mean one of the one of the issues that we all know I mean we you know as I say from my point of view I was very pleased that the bid in Cromity Firth and the Cromity bid was successful but we also recognise that there's a huge amount of other investment infrastructure etc needed transport infrastructure and the highlands is not particularly good there's a there'll be a need for housing if people do if these jobs do create and all people do move to the area so I'm just wondering how important that you feel that could be uh very important and you do a short answer I mean and you know clearly the the Highland Council are very closely involved in the bid and involved in that and uh uh you know I think have a track record as I was saying taking forward a lot of initiatives so you know I think that should give us some encouragement uh as uh in the process so uh but it will be important to build uh the infrastructure that people will need to to make these areas a success I agree entirely and you think at the moment um I mean given these the bids that were only recently being successful there's obviously lots of work still to do that governments and I mean UK government Scottish government local government are working together enough on delivering that peripheral infrastructure as well I mean peripheral perhaps but key as well uh I mean there's long-term plans for and development plans and so forth that the Highland are already actively progressing um so uh I do think and obviously there's a related um city regional deal uh processors as well um and I mean I would say for us it's very noticeable that D-LUC for example are very much more on the ground and active around the country than perhaps there were a few years ago okay thank you okay thank you very much that's concluded questions from the committee I just wonder if our witnesses would be happy or if you to ask any further points or make any further points to the committee on something that hasn't been covered so if you feel that we haven't asked anything that you maybe think you would like to mention now is your chance trying to try and reiterate just just a couple points out that maybe I skipped over but that is you know we'd be hoping for direct employment those areas contracts in those areas that have worked you know I think that that's really important for us ensuring that community and local areas are developed alongside of you talked about the house and if people need to move if jobs are displaced how does that affect that local community but one of the key things for us is ensuring that the products or the manufacturing stuff the concrete the steel whatever is done within those free ports it's all manufactured within Scotland and that money and that those areas are built in Scotland so that it becomes a proper economy and it's not just you know selling things off or like what's happening with the wind turbines where we're importing it all from from another country when we could be building them here I just think there's there's a real I just get a feeling on some issues like this that we are you know we're running before we're walking and a lot of stuff there's a massive change coming under you know the just transition what the impact that's going to be environmentally but also productivity manufacturing the things that need to be done and he has an opportunity in our view to get something right at the beginning under free ports to get the right legislation in to make sure the manufacturers done within this country to make sure the jobs are kept here make sure that everything's done reasonably and above board and given a proper boost to the economy not just you know shoehorn shoehorn and things in just because we want to try and create you know a bit of a boost in the economy there's a longer term thought process for for unite when it comes to this and we hope that you take into account the considerations of the wider economy issues that are going to come alongside free ports which in your view is the the just transition agenda which will have a massive impact on free ports but it's going to have the biggest impact on your economy and in any generation in in the past and I hope that our points have been taken on board and thanks very much for your time. I just want to mention skills training and apprenticeships in these communities as well I think it's important to put in place proper facilities in order to create the next generation we're talking about not having the jobs the green jobs what are the green jobs now there were green jobs in mackahanesh which have gone and that was you know that was devastating for that community which we can't have jobs that were there that are now lost we need to make sure there's a future for our young people by making sure that there's skills and training put into the green ports and also robust apprenticeships where there's real training given on renewables in order that we do have a future and it's not going to be something which you know if it's not successful in five years and the people move which we've seen in in other areas that within Scotland when you know organisations come in to a place extract every part of public funding they can get and then leave we can't have that happening we need to leave a legacy we need to make sure that these if they are anything they are they are offering a future especially you know given you know an area like the Cromarty Firth and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland where there's real opportunities there to to get jobs for young people that are sustainable that will stop a movement out of those communities to maybe the central belt but yeah it was just ensuring there's a proper skills training and apprenticeship agenda within the green ports okay thank you and david at just one point on the going back to displacement question i whilst we firmly believe as we said earlier that this we want to see additionality new businesses and in the long term new revenues and so on coming from green free ports not all displacement is necessarily bad if we've got 50 odd thousand jobs in the northeast that you know fossil fuel related and possibly you know facing decline or loss if free ports help to save some of them retain them then i think that element of retention even if it is displacement i'd like to think would be seen positively because it's returning those jobs in scotland rather than losing them elsewhere okay well thank you very much for those final points which are much appreciated and thank you very much for taking the time to give evidence to the committee today we'll continue taking evidence on the draft order next week when we will hear from the minister for public finance planning and community wealth and then take a decision on whether or not to prove the order that concludes the public part of today's meeting the next item on agenda which we'll discuss in private is consideration of our work programme we're now moving to private session so i'll call at five minute break


I'm definitely not saying don't go big, but I'm saying you don't have to go big to have a big influence on a 500 year time scale. So that allows you to trust what is mine to do in that situation. And, you know, perhaps you have a history and gifts and resources that answer the question, what is mine to do in a way? Yeah, I wanna do this big program. Like, you know, I mean, I have my gifts are good with words and I perceive patterns. So I'm a writer and a speaker and that, but that's not because I made some calculation well in order to have a big impact, I better do this. It's just the natural expression of my particular circumstances and gifts. You ask, well, who is the most important person in the history of South Africa? Most people would say it was Nelson Mandela who almost single-handedly it seemed turned a timeline that would have been toward vengeance and bloodshed toward one of peace. And wow, what an incredible human being. Thank God for Nelson Mandela. However, if we ask the story, what is it like to be you? We might discover that the reason that he was able to hold peace through all those decades in prison, and I'm making this up, okay, I actually don't know that much about Nelson Mandela, but maybe it was because of his grandmother who poured so much love into him when he was little that it gave him that inner resource. So maybe the most important person in the history of South Africa was Nelson Mandela's grandmother. So basically what I'm saying here is that Nelson Mandela's grandmother, her circumstances and gifts were perfectly placed to have a big effect. And all she had to do was to step into that gift and say to her, which was motivated by love. So I'm not saying, well, he should have just been a doting father. No, like his circumstances and gifts made him a great leader. We cannot see him as more important than everybody who made him who he was. And so like this teaching really is just to liberate us, to trust what our heart tells us is ours to do.


