Yeah, it's good to be at a duplicon where there's no pressure before release. It is different, a totally different experience, actually. All right, so, hi to my session. I'm gonna talk about testing JavaScript. There we go. So I'm wondering here who in the room tests their stuff, what they built for their clients, what they built for modules, what they built, there we go, so it's pretty much everyone. So you are well, no? Well, maybe you should do as well. Some, okay, that's a good idea already. Yeah, okay, I see. What kind of tools do you use there? Who is aware of simple tests? Like, a little bit less. Yeah, who used something like B-Head for their client stuff? Okay, there we go, 50%, it's good. Yeah, and I'm wondering why do other people not do it? But, yeah, well, it seems to be that you, at least, don't have to be convinced about it, that's good. So a few words about myself. I'm Daniel Wiener, not Wiener. And I'm a duper core contributor since a while. I work mainly with chapter three and the tech one. And in general, I'm a curious person, so I really like to learn something new. All right, so I have to admit something, we are ignorant. We think we are actually good developers or we are good site builders or something and the stuff we actually build works, but I would assume it's actually not the case. We change something and then something else in some other system somewhere breaks. So we need testing in order to actually know that stuff is working. That's not only the case for our Drupal, ordinary site building or something, but it's also true for our JavaScript. These days, people build much richer UIs using JavaScript. It's coming, like a lingua franca, kind of like Latin. It used to be in ordinary language, JavaScript these days is everywhere. It's not only on the front end, it's on the back end. It's used even for CLI scripts. So it's in general really good to know how you can test your JavaScript. So here's some quotes you certainly saw. It worked when I tested it. It has a couple of dimensions to this quote. It not only has this dimension of your computer or the way how you set up stuff, it also has the dimension of that there are different browsers involved. Maybe some JavaScript works in one browser, but then in IE, I don't know. It's not bitching about IE, it's just an example. Because Edge is actually pretty good. Different browsers might behave differently. Maybe we use some custom APIs from some browsers and you wanna know whether stuff works. Another thing which is really important these days is mobile browsers or mobile phones versus notebooks. The fact that our viewport, the size of the screen, changes totally has an effect in the way how stuff works. For example, buttons could be not accessible or buttons could be too big or stuff like that. Small things, but small things for us in quote because they are easy to fix, but it's really making a difference. And it's stuff which breaks all the time because mobile phones, for example, is hard. I would assume. Yeah, there's the other thing, it worked last month. So yeah, we, right? I mean, we have some kind of system somewhere, it works.  I don't know, your shopping cart on your site is at some point cached. And I don't know, you cannot add any items anymore because there's some caching. For example, just come up with some random example. So yeah, we also want to ensure that there are no requests introduced. That's called regression testing. Of course, we also want that for our core JavaScript, for example, in order to ensure that this continues to work and especially because we need some kind of flexibility in order to innovate. Because when we know that stuff is working, we can change something. Otherwise, we don't change it because we don't want to risk anything. There are a couple of more problems. I would like to stress out, the second one, new members come into the community. If you are new into the system and you don't know how it works, it can be pretty hard. Drupal is a beast, it is so big and it's getting bigger and bigger.  It got like, I mean, preview seems to be like the simplest one of his suggestions, actually. So in order to keep up with that, we need some way to enable new people to also do something. And one way is to basically document the system using tests. So if someone new comes in, they can see, okay, this specific thing on Drupal works like that because the tests kind of describe how it's supposed to work and then they can make changes because they know the tests are still working. So here's like my theory about testing. Is that I couldn't center that thing? I'm sorry for that. But yeah, but it's an SCG, so yeah. So here are three types of testing. Well, like, sorry, well, some kind of types of testing you can do. Let's start at the top, end-to-end, slash functional, slash regression, whatever testing. There are many words for everything. End-to-end testing describes the idea to have an entire site test something like clicking on a link, logging in, posting a comment and ensuring that the comment appears. This is really like what, and it tests a lot of things, but on the other hand, it has the disadvantage that it doesn't really help to know where the problem is. When something breaks, like you don't know which subsystem might have the problem because it's involving every subsystem. So if you go further down the stack, let's say to integration testing, then you'll have a smaller scope in which you know maybe where the bug could be. So what is integration testing? Integration testing is testing how several units or components or whatever of your system work together. In Drupal, this would be, for example, you create some content via the API, save the content and ensure that some kind of, I don't know, some view, for example, returns them as a result. And the bottom is our unit tests. Unit tests is the idea or the art of testing just a specific thing, just that thing and just for itself. And in an ideal world, we would have kind of a pyramid where we have a lot of unit tests which also fail if we introduce a bug. Then like fewer integration tests and even fewer end-to-end tests in order to not have maintenance costs for our tests. So here's a state of testing in Drupal 8.1. We have unit tests. You see the unit test case. I'm wondering whether ever, what's called laser pointer, but I don't have one anyway. So there's unit test case which is basically PHP-based unit testing. It provides you some helper methods to deal with Drupal, I don't know, set up some configuration or something. You should certainly check it out, but there is nothing for JavaScript so far. Then there are integration tests. We call them kernel tests because our system, when it boots up, there's a thing called kernel which is kind of like a Linux kernel. It starts Drupal and kernel tests allow you to really easy like create stuff via the API. But if you think about JavaScript, there could be like a similarity where you have like HTML already on your site and JavaScript running and you just click around but you don't have an actual site underneath. Just testing all the JavaScript together but without an actual site. There's though so far nothing in Drupal itself to support you to do that. And then there was end-to-end testing. There it looks a little bit better. We have that three different system actually, or it's kind of two. So we have browser test space that's, so let's start with simple test that still exists from Drupal seven and six. That's still the thing you should use if you don't want to risk anything. And then there's browser test space which is doing the same. It installs it, Drupal. You can create content there doing HTTP request, I don't know, submitting forms and then checking the output. But it's based upon PHP unit rather than simple test which enables cool stuff like integration with Jenkins out of the box or using your IDE in order to execute those tests which is really cool and other kind of stuff. And finally, there's JavaScript test base which is a way to test JavaScript using phantom.js inside like a PHP unit base test. I will show some examples later how you can do that. Yeah, here's a quick overview of other kind of end-to-end technologies. There's a thing called Behat. A lot of you already know about it. It is a tool to define how your website should work in a language of your client. It allows your client to speak in their domain language what they want. So for example, if you are a bank, you maybe have a different language than the usual Drupal people. They don't talk about entities, I guess. They rather talk about, I don't know, accounts and transfers and money or something like that. You should certainly check it out for like sites for custom sites for custom projects. It's often used together with Selenium. Selenium is basically a way to control browsers. So you can start up a Firefox instance and then test your site inside this Firefox instance. So you can actually open up the Firefox and see how the browser behaves. So you can actually watch a user doing something which is pretty good for debugging purposes, actually. Then there's Casper.js. Once you have like more and more JavaScript on your site, you realize that it's hard to test. So Beard is PHP based. So if you do a lot of JavaScript stuff, then it's hard to communicate between the PHP and the JavaScript in order to test something. And Casper.js solves that by being JavaScript first. So you basically already, you are in the language of JavaScript already. And they can also like go inside, click stuff, submit forms and stuff like that. And then finally we have now in Drupal, browser test base and JavaScript test base to do this kind of testing. And it's a new feature of 8.1, which is another cool thing that we can innovate actually now between major releases. So yeah, I will show you an example of how browser test base works. So you can apply it on your own projects or content models or something or core patches. It is Newsense to Blade. It has terminal support and PHP storm support and it's based upon PHP unit. Let's just have a look at an example. So you start with adding a file to the, so here's a module for example, and there's like a test directory and you have a source directory and then a functional directory.  