Another group known as Nuddin Consensus Movement has called on President Bolo Tinibu to cede the position of Senate President to the North for equity, fairness and justice. The group took its rally to the Government House and Zonal Haqqutas of the all-progressive Congress APC in Kaduna, speaking during a one million man march organized in Kaduna State. The president of the group, Dr. Awal Aliou, premised the group's argument on the fact that the president amassed a total of 5.5 million votes from the North towards his electoral victory, making it justifiable that the number three position in the country should go to the North. We are demanding the president as those who voted for him, who worked tirelessly for him, who had sleepless nights for him, who did everything within the confines of the law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for him to be elected as the president. But it is only there, after giving him 5.5 million votes, that he shift the seat of the Senate President to the North. The seat of the President is in the South. The chief justice of the Federation is from the South. The position of the Senate President should come from the North. The group also urged the president to allow democracy to prevail on national assembly by allowing members of both chambers to choose whoever they prefer to lead them. So we are requesting President Bola Anet to shift the position of Senate President to the North. That is one. Two. After shifting it to the North, he should allow a level playing ground. The national assembly is the most democratic setting all over the world under a democratic dispensation. He should allow and also tell the party to allow democracy to prevail, just like democracy prevailed during the election of the President and that is why today he is the president. allow democracy to prevail, allow the National Assembly to decide who is their leader, not the party to its own leadership position, or the president to interfere in the position. We know he's a Democrat. We know him to be a Democrat. And the Democrat that he is, he knows what democracy is thought about. A game of number, and also it's a game of the people, for the people and by the people. And it can only be decided by the numbers. We have provided those numbers by giving mass support.


Good morning and welcome to Moments with Melinda. I am your host, Melinda Moulton. And today, my guest is Cammie Davis. How are you, my friend? I'm great. I'm loving watching the trees leaf out every moment, soaking it up. Today is the day, but we're gonna get into that because there's also probably a little bit of concern in your mind as well, which we're gonna talk about. But let me share with my viewers a little bit about your illustrious and amazing career. Cammie Davis has attended artist residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and BAM Center for the Arts in Alberta, Canada, and has exhibited throughout Vermont, New York, and San Diego. Her work is in private and public collections nationally. She is the recipient of the Lee Krasner Jackson Pollock Foundation Grant for painting, as well as grants from both the Argosy and Puffin Foundations for painting in collaboration with composer Sam Gwarnacha. Her paintings, installations, and community art projects have followed the climate change movement for the last decade. She is interested in the role, perception plays in understanding the human nature relationships and considers studio practice to be her fundamental means to navigate life in a warming world. Davis is a member of the International EcoArtNetwork.org and W-E-A-D, the Women Environmental Artist Directory. She is a senior lecturer in the Department of Art and Art History, and I believe also in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Vermont. Did I get that right? Almost, I am just as of Tuesday receiving my emeritus status. I have retired from teaching after 34 years with the Department of Art and Art History at UVM. And I'm thrilled to actually have emeritus status to continue relationships there. But yeah, I have moved away. I've been on sabbatical this last year. So a year ago, May was my last teaching, which is huge, huge transition. It is huge, but now you have this wonderful world to go out and do your great work. So let's, Kimmy, let's start at the beginning. I was born. Yeah, no, seriously, I always want my viewers to understand the people that I'm talking to. And as a friend, I would love it if you'd share with my viewers a little bit about growing up. Where did you grow up? It's also a little bit about your childhood. Oh, wow. I was born in, excuse me, I was born in Connecticut. And when I was five years old, I moved to Troy, New York. I was, my father had gone to RPI and had an opportunity to, he was an anesthesiologist and had an opportunity to return to his alma mater. And he was thrilled. My mother was less thrilled. She became, eventually she loved Troy. But, and Troy right now is very exciting arts center. But anyways, yeah. And I would say one of the biggest influences was, and it's something that you may not know, Melinda, like your granddaughters, I was a ski racer, a downhill ski racer. So that brought me to Vermont, all over New England, and then eventually all over the country through the Can-Am series, which is now, I believe, called NORAMs. But anyways, the national B team and then the top regional skiers. So mountains, hiking, skiing, were very influential. And yeah, and I would say still.  Yes. We're also a coach at Green Mountain Valley School. And so do you still ski? Do you ever get out and get up on the mountain or cross-country? Do you still ski? Well. I am going in for a total knee replacement, May 8th, with the goal to get back up on that mountain. So I'm really psyched about that. When you do, will you give me a call and we'll do a few runs at Mad River? Yes. I'd like to spend a day with you. Yes, I would love to do that. And also let me know if you need any chicken soup or anything in your recovery, because you know I'm always there for you. Thank you. So at what point in your life did you realize that you wanted to be an artist? You know, I was always doing kind of arts and crafts kinds of things. I was always making always. And I wouldn't say I was the art star, say in elementary school, but in high school we had, I went to a girl's school and we had something equivalent to a January term and I did choose painting and I painted a mountain. So I would say in high school, by college I was really torn between you had to choose and yet I sensed, I knew that there was a relationship, but I had to choose between environmental studies or studio art and I ended up choosing studio art. But that burr in my side of going, wait a minute, I intuit that there's a relationship here and trying to articulate what that relationship is was a really great burr that I think has propelled my thought process around my studio practice to this day that's always evolving, you know, how I see that human nature relationship. Well, let's talk about that for a second and the painting that's right behind you. This is a Debbie prayer. Talk to us a little bit about your beautiful painting that's behind you. So Debbie prayer started with noticing the apple blossoms in my neighborhood and my concern about the Honey Bee collapse and there's, so it started with these images of apple blossoms and then they're actually, you can't see, but they're little diagrams of the Honey Bee waggle dance also on the painting, they're really, and it took three years to make this painting and so over the course of the painting, those apple blossoms became different things in my association. I think of the practice, I think of a painting itself as being an ecosystem in the sense that they're concepts, associations, intuitions, embodied responses. So it's a series of relationships. So there was time, there were times when those apple blossoms became the lotus of Buddhism or the, and then the white rows of mystic Christianity. These are not necessarily things that I am actually thinking about any longer, but so they do reflect a kind of all the work reflects a dialogue between inside and outside perception, that there's the phenomenon of those blossoms, what they look like, the representational part of that, but there also, there's this invisible realm or this felt realm, this subjectivity and I'm