So these are more images of people filling up this timeline. Hey, I'm the self-appointed chronologist of this. I don't know why he gave that shady face. No, no, no, this is your water. Oh, let me see. Let me see sexy face again. Oh, yeah, that is sexy face. Oh, that's pretty sexy. Okay, how are you feeling? You feeling better? You want coffee? Okay, no problem. No, I'm getting over it. Okay. I need to get it over something. It's good to wait.


Let's say welcome. It's great to have you on board. We're looking forward to having a lot of hard work and some fun to do with you in the coming weeks, months and years, maybe we hope. So it's nice to have you. And does anybody else have any reports or comments? Besides that, and then let me just continue on to introducing our new human resources director. Melissa and I am in a quandary about how you pronounce the, your last name. So can you just tell us that and then we'll learn a little more about you. Yes, I'm going to tell you that and then also if I can find the chat option, put in the phonetics spelling. I'm so sorry. Go ahead, Paul. We don't have a chat function that's not allowed under our open meeting law. Okay, so it's low yo DJ Walker. Once again, that's low yo DJ. All right, low yo DJ. And you can call me Walker if that's easier. But in Italian, the, it's L O and the I O says yo, so it's low yo and the D I is D, and the C is a chair. So it's a low yo DJ. But I just wanted to say that I am really pleased to be in this role and I'm having a really great first week everybody has been extremely welcoming I've been meeting with department heads each day to kind of find out about their responsibility and their needs in regards to HR. I hope to do the same with being leaders in the upcoming weeks, kind of an introductory meeting. I've been able to take a lot of time to meet as many people as I can employees, council and committee members, volunteers, some seniors, and through these conversations I feel like I'm really getting a sense of my to do list for the new year. And so I just like to say I really look forward to working with and partnering with all of you and thanks for having me. Well, it's great to have you. Can you tell us a little bit about your, your background, you know what it's a little bit. Yeah. So, where do I start I went to UMass. So I'll start by saying that my mother went to UMass, and when she did I moved out to Amherst in middle school so I was here for fifth and sixth grade over at Wildwood and formative years so I really, really enjoyed the place I was. I didn't really want to move to Amherst I remember but once I did I didn't want to move back. So unfortunately I did but I ended up coming back for college at UMass and and stayed for 11 years and raised my son here and I went to graduate school I lived in Amherst while I went to graduate school in Springfield. I left about I don't know I, it's hard to say the years have been going by so quickly, maybe eight years ago. I left and went back to the Berkshires. Before I went to the Berkshires I earned my law degree and became barred in Massachusetts and I also earned my master's of social work. And I had a law practice in Amherst, starting in 2005. I practiced law until about 2019. Well I still kind of, I was practicing on the site but I practiced law as a primary career until about 2017-ish when I took a job as a director of operations at a nonprofit and then kind of morphed into the HR world. I took a job at Berkshire Community College where I was previously before coming to the town. As a lawyer I did a lot of contracts and labor and employment stuff. A lot of real estate but I worked with a lot of businesses, small businesses to help them through their HR and personnel problems and so there was a lot of transferable skills that I learned and that really transferred very seamlessly into the HR world and I've been enjoying it. And I'm just really excited to come to Amherst. I was in academia, it's a little bit of a different world and I enjoy that because I want to expand my experience and learn things because that's what I like to do. So I'm just really excited. Well, we are too. That was a lot. And welcome aboard. Thank you. And I actually want to go back to opening remarks and just say something. I had the pleasure of attending the State of the Town Council meeting on Monday evening, where we heard reports from different people including the town manager about the condition of the town and what's been happening and what might be happening. But the thing that I just thought was super wonderful was all those new staffers being sworn in on the fire department and the police department. And I just thought that was a great day for the town. I just was so proud to be there and see these new folks and then all the folks that have been making the town work so well all these years anyway. But that was a banner day. And I bet I bet Paul, you were pretty proud as well to look at. Yeah, I really was. We're happy to be able to do that. We haven't done it since COVID actually, you know, we used to bring, especially public safety officers, we would bring them in for a ceremonial swearing and each of the departments does their own true swearing in when they take actually take office in their own building typically. But we like the community and the council to meet the people who are on the front lines like that.  We haven't been able, been able to do that. So, we decided, you know, we needed to do that and we sort of scooped up everybody who was who was hired this year or at least in smart or something like that to do that and, you know, we had to limit the number of people because the room still has capacity limits. So, you know, but there were a lot of colleagues of theirs from the police and fire department and all the press responders were there as well. So we had a press officer sworn in as well. So that was a banner day was really is thrilling. And, you know, we had the largest turnout of counselors. I think we had 11 of the counselors present. Typically we have about five or six most of them are doing remote. So that was like, they, they valued it as well. So I appreciate it this so much. I actually thought it was interesting Paul that one of the counselors was present for the swearing in part. And then she left and she came back for the official town meeting. Yes, yes. She I think she was saying well this is pretty important. And I want to be there so good job. I don't know if you're any I know this is like, it's just the way my brain goes is that like Tony. Let's write up a little thing for the paper just a little editorial thing that's just like what a great day for the town couldn't be prouder love volunteering on the personnel board I mean we're the volunteers we were town people. And we have an insider's look and we get to see this and, you know, if, if, if we don't celebrate it publicly in our local, like who's doing it so anyway. Okay, I wasn't there but if you drafted something up, I would be happy to edit. Okay, I am. I made a note of that. It could crack out at that. Yeah, I mean, that's a cool thing to do. Yeah. Yeah, I think it and I was thinking that might be something we might. We might be doing regularly but you know, like that could be part of what we do celebrate recognize, because we have a position where we can see things and speak and communicate back toward the town, not just in. Yeah, good suggestion and I'll do my best to follow up on it. Yeah. Okay. Meanwhile, back to the second bullet point under new business which is discussion of personnel procedures manual committee reconvening in 2023, and I confess I have no idea where that is. Before maybe Melissa's benefit the last time the personnel procedures manual, which I assume you've read and memorize and taken an oath to abide by was updated I don't know, at least eight years ago maybe 10 years ago, but it appears that it's time to look at it because some things have been changed and they've sort of been mandated into it. And the last time it was revised. My memory tells me that a small little task force of employees guided by the then HR director met almost weekly I think, but over an extended period of time and they, they kind of went through section by section line by line. And I need to update this at that time there were some some language that needed modernizing. In those days, all people were men and so pronouns were mostly ease. And so some language was was updated but some important policies were as well and I think some of them have been tweaked now. I don't know if a decision is made if Kay thought about this but the fact that it says a committee meeting reconvening sounds like the thinking is do that again because it seemed to work. Pretty well Paul I see you not. Yeah, there's lots of lots on Melissa's plate when she is able to get through the sort of orientation period, but that is one of them and doing it I think we really like the process that was conducted last time which the HR director at the time led with a group of employees. And you're right they were it was pretty intense process and that they took a section by section week by week. Some of the employees are still here so they would they may want to continue to participate. This is for the, you know, regulate sort of HR behavior for non union employees and parts of the, and if a union contract is silent we refer to the to the personnel, the HR handbook. So that's one on Melissa plate as is the compensation study, which is also on her plate. So just to stick with the with the revision of the ppm. I thought one of the benefits of that there was sort of a side benefit to that the main was what we got a new updated document. I thought it turned out to be a pretty good almost team building exercise, those who are working so hard on it just a process of spending some time together, discussing debating I think maybe a little bit of arguing now and then to flesh things out just my my memory was those folks felt really good about the document and pretty darn good about each other. So putting that together. So, if we can, another flavor I'll just add to that because I think I was there for that. Is it really been eight years. Oh Lord, it can't be eight years. It just can't be a year is five or six yeah five or six okay because I'm like, hmm. But whenever it was all just to piggyback on what you're saying Tony it was also a really good process for the personnel board, we went through. Yes, big sections of that manual and we had like a philosophical shift in what professional development meant, I remember spending a lot of time in the sections about what does it mean for manager to supervise can't just be this once a year to fill out a form maybe. So it was about reciprocity and professional development holistic professional development, the teaming structure so I know for our group we also. We were bringing modernizing it in other ways, in addition to language to stress the collaborative nature of work and so forth. And then there was like a back and forth between the employees they would bring you know it came to our table then we'd look at and go well how about this we think we think these things and then I want to go back and so it was sort of like we were all looking at the same thing together, we brought out our shared vision, our shared mission, and the policies and practices to bring those a lot. Yep. Yep, so. Big item on your plate, Melissa, to try to make that happen. It's obviously very important. Yeah, I think no one is expecting that to be done in a couple of months, but it would be nice to have it done, you know, this year. So with this, the task committee be comprised of mostly non unit non union employees and be vetted also simultaneously or after through this personnel board or how do we envision. Yeah, yeah, I think we would maybe participate that sometimes a question or two would come to us was was was working on it. And then I think when it's all done we have to officially as a board, bless it. And after that, because that was when we were still under the town meeting governance structure. I think that the board to select them have to. That or yeah, I think they