Mother, is Maxwell House the best coffee in the whole world? Well, your father says so. And your father knows best. Yes, it's Father Knows Best, transcribed in Hollywood, starring Robert Young as father. A half-hour visit with your neighbors, the Anderson's, brought to you by Maxwell House, the coffee that's bought and enjoyed by more people than any other brand of coffee at any price. Maxwell House, always good to the last drop. To determine the sex of a gossip, we offer a positive plan. A gossip is always a woman, except when the gossip's a man. There's a little bit of gossip in the best of us, isn't there? Not that we want to talk about people, perish, forbid. But, well, one thing leads to another, and you know how it is. That's the way it is with the Anderson's at any rate.  And they don't, except on very rare occasions, like this. Janie, she didn't. She did? Well. Betty. Just a minute, Father. Janie, you know I don't like to talk about people. But, well, Marion didn't exactly see her, but her cousin Phyllis has a friend. Betty, for the love of Pete, I've got to use the phone. Just a minute, Janie. Father, this is very important. Nothing can be that important. It's almost 2 o'clock, and you've been on the phone since noon.  I'm not being ridiculous, and get off the phone. OK, I'll be true in two seconds. Hello, Janie, where were we? Betty. Oh, Marion's cousin Phyllis's friend. She's the girl who runs the lending library's sister. She was standing right there, and she told Phyllis. Betty, give me that phone. Father, please. I said give it to me. Don't you want to see who's at the door? All right, but as soon as I come back, I want the phone. Jumping creepers. A person can't even talk for five minutes. Two hours. So help me, she'll wind up with a cauliflower ear. Jan, the doorbell rang. I know, honey. I'm answering it. Hello, Jan. Hello, Elizabeth. Come on in. Well, you look like your best friend just told you. Not on the phone, he didn't. What's that? What? Oh, you mean Richard. Sing for the nice man, angel.  I'd be lost without him. Where's Margaret? I think she's still in the kitchen. Margaret, Elizabeth Smith and Richard are here. Who? Elizabeth Smith and Richard. Richard is a canary. Well, he is. Look at him. Oh, isn't he a joy? Sing for the nice man, Richard. I suppose when you got him, he wouldn't do a thing. Well, Elizabeth, what a lovely surprise. Margaret, darling. Father? Just a minute, Benny. Elizabeth, show Margaret your trick. My what? It's very good. I mean, it really is. This is a hearts-marking roller and one of the finest singers in the world. Watch this. Sing for the nice lady, Richard. Remarkable, isn't it? Jim, really. Don't pay any attention to him, dear. He's in a mood. I'm not in a mood. I'm making polite conversation. Well, Elizabeth, you look wonderful. Well, I don't feel wonderful. That's why I'm going to my mother's. You aren't. She just said she was. Jim, please. Can I even listen? Father, I'm through with the phone. No. I am going to use it right now. Go ahead, dear. All right. But Elizabeth, will you please explain one thing? Why the canary? Jim. There's nothing mysterious about it. I just want Margaret to take care of Richard while I'm at my mother's. That's what I thought. And we'll be glad to, won't we, Angel? Yes. Well, excuse me, Elizabeth. I have to make phone calls. Why don't you go right ahead? Men, aren't they the nosiest things you ever saw? Well, I better than nothing, I suppose. Now we're a refuge for homeless canaries, Richard. Next thing you know, they'll be parking their husbands over here. He's so well housebroken. Hello, Sam. This is Jim Anderson. Fine. Say, Sam, about the game tomorrow night, would you mind playing over here? Well, Helen Phillips has a cold. And George said, what? Oh, the usual crowd. Jim Hathaway, Ed Davis, Hector. Say, wait a minute. Maybe Hector won't be here. Oh, Elizabeth's going home to her mother's. And hold on, Sam. I'll ask. Elizabeth? Yes, Jim? I'll be right with you, Sam. Elizabeth, is Hector going with you? To my mother's? If it's no, this is going to be a vacation. Oh, well, then it's all right to count on him for the poker game tomorrow. Well, I wouldn't count on Hector for anything. He hasn't been home one night since he got that Betsy Ross candy account. Keeping him pretty busy, huh? Night and day, I don't think he even knows I'm leaving. Well, I'll mention it to him next time I see him. Thank you, dear. You're so sweet. Oh, you just say that because it's true. Hello, Sam. Sorry to keep you waiting. No, Elizabeth's going alone. But we'd better not count on Hector. Well, he's got this new deal with Betsy Ross.  Well, don't worry about it, Sam. We'll get somebody. OK, see you tomorrow, 8 o'clock over here. Right. Good night, Sam. Say, Elizabeth, where are you going? I'm going home. Do you have any objections? Of course not. But leave her alone, Jim. She's got all her packing to do. No, I don't think I'll ever get it finished. What time does it train leave? 9 o'clock. Well, if Hector can't take you to the station. Well, he better take me to the station. Betsy Ross or no Betsy Ross. Don't worry about Richard, dear. We'll take extra special care of him. Won't we, Jim? Sure. See that he gets a lettuce leaf every day and be careful that he doesn't get his feet wet. We'll be careful, dear. I'll give him a rub down every night. Jim. Bye. Goodbye, Elizabeth. Have a wonderful time. Thank you. Give my regards to Broadway. Jim Anderson, when you decide to act silly. Mom. Telling Elizabeth you'd give Richard a rub down. Well, what did she want me to do? Taking for a walk around the block? Hey, Mom, where'd the canary come from? We're mining it for Mrs. Smith. Too bad about the divorce, isn't it? What divorce? Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But. But how many times have I talked to you about carrying tails? I'm not carrying tails. I just said it was too bad about the divorce. That's all I said. I knew it. Honey. I knew Elizabeth wasn't running off to her mothers for no reason at all. Good grief, Margaret. Just because a 15-year-old boy comes in with a wild story. It isn't a wild story, Dad. Stevie Long said his mother said she even saw the broken dishes. What broken dishes? The ones Mrs. Smith threw at Mr. Smith. Jim, how horrible. I don't believe it. Why, she was just here. Wouldn't she have said something? I think she did. Don't you remember? She said you couldn't count on Hector for anything. And then she complained about being left alone. But Hector was working. She knew that. Did she? That's the question. Honey, you've known Hector as long as I have. Does he look like the sort to? Well, does he? Good grief. We're in here, Angel. Mommy, do you know what I just heard Mrs. Phillips tell Mrs. Hathaway? Helen Phillips. Now, there's a great authority for you. Jim, please. She couldn't tell the right time if she had big Ben sticking out of her ear. Jim. Well, I wouldn't believe anything she said if. What'd she say, Kathy? Well, Jim, she's only a child. And this whole thing. But she already knows. Whatever it is she knows.  I guess so. All right, what did Mrs. Phillips say? Well, she said that somebody told her that Mr. Smith was running around with Dolly Madison. Kathy. Holy cow. Kathy, go up to bed. But you told me to tell you. Abraham Lincoln. Margaret, where are you going? I'm going to call Elizabeth Smith. Well, wait a minute. Let's talk it over first. There isn't anything to talk over. I'm not going to let two wonderful people like Hector and Elizabeth do anything foolish. Of course not. But a beautiful home. A wonderful sunlight, Billy. It's the silliest thing I've ever heard. Say, I've got an idea. Let's have them over for dinner. But, Jim. You call Elizabeth. I'll call Hector, and Betty can call Billy. What good will that do? Don't you see it might make all the difference in the world. We'll show them how a really happy family can and should operate. Well? Where are we going to get the happy family? Ah! We're the happy family. Oh. You know, it might work at that. Can I play, too? We're all going to play. We're going to put the Smith family back together again if we have to use glue. If we can just convince them, oh dear. What's the matter now? We're having lamb chops. And if the Smiths are coming, it won't be half enough. But you'll have to run down to the market. It's Kathy's turn. I mean, I can't carry a big, heavy package. This is meat. We can't afford a big, heavy package. Dad, any time anybody has to go, any place. Stop arguing, bud. You can both go. Holy cow. Gee whiz. And look, both of you, no matter who it is, you're not to say one word about the Smiths to anyone. Is that understood? Yes, sir. Yes, daddy. After all, we don't want to start a lot of gossip. Do we? Can the Andersons believe the rumors they've heard? Well, that's the trouble with gossip. You can never be certain. But about some things you can always be sure. Take coffee, for instance. When it comes to truly good coffee, rich, satisfying coffee with a flavor you enjoy, cup after cup, you can count on Maxwell House coffee every time. And you know that's exactly what most folks do. Yes, more people buy and enjoy our Maxwell House coffee than any other brand at any price. The reason, of course, is flavor. Wonderful good to the last drop flavor you get in no other coffee, only Maxwell House. Know why? Well, coffee grows all over the world in countless grades and varieties. But on the mile high mountain plateaus of Latin America, there grow a few select extra flavorful varieties. And it is these that first and foremost are chosen for Maxwell House. For example, fancy Manizales coffees are selected for fragrant mellowness, superb mellons for extra richness, choice Bucaramangas coffees for fine, full body. And only Maxwell House knows how to blend these superb vintage coffees in exactly the right proportions to create that world-famous good to the last drop flavor.  