So we all know that residency interviews are expensive, but today I'm going to give you the tips that helped me save over $2,000 on my interview cycle, but we're going to get to those tips after this intro. All right guys, what is going on? Lux here from the MD journey helping you succeed on your medical journey with a little bit less stress. If you're new to this channel, welcome. My name is Lux. I'm a fourth year medical student applying to internal medicine who just finished his residency interviews, and I've been doing the MD journey for the last two and a half years to help med students and pretty much just like you. So if you enjoy what you hear today, obviously, first of all, give this video a like, subscribe to the channel and join the community. But without further ado, let's get into the video, which is how do you save money on your residency interviews?  And hopefully you can get close to that number as well. Let's get to tip number one, which is using your credit card points. So I mentioned this in my last couple of videos, but there is an amazing credit card. I'm going to pull it out because it's one of my favorites called a Chase Sapphire Preferred card. This is a card that started to get more and more popular around medical students. And usually people hear about it when it's too late. So I want to give you the inside details of how to use this card, be effective. Even if you're averse to using credit cards, this is probably one if you're smart, you can do a lot of damage to your residency costs. So basically the way this card works guys is when you open it, you have to spend at least at this point making this video about $4,000 within three months. And you get 50,000 points to 50,000 points is equivalent to about two to three round trip tickets. So that's a pretty good deal at the start of it. Now the $4,000 may be sticking a couple of you guys. So this is basically how you would do it. If your school doesn't charge a fee to pay your tuition with credit cards, then definitely use this card.  So I got one right now. This is December. I'm going to get or I'm not going to get one because I'm about to graduate. But usually I get one in the spring. So before my financial aid comes into my bank account and pays off my tuition, I pay the tuition bill with my credit card first. And then my financial aid hits and I pay my credit card bill with my financial aid. So I get, you know, right now my Texas about every semester is about $10,000 for me. Texas is pretty affordable in terms of med school. So it's $10,000. That's 10,000 points. Now, if you multiply that amongst eight semesters, four years of med school, that is 80,000 points. And so again, that's equivalent of another three to four flights that you can go on. Each flight is about equivalent of $300 to $400. So you can see how this starts to rack up. So if you are, you know, worried about spending $4,000, most med students don't have a problem because of rent and whatnot. Just do it when your tuition comes out. Other things you can do like I mentioned, you can just put your rent on your credit card if your apartment or your condo house doesn't charge you a fee for paying rent with a credit card. If it does, there are some online resources. Go ahead and see how you can work with your landlord potentially on paying with credit cards through like that third party app, which doesn't charge you a fee like your credit cards may, but then you still get the points.  Each month I'm adding anywhere from two to 3000 points every semester. I'm adding another 10,000. And these are, these are purchases I would have made with card lids. These aren't things that I'm going on my way to buy for the sake of points. But you know, this is basically accumulating over time. And by the end of, you know, about two and a half, three years of using this card, I had anywhere from basically 200,000 points, which is a lot of flights. Each of these flights is around 300 or $400. And I went on all of them without paying a single dime out of my pocket. So using this card is amazing. Also, if you're somebody that likes to travel, just in general, you get twice the number of points. So if you get a rental car for your residency interviews, or some for something else, you know, you get double the points on the card. If you go out to eat, you know, I love using this card when I go out to eat or grabbing Starbucks or something of that sort, because it's twice the points. It starts to add up. But again, I don't go out of my way to make any purchases that I normally wouldn't, but this card is a great resource. So start early. If you're first or second year med student, grab the card if your credit is good enough and start putting on things without charging yourself any fees and accumulating some credit card points.  Oh, actually a lot of jokes. So try to use credit card points to help you on your residency costs. So getting into tip number two, which is be very careful on the amount of interviews and applications that you fill out. So the average interview or average residency cost for somebody applying individually is about $4,000. And couples matching is about almost $8,000. And most people will probably go above those of those numbers because students have a tendency of overcompensating. They want to apply to more programs to be safe. And I get it, you know, you don't want to not match into a residency program. So the first step is talking to an advisor, making sure your advice is just giving good advice.  Even if you're a struggling applicant, you're probably are going to be just fine with a number much less than that. But after that phase, once you apply, when you're choosing your residency interviews, you know, if you can avoid going to an interview, if you know for sure you don't want to end up at this program, and you just have a ton of safety programs, those are adding hundreds of costs every time you're going, just for something that's not even a second option. So I know peers now who have finished the residency process, and they know there are places that they have interviews for, but I have no intention of going to, yet they're still going to be forking up hundreds of dollars just to go sit down for, you know, two 30 minute interviews. I personally don't think it's worth it. It's not worth the time of the residency program as well.  Consider yourself as a potential resident there. And if you don't like that thought, then probably don't apply. You know, it's good to have safety schools, but at the same time, you just don't want to go overboard on that number. So be careful on the number of interviews you apply to. So tip number three, and kind of on that point, is be careful on where you apply to.  But if you know for sure that you don't have any intention of really living in any of those areas, all those places I just mentioned, California, New York and Florida, I didn't apply to that. I didn't apply to the programs there because I knew for myself and my fiance, this was not like the future destination that we wanted to end up in. It's just not the city or the location that was ideal for us. And so I didn't apply. I saved a ton of money. There's great programs at each of those states and locations. But at the same time, you can save a lot of money if you are realistic with yourself and think, okay, would I really go here? Would I be happy? Or am I just playing applying for the sake of a name school or a reputation? So just be careful in addition to how many you apply to, to where you're applying. So tip number four, this is getting on a little bit more of a micro detail, but I realized how expensive Uber's and Lyfts were when you pay full price because I've never taken one prior to residency interviews at drive-air work. But I had to from airport to airport. So my tip for you is if you can avoid taking Uber's Lyft, if you're staying at a hotel, for example, see if your hotel has a transportation that are shuttles. For, you know, if you are going to use Uber or Lyft, I recommend looking to see if they have promo codes. Just, you know, the first two rides free, maybe creating a separate email account, something of that sort to where you can get a first, you know, first couple of rides free, which will start to add up over time from a hotel to hotel from airport to airport. So use promo codes when you can sign up with a different email for maybe just your residency cycle. And if at all possible, avoid driving, see if a period in the city can give you some transportation or just see if your hotel can provide you some free shuttle. But, you know, the cost of travel, I think I kept less than maybe $150 not includes gas because I only paid for rental cars so many times and I use those other free options when I could. So Uber's Lyft promo codes or shuttle. So make sure you are smart about your transportation. So tip number five is avoiding buying a brand new outfit. Now I totally get it. It's our new, you know, first job interview and we want to look good doing it. And so we may not mind for working up the money, but if you do have a suit that fits you, you know, ladies, you have something that still fits you, that's professional, keep to it. You know, you can save yourself a couple of hundreds of dollars and if anything spends the money on like accessories. So, you know, dress shirts, ties are good things to spice up an old outfit. I go to Ross here in the United States because they have some great quality things for a lot cheaper than going to, you know, some of the name brand stores. So if you do need something, you know, try to minimize it as possible. But if you have the main gear, the suit, the slacks, the dress shoes, unless they're in really bad condition and I need you to be critical on if they're actually bad, save yourself a couple hundred dollars on avoiding buying a brand new outfit. So tip number six is seeing if you can stay with family and friends versus staying at hotels. So I'm going to touch the hotels after the second, but families and friends are huge. I applied in areas that did have family and friends. I mean, that was kind of a priority for me to at least know somebody in this new city. I just didn't want to go somewhere completely new. So luckily I had a friend I could crash on the couch or their guest room or I had a family member who'd be willing to let me stay. And I did that for a majority of my interviews. And I know that that may not be possible on every single one of your interviews for all of you guys. But when you can, you know, hotel seems convenient. But again, they all add hundreds of dollars of cost. So avoid it when you can. Now going on to hotels, the situations when you do residency interviews, if they're a good one will usually send you a PDF of maybe some like potential hotel sites for you to choose and they usually have a discount rate. Most students will just pick one of those hotels that's the cheapest, but I encourage you to look around. What I found is that most hotels will give you or most residency programs will give you a hotel rate that's anywhere from 90 to 100 dollars. They're good hotels. But if I looked carefully, I would find, for example, when I went to Baltimore in one of my interviews, I found the hotel for $55. So you can get a decent hotel close buys here at your location that maybe doesn't have a discount rate, but it's actually cheaper. So if you do need stay hotels, make sure you do that you do diligence versus just buying the hotel that the program provides you and wrapping up my tips guys. So make sure you try to cluster your interviews. If you are applying geographically in many different areas, seeing if you can schedule your interviews together. A simple way to do it is, you know, if you get multiple interviews, obviously first try to reschedule them yourself individually to if you haven't heard from program and you know you want to really go there and you also have an interview near five, you know, without being obnoxious, it's okay to majority of the time send an email to the program director program coordinator saying that you'll be in the area and you hope that they'll consider you for maybe an interview in that time frame. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. But at the same time, you know, it's worse putting that email out there while without being obnoxious to save yourself a couple of hundreds of dollars of having to do several round trips. So cluster your interviews whenever possible. It's going to save you a ton of money. But guys, those were my main tips on how to save money on your residency interviews, doing things like the credit card obviously by itself saved me, you know, several hundreds of dollars, probably thousands actually, but then adding all the things that just hang with friends, making sure that I'm clustering my interviews, using Lyft and Uber vary strategically and things such as not buying a new suit, you know, all of that equivalent to over $2,000. Honestly, I would say close to $3,000 during my residency cycle. So hopefully these tips help you. If you guys have any more questions that are more particular to you, obviously comment down below and I'd be happy to help you either personally or make another video. But as always, if you did enjoy this video, make sure you give us a video like, subscribe to the channel, and join the community of the MD journey.com. If you do want more resources to help you on your medical journey, check out the link down below with plenty of new resources, blog posts, videos that I can point to you for free to help you on your medical journey. So check out the MD journey.com in the link down in the description. But as always, I'm going to stop battling like I do it always at the end of the videos and I will see you guys in the next one. Take care guys.


