The next item of business is consideration of business motion 10948, in the name of George Adam, on behalf of Parliamentary Bureau, on changes to the business programme. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press their request to speak button now. I call on George Adam to move the motion. Thank you as always, Presiding Officer. I'm moved. Thank you minister. No member has asked to speak against the motion, therefore the question is that motion 10948 be agreed. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed. The next item of business is topical questions, and at question number one I call Audrey Nicholl. Thank you Presiding Officer. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the impact of Storm Babette on communities in Aberdeenshire, Angus, T-Side and Perthshire. Cabinet Secretary, Angela Constance. Firstly Presiding Officer, our thoughts and condolences are with those who have lost a loved one, and of course those individuals and communities across Scotland who have faced significant impacts as a consequence of Storm Babette. As the First Minister said when he saw the impact in Brican first hand yesterday, there will be a long road to recovery, but the Scottish Government will support the affected areas. As we move into the recovery phase, the process of assessing the full amount of damage caused in all areas affected by the storm is now under way. These recent events are a stark reminder that climate change is not a far off threat, it is a crisis that is here and now, and I wish to also place on record our grateful thanks to emergency services, responders and volunteers for working in extremely difficult conditions. I thank the cabinet secretary for her response and I too commend all the local responders and communities who worked tirelessly before and during Storm Babette, and I extend my deepest sympathies to the families of those lost during the storm. Recent extreme weather events have severely impacted the north-east, and I now have constituents who have incurred significant financial and emotional costs arising from the devastation of replete flooding exacerbated by failing nearby water infrastructure. As regional resilience partnerships continue to develop the organisational response to specific events, what steps are the Scottish Government taking to assist householders, cope with increased flood risk and become resilient to future flooding events? The Scottish Government is working closely with responsible authorities to help communities to recover from these catastrophic floods and build resilience to future flooding. The Scottish Flood Forum, funded by the Scottish Government, provides advice and information to individuals to help to prepare and protect their homes from flooding. It also provides support and advice in the aftermath of flood events on insurance, drying out properties and carrying out repairs. The Scottish Government has also made available £42 million per year to local authorities to invest in flood risk management actions, with an additional £150 million committed over this Parliament. To build community resilience to future flooding events, we are developing Scotland's first flood resilience strategy, which will engage a broad range of partners to deliver more diverse flood management actions faster. I thank the cabinet secretary for her response. Just yesterday, Aberdeenshire council highlighted the sudden dropping temperatures and the on-going impact of storm bebet on its 3,500-mile road network, harbours and other services. Although we are no longer strangers to severe weather, what action the Scottish Government is taking to ensure that the public is adequately informed and prepared for adverse weather, especially as we move towards the winter months? Traffic Scotland provides travel information on real-time conditions to road users on multiple technological platforms, including the Traffic Scotland website, which receives hundreds of thousands of views during storm bebet. Radio is a source of information and social media platforms. The Scottish Government's Ready Scotland channels routinely share information and advice for the general public to support them in preparing for severe weather. We also run a year-round severe weather campaign and provide social media toolkits to key partners to support them in communicating about those issues with their local audiences. During severe weather warnings, we also activate a proactive market campaign that shares Ready Scotland content in the area affected through digital and radio advertising. Cabinet secretary, with lives tragically lost, homes destroyed and livelihoods in jeopardy, communities in Angus do not want warm words. They want reassurances that Angus Council will have the funds it needs to support people who have lost everything, to shore up the flood defence scheme and expedite urgent structural repairs. This is the Scottish Government's responsibility. When will this money that you mentioned be coming? Let me reassure Ms White that we are focused on action, particularly now that we move from the emergency response stage to that crucial recovery stage. She would have heard yesterday, as would the constituents in the Angus area and elsewhere, that we are absolutely committed to practically and financially supporting that recovery. I can confirm to chamber that three local authorities have notified the Scottish Government of potential claims relating to Storm Babette. Obviously, all of these local areas are currently in the throes of assessing the extent of the damage and what is required. Let me reassure the member that there will indeed be extensive and intensive discussions between the Scottish Government and our partners at a local level. In June, the cabinet secretary for net zero told me that she had, and I quote, absolute confidence in the river basin management plans. We have just witnessed how severe weather caused rivers in the north-east to burst their banks over well-flood devences and leave communities devastated. Yes, that was an extreme weather event, but our plans must be up to those challenges, too. Will the cabinet secretary now agree to review those plans? I will obviously engage with my cabinet secretary colleague who is responsible for the net zero and indeed the implementation of the river basin management plan. It is important to recognise the scale and the exceptional nature of events. We have had two storms within two weeks, within two days we had two months rainfall, and we would all concur with the importance of plans, whether it is the river basin management plans or, indeed, those engineering works, but we are also bearing the challenges that we face as a consequence of climate change. We have to acknowledge that, even with the very best flood prevention schemes, for example, we will not be able to provide 100 per cent protection, 100 per cent of the time and, therefore, there are other aspects to a plan that we all share on a collaborative basis. While there is an importance around the river basin management plan and the engineering works that Ms White spoke to and testified to, it is important to recognise that, although flood prevention schemes can help to prevent and they often do work, they have worked most recently in Breakin in November, but they can also help to delay the impact and buy