph, most of these measures exhibit a sort of arc shape. We're confident it's peaked around 2013 before tailing off in recent years, and some have returned back to their baseline level in 2008-9. But this isn't really a unique finding just in Scotland and just with the police. I looked at the crime survey for England Wales and see that they have also found a decrease in some of their policing measures. And other sources in Scotland, such as the Household Survey, also find a fall in satisfaction with other public services such as healthcare, schools and public transport. So I suggest that it's not necessarily just a policing issue. There could be any number of factors that shape people's attitudes when answering these types of questions. There's been large socioeconomic, macroeconomic factors that affect budgeting of police, other public services have obviously had funding cut back in recent things. But other more specific things that we've seen over the last few years, things like the Black Lives Matter movement and other news stories such as the Sarah Everard case, things like this really bring policing into focus for a large number of people. Even if it didn't happen locally in Scotland, these things may still impact people's attitudes and that may manifest in how they answer these types of questions in a survey. But we're not exactly able to pinpoint the exact reasons for why these decreases have taken place. So like I mentioned, it's a complex question to answer. We don't always have a definitive answer to it. But it does serve as a useful reminder that there's always a lot of nuance and context behind these statistics. And producing and publishing them remain crucial in allowing these discussions to happen. So the impact of COVID, just to say that this did happen during some COVID restrictions, but this was the first back to regular uninterrupted publications to come. We did use a mixed mode approach to this. Sorry, I'll have to wrap up a bit quickly. In short, we believe that this mixed mode had a minimal impact on the findings. We did retain the national statistics badge and consultation with the statistics regulator. So we're still confident that these results were of the highest quality. But the next speaker, Chris, is going to speak a lot more on the work he did to investigate this impact. So just lastly, changes for the future. As I said, the next service field work is wrapping up. This features two major changes. Firstly, the partner abuse module has been updated with more of a focus on violence against women and girls issues. It brings it in line with new legislation to better capture instances of coercive control. And like I say, there's a new fraud and computer misuse module much in the same vein as CSCW. Beyond that, it all starts again and we'll be going back into the field for the 24-25 survey in April. So yeah, let's stop there and say thank you for your attention, welcome any questions.


Everybody forced here ripping a box of 2022 top scrum bike baseball for edge. Here we go edge look Show me a Pena Supercractor Gonna visualize What's up? Yeah, rips Jeremy Pena. All right, we got Ronald Acuna junior base Got gold coming up JD Martinez base. There's a gold mini diamonds Rookie Rowan Z Contreras Okay, 28 of 50 Rowan Z Contreras pirates gold mini diamond rookie. That's pretty cool. DJ.  Thank you again edge. We will get those out to you