always kind of thinking about the integration really of objectivity and subjectivity as being what is whole. And at a young age, you talked us a little bit about that, the emergence of the environment into your work, into your creative work and what inspired that focus for you back in the 1990s, which took you to the Schumacher College and the International Institute of Ecological Studies in Devon, England, what was that spark? So again, mountains were really big in my life in terms of skiing, in terms of hiking. I worked with the Appalachian Mountain Club in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I chose to go to artist residency in the Canadian Rockies and Banff and I would say that the work has always been curious about a sensed presence in nature. And so it took this arc really of notions of the sublime in nature, something greater, larger than us, even terror, these kind of characteristics of the sublime. The work very quickly became what's called non-objective, it was very geometric, but I'm thinking about the presence and they were big canvases, they had burnished metal and paint and oil paint and trying to get that sort of metallic fleck of the rocks above Timberline. And so I was interested in those states of awe in the studio practice. What happened in 1998 is I went and studied at Schumacher College with James Hillman, the Jungian psychologist, and the title of that course was Inside Outside Perception, Psychology, Ecology and Art. And it was as if I opened my eyes for the first time after 25 years of painting, again, what's called non-objectively, there weren't any pictures of anything that's recognizable. And I was still trying to incorporate internal felt form of my sense of this presence, this ever kind of abiding presence while also beginning to include recognizable imagery. And I'm still in that place, that started. So again, after painting for 25 years, one way I shifted, it was such a profound course at Schumacher. And ever since I've been playing with that dialogue between what's recognizable, what's not, and I've come to additional ways of thinking about the process itself, improvisation itself as reflecting the way life works. Nora Bates and the daughter of Gregory Bates and talks about in nature and in art, what you have are these multiple levels of communication that happen simultaneously. So that's similar to when I was saying that idea, is you have concepts, you have associations, you have felt form, you have in the moment responses, embodied responses, you can feel rhythms and all of these multiple levels happen at the same time. And so the process itself of improvisation to me is the process of life. It's the same even if there wasn't recognizable imagery. It's fascinating. So do you believe that art defines civilization? I don't know about that in terms of define, but I would say that I would actually kind of reverse it in a sense of that we are situated within life because we have co-evolved with the rest of life. And those notions of when I look at the stars, I am the universe reflecting on the universe, we're not the only species, apparently crows do that and there are other species that have this self-reflective capacity. I think a lot about particularly with the work with Sam Gronaccia, Paula Gronaccia, his creative partner and wife, and John Chamino, the educator aspect of this emergent, universal oratorial project, I think a lot about are we different or not than the rest of life? And certainly, and resistant to any sort of hierarchy or elevation hubris of us thinking that we're better or different because of certain capacities. The humans, the humans do. Yes, yes, do. Yeah, yeah.  It'll find plastic trash, it'll find blue flowers, it'll make these incredible creations. And of course, we can explain that away. Oh, it's just like the peacock trying to attract a mate, but the amount of creativity that goes into that is extraordinary and you can't help but think that there's also appreciation for those architects. Well, I've been also studying probably not just the degree that you do, trees. Absolutely. And I have trees in my yard who create art, the way that their branches reach out and touch other trees and they create art amongst themselves. And I've watched this for 53 years about how they create their own art and how they position themselves to create this extraordinary beauty. No, we have so much to learn as human beings from around us. And that's why your art is so powerful and important, Cammy. So as an artist, and you may have touched on this, you have taken your creative works and merged the visual with your voice. Your paintings are just one part of your creative works. Talk to us about your exhibitions that have focused so profoundly on the fate of our species on this planet because your work has a voice. It's not just you put the work up and it's a pretty picture of a sunset, over Lake Champlain or some landscape. Three years you worked on the painting that's behind you. You have a voice, you speak with that. Talk to us a little bit about that. Well, as you asked that question, the first one that came to mind, the exhibit that came to mind is, oh gosh, I think it was of land and local at Burlington City Arts. And that was a group exhibition, which I love group exhibitions. I love having, because I'm thinking with voice, it's as much about the creative act of curating these themes or concepts of relationships between groups of artists. And that in itself is, as I say, both creative, but also has a voice, the curation. I am interested in the ideas that can then happen. I am interested when you get to talk about work and particularly at panels of artists whose ideas are, I mean, yes, an art object is also thought of as being irreducible, that it's beyond words, but it's also really interesting to try to articulate what's going on in the work and then share that like in a community of artists. And that particular exhibit of land local, I did a series called Air's Water, Soil's Places. And it was a combination of paintings, yeah. And it was a combination of, first of all, I'm riffing the title, I'm riffing off of Hippocrates, Air, Soil's Places, who way back then was saying, we need to have clean waters and clean air in order to have healthy places. So there were paintings, but there were also these jars which took water samples and plant samples and macroinvertebrates from all the tributaries, not all a number of tributaries in Lake Champlain and then Lake Champlain and etched on those jars were the invasive species that are starting to affect the health of Lake Champlain. So in that way, it has a voice. There's this concept, there's this form of activism really in a very overt way. My more recent exhibition, Poetic Ecologies is less overt, but still a voice in the sense of this perceptual sense of understanding where does the subjectivity, that subjectivity is also needing to be at the table, that it's not just our practical solutions to create a flourishing world, but we know that the facts alone have not been enough. And it's really an evolution of love, love for each other and love for this home earth that I think is going to bring us together. I mean, give us any possibility of being able to go forward. So I've been grappling with, is it okay to be that heart centered in the work without it being as overtly activist? But I think that's where a lot of the energy is right now is finding frameworks, readings on ecology and thought that support that. And there are different entries into that. One is the emergent universe oratorio, this idea of our co-evolution and where we're situated as humans within all of life. Another would be indigenous thought, another would be their different writers who talk, Jeremy Lent talks about integrating our animate intelligence with our intellectual capacity. Vermonter, I just discovered, David Hinton. I always thought it was a West Coast poet and translator talks about paleo mind. And so there's this idea of getting in touch with this shared kinship with the rest of life that you can access from different thought frameworks. But you've been doing this for decades. I'm gonna go back in time for a second here and engage you to discuss the earth.  