You'll see what I mean the very first time you pour a fragrant flavorful cup of our Maxwell House coffee. It's the one coffee that's always good to the last drop. The dinner hour is close at hand in the White Frame House on Maple Street. And the most inviting meal has been prepared for the Smiths.  And that isn't all. The Anderson's have made some other preparations as well, like this.  Let me see. It's Mr. Smith, but he's alone. I know, the others will be along later. Now, do you kids remember what I told you? Yes, Daddy. All right, as soon as he rings the bell. Jim, don't you think you're overdoing this a little? Of course not. We've got to look like a happy family, don't we? I suppose so. And what looks happier than a group of bright-eyed children? All right, places, everybody? I don't think I can stand this. Now look, Margaret. Let me know when Elizabeth gets here. I'm going back to the kitchen. That's the trouble with this world. There are too many cynics. Hey, that's pretty good. Kitchen, cynics, get it? Answer the door. I thought it was pretty good. Mom said... I said answer the door. That's what I'm doing. Fine sense of humor this family has. All right, girls, remember, look happy. Greetings, Mr. Smith. Welcome to our happy home. Don't the Andersons live here? Sure, I'm Bud, remember? Well, the face is familiar, but I can't place the voice. Oh, hi, Jim. Well, my old friend Hector Smith. What a wonderful surprise. Didn't you invite me to dinner? Of course. And what's the big surprise? I mean, we're glad you could make it. Aren't we, girls? Yes, Father, we certainly are. What are they supposed to be, Meredith Wilson's talking people? They're just my happy little girls. Aren't you, girls? Yes, Father. I'm happy, too. You know, I'm beginning to think, have I got all my clothes on? Naturally. Then why is everybody staring at me? We didn't mean to stare at you, Mr. Smith. We're just happy. I think I'll go home. Wait a minute. Let's go into the dead. We'll be more comfortable. OK. Would you like us to come to, Dad? That won't be necessary, Bud. You and the girls can stay here and be happy. I'll call you when dinner's ready, Father. We'll all call you. Thank you very much. What's the matter, Jim? The kid's playing too hard or something? I don't think so. Why? I was just wondering. Say, Elizabeth isn't here yet, is she? No, not yet. Sit down, Hector. Oh, thanks. Oh, boy, does that feel good. You know, I was saying to Margaret just the other day. I should have had my brains examined when I took that Betsy Ross account. It's murder. Yes. I was saying to Margaret just the other day.  You know, Hector, I was saying to Margaret. Father. Betty, Mr. Smith and I. But this will only take a second, Father, dear. Would you like me to bring you your slippers? No, thank you, Betty. I'm quite comfortable. Well, if you need anything, just call. All right, dear. Goodbye. I'm just a liner with her. Nothing, she just, you know, Hector, marriage is like an ocean liner. You run into all kinds of weather. Daddy. Kathy, I'm trying to talk to Mr. Smith.  Why? So you'll be more comfortable. Oh, well, I'm quite comfortable as I am getting, but thank you just the same. You're welcome. Goodbye. Jim, what's going on around here? Why, not a thing. What were we talking about? We weren't talking about anything. Hey, don't those kids ever leave you alone? Sure. Oh, I know. Hector, you'll find as you sail your ship on the troubled sea of matrimony. It's enough to drive a guy nuts. Hector, will you please let me finish? Oh, well, go ahead. All right. Now I don't remember what I was saying. You were talking about boats. Oh, that's right. You see, Hector, marriage is like a boat. I know, they can both make you sick. Look, if you'd rather make jokes. Say, Dad. Good grief. What is it, Bud? Would you like me to run down to the drug store or mow the lawn or anything? What for? I don't know. Bud, excuse me a minute. Will you heck, I have to fix something in the hall. OK. While you're at it, why don't you tell the kids about boats and things? Bud, how do you expect me to accomplish anything if you keep running in and out of the den? I wasn't running in and out of the den. Is it working, Father? And you're another one. What?  Do we see? You sound like the swing shift in a boiler factory. But you said? I said we had to make Mr. Smith lonesome for his family. Did we? We sure did. I think he's leaving for Siberia in the morning. For a vacation? Yes. Oh. I don't know why it is, but any time I ask you kids to do anything. We were only trying to help, Father. Well, you did a great job. You're welcome. It's time I stick my neck out. Oh, hello, Elizabeth. Where is he? Where is that worm? Why, Elizabeth? After I gave him the best years of my life.  Why don't you kids go into the kitchen? We'll have to do stuff. Go ahead and stop arguing. Come on, bud. Holy cow. Gee, we just want to get interesting. Now look, Elizabeth. Elizabeth, I thought I heard Mark. What's the matter? Keep away from me.  What? Hector, why don't we all sit down and talk it over? Talk what over? People staring at me, sympathizing with me. For what? What did you do? What did I do? Look, Hector, this whole thing. What thing? I don't know what you're talking about. Won't do you any good, Hector Smith? I know all about that woman on Madison Avenue. What woman on Madison Avenue? Barbara Fritchie. Barbara Fritchie, do I, Jim? Of course not. It's Dolly Madison. Look, look, Elizabeth, I don't know what this is all about. All I know is Jim called me at the office. Stay away from me. Jim, do you know what she's talking about? I don't like to say anything, Hector, but after all, well, you had to expect something like this, didn't you? You mean this comes with the dinner? 20 years. 20 long years. And he throws me away like an old glove. Oh, I think I'm going nuts. Nothing makes any sense. Now, wait a minute, both of you. This is the sort of thing a lot of married people have to go through. What is? A period of readjustment, of getting things straightened out. After all, Hector's in that dangerous age, aren't you, Hector? Oh, I'm a real dangerous fella. Angel, you're there. Everything's going to be all right. Jim, be a good guy. What did I do? Heck, you don't have to pretend with me. I don't, huh? Of course not. You're with me in spite of everything, huh? In spite of everything. OK, but tell me one thing. What did I do? Well, if you want it like that, excuse me. Now, let me see. I was sitting in my office in the phone room. Then I said, hello. And he said, would you like to come over for dinner? And then I said, sure. And he said, where is he? Where is my father? He's right here, Billy. Oh, my boy. I don't know. We've got to be fair. We've got to let him tell his side of the story. Don't we, Mr. Anderson? That seems reasonable. All right. We're listening, Father. Go ahead with your story. OK.  Let's not make a mockery of it. Of what? I'll handle this, Mother. After all, I'm the man of the family. Father, all these nights that you were supposed to be working at the office. Suppose? What do you mean, suppose? Hector, it's all over the neighborhood. It won't do you any good to deny it. Deny what? About you and Molly Pitcher? Heck? It isn't any use, Jim. If he won't even confess. How can I confess I haven't done anything? Heck, why don't you make a clean breast of it? Of what? Then Elizabeth can forgive you and you can start life all over again. I don't want to start life all over again. I'm having enough trouble the way it is. Father, won't you please tell us the truth? Who is Molly Pitcher? I don't know. What are you kids doing back there? They were eavesdropping. Bad, aren't you ashamed? All right, bud. Come on out. You too, Kathy. Hiya, Dad. How's every little old thing? Oh, gosh, no. The curtain just got in the way, sort of. Well, we'll go into that later. Now, what's this about Molly Pitcher? We're studying about her in school. She carried water for the soldiers. And she shot off a cannon. In the revolution. That's fine, but that isn't. Wait a minute. Poor Billy. Betty, be quiet and leave Billy's hand alone. Oh, I don't mind, Mrs. Anderson.  