Nigerian Diplomatic Missions Grappling With Debt Secretary to the Government of the Federation Boss Mustafa cries out and the polling units will take shine off rigging says a report. Well this is cross politics, I am Mary Anna Cohn. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation Boss Mustafa raised concerns over growing indebtedness faced by Nigerian Diplomatic Missions all over the world. Mr Mustafa made this known in a boujard during an inauguration of the Presidential Committee on the review of number and strategy for resourcing Nigeria's diplomatic missions worldwide. The committee saddled with the mandate of reviewing all previous reports on the establishment of foreign missions and measures taken to effectively and economically manage Nigeria's mission and also to identify challenges facing those missions and make appropriate recommendations on the sustainability. He stated this that the lingering indebtedness being faced by the foreign missions has affected the nation's integrity negatively. Well joining us to discuss and break this down is Eugene Abels, he is the Executive Director of the Extra Step Initiative and Catch on the Nigerian Public Affairs Analyst. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Great. Thank you for having me. Let me start with you Eugene. This is not the first time that this concern has been raised. A few, I think in 2020, the same issue was being raised where the Foreign Secretary, Mr Jaffer Nyeema, talked about the fact that lack of funding is somewhat keeling foreign diplomatic offices across the country and my question is, could this also affect the way that we're being viewed by the world at large? Yes, for you to choose, this foreign policy is a major component of how a nation lives because you need to have a proper perspective on how you want the world to deal with you. And in doing this, nations sit down and make a strategic appraisal on the people they want to deal with. Those they want closer, establish missions in those places. It is not done based on the initial drama of independence, which a lot of countries are getting independence in the 60s, went and did. After that, when the recession happened after the windfall of 1973, a lot of nations had to wind down missions which they had no business keeping. But the Nigerian case has become very pathetic because we have said to you, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the diplomatic setting in Nigeria has been politicized. It is useful for compensation. So it is no longer as professional as it was supposed to be, and it used to be. So the issue of funding now begins to arise because there's a proliferation of embassies all over the world. And there's no clear cost strategy on how to fund them. And there's no clear cost strategy to fund them. There's no clear cost strategy on how to measure them because they're just political appointees who are there. And they started with the Third Republic. And once it went political, for political patronage, the things we're seeing today is not surprising. That most of the most expensive missions that we've had are mostly domiciled in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. And of course, Japan is also, you know, like literally top on that list. And you may mention of the fact that this has become something, some sort of a settling for the boys. But when we look at foreign policy, because you see for certain countries, their foreign policy is so properly spelt out that, you know, it makes you even want to come from that country. But in Nigeria's case, we've seen countries, you know, eject us from our embassies. We've seen all kinds of things happen to embassies in certain places. I think in DRC, we had an eviction happen for one of those embassies. And we also saw another in, I think, in the European country. And so I'm really asking, when we set up these missions, what exactly should be at the center of it? What I mean again is, why are we setting up these missions? What exactly is the end point at the end of the day? For example, if we have the U.S. in Nigeria, and we see all of the things that are happening through the U.S. mission in Nigeria, can we say same of Nigerian missions wherever they find themselves? There's supposed to be a foot in the door in those nations because we want to deepen relationships and also enable our citizens in those places to have better access, like a source of protection or better access for the things they're supposed to get back home. Then it's also, in a deep relationship, it makes it easy for issues of trade, for cooperation, for cultural cooperation and other aspects of nation building. But in the Nigerian case, there is no measurement. Most of those missions were created because they were looking for avenues where they could compensate. You might need to go back up to the beginning of the year 1999 and see the number of the progression of missions that occurred. If I ask you today what is the foreign policy direction of Nigeria, you don't know. If you had asked me in 1986, in 1982, I would tell you that our foreign policy direction was that we're not aligned and that we'll be African-centric and we'll drive the frontline movements for the independence of Zimbabwe and the rest of those nations. But today, nobody knows. Even if you speak with the diplomats, they don't know. This rots has been there. Fortunately, I had a stint in public service in the sense that while I was on the Amnesty program and had students all over the world, there was an embassy in Europe that didn't even have a phone number and there were people there earning salaries and allowances. So first of all, it tells you where we are as a nation when your budgeting process cannot provide funding for people whom you've employed to represent you and do a job for you. So I don't know where to put my hand on this. It's not a new thing. I saw the SGS comments that he said they're not becoming. I don't need to set up a committee to review what's happening. This is a baby of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We need to push it back to them and allow them to do their jobs so that those who are not professional diplomats should be removed from the service. Let's allow professionals who have grown through the service, who have been trained for these jobs, to do their job. Then when we do that, we just downsize the number of missions we have. We don't need to have missions everywhere. You don't even have a foreign policy direction. Why are you all over the place and you're all over the place and you cannot afford what it takes to keep those places? It is amusing because when we had very little assimilation back in the 60s and the 70s and the 80s, you didn't hear these kinds of things. Today we're talking of billions of dollars or petro dollars and you're enabling to do basic things like planning, budgeting and funding. I can imagine. Let me come to you, Mr Anu Nuju. It's interesting because the reps, as we speak, the House of Representatives in August, asked that the foreign missions be probed on the amount of money that they spent outside the budget and this was about 13 billion dollars. Now on the one hand they're saying we cannot afford to fund these missions across the world but then the House of Representatives is saying the one that we've given to you, you're yet to be able to explain to us what you use these monies for. But again, Nuju said something that was very catching. He said that we don't have a foreign policy direction and if this has been politicized, knowing Nigeria, where we always pick up from where the other person stopped in terms of the negatives, is this or will this or can this ever be stopped being that this has been highly politicized as opposed to having a sense of direction? Well, we're discussing about Nigeria missions. A Nigerian mission will represent Nigeria and that's what it is. I do not think they have done anything that does not represent what Nigeria has become. The international missions are reflective of who you are internally at home. Oh dear, Mr. Nuju, I think we're having a connection issue with you. We're unable to hear you. You're breaking up. I do not know why that is but I'm going to try again. It's struggling. There's no need really not to work. Oh dear, apologies. Mr. Nuju, unfortunately- I can hear you. I can hear you. I can hear you. We couldn't hear anything you were saying. Yes, now we can hear you. Good. What would you ask? Yes, you were trying to say that what's happening with our foreign missions is a reflection of what's happening in the country. I think that's where we lost you. Well, missions represent their principles. Nigeria's mission across the world is representative of the world we have back home in Nigeria. Nigeria is challenged. It's not possible to seek that the foreign missions will run in- I think we lost you again. Let me go back to Eugene. Eugene, I want to quote something that some analysts have said about how detrimental what's happening with our foreign missions can be to the country in itself. Well, they're saying that not just the fact that this poor funding is detrimental to the long-term ambitions of the country but that we should see it as a reflection of the country's economy. But really, is it just about that? Because we've seen these foreign missions continuously expand every other day. We saw what happened on the Bahá'í administration where certain generals and leaders of the defense corps were sent as ambassadors to certain countries. Many people actually didn't like the idea, but we've seen that happen. And some analysts have said that we send diplomats abroad to enjoy themselves as opposed to chatting a course for Nigerians. But let's talk about the sufferings of Nigerians abroad. Now, we're not talking about the ones who've broken the law, but those people who suffer as a result of the fact that our missions outside the country are unable to speak on their behalf. And we've seen BKW Aeroa go back and forth on either social media or even in the press about certain things that have happened. Nigerians have been killed. They've been rough-handled. Some of them have, you know, one way or the other been treated badly. But then our foreign missions have not necessarily been able to wade in as opposed to if it were that country's, you know, national here in Nigeria, there would have been a swift response. Why do you think that not just about the funding but our relations in foreign countries seems to be pretty weak? Well, just like Dr. Ocachi said, the state of our missions abroad is a reflection of our society. Number two, the national assembly people trying to probe what they have done with the monies that we are supposedly projected for. The last time I saw the president in the national assembly, I saw them clapping. And in eight years, I've not seen them ask for a performance review of the previous budget. If you do a performance review of the previous budget, you will know if actually funds were disbursed to these agents, to these missions then, before you begin to ask what they did with the money. I expect that the national assembly, after passing budgets, if all new budgets are approved, should ask for performance, performance and review, and it should be made public so we know what percentage of the budget was actually performed on and how much and what were the reasons for the aspects that there was no performance or if there were no releases on. So this enables you to ask the appropriate questions. Bringing it to the state of the missions, categorically tells you that the missions are unable to provide consulate services to Nigerians abroad. If you try to get a Nigerian passport abroad, it will cost you not less than a hundred thousand dollars, trust me on that. Yes, and you will probably be on a very long key. In most nations, you might not be able to do that. So naturally, they will not use their hands to do jobs, which they are not funded for. So nothing is good, we should expect nothing as long as the fundamentals, which has to do with budgeting, which has to do with releasing, which has to do with performance management, which has to be, which has to do with the government's perspective on its foreign policy and how it plans to attend to the needs of its people in that country. All of this are supposed to add up. I would put it as something on the front burner, which every Nigerian is pretending not to see. Why would Dubai ban Nigerians from having visas? Today, 542 people have lost their jobs, who found their way at their own instant. Each person in Nigeria, 54, have just been brought back. What is the position of the Nigerian embassy in Dubai? What are the contending issues which they are unable to resolve? By now, we should hear the ambassador in United Arab Emirates making statements. We should expect to see the foreign affairs minister going to Dubai to have conversations on the issues that are causing the United Arab Emirates to react the way they are reacting. If you have, all of this can happen when you have a plan, the agencies that provide synergies and the things and the fundings that are supposed to provide that. Even if it's about the inability of the airlines to move their over 700 million dollars that trapped in Nigeria, a conversation seriously taken led by your foreign affairs minister, supported by the finance people and the central bank, if by visiting them, appealing to them, will have advocated most of these things. So when, if we continue on this trajectory, no nation is going to take us seriously. It naturally tells a picture of who you are as a country and investments naturally will run away. I'll give you a case in point. Recently, I was in DRC and the Nigerian embassy there, it's been managed by a very seasoned Nigerian and beyond that, when we did our findings in terms of investment, it's just because we found that, that the rule of law there is very weak. Anything can happen. It made us develop cold feet about considering investments in that country.   