The hour of twilight by George William Russell, read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake. When the unquiet hours depart, and far away their tummelt cease, within the twilight of the heart we bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day, for angry deed or sin of sense of now, is the star and homeward ray to us who bow in penitence. We kiss the lips of bygone pain, and find a secret sweet in them. The thorns, once dipped with shadowy rain, are bright upon each diadem.  The mad enchanted laugh of life tempts not the soul that sees within. No riotous and fairy song allures the prodigals who bow within the home of law, and throng before the mystic father now. Where faces of the elder years, high souls absolved from grief and sin, leaning from out ancestral spheres, beckon the wounded spirit in. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Hour of Twilight by George William Russell. Read for LibriVox.org by Clarica. When the unquiet hours depart, and far away their tummelt cease, within the twilight of the heart we bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day for angry deed or sin of sense, now is the star and homeward gray to us who bow in penitence. We kiss the lips of bygone pain, and find a secret sweet in them. The thorns, once dipped with shadowy rain, are bright upon each diadem.  The mad enchanted laugh of life tempts not the soul that sees within. No riotous and fairy song allures the prodigals who bow within the home of law, and throng before the mystic father now. Where faces of the elder years, high souls absolved from grief and sin, leaning out from ancestral spheres, beckon the wounded spirit in. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Hour of Twilight by George William Russell, read for LibriVox.org by Ernst Schnell. When the unquiet hours depart, and far away their tummelt cease, within the twilight of the heart we bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day for angry deed or sin of sense, now is the star and homeward ray to us who bow in penitence. We kiss the lips of bygone pain and find a secret sweet in them. The thorns, once dipped with shadowy rain, are bright upon each diadem.  The mad enchanted laugh of life tempts not the soul that sees within. No riotous and fairy song allures the prodigals who bow within the home of law, and throng before the mystic father now. Where faces of the elder years, high souls absolved from grief and sin, leaning from out ancestral spheres, beckon the wounded spirit in. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Hour of Dwilight by George William Russell, Redvillie Brevox.org by Gemma Blythe When the unquiet hours depart and far away their tummelt cease, within the twilight of the heart we bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day for angry deed or sin of sense, now is the star and homeward ray, to us who bow in penitence. We kiss the lips of bygone bane and find a secret sweeten them. The thorns, once stripped with shadowy rain, are bright upon each diadem.  The mad enchanted laugh of life tempts not the soul that sees within. Our riot is in very song, allures the particles who bow within the home of law, and throng before the mystic father now, where faces of the elder years, high souls absolved from grief and sin, leaning from out ancestral spheres, beckon the wounded spirit in. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Hour of Twilight by George William Russell, read from Librebox.org by J. C. Guan, Montreal, November 2007. When the unquiet hours depart, and far away their tummelt cease, within the twilight of the heart we bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day for angry deed or sin of sense, now is the star and homeward ray to us who bow in penitence. We kiss the lips of bygone pain, and find the secrets sweet in them. The thorns, once stripped with shadowy rain, are bright upon each diadem.  The mad enchanted laugh of life tempts not the soul that sees within. The riotous and fairy song alers the prodigals who bow within the home of law and throng before the mystic father now, where faces of the elder years, high souls absolved from grief and sin, leaning from out ancestral spheres, beckon the wounded spirit in. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Hour of Twilight by George William Russell, read for LibriVox.org by James Gladwin, Somerset November 2007. When the unquiet hours depart, and far away their tummelt cease, within the twilight of the heart we bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day for angry deed or sin of sense, now is the star and homeward ray to us who bow in penitence. We kiss the lips of bygone pain and find a secret sweet in them. The thorns, once stripped with shadowy rain, are bright upon each diadem.  No riotous and fairy song alers the prodigals who bow within the home of law and throng before the mystic father now, where faces of the elder years, high souls absolved from grief and sin, leaning from out ancestral spheres, beckon the wounded spirit in. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The hour of Twilight by George William Russell, read for LibriVox.org by John Friend. When the unquiet hours depart, and far away their tummelt cease, within the twilight of the heart we bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day, for angry deed or sin of sins, now is the star and homeward ray, to us who bow in penitence. We kiss the lips of bygone pain and find a secret sweet in them. The thorns, once stripped with shadowy rain, are bright upon each diadem.  The mad enchanted laugh of life tempts not the soul that sees within. The riotous and very song allures the prodigals who bow within the home of law and throng before the mystic father now, where faces of the elder years, high souls absolved from grief and sin, leaning from out ancestral spheres beckon the wounded spirit in. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Hour of Twilight by George William Russell, read for LibriVox.org by Jake Echo. When the unquiet hours depart and far away their tummelt cease, within the twilight of the heart we bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day, for angry deed or sin of sins, now is the star and homeward ray, to us who bow in penitence. We kiss the lips of bygone pain and find a secret sweet in them. The thorns once dripped with shadowy rain are bright upon each diadem.  The mad enchanted laugh of life tempts not the soul that sees within. No riotous and very song allures the prodigals who bow within the home of law and throng before the mystic father now, where faces of the elder years, high souls absolved from grief and sin, leaning from outer ancestral spheres back in the wounded spirit in. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Hour of Twilight by George William Russell, read for LibriVox.org by Katie Gibbany, Arkansas November 2007. In the unquiet hours depart and far away their tumult cease, within the twilight of the heart we bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day, for angry deed or sin of sins, now is the star and homeward ray, to us who bow in penitence. We kiss the lips of bygone pain and find a secret sweet in them. The thorns once dripped with shadowy rain are bright upon each diadem.  No riotous and very song allures the prodigals who bow within the home of law and throng before the mystic father now, where faces of the elder years, high souls absolved from grief and sin, leaning from out ancestral spheres, beckon the wounded spirit in. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Hour of Twilight by George William Russell, read for LibriVox.org by Kristen Hughes, when the unquiet hours depart and far away their tumult cease, within the twilight of the heart we bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day, for angry deed or sin of sense, now is the star and homeward ray, to us who bow in penitence. We kiss the lips of bygone pain and find a secret sweet in them. The thorns once dripped with shadowy rain are bright upon each diadem.  No riotous and very song allures the prodigals who bow within the home of law and throng before the mystic father now, where faces of the elder years, high souls absolved from grief and sin, leaning from out ancestral spheres beckon the wounded spirit in. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Hour of Twilight by George William Russell, read for LibriVox.org by Leanne Howlett, When the unquiet hours depart and far away their tumult cease, within the twilight of the heart we bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day, for angry deed or sin of sense, now is the star and homeward ray, to us who bow in penitence. We kiss the lips of bygone pain and find a secret sweet in them. The thorns once dripped with shadowy rain are bright upon each diadem.  The mad enchanted laugh of life tempts not the soul that sees within. No riotous and very song allures the prodigals who bow within the home of law and throng before the mystic father now, where faces of the elder years, high souls absolved from grief and sin, leaning from out ancestral spheres, beckon the wounded spirit in. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Hour of Twilight by George William Russell, read for LibriVox.org by Mike Love. When the unquiet hours depart and far away their tumult cease, within the twilight of the heart we bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day, for angry deed or sin of sense, now is the star and homeward ray to us who bow in penitence. We kiss the lips of bygone pain and find a secret sweet in them. The thorns once dripped with shadowy rain are bright upon each diadem.  The mad enchanted laugh of life tempts not the soul that sees within. No riotous and fairy song allures the prodigals who bow within the home of law and throng before the mystic father now, where faces of the elder years, high souls absolved from grief and sin, leaning from out ancestral spheres, beckon the wounded spirit in. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Hour of Twilight by George William Russell, read for LibriVox.org by Melissa, November 2007. When the unquiet hours depart and far away their tumult cease, within the twilight of the heart we bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day, for angry deed or sin of sense, now is the star and homeward ray to us who bow in penitence. We kiss the lips of bygone pain and find a secret sweet in them. The thorns once stripped with shadowy rain are bright upon each diadem.  The mad enchanted laugh of life tempts not the soul that sees within. No riotous and fairy song allures the prodigals who bow within the home of law and throng before the mystic father now, where faces of the elder years, high souls absolved from grief and sin, leaning from out ancestral spheres beckon the wounded spirit in. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Hour of Twilight by George William Russell, read for LibriVox.org by Sean McGahey, ductapeguy.net. When the unquiet hours depart and far away their tumult cease, within the twilight of the heart we bathe in peace, are stilled with peace. The fire that slew us through the day, for angry deed or sin of sense, now is the star and homeward ray to us who bow in penitence. We kiss the lips of bygone pain and find a secret sweet in them. The thorns once stripped with shadowy rain and bright upon each diadem.  No riotous and fairy song allures the prodigals who bow within the home of law and throng before the mystic father now, where faces of the elder years, high souls absolved from grief and sin, leaning from out ancestral spheres beckon the wounded spirit in. End of


The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Book Show. Alright everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show on this Tuesday, November 14th, a little late for a news roundup but the morning just became, just became crazy. I know I had a, my camera stopped working or the camera, original camera stopped working. That's the camera I use. I've been using in the home setup. The mini HDMI outlet stopped working so I stopped sending video out. So I either have to get a fixed or I have to get a new camera. I'm using my travel camera with a digital converter and you know from when I'm traveling that that has been jittery lately. So maybe the video will settle down here in a little bit. It's jittery. So we will see. Anyway, tech problems, un-tech problems, un-tech problems, the amount. I need a professional team to do tech for me constantly which I don't have and can't afford. So I will be probably buying a new camera. If anybody wants my old camera, the HDMI out doesn't work but the camera is an amazing camera. I think it'll work fine for being a camera camera. I'm trying to fix the jitteriness. We will see if that fixes it. It doesn't end because I think my HDMI to USB converter is not, my other one is not working so I'm reliant on this one. I need new technology and maybe this new camera is the way to go because the new camera doesn't need conversion. I still need to solve the problem on the road because this jittery stuff is, I don't like it. It's not good. Yeah, I'm not going to get a GH. No, I'm getting a Sony FX30 I think. I've got a lens already. I don't want to spend money on a new lens. So I'm getting an FX30 which is a cinema camera, which is I think a USB-C out that actually just does video straight out into the computer and I don't need a converter to convert it. God, what is the problem with this jitteriness? Okay, give me a second. This is the day I'm having one of those days where nothing seems to quite go right. Actually yesterday already with the show I couldn't get the video to work. So I don't know if this jitteriness is on the converter or is it the camera? Do I need a new camera for traveling? Do I need a new converter? I just don't know. Anyway, I'll play around with it and see if, yeah, because I need to solve this for travel as well. Anyway, I don't need to burden you with all my tech problems. I will figure it out one way or another. God, that's awful. That just looks awful. Okay, one more attempt here to do something completely different. Let's see if this will work. I apologize.  Big advantage right now because this is a frigging disaster. Let's see if this will work.  So it's a two-prong problem of issues on both fronts. All right, I'll try this again. What's there, guys? I see you're asking questions in the super chat. That's good, so we'll have something to talk about later. And in the meantime, all right, everything has stopped working. Okay, I don't even get jittery. I just don't get anything. That's another solution to problem. We just go audio today. All right, there we go. But it's just a week. Okay, we'll just live with this and hopefully the jittery will stop. I laugh, but it's not funny.  