valuable time to help to evacuate householders. The point that Mr Golden is making is that there does indeed need to be a cross-community and cross-government plan that is, indeed, constantly reviewed. John Swinney. I wonder if the cabinet secretary would agree with me that, in the light of the severity of the extreme nature of the events that we have witnessed in the past three weeks, that the imperative of intensifying our measures to tackle climate change is one of the key lessons that must be learnt from those experiences and that there is absolutely no space in our political discourse for any fruit-dragging on the measures that are necessary to tackle climate change in our society today. I think that that is a profound and fundamental point. There is no room in this chamber or elsewhere for those who seek to deny either the existence or the impact of climate change. We are all living in the front line of climate change and, while, of course, we must be focused on the resilience response when events happen, those investments in engineering projects and also the plans, whether that is the river basin plan or other plans, but, ultimately, the bigger task is for us all to work together to slow down climate change. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the statement issued by COSLA that the handling of the recent announcement about the council tax freeze undermined the spirit and the letter of the Verity House agreement. Cabinet Secretary, Shona Robison. The fully funded council tax freeze announced by the First Minister last week will protect over 2.5 million households during a time of economic uncertainty and rising prices. The First Minister and I acknowledge the concerns raised by COSLA and some council leaders and we remain fully committed to the Verity House agreement and to working in partnership with local government to demonstrate that commitment. The council tax freeze will, of course, as I said, be fully funded, ensuring that councils can maintain the services upon which we all rely whilst protecting households from increasing burdens. Can I ask the cabinet secretary to confirm exactly how much the council tax freeze will cost and where the money is coming from? When I met the COSLA presidential team, we agreed and I offered for that process to be a negotiation with COSLA, and that negotiation will take place to ensure that the council tax freeze is fully funded. Of course, that figure will be part of the budget process for £24.25, and it is important that it is a negotiation. That is something that we believe is important. What I want to hear from the Opposition is perhaps less about the process and more about the principle of whether they support the council tax freeze or not. We will see during the budget process whether they do or not. One extraordinary answer. Anyway, cabinet secretary, at the finance committee on the 3 October you claimed in answers to questions from myself and Michelle Thomson that, I quote, giving more flexibility to councils was a significant part of the Verity House agreement. Freezing council tax has just removed that flexibility, so can I ask the cabinet secretary directly, was she aware when she gave evidence to the committee that the First Minister was going to announce the freeze on 17 October, and if not, when did she become aware of the policy announcement? First of all, we have given local authorities more flexibility. Of course, the second homes and empty homes premiums that will be able to be applied are also part of giving local authorities more flexibility, and we are keen to discuss with local authorities what more flexibility can be given. In terms of the process that Liz Smith clearly wants to remain talking about, we requested and received advice from officials on the concept of the council tax freeze and gave that advice full consideration. On balance, we made the decision to freeze the council tax, taking into account the impact of sustained inflation caused by, of course, the Tory Government economic policy on households in Scotland. I acknowledge the concerns expressed by local government about the manner of that announcement about the substance, but we believe that it is the right thing to do to help over 2.5 million households at these difficult times. The First Minister announced a freeze to council tax without consulting local authorities or indeed his own cabinet. Council tax is clearly a regressive tax, and in the past, the Scottish Government has spoken about a cross-party working group to look at alternatives, but that group has never been convened. What work is the Scottish Government doing to look at a replacement to council tax or indeed alternative funding streams for local government? Well, it is a strange line of question from Katie Clark, given that the Labour Party spent the whole of the rather glimbi election talking about council tax rises, so I would have thought that they would support a council tax for me, given what they said to voters during that by-election. In terms of Katie Clark's question about process, last year, Scottish ministers convened the joint working group on sources of local government funding and council tax reform. The group is co-chaired by Scottish ministers and COSLA. Scottish ministers remain committed to exploring proposals for meaningful changes to be introduced to the council tax in partnership with local government, and, of course, we understand the need for further in-depth reform of the council tax, which is what the First Minister said in his speech, that this was an important context. We understand the regressive nature of the council tax, so we do want to reform it. In the meantime, we want to make important changes, such as the premium on empty properties and on second homes. Marie McNair is tackling poverty and relieving the effects of rising costs on household finances. Can the cabinet secretary confirm that the council tax trees will be implemented in a way that honours this fair to house mission and assist Scottish local government in combating the UK cost of living crisis? We will, as I said earlier to Marie McNair, confirm that we will take this forward in partnership with COSLA in terms of a negotiation. It is important to recognise the impact of the measure and the positive impact on 2.5 million households at a time of cost of living crisis. That is a measure that we believe is the right measure and will take it forward in a fully funded way with local government, and that will be part of the budget process for <IP_ADDRESS>. Thank you. With the First Minister's unilateral decision to freeze council tax, the Verity house agreement has gone the way of the historic Concordat. Fergus Ewing has said that he wishes granted in the shredding of the Bute house agreement. Civil servants have been circumvented, cabinet government have been abandoned. Does the cabinet secretary believe that the First Minister was right to channel his inner list trust over council tax? That is a decision that will help 2.5 million households, including those in the member's constituency. I would have thought in the midst of a cost of living crisis that that would have been something that he would have supported. Lower income households spend a greater proportion of their income on bills, including on the council tax. What we have heard here is the sound and fury of the Opposition about the process. What we have not heard from any one of them is whether or not they will support the council tax freeze as part of the budget for <IP_ADDRESS>. I think that that is what the public want to hear the Opposition telling us. Question 3, Pam Duncan-Glanty. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the recently announced centre for teaching excellence. Cabinet secretary, Jenny Gilruth. The Scottish Government's national mission to close the poverty-related attainment gap will be supported by the establishment of a centre for teaching excellence. The centre will be progressed as part of the education reform programme. I will provide an update to Parliament on that work later this year. I am committed to co-designing the centre with teachers and practitioners, professional associations, local government and our national education bodies. To that end, my officials are engaging with the council of deans and the general teaching council for Scotland. I will be meeting with trade unions following topical questions today. I would like to offer the opportunity to meet Pam Duncan-Glanty, to hear her thoughts on the centre for teaching excellence and in that spirit, I will be extending an invitation to meet with all Opposition party spokespeople ahead of my update on education reform to Parliament later this year. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. The cabinet secretary will be aware that I have written to the Presiding Officer on this matter to highlight that this policy announcement was made to the public via the cabinet secretary's speech to SNP conference and not to Parliament via any of the methods available. It is a significant announcement that potentially impacts all of Scotland's teachers, pupils, faculties of education, the general teaching council for Scotland, COSLA and multiple trade unions. Can the cabinet secretary confirm which organisations or individuals were informed of the plan ahead of the announcement at the SNP conference? I thank the member for her question. I hope that she took from my initial response my eagerness to work with members of the Opposition across the chamber, I have to say on this. This is about establishing a centre to help support teaching excellence in our school, and my view as a former teacher is that the most powerful weapon that you can use to close the poverty-related attainment gap is through quality learning and teaching, and that is exactly the purpose behind this centre. I hope that she very much supports that sentiment. I have just set out my intention not just to engage with teachers and professional associations as we develop plans for the centre itself, but that the centre will be specifically co-designed with the teaching profession. I think that working with our teachers is going to be vital in ensuring that the centre operates to its full potential. My vision for the centre is one that brings around the expertise of our teachers, working in our classrooms, the world-leading academics that we have in our universities and our professional organisations to consider how we can ensure that we remain at the cutting edge of new teaching practices. That is just my view. I am looking forward to engaging with the sector on those plans and hearing what our teaching profession think as we work together to ensure the best possible outcomes for children and young people. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer and I am disappointed that she was not able to say who she spoke to before making the announcement. Education in Scotland is in a dire state. The tertiary sector has faced unprecedented cuts and the Government is failing to deliver on promises that it has already made for schools, free school meals, reduced class sizes and teacher non-contact time to name a few. We know that the education budget is stretched both centrally and in local authorities. Can the cabinet secretary confirm whether the centre for teaching excellence will replace an existing organisation or become an additional body and can she set out how much the Government expects to spend on creating and running the new body? Oh well, doom and gloom from the Labour Party, I have to say. That was a pretty dismal question from Ms Duncan Glancy. Let's look at where we are in Scotland at the current time, Presiding Officer. We have the best pupil teacher ratio in the UK, the highest-paid teachers in the UK and the highest spend per pupil. I thought that something that the Labour Party would welcome in relation to our significant investment in Scotland's education system. I am very conscious, Presiding Officer, that we have a generation of teachers who have learned how to become a teacher during the pandemic. The purpose of the centre is to help support their professionals and to help to support their development in relation to quality learning and teaching. I hope that something that the Labour Party, Ms Duncan Glancy, will learn to support themselves and I look forward to working with them together so that we can help to improve the outcomes for our young people. That has to be at the centre and at the heart, certainly, of our reforms in relation to education in Scotland. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I ask the cabinet secretary how the Government will ensure that the world-leading expertise of Scotland's academic community will inform the work of the centre of teaching excellence? I think that, as I intimated in my initial response, my officials are currently engaging with directly teachers and, of course, the wider profession, local government and national education bodies. We will also draw on the expertise of local government and our national education bodies additionally, as well as from the university sector in establishing the centre, as the member alludes to. The expertise of our universities will really be invaluable as we shape the centre, in particular. We want to learn from the success, for example, of the programme such as into headship, which has been a hugely successful programme. The new centre will ensure that research and evidence is also distilled into practical and digestible support for all teachers, no matter at their career stage. Given that numerous education reports have raised concerns regarding duplication in government bodies and the need for efficient spending, what is the expected cost of creating the centre? From where in the education budget will that be drawn and what will the relationship to education Scotland be? As I set out plans for the centre, we will be co-designed with our teachers and professional associations, which I think is crucial in ensuring that it meets its full potential. To the member's point that there is no duplication within the system, clearly the outcome of that engagement with the sector is going to impact on the precise form that the centre will take, how it will operate, when it will be operational, what its scope will be and ultimately how much it will cost. I hope that there is consensual support for the premise behind the establishment of the centre that we help to support our teaching profession with quality, learning and teaching in our classrooms, which I hope the member will agree is absolutely crucial in relation to closing the poverty-related attainment gap.