Trust me, we know how these things are and they can be very cold. Dr. Katch, I think we have you now on the phone. So can you hear me? Yes, yes, yes. Great. Eugene has laid more on that foundation that he started on. Now it's time for us to look back in words, looking again at how governance happens here in Nigeria. We're getting ready for an election in a few months and we see that so many things are going or being swept under the carpet. For example, we have the issue of the oil theft, the destruction of that oil vessel that was found by the army and of course the army chief telling us that there was no need for an investigation. We've also seen other kinds of impunity take place within the country. How do we, where do we even start from to mop up the process? Because if we are truly a reflection of what or if our foreign missions is a true reflection of what's happening in our country, where do we start to, you know, need these issues in the bud, especially now that we're getting ready for elections. Mr Senator, can you hear me? Oh goodness, I don't think you can, can you hear me? I think that we lost that connection again. Mr Senator, can you hear me? Unfortunately, we lost him again. I think that there's some problematic connection where he is. So Eugene, back to you again. We're getting ready for elections. There is a momentum on social media. There's a momentum on the roads. There's a phenomenon of, you know, that we've seen all kinds of movements, whether it be the articulate or the bat or the obi dati movement, we're seeing the or the quank or siyes. How do these movements or what will these movements do for us as a people? Because we're following. Followership is great, but what will these people do for us or what have they done previously that should make people look to them for a change or a kind of restructuring that Nigeria needs? Well, we, we, the, the campaigns are, it, it gives you hope that there's one of the state of things at the, at the light at the end of the tunnel, whether you get to the lights in the front map, but you'll see this. And even though some of them have been recycled, and the new entrance of the blue are disruptors, we're looking for avenues to let off steam because there's so much tension and so much hardship in the land. So everybody is hoping and desiring that look, you know, it's always greener on the other side that this other side of people who are coming in, are likely to change the perspective of things that are about happening. But for me, I still like to advise the electorate that we must stop this mob kind of thinking and begin to interrogate processes. And in integrating processes, you should be able to have a convo. I'll just tell you one other thing. Sunik, the new prime minister of England, of the United Kingdom, made a speech. See the ceremonial representation of the Hindu festival season before it went into the down, into Downing Street. What was trending in Nigeria is the Hindu, the symbolic things and candles which he put before the entrance. The Wai celebration, yes. Yes. So people, most nobody is discussing the content of his speech, the fact that a colored man and an Asian has been able to reach that level of competence to be chosen to lead the United Kingdom. What does he represent? Yes, his rich is married to also to a very rich family. And then what does he represent? How does he affect us as Nigerians? Since Britain is a major stakeholder in the initials we deal with, our story cannot be told without Britain in the past, today and in the future. So nobody is interrogating those things. People are more interested in the juju part of the conversation, in the optics. Yes. So when you bring it down to the political terrain now, though people are not interrogating the manifestos, engaging these people who have put themselves forward to run, people are not interrogating them and asking, look, what are you going to do differently? Why are we where we are? Instead you'll be hearing, people suddenly have lost interest in debates, instead they lose their temper and begin to abuse you. So I would just like to call people that if we do not change and begin to interrogate the value chain of whatever we do, they will continue to short change us. Today we are left with those four people because we refuse to realize that as a nation we should have risen up, even if it means marching to national assembly to insist that there should be no delegated election, then we'll have this, this space will have open. But we have 16, we have almost 16 if not 18 of these presidential candidates and we just keep talking about four. I mean many have blamed us the media for just only showcasing these four as opposed to giving other people balance and fair hearing. So is it just these four people because this is what we are presenting or we're not giving other people an opportunity because they're more than four? Yes, it is so because we didn't interrogate the process, we should have refused the insertion of delegates election. People do not join political parties for delegates to represent them. They join political parties because they want to, they believe in that through this vehicle as we were able to express myself, we got carried away forgetting that once the governors hide back the parties through the delegate system, it is what the two before you vote for. By the way in Nigeria, we don't vote for human beings, we vote for insignia, umbrella, broom, fish, computer, boots and the rest of them. That's why, if you look now, a very important part of the political process is ignored. People only look at the president to be and the governors to be. Those who make the laws, those who drive the manifesto with the man at the leader of the parties post union, we don't know, we just, we just don't print the party insignia because their photographs are not there. These are changes who have insisted on before we went into this 2023 elections. And with where it is, well, we've come halfway with rivers and with the conversations under here, but we need to go back to the old ways whereby you need to conserve every member of a party. There should be no delegates election. That's why the governors are feeling cocky and believing that the owners, technically they do own us because they spend that money. They think to us that it's my money, it's my state. They don't say our. But you see, pundits would keep saying that oh, this is the year where we're all more involved in the political process, that there might be a change, but then we still see the types and shadows of what we've seen in time past. Like you have rightly mentioned, we're following movements, we're following symbols as opposed to persons. We're not asking the questions that we ought to be asking. And for a time like this, when Nigeria is almost at the brink, I wonder why that is not necessarily what we were putting forward. Again, with the level of impunity, I bring that back again, because even with the case of the missions, the National Assembly is saying it is a practice where these missions over expand their locations with impunity and that they think that this should be frowned upon, even though in this case it's a pot calling kettle black, but this impunity is reflected within and without and nobody questions nothing. We only grumble about this and then we keep it moving. I mean, how optimistic are you about the 2023 elections? Well, if it happens, we'll be happy that it has happened and we hope that What do you mean by this? What do you mean by if it happens? Anything can happen. I'm pessimistic. Anything can happen. Anything can happen. There are things telling us in the face, there are issues of insecurity. 20 or 10 percent of the country is flooded. We don't know where the floods will reside. We don't know what that is coming. And insecurity is taking almost another 10 or 15 percent of the country. Constitutionally, will you be able to conduct elections in that kind of atmosphere? Because in the world of Biasis today, you can't conduct an election. Everybody does not live by property or mines. People are believing that the water will walk away. No, it's there. It's even almost like these local governments in Lagos state. Now, you also have the ambushments that are taking place now whereby all manner of cases have been filed in court which have some, most of them are pre-election matters. And they've been hidden there. And you are not seeing people, those who are contestants are skeptical about engaging fully in campaigning because they're not sure what the outcomes of what the judiciary will come up with. We've seen things like that on the eve of an election. Suddenly, a judgment is given. Recently, we saw one that has to do with 2019, which concerns the APC in Riverside. The judiciary, we cannot allow things to happen like that. The judiciary is not supposed to be part of the political process. It's supposed to be an aspect where interpretations should be made. And all the cases concerning an electoral process should be time bound so that they do not exceed certain stages of the elections, so that there's an equal playing field for people. So what people can do now is, what people do is, I allow you to take your phone, but I go to court and file one matter against you and ensure I get victory. And so by the time you are coming and struggling with the courts, I've been campaigning as an advantage over you. We need to check out all the, with all of these things and pessimistic until the elections come, then I'm sure that we're having that. For now, the issues of security, we've seen the advice from the United States government. We've seen the attitude of the information minister, which is drunk, which is drunk, and instead of him to have left the speeches to be done by the DSR, the head of state security and the police, which they've done properly. And the, and their statements were properly couched and had granted confidence to the people. And he comes to tribalize it. I don't know if he's running for election. So, which is wrong to tell you that, I know they have a very lenient boss, as the most lenient president in the world, he never fires people. So that's why they can't hear the way they're being. Now bringing it back to the issue of budget and the issue of overspending as claimed by national assembly, they cannot claim overspending when most of the missions are claimed not being funded to where they get the money they're spending. For the funds they're making from providing consolation, passport, visas and so on, back home, where are the rules for accountability? We're not on answered questions. We cannot keep acting the way we're acting. The national assembly should stop playing the ostrich. They know what the issues are. If you do not seek for a review, a quarterly review of the performance of the budget, if you do not sanction people for carrying out those performances, the extent that there's performance on those budgets, and you know it's linked to revenue, if those things are not done, if you're there pretending that you do not realize that you're losing almost 800 buyers of oil, which will affect your revenue, then you do not deserve to bring the national assembly. The way that I was watching them, them and the additional minister and so on, they all being centimeter that why foreign airlines are acting the way they're acting. The IATM has reminded them you cannot be owing $7000,000 and expect people to keep quiet. $1,000,000 is $740,000,000. It's not beans. I guess that if we continue to talk about our problems, we'll probably not get out of here today, but I guess that we're also going to hope and rely on Hail Marys until the elections, until we decide that we're going to take strong steps to make sure that things turn around. But I want to say thank you, Eugene Ables is the Executive Director, Extra Step Initiative, and of course, thanks to Katchan Nuju, who's a public affairs analyst, unfortunately, the connection didn't let him stay on the conversation. Thank you so much, Eugene, once again. Thank you for having me. All right, we'll take a quick break. Now, when we get back, we'll be discussing the electoral act and how it affects rigging in 2023. Stay with us.