So for example, example test dot PHP, you define a class which extends this browser test base. You say, okay, which modules do I want to have? In this case, the examples module, which really exists. And then you can define your test. Here in this test, we create a user, logs it in and we log it in. Then we go to a specific page, test slash page, and check whether we get a 200 back. Really simple test, nothing fancy is going on here. And then finally we check whether some text appears on that page. The interesting thing is that you can write it like that and then execute it via PHP storm directly without leaving like the context of doing something. You don't have to go to the simple test UI in Drupal for example, so you don't, you cannot distract yourself that easy anymore. Yeah, there's a couple of things you can do in those tests in the setup method. You can create like content or configuration. You need for the test, it's similar to simple test. You can duplicate stuff to, which basically is a get request to click on a link or something. You can click on a link actually. You can submit forms and you can check a couple of things like are there a couple of elements, CSS. So you can use CSS in order to check on your site whether something appears. So for example, this means that the view has three elements or three results. You can also check that form elements exist in yada yada yada. It's just now we'll do this web asset here, which we've created has, I don't know, 50 or something helper methods for you. And we also extend it in Drupal so there's a lot of things there. The cool thing is because a browser test base is based upon Mink. Mink is a browser abstraction layer. So you can basically communicate with Mink and it can deal with either a PHP-based browser. So like a fake browser or like Phantom.js which is a headless browser which runs pretty quickly or you can even communicate with Selenium so a real browser which is really nice because we can run our tests already in all browsers if we want to, if we set up it correctly on the test board. So how do you run actual tests? You start with copying phpunit.xml.dist. It's a file in Drupal to phpunit.xml and then you adapt three lines. It's at the top of the file. The first one is the base URL. So where's your actual Drupal site? The second one, the database, so the database credentials. And the final one is a directory where Drupal puts some verbose output so that some logings for each page you visited. So you can then afterwards see which HTML was on those pages. And once you have that, you can start running those tests and yeah, don't worry about it anymore. Let's have a look at how JavaScript test base works. JavaScript test base is also using Mink so it's basically really just using a different backend for Mink and that's it which is really cool because it's really helpful. Phantom.js itself is our backend in that way. It's kind of a browser but without any visual representation. It's running in the background like in your console or in your terminal but it still allows you for example to take screenshots of what actually happens and you can also attach a debugger and check what your JavaScript is doing which is good. So let's have a look at a JavaScript test. The interesting thing it looks really the same. Instead of putting it into the functional directory we put it into functional JavaScript. So again we put it into test source functional JavaScript and then the filename test.php. We say which modules we want this time to by node. This is an example of typical itself. We log in a user, we go to a certain page. We click on a link. Here we click on a link and then we check whether it's visible or not. So you probably know the toolbar in Drupal where you can see like a menu on the left side and you click on there and then it disappears and that's what we check here. So this is kind of working as expected. The browser in the background executes that kind of operation. So the clicking and then we do asset element not visible so that checks whether the element is there and then it communicates with the browser again and checks what's going on. So let's have a look how this actually works. So here's an example. So we start phantom.js using this command. Don't be scared, you just need to copy it once and it's documented on a change record. It's documented in a readme inside Drupal itself. So don't be worried. Yeah, there you could actually specify a different window size if you want to emulate a mobile browser. So you start that and then in the second screen at the bottom we start at some point all the tests we have in Drupal at some point. So it starts, so you need to specify dash c core which it's just configuration. You just type in that command and don't worry about it. And here at the top we see what's going on. Let's quickly stop. So what you see here at the top are the commands phantom.js gets. So here you see the command clear cookies and reset. So what happens is that we have a phantom.js instance and we have like the PHP and the PHP installs a Drupal site does something and uninstalls the Drupal site. But in the meantime the browser still stays there and in order to not cause any data problems or like data which is still in the client we need to for example remove all the cookies. We need to remove like local storage and all the information which is statically stored in the browser. And by that we communicate with phantom.js using those commands. And at some point you see a little bit more going on. Let's see, it should happen in a while. Yeah, that's where we actually send like HTTP requests and like clicking links and stuff like that. And yeah, and then at the end you see that the tests so we have three tests in this example and it takes 22 seconds which is eight seconds per test which is okayish but does it scale? That's the question. Drupal has 10,000 of tests. If you would calculate that, that could be easily ours. So there we go. Here's the summary of what we saw is this is the command you need to run them. Yeah, this is the output then and you can specify a couple of things to PHP unit. You can either provide like a file name. So this is like a full file name to a test file and with that you run just a specific test file or just a specific test but you can also run them all. So you can specify for example a directory and then it tests all tests inside that directory. Oh, good question. So we run it as web server user because for example we write some files like when you save a file or something. We want to ensure that the actual site is then also able to read those files. Yeah, it's basically what the test port is also doing. Yeah, does it make sense for you? It's definitely a web server's mind user. Yeah, exactly. That's why you don't never have that kind of problem. But otherwise like if for example the test like creates the file directory, files directory and then in the actual site upload a file then this actual site need to be able to write to that directory. So it's easiest to just run the tests as the web user. So here's a, yeah. Can we move on there? Oh yeah, sure. Is there a teardown method? Oh yeah, totally. There's a teardown method you can implement in order to clean up stuff like on the file system or something. That's totally possible. Yeah. The database too. So we in Drupal we implement the idea to install Drupal, do our stuff and uninstall or and then drop the database basically. So that's lower but it's also removing like hassle from developers. Yeah. Whether you want to do that. I mean for Drupal it totally makes sense because we have hundreds of tests. So in case they would interfere they would certainly interfere at some point for custom projects it might not make sense for specific use cases. But we handle that automatically but because it's based upon PHP unit or like on PHP class hierarchy you can override that behavior and maybe import always the same database from some database dump if you really want to. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, just ask. So here's a question. Why do we actually use Phantom.js and why do we not use like an actual browser like Firefox? And the reason is actually quite simple. It's a headless browser so it doesn't actually have to do a lot of things as a normal browser so it's like much faster like two times faster or something that then leads to less resources on the test spot for example. Potentially it may be though it has some disadvantages for example because it's headless and because you don't have an actual browser it is harder to debug because you don't see what's going on or not that easy. When we would use Selenium for example and an actual browser that could be easier. So maybe it's up to discussion whether we want to keep Phantom.js actually and especially the way how we implemented it. Yeah, another in general problem with end-to-end testing so that's all end-to-end testing what we saw so far is that it's way too slow. It's super boring like if you want five tests and you need a minute then you are certainly on Twitter. Like there's no way around that. So yeah, another problem is that it tests too much. So if you test the entire system you don't know where the problem is. If you just test a specific thing and that fails you know the problem is in that specific thing. It's also error prone. For example we saw before that we used like CSS selectors so what happens if you change CSS selectors? Boom, the test break. And the last point, the feedback cycle is way too slow. Like in Drupal Core we have like thousands of tests and they need, I think currently it's like just 20 minutes but we are using like an infinite fast hardware and I think 19 or is it 15? I don't know, parallel processes in order to run them all. How many? 32. Oh, I'm sorry. It's even more. Because it was distracting people. And it's... No, like why is it crumbling? Because it costs money. Well, yeah, Drupal's money in a way it could be, I don't know, it could be invested in something else. I don't know how much it actually is but like just imagine if we would actually, so we have a test suite which is using a lot of unit testing, if like, I don't know how many unit tests we have but in case that would be like simple tests or like browser test base as well that could easily like, I don't know, times five in money and time. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean the solution to that is to use unit testing which, so what is unit testing? Unit testing is to just test a specific system instead of everything. That basically means you would not install the site but you would rather load just a specific JavaScript file, execute a function and check the output. So yeah, unit testing is you give it some input and you expect some output or you give it some input and you expect some behavior. The thing with behavior here is that JavaScript is asynchronous so you don't really have output. You rather have like side effects going on or like promises. So here's an example of some really simplified JavaScript unit testing because it's actually not using asynchronous code or something. That's a small library for to do TXT, to do TXT is like a textual format of writing your to-dos. So he, oh, I didn't changed it. All right, it's a way to specify something you should do. So you give it a title, you give it some tags and some projects and you can say when should it be finished and is it finished or not. So the X specifies whether it's finished or not and that's just it. You write it into a text file and be done with it but there are clients for everything. So here's an example of how to write a test for that. So this is using a certain way to define the tests. It's called Maka, I will talk about that later in a little bit but basically the idea is really similar. You set up something in this case a to-do parser and then you check that. So you set up a to-do parser and parse the string hello and you check the result which is a to-do object and in this case I check whether the text of a to-do object is hello. It's using a library called Chai. Chai is an assertion library for JavaScript because obviously in JavaScript there's a library for everything. So even if you have a test framework you still need an assertion framework.  In this case it's the simplest implementation which parses our tests which is just returning the entire string as our text. You run it again and it parses and then like in an ideal world you would then continue with writing the other test. So in this case I'm specifying a priority. The cool thing is in this syntax you can have like a human-descriptable name for what do you test in this case. Here you specify a priority and a text and we check whether there's a priority in the result and then you continue and then you fix it and then you write another test and by that you get this kind of loop.  And the cool thing like when you have that kind of test afterwards when you want to introduce a new feature you make it wet again, you make it write a new test, get it green again and re-factor. That's the ideal world of unit testing. And the cool thing is that it's really a nice way to develop because you never leave the scope of your current work. You can just run the tests, they are immediate feedback, they give you like immediate like, I don't know. A minute, no, that's not one millisecond but like below 100 milliseconds. So you never get distracted and you can still focus a lot on working what you actually want to achieve. Yeah, so if we as the Drupal community would like to test our JavaScript, there are all the possibilities. So there are a couple of tools we could leverage. There's first a thing called testing framework. You could think of a testing framework kind of like PHP unit. So there's Q unit, it currently has 3,000 downloads a week. So I would not really recommend it because it's not that. Yeah, I try to came up with the numbers in order to justify why we want something. And then there's Jasmine, and Jasmine is like a testing framework which also allows you to run those tests in the browser, 190K. Then there's Mocha, which is a Node.js based testing. 