J-E-L-L-O! The Jell-O program starring Jack Benny with Mary Livingston, Phil Harris, Kenny Baker, and yours truly, Don Wilson. The orchestra opens a program with confidentially. When I was a kid spending the summer in the country, my grandfather used to tell me about the country stores when he was a boy.  Seems there wasn't a thing she'd take his word for, from a dill pickle to a barrel of crackers. And good ol' grandpa said it was your something to listen to those arguments. Well, things have certainly changed. Today, there's no ground for an argument. When you go into a grocery store, you find packaged foods with brand names you recognize as your guarantee of quality. For instance, when you see the word Jell-O on a package, you know that here is a fine product, the real thing. Because that very name, Jell-O, is a trademark. It's the property of general foods. If you hear any other Jell-O dessert called Jell-O, that's incorrect, for there is no other Jell-O. And remember, Jell-O brings you that extra rich flavor as tempting and refreshing as the real ripe fruit. So always ask your grocer for Jell-O. And by the way, this week, the National Association of Retail Grocers are holding their annual convention. And we want to send them congratulations and best wishes from Jell-O, America's favorite gelatin dessert, potentially played by the orchestra. And now, ladies and gentlemen, this being Father's Day, we bring you a man who is daddy to a polar bear, Jack Benny. Jell-O again, this is Jack Benny talking. And Don, you're right. I do take rather a paternal attitude toward Carmichael.  He's so affectionate.  I certainly am. Believe me, we're going to have a lot of fun this summer on our trip to Alaska. Oh, are you taking Carmichael to Alaska? Yes, he has relatives in Skagway. Two uncles and a sister-in-law. I believe, huh? By the way, Don, what are you going to do on your vacation? Well, I haven't planned very much, Jack. But let me tell you something. When you see me next season, you're due for a big surprise. What do you mean? Well, I'm going on a diet this summer and take off 10 pounds. My, my. You'll never know me. Don, you could take 10 pounds off your lower lip and nobody would know us.  Jack, this may surprise you, but I'm not as fat as you think. What appears to be fat is really muscle. Oh, oh. My stomach, for instance, is as solid as the rock of Gibraltar. Oh, it is. Well, Don, I saw you playing golf the other day in nothing but a pair of shorts, and Gibraltar was out of bounds. What a fuzzy. Say, Jack. Yes, Phil. I wouldn't talk about Don's figure if I were you.  Oh, I'm not, eh?    And by the way, have you got your other bags packed for walkie-gon? You know, we're leaving tonight right after the broadcast. I'm all set, Jackson. Gee, I can hardly wait to see all my old friends and pals. I'm excited as a kid all week thinking about it. I can imagine. Where are we going to live when we get there, Jack? Well, you fellas are going to stay at the hotel Walkie-Gan.  Yeah. Oh, you'll love it, Don. It's a swell hotel, very modern.  Was that so? And if you're not downstairs by 7 AM, they send a maid up to see if you're dead. Well, that's because Walkie-Gan is a wide awake town. Everybody gets up early. Are you going to live at the hotel, Jack? Well, I'm not sure, Don. I'll probably stay with relatives. I don't know whether to live at Aunt Clara's or Aunt Molly's or Cousin's Sooty's. They're all so anxious to entertain me. Well, which one is the closest to town? Aunt Molly. She lives right over the elite Turkish baths. As a matter of fact, she's a rubber there. Oh, hello, Mary. Hello, Jack. Oh, say, Jack, I just got a wire from mom and she won't be able to meet us in Walkie-Gan. Well, I'm just sick about that.  She says that, dear Mary, we'll be unable to take the train to Walkie-Gan as your grandfather, who was off the beam again, cut paper dolls out of the tickets. Well, maybe you can go to Plainfield afterwards and visit your mother and father. By the way, Mary, this is Father's Day. Did you send your dad anything? I sure did. I sent Papa some cufflinks and studs for his dress shirt. Dress shirt?  He does now. He got a job with an escort service. Oh, fine. Now when he takes mom to the movies, he charges her 60 cents an hour. Well, it's worth it to go out with her. Anyway, Mary, I'm glad you remembered your father. That was a sweet thought. Not only that, I sent him the cutest card with it and I made up the words myself. You did? What was it?  