Welcome to Free Thoughts, I'm Trevor Burris. And I'm Aaron Powell. Joining us today is David Schoenbrode, trustee professor at New York Law School. He is the author of DC Confidential, Inside the Five Tricks of Washington. Welcome to Free Thoughts, David. Thank you very much, I'm glad to be here. Most people think Washington is broken. Right. At least in my experience, and I watch television and tell the shows about Congress and polling. But in your book, it almost seems like it's more broken than people think. Do you agree with, even as broken as people think Washington is, it's worse than they imagine? Yes, it is, I agree. And the reason that the book shows it to be worse than people think is I try to explain why it's broken. I mean, we know that Washington doesn't work for us. The polls show that overwhelmingly. We know that politicians are tricksters. What I try to do in the book is explain how they get away with the tricks, even though we know they're tricksters. And the problem with the tricks is that they take credit for rosy promises, get credit for rosy promises, but manage to shift blame for the bad consequences. That's why government's broken. So how do they do it? Well, they get away with these tricks for the same reason that magicians can seem to pull rabbits out of hats. We don't see the slice of hand. So what the book is really about is the slice of hand through which they get away with promising us the sky and give us dirt instead. And once I'm able to point out the slice of hand, then it's possible again to point out the ways of stopping the trickery. You say Washington doesn't work for us. There are two senses of work there. So on the one hand, it's not, do you mean that Washington is broken and that it doesn't provide us with the things that it ought to? Or, and or, it doesn't work for us in the sense that it works for someone else. That when it's doing its thing, it's doing it in the service of someone else or some other set of desires than us, the voter. Aaron, that's a good question. I think it doesn't work for us in three senses. Sense number one, the statutes they pass are not designed to do good for us. They're designed to make the politicians look better. And this is a fault of both the left and the right. So this is not a left versus right thing, it's an us versus them thing. Second of all, the tricks allow them to take support from businesses, from unions, all kinds of advocacy groups, do favors for them and return for that support, but avoid blame for the bad consequences for us of catering to these special interests. Third, it doesn't work for us in the sense that most of the time that politicians spend, I'm talking about members of Congress here, is on fundraising and PR, not legislation. Guidelines presented by the Democratic National Congressional Committee to incoming freshmen legislators suggest us spending two hours a day on legislation and four hours a day on fundraising and many more hours on various sorts of PR. Given that they're only here three days a week in Washington, that means the average member of Congress spends less time on legislation than an amateur golfer does spend on the golf course in weekends. And they also might be golfing too, so that would even compound the problem. Yeah, that's right. That's right. They never even know. It's so good to know we have a president who's an avid golfer like his predecessor in the office. It's been a trend for a while, I feel like. One thing you say in the book that I found to be very interesting is something that I've made a point to people, especially outside of the Beltway, is that there's more agreement in Washington amongst policy people than many people would think.  You can put things in place that get 90% votes from both people. And there would be a lot of things that we would agree on with them. And even if you made the consortium bigger, that there's a lot of problems in Congress, but in terms of things to fix, there's a lot of agreement. I agree with that absolutely. I, in the book, I discuss a book by Ralph Nader that makes just that point that left and right agree on a whole bunch of stuff. The reason that the politicians don't is because the trickery allows them to take extreme positions without dealing with trade-offs. So for example, members of Congress could say, I'm against pollution killing children. And then other politicians and sometimes the same one will say, I'm against regulations killing jobs, right? And so they're avoiding the necessary trade-offs, the inevitable trade-offs between environmental protection and the economy, which allows them to take extreme positions, which leads to a kind of schizophrenia in government. And it's that schizophrenia that creates the polarization that in turn causes the gridlock that keeps Congress from resolving issues that need to be resolved. Should libertarians, sometimes we like to talk about that gridlock is not that big a deal, that not that big a deal of Congress can't get things done, really efficient government can be just as scary as inefficient government. Should libertarians also endorse making Congress work better? In the inefficiency here, the gridlock here does not cause government to do nothing. It causes government to do what was doing before, which is often a lot worse than nothing. There's often opportunities for government to produce more good with less constraints on liberty. And the government is unable to get there because of the gridlock. Is this a relatively new phenomenon? Like we point at a time in the past when Congress worked or worked better than it does now? Yes, now the approval rating of the federal government is about 19%. It was the same before Trump was elected as after. In 1964, the approval rating of the people, 76% of the people thought the government was doing a pretty darn good job. So the fall off happened from around the late 60s onwards. And that's when the tricks began. Is approval rating the best way to judge how well government is working? Like maybe the people weren't paying as much attention than as they are now, or maybe they were less turned off by the bad things government was doing than they are now. I mean, government did all sorts of awful things and Congress did all sorts of awful things and passed all sorts of terrible policies during that time when its approval rating was quite high. So what's the connection necessarily between working in the three senses that you talked about earlier and approval rating? It seems to me that a libertarian ought to believe in the efficacy of the marketplace. The customer of the government is the people. So if the people are dissatisfied with the product they're getting from their supplier, I think that should count for a whole lot. Now, and I don't believe that people were worse informed back then than now. To the contrary, back then when the government, when officials had to deal with trade-offs, they were doing more concrete things. You saw the trade-offs they're making now, what we get is slogans. And so it's very hard to understand what the slogans imply if they're gonna slogan in terms of protect health at any cost. Well, what's the cost? Well, they aren't telling us, they're hiding that.  They're not telling us, they're hiding from us what the consequences will be. So I think we're worse informed now because of the trickery. I mean, there definitely were slogans. I mean, they're definitely campaign rhetoric, and are you just saying that they had. But they had their fingerprints on bills which involved trade-offs. So that they were more responsible for the burdens as well as the benefits of the legislation. What the tricks do is allow them to take credit for the benefits, but to hide the cost. Now I'll give you an example. In 1934, 1935 when Congress passed Social Security, and I certainly understand the principled arguments against Social Security. My grandfather thought it would be the ruin of the country. That was the grandfather who was not the socialist. I imagine. At that point, what Congress did was to impose taxes fully sufficient to fund Social Security pensions then and into the indefinite future as the program was then conceived. So they told people they were raising taxes. They told people they were raising taxes so they were responsible for the promised benefit and for the looming taxes. When President Johnson in Congress in 1965 set up Medicare, they promised us we would get medical care in our old age, but did not impose taxes sufficient to do it. They were hiding the cost. And so that's a great example, a very vivid example of how they get credit and shift blame. The blame is shifted to some future Congress which is gonna either have to cut our Medicare benefits or raise taxes. And I know for me, I started paying into Social Security 59 years ago when I was 16 years old with the promise that I get a pension when I retire.  In contrast, when President Roosevelt, and I'm not saying he's a great guy, I have a lot of problems with Roosevelt, he said the public should own these pensions as fully as they bought it from a public enterprise, from a private enterprise. That's not the Social Security system we have. And I bet you're going into the future. A lot of folks who thought they could depend upon government and Medicare in their old age are gonna find in some ways they gotta buy it all over again.  I'm gonna have to pay a higher premium going forward than if I was not well off. So let's turn to those tricks. You say there's five of these tricks that explain. Right. The first one is the money trick. And they already illustrated that when they make very tangible and concrete the good stuff they're giving you and hide the long-term costs. The second trick that I'll talk about. Let's, I think we should, I'll tell the money trick a little bit. Like the budgeting, how do they do the budgeting? Oh boy. I mean, I know it's really complex but basically you're saying that they might do something or say we're going to pay $10 billion for this and we'll adjust something on the bottom that in 20 years we'll theoretically save the government $10 billion and therefore we're zeroing out. Which just seems like a slight hand. Let me make this suggestion too. Okay. Why don't you just ask me how do they get away with hiding the costs? There you go. Okay, there you go. Straight out. How do they get away with hiding the costs? Well, first of all, they put most of the emphasis on the budget for the next 10 years. The problem with that is that Congress knowing that shifts income from beyond the 10 years forward in time into the present 10 years, the upcoming 10 years and it shifts costs from the current 10 years beyond. So the deficit for the coming 10 years is not nearly as important or big as the deficits looming in future decades. That's number one. Now they also pretend to care about the long-term by telling the Department of Treasury to do something called the Financial Report of the United States. But this is full and that's supposed to be a long-term projection but it's full of trickery in many ways. For example, the Financial Report has glowing happy generalities at the beginning but the bad news is hidden in the footnotes on page 250. Beyond that, they released the Financial Report of the United States without a press release, without a press conference, often on the day before Christmas in order to ensure that it doesn't get covered in the press and it doesn't get covered in the press worth a bit. So basically they're using these devices and many others to hide the real costs of what they've taken credit for. It seems odd that that wouldn't get covered in the press. If it's that egregious and it seems like they're so going out of their way to hide these things, I mean, journalists know that this report exists. They know when it comes out. Why doesn't it then get covered? I mean, don't we have a press that seems