The next item of business is a debate on motion 3647 in the name of Ivan McKee on subsidy control bill UK legislation. I would ask those members who wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak buttons and I call on Ivan McKee minister to speak to and to move the motion around seven minutes please minister. I thank you for this opportunity to debate the proposed UK Government legislation and the implications of this on devolved powers and before I forget I'll take this opportunity also to move the motion at this point in time. The UK Government's interim subsidy control regime came into effect on the UK's exit from EU membership. The UK must adhere to international obligations on subsidies agreed under free trade agreements. The EU-UK trade and cooperation agreement, the TCA and of course the Northern Ireland protocol and public sector organisations must ensure that subsidies comply with the relevant rules. Importantly agriculture and fishery sectors are excluded from the TCA and operate under World Trade Organization WTO rules. The UK internal market act was introduced on 17 December 2020. It completely overrides the devolution settlement by reserving subsidy control and giving UK ministers power to spend directly in devolved areas without the oversight and consent of this Scottish Parliament and Scottish ministers. That has already been seen in the case of the professional qualifications bill that was debated in this chamber on 10 February and for which we have also refused legislative consent. The UK Government introduced the subsidy control bill to Parliament on 30 June 2021. Paul Scully, the minister for small business, wrote to me at the end of June asking if Scottish ministers would be content and principle to begin the legislative consent process in the Scottish Parliament. The LCM was introduced on 25 October. We do not propose to give consent and I will outline why. The bill, if adopted, brings further erosion of devolution through the sweeping powers of the Secretary of State, which overrides the devolution settlement and risks UK ministers intervening without proper knowledge or consultation around local circumstances. The subsidy control bill empowers the base Secretary of State to refer subsidies and schemes in policy areas of the evolved competence to the appointed independent body, the competition and markets authority, where the subsidy has not yet been awarded or the scheme has not yet been made, a cooler-off period will kick in. The Secretary of State has the power to extend this period without consulting devolved administrations. If an act of this would undermine the long-established powers of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish ministers to act in relation to matters within devolved competence such as economic development, the environment, agriculture and fisheries. The Scottish Government has argued for devolved administrations to have equivalent powers to refer subsidies made in other parts of the United Kingdom or even by public authorities in their own jurisdictions to the CMA. The UK Government has consistently rejected this proposal. The absence of formal regulatory and enforcement arrangements undermines confidence in the process for grant awarding bodies and recipients. The measures proposed in the bill are weak, particularly given the proposed advisory role of the CMA. We continue to press for prior appraisal of awards within a detailed regulatory framework to provide greater certainty on what support will be compatible with the UK's subsidy control regime. That is essential for both subsidy awarding bodies and businesses investing in Scotland and the UK. We firmly oppose the inclusion of agriculture in the permanent regime. Agriculture is fully devolved. Farmers and crofters in Scotland face challenges that are not found elsewhere in the UK, yet the principle set out and schedule one of the bill risks constraining our ability to develop future policies that are tailored to the needs of Scottish agriculture. For example, income and couple support payments play an essential role in supporting many of the businesses operating in our most remote and constrained areas. However, they appear incompatible with some of the proposed principles, especially principle F, competition and investment within the UK. The UK Government has pressed on, ignoring our concerns. The bill and the internal market principle in particular risk making the common framework process redundant, putting legislative restrictions on policy divergence within the UK rather than managing it through an established mutual co-operation via the framework. Those concerns are supported by the House of Lords common framework scrutiny committee. My colleague, Mary Gougeon, on Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands, wrote to base minister Paul Scully in June 2021 and to DEFRA Secretary of State George Eustace in November, setting out our concerns and proposing the bill be amended to exclude agriculture from its scope. George Eustace replied in January, stating in his view that the new domestic regime will protect competition and investment in all parts of the UK, however he did not address the substantive concerns of incompatibility with the principles or impact on the common framework process. The potential lack of transparency, the bill originally proposed that awarding bodies would have six months to place information on the database and interested parties would have one month to appeal. Every early this week I received a letter from minister Scully informing me that this has been amended and awarding bodies will now be required to place information on the database within three months. A small and welcome concession and other minor technical amendments have been proposed that this goes nowhere near addressing our grave concerns regarding this bill. We still consider that the time limit for challenge should be increased a more realistic period. I have addressed a number of specific concerns, however the overarching theme as it is the bill remains high-level. The crucial detail, including draft subordinate legislation and in-depth guidance, is lacking. Its absence makes it difficult to take a considered view. The subsidy control bill, as it stands, proposes broad powers to the Secretary of State, shaping the future regime with little scrutiny from the UK Parliament and no scrutiny by devolved administrations. I move that this Parliament backs the motion, refuses legislative consent to the bill as it stands and backs our request for appropriate amendments to be made to the bill that respects this Parliament's role in devolved competencies. I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. We considered the LCM on subsidy control bill at two evidence sessions in January, hearing first from academics, legal experts and COSLA on the ramifications of the bill, followed by evidence from the minister. We published our report on 9 February. Our report raises concerns about the Scottish Government's engagement with us. Though the bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 30 June 2021, the Scottish Government did not lodge its LCM until almost four months later. We did not receive a clear explanation for that. This delay curtailed the committee's opportunity for scrutiny. That is unsatisfactory and I have raised it with the convener's group. To turn to the bill, the committee accepts that there must be a subsidy control regime in the UK and we welcome the flexibility provided in the bill's proposals for a baseline legal framework for the award of subsidies. The law society said that the bill creates a welcome opportunity for schemes tailored to Scottish circumstances. However, the report agrees with the Scottish Government on a number of points and we note that the Scottish Government cannot recommend to the Scottish Parliament that it gives consent to the bill. The committee shares the concerns that the bill gives considerable powers to UK ministers, which operate across the devolution settlement, impacting on areas of devolved competence. We share the concerns that this will potentially result in UK ministers having the ability to intervene in devolved areas without proper consultation or knowledge of local circumstances. Our witness panel highlighted the asymmetry of power between the UK and devolved Governments created by the bill, which the majority of the committee agreed was a concern. I would stress that the committee's concerns relate solely to the areas that are devolved. We are concerned that smaller organisations and community groups may find a new regime harder to navigate, being at a disadvantage to those with greater access to administrative and legal resources. There are concerns that changes will lead to excessive caution, which will stop investment. There are promises of streamlined and fast-track subsidy award pathways and the UK Government is now consulting with the Scottish Government on schemes. The majority of the committee agreed that Scottish ministers should have the power to introduce schemes in devolved areas. We also heard that the bill makes changes to the devolution settlement concerning the status of acts of the Scottish Parliament, the susceptibility to judicial review and interpretation. The majority of the committee is concerned by those developments, and we would urge the constitution committee to continue work in that area. The majority of the committee is concerned that much of the detail of how the new subsidy control regime will operate is not on the face of the bill, but rather will be detailed in secondary legislation and guidance, centralising decision making and not supporting scrutiny. It is frustrating that, while legislation resulting from the exit from the EU could be used to recognise and support the devolution settlement, it is instead, I am afraid, reinforcing a blinkered approach. The committee notes that Scottish ministers will not have equivalent power to the Secretary of State in having the ability to reverse certain subsidies or schemes to the competition and markets authority. Those are concerns shared by the Welsh Government that it does not reflect the interests of devolved administrations. The committee supports the Scottish Government's call and the LCM for equivalent powers for devolved administrations to reverse subsidies made in other parts of the UK to the competition and markets authority. Final point. It is evident that, for whatever reason, Scotland spends significantly more on enterprise and economic development in the UK as a whole. This spending is likely to be registered as subsidy under the bill, so the bill is anticipated to have a bigger impact on Scotland. The committee is also concerned that, in the absence of clarity, that will create significant scope for conflict between the Scottish and UK Governments, which, frankly, they can be enough of without manufacturing more. All efforts must be made to minimise those concerns and work in co-operation if any of the proposed opportunities in the bill are to be realised. I now call on Jamie Halcro Johnston on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Subsidy control is a key part of ensuring an open, competitive and fair market economy. This piece of UK legislation tackles a vital missing part of the legislative framework for the maintenance of a coherent UK market after our departure from the European Union. We were previously governed by the EU state aid requirements, and it has been a lengthy and often complex process so far in bringing such controls into our domestic law. The maintenance of continuing regulation of state aid is a requirement that has been formalised between the UK and the EU as part of the trade and co-operation agreement, underlying the UK's continued links with the EU single market. However, it is also a system that will have a wide-ranging impact on a number of bodies across this country. The