Now the House of Representatives has suspended its plenary session shared to hold today. Now this is due to ongoing renovations in the House chambers, according to a notice from the House Clerk. Now he attributed the development to the renovation of the green chamber and to allow various committees complete and ten in their reports. He added that a new resumption date would be made available. Now the green chamber had approved the request of President Mohamed to AMAC for trillion therefore petrol subsidy before proceeding on their Easter break. The legislators were asked to use spacious committee rooms for their plenary sit-ins as the renovation is expected to last for 16 months.


There's been a lot of talk about the uncommitted vote in Michigan on Tuesday's primary and before the vote There were reports that the Biden administration was quote freaking out about it But I mean after 101,000 people voted uncommitted We've all been pretty curious to hear what they think now because if they were freaking out before the vote They've got to be freaking out now and we finally got a response and it is genuinely Astonishing that this is their response to disillusioned voters in Michigan So campaign co-chair for Biden's 2024 campaign Mitch Landrieu says quote We are going to continue to talk to them and then ask them to think about the choices and what the Consequences are about electing somebody who wants to have a Muslim ban In other words, you have no choice but to support Biden in November because you have nowhere else to go You're not gonna support Trump.  Second of all, they are basically saying implicitly that they're not going to change course Meaning that they are effectively willing to risk losing this election to Trump all to continue to appease Then yeah, it is so stunning and I think that this hubris Hinges on the fact that they think that the backlash to Biden supporting genocide is just contained to Michigan But if they actually think that then they are horribly mistaken because activists in Colorado are organizing an uncommitted vote There are two following the success in Michigan's campaign and the largest labor union in Washington state has endorsed an uncommitted Campaign against Biden there as well But you know, I'm sure that they don't care because well Trump's worse So shut the fuck up and accept my support for genocide or get a Muslim ban, too Now listen to Michigan responded and this is what they said quote It's deeply offensive that president Biden keeps suggesting He has a messaging issue among Arab Americans and young people rather than a funding bombs issue Biden's re-election chances will be judged by how much of Gaza is left standing by November It is our hope that Biden chooses the people of America over sending them Yeah, who a blank check for war and occupation. Yeah, well, I'm not holding my breath Now remember that ceasefire that he said that he was trying to broker when he was in an ice cream shop before the Vote took place. Well, he's already throwing cold water on that and it is specifically because the government he's supporting Committed what people are now calling the flower massacre and in response. He says that that's going to complicate negotiations Which is to be expected, but the fact that they did this flower massacre Should be a turning point you would think there's been many points where you think man Maybe this should be a turning point for the Biden administration bombing hospitals and schools and residential areas and cultural centers So don't think that the flower massacre is really going to have an impact on him and sway him at all But nonetheless, this is a pretty big deal as well Al Jazeera reports more than 100 Palestinians have been killed and some 700 others wounded after Israeli troops opened fire on Hundreds waiting for food aid southwest of Gaza City health officials say as the besieged enclave faces an unprecedented hunger crisis People had congregated at al-Rashid Street where aid trucks carrying flour were believed to be on the way Al Jazeera verified footage showing the bodies of dozens of killed and wounded Palestinians being carried onto trucks as no ambulances could reach the area quote We went to get flour the Israeli army shot at us There are many martyrs on the ground and until this moment. We are withdrawing them There is no first aid said one witness reporting from the scene Al Jazeera's ish male Al Ghul Said that after opening fire Israeli tanks advanced and ran over many of the dead and injured bodies Quote it is a massacre on top of the starvation threatening citizens in Gaza. He said they murdered people Who were trying to get flour Now in response the IDF accused the Gazans that they murdered of looting the supplies and Subsequently released this footage here. I'm not gonna play it for you But there's a screenshot showing that dozens died from what they call overcrowding and Trampling so just stop for a moment and think about how twisted this response is from the IDF They were implying that they had no choice But to open fire on them because they were trampling each other So in order to protect people they had to kill people specifically more than a hundred people makes total sense These are the types of genocidal freaks that we're dealing with here Now they also accused them of looting while pretending as if they're not also deliberately starving Palestinians who have been forced to eat grass and drink polluted water just to survive So I mean when one a truck finally is allowed in by Israel Yeah, they were a little bit desperate and they crowded the a truck as any human being who was starving to death would do But to put things into perspective I want to play a clip from Melanie Ward of the organization called medical aid for Palestinians because what she says here about What's happening is chilling just explain first why viewers Why aid isn't being allowed in where is the aid? It's very simple. It's because the Israeli military won't let it in We could end this starvation tomorrow very simply if they would just let us have access to people there But but it's not being allowed. This is what they said on the 7th of October Nothing will go in and and so it remains the case and for people in the north of Gaza is even worse because no food is reaching them Anymore and so my own staff my own colleague a beer has been eating animal feed and horrifyingly the food that they were eating which is food for horse and donkeys is now running out and now they're eating bird seed The statistics also tell their own story One in six children under the age of two in the north of Gaza are now acutely malnourished This is the fastest decline in a population's nutrition status ever recorded And what that means is that children are being starved at the fastest rate the world has ever seen and we could finish it Tomorrow we could save them all but we're not being able to we're witnessing the fastest decline in a population's nutrition status ever recorded again All of this is purposeful Israel is choosing to starve Gazans it is all deliberate and as they allow a to trickle in they then open fire on the Population when it gets a little bit too rowdy as they starve to death because of Israel It's just so sickening and as this war goes on with how many atrocities that we've seen that are just beyond the pale and Indescribable, I don't even know what else to say the fact that it's gone on this long It makes me lose hope for humanity that we can all collectively sit back and watch this happen and There's nothing we can do it's genuinely despicable and nauseating Now congressman Ro Khanna question Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin about Israel's refusal to let aid in and he asked if There's going to be any consequence at all for all the war crimes. They're committing perhaps maybe cutting off weapons at a minimum I know difficult to hear that possibility because we've got to keep giving them weapons to kill innocent Palestinians But as you're gonna see Lloyd Austin had no good response because there won't be any consequences. Let's watch Cindy McCain the head of the world for food program has said that the Palestinian children are starving Extremist settler Stormrich Israel's finance minister stopped American flour Which our taxpayers paid for to get into Gaza if Israel again Ever stops American paid aid from getting into Gaza. Will you commit to not sending future arm sales? Again, that's That's not my decision. I would I would number one do what I've been doing and engage the leadership and Encourage them to to ensure that humanitarian assistance is getting I would just say and one more question that you we need Some consequences when another country is defying you defying the national security advisor defying the president Defying national security memorandum 20 And there has to be some consequence and then I was surprised John Kirby said that Israel is taking more precautions Than the US military would to protect civilian life Mr. Austin Secretary Austin isn't that statement inaccurate given Israel has used hundreds of 22,000-pound dumb bombs when there were no places for civilians to go with the US government ever target terrorists with 2,000-pound bombs in a densely populated area Well, we I mean it depends on the situation and again would we have we done that put put put Use 45% of bonds that are unguided or a 2,000-pound bomb I mean, do you really think that the Israeli government is taking military is taking more precautions than the United States military would I think you know just based upon the results in terms of the lot the Significant loss of life in a mistimes expired sure not right now He was also asked about whether or not weapons to Israel would be cut off since they're using them to commit war crimes and knowingly giving weapons to a state that is using them to commit war crimes as a violation of international law and Of course Lloyd Austin didn't give a direct answer to that even though at the start of that exchange He admitted that Israel has killed more than 25,000 innocent civilians but Doesn't matter Gonna keep funding them gonna keep on vetoing ceasefire resolutions on the UN Security Council It doesn't matter and they are pretending as if they're oblivious to everything that's going on They're acting as if they don't have access to the same information that we all have right when in actuality They know more than us. They have more intelligence of us So if anything they know how much worse it is on the ground but yet not gonna make any changes and to make matters even worse It seems like a ground invasion of Rafa is now imminent Even though the Biden administration has tried to discourage Israel from doing this But of course Israel isn't listening because they know that they can do whatever they want And the Biden administration is still going to continue to support them and to make matters even worse The Biden administration is now expressing concerns that a ground invasion of Lebanon is possible And yet I still don't hear any possible change in policy towards Israel This is a rogue state that needs to be sanctioned and cut off from the international community entirely But we can't even get the US government to agree to stop sending them more weapons that they're using against innocent civilians What the fuck?  It's so frustrating so disheartening to see this again voters are warning him Months in advance that they will not vote for him if he continues to do this They can choose to take that threat seriously or disregarded. It's up to them, right? Nobody can make them do anything But they don't get to blame voters if they lose in November They don't get to pin the death of American democracy on voters if Trump wins because Biden has chosen to prioritize Net and Yahoo's genocide over American democracy and I'm gonna leave you with some wise words from Mehdi Hassan who explains How foolish Biden is being here by continuously going along with every single thing the Israeli government wants I also think it's crazy that Joe Biden is willing to wreck his presidency potentially and American democracy if Trump gets back in for Benjamin Netanyahu a man who has basically I Can't find the daytime language for it done bad things to every Democratic president in my lifetime Bill Clinton Struggle with Netanyahu, Barack Obama struggle with Netanyahu and now Biden could sacrifice his own presidency for who for BB