Today we have reported the results of a survey, an online survey of Italian youth between 16 and 35 conducted in the month of May of this year. This report leads to four main results. The first is that there is no Italian way to food choice and food habits. Italian youth is divided, is diversified in the way they choose and the criteria according to which they choose the food they consume. Some people is more alerted, is aware of the quality of the products and they are ready to spend more in order to get these products.  The second result of our survey is that there is no much knowledge about the common agricultural policy that is one of the major pillars of the European Union. And these is true across level of education and when asked what the common agricultural policy should do they ask for more jobs and better opportunities for working. The third result we have is that the major sources of information about food habits and food consumptions are the family on the one hand and the family doctors, family physicians on the other. TV, social media, internet and magazines are by far less trusted than these two sources. The fourth result has to do with the conspiracy attitudes that pervades our societies. In general, the majority of Italian youth think that the pharmaceuticals and food producers are jointly unified against the consumers. They do not take their health into account and they basically are run only by business considerations. This is a problem and what we explore in this survey is to see to what extent scientific arguments can move people in one way or the other. And the results are disappointing. Scientific authorities and scientific arguments apparently do not move people from their entrenched beliefs.


The reactions are beginning to trail the margins of Ashwajibola Tenobu as the APC presidential candidate. Legu state PDP flag bearer Ola Dibukwo adibutu says that Ashwajibola Tenobu is not a threat whatsoever. Why should that be a burden to us? It is not a burden to us. This is national politics and after a while those results will come and those results will go. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


James did you feel a lot better on the mound this afternoon? Yeah, I felt like I found some rhythm And was able to execute pitches better today Aaron spoke about your slider to right-handed batters in particular How much did that help in your effectiveness? Yeah, it was a good two-strike pitch for me today even before two strikes. I got some swings and misses on it It was feeling a lot better today about getting in rhythm. What allowed you to get in that rhythm? I was just working on some mechanical stuff this week and you know, I was able to go out there and execute that and kind of find my comfortable spot in the mound and Just got some after probably the third inning. I felt like I really found my rhythm out there. So it was good Boone did say he felt like you got stronger as the game went on. Did you feel as though that was the case? Yeah, I was kind of trying to find it early, you know, like I said with that rhythm But then once I found that I just got better and better with it as the game went on Even after your last couple of starts that weren't very good said he felt you were close Did you feel as close as he thought you were? Yeah, I mean, I knew I was gonna figure it out You know, there was a bit of a rust stretch for me today was definitely a step in the right direction As far as figuring some things out for me So I'll just look to keep that going in the next one When they put the big five spot up and give you a little room to work with there Yeah, it was awesome, you know offense did great today They were they did well last night, too It was really good to have two days in a row of scoring some runs


The snow is gone, temperatures are heating up and school will be out of session before you know it. Fortunately, Morale Welfare and Recreation or MWR has many programs that will keep your children busy throughout the summer. In fact, there are over 200 MWR facilities across the globe and each one is dedicated to service members and their families. MWR services span from baseball camps to arts and crafts days and provide high quality educational and recreational programs for children ages 6 to 18 years of age. The goal of Navy Child and Youth Programs is to provide developmental child care and youth recreational programs and services for eligible children. For more information about youth programs in your area, contact your local MWR.