did yeah. Yeah, so I don't know whether the town council has to do that because the structures and what has to be approved by whom is somewhat different from from them but it's, it's a it's a big job. And I think it's closer to eight years. Whatever. I just, I was just reflecting I didn't think I had been here eight years but if it's been eight years then I've been here eight years oh my. Well, yeah. One thing I was thinking about it and maybe this is what Melissa is going to focus on is if there are certain areas that really need special attention since the last go round, maybe those are things that we, I don't know whether we can talk about them, but you may pick up on some of the areas where certain sections need for various reasons need particular special attention, so maybe Paul already knows some. Well and for sure Kay would know. What areas need particular attention I don't know how much he was involved when the document was revised and indeterminate number of years ago but Well the person the director was the woman who retired. Bradley. Yeah, she and I don't want her. So whatever she, I don't know whether this put her into retirement or not. She really, really, really was involved in that in a huge way. Well, in eight years channels of communication and document sharing and such have also changed. Yeah, I know that I'm just thinking about this go around. If I were to be looking at a document or we were I would like to just go to a drive and have the place where I go and then I can put suggestions there and not email and which version are we in or if we could really. Yeah, centralized and. We, yeah we tend on the web. Yeah we tend to use one driver something like that Microsoft. Yeah, you know, and if it could have links in the agenda so we just always would know where to go and that'd be great. Now, Paul also mentioned for Melissa, the compensation study is that what you called it. paying paying classification, and we're going to hire an outside company to help with us is that correct that's the plan with funding for this we do have funding we do have funding we did we have to the RFP process. So that has to be developed and then go out to bed and so is there a timetable for that. We have we have not. I mean this is Melissa's third day we have not gone through this. But we did talk about it yesterday and and she has experienced doing this from the university setting and her. I mean she can speak for herself but her point was that there's basically one company that does it for a lot of universities and that that company is slammed and they so we have to be alert that she was asking me questions about how many companies are out there that do this kind of work and things like that. So is this a study to compare. This is focusing on town administrative and employees or is this in general of non union employees on union. Okay, okay. So it's like the one that was rather recently done for a part timers, which was itself like the one that had been done a few years earlier, or full timers, right. So, there are, well, there's at least one company out there that does this and knows our system pretty well and I don't know how many others will be interested in. In doing it I think this is a significantly bigger project than the one that was recently completed for the part timers just in terms of the scope of who's going to be affected by it, which is practically, I mean, it isn't. You know, the main domain is the non union as employees because the ones in unions have another set of conditions and rules to abide by but the personnel procedures. The manual is nonetheless pretty darn important and has in it some procedures that basically everybody has to abide by. So it's a it's a major piece of work. And we'll keep folks busy and Melissa busy for a while, along with all the other things that you must have a really long to do list already. Yes, but I'm not feeling the pressure yet. So it's been great to start the holiday season, people are, you know, low key just gathering the information, and we'll prioritize it. All right. Now, continuing on with our agenda. The next bullet point is all business staffing report. This was sent out a few days ago, listing as our practices, the new hires and the departures, starting basically at the beginning of this fiscal year and then we update what's happened most recently, and a lot has happened today that you wouldn't you wouldn't think much has happened, but that this is. These are now actions that have indeed happened. For example, there's this person who just got hired. Two days ago with a very hard to pronounce last name. I happen to know is loyal DC Walker, whose first name. So, along with another new person for the press team. And so that's a relatively low number of new hires, but absolutely important new people. And I am very embarrassed as particularly to be on the personnel board to have to ask this question in the race column. What does T mean we've got B for blacks, I guess, and W for whites. Two or more races, two or more races. Okay. All right. I'm happy to learn that and I'll try to make sure that I don't forget it. And then in the folks who have left. Most recently, there are two people have resigned and one who have retired. I don't know if anybody knows sometimes we ask, well, why does why did this people, why do these people resign and one. Kate Shapiro, she was a temp in the first place. It looks like. Yeah, and then she got a job running a program a permanent job morning, a similar program called the dark program for the city of Northampton. Yeah, yeah. And then I, as Rebecca noticed last time I do look at these with some care. And does anybody know what's the story with the division water director who it seems retired after only three months with us as the higher date, the higher dates wrong he's been with us for about 25 years. So I was just curious. That's going to be a typo. Yeah, I know we do weird things now and then but man that's a pretty. He had his retirement party yesterday actually. Oh great. Yeah. All right. And it looks like Marine Pollock she went on to something bigger and better somewhere else is. Yeah, so we had her farewell party yesterday too and most of us. We just went into nothing but parties lately because we had the food first floor had their food day on Monday. Then yesterday we had a farewell party for Maureen Maureen's got this great new job as a planning director for the city, the town of Montague. And she was really, you know, torn we made a pretty strong run to keep her but you know she's sees herself as a Franklin County person and it really and her one of our best friends is her husband is the assistant town manager up there. There's connections. Anyway, that's a big loss and that and that builds on losing Ben Brigger who was our other planner so the planning department's really struggling right now as they are, they've lost half their staff and so we're recruiting for that pretty aggressively. Okay. Next I am on our business is approving the minutes of. It's actually November 16. My no matter how many times you look at the stuff always miss things because a copy of the agenda agenda I'm looking at says we need to review and approve the September 28 2022 minutes we already did that in November what we need to approve are the minutes for November the 16 which I assume those were sent out correctly. And the and I've looked at him fairly carefully and I don't know if it's anybody have any comments or questions. One thing I noticed that I wanted to correct but now based on what Catherine was saying at the beginning of the meeting. I wanted to correct the spelling of her name, because the minutes. Call me anything I'll answer. And Rebecca. You got anything to add. Correct or minutes of our November meeting. Oh, looks great. I'll entertain a motion to approve. I make a motion to approve the minutes. There a second. Second, I'll second it and I guess. Any further discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. All right. Opposed. Okay, so the minutes are approved. We have set the next personnel board meeting. Or Wednesday, January the 18th as far as everyone knows who's here and that's going to be okay. For you, I think that may be a little later than we sometimes we're supposed to be the second Wednesday of the second. Yeah. Yeah. But I think we pushed that back because today's meeting was pushed back and I thought, well, not a lot. Not a heck of a lot is going to happen in the next three weeks because of the holidays and stuff. So it'll be Wednesday, January the 18th. Okay. Anything else for the good of the order here. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Could we just. Melissa, do you know how. You're interacting with this board and do we know how we're interacting with you just. I don't know. I'm not quite clear on it. I've, I've read a little bit. But I think that you are advisory to us and you also, I think have responsibility to review certain things such as compensation studies. But I really don't have the details as to that. So any. Clarification. I don't think I do either. Let's figure out how we want to like hang out together. So that's something to figure out. Yeah, I would like that. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Because I don't know if sometimes the. Agendas are put together jointly or. I don't know. I'm a little. Tony's Tony's. Is usually it comes from the HR director or that, or that office comes to me. And I look at that and I usually say great. Or once in a while, I'll say, well, let's do this or do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll figure out the same as the minutes. I get a draft copy of the minutes beforehand and then send them back. So. The. We work actually, the board works pretty closely with the HR director. And, you know, we collaborate a lot. The, the HR department sort of. We work with the HR board in terms of. Getting agendas out. And keeping the minutes. And there certainly has been. Time in the past when. Sort of between meetings. Something that. Makes good sense for me to talk directly with the HR director about. And so. And I also serve once in a while when the HR director has something on her mind. We'll have a conversation. Along those lines. So. But from my perspective, it's been a very good relationship. And we, we work together. We are not. Supervising one another we. No, it's a, it's a collaboration. That I think works out pretty well for the town and the town's employees. So that's my sense, but. Feel free. Catherine and Rebecca to add or subtract or say, well, why don't we start doing this or. Stop. I just want to say Tony's awesome. He's been our chair for a while. Catherine. I. Are both like, no, you do it. Or, you know, And so I just want to express again, deep and profound appreciation for Tony's leadership skills. His warm, caring nature is complete. Conf competence. So I just, that's one of the reasons why it works so well. I think obviously the board works well together, but the board works well with the human resource director. So I would just second what Tony's saying in that. You know, sometimes leadership positions in the town can be lonely jobs because it's kind of. And we are your team. That's how I think of it. I'm like, I want you to have a home team. Of equals of people who are here to consult, be critical friends, offer feedback, all that. That's how I see our role. And I want to play that role. Yeah, I agree. I totally agree. I agree with that. Melissa, you should feel comforted because you do have. This personnel board. Yeah. And a lot of other. Leaders. Don't have anything like this. So. Yeah. And I certainly did owe everything about Tony's leadership in this. It's just, yeah. It's a pleasure to be associated with this. Yes. Total. Yes. Yeah. I'm happy for those kind words. It's a team effort. Just together. No team. I got a new team member named Melissa. Loyal D. Walker. Oh, yeah. You want to do my zoom. Hey. I am comforted and thankful and I, I definitely am happy to have a partner in you guys. Yeah. You'll like us. Catherine, don't over promise. Okay. Okay. Let you find out.  All right. Thank you everybody. Good holiday.