Economy and Fair Work Committee has looked at this area in some detail, and our report from February is on the record. Does the member acknowledge that not only does the bill drive a coach and horses through devolution? In fact, the NUF, NFU Scotland's statement was one of the strongest that I have ever seen about saying that it damages devolution. Even on a practical level, we need subsidy control, but the bill is deficient in a number of measures that will make it less favourable to competition. Could it hinder our investment in net zero and cause risk aversion in terms of partnership funding for important local community projects? No, I do not. I hope that the member will make that in a elongated speech later, but I do not agree with that, and I will be covering some of the concerns that I have with the bill a little bit later. However, it is worth noting that the unanimous conclusion of the committee that the Scottish Government's delay in lodging its legislative memorandum can tail this committee's opportunity for scrutiny, as the committee convener highlighted. LCM was lodged in the Welsh Senate in mid-July, allowing time for greater exploration of the bill. Here, we had to wait until late October, and there has not been, as the committee concluded, a satisfactory explanation for that delay yet. This is a significant set of proposals. It is one part of recreating the structures of our internal market, if not quite from scratch, and certainly with a fresh start. It is the case that this bill in many ways sets a framework to be further expanded by means of secondary legislation and guidance. There has been comment from the devolved administrations and parliaments, as well as within the UK Parliament, noting disappointment at the bill before us is lacking in some detail. While acknowledging that the bill will not be the last word on subsidy control, there is a reasonable case that this lack of detail in primary legislation has made scrutiny more difficult, notwithstanding the late stage at which it came to this Parliament. However, I hope that the Chamber recognises a necessary bill, one that ensures the integrity of the UK internal market, as well as meeting our international obligations. We can see the evidence of the tilling effects of uncertainty in subsidy provision, with public bodies airing on the side of caution to avoid legal challenge. That certainty must be returned, but we agree that the bill alone cannot provide this, which gives the associated guidance and secondary legislation a position of considerable importance. What must, however, be satisfied is a degree of certainty for public bodies to operate within. The committee heard a number of examples of the positives of the framework in which the bill sets out, its greater flexibility, greater autonomy in decision making for local bodies, and as a resultant ability to make decisions with greater speed and responsiveness. My own region, the Highlands and Islands is one where population density in particular makes state support a more regular requirement to secure the sort of policy objections this Parliament wishes to see. We know all too well the rigidities of state aid rules and the lengthy processes it has required in notifications to the European Commission. While maintaining a system of fairness and integrity, it is my hope that the new subsidy control regime will go some way towards addressing these issues. To return to the concerns about detail, additional flexibility will of course not answer wider questions of policy. Within the EU state aid regime, there existed many different approaches taken by the Government of the various Member States, and there will remain political questions over where support should go about obtaining real value for taxpayers' money. In the last session of this Parliament, I was involved in the former economy jobs and fair work committee's business support inquiry, which is a good body of work that deals with one small area of subsidy. There will be choices in this Parliament about how to deploy subsidies effectively, and there is a much wider discussion to be had about how we do so. Responding to the consultation on subsidy control last summer, the business secretary cautioned against damaging subsidy, such as unlimited subsidies to shore up failing companies, where there is no plan for their restructure. But, of course, subsidy is largely used in a positive way, and we will, we hope, increasingly be seen in that light, supporting economic recovery, achieving policies like net zero, and the sort of levelling up that needs to happen both across the United Kingdom, as a whole and within Scotland too. The economy and fair work committee has of course recognised some of the shortcomings in this area, and we need more clarity on how existing objectives will align with a new subsidy control scheme. This Parliament is certainly correct in its wish to see further information from the UK Government on these points. We also recognise some of the points made about asymmetry. While it should be emphasised that we are considering an area reserved to the UK Parliament and one in which we should legitimately expect UK Ministers to be able to act for the whole of the United Kingdom, we do recognise that there is a reasonable argument to grant referral powers to the competition and markets authority to have devolved Ministers, as well as the Secretary of State. Presiding Officer, we acknowledge the significance of the change that this bill brings, as well as the number of concerns that have been raised across this chamber, as well as the remaining uncertainty within the number of organisations and bodies across Scotland. However, we did not accept the position of the Scottish Government that any of these points should be fatal to the bill's progress. It has set out a positive direction for subsidy control within the UK, albeit one that requires additional clarity. I welcome the engagement between Governments that have already taken place for the fleshing out of future subsidy controls to take place. This must continue and go wider still. I now call on Daniel Johnson on behalf of Scottish Labour, and Mr Johnson is joining us remotely. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I apologise for joining late. I have been having some network issues at home and hence the cable that you see running over my left shoulder. Indeed, let me give you the short version just in case I get cut off. Where I agree with Jamie Halcro Johnson is that this is a necessary bit of regulation. We need an overarching framework and regulation for subsidy across the United Kingdom since we have withdrawn from the European Union, but I think that his acknowledgement of the need for, as he put it, clarity also points to the deficiencies in the approach that is taken by the UK Government. The approach that is taken lacks transparency and fails to take due consideration for the devolved Government arrangements that we have across the United Kingdom. Therefore, Scottish Labour cannot support it and will be voting for the motion to withhold consent for this decision time this evening. This was an opportunity to rethink subsidies, to rethink the relationship between industry, enterprise and government, but ultimately the UK Government has failed to do that, failed to seize that opportunity. What is more, the plans do not target regions or sectors with subsidies and there are no measures for using subsidies to help to tackle regional inequality. They are levelling up that the UK Government professes to care so much about. The bill lacks transparency and is needed to ensure that taxpayers' money is spent well. The Law Society of Scotland shares the view that a well-functioning subsidy control regime must be based on clear rules that provide legal certainty to businesses and granting authorities and is one that implements a regime that is clear, proportionate and gives businesses and local authorities the tools needed to operate confidently within it. Critically low, it is the lack of respect for devolution that is most troubling. We raise those concerns in Westminster and also note the concerns raised by the economy fair work committee about the lack of devolved engagement and the asymmetry of power between the UK Government and the Scottish Government. That was an opportunity to perhaps enhance devolution and thereby strengthen it. However, yet again, the UK Government has shown that it either does not understand devolution or perhaps it just does not care about it. The House of Commons Labour tabled six amendments to assure that the devolved administrations were given a meaningful role in the design and implementation of a new subsidy regime. Whilst we understand that the power over a UK-wide subsidy should ultimately rest with Westminster, we also recognise that it is a vital role and vital that all nations of the UK are involved in this regime. Currently, the bill fails to respect the role of devolved nations and does not give them a meaningful seat at the table. We put forward an amendment that would require the Secretary of State to seek the consent of the devolved administrations before making regulations that define the terms of subsidies and those subsidies deemed to be of particular interest, because we believe that the devolved administration should be a partner in making those decisions and those definitions. Those were reasonable amendments, but were defeated and we therefore, as a UK Labour Party, abstained at the second reading of the bill. We have to ensure that we get this right. Clearly designed subsidies can give businesses an unfair advantage, trigger subsidy races and create a risk of international trade disputes. Good subsidies, on the other hand, can help to achieve policy objectives, boost regional growth and encourage research and development. Historically, the UK has spent significantly less on subsidies than other EU member states. In 2019, for example, the UK spent 0.5 per cent of GDP on subsidies, while France spent 0.85 per cent and Germany spent over 1.5 per cent of GDP. On average, EU member states spent 63 per cent more of their GDP on state aid than the UK. While a UK-wide system of subsidy control is needed and necessary, we are concerned that the lack of the role given to devolved administrations under this proposed regime fatally undermines it. Labour believes that there is a need for a genuine four nations approach. We are also concerned that, with the unworkable position of complete unilateral control over subsidies in Scotland that flies in the face of the required co-ordination within our UK single market. While it is clear that some form of regulation is needed, the bill cannot be supported because of its lack of transparency and because of its failure to take account and, indeed, enhance the devolved settlement across the islands. Therefore, we will be voting with the Government to withhold consent for this bill at a decision time. This is the third debate in recent weeks that our two Governments have found it incapable of reaching an agreement on something so fundamental to the operation of our country. We had the debate about the internal market, the inability of the two Governments to work together, the shared prosperity fund and the inability of our two Governments to work together. People deserve, I think, better than this constitutional argument, never-ending constitutional argument. They expect more and they expect, I have to say, a bit of maturity from both sides, because both are as bad as each other. As Clare Baker referred in her contribution, there is a symmetry of power and that needs to change. Therefore, I hope that this is the last time that we have these circumstances and that we actually get Governments to try to work together for the benefit of people because people deserve better. I understand that there is an important—yes, certainly. I am quite perplexed by