So let's engage you in discussing the earth charter. Talk to us about that and share with us the Ark of Hope project which you collaborated with many, many people, one in particular who we both love so dearly is Sally Linder. I remember the culmination event at Shelburne Farms where Jane Goodall spoke and several thousand people came out. Talk to us a little bit about that project because that was extraordinary. And here you are 20 some years later and we're still trying to hammer it home. Talk to us about that. Yeah, so that was definitely one of the big experiences of my life, co-creating that, co-producing it with Sally Linder who was also painter. And we created a community arts project called Temenos Books, Images for Global Healing, Peace and Gratitude. And then Sally worked with a carpenter to create this Ark of Hope that looks like the Ark of the Covenant only it was covered with differently abled people and the animals of the world. And that was to house these books that were made when this international document called the Earth Charter was to go to the UN for endorsement. And the Earth Charter basically was early days of talking about this intersectionality of economy, ecology and justice and that you need all of those in order to make peace. How old was this? What year was this, Cammy? So in 1992, the Earth Charter tried to get created at the Rio Earth Summit, it didn't happen. So then actually a good and interesting project happened which was that it then became more grassroots. So instead of being top down UN, it became so many, many people at the lead of Steven Rockefeller who was the chair of the drafting committee, many, many people had input individuals and environmental organizations as to basically trying to address a way forward. And I forget your question. Well, you carry the Ark. I remember you were- Oh, right. Okay. I mean, this was in the night and you carried this big, heavy, I believe you carried it. It went, so what happened was, yeah, so let me backtrack a little bit with the Tamanos books because there were thousands of Vermonters who were introduced to the Earth Charter. Were you one? I was one, yes, I was. And we went to 50 schools and we went to sustainability conferences and we went to businesses and we introduced them to this remarkable document. And then we had them make images. Some people made whole books, other people just made a page that would then go into artists made books. And then Sally's concept was to then put them into this arc of hope and again, to go down to the UN. So all that was a buildup to the 2001 is when the event at the breeding barn at Shelburne Farms happened. And it was for Love of Earth, a celebration of the Earth Charter. And I also want to credit Sally with that title because, you know, there were all these different, again, more practical or the language of sustainability and we just look at each other and it's like, yeah, but it's for Love, you know. Well, it is for Love and actually sustainability doesn't even work so much anymore today. It doesn't. It's really adaptability. We have to learn to adapt and do what we can. So thank you for that because that was an extraordinary project and really touching. Oh, can I say one more thing? Yes, please do. So what happened was there was this huge event at Shelburne Farms. We did a silent pilgrimage walk with Satish Kumar, the founder of Resurgence Magazine and Schumacher College in the UK. We had Jane Goodall. We had Paul Winter. We had, you know, we're supposed to have Wangari Matai but she was back in jail. But it was an amazing day of Love. We were led in a meditation by a Buddhist ecologist, Stephanie Khaza and all the participants made an image that then got put into the arc. The intent was the arc would then go to the UN when the Earth Charter was supposed to come up for endorsement. So this was September 9th, 2001. So we all know what happened on September 11th. So what happened was I was in class but Sally was there with a number of artists cleaning up from this event when the news of 9-11 happened. And we had just come on this silent, very short walk from the parking lot to this event with Satish Kumar because he was the world walker for peace decades ago. And she knew in that moment that it was time to walk the arc. And so it got walked up to Burlington and then there was a little cart that got made under it but it got walked all the way down to just above New York and it got on the sloop, whatever that guy's name is, sorry. And then sailed into the UN. Wow, magnificent project. Yeah. So we're coming sort of to the end of our interview but I have a couple of other questions that I wanted to ask you. As someone who endeavors to make sense of our world can you help us to make sense of it under the present circumstances of global warming, reproductive justice, the human and natural conditions and all of the other issues that are facing humanity? Yes, that is the question, isn't it? Yeah, that's the constant driver. And I think that's why perhaps there's still it's like the painting is almost like a reflection of this back to that inside outside perception of trying to understand this role of love in trying to summon and contextualize whatever our solutions are and it's not solution is the wrong word, whatever we are able to align ourselves so that I love using Janine Benes align ourselves with conditions conducive to life. And there's a lot of listening that has to happen for that alignment and the painting helps me to listen. And this work that I'm doing with the oratorio project that I've returned to that first began in 2013 where I did paintings at the scale 14 paintings to go along with the emergent universe oratorio. We spent the pandemic rewriting that libretto there's seven major choral pieces and then they spoke in words in between to more accurately to our understanding, reflecting these times, both the social and ecological unraveling and much of which needs to unravel to then relieve whatever will flourish. How do we live with not knowing exactly what's going to flourish, what's going to emerge? It's the nature of existence is complexity and emergence. But I feel like if we stack the deck with as many behaviors that are in alignment with conditions conducive to life that even what unknowns emerge are more likely to help us all flourish. So where can we hear this oratorio? Where can we? So the oratorio is going to be performed by Albany Pro Musica in May, 2025. Okay. Most likely at RPI at M-PAC, the emergent, no, not emergent, sorry, Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at RPI. And what's additional with this project is we also will have a day long symposium or other speakers building up to the performance. And what I'm working on and I'm working with an animator, Will Tipper, who is Vermont born and raised, but Brooklyn-based animator and using assets or the details of the paintings in an 80-minute animation that'll be part, that'll be projected the whole time of the oratorio. That is so exciting. And that's certainly something that I would so love to attend and be there for them. So exposing, Kami, what words of wisdom can you offer our young people today about how they can maneuver in the 21st century and how they can have influence to help guide them in their own futures? Yes. Trust your love. Trust. Trust and possibility. Trust in the models of a Greta Thunberg that even trust in your collective voice. Or Will Tipper. Trust in young leaders that are emerging. Yes. Because there are so many. Yes. I think our future really is in good hands with the future of humanity because of these extraordinary young people. Yes. Helping to guide us. And to have as many embodied experiences as you can too. We're all very addicted to our devices, myself included. It's very true, very true. Consciously being in the world. Hopefully we can use that in some ways for good. Well, listen, Kami Davis, extraordinary time, half an hour with you. I could talk to you for days. And I wanna thank you for everything you've done and everything you're doing and for your leadership in the art world and the environmental consciousness that you're bringing into all of our hearts through your art and through your lectures and your work. So thank you for that and thank you. And to my viewers, I wanna thank you for your time today and I wanna wish you a beautiful springtime. And the apple blossoms will be blooming soon and hopefully all those beautiful bees that Vermont loves to take care of will return very shortly. Thank you so much, my friend.