When you think of GI Joe what comes to mind? If you said ninja action figures with limited articulation and color change plastic, well you're not wrong. The military toy line that took its name from American infantry soldiers ended up being primarily about ninjas and space aliens. 1994 was the final year of the toy line that began in 1982. A lot happened in those years. Military toys became less popular. Children's television was dominated by ninja turtles and power rangers. GI Joe struggled to find its place in the toy landscape of the 90s. Ninjas were popular. Fortunately for GI Joe they already had some ninjas in the lineup. In 1992 Hasbro started the Ninja Force subseries, but they weren't quite ninja enough. So in 1994 they took ninjas to the next level with shadow ninjas. How did this attempt to ninja-fi GI Joe turn out? Let's take a look. Here it's time for another vintage GI Joe toy review. Last week we started a new sub team when we reviewed Night Force Outback. This week we're doing the same thing, starting a new sub team within GI Joe. This time we're looking at shadow ninjas. Shadow ninjas however are not night force. If these figures were on a scale from 1 to 10 with night force outback being a 10 shadow ninjas would be negative 36. Instead of having cool night colors shadow ninjas had Inviso power. Yeah we're gonna look at that. This figure was the last version of Snake Eyes in the vintage era. Snake Eyes was one of the most popular characters in the line and he had many great action figures. Not every version of Snake Eyes was great though. When I reviewed Ninja Force Snake Eyes I said it wasn't the worst Snake Eyes figure. Well today we're going to look at the worst. HCC788 presents Shadow Ninjas Snake Eyes. Shadow Ninjas Snake Eyes from 1994. This figure was only available in 1994 because the vintage GI Joe toy line was discontinued after the 1994 series. Shadow Ninjas were introduced in 1994 the final year of the line. They were all reissues of previous Ninja Force figures. Ninja Force was a subset of the main GI Joe toy line that ran for two years 1992 and 1993. Each of the Ninja Force figures had a special action feature. The Ninja Force Snake Eyes figure was released in 1993. The difference between Ninja Force and Shadow Ninjas was the Inviso power. Shadow Ninja figures could turn invisible upon contact with warm water. We'll test that later. Shadow Ninjas Snake Eyes is the sixth version of Snake Eyes. The first version of Snake Eyes was released in 1982 in the very first series of the real American hero line. It's nice to have Snake Eyes as bookends for the line. But Shadow Ninjas Snake Eyes is not how the character should have gone out. There are six versions of Snake Eyes but there are seven figures lined up here. That's because the first version of Snake Eyes was reissued in 1983 with new articulation. The 1983 swivel arm version is counted as version 1.5. The first version of Snake Eyes wasn't a Ninja. He was a Commando. The first real Ninja in GI Joe was Storm Shadow, the Cobra Ninja. After Storm Shadow was introduced, Snake Eyes was given a Ninja backstory. The stories of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow are interconnected. Both served as American soldiers in Vietnam along with another GI Joe team member, Stalker. There's one fact that's not mentioned anywhere on the file card. Snake Eyes does not speak. According to the comic book series, Snake Eyes' vocal cords were damaged in a helicopter crash. His face was also disfigured. He always wears a mask. I have a full card back for Shadow Ninjas Snake Eyes so let's take a look at it and see how the figure was marketed. We have the GI Joe logo here along the side. We have the Shadow Ninjas logo here which is just modified from the Ninja Force logo. We have Snake Eyes, Covert Mission Specialist, Spring Action, Bassami Bash, Secret Inviso Power, Color Change Body Armor which we will test later. Then we have the artwork and this card art isn't actually specific to Snake Eyes. It features Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow and this art was used for all Shadow Ninjas figures. This is generic Shadow Ninjas artwork and this isn't original artwork for Shadow Ninjas either. This is recycled artwork from Ninja Force. Here's the Ninja Force artwork next to the Shadow Ninjas card and as you can see they changed the colors a little bit but they basically just copied the Ninja Force artwork onto the Shadow Ninjas card. This is what we are reduced to. GI Joe, the brand that had package art that was the envy of the industry, declined to the point that they used copy and paste generic cards. On the back of the card we have extra large portraits of other Shadow Ninjas figures. We have instructions, we have our one flag point. You had to use it fast because 1994 was the end of the line. Then we had the file card. We will look at that later. Let's take a look at the accessories that came with Shadow Ninjas Snake Eyes. The accessories came on a plastic tree like this. This was a plague of the 90s. Instead of giving kids unique accessories with figures, Hasbro just stamped out a bunch of generic accessories attached to plastic trees that the kids would have to cut out themselves. These accessories are not original. This is the same accessories tree that was packaged with Ninja Force Snake Eyes but with different colored plastic. However I have noticed one alteration they made. I'll show you that later. The plastic for Shadow Ninjas Snake Eyes accessories is translucent. Even for Ninja Force Snake Eyes none of these accessories were original. They all originated with earlier figures. These accessories were made with as little effort as possible. On my Snake Eyes figure the space on his right hand is far too narrow for him to hold any of his accessories. It will break the thumb. He can only hold his accessories in his left hand. Shadow Ninjas Snake Eyes came with Nunchuck's translucent. These were originally issued with the Ninja Force character called Nunchuck. Of course these black Nunchucks are curved but when first pulled off the tree these are straight. This plastic is not very flexible. It feels like it will break if I bend it. He had a long sword with a straight blade. He had a short sword with a straight blade. He also had a knife, a small knife with a curved blade. He had two claws and these claws actually are slightly altered from the one that came with Ninja Force Snake Eyes. This accessory originated with version 2 of Storm Shadow. He came with a claw that would clip on his wrist. Ninja Force Snake Eyes also came with this claw but the sculpting on his wrist was really thick. It doesn't clip on very well. If you want to put it on you have to put it way down here over his hand. Apparently they recognize this was a problem for Shadow Ninjas Snake Eyes so they changed the clip to a little pistol grip. So now the claw goes in his hand like that. He does come with two of them but I cannot get the other one into his right hand. And finally he came with a figure stand. The one accessory out of all of these that I like. What's missing from these accessories is Snake Eyes' signature Uzi submachine gun. Earlier versions of Snake Eyes came with this weapon and Snake Eyes just doesn't seem complete without it. Later versions focused on silent weapons. His origins as a commando were forgotten. Let's take a look at the articulation on Shadow Ninjas Snake Eyes and this is where things start to get a little rough. This is not an O-Ring figure so it doesn't have normal O-Ring articulation. It has an action feature that's advertised as the Basami Bash. This is the same as the Ninja Force Snake Eyes. For the Basami Bash you just squeeze his legs together and that causes his arms to move. Yeah that's great isn't it? You can have a ninja dance party. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. The head only swivels. It does not move up and down. You can swing the arm up at the shoulder and you can get some movement of the arm at the shoulder. It does ratchet. Since there's no O-Ring there is no articulation at the waist. He can swing his leg forward and back and he can bend his knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of Shadow Ninjas Snake Eyes. This entire body is the same as version 5 of Snake Eyes. The only difference is the plastic color and the plastic type. This plastic is sensitive to warm water. On his head he has a gray hockey style mask. It looks like it's cloth in the back and it looks like an armor faceplate in the front. He has white eyes. That's the only paint application on the head. The rest is unpainted. The plastic does have kind of a translucent quality to it. The entire torso and indeed all of the figure is made with that gray translucent plastic. On his torso he has a vest covering his chest. Looks like an armored vest. He has a ridge pattern around his midsection. Those details continue around to the back. He has a purple sash over his right shoulder and this purple is a little bit hard to see. It looks like it's worn a bit but this is purple paint over the translucent plastic. He has plastic charges on his purple sash and he has these round golf ball looking objects which are smoke grenades. We know what these objects are because they are labeled on the Ninja Force Snake Eyes file card. Not on the Shadow Ninjas file card though. He has an unpainted rope that goes over his left shoulder and across his chest and back and on that rope on his chest. He has two silver grenades and some unpainted smoke bombs. Around his waist he has an unpainted belt with some indistinguishable details. Right in the front he has an unpainted kind of triangular shaped buckle or pad that goes over his crotch. On his right arm he has unpainted flares strapped to his upper arm. Not on his left arm. He has some pretty wicked looking elbow pads and gloves. Of course unpainted but these do look pretty good. This is probably the best part