And when you hawk them, which you'll do, if you can't get five, go ahead, take two. Well, that's a lovely sentiment. He'll probably take advantage of us. Say, Jack, I sent a present to my father down in Tennessee that he'll be crazy about. I sent him a vacation outfit. A vacation outfit? Yeah, a hammock, a jug, and a fly's water. Well, he's all set for the summer. What does your father do in the winter, Phil? Same thing. Only we give him a blanket. Well, that's the life I see. Well, that's the life, I suppose. Take it easy and don't worry about anything. You know, it's kind of nice that dad gets a break once a year. I sent my father a pair of leggings. Oh, is he still with Western Union? No. He wears them when he goes horseback riding. Say, Jack, you know what I sent my father for a present? Yes, Don. I know how many flavors it has, so don't get cute. Hello, Jack. Oh, hi, Kenny. Say, Kenny, you're all set to leave for Waukegan. You know, we're going right after the broadcast. Oh, sure. I got my suitcase downstairs on the sidewalk. On the sidewalk? Well, for heaven's sake, bring it in. Somebody's liable to steal it. Well, don't worry. Nobody will touch my suitcase. How do you know? I printed J. Edgar Hoover on it. Well, that's very clever, Kenny. How'd you ever happen to think of that? Oh, Kid Baker has a flash once in a while. You have it that. Now, Kenny, when we get to Waukegan, I want you to be on your best behavior and make a good impression. You know, I don't want you whistling at the girls like you do here. Can I wink at them? No. You can't whistle and you can't wink, so watch yourself. And now, folks. Can I wiggle my ears? No. You won't show off at all. I want everybody in Waukegan to say, now there's a nice boy. And now, folks. I'd rather have them run me out of town. Kenny, I don't want to hear another word about it. And now, folks, we will have a song by our fresh young tenor who's going to get his canoe paddled if he doesn't watch out.  Hold it a minute. Come in. Mr. Benny? Yes?  Well, thanks very much. Well, what are you standing there for?  No, I'm not. Get out of here. He's the most affectionate lunatic I ever met. Sing, Kenny. Why should you cling to some fated thing that you use? This is the one moment that I thought I never could live through. But now, somehow, that it's here, my dear, that police fear has gone away. And what is on a wall? Don't worry about me sung by Kenny Baker. And Kenny, before I forget, I saw your picture the Makado last night, and I thought you were swelling it. You look great in technicolor. Oh, I thought I was too darn pretty. Well, that ought to worry you. Good looks never hurt anybody. At least it never hurt me. Can I say something, Jack? No. Anyway, the Makado was a swell picture, Kenny, and you were grand in it. The Makado. Say that's a Western, ain't it? That was our musical director, folks. Phil, for your information, the Makado is one of the most famous operettas ever written. No, kid. You're a fine musician, Phil. For you to pick up a baton and lead an orchestra is perjury. Why, Jack Benny, you didn't know what the Makado was yourself until you saw the picture. I didn't know what the Makado was? Why, Mary Livingston, before we went into the theater, I told you it was an oriental story. You told me Charlie Chan was in it, too. All right, so I made one little mistake. But Phil has no excuse. He's supposed to have studied music. That study and don't mean nothing why some of our greatest musical geniuses have never studied music. Name one. Abe Lyman. Oh, fine. Lyman is worse than you are. He directs his boys with a raw hide whip.  Proving what? Proving hooray for the red, white, and blue. It could only happen here. That's what. Oh, Jack, why do you criticize other musicians? You took violin lessons for 12 years and all you can play is love and bloom. All I can play is love and bloom. What's the matter with thanks for the memory? What's the matter with deep purple? Nothing until you start sawing on him. Listen, Mary, your opinion doesn't matter very much. If you want to know something, I've been complimented by Heifetz. Heifetz? Why, Heifetz doesn't even know you're alive. He does, too, because he tried to shoot me once. It was at the Penn Theater in Wilkes-Barre. So don't be so smart. I don't like to pat myself on the back all the time, but there's one instrument I've really mastered. I can make a violin talk. You certainly can, Jack. Thanks, Don. Why, many is the time I've heard your violin say, I'm proud to snuggle under the chin of a man who works for Jello. Oh, for Pete's sake. Because Jello is economically easy to make and comes in six delicious flavors, strawberry, raspberry, cherry, orange, lemon, and lime. You mean my violin even knows the flavors? Yes, sir. Well, isn't that amazing? This stuff is strictly for the kids. It was pretty subtle, Baker, so go and sit down. And now, ladies and gentlemen, going from my talking violin to our last play of the season, tonight, the Benny Rund do not walk to the nearest exit players, will present for your amusement approval and edification that stirring melodrama of the gay 90s lavender and ol' louse. Now, I will play lavender, and our maestro will be the rest of the title. Now, in this play, I'll take it. Hello? Hello, boss, this is Rochester. All right, what do you want? Well, I just finished pressing your clothes for the trip, and I don't think you ought to take your white flannels with you. Why not? Well, you know that trouble I have with the toast every morning. Yes? Well, the same thing happened to your flannels only, I guess.  