What's up everybody, Jason here for jaspyskatesprac.com. This helps sell out the last six teams in Bowman's Sterling Pikachu number one with this 2023 Bowman's Sterling mini box break number one. Now again guys, first we're gonna do the break. We're gonna randomize the names, teams, and distribute the hits out of the one little mini box break. Then at the end, we're gonna randomize the original list, including the winners. Since we're getting away four free spots. And at top six, get a team and the break, and the Cardinals were the most expensive at 200 guys. Giant's down to 50, Cardinals 200. Pogs are over 100 as well. And again, we're gonna randomize the names first really quick to see who gets the last four spots in the break, and then we're gonna double up your names because it is a two-man team break and then we'll get that break going. So here we go. Giant's rolling here, five into six, 11 times. Top four, get a free extra spot. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, and 11. Boom, 11, 11, top four. Michael All, Michael All, Miranda, and Michael All. Look at that. So you want her to continue that, carry that luck? Well, there you go, it's carrying over. So extra free spots for you four, but it's really only you two. There you go. Now I'm gonna keep this list for later. And now let's randomize 11 times to the names and teams. Oops, sorry, not that one. Let's do it again real quick. I have to double them up. One, two, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11. Jeremy Port, Donald Michael. Now let's go 11 times here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11. All right, of course, no trading, but I'll let you quickly see your teams.  So there's your names and teams there. I'm gonna give you guys like 15, 20 seconds. There you go. I'm gonna rip open this box. Give you guys a little preview of what you guys can potentially get out of there. Now there's gonna be five mini boxes in here. One, two, three, four, five. If I roll a six, we'll redo it again. Five, just for this one here. One, two, three, four, five. We're gonna go with this box. The next ones will be for future fillers. And there you go. Look at that, we got a gold. Gold coming up. Isiko Tovar Rookie, Gary Mitchell Rookie, Cartaya, Spencer Jones, Johnathan Mejia, and St. Louis, Johnathan Mejia to 50. Nice, that's a good prospect there for the Cardinals. St. Louis Cardinals on the pack filler here. Miranda, there you go, that was your free spot. Very nice.  Now let's switch scenes and let's do the main giveaway now. So there you go. Remember, top six, get a team, guys. Roll it. It's a full 12, of course you guys wanna, of course this round over wasn't gonna do all 12. Yeah, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. Boom, 12 times, 12 times, boom. Poppy at the top, but remember the top six do get a team. Poppy down to Alan Murdoch. Congrats guys. Unfortunately, Sportport down to Poppy up there. You guys did not get in. Thanks for giving it a shot. But Poppy, you got the $200 Cardinals. Look at that. Michael, L, you got the powders who were 130 and the Royals and the twins who were both $90. Man, Jesus Christ, you came out right there. And then Stephen Kendrick and yourself to Marlins and Alan Murdoch to Giants. That pays for the spot right there. So there you guys go. So appreciate it guys. Now coming up in the next break is the break itself. Thank you guys.


Mostly, Sterling now is used for military forces or for IT Army. But yes, in all other regions, everything is OK. So with internet connections, we have now problems in Western Ukraine and somehow also in Central Ukraine. But I also know that Sterling really helps because my friend who is now at military forces, he like, called me several days ago and we chat with him and he said that, yes, it's like starting to be possible because they already have Sterling. But before that, like, it wasn't connection with him like during the week.


