I'll just start with a little bit of context here. New Zealand has a proud history of leading the world with various important social reforms. New Zealand was the first country in the world to have a treaty with the indigenous people. It was the first country in the world to give women the vote, and the sun still came up the next day. We've just legalised same-sex marriage. All these reforms came about thanks to the dedication and perseverance of truth-loving reformers like you and me. These victories past give us hope for the future. So it seems quite appropriate that New Zealand is the first country in the world to regulate novel, psychoactive substances. And this is indeed a bold step. It's a step forward that we commend the New Zealand Government for because they listened to the experts, they listened to the scientists, they respected the recommendations in the NZ Law Commission report. Is it a good policy? We actually don't know yet, and you've heard some feedback today suggesting that it's still too soon to call. But the vision and values espoused are correctly focused on harm reduction and hence we support it unconditionally. Will it work? Too soon to say. We certainly hope so, and seeing everyone here and listening and hearing the feedback, we're greatly encouraged. Should an all-drugs, currently legal and illegal, be held to the same safety standard? Absolutely, of course they should, but we're not there yet. This is a journey, and the Act is not perfect. We can already see some gaps in the legislation, but what we know is this Act is better than prohibition. Reform can be frustratingly slow sometimes, but don't let perfect get in the way of better. In this session, we hear from overseas experts who discuss what their own country is doing to address the challenges of novel psychoactive products in their communities, and we ask the question, could the New Zealand model be a template for reform globally? So I'd like to introduce the opening keynote for the afternoon session and this is another huge honour for me. Our next speaker is the founder and director of the Beckley Foundation and she travelled further than anyone else to be here today. In fact, if she had gone any further, she would have left the planet. Good on you, which is a great metaphor actually for her own amazing journey. I'd like to think of our next speaker as the, and this is a term of endearment, as the Keith Richards of the reform movement. And I say that because she's been there from the very beginning. She's seen it all. She's still working as hard as ever. She's still as passionate as ever. And you know what? I don't think she's even peaked yet. Ladies and gentlemen, would you please put your hand together for the founder of the Beckley Foundation, the baroness of Beckley, Amanda Fielding. Thank you. And I'm delighted to be here and thank you, Star Trust, for this celebratory new move into global drug policy reform. I hope you'll forgive me, but I'll read. If we had set out to design a system of global drug policy to create maximum damage and suffering, we would probably have designed the system we've had for the last 50 years. Since the advent of drug prohibition, drugs have become cheaper and more easily available than ever before. The collateral damage, particularly in producing transit countries, is devastating. Despite the $100 billion of taxpayers' money expended in its suppression every year, the value of the global drug industry is estimated to be in excess of $400 billion per annum. Most of it streaming through the hands of highly unpleasant criminals.  It has undermined states, left a trail of corruption, violence and death, endemic health problems and a global network of crime. There is no other social issue which has caused so much suffering which could be mitigated simply by a change of policies. This is because the policies, rather than the drugs themselves, cause most of the suffering. We have been down this road before. In 1919, the US instituted nationwide alcohol prohibition. The result was an almost unmitigated failure. Criminal organisations flourished as never before. The police discovered the joys of corruption. Drinking strong spirits became hugely popular and health problems multiplied. After 13 disastrous years, the policy was abandoned. Tragically, the role lesson that demand always calls for its own supply and that prohibition only hands over lucrative industries, the criminals and violent cartels was not learnt. In 50 years of drug prohibition, we have surely seen enough devastation and suffering to lead rational people to seek new solutions. Surely the governments of the world can do a better job of minimising the overall harms of drugs than the cartels whose only motivation is profit. When I started the Betley Foundation 16 years ago, drug policy reform seemed to be a hopeless cause. At that point, there was no attempt to have a scientific evidence base. The Betley set about helping to provide. But in recent years, we are at last seeing the damn prohibition crumbling and the water of common sense beginning to seep through the cracks. In 2011, seven former presidents and two sitting presidents, together with 11 Nobel laureates and other global notables, signed the Betley Foundation public letter calling for a fundamentally different approach to global drug policy. These included President Molina of Guatemala and President Santos of Colombia, both of whom became leading advocates for drug policy reform. Latin America, the region which has suffered the most from the war on drugs, has become the engine of change. Even in the USA, the original motor prohibition is witnessing a fundamental shift with two U.S. states, Colorado and Washington, recently voting to legalize marijuana for recreational use. And President Obama publicly declaring that cannabis is probably no more harmful than alcohol, something that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. Meanwhile, Uruguay has become the first nation in the world to establish a legal market for recreational cannabis. These policy initiatives, combined with the positive outcomes of recent research into the potential medicinal and therapeutic benefits of certain psychoactive substances, are helping, slowly but surely, to change world opinion in favour of a more rational approach. Recognizing that prohibitionist approach does not work, must seek out alternative policies. At the beginning of the 21st century, in reaction to the prohibition of classical psychoactive substances and their analogs, under the UN conventions of 1961 and 1971, a new phenomenon emerged, the so-called legal highs, or designer drugs, a category of psychoactive compounds not included in the UN schedules. These new psychoactive substances, or NPSs, as they're called, are created by freelance chemists, largely imitating the work of the wonderful Sasha Shulgin, who had been producing and self-assessing new psychoactive substances for decades. They're mostly manufactured in China and India and sold via the internet a process which now government has been able to effectively control. Governments around the world reacted to this proliferation of so-called legal highs by prohibiting the substances almost as soon as they attracted media attention, with the result that the chemists move on to design a newer compound which can easily be more harmful than the now banned predecessors. This game of cat and mouse encourages the proliferation of NPSs so that now a new NPS is being produced and brought to market every week. Since the governments of the world do not scientifically test these NPSs for toxicity, the market is totally uncontrolled, resulting in millions of young people around the world, regularly ingesting unknown powders produced in unregulated ways and sold without restriction. Those unfortunate enough to end up in a hospital face doctors who have no idea what compound they are dealing with or how to treat its effects. Because of New Zealand's geographical isolation and the South Pacific, it is frail from the supply routes of classic psychoactive substances such as cocaine and opium and so it quickly became an attractive market for the consumers and producers of legal highs. This resulted in a new usual drug landscape which led to early realisation that new tools were needed if a way was to be found to minimise the harms of this rapidly expanding market. New Zealand has often been the harbinger of new solutions to key policy challenges of our times. It was the first country to recognise the equality of Indigenous people. It was the first country to grant women the vote. And now, while much of the rest of the world seems stuck in the futile rhetoric of reactive prohibition, New Zealand has given us a new paradigm of regulation in the form of the Psychoactive Substance Act, a bill which was passed in mid-2013 with broad political support. The Psychoactive Substance Act is unique for several reasons. It is the first national drug policy other than recent moves to regulate cannabis in Iroguai to be based on scientific evidence of harms rather than on dogma, panic and guesswork. It is the first to have a harm minimisation at its heart and the protection of the user's health as its explicit aim. It is unique in its pragmatic acceptance that you humans have always sought ways of altering their consciousness and will, no doubt, continue to do so. New Zealand has realised that a good government, like a good parent, should aim to provide measures which