700,000. Tape is a really simple alternative. All the other ones are pretty complex. Tape is pretty simple. Then there are test runners. So test runners takes a testing framework and run them somewhere.  It's interesting because it says it can run on CLI, on browsers, it can run on browser stack, which is a shared, it's a way to run like a cloud environment tests in all the browsers, all the mobile phones and everything at the same time. So maybe intern is actually interesting. There's also Karma, which has 350,000 downloads. Karma is also a way to run Jasmine, Mocha, Tape and Q&A tests inside your browser in whatever browser you want. So I actually think we should go with Mocha and Karma. So Mocha basically has a testing framework and then Karma in order to actually run our tests in the browser. Another, a couple of other libraries you actually need is Chai and Xenon. You see the amount of downloads are pretty much the same because they are basically required. Chai is a assertion library, which allows you to check that a specific thing was actually done, I will show you an example later and there's Xenon, which is a mocking framework. Yeah, whatever. Here's Chai is also just like why. They have three different notations to define you to check whether actually something happens. So there's the assertion one, which is like the classical one. So assert equal, hello, as that the to-do text is equal to hello. Classical one, then there's a should notation, which is to-do.tix, text should equal hello. They provide magic that like every JavaScript object behaves or has a should function. That's pretty crazy. And then there's the expect notation, which is also expect that a certain variable to equal hello. I don't, I don't know, I don't get the point. Because assert is the shortest. And like, okay, the thing is the should notation is more human friendly to read, or the expect notation. Oh, yeah, that's a good point because you cannot override the behavior of another object. Good point, interesting, interesting. Okay, so you just went with assert. I went with expect. Ah, okay, that's true. So why did you went with expect? Why did you went with expect rather than assert? Okay, fair. So yeah, it is, I mean, like you can certainly use the metrics of less code, but there are other metrics. Like the readability aspect is not that unimportant. Also, when you have expect notation, you can, yeah, like the test runners can also output real actual English because like two equal, they can convert that to a nicer output. But yeah, it's, yeah, JavaScript, I don't know. So one problem we have in Drupal is that we mostly interact with the DOM.  So pure unit testing is maybe a little bit too ambitious for Drupal itself. So I would actually propose we use some kind of integration testing for our JavaScript, which means we need some kind of way to set up our JavaScript. So for example, we could have some HTML files which provides some initial output of Drupal together with even CSS files and then load our JavaScript in there and test it. And test it. So for example, it would be like a front page with some content and then we could execute quick edit on that, is it called quick edit? I think so. So yeah, so I would actually propose to go with like integration test first before we have any libraries. In general, I think we should apply some criterias to the decisions we make, which is, I mean, one criteria is feature richness and flexibility. Drupal is really complex and that means that we potentially need flexibility where other people don't need it. And that simplicity, yeah, you want it to be easy and also easy to understand and best practices, we don't want to alienate people in Drupal. We want to teach them best practices because Drupal is not everything. Actually, I think Drupal is doing very much. So yeah, here's a couple of decisions and questions we could argue about now. Like do we want a real browser? Do we want to test our stuff in real browsers or do we want to continue to use just front-end JS? Do we want to go with source labs or browser stack? They are both like external services, which allow you to run the things in different environments. They are both having an open source free model, so we could probably use it or at least try to use it. We could also experiment with using BDD or a B-Head and not write our code to test stuff. And obviously the question is, which test runner and framework we want to use. Yeah, and there are a couple of issues and you can get involved with this. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, please ask and discuss. And there are sprints on Friday. And yeah, there's also a feedback slide. For any instance, it's a lot easier for people coming in to contribute tests, continue to add a new test as opposed to an actual assert or expect syntax, which I think, you know, even if you use a lot, it can be a real pain to write your test in that syntax. So I would really like to see us, you know, to be sent that we're doing integration test, go use Kirk and that's the language of writing those tests. Yeah, that's a good point. So, now I'm going to have to disagree with you. Well, one could disagree with you. Gherkin works really well in case you have a domain in which your Gherkin text can be written. I'm not sure whether Drupal has a domain or whether Drupal is actually way too flexible to have like a good domain, but yeah, maybe I'm totally wrong about that point. Yeah, anyone else? Yeah, yeah, Gherkin is basically the language. Gherkin is the idea to use human readable test, the text to... Yeah, it's a QCumber and Behead, so QCumber is basically the Ruby framework to test stuff using the Gherkin language. That's the origin of the Gherkin language and Behead is basically a PHP implementation of Gherkin plus the testing. Exactly, exactly, yeah. Which is the idea to not define like expected output, but rather describe your system. Yeah, John? Some of the JavaScript that have like behaviors that are basically just sort of integrating the jQuery library and... Yeah, the thing is you don't actually, yeah. Yeah, I think the fundamental problem is that you don't actually have that much logic in your code. You rather just integrate existing libraries together, which is why I think we should have integration tests rather than unit tests. I don't know like the ideal way to write those integration tests. There's like a way where you can actually like create some fake HTML and then run your JavaScript on that, or we could actually have real HTML. When we have real HTML and CSS on there, we could maybe even have visual regression because we already have those fixtures. Yeah, there's stuff to explore there, of course. Yeah? Can you go to the microphone? Because it's recorded. So when you use an actual browser, then it's pretty easy because you just open up the developer toolbar and click on pause. And yeah, when you use Phantom.js, you can, there's this additional parameter. I don't know, it's something dashboard.  It's absolutely cool. Yeah, there's good documentation about that on the Phantom.js page. Oh yeah, totally. You can load any kind of library you want. So it's not only for unit testing, it's also for integration testing. Yeah. I feel like Cascade had run the tests on that library too. Oh, that is what you're saying. I'm pretty sure you can configure a comma to do that as well, but I'm not sure whether I get the point of it because those open source projects already test their stuff. It makes sense because it asks if it's working, data, or it's not working. Oh, that's interesting. Well, but I would assume that they are tests one all the time. I don't think they add regressions in some minor versions, but they rather just don't catch it. Okay. So I think you should just have enough tests for your actual site or library or something to ensure that when Jaguar is broken, you also see it. Oh yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah. It seems that those are gonna be often out of date or out of sync with what people's actually producing. Is there some way we should basically would strap people to generate the extrusion and kind of run the tests for some way to keep that in sync? Yeah, we could do that. Or we actually say it's okay to not keep them up to date because we have the stable theme. And if we generate our HTML with a stable theme, we are supposed to not change the HTML with a stable theme. So given that, we would ensure that our stable code always works, that code is working with our stable. Maybe we need to have both pictures. Actually, we should do that because we shouldn't rely on the HTML output, but rather have data attributes to select stuff rather than CSS classes. We are going there. I'm not sure whether we are completely there, but anyone else? Cool. Yeah, Swints and feedback. Thank you.


We are back for some sham scoops time. We also want to preview a couple of games sham So talk to me about Joe L and V. What's the latest? So we missed their last game they swept the Brooklyn Nets and there is optimism that he'll be able to play in game one of their next series against Boston I assume or Atlanta. We'll see if they're able to come back, but he had a sprained knee and I think they believe this is about a one-week injury and so Assuming the playoffs start next weekend. It's upcoming weekend. The hope is that Joe L and B will be in the lineup But yeah, he went down a few times in that Nets game three, but thankfully it wasn't anything major. I Mean, there's some big names first round of these playoffs with injury issues Chandler But as far as advantages earned by sweeping the Nets, how big is that one for Philadelphia? Well, it's huge for the obvious reasons that their best player is day to day and is dealing with something That's lingering and every day that goes by hopefully he's getting more healthy Their whole team that's banged up is getting more healthy. They're watching more film. They're getting more prepared So they handle business and and again, they just eliminated any problems with going into a deep series that they're basically on ice and watching whoever they're gonna play next which is looking like Boston and They'll be hopefully Joe L will be ready and that series is gonna be a blast I mean, we say goodbye to the Brooklyn Nets Eddie It was a tumultuous season at the very least I don't want to say is it a success, but as far as what you know, if you had to describe this Nets season What do you give it it? Restart that's probably what I'd call it. I wouldn't call it a success You you traded away to all stars including maybe the best player in basketball. You Had a under 500 record after that and you got swept. That's that's not successful. That's frustrating You came into the season with championship hopes with ideas of adding new pieces in the middle of the season and and winning a title so in that sense Yeah, it's a failure, but I think they have a ton of potential going forward. I think they have something in my Cal bridges If he's a number one on a contender, I don't know. It wasn't the greatest Results, but they have a ton of flexibility and if they can Duped somebody into taking that Ben Simmons contract They might have Damian Lillard or Trey young or someone else to star on that roster next season, but It's it's highly dependent on it doesn't help that Joe Harris Couldn't throw a rock in the ocean in that series either because that's one of the contracts You'd have to trade to go get somebody to but uh They have the flexibility they have the opportunity to have a ton of picks to work with so they have something building I tried telling Spencer. I told him you had no they had no chance Finally, I got one right Chandler and that's at the expense of a friend.