You know, this video doesn't really have the same budget as the show that I'm going to be talking about. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of A Week in Geekdom. Today, I am reviewing Millionaire Detective Balance Unlimited. I made a first impressions video back in early 2020, but finally here we are with the actual series review. Regardless, we're here to talk about Daisuke Kame, and how much of a good time I had watching this series. Seriously, this was a blast. In Millionaire Detective Balance Unlimited, we follow Daisuke Kame, a detective with an extreme amount of wealth, and he is assigned to the Modern Crime Prevention Headquarters. A place for officers who have caused problems for the Metropolitan Police Department in Japan, and over there, Daisuke is assigned to our second main protagonist, Haru Koto.  As the story quickly unfolds, there are several mysteries regarding the backstory of Daisuke Kame, and how the two main characters have to set aside their different personalities to work together to solve these crimes that could spell disaster for every citizen in Japan and maybe the world. This is a series that is both detective in nature, but mystery, and a little bit of comedy thrown in for good measure. It is produced by Cloverworks and directed by Tomohiko Ito. And if memory serves you right, it is inspired by a series of novels by the same name of the Millionaire Detective, written by Yasutaka Tsutsui. So I gave you sort of what this series is about. At first, when you start watching Millionaire Detective, it's a very fun show, and I pointed that out in my first impressions video back in April, that the series knows its subject matter. It knows that it is going to have fun by throwing these characters, this buddy dynamic that shouldn't work, but somehow these two guys make it work. You have Kame who has been raised in a privileged household, although there have been certain events and tragedies that unfolded in that character's backstory. And on the other opposite side, you have Kato who is much more humble, being a poor man's comp, basically. However, he was a stellar detective at one point, but due to an incident in one of the cases where he had to shoot and kill a person, it deeply affected him, and as a result, he had to resign and is also part of the modern crime prevention headquarters. Now the two characters butt heads because of their different personalities and style, Kato is obviously much more traditional when it comes to police work, and Kame is more flamboyant and exuberant in his, you know, police dealings. Now, the other thing to note here is that in my first impressions video, I mentioned how Kame's personality was sort of like the Playboy Bruce Wayne type persona, but solving crimes in Japan, it's in there, but there's more to it. I failed to recognize that the character's a little bit more than that. Yes, he does present that towards the criminals and the rest of the police force and even the audience, but there's a little bit more intelligence there and a friend of mine reminded me that, hey, this character is very similar in style to, say, Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes adaptation. So it's that type of character that does things in unorthodox ways where you're shocked, but it makes sense and you root for him in his unconventional methods of solving crime. And the first couple of episodes, this is only 11 episodes. I would say the first five are fairly standard. At the beginning, you get a solid introduction to the characters. You see the dynamic and how they're going to butt heads as they solve different crimes from robbery to different political intrigue stuff. And as the series progresses, the case that they're involved in becomes much more complex as it relates to Kame's family who's this wealthy, famous family in Japan that's developed, they're full of scientists and they've developed technology for the government and military and all that stuff. One of their items is a key part of the whole plot of the series and it relates as well to Kame's past with his family. So he has a personal stake in all of this and it keeps evolving in a very cool badass way. This is a very fun, intriguing, action-packed show. The art by Cloverworks is fantastic. You know, they've done stuff like Promised Neverland in the past. So you're getting quality material. The character designs are very nice to look at. I remember Kame was trending on Twitter when the series debuted it. Everybody was fascinated by him and it has that style and gusto. The series knows how to pull off the heist elements and the detective work, but also some comedic episodes. I remember the one where they're helping this kid who lost their pet. So you have Kame and Koto working together in a much simpler setting and not dealing with spies and political intrigue and shootouts and all that stuff. So you get a healthy balance of the two. Obviously, after episode five, the drama and plot really kick in and you get a much better story throughout and I think you will be satisfied. It is fairly simple to execute. There's a lot of plot twists that go around and an intriguing mystery, but it doesn't confuse its audience. It treats you with respect and it doesn't spoon feed you all the info. So it keeps you guessing episode to episode as to how they're going to unravel the mystery, how they're going to solve the crime and catch the bad guys. Obviously, to note is the relationship between the two main characters and how they start bonding over time, even though Kame, you know, he doesn't necessarily agree with everything Kato is saying and vice versa. It's still really fun. Obviously, the other aspect is the James Bond type scenario with Kame having the unlimited budget. It allows him to access his super computer. Think Alfred meets Jarvis from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, stuff like that where he's able to unleash huge amounts of money and solve things that would otherwise drag police work down by weeks or months, you know, getting clearance to do certain things and having access to equipment and weapons, stuff like that. And that sci-fi element really spices up the drama and makes you root for the characters and stay intrigued with the show as the plot moves forward. Like I mentioned earlier, the characters and art and background work and everything regarding to the visuals of the show is spot on really badass and clean looking. I love the character designs. I'm a big fan of Cloverworks and I think they knocked it out of the park. Actually, Kudo's to one of the background characters of the series, she's not often seen in the plot, but that is, and I'm reading the name here because I'm totally forgetting on her name, Saeki Mahoto, the only woman on the task force. She provides mostly comedic relief, but she is hilarious. I love that character. And if there's ever a season two, because there is more material, this is based off a series of novels, I hope they get back together and they show all the cast again because I want to see more of her because she was really awesome and funny. But yeah, definitely if you like your political intrigues or your spy action dramas with a little comedic tone to it and if you want that whole super heroics but based off the real world with actual policemen doing and solving international crimes and all that stuff, you're gonna have a fun kick-ass time with millionaire detective balance unlimited. I happen to like it. What about you guys? What did you think of the series if you've watched it? If not, let me know what are some of your favorite politically inspired anime? And by that, I mean the political drama, not the actual politics when it comes to anime and manga. Very interested in checking that out. Very interested in finding out. Guys, as always, thank you so much for liking, commenting, subscribing. If you're new here, please consider subscribing. I do content like this where I go over anime, manga and even some comics here and there. So thank you once again, everybody. I've got to go. I will catch all of you on our next episode.


Ron Handelman. He's an EMP expert. He's a member of the EMP Guard, EMP Special Interest Group, and FBI Partnership with Private Sector. A member of St. Louis FBI Citizens Academy Alumni Association. A member of M-PAC America. A member Manchester Misery Community Emergency Response Team. And an Oathkeeper pledging to defend the Constitution against all enemies for domestic. And I was hoping the fact that the FBI and all that wouldn't scare people away because, you know, we're all here on the same side trying to prepare in case anything would happen. But anyway, welcome, Ron Handelman. Thank you. I'm going to pass some handouts here that I'm going to be referring to to put out my presentation. Good one. No. Well, I'm Ron Handelman. I actually am a resident out here. I'm a bar from here about a mile and a half. I've been an Oathkeeper for a little over a year. I firmly believe in defending our Constitution against all enemies for domestic and to support the ten rules of not obeying various orders, as you know. So my background, I'll give you a little information here. By day, I am a professional registered investment advisor and corporate retirement plan specialist with a major banking, investment banking group in the country. And by evening, I assist a couple of task force groups that assist the FBI in monitoring threats to our infrastructure for the country. I got involved with the St. Louis Citizens Academy in 2007. And that organization is basically there, comprised of leaders in the community that assist and support the mission of the FBI. Some of the things we've done is fingerprinting children, providing ID kits, and assisting the FBI in some of their projects and events. Through the Citizens Academy, I got involved with InfraGuard, which is a alliance with the corporate sector and