interested in the tricks that Washington gets up to in DC? Well, I don't have a good answer for that but there's a couple of things to come to mind. First of all, it takes work. Second of all, it takes expertise. It's not as if there's no coverage of it but it'll be like a few paragraphs in an investor's business daily. It is not a headline in USA Today and it's certainly not featured in the New York Times. I think when it comes to long-term fiscal numbers regarding the United States, it's almost hit levels when you talk about distances to Jupiter you try and use these metaphorically. This is 10 million miles beyond Uranus and everyone's like, okay, that's just all very far away for me. So if you tell them the debt increased by $2 trillion, I'm not sure it means that much to people. No, exactly, it's an abstraction whereas they concretize the good thing. So you get a letter from Social Security saying this is how much you're gonna get per month that's brought down home to you. Now, if they were gonna do something that concretizes the cost, they'd send you a letter that would, and this could be done, estimate how much it would cost the average family in terms of tax increases or spending cuts per year for the federal government not to go bust. In other words, to keep the debt equity ratio stable. And then there ought to be a calculation and that letter also ought to say due to the actions of Congress in the last two years, this is how much that figure's gone up or gone down. Now, once you have that, you could hold your representatives accountable for their votes that did that. Whereas, who could you blame for the debt? I mean, that has to do with the actions of thousands of representatives over many years. Beyond that, the letter ought to say that if Congress waits another year to begin opposing this annual cost on you, this is how much greater it's gonna be. So then they'll be accountable for doing nothing on it, right? So it's like the specific versus the abstract. So that's, in order to make that kind of calculation, and to really begin to make it concrete for the average family, it would take a lot of work, take more expertise than the average reporter has. And I'll tell you when writing this book, I had to try to figure out how I could concretize. So I went to a fellow by the name of Jogadish Gokle, who works for KDOT. Yep, he was our former colleague, yeah. And I said, Jogadish helped me. And he wrote a paper, it took him, I think, over a year. And this is a PhD economist who's analyzed this kind of thing before to do all the calculations. And he was hindered in the work because both Democratic and Republican presidents keep a secret of the budgeting projection program that used to make the calculation. So that's something else that would be an obstacle for the average reporter. This is as much a dark secret, that's probably a bigger dark secret than if the CAI kept it. And then Snowden, if it was the CAI, Snowden could reveal it. But it's kept so amorphous it can't be revealed. So then the solution to the money trick would be this transparency. Yes. And would be a more immediate and concrete scoring of bills so that you can say. And bring it to the family mailbox so individual families understand what's gonna happen to the average family.  But we can tell you what's gonna happen to the average family. And that's the powerful enough message. I think last I heard it was to pay off something like $62,000 per person or something like that to pay off the national debt. That's a huge number. You did just get a bill in the mail. It's like, here you go. You owe us all this money in order to pay off the debt that we in your name. We don't necessarily have to pay the national debt. We could be fiscally solvent and prudent if we keep a debt to the end of time. What can't happen is the debt income, national income ratio can't grow. And we could calculate what it would take to do that. What would happen? What's the tipping point on the debt? Well, we don't know. We really- Theoretically the tipping point. What would happen for it to flip? Okay. Not exactly where, but. Okay, well, if we got to a point where lenders would not lend to us, then we'd be bust. If we got to a point where lenders would not lend to our government, unless without much higher interest rates, then we'd have to really radically scale back spending and increase taxes far more than we otherwise would have to, okay? Now, what that point will be is impossible to say because it depends on so many factors some of which are psychological. So we can't tell where the break point will be, but this we know. And this is from Dr. Goh Clay. In the long run, government cannot pay out more than it takes in. Now, yes, it could borrow, but that means it's gonna have to pay out more because it borrowed. So the long run spending can't exceed long room tax revenue. Once we know that, we could calculate what the current policies mean in terms of revenue and spending, discount that to the present, and figure out how much you have to change that per year to make the two equal out. Then we could divide that among the population and now we know the average impact per household. And then from the rest, it's just arithmetic. So that's what Dr. Goh Clay has done. Moving on to- And the government should do it. Yeah. And it's outrageous they don't, they require lenders under the Truth and Lending Act to do that when we borrow money. But when they borrow money on our behalf, they don't apply, they don't have a Truth and Spending Act. Well, I'm sure that, there are people at NASA who are really good at using large numbers, right? Oh yeah. There's good smart mathematicians who can calculate into the trillions. You can do this with your iPhone. Okay, all right. It'll take a lot of tapping, but you can do it. Moving into the next trick, which you call the debt guarantee trick, which a debt guarantee trick. What is that and how does that work? Okay. The government, as we know from sad experience, guarantees the debts of two big to fail financial institutions and many other private debts as well. Now, when government began to get into the guaranteeing the deposits of banks back during the Depression, it limited the guarantees to small deposits. And it insisted on this limit for this reason, that it wanted the banks to be subject to the risk that if they engaged in too much risky conduct, made too many risky loans in pursuit of higher profits, that people, the big investors, would not deposit money with them, would not buy their bonds, and that would therefore temper the risk-taking of banks. That's what made banks conservative. But starting in the 60s, the federal government began to guarantee the debts of financial giants. That meant these financial giants could engage in risky kinds of lending, which pay higher profits to them, without having to be concerned about having to pay higher interest to borrow money, because after all, the people who lend them money shouldn't be concerned because the federal government's guaranteeing their debts. That greatly increased the profits of these too big to fail banks for many decades. But when bad times came in 2007, they were on the verge of going bust and the federal government came in. It cost the federal government some money, but the real tragedy was the risk-taking, the riskiness of these big financial giants drove the economy into recession. Millions of people lost their life savings and their homes and so on. It was terrible. And the whole thing, the thing is people think that the federal government has no choice but to guarantee those debts. And assuming that so, it's still the fact that no private business would guarantee the debts of another private business without charging a fee, and the fee would be higher the riskier the bank. And that would have the same effect of tempering the risk-taking appetite of these big banks. But the government didn't do that before 2007. It passed the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, but it didn't do that again. So the debt guarantee trick goes on even though Dodd and Frank promised they'd ended it. What is the benefit that Congress is getting? You say the general thing here is their members of Congress are trying to reap benefits and hide the costs. Is the benefit here that they save the banks? The benefit they get is they increase the profits of the banks, which means the members of Congress of both parties get a lot of big campaign contributions from Wall Street finance theorists. But they shift the blame for the financial crashes and the bailouts to whoever happens to be in office when the bailouts happen. So George Bush and whoever was in Congress in 2007 and eight, they took the blame, but for decades previously Democrats and Republicans were getting big campaign contributions. The next trick is the federal mandate trick. Okay, well, we've all heard about federal mandates. So this is what's involved. Prior to the advent of the federal mandate trick in the late 1960s, the federal government basically left the states alone with two major exceptions. One, the states had a duty to obey constitutional rights and two, if the states were gonna take a federal grant, they had to do what the federal grant required. So if they took a highway grant, one of the conditions was they used decent concrete. Makes sense, right, okay. So what Congress figured out how to do in the late 1960s and early 1970s was to use that same idea of grant conditions to force states to do things that they otherwise might do. So Congress would promise the benefit, like cleaner air. Okay, citizens, you're gonna get cleaner air and it's gonna be done by the states if they take the highway grant. If they take the highway grant, they can't get the highway grant unless they do what we tell them to do to clean up the air. That way Congress got to promise cleaner air but the blame for the burdens needed to clean up the air would fall on the governors and the mayors and so on. So you could say to yourself, well, why in the world would a governor go about cleaning up the air the way Washington says you should do it, which is pretty darn complicated, let me tell you. And the answer is that it would be a political suicide for a governor or a mayor to turn down federal highway money. Because after all, who paid for the money, it was the taxpayers of the state. And there'd be a lot of jobs lost in the state if there wasn't the highway money. So you might ask yourself the question, well, wouldn't that be political suicide for members of Congress to vote on these grant conditions like that? And the answer is Congress never votes on that stuff. There have been dozens and dozens of roll call votes on the Clean Air Act, but they've always voted roll call votes on these mandate requirements because they don't want to be blamed. So they vote for clean air, but they don't vote for cutting off the funds to their constituents. Who makes, if Congress isn't voting for those mandates, who is making those mandates? Oh no, they're in the statute, but they don't hold a roll call vote on the mandates. Oh, okay, okay. So, I mean, it's kind of like a wink. They're all agreeing to go along with this thing. I mean, in the Senate anyway, there are, of course, sometimes on the House or through the Senate, there's ways of blocking the votes. And then, of course, Congress passed the Unfunded Mandate Relief Act, Reform Act, that was designed to stop this kind of thing, but then special rules get adopted in the House and the Senate to prevent votes on these things still. Well, it's very hard for a past Congress to bind. It's impossible for a past Congress to bind a future Congress, technically. Yeah, but there are rules that, House and Senate rules already get changed, but they're also special rules, and they have an excuse, and their excuse is this, is there's so many mandates in so many