optimally protect the health of the people who choose this route and that a substance which has been clinically tested and is sold with appropriate labelling which indicates the contents and potential harms is safer than an unknown, unlabeled powder. Importantly, the Act is also unique in giving manufacturers the incentive to create the safest drugs possible and to test them in order to prove that they are low risk before the product can obtain approval and be legally brought to market. We should congratulate all those who have worked so hard in getting this Act into the statute book. The Act marks the beginning of a new drug policy model which can evolve and be improved as new information comes to light. It is an innovative and rational way of normalising harms to both users and society while permitting freedom of choice. It ensures for the first time that users of certain psychoactive substances no longer automatically designated as dysfunctional criminals making poor decisions but rather as rational consumers seeking to have a good time within the protective framework of state regulation. Whilst the principles and purpose of the Act have rightly been positively received it would be naive to announce its success before it has been fully implemented or before there has been time to assess the actual impact of the model. As with any policy initiative there are risks attached to it which must be carefully managed if it is to be a true success. An obvious danger of new substances even under a system of regulation is drug interactions such as mixing of certain drugs with alcohol. One natural way to manage this and other risks is to have a very strict post-marketing monitoring programme so that if adverse reactions do happen informed decisions can be made about whether to pull the drug from the market. Another way is to produce reversing agents or antidotes for the approved products which will counter their effect. Never before has the producers of recreational psychoactive substances had the incentive all the technical know-how to do this. Health care professionals will be made aware of the chemical profiles of these substances and informed of adverse reactions which they can then report to the regulator thus through feedback making the model ever safer. New Zealand has shown that collaboration between the various stakeholders such as government agencies and the industry is the most effective way of minimising harms and protecting the health of the consumer. Despite these potential challenges the Act remains the best legislative response to new psychoactive substances that currently exist. It is especially comforting to note that the evidence-based approach of the Act extends not only to the testing of substances for relative levels of risk but also to the working of the Act itself. Inherent to evidence-based policy is the ability to adapt and improve it when new information or evidence comes to light. To this end a review of the Act was conducted within the next five years. This is in contrast to the vast majority of drug policies worldwide with the power of inertia and the inflexibility of the international drug control regime have ensured that ineffective or harmful policies have remained in place for decades irrespective of evidence pointing to their manifest failure. The New Psychoactive Substance Act opens away to a better future for drug policy a future that puts reason before rhetoric and science before politics. I trust that in the coming years other countries will follow New Zealand's enlightened leadership. An additional value of the New Zealand approach is that it reminds us that those laws which legislate for how we're allowed to alter our consciousness cannot be determined by archaic moralistic ideas about which substances are culturally acceptable but by sounds and evidence of harms. We know that many of the drugs which are currently listed in the UN conventions of 1961 and 71 are there for reasons which are completely unscientific. In this regard the New Zealand solution has come at a specially relevant time. In 2016 the Member States of the United Nations will meet in order to debate for the first time what new options might be considered for the reform of global drug policy. As the New Zealand initiative is implemented an evidence of its successes and challenges come to light it is my hope and the hope of many others that the world will look to New Zealand for inspiration. Perhaps the New Zealand model of scientific testing in strict regulation or something very similar to it can be used as the framework for regulation of other currently illegal substances such as cannabis, MDMA and classic psychedelics. The New Zealand government is to be congratulated for breaking new ground and offering the world a new pathway to reform one which aims to protect the precious commodities of health and freedom and does so through a system based on scientific evidence and common sense. Thank you.


Welcome to Celluloid Mirror. I'm your hostess Betty St. LaVeau. On this TV show we talk about film history, film definitions, and then we go straight into the movies, which is what we are going to do today. So I thought long and hard about this episode. At first I was going to compare Willow, Legend, and Lady Hawk, simply because I was sat down by for all three of them, number one. And number two, they all have similarities either involving some type of mythical creature or it's a kid themed. However, when watching these movies they have a lot of violence in them. So I want to discuss the fact that you can be a kid of certain age and watch Lady Hawk, Legend, and Willow, but maybe not so young. Plus Willow, directed by George Lucas, had so many fights in it that I finally tried to remember who produced it. I knew that Ron Howard had directed it and usually doesn't involve so big, big screen thrills. But then when I checked that Mr. Lucas had produced it, it made sense to me. So I think we'll do those shows another time. As it is, I switched gears last night and still kid themed, but again it's not an adult fashion. When we watch horror movies where the child is a villain, they appear to be more scary than movies where there is the adult villain because children are naturally cherubic, innocent, etc. You would never expect a child to be evil. So today we're going to study and check out Orphan, The Good Son, and The Big Daddy of All Time, The Bad Seed, which is a very personal favorite of mine. So let's start off with Orphan. This was directed by Jean Colicera and it started there from Jima, Peter Soscott, Isabel Thurman, who did an excellent, excellent job as the villain. CCH Pounder, Jimmy Bennett. Okay, so the premise of this movie is that a couple is having some marital problems. They already have two children and they decide to adopt a Orphan from Eastern Europe. So Orphan groups were, they didn't like the premise of the movie and so there's a disclaimer at least, I'm positive, at the end of the movie saying that this movie in no way reflects what usually happens if you adopt someone from Eastern Europe. Now this is just a movie. Okay, so movie people know that's just a movie. All right, so the Orphan, Esther, who they adopt, happened to have a few very chilling secrets. So what I noticed, what I really liked about this movie was that the actress, Isabel Thurman, who played the evil child was credible. She was believable.  At any rate, I find that most child actors play ports like this with a startling maturity. To quote the ex-boyfriend, child stars get a break. He wasn't really interested in Hollywood one bit, but he would never make fun of Danny Bonaduce or any other child search. And this is because child stars undergo a lot of stress and they work very hard. Now, Ms. Thurman, in one interview that I saw her at another that I read, seems to be a very stable individual and I bless her parents for that. She seems like she's doing fine with whatever rigors Hollywood throws her way. So I give kudos to her and she made this movie extremely scary. Now, it didn't get very good reviews. For one thing, most reviewers got 57% Ron Tomato score. And I don't really do Ron Tomatoes, but I did notice the fact that they'll always been Ron Tomatoes, but with this source here, Wiki, they mentioned when a critic is especially negative. So some people found this exploitative. It is its exploitation filmmaking, I hate to say it. It's about child evil.  Okay. So it is exploitation filmmaking. I don't find it sleazy, but excuse me, the sex scenes between Piers Sarska and Vera Prozima, I could do without, you know, the whole torture stuff. But the shocker, I thought the shocker was appropriate towards the end. And I found that this child was manipulative, charismatic and psychopath. All right. So please check that out. And it basically made something like it opened number four at the box office, which I think is a really healthy opening. It grossed almost 13 million in total that weekend. And then it grossed total of 78, almost 78, pardon me, yeah, $78 million. No, 78. Yeah. No, I flunked algebra for a reason just now. Okay. So at any rate, it made a ton of money. All right. So there are several alternate endings to orphan, which I found surprising, because it seems like it's just about child evil, but they, you know, studios sometimes don't really, you know, sometimes nowadays they want the villain to win. So I'm not going to blow the ending there. Now, when we come to the good son, we're working back chronologically. Orphan is a 2009 movie. And the good son starring Nicola Colkin, I think that's like 98 or something like that. Let me see. 93, even earlier. Okay. So this stars Elijah Wood, Macaulay Colkin, Wendy Creason, David Morse, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Jacqueline Books, and a little Kay Culkin as the good son's little sister. All right. So basically, this is about a boy, he loses his ma, his pa, Elijah Wood is the little boy who loses the son. And David Morse, who I find an excellent, excellent actor, plays his pop.  