Thank you very much. And so we are going to be talking about startups and how we can actually use startups to actually do programs at the library. A little bit about me. I'm a 2014 library journal mover and shaker in the area of marketing. I was also a 2011 Eureka leadership fellow. Thank you. Thank you very much. 2009 ALA emerging leader and this year also your ALA counselor and on the Newberry committee. So that has nothing to do with my presentation. So here's what I'm going to be covering. The difference between a business and a startup and why you guys want to work with startups at your library. And how you guys can actually work with local startups and apply them to your library programs. And then how do you find startups in your area. And let me tell you something just because you don't work in the Silicon Valley doesn't mean you can't find a startup to work with. And then the future. So I like to think about working with startups like gambling. How many guys been to Vegas before. Right. Sometimes you win big and sometimes you lose. But here's the deal. Lady Luck has been on my side. I've actually been doing pretty well. And as Charlie Sheen would say I'm winning. So it's not too bad. So here's the difference between businesses and startups. I like to think of businesses like having a husband or a wife for that matter. You have an established relationship. It's very stable and you can always count on them for stuff. But with the startup unfortunately it's like dating. And what I mean is one minute they're there and the next minute they could be gone. So I'm going to teach you how to keep them around so that they end up being like your husband or wife. Now let me dispel a myth for you. Yes I'm in Silicon Valley and yes my presenters are in Silicon Valley. But let me tell you something. Startups aren't just in Silicon Valley. They are everywhere. They are in Connecticut. They're in Omaha Nebraska. They're in Seattle. And let me tell you the number one place. Number one place for startups outside of Silicon Valley is where Oakland California. I knew my Oakland people were going to be there. So again there are plenty of opportunities out there. So why choose a startup. I think there's two reasons why you want to choose working with startups. You can actually have the opportunity to demo new products and new services to your library customers. And the biggest portion. You become part of their success story. And I'll tell you how. And also it's fast paced. It's usually easy entry. You usually are working with one person who does a multitude of things. So if you get in early like Karen she got in early with alligator zone. And like me with a couple of startups I got very lucky. I got in early and I get free stuff. So it's pretty cool. So my number one success story is Osmo. And Osmo was named Time Magazine's 2014 best toy invention. But before then they weren't called that. They were called tangible play. And actually I got an email from a lady named Letitia. She was the number five worker over at Osmo. Well at tangible play at the time. She wanted to do a pop up story time at her startup. And if you saw me last year I talked about pop up story times. You can also get it on the PLP website. It's where I take the story time and I move it around to different locations within the city. So at that time I was at Palo Alto. I moved my story time in different locations.  So I go over there. I went over there. And let me tell you something.  If you guys are children's librarians let me tell you there are courts everywhere. I mean nightmare for kids right. But then I said you know what I'm already here. Why don't you demo the product for me. Then when she demoed the product I went aha there's another application. So if I can get on to the website let me show you what it is. I rather than tell you I rather show you. So you guys get the idea. A gaming place. Sorry go there. And so basically it's an educational game but you have pieces. So it's tangible. So it's tactile. So you can actually use those pieces and it's fun. And it also promotes collaboration and I can't tell you how many times I've actually had kids make friends with other kids who were playing with each other. So we decided to host happy hour. And what that was is a play on happy hour. And I know you guys know what happy hour is because we're going to be talking about happy hour a little bit later in the alcohol libraries presentation. So happy hour we would have it from hours three to six o'clock. And what we would do is we would invite people with mocktails and appetizers and they come to the library and they play this game for an hour. And by the way you just saw one of the games in the YouTube clip but they have four other games. And so when I moved jobs from Palo Alto City Library to Santa Clara I had really popular following in Palo Alto waiting lists. I mean people were just going crazy over this program but would it have the same effect in a different city at Santa Clara. And I have to tell you it absolutely did. In fact I see a lot of the kids and parents they actually can't get into the program so they actually bought the product. And of course my startup was very happy about that. So as you can see we've hosted we host probably around six happy hours a year. And so to keep it fresh we don't want to just do the same thing over and over again especially with startups they're very fickle. So I thought you know what why don't we deep dive into one of the games. This is a masterpiece and what it is is anybody and I kid you not anybody can use masterpiece and be an artist and draw. And so it takes like anything from a character from Disney like Elsa and it puts it on the screen and so you basically trace out the outline of it. And so this is Emma over here. We took a picture of her with iPad and then it translated it into kind of a sketch drawing as you can see. And she's actually doing a self portrait of herself which is pretty cool. So let me just tell you a little bit about the relationship. So as you can see I have Leticia on the screen right there. She was the one that started our whole happy hour. And then a year later as I was telling you a startup sometimes they change employees a lot. And so Leticia decided to move to the East Coast. So I got handed off to Emily. I worked with her for a year and a half and then she decided to change startup companies. So I got handed off to Ada and Jessica. And so I'm working with them right now on our current happy hours. But yeah you would think that employee turnover would be really bad right. But actually it worked out in my favor because Emily decided to go to another startup. And this startup is called Swivel. And this was actually just like a month and a half ago literally I mean I was changing my presentation like weekly because with these startups you just never know. So Swivel basically is like having a cameraman without having one. So what it does is let me show you. Let's go over to this other clip. And I'm probably going to have to narrow it this one. So what it does is it has the iPad the Swivel microphone goes up to the top. The camera follows the device. So that is you're making a presentation that you are recorded wherever you are. And since the microphone is with the person the audio is standing. So as you can see the Swivel moves around back and forth. So that wherever you are in this presentation unfortunately again working with startups they forgot to give me the remote for this. But it goes so the lapel mic sits on the top has an infrared and it swivels back and forth. So then that way when you're recording something like let's say an author talk or let's say a story time you don't have to have the you don't have to have a still hand to do this. The swivel does it for you. And let me show you what I use this for. So actually we had a speech and debate program at our library and hopefully wonder technology. I know it sounds like arguing but debate is very methodical. You have to research your argument and you have to back your claims up with evidence. And how do you get the evidence through research? So as you can see the video quality is very good and it's swiveling back and forth. I'll show you another one. It will go. It's going to be about ball. It's fun and you can get great exercise with it. And if you're really good at it you can earn a living with it. So again the subject piece was about ball. And so he was talking about all the uses of the ball. So yes I mean you can use it for myriad of programs including story time and including author talks presentations and I actually use this as promo material for our next programs. The other startup that I wanted to tell you about that I'm actually working with and I'm actually having a program tonight so I have to go back to Santa Clara for this program is tasteful.  And so how this came about is my friend Paul he was at a bar. This bar and he had met this guy named John and John was telling him all about his company and he's like my friend Paul for some reason I've known him for four years was like hey you know what. My friend Cheryl you should probably talk to her she's like the branch manager of a library she might want to work with you on a program. So then he passed me off I emailed John he passed me off to his marketing girl Kendra. And I said you know what I heard about this company I'm like maybe we can do a tasteful Tuesday where we can have a chef who does paleo recipes come into the library and actually do a program. So tonight we're featuring chef and author Simone Miller from Zenbelli catering and she's going to be coming into our library tonight and doing a cooking demo. So that's how that partnership came about. And then if you remember Kendra right then so in my meeting with her she was talking about all about you know tasteful but then she goes you know what also work for this other startup and this other startup. I don't know these startup people say work for everybody. She goes you know I have actually I'm the CEO of my own business. It's called oh baby organics I'm actually partnering up with my friend Ani. And what we do is we have baby clothes that are kind of tied to literary themes. So I said that's interesting. Well my librarian and I were talking about you know we should probably do more baby programs because unfortunately between her and I and we can we can only spread ourselves so thin. So we thought you know what maybe we should do a baby week. So this was kind of already in our repertoire and I was like you know what it'd be great to have her as a sponsor for baby week. So she ended up I was talking to her about baby week. I'm like we could have a Q&A lactation consultant. We can have a baby fashion show and raffle. We can have baby signing. It could be cool.  And fortunately now she said OK. So that's how we worked with oh baby organics. But there were a couple of problems with this whole program. You know number one the Q&A with the lactation consultant. I unfortunately scheduled it during Monday night football the first Monday night football game 49ers against the Vikings. Now Northside Branch Library is the closest library to Levi's Stadium. Bad idea Cheryl. Horrible horrible idea. I only had like nine people registered and I told her you know what I'm really sorry this is horrible. I don't usually like to cancel out on programs but unfortunately I'm going to have to cancel out on this one. I just don't think it's going to be that great. So that was one pitfall. The other pitfall was she forgot or not she didn't forget. Basically her moms for the baby fashion show and her babies got sick. All of them got sick at the same time. So there was no fashion show and my new assistant director was coming into library for the fashion show and there was no fashion show. Again as a librarian you have to improvise and you have to do story time. So we did a baby story time on the fly and it turned out pretty well. Again as I was telling you there are pitfalls to working with startups. Since I have short time lapse here you always have to make it happen now. And there's also as I told you with Osmo there's high employee turnover. There's also a lot of red tape when you work with the public library. And they're also asking for instantaneous results. And you better deliver on those results. So how do you find a startup in your area? So this is where it all happens. It's networking. And my job I hate to tell you this does not end when the library closes. It actually begins and it begins at these networking events. I'm after six o'clock. I'm going to these networking events. I'm jumping into conversations. I'm giving them the elevator speech about the library and how we can work with you to help facilitate your startup branding awareness, testing new products. And I try to connect the dots with the synergy between the startup and the library. So that's a mutually beneficial partnership. And you have to sell them on what's in it for them. And so you exchange the business cards. Hopefully they bite. And then you follow up with the lunch meeting, which is like a first date. So you have to work out the details of the program. So you have to already have in mind a little bit about what the startup is. And then you kind of, again, you discuss the library goals and how those library goals fit in with their goals and how you guys can work together. You plant the seed for that program.  Then back at the library, you have to do all the heavy lifting. It's all about the marketing. It's all about advertising. It's about keeping in touch with them. It's about making sure that your program numbers are working out with them. And just like I said, with the Q&A lactation consult, my numbers didn't work out. But fortunately enough, with most of my startups, the numbers have worked out. People have been very happy with the numbers and pleased. Again, with like Zenbelly, with Chef Simone Miller, we have 126 people registered tonight. So hopefully we're delivering on that.  They are going to come back to you over and over and over again. Because they're going to want to work with you. And then the library becomes part of their success story. Therefore, building that relationship. And it's all about building that relationship. And then what's in the future for Santa Clara City Library and startups? This is the one I'm working with now. It's One Traction. They are a startup accelerator. What that means is that they bring your startup to the next level, funding. They kind of fast-track you into a funding realm. And so you'll hear from Matt about hackathons. And one of the things I wanted to work with them on is doing an adult hackathon. But unfortunately, Santa Clara, I'm dealing with a lot of red tape. So I'm trying to cut the red tape and trying to make it happen. But again, it's happening very slowly. So this is me, if you want to contact me. Again, my presentation constantly changes. It was changing up until the last minute. Again, working with startups, that's how it goes. Thank you very much.