stability as a pop-up. I tried this right here, like I said. It also... Yes, it's here than us. Are you guys just starting to test it, right? Yep. I may need you to squeeze that bag. Yep. I'm going to intubate it, but it won't even get out. I'm in. Copy. Okay, section please. One flu load, GI 80. Uh, yeah, I'll be intubated and bring them over stated. Yeah, the... This is an apple. So, once we get the patient in, we have these quick access to the rotor wash. On the rotor wash, we can safely secure everything in without losing anything.


What is the most hated word in progressive Christianity? Well, I think there's quite a few to choose from, but for me, I would say, repent. Repentance means to change your mind or change your direction. Repentance requires humility because it forces us to say that we were going in the wrong direction or thinking the wrong thing in the first place. But some people say, no, I don't need to repent. Well, guess what? I'm not gonna repent. But anybody that claims to be a Christian ought to be listening to the words of Jesus and he said this, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. We need to repent from following worldly ideologies and begin to follow Jesus daily and let his truth and love invade every aspect of our lives. Follow for more Christ-centered content and help support my ministry on Patreon.


This is Mises Weekends with your host, Jeff Dice. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back once again to Mises Weekends. I'm your host, Jeff Dice. Very pleased to be joined with a returning guest, Michael Bolden, from the 10th Amendment Center. You can follow him on Twitter at 10th Amendment and his website or his organization's website is 10thamendmentscenter.com. And we are talking about secession and cal exit, two things that have been in the news of late. So, Michael, with that said, how are you? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me, Jeff. Well, thank you for joining us. So, this is great. I want to say this not mockingly. I honestly believe this is a good thing, but it has been fascinating since Trump won to watch the left start to talk about and embrace things like federalism and states' rights and nullification and localism and tax resistance, you know, the whole panoply of stuff we might call Irish democracy. Isn't it just amazing to watch how people's perception of democratic outcomes changes so abruptly when the wrong guy wins?  Well, it looks like the other team lost. And many of them are actually making excellent arguments about these principles. In fact, I actually just read something in the nation of all places that was talking about using the state's rights view, the decentralization approach to deal with various issues under the Trump administration. And in fact, they even talked about how the state of Wisconsin nullified the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 back in the 19th century. This is something that we've been talking about for years here, rejecting, resisting and nullifying in practice or law various federal acts. And they didn't talk about it as, oh, this is racist because obviously it's not to actually just think about things locally. But they're definitely using some very good talking points, some of them better than what I could do. Yeah, it's interesting. Secession has been viewed as a dirty word for a long time by folks on the left. I've been doing some reading on the primary group behind the Cal Exit Movement promoting secession from the state of California and it was depressing because I read a Wall Street Journal article, Michael, and the Wall Street Journal says, well, secession by the state of California would require amending the U.S. Constitution. And then they just say this glibly and, of course, I groan when I read this.  They just say the Supreme Court's decided this. You know, we're still in this time where there's so much misinformation and a lack of understanding about the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the actual events and sequence of events around the Civil War itself. So we're still seemingly stuck with this idea that secession was, A, not contemplated by the founders and, B, as an illegal act. Well, I think it's interesting because my understanding of the ballot measure that they're collecting signatures for right now is that the ballot measure itself is simply a question and it also references the idea of, well, going forward, we're going to have to amend the Constitution. So I guess here in California, even when they try to approach something that has solid philosophical underpinnings, they get the message actually wrong. But even if you were to cite the Supreme Court case, Texas v. White, that was back in 1869, that people used to claim that states can't do this or they need an amendment or they got to fight a war basically to be able to leave, we actually just published an article republished from the Library of Law and Liberty website by a guy named James Rogers who actually argues that Texas v. White doesn't require such a thing at all either. So even in the mainstream political thought, I would say that the view that there has to be an amendment for people to decide to have their own country is absurd. Well, it's also a non-starter politically. I mean, imagine this initiative getting through the initiative process in California, getting through the state legislature in California, and then having to go to supermajorities in the U.S. Congress and then ratification by the states. So I looked a little bit at the yes, California independence website. It's interesting. First of all, there's this idea that the Secretary of State in California cleared them for signature gathering. I'm not sure what cleared means legally in this sense. It sounds sort of ominous that the Secretary of State has to clear what you're doing. But I noticed a couple of things. I mean, first of all, and I'm sure you know this and some of our listeners know this movement began before Trump to be fair. It really began in earnest after the 2014 Scottish referendum. And they do, to their credit point out prominently on their website, that they're talking about a nonviolent, agreeable, amicable separation. The one thing that I might add, though, is from what I've seen, apart from a few prominent potential private equity or Silicon Valley backers, that it seems like a very unserious organization, just a motley assemblage of two or three people, one of whom lives in Moscow, which has created all kinds of strange questions. So it doesn't seem to be an organization or a movement that has any real California heavyweights behind it. I'm not seeing a lot of financial backing behind it either. But I have been seeing, and living in Los Angeles for a long time, I'm surrounded by folks that would be opposed to the Trump administration. And I'm here just on my personal Facebook page or by text. I'm hearing from people, oh, did you see that poll that says a third of Californians are open to the idea of seceding? So I think that's pretty significant, especially at this stage of the game so early after the inauguration and without any major financial backing that people are actually open to the idea. This type of thing has been going on for a long time. If you have been following this, the Vermont secession movement was pretty strong under the Bush administration. They haven't changed. It's not like the folks, their greenies, their environmentalists in Vermont, they believe that they should have their own country. And it's been the same, whether it's Bush or Obama in office. And I don't think this is something that should be relegated to left or right. It's, hey, we have to acknowledge, and I think this is something that I heard you talking about. Maybe it was when you were talking with Tom Woods on his show recently. We don't have to necessarily all agree on the same thing, but if we acknowledge that people have different viewpoints in how to organize societies, you have to allow people to do that in their own area. This one-size-fits-all solution is obviously creating a lot of problems. And both sides are losers. Now progressives are feeling the brunt of what they see as a one-size-fits-all Trumpism being shoved down their throats. I want to talk a little bit about just on a very hypothetical level what an independent California would look like. As far as making it happen when you