Okay, let's quickly, let's do the news roundup. Let's do news and for those of you who can't watch this, don't want to watch this, would rather not. Yeah, let me, let me, let's turn our video. Let's turn our video at least for now. I'll keep making attempts. But let's, let's actually get on with the show. All right, what did I want to talk about? Yes, inflation. So inflation came in today. They came in significantly under expectation and indeed yesterday and the day before I was reading from a number of financial analysts who were actually expecting inflation numbers to be worse than expected. So I think the analyst expectations that everybody was reporting were actually on the low side. I think the market was expecting bad inflation numbers because God, the market just sprung to life today. Bank stocks were like at some point up 8.5%, just, just the general index of bank stocks. You know, NASDAQ was up over 2%. I haven't looked now as the market closed, we had closed that, but everything was up. The tenure bond, the yield and the tenure bond went down a lot. So it went down significantly. And so, you know, the market really liked these inflation numbers. And the interpretation I would have for that is that the, that basically the market is expecting these inflation numbers to, in terms of the Fed, to basically represent the Fed not increasing interest rates anymore, holding the line where it is right now and if anything, now they're starting to talk about next year reducing rates. So, you know, those are, those are the, and that is viewed as positive. As I told you, I've told you many times, as interest rates go up, the value of assets goes down. As interest rates go down, the value of assets go up. So if the idea is that it looks like into next year and the year, and the years after that interest rates will decline, assets all else held equal go, the value increases. So that is, that is super positive. For the markets, we'll see in terms of inflation, how it affects all of us in terms of our pocketbook. Inflation is still there. It's not zero. It hasn't gone away. Cornflation still went up. And, you know, so even though overall inflation stayed month over month was constant, cornflation went up for the month. I'm still skeptical about this idea that inflation is over, that it's done, but it certainly seems to be that we're avoiding the worst case scenario. And that worst case scenario would have been that inflation is accelerating from this point on. It certainly does not appear that inflation is accelerating from where we are today. So, you know, that's, that is the story. Let's hope the stock market is right. Let's hope inflation is basically over and that the Fed can start decreasing rates and that stocks can keep going up and that the, that this, that we will be avoiding a recession. Although one interpretation of the stock market going up is that they expect a mild recession where the Fed decreases interest rates and again increases interest rates, asset values goes up. So that is in terms of inflation. Biden and Xi are meeting tomorrow. It's not clear what they're going to be talking about. I think mainly supposedly they're talking for four hours. So they're trying to heal a really bad relationship between the United States and China right now. They're trying to establish some grounds for cooperation. I think the main thing they would like to achieve, which I think would be good, is if the militaries of China and the United States talking, started talking to one another again, updating one another. You know, one of the one of the scariest scenarios one can think of in terms of nuclear powers is mistakes, mistakes that are made where, you know, we fall, we fall into nuclear war without wanting a nuclear war. So it is good that militaries communicate with one another. There is ongoing communication and that communication is sustained. Again, for that to happen, military officials have to talk to one another and they haven't been. I think since Pelosi went to Taiwan, the Chinese have been refusing to talk to the U.S. and that is not healthy and not good ultimately for security. I think for long-term security that is actually quite risky. Yeah, we have a black screen for those of you coming in. Video is not working today for a variety of reasons, actually many, many reasons. It seems like all of my equipment is decided, all my video equipment is decided to fail all at the same time, all at once. And that is what we have right now. All right, let's see. Oh, yeah, I did want to say with regards to Xi and Biden. I did say yesterday that they were going to agree to this not using AI for autonomous weapons systems. So whether weapons is a good shoot based on the AI feed. I thought according to the news reports that that's what Xi and Biden were going to agree on. It turns out that no, it turns out that the United States assigned such an agreement with like 40 other countries. But explicitly, China has not signed it and China does not want to sign it, does not intend to sign it. So we basically signed away any strategic advantage we have as a super advanced country in AI and basically granted the Chinese, if you will, the superiority here and the ability to deploy AI in ways that we can no longer do. So, yeah, hard to understand why the United States would sign it with any other country to China. The only country that has a meaningful, threatening position towards the United States and has the capacity to deploy AI and autonomous weapons is China. And to pretend that it's otherwise is suicidal and absurd, but that's exactly what the Biden administration is doing. And signing with other countries that are not threat at all that don't pose an issue at all with regard to AI and autonomous vehicles, autonomous weapons. And instead, handing it over to, instead, signing with them, putting the United States in a weaker position vis-a-vis the Chinese. I mean, all of the AI regulations ultimately mean that the United States is in a weaker position vis-a-vis the Chinese. It does sound like Biden and Xi will announce a crackdown. Now again, who knows because this is a favor Xi is giving to Biden. It'll be interesting to see what Biden gives Xi in return. But what Xi is agreeing to is that the Chinese will start cracking down on the exploitation of chemicals used to produce fentanyl. Of course, other departments in the Chinese government have vigorously denied that they produce or export any chemicals related to fentanyl production. But it does look like Xi and Biden will agree, will announce that China is going to crack down on this on something that they claim they don't do to begin with. And so that'll be super exciting of all the things that we could do. This is the thing. You think if China cracks down on fentanyl trade, on fentanyl chemicals, you think fentanyl will go away? Does anybody live under that delusion? The only thing that will happen is the cost of fentanyl will go up. Crime related to fentanyl will go up. And everything related to that. So yeah, I mean, this is just that don't fix it, but show the world that you've done something, that you've done something, that you're tough on fentanyl, you're tough on drugs, because that's a big issue for people. All right, those of you joining, no video today, sorry, equipment malfunction. All right, let's see, government shutdown. It's hard to tell. Yesterday somebody said that they passed a bill, but it doesn't look like they actually have passed a bill. They are trying to pass a temporary spending measure that requires two thirds majority. Quite a few Republicans are opposing this proposal. So it looks like that the new speaker, Johnson, is going to have to rely on Democratic votes to pass a temporary spending bill in order to avert a government shutdown this week. He seems to be committed to this, but it's, you know, can he actually pull it together? Will he get the Democratic votes? What is his fate going to be? The last guy who used Democratic votes to get a temporary spending measure passed was kicked out of the speakership, was voted out. In other words, the complete and utter dysfunction of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives continues unabated. It doesn't matter who is at the helm, who is at the speakership. Republicans don't know what they're doing. They basically do not know what they're doing. And that continues, I guess, a long tradition, but it's gotten much, much worse. It's gotten to the level of it being really ridiculous, right? It got into the point of being really ridiculous. So, yeah, I mean, we'll see what's in this bill. They're not getting any of their priorities. They're not getting no spending cuts, nothing. So a lot of noise, a lot of drama, a lot of stuff, drama and noise, but very little, actually zero achievement. Sounds like the Trump administration. Yeah, screen is black because my equipment failed today so no video. All right, so that's, so it looks like there will be a government shutdown or maybe there won't be a government shutdown. If there's no government shutdown, then we'll see if the Speaker of the House survives. But in any case, who knows, I'm all for government shutdown for a variety of reasons. I want a government shutdown, a government shutdown. They don't spend that much money a government shutdown. I mean, it doesn't last very long, the longer the better. I'm all for somewhat crippling government services for a while. I think that's good. I don't think it hurts the economy as much as people claim it does. And yeah, we will, we will see what happens in the next few hours, really in the next few days. I think they have to do this by Friday. I finally, not finally, but the environmentalist left is now dramatically opposed to LNG. They are opposed to liquefied natural gas that is moving, particularly the liquefied natural gas that the United States is producing and shipping to Europe. You know that last year, there was this real panic that Europe, because it was not getting any gas from U.S. that it would just collapse, that Europe would just collapse, people would freeze, there would be deaths, there would be destruction, it would just be horrible. Europe got a little lucky partially because it had a warm winter, so it didn't need quite as much heating, gas for heating. And then they also landed up, they had a lot of stockpiles of coal, which they burnt in huge quantities last year in order to keep themselves warm, in order to keep electricity going throughout Europe. And then finally, they did manage quite a feat of production, of building, they built a number of LNG, what do you call it, terminals. And the United States started shipping massive quantities of LNG gas to Europe. It's actually much, much, much easier for the United States to ship LNG gas to Europe than it is to ship LNG gas from Texas to Boston because of the Jones Act. So it's actually likely that we were shipping LNG to Europe so they don't freeze, and at the same time we allow people in Boston to freeze because they can't import gas from Russia, which is what they typically do when they're short of natural gas because the Jones Act makes it impossible to ship LNG from U.S. ports like Houston to another U.S. port like Boston that is literally illegal to do in the United States because of the Jones Act. All right, maybe the jitters will go away this time. We'll see. If they get worse, I'll shut it down again. So let's see. So yeah, so the environment's upset because Europe was saved.  You could build more windmills, but then the wind doesn't always blow. So the whole thing seems, you know, the environmentalists want an energy crisis because they ultimately want us to stop using any kind of fossil fuel. And even though natural gas is super good in a sense that, yeah, I mean, this is hopeless, super good in the sense that it is low carbon emissions. It's, it's called environmental friendly. You know, and indeed the United States has seen emissions decline significantly over the years because it shifted to more and more natural gas. The environmentalists are unhappy. I mean, they're really, really unhappy. So McKibben, who is one of the leading climate change catastrophists, you might have seen years ago that Alex Epstein debated McKibben. Anyway, they've come up with a new one. It turns out that in the LNG life cycle that is from fracking to pipelines to the liquidification stations to the ships to the final combustion. LNG emits a huge amount of methane and other greenhouse gas emissions. And then indeed, because of the whole chain, you get more, more greenhouse gas emissions from LNG than you do from coal. So now they're trying to stop the Biden administration from exporting natural gas, from increasing fracking, from producing more natural gas, so that, so that we reduce the emissions associated with LNG. I mean, the reality is that it doesn't matter what form of energy production you come up with. The environmentalists will always be against it because the reality is that they don't care about climate change. They don't care about pollution. What they really care, I mean, the radicals, the consistent ones, the ones that I think set the tone and frame the debate, the McKibbins of the world, they just want us not to use energy. They want human beings to stop touching nature. But that's how human beings survive. We survive by reshaping nature to fit our needs. We survive by taking nature and changing it to fit what we need.  And therefore what they really want is death and destruction. And nothing short of death and destruction will add up for them. I mean, they are the real nihilists, the same kind of nihilists and really the same people marching in favor of Hamas. They want human beings dead. They want civilization destroyed. They want the West to crumble. That is their goal. And if they stop LNG on top of everything else, they'll stop. You know, they'll get their goal in the end. All right, let's give you a quick war update in terms of what's going on in Gaza. I mean, there's not a lot to update you on. Israel continues to advance in Gaza City, continues to take Hamas positions, continues to kill some Hamas members, not very many, but some Hamas members. It basically continues to work to control Gaza City and basically the whole of the northern Gaza Strip. The challenge, of course, is that most Hamas fighters are not there. Most of the weapons systems are not there. The hostages are not there. Indeed, Israel is now, is playing and is active in an area where Hamas is basically abandoned. It pops up once in a while to try to kill as many Israelis as possible, but it is not there. It is in the tunnels. It is underground. And in those underground, they have plenty of fuel and they have electricity and they have huge stacks of weapons and they have hostages and they have the command and control centers, particularly command centers. Now Israel has disrupted a lot of that and blocked a lot of the entrances into the tunnels, but I just want to give you a sense of this tunnel system. And it's shocking to me in many ways that Israel has done so little. And I think a big part of it is that they're afraid. They're afraid to use big bombs. They're afraid to really crush these tunnels because buildings on top of the mic tumble. They're afraid of world opinion. They haven't taken the hospital or Shifa hospital where the main command center is just underneath it. If they take that hospital, what do they do then? Do they bomb it with bunker-busting bombs? Do they go down into the tunnels? Probably not. They don't want to get engaged in tunnel warfare, but they're going to have to destroy these tunnels in a significant way or find ways to force Hamas out of it. But let me give you a sense of these tunnels. We're talking about 500 kilometers. We're talking about 1,300 tunnels. So far they've blocked entrances to, I don't know, 100-something tunnels. But we're talking about 1,300 tunnels, 500 kilometers, 80 meters underground. 