It ain't my fault, boss, it's that cheap material. Cheap material, what are you talking about? I paid $45 for those pans. $45? Yes. Is this you, boss? Yes, it's me. And don't act so surprised. By the way, is Carmichael all ready? I think you're making a mistake taking that polar bear to walk hegan. Well, I'm not going to leave him in the house by himself for two weeks, he'll get lonely. Why don't you rug him? Rug him, Rochester, I'm getting tired of these constant threats against Carmichael. Now put him in that big packing box and take him to the station. I can't put him in that box, boss. Why not? I'm talking from there now. You're in the packing case? Well, for heaven's sake, where's Carmichael? He's sitting on the lid. Oh, my goodness. If I had a long pen, I'd dethrone him.  And by the way, Rochester, I'm taking my violin with me, so don't forget it. Doggone, I look tired and low for that fiddle and I can't find it nowhere. Oh, well, I suppose it never occurred to you to look in my violin case. I did, boss. Well?  Now don't give me that. The violin is around someplace. Now get everything together. My trunks, bags, Carmichael violin, and hurry down to the station. OK, can I take a taxi? What's the matter? Have the buses stop running? Now hang up and get going. OK, goodbye. Goodbye. Doggone, if I could get $3 ahead, I'd quit this job. What? What did you say? Didn't I hang up? No, you didn't. Well, here goes. So long, boss. The guy has always complained. I never thought that you'd die. Now he wants to ride in taxi cabs. Oh, well, getting back to our play, the opening scene. Hey, Jack, I don't think we're going to be able to do our play tonight. Look what time it is. Oh, yes, the train leaves in about 40 minutes and we've got to get downtown. Where do we leave from? The new union station. Phil, have you got your car here? Yeah, I'll have my guitar player run us down. Oh, you mean happy Bolliver? That's swell. Come on, Mary, we'll be late. Oh, wait a minute. I got to kiss the orchestra, goodbye. Put down that piano player and come on. So long, boys. See you at the station. So long, so long, Jack, so long, so long. Hit it, man. Get close to me, everybody. I don't want anyone missing the train. I'll call the roll. Don Wilson? Here. Mary Livingston?  Well, I'm trying to be systematic.  Wow, what a doll. Ain't she something? Hiya, babe. Hello, Kenny. Why, Kenny, do you know her? Yeah, that's my Aunt Rosie. Well, she ain't my Aunt. Wait a minute, Rosie. Phil, come back here. You'll miss the train. Oh, Don, take a look around, see if you can find Andy in Rochester. OK, Jack. Jesus. I don't know where they are. All aboard. Train leaving on track three for Santa Monica, Santa Clara, Santa Anita, Santa Barbara, and Santa present to your dad is Father's Day. Oh, heart. Well, he's a topical announcer, I'll say that. Hey, Kenny, Kenny, where's your suitcase? Somebody stole it. Somebody stole it? Well, that's awful. What are you going to wear on the train tonight? You haven't got pajamas or anything? I'll lend him a pair of my pajamas, Jack. Just give him the uppers, Don. He can use it for a nightgown. And tie a bell around his neck. He might get lost. Yeah. Oh, this is too complicated. I'll sleep raw.  Say, Mary, I'm going over and buy the tickets. I haven't got them yet. OK, Jack, I'm going to get some magazines. Meet me here. All right, let's see. Where's the ticket window? Oh, here it is. Pardon me, I like to buy seven tickets to walk Keegan. Walk Keegan? That's an Asia Minor, isn't it? No, it's in Illinois. I want seven round-trip tickets to walk Keegan, Illinois. Why don't you buy one way? You might like it there. I know I like it there. It's my hometown. But I got to come back here. I'm in pictures. So is I, and look at me now. Well, that's your tough luck. Now, hurry up, I got to make a train. OK, here you are. Oh, yes, I want births. I want four uppers and three lowers. Well, you know the lowers are higher than the uppers. I know, I did that in Borderville 20 years ago. So don't start that routine. Just give me the births. Here you are. Thanks. Gee, what a guy. Have a nice trip, deadpan. Deadpan, he wants me to laugh yet. All aboard, train leaving on track 16 for Louisville and Bowling Green. Nashville, Knoxville, Vicksburg, and all points out on the choo-choo-choo. That guy has more fun than the Ritz Brothers. Now, let's see, where's the magazine stand? Oh, there's Mary now. Hey, Mary. Yeah. Did you get your magazine? Uh-huh, I got, look, pick, click, and clock. Oh, clock, that's that new one, isn't it? Yeah, it's got Kenny Baker's picture on the cover. Well, that ought to sell a million copies. Come on back there with me, Mary. I want to get a book. OK. I want to get something light, a good mystery or something. Now, why don't you get Ferdinand the Bull? Ferdinand the Bull isn't a mystery. He is to the other bulls. I'll pick out my own book. Here we are. How do you do, sir? How do you do? I'd like to get a book, please, a real good mystery story. Yes, sir. Have you read Phil Harris and his gang or Murder at the Wilshire Bowl? No, but I get what you mean. Say, Jack, here's this well book, and it's a special. A special, what is it? The range came and an umbrella for $250. Oh, that's by Louis Bromfield. He's a little too deep for me. Say, buddy, what's your best seller here? Well, our most popular book is Twindian Bull, by Kansas River Junior. Funny, I