I think he's going to, he's going overseas to Japan. And he's dropping Elijah Wood off at his cousin Henry's house, played by Macaulay Colkin. Okay.  There was a novelization of the movie trying to show where Henry's aberrant behavior came from because obviously everybody else in the family is sane and not psycho. Okay. So Henry's type of evil consists and mechanical. He likes to build things.  He's almost indifferent and cold to other, he is indifferent cold to other people's suffering. And I said that almost there because it's a little difficult watching the home alone kid playing a psychopath. I don't really want to go into Macaulay's family psychology here, but the pop did want his little sister to be in the movie. And from an account I read, Quinn Colkin, the little girl, she hated, hated acting. And so there's a brother of Macaulay and Quinn who enjoys acting. I think he's a pretty good actor. I think, I can't remember his name off the cuff. It might be Rory. But you can see why the critics really didn't enjoy Macaulay in this role. And I think that Macaulay was sort of overdoing it. I don't think that he was directed in a sense that he could portray Henry in a believable manner. Again, you're just watching a cute home alone kid being a psycho and trying to be, he's being cast against type here. So it's not an enjoyable movie in the sense. So you're very aware of that's Macaulay Colkin playing Beckett. Now Orlando there. Oh, I would get Orlando Bloom and this other Orlando mixed up. The act, Elijah Wood. I'm so sorry. I say I get Orlando Bloom and Elijah Wood mixed up, but this is why they get them mixed up. Okay. Even though I find Orlando Bloom very handsome, they both do the wide eyed thing. Pardon me. So it's pardon me. It's Elijah Wood playing Henry. Okay, so I looked at Elijah Wood as again, he was a spectator watching Henry's badness and psychopathicness and what to quote me, Sister Laura, his evil macalations that he would do to people. So I found myself focusing on his facial expressions instead of believing that he was a kid terrified of his cousin. It was more like he was enjoying the Henry show. I'm so sorry. So there are some the two child actors, their performances are as good as they can be with the direction that they had. I'm sorry. So this type of movie to me isn't so much a chiller because you sort of know that's Macaulay Calkham being the villain. I don't recommend it, but if you want to check it out just for some reason, let's go ahead and do it. All right. And that particular movie, it didn't do that well with the critics and I don't think it did that well at the box office either. Let me get back to that in a little bit. But the critics, I remember the critics didn't like it. And my men, Cisco and Iberther, they found it downright creepy. So don't watch that tonight. So the last one that we're going to talk about today is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's Pat C. McCormick playing the titular role, The Bad Seed. This movie came out in 1956 and it stars Nancy Kelly, William Hoppe, Patty McCormick, Henry Jones, Eileen Hecott, Evelyn Vaughton and some very other fine actors. So most of the Broadway cast, all the Broadway cast was on build for the film, which was such a great delight for every movie goer because the director and the producers were like, we want to recreate what was happening on stage because that's where they knew the magic was. So if you watch Pat C. McCormick's wonderful, wonderful mini-documentary on YouTube, she talks about being in The Bad Seed and I think that she was in, I remember Mama or something like that over at another theater and so she was doubling, she was doubling playing this part on Broadway and I think another role over or doing a radio show. All right, it's been a minute since I've watched documentary. I have it in any file. So when you watch Pat C. McCormick's wonderful documentary talking about discussing what an exciting time it was for her and how she understood the part of Rhoda, that itself is a great movie to check that out. Okay, so when this movie would come on in the afternoon in Chicago, it would inevitably at times come on when we were staying at my grandmother's house in the summer. I don't really remember Ma having it on and my aunties are 10 years older than me. They were teenagers at the time. They made sure we were always out of the room and it was always one of those movies that I couldn't exactly read but I could sense parental discretion as advised. That was back in the day when there were only three networks in New H.F. So they never let us watch it and the reason why they didn't is because Rhoda as a character is one of those iconic villains that no one can ever forget and this movie is best for adults, not children. The Good Son, I really don't want a 10-year-old watching it but they'll know it's a home alone kid. Orphan, I don't want a 10-year-old watching it. Maybe a 12-year-old but the parents is around. I think that the child would get bored.  So Rhoda is the type of child psychovat where you have Esther and Orphan who's been loved to the charismatic and charming and an opportunistic type of killer and on the other hand you have Henry who is sort of a lackadaisal type of killer but when he hates he really really really hates and he'll decide to get rid of who he's hating. Rhoda is she can act at the spur of the moment but she's very cunning and she is the only planner in the group so I think Rhoda definitely plans her crimes much more than Henry or Esther do. So they all exhibit paranoia and there's always one parent conspicuously absent with Rhoda, her pops away so her mother Christine has to bear the brunt of discovering that her child's a monster. With the bad, oh pardon with the good son, Elijah Wood's pop is away. He would be the parent who could keep order.  Rhoda's pop is away and Elijah Wood's mom has croaked and so there's always the parent who's like where are they so the children's victims are unprotected by the parent who could possibly keep order. Now I had a really great comparison chart and I think I pretty much hit it. Okay so Rhoda doesn't divulge her crimes unless she is pressed all right. Her when her crimes are divulged it's because she's forced to confess. With Henry Evans he enjoys having his victims kind of squirm. He would admit to what he's doing but unlike Rhoda he seems to kind of enjoy confessing and with Esther she likes to make threats out of the out of the three she's much more secretive than the other two. Okay so basically I want to say about all of these three movies in general. The earlier one is definitely much better made and much more well thought out and directed our bad seed. Orphan our latest one our latest one is terrifying and scary modern but it has some flaws but you'll totally believe the villain is really villainous and with the middle son of the middle one the good son you're probably not off after half an hour. All right so I think that's it for me today. I'm Miss Betty St. Leveau and you've been watching Celluloid Mirror. I'd like to thank my crew at AUCA here for their continued support and gender and building quality and concrete for almost 45 years now and St. Leveau Consultations and St. Leveau Lemonade Company for taking time off and enjoying their time here articulating her first professor's admonition to articulate and explainate the silver screen. My mother Sharon Ardella Warfield Paris Oceania Claridge. Until next time stay away from those bad movies. Ciao.