TfNN, headline, News Update. Hi everyone, Basel Chapman here on this Wednesday, the 9th of March, we're looking at the S&P up 100 at 40267. What I want you to show is the height that was made about 24 hours ago, a little less than that. Yesterday, at the, right about the 4265 level, plunged down to the 4140s and then it's had this move and I love this when you've got a huge rectangle formation with a trend line. You see this green dash trend line going back towards that top and you see a stair step move with higher highs and higher lows continuing and right now we're at 4268, 4268, we were at 4275 at 120 Eastern Time yesterday. So this is really a superb move and it has to be sustained. So this is the moment that you start to say, all right, can this be sustained into the afternoon? If it can, you want to see the VIX which is at 3215, actually pull back into the 31s and a good strong triple digit move to the upside continues in the down. This candle is so important. You want to see it take out the 90 and moving average resistance and then test the 14 by Thursday or Friday at 32615 to say it's not just a relief rally, it's a rally that could have a little bit more momentum into Friday over the weekend and maybe the weekend bad news comes about, who knows? But in the meantime, you want to see the condition, the oversold condition working its way up and all we're looking at is the S&P is up almost 102, 4269. This one needs 4288 and then 4316 as levels on the next couple of days to can't pull back. It just has to keep going. Q, Q, Q123, Q, Q, Q, Q, a nice session today. Not good enough. Q, Q129 at 333, you want to see it up at about the 336 to 338 level and that one has to be by Thursday, not even Friday but really quickly, IWM also very nice today, up 5.5 at 200. Gold is the issue. Look, gold is pulling back some, it's pulling back $44 at 1998. The VIX index, the VIX is pulling back, that's Dolly Vixie Bondi. So we've got, that's the VIX index of 3218. You want to see it come down to 31s later today and you want to see, look, the dollar is pulling back a little bit here as well and Dolly Bondi and Goldi and Vixie, oh, an oil, look at the oil. Oil is pulling back as well. Oil is down $6 at 5.5 at 118. You want to see all of these commodities pull back as the market holds. The gate is young. Let's see what happens. Holding tight. See you with Larry in a moment.


Hello, my name's Sue Blackett, I lecture in postgraduate accounting subjects at the Henley Business School at the University of Reading. I taught the students to describe in the poster for the last academic year. Hello, my name's Vicky Collins and I'm a lecturer in English for academic purposes at the University of Reading and my role in teaching this cohort is as convener for a module in discipline specific academic writing and I liaise closely with Sue to determine the students language and literacy needs. Hence this is a multi-disciplinary perspective. So in outlining the challenges overall we identified three main challenges. The first was a threshold level of language proficiency, the second adaptation to new subject content and the third was being remote from the university and from the UK. All three of these factors contributed to students constructing fragile digital information ecologies, a term first coined by Nadi and Odeh in 1999. Through observations, practice and virtual learning environment data analytics we sought to understand the information seeking and use behaviours of this cohort of international students. We sought to mediate this in three key areas shown on our poster. Institutional guidelines on preparing and delivering online content were provided however these are not always conducive to the reality of the needs of this cohort nor in reducing their cognitive load. So we focused on what we've termed the three C's and this is a summary of strategies and tools used across the three modules which we taught. Not all of these were used simultaneously otherwise this would have exacerbated cognitive load rather than reduce it but we'll talk through each of these in turn. So to begin with compartmentalisation I have learnt that without the physical classroom and learning artefacts students had trouble differentiating modules and tutors online so I incorporated consistent but mindful use of visually stimulating module branded learning maps overlays and virtual study scenes to create a cognitive link to the module. Without two screens unlike most lecturers the students found the manipulation of multiple documents challenging and this is where I integrated short interactive tasks created with Zertie which students could access and complete on their mobile phones whilst they were following main content on their big screens and these short tasks helped to break up larger monologue style lecture content. In terms of comprehension I decided to use Microsoft Forms quizzes and embed them into the timelines of Microsoft Stream videos for two reasons. The first was to change the pace and to break down recorded lecture content into more manageable pieces and students had the opportunity to get their own formative feedback to assess how well they had understood the module materials. In addition I could use the Microsoft Forms to concept check student understanding by reviewing the forms analytics data and adjust content and delivery and response. What I actually found through the process was that because the language used and the module was very disciplined specific students were mostly translating back to their native languages and the process of translations may have caused significant loss of contextual meaning this inadvertently and unintentionally increased the cognitive overload. In terms of communication in the academic writing classes students collaborated on live shared documents the level of written participation exceeded that of their spoken participation proving that students were not passively consuming information. The shared documents also helped to create a class record of responses which I contributed to and facilitated in real time. Like Vicky I also found that students were generally nervous around online oral communication in English feeling uncomfortable or sometimes put on the spot is speaking in small groups or to a lecturer. Student webcams are all switched off as students prefer to use the types check function in Blackboard Collaborate. Like Vicky I also made use of mobile devices and these were used to communicate and collect typed information which illustrated individual and group learning through the Vvox app. This served to decrease cognitive load and increase student participation in activities. Finally Vvox demonstrated how educational technology can be used to overcome student discomfort associated with communicating or really online in a second language. We hope you have found our presentation informative and look forward to receiving your comments and questions. Please scan the QR code for further information. Thank you.