Willie Rennie's approach here. We have just heard the Conservative members explaining the asymmetry in the bill and the deficiencies within the bill. Is he saying that we should just roll over and not protect the devolution settlement and allow the UK Government to do whatever it wants in devolved areas? Or should we stand up for Scotland and make sure that those areas are protected and the interests of Scotland's economy are protected as a consequence? Willie Rennie? Probably wait and be a little less impatient and listen to what the contribution is going to be from myself, because what I am making clear is that there is, of course, a need for a UK subsidy to the bill. We cannot have a race to the bottom in the different nations and regions of the UK, just like we had with the European Union, but there does need to be a process of engagement between the nations and the regions of the UK. That is what I am calling for. I think that there needs to be a federalist arrangement, as I have argued previously, with the share prosperity fund and also with the internal market arrangements, because we need to find ways of agreeing better together across the United Kingdom, rather than the approach that the SNP and the Conservative Government love to take is the never-ending constitutional argument. People deserve better, and I am sure that the minister truly understands that. However, there is some hope that the House of Lords—there are discussions in the House of Lords about perhaps a non-legislative route for agreement of those issues. That gives us something constructive to work around. It has not been agreed yet, so we will be voting with the Government this evening. We will be voting—not just now—we will be voting with the Government this evening because we want to hold legislative consent, because what we have just now in terms of the decision making process is not adequate. However, if we do get an agreement through the good work in the House of Lords, then I would hope that the Government would come back and recognise that things had changed, so we can give legislative consent because we need to try to work together. Of course, that is a very important bill because it will bring into sharp focus the Scottish Government's failure on industrial intervention, which I have rehearsed with the minister previously, on bifab, which collapsed, and on Lochaber, where we were promised 2,000 additional jobs, which have not materialised. That will be the start of a wider debate, which I am sure the minister will engage in. We need to have a proper arrangement across the United Kingdom. We cannot afford to have a race to the bottom. We need to have effective subsidy control and subsidy in a way that Daniel Johnson has talked about to make sure that we get the best out of it for the benefit of our economy and our people. However, the current loggerhead approach of both the Conservative Government and the SNP Government does not serve people well, they deserve better, and I hope that we can come back with better arrangements in future. Preferably, a featherless solution, which we have argued for some time, is the best way forward for the United Kingdom. I would like to thank members for their contributions. I will touch on those contributions very briefly before I move on to concluding at a very limited time. Jamie Halcro Johnston recognises the chilling effect that the lack of certainty within the bill has on the investment scenarios. We have already seen examples of that in Scotland, so I am glad that he recognises that and is critical of the bill in that regard. We have called for a proposal of awards to be part of the process that the UK Government has refused to do. He also recognises the asymmetry inherent in the bill and why we are where we are, with the challenges on devolution and our reasons for withholding consent. The uncertainty is very clear because businesses and award makers do not have prior approval of awards, and that is one of the key elements in the functional aspects of the bill and one of the reasons why we are refusing to give consent to it. Jamie Halcro Johnston said in response to Fiona Hyslop's question that he did not agree with her assertions. However, I have the NFU approach to the subsidy control bill here. Given the differences in approach regarding future funding that is already set out by the UK and Scottish Governments, the bill is a risk to future rural policy development in Scotland. The oversight controls already in place provide protection to the UK internal market act against distortions. The subsidy control bill, together with the UK internal market act, has the potential to seriously undermine Scottish agriculture, which is the turnkey for a thriving rural community. That is the direct quote from the NFU in Scotland. I think that the minister of Scotland is our big friends of ours, but that is what the minister said in the bill. I am fairly very much for that intervention and as always, he is an expert in this subject area. It is great that he is raising very important issues in that perspective from NFU Scotland, which is hugely important. However, as I said, Jamie Halcro Johnston recognises the problems of the bill and recognises the symmetry that is contained within it. As does Daniel Johnson and I welcome his comments on that, he is right that it is a very important matter that needs to be taken forward, but he is also absolutely right that it further demonstrates that the UK Government does not understand nor care about devolution and that, in the end, will be there undoing. I thank Willie Rennie for his comments and I am glad that he is supporting our position on this issue. He continues to try to breathe life into the corpse of federalism. It is entertaining to watch that process, but the reality is that that ship has long sailed. We have the choice between a UK Government that is determined to remove the powers of the Scottish Parliament and reduce devolution, or we have taken forward our agenda to make sure that Scotland is a normal independent country. Muscular unionism has had its day. It has tried to do what it could do and it has not succeeded. The disconnects are within the UK Government. There are UK Government ministers who are very comfortable and completely understand our position on that, but they have been told what to do by others within the UK Government who are determined to continue down that road of creating fights where there need to be none and creating a situation where even the Conservative members here recognise the challenges and the problems with this particular bill. In conclusion, I move that Parliament backs the motion that refuses legislative consent to the bill as it stands and asks Parliament to back our request that the UK Government lodge suitable amendments as the bill progresses so that it provides equivalent powers to the Scottish ministers, removes agriculture from its scope and requires the UK Government to seek the consent of Scottish ministers if the plan legislation which would impinge on devolved areas. I do not think that that is too much to ask. I do not think that Willie Rennie, frankly, would ask for any more where he is standing in my shoes. It is up to the UK Government to take forward those changes and then we can see where we get to in that regard. Thank you very much.


Today I'm going to be explaining how I introduce the concept of the scientific method to young children, and the scientific method is just a universal method of exploration that uses five basic steps, which are forming a goal or research question, creating a hypothesis, doing an experiment, measuring the results of the experiment, and explaining those results. So young children already have a natural desire to explore and investigate their environment, and we can tell this by their usage of how and why questions. And this little activity is just a quick and easy activity that I like to do with my children to start introducing some of those scientific investigation skills. What you will need for this activity is just a glass or some kind of container that can hold a few inches of water, some food coloring, and celery. So I'm going to walk you through how this experiment addresses each of the five steps of the scientific method. So the first step to form a goal or research question, I do this by asking the children what they already know about celery and what they would like to find out. So my children said they would like to find out how celery gets water, and if the celery would change color when put into colored water. So we then formed our hypothesis, which is a prediction of what will happen when I put the celery into the colored water. So out of 12 children, seven of them predicted that the celery would change color, and the other five thought that it would not. The next step is actually doing the experiment. So to begin you'll just put a couple inches of water in a container and add a few drops of food coloring. And while you're doing this, you want to be actively engaging your students and asking them questions to help them think deeper and stay engaged with the experiment. So I'm just going to add a few drops and when I did this with my class I had a child say that the food coloring looked heavy in the water. So this led me to the concept of density, and I was able to explain that to the children and explain that the food coloring is heavier than the water, which makes it sink down to the bottom. Next we will put the celery into the colored water, and then you're just going to put this somewhere in your classroom that the children can go and observe it over the next few days and see the changes that are taking place. Moving on to the results. Here you can see I have a piece of celery that's been sitting in here actually for a couple weeks now, and you can see that it's very dark, dark green, just like the water down here. So the celery does indeed change color, and the stalks and the leaves do as well to match the color in the container. And I explained, helped explain this to my children by cutting open the celery, and we were able to see that the red food coloring actually ran all the way through the tubes of the celery, and that led me to the explanation of how the celery gets its water, which was our original research question. So we can see that the celery gets its water by sucking it up through the tubes as demonstrated by this picture of the food coloring. This is a really quick and simple experiment, and there's many others that you can do as well. You might even have the children draw a before and after picture to help them conceptualize the changes in the process. So here I just had my students draw a picture before and after the celery had been sitting in the water, and you can see that the change is here. Just a quick experiment you can do, and there's many others you can also do with this method. So this is great to practice observation, exploration, and research skills for young children.


Operations and security is every sailor's responsibility, and the information can be damaging if put into the wrong hands. The OPSEC process is the way that we protect information that is critical to us and prevent our enemies from affecting our mission. And we can employ this at our house or at our job by ensuring that we are not giving people who we don't trust, who we don't know information that is important to us, ourselves, our sailors, our Marines or our mission. If we give them that information, it could lead to dramatic, terrible effects. It could lead to the death of sailors and Marines. It could cause our mission to fail. So the way we can apply OPSEC and protect ourselves and our information is to ensure we know what information is critical to us, our sailors and our Marines and our mission, and then protecting that information. For more information about OPSEC, visit the Operations and Security Facebook page. Thank you.