Who? All of us. Don't you see what happened? Molly Pitcher and Barbara Fritchie and Dolly Madison? Sounds like an all-American harem. Hector. Somebody started a rumor about Betsy Ross and it twisted and turned all out of shape. You see, I've been telling you kids for years, not to believe the wild stories you hear. You mean somebody's been talking about me? Hector, have you really been working every night? Of course I've been working every night. What do you suppose Betsy Ross pays me for? And there wasn't anybody else? Elizabeth, you know I wouldn't look at anybody else. Not even sideways. Oh, Hector. I'm so ashamed. Me too. I think we're all a little ashamed, aren't we? I am. I'm just hungry. Oh, dear, I forgot all about the lamb chops. Everybody go into the dining room and I'll be right with you. Say, Jim, guess who do you suppose could have started it? All that talk about me, I mean. I don't know. But if I ever do find out, so help me, I'll wring his scrawny little neck. That's my pal. Yes, sir. A few pleasures that give so much satisfaction day in and day out as truly good coffee. And throughout the country, that means our Maxwell house, the coffee that's bought and enjoyed by more people than any other brand. Why? Because of flavor, rich, tempting flavor that just naturally makes the world look rosier somehow. You'll see, first time you try a fragrant, heartwarmingly good cup of our Maxwell house coffee. After that first satisfying sip, you'll know why America loves Maxwell house best. Then just count all the truly good cups you get from each pound. You'll agree it's Maxwell house for value too. So at your grocers, look for the big white cup and drop on the familiar blue tin of Maxwell house. Take home the one coffee that's always good to the last drop. The dinner is over, and the Smiths, solidly reunited, have wended their homeward way. But the evening at the Anderson's isn't quite over, nor is the gossip like this. Dad. I'm in here, bud. Dad, there's a Mr. Workman wants to see you. Workman? Oh, he's that friend of Mr. Gribbles. Be right with you, Mr. Workman. Not at all. Not at all. Bud, tell your mother we'll probably need some more coffee. You bet, Dad. Well, Mr. Workman, how are you? Mr. Anderson? I do hope you won't resent this intrusion. Intrusion? Why, this is a pleasure. Won't you sit down? Thank you. Now, what can I do for you? Well, sir, as head of the Springfield Branch of the State Historical Society, I should like your advice on a matter of great importance. Naturally, anything I can do. I was sure you'd feel that way. Well, sir, you know Hector Smith, don't you? Of course. Well, sir, I've been trying to find the source of a very authentic rumor. About heck? Exactly. Do you know that Hector Smith is a direct descendant of Martha Washington? Oh, no. Boy, I'm happy. Got a new love. Good looking. Beautiful. Gorgeous cherry red. Lip? Heck no. I'm talking about cherry, jello, fruit rich and delicious. My favorite flavor is strawberry, strawberry, raspberry, cherry, orange, lemon, and lime. All six jello flavors are delicious and so easy to fix. Easy on the grocery bill, too. Yup, thrifty to buy. Easy to make jello for red-letter desserts. So off to the cupboard you go and reach for J-E-L-L-O. Join us again next week when we'll be back with Father Knows Best, starring Robert Young as Jim Anderson with Roy Boggy and the Maxwell House Orchestra. In our cast were Ted Donaldson as Bud, Gene Vanderpile, Rhoda Williams, Norma Jean-Nelson, Herb Bygren, Irene Teddrow, Sam Edwards, Alan Harris, and yours truly, Bill Foreman. So until next Thursday, good night and good luck from the makers of Maxwell House, America's favorite brand of coffee, always good to the last drop. Father Knows Best was transcribed in Hollywood and written by Ed Jane. Join Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, tonight on NBC.


Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, never have I been more generously introduced as a failure in a fringe. I am sorry to say it entirely accurately so. It is a great pleasure to be here. I have only 10, 15 or so minutes to make an argument to look at the status of animals within the Christian tradition a gallwch yn causio i'n fwrdd a ddysgu'r ddebyg i ddaillu, o waith ystod, mae'r oedd perthydig o'r wyf yn hyn deall gwahanol unrhyw o gwell yn gwell, yn y gweithwyr i gweithio'u perthŷl yn cyfaint o'i gwaith o'r cyfaint o'r 10 minu? Yn cais o地, mae'r Cymru maen nhw'n cais i'r ddifii ameryddol? Mae'r ddifii efo'n gweithwyr gwahanol, mae pobl yn cyfwyr llawer. Is thinlynw. Is a... Is it kingdom hall, and outside they sometimes have questions like Did Jesus rise from the dead or was Jesus the Son of God? You've got a pretty good idea of what the answer to many of these questions are. In this case, am sorry to say a real restient. I'm afraid we cannot be sanguine about the answer. So, first of all, let's look at the negative tradition. Those people say actually Christianity can't be good news for animals at least in terms of contemporary ethical concern. And that is simply because the dominant negative voices, dominant voices are negative voices. By that, I don't mean the truest or the most biblical or the most spiritual. I simply mean those that are the most prevalent within the tradition are still heavily negative. And so, we have to recognise the role of Christian theology in legitimating, if not originating, certainly propagating negative ideas, these negative ideas that rule the world and have done so for many, many years. So, let's briefly look at the negative tradition. Animals are defined out of the picture. No mind, no reason, no soul, no sentence, no rights, and no status. Let's look at these briefly in turn. Dumb animals, notice that phrase. Dumb animals and plants are devoid of the life of reason, whereby to set themselves in motion, they are moved as it were by a natural impulse, a sign of which is that they are naturally enslaved and accommodated to the uses of others. St Thomas Aquinas, Church Father, arguably the most important Church Father in the Catholic tradition. Dumb animals, they have no independent movement as it was a result of rational faculties. They are naturally our slaves. No soul, in the Tomas tradition, that's the tradition following St Thomas Aquinas, broadly there are three divisions, vegetative souls, animated souls for animals and rational souls for humans. It's not true to say as many people do that the Christian tradition or the Catholic tradition specifically denies that animals have souls, it is always denied that they have rational and therefore immortal souls, do you see? I hope that's clear. So we move from the idea that they have no mind, no reason, they have no soul, therefore because they are not rational and therefore the question has to be raised, as indeed it was by Descartes, whether they could have sufficient self-consciousness even to feel pain. Indeed says Descartes that they act naturally and mechanically like a clock. There is no prejudice to which we are more accustomed from our earliest years than the belief that dumb animals think. Hence was born Cartesianism, the idea that animals are, well if not all to mate up pretty close to it. In fact I used for many years to give Descartes the benefit of the doubt and say that he was just suggesting a possible line of thought until I found actually evidence that he was personally a vivisector as well of the animals he kept. No mere ideas then. Of course it follows, no soul, no mind, they have no rights, zoophilist, that's a nice word, it doesn't mean people who have sex with animals, that's a modern connotation, zoophilist simply means those who have some concern or love for animals, zoophilist, those who now want to have sexual relations with animals call themselves zoos or zoophilist but this is not the context in this. Zoophilist often lose sight of the end for which animals as rational creatures were created by God, the service and use of man. In fact, Catholic moral doctrine teaches that animals have no rights on the part of man. Now this is as early or late however you put it as 1962, 1962, wiping animals off the rights agenda which partly goes to explain I think why the notion of rights has become such a similarly important discussion and no status. This is from Joseph Ricabee, the famous Jesuit, I mean it's a bit off the wall, it's a bit extreme even for his day but it was a Catholic textbook, brute beast not having understanding and therefore not being persons cannot have any rights, we have no duties of charity nor duties of any kind to the low animals as neither to sticks or stones, do you see, animals are progressively out of the moral picture, no status, no mind, no soul, no rationality. So just to summarise it a little more accurately, there are three strands. The first is instrumentalism, animals are here for our use, again in Augustine, when we say they shall not kill, we do not understand this a plant since they have no sensation nor of the irrational animals since they are dissociated from us by their want of reason and are therefore by the just appointment of the creator subject to us to kill or keep alive for our own uses. Animals here for our use of course, it predates for Augustine, might even predate, Aristotle certainly found in pre-Socratics if not earlier, animals are here for our use. Animals are only animals, and by this I am picking up on the dualist tendency, especially prevalent in certain ages of Christianity, that makes distinctions and separations between flesh and spirit, mind and matter, persons and things, souls and non-souls. The result of all this very briefly is that animals come off on the worst side of each of these distinctions.  