bills, most of which make perfect sense, like highways have to be built with concrete that's good, highways have to have a yellow line down the middle, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So if you didn't have rules that limited amendments on this kind of stuff, any one member of Congress could stop any one statute by just insisting on roll call votes in every one of them. So I have a solution. I have a way of getting votes on the controversial mandates without allowing a single member of Congress to stop Congress in its tracks, and the answer is this. Think about how the National Football League deals with complaints about rulings on the field. I mean, the review of the film in the... Right, you get so many a game, and so I would say that every member of Congress gets one roll call vote on a mandate, and if you win, you get another, and if you win, you get another, and so on and so forth. Now that begins to change how things work in the drafting process in Congress, because if your bill has one of these things in it and it gets overturned, the bill is just sort of turned on its head, so you begin to draft them differently. Also, members of Congress have an incentive to use their challenge in a way that's gonna produce good PR at home. They don't wanna have it lost, so it totally changes the whole mechanics, the incentives of the legislative drafting process so we can get votes on the really controversial, troublesome stuff, but most of the mandates would slide through because they're widely supported like decent concrete. The next trick, the fourth trick is the regulation trick. This is something that I do a lot of work on. The administrative state and the legal part of Cato, and it does continually aggravate me that most laws are not passed by Congress anymore, but they are conveniently avoiding both blame and can take credit if they so choose. So how does the regulation trick work? Okay, the way that regulation worked until the 1960s was this, is Congress either passed the rules of law itself, the rules of conduct, which meant that Congress got credit for the benefits of the rules and blame for the burdens or it handed the job over to administrative agencies generally in very bland statutes, open-ended statutes that said, here's a problem, you solve it, which meant that the agency got most of the credit and most of the blame. And there's some reasons for concern about whether this fits within the Constitution. I've written a book that says it doesn't, but that's history. But by and large, the agencies didn't do that bad a job. But things went haywire around 1970 when Congress passed the Clean Air Act Board and said, okay, everybody gets a right to clean air. You can enforce it in court. And by the way, the duties to obey that right, to fulfill that right will be announced by the EPA. So Congress gets the credit for giving everybody a right to healthy air, but it's the agency that has to announce the duties. So the duties come on its letterhead. So the agency gets the blame for the duties. And of course, then the members of Congress lobby the agency not to impose duties that are tough on constituents or contributors, which means the agency does not fulfill the rights, which means then the members of Congress, often the same ones, blame the agency for not fulfilling the rights. So it's just a cakewalk for members of Congress. That's the regulation trick. So all of these tricks seem so screwy on their face, the regulation trick of blaming them for not doing something, but then when they try to do it, imploring them not to do it, do the members of Congress recognize how silly these things are and they just do them anyway because they benefit in all the ways that you've described or are they oblivious to the keystone cops look of all of this? No, I think that, I think they are and are not aware. I mean, I've had members of Congress with jurisdiction over the Cleaner Act say to me, oh, we gotta stop the blame shifting. They know all about it. On the other hand, it's the way that business gets done. So the ones that are younger come here, not even aware that these are tricks or differences from the past. This is just how government works and they're socialized into this.  But I think that many of them do not feel good. They know that their jobs involve a large amount of fakery and they rationalize it this way. That if I don't do this, the other party is gonna gain seats in the next election and people who behave even worse than I do will get elected. And that's not an illogical rationale. I mean, if you believe your party has the better stance for the public and I think almost all of them do, then winning and keeping your majority is the most important thing. And losing that is just terrible.  So that's why I'm proposing ways of changing the rules of the game to stop the tricks. So for example, what I would do with the regulation trick is to have a procedure that says the most important regulatory decisions must be voted on in Congress, whether they're to regulate or to deregulate. Now, the Republicans have a bill called the Rains Act, which claims an intention of doing that, but it's not framed in terms of making Congress responsible. It's framed in terms of being against regulation. The whole premise of the bill is that, I mean, the Rains Act stands for regulations from the executive in need of scrutiny is that the problem originates in the agencies. The problem originates in Congress commanding the agencies to do all these regulations. And if they don't, they'll be sued, they could be sued and court by citizens, right? So there's a trick there. And then what the statute says is that it deals only with increases in regulatory costs, not deregulation, which ensures that the Democrats are never gonna support it in the Senate, which means it'll never pass. So this is another example of the trickery. The Republicans that support Rains could take credit for being for being responsible, but never have to shoulder responsibility because Rains will never pass. This is heaven. Yeah, it makes sense that you could have, you could still have the agencies, they could still use their expertise, but then after they come up with what the Rains should be, then Congress has to actually vote on those things. Exactly. And that's crazy enough for just my work. It sounds like somewhat constitutional government. Well, and indeed James Landis, who was the new deals guru of administrative law and later dean of Harvard Law School, proposed just this thing in a book written in 1938. And Stephen Brier, in Law Review articles, showed how it could work, but it's advantageous to members of Congress right now not to have this reform because then they don't have to be responsible. Now the final trick is the war trick. Oh. It is a depressing one. It is the most depressing one. It's the most depressing one because it involves the most solemn decision of government, which is to go to war. We've only had six declared wars, five declared wars in the history of our country. But the rest of the wars were specifically authorized by Congress for the first 160 years of the country. And this would not have surprised the framers because most wars in Europe at the time were not declared wars. And so they expected undeclared wars, but the habit was for 160 years that Congress would specifically say, I authorized this war. Not just that we funded it, but we've authorized it. That changed with Korea in 1950. President Truman said he didn't need to get an authorization from Congress because it was just a police action. Turned out 33,000 Americans died in it, plus lots of other people. And the public was very much against this. And by the way, the polls show that the public is very much against presidential government. It wants Congress to be involved, even though it has a low opinion of our president of Congress. So anyway, because the public opinion was against unilateral presidential decisions to go to war, Congress passed the War Powers Act in which supposedly Congress says to the president, you can't go to war unless you ask us first. Now what's happened is if the war is non-controversial, then the president does ask for authorization. If it's controversial, particularly if people really don't know whether it's gonna be popular in the long run, then Congress finds it advantageous not to be asked. So the president in Congress, in those cases, collude for the president to go ahead anyway. Like for example, in Libya, members of Congress of both parties told Obama, go into Libya, but don't ask us to vote on it. So that means that members of Congress could march in the victory parade if it turns out to be popular and blame the president if it turns out to be unpopular. Disgusting. Yeah, it does start to seem that this sort of crazy experiment is falling apart in the constitution that we're having no accountability for the... You've offered particular solutions to each of these tricks, particular ways that we could change the rules to head them off, but all of these changes would require government deciding to change the rules. It would require Congress in particular to change the rules. But if Congress has embraced these five tricks because they work to its advantage, the advantage of its individual members, what incentive do any of them have to change any of these rules? Okay, well first of all, they know that the federal government is unpopular and they know that Congress in particular is unpopular. Second, they wake up in the morning and look in the mirror knowing they're going to work for the most unpopular, despised organization in the country. That can't be fun. And I, talking to them, they don't like it. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense for them individually to keep up with the tricks because otherwise they may well lose their majority.  Now, but I think that in and of itself isn't enough. But if we began to have even a critical mass of citizens who started writing to their representatives saying, I'm for the honest deal act, I'm for this kind of thing where the tricks get stopped, then we began to change the way the electoral process works because then, if a member of Congress says, I'm for the honest deal act, that may be a source of some additional support in the next election. And after all, if it does pass, then the other side is bound to, and besides, I don't have to start taking responsibility until after the next election, right? And then you can imagine it from the point of view of a state legislator who wants to be in Congress. So that legislator introduces in the state legislator, legislature, a state version of it. And by the way, the appendices of my book outline the honest deal act, they outline what a state version would be. So the state legislator introduces in the state legislature throws his hat in the ring or her hat in the ring for Congress and challenges the incumbent. Are you for the honest deal act of the federal government or not? I am for it, right? That begins to provide a somewhat of an opening. And so what I think the essential first step here is for people to go to my website, dc-confidential.org, and there's a tab there, take action. It makes it, in two minutes, you could send an email to your senators and representatives, asking them to do the right thing. And if people begin to do that, I think we're gonna begin to see people introducing legislation along this front. I've had discussions in the last couple of days with some people in Congress who are beginning to work on this, but it's gonna happen faster if folks at home get off their butt for a second or sit on their butt and go to the computer and send these emails, then we're gonna begin to, I think, make some tracks. Thanks for listening. This episode of Free Thoughts was produced by Tess Terrible and Evan Banks. To learn more, visit us on the web at www.libertarianism.org.