the FBI to help share information and intelligence that helps protect our nation's infrastructure. There's about 14 or 18 different categories, including where I'm mainly connected with is the banking and finance area. So assisting with cyber information, cyber attack, cyber crime, areas like that is where we've helped the banking area with monitoring these kind of threats. And the nation stands, the water supplies, the medical, the agriculture, all these areas need to be defended. And there are a lot of folks that devote their personal time and try to help share information. And I got involved with the electrical power grid, I guess, by my interest in looking at various reports about what an EMP is and what damage it can cause. How many here are familiar with electromagnetic pulse? The word has gotten out because I can tell you back in 2007, 2008, 95% of the country, no idea about what an EMP is. How many realize what kind of damage can be done from electromagnetic pulse? So I'm not going to be giving you a lot of new information on the threat, but basically there's two ways that our power grid can be taken down, which we would not want. Because if that happened, we would be instantly back in the pioneer days. Nothing can run without power, and we would be a huge mass of death if we were out of power for months or even beyond that. So the EMP commission was formed in 2001. I've met several of these people, they're very, very well known experts. Bill Graham, who was the chairman of the EMP commission, formed and got a group of which Dr. Peter Pry, who put this presentation, I'll give you some background on, put this together to get the word out on what an EMP threat is and what it can do to our power grid and our way of life. The commission reported to Congress in 2008, and through that report, which you can get online, they summarize the threat, the expense, all the damage it would be caused if our power grid was brought down. Through other reports, I've just seen studies about the impact of electromagnetic pulse on the area of Richmond, Virginia, Washington DC. That 500 mile radius that would encompass a huge amount of, we're talking billions of dollars of damage if an EMP were set off in that eastern area, the mass of death. So groups of people got together and started promoting the education, especially with our politicians about the threat of EMP and the damage that it can be done. The special interest group that I joined with InfraGuard had a lot of help from Dr. Peter Benson Pry and a lot of other contacts that he knows that went formerly with the NSA and the CIA. So we have tried for five years to pass legislation through Congress to get laws enacted that would bring our electric power companies together and get our grid protected with surge arrest or surge protection and the way to do that. So what we're trying to bring out is what are we doing about this because the threat is real. It is a clear and present danger. The laws that we've tried to have passed starting in 2010, the grid act was brought out. The House of Representatives unanimously passed that legislation which would have funded the power companies and helped get a plan in place to get all the necessary backup equipment and plans to bring emergency preparedness and be able to withstand an EMP attack. The grid act narrowly passed, narrowly was not passed in 2010. One sitting senator did not pass that bill. Had that senator passed the bill we would be perfectly fine right now. We would have things in place that would have our grid protected. The following year in 2011 the grid act failed again and then the shield act was put together to try to cover some of the areas that the grid act was missing especially again focusing on funding with government funds. The shield act, same thing passed by the House and did not pass the Senate twice. So there's four attempts where legislation was not put in place. And then finally last year the critical infrastructure protection act, CEPRA, passed the House, did not pass the Senate. So it is on the national level. Our congressmen and senators have failed us. We're not getting anywhere to bring protection to the grid. So with that Dr. Pry put together this initiative to run by the states. And he is besides the director of the task force on national and homely insecurity, he's also served with the House Armed Services Committee and CIA. But he has put together a very I think excellent white paper that I presented to Governor Nixon which has fallen on deaf ears. Over a year ago I presented this and showed what other states are doing. The state of Maine for instance, they did pass resolutions and bills to protect their state, their own electric grid against the EMP threat. So Maine, Arizona, Virginia, Florida have all taken the initiative to do something on the state level rather than waiting for the national level. So in this paper he does outline what the threat is. Now an electromagnetic pulse can occur from a severe geomagnetic storm. Disruption comes into our atmosphere and disrupts our electric transmission systems and anything connected to the grid. On page five of this handout, he points out that on July the 22nd, we had a narrow miss of a super storm that came through, narrowly missed. It would have been on the same magnitude as what happened in 1859. We had the Carrington event. This was a massive carotid ejection that was observed by English astronomer Richard Carrington and they recorded this event which ended up, it was three electrical days of course, but this solar storm that came through Europe and the United States was so powerful that it did fry the telegraph equipment on the other ends and electrocuted and started fires. So there was damage that was recorded. And this miss that came through in July of 2012 could have been on that same scale. But luckily it did not pass through. Quebec had a power outage in March of 1989 from a solar flare that came through. They were out of power for nine months or excuse me nine hours and then followed in August of 89, the Toronto Stock Exchange was closed and trading halted because of another solar flare that came through. So you have the natural geomagnetic storms and then the other way is of course from a high altitude nuclear detonation. Now we know of course Russia and China have this capability of launching missiles over directly Central United States and causing an EMP attack. Don't discount North Korea and Iran because both of those countries do have access to nuclear warheads. I don't care what anybody says, Iran does. They would not launch an attack like Russia or China would. It would be by surprise and there's two ways they could easily do this.  And I've seen threats, plans of 10 simultaneous launches, five on each coast, two down in the Gulf that could actually go undetected. We have no defense against vertical launches. And if you set 10 of these off at one time, it would collapse the entire grid. So that's one way that could be done from just launching from a cargo ship. Iran has already demonstrated their capability of launching missiles off of cargo ships. And of course North Korea, they have their submarine fleets that could do that as well. There is also another stealthy way that missiles could be smuggled into the United States and that's through the Russia Club K missile container system. Has anybody heard of that? Freight containers for missile silos built inside these things. We don't inspect every container that comes into the country. China is in charge of one of our ports over in California. So this is a very easy way that nuclear warheads could be smuggled in just through containers, shipping containers. But you can Google that. I think Dr. Pryde points that out as well. The other thing too that is a danger is that Iran and North Korea both have satellites orbiting over our country right now. On page 6, Dr. Pryde shows the orbital passes of a North Korean KMS 3-2 satellite to April 2013. And you can see these passes that come through the eastern part of the country. Who's to say that one of these is not armed with a nuclear device?  Iran launched satellites. They've got two up there and so does North Korea. On page 7, there is the EMP threat by sea cargo ship. Actually, North Korea did have a couple of missiles smuggled under tons of sugar. This happened in July 2013 down in Panama. North Korea's freighter Chong Chong Gang carried two nuclear-capable missiles on launchers. And they were uncovered coming through the Panama Canal. Besides the EMP through nuclear detonation as a threat, you've also got physical sabotage and you have cyber. The sabotage was cited here. In April of 2013 there was a commando-style sniper group that actually attacked the Metcalf in San Jose, California, a transformer substation. And I don't know if any of you remember that, but a small team did know exactly what they were doing. And they hit cable equipment that knocked out the power in that area in the Silicon Valley. Of course, we had terrorists blacking out Yemen in June 2014, attacking nine transformer substations. On page 10, this is the altitude diagram that will give you an idea how high up a high altitude detonation would be to cause the damage we're talking about. But if you're over Central United States and up 30 kilometers, which is about a little over 18 miles up high, you would hit that circle area and knock out the grid in that area by a detonation of 18 miles. So the higher up you go, the more line of sight, the more coverages is felt. So the entire country where you're at 300 kilometers high, 186 miles, this is again the capability of Russia and China. The first strike could knock our grid out. But again, remember, North Korea and Iran have satellites orbiting right over our country. They come from the south. We have no missile defense system to protect against southern incoming. It's all northern is where the territory