80 meters. So what's that? 250 feet underground? So just to give you a little bit more sense here, right? The tunnel system has eight levels, eight levels. Level one is entry and launch locations inside buildings for personnel and rocket launches. Level two, reinforce passageways for rocket transport and maneuvering. Level three, houses the oxygen generation and air movement system generator. Level four, meeting and sleeping rooms for Hamas fighters. Level five, main Gaza metro connecting city blocks and sections. So this is the section where you can move anywhere in Gaza. So a main, you know, artery. Level six, storage for weapons, ammunition and fuel with doors always closed for safety. Level seven, additional storage and sleeping rooms. Level eight, command and control center for Hamas connected by hard land lines with a quick escape tunnel to the Gaza metro for senior leaders to evacuate.  It's going to take a lot. It's not going to be easy. And to do that, Israel has to control everything above ground. But the challenge is they don't control half of Gaza. Half of Gaza is the south where they have now crammed almost 2 million people into there. In the north, they still have not entered the hospital area because I think they are worried that if they enter it, people will die.  And Biden has made it clear to them that they have to be super careful around hospitals, even though you saw yesterday photos from a hospital somewhere else in Gaza. There was a children's hospital, a children's cancer hospital, which was being used for storage weapons, probably housed some of their hostages at some point. Again, Israel needed to have moved a lot faster if they wanted to capture the hostages or free the hostages. They need to take that hospital. They need to get in there. They need to destroy whatever is underneath it. If they want to save hostages, they're going to have to send forces into the tunnel system. I don't know how they do that. I mean, I'm sure this is being debated now thoroughly among operation staff within the Israeli military. But they're going to have to get to whatever level that level eight, which is the command and control for Hamas, where they're probably holding the hostages. They're going to have to be able to seal most of the entrances so that Hamas doesn't pop up behind them or keep some of the entrances available open so that Hamas, as they come out, they can kill them. But it's not clear here how Israel is dealing with this, and I still am afraid, and I've said this from day one, that they will not go all the way. That they will do a lot more than they've done in the past, but they will not go all the way. They will not kill the hundreds, thousands of Hamas personnel.   Now, remember, tunnels can be rebuilt. Fighters can be retrained. But you've got to start by destroying that and destroying the fighters. Also, I think it's important to note, and maybe the world will notice this, but probably not. This kind of complex is really expensive to build. This is billions and billions of dollars, unbelievable man hours. You can understand now why Israel has a bit of a blockade here. Doesn't allow concrete into the Gaza Strip. It manages to get in anyway. Doesn't allow certain materials in. Doesn't allow heavy equipment in, because it's worried about them building these tunnels. They've done it anyway. But the world would like Israel to just keep the borders open and allow anything to flow in so that Hamas can build whatever they want, arm it in whatever they want, use it in whatever way they want. As I've said before, the longer this takes, the less likely it is to be done properly, to be finished thoroughly. The longer this takes, the bigger the international pressure, which is enormous right now. The weaker the Biden administration is going to get. Biden is getting massive pressure from within the Democratic Party to put, you know, to basically have Israel stand down. I mean, think about all those demonstrators on the streets, those old Democrats. And Biden needs them to vote for him. And then you've got huge numbers of nonprofits and you've got huge numbers of politicians, congressmen and senators who just, this is way too tough for them. This is way too pro-Israel for them. And they are going to start reigning Biden in and Biden is going to start reigning Netanyahu in and Netanyahu will reign in the army and this will never get completed. The things that need to be done will not be done. And, you know, I don't know, given the circumstances in which we live, I just don't know how you deal with that. I don't know how you fix that. That is a kind of reality. Israel is doing everything it can to avoid a war in the North. It is doing everything it can not to, you know, to respond to Hezbollah but not to overly do it in a sense, not to cause them to want all out war, even though Israel at some point, at some time is going to have to deal with the Hezbollah threat. Just as Israel together with Iran at some point, at some time will have to deal with the threat from Iran. Israel would like to delay that for a variety of reasons, most of them irrational, but they'd like to delay it and deal with one problem at a time. The problem is that the world is not going to give them enough time to deal with one problem at a time. I said that week one, take them all on right now in devastating unequivocal faction so that they would never think of attacking Israel again. But Israel and the world cannot tolerate civilian casualties, which is what that would require, and therefore they won't do it. They're still not doing it. They need to take the hospital, sheaf a hospital. And one of the things that it looks like they're doing is they're trying to supply the hospital with incubators for the babies that can then travel out and be taken to other hospitals. But you know that Hamas does not want the evacuation of the hospitals. Hamas wants the babies to die. So how you overcome that?  I just don't know. I don't know how Israel's going to do it. The hospital is exactly where you get the clash of, quote, innocent lives versus your need to self-defense. And the real question is going to be what gains priority, self-defense or innocence? My view, it should always be self-defense, but clearly the world does not agree. All right, let's see. All right, so I think that's the update I had. And let's go to some of your questions. We're about $90 short of our goal, so very much doable. You know, four $20 questions would get us almost there. Hoppe says, was altruism going away before Kant brought it back? Or did the Enlightenment never really obliterate altruism from people's minds regarding regardless of Kant? I don't think it was on its way out, but certainly there were starting to be voices that were anti-altruism and pro-happiness. I mean, it's in the Declaration of Independence. That's not an altruistic document. It's a document about the pursuit of happiness. And I think there was certainly a happiness, pursuit of happiness theme to the Enlightenment, and that's pretty selfish. So I think the idea of altruism was being challenged by the very nature. Individualism is a challenge to altruism, pursuit of happiness is a challenge to altruism. It never got the alternative, which is egoism, never got a full philosophical defense until Ain Rand, but it certainly was being challenged. And Kant took advantage of kind of the weakness of the Enlightenment in order to re-establish altruism as the moral standard. And look, it wasn't really re-established in the sense that during the 19th