Today, we're gonna be challenging ourselves to spend 24 hours in our Corvette car. We're not leaving this car for 24 hours. Pinkie promise. Me and Mariah are actually currently getting ready to play a game in Mario Kart. Oh, it's so fun. This is where we're gonna be spending the night. Yeah, it's kind of scary. I'm kind of like low key freaking out. I don't like it. It's like really sketchy. We've been in and out of it for the past couple hours. The windows are so foggy. Look at this. No, it's just scary guys. I don't like it. Hopefully we literally are able to sleep. If we can't sleep, we might actually fail this challenge. Oh guys, you know what that sound means. That means we are back in our Corvette car. And today we're gonna be challenging ourselves to spend 24 hours in our baby, our small compact baby. If you guys are new and don't know us, we bought a Corvette back in the summer and unfortunately during the wintertime we had to store it away. Damn Chicago. This is why we're moving to Florida, guys.  We're sick of all the salt on the ground. Like we can't do that. We can't drive our baby. We literally just took him for a car wash too. It's funny I'm calling him like a, I think we named him like dynamite, right? Eve, oh, Eve? Wait, wait. Eve is the eclipse. Eve the eclipse. We named this car like, we couldn't ever figure out a name. It was like dynamite or cherry or something. Anyways, besides that, we just cleaned our car. We're starting off the video right now. We've actually been in our car for a half hour. And I'm gonna tag that on to this video. So we have 23 and a half hours left right now. It's currently morning. It's overcast and really crappy, just like normal Chicago weather. But we're gonna try to stay overnight. We're gonna sleep in this car.  But guys, There's a lot of leg room for being a Corvette. Like look at this Mariah, show them off. Ooh, you can get two Mariahs in there. I know, you really could. We might just have to pop our twin here. You don't have a little party, but. We have a little party. We have some pillows and blankets in the back so we can switch turns and we sleep back there. We brought a lot of stuff. We're gonna show you two. We brought a Nintendo switch. We brought literally all the essentials to live in a car for 24 hours. And do I know what the best part is? What? We are in a car babe. That means we can go through drive-thrus. Oh. We don't have to starve. We don't have to drink and oh, I just want to say this out. Since we already did start the challenge, like 23 and a half hours on the clock, I really, really want to stress to you guys. When we always do 24 hour challenges, we never usually end up completing them. So me and Mariah made a pact. We made a pact today. We are completing this challenge a full 24 hours and we will prove it to you guys because we're gonna be sleeping in this car and then tomorrow we're gonna be waking up, gonna be daytime. That's the goal at least. Unless something bad happens. We gotta find a nice area to park though because. We'll see, we'll see. But guys, if this video gets to 30,000 likes, we will do this in Florida. We are planning to get a Porsche. Yes, we're planning to get a bigger car. Yes. So if you guys want to see that video and ask people in Florida, like it up right now. It only takes a second. Think about it. If there's 100,000 viewers watching this video right now, you can literally get this video at 50K. Let's get this at 30K so we can do another challenge like this in Florida with Paul trees and all that. But enough of us talking guys. Let's see what's going on here. Like, all right, so right now we've just been chilling. We've really been sitting here for a past half hour and we do not know what to do. We're already bored. We're already really bored. And I can't believe we still have so much longer here. I know babe, we literally, we have so much time on our hands that I feel like this is just gonna be a good bonding experience for me. It's gonna be a good, I'm just gonna get away from here. I'm already getting a note of you. I know, right? It's a little bit. It's too short for this, or too small. Guys, so we're currently taking the thumbnail. We literally had to crawl through the back of the car just to get back here because we forgot to take a thumbnail before the challenge started. But like we said, we're not leaving this car for 24 hours. Pinky promise. Look at that. And I don't think we should sabotage each other either. We usually try sabotaging each other to leave, but I really wanna complete this. Me too. All right. Look at it, we might just sleep back here. This is kind of comfy low key. All right, ready? Guys, this is so funny. You can see a little behind the scenes of how we actually take thumbnails. Now I gotta grab this freaking camera. You don't know how hard it was and everyone's staring at us right now because we're actually outside of my old junior high. Everyone's like, what are you doing? Yeah, right? They're all driving past. All right, let's go. Okay guys, we actually came up with a new idea. So what we're going to do is if any time we need to get out of the car, we're only gonna have 30 minutes tops. So Bill is going to start the timer. You get out.  So whatever time, if she was in there for five minutes, I mean, she only has 25 minutes total left to be out of the car. Okay, all right. So I'm gonna start your timer. Are you ready? Yes. You better hurry up. We just stopped at my house because it was really close. Are you open up the door? Yeah. All right, ready? Don't be slamming the door. All right, three.  Did you text her? Were you here? All right, ready? Three, two, one, go. Timer's going guys. She, you have three seconds already. She's running. She's like, oh, I gotta go. All right, she's running back. You probably peed quick. Oh my God. I've never seen you go this fast. Until you sit down, I'm not stopping it. And it's been three minutes, 27 seconds. I was talking away. I know, my mom's cat's so cute that we got her. He was crying at the door when I was peeing when your mom came out. Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure he's like. I'm gonna be waved. He's like. Oh. Oh. Hello. You can't see him, but my mom and my mom's cat is in the window right now. It's so cute. But that means you have a total of 26 minutes in 33 seconds or 32 seconds left. And I, I have a half hour still. I'm good to pee. I peed right before we started the video. So I'm, I'm set guys. Literally. All right, we've hit the hour and a half mark. If you cannot guess, we got really hungry and what place do you think we're gone? I'm sure you guys already know. If you're a subscriber, if you've been staying to with our channel, we were actually at Panda Express right now and we're gonna get some food. So let's get it there. I'm excited. Let me just say it is so nice to be able to drive our whip again. I freaking love our Corvette so much. It feels so good to finally be in it because we had to keep it away for the summer. Six months since we were actually able to drive it. And even today, it's not the best day, but I'm glad that it's good because we could do this challenge and take it out for a spin without getting snow on it. This is why we can't wait for Florida because we're gonna be driving this thing every day. It's gonna be our daily until we get another car, but like this, I cannot wait. It's literally a dream come true. My stomach is literally gargling. Gargling. All we had was, we didn't film it, but all we had before we started the challenge was Starbucks. Yes. And I mean, we love Starbucks, but it was not filling. It was not filling, yeah. All right guys, we just got our food. I feel like we have not eaten Panda Express in a long, actually. No, we haven't. Wait, what? What is wrong with us? What is the last time we had Panda? We're fake. We say it's our favorite place and we haven't even been there in like, what, a month? Almost, I feel like way longer than that. Oh my, I'm actually- But we got, we got wait, so basically a month. It's okay because we're getting it now so we can start the clock over again. Sorry Panda to defy you, but I'm doing good for being almost two hours in. I don't know about you guys, but this is actually going pretty good. It's going to get harder because since it is a small car, it's going to get really like, you're going to get like achy. You want to like take a step out. There's no one difference. There's no one difference. What? In the other videos, we had say 20 hours, you had to grab your stuff. Right here, you can drive to places. You don't have to be in one area. I know.  Exactly. Just park at someone's address and be like, all right, take it to our car. Nope. But honestly, babe, I need to stretch my leg for like a second, for like a second. So if you want to start your timer, I'm going to start my timer. I'm going to keep your time on my timer. Let me just run around for a minute because I literally, my legs get really crammed up in the car and the seat only goes back this far. Oh, wait, wait. What? Hold up. Oh, I'm chilling. Your screw, that seat doesn't go back as far. It doesn't? No, it doesn't. All right, ready? Sir, start my time right when I get out. Okay, now. All right, guys, I just started to stop watch. He's getting out and stretching, feeling good. It's been 11 seconds. That's all I need. There's literally only 14 seconds. 14 seconds. Oh, that's pretty good. I can actually do that.  Your screwed. You only have like 27 minutes left. I got 29 minutes and 45 seconds left of my time out of a half hour. How do you know the math so well? Because I'm a genius, you know what I mean? It's because unlike Mariah, when she was a child, when she was in high school, she went to parties every weekend, I stay at home like a good boy, studying my homework. Okay, maybe I didn't study, but I still stayed at home like I wasn't. You were studying video games. What's worse, going to parties or playing video games? Comment down below what you think is worse on your brain.   You're around a little bit better of a crowd at high school parties, rather than playing video games. I think on video games, I guess it's a good thing to have as a hobby, but I feel like it kills your brain. Okay, come on. Everyone in the comments that plays video games, please let her know. I don't play anymore, but when I did play it, it takes a lot of skill, a lot of hand and eye coordination. I'm not roasting anybody, I think it's a good thing if you're doing it, it's fine, but like- Hey, all I'm saying is- I'm just comparing the difference. I think we have good as- Going to a party, going to a party, you're socializing, you're getting out and you're acting. Okay, that's facts, that's facts. Why are you so socializing? You're meeting way more and new people online. Let me play video games. You meet new people online all the time. But it's not social interaction. Okay, we're actually getting into this. We're having a legit debate right now. We're gonna finish up our food, get this going, let a little time pass by because we got a lot of time left in the car. We do. And we'll see you in a little bit, guys. Guys, Mariah just woke up from a nap and look at her, she's walking around the car. Don't worry, don't worry. I have the time started. What are you doing? What are you, oh my, wait, actually do it again, do it again, hold on. What, you look good in those, baby. You're wasting your time. Your time, her time is still going and she's literally acting like it's a joke.   