It's no secret that forests are the great mediators in the web of life on Earth, but forests play a crucial role in the sustainability of our planet. Forests represent the largest store of terrestrial carbon in the world. 77% of carbon stored in vegetation exists within forests and 39% of carbon stored in soil occurs underneath the forest cover. That's twice as much carbon as what's present in the atmosphere. The world's forests are able to absorb about a third of the carbon dioxide released from burnt fossil fuels. 1.6 billion rural people depend on forests to some extent. This includes a wide range of groups including Indigenous people, rural communities, small holder farmers and employees of forest-based enterprises. So people all over the world base their livelihoods around forests in some way. Forest industries provide formal employment to 0.4% of the global labour force contributing to nearly 1% of the global GDP in 2008. Forests play a huge role in maintaining our atmosphere and economy, so it's important we're able to harvest them sustainably. However, between 10 and 15% of global human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are released through deforestation and forest degradation, meaning careful management is required to ensure the limits of deforestation aren't tested. Forests contain an estimated 75% of all terrestrial plant and animal species, most of which are found in tropical forests. It's obvious how important forests are to a sustainable future, so let's make them a high priority when planning for it.


Welcome artistic friends and visitors to Monet Cafe. I'm artist Susan Jenkins and today's lesson is going to be on how to do quick studies. Often we learn and grow a lot more as artists when we limit ourselves to a certain short time period.  So join me as I give instruction on this painting and share the advantages of painting with a time limit. Now the full real-time video will be on my Patreon page and if you'd like to become a patron of mine it's only $5 a month, they get a little something extra and there will be a clickable link at the end of this video. But don't worry Monet Cafe subscribers and visitors, there will be plenty of content in this video to learn from as well. All right let's get started with this painting. Once again I knew I had a limited amount of time. I already had a piece of UART paper up on my easel and I have been eyeing this little photo that I was an old family photo and I don't know how I ran across it but I just loved it and I stuck it on my easel to remember it and I thought well this is a perfect time to paint it because I don't have much time let's do it. Now what I did is I just had some pastels. I'm not going to bother showing the my palette of pastels. This is real time by the way. I had my palette of pastels some of them already there from a previous painting and so again I just had limited time. So if you have limited time sometimes you know it's not so bad just to work with what you've got sitting there. But one thing you need to keep in mind or a few things but one of the things you need to keep in mind is don't take it so seriously when you do these quick studies. Remember it's a study it's to learn from and the great thing is if you are using this UART sanded paper it's spelled U the letter U and art. Those are some of the best papers for pastel painting are sanded papers and I know your UART paper can be a little bit more pricey than just regular paper. So I'm using a blending tool here this is just a piece of pipe foam insulation and you see how it's giving it that soft effect. I'm really just getting some deep roots I'll get back to the UART paper. I'm really just getting some deep roots down at the bottom for those flowers to grow into they need ground and usually your darker values are down where the ground is and have a little bit of that lavender up in the sky. So this is what I call an underpainting it made a nice underpainting but what I was saying about the UART is it is washable.  So quick studies is a great great way to grow as an artist and to have fun and not get so hung up on being so serious and it's okay if it's terrible trust me I have had plenty of terrible paintings. Now as you can see from the photo I'm not following it exactly the photo was a landscape horizontal format I already had my paper up here vertically so I'm like I'll just kind of visually in my eyes my mind crop it and do it vertically and what I wanted to capture I love looking at a photo and say what is it that draws me to this photo and in this case it was just that whole blanket of sunflowers daisies whatever that not sunflowers daisies in a field and how they were just kind of you could almost like we are looking down on them and they were reaching up towards the viewer and had all these deep roots and they kind of faded off prospectively into the distance now what I'm doing now is I know that things in the distance they get lighter in value so you're not gonna have as many darks in the distance and they get cooler in color temperature so you're gonna have more cool greens rather than warm greens if you don't know what it means about cool versus warm I've got plenty of videos I'm actually trying to reorganize my playlists right now on my YouTube channel I already have some playlists so if you went to my channel there's up at the top you can see videos and you see playlist and those are literally just folders that I have created with certain subject matter right now I've got over 170 videos on my YouTube channel so it's kind of hard to go back and find one so I'm trying to put them in I think I already have them like color theory and under painting lessons and pastel products things like that so that might be an easier way for you guys to find things but there are some videos that I have two or three on color temperature and that would probably be under the color theory playlist so I'm just kind of playing around with the color again I only had in my mind I had 15 minutes because I had started my grill and I know I didn't want to burn my house down so I knew I couldn't work for very long but I ended up I mean if you if you're on my patreon page you're gonna see the full real-time version of this and you'll see it actually ended up being more like oh by the time I edit out the content other than me painting it was about a 25 minute painting time period so so unfortunately the chicken came out fine I didn't have the chicken on the grill at this point I was warming up my grill so anyway so it did work out okay and it's it's a good idea to to set a physical timer because you know if you've been painting a while you know painting can get away from you it's wonderful therapy but you forget sometimes how long you've been painting so if you could set a little timer to go off I would recommend trying 15 minute studies you can bump it up to 20 like I said this one was 25 so you know between 15 and 30 minutes would be a good time probably not 30 I think trying to limit yourself there's something about like 15 and 20 minutes that makes you realize okay this is about having fun now these get better the more you paint of course when you're first starting we're not as confident about some of just the principles of painting and and perspective and value and color and all of that so it might feel a little haphazard but it is a great way to loosen up and start to feel the freedom of being an artist so there are definitely times when we need to slow down and purposely practice with intention and and really thinking about it but then there's sometimes when we can just loosen up and have fun and I find the studies are better when you have been painting a little while and you may have the goal I get it all the time questions about how do I loosen up and how do I get that painterly feel we'll do some quick studies it's also great to do I do this so often paint from the same reference photo take a reference photo you like paint it do a quick study do another quick study try different color palette try different mood you know and vary things up a bit try different textures of papers and and just have fun so all right so this is the point where I'm gonna speed it up for Monet cafe and again I learned so much as an artist just watching other people paint so don't feel like you have to become a patron because you can still learn from here and I again I have loved being able to provide free art lessons to the world literally on Monet cafe and I never want to change that so I am thankful that I do have people who want to support me this all started me becoming or having a patreon page was because of suggestions from people like you guys watching the videos like we want to support you and so it was great but I it it's hard for me to receive like that just without giving something extra so I do give extra to my patrons and we have a lot of fun it's a great group so anyway that information will be at the end of the video with a little clickable link but in the meantime if you're watching on Monet cafe I'm gonna speed it up with some music enjoy I hope you will practice some paintings with a time limit and this is the point to where my patrons will continue to watch in real time all right guys so have a good time with this get out and paint some and stay tuned to the end of the video alright guys here's some music my artist friends that was a lot of fun I enjoyed this and again I did not burn my chicken or I didn't set my house on fire by leaving the grill while I painted fortunately and the chicken was delicious so give yourself some limited time maybe go ahead and cut up about you know a few smaller sizes like five by sevens and I called this a place in the Sun and have some fun with these and subscribe to this channel if you haven't already of course I'd love for you to become a patron and as always happy painting


Good evening everyone. And amongst us, we have Dr. Tia Subramanian, the Dean of CMR Law School from Bangalore, and who has already taken a lot of webinars with us. And it's always pleasure connecting with us. Today, we had been receiving requests from the person at what are the qualities required for the research fellow and research scholar. Therefore, we made a request to Professor Subramanian who was kindly consented to share his insights on this beautiful topic. And we're quite sacrosanct that people will learn from it and march forward in their life towards the research. What do you say? Yeah. Very good evening to all of you. This is Vikas and you are tea. Now, when we take up this point, fundamentally, each research scholar is supposed to know what is research. Unless you know the meaning of research, it is very difficult for us to speak something about the traits or the qualities of a research scholar. So when we speak of research, there are various definitions which are given by eminent scholars. And not only the eminent scholars from various disciplines, they have defined research according to their convenience. Now, we shall adopt the simplest definition so that everyone who listens to the talk will be in a position to understand and appreciate it. No, research is action. Now, you may be interested to know what exactly you mean by this research is action. When we speak about this, research is action because it translates knowledge into action. So when the research which is being done by a particular person translates knowledge into action, the concerned research which is being done by the scholar should have a contemporary relevance. If it is not contextual, if it does not possess contemporary relevance, it is of no use to the society. The very purpose of making this statement is any work which is done under the title of research must be of some use to the society. You should not simply go back to the rex of the library and it is kept in the library and only afterwards it is left for the library staff to clean the dust over it, but then you should come to practical use and application. Now, having spoken about something about the definition of research, I just