This is American Issues Take Two, and I'm Jay Fidel of Think Tech. I'm joined by my co-host, Tim Apichella, and our regular contributor, Cynthia Stinclair. Welcome to the show, you guys. Good morning. Good morning. I'm talking about Ken Burns' movie, The United States and the Holocaust. And, you know, I stumbled into it. I didn't realize it, exactly how powerful it was and what it was about. And I thought, oh, another movie about the Holocaust. I've seen that footage. But then, just a few minutes in, I realized it's on TBS, and it's on TBS.org also. I realized that this footage you haven't seen before, this is the most extraordinary average of the Holocaust. The Holocaust in the 30s and the 40s and even after the war. Very interesting movie he made. It was a brilliant movie, but it wasn't really an examination of the Holocaust. It was an examination of the United States' reaction and support of the Holocaust. And that was the part that really scares you. Why does it scare you? A, because you didn't know about this, or if you did, you didn't have a full understanding. And B, this is what's been happening in our country. The country is turning to the right. It's turning to bigotry in many ways. And our former president was leading the charge on bigotry as well as insurrection and sedition. So we are in crisis now, and we can make parallels to what happened in Nazi Germany in the 30s. The movie makes it clear. Okay, so let's discuss why it makes it clear and to the extent to which it makes it clear. Tim Appichel, were you aware of the connection? Were you aware of the anti-antisemitism and bigotry in this country in the 30s and 40s? Did this movie teach you anything about a parallel between what's going on here, what is going on here, and what happened in Germany in the 30s? Yeah, Jay, I knew quite a bit. I'm a big fan of history and I knew quite a bit, but not nearly as much as I learned out of this Ken Burns series. And what I learned, I knew that there were fascist groups actually Nazi groups on the East Coast in the 1930s and 40s. And there was a sense of isolation from the United States that they didn't want to get involved in another war. So I knew all that. I didn't know to the extent on how it manifested itself in our government, this anti-immigration and really, I won't say hatred, but this movement specifically against the Jews from immigrating from Germany into the United States. And what was the chief agency for blocking that was the State Department. And there was a great show on last night on PBS about the State Department and how it refused to let black people work in the State Department. And I went into great detail about the background of everyone who worked in the State Department were the graduates from Yale or Harvard and it was a white dominated male society. And with that came, I think anti-immigration sentiments and there was the Johnson-Reed Act that basically put quota system on immigration and that system lasted well into the 1950s. And so when people realized what Harry Hitler was up to and the march to fascism, one or two waves of Jews got out of Germany and were successful to immigrate into the United States. But what happened is the quota system really kicked in and now that immigration was turned off at the spicket to a trickle. And therefore people couldn't get their families out or they couldn't get out at all. And there was a real anti-Semitic feeling in this country that we didn't wanna bring Europe's war onto the front doorstep of the United States. So this hard and fast anti-immigration feeling was really the basis of our racism and avoidance to address what was happening in Europe. And that's why that sense of isolation was very hard to break. So yeah, I learned a lot. Yeah. And Cynthia, to the extent you looked at it, did you find parallels between what happened in Germany under Hitler's evolution and what was happening in the US in the 30s and the 40s? Well, I found all kinds of parallels. And it also, I was shocked. I had no idea. Here I thought I was this, you know, protesting hippie that stood up for the underdog. I had no clue that the very last one that happened was 1981 is commonly listed as the year in which Oregon performed the last legal forced sterilization in US history. That's what the eugenics program was. And that was what started in America. The Nazis in 1936, the Nazi propaganda was defending their forced sterilization policies by citing what was happening in the US. So it's not like we just supported it. We supported it in different ways by example, even. And I mean, I was just shocked. The very first legal one, the Michigan State legislature became the very first in the country to pass a forced sterilization law. And they sort of couched it in these very, unspecific terms of the feeble minded, trying to, you know, breed out all of the feeble minded people. In reality, it was used for people of color, more than anything. And I can't help but think about what happened to all the American Indians too. Point was rampantly used for those guys. They crossed the board sterilized people well into the 80s. And so this isn't just something that stopped in the 30s. Granted, after the Holocaust, and we found out about the horrors that were happening at the hands of Hitler and his, you know, and the Nazis, you know, Americans started to finally wake up and say, wait a minute, maybe this isn't so great. It's being used the wrong way.  And in reality, from day one, we were starting to try to get rid of any other minority from our gene pool or whatever. And that just horrifies me. So often I feel like I'm a little embarrassed to be white, you know, because of the atrocities that have been done in the name of, we're the best race. And I think, wow. And it's still going on today. And like you were saying with the setup here about how do I find any parallels to the US back then and Germany, of course, but I find parallels between now and then. I see this sort of slide back in history kind of thing where we're more amenable to doing this sort of thing again, because after all, you know, there's no room for these crummy people that are coming into the country. We want the ones, the white ones that are from, you know, Northern Europe and things like that. We don't want any of these other, you know, asylum seekers and that just really gets me. Cause I think, who do we think we are that we're so perfect as white people, you know? Where did we get this idea that we're so perfect and everybody else isn't? And I think by our behavior, we are the least perfect of anybody. You know, Tim, there were indications early on in the Trump world, in his term of office, we can talk about after his term of office in a minute. For example, Charlottesville, where it seemed to pop out and where his bigotry was revealed. But also in his attempt to make, to corrupt the federal government, corrupt the agencies and the officials. And I'm thinking of the Comey rule, the movie. I'm thinking of that exquisite moment where he attempted to, you know, develop this kind of to the death loyalty with James Comey. There are markers in what we know about Trump's four years. We don't know everything, by the way. I think we have to agree on that. But you and I have been discussing the parallel between Trump's administration, his wishes, his moves, so many things and so many books and articles and stories on national cable TV.  Did this movie bring that up for you? And can you talk about some of the markers? Sure, it does bring it up. And also it's a path to Vladimir Putin. It is current, modern day Russia. Putin is by definition an autocrat fascist. In 2000, he got the stage as a democratic, trying to move the Soviet Union to a democratic path, but he's reverted back to the days of Stalin. And what are the telltale markers of that? Well, with fascism or nationalism, it's the telltale marker of restrictive immigration, blaming the people that were coming in the country because of race or religion. They're the source of your problem. And that's a telltale mark of fascism slash propaganda. Find the scapegoat, identify the scapegoat. Two, tap into the grievances of your population, of your citizenship. Tell them that their grievance is well-warranted and founded because of immigration. And these people are taking their jobs away. They're making, they're taking away the American culture, even though our country is a melting pot of variety of cultures. So Donald Trump did that with banning Muslim countries from immigration into the country. He identified them as the scapegoats. He identified the Mexicans and the caravans of people from Central and South America as, you know, trying to invade the country and take away their jobs and, oh, there's gonna be crime.  Remember that? And so this is the parallelism, not only from Nazi Germany to the United States back in the 30s, but also in any fascist regime. And when Joe Biden called the MAGA GOP semi-fascist, I think he meant it because he acknowledged and recognizes these patterns and parallelisms. And look no further than what's happening in Germany today is complete control of the media, conscription without consent. He just makes up the rules and they go for it. And that's what Donald Trump did. He, you were correct to say, he hollowed out federal agencies and supplanted those that were dedicated to the mission of their agencies with willful, loyal lackeys. And that's what a dictator needs. He needs his loyalist, his lackeys not to ever, ever protest and only further his gains and mission. And that is the takeover of democracy. Donald Trump is a fascist. You know, one of the most significant historical events during the 30s, I think it was 1933, was the burning of the Reichstag, where I think we have to agree at this point in time that it was Hitler who arranged the burning of the Reichstag and it was an important step along the way for him to take power and to implement his plan.  And a lot of people went along with it. They did go along with it. It's not like they didn't know he was an absolute dictator of Germany. It's not like they didn't know the steps he was taking in order to achieve that. But it strikes me, Cynthia, that the burning of the Reichstag was so symbolic, so violent and reminiscent of January 6th. It goes on the same continuum. Do you feel there's a parallel there? Absolutely do. The whole entire time I was watching and I didn't quite get all the way through the last, the third one that I watched the first two. And I was just sort of sickened the whole time there was this feeling of, oh, God, what's happening now? So yes, I saw all sorts of parallels. And how do we stop it? That's my big question. What do we do about this now? What happened in Germany and for that matter, Italy, is they treated Hitler and for that matter, Miss Fellini as a clown. That he wasn't serious that this would go away and ultimately politics would force the two of them out of office. And by the time they realized just how deadly serious this was and how it would ultimately mean life and death for many, many, many people, it was too late. And that's something I want to ask Tim about. Do you think we're getting to a point where it's too late? No, I don't think it's too late, but it's getting there.  