Podcasts about by january

Part 2 – By January 2021 the California State Auditor had identified at least 11.4 billion dollars had been taken from the California unemployment insurance program, but many experts are now estimating the fraud could be as high as 31 billion dollars. In this episode find out how criminals in prison gamed the EDD system to steal billions. Newt’s guest is Anne Marie Schubert, District Attorney for Sacramento County, California. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Part 1 – By January 2021 the California State Auditor had identified at least 11.4 billion dollars had been taken from the California unemployment insurance program, but many experts are now estimating the fraud could be as high as 31 billion dollars. An unbelievable amount of taxpayer money that was stolen and more importantly did not get to the citizens of California who were unemployed due to the pandemic shutdowns. Newt’s guest is McGregor Scott, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Five short years ago Vanessa Hogle was stuck. Knee deep in two jobs, a dead end relationship and no positive viewpoint regarding the future. Knowing something had to change she drew inspiration from her past and began to forge a new life for herself and her son. She had been involved in the paranormal community before and knew that's where she had to start. A friend, and former fellow investigator, had started up a publishing company and asked her to write about her experiences. Having "remote viewed" for his previous investigative team, and consulted for the "Leave or Die" episode of The Haunted, on Animal Planet, Vanessa had more than enough material to write a book,subsequently fulfilling her lifelong dream of becoming an author.  Major life changes were happening, at this time, forcing Vanessa to reassess her life. Knowing there was nowhere to go but up, she let go of all that no longer supported her. Writing a book, "Soulscapes", which was released April 28th of 2015 and ending a six year dead end relationship, acted as a catalyst forcing her to come out of her shell and accept who she really is. It wasn't long before she began to network with like-minded individuals all over the world. Gaining insight, and experience, she set out to tell her story. Her para-biography, "Giving up the Ghost", release date August 27th of 2015 laid it all out for the world to see. The struggles, the heartache, the confusion of growing up with certain gifts. During this time word of what Vanessa could do had gotten around. She began reading, and remote viewing, for multiple teams in the United States and abroad. She also began to make numerous appearances on blogtalk radio, multiple podcast and You Tube. Her appearances include Beyond The Strange, Miami Ghost Chronicles, Stories of the Supernatural, multiple appearances on Spaced Out Radio, Necromancer Live, Paranormal Collaboration, Paranormal King, multiple appearances on Paranormal Connection Radio, Our Paranormal Stories and extensive appearances on Paranormal Zone TV. Her abilities and accomplishments have also been written about in Campus Ghost of Norman and Entertainment 2Morrow. Through these shows, and social media, Vanessa has been able,in the last four years, to travel the world investigating and meeting those whom she has helped, remotely.  Her travels have taken her to New Orleans, for Haunted Bourbon Paracon where, upon arriving, she was immediately contacted to do a special segment for the local news station 4WWL in regards to the Abita Springs Bakery. She has also investigated in Alton, Illinois at the Mineral Springs Hotel, Easton, PA at the Horsefly Chronicles House. Staten Island, NY and NJ for the Cropsey case, and documentary about the disappearance of Holly Ann Hughes. In West Virginia at Moundsville State Prison. In Virginia at multiple private residences, Saylors Creek Battlefield, Cabin on 360 and Hollywood Cemetery. In Sheffield, England, at The Old Queens Head, where the head of programming of History UK, Dom Wilkins, drove from London to investigate with her. Grace Dieu Priory in Sheffield, England. Hellfire Caves in England. Whitby hostel/Abbey, in Whitby England. Mary Kings Close in Edinburgh, Scotland. City Center in Glasgow, Scotland. Private Lodging in Edinburgh, Scotland. Hellfire Club in Dublin, Ireland. Blarney Castle in Cork, Ireland. Ross Castle in Killarney, Ireland. Muckross Abbey, Co Kerry, Ireland. The Ambassador Hotel in Cork, Ireland and many more. Not all of these are true investigations but, as a sensitive, Vanessa is able to pick up on activity regardless and document.   