intend to speak to you one more aspect and this is very crucial. And all the research scholars should examine whether they should fit in, whether they fit into this criteria. Now, first one is who is a critical scholar? A critical scholar is one who restores tests. So what do you mean by a restores test? Now suppose, for example, you take up a topic. Having taken up the topic, you go and work in the library or libraries extensively. For example, I was a student of law at a research column at Javaharlal Nehru Street, New Delhi. When I was a research scholar at JNU in the Center for Legal Studies, I used to go to almost all five libraries. Now you may be interested to know which are these libraries. Now the first one is the JNU library itself. Now there, we used to get about 32 law journals then. I'm telling the story of 1990s. And you make a reading of this and you cannot make a reading of this unless you make a bibliography. Then from there, you used to go to the library of the Indian Law and Shoot and Indian Law and Shoot library. You have a lot of journals as well as test books and the reports of the Supreme Court cases and other journals and other books of varied interest in law. And having collected the material, then you come back to the Indian Society of International Law. And the Indian Society of International Law has wonderful, wonderful books in the area of international law. From there, you go to again, the law ministry library. If your supervisor knows some secretary there, you get an easy access to the law ministry library, which is in the Shastri Bhavan. And having gone there, you make use of the best books there. They order, they don't have dirt for money and make use of the sources. And then ultimately go to the Thinmurthy library and in Thinmurthy library, you have extensive materials on current topics which will be of use to you to develop the topic for a purpose of S position of the topic. This is how remember you just restoring the text. So anything which you write, anything which you state, anything which you substantiate must have, remember a textual information from where it is taken. That is where a critical scholar is one who restores text. Then afterwards, he edits the documents. Now, what do you mean by this? Now, he edits the document simply means remember when you go to the library, you go with the research cards. Unfortunately, most of the people, most of the research scholars these days when they go to the library, they don't go with the research cards. Now, recent card is remember just three times bigger than the postcard itself or four times bigger than the research card itself. And you go and look to a journal and journal may be related to your topic itself. Then afterwards, you try to find out what is it that this person is saying? Is there anything new other than what is known to you? Or is he propounding a new theory? Then immediately remember scientifically, you take down name of the author you write, then the name of the book you write, then the place of publication you write, then year of publication. Afterwards, if you take the paragraph, then after taking the paragraph in inverted commas, you put what is called the page number. That is how he restores texts. And then he collects the documents. When I speak about collecting the documents, remember the first and foremost, you will have to go to the libraries. Having gone to the libraries, you have to find out which material is of use to you, which is not used to you and which may not make use of it. I can just tell you, as students of Lloyd that time internet was not there. We will have written from this hand about 20,000 pages or more. And when you start writing, you require only about 400 to 400 pages in your thesis. And remember, most of the material are of no use to you. But then you should not regret, but then because of that, because of reading that, before going through that, because of taking down of those memory patterns, you learned a lot about the subject, that that virtually gives a grip over the subject. And that makes you a competent person over the subject. That is why a research scholar, if you use a critical scholar, first is he should know how to collect the documents. Then he should supply the sources. When I speak about it, supply the sources simply means, remember giving the bibliography. Now, in JNU, I remember my supervisor always would say, Prof. Ramadulakha, go to the libraries and prepare the bibliography. And when once you prepare the bibliography, on your topic, you come to me. And having prepared the bibliography, when you come to me, I can just tell you how many of them of the bibliography which you have prepared are original sources. How many of them are secondary sources? At that time, internet sources in India were not available. So in situations like this, remember for almost one and a half months to two months, you go to the American library. Having gone to the American library, it was in the Kasturi bar market at that time. We would collect the bibliography, try to make a framework bibliography for the topic. And once that was made, you go to the other libraries and you try to complete it. When once that was completed, you show it to your referee, your supervisor. Then he will say, this topic can be taken up because you will be in a position to give a good exposition to the topic. And you will be in a position to develop the topic in a systematic manner. Then remember, you will ask you to prepare what we call as a proposition. And the proposition naturally includes everything. The importance of the topic, where you have chosen, for what purpose you have chosen the topic. And is it a new topic? Is it a relevant topic? And is it useful to the society? Then afterwards you say, what is the hypothesis? What exactly are the research questions? And what are the contemporary writers? What are the writings which are made on these topics? And all of them you write and submit your synopsis to the supervisor. And he will make the corrections, then it will go to the committee for advanced studies for purpose of approval. Now that is why a critical scholar is one who restores tests, investigates the authorship, investigates the authorship, supplies the document, then edits the sources. These are the four qualifications which a research scholar is supposed to have. Now you may ask me, what is this? Edits the documents. What do you mean by this? Now when I speak of editing the document as a research scholar, you will be taking only those points which are relevant to you. When you go to the library, you find enormous materials. See, for example, on certain issues, certain articles which are published in Harvard Law Review or Yale Law Journal or Stanford Law Review will be 100 odd pages because they are big articles. And you have, remember, certain theories which are being developed. Now you cannot take down anything if you want to know the theory, only those part wherein the principles that are enunciated are being taken down. That is why when you supply the sources, it's very clear from where it is taken. The bibliography which you give is a conclusive proof. These are the four essential qualities of a critical scholar. Now in order to develop the critical scholarship, what are the qualities a research scholar is supposed to have? Now a research scholar, if he is going to be a good research scholar, or if he is going to be called by his professors as a good research scholar, there are as many as seven to eight qualities. Unless you cultivate and develop these qualities, you cannot be a good researcher at all. Now the first important thing is love of labor. Now if you're interested to know what is this love of labor, you know this. Now a research scholar should be in a position to work and he should be in a position to work hard. Now there are instances, remember, people take things casually and people if they take things casually, remember their research will not be of use. They may complete their PhD, but they cannot be knowing what they have written. Even if they know a bit of what is being written, it will not be read by anybody. Even if it is read by anybody, they will say it is all bluff. That should not happen. So first one is the willingness to work, love of labor. A research scholar is one who should be in a position to work and work. And then only if you have the willingness to do this, you can become a scholar over a period of time, not overnight. The second one is taste for the subject. A research scholar should have a taste for the subject. Take it this way, for example, you are given a topic by your supervisor and you feel that this topic is good for nothing. And in this topic, you don't have any interest at all. Now what kind of PhD it could be and it would be rather. But if you have an interest over a topic, in the area where you are working, naturally it is going to become a good thesis. First is remember you cultivate the habit of reading and developing some sense of ideas. Then cultivate interest in certain areas. And these cannot be done by your supervisor or by your teachers, it has to be done by yourself. Suppose for example, a student of science who is not interested in studying literature or arts. He cares to hoots for literature and arts. And if you, if anybody ask him to become a research scholar in the area of law, what he will be able to do? Because remember when you imagine, when you start writing naturally certain things are required which he should have been in a position to elaborate. And exposition is the most important thing where your mind should be fertile. And when the mind is fertile, you should be able to imagine certain things. And it is not exclusive imagination but it should be based on facts. Now such people may be very good in the area of science but not in the area of humanities. That is where it should be. And a topic which is chosen by the research scholar is of, it is not interested to him. He cannot produce a good PhD thesis at all. Now the third important quality that is being spoken happened to be the most important one, peace of mind, patience. A research scholar should have the maximum patience. When I speak of the maximum patience, we just think of it. For example, your orientologist, Salim Ali, a great orientologist of this country, he was just studying the behavior of birds, animals. When he was studying the behavior of birds and animals, naturally he will be spending, remember, sleepless nights, observing their movement, observing their copulation, observing how they remember, meet each other, and where they live, and how they protect themselves. No, these cannot be done overnight because you have to be after them, right from laying eggs and becoming small birds to till the death, it has to be captured. No, it requires lots and lots of patience because at times when you go and sit in a forest and you start looking at it, at that time the rain comes and you suffer from fewer malaria, whole thing gets lost and afterwards you may decide, I don't want to go to that forest. That is where, for those, for example, a particular student who is a research scholar in the area of physics or chemistry or bottom or solace, these scholars when they work there, when they were halfway through, they get the information on the topic on which they were researching a PhD thesis is produced. When they get to know, remember, they cannot just put an end to their life. Now they have to meet the supervisor and divert their topic so that some other areas are being discovered as new when they complete the PhD. That is why these are all the things which require what we call as, remember, a patient's maximum patience. And the fourth important thing that is being spoken is intellectual honesty. When I speak about intellectual honesty, a research scholar should be in a position to call a spade a spade. If he's not able to call a spade a spade, he's not going to become a research scholar because it misses what we call as objectivity. Now, for example, you take it this way for a