is covered for any incoming missiles, not from the south. So basically, you know, what are we doing about this threat? Besides, yeah, exactly, the Congress is doing nothing. However, it takes us to constantly holler at our congressman. I do this all the time. I just get on their website and I go to their contact page and I let them see every EMP article that I come up with. I've also communicated with the St. Louis County Emergency Management Agency commissioners and the St. Louis City. They all know about the threat. They all don't know or don't have a plan in place to deal with it if we were ever hit with an extended power outage. I cannot get meetings with Amory. Does anybody have any contacts with the emergency area? They won't tell me. They will not confirm that they are protecting our power grid here in Missouri. Cyber, yes. They have all these cyber plans in place and they have that covered. But they do not have anything covered for an EMP event. Pardon me? I have not. So, it's a matter of, again, picking up the phone, getting on the internet. Now, the senators in the House of Representatives of Congressmen, they're pretty easy to get a hold of by internet. You just put in their last name, dot house or senate dot gov. You go right to their website, you go to their contact page, and there you can fill out the form and send them. I send them all sorts of stuff, clips, articles, and I make my own letters up. They get it. I mean, I've gotten responses back. Some I didn't like, but they still do see me. So, the more people that do this, you've got to keep that wheel squeaky. So, it's folks like Dr. Pry and volunteer task force groups. We're all here to try to get something accomplished, and that's to get our grid protected. It takes a little money, but if Ameren had to pass or any electric company had to pass on a one-time surcharge, $5 per year per family one-time boom. It's only a $2 billion, I say $2 billion, not trillion, $2 billion fix for the entire country. $300 million for the main 300 transformers to get grid outfitted with surge arrest or protection. These transformers are made overseas, and it takes two years to build, so that's one of the problems. So, they've got to gear up for extra equipment on hand and parts, because if they try to put one of these stations together, it's a two-year project. If we got things going right now in place to get everything going, to bring our power companies together, it would still take two years to get this done. And like Peter Pry's committee, we're running out of time, because it is a matter of time before something is going to happen. We're running together as in on the same page, not to make one big jack-o'-lantern. Yep. The, what I was going to say, I'm sorry, I'm under the weather. I'm at the end of this two-week cold I've had coughing and blowing my nose, so just trying to remember all of my points I want to make. But you can feel free and read through this and get a lot of information of what the threat is, examples. We've been laid out very nicely and what other states are doing about it. As I said, Maine is going to be the, that was the first state to take any initiative to protect their own state. The city of Elma, New York, it's outside of Buffalo. This is where Impact America was formed from a businessman that owns a food company there. But he has actually gotten their town completely off the grid.  They all take classes on how to can, how to form, how to grow, how to defend themselves. This is probably the most protected city in the country against any kind of natural disaster. Which one was that? Elma, New York. Henry Schwartz is the individual, by the way, a lot of the information I have gotten came from an organization called Impact America. And that was formed and started by Henry Schwartz. And then he knows a lot of high-up people in the government agencies. And he recruited folks like Dr. Pry to put together information on educating everybody about EMP. And if you go to impactamerica.com now, behind tab two, I have just a little page on their mission. There are a lot of videos and reports that you can pull off of that website that explain the EMP threat and what people are doing to help get our group protected. Yes. On a smaller scale, as individuals, what can we do to protect our electronics and our batteries and our vehicles? I have heard they use a microwave to stick things inside an old microwave that will protect the laptop's batteries and car batteries or whatever. Well, a Faraday cage is a term you've probably heard of, and they're quite easy to make. A real simple, inexpensive makeshift one is you get an aluminum trash can and you put a plastic liner in, keep the lid very tightly sealed, but you can put things inside that trash can. That will help shield against EMP. Microwave oven is another good source. You can put your cell phones or laptops or anything in a microwave and that will shield. Should those be grounded or not? I've heard both. I've heard both. I've heard some, though. What do you say? Are you going to ground yours? Mine is not grounded. So what is not grounded? My Faraday cage. Is there sufficient warning time to get stuff like that in time? Okay, if we have a solar flare eruption coming from the sun, three days is what they say we'll have a heads up. Did we get any warning about what came through just in July of 2012? No, none. Zero. Perfect. So, yeah, first, a lot of people heard that. We got no nothing from the government. Now, Missouri, the state of Missouri, state emergency management agency, claims that they would notify our city of St. Louis and county emergency management officials. Well, they never heard anything about that potential threat that came through. How will this affect our automobiles like both short term and long term? Well, the EMP emitted from a solar flare is less damaging, not as severe as a nuclear detonation.  If your car is not or parked under a garage, you might be okay. But if you're actually in traffic, that's where I've seen everything stops. And it's permanent or permanent? It'll be fried. It's been hit and miss. Some of the studies show that the cars were rendered useless, but after several hours could actually start the ignition. So we don't know. So we don't know. Well, I was involved for a couple of years, weekly conference calls with these high experts, including Bill Graham, or not Bill Graham, and Bob Forston. He wrote that book giving an idea of what could happen after our country's hit with an EMP. And he's very interesting to listen to. He's got a good website that gives a lot of emergency preparedness tips. You ask, what can we do? That's one thing I would definitely be doing is preparing. Like you would for any disaster. You've got to have your emergency preparedness kits together. I've got one in all of our cars.  It's really all you can do. And try to be able to survive long enough until help comes from the outside. And that's what I would not be counting on. So besides trying to get this fixed, it's have a backup plan B is all we can do. Yep. Sorry. Go ahead. We're talking about nationally search protectors. So in practical purpose, we're going to be using our computers and our cell phones and we're not going to be putting them in a certain age or a microwave or whatever. But like our home, is there search protection or things that we can do for our home that would be individual level versus citywide level of protection?  And you're not going to know when that's going to be. So you can go off grid. There's some very expensive systems that will run your home off the electric grid. But I don't know, those systems still have electrical components and they still have to tap into a source of electricity. And that's what could be fried. Let me get this gentleman in the back. Yes, John. I don't know as much about EMPs probably as you do. I don't think the risk is for your battery. It's more for the electronic, the radio itself. Yes. So if you've got a nice big long wire antenna in the air, which we like to use for hand radio for long distance, and it's connected, your hand radio itself is electronic and at risk. You could have a spare on an EMP hand. How about the repeaters? Right. Some of those are backed up with generators and such, but one of the reasons we try as a group to practice simplex, which means radio to radio, with no repeaters is because they could likely go away too. So if you're relying only on you and your friends and neighbors and others, and they have battery powered hand radio, solar maybe, charging up the battery, that's a good way to go. So you recommend unplugging the antenna when you're not using it? Yeah, and that's good for lightning protection too. And they make some fancy surge protectors and such, but it would be even better to disconnect them when you're not using them. And if you could have two and have one of them tucked away in a Faraday cage, that would be even better yet. So then EMP is somewhat selective then. He says it won't hit the batteries, but it will hit the system. I mean is that so, will it target transformers and that sort of thing more than it would the system? It will target anything within a line of sight of where that detonation takes place. And it just disrupts anything that's connected electrically to the grid. Now, the batteries I'm not sure about. That's receiving power. Yes. So if something's unplugged and then the other two. Right, that's what I understand. Yes, sir. You said you had three days on the solar. When they see this coronal mass. You've got seconds, right? Exactly. If you know, you don't have any advanced warning on that. Once that vertical launch takes place, and I'm talking about a simple submarine or cargo ship, you have no notice. They don't have any way to bring that down. And it's too late at that time anyway. I have another question. I've noticed the upgrading of a lot of our emergency