Bye-bye. Oh, he oh shoot. He's done. Don't look back never look back. Oh my god. Get back on track. There we go What's up everybody and welcome back here for another let's play here on rec fest Let's play episode two. We did complete that natural born wreckers event We did win the last race, so we did get 400 400 So now we're gonna go to mud mayhem our first demolition derby here on rec fest So demolition arena circular arena. It looks like we do have that our normal car Can we do any type of upgrading because? Do we I thought we had this stuff? Did it already install it? Oh, we got a new new manifold We're gonna put the manifold on increase our acceleration a little bit. So if we got some new cylinder head parts and And that is what we're gonna put on so far because I don't think I really want to do much else We can leave what we got on there. It doesn't look like we can do Much change our paint probably Different styles. All right, but we can do nothing I'm kind of like in the we'll just leave it how it is Sure, we're gonna save it. Let's just go into the event demolition derby. We are still on full Manual clutch handbrake everything so we're gonna hopefully not die here in the demo derby. We don't really have much Protection on the car unless it gives us some not sure like I said very unsure how this game is gonna work right now Never played the demo derby of this game. So Once we hit the track, we're gonna do it you guys want to keep seeing back fast You should follow me on Instagram and Twitter and let's go smash some cars demolition derby fairfield mud pit. I Don't know if I want to go head on I kind of want to use the back end of the car But I think we may just keep head on so we do have it all still the same We did change it to some ABS, but There we go. I we're just gonna go for it. Oh And we're wrecking already. Oh We do have the auto look backs or not. Oh Not good going backwards is definitely really hard. Oh I'm gonna get out of this cluster of cars. Oh Oh, we're drifting a lot now. Oh, I missed him Good thing our handbrake works doesn't second gear. We're coming in for a big smack.  I'm gonna get smacked Didn't lose much damage. Oh Now we got hit pretty hard there Our slides so much we go. Oh We just got sandwich We still got 23 cars left. I should be using more reverse, but it's really hard to drive this car in reverse right now And we don't get as much speed and I don't think we're gonna as much hit there we go There's a good solid backwards hit out of the way get out of the way get away Demolition derby so much fun. Oh kind of oh Sheriff giving me engine damage not what I needed right now. Oh Now we have gearbox damage. I'm just getting all kinds of a mangle. This is Treacherous on a wheel. All my wheels wobbly. Oh, we're drifting though. Oh Oh, I missed Somebody don't hit me. Please don't hit me. Oh So this is this is definitely crazy on a wheel doing some demo derbies Hard hit there we go T boned so this thing in reverse I'm trying to get some more impact marks in reverse. There we go target achieve wreck at least one opponent So did we did get a wreck on there? We got 50% left In our damage and this car. It's just sliding everywhere. So that guy's got more Damage power than anybody. We're gonna hit this guy. There we go. Oh Left front wheel damage. Oh man. I tried this is this is this is very fun on a wheel It's also Can hurt pretty well too. That's gonna be a head-on collision 39% left there's eight cars left. I don't think we're gonna be able to finish first in this unless we kind of put ourselves out So much fun car slides so much around so much we're going for it drivers door.  Oh, all right Dude just got rocked. There we go a little more impact my car has seen definitely seen some better days But we're still still moving still getting hits target achieves cause at least 1500 damage Got four people left. We got 30 8% damage. It looks like left. We got a lot of damage This car is definitely struggling There we go to left two opponents left Are we gonna come out on top? Here in our first demolition derby. Oh Gearbox problems Looks like we're staying in the second on the handbrake But don't hit me. Don't hit me. Don't hit me. Oh Oh Crinkle in the back bumper of this car the whole back end of this car is done Give a gearbox problems critical damage Looks like doc. He's uh Definitely got us in his sights. Oh I Don't think we're gonna survive. I think we're gonna probably end up in third Because I can't can't get traction Kind of stuck in second gear to Gearbox issues Trying to run a little bit You're at critical damage though. I don't know where these guys are. Oh, there's only one left Just me and I think doc You are oh And we got hit Taking second place Not too bad. We got three racks. He got five. We took second place. So not too bad of a wreck What was up with my hand? Please tell me you see that my hand is all bent weird. That was weird What is going out with my arm? Oh my goodness. I have no idea what's going on with my arm So rec fest has not disappointed at all so far here. Hope you guys are enjoying rec fest content here on the channel It's a lot of fun. It is crazy on the wheel. It is definitely super crazy in this event stars achieved to So we completed our demolition derby so now Looks like we got one more Demolition race to do looks like we got blue and feel speedway dirt oval So why not hop into that right now? Looks like it's not gonna be a figure.  So we're gonna do this here today as well our first demolition derby We play second, but we wrecked some people. We got a hundred and eighty out of two hundred I'm okay with the second place finish in the first demolition derby.  All right bloom feel speedway dirt oval I'm wondering how this is gonna work. I'm not sure if this is like a survive event progression qualifier semi-finals so cause 500 damage perform the best lap.  Did he go bye-bye? Oh, he oh shoot. He's done. Don't look back.  There we go.  We totally just screwed ourselves on that so we're gonna get a restart. Ah, man We totally screwed ourselves on that one All right, so now that we totally screwed ourselves by looking backwards. Don't look back Try and just get in the mix It's like we'll be able to stay in third gear though Excuse me coming through Sorry. Oh, I popped that dude's tailgate. That was pretty sweet. Oh Trying to cause a little bit of damage in mayhem as well. Oh Don't go outside there. Oh, no, no, no stand track stand track stand track Oh, we're good. We're good. We're good. Oh, man. These guys are definitely not happy with me right now So we did get looks like a Good lap, but we are Not in first. Oh A little bit of an overcorrection there Looks like we're gonna take third Do we get to qualify though at least? Oh, man, this is confusing It's a third. We got the best lap though So unsure of where this is gonna go from here The debris and the carnage of this game is so much fun Definitely a good break from Forza to have a little destructive fun Here on the channel So we moved on. All right moved on Caused 500 damage another one. So we moved on it looks like into semi-finals Top eight final. All right. Let's go Next run in the dirt oval Probably should sit on on clutch a little bit long. I should have got on clutch got a better launch. Oh Oh, I don't want to get pushed out. Oh That man just got turned into me Hold it. Hold it. Hold it get back on track.  We're gonna go for the inside. See man.  You're going off buddy Bye. Oh Geez All right, that dude said no, you're going off These guys are not not having a good time with me right now We did get the 500 points, but ooh clean line clean line. Thank you guys. Thank you guys Nut nutty freak at the line at the line. We took it. Oh So close so close taking it right at the line. Whoo. That was a good one So one more race, I think in this event before we end this episode off Make sure you guys follow me and subscribe on Twitter because I'm subscribed tap that subscribe button I would appreciate the support and as always I Appreciate all the comments and everything when you guys come in and come back and watch these videos We are in the finals. Let's go Targets all achieved on clutch to one drop the clutch and we got a good start kind of got a whole shot start So if we start with clutch we get a better start, but we are just pulling away from these guys We should be able to just smooth sail Here to the finish little little drifting We got no way to contend with So we can just smooth and cruise until maybe people get wrecked and we end up With people that we're gonna lap, but quick little oval section Super excited definitely have been having so much fun with wrecked fast get a lot faster of a lap Oh that man just came in out of nowhere Road warrior jumping in jumping in my DMS. Oh Little bump to get you out of the way. Oh, this is six laps. Oh god. I thought it was three. Oh Now I got to contend with cars. Don't lose it We got a decent lead. Oh man.  You have no idea. Oh, yeah, let's go run that inside One more left to go that Broncos losing it. Oh Sorry dude almost wrecked myself there There we go. We got a four-second lead and we're gonna take this win here on wreck fest So it's always I thank you guys for watching. I'll be enjoying this episode. I'm evil rabbit. I'll see you guys On the track this game is fun


Item Number – SCP-3186 Object Class – Safe Special Containment Procedures – SCP-3186 is to be contained behind a perimeter of two meter tall electrical fencing and kept under guard by two covert security personnel at all times. Any individuals attempting to gain access to SCP-3186 are to be interviewed and administered amnestics as is appropriate for their level of exposure. SCP-3186 is an area referred to by locals as Rogers Hill, located on the outskirts of Tursley, Massachusetts. Prior to its development of anomalous properties, SCP-3186 was used by local teenagers as a location for romantic socialization. When an individual is within SCP-3186 and looks up at the night sky, they will perceive the stars as moving to spell out a sequence of messages. There are nine messages in total, and the stars will move through the sequence on a loop until the viewer leaves SCP-3186. Note that this phenomenon is purely visual in nature, and no actual alteration of the stars is taking place. Analysis of SCP-3186 suggests the use of Thaumaturgy was involved in its creation, using techniques described in several occult texts known to currently be in circulation. Addendum 3186-1 – Message Sequence Hi, Becky. Me plus you forever. Will you go to the prom with me? Complete message. Message complete. Cancel. Cancel message. Please cancel message. Fuck. Site-42 is able to continue broadcasting and move up to making live-action SCP adaptations thanks to support from our viewers, subscribers, and especially our patrons. Full shout-out to our Level 5 researcher-level patron, Andre Bechert.