And I know that's a remarkable statement, particularly for people that grew up with the virtues of democracy, that how could we go down to this road? But what we've learned in the last five to six years is that our democracy is extremely fragile. So when you see the slow takeover of media, and I'll call out Fox, Fox is nothing more than Trump news amplified. And there's a reason for that because it's getting ratings. People love to watch anything about Trump, and that's why they tune in. And that's why the ratings are so high. And Fox and the Murdochs know that. So there's the infiltration of media. These, again, the infiltration of government agencies with loyalists. There's the infiltration of scapegoating. And that's scapegoating is immigrants. So we've seen all sorts of signs on those slow march to that. At some point, there's a tipping point, and I don't know where that is. Is it too late? How about November? How about November of 2022? You know, you say slow march, but these things have a way of knitting together under the hood. And then, okay, well, and that's what happened with Hitler. And it's also what happened with Putin in his efforts in Chechnya. Here's a telltale sign that we are going to reach a milestone here. And that is we have many election deniers who have won the primaries. They have bought into the big lie. The big lie is that the Trump election was stolen from them, the presidential election. That's the big lie. They have all bought into it. They've all pounded it on their chest. They've said that's I'm a candidate and I support the big lie. They've won their primaries. Now the milestone test is will they win the general? And if they do, that should be a flare, a big bright red flare before the nation saying, hey, we just made a quantum leap towards fascism. They're going to stop free and fair elections in the future. That's not a slow change. That's a fast change right there. Okay, I'll buy that. I'll buy that 40 days away. Cynthia, I want to ask you about, about the process that came up in the, in the, in the, these episodes in the Kenburn, you know, of course, Hitler wanted to use anti-Semitism and various other, you know, bigotry initiatives against the people in Germany, who he felt that the Germans didn't like. And he wanted to use them, you know, as, as, as a way to gain power. And he did that very effectively. On the other hand, the death camps were secret. He didn't talk about it. And we only found out, you know, the horror of the death camps after the war, when in large part American troops liberated those, those camps and were horrified. So, you know, what, what you have is more than just using the bigotry of the country as a way to enhance his power. He was on a mission to eradicate the Jews. And indeed, you know, we forget that he was controlling a good part of Europe. And he was implementing that, you know, that attempt to eradicate Jews in all parts of Europe, where he occupied, for example, pistol-knock in 1938. It did not happen just in Berlin. It did not happen just in Germany. It happened in all of the areas, including the Sudetenland, you know, that, that, that Hitler was occupying.  He had a plan, and he had an organization that could, you know, develop and implement that plan. Now, part of the plan, of course, was to take rights away from the Jews. The ordinary middle-class Jewish families found they couldn't go to school anymore, that they would be ostracized in so many ways. They couldn't own businesses. The businesses were taken away. Their property was taken away. Their civil and human rights were taken away. Little by little, these regulations, you know, and he timed it so that he wouldn't have a big pushback from the German people. And little by little, he made these people into, into non-people.  So at some point in time, according to the Ken Burns, you know, film, they realized they got to get out of Germany. And they went east to Russia. They, they went all over Europe to try to get out. They went to places that, that ultimately, Hitler found them in, you know, in France and the low countries, Belgium and the Netherlands and so forth. And what is, what is scary is that these are the very people who thought Hitler wasn't a joke. And two or three years later, he wasn't a joke. He had stripped them of their citizenship, of their property, of their civil rights. And that happened, you know, really in the, in the timing of history pretty quickly. Do you think, this is my question, do you think that people in this country realize what it means to have a successful coup? What it means to have the GOP running Congress and running the government in terms of the loss of their civil rights and the treatment of minority groups? Do you think people know the parallel in the way it worked in Germany and in various other places in Europe in the 30s and the 40s? Do they know they can, they can lose that middle class opportunity, the human rights, the quality of life they have had, or are they oblivious? I don't think they do realize. And the evidence of that is how many people are Holocaust deniers. People that say it didn't happen. And then because it's so watered down when it's taught in history class, younger kids don't even know about it. I'm shocked at how many kids don't know about it, especially when I was working as a children's minister in the South. The kids had never even heard of it. And these are high school kids. They'd never heard of it. And so that I think is evidence that no, people don't understand.  I just can't handle it. I can't think of those things. Yet while they, you know, put their blinders on, it's happening again. You know, there's another movie called the Garden of the Finsie Contini in the Garden of the Finsie Contini. This is a remake of a 1950s black and white movie and it was made in the 80s. And it's, it's about a family, a Jewish family in a town called Ferrara, which is near Rome.  They had a tennis court in a pool. Their friends came over. They drove classic cars. They were happy as they could be. And they were oblivious. And one day the Nazis came and rounded them up in their mansion and took them into, into the machine. And so it's that same thing. What, what are you doing? You know, my name is Finsie Contini. You can't touch me. Oh yes, we can. That was the end of them. They all died in the death camp. But I want to turn to something else to him. And that is the State Department. You mentioned it earlier. We had a serious problem with the State Department and the Burns film talks about how FDR was reluctant. Not only to declare war to Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war against the United States by both Germany and Italy a few months later to get Congress to go along with him on the declaration of war. It's not only that though. There were people in this country. You know, we remember from our history lessons, Father Coughlin, Coughlin, and we remember Charles Lindbergh, both of whom were Nazis and bigots and who were very influential on the newfound leverage of radio. But the State Department stuck with it the whole time and even after. You mentioned that immigration laws were not reformed to allow Jews to come in until sometime in the 50s, long after the war was over, and the State Department blocked giving visas. You know, the story of the ship St. Louis, the ship that couldn't find a place to dock and back and forth, and ultimately they wound up back in Europe again trying to escape the Nazis. You know, this is that part of the continuum in Germany where people could and would and had ways they thought to escape Germany. There came a time, as you will find, as people will find if they watch these episodes, that Hitler said, well, we have to develop a final solution here. We don't want to give many rights. We don't want to let them out. We want to dehumanize them in every way possible, but they're still alive.  And he tried hard. And in fact, in Europe, two out of three Jews were killed, two-thirds of all the Jews in Europe were killed. The Holocaust was very nearly successful and the American position on it, according to Ken Burns, is we're not going to bomb the camps, to terminate the death, you know, the ovens and the like. We're going to put our focus on winning the war. Unfortunately, it took them longer than they thought to win the war. And while they were winning the war, the ovens were going full steam 24 by 7. It was very ironic. But the State Department was part of that and they apparently acted as a kind of barrier for FDR to protect the Jews and allow the Jews. Can you talk about that? Sure. You know, it was the head of the Department of Treasurer, who basically, he and his people, he found to help them was to try to find a bill that would give aid to the refugees. That passed, that passed. And it went over to the State Department and it was shelved for months and months. And those funds and assistance to help refugees get out of Germany and Poland and all of Eastern Europe, those efforts were blocked. And what does that say about, you know, a United States agency proactively working to keep refugees in a country where they were being exterminated? And we knew they were being exterminated. I know if Herr Hitler tried to cover up, but we knew it, it was in the papers. It might have been on page five, page six. In some cases it was page one and two. But people didn't believe the numbers. They thought it was hyperbolic. They thought it was Jewish nonprofit agencies just trying to gain sympathy and funds and money. And they didn't believe the numbers. They didn't believe that people were being executed without cause or reason. And so what do you say about an agency that works in tandem with a fascist government? It can happen. And I'm not going to say that's where we're at right now in our politics. Where I see it is at the beginning phase of trying to subvert a free and fair election in order to retain power for the dear one. Who's the dear one? Well, it's Donald Trump. You know, will they accept the election as results if their candidate doesn't win? Or they only accept the results if their candidate wins? This is the slow step to fascism. And we better wake up. It's happening. As you well said, the midterm elections is upon us. And if election deniers get and win the general election, you know, it's only going downhill from there. Yeah, Cynthia. So, you know, the midterm elections are upon us. And if the Republicans take both the House and the Senate, and then you have a Supreme Court that went off the charts already and isn't coming back anytime soon, and all the other problems in the executive branch I should add. It seems to me that Donald Trump is more powerful, even if he's not president. He's more powerful to deal with all these investigations and prosecutions if both houses of Congress are on his side. And worse yet, if he gets to be president in 2024, which he could, you know, pave a way to, if he had both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court working for him, where do we go then? Do you think that we will be able to retain our civil rights and our humanity? Forget 2024 for a moment, just 2022, 40 days away. How will that affect things? How will that affect this continuum? This, as Tim calls it, the march to the march to fascism. We're toast. Sorry. We're toast. There's no way. If we don't make some more headway, because there are certain things that have got to be codified and put into law so that we're protected from a very right wing partisan Supreme Court. And we need to remember when we, you know, we just sort of touched on Charlottesville for a second and how that's when it all started. I don't know if that's when it started. It's just that's when we got to see it. And, and what were they chanting? Not, we are great. They were chanting. Jews will not replace us.  