Just think of the enormous dummies that this historic language of denigration has done. In the book of Common Prayer, the lines still remain, brute beasts, so we do not become quote, brute beasts that have no understanding, I've often wondered who these boots are. Now the third strand then is humanism, instrumentalism, dualism, humanism, the idea really the only humans matter. And you find this not just in the classical tradition but also in modern presentations of the Christian faith.  This then is God's will, man's well-being, well, both sexist and speciesist, as you can see, that's from Hans Cungham being a Christian in 1978, but also in the Catholic Catechism. Look at this. God willed creation as a gift addressed to man, wow, wow, the whole thing is ours folks, given to us, similar like a birthday present, an inheritance destined for and entrusted to him. Wow, look at that, oh, whole world is ours, whole world is ours, what a gift from God. Only human beings matter, only human welfare, only human suffering matters, everything else matters, periphery or at best marginal. Now the result of all this negative tradition, first of all theoretical, we have effectively deified the human species, we have made human beings God, there is a more or less absolute identification of God's will with humanity. Now I myself believe this is a kind of idolatry. It is based on the assumption that God is wholly or chiefly concerned with the welfare of the human species to the exclusion of all else. And that's folks where I think we are. And the second result practical is that animals don't matter. Despite some reservations and qualifiers, still a great many Christians don't believe that animals matter because they don't matter theologically, that is they don't matter to God the Creator. And that is why Christian churches are still generally indifferent to the issue of animal cruelty abuse and exploitation. And as a witness of that you only have to look at the very conservative Christian churches. The Catholic tradition especially in relation to bull fighting for example, whaling again, Norway, conservative Lutheran tradition, sealing both Anglicans and Catholics have justified sealing and so on and so forth. There's even a Christian Bowman's association in the States that shoots animals with them bows and arrows. Good, well that's the bad news folks. Now let's try and look at some of the more positive news for animals. This has to be very rushed and very much an overview. Now I think it comes in four parts, biblical insights, Christian apogful literature, hagiography and then the humanitarian movement. I want briefly to run through these. Firstly biblical insights, well we got so accustomed to so much of this stuff that we've actually forgotten how radical and interesting it is. Let's just go through them. See Genesis 1 in the first creation saga humans are created with animals on the same day of creation. They're blessed by God, they're given their own space to flourish, they are made part of an originally very good creation. In other words they have value in themselves and we should rightly feel a kind of kinship with them. Genesis doesn't say look here folks, it's all for you, do as you like. Now I'm not saying that everything in the Bible supports animal liberationist perspective far from it but I do think we've rather lost sight of some of those foundational insights in the biblical material that are a great deal more animal friendly than we dare to suppose. Indeed they are included within the covenant, the covenant is made with living creatures five times and with the earth twice. Now the theological significance of this notion of covenant really can't be minimised. I spent five years of my life studying Karl Barth's doctrine of creation and he makes a great deal of how humanity, human beings are elected in Christ. All of humanity is elected in Christ because of the notion of covenant and election in Genesis. Well it completely overlooks the fact that in Genesis 9 God also elects enter into covenant with all living creatures, not just human beings. Thirdly humans have dominion. Now this is normally associated, normally interpreted as something anti animals as despotic rule over animals. In fact in the States there's now an anti dominionist movement amongst animal people. I'm afraid it's all based on a mistake, I'm sorry folks, but dominion doesn't mean absolute rights, it means that humans power is derived independent power. We are in other words commissioned by God to look after the world. Our only power over animals, theologically and crystallologically, is a power to serve. Now how do we know that that's the case? Well we know that's the case because if you look at the first saga in Genesis 2526 verse 2526 we're made in the image of God, then we're given dominion 28 and then we're given a vegetarian diet verse 29-30. Most Christians don't remember that bit, they remember a bit about being made in the image of God, they remember the bit about having dominion, they like those ideas and then they're given a vegetarian diet. It's one of the examples of hermeneutics really, how we find those things we like. So what you're having in Genesis is her beating human beings, this is hardly a license for tyranny is it if you think about it. So dominion, the whole saga of Genesis 1 is pro-animal, so indeed Genesis 2 in the second chapter, you have God making the garden and then creating human beings quote to till it and serve it, chapter 2 verse 17, till it and serve it, in other words that is our purpose, to serve the garden you see, to look after the show. Also in various passages in the Old Testament there is a notion that there are moral limits to what we may do to animals and in their own day were significant although arguably not so much in ours and also not least of all the vision of the peaceable kingdom which you find in Isaiah, in Genesis as epitomised by the Sabbath coming together, the end of Genesis 1 being the Sabbath experience after all, not they all sat and they all enjoyed God's presence, having God having worked and so therefore there was an anticipation of the future kingdom to come and also you find a hint of that in that very strange verse in Mark 12, 1, 12, 13 about Jesus being with the wild beasts. Now moving on also the theme of the redemption of all creation found most especially in Romans 8 in which Paul compares creation to being in the state of childbirth awaiting for its freedom and liberation with the children of God. In other words the scope, the scope of the redemption is cosmic not just individual souls are going to be redeemed but indeed the entire creation indeed. I've often got into theological hot water by saying you know when I'm asked do I believe animals will be in heaven my answer is they will certainly be there, the real question is whether sinful, violent, wicked human beings will be there, that's the really big issue. Okay biblical insights and themes then, fellow creatureliness, kinship, peaceableness, unitable creatures in Christ, humans as the servant species as I've tried to argue in my books humans are best defined not as the master species but as the servant species. Now time is pressing on so I'm going to give them faster at this point. Secondly the Christian apocryphal material, from the second to the eighth century there's a huge voluminous amount actually of material concerning animals, Christian material that develops some of the ideas in scripture and especially in the gospels. Now by saying it's apocryphal I don't mean it's worthless, I don't mean it has no authority, I just mean it has never been collected together as scripture as such, Christian scripture but nevertheless there was us and this is really the thesis I'm trying to make here that even though there has been as it were a negative tradition and the dominant voices have been negative there has been as it were a subterranean tradition within Christianity that has always kept alive the idea of peaceable friendly relations with animals and you see these in these stories that have been preserved from the eighth to the second to the eighth century. For example there is a famous apocryphal, a famous