never heard of that. Why, it's very popular. He also wrote, Twindian Knurson. And The Life of Amos and Ribbon Bull, and so on and so on and so forth. Oh, never mind. Come on, Mary. Wait a minute. Why don't you take this one, Jack? What's that? Ralph Fram did it, it by George P. Stumpfum. Don't you start that stuff. Hey, buddy, just give me a Saturday evening pose. There you are. Come on, Mary, let's go. Goodbye, any kind of pose is very, very easy. I meet the most unusual people. I wish Rochester would get here. He's making me very nervous. There's Don Wilson. Oh, Don. That's the information booth. I mean next to it. Pardon me, mister. Oh, now what? Can you tell me what time the airplane leaves here for San Francisco? Airplane, I'm afraid you're going to have a little trouble, buddy. Airplanes don't leave from a railroad station. Oh, you're one of those wise guys that knows everything. I'm not a wise guy, but I know you can't take an airplane from a railroad station. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Board, airplane leaving on track eight. Oh, Bakersfield, Salinas, Oakland, and San Francisco. Board. What? You see, you're big smarty.  Fresh guy. Well, Jack, I found Andy. Here he is. Hi, you bug. Well, Andy, I was worried about you. Gee, you've got a lot of friends at the station. Are you all excited about going to war keegan with us? Yeah, but gee, I'm scared. I've never been on a train before. Well, you'll get a big kick out of it. Did you bring your pajamas? Pajamas? Dog gone. Can you sleep on a train? Why, of course, certainly. Well, I'll be darned. Can you eat, too? Yeah, Jack brought sandwiches. One more crack, and you won't get any. Where am I? Oh, now let's get over it.  Now let's get over to the gate. How long does it take to go to war keegan anyway? Well, Andy, we'll be on the train for two whole days and two nights. We will? Yep. Say, Bak, do they have it? Yes, yes, don't worry. You'll be all right. Well, what are we going to war keegan for anyway? Well, Andy, we're going to do our last broadcast from there. And besides, they're going to have the premiere of that new Paramount picture, Man About Town. Darring Jack Benny, get it all in. Never mind. Hey, Phil, Phil, stick around here, will you? I don't want to have to look for you. OK, Papa. Yeah, I wish Rochester would get here. The train will be pulling out in a few minutes.  Why do you want to take it to war keegan anyway? Because my old violin teacher, Charlie Lindsay, will be at the premiere. And I want to show everybody in war keegan what he's done for me. Well, that's the dirtiest trick I ever heard of. Yeah, well, I'm going to practice every day on the train. Oh, Greyhound, where is thy depot? Phil, if you don't like it, you can stay home. All aboard. Train leaving on track seven for Grubhullo, Possum Junction, Squirrel Center, Beaver Creek, Mud City, and war keegan. Board. Oh, my goodness, there's our train in Rochester. Isn't here yet. Yeah, I am, boss. Well, it's about time. Is that all the stuff with you? Yep, trunks, bag, violin, and everything. Good, where's Carmichael? He's buying the tickets. I bought the tickets already. Carmichael, come here. Come on, gang, let's go. Come on, gang, let's go. Say, Rochester, I'm afraid to put Carmichael in the baggage car. You'll have to share a compartment with you. I don't want that animal in with me. He snores. Oh, what's the difference? You're only going to be on the train two nights. Well, if he snores the first night, the second night, you can get a piece of him in the dining car. You lay a hand on him, and I'll Hurry up, Jack, the train's leaving. I'm coming, I'm coming. It's not true that nobody does anything about the weather. We've done something about it. We have the perfect recipe for those hot, sultry nights when nobody feels like eating. Jellied fruit made with shimmering fruit-rich lemon jello, and here's what you do. Dissolve one package of lemon jello and one pint of hot water and chill until slightly thickened. Then fold in one can of fruit salad, cut into small pieces. Mold until firm and serve as dessert or salad, either one. It's well. Delicious lemon jello with that wonderful extra-rich fruit flavor, so tangy and tempting and cool. And molded firmly inside, the colorful fruits, peaches and pears, cherries and apricots shining through the golden jello. It's grand to look at and to eat and easy to make. So ask your grocer tomorrow for some lemon jello and try this new summer recipe. Jellied fruit. That was the last number of the 38th program in the new jello series. And we will be with you again next Sunday night at the same time broadcasting from my hometown, Walkegan, Illinois. Well, Andy, are you thrilled being on a train for the first time? I sure am. But say, Buck, ain't it dangerous going through that Indian country? Oh, no, Andy. I've been through it a hundred times, and I haven't been scalped once. You'd never know it. Is that so? Good night, folks. A-D-L-L-O. Any baker pairs on the jello program for courtesy of mother-in-law and production. Don't worry about me. It's from the Cotton Club Parade. This is the National Broadcast, and that's it.