century, people in America and the UK and parts of Europe suddenly often behaved in ways that were much more consistent with self-interest and egoism than with altruism. So the Industrial Revolution couldn't come about really without some sense of self-worth, self-esteem and pursuit of happiness and pursuit of material being that I think many in the Enlightenment took seriously. Alright, thank you Harper Campbell. Michael, do people honestly believe your success is their failure? I don't think anyone really believes that. It's pure envy. They don't want to admit to themselves so they develop all these BS economic theories to compartmentalize an inferiority complex. I mean, there's something to that. They don't deep down how much they believe it. But I think, look, to the extent that you don't think, to the extent that people emote, not think, or people, as Ain Rand said, are not at the conceptual level, they're at the perceptual level, but zero some thinking, zero some unthinking, kind of, you know, is what they see. Some people getting rich, some people getting poor, or not getting rich as fast. Some people seem to be in a position of exploitation. And look, the entire intellectual mainstream for 150 years has been telling them exactly that. It's been telling them it's a zero sum world. It's all talked about, exploited and exploited. It's, you know, from Karl Marx on, this has been the theme. A press on a press, exploited and exploited. That's been the attitude of most of the people in the world towards capitalism. And you can't blame the common person for believing that. And I think many of them do. I don't think they have a context, an intellectual context, understand or believe an alternative. And they're just no intellectuals presenting them with an alternative. So they go with it. And it's the intellectuals who are being immoral and evil or even and deceptive and, you know, evasive, completely evasive, clearly evading. But I think it's wrong to attribute everybody's errors to inferiority complexes. I don't think one should boil everything down to psychology. They have evil ideas. They've adopted evil ideas. They've chosen evil ideas because they've chosen to evade. They haven't chosen to evade because they have a complexity inferiority complex. To a large extent, the inferiority complex is a result of their failures, which is a result of their evasions. So chicken, one cultural aspect of Norway that is all that is way superior to the United States culture, in my opinion, that is Norwegian parents teach and tell their kids to be independent at an early age. As for the US, you live with your parents for way longer thought. I think that's probably true. I think there are cultures out there that do a much better job raising independent children, giving children space, giving children the opportunity to take risk and to live by their own judgment, to some extent. The helicopter parent phenomena is not unique to America, but it certainly is more popular in America than anywhere else. The fact that American parents have to drive their kids everywhere, that there's no walking, there's no taking public transportation by themselves. Kids are completely dependent on their parents and their parents are involved in any aspect of their life. None of that can actually be healthy. So yes, I think to the extent that parents in other parts of the world leave their kids and allow them to be more independent, that is much healthier society. Sylvanos, thank you. Michael, Ben Shapiro came out and condemned Candace Owens' despicable comments on Israel. Why is she doing this? Why doesn't he fire her? Well, I don't know why he doesn't fire her. She has a big following. I would fire her. Is she on the daily wire? I don't know, but this is a time of reckoning for the daily wire. They have to figure out what they really stand for and what they're part of. And I think Candace Owens' position on Israel is one that she deserves to be fired over. I think he maybe is afraid of being accused of lack of free speech or something like that, but it's a private company. There is no free speech in a private company, so I don't know why he doesn't fire her. But Candace Owens has been terrible for a long, long time. She's been terrible on a lot of issues. Ben Shapiro is much, much better than her. But there are others that we've seen from the daily wire who are terrible. So Ben Shapiro, by far, is better than anybody else on that network. I don't know how much control he has over the content. I don't know how much control he wants over the content, but it is what it is. It's sad that they built up Candace Owens, and she turned out to be unsurprisingly a monster. Michael says, why do you say the Conservatives in the UK need to lose big? Well, because they've sold out.  They're so bad. And they have been bad since Bob Johnson came to power, certainly. And they've just, on every issue, they've failed. They've failed in COVID. They've failed in the economy. They're failing on the demonstrations against Israel. They're failing on every single front. They've failed in Brexit. They've failed in regulations. They've failed on every single front. And if you don't penalize political parties for failing, then all you're going to get is continued failing. I think they need to lose big so that there's serious consideration to big political changes within the Conservative Party. Just like they thought Trump needed to lose big in order for people to wake up and restructure the Republican Party around something different than Trump. He didn't lose big. And according to many Republicans, he didn't lose at all. And that's the reason why we get him again. Right? We're going to get him again. And I think he has basically destroyed the Republican Party, destroyed anything good about the Republican Party. It is no longer a worthwhile opposition party. A worthwhile opposition party. So, yeah, that is the reason. Liam says, are you a fan of Piers Morgan? No. He just had a heated interview with Jeremy Corbyn who refused to condemn Hamas. Yeah, but then he has a heated interview with Douglas Murray because Piers Morgan refuses to condemn Hamas to the extent he should and continues to call for ceasefire and continues to condemn Israel's behavior vis-a-vis civilians. Piers Morgan is a nothing. He is a centrist with no spine and no ideology and no real belief system. He is truly a nothing. And yeah, I'm not a fan at all, as you can tell. Right. Michael, Objectivism needs to stop being so fringe and unknown. There's no reason I, you know, Lee, shouldn't have gravitated towards Objectivism or Christianity, but it is fringe and unknown. I mean, shouldn't it should stop? Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm all for it, stopping doing that. How exactly? It's easier said than done. You need a lot more intellectuals. You need really, really good intellectuals. You need, you need to command the stages of the intellectual world. But, you know, not, not easy to do. Not straightforward at all. All right, we've got 107 people watching right now. We've got $90 left to raise. It's been that way for a while. If you're, if you're listening and you don't usually support the show, please consider doing a sticker just in support of the show. Thank you. Thank you. A room for the $5 sticker.  