What's the word y'all? The Phoenix Suns are on a seven game win streak and Devin Booker is playing a different brand of basketball and I love it. Now I know if you keep up with the NBA, you saw this shot on Twitter because this is one of the toughest game winners that you'll see all season long. Book was in his own bag and that was after him struggling to score in the first bit of this game. But I just want to break this down just a little bit, right? So he gets a full shot like basically he waits until 10 to go. Now based on what I know about Tom Thibodeau after watching him coach my favorite team before and based on the people that are on this team, I'm assuming that Tom Thibodeau is saying, hey, when he starts to move, he'll show a double, deny, deny, deny, we'll let Yuta, Jordan, Yusuf or Eric, anybody else take the shot. We do not want Devin Booker to have this ball. And when Booker starts to go with 10 seconds to go, he does give it up to Jordan. He maybe quickly goes back to rotate against Eric Gordon. But this is the moment that confused me. Why is RJ not completely denying the ball? Like I'm not saying this is RJ Beards fault, but I'm just confused on like the game plan is to get the ball out of Devin Booker's hand. You did that successfully. Now prevent him from getting it back. We get an easy dribble handoff between Jordan and Devin and the rest is history.  Like that is a crazy, crazy shot. Now I just spent 10 minutes trying to find the original tweeter of a tweet I saw this morning. So my apologies, I could not find it. But it had to do with Devin Booker in his pull-up jump shot that it has become an unblockable shot in the association. Kenny, what does that mean? The times that Devin Booker has taken a leaner in the league so far this year through his first nine games, he's been blocked on that leaner twice and both of them times came from a defender behind him. So when he is leaning and there's nobody behind him, this is a shot that he could get up over anybody. Devin Booker has been one of the best players in the association over the last couple of seasons. It was a four seasons, five seasons, whatever you want to call it, he's always been a bucket. But I've talked about this before that players have different evolutions of themselves in basketball. This is, Kenny beats from the nerd talk when we talk about like Pokemon and stuff, right? Like Squirtle goes from Squirtle to War Tortle to Blast Noise, right? Devin Booker is hit, I'm not even gonna say it's his last progression, his last evolution because he's still so very young but this version of book is my favorite version because boy, oh boy, what he is doing as the primary ball handler is something we've seen in moments, right? We've seen when Chris Paul has been out over the last couple of seasons where Devin has taken over as the lead ball handler. It looked very comfortable and very good doing it. But right now, this is, again, just a whole not the level. I remember in the off season when they were talking about after they pulled off the Bradley Bill trade and stuff, they were talking about the lead ball handler, the point guard position, and there was a report from Shams that basically said that the Phoenix Suns are preparing to have Bradley Bill as the point guard of this team. And that was confusing to me because I had seen both of these players basically try to play this role before and Booker has been the guy that has, I guess, been the most comfortable, looked the most normal while playing point guard. And now we're seeing that to the highest degree. In this game against the Knicks, it's not a game I watch live. The way I've been watching Hoops this season is I'll pick three to four games out every night if it's a long slate and focus on those games and every game that I miss I'll watch it next morning. Today was that next morning, right? So I rewatched this from the beginning and the amount of times that Devin Booker saw a double team today or I guess last night was insane. And he felt very comfortable in those scenarios where he ended the game with 11 assists and only two turnovers. And again, you saw on this very last possession they sent two bodies and it did not matter. And he's been able to hold down the fort while Bradley Bill is becoming healthy and while Kevin Arrant is becoming healthy and it hasn't really mattered too much that those guys haven't been there. Now Kevin did hold down the fort while Devin was gone and Bradley was gone. But for this team to be able to just hold the fort until it happens is ridiculous. And I think that that goes into like this off season, right?  Maybe there's some overlapping talents, whatever, whatever, but we know those top three dudes are incredible. What about the rest? And over the course of this win streak we're kind of seeing the rest say like, hey, do not forget about us. We know we're not Devin, Kevin or Brad, but we are viable NBA players. Eric Gordon has been the same player for a decade.  The man is as efficient and as good as he's really been. But what is worse, the grace analyst playing really good basketball hitting a ton of his shots. Yousef Nurkens is definitely hit or miss, but when he's hidden and he is effective he's looking good. And in there still experiments in quite a bit too. Yesterday we saw Chamezi Metz who really hit the rotation and hit some good shots. I think that Azir Little was a player that should be getting more PT as things start to come together. But the depth aspect of their team, that the biggest question mark through the first couple of weeks of the season or the first month of the season hasn't really been a question. When they made these trades with the Kevin trade and then the Bradley Bill trade, I immediately defaulted to this as a contender, but I need to see it on court. And I still feel that way, right? I still want to see everything happen together, but the more and more I watch this team, the more, I guess, confident I really feel in that. Because again, I was one of the guys that was the big question mark I had other than the depth is the overlapping skill sets, right? Brad, Devin and Kevin, though they're not the same player obviously, they do hold some overlapping stuff. But with Devin playmaking and feeling as comfortable as he does with the ball in his hands and Kevin playing some of his, but how is Kevin to right 35 is still doing what he's doing? I don't really know. So when Brad comes back and we got a small little sample serving of Brad and he let die in it, when Brad