Welcome back to The Breakfast on Plus TV Africa. It's a beautiful Thursday morning and it's time for Today in History. Yesterday we shared with you of course events that took place on the 5th of April in 2010. And of course today of course it's a follow-up to that story. We are still in 2010, but it was on this day, the 6th of April, that Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It was 52 years at the time, and of course these were the events that followed the death of Umaru Bousa Yaradoa. Yesterday we spoke about that. He was sworn in as president of Nigeria hours after the death of incumbent Umaru Yaradoa in accordance with the order of succession in the Nigerian constitution, following Yaradoa's death on 5th of May. Acting president at that time was sworn in as the substantive president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria becoming Nigeria's 14th head of state. He of course cited anti-corruption power and electoral reforms as the focus of his administration. Of course they also stated that he came into office under very sad and unusual circumstances. He eventually then lost the 2015 presidential elections to current President Mahmoud Bawari, making it the first time in history that an incumbent in Nigeria's presidential space general has lost his chance at re-election. He before becoming president was vice president from 2007 to 2010 and of course was also deputy governor in Bios' state from 2005 to 2007. And that is a very, very short story concerning Goodluck Jonathan. From 2010 to 2015 is a longer story of so much that happened and I think the last year of Goodluck Jonathan's administration packs most of the drama that he had as a president. The first couple of years, yeah, you know, he did, you know, run the ship or run the Nigerian ship as president but the last year, the whole of the 2014 year really was where all the drama concerning his presidency emerged. So yes, it was on this day that he was sworn as president in 2010. Also, I'm going back to the year 2016. It was on this day in history May 6 that three women who were kidnapped were rescued after years in captivity. So three women, Michelle Knight, Amanda Barry and Gina de Jesus, they went missing separately even though from the same streets, Lorraine Avenue, between the year 2002 and 2004. You know, one of them got missing just after she finished her shift at Burger King restaurant. Another one got missing just after she stopped at a pay phone, you know, to call her friend's mom. Another one when she got missing, her parents thought she ran away because she had lost custody of her son. So these three women got missing separately between the year 2002 and 2004. And no one found them until many years later in 2013 when one of them, Amanda Barry, she screamed through the crack of a door to basically scream for help and neighbors came around and kicked the door open and rescued them. But the story is having that, these three girls, they were aged 14, aged 16 and age 21 when they went missing. And it was found that there's a bus driver, his name is Castro, Ariel Castro. He was 52 years old, he was a bus driver. You know, he would drive the bus in the neighborhood, he would play in the band, he was friendly, people loved him. He would post on his Facebook, he was active on social media.  He locked them up in chains, he would starve them, he would rape them, sexually assault them.  And when the police came to arrest Ariel Castro, they found two of his brothers in the house but they later acquitted them of being non-involved in the kidnap of those three girls. But the great thing is that like I mentioned in 2013 the girls were freed, Ariel Castro was charged with eventually about 977 charges including kidnapping, rape and aggravated murder. Murder because one of the girls who was kidnapped, her name is Michelle Knight, she got pregnant about five times but this man, her kidnapper, would punch her, kick her and she would have a miscarriage about five different times but when Barry got pregnant, Amanda Barry got pregnant he asked Knights to make sure that the baby was delivered successfully they were in that house for many years, he only let them go out to the backyard wearing wigs and sunglasses. You know, it was just such a sad story and after he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole plus an additional 1,000 years in prison and one month after his sentence he committed suicide with a sheet one of the bed sheets, he killed himself in prison and you know, great thing that these girls were freed they began to document the experiences in captivity you know, one of, two of them actually Knights Michelle Knight and their Gina de Jesus they both published a book about the experiences in captivity that was in 2015 and in the year 2018 Michelle Knight published a second book talking about her you know, her experience, you know, being in captivity with the man Ariel Castro also a movie about her abductions called Abductions in Cleveland or Ohio was published as well so it was on this same history that these three girls Amanda, Barry, Michelle Knight and Gina de Jesus were freed, rescued from the hands of this bus driver and seeming friendly neighbor Ariel Castro after being kidnapped between 2002 and 2004 It's a wild story and remember when this broke a couple of years ago, it was all over CNN and it was just too shocking to believe that people could be in captivity for more than a decade and nobody knew, nobody heard, nobody had any idea where these people are, they were declared missing almost never to be found again and you know, shocking they were just in the basement of someone's house who was very popular in the community as a regular person, a bus driver that everyone knew as just a friendly neighbor not knowing that he was an animal and you know, I don't even think and this is where some people would say death can never be enough punishment for certain crimes you know, if he easily was able to take his own life one month after being in prison he was meant to spend life imprisonment and of course an extra thousand years which he would never have gotten out of jail that's what it means and then suddenly of course kills himself you know, some people would argue that death would never really be enough punishment for some people I remember seeing a very funny interaction on Twitter some months ago where a woman had been domestically, physically assaulted by a husband you know, and she died and he then killed himself and one person was asking you that there has to be justice and they were trying to convince her that the man is dead and she said no, no, no, even if he's dead there has to be some way of... Some way of punishment There has to be some other way that she can get justice so anyway, here's an animal Arial, what's his name? Arial Castro a complete animal and good thing that they got that lucky break on that day where, you know, she was able to scream and get people to rescue her because you can never tell who would have been the next victim you can never tell if they would have died in captivity you can never tell how much, you know, more they would have suffered and their family members would have suffered just not knowing whatever happened to them again I can't just imagine, you know, you wake up a 16-year-old girl, you wake up here and change Yes, all friends to his kids you kidnap them on the same street, Lorraine Avenue between 2002 and 2004 waking up in chains how do you use the bathroom, how... they were starved, deprived of freedom it's just such a sad experience Sexually assaulted multiple times for four years Bitten to miscarry It's... wow Death really can never be enough punishment for certain crimes I don't know Anyway, that's what we have for you today That's why some people argue about an afterlife and punishment thereafter Yeah, some people deserve it That's all we have for you today in history, 2010 and... 2013 The day of the rescue All right, and of course we spoke about Goodluck, Jonathan and this day he became president of course Ariel Castro, the animal who kidnapped three girls and kept them in captivity for decades That's all we have for you today We'll be back after this short break when we come back we're moving into our first major discussion for today Congratulations to the parents of the 27 students of the Forestry Recognization who have been set free We're getting into that when we come back


Yeah, and we'll start our bit. Excuse me. Ah, ah, ah, ah! No clicker!  Drop it! Off the table! Thank you. Folks, you have no idea. I mean, we have a complete new appreciation for people that act, because it's just so hard to keep a straight face during this stuff, and that was a great example. I mean, that was an anesthetic intervention. Brad's really, really annoyed with me doing that. Hey! So, that was a punisher. But he, I find it absolutely reinforcing to be clicked all the time. I like to click myself, which is a whole different experience. But, and the video goes to shit, but we're going to keep it going. Anesthetic interventions, it's anything that happens, to change a behavior, something like that, prior to the behavior occurring, right? So you're intervening at the anesthetic level. You're modifying discriminative stimuli. You're modifying setting events. You're modifying motivating operations. It's not something that happens after the video, or after the video. It's not something that happens after the behavior. It's something that happens before it, to make sure the right behavior happens in the first place.


I'm Rolando Branley. I am the team leader for Team Aristas in the United States.  It was a complicated cancer case and that threw me into medicine. My wife and I promised that if she survived that we would dedicate our lives for the betterment of health care. The Mobile Healthcare Revolution is about empowering the patient, giving the patient a sense of responsibility for their own health care. A medical tricorder would be a device that would help communications between patients, community and physicians in exchanging information and making complicated medical conditions easier to manage. We have been working with hyperspectral imaging, which has its origins in the aerospace field. We have been implementing that into spectroscopy coupled in with imaging for biological tissue to be able to recognize different states of development of biological tissue. Aerospace has helped develop computational capabilities and analysis of data that was just not available in health care before. The basis of our technology is to miniaturize spectrometers in the optical regime and in the infrared. Microchips were invented as part of our project to go to the moon. Well, now we're utilizing those microchips in order to create affordable handheld medical devices and we think it's going to re-democratize medicine. Medicine does need and shortage of physicians everywhere and I believe the tricorder development is just going to change the way people approach preventive medicine. Our edge in the competition is that quite frankly, we're not necessarily in it to win it. Our edge is that we are here to share information and to give a gift to the world.