She took many of these experiences and put them in a third book called, "Walking with Ghosts", release date September 25th 2017. All three of Vanessa's books have spent multiple weeks on the Amazon Best sellers list, in multiple genres ranging from the paranormal to self help to travel and exploration.  Vanessa has recently completed nearly 5 years on a very successful You Tube show titled "Edge of the Rabbit Hole" with her publisher, Mike Ricksecker. She has also been published in four books, other than her own, that are compilations of ghost stories called "Encounters with the Paranormal" Volumes 1,2,3 and 4.  Her fourth release, "Rebel Witch: A Memoir" was released June 25, 2019. Vanessa has also worked on a documentary in Ireland. There in July 2019, she was granted access to locations mainstream media, and better known investigators, are unable to obtain permission to enter. This has produced a series that is available on Amazon Prime Video titled "Hidden Gems Ireland" and has also recieved overwhelming reviews.  Always finding new ways to better herself, and her family's future, Vanessa has also drawn upon her more artistic abilities and has established herself as a commissioned artist, showing publicly at Loyola University, Chicago, in September 2018. In January of 2019, she founded Perfect Trust Productions LLC and recruited trusted friend and investigator, Gwen Clapper. By January of 2020, Vanessa was named as the newest member of Beyond Perception Investigators. A paranormal team whom she had worked extensively with for several years.   With over 400 investigations under her belt, her books and art, Vanessa is proving there are no limits too high to reach. She has done this all while raising a son and holding down 2 jobs!

Devon Baeza joins us today as we're digging self-sabotage and why this matters for fertility. By January 19th most of us have already given up our New Years' resolution. I know…my chip habit is back (gluten-free and organic but still…lol). And even if you are still pushing through you may be dealing with self-sabotage. We set the goal to eat better, get more sleep, exercise more, and work on our stress, and then life gets in the way…. and next thing we know we’re yelling at our partner, eating the processed foods, and up at 3 am scouring the internet looking for answers. And it all just feels exhausting. This quote by Jim Rohn sums it up “your life does not get better by chance, but by change”. That’s why our Fab Fertile Method includes a Functional Nutrition Practitioner (who develops a customized protocol) and a Fertility Coach (that helps you to implement the changes) so that you can fast track your chances of a successful pregnancy. What can you do to recognize and eliminate self-sabotage so that you can prepare for pregnancy success without wasting time? I'm excited to welcome Devon Baeza back to the podcast. Devon is the Fertility Finance Coach. She combines her degree in finance, years of fertility treatments, and master life coach training to help women make, save, and manifest money to fund their future family FAST.   In this episode you'll learn: 1) How to recognize self-sabotage and how to prevent it. 2) How do limiting beliefs impact us when we are trying to reach a goal and why does this matter if you are TTC. 3) What to do when our self worth has been attached to achievements. Type A's this is for you! 4) What are some steps we can take right now – to get out of our own way so that we can see a shift as we prepare for pregnancy success.   --- Download your FREE report - 10 Easy And Effective Ways to Fund Fertility: https://www.devonbaeza.com/10ways/ ---   TIMESTAMPS: 6:06- INTRO TO TODAY'S EPISODE AND DEVON BAEZA'S BIO 07:53- HOW WE CAN RECOGNIZE SELF-SABOTAGE Why Self-Sabotage shows up especially when we are dealing with infertility Underlying negative beliefs and where they come from The different forms of procrastination "No matter what the belief is, we want to prove ourselves right." Why we displace the "problem" in the form of self-sabotage Getting to the root cause of self-sabotage How "over-researching" can be a form of self-sabotage "Doing keeps us from being." 