What are you doing? This is what happens when you get deprived of being outside of a car. You literally start dancing around it. It's too cold. All right, guys, so it's actually been a while since we talked last. Mariah actually took a little snoozer over here. He's a tire guy. I think it's been a long time in the car. Yeah, we're sitting in a Target parking lot right now, as you can tell. And we've literally just been chilling on our phones. We just posted the Angel vs. Demon video, the girlfriend video, so make sure to check that out. But yeah, it's getting late now, guys. That actually is getting kind of dark out if you can't tell. Super gloomy. It's gloomy, yeah, the light's going down. Sunset is supposed to be in a little bit. So we're making it, we're making it. We're like, I'm more than a quarter through this challenge and I cannot wait to keep this thing going. We're just trying to find a place to sleep because we really do not know.  I think we should sleep at your parents' house or like around the area. Oh, we should, that'll be an awesome idea. Like in the street. Oh yeah, no, in the, because we'll sleep in the car. Yeah. Oh, okay, yeah, we'll do that. That's a good idea. I know. Give us some nugs, all right. Later, once we go, once it gets darker out, once we're actually getting tired, we're gonna go to my parents' house, sleep on the side of the road because that'll be perfect. Then she can watch out. Exactly. And it's a good neighborhood. So we're good. All right, we're chilling, guys, let's go. We have halfway left in this challenge and I'm super stoked. We got this. We got this. Easy. Where are you going?  All right, well, you're on a timer. I know. So you have 14 seconds about to start it once you leave the car. Okay, hold on, hold on. I need to be ready. I need to make sure, oh, I almost forgot my wallet. That would have been bad. Yeah, that would have been bad. I don't have to run back and oh my gosh. Oh God. I'm going for five minutes. Okay. Six minutes at most. All right, let's see. This is gonna be where my time goes. All right, I'm gonna start it. Oh no, I'm gonna pee while I'm in there too. Crap, I need time. All right, ready? Ready? Three, two, one, go. Oh! Guys, he might waste his whole night doing going to get a smoothie, guys. He better hope that he comes back in time because if he runs out, if he runs out of time, he's done for the night. He can't even go pee or nothing, so push him some luck. All right, guys. So it's been four minutes and Bill is just now getting out. Honestly, I thought it was gonna take him longer but obviously not. I'm excited for my smoothie. Babe, you were only in there for five minutes. I didn't. You didn't. Oh my God, props to them because they need these hella quick and I went to the bathroom. Yeah, you went to the bathroom too. Oh, you went to the bathroom too? Everything, the whole nine yards. Wow. And I was like, five oh four. Five oh four. So that was actually four minutes and 50 seconds. I thought it was gonna take longer because usually tropical smoothie takes forever. Congrats to you, Billy. There was no one in it, that's why. There was no crowd. It's getting dark out too. I know. Uh oh, we're gonna have to crank up the lights while we respond. Oh. All right, so as you can see, it's gotten way darker out. It's actually the middle of the night right now. Like everyone's starting to pack up and go home from Target. All these other fast food places. I know you can't really see us that well but me and Mariah are actually currently getting ready to play a game in Mario Kart. Look at this. We're picking our dudes right now. It's so fun. I was thinking we should do this more, like have date nights. We should. In Florida, we should go to like the beach and like put Mario Kart on like the sand. And we can like play it on the beach. Like we're definitely gonna be doing that. I know, that's what's cool. It's like you can play it on your TV and you can play it on the go. Yeah, that's so cool. We can, wait, hold up. We can do this on the airplane. Why did we ever think of that? Comment down below who do you think's gonna win because I think I got it in me. We're starting the race right now. I turned the volume down so you can't hear it. Honestly, babe, you might need to pull up into Target and let me go pee real quick so I can go. Can you go pee? Come on. I can't hold it. Guys, I don't know how long we're into this challenge. I think we are more than 12 hours in now. Oh no, the game's starting though. I know, but you can pause it. All right, all right. We'll get you when we get back.  All right, that's fine. All right, you better hurry up. All right, so Mariah just went to the bathroom. I calculated it. She literally was only in there for one minute and 46 seconds, which is surprising. Yes. You know, she was just in and out of there really quick. We decided to drive all the way home to my parents' house because this is where we're gonna be spending the night and I really didn't not want to be out there because it's actually really getting late now. Yes. And it's eight o'clock at night. So already it's been like, what? We started this at like nine? Yeah, this has been great. Oh my gosh. I feel like we really haven't been filming a lot, but we like, but time's just been flying. Hey, we've been doing good guys, but this is what we've been working with. Just a little streetlight we got. We got some house lights, but in reality, it's dark right now. But babe, we're in the middle of something. You disrupted our race, Mariah. Look at this. We're gonna race it out right now and we're gonna see who's gonna win. This is just the first game out of many because we're really bored. And I'm probably gonna hopefully go to bed around like what? Do you want to kick it around like 10, 30, 11? We can. So just to go early? Yeah. Because the good part about this video is we can sleep like eight hours or nine hours of the video. All right, let's go. Hey, so like always, you already know your boy, beat Mariah in Mario Kart. Okay, why don't you just show them the statistics right here? All right, I'll show you. Why don't you show them what actually happened? All right, so Mariah is Metal Mario. No, I'm Yoshi, guys. You guys saw, I'm Yoshi. What? Don't even try. Baby, come on. Don't even try. You know I just won this challenge. Can you tell him I won, please? No. Whatever. Hey, actually we played four races. That's how you play Mario Kart and Mariah beat me out of the hole. Every four race, I had the last race. I was in 11th place and I got up to fifth.     No, not usually. I'm actually annoyed right now. Good, you should be. Double or nothing, double or nothing. Nope, nope. I won. I'm gonna go to bed now, hold me down and take a nap. Whatever, whatever. Guys, I hope you are enjoying this challenge as much as we are. We are about to head to bed, but before we do that, I'm actually gonna call my mother and tell her that we're outside of her house. Cause I don't even think she knows that yet and I'm gonna ask her if she can like watch over us because I don't want anyone coming to our car. And then we need someone to look out for us. Let's see she answers. Hi. Hi. Are you busy? I'm on a Zoom call with three. Okay, I just wanted to tell you that we're outside of the house. It's for the challenge that we're doing today. So can you just like, if you're up in the middle of the night, can you just check on us to make sure that we're not getting like, you know, pulled out of our car? You're in front. Yeah, absolutely. We're in our car. We're doing a 24 hour challenge. Well, you can always call me if you need anything. All right. Do you need blankets or anything? No, we got blankets. We got pillow. All we need is our sleep now because we've literally been in this car since 9 a.m. And that means it's literally been halfway. We're at 11 hours in the car. Oh my gosh. You have to be exhausted. Oh, I am. I'm hoping to actually sleep for like 10 hours. Like nine hours. You have all people could sleep anywhere. So I... Oh no, I'm worried about Mariah. Oh, yeah. That's just... She can't even, yeah. Yeah, keep the inside of the garage door because Mariah's gonna come through the big garage door probably to go to the bathroom during the night. Okay, okay. I'll keep that door accessible for her. All right. All right. Have fun I'd say. Wish us luck. We're doing it. We're doing this 24 hour challenge. Awesome. Love you too. Stay warm. Bye. That's official. Guys, we're halfway almost through this challenge. It's freaking crazy. If you have not given this video a thumbs up yet, give this video a thumbs up. Give this a 30K likes. I think that we're just gonna chill out the rest of the night. Yeah, I think we are. I need to calm down. I'm like, I'm ready for bed but I'm like overly excited right now. I have a headache. Oh, you do? Yeah. Oh, she's getting tired. She's definitely getting tired. She's mumbling down. All right guys, what we love you, we will see you either in the middle of the night or tomorrow, depending on how everything goes. Yes. All right, ready? We got this babe. Let's do it. Let's do it. All right, so I know the lighting is not the best. We look really creepy right now actually. Yeah, it's kind of scary. Guys, I'm kind of like low key freaking out. I don't like it. It's like really sketchy. We've been in and out of it for the past couple of hours. It's like, all right, I don't know if you can see this on my phone. It's currently 2.18 AM. 2.18 AM. And we have how many hours? What's till 9 o'clock, 7, 8, 9? Seven hours left of the channel. Oh my God, only seven hours left. Yeah, I know. We need to, we're trying to go to bed, but... Are you not scared? Huh? I'm a little scared.  Oh my, the windows are so foggy. Look at this. I know, it's just scary guys. I don't like it. I know no one can see us in here. I like this car because it feels really secluded and like not as big, but like... Oh my God, I'm so tired. Oh my God, I'm so tired. I'm like, I'm tired, but I'm wide awake now because we've literally been up for almost a half hour. I know. Babe, you need to go to bed. It's hard to sleep through this night. I, cause we were in a car and you're in the cuff of your spot. You get the trunk. I know, we'll eat it.  