And how much they justify their anti-Semitism and their racism. And to me, it's just disgusting. And the fact that they are as prolific as they are right now, even with a democratically held Congress and White House, if they are still this powerful now, think about what would happen if they get in back in charge of Congress. That's it. We're toast. And I mean, I don't say that lightly because I really believe that we don't continue to maintain some hold on power so we can get some solid voting rights again. And all of that, we know that these people are willing to cheat to get what they want. And if they're willing to cheat to get what they want back then in 2020, they're willing to cheat to get what they want now. And that's what they're going to do. They're going to cheat so they can get what they want. And that is terrifying. And we are in a, we are in very dire straits. And it's even not sure if with a giant blue tsunami, you know, angry women and everything else, that we still can't overcome some of the bills that are in different state houses. So we're in for, it's not even a sure thing, even with a blue tsunami because of the cheating, the things that they've already put in place to be able to cheat again. So we're in trouble. You know, Tim, they say that, that the insurrection wasn't a clear attempt to have a coup. Because, you know, as far as Trump was concerned, he was ready to hang Mike Pence. He was ready to use everything as his disposal, organizing conspiratorial meetings and all this. If he, just footnote it, if he had been an ordinary citizen, any one of the three of us doing exactly the same acts, he would be in jail and subject to very long term imprisonment. And if it was treated as treason, you know, reason in this country is punishable by death. It's pretty serious what was going on. But somehow he escaped that and his, you know, his Fox News and a lot of legislators, you know, softened it somehow and came up with excuses for it. But some people say, Tim, that January 6th is not going to happen again in the same way. But going forward, we have an insurrection right now. As you said, it's a march, it's a slower march. It's not necessarily a violent march. It's a march that pretends to be legal in so many of the battleground states. And, and those guys are busy boys and girls planning it right now. And we don't know, because the media is not really telling us what they're doing to advance a nonviolent insurrection. But all of that considered, you know, where, where do you see the United States on the continuum here? If I'm a minority, should I be concerned? There are many minorities in this country. Many minorities who are the subject of bigotry. Should I be concerned? Should I be concerned about what Ken Burns portrayed in this movie and query, why now? Why this movie now? And what is he really getting at to tell us that in the 30s, 40s and to some extent to 50s, we were a bunch of bigots and we didn't let FDR, you know, protect the minorities in this country. We didn't let FDR save them, even when it was clear that we're going to death camps. Why did Ken Burns make this now? And what should we take away in our own thinking about trying to avoid a similar result here as well? Well, that's a lot packed into a question. I'll say this. Donald Trump and the mega GOP has successfully turned minorities against minorities. Yes. I see a huge Hispanic population turning to the GOP.  And I also see that he's using the Democrats as socialists because a lot of these people who came from Cuba and South American from socialistic governments and societies, they don't want to go back to that life. So rather than pin it on, you know, liberal Democrats, he's pin it on socialist Democrats that want to make a United States into a socialized government. So it's, it's minorities training against minorities here in this case. So to answer your question, should minorities be concerned? Of course. But it's not the first time minorities or even everybody in this country has voted against their own self-interest because there was a charismatic leader. One I could think was Ronald Reagan and they voted against their own self-interest. So in my mind, people need to be informed of why they support somebody. What is it they, that individual has that really appeals to their self-interest, not just what they're told their self-interest is. Identify those things for your family and your community and figure it out. I, again, I think Donald Trump, if he comes back into the arena, will get great minority support. Yeah, you know what? I think you're right. Cynthia? Can I just add one thing in there? A little insight into the, there's a, I can't remember. She's ahead of one of the Hispanic coalitions and she's been doing this really great documentary series about this very thing. What's going on with Hispanics coming around? And one of the number one things that was repeated by just about everyone, and this is the way the GOP sort of appeals to these guys is most, it's really high percentage of Catholics. Catholicism is huge in the Hispanic communities. And so it's all about abortion. It's all about Robi Wade for them. It's more than anything else. It's about that.  And if anybody else comes in, then it'll take away from them and that's in there too. But more than anything, the highest percentage of responses said it was the conservative values. And that is Robi Wade. That was their thing. And some people think it's kind of infectious. In other words, if you say that we have some serious issues in the country, let's see, Robi Wade is one and then we have gun control. We have voting rights. What did I miss? We have people who disagree on climate change, all that serious issue. But what the GOP does and what it's done with the Latino group is you find an entry point. One issue, okay? And then you infect the people who join the crowd with all the other issues. So before you know it, you have somebody who enters into the right wing of things on something like abortion. And all of a sudden, they're in exactly the same position as GOP is on all the other issues, even though they really don't care or shouldn't care. I think we should do another show on this topic because we're running out of time. I think it's a great topic. And I think you're spot on. Let's go to final statements Cynthia. What would you leave with our audience today? I have a quote from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes from 1927. And he was the one who wrote the majority. It was an eight to one in Buck V. Bell that legalized the sterilization stuff. He's quoted as saying it is better for all the world if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their time. What was the Supreme Court judge saying that? Well, that's your Supreme Court, not mine. Tim, what would you leave with our audience? Very quick. Midterm elections coming up, November is coming up. I'm not going to say just go out and vote. I'm going to say go out and vote and vote for Democrat candidates. They're not election deniers. Yeah, go out and vote like your life dependent on it. You can quote me on that. Okay. Tim at Coachella, Cynthia Sinclair. Thank you so much. Aloha, you guys.


We're going full-blown meta this week as two versus films battle it out And I don't think I'm alone when I say they're both pretty disappointing. It's Alien vs. Predator vs. Freddy vs. Jason on Movie Feud. I remember when these movies were first announced, especially the Alien vs. Predator one because I was super stoked to see our human heroes Dutch and Ripley join forces to battle their foes. Alas, that was not the film we got.  Thanks! Blade Star Sanaa Lathan, whose name I just butchered, is our mountain climber turned Xenomorph fighter And she's far and away the best actor in either of these films. We have a couple TV stars in the mix too with Tommy Flanagan from Sons of Anarchy and that dude from Millennium in the picture But they're very underutilized. The main attractions both look pretty cool with Xenomorphs going mostly CGI in this outing. It worked for me. I like seeing them move a bit faster, but the fear was certainly nowhere to be found. The slasher flick has your typical teen drag, but there is a good amount of TNA Which always makes movies like these go down better for me. What didn't help was the inclusion of Destiny's Child singer Kelly Rowland. Although she'll always have a special place in my heart right here, thanks to songs like Bootylicious, Jumpin' Jumpin', Bills, Bills, Bills, say my name and I'm a survivor. You know what Kelly Rowland?  I mean not a Destiny's Child because you broke up or of your film career But you still have a rockin' body and that counts for something. Damn it. It counts for everything. The master of fear, Robert England reprises his ongoing role as Freddy Krueger And although he looks the part, he comes off far more cartoonish and silly in this installment. Ken Kurtzinger dons the mask for the first time as our lovable scammed Jason Boahase. Although he comes off about his threatening as my neighbor's dog Sprinkles, he has a lot of bark but not much bite. I get it Sprinkles. You don't want me pissing by your tree. You're not scaring anybody. In the third grade I wrote a story about a cat that fomutated fish using kung fu. He would later come to realize he himself was part fish and the story ended with a space party on the moon with dogs.   Some nonsense about predators building pyramids for the ancient human race. In exchange humans would give up a few people to a sacrificial chamber so aliens could be reborn to fight predators. That kung fu cat story sounding pretty good right now isn't it?  The film constantly cuts away from intense sequences like the chest burst or attack and instead were treated to a series of off-camera screams.  I mean they're not going to let me see because there's a wall in the way. But I hear a lot of crazy noises and I'm sure it's really awesome and visually pleasing but I'll just never know. Because it's PG-13. Freddy and friends keep the hard R rating but that's about the only thing they brought over from the respective properties.  Freddy's all but forgotten so he raises Jason from the dead for the millionth time to kill on his behalf. Or something. I don't really know.  Unique kills, scary imagery, fun thrills, none of these are present in the movie.  The final battle is really the only good part of the flick and even that could have been so much more. I do have to give a shout out to AVP. I love when the Predator does the slow-mo stab to the Queen's throat. That was really boss right there. Kids say boss right? I'm not talking to anybody. The Bride of Chucky director has a very hard time convincing me that I'm not just watching people on a stage. The lighting is really bad. Freddy and Jason are given far too much time out of the shadows which makes the makeup stand out like a pop singer in an acting role. The gore isn't too shabby with the final act providing a large portion of the brutality. The dude getting folded in the bed after being stabbed like 80 times seemed a bit unnecessary but I allowed it. It was at least something to look at. What I don't allow is the crappy CGI slug that Freddy turned into during a nightmare sequence. At least he could have cocooned and came back as like some demonic moth or something.  That's what slugs do. They slug. It's a testament to the screenwriters and filmmakers that AVP is so uninteresting to look at. A large portion of the movie takes place inside a pyramid that's constantly shifting and when we do finally get to a setting that's interesting to look at the film cuts away because the violence got too violent. There was a fair amount of slow motion in Alien vs. Predator. I wasn't expecting it but I also thought it was pretty cool especially when the Predator vertical limits across a chasm. A vertical limit if you don't know is the description of a person jumping in an extremely bizarre way in an unnatural fashion where they flail their arms like a jackass but it just looks so much cooler. It just looks boss. I'm really trying to make boss a thing. I'm still talking to nobody. Slow motion comes at no surprise when you find out Paul Anderson is at the helm. If Resident Evil has taught us anything he's required by law to have at least three slowdowns in each picture he does. Aliens look like aliens with perhaps too much lip quiver going on but once more nothing is scary. I dug the Xenomorph head shield in Spear though. Flaw Hands vs. Hockey Mask had a pretty decent sound if not inconsistent. It varies between dreamlike to full on rock and roll when Freddy and Jason square off. I don't think it worked well making some cheesy moments that more polarizing. That city of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra mixed with Machine Head is probably the reason for the genre mixes. I don't know why I did that weird accent or even what it is but let's just go with it. Harold Klosser composed an entirely orchestrated score for AVP. It had some weight to it but it can't touch the respected movies that came before. Much like the characters in the film it lacks any sort of real development. The fans of both respected franchises really wanted these movies for a long time. I don't think anybody was too pleased with the outcome. I know I wasn't. Freddy may be the king of haunting your dreams but Alien vs. Predator's script? That's the real nightmare.  Plus as I've stated pointless nudity can do wonders for this type of a picture. Let me know your thoughts though. Vote for the winner and remember this is more than just reviews. This is Movie Feuds. I've also heard that AVP 2 Requiem is better than the first. I tried watching it but it could only make it about 20 minutes in before I wanted to eat my own head off so I can't really make an argument.