purpose of analysis I'm giving you. Don't mistake me for telling these facts. Suppose take an instance, an instance relating to the modern history of the state of India. When we discuss the modern history of the state of India, there are several scholars who appeared in the scene and have gone that far and eulogized the great Mughals and other rulers of the century. Now, the facts are totally different. Now the point is you may read and the concerned book written by them may become a textbook, but then remember it lacked and it lacks objectivity. That should not be the case, especially in the area of research knowledge. For the purpose of reading you may just say and afterwards when you read certain other books you come to know this and these are the facts and these are the facts on which the concerned research scholar although has written a bigger book is totally silent and has not discussed anything about it and you are not in a position to accept these facts. That is where most important fact which I just wanted to bring in is objectivity. When I speak of objectivity, you should be in a position to narrate things which you have narrated based on the factual situations and the material that is available to you and you cannot misinterpret the facts because there will be somebody who will find out what exactly is the truth and this is something relating to objectivity. Now the other one is a research scholar is not supposed to suffer from a chronic disease. Now what is this chronic disease? There was a scholar by name Fraud, F-R-O-A-D and this person by name Fraud, remember always used to murder the facts. See if you ask him he would narrate the facts in such a way without one single mistake he would narrate and he had the art of narrating these things in such a lucid way. But then if you ask him to put it in writing he will murder the facts. Now there are plenty of such scholars even in India. Now suppose for example, if you are some of the good teachers who speak and speak so nicely as position and then synthesis all of them at their command but if you ask them to put it in writing they will commit murder of facts. So a research scholar is not supposed to suffer from frauds disease. And if you suffer from frauds disease remember you cannot become a good research scholar at all. Now the other one, other qualities which are being spoken is now haste is waste. Now most of the research scholars these days are in a hurry and they neither have the patience and not have the ability to sit and read and they can do it but they don't want to. Everything is in a hurry because everything should be over in just one and a half years that is not possible. First is remember in a place like JNU and you are students they would collect the materials for two years incessantly. And afterwards go and discuss with the professor. Then you have rewriting of your characterization. There afterwards remember start writing it and have a discussion in between. Then remember give the thesis to your professor he will say these are the things these are the mistakes which you have made which have to be corrected and which has to be corroborated and has to be corroborated with the evidence. Then you do it another for six months. By that time five years will have been over and it is MFIL PhD, two years for MFIL and three years for PhD. This is how it is being done. Now many of them see for example these days you have laptops, computers, you have gadgets and you have the storing facility all of them you have. But then you are always in hurry. And when you are hurry remember collect the facts and you put it there and while putting it without your knowledge some of them get deleted. Or then instead of putting the button elsewhere you put the hook somewhere then most somewhere and it goes out. Now what else you can do? Can you retrieve? Even if you want to retrieve you will not be able to retrieve because you take the assistance of one to retrieve it. So that time is lost. That is why a research scholar should have the maximum patience. Only such people can become a very good research scholar. Then the other two important thing which I just wanted to speak to you happen to be a research scholar is not supposed to suffer from hypercritism. Now what do you mean by this? Now a research scholar is not supposed to suffer from hypercritism. There are some people, some research scholars who become research scholars not with the intention of doing research but with the intention of criticizing others. Now such scholars can never become researchers themselves. Hypercritism is always bad. Critism should not be for the sake of criticism. And criticism when it is made it is based on plain words. Why it is being done? Why it is being indicated? What exactly are the reasons for this criticism? And this cannot be done without making a survey of the entire literature of the subject. So hypercritism or a researcher suffering from hypercritism is too bad and he cannot produce a very good thesis at all with a fundamental point that is being harped upon. Now there are some scholars who lack the ability to criticize. And I speak about that the power to criticize is not innate in them. When they don't have the power to criticize innate in them they can again never become good research scholars. So you should have the ability to criticize but then the criticism always should be plain. The criticism should be only where it is required. And when that is being done remember your thesis naturally be appreciated by everybody. Now these are the fundamentals which are called the traits of a research scholar which is supposed to have. Now we have discussed three things now. One is what is research? The meaning of research. The then one is who is a critical scholar? Then the third part is what exactly are the qualifications of a research scholar? Then when we go to research writing when we go to research writing I shall just speak to you something relating to internal criticism. What do you mean by internal criticism? And what do you mean by external criticism? And having discussed internal criticism and external criticism I just intend to speak to you the good faith and accuracy of the author. What do you mean by good faith and accuracy of the author? Now these are the three things which a research scholar is supposed to know. When we speak about internal criticism now first and foremost every criticism begins to know the truth. What exactly can be accepted as truth in a research document? So that is why we say it is criticism. So you try to find out the truth in a document. When you try to find out the truth in a document at a later stage it may called as the criticism because the author who has pointed out has pointed out differently. But then what you have seen is totally otherwise. The factual situation is totally different. That is why it is called as criticism. Now every criticism in a thesis begins with an analysis. When I speak of an analysis naturally it begins with a meaning. Now suppose for example when I speak about this you take the paragraph. A paragraph which is written in a thesis has to be analyzed properly. When it is analyzed properly you just try to find out three types of meanings to it. One is the plain meaning. In the ordinary parlance how it is being called. That is the plain meaning. Then what we call as the literal meaning. What exactly? Thank you madam. Please keep it. Afterwards I shall answer. I am telling you from the point of the traits. Now when we speak about the external criticism is totally different. I am in the internal criticism. When I speak about the internal criticism see criticism speaks about what we call as the plain meaning. It has to be explained by the critical scholar. Now when I speak about the plain meaning remember it is an ordinary parlance as I just pointed out. Now you may be knowing the natural meaning may differ from place to place. And it may differ from place to place and from time to time. And when it differs from place to place and from time to time. Remember suppose for example you are a thesis scholar analyzing something relating to the Indian history, legal history. And when you analyze the Indian legal history of the state of West Bengal especially ruled by the British under the British presidency. Naturally we have to go to the state of West Bengal. And the words remember many Bengali words may be in force and may be in usage and it is being brought into the English language. So when it is brought into the natural language that is English in this context you should know that language which is used in Bengal may not be the language because the plain meaning which is attributed in Karnataka or in Delhi or in some other place it will be totally different. So that part remember a research scholar is supposed to know. Unless it is known to him he cannot understand what exactly and why it is being used. Now suppose for example somebody is trying to make an analysis of the Mansabdari system of the Mughals. Mansabdari system of Raja Todaramal that is the revenue administration of Raja Todaramal. Now when we speak about this if you go to the history naturally you find so many Persian words. Along with the Persian words you find so many what we call as the Arabic words. Now the historians who have written history are British historians at that time and these British historians have not given any meaning they have used plainly. But in a few cases they have used the English parallel to it and the contextual meaning to it. But a student of law while analyzing in the 21st century naturally will have to go to that century and he has to find out whether it is the original document and the sources came from the original document or it came from the secondary document or whether it is really written by the author or it is written by another scholar who happened to be a court poet during the time of the Mughals. And naturally if he's a court poet or somebody who is in the Asthan of the Mughals he will be praising the rulers and it will have no relevance at all in such circumstances because he is employed by the court only to praise the rulers and the authenticity of the scholar and his writing cannot be accepted in legal writing. Now this is what we say. Now in internal criticism naturally most of the scholars especially Tasman language in his book Historical Introduction to Knowledge he points out every research scholar we in the adopts internal criticism a reader tries to understand the mentality of the scholar when he tries to understand the mentality of the scholar with what intention he has written with what purpose he has written to whom he has written to whom it is addressed who are his audience and to cater whose needs he has written the book all of them are to be taken into consideration when we address internal criticism Now when we take up this matter naturally the good faith and accuracy the author comes into the picture now what is this good faith and accuracy of the author now suppose for example you try to find out a particular statement and when you try to find out a particular statement you find that the statement which is being made in the research topic in the discussion that is being carried out is far from proof and when you analyze and you get the evidence that is far from proof you try to analyze with what intention is made now a research scholar when he makes a reference to this there are four or five instances that is being given one instance that is being given because he has written like that under the patronage of a particular ruler he has written like that under the patronage of a ruling party which is in power and he has written like that to please his community and he has written like that to please the audience who just reads and he has written with the intentional malice now these are the five things which are generally being spoken and this is being given by again the book on introduction to historical methodology now these are certain factors which is being spoken under this then we go to external criticism