From DailyDoseOfWeirdNews.com, I'm Darren Marlar and this is your Daily Dose of Weird News. This episode is brought to you by the audiobook Your Haunted Lives, True Tales of the Paranormal by G. Michael Vasey – a collection of creepy, often downright chilling, true experiences of the strange and weird that'll keep you looking over your shoulder. Here are free sample and support Marlar House by downloading the audiobook for yourself at DailyDoseOfWeirdNews.com A Florida Lice treatment center says that selfies could be one of the major causes of lice with teens. I guess lice just like to photobomb people's picks. For decades, a 55-year-old woman in China has had an appetite for dirt. Her unusual habit began some 50 years ago when she got a taste while cleaning a family home. She estimates she has eaten now 5 tons of dirt.  President Trump now admits there are no tapes of James Comey. Meanwhile, Comey confessed that he never DVR'd The Apprentice. A book of short stories titled 40 Minutes Late has been returned to a San Francisco library 100 years late. Webb Johnson returned the book Friday and there was no fine. Johnson's great-grandmother had checked it out in 1917. She passed away a week before the due date. Johnson found the 1909 book in an old steamer trunk in 1996. So maybe it wasn't great grandma's fault since she died before it was due. You found the book in 1996. You're just now returning it? 21 years after you found it? A couple from Ecuador claims that they have lived without eating food for nine years, saying they live on just air. Looking for a new dining experience in San Francisco, a place called The Dungeon has planned a two-day experimental rat café for those who feel their coffee or tea is better sipped while rats, supplied by the local rat rescue, scurry about the room. Pastries are included for the $49.99 price but the rats will be removed before the food comes. Guests are promised at least 15 minutes of rat interaction and the price includes admission to The Dungeon.  This all goes down July 1st and July 8th. YUM! There are rumors circulating around DC that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is about to retire. The rumors started when he began showing up each morning wearing a fishing hat. An associate professor of English at an Ontario University lent her a copy of a textbook to one of her students five years ago and never saw it again. That is, until she recently ordered a used replacement copy on Amazon. And her old copy arrived, complete with her name and the date written in her handwriting on the title page. Eugenia Zorowski said, I was stunned. She notes that it's particularly uncanny because the book is about shopping practices and how consumer markets encourage us to feel closely attached to the things we buy. Good thing she was an English teacher and not teaching ethics, seeing as her student just stole her book and sold it online. Japan is in constant conflict over whether to beef up their military. As of late, increasing concerns about North Korea are fueling the fire, even though the country's constitution requires a low-profile military, only for purposes of self-defense. However, when the country's defense minister recently suggested placing females into combat roles, the constitutional law professor strongly objected. It's not the obvious sexism that got people talking, though. Rather, it was his reasoning for not wanting women in combat. He actually said that Japan's enemies might have bombs capable of blowing women's uniforms off, thus exposing their bodies. Don't worry, the laughter and ridicule was swift. One critic wrote, I think I saw something like that in Dragon Ball Z. A toddler in Massachusetts survived a two-story fall from a building last Wednesday thanks to his stuffed animal. The two-year-old boy of Chelsea was jumping on his bed when a hop sent him out his home window. Luckily, the boy was holding a large stuffed cow during the fall. He landed on the toy, which provided a cushion between him and the concrete sidewalk. I had a cow save my life once, I was starving, but I found a McDonald's just in time to grab a cheeseburger. An Algerian man picked a truly horrible way to satisfy his craving for attention. And now, we'll get plenty of attention in prison. You've probably seen the now infamous photo posted by the unnamed man dangling a baby out of a 15th-story window of an apartment building in Algiers with the caption, 1000 likes or I drop him. Well, social media users quickly denounced the photo, and police charged the man with endangering the life of a child when they arrested him on Sunday. The man who is a cousin of the baby swears the whole thing was a misunderstanding. The boy's father also said he believed the man was just being playful and asked the court for mercy.  Maybe you remember the story of 34-year-old Kelly Mason of Leicester, England. She had grown weary of her neighbor's kids' soccer ball constantly landing in her garden and, when it happened again, punctured the ball before throwing it back. The mother of the children, Natalie Boland and her father, William Jelly, responded by coming right over and beating Mrs. Mason to death, while the two murderers just found out their fate. They each got seven years in prison. Boland's lawyer said things had been boiling for a long time. Both women had filed complaints with police regarding the other, and his client simply snapped. He added the consequences were far beyond anything she could have imagined and is something she will be eternally ashamed of and will regret forever. However, the judge said neither Boland nor Jelly showed any remorse for their actions. He said Boland boasted about the assault to friends and seemed almost triumphant at Mason's death. And so you give them just seven years? Despite experiencing the hottest June temperatures and more than 40 years, the headteacher at ISCA Academy in Devon, England told boys shorts were not an acceptable part of the school uniform. However, she did not ban skirts. So guess what happened next? Yep, dozens of boys at the secondary school turned up in skirts that they had borrowed from friends or siblings. One teen described the feeling as a nice breeze amid the sweltering temperatures.  The boys see the female teachers in sandals and nice, cool skirts and tops, while they are wearing long trousers and shoes and the older boys have to wear blazers. Boys who wore the school's regulation tartan skirts did not get into trouble, except for the one who wore his too short. With the protest now spreading to other schools with bans on shorts, Mitchell has said she is ready to consider the school's dress code. Congratulations, boys! You stood up like real women and fought for equal rights for boys. Curl power! Ryan Seacrest is still trying to hammer out the final details for him hosting the next incarnation of American Idol. The current sticking point is that Ryan wants executive producer credit as part of his compensation. Lionel Richie won't supposedly sign on as a judge until Ryan is secured. Wait a minute. Lionel Richie? He's still alive? Kim Kardashian was the top bidder at an auction for a wristwatch once owned by Jackie Kennedy. All it took was $379,000. What do you need a watch for, Kimmy? Do you know what also tells time? That phone you keep taking selfies with. Oscar-winning filmmaker Ron Howard is stepping into a galaxy far, far away from the upcoming Star Wars Han Solo spin-off movie after the surprise departure of its directors. Who would have thought that back in 1977, when Star Wars was released in theaters that the redhead kid on Happy Days, which was on television at that same time, would be directing a prequel to that movie 40 years later? In fact, who knew what a prequel even WAS back in 1977? Never miss a single episode of The Daily Dose of Weird News. Download the free Marlar House mobile app. In the app, you can find links to my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Watch other Marlar House YouTube videos. Sign up for the Marlar Sheet newsletter to automatically be registered for giveaways. Purchase Daily Dose of Weird News t-shirts or mugs. Download audiobooks I've narrated. See my latest blog posts and more. The Marlar House mobile app is free for iOS and Android users. Download it now by clicking the mobile app tab at DailyDoseOfWeirdNews.com or search for Marlar House in your phone app store. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe if you want to see more. And click that little bell icon next to the subscribe button to be notified when I post new videos. And if you're already an official weirdo, please share this video on your own social media. Find even more weird news that I didn't have time for on the Facebook page at DailyDoseOfWeirdNews.com. I'm Darren Marlar and I'll see you next time, weirdos.


Well hi everybody it's Sandy and I have the greatest gift to share with you and I know it's almost Christmas time when I'm posting this video but this can be used any time of year so I want to share it with you because I just got mine and I wanted to show you what it is. It's this great box to start off with. Team gratitude. You want to save the box. You're going to need it later and then we are going to unbox. I have not even looked at everything that's inside this. I have read through the instruction manual. The instruction manual tells you all about what it is and I felt encouraged just from reading this. It has these beautiful quotes in here. Lots of great information. Every purchase of the gift goes toward giving back to others. Give to children in schools. To give to their parents and vice versa. Military spouses and their significant others. Family members of ill and loved ones in the hospital. What is it? The goal is to build the habit of gratitude and don't we know when we are thankful everything changes. Our whole attitude. Our whole outlook changes and they have beautiful quotes in here which are wonderful to inspire you. Examples of who you can give it to. Best friends, significant other mentors, children, parents, siblings, coworkers or boss. Someone going through a tough place. I have people in all these categories. I think I might have to get eight of these. I can give a whole bunch of them and it has lots of information here that is really interesting on why gratitude matters. How it helps us. How it changes our lives. So it has benefits for us not just for the person that we are sending this to. Now you can gift this anytime. It has some suggestions. Valentine's Day, World Gratitude Day, the holidays, Father's Day, Mother's Day, Best Friend Day and you can share this at any time. It's going to take you some time to put it together. So don't think that if you're going to order this like a week before Christmas that it's going to be ready to gift anybody. It has a story of how it came to life and a little picture there of Mr. Gratitude. That's what I'm going to call him because he's in the Gratitude Book. Now this tells you how to use the right side and the left side of the journal. The right side is for thinking of a specific moment or experience and then really putting yourself there. Write out what that experience was and how you felt and what was specific about the person you're giving it to that they brought to that experience. And the left side is for all of you creative people out there because I have lots of crafty folks in here in these packs are story out on stickers, picture frame corners, pocket holders, message cards, stickers, border frames, lists and postcards, lots of things that you can do to add to the journal and as crafters you can add lots more to it because you have the stuff and this is kind of a sample of what it would look like.  