of the figure. He has white elbow swivels and universal joints at the shoulders. They probably couldn't use the color change plastic for the joints so they had to use a plastic that would match the Inviso power color. This draws undue attention to the joints and detracts from the overall look of the figure. His legs again are made in that gray translucent plastic. He has an unpainted pistol on his right thigh. He has a silver knife on his left thigh. He's wearing tall boots in that gray plastic. Without much detail there's nothing painted on them but he does have big pointy knee pads. As with ninja force snake eyes the arms on this figure attach almost midway up his torso. It looks like his shoulders are down at his rib cage. This is to accommodate the action feature and I do not approve. Okay let's test the Inviso power gimmick. According to the instructions we are supposed to dip into warm water to activate Inviso power. This is a bowl of warm water so let's give it a try and see if it works. And there goes snake eyes into the warm water. Doesn't say exactly how long it's supposed to take but I am already noticing a change. His back is turning white and let's see. Yeah the front is starting to turn white as well making sure that he gets good and all the way in there in that warm water. He gets immersed and let's see. Some parts don't seem to be changing very much. Like the bottom half of the figure and his back seem to be changing pretty well but his head, his head doesn't seem to be changing at all. He seems to have changed about as much as he's going to so let's take him out and see what happens. Well there's snake eyes with his Inviso power. The figure is much lighter than it was almost white especially in the back. It's not quite as light in the front. Some parts don't seem to have changed color very much. I can't help but notice though he is not invisible. Also I noticed it looks like the purple detail is no longer there. I hope that comes back when we deactivate the Inviso power. The card says dip into ice water to bring back standard color. I have a bowl of ice water here. So let's dip snake eyes into the ice water and see if he goes back to normal. This water is quite cold and I didn't notice look the purple did come back. That's awesome. I actually really like that. The purple is part of the color change gimmick. That's any trick. I have to admit that's not too bad. Here's snake eyes just a few minutes out of coming out of the ice water and yeah most of his color is back. It does look like he is turning back to his original standard color and the purple detail is even brighter than before so I guess that is also linked to the the color change when you put it in ice water. That purple comes out as well. I'm not a big fan of these color change features but at least this does more or less work as advertised. Calling it Inviso power is overselling it a bit. It doesn't make the figure invisible. It just changes a gray figure to a white figure. Let's take a look at Shadow Ninjas snake eyes file card and in 1994 gone are our standard file cards. The file cards are shrunk down to trading card size. This is what we're reduced to. G.I. Joe the toy line that revolutionized the industry by printing detailed biographies of the characters on the packaging has shrunk the file cards down to a trading card and what did they do with all the extra space they saved by shrinking the file card extra large portraits of Shadow Ninjas figures and instructions in extra large letters. We really needed that. This file card says this is number 37 in series 1994. I don't think numbering figures like this is useful. It's not like you have to buy the figures in any particular order. So what's the point? The file card is in this garish color and the font is really tiny. This is very difficult to read. The bio and specialty information is basically the same as the Ninja Force file card. So I'm gonna skip that part. There's a quote here apparently from snake eyes. Of course snake eyes could not say this because snake eyes can't speak but he could write it. It says like most of my past now my body can be cloaked in secrecy. Okay a couple things about this quote. First of all a lot is known about his past. The comic book spent a lot of time delving into his history. We know more about snake eyes' past than probably any other G.I. Joe character. Also now my body can be cloaked in secrecy. Does this mean he's a never-nude? There's a single paragraph. It says snake eyes excelled in long-range recon patrols and high-risk covert missions in Southeast Asia. His success was based on his ability to use everything from trees to fog when making himself virtually invisible even to skilled cobra ninjas. Now possessing Inviso power he can completely cloak himself and actually be invisible to his enemies no he can't. Now nothing can stop the ultimate covert mission specialist. This paragraph is basically just an advertisement for the figure's gimmick. Snake eyes made many appearances in G.I. Joe media. He was one of the most popular figures ever. Since this is the last snake eyes figure in the vintage line I'm gonna focus on snake eyes' last media appearances in the vintage era. How did he go out? The last two animated vintage era appearances for snake eyes listed on halfbattle.com appear to be a clip shows. The last real episode appearance was in Shadow of a Doubt. It's a geek episode. Like all geek episodes the quality is not up to the standards of the earlier Sunbow series. The episode focused on Storm Shadow. He pretended to defect to Cobra so he could discover the location of Cobra's secret base. Snake eyes didn't have much to do in that episode. He was wearing his version 4 uniform from 1991. In the comic book series snake eyes appeared in the last issue before it was canceled by Marvel Comics issue number 155. The issue is titled A Letter from Snake Eyes. In that issue Sean the adopted son of snake eyes' war buddy Wade Collins wants to enlist in the army. Wade is reluctant to sign the early enlistment papers for him and Sean doesn't understand why. Wade suggests he write a letter to snake eyes. Snake Eyes writes back and gives Sean a very honest, frank, and unvarnished view of military life. For me this is one of the most important issues in the comic book series. This isn't just a letter from Snake Eyes to Sean. This is a letter from Larry Hama to the readers. There is a danger in promoting something like GI Joe. It is a war toy for children. The danger is that you will give children the impression that war is fun. The good guys always win. Bullets never hit anyone. Pilots always bail out at the last second. I always give Larry Hama credit for bringing an honesty and intelligence to GI Joe and he earns it in this issue. A letter from Snake Eyes reminds us of the truth. Of course we can all have fun playing with these toys and reading the adventures of the characters but in reality war is not fun. Bullets do hit people.  Snake Eyes doesn't say Sean shouldn't join the army. He just wants Sean to understand what he's getting into. He needs to understand the reality of it. Larry wanted his readers to understand that reality too. He said it directly to them and he used the voice of a normally voiceless character to do it. It is brilliant. It is thoughtful. It is smart. It was a fitting end to the series and a fitting final appearance of Snake Eyes in the vintage era. That comic is top tier. This figure is bottom tier. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Looking at Shadow Ninja Snake Eyes overall bottom tier. This figure is awful. It's a reissue so it automatically has a strike against it. It's not impossible for a reissue figure to be great as we saw last week but usually the copy is not as good as the original. I didn't like the accessories the first time around. Making them translucent doesn't really help. I'm not a big fan of action features especially when they limit the articulation. On this figure they added the color change plastic so it's a double gimmick figure. And the color. Oh my god. Can we talk about the color? It doesn't matter if it's in standard mode or invisible mode. It's bad. We sacrificed a good color scheme and paint applications so this figure could have Inviso power. And the Inviso power isn't really Inviso power. Like check it out. I have Inviso power too. Can you see me? Of course you can because I'm not invisible. I'm sorry if this was your favorite action figure as a kid. I don't want to make fun of anyone's favorite figure but if this was your favorite I really would like to get a time machine and go back to your childhood and give you version 1 or version 2 of Snake Eyes so you could play with a good figure. That doesn't seem like a very good use of a time machine.  That was my review of Shadow Ninja's Snake Eyes. I hope you enjoyed it. If you liked it please give it a thumbs up on YouTube, comment and subscribe. I've got a lot more GI Joe toy reviews coming up and I do review the good ones too I promise. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Patreon. Your support on Patreon will help me get to Joe Con this year. 2018 will be the final Joe Con and I'm hoping to see a lot of you out there. I have to say in all sincerity you are the best viewers and supporters on the whole internet. I read everything you say on my videos and your kindness and support is overwhelming. Thank you so much. I will see you next week with another vintage GI Joe toy review and until then remember only GI Joe is GI Joe. Dear Sean, there is no honor or glory in the primary occupation of the soldier. There are only long stretches of interminable boredom punctuated by brief flurries of pure terror. There is no winning. Ask anyone who has sat benumbed in the aftermath of battle surrounded by stinking ragged wet bodies of comrades hastily covered with ponchos assailed by the unearthly screaming of the maimed. You talk about glory and I suppose you mean heroism and all the accolades that adorn it. I've known some real heroes in my time but pitifully few of them were the type to jump out of the foxhole and shout follow me. Take Ramon Escobedo. He was in the LERP team with your dad Storm Shadow stalker and me. One day he got a letter from home. His mom said that his kid brother just graduated from basic training and got 11B20 as his MOS. Infantry. Ramon's tour in NAMM was due to be up in three months. He was a two-digit midget Bukku short timer. That meant that his kid brother would be eligible to ship out to NAMM. Ramon wanted to go home to East LA more than anything in the world but he re-upped and extended his tour so that uncle sure couldn't send his brother to NAMM and violate the DOD rule against two members of the same family serving simultaneously in a war zone. Two weeks later we all walked into that stinking valley where Ramon and Dickie got wasted. Ramon didn't look all that heroic when he died. He just looked surprised. Dickie Saperstein was a short timer too. He had less than two months to go before he rotated home. His letter came from his mom. Dickie's dad was in the hospital and needed an operation. They didn't have the bucks. Uncle Sugar was offering a cash re-up bonus back then. He signed up for a burst of four and Sam would give you a down payment on a brand new Camaro or a heart valve dilation in this case. Dickie was kind of burnt by then. He had the dreads before every mission and puked his guts out. He did his job. We all knew he would never let the team down. So Dickie signed up and got his bonuses and extended his tour and his dad died on the operating table. His mom went sort of nuts after that now with her only son being stuck in a combat zone for another year. We all knew Dickie could have got a compassionate but he felt like he had made a deal and he was going to stick to it. He had this sense of honor you see. He was doing his job running to outflank Charlie and bloop frags on his head when he ran into that mine. Stalker didn't sign up for glory, honor, or adventure. He was looking to get away from the mean streets of Detroit, the streets that had already killed his two older brothers. He was determined that his mom would not worry about him and he went to elaborate means to deceive her. He had a cousin in the engineers in Darmstadt, Germany. Stalker had him take out a post office box there for him and all his mother's letters went to Germany where she thought her last son had a safe job in a personnel office. The cousin rerouted all the mail to Vietnam and back. We used to sit around the hooch with him and help him make up this whole fairy tale about taking leaves to go see Munich at Oktoberfest and hiking in the Tannis Mountains. He couldn't understand how some other guys could stand to write their own mothers and tell them what it was like over there. He couldn't understand how anyone could come to Vietnam thinking it would be a great adventure. To him, a great adventure would have been to tool around Germany tasting the local beers. Storm Shadow wasn't out for glory or adventure either. He came from a whole family of ninjas. They looked at a real shooting war as a sort of graduate school for their prize pupil. It was more like a doctorate. Long Range Recon is the Harvard University of sneak and peak. You get real good at creeping through the bush without making any noise. You get real careful. You get real paranoid. Out there in the stinking bush, not enough sleep, itching, aching guts and constant upheaval, perpetually in a state of quasi hallucination, you start thinking you're some sort of phantom, an invisible wraith slithering between the fronds. That's what you do if you survive long enough. You get through it on sheer badness and if you don't slide right off the other end into a permanent stare, you get real good at appearing normal to everyone else back in the world.  You are one crazy, tightly wound, ultra-wacko psycho killer who desperately needs the strict discipline of a martial arts environment to cool you out and keep the devils in check. And me. I'm still searching for my reasons. I came home from the war and everything I had was gone. People spat at me on the street and called me a baby killer. I tried making a new start in the family business of my best friend. It was a disaster. I went to lose myself in the mountains just brooding and thinking too much, mostly about myself, which is a subject that always leads to trouble. It tends to put the center of the universe in the wrong place. Hawk and Stalker came and found me and took me back into the fold. On one of our first missions in the Middle East, I got caught in the blast from an exploding helicopter. There wasn't much they could do for my appearance after that. I had to get used to the fact that people tend to stare fixedly at the top button on my shirt when they talk to me. My voice, well, I could never carry a tune anyway. I still wake up in a cold sweat on Tuesday mornings. Tuesdays was deep riding day at the Army Hospital burn unit where I recovered.  Me? I couldn't have screamed if I had wanted to. I was relatively lucky. I still had most of my face. I met some guys who didn't have ears, nose, lips, or eyelids. One of them, his name was Travis, kept begging me to smother him with a pillow. You know, I never got a welcome party or a parade or anything when I came back from some horrible place stinking of burnt smoking powder, JP for bug juice and sweat. It's just as well. I tend to make people uncomfortable. If you're going to be a soldier, don't expect to be appreciated. Don't expect a nation to be grateful. Don't expect a pension you can live on without food stamps. Expect to see the worst humanity has to offer. Nastiness to the nth degree, vileness, meanness, total despicable cruelty, and unspeakable in humanity. Expect to see the best humanity has to offer. Selfless bravery, compassion, honor, and dignity in the face of sure death. After all this discouragement, do I have any regrets about having been a soldier? Not a one. I had the privilege and honor of serving with men and women whom I could depend on utterly. I have had comrades lay down their lives for me and I would have gladly laid down mine for them. How many other occupations engender such camaraderie? But then this bearing of arms in defense of the Constitution of the United States of America is not really a profession per se. It's a trust. A letter from Snake Eyes in G.I. Joe, a real American hero, issue number 155 written by Larry Hama.


Right now at Appalachian Wireless you can get the Samsung Galaxy S7 for just $99.99 and get a second one Service agreement is required on both devices serving you for the last 25 years with better service and bigger savings at today's Appalachian Wireless Having been on Death Row was 11 men in 12 years walking by myself, four of which I knew really well Got to shake their hand, the only thing I can say to them is Godspeed That was Randy Stidle's life for 12 years as he sat on Death Row awaiting his time to come Convicted in 1986 of a double murder in Peoria, Illinois until his exoneration in 2004 17 years of his life taken from a government that got it wrong But Randy was eventually released like 156 other inmates in the country Serving time on Death Row for a crime they did not commit Stidle now works around the country to try and abolish the death penalty Well, Witness Denison's nation's only organization made up of exonerated death row inmates Work legislatively, we work with faith groups and colleges To try to change hearts and minds on the death penalty In hopes that somebody can get a repeal bill going And replace the death penalty with life without parole The state of Kentucky has only executed three people since it brought the death penalty back in 1976 And death sentences have declined in the state steadily since the mid-1980s Stidle says it's time for the state and the country to move on It would be a tremendous savings for taxpayers You don't risk the possibility of executing an innocent person, which I am one And we think that if we are really a civilized country That the United States will eventually abolish the death penalty The Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and the ACLU of Kentucky Have co-sponsored Stidle's presentations to inform Kentuckians about the weaknesses in the death penalty system For us, part of our work is dedicated toward educating the public About why we think the death penalty is a regressive system for Kentucky to keep on supporting So for us, we believe that it costs too much, that it's unfair, and how it's applied And we believe that the risk is too high for doing something for executing the wrong person Especially when you hear stories such as Randy's Speaking from experience, Stidle says his five years spent as a regular preser Serving a life sentence were worse than the 12 years he spent on death row And that if the goal is to punish, then a life without the possibility of parole is a far harsher sentence You know, if you really want to punish a vicious killer, don't put them on the gurney for five minutes I watched 11 men walk off to their death in Illinois Not a one of them went with an out of smile on their face After decades and a cage Stidle wraps up his East Kentucky tour at 7 p.m. tonight in Whitesburg at the Apple Shop boom building Reporting from Prestonsburg, for EKB News, I'm Jackson Latta


So you just don't understand Polygroup Islands. Not a problem. This is a combination of polygroup inner with polygroup border. So when you left click on a polygon, every face that is the same color is gonna be affected by your action. Remember they have to be connected just because they're close or on the same side doesn't mean they're connected. They have to be touching each other to be considered part of the same island. Hope that helps. And as always, hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you around.