now when we speak about the external criticism it refers naturally to the author whether it is a real work of the author see you may ask me why this is required at this stage it is required at this stage because remember when you start reading a book you just try to ascertain whether it is really written by him if it is not written by him it is written by whom and if it is not written by him it is written by whom at when which time the 16th century or the 15th century or in BC and written for what purpose then you say whether the author was in a position to get the complete monograph of the subject or it is only a copy of the copy now these are the certain things which are naturally comes into the picture when you make the external criticism which relates to the book the author and his authorship now wherein he should be in a position to say it is not written by him and it is written and published from this source and as indicated by the author it belongs to not this century but it belongs to some other century and it is a copy of a copy with a result remember the whole purpose of writing the concerned book gets defeated then and there these are certain facts which a research scholar is supposed to know now when we speak about the other important thing is now every research a good research has four elements now what are these four elements which a research scholar is supposed to know the first element happened to be heuristics now you may be interested to know what exactly you mean by heuristics heuristics simply means the art of collecting documents so when I speak about the art of collecting documents I have said initially you have to go to the different libraries and collect the sources and put it into the research cards then you have to store it and when you start writing it remember split over as per your chapters then looking to the material and start writing the work now then the other one is criticism it is not enough if you collect the material the art of collecting the document however good you are but then you should be in a position to accept that this material remember cannot be used it is a secondary material it is not a original material now suppose for example you just go to the constitutional debates and the constitutional debates of this country have been interpreted by a series of call scholars now the scholars when they give an interpretation which was not visualized which was not thought which was not expected by research callers remember it cannot be accepted as good research because it is contrary to the minds then thought of what should be the constitution that part you should be in a position to say then the other one is exposition so when you collect the facts when you collect the facts you should when you start writing remember the exposition comes into the picture remember when the exposition comes most important thing is continuity of thought in presentation most of the research callers for example take it this way I have seen plenty of research thesis which come for valuation for example they take up a topic and when they take up a topic of research they bring in international law and international law analysis of their topic at the end rather it should come in the beginning now when I speak about the development of international law on their topic when it comes in then you say how far this law has become part of municipal law and what does the state law on the subject is saying and for this purpose remember first you discuss the international dimension and then you discuss the national dimension then you think about the law which is being enacted on the subject then you examine the cases that has been delivered by the Supreme Court of India the judicial interpretation of the subject then there afterwards you come to a conclusion and if you want to have an analytical study or an empirical study go and examine this in the rural area have an empirical study and then come to the conclusion along with the recommendations that is how thesis is being written the same analogy is being followed even while writing an article now when you write an article many of them they come to us they want to write an article they just say with what purpose the article is written and what exactly is the objective 99% of the articles you don't find this simply take it up just you start analyzing the first is to whom to for what purpose to reinterpret or to interpret or to bring in some kind of interpretation or bring in the new idea that has to come then there should be a position what exactly is the prevailing law and how it is contrary to the existing rules of international law and what changes are required what the court is saying on the subject and the court is what the court is expected to follow when that is being done remember your research article will be the best with a conclusion when you provide it will be respected and the comments will also come equally well this is what we call as remember research writing many many things ours together can be spoken but I just wanted to limit this and with which we go to the methodologies in research when I speak about the methodologies in research there are eight to nine methods of research now this what we call as research writing is dependent upon a particular type of methodology now one methodology which I just tell you so that you understand the point better is what we call as descriptive research now what is this descriptive research descriptive research is simply you take the facts into consideration and afterwards go on describing it now one of the best illustrations that is being given given by an American professor is he requests his students students at the PhD level just in the preliminary level to go and examine on an issue how do the students spend their leisure time so when they are in the university campus how the students spend their leisure time this is where they just give you a training a training of writing that is descriptive research you just remember they are also you try to observe them what they do some of them open there what we call as lunchbox some of them will be sitting in the canteen some of them will be chewing gums some of them will be taking what we call as hot soft drinks all of them they do any kind of active some of them will be going somewhere some of them leave the class and go somewhere for enjoyment all things and it has to be put in writing how the one and a half hours leisure which is being given during the noon time leisure time how it is being spent but it is just just observe and of course you describe and here there is no setting it is only descriptive method suppose for example you are asked to describe a piece of cloth how it is what is its color and this color has a whether it has a connection with any other colors how it is being done where it is being done why it is popularized whether this color has patented all of them you just describe that is what we call as the descriptive type of research then they have what we call as the analytical type of research analytical type of research remember when we make you try to analyze deep and deeper into the subject and analyze deep and deeper into the subject there should be continuity of thought in presentation if you miss the continuity of thought in presentation remember it will not be appreciated because they say it is not analytical research in all type of research remember analytical type comes into operation all types of research because always remember the analysis when it is carried on generally chronological method had to be observed which may be any subject it may be may be a subject in the area of law or may be a subject in the area of political science or philosophy now chronology has to be followed suppose for example you are working in the area of history and you intend to compare the administration of the guptas with some other administration so at that time genealogy is also very much essential so that gives a concrete scientific approach to the methods that is being spoken now with this I just wanted to speak to you now we speak of today methodologies several methodologies are there I shall speak to you in another lecture I just wanted to know whether most of the scholars of the 15th or the 16th century have ventured to know anything about this type of methods suppose for example there were wonderful scholars I just intend to bring to one or two people so that you understand the point better now there was a person who is known as Charles Dickens now Charles Dickens was a man who lived during the beginning of the industrial revolution in the state of England and his writings later became remember standard test works and it was appreciated applauded admired by everybody now this person wrote two or three books one happened to be David Copperfield other one is Black Hole tragedy in London now these two books remember later helped the Royal Law Reformers to reform the legislation now the writing of this man actually was depicting the society of the state of England and it was depicting the state of society England of the 17th century between 1600 to 1700 now people remember who are living in joint families started moving out they started working women used to live their homes and start working along with their husbands in some other place when they reached they would come home late hours and working hours at that time was almost remember 15 16 hours a day it is not eight hours as we have today now so many difficulties so many problems taking care of the children all of them came up and the type of schooling was very tough teachers would never go to the class without kids because there was a joke which was given recently wherein they would try to snub the students by hitting them spare the rod and spoil the child this was the type of attitude now these were depicted written and publicized in his novels even after his death that actually remember gave an awakening call to the law reformers and law reforms came in in the 18th century and began in the 18th century and in the 19th century a series of law reforms that passed and they became law at that time now the point is I am just intend to bring to you his no he was not a scientific researcher but the mind was actually scientific he just wanted to expose the need in society the atrocities that were perpetrated the difficulties which the poorest the poor were undergoing and they had to encounter these difficulties how and what type of solution should be given to this ultimately was left to the law reformers this is one that that type of instance which I I just wanted to tell you now another person happened to be a parliamentarian and this parliamentarian happened to be Edmund Burke Edmund Burke a British parliamentarian was supposed to be the greatest parliamentarian and this parliamentarian was a witness to the beginning of the French Revolution the French Revolution broke out in 1789 it broke out for several reasons and it broke out against the monarchs it was against the successes of Louis the 14th of France it is against the power that was enjoyed by the nobility now this person had visited and he came to know the real situation in the state of France and he was a great debater also in the parliament and a wonderful scholar also and he wrote a book in the year 1790 just one year after the beginning of the French Revolution now in this book he was just simply saying the event that is taking place in the state of France since the preceding one year is not good for the health of anybody this will not lead to well-ordered progress ultimately this country will be taken over by a dictator in France see he just said if the same thing if the same problem were to continue for many more years ultimately there will be a problem of law and order and when there is a problem of law and order the country will be taken over by a dictator in the state of France remember in 1793 Napoleon Bonaparte became the general of the state of France many people said he must have been a born astrologer he was not an astrologer