So you can get an idea of how to get started with this and then it tells you what to do on your off days to keep yourself going on this because you probably aren't going to be able to do this every single day but in order to get yourself in the right mindset you need to be thinking about this on a regular basis and here are the three musketeers, Mr. Gratitude and Amir and Ari. So Mikey, Amir and Ari are the guys behind this and they're the ones that emailed me and said you seem to be a good person that might be interested in this and as soon as I read their web page that was all about the fundraising of this and everything I thought oh my gosh I have to do this, I totally have to do this. So I'm going to be buying a couple of these. So this is the Gratitude book, I guess that's what I'm going to call it, the greatest gift book and it's got beautiful lovely gold foil on it and inside, why am I doing this? So you tell them why you're doing it, you sign and date it and here are your pages. This is why they said left page, right page because right page has lines, left page does not. You can draw pictures, you can use stamps, you can use the stickers they provide and just do lots and lots of pages about that person. So you need to think of somebody who you have lots of stories to tell about and to wrap it all up give them a closing message about how wonderful they are and keep on spreading the love. So I am dying to see what's in these packs because I have not opened all of this and you are going to get to see the first opening of this. So we have these three packs to check out and let's go to the first one first and I will tear it open let's see what it says here hey this is a mini bonus gift for you the writer open me only after you finish writing your greatest gift well okay I have to set that aside shoot I want to show you what's in it but then you won't be surprised either so I guess that's a good thing we're going to set that aside okay become the ultimate storyteller this is the storytelling pack that they mentioned that has all kinds of stuff inside and oh boy here we go so the storytelling pack has more information which is awesome you win free stuff as you tell your story as you share it so lots and lots more ideas more information look they even have great ideas think about the time you left together the hardest share time you really needed someone just to listen to how much it meant to have your loved one just provide their attention for you without judgment so these are great ideas for how to come up with stories to write in there because I know it'd be hard to kind of come up with what what would be an appropriate story oh my goodness has lots of them look at look at all these great ideas these would even be great to just write letters to people about this kind of stuff oh my goodness I am going to just be using this little booklet all the time can you tell I'm a little bit excited about this so now this is a list of all the stuff that you're going to get in the pack story ideas we were inspired by so they give you some books you can read if you want to read more on being grateful and writing stories and we have corner stickers so you can put photographs in there have an envelope that has little things that you can glue in there little embellishment thingies and a gift sticker here we've got me and you stickers you could put this over top of a photograph and have the photograph peek through yes that's what all of these are for and they all appear to be stickers so these are great frames I'm so excited for what we do put in there oh my gosh I have so many things to be thinking about and then these are all stickers these words you make me blank we are so blank you are totally blank and then you can fill in the rest of it there's more of those lots more journaling stickers those of you who are scrapbookers are going to go ape on this I'm telling you this is very cool and I like that they have a matching color scheme so that things kind of go together and look they have hexagons they have hexagons you guys know how much I love hexagons they have little banners little tiny sentiments lots more of course hearts because why wouldn't they have hearts look at all these stickers in here this is crazy and even if you don't use these in your book if you don't use them all up think of all the cards you can make with these because my audience is card makers and look at the emojis they have flaming poop flaming poop emojis oh my goodness that's hilarious and this is my favorite emoji I like that one the best with the heart eyeballs and if they have puppy heart eyeballs and then puppy crying they have so much in here oh my gosh lots more turned right side down upside down oh there's the upside down one which you could also use as a right setup smiley face or you could use them as a confused emoticon I'm not sure what picture you would put with that my brains are leaking anyway okay there's the storytelling pack and when you're finished I think maybe we're not supposed to open this one either once you're finished writing your greatest gift journal you can use all the materials here to gift this to your lovely your loved one okay so in here are ribbon and a greeting card and envelope you could make your own card because you are crafters people from here who watch me on my channel and I guess we can open this because I want you to see what kind of card you get that doesn't have to be a surprise the other one is a surprise okay there we go let me get this out and all right capture the love the moment when your loved one realizes what this gift is that you're giving them is unforgettable record the reactions now wouldn't that be great to give this to someone in person and watch them read it or at least watch them open it and see that you have done this incredible thing for them make sure you do that that would be amazing and you can share it with them over at thehabitnes.com team inside here we have a card in a nice big heavy envelope the card on the outside is a shiny and slick on the inside you could write on it and you could even color all those wonderful things in there that would be kind of fun and they have a sticker to put on the outside of the envelope to seal it closed and add it to your package now on here it does say that there's ribbon but mine does not have ribbon and I'm going to guess it's because the box itself has the ribbon printed on it so you don't really need ribbon but you could if you're a crafter and you have loads of ribbon like I do you could tie a piece of ribbon on the outside anyway this is my unboxing of the greatest gift I'm excited about this are you guys excited I hope that you will go and get one of these there's a link in the description down below and I want you to know that I am an affiliate now for these folks so if you buy one I get a small percentage and it doesn't cost you anything extra but they have offered me that as a thank you for doing this video for them and after I'm all done with it I may or may not show you what I have created because I think the first person I'm going to do it for is very personal and I'm not sure I'm no positive that I will be wanting to share all the stories and everything with you but maybe I will I don't know maybe I'll show you some peeks at some of the artwork that I do on the left side and not the stories on the right side because I don't want to share that with that person like without asking their permission so be sensitive to if you share things like that on your social media and yeah that is about it for today's video this is the greatest gift it's really cool and I hope that you will go and get one and share your gratitude and your thanks with someone else I want to change the world one crafter at a time and this book this little project this little package it's going to help to do that so you guys go out and have a good day and tell somebody thank you bye


Hello, this is Fray Nolson, crop economist and marketing specialist with NDSU Extension. This is the weekly soybean market update for the week of November 12th through November 18th of 2018. This week we're going to take a little bit deeper look into who is importing U.S. grains. This is the graph of the accumulated export sales for soybeans. Normally when I present this information on export sales, I do it week by week so how many bushels of soybeans have we sold or contracted for sale each week during the marketing year? This represents the same information in a little bit different format. So here what we're doing is every time there's an export sales we add it to the pile of sales. So we'd like to see this pile of accumulated sales grow as quickly as possible. And as you can see, we've talked about this before, the 2018-19 export pace is behind where we'd normally see at this time of year. I'd also like to point out the scaling of this graph on the left hand side. So the top value is 60 million metric ton. This will become important later on as we move on to the next slides. This is the graph of the corn export sales or accumulated corn export sales. You can see the shape is a little bit different, that we tend to have a little bit slower pace in the winter months and then that pace of exports tend to grow or expand a bit faster as we move into the summer months. And looking at the 2018-19 sales pace, relative to what we've seen historically, we're well ahead of where we have been at this time for the last several years. Also again, notice that the scaling on the left hand side is at 60 million metric tons. We're using the same scaling between corn and soybean export sales. The volumes are very similar, but the pace or the rate of export sales do vary by crop. Next, let's take a look at accumulated wheat export sales. Again, this would be for all wheat. It's not broken down by class, so wheat is wheat. As you can see, the accumulated export sales, the rate of export sales for wheat is relatively stable. It's more like a straight line. This signals that the amount and volumes that we sell during the winter months are very similar to the volumes that we sell during the summer months. As you can see, the red line, the 2018-19 accumulated export sales are behind what we'd normally see this time of year for the last couple of years. So we're having a little bit tougher time selling wheat into the international market, but export sales aren't horrible either. I also would like to point out the scaling on the far left hand side. The top scaling now is in 30 million metric ton versus the 60 million metric ton that we used for corn and for soybeans. So our total sales of wheat into the international markets on a volume basis are lower for wheat than they are for corn or for soybeans. Let's take a little bit more detailed look at who buys US wheat. This is a list of the top 10 US wheat importers, or the top 10 countries that purchase wheat from the United States. I'd like to focus on the column on the far right hand side. This is the three-year average of wheat purchases by country. If we look at these, we can categorize these into three major categories. We have the top category, which is really the top three countries of Mexico, Japan, and the Philippines. And again, they purchase approximately the same amount. Then we have this middle tier of countries, being Korea, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Taiwan. They purchase about half of the volumes that these top tier countries do. And then we have these lower tier countries, primarily China, Colombia, and Thailand. You notice that as we move down this list, the volume of sales drops off fairly quickly. So the point is that we have a relatively diverse set of countries that buy wheat from the United States. Even though we can categorize these into the different tiers, the volume of sales are relatively uniform over a broad spectrum of countries. As we shift to corn, this is a list of the top five buyers of US corn. Again, we can break these top five buyers into really three categories. If you look again on the far right hand side, the three-year average, we have the top two buyers, this top category of Mexico and Japan. We have this middle group, the two countries of Korea and Colombia. And then we have this third tier being Peru. And again, as we extend the list of these different countries, it drops off fairly quickly. So the point being we have, again, a fairly diverse set of countries that buy corn from the United States. But we can cluster these into the top category, the middle category, and the bottom category. I'd also like to highlight a few numbers on this table. In particular, the export sales of US corn into Japan and Korea. So if we look at the column on the far left-hand side, the 2018-19 YTD, YTD represents year to date. So this would be the amount of corn that we have sold, contracted for sale into Japan and Korea, starting at the beginning of the marketing year. So let's compare the column on the left to the column right next to it, which is the 2017-18 YTD. So this is the amount that has been sold this time last year. As you notice, the sales into Japan have increased 46% relative to the pace that we've had this time last year. And the sales into Korea have increased 353% relative to last year's pace. So our corn export sales into the Asian markets have been relatively strong this year compared to last year. As we look at the top five US soybean importers, we get a little bit different picture. On the far right-hand column, again, we have this three-year average. You can see that we can categorize these into really two buckets. We have China, which is the largest bucket. They have historically been our number one customer for US soybeans. Then we have this other group that's well below that, being Mexico, Indonesia, Japan, and the Netherlands. So again, the type of customers that we're selling soybeans to is very different. And the volumes are very different between soybeans versus corn and wheat. Once again, I'd like to highlight a few key numbers.   