You didn't want to come back with me, but you decided to eat it. This is what I'm doing guys. I'm literally just leaned up against the door and my neck like kills right now. I do not recommend sleeping in a car, but like we said, we're not failing this challenge. No, we're not. We're not, we got this. How are you wide awake right now? Cause I'm scared. Give me some nucks. Give me a kissy. I'm gonna take off my glasses and go to sleep. Hopefully we literally are able to sleep. If we can't sleep, we might actually fail this challenge. Let's hope not. No, I'm not letting you out. I'm locking the doors. I'm locking the doors on you too. Doors are already locked. We're going through them. We're not letting the marble squad down. It's so creepy out right now. All right, we love you guys. Wish us luck. We'll see you guys in the morning. Hopefully we make it. Wish us luck. Yeah, well we're gonna make it. It's gonna be good. All right guys, love you. See you Marvel. See you Marvel. Oh my God. Hold on. I need to like reposition really quick guys. Good morning Marvel Squad. We wake up. I'm gonna wake up. I don't even know what I'm saying. I am so tired right now. It's currently 8.06 AM. 8.06 AM. And I've been up for like 10, 20 minutes. I just been waiting. This girl's taking forever to get up. Baby, come on. You literally have the comfiest spot in the car. Can you please get up so we can talk to our Marvel Squad about this freaking challenge? Look at her. She's dead. Hold up, hold up, hold up, guys. Listen, this is the best part about the morning already. Listen, listen, listen really closely. Do you hear the birds? Baby, do you hear the birds? Babe, we freaking did it. We freaking did it. We survived actually till the morning. It's 8.07 right now, Rob. We didn't sleep at all. You did it. I slept like a rock. What are you talking about? You slept good. I wedged my head right here. Had my blanket, boom. I've been awake for like 10 or 20 minutes. My eyes are red right now. I can't wait to go and sleep in our bed, yeah. The little birdies, they're so cute. They're like waves, little birdies. Guys, we did it. I'm gonna be the energy of this front clip because Mariah is cashed out. It takes me a second to get energetic. It takes her, she needs our Starbucks. We can actually, we should go to get Starbucks in the morning, right? We should. Yeah, we got Starbucks yesterday. Why not just get Starbucks before we, because we have to return the car back to our house before we go back to our apartment. Oh my God. I can't wait to get my makeup off. It's been on me all night. Yeah, did you mess up the pillow? Oh no, she slept on like her hair. Guys, oh my God, I have so much to say right now. So throughout the night, we didn't film much because first of all, it was dark and every single time Mariah would wake up, she would wake me up because she was scared. But that's why she slept so close to me. How did you like it back there? When she was going back there at night. It was really close to full, but. I know, I was really skeptical, guys. Not gonna lie, we have to be honest with them. She got out of the car two times to go inside my parents' house to go pee, but each time, yeah, each time was a few minutes. So she still has a lot of time left on her clock. As you saw last night, I barely got out yesterday. Like I literally barely got out only to stretch my legs a couple of times and then to go to the bathroom. But we freaking did it, guys. I cannot believe, give me some nugs, babe. Wait, hold on, let's do a handshake, ready? Huh? Huh? Huh? No, no, this? This? Boom, I cannot believe we did this. I am so hyped right now. I cannot wait, hold on. I'm gonna call my mom. This is not fun at all.  Like, I swear. Good morning. Good morning. Oh my God, I cannot believe we actually did. Like, we told our mom squad we were not fibbing. We were actually gonna do it and we did it. I didn't think you would last all night. I really didn't. Were you cold? Yeah, I got pretty cold. No, we have blankets, though. Me and Mariah, our body heat kinda like made it nice in here. It's actually insulated in this car. It's just really tight. That's good. I know.  Oh, I'm ready. I'm ready to leave. We're actually gonna leave right now to go drop the car back off. But I just wanted to call you just so you didn't have to keep checking up on us and we made it. Yeah. What time do you finally fall asleep? Perfect. You're not. Mariah was like up all night, I feel like. But I was asleep by like, I don't know, 12, 11, 30. We were just playing the switch and just chilling, but. Yeah. All right, well, I love you. Thanks to you for being my lookout. I love you too. All right. Bye. All right. Bye. I cannot believe we freaking did this. I'm proud of. Everyone, please subscribe to our channel. Please like this video. Comment down below how you thought about this challenge because this is the first challenge. We actually spent 24 hours in a car. And I say 24 hours. It's actually been a little more than 23 hours right now. We still have a little less than an hour left. But to return the car, our house is literally like a 40 minute drive from here. So we're still gonna be in the car for another 40 minutes. So we did it. We did it by then. And I can't wait. I'm just so proud of us guys. I can't wait to get home. And actually, I think we're gonna take a nap. We are taking a big nap. I need a nap at least. Big nap. I mean right now I'm good, but like shoot. Once I get home, I'm gonna crash. If you guys haven't yet, make sure to do this video.  Big thumbs up. And go subscribe down below. This was insane. I'm so proud of us that we did it. But I would definitely say. We did it. We did it. I do miss my sleep. Oh yeah. Okay. The only way we will do this again, if this video gets to 30,000 likes, we'll do it again in Florida. I feel like it'll be a lot warmer, which will be nicer. And we'll have more room in a bigger car. But 30K and we'll do this again. Guys, if you liked it. Well thank you so much for tuning in to this video. We love you. Thank you for staying tuned the whole time. And we will see you in the next video. But until then, peace. Love you guys.


The study examined the effects of overexpressing four genes involved in the synthesis of isobutinol in Sacramuses cerevisiae. The results indicated that overexpression of these genes resulted in an increase in isobutinol production in S. cerevisiae. Additionally, the study found that providing amino acids in the culture medium improved isobutinol production in the reference strain, but did not improve isobutinol production in the ILV-2, ILV-3, ILV-5 overexpression strain. This suggests that other factors beyond the activity of the genes are limiting isobutinol production in this strain. This article was authored by Kahumal Kaisa, Keeland Brant Morton C., Borodino Arena, and others.


Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Chris Reed of Neil Metals. How are you today, Chris? I'm very well, Tricey. How are you? Chris, thank you so much for doing this interview with me on what zeolite is. I mean, I have Neil Metals. You've been following your lithium, nickel, titanium, vanadium, and recently Matt Boulson was talking about how you'll be recycling for a cobalt. But in particular, you just put out a news release about zeolite. Why don't you start by giving us an overview on what that news release actually means, and then you can talk to us about what zeolite is, please. Sure, Tricey. In terms of zeolite and making it, which is an engineered material out of our spodium and leach residue, it can potentially be a cost advantage. We've certainly made what's called a type A and numerous types of zeolites. So they're used in industrial purposes for catalysts, absorbance, et cetera. So we're doing the engineering studies. We've got M&W looking at the operating and capital costs for that. And we hope that that can reduce our costs of production of lithium hydroxide in time. Let me understand. This comes from lithium. Is that correct? It's actually what's left after we dissolve the lithium out of the spodium. Okay. So you have managed to find an interesting byproduct of lithium that I'm reading your news release. It says it's going to reach a 16.28 billion market by 2022. So could you tell us a little bit more, where do we get this number from, for instance? Yes. So look, we bought a marketing study. There's plenty of big multinationals in the zeolite market. Another term for them is molecular sieves. So you can actually use these minerals as molecular sieves to remove moisture from gas, to move impurities from gas, to purify oxygen, et cetera. Well is there a reason, we have so many companies everywhere splattering the playing field of our stock portfolios with the word lithium in them. But I'm pretty sure none of them are using the word zeolite or perhaps I haven't been looking for it. Can you tell me, are you just closer to production than many of your competitors or can you explain to me a little bit more, because we as shareholders are actually quite interested in this byproduct. Sure. So look, traditionally all the lithium conversion has been done up in China and they basically take the residues and give it to cement manufacturers to make concrete out of. In Australia, we're having a look at something smarter to do with the residues, examining exactly what it is and can we make a value added product to reduce our cost, because reducing our cost is pretty much the only long-term strategy that we can use in the lithium business. So we've got Matt Marion where we're making concentrates, we're looking at building a lithium refinery project to make lithium hydroxide and we've got the battery recycling and all of that is to get the highest revenue per lithium unit at the lowest cost. So what is our timeline for shareholders? When will you potentially have, do you have an off-take agreement for this commercial grade zeolite yet or what should we be looking at for production to run? Yeah, certainly next quarter we'll have the operating and capital cost estimates done by M&W Group who are German engineers that are doing the lithium refinery project studies for us. We'll put that into the market, we're generating larger samples for evaluation by zeolite producers. So look, it would run a little bit behind the current lithium hydroxide project, but only by a matter of months. So let me understand this, you found another byproduct because you're trying to get your prices down for your production of lithium to be an international global supplier and competitor. Is that correct? You found this byproduct that you can make additional revenue? Correct. Okay. And there's some other guys, there's one or two very good lithium converters that are looking to make high purity alumina out of their leach residue because it is high in aluminium. So can you just finish up by maybe telling me who some of the biggest sources are that might be sourcing commercial zeolites moving forward, just so we as investor Intel investors feel more educated on this topic? Sure, certainly the petrochemical industries use quite a lot of molecular sieves and there's molecular sieves used on pretty much every hydrometallurgical processing plant one way or another. So, you know, it's a very large market in terms of some of our, some of the producers, you're looking at zeochem, albamyl, different catalyst producers. Well Chris, as always, thank you for joining us today. Very welcome Trice, you have a great day.