Hello there! Since the past week, I am organizing and implementing some assets that I have in my computer, and during Thursday livestream when I was implementing some tilesets from CanApe, I faced some very weird problems where some artifacts were created when implementing the assets in Godot. So I studied a bit and finally fixed a lot of the problems related to vector art. In this video, I will share with you the tips and tricks that I found during this study that can improve the workflow and results of the implementation of such assets. The first tip that I'd like to share with you is the important settings that I often use for vector art. People that use pixel art, they often disable the filtering settings, so they disable the filter here. But if we disable this for vector art, we will get some very jagged lines and we don't want this because vector art is meant to be very soft and smooth. So we often enable this filter option and you can see that they are kind of blurry, but they are very smooth, especially when seen from some distance. Also, I disabled the fix alpha border because it doesn't make a lot of stuff, but it fixes this blurry effect. You can see that with the alpha border we get an extra peak, so I guess, of blurring errors and when disabling it, we get it right. So that's it for the important settings. Another tip that I want to share with you is when you are working with multiple resolutions, you can use some of the Godot building stretch modes. So if you have the stretch mode disabled, you won't have any stretching, so the viewport will scale to the window resolution, but the textures won't scale with it. But if you use the stretch mode, so let's say the viewport mode, you will get your textures scaled perfectly to the resolution, so you can see that they are very well scaled because you actually are scaling the viewport instead of scaling the textures, but you can see that there are some jagged lines here which we don't quite want. But if you try to use the 2D mode, you will get some blurriness, so the assets are scaled, but you will get a lot of artifacts. You can see that there are some lines here and some gaps between the tiles, so the 2D stretch mode is not very good at least for now, because it will scale the texture and will scale some artifacts with it, but something that I use to work around this is to scale down the tile map, we'll get this. Actually, I often use 128 textures instead of 64 like I'm doing here, but you can try to use this and you see that we'll get a lot less artifacts, but we'll still get them, right? So let's try to fix that. So if you go for this scaling workaround and you still get the artifacts on your tile, you can go to the project settings and on the quality rendering quality and use pixel snap. This will make sure that these artifacts are not there, so you can see that the texture is perfectly smooth and we don't have actually any artifacts here, it scales well. So this is my tip for fixing the stretching artifacts that we get with the 2D stretch mode. You can use the viewport one if you don't have anything against these jagged lines, but this is my workaround for the 2D stretching mode. So here goes the next tip, but this one is if you are creating multiple assets, you want to create an asset that you can use on multiple projects, because if you are on a single project, you probably already have your final resolution and you can work more safely, but if we are creating assets for multiple projects, these tips go well. So the tip is to scale the asset up, so I will twice the scale, import it, and we already have some messed up assets here, but I will change the cell size of the tile map to 128, because this is what I often use, this is the resolution I often use for tiles. So the tip goes here, you can have multiple assets for each resolution you are using, so I have 1 for 1x the scale, 1 for twice the scale, and if I drag and drop this here, I will have perfectly scaled assets when I stretch my window. So this tip goes well with the workaround that I saved, if you scaled the tile map by half its scale, and if you use the 2D stretching mode and the pixel snap, so these 3 tips go together here. So here goes the coolest tip that I can share with you, is my workflow to working with SVG assets in Godot. So let's say you made the blockage of your level, so you have very primitive art imported, and you are just using for blockage and prototyping, you don't want to use this for the final product, but you figure out that with these shapes and this color the level is already good, you want to make a very interactive process on these assets. You can basically open your file on InScape and start to iterate on it until you reach the final aesthetic that you want your assets to have, and you can basically save your file and go back to Godot, and everything on your level will be overridden by the current iteration of the assets. And since they are SVG files, you can use Git to have a version controlling of the versions of the assets you're using, so this is one of the coolest things that I can share with you, use InScape together with Godot with SVG files. But I have to be honest with you, none of these tips and tricks that I just shared with you are actually needed if you follow a better workflow. So I will take rid of this workaround here, and if we zoom out the screen, we will see that there are some artifacts already. This is because we are using Texture Packs, and this is the tip. Don't use Texture Packs, at least not for tile sets, because they will make you have a lot of headaches. We just saw a lot of tips and tricks and you saw that they are basically just to fix tiles. So the tip here is to use individual images for your tiles. This will make sure that you don't have any of these problems, so I will just drag and drop this star set here that uses individual tiles, and you can see that the artifacts that we had are basically not there. If we scale up the window, we don't have any artifacts, everything is as it should. I will actually turn off the pixel snap here, so we don't need this tweak, and you can see that everything is as it should. So this is the the needed tip that I want to share with you, because it's very sad that currently Godot doesn't have a good workflow to work with Vector Art Texture Packs. I wish it had, but currently it doesn't. You saw it in this video, but unfortunately we will have to not use Texture Packs at least for tiles. You can have Texture Packs for your characters, I actually use Texture Packs for my characters, but for tile sets it doesn't work. And that's it everyone, these are my tips and tricks when working with Vector Art in Godot. Do you have your own? Let us know, comment below what tricks you have to achieve beautiful Vector Art games. If you like these tips and tricks, don't hesitate to leave a thumbs up, this helps a lot. And also, if you are not subscribed yet, subscribe now to be notified about the next videos. This video was made possible thanks to the awesome patronage of these people. Check out the perks and rewards you can have by becoming a big dev patreon. Well, that's it, thank you so much for watching, keep developing and until the next time.