Again, primarily due to the tariffs and import restrictions that China has put on US soybeans. There are several countries that have increased their purchase of US soybeans, primarily, again, because of the lower prices. The two I'd like to highlight would be Mexico and the Netherlands. If you look at the column on the far left-hand side, 2018, 19, YTD, or year-to-date, we can see that Mexico has increased their purchases by about 127% relative to this time last year. So again, we are selling more soybeans into the Mexican market. The other one I'd like to highlight is in the Netherlands. Now, it's scored as a Netherlands, but it really represents the EU or European Union. There's two major ports, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The US soybeans, US grains, in particular, get offloaded and distributed then into the European market. So it's scored as Netherlands. But again, we've seen an 83% increase in our shipments of soybeans into the European market. But those sales volumes are much, much lower relative to what we'd normally see as an export pace into China. Now, let's shift our focus a little bit and look at the volumes of grain movements through our major grain exporting terminals in the US. These numbers represent the inspections of grain for export through the Pacific Northwest. So again, this would be grain that's been delivered and inspected and loaded onto a boat for shipment into the international markets. This is broken down by commodity. So if we look at the column on the far left-hand side, the 2018 YTD that's year-to-date, now this would be a calendar year calculation, not a marketing year calculation. So we're going from January 1 through December 31. So far, as of the beginning of November, our export inspections for wheat through the PNW are off a little bit from last year. We're down about 15% from this time last year. Notice, however, the corn shipments are up 71% relative to this time last year. Our soybean shipments are off 24% from this time last year. Again, this is a 12-month period, not a marketing year period. So there were some export shipments earlier on during the winter months moving through the PNW for the soybeans. The point is that the total volume of grain moved through the Pacific Northwest terminals this year, relatives of this time last year, actually a little bit ahead of the pace that we saw. Again, primarily due to higher export shipments or higher shipments of corn through those PNW markets. As we move to the Mississippi Gulf, so these would be the export facilities along the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico, we see that wheat shipments are off a little bit from this time last year. Again, corn shipments are higher than this time last year, about 14% higher. And soybean shipments are about 10% lower. Again, I want to remind everybody this is for the calendar year, not the marketing year. So our total flow of grain through the Mississippi Gulf terminals are very, very close to what we saw last year. Periodically, I do get questions about what about the Great Lakes system? What about moving some of the grain through the Great Lakes rather than down to the Gulf of Mexico or into the PNW markets? And as you can see, the shipments of wheat through the Great Lakes system are up about 20% from this time last year. Corn shipments are up 133% from last year, this time last year. And soybean shipments are up about 34% from this time last year. So we are seeing some increased volumes through the Great Lakes system, but the total volumes are much, much lower. When we compare the 2018 year-to-date values of about 2 million metric ton through the Great Lakes system versus the PNW at 35.7 million metric ton and the Mississippi Gulf at almost 55 million metric ton, the volume shipped through the Great Lakes systems are much, much lower. So what does all this mean? These Chinese tariffs on US soybeans have had an impact. They've impacted not only total US soybean export sales, the total volumes that we're selling, it's also then impacted the volume of soybeans that are exported to other countries. As prices have come down, there are other countries that are buying US soybeans, but the volumes again are lower than what we typically sell into the Chinese market. But it's also had a shift in the flow of soybeans. Where the soybeans, how they move from the farm gate into these export terminals. Again, the export sales and the volumes shipped into the PNW markets have dropped off substantially for soybeans. There's been a shift then to more export sales and volumes of shipments through the Gulf of Mexico. But this also had a ripple effect then into the flow of corn and the flow of wheat, in particular again, from the farm gate into those export terminals, especially into the PNW. So as export sales or the volumes of shipments from the Northern Plains and the PNW markets for soybeans started dropping off, corn export sales started to pick up, the volumes of shipments into the PNW markets for corn increased. So total volumes through those PNW ports have remained relatively constant when you look at total throughput or total volumes. Local basis levels have also been impacted by not only the export volumes, but also the export destinations. So the countries that are buying US grains are also impacting then the flow of grain internally within the US system. So where is the grain need to be delivered to what export terminal, as well as how fast can that grain be exported or what's the throughput? Soybean basis levels, especially in North Dakota have been negatively impacted, primarily due to not only the slower delivery rates, but also the longer distances. So rather than delivering North Dakota soybeans into the PNW market, which has relatively fast throughput and relatively quick turnaround times for rail deliveries, we're now having to try and move North Dakota soybeans into the Gulf of Mexico markets. So the delivery rates, the volumes are slower as well as having longer distances impacting then local basis levels. In contrast, corn basis levels have remained relatively firm through harvest. Again, primarily due to the good export sales we've had in particular into the Asian markets, and those are then shipped through those PNW ports, again, having the higher throughputs and the higher turnaround times and the higher volumes. I will classify basis levels for wheat to be kind of average at this time of year. And there's really two kind of countervailing forces that are at play here. One of them would be the US export sales for wheat are a little bit behind what we'd like to see in a total sense, although there's been steady demand from the Asian markets. Again, primarily delivery points into that PNW marketplace. As we look forward in time, what do we expect to see happening to these basis levels? Or again, the basis being the difference between the local cash price and the futures price, and that basis really your local market trying to help regulate the flow of grain over time. So for soybeans, we are expecting soybean basis levels within the region to remain weak or more negative than normal until the Chinese purchases return. Again, that can be because of change in tariffs and or actually purchases of soybeans by the Chinese buyers. For corn, we're expecting the basis levels to remain firm during the winter months, but they may weaken as we get it after spring planting. So again, export sales for corn have been very strong. The Asian markets have been a major buyer of US corn. Those shipments out to the West Coast have been relatively fluid. So we do expect to see again basis levels remain firm, but once we get past spring planting and we start cleaning out the bins in mid summer, we may see some weakness, depending upon again, export pace and the flow of grain. For wheat, we are expecting to remain firm at basically the levels that we've seen today. They may strengthen or become less negative during the winter months. And there's two really, two things that are kind of competing against each other. One is stronger competition for world wheat markets. So there's a lot of competition in the world wheat markets. The US is having a little bit slower pace than we'd see typically at this time of year. But the supplies of high protein, milling quality wheat are very tight. So we may actually see some increased export sales of spring wheat relative to the winter wheat as we move into the winter months. Again, we need to be monitoring that very, very closely. This concludes this week's recording. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Thank you for listening.


Residents of communities in Oshimele South Local Government area of Delta State have appealed to Governor Ifian Yokoha to come to their aid. They want him to complete the on-the-road project that is linking their communities to the state capital, which is about three kilometers away. Some of the residents who spoke to our correspondent Frida Pomejero at the community said the community faces road problems during rainy seasons. Nobody can access the community through the land. Schools are closed down because of water from the River Niger. However, a source from the Ministry of Works, Delta State, said government had promised to visit the construction site very soon. We are improving our development and progress. During the rainy season, the first season, the schools are forced to close down because most of the teachers come from a civil that has no roads to bring them here. So we urge the government, the state government and the state governor to please help us by exiting the road because at the moment, we can only get to Kobuneda by Kenu, or this play vote. The governor came and said, oh, and we're all happy he's our father, he's been our father. So he said, oh, this road will be awarded, this road will be done, and it was awarded truthfully, but today, we say we don't have a road. So we are begging him. It will be unfair if at the end of his administration, we can't even count, we can't even say we have a road from the Delta North Governor. To be shameful, and my people are even angry already. The believer leaders are sabotaging, even when it's not true. No road, because if you get a road, if you pull up, we'll get here, we'll get here. Now we are going to stay here, we'll get there, they're rotting, they'll get away.  So please, with the government, make the help us for this thing. This community, they are predominantly farmers who needs road, access road to their farms, to the city, to ensure that they sell their food products that they produce from their farming, and also, they are also fishermen. What measures has the Delta State government put in place to ensure that these people don't suffer from this climate change that has had an impact on them, nothing. And this is an embarrassment to this Delta State government, and the federal government, because this is a community that houses the power line grid that supplies electricity to the southeast Nigeria. The Second Nigeria Bridge Road Construction Project that Jules Berger has been constructing, they are almost rounding up, also caught across this community. Notified about fresh news updates.