mention maybe a third of Californians might have some sympathies towards this, I think the saga of Quebec being a potentially breakaway republic or province from the Canadian federal government tells us a lot because I think support was much higher than a third in Quebec and they never quite managed to get it done and in part that was because they were a bit of a basket case. Economically, California, there's some contrast here. I mean, we're talking about a GDP, I'm reading in the Wall Street Journal of about $2.5 trillion annually which would place them about number sixth in the largest world economies. They have, you know, there's 40 million Californians. I'm no longer a Californian but was and that would place it much larger than some of the countries within the EU. Obviously it has a huge Pacific Ocean giving it access to Pacific Rim markets. It has multiple ports. It has agricultural land which really requires a lot of water. That's a different story. Apart from the Colorado River, it does have snowpack in the Sierras to provide fresh water. It does have desalination plants beginning to come online. It certainly has industry in the form of Silicon Valley and Hollywood and tourism and resorts and skiing and mountains and backpacking and natural beauty beyond compare. Talk about why it's not so crazy to think that California could be just fine on its own. There's something I've got to add to what you just said. I think that kind of covers it. It's all the natural resources, the entertainment, great property. It's extremely expensive. I've talked to a lot of conservatives who basically take the position, okay, California, screw them. Let's get rid of them. The rest of the country will be better. They can go fail. But I actually take a little bit different view and I don't really have anything concrete to base it on other than a gut instinct. But I think without relying on the entire union of states, California might be forced to kind of play around with some things that advance freedom because if they're on their own and they keep going in the direction that they have been going, things are going to get really bad. And then at that point, they're really going to have to, I think in the long one, it could create really good outcomes. Would it be a California, Switzerland? I doubt it, but I think there's a chance. Right now, there's no chance of that. Well, there's certainly some flies in you. I mean, one of the big ones is their public pension issues, both at the local and city level, at the county level and especially at the state level. So I think that when you talk about conservatives saying, let California go, part of what they mean is that they would take their public pension liabilities with them. The issue of social security and federal employee pensions, I think, is much easier dealt with because there are lots of people today who live in foreign countries and collect social security. There are retirees in the Philippines and Mexico and all over the world. So I don't see that as a problem. And I also think that it would be in both parties' interests to have, meaning the former U.S. state of California and the rest of the U.S. have open trade and diplomacy and travel in between California certainly would benefit from tourism, if nothing else. So I don't necessarily see it as so far-fetched. Now here's a fly in the white man, and I want to pose this to you because you probably get this kind of question a lot, which is, well, that's great if the majority of Californians dislike Trump, which I think is probably true. But what about that really embedded, let's say, third of the state that lives inland, not in the Hoiditoide coastal areas, the Central Valley, Bakersfield, the more conservative, rural and ranching and farming parts of the state? Gee whiz, Bolton, if you got it your way, these poor people would now be forced to live in this left-wing society that they didn't choose for themselves. And yeah, sure rich people can vote with their feet, but the average guy, not so easy. So would we in effect be disenfranchising Californians who, maybe they like Trump, maybe they voted for Trump? Well, I mean, I don't think it's going to be any worse. They still live in California today, and they're under the regime of so many policies that they probably oppose. And I don't think there's too many federal policies that any of us who believe in liberty really should be in support of. So I think one way or the other, you're going to have a greater chance to affect the change that you want if the political regime above you is smaller rather than larger. So a California state, a California country is still pretty massive, but trying to change things here in California as it is are almost impossible in Washington to see even far worse. So I think there's a slightly better chance of being able to do something good in California. Should it break away? And then referring back to the idea of, okay, well, if it's economic breakmanship at this point, the way that California runs its government, not that that isn't happening in Washington as well, I think driving to the brink may force the state to actually consider some other options as well. People talk about military bases in federal land as well. Would it really be so horrible for the federal government to maybe cede some of those bases to California, let California have a national guard of sorts? Or would it be so terrible to say that California and maybe even other breakaway states could handle most things, criminal law, et cetera, locally, but be in some sort of NATO type agreement with the larger U.S. to continue to provide some sort of regional military defense? Are we talking in a practical matter or philosophically? Well, I think we're talking both.  So we're trying to create a better world. I'm all for California's succession. I think it would be a really fantastic idea to take a political subdivision of 40 million people, you know, apart from the 320 million. So you basically cut it down by about 90 percent and see what results. In other words, I'm not a libertarian who wants to impose libertarian ideas on people who aren't interested. Right. Let the state of California have its own version of single payer. Let them have their own version of gun control. Well, if you don't allow people to make those choices and learn from their mistakes, eventually they're going to try to take over the national apparatus and force everyone to do it. And so that's the idea of decentralization. Now, as far as military, I think the short version is we have way, everyone on earth has way too much so-called protection from the U.S. military already. So the worst case scenario, let's say all of those bases were closed, I think this would be a net plus for the entire globe. Yes. And I don't think California would be fearing an imminent attack on its shores from Japanese show guns. Maybe California might need to start considering, you know, getting out of the way and letting people exercise their natural right to keep and bear arms as well, too. A famous Californian on the right, Victor Davis Hansen, he's a longtime farmer and rancher in the Central Valley of California. He's also a professor, very knowledgeable in classics. I think he's still affiliated with the Hoover Institute at Stanford. He wrote an article for National Review lately recently talking about how Californians now talking about secession and people on the left are the new Confederates. And it's interesting to see how both sides are willing to see the same argument differently depending on whether they're guy or gal is in power. Is there any hope that we can take from this, a ratcheting back of accusations? Is there any hope that our progressive friends will look at this and say, you know what, maybe we were a little bit wrong when we called all those secessionist neoconfederates? Well, first of all, I wonder if the Southern Poverty Law Center is going to continue labeling. I mean, I made their right wing watch a few years ago as one of these leaders of a pseudo-racist right wing nutcase organization. So I wonder if they'll continue doing that. Now we're having this conversation here, Jeff. I doubt it, of course, especially because most of these organizations tend to be just partisan hacks. Now Will, do we have hope? I think so. I mean, I wouldn't be doing what I do if I thought there was absolutely no hope. I'm