CHAPTER 18 OF DRAGONS OF THE AIR by Harry Seeley Ornithosauria have many characters inseparably blended together, which are otherwise distinctive of reptiles, birds, and mammals, and associated with peculiar structures which are absent from all other animals. They are not quite alone in this incongruous combination of different types of animals in the same skeleton. Dinosaurs, which were contemporary with Ornithosaurs, approximate to them in blending characters of birds with the structure of a reptile and something of a mammal in one animal. If an Ornithosaur is reptilian in its backbone, in the articular ends of each vertebra having the cup in front and ball behind in the manner of crocodiles, serpents, and many lizards, a dinosaur like iguanodon, which had the reversed condition of ball in front and cup behind in its early vertebrae, may be more mammalian than avian in a corresponding resemblance of the bones to the neck in hoofed mammals. But while pterodactyls are sometimes mammalian in having the head of the thigh bone molded as in carnivorous mammals and man, the corresponding bone in a dinosaur is more like that of a bird. And while the pterodactyl shoulder girdle is often absolutely bird-like, that region in dinosaurs can only be paralleled among reptiles. Such combinations of diverse characters are not limited to animals which are extinct. There were not wanting scientific men who regarded the platypus of Australia when first sent to Europe as an ingenious example of Eastern skill in which an animal had been compounded artificially by blending the beak of a bird with the body of a mammal. Fuller knowledge of that remarkable animal has continuously intensified wonder at its combination of mammal, bird, and reptile in a single animal. It has broken down the theoretical divisions between the higher vertebrae, demonstrating that a mammal may lay eggs like a reptile or bird, that the skull may include the reptilian characters of the mallar arch and prefrontal and postfrontal bones otherwise unknown in mammals and birds. The groups of mammals, birds, and reptiles now surviving on the earth prove to be less sharply defined from each other when the living and extinct types are considered together. But in pterodactyls, mammal, bird, and reptile lose their identity as three colors would do when unequally mixed together. This mingling of characteristics of different animals is not to be attributed to interbreeding but is the converse of the combination of characters found in hybrid animals. It is no exaggeration to say that there is a sense in which mammal, bird, reptile, and the distinctive structures of the ornithosar have simultaneously developed from one egg in the body of one animal. The differences between those vertebrate types of animals consist chiefly in the way in which their organization is modified by one strain of characters being eliminated so that another becomes predominant while a distinctive set of structures is elaborated in each class of animals. The earlier geological history of the higher vertebrate is very imperfectly known, but the evidence tends to the inference that the older representatives of the several classes approximate to each other more closely than do their surviving representatives so that in still earlier ages of time the distinction between them had not become recognizable. The relation of the great groups of animals to each other among vertebrata is essentially a parallel relation like the colors of the solar spectrum or the parallel digits of the hand. It was natural when only the surviving life on the earth was known to imagine that animals were connected in a continuous chain by successive descent but mammals have given no evidence of approximation to birds. And birds discover no evidence that their ancestors were reptiles in the sense in which that word is used to define animals which now exist on the earth. When the variation which animals attain in their maturity and exhibit in development from the egg was first realized it was imagined that nature by slow summing up an accumulation of differences which were observed would so modify one animal type that it would pass into another. There is little evidence to support belief that the changes between the types of life have been wrought in that way. The history of fossil animals has not shown transitions of this kind from the lower to higher vertebrata but only intermediate parallel groups of animals analogous to those which survive and distinct from them in the same way as surviving groups are distinct. The circumstance that mammals, birds, and reptiles are all known low down in the secondary epic of geological time is favorable to the idea of their history being parallel rather than successive. Such a conception is supported by the theory of elimination of characters from groups of animals as the basis of their differentiation. This loss appears always to be accompanied by a corresponding gain of characters which is more remarkable in the soft vital organs than in the skeleton. The gain in higher vertebrates in the bones is chiefly in the perfection of joints at their extremities. But the gain in brain, lungs, heart, and other soft parts is an elaboration of those structures and an increase in amount of tissue. The resemblances of ornithosaurs to mammals are the least conspicuous of their characters. Those seen in the upper arm bone and thigh bone are manifestly not derived from mammals. They cannot be explained as adaptations of the bones to conditions of existence because there is no community of habit to be inferred between pterodactyls and mammals in which the bones are in any way comparable. Other fossil animals show that a fundamentally reptilian structure is capable of developing in the mammalian direction in the skull, backbone, shoulder girdle, hip girdle, and limbs so as to be uniformly mammalian in its tendencies. This is proved by tracing the North American Texas fossils named labyrinthodonts through the South African theriadonts towards the monotrimata and other mammalia. Just as those animals have obliterated all traces of the bird from their skeletons, birds have obliterated the distinctive characters of mammals. The ornithosaur has partially obliterated both. With the skull and backbone marked by typical characters of the reptile, it combines the shoulder girdle and hip girdle of a bird with characters in the limbs which suggest both those types in combination with mammals. The bones have been compared in the skeleton of each order of existing reptiles and found to show side by side with their peculiar characters, not only resemblances to the other reptilia, but an appreciable number of mammalian and avian characters in their skeletons. The term crocodile, for example, indicates an animal in which the skeleton is dominated by one set of peculiar characters. Crocodiles retain enough of the characteristics of several other orders of reptiles to show that an animal sprung from the old crocodile stock might diverge widely from existing crocodiles by intensifying what might be termed its dormant characters in the crocodile skeleton. Comparing animals together, bone by bone, it is possible to value the modifications of form which they put on, and the resemblances between them so as to separate the inherited wealth of an animal's affinities with ancestors or collateral groups from the peculiar characters which have been acquired as an increase based upon its typical form. There is no part of the pterodactyl skeleton which is more distinctly modified than the head of the upper arm bone which fits into the socket between the coracoid bone and the shoulder blade. The head of the humerus, as the articular part is named, is somewhat crescent shaped, convex on its inner border and a little concave on its outer border, and therefore unlike the ball shaped head of the upper arm bone in man and the higher mammals. It is much more nearly paralleled in the little group of monotromata allied to the living ornithorhynchus. In that sense, the head of the humerus and pterodactyl has some affinity with the lowest mammalia which approach nearest to reptiles. The character might pass unregarded if it were not found in more striking development in fossil reptiles from Cape Colony which from having teeth like mammals are named Theriodontia. In several of those South African reptiles, the upper arm bone approaches closer to the humerus in ornithosars than to ornithorhynchus. Such coincidences of structure are sometimes dismissed from consideration and placed beyond investigation by being termed adaptive modifications. But there can be no hope of finding community of habit between the burrowing monotreme, the short-limbed Theriodont, and the flying pterodactyl which might have caused this articular part of the upper arm bone to acquire a form so similar in animals constructed so differently. If the resemblance in the humerus to monotremes in this respect is not to be attributed to burrowing, neither can the crescent form of its upper articulation be attributed to flight. For in birds the head of the bone is compressed but always convex and bats fly without any approach to the pterodactyl form in the head of the humerus. This apparently trivial character may from such comparisons be inferred to be something which the way of life of the animal does not sufficiently account for. These deepest seated parts of the limbs are slow to adapt themselves to changing circumstances of existence and retain their characters with moderate variation of the bones in each of the orders or classes of animals. It therefore is safer to regard mammalian characters as well as the resemblances which pterodactyls show to other kinds of animals as due to inheritance from a time when there was a common stock from which none of these animals which have been considered had been distinctly elaborated. A few characters of ornithosars are regarded as having been acquired because they are not found in any other animals or have been developed only in a portion of the group. The most obvious of these is the elongated wing finger. But in some genera like dimorphodon there is also a less elongation of the fifth digit of the foot and perhaps in all genera there is a backward development of the first digit of the hand which is without a claw and therefore unlike the clawed digit of a bat. An acquired character of another kind which is limited to the Cretaceous genera is seen in the shoulder blade being directed transversely outward so that its truncated end articulates by a true joint with the early vertebrae of the back and defended the cavity enclosed