Hello everybody. Welcome to this event. My name is Aidan Regan. I'm Associate Professor at the School of Politics and International Relations and very pleased and privileged to chair this event on behalf of the IAEA with Professor Noam Chomsky. So thank you all for being here. Thank you all for your participation for this this fantastic event. I think Professor Noam Chomsky doesn't quite need an introduction. I think we all know how influential and how an important intellectual Professor Chomsky is. I think it's fair to say that Professor Noam Chomsky is one of the most if not the most influential public intellectuals in the world. I think up there with the likes of Jurgen Habermas. His writings are extraordinarily prolific. I think it's fair to say that you have quartered over 100 books, authored over 100 books at this stage. Professor Chomsky and in addition to various essays and other contributions and interviews. Professor Chomsky is also a renowned scholar around renowned academic in the social sciences and particularly a scholar of linguistics but his research in linguistics has influenced so many other intellectual fields of inquiry from cognitive science to even political science, to the political economy, to philosophy, intellectual history and much further afield. But I think perhaps Professor Chomsky, you're most known or most famous for your investigations and your research on and writings on US foreign policy. It goes so much and informed the world so much about what goes on effectively or made public or made visual what is quiet in effect, particularly not least in terms of what's happening in Latin America and much further afield. So without further ado, I would like to welcome you to give your address here we Professor Chomsky will speak for 15 to 20 minutes. And then we will open it up for a Q&A session. Please send your questions true to the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen I think most people are probably familiar with using zoom at this stage, I will collect those questions. Please state your name and your affiliation, and hopefully we will be able to get to those questions, but Professor Chomsky over to you. Okay. Thank you very much. Let me begin with a brief summary of what I'd like to say then some comments to elaborate on a few highlights. We live at a unique historical moment is the first time in human history that we face a confluence of severe challenges, some so severe that failure to address them will soon effectively terminate organized human society with mass destruction of other species as well. The two most prominent are global heating nuclear war threats that are increasing in intensity. There are lesser ones that are lethal as well. So take the current pandemic. It's already killed more Americans than the terrible flu epidemic a century ago, and it has not run its course. It's well understood that failure to vaccinate globally is not only a moral scandal, but also facilitates mutations that may escape control. There are other crises looming new pandemics, antibiotic resistant bacteria may make surgery impossible and another generation destruction of agricultural land and habitats, so all too easy to continue. Another dimension dissolution of the social order of an atmosphere of rational interchange undermines efforts to address the challenges that we face. There's also good news. The good news is that for every one of the crises, the severe crises that humans face at this historically unprecedented moment for everyone feasible solutions are at hand. The unanswered question is whether humans have the moral intellectual capacity to choose a course towards a much better world. There are many issues here that require elaboration. It has to do with the roots of the crisis. It's a very far reaching question, but there's an arrow one that can also be posed. To what extent have the crisis been exacerbated by the reigning socioeconomic doctrines of recent years, past 40 years of the neoliberal era. There's quite a lot I think, but we have to be clear about what neoliberalism is. You check the internet, you find a conventional definition, quoting it, a political approach that favors free market capitalism, deregulation and reduction in government spending. The definition. A look at practice shows that it's very far from reality. Keeping to practice, neoliberalism I think was much better described by the president of the United Auto Workers in the United States. This is 1978. He pulled out of a labor management conference organized by President Carter. It was just as the neoliberal wave was beginning to gather force. It was soon to peak with Reagan and Thatcher. Fraser and his withdrawal condemned business leaders, I'll quote him, condemned business leaders for having chosen to wage a one sided class war in this country. A war against working people, the unemployed, the poor minorities, the very young and the very old, and even many in the middle class of our society. And having broken and discarded the fragile unwritten compact previously existing during a period of growth and progress. Through the early 70s, golden age of capitalism as many economists describe it. Well, I think the phrase one sided class war captures the essence of neoliberal capitalism. And I think accounts for a large part of current bullies. There's a lot more to say about that, but I'll turn instead to the two truly existential crises global heating nuclear war. So, let's start with the first. On August 9, as I'm sure you know, the IPCC IPPC released its latest report. By far the most dire yet conclusion with stark and clear. We must begin. We must begin right now to reduce fossil fuel use increasingly every year, so that we will effectively phase out fossil fuels by mid century. The alternative to that is cataclysm. So how has the international political class reacted. Begin with the United States. The Biden administration is a vast improvement over Trump. Nevertheless, the day after the IPCC report, Biden appealed to OPEC to increase production. The US Congress right now is debating legislation, which at first included some measures to mitigate the disaster as they've been eliminated. Republicans are 100% opposed. The swing votes are the so called moderate Democrats, particularly the chair of the Senate. Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Who happens also to be the champion of the Congress in receiving funds from fossil fuel industries, which is quite a feat, considering their scale. That's Joe Manchin. He's announced his position clearly. It's lifted directly from the public relations departments of ExxonMobil and its associates. The slogan is no elimination, only innovation. So maintain fossil fuel production without any ceasing at all. The blocking of legislation that would harm the fossil fuel industry is not a melody specific to the United States. As we're meeting, the major world powers are joining Washington and pressuring oil producers to increase production. The oil industry journals are euphoric about the discovery of new fields to exploit as demand for oil increases. Turn to the business press. It's debating whether the US fracking industry or OPEC is best place to increase production. They're racing to catastrophe. And furthermore, at least if they're literate, they all know that there are feasible solutions to the climate crisis, which will furthermore create a more livable world. But profit for the rich and political expediency come first. That's true neoliberal doctrine, of course, has deeper roots. Well, let's turn to briefly to international affairs. I'll keep to one example. The most important current one, I think. The China threat, as it's called. You know, escalating conflict is escalating on a path that might well lead to terminal nuclear war. It's worth a careful look. Well, first of all, the United States is, of course, far in the lead in global military power swamps all potential adversaries combined. Well ahead in the mad race to develop even more dangerous weapons and to extend their yearning for global suicide extended to space. The United States has incomparable security, but that's not how it's perceived in high places. The gravest perceived threat to the United States is China. So what then is the threat of China? Well, the China threat is well described by distinguished international diplomat. Paul Keating, former prime minister of Australia, right within reach of the dragons claws. I'll quote his words. The fact that somehow the rise of 20% of humanity from abject poverty in to something approaching a modern state is illegitimate. That's the China threat. And more than that, by its mere presence, it's an affront to the United States. It's not that China presents a threat to the United States. Something China has never articulated or delivered. Rather, its mere presence represents a challenge to United States preeminence. My own view is that's the essence of the China threat. Well, the main point of contention right now is what's called freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. That's how it's described. It's not accurate. More accurately, the conflict concerns military and intelligence operations in China's exclusive economic zone. The US holds that such operations are permissible in all such exclusive zones. China holds that they are not. India agrees with China's interpretation vigorously protested recent US military operations in its exclusive to zone. For example, these exclusive zones were established by the 1982 law of the sea. United States is the only maritime power that has not ratified the law. It asserts it will not violate it. The law, if you read it, bans the threat or use of force in the exclusive zones, borrowing the words of the UN Charter. Controversy has nothing at all to do with freedom of navigation. It's not threatened in the least.  Surely that's a clear case where diplomacy is in order, not highly provocative acts like sending in a big naval armada and a region of considerable tension with the threat of escalation, possibly without bounds. But it is crucial to establish US preeminence everywhere, even off the coasts of China, which, unlike the United States, we are led to believe faces no threats, surely not from the nuclear armed missiles in US military bases off China's coasts. These are among the 800 US military bases around the world. China has one in Djibouti. The nature of the China threat is further elaborated by Australia's preeminent military correspondent, Brian Tui. And it's worth quoting in detail to help understand world affairs. So I'll quote him. China's nuclear weapons are so inferior that it couldn't be confident of deterring a retaliatory strike from the United States. Take the example of nuclear powered ballistic missile arms submarines. China has four. Each can carry 12 missiles, each with a single warhead. According to the subs are easy to detect, because they're very noisy. According to the US Office of Naval Intelligence, each is noisier than a Soviet submarine first launched in 1976. Russian and US subs are now much quieter.  However, the missiles on the subs won't have the range to reach the continental United States. They would have to reach suitable locations in the Pacific Ocean. They are effectively bottled up inside the South China Sea to escape that have to pass through a series of checkpoints, choke points where they could be easily sunk by US hunter killer nuclear submarines. In contrast, the United States has 14 missile arm subs Ohio class, each can launch 24 Trident missiles, each containing eight independently targetable warheads, able to reach anywhere on the globe. A single US submarine can destroy 192 cities of the targets anywhere on the globe. That's one submarine compared to 12 for the Chinese submarine, but that's not good enough. The Ohio class is now being replaced by the bigger Columbia class. Well, to write this imbalance, the United States is now sending Australia advanced hunter killer nuclear subs, which Australia will pay for, though they'll be incorporated in the US Naval Command. The sale of advanced nuclear subs abrogates a France-Australia agreement for sale of conventional subs. It's a serious blow to French industry. Washington did not take the trouble even to notify France that instructs the European Union on its place in the US-run global order. Tui observes further that Australia's submission to the United States does not enhance its security. Quite the contrary. And he observes further that the nuclear subs sale has no discernible strategic purpose. The subs will not be operable for over a decade. By that time, China will surely have expanded its military forces to deal with this new military threat. The sub-agreement does serve a purpose, however. It establishes more