definitely not getting rich off of this type of work. I could find far better jobs to do to have a much better income. But I do believe there's hope. I think that every time there's a changing of the guard and some people go to the refuge of decentralization because their team isn't in charge, I think a few people, a small percentage of those people stick around and recognize it in principle rather than just switching teams. I think vast majority will just gladly switch teams depending on who's running things in Washington, DC. But this is a long slog. We're not talking about flipping around hundreds of years of growth of government in one month or one year or one administration. I think we have to have our principles be perfect or as close to perfect as we can for the long term, whether it's future generations or not, but then look at things in a strategic way and see things on a step-by-step basis right now. I know that your hipster pad there in the gentrifying garment district of LA, I know that that neighborhood is a hotbed of neoconfederate racist rednecks, but... I should take SELC on a tour of the neighborhood. Yeah. Well, look, I mean, your whole organization is dedicated to the idea of decentralized political power as originally envisioned under the 9th and 10th Amendments of the Constitution. And you're going to be speaking on a panel at our upcoming event for those of you who are in Southern California, not this Saturday, but the following Saturday, the 25th. If you're in driving distance or hearing distance, we'll be in San Diego that morning with Patrick Byrne, Tom Woods, No Me Prins, among other guests, but also Michael Bolden. And Michael, your panel is going to talk presumably about local action and the virtue of local political activism or other kinds of activism as opposed to trying to influence faraway Washington. And now that we have the left interested in death by 1,000 cuts from far away, give us a little preview of how you see this burgeoning localism movement. We even see it in food and non-political things. Well, we're seeing it all across the political spectrum, actually. I would say the modern, what we call the modern nullification movement. It's a very broad term, really started here in California in 1996 with the passage of Proposition 215 legalizing marijuana supposedly for limited medical uses while the federal government said they couldn't do it. They did it anyways today. There are now eight states that have legalized for recreational. I think it's 28 or 30 states overall that are defying Washington. But then again, it's not just weed. There's certainly various other issues. There are a number of cities, although I'd like to see many more that have said, hey, we're not going to participate in federal gun control. We hear a lot of people talking about or complaining about the 300 plus so-called sanctuary cities saying that the federal government needs to march in and stop them or cut off their funding. But you know what we never hear? People complaining about the 300 gun rights sanctuary cities. You know why? Because they don't exist, but they should. I think this principle has proven to be very effective because people wouldn't be complaining about it if it wasn't getting some kind of job done that the opponents don't want to see. Instead of I would say rather than trying to force more centralization, I would urge people to learn from that and actually use that same tool to advance causes they believe in. And it could be food freedom, like advancing the ability to get raw milk. We see that starting to happen in some areas. On the right to keep and bear arms. Why not health care freedom? Why not authorize people to have direct primary care contracts is what they call them rather than having a highly regulated government propped up industry for health care. There are various things that this can be done on. And I'd like to see sanctuary cities or sanctuary states for liberty all over. Well, wouldn't that be great? I mean, while we're on this topic of secession, we tend to think in political terms that secession has to be this political uprising has to be based on geography. But what if we could have issue by issue secession in the digital age? What if you could start having sanctuary cities where we're a city that opts out of Obamacare? We're a city that opts out of Social Security. We're a city that opts out of gun control. I think that would be a beautiful thing. Now with that, we're out of time. Come see us at our event in San Diego next Saturday the 25th. Michael Bolden will be there. Michael, thanks again for joining us and ladies and gentlemen. Have a great weekend. Subscribe to Mises Weekends via iTunes U, Stitcher, and SoundCloud, or listen on Mises.org and YouTube.


Live from San Francisco, extracting the signal from the noise. It's theCUBE, covering Console Connect Live 2015. Sponsored by Console. There's your host, John Furrier. Okay, welcome back everyone. We are live in San Francisco for Console Connect 2015. This is theCUBE's special presentation. This is our flagship program. We go out to the events and extract the signal noise. I'm John Furrier, the founder of Silicon National. I'm my co-host Jeff Frick, general manager of our CUBE business. Our next guest is Paul Camp, chief technology officer of IIX and Console Inc. All one new evolution, revolution, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you, John, Jeff. It's been a long time coming. I'm looking forward to being here. So tell us, how did you get to IIX? What made you join? That's a great question. It's got a long story, so I hope we got plenty of time. Actually, I met Bill Norton 15 years ago when the United Nations Development Program paid Bill, my fellow friend of ours, Philip Smith, to be part of the team that were teaching Mongolia how to get on to the internet. So I've been involved in the internet community for a very long time. And when I caught up with Bill early last year, he was sharing with me the vision for IIX. Talked shortly with Albergio after that. And then once he realized what the vision is for this company, it was pretty hard to resist. And of course the CUBE videos. Of course the CUBE videos, yeah, I should mention that. Tell that story. So I was doing my background research on IIX and the founding members of the company. And you search for Albergio, and the first thing that shows up is the SiliconANGLE interview at the Peering2.o forum. And having a chance to hear Al talk about where he was going to take the company. And hearing you guys talk about the impact he had had on you in that event, it was a win for me. So it's amazing the shadow that you guys cast. All the way down under. All the way down under? Absolutely. We really appreciate it. And it's awesome working with you. We're talking about getting people on the internet who work you've done as pioneering. And I think one of the things that got me excited about IIX and what Bill, before they launched and talking to the team is this is the next generation re-architecting or re-platforming of what the internet should become or can become. So it's not pure internet per se. What Console Inc. is providing is actually two disruptive elements. You got the scale of bandwidth. And this social connection where you're scaling up the resources. So on DevOps, talk about 10X engineers. One engineer in the cloud is like 10Xs in the old days. Now you guys are the 10X networking company. Where you guys can do the same thing for networking. Explain what that phenomenon's all about. Yeah, so I think that one thing that really surprised me when I joined IIX and had an opportunity to hear more from Al and Bill and others about what their vision was was they kept talking about this ecosystem. They referred to the early, Bill's been in the community for a long period of time. He spent a lot of time building an ecosystem. They kept talking about, it's all about social. It's an aspect of social in helping networks get connected. It's network engineers getting to know and trust each other. So when we're building, when I was being asked to be part of the team to build the console platform, he kept saying, okay, we've got to be focused on socially. Interaction's got to be a core part of it. And at first blush, I didn't understand that. But as you will have seen for those who are here today and had an opportunity to see some of the customer interviews