We're going through an era of continuing social upheaval. The stage of global politics is much more crowded because of the technology. The future for government is to transform itself, to meet the growing demands and expectations of the public. We have to find a way to move and use technology to engage citizenships, to explain policy. We have to start making decisions in a different way. Aren't there ways that we can make government better? The World Economic Forum created a global agenda council on the future of government, leaders from government, business, civil society and academia to think about innovative ways that governments can work with different stakeholders to create services that benefit citizens, creating new public value. The governmental sector has to be increasing its productivity, in that way becoming much more like the private sector. There's some governments that do some things better than others. Beijing have terrible problems with smart American cities like Los Angeles cut that back. China has developed a marvelous high-speed rail between cities. The Americans don't have that. How can we develop the smart toolbox to transfer those lessons from one to another? Governments to be successful in the future need to know what they have to do themselves, when they need to outsource and when they need to work in partnerships. The future of government global agenda councils is highlighting some of those examples and seeing where they're transferable, where they're scalable and what can be learned from them. We'll be able to come up with new solutions and new ideas that will enable governments to act with more transparency, more accountability and hopefully be able to develop better services to the citizens in the 21st century.


Hwnnaeth d�로ignaf. We'r back on the European Union withdrawal birds. We'll continue our evidence session on that. Can I welcome Professor Steven Teehanay, Professor of constitutional theory at the University of Edinburgh? Professor Teehanay, we've had a couple of sessions about this earlier on, and we'll go through more or less the same questions because you may were have a different take on previous witnesses. I will ask the first one. The bill confers wide powers on UK and devolved ministers to correct retained EU law. Is the broad scope of those powers appropriate and necessary? It is a difficult question. We do need to preface the discussion, as you see, by just outlining how extensive the powers are. The powers set out in clauses 7 to 9 of the bill are extremely extensive. They give powers to ministers to use delegated powers to correct deficiencies in retained EU law, which is a very broad category, but they also contain broad Henry VIII powers, which allow that to be done by the correction of primary legislation. In terms of appropriateness and necessity, the UK Government does justify this in the Delegated Powers Memorandum, which comes with the bill, and they put forward three reasons as to why these powers are necessary. The first one is that the Government estimates that there are more than 12,000 EU regulations and more than 6,000 EU directives in force across the EU. The first reason is that, simply to address this by exit day, the Government requires latitude. Secondly, as a matter of practicality, it is simply not necessary to make all of these changes on the face of the bill. The bill itself could not possibly either remove or transpose all of these. It is going to have to be done after the bill. The third is flexibility. We are in the middle of Brexit negotiations at this precise moment. There is also going to have to be a discussion between the UK Government and the devolved administrations about how those powers that might be devolved are treated. For all of those reasons, the third justification for those powers is flexibility. This is a very plausible argument. I think that the UK Government, as a generality in this situation, can plausibly make this argument. If you are going to have Brexit, one might think that Brexit is a terrible idea, but if Brexit is going to happen, those regulations and directives have to be dealt with. It seems that this is a way to do it. I would also mention two other caveats. There are limitations on the use of the powers, which we can come back to within the act, so they are not unlimited powers. Secondly, they carry sunset clauses, so they can only be used for a certain period of time. I think that they are excessively broad, and as we drill down into some of the detail, we will see that they are excessively broad. In just about any other statutes, they would look astonishing. Given the context here, it is hard to see another way to do this, but the powers could be more tightly constrained than they are. In what way could they be more tightly constrained? One of the real difficulties is the fact that the powers are themselves contingent upon the most significant provision in the bill. The most significant provision in the bill is the bill that retains EU law. The term itself is very broad and capacious. What is meant by retained EU law, which is set out in the early clauses of the bill, is very broad. We do not have to concern ourselves with a lot of the ambiguities in that term, but what I am alluding to is the fact that the regulation powers relate to a term, so very broad powers relate to a term that is itself unclear. When a term is itself unclear, that invites the powers to be used in a very broad way. That is the first difficulty. Clause 7 itself allows the regulations to be made to prevent, remedy or mitigate any failure of retained EU law to operate effectively or any other deficiency in maintained EU law. Terms like operate effectively or deficiency are pretty broad. If you give a minister a power to correct any deficiency and effectively make it a subjective test for the minister to determine what operating effectively means, what a deficiency means, then you are giving a very broad power. On that basis, I think that they operate very broadly. There could possibly have been more limitations built into the limitations that are there under Clause 7.6 are very narrow. I think that one of the other issues that will come on to presumably will be the scrutiny, to what extent. If you are going to give these very broad powers to what extent are you giving power to Parliament or to Parliaments to really get time to look at how these powers are being used? It looks as though that is not going to be the case. You mentioned ambiguities and we discussed this earlier, some of the vagueness of language. Is that something that you think should be tightened up? My view of the bill might seem a little bit paradoxical. I look at it and at least look at these powers and they are very, very broad and they raise real constitutional concerns. But then when you ask yourself the other question, how would you go about it in a different way? It's actually very, very difficult to come up with a concrete alternative which would be constitutionally better, but which would make this manageable because we are talking about a very short period of time and a massive body of law that is going to have to be dealt with. And not just that, but it's a movable feast. As the UK negotiates with the EU, we don't know what kind of shape proto-agreements are going to be taking as the UK moves towards exit day. The UK, for example, can plan to get rid of a whole swathe of law which might actually become part of a trade deal, might be within the remit of a future trade deal, which it would make more sense to retain, or there might even be commitments to metair EU law. I mean, there's talk now of a fairly lengthy transitional period where it might be that these powers will not be used at all, so it's very difficult to see how the skeleton of the bill could be very different from what it is. As your view of the bill changed? My view of the bill hasn't changed. I think there are ways in which it can be tightened up, but I think it's very difficult to see how fundamentally it could be done in a totally different way. So, when you first looked at it, you thought, whoa. It's not so much my view of the bill's changed. I think one looks at the bill and thinks, this is deeply constitutionally problematic. The government is taking to itself very broad powers to change the law through delegated powers, most often through negative procedure, often Henry VIII power, so to change the law with negative procedure. All of this in any other bill is simply that the problem is not so much this bill, it's the project that the bill is having to serve. The bill is having to serve a massive constitutional change that has to happen very quickly. The bill is deeply problematic, but it's almost an inevitable consequence of the kind of process for which it's about to serve. Okay, thank you. You mentioned the transition deal and was, if the transition deal was to last for two years, would it then be important or crucial that the laws are all transposed into UK legislation before the transition deal or if the transition deal is two years or three years or four years, would that then provide an additional period of time to get those laws in, transposed into UK law? There would be two different ways to do it. If the transition deal came with a subsequent another piece of legislation that, in effect, continued the effect of EU law, that would be one way to do it, to actually go round the provisions of this bill and to treat exit as though it were not, in fact, exit for that period of time. That would presumably be politically problematic for the UK Government. If that's not the case, an exit day is not only formally exit day but also the day in which EU law ceases to apply, then this bill would carry on as it were and all of these laws that would be kept would be retained. What would happen in that case, so if this bill carries on as it were, what I think we would see rather than any new piece of legislation is simply that the delegated powers wouldn't really need to be used very much except simply to block, transfer EU law into UK law as a going concern for the transition period. It would also give parliamentarians and the UK Government much longer to then plan for 21 rather than 19 or whenever the period would end, so the rush that we envisage here could be postponed. As two ways to do it, one would be effectively not to leave for two years, the other would be to leave but it would be almost a symbolic leaving for two years in which the obligation would continue to be bound by EU law. Government ministers would probably come under the sort of constraints the Scottish institutions come under at the moment of not acting incompatibly with EU law, that you would need some kind of provision like that, that UK level. Okay, that's helpful. It's when you mentioned the transition deal that I thought I would pose a question. Also, the bill provides a choice of three legislative routes to exercise the powers of correction, the