by the ribs by a strong bony external arch. And finally as the animals later in time acquire short tails and relatively longer limbs the bones of the back of the hand termed metacarpals acquire greater and distinctive length which is not seen in the long tailed types like rampphyrincus. These and such like acquired characters distinguish the class of animals from all groups with which it may be compared and mark the possible limits of variation of the skeleton within the boundary of the order. But no further variation of these parts of the skeleton could make a transition to another order of animals or explain how the pterodactyls came into existence because the characters which separate orders and classes of animals from each other differ in kind from those which separate smaller groups named genera and species of which the order is made up. The accumulation of the characters of genera will not sum up into the characters of an order or class. In making the division of vertebrate animals into classes the skeleton is often almost ignored. Its value is entirely empirical and based upon the observed association of the various forms of bones with the more important characters of the brain and other vital organs. What is understood as a mammalian or avian character in the skeleton is the form of bone which is found in association with the soft vital organs which constitute an animal, a mammal or a bird. The characters which theoretically define a mammal appear to be the enormous overgrowth of the cerebral hemispheres of the brain by which the cerebrum comes into contact with the cerebellum as among birds. This character distinguishes both groups of animals from all reptiles, recent and fossil. But in examining the mold of the interior of the brain case it is rare to have the bones fitting so closely to the brain as to prove that the lateral expansion below the cerebrum and cerebellum is formed by the optic lobes of the brain. Otherwise the brain of a pterodactyl might be as like to the brain of ornitho rancous as it is like that of a bird, figure 19. But it is precisely in this condition of arrangement of the parts of the brain that the specimens appear to be most clear. The lateral mass of brain in specimens of ornithosaurs from the lower secondary rocks appears to be transversely divided into back and front parts which may be thought to correspond to the structures in a mammal brain named corpora quadragemina. But to be placed as the optic lobes are placed in birds and to have relatively greater dimensions than in mammals. No evidence has been observed of this transverse division of the optic lobes of the brain in pterodactyls from the chalk and cretaceous rocks and so far as the evidence goes this part of the brain was shaped as in birds but rather smaller. The brain is the only soft organ in which a mammalian character could be evidenced. The uniformity and character of the brain throughout the group in mammals is remarkable in reference to the circumstance that the reproduction varies in type. The lowest or monotreme division being oviparous. If there is no necessary connection between the mammalian brain and the prevalent condition under which the young are produced alive it may be affirmed also that there is no necessary connection between the form of the brain and the form of the bones since the brain cavity in pterodont reptiles shows no resemblance to that of a mammal. While the bones are in so many respects only paralleled among monotremata and mammalia. The variety of forms which the existing mammalian orders of animals assume shows the astonishing range of structure of the skeleton which may coexist with the mammalian brain. And therefore we are led to the conclusion that any other fundamental modification of brain such as distinguishes the class of birds might also be associated with forms and structures of the skeleton which would vary in similar ways. In other words if for convenience we define a mammal by its form of brain structure of the heart and lungs and provision for nutrition of the young without regard to the covering of the skin which varies between the scales of a pangolin and the practically naked skin of the whale. A bird might be also defined by its peculiar conditions of brain and lungs without reference to the feathered condition of the skin though the feathered condition extends backward in time to the upper secondary rocks as seen in the Archaeopteryx. The avian characters of pterodactyls are the predominant parts of their organization for the conditions of the brain and lungs shown by the molds of the brain case and the thin hollow bones with conspicuous pneumatic foramina give evidence of a community of vital structures with birds which is supported by characters of the skeleton. If any classificational value can be associated with the distribution of the pneumatic foramina as tending to establish membership of the same class for animals fashioned on the same plan of soft organs. The evidence is not weakened when a community of structures is found to extend among the bones to such distinctive parts of the skeleton as the sternum shoulder girdle bones of the forearm and foreleg. For in all these regions the pterodactyl bones are practically indistinguishable from those of birds. This is the more remarkable because other parts of the skeleton such as the humerus and pelvis show a partial resemblance to birds while the parts which are least avian like the neck bones have no tendency to vary the number of the vertebrae in the way which is common among birds following more closely the formula of the seven cervical vertebrae of mammals. It would therefore appear from the vital community of structures with birds that pterodactyls and birds are two parallel groups which may be regarded as ancient divergent forks of the same branch of animal life which became distinguished from each other by acquiring the different condition of the skin and the structures which were developed in consequence of the bony skeleton ministering to flight in different ways. And with different habit of terrestrial progression this extinct group of animals acquired some modifications of the skeleton which birds have not shown. There is nothing to suggest that pterodactyls are a branch from birds but their relation to birds is much closer so far as the skeleton goes than is their relation with the flightless dinosaurs with which birds and pterodactyls have many characters in common. On the theory of elimination of character which I have used to account for the disappearance of some mammalian characters from the pterodactyl that loss is seen chiefly in the removal of the parts which have left a reptilian articulation of the lower jaw with the skull and the articulation of the vertebrae throughout the vertebral column by a modified cup and ball form of joint. The furcule of the bird is always absent from the pterodactyl. No specimen has shown recognizable clavicles or collar bones. Judged by the standard of existing life pterodactyls belong to the same group as birds on the evidence of brain and lungs but they belong to a different group on account of the dissimilar modifications of the skeleton and apparent absence of feathers from the skin. The most impressive facts in the pterodactyl skeleton in view of these affinities are the structures which it has in common with reptiles. Some structures are fundamental like the cup and ball articulation of the vertebrae which is never found in birds or mammals. Although not quite identical with the condition in any reptile, this structure is approximately lizard-like or crocodile-like in the cup and ball character. It shows that the deepest-seated part of the skeleton is reptile-like, though it may not be more reptilian than is the vertebral column of a mammal if comparison is made between mammals and extinct groups of animals known as reptiles such as dinosaurs and pterodontia. The orders of animals which have been included under the name reptilia comprise such different structural conditions of the parts of the skeleton which may be termed reptilian in ornithosaurs that there is good reason for regarding the cup and ball articulation as quite a distinctive reptilian specialization in the same sense that the saddle-shaped articulation between the bodies of adjacent vertebrae in a bird is an avian specialization. From the theoretical point of view, the ornithosaur acquired its reptilian characters simultaneously with its avian and mammalian characters. There is nothing in the structure of the skeleton of the dinosauria to which ornithosaurs approximate in several parts of the body which would help to explain the cup and ball articulation of the backbone if the flying reptile were supposed to be an offshoot from the carnivorous dinosaurs. The elimination of reptile characters from so much of the skeleton and the substitution for them of the characters of birds and mammals would be of exceptional interest if there had been any ground for regarding the flying animal as more nearly related to a reptile than to a bird. But if the evidence from the form of the brain and nature of the pneumatic organs seen in the limb bones accounts for the avian features of the skeleton, the reptilian condition of the vertebral column helps to show a capacity for variation, and that the fixity of type and structure which the skeleton of the modern bird has attained is not necessarily limited to or associated with the vital organs of birds. The variation of the cup and ball articulation in the neck of a colonion, which makes the third vertebra cup behind, the fourth biconvex, the fifth cup in front, and the sixth flatten behind, shows that too much importance may be attached to the mode of union of these bones in serpents, crocodiles, and those lizards which have the cup in front. For while in lizards the anterior cup, oblique and depressed, is found in most of its groups. The geckos show no trace of the cup and ball structure, and in that respect resemble the Hatteria of New Zealand. If, therefore, the cup and ball articulation of vertebrae in ornithosaria has any significance as a mark of affinity to reptiles, it could only be an approximation to those living reptiles which possess the same character, and would have it on the hypothesis that both have preserved the structure by descent from an earlier type of animal. This hypothesis is negative by the fact that the cup and ball articulation is unknown in the older fossil reptiles. Although the articulation for the lower jaw with the skull in ornithosars is only to be paralleled among reptiles, the structure is adapted to a brain