If you know who and how somebody is, then you can't get mad when they show you exactly who they are. Sammy Watkins, I feel for him too, but it should be no surprise. The Packers, they play Sammy Watkins on injured reserve. He's dealing with a hamstring injury. So he'll be out at least the next four games. But this has been a pattern throughout his career, the injuries. Of course Ravens fans all remember last year what Sammy dealt with with the injuries and whatnot. And it's just, that's his pattern. Talented player, could make all the catches in the world, but the injuries just, they always take them out for chunks of the season. So hopefully he can get that all cleared up. But Packers is important because I know they got Watson and Doves and whatnot. So they try to cover it. So we'll see how it works out for them. But this will be an opportunity for the young guys to really get their shine on. Another thing, have y'all played the pro era game on the Oculus? Man, I love it, man. I love it so much, man. Cause I love Madden, Madden's cool. But the pro era, I feel like with the pro era game, it's like, y'all remember what 2K, NFL 2K was trying to do some years ago when they put you in the helmet? But would it be in like virtual reality and you could look all around like, I'm like, I'm playing a game. I'm having fun doing handoffs to JK Dobbins. I'm over here having fun. I'm over here patting my different offensive and climbing on and helping and stuff. I'm like, hey, good job, good protection. I love that game so much. And I ain't even played a regular season game yet. I only played the little intro where you got to complete the pass to Mark Andrews. It took me like four or five tries. And then I did practice mode, but I love it. Oh yeah. And I did some kind of like little throwing challenge too.  If you ever get a chance to play it, please do. If you got an Oculus Rift, please get it. It's worth it. And it's only like $30, I think. We are not sponsored by them whatsoever. I wish we were, but we're not. But yeah, it's real. Anyway, couple of updates for the Ravens. Ronnie Stanley. Ronnie Stanley is officially out against the New England Patriots. I myself, I thought like, hey, this could be the week. He been practicing for a couple of weeks and whatnot. I'm like, okay, here we go. This could be it. But nope, no Ronnie Stanley yet. And see, the thing about that is that with Ronnie Stanley, John Hall ball, every time he talks about Ronnie Stanley, it's like, it's like what the Eric Acosta did with Lamar Jackson when it came to the contract talks earliest off season. He was like, hey, the ball's in his court. Hey, Lamar knows where to reach me yet. Lamar knows my number. He can give me a call. When he's ready to talk, we'll talk, but the ball's in his court. So Eric Acosta continued to throw it to Lamar Jackson and John Hall ball. Whenever he speaks about Ronnie Stanley, there are a lot of similarities. Same thing. Hey, it's up to him. Whenever he feels like being out there, whenever he feels his best, because he keeps commending him like, hey, he looks like he's in the best shape that he's ever been in. And I'm just like, okay, well, if he looks like he's in the best shape that he's ever been in, but he's still not out there. And not that you want him to rush. Cause again, this dude, his ankle and all that got tore into a million pieces. And it was a process, obviously, because he tried to do the rehab. And he was like, no, no rehab. Then they did the surgery. And this has been an issue with him for a while now, as far as his ankle issue. So you wanna make sure he comes back right, especially, especially since you have so much invested in him. I've seen a lot of different takes from a lot of different Ravens fans on Ronnie Stanley. And I can understand where they're all coming from. Some people are like, hey, he needs to be out there. He's making a lot of money. He needs to be out there on that field. Then other people are like, hey, no, you can't rush him. He is making a lot of money, true, but that's such a big investment. You don't wanna rush that and then end up ruining his career forever. Some people feel like, hey, the Ravens should just bite the bullet, take the dead cap hit and just cut Ronnie Stanley and move on. Then I've seen a lot of people talking about, oh, the Ravens, it's time to start looking at tackles early on in the draft next off season. So it's been a lot of back and forth about Ronnie Stanley, but I was really hoping that this week will be the week where he could eventually, well, he could come back. So we'll wait, maybe the Bills game will be it. We'll see, but Ronnie Stanley is so tricky, man. It's very tricky and it's one of those things we just don't know. And like we always talk about, we won't know until we know, until we actually see him trying out there. Now, somebody else who I also thought was gonna play this Sunday, even if it was in limited fashion, JPP, Jason Pierre Paul. Jason Pierre Paul, it was announced that the Ravens signed him to a one a year, was it a 4.5, I mean a $5.5 million deal, total I think, I think it's 5.5 million, but whatever it is, it's like the base of the deal is like 1.5 million, something like that. And then the incentives are like 4 million. I think it's like 5.5 million, somewhere around there. But that's obviously a lot of incentives. And again, we explained about the incentives, how that works. I'm sure it's gonna be a number of sacks, maybe playing time, something like that. But if he hits those incentives, hey, great, that means good job, good job, JPP. If he doesn't hit the incentives, then it makes the deal like closer, a lot closer to the 1.5 million. So that's that. But he is not officially a Raven yet. So he will not be playing in this Patriots game. The Ravens, they did announce the signing, but they announced the signing pending a physical. So as long as he passes the physical, then he should be good to go. Now, I remember when I first saw that announcement from Ravens, I said, ooh, okay, you gonna announce this even pending a physical? He ain't passed the physical yet. And it just reminded me of Zadaria Smith. So I made sure I tweeted that to Ravens fans, so I could give them that nice reminder to Zadaria Smith, even though the actual Ravens themselves, they never announced the Zadaria Smith deal. Cause you know, with free agency, that's the annoying period where you, the reporters, they announced the deals, but the teams don't officially announce the deals until actual free agency starts. It is, and I don't really like using this word, but it is probably the dumbest thing in free agency. Oh, we're gonna do a legal, a legal tampering period for two days. And then after that, then free agency officially start. It's like, what is the point? There's no point in the legal tampering period. That, there's no point in that at all. It's like, oh, we're gonna give these guys, these guys can come and agree to deals with teams, but they can't sign them yet. They're not official yet. They can't sign them yet. So maybe we'll give them a couple of days to decide if they really wanna go. It's just, it doesn't make any sense at all. Like none. But anyway, and JK Dobbins, JK Dobbins is another one. John Harbaugh, very iffy on JK Dobbins status. He was very non-committal on JK Dobbins status. Felt like he was trolling a little bit on JK Dobbins status. But if I had to guess, I would think he would play. I mean, we'll find out tomorrow at 1130. But yeah, if I had to guess, I would think that this would be where he plays. But if he doesn't, then I don't know. Then I won't know what's going on with JK. I mean, I don't know what's going on with JK Dobbins. But you would think like, all right, it's like, it's week three. And it's like, all right, Raven's a one in one. No reason to panic or anything yet. But there were a little couple of opportunities in the run game that they missed because of running backs, because there was a little lack of vision, a little bit. But it's like, you wanna get that guy out there, man. And I understand, I know last year, how about he been saying, hey, last year don't got nothing to do with, how we doing stuff that, yeah, okay. Yeah, all right. But I know last year scarred Ravens, but with JK Dobbins, it's like, if he's ready, he's ready.  You can just ease him back in and start easing him back in. He's not on injured reserve. So you obviously felt some type of way about his recovery. He's been practicing in full, not limited. So that's that. That's where it starts. So, all right, let's get it. And it wouldn't be rushing him because you ain't playing the first two games. So, might as well. But anyway, so that's that. So no JPP, no Ronnie Stanley, and with JK Dobbins, status is up in the air. So team keeping clean. I love y'all, appreciate y'all and we out.


Hey guys, I got this this gift. You guys got one as well. I don't know. I'm opening it up. It's wrapped with a boot band It's pretty cool. I guess I got a beanie Actually lost mine, so Oh, I got orders that's a booth. That's what I needed Sir major. Good morning. How you doing sir morning PT. I get a little PT in this morning. Yeah, stay safe at night, right? Gotta stay safe. Yes, sir. You ready to do the holiday video? Absolutely, sir. Absolutely Well, marines, sir major and I just wanted to tell you first of all Wherever you are. I hope you have a safe and happy holiday period and this has not been an ordinary year by any means No, sir. It has not I think we've seen over the course of the year since especially since the kovat pandemic has hit us A lot of things we take for granted our social gatherings, especially during the holidays has been severely impacted, sir But like you'd expect marines to do they've adjusted It made the changes necessary and you've persevered right through it So we want to have to make sure everyone has a safe holiday season this year And make sure you follow all the power protocols wherever you may be Marines never leave another marine behind so take care of each other through the holiday season and from sardin major and us and our families Happy holidays. Happy holidays