story of Jesus healing a mule which is sadly we cannot be sure when it was written but is very similar to those other stories in the snottyg gospels. Those are more examples of that hagiography and also let me give you a Chinese puzzle that I have recently been wrestling with. Some years ago I had to write an introduction to one of my books Animal Gospel that was to be published in China and I thought gosh what am I going to say, how can I say to another culture I mean about animal rights I mean they'll think I'm this is really way off and then of course I began to research something of the religious history in China and I found out that there was indeed the first Chinese church sometimes known as the religion of the light or the Taoist church existed for 300 years and it taught reverence for life, vegetarianism, opposed slavery, advocated the equality of women and men and testimony from a historic stele in AD 781 as well as from the existing sutras the verses from that period and it was not astonishing so here you have an early pacifist vegetarian feminist church almost sounds too good to be to be true folks am almost too good to be to perhaps it is good to be to accept it does have a connection with the gospel of the ebeanites and is very similar in some of its theology to the gospel the ebeanites which is a very early gospel that depicts Jesus as a vegetarian and opposed to animal sacrifice now hagiogs no we're going back are we we're going oh yes here we are some more stuff from hagiography the one I particularly like is from Bonaventure every creature is by its nature a kind of effigy and likeness of the eternal wisdom Saint Bonaventure the biographer of Saint Francis every creature is by its nature a kind of effigy and likeness of the eternal wisdom okay a theological significance of this hagiography is this as we grow in union with God show we should grow in communion with God's creatures and concern for God's other creatures is a sign of greatness if anything and thirdly that the creator has interests above and beyond the human species now the last piece of the good news is the humanitarian movement in the 19th century if my thesis is right despite the pervasiveness of the negative dominant negative voices there has been there have been traditions of concern for regard for animals within the Christian tradition right from the start and suddenly in 19th century this began to be crystallized in the form of embodied in social social institutions William Cowherd founds the Bible Christian Church which makes vegetarianism obligatory for its members to forerunner of the organized vegetarian movement in the UK and the US then in 1824 we have the founding of the SPCA that shortly to become the RSPCA by the Anglican priest Arthur Broome and then we even have the anti-vivisection movements in the 1870s with ecclesial venerable ecclesiastical Patrick Neige and the famous line I like from this is this this emerging humanitarian movement is from Humphrey permit well-known line from his book The Duty of Mercy in the Sin of Cruelty we may pretend to what religion we please but cruelty is atheism we may make our base to Christianity but cruelty is infidelity we may trust to our orthodoxy but cruelty is the worst of heresies now as we know this influenced Arthur Broome who subsequently edited the second edition of permits work. Broome after all was the founder of the RSPCA now where's all this lead to well I'm afraid we're not going to be able to get to section three on the maybe and so I want to leave you with this final thought when it comes to the second section what I've called the Jesus shaped ethic we don't know everything that Jesus said or did and and in many ways we're still trying to grapple with it significance we don't know the the the details but we do know the contours and what one finds in Jesus I suggest is a paradigm or least rather what I called a paradigm of inclusive moral generosity one that privileges the poor the vulnerable the outcast the marginalized the oppressed and I believe by extension animals and I believe some of the the best thinkers in the Christian tradition across this relationship but the struggle still goes on between these two vastly different approaches to animals within the Christian tradition and I fear the jury is still out as to which side might eventually win thank you very much indeed


Good morning everybody Breakfast of champions just waiting to get loaded. We're gonna throw some freight on the trailer behind me I have an empty step deck and We'll be off to Minnesota We have to tarp it so Shouldn't take shouldn't take too long. We're loaded. We'll tarp it.  I like it It's off the main highways be busy and gets me home for the appointments we have coming up Rooks out good on tarping not really playing about it's the easiest possible tarping that you can ask The northeast then your destination will be on the left a bit of money By fueling here instead. I haven't fueled here before so this will be new nothing to really report Saw a couple of deer on the road didn't hit them That was the trip. That was the that was the day. That was the excitement for the day. It's been very warm though So that's good It's about three degrees Celsius Probably a 40 Fahrenheit Everything's melting. I don't know if you can hear that the water dripping. Maybe the mics aren't picking it up That's the snow melting all around us. It's a wonderful beautiful sound Beautiful it's like the sound of angels Melting snow Okay, fill up the tanks and go deliver our freight and book it back up to canora Okay, so what I was charged here for diesel fuel and at Casey's and Brainerd was four dollars and nine cents are four oh eight nine per US gallon which With exchange rate and converted to leaders is a dollar forty five three per liter in Canadian so it cost me $594 and 99 cents American Cost me eight hundred dollars and thirty three cents Canadian. So it's saying here So it's dollar forty five three price back in Canada was a dollar ninety nine nine We're gonna take our fancy Calculamatory device dollar ninety nine nine subtract dollar forty five three Save myself 55 cents a liter or fifty four point six cents per liter Today I bought five hundred and fifty liters Point eight one one. I saved myself exactly three hundred dollars and seventy four cents Fueling here as opposed to this morning in canora. I'm going back to canora tonight, and I'm coming back down again the next day And I'll be fueling down here again save myself three hundred dollars Canadian No, it's probably like two hundred and fifty dollars American or so Okay, well fuel is a lot cheaper down here in the US That is for sure Good I feel good about myself. I made an extra 300 bucks today Well, technically I didn't make that three hundred dollars. I just didn't spend that three hundred dollars Had I fueled up this morning that three hundred dollars would have been spent and in the pockets of some Billionaire who owns the gas station up there at Petro Pass, you know would have been in his pocket But no I kept that three hundred dollars for myself I'm fueling here in Minnesota. Thanks, Minnesota. Appreciate that I'm gonna go deliver my freight now feeling good about my My decision and I got pretty good fuel economy 6.58 miles per us gallon Not bad old blue not bad longer day tomorrow, but US 53 and then turn left to 900 meters Strange my washer fluid doesn't national falls minnesota once again across into fork francis Truck parked right here on the road. I wonder what he's doing. I wonder if he's sleeping Turn left on He's sleeping there. He pulled his curtains right there in the lane of traffic Why not at least pull onto one of these side streets and get out of traffic How strange is that? Hey Don't forget to subscribe tune in And I look forward to the future of making many more videos for you here on the internet Take care everybody. I'll see you tomorrow


For a few years now, at all levels, there has been a growing interest in biodiversity loss. And government as well as companies need to provide measures, need to provide ecological and economic measures of the impact of human activity. So this master was designed to give students a toolbox so that they can work for organizations, government as well as firms, private firms, when they need to assess the impact of human activity on the ecological systems and biodiversity. For my internship, I was with the United Nations Development Programme based in Istanbul, working with the projects of the Biodiversity Finance Initiative and the Biodiversity and Econosystem Services Network. My role was to assist the global team in analyzing the biophane processes, the country's responses to these processes and determining financial solutions which will help promote biodiversity in each country. The key skills of economic analysis and an understanding of the economic implications on biodiversity help assist me in these roles. It allows us to determine the risk of collision on the roads.


Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian A-50 military aircraft over the Azov Sea. An additional Russian military plane, the IL-22M, was also damaged, reports suggest that the A-50 plane was shot down immediately after it went on duty in the Kirilivka area of Zaparazia. The aircraft disappeared from radars and stopped responding to requests from tactical aviation. Later that night, the pilot of a Russian Su-30 plane detected ignition in the fall of an unidentified aircraft. The IL-22M was on duty in the Strelkov area before it was reportedly shot down along the coast of the Azov Sea. RBC media outlet posted an audio recording of what it describes as an intercepted conversation between the Russian pilot of the aircraft and the airfield controller in Anapa, Russia. The pilot called for an evacuation, as well as an ambulance and fire services.


Stevenson gets the 5-0 win over Lycoming tonight here at Mustang Stadium, Glenn Clark with head coach, Tati Korba. Coach, I want to start with your freshman class, Megan Meyer, Lexi Rollison. Julie and Nephew making a decision when she could have taken a shot to lay it in front. What an impressive night from a group of young players. You know, we're so excited that they're all really starting to come on. You know, we knew we were going to need people kind of late in the season. Megan and Julie and Nephew has been outstanding the last two games. And Kesty Butler has been so consistent. And Lexi Rollison has been great. You know, Meg Meyer with a great goal tonight. So it was great to have so many different people involved. And yeah, we kind of noticed we were like, gosh, we have a lot of freshmen on the field. I think we had, you know, six players, six freshmen on at one point. So, you know, it's great for now. It's great for the future. The weird way was there perhaps like a benefit from what happened on Tuesday at Hood that maybe you learned something or after you had played so well, maybe everybody forgot like, hey, there can still be bad things that happen in this sport sometimes. For sure.  But, you know, we said maybe this was kind of the final kick that we needed to get us to where we need to go. And certainly we're going to learn from it and make it, you know, take the good things from it and learn the hard things. And I think we were better for it for sure. We have eight days off now before we have to play again, but you have a really important final three-game stretch here in the regular season, including two games against the teams that are at the top of the table right now in this conference. What do you need to keep getting better at over the course of these next eight days for the final push? You know, it's great that we've got this kind of this bye week and it's an opportunity for us to rest some legs and to really hone in on, you know, just tightening things up in the back line and figure things out in the midfield a little bit more. You know, hopefully people even this week begin to step up and we've got, you know, a few more people that we can really count on for these next three games and hopefully we're, you know, charged up ready to go. Coach, congratulations on a great win the night. Best of luck.  Thanks very much. She's Coach Toddy Korb. I'm Glenn Clark for Go Mustang Sports.com.


We're happy to host your workshop today, have a long and productive working relationship with Carl. The space you're in here at 543 Howard Street is home to several organizations that, either my wife or I, have started both for-profit and non-profit, and so your co-host today is the K-Por Foundation. I think the project of trying to make all the primary legal materials available freely online is a terrific one and in keeping with many things that we've supported. And I'm going to be able to come back at lunchtime and join you and sit in on that and wish you the best today. I think it's going to be a great session. Dr. Sanderson, it's nice to see you as well. Yes. Okay, thank you. You want to say a couple words and then I'll describe kind of what the day's going to look like. Okay. So I think that part of what is so over-exciting to me about the project that Carl has gotten started and also the energy that is beginning to swirl around it, is that we've had sort of legal information be at least in legal theory free, but in fact as long as it was contained in books and those books were copyrighted, it wasn't as free as it wanted it to be. The chance then to digitize information and legal information was exciting because it did promise to make it more free or free as in at least speech if not fear. And what we saw was in fact an enormous explosion of uses of legal information through Lexis and Westlaw in particular, but although they're freer in some sense, the legal information is freer in that environment and it was when it was just in the books and you had to personally be at the library to look at each book. Because of the technical protection measures, access controls and because of contracts, in fact it's not been nearly as free as a number of us want. So after a couple of decades of the proprietary services providing us with this information, we now see that there's a new burst of energy about making legal information available and of course the internet and so many of the resources that we all have come to rely on have been incredibly important. So I think that Lexis and Westlaw have provided good value to their shareholders and good value to the entities that were their subscribers. But the underlying philosophy about not protecting legal information is in fact that in a democracy public access to the laws that govern us and the regulations that we are supposed to comply with is sort of a theme that still isn't being fully realized. And so although there have been a number of initiatives, the Legal Information Institute at Cornell was actually an early sort of effort to try to make certain classes of legal information available for free as in beer online, although they also needed to get donations so I get email at least once a year asking for a contribution and I do it. And of course some courts and some legislatures have been willing to make legal information online or work free. But it's still been kind of a patchwork of individual things and I think what's exciting to me about the kind of entrepreneurial energy that Carl brings to this particular project is that there is now an opportunity not to just have a little patchwork but in fact to take a broad vision about the public access to information for that kind of democratic purpose that we have had in our legal theory for some time. So I'm really excited to be part of this project and looking forward to the day. And to Carl has put together with us. Thank you. So I wanted to give a very brief kind of introduction to what a lot of outcome is all about and then I'm going to turn it over to Professor Samuelson for our first session. I want to thank Mitch Kapoor especially for hosting this workshop. We have done a series of 10 workshops throughout the country and in each one we've had prominent co-convenors that have helped put these things together. In this case Professor Samuelson and Mitch Kapoor are the co-convenors for this workshop. So Laudak is about a very simple idea. And the idea is that all the primary legal materials of the United States should be freely available from the source as an authenticated bulk feed. Now that's a lot of words and it's a simple concept but it gets very complicated as we dig down into it. How do you do authentication? Should there be charges for service? What about people that are unfairly using services? How do you handle privacy issues? And these are all some of the subtleties and the very important issues that need to be dealt with in making legal information available. And these are not trivial issues.   And so it's very important to do the issues of privacy and security and how you provision the data and do it in a way that really makes sense. And I think there's really three reasons that we're looking at this kind of an initiative to convince the policymakers and government that if they issue primary legal materials they should be broadly available. One reason is pretty simple, it's justice. It seems to me highly unfair that you have some lawyers who cannot afford to do the research they need in order to defend their clients. And by some lawyers I mean some of the obvious candidates like public interest law firms and some solo practitioners. But I also mean lawyers in the Department of Justice who are on budgets for their legal research and in order to defend the United States of America they have to cut back on their research and defend the United States less well. This is partly about democracy in that the laws are really not just for lawyers although lawyers are interpreters of law along with judges and the rest of the legal profession. They're the ones that work with these materials. But when you think about it, building codes are something that every general contractor needs to know about. Electrical codes, fire codes, municipal ordinances for zoning are things that every realtor needs to know about. Every engineer needs to know what a patent looks like and how to interpret them properly. And so the law really needs to be available very broadly at least at the basic level. Now this doesn't mean that lawyers are going to go away. But it does mean in an era of increased sophistication where consumers read financial reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission or look up drugs that their doctor prescribed to them. It's not unreasonable to think that a citizen should be able to read a building code without forging over 100 bucks. And so that's democracy. But it's also about innovation. And one of the things that I find really amazing about this law.gov process is the strong participation of firms like LexisNexis and Justia and Fastcase and others because for them access to materials is a cost of doing business. And you would be shocked at how much effort many of these legal retailers go through obtaining the raw materials they need to start their businesses and run their businesses. And as a result, innovation in the legal sector has fallen way behind many of the other sectors. The law is the last place that the internet has yet to come to. And the reason for that is simple. It costs anywhere from $10 