If you, you know, if you want to support the show, if you want to ask a question, use that, but the sticker is nice, because that way you can show value for value without actually having to come up with a question and think of a question and provide a question. Just express your support. Also, if there are a bunch of you listening now who are not subscribers, please consider subscribing and don't forget to like the show before you leave. It really helps with the algorithm. I guess that like button costs you nothing. And please become a subscriber if there's value in these shows that I do. All right. Robert Campbell says, is narcissism the default for people who implicitly reject altruism without knowing objectives as the proper alternative? I don't know that for all of them, certainly for many of them, narcissism is the kind of fallback, the alternative. But I think a lot of them don't have the, I don't know, the audacity to be narcissistic. So many of them just become nothing, just become pragmatists. I think pragmatism is the dominant form which non-altruist take. They basically do what they think will work. They focus in on the short run rather than on the long run. They try to get by. Most businessmen are not altruists in the way they run their business, but they are pragmatists. They've given up on principles. So they give up on principle and they become pragmatic. I think that is the main way in which people deal with abandoning altruism or not wanting to deal with altruism or not liking altruism. And that's what most people do because you have to go to work. You have to feed yourself. You have to do a lot of self-interested things in life in order to survive. And I think most people just deal with it on a pragmatic basis. They accept that they're going to be sinners. They accept that they're not going to be moral. And it's just whatever goes, whatever flies. That Dudo Bunny, these constant technical issues are very unprofessional and really annoying. How do you expect to reach 100K subscribers like this? Thank you, Dudo Bunny. I really needed that reinforcement. I appreciate it. All right, Silvanos. If you can tell me having technical difficulties, perhaps you can get a picture of you or Rand to have up instead of a black screen. I can put a picture up. I can put a picture up, but I'm not sure how valuable that is. But the technical problems like this won't continue. It's just a question of how quickly I can solve the problem. A new camera, I'll probably buy it off the islands. It has to be shipped here. And the existing camera that I have, how to get the jitters out, I think I know how I'm going to go to Best Buy tonight and buy a piece of equipment that I hope will fix the problem. We will see. All right. Thanks, everybody. I appreciate the support from the Super Chatters. Really appreciate it. Thank you for all of you listening. Don't forget to like the show before you leave if you like it. And don't forget to subscribe if you're not a subscriber. And you would like to get updates on what's going on and updates on when I go live. All right. I will see you all soon. Thank you, everybody. And I'll see you tonight. I'll post this on Twitter, but I will be doing something on this situation in Israel for Iron Man Center Latin America. I'll be on with Elan Juno and Tals Fani at 8 p.m. I think it's 8 p.m. No, 7 p.m. East Coast time. The link, I'll try to post it on Twitter, the link for that. You can probably find a link on Iron Man Center Latin America or an AORI's website. Talk to you all soon. Bye.


All right, I just want to welcome you guys to week number two. Week one involved a lot of like orientation stuff, and it involved one piece of content. This week we have two complete topics, one complete hardcore bio lab, and all the other pieces that we saw last week as well. So definitely get started.  Make sure that you're sticking to your schedules. Let's take a look at, there's a couple of things that are different this week that I just want to highlight for you. I've already put out an announcement, and so some of this stuff is redundant, but I just want to make sure that everybody's hearing me. And teachers always think that if we say it, then you heard it. But if we don't say it, maybe you didn't hear it. Okay, here's your to-do list. Every week, you know, if you don't hear me say it, then I didn't actually say it, fear. And so maybe I'll get over this as I become more comfortable teaching this online class. So you guys can definitely offer me feedback if I'm being really redundant with the videos and the announcements and the different places where you have all the information. Let me know because I don't want to be redundant for lots of reasons. But I do want to show you some of the things that are unique this week. First of all, if anything is new, I am going to discuss it or mention it in this to-do list. So don't look at the to-do list and be like, oh, yeah, I already saw all those pictures last week. So it must not be important. It is. Like go ahead and read through it and make sure that you're like, oh, yeah, okay, there's nothing new there. I want to encourage you to take good notes. And this part, like if you are not taking, if you're not in there taking notes like you would in a face-to-face class, then you're doing something wrong. Like you need to slow your roll, slow down the video, whatever, but be sure you're taking good notes. And you've got two video lectures this week. And the chemistry of life is related to our lab. Whether you do the lab first or the lecture first, they're going to inform each other. So there will be pieces of the lab that won't make sense until you watch the lecture. There will be pieces of the lecture that will go, oh, after you do the lab. I'm switching up the muddy fun chat just a little bit. And I want to address that with you this time. And let me see if I, oh, look, I did. I brought it up here. This time I have a little bit more description in the header, but I want you guys to handle it a little bit differently. And I'm doing this because I need more interaction than we got last week from the muddy fun conversation. My goal is that this replicates an in-class discussion. There are things that happen during class time when I am with my students in the flipped classroom that definitely did not happen last week. And so I need to make sure that you guys are thinking about stuff and that you're talking about stuff and clarifying misconceptions quickly. So what I did is I actually posted some questions in there. You do not have to address any of them. You don't have to, and probably if nobody addresses any of them, I probably won't do it like this anymore. My thinking is this is an example of a question that I would post to my face-to-face class, and then we would talk about it. So people would post responses, and then we would identify places where there are misconceptions. I would like to think that you would be willing to interact with these questions, and they provide a little bit of structure to this discussion. But again, if you're like, I don't feel like answering that question, or I feel like I already know the answer to that question, that you don't have to discuss. But it's actually an easy way to engage in a meaningful way with this discussion board, so it's an easy way to earn your points. Now, the other thing that I would like to request is that if you still have the option of posting your own questions, and if you would use, I wrote the instructions up there, like it's header for formatting. If you would format your post with a title so that people can look at the title of a post and go, oh, that's a discussion that I'm interested in engaging in. That's something that I didn't understand. And then we can reply just to the piece that is interesting and necessary for you. My idea is that there are what, I think there are 22 of us at this exact moment, and having 22 people's worth of meaningful discussion to sort through might be overwhelming. So if you have something related to one of these topics that I've already posted, you can just reply to that topic. But if you have something that, oh, I really want to talk about this, this cool thing, or this thing that I learned, or this thing that's really confusing to me, just give it a meaningful title so that everybody else can find it and come in and participate if it matters to them. I'd like to try that and see if I can improve the value of my perception of the value of this discussion. We don't have time for anybody to be jumping through hoops in this class. So I really would like to see you take advantage of this thinking through what it would be like if you were in a face-to-face class. Okay, so that's the change that I'm making on the Muddy Fun Board. Now, Muddy Fun goes away Tuesday night at midnight. So you have to have engaged in this discussion board by then. And I'm doing that because I want to move you along.  