intervention, there were statistically significant gains that were made in the reading achievement of Tongan students. Scott Francis Ray in Education, University Doctoral Scholar. Scott's thesis argues that Dickens, through hard times, is a credible source of information for philosophical and historical discussions around education, with special attention being given to the role of education as it is controlled and utilized by the interests of industrial capitalism. Paul Andrew Roberts in Bioengineering. Paul refined an MRI-compatible urgometer and imaging methods to assess cardiovascular function during exercise. These methods were applied to a clinical study evaluating the effects of two treatments in patients with aortic disease, which indicated one treatment may preferentially delay the need for surgical intervention. Timothy John Roper in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Timothy's research made significant contributions to the difficult practical problem of acquiring accurate calibrated hyperspectral images for use in industrial applications. Hyperspectral image processing promises a substantial improvement in machine vision capability, and this work advanced the problem of reliable human skin detection to improve occupational safety in dangerous industrial environments. Jennifer Harjong Tartebe in Education, University Doctoral Scholar. Jennifer's thesis tackles the discomforting yet timely social justice concerns of disadvantage and poverty, which have a direct impact on an estimated 25% of New Zealand children. Her investigation of how New Zealand graduate diploma in teaching secondary pre-service teachers engage with the issues of disadvantage and poverty has immediate implications for the ways in which teachers are prepared to teach an increasing and diverse New Zealand student population. Yu Cheng Tu in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Yu Cheng explored transparency, a term used in government and business that implied information openness but without a precise definition. She developed an engineering definition of transparency and demonstrated its use in software engineering, particularly for improving communication during the software development process. Shanghai Wei in Chemical and Materials Engineering. Shanghai investigated the effects of alloying composition and processing technology on the microstructure and mechanical properties of advanced magnesium alloys. His research made significant contributions to the development of a new type of ductile magnesium alloy, which has great potential for applications such as car parts and electronic devices. And in absentia, all those other persons named in the official record have qualified for the confirmative degree or the award of a diploma in the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Law. We are near the end of this graduation ceremony. On behalf of the university, I invite all today's graduates to stand and receive the congratulations of us all. Please stand. And while you are standing, it would be a good time for the graduates to show their appreciation of their families and supporters and the staff of the university who have helped them as they achieved their qualifications. Can you please remain standing? This concludes this meeting of council and convocation of the university for the confirmative degrees and the award of diplomas. I now invite you to sing the first verse of God Defend New Zealand in Maori, then in English. The words are printed on the reverse of your program. Thank you.


You cannot have an abortion. A baby is a gift from God. Uh huh. If you're pregnant, it's our Lord Almighty's will. Uh huh. And you have to love that baby forever. Uh huh. Yeah, yeah.  Isn't he a gift from God too? I've seen this before. Non-Christians trying to point out inconsistencies within Christians lives. So let me respond. Do Christians believe in the sanctity of life that even life within the womb is valuable? Yes, absolutely. Do Christians believe that marriage is only between one man and one woman? Yes, Genesis makes that very clear. Now the question is, and this can sometimes be tricky, but how do we apply this belief to our circumstance? Yes, there are some Christian families that kick their son or daughter out when they come out as gay. It's important to realize as we're casting judgment on some of these parents that a lot of the details have been stripped away. We don't know if the sons or daughters have been violating specific boundaries that the parents have put in place. We don't know if they're submitting to expectations that the parents have for those living in their household.  That's just messed up. And even if they are an adult, we need to realize that in most circumstances, it's not a loving thing to kick your child out just because you disagree with their lifestyle. For us, though, we need to remember that loving somebody means setting up important, healthy boundaries with them. And it means being open about our disagreements. But also, we need to continue to welcome them into further relationship with us even though we may disagree that they may see the love that God has already shown for us. Follow for more Christ-centered content and help support my mission on Patreon.


The Big Bang Theory holds that there was a time when the universe was very small and very hot. The contents of the universe would have been in thermal equilibrium at that time. Particles in thermal equilibrium all have the same temperature. Roughly speaking, temperature is a measure of the kinetic energy of the particles. In this example, we have a small volume of protons and electrons in thermal equilibrium at 10,000 degrees Kelvin, the temperature at the surface of our sun. At 10,000 degrees, the electrons and protons are too hot to combine into hydrogen. If we add photons, they will scatter off the charged particles. Light cannot travel far through this space because it is constantly interacting with these free-moving charged particles. The plasma is opaque. As the universe expands, it cools. At some point, it cools enough for protons to capture electrons to form electrically-neutral hydrogen. This process is called recombination. Once the transformation to electrically-neutral particles is complete, light will travel through space without any further interactions. This is called decoupling. The radiation is said to have decoupled from the electrons and protons. The plasma becomes transparent. In addition to all the electrons and protons in the universe packed into this relatively small space, there were around 1.6 billion photons for every baryon in the universe. Baryons are the protons and neutrons in the plasma. Being in thermal equilibrium, these photons would be characterized by the black-body radiation curve. Knowing the energy that it takes to separate an electron from its proton in a hydrogen atom, we can calculate the temperature at which recombination and decoupling would occur. The current figure is around 3,000 degrees Kelvin, the surface temperature of a cool star like Proxima Centauri.


Greetings friends! This is Survival Doc. Today we're going to take a look at my chicken tractor. I've heard it called by several names. It is basically a mobile chicken run, which allows you to give your chickens access to your full yard so that they can pick up bugs and grass and ticks. So let's take a look at it. Now my chicken tractor, which is what I like to call it, is four feet wide by nine feet long. You pick it up by this handle here and you can move the chickens to a different part of the yard or move it over a little bit. And you have to supply the chickens with water when they're going to be out here all day. And the best way I've found to do that is with this type of waterer, which has a little nipple down there. This is just an all-gain bottle that added a little chicken watering nipple down there. Some wheels back here that I took off of an old cart. You want to keep it low enough to the ground to where chickens can't get under it and predators can't get under it. Here I have a gate to get to put them in and out. This part right here used a stiff 1 inch by 2 inch wire that I had left over from making my chicken, not chicken rabbit hutches. The top I put chicken wire four foot across. I wanted to keep it light weight. All treated lumber. These pieces here are just the lumber that you use for fencing wood fences. This part here is these are just treated two by fours that I just cut in half on my table saw. Just sliced them right down the middle. Same thing here, same thing here. That is a eight foot treated two by four that I cut in half. So one board would make two pieces of PVC pipe here. One inch inside diameter. The heavier duty stuff and I put a screw through it to hold it in place. I painted it right now just how primer on it painted to protect it from UV light because being in the sun will deteriorate in time if it's not painted. I have about 13 chickens in here right now. These are spring chicks. They're a couple of months old so they're not fully grown chickens. Use J clips to put this together. Use my nail gun to staple these in and they really enjoy it. They enjoy getting outside the coop. Out here 80% of a chicken's diet can be grass. So if you move them around they're not too destructive to one spot in your yard and they can find like that when they're found a bug or something the rest of them are going after it. Takes them a little while to figure out how to drink from this thing but pretty soon one of them will figure it out and when one on figures out the other ones chickens are big imitators. Once one on figures it out the other ones will soon drink it from it. Most of these are barred rocks. I got barred rocks because they're very cold hardy. I don't want to have to heat the coop in the winter time. They're cold hardy and they're also a good breed for both meat chickens and egg chickens and I got chickens for both reasons for meat and for eggs. There's a red right there maybe Rhode Island red I think. That little nipple there is made specially for watering chickens. I bought it at the hardware store where they sell chickens. So in the morning I just backed this thing up to the door of the chicken coop or to the gate and opened this thing up and heard them in there and they quickly learn what this is all about. They love getting out in the yard and spending all day outside. Now you always have to provide them with some shade so if you have them out where there's nothing but sun you have to throw a little piece of a tarp or something over part of the top of it in order to provide them some shade they should be able to get in the sun if they want the sun or get in the shade if they want to get out of the sun around and throughout the day these chickens will be out here all day long and what I'll do is put it throughout the day every now and then when I think about it I'll come out here and move this over just lift this part up just move it it's nine feet long so generally I'll move it like nine feet at a time. I left about four inches here the reason I did that is because they like to reach through and I feed these chickens by hand and so that's the reason they're always interested in my hand because they think I've got food for them and we didn't with this allows them to reach outside and at the same time adds structural stability I have this stapled on the other side adds structural stability so that they can't our predator or dog or something can't get under there of course I wouldn't leave this out here at night because some predator could dig underneath there but during the daytime when you kind of keep an eye on of course I'll leave them out here during the daytime when I leave because it's some pretty secure I'm not worried about anything getting them in the daytime so there it is They're ready to go in.  Just open this door. These guys don't come out. Okay, Rio has come to help me and when the chickens get loose, Rio does help me. Round them up. Okay, I'm going to he's a shepherd.  I think I can move Rio. Move, move. Okay, close this.  Okay, we pull this back out of the way. Okay, watch it. Okay, go ahead. And Rio's going to watch here. Make sure nobody gets out. We turn on the better light in here. Here are my bigger chickens eating their food. Here are the smaller ones. Over here is the water. I built this water tray. Chickens have a tendency to make a mess. I built this water tray so that when they spill excess water, I can drain it out over there and keep my wood here dry. Very important to keep your wood dry. Very important to keep it dry. Okay, these are my smaller chickens that we added to our other flock. And there's Rio being a good dog. He's a good, he's a German shepherd. And as the name implies, they were shepherds and you just have to make sure he understands what you want. All right, so when we introduced the smaller chickens in here, I kept them separate in this cage here. And what I have here is an opening that allowed the smaller chickens, what are they getting freaked out about? They're just freaking themselves out. They're still picking on them some and that's the reason they have this escape here. When they get tired of getting picked on, they'll go through here and they have their own area in here. And this is too small for their larger chickens to fit through. So the smaller chicks... And so we keep these smaller ones separated until a few weeks then the other chickens will accept them and after they see them around after a couple of weeks they finally let them in. Here's their sandbox where they do their dusting. Here's the roost I built for them back here. These are their pans for egg laying. Egg laying pans over here. With their ramp they can walk up and down and over here to the ramp. They can walk up here to their boxes. And here we had heat lamp, infrared lamp on the babies. Went back when it was cold. We haven't been using that in a while all along. Put that and hang that back up higher. Get it out of the way and we'll take this temporary pin here out once the babies are fully accepted by the larger chickens. There's a three week difference in their ages. All of these are spring chicks from this year. And just three weeks difference. So how old are the smaller ones now? They're about nine and six weeks. The smaller ones? Six weeks. The smaller ones are about six weeks now. The larger ones are about nine weeks now. And Rio knows he's not allowed to go inside the chicken coop. And actually he's kind of pushing it there putting his paws across the line. He's never hurt a chicken and he does shepherd them.  So drive it. Rio will drive the chicken back to us if he can. And if he can't drive the chicken back to us, twice he has held the chicken down without hurting it. And I have been able to get the chicken that he was holding down. So he's a good shepherd. He's a black German shepherd. Well he doesn't just have to get used to it. These are the six week old barred rock chicks. These are the nine week old barred rock. The darker ones are the pullets. The lighter ones are the roosters to be the cockroaches. And there's a red over there. The smaller barred rocks. And I think Rio's getting bored with the situation. He's crossing the line. He's actually not allowed to be beyond that line. But sometimes he pushes the envelope. And sometimes we feed these chickens by hand. So when I get down like this, they come up to see if I have any food. Here's my dusting chickens. They dust themselves. I just have playground sand in there. But they dust themselves to clean themselves, get mites off of them. They're hungry aren't they? They didn't find a whole lot of food when they were tracking around the yard all day. And so when I bring them in here, they're kind of catching up. This is Survival Doc. Reminding you to be prepared or be prepared to be fleeced.