haggwyr ydy'r rhan o'r rhan o'r 18 hwnnw. Ychwaith llwy o bwysig ac oedd yn rhan o'r 3 yourself? Mae gennym i ym 18 hwnnw, nid o firmefio a siarad. Mae'n gynoedd i'r gymnydd yng Nghymru. Ac rwy'n rhoi yn gyda'r fiyth yw ond rwy'n eirin, rydyn ni'n yw'r Yngrifennid ym Nesafwyr. Fy bwysig Flŵr yn ei ffordd bynnag. Mae gennym i ymweld. Mae eisiau'r dwy ffrindio ac ar gyfer aheadiau ddau'r celfwyrd, Felly, yn fawr, wedi'i gydag ymddangos chi. A ddim yn llawer y gwaith. Felly, yn fawr, ond... Mae gyd... Felly, nid yw ddim yn fawr yn fawr, ond rwy'n gwybod eich bod nhw'n gwybod. Felly, mae'n gydig yn ei wneud yn fawr sy'n gwybod i'r cyffreddau. Nod, mae eraill eich gyd. Felly, eich gydig, mae'n gilydd yn fawr, ond, mae'n gydig i'r cyffreddau yn y gydig o'i gydig. yn oed o'r wneud, ac mae'r fforddau y weld, y fforddau'n fforddau. Ond rydyn ni wedi gyd gwneud sYE, ond mae'n gwaith i ddau. Fe oedwn ni'n gweithio! Fe oedd amgar o partych. Yn eu bod yn cerddol gwybod o ddain. Rydyn ni'n gweithio'n gwahedwch o'r Gymraethau sydd yn frym iawn. Felly, byddwer o esaf i chi i'ch pwysig sydd. I didn't really get why because I'm not a bodybuilder so you know I wasn't really getting that why whereas with calisthenics I find that it's more move orientated so there's something that I want to be able to achieve so I just work towards that and it's more specific. Tim and Jaco put me through many years of pain as my S&C coaches when I was swimming and then obviously I kind of was hearing about when you were launching the School of Calisthenics and yeah you kind of introduced me to calisthenics and it's something that I've kind of taken with me now into my new sport. Well I had a lot of trouble with shoulder problems so we kind of tried to incorporate that as you know trying to get that shoulder in the right position and taking some load through it and it was something that I was able to do since I was a kid like I used to walk around on my hands at home not really realising what it was doing for me so for me it's all about keeping that posture right, keeping the shoulders in a good set position and I've kind of transferred that now into kayaking. Hugely important and I think like it was no secret when I came back from the world champs in 2015 that that was the real pinnacle of when you and I were doing our sort of mindset work together and I had gone for five years without doing a personal best time and we started working together on on that mindset and that was really what was holding me back from unleashing what physically had been possible for years and then I went to the world championships and during that three-week period I PB'd three times in three weeks and I think that it really is down to getting in that right frame of mind and so for me it became the most important part of my training and that's something that I've kind of tried to take on to my new sport and that positive mindset and kind of negating any distractions from you and your own happiness and your own focus and so I think as I've become older the mindset has become one of the most important parts of my training you know and so I have to work on that as much as I have to work on the skills in the gym and the skills on the water. I loved it and you know it's something that I've really missed since I've been in the canoeing programme you know we've got our own strength and conditioning coaches but I do miss working with you guys and I think you know that you're both very motivating and like I say when you're spending a lot of time doing something trying to learn a new skill you need somebody who's teaching you that who's as passionate as you are about it and as passionate about having fun and being the best that you can be at whatever you're doing and so for me that was really motivating to be around all the time and you know that's what what I wanted out of a strength and conditioning coach you know to to get that element of fun but know that they knew their stuff motivating me and we're having just as much fun as I was so yeah I still follow your videos and try and do some of the slightly more weird and wacky exercises when I can. It's such a massive help really not just to me but also to people I teach because straight away I mean a lot of people think no I can't how on earth am I going to do that and they don't believe that I actually feel like that or I felt like that before I started following you guys and we all really help each other it's such a supportive community and you know positivity oozes every part of the school of california what I really love doing is coming down to knotting them to the to the classes as well again such a family atmosphere it's just an hour of playing and just having fun you know so that's just brilliant you guys the the energy you give like when you speak and you got so much passion for what you're doing that I think it's the community side of it and that you and Tim are just you you kind of give us a big hug your input to everything that you're kind of really passionate about what you do which really kind of helps I mean through Instagram and what have you it's just it's kind of like you're always you can be one to one with somebody if someone's stuck on something it's not like a lot of people on Instagram they maybe have huge follow-ins you know they show calisthenics they teach it or whatever but if you sent them a message they would never they would just ignore you and not get back to you and I think you guys are just like you're really passionate about every single individual that is part of the school of calisthenics which I really like it's just like being part of a family really you've made it such fun for all of us and we all really feel like we're part of something special it's it's a friendship family kind of thing we all have a good laugh and we all support each other along the way we're all very stages in our calisthenics journey so to speak definitely do it because I'm 40 and I only started 18 months ago and before that I didn't really have much of a fitness background either and I have children I have all those pressures but it means I can do it around them and if I can do it then I know anyone can do it


Good morning cybertrenders. Happy Thursday on this August 2nd. Good to see you. Happy Thursday to you Donna Tom Can't good to see you John everybody Jean Grant good to see you Deb. All right Good good good good Norma good to see you Jean. Well guys, it looks great to be back I Tell you just came back from Chicago Regarding what talk about some of the great trades that have been going on especially a lot of action going on this morning with this ESIO with what Wayfair and apron and all of them here. We're gonna check them all out, but Came back from Chicago and let me tell you what a what a clean what a pretty city I'll tell you if you guys get an opportunity great restaurants. I was there for all of you Know I was there for a trade station They have there they had their once a year event there and I met a lot of new new traders I don't be part of the team and let me tell you one thing I learned Being there and I listen I learned something new every day You know as a trader and I tell you there's one of reasons why I love teaching But there are a lot of people out there that are that I met that with traders that are doing a little bit of everything And one thing they really appreciated more than and more than a now understanding what day trading is all about But they realized that they're doing too many things. There was one guy that was there he was talking to and He's still practicing on demo mode at the six months. I'm like I'm like buddy You got it. You got to trade the one-share theory of cyber trade diversity. What's that? That just trade one share just trade one share. What do you have to lose? and so I think I kind of broke his his streak of checking on Because I told him that the IRS is gonna start ordering all the people that are making money on demo mode I think that kind of work, but we're talking about Chicago.  It was really cool really nice And yeah, you know what Ron we can sit there and talk about that all day high taxes and this I agree. I mean listen, it's You know and I feel like in fortunate, you know, fortunately, you know It seems like these towns focus on these one-law areas to make them look so pretty and you're right They probably take care of what's on the outside of the outside of their city and stuff But when you come there, you like you get you're kind of like brainwashed you're like, I don't see the problem You know, but anyway great great thing, but I want to tell you one little funny story. So I was there and and The the staff of trade station came up to me say hey Fausto I loved the the little tweet that you About the hundred dollar milkshake and I'm looking at him and he just totally threw me off guard Actually, you know Ken was actually Asking me about this morning and I'm like, I'm like, how'd you know about the hundred dollar ice cream? He's like, I can't believe I never heard such a thing and And he said the same thing to you and we looked into it He goes, why don't you buy it a thousand dollar ice cream and I'm like, well, let me let me let me hit Let me hit pretty big on a couple of stocks and maybe I will buy a thousand dollar ice cream But they were really impressed about the hundred dollar ice cream at a serendipity that I took so that was pretty cool But listen, I was telling everybody in in the room because it kind of came up and kind of went a little viral And inside the room and I said listen, this is what you was what you train for is what you work for You know, it's okay to spoil yourself once in a while, you know And you always and you know what that will always something that you will remember for the rest of your life You know, it's not like you go in there every day, you know every week or every year Go out there spoil yourself buy a hundred dollar milkshake at serendipity.  