Like, you're going to be a sad, not successful human if you do that. So if you look at the module again, you'll notice that topic A, we got ready to go. Topic B, I'm not posting that until Tuesday. Tuesday, this next video will open. And I'm doing that on purpose again just to force you to pace yourself. And you've got plenty to do. Like, you really, this class really is, you're going to need to spend, basically check in with it almost daily in order to keep up with all the things that you need to do. So I'll publish all of that stuff on Tuesday sometime. The lab is ready to go. Now, something that I'm doing a little different in the lab. I am asking you guys to sign up for a time that you're going to take the lab. What am I trying to say? When are you going to do the lab? And I'm making your groups based on when you're going to do the lab. So, so far, I have a rockin' nine people out of 22 who have chimed in with when they're going to do the lab. The link to this page is actually in the to-do list. It's right there, new lab groups. When you click on that thing, it'll take you to this page. All you have to do is sign up for when you're going to actually do the lab. If you find that your name is now in bold, I've put you in a lab group, and you're actually good to go. Like, you can begin having a conversation. Just because I have five people signed up to do the lab on Friday does not mean that you can't do the lab on Friday.  Like, all I want to know is that Sarah here is not in a discussion group with Lillian because they're doing the lab at completely different times. And so I'm trying to sort of match you up so that you have someone to talk to. I actually don't even care how big the groups are. So I'm willing to be really flexible about where you go, but what's going to happen is that there are going to be people who don't sign up at all, and then I'm just going to put you into a group by default. I would like to keep the groups the same. Like, I would like you to have your group for a couple weeks and get comfortable with each other and kind of get a plan going on rather than switching the groups up constantly. So my thinking is that if I can match people up with when they are more likely to do the lab, and then we can allow people to actually form relationships with the people in their group that the quality of what happens in those group discussions is going to decrease. What else? Let's see if there's anything else that's happening in the module. Oh, look, haha, nice try. The quiz and the external brain are not supposed to be published yet, good thing I caught that.  Awesome, you guys can do it. Give me a holla if you have any questions and let week two begin. Woo, woo!


30 English Collocations with the word country from espressoenglish.net Let's learn some collocations, words that commonly go together. You can also learn more of these in my e-book, 1000 collocations in 10 minutes a day. Click on the link in the video for more information. You can describe a country based on its climate or temperature. For example, a tropical country is hot and humid near the equator. The opposite is a cold country and a temperate country is in the middle. A temperate country has mild weather and or four seasons. When talking about a person's country you can say someone's native country or home country referring to where they were born and raised. Or someone's adopted country. That refers to where they have chosen to live long term. For example, my native country is the United States. But my adopted country is Brazil because I've lived there for many years and I feel like it's also my home even though I wasn't born there. We also have the expression a foreign country which simply means a different country from the one the speaker lives in or the conversation is based in. Note that the letter G in the word foreign is silent. You can also talk about a neighboring country. That's a country that is right next to another one. Canada and the United States are neighboring countries. Or a distant country or a far away country like the US and Australia which are far away from each other. When talking about how advanced a country is you might hear these terms. A developed country or a first world country meaning a country that is stronger economically and has a higher quality of life. A developing country or a third world country refers to a country that is weaker economically and has a lower quality of life. The best terms to use are developed country and developing country since the terms first world and third world are considered rather out of date. However, some people still use them. Here are more collocations specifying a country's economic or political system. You can have a capitalist country, a socialist country, a communist country, or a democratic country. If a country is ruled by a king or queen or a royal family then it is a monarchy.  Both of these words are nouns used alone. We don't include the word country after monarchy or a dictatorship. You can also describe the official or main religion of a country. For example, a Catholic country, a Muslim country, or a Buddhist country. An occupied country is one in which another country's military forces are controlling the area. In contrast to an independent country which controls itself. Let's look at some verbs. The leaders of the country govern, rule, or run the country. The word run is the most informal, talking about being in charge and controlling things. To serve one's country means to be in the military or work in a government job. These are considered to be doing good things for your country. Finally, you can love your country if you feel good about it. I'll finish today's lesson by explaining the difference between country and countryside because some students find this confusing. The word country has multiple meanings. A country can be a nation such as Japan, France, or Ecuador. All of the examples I gave in this lesson refer to this definition of country. Country can also be used for an area or region that is defined by a characteristic. For example, this is hunting country, meaning an area where people hunt. It doesn't refer to the entire nation, just one region. Another example is this. My relatives live in Bible country, referring to an area where people are Christians and believe strongly in the Bible. Finally, the word country can also refer to a rural area, an area where there's a lot of nature and few people living there. For example, we own a house out in the country. Those are the three possible definitions of the word country. The word countryside refers only to the third definition, a rural area. So you could also say, we own a house out in the countryside. It is also correct. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next lesson.