comes back, this team when those three are on the court is going to be virtually unguardable. Because I would argue when it's just Kevin and Devin do the few games they've played together, it's been virtually unstoppable. Like they had one of the games against Utah, they played two games against Utah in both of those games with bangers. One of those games when those two do share at the court together, it was like Will Hardy, who is now one of the better coaches in basketball, he didn't have an answer. Now he also doesn't have the personnel to really have an answer, but like that's a guy that over this, his first year as a head coach has shown us like he had no answer when those dudes were on the court together. And what do the numbers say when they're together, they have a net rating of a 10.78, only 159 minutes, but it's still pretty good. Now I don't want to give anybody else credit for the success of a singular player, but I can't help but watch the last couple of games of Devin Booker and see my favorite of all time, Chris Paul somewhere in there. Like again, Devin is a player by himself and I believe that no matter who Devin was around, we saw for the first couple years of his career, he was gonna be a successful player, whether you paired him up with a guy like Chris Paul or not. But the way he's methodically figured things out on the offensive side of the ball feels very Chris Paul like. I just cannot be more excited about the time when they finally get together because Devin Booker, if you look at his shooting splits over the course of his career, he's always been about a league average as far as percentage goes. Of course, he's always got a ton of three-pointers up, but he's never been a 40% three-pointer till this year, right now, five attempts per. Again, he's only played nine games. I don't think he's gonna shoot 43% from three, but oh my God, if he does, give him the MVP award right now. But one thing that has been consistent throughout the course of Devin Booker's career is that his catch and shoot three-part percentage has been 40 plus percent his entire career. So whether he is on the ball when Devin and Kevin and Brad come back or off the ball, he is going to be a lethal, lethal threat regardless because his catch and shoot numbers are 44% for an entire season, 42% on the entire season. Now, it's on low volume, right? Because he's always been a guy that's like, when I have the ball, I'm gonna do what I can do. But if we can get him to a play make the way he does when he has the ball and when he doesn't have the ball to catch his shoot more than the previous years, I don't know what the answer to that is. We just gotta get them all healthy at the same time, man. We just gotta get them all healthy at the same time. You may ask if our referee still got him as a shooting guard through the first nine games of the season. I think we can transition book to the one based on what we see. And we doing that, where does Devin Booker rank amongst point guards in ball? That is my question to you. This is what I'm looking for next when it comes to this trio is the rim pressure, the amount of shots we can get at the rim. And right now Booker is not getting to the rim of time. Kevin Arrant is getting to the rim, almost none. But Bradley Beale thought the course of his career has been a guy that got to the rim. 31% of the shots to be specific and that's in a 72% tile. So if we can add that version of Bradley Beale to this roster where you're getting rim pressure but also getting the mid-range jump shooting of Kevin and Devin and now the three point shooting of Kevin and Devin because even Devin Booker and Kevin Arrant, they're both having career efficiency numbers from three. Again, I just don't know what you do about this team. I'm also still thinking about the defense when you talk about long-term, Frank Vogel is a defensive minded coach by nature. So even though the pieces may not necessarily be there to be an above average or to be a great, let's say great defensive team, I'm very curious to see once he gets everything to gather how it's gonna look. As of right now on the season, they're 16th and over the last two weeks, they're seven game win streak. They're the 22 ranked defense, which is not great, but they have the number one ranked offense. So seven wins in a row, seven wins in a row. So there's still a lot of things that they're figuring out because they haven't been completely healthy. But either way, the Finnsons have been a great watch and Devin Booker's been great. Kevin Arrant has been great. We need Bradley Beale to get healthy.


In the same way that atoms can be excited by electrons being shifted to different orbits in higher energy states, the nucleus can have internal excitation energy by rearranging the internal motion of the protons and neutrons in the nucleus. When a nucleus de-excites from a higher lying state to a lower one, the energy lost can be released as a high energy photon. This process is a gamma decay, and the emitted photon is commonly referred to as a gamma ray. We have now looked at the most common decay processes. Let's consider how these decay processes appear on the chart of the nucleites. Remember that we depict all of the nuclei on the chart with their number of protons z on the y-axis and the number of neutrons n on the x-axis. The stable nuclei lie along the diagonal, with this line of stability bending over at the highest mass numbers. Beta decays occur along the lines of constant nucleon number that are at 45 degrees to both axes. Beta minus decays convert neutrons to protons along a chain heeding from the lower half of the chart back towards stability. Beta plus decays convert protons to neutrons and connect along a chain from the upper half of the chart back towards stability. Alpha decays tend to occur for heavy nuclei. This is because heavy nuclei have more protons, and they like to reduce the amount of positive charge in the nucleus to decrease the amount of cooler energy. Chains of alpha and beta decays can be possible depending on the energetics of the nuclei involved. If the nucleus is left in an excited state with internal excitation energy at any stage, it may also emit gamma rays. In general, an unstable nucleus will decay via these modes, emitting alpha, beta and gamma radiation, possibly through a whole chain of decays, before eventually ending up as a stable nucleus. Finally, we usually find that alpha decay is prevalent for heavy nuclei, while beta decay is prevalent for lighter nuclei.