case which is practically indistinguishable from that of a bird, except for the post orbital arch. The hypothesis of descent, therefore, becomes impossible in any intelligible form in explanation of distinctive character of the skeleton. The hypothesis of elimination may also seem to be insufficient unless the potential capacity for new development be recognized as concurrent and as capable of modifying each region of the skeleton or hard parts of the animal in the same way that the soft organs may be modified. From which we infer that all structures which distinguish the several grades of organization in modern classifications, soft parts and hard parts alike may come into existence together insofar as they are compatible with each other in any class or ordinal division of animals. Although the young mammal passes through a stage of growth in which the brain may be said to be reptilian, there is no good ground for inferring that mammal or bird type of skeleton was developed later in time than that of reptiles. The various types of fishes have the brains in general so similar to those of reptiles that it is more intelligible for all the vertebrate forms of brain to have differentiated at the same time under the law of elimination of characters than that there should be any other bond of union between the classes of animals. If we ask what started the ornithosaria into existence and created the plan of construction of that animal type, I think science has justified in boldly affirming that the initial cause can only be sought under the development of patageal membranes such as have been seen in various animals ministering to flight. Such membranes in an animal which was potentially a bird in its vital organs have owed development to the absence of quill feathers. Thus the wing membrane may be the cause for the chief differences of the skeleton by which ornithosars are separated from birds. For the stretch of wing in one case is made by the skin attached to the bones and in the other case by feathers on the skin so attached as to necessitate that the wing bones have different proportions from ornithosars. It is a well-known observation that each great epic of geological time has had its dominant forms of animal life which so far as the earth's history is known now came into existence, lived their time, and were seen no more. In the same way, the smaller groups of species in genera included in an ordinal group of animals or class have abounded, giving a tone to the life of each geological formation until the vitality of the animal is exhausted and the species becomes extinct or ceases to preponderate. This process is seen to be still modifying the life on the earth when some kinds of animals and plants are introduced to new conditions. Plants appear to wage successful war more easily than animals. The introduction of the cactus in some parts of Cape Colony has locally modified both the fauna and flora, just as the anacharis introduced into England spread from Cambridge over the whole country and became for many years the predominant form of plant life in the streams. The rabbit in Australia is a historic pest. Something similar to this physical fertility and increase appears to take place under new circumstances in certain organs within the bodies of animals by the development of structures previously unknown. A familiar example is seen in the internal anatomy of the trout introduced into New Zealand where the number of pyloric appendages about the stomach has become rapidly augmented while the size and the form of the animal have changed. The rapidity with which some of these changes have been brought about would appear to show that nature is capable of transforming animals more rapidly than might have been inferred from their uniform life under ordinary circumstances. Growth of the vital organs in this way may modify the distinctive form of any vital organ, brain or lungs, and thus as a consequence of modification of the internal structures due to changes of food and habit bring a new group of animals into existence. And just as the group of animals ceases to predominate after a time, so there comes a limit to the continued internal development of vital structures as their energy fails, for each organ behaves to some extent like an independent organism. Under such explanations of the mutual relations of the parts of animals and groups of animals, time ceases to be a factor of primary importance in their construction or elaboration. The supposed necessity for practically unlimited time to produce changes in the vital organs which separate animals into great orders or classes is a nightmare born of hypothesis and may be profitably dismissed. The geological evidence is too imperfect for dogmatism on speculative questions, but the nature of the affinities of ornithosaurs to other animals has been established on a basis of comparison which has no need of theory to justify the facts. It is not improbable that the primary epoch of time, even as known at present, may be sufficiently long to contain the parent races from which ornithosaurs and all their allies have arisen. In thus stating the relation of ornithosaurs to other animals, the flying reptile has been traced home to kindred, though not to its actual parents or birthplace. There is no geological history of the rapid or gradual development of the wing finger, and although the wing membrane may be accepted as its cause of existence, the wing finger is powerfully developed in the oldest known pterodactyls as in their latest representatives. Pterodactyls show singularly little variation in structure in their geological history. We chronicle the loss of the tail and loss of teeth. There is also the loss of the outermost wing digit from the hind foot as a supporter of the wing membrane, but the other variations are in the length of the metacarpus or of the neck or head. One of the fundamental laws of life necessitates that when an animal type ceases to adapt its organization and modify its structures to suit the altered circumstances forced upon it by revolutions of the earth's surface, its life's history becomes broken. It must bend or break. The final disappearance of these animals from the earth's history in the chalk may yet be modified by future discoveries, but the flying reptiles have vanished in the same way as so many other groups of animals which were contemporary with them in the secondary period of time. Such extinctions have been attributed to catastrophes like the submergence of land so that the habitations of animals became an area gradually decreasing in size which at last disappeared. It appears also to be a law of life illustrated by many extinct groups of animals that they endure for geological ages and having fought their battle in life's history grow old and unable to continue the fight and then disappear from the earth giving place to more vigorous types adapted to live under new conditions. The extinct pterodactyls hold a relation to birds in the scheme of life not unlike that which monotremata hold to other mammals. Both are remarkable for the variety of their affinities and resemblances to reptiles. The ornithosaria have long passed away. The monotremes are nearing extinction. Both appear to be supplanted by parallel groups which were their contemporaries. Birds now fill the earth in a way that flying reptiles never surpassed. But their flight is made in a different manner and the wing is extended to support the animal in the air chiefly by appendages to the skin. If these fossils have taught that ornithosars have a community of soft vital organs with dinosaurs and birds, they have also gone some way towards proving that causes similar to those which determined the structural peculiarities of their bony framework originated the special forms of respiratory organs and brain which lifted them out of association with existing reptiles. These old flying animals sleep through geological ages, not without honor, for the study of their story has illuminated the mode of origin of animals which survived them and in cleaving the rocks to display their bones we have opened a new page of the Book of Life.


I work specifically in holistic management of ruminant animals, so bison, beef, sheep. You have a large sheep and beef industry here. You have a very large dairy industry here. And the advantage that New Zealand has is that all of your animals are already on pasture. So this step, that is a huge step for other areas, most of it is already happening here. And so the change to move that to regenerative or holistic management farming, is a very small step for New Zealand, but it would make such a huge impact in the world. Because if we could prove here that there is a systems change that could happen quickly and see the results very quickly, New Zealand would end up being the leader in the world to holistic management.


Sweden, to provide Ukraine with assault boats. The Swedish government has presented its largest military aid package to Ukraine to date, worth 630 million euros. This package is the 15th that Sweden has sent to Ukraine. Ultimately, it is about humanity and decency. Defence Minister Paul Johnson said, It is also about protecting values and interests that are important to Sweden and its own interests, he added. The support package includes 10 amphibious assault boats of the Stridsbatt 90 class, 20 amphibious boats, underwater weapons such as mines and torpedoes, a number of anti-aircraft systems such as Robot 70, anti-tank robots of the TOW model, grenade launchers with ammunition, artillery shells, hand grenades, Karl Gustaf grenade launchers, medical equipment, ambulances. Paul Johnson said that the new support package is specifically tailored to Ukraine's needs. The aid package will add 96 million dollars to the Swedish-Danish Joint Procurement of CV 90s to Ukraine. This means that Sweden and Denmark will jointly invest 385 million dollars towards this goal, Johnson revealed. The minister noted that the package meets some of Ukraine's most pressing needs and is in line with the military capability coalitions that are taking shape within the Ukraine Defence Contact Group. Ukraine is not only defending its own freedom but that of all of Europe. Sweden will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. Russia cannot be allowed to win this war, Johnson said. While not a NATO member, Stockholm plays an important role in the pro-Ukraine coalition. Swedish contributions to Kyiv have included Archer, self-propelled artillery systems, CV 90 infantry fighting vehicles and Swedish variants of Leopard 2 tanks, STRV 122.