19:43- ARE WE NOT "GOOD ENOUGH" TO HAVE A BABY? Feelings of brokenness and limiting beliefs IDENTIFYING your beliefs so you can challenge them The power of writing your emotions Judging ourselves as a woman because of infertility 22:59- SELF-SABATOGUE FOR TYPE-A WOMEN Overplanning, control, and attaching our worth to outcome What is the COST of going going going? The opportunity for growth when dealing with fertility Identifying patterns and not judging yourself Monitoring negative self-talk Why we should make failure a part of the plan. 35:00- EMBRACING UNCERTAINTY AND LETTING GO OF CONTROL "Trust is a function of how much you trust yourself." How to learn to trust (small practices) 41:10- WHAT DO WE DO IF WE FEEL STUCK IN OUR SELF-SABOTAGE? Opening ourselves to different practices (that just might work) A couple of our favorite practices for "letting go" and seeing signs "Every time we ask ourselves a question we open ourselves up." 47:00- DEVON'S SUCCESS STORY 50:52- INFORMATION ABOUT DEVON'S FREE DOWNLOAD "I know it's difficult but it's not hard."   -- Book your Free Supercharge Your Fertility Discovery Call here: https://intakeq.com/booking/cZ7XW6 ---   Sponsored by: BLUBlox (Sleep+ is the world’s most advanced blue and green light blocking glasses addressing the exact frequencies of light required after dark to optimally produce melatonin for restorative sleep and health) Visit BLUBlox website at: http://bit.ly/BLUBlox Use coupon code: getpregnantpodcast to recieve 15% discount. Free shipping worldwide. ---   Connect with Sarah on social media and learn more about functional fertility solutions that will help you have your baby. Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/fabfertile/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sesacoaching/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/fabfertile Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahclarkfertilitycoach/   ---   HELP SUPPORT THE SHOW!   Love the show?  You’ll really love Sarah’s resources page - filled with handpicked products/books/devices - get exclusive discounts and support the show by making purchases SHOP here: https://fabfertile.com/resources/     Other ways to support:   Apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/get-pregnant-naturally/id1329414094   Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/36NoCIuODqlo3bQcVDOO02   Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/sarah-clark/get-pregnant-naturally   Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC97zsClWDEbgmECB6uLUuiA   Player FM: https://player.fm/series/get-pregnant-naturally   Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/get-pregnant-naturally-sarah-clark-82DYJtZnFAa/   Podbean: https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/usiv9-629c6/Get-Pregnant-Naturally-Podcast   iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/256-get-pregnant-naturally-30947830/   LEAVE APPLE PODCAST REVIEW: http://bit.ly/getpregnantreview   SHARE:  Spread the word! Tell someone else about the show!  Together we are strong.      Related episodes:   Functional Medicine 101 - https://www.fabfertile.com/blog/functional-medicine-101-and-your-fertility/   How To Optimize  Your Chances Of Pregnancy Success If You Are A Type A - https://www.fabfertile.com/blog/how-to-optimize-your-chances-of-pregnancy-if-you-are-type-a/   How Not To Waste Time When You Are TTC:  https://www.fabfertile.com/blog/how-not-to-waste-time-when-you-are-ttc/

On January 1, 2021, host Tim Cavey tweeted “All right, educators. Who’s up for the 10,000 push-up challenge this year? We’ll need to average 28 per day and track our progress together.” At the time, he hoped that maybe a few educators might join him. To his surprise, the tweet was liked hundreds of times, and over 170 educators joined him in a Google Sheet to track their push-up progress together. By January 16, 2021, challenge participants had combined for 66,357 recorded push-ups! As fun as that is, the challenge isn’t actually about the numbers. It’s about lifestyle change. It’s about gradually building a new daily habit: one that improves our fitness and expands our capacity to serve others. Whether you’re an official member of the Teachers on Fire 10,000 Push-Up Challenge or you’re on your own quest for teacher wellness, this conversation will encourage you. Enjoy. Welcome to Roundtables: livestreamed conversations meant to warm your heart, spark your thinking, and ignite your professional practice. QUESTIONS THAT GUIDED THIS DISCUSSION Q1 - Who are you and what does your CONTEXT in education look like? Q2 - What is your WHY for the push-up challenge? Where does your motivation come from? Q3 - How is the challenge going so far for you? UPDATE us. Q4 - What are your tips, tricks, or strategies for getting in your reps and keeping this going with CONSISTENCY? Q5 - Let us know how we can CONNECT with you and your work in 2021! CONNECT with THESE COMMITTED EDUCATORS on TWITTER