So it's pretty cool now on There's just pretty funny how they all knew about it. So I just want to share that with you All right, so anyway, let's get right into see what's going on this morning because there are a couple of things Are making some big moves Listen, they have to watch it was happening yesterday regarding about some of the market movement It's been really really slow. It's summertime. We're in the we're in the thick of things I'll tell you I just stepped out of my house early this morning and it has to be I feel like I'm in in Florida. I feel bad for some of you, but it is humid here in New York. It is hot and You know, it was a Thursday Hell, you might see a lot of people gonna be leaving for this weekend because it was kind of lousy here at the beginning Of the week here in New York with rain and stuff So, you know, I think it could probably be a little bit more it again has some really good action early and then it could get pretty slow but remember I did tell you that last Time but I said Friday is always good because a lot of the assistants leave and we had a great Friday about left Was it last week? But anyway, a couple of good stocks that did move yesterday Even though the feds didn't make any big move. You had Pandora I know some of you guys did really well on that one You could see it had a nice little dead cat bounce where it worked from 850 down to 650 Had a little bit of a nice little bounce right there that one did pretty well So that would that was pretty good the the GD the G DS also I heard you had a great pre-market in that one too that one got crushed on the 75 down to 20 And you know, it was another thing I do want to point out regarding about a lot of people asking me about day trading How to swing trade I told I said listen you want to be a good options trader You want to be a good swing trader you damn well But I know how to day trade because that's what trickles down into a swing trade and you can see just like this one If you didn't see that stock coming boom you bloop your account most have you got a You got a haircut most half of it with a blink of an eye Now what's going on this morning guys? There's a lot of good stocks moving on so every get their pen and paper ready We'll write these things down and remember not all these are gonna make a big moves But some of them will so let's keep an eye on it QTRH Here's a stock that it's got up 41% up a hundred and 68% already Some of you guys already sort early this morning it kind of gapped up a lot from yesterday So we're not really getting that really good volatility in this pre-market But she's got a little bit of a decent spread don't really know too much about it because I think we never we never traded this stock before But you know what she's up a little bit nicely here. She looks like she's testing some resistance levels Right around the April time frame So if it does break it you plus got big support levels back in you know all the way to the beginning of the year But she does break it you could probably see another good 10 20 cents and also follow yesterday's Previous resistance levels one thing that looks very exciting about it. Look at the iceberg orders You got 10,000 chairs that 10,000 3,000. You don't see any of that on the offer So that one looks like it's pretty good next one on the list DXCM All right, so that one great great after hours trading looks like obviously must have been an earnings announcement Boom sock looks really really strong Problem is Do you guys want to risk $117? I mean that was a nice little move But you got to be a level five stock to trade this one, but I'm throwing it out there Just kind of show you you know, he is a stock of 23% You know, but we all see we always trade a lot of 23% stocks like we just saw earlier You're not the risk $117 to do that ES I oh, okay, that was the big one that we're talking all about this morning that one another one big big gap up Lot of earnings announcements coming out guys today. Lot of I mean even what happened yesterday. So a lot of earnings Here's another one gapped up pretty nicely up 18% looks like she's testing the resistance levels right around here You see we're testing these resistance levels. It does break it, you know, then you can see a stock gap up pretty high But yes, I know that little one looks pretty interesting. We'll keep an eye on that one RRGB B All right, so this stock got decimated got really crushed red robin Uh, I'll be honest. I never ate there before so I really can't talk too bad about it I don't know why I got crushed, but you know, obviously earnings were not good Gat got destroyed right there down 10 points Stock has got making a little bit of a comeback The good thing about this one right here is we all know that pharmaceutical stocks don't come back When they get crushed, but these they do come back. I love bottom fishing. So I'm not talking about just a summer flounder. I'm talking about even trading the stock So this one looks like it probably make a little bit of a comeback Use yesterday's resistance levels to kind of justify your resistance looks like it's right around 38 So we're about two bucks away. But remember, this is a probably a four stock a level two or a three or four IHT another one Here's one up 71 percent you guys remember we trade this stock Not too long ago. This one from a buck 60 to 360 Looks like she's playing it again up 75 percent quarter million shares already traded. Look at that spread Look at the look at the iceberg orders 5,500 at 216 4,000 at 240. So it looks like we got some action here This one looks pretty a lot a lot more cheaper and controllable. Okay, some of you also bringing up I know Ben brought this one up Wayfair w had a nice little pop right here Stock got took a little big hit make a little bit of a comeback Just remember you got to be a five trader level five If you're not the guy here that's making that could afford to lose a thousand a day Do not trade this stock. Okay Ferrari what the hell happened do we got crushed on this one on my swing trade and it happens You know what I mean? And but it looks like it's making a little bit of a comeback. I want to keep an eye on it We're at major major support levels. So I'm not selling here, but if it does break here I'm basically where I own it at, you know, so I held it for three months Had a nice little rally now, you know, I gave a lot of my profit away on the swing trade on this one But but I'm going to hold it here. I'm not going to sell it at major support if it does break this support levels I'm out because it's going to go down to 105. All right, so I'm going to keep a very close eye I'm building some good support levels on this one Apron is also moving pretty well Apron keep a close eye on it because apron is going to be looks like it's going to be testing this support levels back in april So um It's keep an eye on that major support levels. We've done really well with apron apron You could trade this stock 22 to 3000 share iceberg order out there on the matrix at 210 Little telltale window right there. So let's keep an eye there. He is on level two. You could see him right there So let's see what happens on that last that last That major support levels and last but not least What what the hell's going on with here, huh? We did really well with h-e-a-r We traded that stock. It was literally what 40 cents Back in what three months ago. Look where it is 28. I would have to say this stock right here Has to be one of the the biggest surprises that I've seen In years. I'm talking like maybe 10 15 years I see we see stocks go this high all the time. I never seen a stock hold stability This long because obviously earnings came out. They did what they did. I knew they blew out of earnings Uh, but this stock my god very very strong stock. Holy cow. Didn't it did not come back down I mean when's the last time you saw a 40 cent stock go and stay at the $20 price range You know for for months. So really congratulations great great company. Yeah, um headphones. It is it's that uh They make those headphones gaming headphones. I think they just signed a contract. They said something like that with uh e-sports or something like that so anyway, uh As a swing trade, I mean it looks pretty strong.  I I probably just more just day trade it more than swing trading it. All right anything I'm missing. I did not call out The teva, you know, we trade that stock so many times teva, you know Lot of volume a little bit more of a brand name stock pharmaceutical stock You got to be a little bit more advanced to trade this one. You got to be really careful on this one vents. All right So what do we got we got one two three four five six seven eight nine stocks That is a lot for a august second, you know, um, but it is hump day because it is thursday anything else i'm missing guys I did not call out Anything else All right, so those are our watch list guys. So um Listen just let everybody know I repeat this all the time not all these stocks are going to move Two or three of them might make their pop some of you already traded pre-market already in them So if you're doing well, hold on to them. You don't want to trade going into the first five minutes Uh, you know five of 15 minutes into the open So now you have to wait for the first five minutes of the open and if we see something we'll put it out there Remember, there's always new ones that come out from from uh From left field. Yes, I will post these pics. Uh, once once the meeting's over. All right All right, everybody. Good luck today and uh, listen happy trading and we'll see you uh for the afternoon meeting All right. Good luck everyone