that we've done, we launched an early access program early in the year and several of the customers that have helped us develop the console platform kept reiterating back to me. I need to know who I'm connecting to. If this network connection should become an issue, I need to know who I can go to to be able to resolve those issues. It really is about fostering that ecosystem, about getting the connections. And as you refer to the 10 by DevOps engineer, we've got the 10 by network engineer. He's got that network. He's got that ability to liaise and trusted network. And we're helping accelerate that. First and foremost, it's been quite an eye-opening thing for me to realise that social was important. And obviously, that's been a core part of the platform console design. I think if I think about the other two things that have really helped us get to the point where we are today, you talked about the history of the internet. What's really afforded console to abstract so much complexity from the enterprise? Really, it's a few things that have happened over the last couple of years. First and foremost, it's software-defined networking. The fact that we can now automate a global fabric of 150 SDI nodes with something you couldn't do, or if you wanted to try and do it, it would have to be done at, you know, the cost of trying to achieve that personally would be too high. But now that we've got SDI technology, probably you've had an opportunity to meet with David Jorm today, an engineer at IAX, heavily involved in Open Daylight and the ONOS project. Obviously, SDI is a core part of our ability to automate a layer-two fabric. Network virtualisation, network function virtualisation. These are all disruptive trends. Agile's determined DevOps, but resiliency is the network concept. And we had Samuel Curtis from Rack 59 was on the key earlier. He said, you know, I'm a network engineer and I know how hard it is that goes on behind that push button provisioning you guys provide. Explain the complexity that you guys take away because to do what you do is not trivial. No, I certainly hope we've made it look that way. Well, that's the ideal, right? It's trivial, make it easy to use is a great thing. And I think what we've seen is, the enterprises have started to move their critical infrastructure outside the enterprise firewall and into the cloud. The enterprise no longer can not participate in direct connection. The enterprise has to be an active participant in direct connection, but it's complex. You refer to the DevOps challenge as just not that many good DevOps engineers. Well, it's even more compounded in the network environment where the core skills are not the sort of things that are taught at university. You don't come out with a university degree understanding BGP or to go through the complexity of, okay, which regional internet registry do I need to go to to get an ASN number? What is an ASN number? Why do I need one? So if you look at the fact that DevOps has driven this mass migration of enterprise applications outside the cloud, it's now put this immense pressure on the public internet, connecting the enterprise to those cloud applications. The only way for the enterprise to solve that is to be a participant in direct connection. It's interesting. The cloud brings a whole other level of paradigm shifting, mind-blowing paradigm shift where you think about the old days of internet working. Hub, switch, wide area, local area networks, that was a huge wealth creator, great disruptive opportunity. A lot of companies made a lot of money and also value for the cost down that deployed distributed computing. So now you have cloud and this idea of inter-clouding or traversing multiple cloud resources pools if you will, whether it's Azure, Amazon, VMware, what do you Google, whatever. That's a huge opportunity. But now the nuance is wherever the app sits, the workload is going to drive the policy. So it's actually flipped upside down. It's not the network to the app, it's the app down to the network. How does that affect what you guys do and why are you guys relevant in that conversation? That's a great question. I think it's relevant because we've taken ironically exactly the same things that have driven cloud adoption, virtualization, container technology, orchestration, and we've applied that to the network tier. So I described earlier how SDN's allowing us to create a global layer two fabric, but the real key I think that we hit upon in solving the problem for the enterprise is using that virtualization and container technology and applying it to routing. So you may or may not know, we're core sponsors of the CloudRouter project. So it's the ability for us to take on that routing component. Yeah, yeah, very proud of the work we've done with the CloudRouter project. A lot of core open source companies have backed us at launch, Cloudious, CloudVs, Nginx, a long list of OSV, a long list of companies that have helped to support us. Recently, the Australian National University has started contributing to the CloudRouter project. When we looked across the landscape of open source distributions, many of them are focused on meeting the needs up the stack. They're active participants in ensuring database applications run well on the operating system or they're focused on making sure the web servers run well on the operating system. We saw a gap in the community where they weren't focusing on down below the operating system. Where was the Linux distribution focused on meeting the needs of the network engineer? So we've really focused the CloudRouter project on being an open source distribution focused on solving the problem of routing. And that's the key to how we've been able to extract so much value from the enterprise because not only can configure a Layer 2 network, we can also take all the complexity of configuring Layer 3. So I want to drill down a little bit into that because you were at Red Hat for a long time so you clearly know the power of open source and you know the power of community to really drive innovation and to leverage that inside your enterprise. So talk about how you take a mad experience and leveraging that type of really horsepower, open source and community now with IAX and console. Great, well I guess the one thing that I've learned from the 20 year career in open source software is I wouldn't call it leverage. You have to respect and pay homage to the hard work of many engineers who contribute to open source projects. So first and foremost, our goal with the CloudRouter project is to give back to the community. You know, we're standing on the shoulders of giants. Open Daylight's got four or 500 participants. It's a massive code base, active, constant development. Onos is in a similar sort of camp coming up as the second in the race on who's going to lead open source SDN. So first and foremost, we wanted to give back to the community and give the network engineers that want to start to embrace open source, a vehicle for them to say, okay, you know, this package, this software application is relevant to me, but the traditional Linux distributions are not focused on making that part of the co-operating system. So that's an area where we think we add value back to the community. So that I think is the first thing that I learned is that it's not leverage, it's part of being active and contributing. It's sharing. It's sharing, that's the way. It's about being part of the system. Yeah, community. And so more specifically what we've learned from our time at Red Hat was that with Red Hat prior to the divergence into Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. And that divergence really acknowledged the fact that there are two communities. The Fedora community is directly focused on the developer, fast release cycle, release early, release often. What a developer wants, right? A developer wants the latest libraries, the latest tools. The enterprise on the other hand wants stability. They want maintainability. They want good security management. So we're following that model to a large extent. Cloud Router is based on the most recent version of Fedora. We're pushing forward on ensuring that it includes the latest release of Open Daylight. Yeah, these are huge chunks of software and there's a lot of complexity in getting them working. And we think we can add value back to the community by doing that heavy lifting. And then obviously a version of that, Cloud Router, forms part of the heavy lifting we do on behalf of the enterprise in the labeling them to participate in direct connection. Paul, talk about the customer conversations. What are the big things you're hearing conversation-wise? And what should enterprises that aren't familiar with console, connect, or direct connection, understand about having their own autonomous system? Being an autonomous system is different than just plugging in to some bandwidth. Because they might say, hey, prices are dropping. Transit's down, so why, they might not be informed. So share your opinion on that. Great, thank you. So I think there's always that option I can just go by transit. But as we've seen over the, you know, 2015 is going to blow this off for 2014. 