firm firmly that the United States intends to rule the world, even if that requires escalating the threat of war, possibly terminal war in a highly volatile region. And of course, as Tui such sysified measures as diplomacy, not for tough guys like us. Well, these steps to escalate conflict take place against the background that's plain and stark. The United States inherited the mantle of global dominance from Britain substantially extending its reach. China's arising power found to play a major role in world affairs. The crises we face are international. Pandemics, destruction of the environment, no no borders, nor does nuclear war. The United States and China will either cooperate in addressing these crises or we're doomed. Cooperation is surely achievable, just as the other crises we face have solutions that are within reach. The question we face is whether we can have the will to save ourselves from cataclysm, always tempted in these conditions to reflect on Fermi's paradox, famous paradox in grief. Where are they? Fermi's discipline of astrophysics demonstrates that there's a vast number of planets accessible to us with conditions similar enough to life on earth, on to earth, so that they should be able to support life.  So where are they? With the most diligent search, we cannot find the slightest hint of their existence. Well, one possible answer is that intelligent life developed but proved to be a lethal mutation and quickly destroyed itself. We know of only one case of intelligent life, humans on earth. We're a new species, a few hundred thousand years old. It's a blink of an eye in evolutionary time. With these thoughts in mind, we can return to the crises we now face. We know how to overcome them. Do we have the will to do so? Or will we choose to show that higher intelligence really may be a lethal mutation, providing an unhappy answer to Fermi's paradox? Thank you.


ogram. The town doesn't have to get involved and use all the staff time and involvement to get these benefits. Some papers to the town manager. In one case for example if I somewhere to go to the website they could get a renewable portion of 21 percent of their electricity. The opponents were talking on the order of 15 to 16 percent so it's actually better what you could do on your own and the price would be comparable to what people in Dedum are paying through their CCA. NATO has a CCA they are about 19 percent renewable. Now the interesting thing there and I think this is something you should pay very close attention to is that their CCA is now charging more than ever source. And so if you go to the town website they tell you how to opt out of the program that they sign the people up for. I don't think your board wants to be in that position a year from now. So it's not, in most cases I think the average cost is better but it's not always the case and that's a risk. The other thing you have to keep in mind is that when you switch the rate you're switching to a fixed rate and it seemed to me that actually the summer rates that ever source charges may be less than what the aggregators are charging, what this program is charging. So all over the course of the year you might save money if most of your electricity demand is in the summer. If you go away for the winter you could actually be paying more even though if on average the price is lower. Perhaps hasn't been fully explored is just the level of effort of town staff. The MAPC pointed out that it does take some effort on the staff's part. They're going to have to monitor the broker. They're going to have to deal with the public and they'll have to renew and sign the contracts. That's another thing to consider. So I guess for those reasons I would suggest that this probably isn't something the town needs to get involved with and if anything the proponents should be looking at more at public information and alerting citizens to what their options are and leaving the town out of it. So if I could I'd just like to leave these. Anybody else wish to speak on this matter? Any response to that Adam or any thoughts? No I think Mr. Loretty touched on some of the other feedback that I have heard. Concern basically not to speak for him but just a question of whether or not the town should be involved. But I think town meeting will have that opportunity. You know the board is able to make a choice in what it wants to recommend and then town meeting will have the opportunity to deliberate on whether or not it is appropriate for the town. So I think they're very fair points but I don't know that I feel like that it means that it's not worthy of consideration. So do I have a motion? Yes. It was an excellent motion. It changed my life Steve. So recommending favorable action and appreciate the points Mr. Loretty makes but the argument of let's put it in front of town meeting have a comprehensive discussion there makes sense to me. So all those in favor of the recommended favorable action please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Correspondence received. Motion to accept. To bronze and to place in the frame inside this office or anything like that. Just receive. I think I'll just bask in the glow. All in favor of receipt please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? New business. Marie Crepelka. Anything happening Tuesday that you want to talk about? I'm going to wait for you to say aye. I expect to see you all at the summer talking one. I'll set. Mr. Chapter Lane. One brief piece of new business this Thursday at the American Legion Hall on Mass App will be the annual police award ceremony. The sons of Italy. The year I decide to announce it they changed the location. The sons of Italy. I would have shown up at the wrong place. Sending you a message. The sons of Italy. It's a great event every year. Great stories of some of the wonderful and very sometimes dangerous work that our police officers do. I hope some of the board members can attend. I look forward to attending. Thank you Mr. Buren. No new business actually. I have a couple meetings tomorrow but I'll hit on them next time. Thank you Mr. Buren. Thank you Mr. Buren. Mr. Grierly nothing. Motion to adjourn. Next meeting of the board of select will be on March 7th. Second to adjourning. All those in favor please stand by by saying aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Good night all. Thank you for your patience.