regulations made by UK ministers, regulations made by the devolved administrations and, thirdly, regulations made jointly by UK and devolved. And what challenges do you see arising from having that choice of legislative routes? Yeah, so the UK has the general plenary unlimited powers and the simplest, you know, or the default will be when they use those powers in reserved areas, that's what we anticipate, but you're talking about when they use them in devolved areas. I think that having those three routes is itself very complicated and it would depend on whether there were attempts to use the first of those routes and why. If the UK were simply unilaterally to use delegated powers in devolved areas, there would be plenty of questions as to why that was the case. When, if it's a devolved matter, there are provisions in the bill for joint delegated power making in devolved areas, so similar to the section 30 procedure that we see under the 1998 act. That's the first category, the third category that you're just talking about. I think those are the two over which there will have to be a working out of when the UK does it alone and when the UK does it with the devolved administrations. I would imagine the default would be to try and do it cooperatively under the principles of the devolution settlement, that would be the case. The middle one is an interesting one. Is this the sort of reference under clause 10 to the powers that will remain with the Scottish Parliament to make delegated legislation in areas where they already have that power? We've drilled down, we've been asking about this. My understanding of that is that the Scottish Parliament will acquire or the Scottish Government will acquire this power to continue to act in areas of EU law which are devolved at the moment and can use the delegated powers in the new act to change EU law that's firmly within devolved competence insofar as to correct deficiencies and so on. I think that's the least problematic. I get around the borders, but the more problematic would be the UK doing laterally stuff in devolved areas and then how that would marry up with the shared delegated power making. Certainly when I posed a question to one of the earlier panels, I think the phrase that they used was, they will leave that the joints go to the other side, they consider that to be a non-starter. So it's interesting to hear your take on this. In practice that might be the case. I mean it could well be that the joint powers, because the bill anticipates that the joint powers will mostly be used for the transfer of powers. To put it crudely, the bill envisages the UK transposing all of the EU law in devolved and reserved areas back almost into the UK box and then by way of joint order making gradually redevolving it as it were. That's what the joint power is typically envisaged for. It's probably the case that when it comes to simply the task of repatriating it as it were, that will be done fairly unilaterally and one would anticipate. Do you think it would be possible for two legislatures to pass valid but conflicting legislation in exercise of the powers in the bill? That's a very interesting question. I mean this has always been a concern of mine from a practical point of view that the Scottish Parliament has competence in EU areas, if so far as they are devolved, that the bill guarantees that that continues. Certainly the bill attempts to get around that potential problem by removing competence in retained EU law and it depends how broadly that is read, but I think that that is a potentially very broad provision that restricts the power of the devolved administrations to modify retained EU law. That would seem to prevent that risk-stroke opportunity, depending on how one approaches it, but that would seem to be the purpose of the bill. I imagine a court, for example, dealing with a competence dispute, would probably read that as the purpose of clause 10, clause 11. Also, there are limitations and restrictions on the correcting powers in schedule 2, which apply to the devolved authorities, but not to the UK ministers under their equivalent powers. Examples include a more limited power to subdelegate than is available to UK ministers and the requirement to obtain consent of UK ministers in certain circumstances. Are those additional limitations and Scottish ministers appropriate and what do you take of the Scottish Government's proposed amendments to remove those restrictions? I think that they are not hugely significant. At a symbolic level, what understands the approach that the UK has taken here? I am aware that this is a very delicate area, and I am not defending the overall approach of this bill, but it is what it is, and they have decided to do it by whole-scale transposition. Having said that, there are ways in the bill that could be more sensitive to devolution. The examples that you have alluded to are examples where it does not seem to me that there would be a pressing need for those sorts of fairly minor limitations. My sense is that this is probably unnecessary. An overall theme that I think is far more important than the technicality of a lot of these provisions is the absolute need for healthy inter-governmental relations. I know that I have talked about this before, and people say that it is a truism. Of course, it is a truism, but it ought not to be forgotten. The reason I say that is because some of those more minor provisions, which raise the hackles of people who feel they are outside the spirit of devolved settlements, are not conducive to reaching inter-governmental agreement on the bigger issues that really matter. I do not think that those minor provisions are particularly necessary. I think that they perhaps show an excessive lack of trust in devolved administrations, which is not healthy. IGR will come up in later questioning. Certainly, an exercise of the powers devolved authorities may not modify retained direct EU legislation or make provisioning consistent with the modification of retained direct EU legislation made by UK ministers. Do you foresee any difficulties with the restrictions? That is the general gist of the bill, which is that we have this body of law, which is retained EU law, which has many sub elements within it. Essentially, that is either EU law that directly affects us, which is still Brussels law. We are going to bring that in. Or it is law that the UK has made into EU law from the EU. All of that is going to be transferred into the status of retained EU law. The approach of the bill is that the devolved administrations cannot amend that until that is sifted. What ought to be devolved is then parceled out. There could have been another way to approach this bill. There could have been other ways to approach this bill. This is one way to do it. I can see it as a problem of principle from a devolved perspective. I get that. I think the invasion that it poses to devolution, because it is just not congruent with the principles we have had for devolution over the nearly two decades. I completely get that. Given that this is the approach that has been taken, that is potentially correctable by the other commitment in the Government's explanatory notes to seek a rapid devolution of the powers. If that is done fully and consistent with existing devolved powers, with a full commitment to really parceling out those powers in line with the nature of devolution settlements, I think that problem of principle could partly be overcome. However, it is the way that the bill stands. Really what is going to matter is how that position and how the powers related to that position play out in practice. That is what is really going to matter. The final question is that there is no equivalent for devolved authorities of the power in clause 17 to make consequential or transitional provision. Would it be usual for a UK bill making provision within the Scottish Parliament's legislative competence to confer such a power on the Scottish ministers? It might well be. One of the difficulties with this bill in terms of the delegated powers themselves is that there is power layered on power, layered on power. The time you get to the consequential provision, you are almost wondering why it is there. The other powers are so extensive. You want to know what on earth can be left here that you have not already provided a power to do. It seems to be a final catch-all power. My view, I think, looking at the nature of clause 10 and its relation to schedule 2 is that the power of the devolved authorities to do anything in relation to retained EU law, that they can currently do to things that are within devolved competence, should be ready as an all-encompassing power that would include transitional and consequential provisions. That would be my take on the exception that is built into clause 10. That might be something to seek clarification of—to seek clarification of the bill team or in the UK Parliament—that is the case. Insofar as the Scottish Parliament still has powers in relation to retained EU law, those powers also encompass consequential and transitional provisions, because there is no reason or principle why they ought not to. That is as far as I can see. Alison Harris. The bill does not provide any mechanism for Scottish Parliament's scrutiny of regulations made by UK ministers alone. Irrespective of whether the regulations are a matter of significance for Scotland or of would have attracted the benefit of the sole convention had the matter been included in primary legislation, does that present a gap in the Parliament's ability to scrutinise the exercise of the bills in this power? Yes. I think that scrutiny is a really crucial issue here. I talked about the general problem of principle, which Mr McMillan was alluding to, that this is block, move to the UK and then redistribute. I have talked about how that can be corrected in a devolution-sensitive way, but one of the really crucial areas of that will be how closely scrutinised those powers are, particularly when, as you say, regulations are being made exclusively at UK level in areas that are going to affect devolved matters. I think that that is something for this Parliament and this committee is thinking carefully about how scrutiny moves forward, but it is a real potential acuda. Okay. Would you have any thoughts on how we could fill that up? Obviously, if these regulations are being tabled, one of the big problems is that so much of this is going to be done by negative procedure. The position you are talking about is constitutionally problematic because it is going to affect this Parliament, but it is being done at Westminster. The practical problem is that it is going to be done very quickly and it is going to be laid before Westminster and passed in a 21-day period unless there is the capacity in the Parliament to look at it quickly. We simply do not know what volume we are going to be talking about here, but it seems to