2016 is going to be even worse. I think a recent Gartner survey showed that 65% of IT professionals who are interviewed said that a denial of service attack can cost them $240,000 a day. And for one-fifth of those surveys, it was $1.2 million a day. So you have to acknowledge as an enterprise that if I'm going to use public internet or transit to get connected to my ERP or my CRM or my public-facing infrastructure, that I'm vulnerable to denial of service. That's only one of the issues with public internet. The other one, of course, is black-holing and hijacking, both of which refer to the fact that the internet's a network of networks. I described earlier how valuable these network engineers are. And those trust relationships are good people, doing the best they can. But it's only a several weeks ago that we had a large telco in Asia black-hauled big chunks of Europe because they made an error in their configuration. So suddenly all those packets that were destined for one destination suddenly get routed to another location. And all those packets get black-holed. So you need to, I guess, acknowledge the fact that sure, you can use transit if you like, but be aware of the risk involved. Yeah, it's like going out during wartime and not having any protection. You're always exposed. So I think what direct connection is, and you're asking, answering a question about ASNs, so to directly connect networks, that means that not only have you got a layer two connection between two locations and you can get a packet from one location to another, you're involved and engaged in routing. So I can advertise, these are my routes. This is my address. My good analogy is a zip code, right? So if I want to be able to send something via the US Postal Service, I got to give it a zip code. So think of an autonomous system number as a lot like a zip code. So, okay, here's this packet, now I know where it needs to go. And so you have to have an autonomous system number to participate in border gateway protocol. So if the enterprise wants to be truly directly connected to Google or Amazon or Azure, they have to be involved in BGP. They have to have an ASN and consoles help to solve all of that for them. The analogy we heard earlier in the queue was first class and coach. And I'm like, well, why not just a fleet of new jets? So what is the analogy that you guys like to use? Because this is a new class of service. It provides kind of the architectural foundation for end-to-end architecture, which you look at SDN and virtualization and some of the things going on with containers and application development. People want an end to end network, especially with the growth of internet of things. The edge of the network now is just as important as the core. So that's an end-to-end architecture.  EMC's under siege from Hedge Fund, Gordon Gekko's of the world, because it's just a storage company. This HP's a server company. Dell's transforming. They're all kind of integrating in. Yeah, I agree. So the analogy we like to use, and now go to your point of phrase, your direct connect to.o. So if we look at the traditional one.o, it's the large SaaS application providers or the EMCs of the world who've been able to acquire the skills required to be part of that direct connect community. But now that all of the enterprise are moving, they're no longer running core infrastructure. The CIO today is far more focused on choosing the correct SaaS provider and the correct SLA than they were five years ago on building and maintaining private infrastructure. All of that mission critical infrastructure is now moving outside the enterprise firewall. It's now about the edge is, where is the edge, right? So I think- Well, it's perimeter-less. Yeah. It's perimeter-less. And the edge is everywhere, right? Exactly. Security's upside down. And now you've got edges that need to have low latency, real time, no jitter. I mean, this is like the new normal. It begs the question, why wouldn't they? I mean, what's holding back? Is it simply the skill set? Is it simply the ease? Is it prioritization? I mean, I don't hear a lot of reasons why not to direct connect on most of your core traffic and applications. Yeah, and I think that's where a console and IX comes in to add value because there is a lot of complexity to this. First, you'd have to know that you need a BGP. Then you got to know that you need an ASM. So you've got to find and retain a scare resource of a network engineer who's got the experience to do it. Then you've got to submit your articles of incorporation to one of the regional internet registries, acquire an ASM. Then you've got to configure your BGP peering session. Then you've got to work out, okay, who do I want to connect to and where are they? So then you've got to find the organization that you want to connect to. And that's a challenge, right? You don't, if I go to this data center, does that mean I'm going to be able to establish a direct connection to all the trading partners I want? Or am I going to have to establish multiple connections to multiple islands to get the richness of connectivity I need? We have one example of a customer here today who is using 50 SaaS applications.  That's not the case. Well, even if you could pull it off, that's like putting everything on the string, right? One time, how long is it going to take? Time and cost. What's the time scale on that? Months, years, weeks, I mean, it's a long time. Testing, QA, development. So one, time to market, time to value. And two, capability. Yeah, exactly. All right, so I've got to ask you the hard question. So I get the cost piece, right? No brainer, the hidden cost with DDoS and all managing all that, totally get it. No brainer on costs. What future enablement does that give the company? In terms of headroom, what value can be created? What creative license could they take? What could they do with that extra time, that resource? How do you guys see that? What's your vision? Great. So we've taken a design-driven development approach with the console platform. We've worked very closely with some core early access partners to help us develop that platform. So what we learned from our customers was to focus our design around four core areas. Trust, control, performance and automation. So that's where I think we're going to continue to add value to the enterprise. We've learned about how network engineers need to establish trust. If I'm going to directly connect my network to your network, I need to know how to get in contact with you. I need to know that your contact information is up to date, and we all know the quality of data increases with use. So that's why we've integrated aspects of social community to achieve that. Okay, we're out of time. Paul, appreciate your time. Give you the final word. What is this show about for the folks watching live right now and on demand? Who aren't here? What have they missed? What's the vibe? What's this core show about Console Connect all about today? I think the core value proposition is learning what we've been building. Where it's the unveiling of the console platform. It's the unveiling of what we described earlier. A social platform that provides layer three and layer two automation so the enterprise can directly connect to SaaS applications, cloud providers, trading partners, as simple as clicking a button. Paul, thanks so much. CTO of IIX and Console Inc. He is sharing his insight. Thanks for that great insight. On theCUBE, we'll be back more live from San Francisco for Console Connect Live 2015. This is theCUBE. We'll be right back.