to $50 million to buy the raw materials it would take you to get in the business of being a legal information retailer. And that high barrier to entry has meant that there are less internet startups and less innovations and that public interest firms such as my non-profit are unable to access the material to do things like privacy audits. And so innovation has suffered because of our current system. So what we are doing is a three-stage process. Rather than come in with the answers and say, gee, you know, Pacer's no good, it needs to be replaced. That's a conclusion. And I didn't think one could start with a conclusion. I think the issues are hard enough and difficult and have all sorts of subtleties. So what we have done is a national conversation of step one, a series of Law.gov workshops as well as a series of working groups. And this is the 10th of these Law.gov workshops. We started off at Stanford with the Law Library was hosting that. They did a wonderful job. We went to Princeton where Professor Ed Felton hosted a two-day workshop on transparency and open government. A whole series after that at Columbia University, I saw the Chief Technology Officer of Lexus Nexus sitting next to the Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the United States both discussing how this material could become available. At Yale, New York Law School, Cornell, we did an in-depth two-day workshop with a lot of the leading technical figures in the deployment of case law and the internet looking at issues of authentication and metadata and document IDs. We just got done doing a very successful one at Duke Law School with Professor Goyle and Professor Jenkins. I was very pleased. We had the Archivist of the United States there. We had Andrew McLaughlin, the Deputy Chief Technology Officer. 12,000 people watched that event live on the internet. A new record for Duke. We just got back from Texas where Professor Terry Martin, who was the Interim Librarian there, a past president of the American Association of Law Libraries hosted a workshop, a lot of very strong participation from people in industry as well as executives in the court system, the Chief Information Officer. We have another five events coming up, and this process will finish in June 18th. There's a series of events coming up in Washington, D.C. Next week we'll be in Chicago, where Callie and the OIEA project will be hosting a workshop. In Washington, D.C., I'm really pleased that we are going to have the Vice Chair of the Committee on House Administration, which is Congresswoman Zo Lofgren, and the ranking member of the committee, Congresswoman Lundgren, are hosting an event on Capitol Hill. Our speakers include Roberta Schaefer, who is here. She's the Law Librarian of Congress. Eugene Meyer, who is president of the Federalist Society and the American Association of Law Libraries. The message there is pretty clear. This is a big tent. This is not just a bunch of liberals or people trying to nationalize a law. This is a bipartisan issue that really does span party lines. And we will end the workshop process with Wernher John Podesta is hosting at the Center for American Progress, and then Wernher John Palfrey is going to be hosting at Harvard Law School. So today, what we're going to do is a conversation until 3 p.m. We're going to start off the morning with, I think, one of the most important issues, and this is Professor Sanderson and Brian Carter from the University of California at Berkeley, are going to talk about intellectual property and the law. Can you copyright the law? Can a vendor copyright the law if they're the reporter? Can you copyright a building code if it was developed with private funds? These are issues that on their face seem very, very obvious, right? When we say we're a nation of laws, not a nation of men, we write the law down, and if we write the law down, then people have to be able to read it. And so it has to be available. I think if we look at court cases, and I'm sure Professor Sanderson will go through some of those, the basic concept that the law must be available is very, very clear, and has been clear since 1824. And so we're going to do that for an hour, and then we're going to shift gears. At 11.30, we're going to talk about the National Inventory of Legal Materials, which is something that the American Association of Law Libraries has been assisting America Wayne and Paul O'Neill and Stanford in putting together groups around the country that are looking at the legal materials and saying, so what do we have in the state of California? Are court cases copyright? Does it cost money to get them? And I think you'll find some rather shocking statistics in the whole point of the National Inventory is if we're going to put all primary legal materials online, we need to know what they are, where they are, and are we able to use them or not. And so that session will be for 30 minutes. At noon, we're going to let you stand up for a few minutes, grab some lunch, and then we're going to ask you to come back to the tables. We have Tim O'Reilly and the Secretary of State, Deborah Bohm, are going to have a conversation about why this stuff matters, why government information needs to be available to people. And I think that's going to be a lot of fun. And we'll speak for about a half an hour, and then we'll let you stretch your legs for a few minutes. At 1 p.m., we have Alexander McGilveray from Twitter, who is a general counsel. And I'm really pleased we have Professor Robert Barrett, who is also a past president of the American Association of Law Libraries and the author of one of the definitive treatises on legal research, former librarian at Bolt. And they're going to be talking about what lawyers need to access when they access the law. And then finally, we're going to have a discussion of privacy and the law. And this is a topic that is a very difficult one and one that we really have to deal with as a society. We can't simply say we're going to make the price so high that this material won't be available because, as we know, identities do have credit cards. And it's an issue we need to deal with. And I'm really pleased we've got Chris Hofmeier from the University of California at Berkeley and Peter Wynn from the Department of Justice. They're two of the leading researchers when it comes to privacy and the courts. And so I'm very pleased that they're here to talk about this. And then we have a half hour at the end of the day for a general discussion. And that's pretty much what we're going to do. Feel free to talk. I'm going to ask each of our speakers to speak for 10 minutes and then there's time for a more general discussion as well.


Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Is everyone ready? Thank you. The Queensland Police Service has closed its investigation into the murder of Leanne Holland following a review of the case that supported the initial case against Mr Graham Stafford. The review, which was announced in May 2010, was undertaken by some of the Queensland Police Service's most experienced detective and was overviewed by an experienced detective from New South Wales Police and the Crime and Misconduct Commission. A number of new pieces of forensic and other evidence were identified during the review, and these were strongly consistent with the initial police case. The investigation was extensive and far-reaching, including addressing the issues raised in a book written about the case by Mr Graham Crowley. The Queensland Police Service referred the findings of the review to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who, in March 2010, had decided that, although a jury could convict Mr Graham Stafford of the murder, it was not in the public interest to prosecute a new trial for reasons, including the fact that Mr Stafford had served his sentence and nearly 20 years had passed since the offense occurred, and that had adversely affected some of the evidence. The DPP has considered all of the material and the Queensland Police Service respects his decision that there is no public interest in now retrying the case. The Queensland Police Service is confident that unless new admissible evidence comes to light in the future, that the investigation into this matter is finalised and there are no additional persons of interest. Thank you. We're prepared to take your questions. I think it tried to say that our review and our reinvestigation of this matter, the fact that it was peer-reviewed by experts from other areas, resulted in the Queensland Police Service going back to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution and recommending that there would be a retrial. The Director has made his decision, and we respect that decision. Can we elaborate? I might hand that question to Assistant Commissioner Connell. What we can say that the investigation was thorough and peer-reviewed by two very experienced people involved in both investigations and law. As a result of that investigation and a review report, we were satisfied that the new evidence was consistent with the majority view of the criminal court of appeal, and we recommended to the DPP that Mr Stafford be retried for the murder of Lee Ann Hollins. As the Commissioner has indicated, the Director of Public Prosecutions has made a decision that's not the best interest to see that. Is that new evidence found or old evidence retested? There was a number of new witnesses. Located and identified, and there was also new pieces of evidence, which I suppose could best be described as using modern technology. But it's not appropriate that I go into those sorts of details. At the end of the day, we put a report forward to the DPP and they've made a decision in relation to whether or not to prosecute or not. That's an issue that I am still considering as Commissioner. There are a number of factors that I need to consider, particularly in relation to some of the new evidence and the new witnesses that were located. I can't give you an answer right at this point in time. That occurred late last week. I might hand that back to Mr Connan or to Mr Barnett. Thank you. The officers that we assigned to this case were some of our most experienced and most professional. They've done an outstanding job over the last two years. At the time that this investigation commenced, I gave them a completely free reign to take as long as