Okay, so now I know more of less. Hey guys, I'm reviewing the Blair Witch here. I'm kind of on a little vacation now. Here go the background and this teeny little cup. But I had to spew spare hours, so I watched the Blair Witch. And there was two reasons why I wanted to see this. One is because I actually kind of respect the aspect of the original film because it came out in 1998 and that was the beginning, really kind of the beginning of all the handheld footage. And it was oddly enough that it was never really used again until the late 2000s with the Blair Witch Project movie, I'm sorry, with the Paranormal Activity movies. I'm a real big fan of the director of this film, Adam Wingard. He did The Guest, which I saw last year, which was a really cool film. He also did the Eyeball segment from Record 2. I also met him when he was filming the film in my hometown. And what was funny too is I'm pretty sure where they were filming was the Old Town Elementary School and that's where most of the film takes place. I believe they shot a lot of it, at least when they get to the house at one point. They definitely shot it in the school's gymnasium on the set or whatever they made. I don't know, maybe. So one thing I'll definitely admit is I was pretty spooked through this film. There's a trait that I do when I know that I feel that a jump scare is coming. I do this. I think my left hand was on my ear almost the entire movie. I don't know why I do it, I just do. Either way, it definitely was able to keep this tension. The beginning of the film is kind of standard. Ooh, documentary group, blah, blah, blah. Gotta go find my sister, blah, blah, blah.  The whole point is this one guy is looking for a sister and this girl wants to make a documentary on it. And then two expendable black people in the film will also go with him. So when they go out to the forest, everything's kind of okay and then we start to hear things and then the atmosphere starts to get scary. People start getting kind of disappearing. But the one thing that this film does, even though it does it better than the last one, it still does it, is you don't know what's going on, really. There's noises, there's stomping, all these sort of horror noises, but really we have the exact same vagueness from this film as we did with the original film, albeit a higher production value. So that part was cool, but at the same time it was a little bit nicked because I wanted to have more, a little bit more depth in this film than the last one. The last one had as little depth as it did because of the budget. That's when you had a little bit more. You could go into things more. And there was a few camera shots that I thought were going to be kind of interesting, but there were setups. There's just one camera that's watching the campsite for the night, and then they wake up and they see all these things all around the campsite, and I'm like, oh, I'd love to see what happened with the footage that they set up, and then conveniently the battery's gone. I'm like, okay, the Blair Witch is some evil spirit demon that's able to set up all these giant, these big wooden figures all around the campsite, but also have the ability to know to take out that battery of that Sony camcorder. However, now this is when I start to get a little bit nipped with this film, is the jump scares are absolutely everywhere in this film. At one point there's a jump scare where the guy opens up his tent, looks out, looks to the tent on the left is where this girl, the documentary girl's with him, she's supposed to be there, then he looks right, then he looks left again, and she's in front of him. So what did she do? She got out of her tent, went behind his tent while he was looking to the left, and then as he's looking to the right, she comes around him again. That doesn't make any sense. Why would she have done that? That jump scare was totally pointless. There's a few other jump scares that happen in this film that are purely for the sake of jump scares. The logic behind them is just so stupid, and that's the problem is this film starts off as something kind of intelligent, but then it starts to kind of dissuade into normal, very standard stuff. And that's the thing that I thought that was probably the biggest flaw of this film, is that it's standard. We've seen this before. The only thing that was really interesting was when the girl's going through the tunnel that scene is totally pointless, but it actually was a bit scary because of the whole costophobia thing. In the end, the Blair Witch is just something very standard. It has a really cool concept to it, but again, just like the last film, it doesn't really... It tries to speculate on a few different things. I'll admit the last five minutes was absolutely gut-wrenching. I thought that end sequence was really cool. Also, I thought there was a bit of smarts to it. If anyone notices, something that's shown at the very beginning of the film also reappears at the very end. If you notice that good on you, because I was like, oh, that's actually kind of an interesting aspect, but you're not going to talk about it at all, are you? No, you're not. So in the end, I'm going to give the Blair Witch a 4 out of 7. It's an interesting film, but it doesn't really capitalize on one it should have used. The atmosphere is really spooky. I'll give it that, but for a rewatchability sort of sake, it's got nothing, almost nothing to it, except for that one little thing. Anyway, guys, that's all from me. I hope to see you guys next time.


Yeah, look, I think every team is in the same boat, you know, the first game is important for us. The players are now realising that it's getting closer and they obviously watched a few games and they're getting pretty excited, you know, starting world is important and so we'll be looking forward to that. And I think the more we play, the better we'll get. You know, the time that we're playing at the moment in winter, so I think that's helping a lot of the players. You can see that the ball speeds a little bit quicker because of the dew on the pitch. I think that's helping a lot of the players in terms of their recovery and being able to play high tempo football when they need to. And I think the big thing is having five subs available to you does help the teams a lot so, you know, they'll need to be ready really, really quickly because there's a massive turnaround in games as you mentioned but everyone will need to be ready to execute the game.