management systems. They went to vocal warning systems versus just a siren. Are they ready? Are they, are they vulnerable to the same thing? Well, the, I mean the systems are connected to power. So if this, this, this surge, it comes through. It's a nanosecond. It's so quick, you can't stop it. And it goes through. It travels through any lines that are out there, electrical lines above or below ground. And there just is no warning. There's no way. And yeah, that would be affected. They would not be able to transmit if, if, I know it's all kind of unified now. Yeah. I mean, those are, those are storm warning systems. They're for tornadoes and hurricanes and that sort of thing. It's not made to withstand any MP attack. Yes. Are there some kind of myths that people believe that you would like to point out? Myths? There's basically misconceptions about the MPs. So the, I think there, there, there was, I'd say again, this education process was started seven years ago. And more and more people are aware. The problem we've had is the politicians believing that an EMP won't happen. Very small likelihood that we would have that happen as an event. That's one myth. Because that's wrong. It can happen now. It can happen twice a month. Yeah. Yeah. So other than that, not believing that it can happen. So nothing else, nothing like misconceptions about how to keep things safe, really? Well, there's, there might be misconceptions on the, on the amount of damage, like what things will get fried and what things won't. But as a general rule, anything that's unplugged and off and not connected, it won't be damaged.  They're going up the towers. I mean, they're going to zap the towers up if it's a cell phone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. So if you were to prep for an EMP, what would be some of the best things that we recommend that we have on hand? What do we double up on? Yeah. Just save. Well. Besides food and water and everything. Yeah. You got. The main, main things you may want to have. Besides the normal prepper stuff.  Think of anything that you can use.  So what would be the size of the generic prepper stuff? I mean, is there electronics like having a second ham radio that's unplugged in a ferrida cage? Well, the ham radio is that I am interested in learning how to use ham radio and what that's all about. I bought the book and I'm looking through it and I'm going, oh boy, what are ohms doing here? I'm not, I'm not a technical guy, but I do see that having chains of communication is going to be, that's going to be paramount if we have an event like that happen, you're going to need to communicate somehow with somebody on what's going on out there. Even if we don't need to, it's nice to know if you can talk to the guy in the next city and you can talk to the guy in the next city, you can find out what's going on across the country. Instead of being sitting here. We might have plenty of food and water. Food and water, but home defense. You don't know what's going on. I have a way to defend, home defense, food, water, clothes. Another question. Is a good way to test your faulty cage? I've heard this. I don't know, maybe you know some methods. Is to take your cell phone, put it inside the microwave and call the phone and if it, the signal. Is that a good? Yep. No, I've heard that. I have heard that. Do you have any others on you? No, I have not. What was the question? On how to test your faulty cage or your microwave by putting a cell phone in there and calling it to see if you receive a signal. Yes. Yeah. Other than that, I don't know what else. It might be synonymous with what things travel electronically. Yep. Definitely, I've seen that. I tried that and the phone rang inside the microwave. It did. Yeah. So that's what I wanted to say. Today was the first time I ever picked up a signal in the walk-in. It worked. All of a sudden I started getting text and I'm like, I'm in the walk-in. I've never, I usually went, as soon as you walk in, you grab and call. How about an aluminum foil? I've heard you could wrap things in several layers of aluminum foil. I have a solar generator. And it came in a wooden crate box. And I made a Faraday cage out of that wooden box. I simply lined it with aluminum foil on the inside completely and covered it then with a layer of aluminum screening. And you've got to make sure you have your edges all sealed well. But that's all you need. Aluminum foil, aluminum screening. And that will act as an insulation. I've heard a leakage. Yes. A leakage concerning an EMP that if it wasn't grounded and there was a break in the cage somewhere. It could filter in. Yes, it could. But whose test did that? They have done some tests of equipment like that. I mean, there are companies that make these Faraday bags. You can buy them. And they're out there on the market. So if the power's down. Power's down. Power's down. All these are just temporary fixes. The Faraday cage. Everything. Yes. Because once my battery's dead, I can't charge them any longer. The only thing I've got is enough time to base your contact with people that I need to contact. Or have solar back up. Or have solar back up. Or something like that. But other than that, the solar back up pretty much. Well, then can you think about it, if everything's down and a lot of the major equipment's down, how are you going to make any calls? How are you going to get on the internet? The best thing to do is to prepare for the dark agent. Yes. How are you going to prepare for the dark agent? It's like grandparenting. Yeah, I was hoping to see what we should have. We talked. I think that would be really good. Doc had a similar speech about this one two weeks ago. And there was a sergeant in the Marine Corps. And when they pulled their Humvees up to where they're stationed at, they actually drive a six-foot rod and ground it into their Humvees. So they plug it into their Humvee. And if there is like an EP, and this is, again, like, you don't know if it's going to work. They say it's going to work. But it's grounding. It's grounding. Yes. And he's saying, you could do this to your house. Basically, you've got your small ground wire that goes, and everyone's house goes down to the ground.  You'd have to redo your circuit board. But then run down to the six-foot copper end of the ground. But again, if everything's out, your house is not going to have electricity anyway. All you're doing is saving your stuff from what? You're not going to be able to plug it in anyway unless they get the electric balance six months, seven months down the road. And you've got to hang on that long. Exactly. Food and water. Yeah. My stuff's not fried. But at the same time, there's no power. You get your funds. Yeah, it's more about funds than anything I'm saving. Well, yes, sir. I'll come back. Explosions and explosions go down. Will the satellites be affected if they ever die? Well, the satellites have been affected from solar flare, magnetic storms. Nuclear, it's, well, it's line of sight. So, you know, it is an explosion that's going all directions, but it's coming down where the electric force is or where our atmosphere is. But if there's a satellite within close enough proximity, oh, yeah, it would definitely be, it would be affected. They'd be hanging up there. Nobody would communicate with them. But eventually, if they ever die, the ones on the other side would be affected. Yeah. Yeah. Well, from a community standpoint, you mentioned the ham radios, the portable ham radios. There's batteries called in-loops. They stay charged for 10 years. They can be charged 22,000 times. A pack of 12 costs like 20 bucks. And they make them in AA and AAA, and you can keep those charged in a microwave for a backup radio or whatever. At least walkie-talkies are something because you need to communicate with your friends and nothing else. Right. And you get a solar- That is a good point. And you get a solar-powered charger and have that for standby, whatever. But you will need to communicate. I see those little camp stoves. You start your fire inside the camp stove and generate some of the power to charge your cell phone so I don't know why I couldn't charge my battery. And there was a Kickstarter company that made a saltwater charger or a unit that could be laid in a babbling brook and it actually would charge a laptop and a cell phone. So there are some things you could have because you really don't want to go back to the dark ages as long as you can. So what did you say that was a battery called N-Loop? N-Loop. Panasonic makes them. Sanyo makes them. A lot of companies make them and they're on Amazon. I have a solar-powered backpack that has a battery that basically is charged by the solar panel or ACDC. And it'll charge laptops, my cell phones, any electrical devices. The last thing on the N-Loops, they come in, like I said, double A's and triple A's and then they make these adapters that you can slide the double A into and use Sieve cell battery flashlights and D-cell. And they will work. That's a good point. So you need flashlights too. So yeah, anything emergency gear, common sense. There's so many lists you can access on the Internet for emergency preparedness to give. Run down. Everything that you got to have on hand. And I would especially encourage you to have that kit in your car trunk. In your family's car trunk. If you're ever out and we are hit with an EMP event, you're going to need to get home somehow and you've got to have your kit with you to get by. I have read excerpts of it, but it is a very good book. Bill Forston. Is it realistic? Oh yeah, it's very realistic. Yes it is. I mean his scenario shows how community comes together and what they have to do to work together and survive. They ain't their dogs. I just read the book, they ain't their dogs. Sorry. Yes sir. Relatedly, if you live in a community, tell them they're in. Well Sir, Marvin