remember the kind of scientific thinking in the mind and now that virtually led him to make this conclusion no they were not after any methods scientific methods all these things now these are the things that are taught in the classroom but they were great scholars by some sense they were able to imagine they were able to foresee they were able to predict if this happens like this what will happen ultimately the state of France requires a great ruler a stern man to dictate and Napoleon came in in the year 1793 and he became the emperor of the state of France in the year 1804 and he ruled the state of France till the battle of Waterloo in the in the year 1815 now that a part now another scholar who was known for his writings and these writings are most of you know him I just wanted to speak to him now this person is known as Will and Ariel Durant Will and Ariel Durant happened to be a great scholar who wrote the story of civilization in 10 volumes and wrote the 11th volume which is known as the lessons of history so 10 volumes remember running into 800 pages to 1000 each volume so each volume ran into 800 to 1000 pages and all of them he collected he collated scientifically and ultimately put it to the public and after completing the 10 volumes he wrote the 11th the lessons of history and in these volumes remember many scholars go to the extent of pointing out the language actually overtakes the subject if the language that is being used overtakes the subject you miss what we call as the essence of research there what you intend to communicate or what you intend to communicate to the public or to the reader naturally will be missing see for example when you are saying oh when you was discussing something one volume is about the the roman empire there's the first volume is the story of Greece the second is the story of Rome the third is relating to the age of faith begins the age of reformation the age of renaissance the age of water the age of Russo like that it goes each volume now in these volumes remember language that is being used so eloquently but then the matter which ought to have been conveyed is not conveyed this is the major criticism which is being levelled against this man now these are a few factors which I just intend to bring to you tomorrow again there will be other factors for example what is action research what is prognostic type of research and what is creative research will be brought to your knowledge thank you thank you sir but this is only one command because you have if they have questions we can ask them to share any questions yeah yeah i'm just checking it out on the youtube any questions i'm just checking it out not even on the youtube and chat because you have dealt with so extensively that i don't think that anyone will have a i've said that you have dealt so extensively in fact there's a comment that there's the brilliant idea but ideas shared with you and same is on the youtube there's someone by gst it says remaining part i'll speak tomorrow because if i start the other one no because it will take time for one hour it will be more than one hour right sir we will connect with you


What do I need for a home cinema? With the technological advances in large screen televisions, home cinema systems have become a lot more achievable for a larger range of homes. In the past, a home cinema system required a large projection screen and a projector to create the image. The installation of these elements and the link cabling was disruptive to the property. Furthermore, large screen televisions were a very expensive consideration. However, that's not to say that large screen projection systems still don't have a place in home cinema design. The advantage is that you now have so many more options to create an amazing cinema space. To have a real home cinema experience, here are some things to think about. The main ideas are. 1. The shape and form of your room. 2. Lighting in the room. 3. How to incorporate the surround sound system, and where you can install speakers. The ultimate home cinema is a dedicated room. It is not uncommon for spectators to redesign their garage, spare room, or their loft. However, many incorporate it into their main living room. How to create the perfect home cinema system. Audio and TV technology has improved significantly in recent years. This means it's possible to create a home cinema setup that is close to the real thing. Below you will find a guide to complete your home cinema setup. Choosing components. A V receiver. Regardless of the screen selection, the basis of any good home cinema is sound. All systems regardless of size and budget will run through a central AV receiver. This unit is the central hub to the system and its associated equipment. The visual equipment will all plug into the receiver, and this will feed the display source, and therefore be able to manage all the inputs to the single display. Furthermore, some receivers allow for multiple outputs, which then allow output to both a television and a projector. This is useful if you wish to have a cinema in your living room and don't want a large display for viewing. The majority of AV receivers will not take the sound from the television. Therefore, if you wish to watch the television through smart apps, the receiver can amplify that sound through the cinema system. The types of equipment that can potentially be plugged into the AV receiver are. 1. Satellite, cable TV boxes. 2. DVD players. 3. Zone music controllers such as Sonos. 4. Smart TV dongles such as Chromecast, Amazon Fire, etc. 5. Game consoles. 6. PCs. The speakers and subwoofer will also all connect to the central receiver. The sound design will dictate how many speakers there are, and therefore how many speaker cables to connect. Choosing a home cinema projector. The choice of a projector will depend on. 1. Size of image required. 2. The distance between the screen and projector options. 3. The quality of the image. 4. The functionality of the projector. 5. Budget. The projector is probably the most important part of a home cinema because it lets you go beyond the size of a TV. However, many television manufacturers are creating unlimited size televisions. Although they come with a budget to match their increasing size. One such example is The Wall by Samsung. For a mix of size, quality and budget, a projector is a great solution. Our design team can survey your space and give several options of projectors to suit your space, requirements, and budget. The one downside of a projector compared to a television is the effect of outside light on the image projection. Therefore, part of the design is positioning the screen correctly, surveying the light entrance, and solutions to blank out the room. Home cinema projector mounts. Where you mount a projector is sometimes one of the hardest decisions. It is as much about aesthetics as it is the position. It also depends on the construction of your room. For example, if you have solid ceilings, then the projector will need to be mounted below the ceiling on a bracket. Another option is mounting it on the back wall. However, should you have a ceiling void, you can install a motorized projector lift. This unit houses the projector and only drops down when in use. When it is not used then the lift slots back into place and hides all the equipment. Choosing a projection screen. One of the first considerations is the size. Most cinema rooms will maximize the wall space and have the biggest screen that they can contain. The projector is then matched to suit the screen. However, in a room where the cinema isn't dedicated then a pull-down screen is employed. The screen can either be pulled down or motorized. It can also be mounted on the wall or recessed into the ceiling. When possible, a motorized recessed screen is the best solution. In rooms where the cinema isn't used exclusively, we generally install both a television and a drop-down screen. It is not always desirable to watch your daily viewing on a 100-inch plus screen. Therefore, in these situations, we install a wall-mounted screen, perhaps a 65-inch or 75-inch. Further, a motorized drop-down screen is placed so it then drops in front of the existing television when required. This may be a 100-inch plus screen. The AV receiver can send images to both or be programmed for the projector to override. Choosing a home cinema TV. Once again, as with the choices in projectors, televisions come in many different options to suit different situations. Once again, the choices will match those of the projector 4. 1. Size of image required. 2. The quality and resolution of the image. 3. The functionality of the projector. 4. Budget. Depending on which model of television you go for, the price can change dramatically. The newest model can be double or triple the price of an older model of the same size. This is where your requirements will determine the design we create for you. Some customers will have a fixed budget. Therefore, the choice is a smaller screen with a higher tech image. The reverse is a larger screen, but maybe a year older model. The prices in many cases are the same, and the choice is yours. Of course, some systems have the biggest screens and the best technology, and no limit on budget. That's why an experienced design team such as ours is important. The options we create for you will enable you to have the best system for your situation. Get the cinema lighting right. Lighting is essential for your home cinema when planning your room. It's best to avoid rooms with lots of windows, but if that's your only option, it's worth installing some black outlines so you can easily block any outdoor lighting. The type of lights you use is also important. Therefore, dimmable lights are important because you want to be able to control the light level accurately. Find the right sound system. As with the visual elements, there are many choices for sound in your home cinema. The simplest, quickest, and most affordable option is a soundbar. A soundbar is an easy option and very easy to set up. Some high-end cinema soundbars have multiple speakers within the single unit that cleverly bounce the sound around your room to mimic the entire surround sound system. When installing a dedicated surround sound set of speakers, again you have a few choices. Some surround sound options include 5.1, 7.1, 9.1, Dolby Atmos, 5.1.2, and so on. In essence, all home cinemas start with a center speaker and left and right speakers. In addition, a subwoofer is part of the system. These are, 1. Center below the display. 2. Left of the display. 3. Right of the display. 5.1 is therefore five speakers and a subwoofer. Thus, two rear speakers are added to the front three to make five. 7.1 is four rear speakers added to the front three, plus the subwoofer. Some systems will have two rear speakers and two side speakers. Dolby Atmos 7.1 is one such system when you have three front speakers, two rear and two sides. There is also a 9.1 version where two additional front speakers are added. Connecting everything. All the above elements in the home cinema will need to be connected. All the speakers will require speaker cables back to the central receiver. Furthermore, the receiver will need to connect to the television, projector, or both. This is generally via HDMI cables. However, specific AV cables can also be installed for the overall functionality. For example, a trigger cable can be installed between the projector lift and screen. Therefore, when the projector lifts kicks in, the screen automatically drops down. The cabling routes will all depend on the construction of your property. In a new build, the routes will be simple to make and install. However, in an existing building, installing the cabling may incur considerable disruption. Our experienced team is here to assist you in your design and options. Call us today for advice and options. For further assistance or a free survey please email or call on the details below and click like and subscribe if you have enjoyed this video.