me that we are likely going to be looking at a massive volume. There is the issue of principle, which is itself problematic. Would it be a practical problem in terms of practice where the UK Parliament is going to do this, just thinking about it if they were to use these powers, even in an evolved area, to modify and retain the EU law, presumably to bring matters into the purview of this retained EU law? That would all still, even after those powers have been used, be part of this vast body of law, which would be subject to the discussions about subsequent devolution of those areas of geostics. The problem of principle is a significant one, but it would not be the end of the story. I think that you need to be thinking about the extent to which you have the resources to look at draft legislation in another chamber. I think that it would be entirely constitutionally appropriate for this House to look at that legislation, even if it cannot directly influence it. However, another option is—I do not know how far this can go, but it is clearly into parliamentary co-operation. It seems to me to be a very important theme going forward. Is there a role for formal Scottish Parliament consultation or consent to the exercise of powers by UK ministers? If so, should that role concern the exercise of powers relating to matters within the Parliament's legislative competence or matters that would be within legislative competence, notwithstanding the requirement of compatibility with EU law? Or should it be something wider, such as the exercise of powers in areas of interest and importance to Scotland? How would you define that? You have rightly said, Ms Harris, that Seoul does not apply to delegated legislation. We are now seeing just how big a deficit that is in terms of inter-parliamentary relations. It is not inconceivable that new conventions should develop. Sometimes they are invented by politicians, but Seoul, to some extent, was an invention. However, it is not inconceivable that if the UK Government is serious when it talks and talks a lot in the explanatory notes and in the delegated powers memorandum about the need for consent, about its commitment to consent, without mentioning Seoul in relation to delegated powers. It is not inconceivable that a practice—certainly, the devolved administrations can press, I would absolutely, on the basis of constitutional principle, for practices to develop and practices to become conventions, whereby exactly those kind of avenues that you are talking about. We do not have the right to veto this delegated legislation, we do not have the right to—if we passed a motion here that would not fit within the Seoul convention, we would get all that. However, let us talk about other conventions emerging here. If we are seriously moving forward with Brexit, we are looking for a common approach across the UK, we are trying to build common frameworks, we are trying to do this by consent, then let us think about avenues through which a semi-formal consent should be required by the chamber and the other chambers for the use of delegated powers that are force square in devolved areas. I think that it is a perfectly legitimate constitutional move to try to make. I think that the bill has an appropriate split between matters that require the affirmative procedure and matters in respect to which there is a choice between the affirmative and negative procedures? No. Bluntly, no. I was very surprised. The convener asked if I had changed my mind on the bill, and I think that you got worn down after a while. I still find it constitutionally problematic, there is no doubt about that. One of the areas that is really problematic is the very limited range of matters for which affirmative procedure is expressly required. Given the vast swathes of areas that are going to be—the vast swathes of policy areas involved, one would have expected to see, I think, a far broader use of affirmative procedure. Once again, the other argument is simply the practical one, that when you are talking about these many, many thousands of regulations and directives, to lay for Parliament for active affirmative consideration, each of these, it is very hard to see where the parliamentary time could come from. I know that sounds a bit ambiguous. I do not think that it is inappropriate, but on the other hand, I do not see how else I could do it. The problem comes back to the project, not to the bill, in a sense. Do you think that there is wide discretion given regarding the choice of negative affirmative procedure, and is that discretion appropriate, and how can ministers be held to account in respect of a choice? There is a very open approach, given that so little is reserved to—you definitely must use affirmative, then it is open to ministers. My sense is that if you give ministers a choice to use negative, they are going to use negative. The other one that you have to build in here is that there is a third scrutiny procedure here that made affirmative procedure, which is effectively no scrutiny procedure, which the minister can activate in the case of urgency. That is an innovation in the bill. It is an opportunity for ministers to make delegated legislation in pressing circumstances, which would become law without parliamentary scrutiny of any kind. Safeguards are built into that. It would require to be reassessed within a month and so on, but that in itself is left entirely to the discretion of a minister to determine if the circumstances are sufficiently urgent to require that. The bill vests enormous trust in ministers and enormous trust in the robustness of the UK Parliament in particular, but other parliaments to really follow very closely what they are going to do with this stuff. You have partially answered the question that we are going to ask already, but let me ask it anyway. Is there a role for strength and scrutiny, for example, to enable Parliament to be consulted on regulations laid in draft prior to final regulations being laid, and if so, which areas should be prioritised? To some extent, this depends upon what these powers are going to be used for. The Government has committed, as far as I read it, to not using these powers to make significant policy changes. The idea is that this is just to correct deficiencies, to make legislation fit for purpose in the act of bringing it into UK law. Various parliamentary committees here and at Westminster, before the bill was even laid, put forward various recommendations for heightened scrutiny procedures of the kind that you are talking about, or provisions analogous to schedule civil of the Scotland Act 1998, which has the whole list of the different types of delegated power making procedures that would involve the joint agreement of this House and the UK Parliament. There were various innovations that were put forward recommending this. The Government's response simply is that, for example, the provisions of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006, which set out extensive super-affirmative procedures. The Government's response to this is simply that we stop the time, as far as I can read it, that we just have to get this done and this would take too long and it's just not feasible. If it were to be done, I think that a stronger suit to play would be to hold the Government to the promise that big policy is not going to be done with these powers, and to hold to the line that, if you are going to make big policy, you need primary legislation. This is not going to be the only bill. The withdrawal bill is the first of the bill. There will be other bills in each one, as soon as that is my understanding, in a number of discrete areas of EU competence law. I think that time might be better spent targeting primary legislation on big matters of policy when A, full Westminster scrutiny will apply, and B, when so it would apply, as far as this chamber is concerned. You touched briefly on the super-affirmative process. Is that specifically allowed under this bill? It's not provided for. The funny thing about Parliament—I always find it slightly odd that Government is putting forward a bill telling Parliament how to scrutinise legislation. It's always been my view that Parliament should say to the parliamentary drafts, well, thank you very much. It's good of you to tell us how we're going to do our job, but in fact, this is how we're going to scrutinise this. So, to be honest, it's for people here, liaising with people at your parliamentary equivalents at Westminster, and to say, these are the kinds of procedures that we want to see in here. Of course, the Government, if it's drafting a bill, is going to minimise the extent to which that bill is going to be scrutinised, but if there's a feasible argument that super-affirmative should apply in relation to matters that Ms Harris was talking about, such as the Hettland-devolved areas, then that argument should be made through one Parliament talking to another. These are the kind of amendments that we want to see in here. What areas or categories of changes to EU law should this Parliament seek to prioritise in its scrutiny? Obviously, areas that affect devolved matters, or is that just a given? To me, it would see clearly areas of devolved content. So, the crucial stuff that we all know about environment, agriculture, fish and so on, it would seem to me that would be very important. Having said that, it's a trite point and an obvious one that I'm making, but if we are now talking about a UK that's going to be outside of the EU, just as the devolved legislation is coming into force, Scotland Act 2016, the Wales Act 2017, we're in the middle of a lot of different changes. We hadn't really worked out the boundaries of devolved reserved competence coming out of the 2016 act. If you look at, there's so many areas in the Scotland Act 2016 of shared powers between Scotland and the UK in all kinds of areas, from welfare to transport police to other areas of transport. What I'm getting at now is that there are many areas that are reserved matters that are going to be impacting on Scotland in ways that they may not have done five years ago so directly. So, I think this Parliament ought not to just be focusing on very traditional areas of devolved competence, but maybe thinking, well, wait a minute, that's a reserved matter and it's going back to Westminster, but the UK could be using that power in a way that affects welfare or transport or taxation or things that are now at the margins of devolved reserved competence. So, there are going to be new areas to look to in light of the Scotland Act 2016 that's maybe not been fully thought through yet. Okay. Do any members have any other questions? No? Well, Professor Tini, thank you for your time. It's probably felt like a whistle stop tour, but I think we've covered a lot of ground. So, thank you once again. A pleasure. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Without that, I shall close the meeting.