You know, we used to film and we wouldn't have something that was facing us. That's true. So now we were recording. We had, we had, at any time, we had a mirror con as our mirror setup that used to put on the back of the couch so we could see the phone. I sold that. Did you, you did not. I sold the mirror con. You sold it?   I just put it on market.  No, what's it, what could we sell? Who the hell's gonna want that? Hey, Corbin's kids are for sale.  Hey, welcome back to our Stupid Rx of Corbin. I'm Rick. You can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, for more juicy content. Thank you to Erdrey Sports and Patreon. Follow us through the account, and subscribe by clicking the like button. Yeah. I put it on Marketplace and I was like, some makeup artist will like this. Yeah. And they did. And they did. So that's good. I didn't need it anymore because now we actually have a professional. We filmed on my phone for a long time. And what changed it? When I had to go in front of- Yes, A.R.on. I was like, this seems unprofessional. I think this is unprofessional that we're filming this on a telephone. And he was like, do you have any mics? I'm like, no. No. Nope. Since then, I've gotten all of it.  Yeah. Anyways, today we got a new trailer of a highly anticipated homecoming out, Vicky Kershaw film. It's called the title it says Sam and then it's something that looks like it's in Hindi. So it's Sam, right here. Sam. Bahudar. Bahudar. And I believe it's based off of a true guy. Okay. And it's military. Okay. And Vicky- I don't know that Vicky could do a military film. I don't think he can pull off military. Yeah, that was probably miscast. If you can't understand sarcasm, I'm sorry for you. But this also comes out on the exact same day as animal. It's a big clash between those two. You know the acting's gonna be there with Vicky. I think he's one of the best young, I don't know, young. He's probably like 40 now, right? That's still young. I guess compared to Big B, everybody's young, right? Yes. Even my dad is young compared to Big B. He's like 81, right? No, my dad. My dad just turned 75. He's older than Rajnikanth. That's true. That's crazy. Better hair than mine. Much, much, much better, because there's no wigs though. No, no wigs. Anyways, let's just get into this. Happy Friday the 13th as well. Yeah.  Not for you, but for us sitting down where we are. It's Friday the 13th. Currently, Friday the 13th. And here we go. What is happening? Oh, wow. Counts like K.K. It did. Okay, it's her. Okay, it's her. He's shape-shifting. Wait, what? December 1st is what they're saying. Oh, sorry. Yeah, they put... I'm very known American again. Sorry. Sorry. They do it in a non-stupid fashion. I thought it comes out in December 1st. Why is it coming out in January? Day month year.  I can't help that. Of course. Okay, man. Good Lord. He shape-shifted. One, the contacts they gave him make him look like K.K. It does. Very similar. He's skinnier now. Well, it looks like obviously we do not know the man that he's portraying, but it looks very clear that he's done his homework and he's embodying his walk, his talk. Every thing. His whole physicality is completely different. It's what I would anticipate from an actor of his caliber and it makes me all the more excited to see it. It looked really good. It looks really good. It's intriguing. How would you... Of the people around his age, probably 35 to 30, how would you rank Vicky? Oh, my. Who else are we comparing him to? Rend Veer, Rend Veer, Riley Rashkumar, who else is around their ages, right? I'm thinking between 30 to 40s, right? Usually. Yeah. To me, it's just a matter of, do you have preferences of their style of film and do you have preferences of their personalities? I don't know how many stars or box-offs obviously we don't care about that. Every name that you just mentioned, I consider to be comparable actors that the only reason there'd be a differentiation would be like... What comes out of that year? Yeah, when you see nominees for Oscars for acting, it isn't about necessarily who was the better actor because they've all done superlative jobs. It's about a particular serendipitous providential kind of moment that transpires with the character and the difficulty of the incarnation. And it's not that the other actors couldn't have done it. It's just that particular thing. So he's as good as they get.  Obviously, there's a reason a lot of performances that are based off real people win Oscars. Because it's a difficult thing to do to shed your entire self and become a different person. There's a different measure of judgment because when you create a character, there's nothing to compare it to. When you're being someone who has previously existed, you have to truthfully portray who they are. And if you do it, it's truly remarkable. Yeah, it's another level of difficulty. In terms of just acting, I'd probably put Vicky and Rajkumar over Ranveer and Ranveer and whoever else is around that same age. I think the majority of people would agree with you about the Ranveer overlap, but I don't know that they'd agree with Ranveer. Well, yeah, I mean, like I said, I'm not talking about star power. And they've all given Oscar level performances. But man, just the little end, also his choices, like you saw with Sardar Urdam, what you saw with Masan or Uden, that he was, and I always get them confused. I think he was in Masan. Yeah, Masan, it was Masan. I think that's correct. Yeah, it's 100% correct. But the choices that he makes, but also like let's say Padma Vod came out this year, Ranveer's performance in that.   I mean, he's probably the most versatile of all of them. Just be, God, the guy is just so versatile. But yeah, it all depends on what comes out that year. And this, he, God, he just doesn't even look like Vicky. No. Like if you compare his other military movie, he doesn't look anything like his character in Uri. His eyes, his walk, like he has kind of a hunch a little bit, the way he's talking, he is a totally different, I don't know what region he's playing from what this character's from. I won't read the... Yeah, the log line here in IMDb says, it's based on the life of Sam Manekshaw, who was the chief of the army staff of the Indian army during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and the first Indian army officer to be promoted to the rank of field marshal. Okay. Great. And directed by... Meghana Gulzar. Did she direct Razi or? Yes. That's a good track record. Hold on, she also had Tovar, which is Irfan. Is she directing that one? Yes. Wow. Okay, so those are both really good films. We're familiar with your work. I'm sorry for forgetting your name. Oh, no, that's the... Yeah. The Deepika Acid. Chappok. One. Yeah. Okay, so Tovar... Derishium, that was just a performer. Well, she has a heck of a track record. Yeah, with those, those three films all three films that we really like. High quality, especially like Razi. And Tom. It looks like she does like to do true stories. Yeah, for sure. At least in her recent history. For sure. Because I think all those are based off... Yeah, all three of them are based on true stories. And as far as we know, based on the things people told us is that she did a very good job in terms of the accuracy of depicting the events. So that is wonderful. And also... Wonderful. And this shows Fatima... Oh, Neeraj! Very nice. So it looks like the end. Wonderful. This is... Looks like we're gonna have... Maybe have a double feature day. Well, I think actually all of December's gonna be a whole... Like we're gonna see like... It is. 15 films in December. It is. And I think it's all gonna be back to back. So it's gonna be like, this week we're doing a double feature, next week we're doing a double feature, the next week after that it's a three feature. You'll see us in Corbin's car quite a lot in the month of December. It's gonna be a lot. Well, it also depends on, because we're gonna get Animal on the 30th. Whether we get this on the 30th or it's gonna be on the first here, we don't know. But very excited for it. And that was just a teaser. Yeah, looks great. Honestly, I don't even need anymore to be interested in it. No, it might be showing me too much at this point. I'm ready to go. But that was awesome. Let us know what you thought about the teaser if you're excited for it. What should be our next Vicki film? I know we still got a lot more of his work to get to. Let us know down below. Josh!