St. Louis, your chances on a five-hour walk walkie would be a lot better than on a four-hour island. Of course, when you look farther out, if you're looking at handheld radio, your antenna, and why is it just going to be a cool thing to make a five-hour walkie with a can of whistle-rovers still, you're not going to go far, especially if you have a short antenna. But on these radios, they are longer so you can get more range with some of your mobiles that actually want to be if you run on a 12-volt battery. Some of them are pushing it to the five-locks or better on the sound, and you can talk that out on the simple act to do that. A much better chance of contacting someone over more water. But if you're looking at a four- or five-lock walkie and you're out in the country or from your neighbor down the road, you might be able to talk with him. Maybe, yeah. You know, hills and your terrain as well. I was talking to Simplex. You're not far from him, but yeah. I just wanted to kind of throw that out for a five-lock walkie on Simplex. Mm-hmm. And the terrain. Yeah. He's got a lot of trees, a lot of hills. First, in Illinois being flat, you're going to go farther in Illinois than you are out right. I look at hills. I'm looking at different antenna options that are way to get more water down. I'm supposed to run and docks more educated on that than I am, but it'll be as simple as Simplex. It's figuring out how to hook that up if you don't want to buy a radio that has 45 watts that comes up to your finger. Mm-hmm. You'd have to use a bigger antenna to reach out if you want to run a Simplex. If I, you know, try to contact someone where I live with a five-lock walkie, some docks is probably the only one with proper gear. And I wouldn't want to be in a suburban or a city area if that happens. So I'm just figuring out how to hook that up. Good point. Yes, sir. Predictions followed up after EMP, let's say China or Russia, or do you think they would just let us attack Illinois? That sounds like a lot of data, but won't they follow up at all? Well, for one, I know China and Russia are not our best friends. And I don't think that they would intentionally strike first here and cause an EMP and crash our grid. I think that would happen with either North Korea or Iran first before I would worry about Russia and China. There's too much trade that we have between us that I just don't see them trying to upset the apple cart, but who knows if anything can happen. It's the rogue states, the rogue groups that I worry about that have no conscious. They do this to us in a minute. And you also know that there are terrorist cells in our country. We have 35 terrorist training camps operating freely in our country. Now, some of the things the FBI, I get pissed about because they do nothing. Maybe their hands are tied, I don't know. But they do nothing to bring these groups under control or get the hell out of our country. I just don't get it. They use our laws. They hide behind our laws to operate. And if there's ever an EMP attack on our country, you can just imagine what these terror cell groups are going to do. They're just waiting for that day. And that's why I preach home defense and Second Amendment, amen, brother. They say World War II in Japan didn't attack us because we were a well-armed country. That's right. And I do worry about where groups are trying to take us. And I'm not going to let it happen, just like I know you won't either. But it's only so much we can do. I'd like to say something about the website. We have videos on the website, which this one will be posted. Dan Hyatt on our website, if you want to know about prepping, he was in California when the grid went down for two weeks. So he gave us a short presentation of what really mattered in those two weeks. Oh, yeah. The neighbors had a pool, so they survived off the neighbors' pool water. But he gave a lot of helpful hints of what you can do to prepare or what you can have to pass off to other people just to keep them off your back or to help somebody. So that's a good thing to do. Do you remember the ship that was blacked out in the ocean? Do you remember where that was? It was one of our ships, one of our best battleships. It was over in the last April or the April before? It was a year or two back. They had a Russian fighter jet to fly by. And they got very close to a US Navy ship. It was supposed to be one of the more sophisticated ships in the Navy. And they completely and utterly blacked them out. They were completely dead in the water. And there were several Navy personnel on that ship who resigned officers. They resigned their commissions. And when they came back up, they went immediately into port. So I don't know if that was EMT or what they were doing to block them out. Well, Russia and China both have these EMP weapons that are designed to do just that. Fly by and hit a burst. That's a test. So if you have your best military that's dead in the water. I mean, the military has been hardened for a long time, but there's still weaknesses there. Because there's new technologies that come out. Yeah, computers. Yes, ma'am. For legislation, the Grid Act, the Shield Act, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, five attempts all past the House. The House Energy Committee has to get the bill going. And once they bring it out of committee, they bring it to a House vote. In every case, they have passed. They have done their job. They have passed those bills. Like last year, the House passed the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act. The Senate, it did even get out of committee. It died. Here's the problem. Every time, it's always at the end of the year. It's always in November and December. They never get it. They don't do anything to get this out and to a vote. Then you got to start over the process entirely every year. So this year, I don't know where it is, but there is a website that you can track these bills and find out where they are in process. Senators like Senator Trent Frank out of Arizona, he sponsors these bills, but it's frankly running out of steam. Instead of attacking it on a national, bring it down to the state. What this petition did was it put this on Nixon's desk, and rather than going through, bringing up through the committees to pass legislation, that takes too long. That's a year or two, maybe three to get that done. Our suggestion was executive order. Here you go, Governor Nixon, and it's outlined in here. Here's a sample executive order. You can fill out. Your secretary can fill that out and get it passed and done. Nothing to wait for. For our state. Yeah, for our state. Yeah, I'm trying to get Missouri protected. And that's where if you know folks in other states and you can get this paper to them to present to their governor, they have a chance to protect their own state's grid. Well, I sent him my package, my letter last April last year. Followed up with a phone call to his assistant all three months afterwards. They did send me a letter. He's reviewing this with Missouri's Homeland Security Division. Okay, I called back two months ago and asked where they are on this. Nobody knew. Couldn't give me any answer as to who was looking at this. I'm still waiting for them to call me back and give me some update.  I'm going to keep calling and getting the answer because I want to know if we're doing anything at all about this. It's a simple fix. Oh, yes. Office phones. Yeah, it's like anything else. Yeah, I sent a letter into the St. Louis Post Dispatch Editor outlining this exact scenario. It's in the hands of our governor. And they published my letter. I was glad about that. So you've got to take action and you've got to do it. You either got to make things happen or you watch things happen or you wake up and wonder what the heck happened. Right. My favorite second. Okay, yeah, right. Wednesday, April 13th, you walked out of the governor's office right there in Capitol building and complained in person to it. All your representatives and your state senators and everything like that. Yeah, yeah. What's April 13th? I'm sorry on the day. Oh, okay. All right. There you go. That's a good thing you can talk to them about. Very good point. Exactly. We'll bring this with you. If there's a geomagnetic storm in the city, we've got the three days notice. Do you think the public is going to be notified or do you think the public is right? Do you think not? No, I don't. I don't think the public is going to be notified because we weren't notified when it nearly missed us. So were there any advantage going like on the NOAA and the solar? Are there some sites that track geomagnetic storms or any of that stuff, like going on the ocean with that? Or were they trying to shut those down? I don't know. There's a gentleman in the tracks that every day puts a YouTube out at 5 a.m. every morning. Don't change his objections. Don't change the subjectors or objectors. Don't change the subjectors or objectors. Don't change the subjectors. Yes. Yeah, just observers. Yes. Yes. Thank you everybody. Don't change the subjectors. Get to avenues and subscribe to your channel. Yeah. Get to the dev pod on your channel. It shows all this solar weather. That's a good point, but I would say, though, John Q. Public getting the word. see our emergency management responders get the word first because that's what they did tell Missouri SEMA but yeah we won't but they're gonna have to get their forces in place to deal with and extended outage and what to do you know what but will they do St. Louis didn't have a plan and neither did the county and that was three years ago and I haven't heard that they really got a formal policy in place for this kind of an event okay thank you for your time and I hope you came away with a few bits of good information and keep this handy and we'll keep plugging away I hope we do get Missouri protected