required to get this job done, to run out every possible avenue of investigation, just to take a Greenfields approach start from the start, make no assumptions about who may or may not be responsible. They've done an outstanding job. It's not the quality of their work that is being judged far from it. I think the evidence that has been reviewed and uncovered shows that we've had a quality group of people on this job and no one could have expected any better from the work that they have put in. And that has been the overwhelming view of the Detective Inspector from New South Wales Homicide and the CMC who have overviewed this every step of the way and have fully agreed with the recommendations and conclusions of the investigation team. Certainly our response after the review was undertaken by our people and the peer review was to recommend that staff would be retried. That is not the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions, but we respect that decision based on the reasoning that he's provided. I'm sorry, what was that question? Yes, the investigator in charge of the review team has spoken to the Holland family today. Obviously disappointed, but they've indicated that they respect the views of the Director of Public Prosecutions. We have advised Mr Stafford's solicitor. That was some time ago. I would say approximately several months ago. I don't have the exact date. So, do you think there are several months to come to this conclusion? Absolutely. Mr Stafford was tried originally, found guilty and did a significant term of imprisonment. He was released by the Court of Appeal, but that was the decision of the Court of Appeal. The majority view was that a properly instructed jury could again convict Graham Stafford for the land hollered murder. We have no different view to the Court of Appeal, but we also accept the decision made by the Director of Public Prosecution that it is not in the public interest now to retry Mr Stafford. All I'll say is that the DPP provided us advice that he was confirming his decision in the public interest, not to retry Mr Stafford. It's my understanding that Mr Stafford is in a situation where he has never been found not guilty. The Court of Appeal said, in a majority view, that a properly instructed jury could again convict Graham Stafford for the murder of Leanne Holland. As I've said to you today, we have no different view from that. I'm sorry, is there a cloud still over? I think that's a matter for you and the public to decide. We cannot speak for what Mr Stafford may or may not do at this point. No, I'm saying that I can't talk and the Queensland Police Service cannot talk for what Mr Stafford may or may not choose to do from this point. There is no conviction recorded, but he has not been found not guilty. As I said, our job is to put the case, the best case possible before the proper authorities. We certainly did that initially. And I believe that the review that was undertaken by as Deputy Barnett quite rightly said, some of the most competent and dedicated detectives in the state, the recommendation from that review was that Graham Stafford be retried. We have certainly never identified any other person of interest in this matter. I can confidently say there was not a scintilla of evidence that identifies any other person involved in this investigation. I can confidently say there was not a scintilla of evidence identified during the review that implicates any person identified in any information that's been since the review. Unlit, the Director of Public Prosecutions has made his decision based on the public interest test. You may be aware that we operate on a two-part test when we put anyone before court or arrest that person. One is the sufficiency of evidence test. The second is the public interest test. That applies to us just as strongly as it applies to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Our recommendation on the former, so the sufficiency of the evidence, was to retry Mr. Stafford. On the second matter, certainly the Director has decided not to take the matter further based on the public interest test. We placed the matter with the recommendation to the Director who has the final say, and this is, as Deputy Barnett would explain to you, this is something that happens almost on a daily basis. I think that's probably a question best placed, Mr. Stafford. Yes, and that's what I said earlier. I think that's probably best asked of the DPP because the DPP has considered all of the factors that are inherent in taking this matter back to a retrial. Just the fact... Very interesting question, and perhaps that's something that the community can best judge rather than me. ...whereby people sense that they can go to the courts. What does it show? Um, on two points that you've just raised, I think we have one of the best justice systems in the world, let alone Australia. On the second issue, people can proclaim lots of things the justice system is designed to test that. I think this matter has been tested as far as it ever will be, and that's why we have closed our investigation. All I can say is that we are bound by the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions. He has made his decision, we respect that decision. The matter is closed as far as the Queensland Police are concerned. Is there anything... Oh, sorry. Could I just say, just in terms of the passage of time, could I just make the point that two years of that time has been spent by us in a thorough, exhaustive, professional and impartial re-investigation? Leigh-Anne Hollands and her family deserve nothing less, and we don't make any apology for the time we've taken to come to this point. Is there anything stopping a change of part by the DPP later on that maybe they made? I think that's something you should take up with the DPP. That's a matter of conjecture. I think the officers understand that the decision that the Director makes is entirely independent and it's not a collaborative decision, and it's not a reflection in any way on their work. Certainly, for part of the review, re-investigated the initial crime scene that's been well documented. Thanks, ladies and gentlemen. Appreciate your time today.


What's up guys and welcome back to the Johnny Q Channel. In this video I'm running over my new rifle that was sent to me by Davidson Defense. This is called the Journeyman and I've been shooting it out here for the last couple hours and I want to say man this might be one of the best budget rifles out there and when I say budget I mean this normally cost $900 in that ballpark area it's currently on sale right now on the website for about 540 bucks. It's currently sold out and there's a wait list and to be quite honest guys it's not a budget rifle and just so you guys know they sent me this stock the you know the optic the magazine the angled foregrip that's mine these are mine as well the rail covers but everything else is stock so let's go and run through this really quick let's start with the stock the stock is an adaptive tactical AR-15 EX performance adjustable stock the sling loops are molded into the stock so rusting won't occur there are also QT mounts with an oversized high strength adjustable pin the non-slip vented rubber butt pad provides extra grip and helps reduce recoil I'm a big fan of this rubber pad for many reasons just because it does stick you know a little bit better than normal stocks would on my clothing so for that I like it and whenever I go to present from low ready I can drive it into my shoulder and it's not gonna hurt if I'm at a high ready same thing low ready just drive it into that shoulder and it's not gonna hurt because of the vented butt pad and then we have the davidson defense AR-15 custom engraved strips lower receiver forged from 7075 T6 aircraft aluminum it exhibits high strength toughness and good resistance to fatigue and stress finish is a type 3 hard coat anodized which provides an exceptionally hard and durable coating that helps in providing unbeatable corrosion and abrasion protection the rail here is an M lock system it's davidson defense's black diamond series executive 15 inch M lock slant pro hand guard the hand guard is crafted from 6061 T6 aluminum which is strong and durable the matte black anodized finish makes this hand guard resistant to corrosion and increases the hand guards overall strength and the upper receiver is made from 6061 T6 aluminum which makes it incredibly strong and corrosion resistant the anodized finish increases the strength of the aluminum making it less susceptible to wear and tear it has a sleek standard mill spec designed with a 1913 picatinny rail this upper receiver has a standard ejection door and no forward assist the classic upper receiver will do its job and do it well honestly that's one of the reasons why I love this rifle it has no forward assist like there should be there's no reason to have forward assist on air rifles anymore okay it to me if you got a malfunction just clear it get back in the game right reload but overall this upper I love it for that I really do flight weight durable made from great aluminum I mean just just amazing then we have this little guy right here the flash hider flash hiders for those of you who don't know our central and position concealment and keeping your vision clear especially in low light situations it has a one half by 28 thread pitch and a manganese phosphate finish to protect it from corrosion the a2 flash hider is a classic because it simply does a great job and up next we have the bolt carrier group up here solid strong durable the 556 nato slab slide complete bolt carrier group has a simple classic design it is machined for a 9310 steel which means this bolt carrier group is tough and durable the nitride finish helps make it resistant to corrosion and increases its strength it has been MPI and HPT tested to ensure its quality all these characteristics make this a high quality durable bolt carrier group so there you guys go just a quick rundown of the new journeyman by davidton defense so what do you guys think is it a budget gun are you gonna get it do you think it's worth it let me know down in the comments below and let me know what else you want to see on this rifle as always guys thanks for watching please make sure to like and subscribe to the channel and i'll catch you in the next johnny q video peace