Some upgrades, some updates, and some new pieces. Let's take a look at my 2020 Everyday Carry. But first, I want to let you know that this video is sponsored by Blinkist, which is an app I've been using for a while now. And what it does is it summarizes and rounds up all of the best parts of over 3,000 nonfiction books that you can either read or listen to in just 15 minutes. I really like it as kind of a quick way to learn and reinforce some key concepts about things that I am currently focusing on because the more you repeat it, the more likely it is to sink in. Couple books that I am loving at the moment and that I really recommend are Storyworthy by Matthew Dix. If you are at all interested in how to tell a compelling story about anything, definitely check that one out. And also, a book that I read back in grad school that I've been thinking about recently is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. It's simple advice about writing well that I like to revisit whenever I can. If you're interested in signing up for Blinkist, the first 100 people to go to that link that I have down below in the description will get unlimited access for one week to try it out. Trial is completely free and you can cancel at any time. And then after the trial, if you do go for the full membership, you'll also get 25% off. They do have now a new full length audiobook feature as well and premium subscribers get special member pricing which is up to 65% off the regular price. Up first, the phone. I just upgraded from an iPhone 10 to the iPhone 12 Pro. Not the max size for me, that's just a little too big for my hand. One of the most amazing things about this phone, and you've probably heard it already, is the camera, just completely incredible. Absolutely mind-blowing for a phone camera. The performance in low light in particular is ridiculous. And it takes awesome video. In fact, all of the overhead shots that you've seen in our videos recently, I've been taking with the iPhone. Good upgrade, super happy with it. Another Apple upgrade here courtesy of my wife, I've got now the AirPods Pro. I'm never like the first person to jump on new Apple products, but I remember when these first came out that people were just crazy about them. And having these now myself, I can totally see or hear why. The biggest upgrade is the silicone tip which secures it in your ear much better and gives it really great noise canceling capability. And there's also a transparency mode that allows you to hear what's going on around you while still getting a pretty awesome audio experience. Next is a holdover from last time. No need to upgrade here. And that is my Goyard card case.   So I much prefer the slim profile of a card case like this. Gotta have a mask these days. And this is the one I've been taking with me quite often. It's by Michael Andrews. We have them available in the shop. This one is wool. Love the plaid pattern. Full coverage. The chin cup is a great addition for comfort and for helping it fit better. The elastic straps are adjustable. It's got a bendable wire nose bridge. Bemberg lining with a pouch for a filter if you wanted to use one. I've worn a few different kinds of masks since the beginning of the pandemic. And I have to say that this one is the best looking and most comfortable that I have found. I always carry a pen with me and the one that I've been enjoying recently is the Parker Jotter. I like how it writes. It's got a really nice feel in the hand and very light. You may remember this as the pen that Q gives James Bond in Goldeneye that is actually tricked out as a class four grenade. Three clicks to arm it. And three clicks to disarm it. The pen is mightier than the sword, as they say. I like to carry a notebook as well. And if I'm not carrying around a bag, this little field notes notebook is just great for slipping in a pocket. As I mentioned before, I like to write ideas down when I have them. And doing it in the phone is a surefire way for me to never see them again. I always forget that I wrote them down. Writing them in a notebook though is a much better method of keeping track of things for me. I'm including the watch that I've been wearing most these days and that is my new Omega Speedmaster, first Omega in space. It's such a great everyday watch that looks good on pretty much any strap you put it on, though my favorite has been this swage strap that I have it on here. If you want the full story on why I decided to buy this watch and add it to the collection, even though I thought I would never be a Speedmaster owner, I did a complete video and all of that that is linked right up there. It's cold out now, which means I'm wearing a hat a lot more, which means that when I take my hat off that I need to fix my hair. So I always have with me this little pocket comb. It's made by Abbey Horn for us. As you can see, we have the HSS monogram on the comb as well as a leather sheath. Currently sold out of these, but there are still some of the larger dressing combs available. Another little upgrade here for my keys. This is a leather keyring by Ettinger. It's a British brand, so it uses what is considered the most traditionally English of leathers, bridal hide and a beautiful green color, which is a great pairing with the gold hardware. The shape of the D-ring here is actually inspired by the handle anchors of Ettinger's traditional attaché cases. And on the end of those bulbs, a really great detail with the etched Ettinger monogram. Well, in addition to it being colder now, it's also getting darker a lot sooner and the dog still needs to go for walks. So when I go out for that, I've always got a flashlight with me. And a while ago, I did actually splurge on this flashlight here. This is the Beagle by Mushand. It's machined from titanium. It's a nice size that fits really well in the hand and the weight feels really good in the hand. It's got five beam intensities that you can activate with a half push of the power switch. Believe it or not, I consider a small flashlight to be an essential accessory for any guy. You don't need a Mushand and in the video I did on the 15 essential accessories for guys, I have a much more budget-friendly alternative. Find out what that is along with the 14 other essential accessories by clicking on that video right over there.


Hi everyone, Joe for jazbyscasebrakes.com, coming at you with the R&B, the random number block for 2022 NT Baseball, that's coming up in the next video, featuring 14 teams here. This unlocks picker team 49. A lot of teams involved, this is pretty nice. Big thanks to this group for making it happen. We did it straight up, no filler for the filler. All numbers are in, one through zero. That's not all numbers, that's an infinite amount of numbers. Four out of six, ten times for names and numbers. Good luck. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. We got Ed down at Chris, four out of six, ten times for the numbers. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. One out of six, ten times, we got three down to four. They're censoring the D word, damn. That was a pretty harsh word back in the day, the 1930s maybe. Ed with three, Nathan with nine, Chris with seven, Nathan with six and one, Eric with zero. So Eric, you'll get any and all redemptions for those teams right there, including one of one redemptions. And you'll still get live one of ones. Mark with five, Chris M with two, Jeff with eight, Chris B with four. Let's order these numerically. We may as well copy and paste the list of teams here as well, since there's so many. So there you go. So those are the teams involved right there. There you go, gang. I'll see you in the next video for the break itself, to askpiececasebreak.com.