Spätestens am 15. Januar hat uns der Alltag wieder - auch wenn sich 2021 wegen der Corona-Situation der Begriff "Alltag" ganz anders definiert als üblich. Um uns vom inzwischen nachgeschärften Lockdown abzulenken, schauen wir doch mal in die "XtraChill"-Musikkiste, die wegen der vergangenen Feiertage prall gefüllt ist. Denn die Labels werfen bevorzugt zum Jahresende ihre alljährlichen "Jahresend-Compilations" auf den Markt - und der liebe Andreas ist nicht nur auf diesen Samplern fündig geworden: Episode 338 bietet noch mal einen letzten Blick auf das musikalische Geschehen am Ende von 2020 - Neuvorstellungen und sogar ein neues Netlabel inklusive! By January 15th, everyday life will be back to us - even if in 2021 the term "everyday life" is defined very differently than usual due to the Corona situation. In order to distract us from the lockdown, which has since been reshaped, let's take a look at the "XtraChill" music box, which is full because of the past holidays. Because the labels prefer to throw their annual "year-end compilations" on the market at the end of the year - and dear Andreas has not only struck gold on these samplers: Episode 338 offers one last look at the musical happening at the end of 2020 - new releases and even a new net label included! Playliste Episode 338 Dirty Move Beats - "Lord" / Get FREE here / Spotify faKtor.ost - "Ostblick" / Bandcamp Negative Headphone - "Bacterium" / Bandcamp / Spotify Kpsh - "Pansy Purple" / Bandcamp / Spotify Niteffect - "The Fall of Icarus" / Get FREE here / Bandcamp Man-L - "Rebombori" / Bandcamp / Spotify Owen Ni & Mac McDonald - "Pattern Three" / Bandcamp / Spotify Francisco Fuentes - "Amanecer" / Bandcamp / Amazon / Apple Music / Spotify Ich danke den (Net)Labels "Liminal Records", "Spclnch", "Triplicate Records", "Run on Recordings", "Kreislauf", "Insectorama", "ODrex Music" und zum ersten Mal "Caranday" aus Argentinien für die tolle Unterstützung bei dieser Episode! Themenbild: Und noch eine der zahlreichen Wasserburgen in der schönen Voreifel: Burg Kriegshoven (bei Heimerzheim); Dezember 2020 - Foto: A.J.S. RSS-Feed: https://xtrachill.podspot.de/rss eMail: info (at) xtrachill (dot) de Home Page: xtrachill.de Follow me at Soundcloud! Bitte unterstützt meine Gäste mit dem Kauf ihrer Musik und/oder mit Feedback. Wer "XtraChill" eine kleine Spende zukommen möchte, nutzt bitte den PayPal-Button auf meiner Home Page am Ende eines jeden Eintrages. Danke! Please, dear listeners, support my guests by buying their music and/or with feedback. If you wanna support "XtraChill" with a donation, please use the PayPal button ("Spenden") on my Home Page at the end of each entry. Thank you! Die nächste Ausgabe erscheint am 01. Februar 2021! Bis zum nächsten Mal, hier bei "XtraChill"!

By January 5, 1946, President Truman had had enough. He was tired of Stalin’s aggressive behavior, tired of the Soviet Union establishing “police states” in countries it occupied. In a letter to his Secretary of State, James, F. Byrnes, he declared that the United States would not recognize these new Communist governments. Enough was enough. “I’m sick of babying the Soviets,” he stated. This blunt statement set off a chain of events known as the Cold War, a development that brought unprecedented American intervention across the globe. As the Iron Curtain descended on eastern Europe, fears over a new global war with the USSR cast a pallor over every aspect of American life. State-side, suspicions turned into targeting Jewish, Black, and gay Americans suspected of being involved in the Communist Party, setting the stage for an unprecedented era of domestic spying.

HAPPY 12 DAYS OF PODMAS! In Day 5, let's chat about the new year... more specifically... resolutions. I personally don't "believe" in new year resolutions. They always seem to fall through after the new years magic wears off. By January 31st, you're already over that new years resolution. So, why not change it to new years mottos?? Check out today's episode to understand what I mean... - Odyssey Article: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/new-year-new-motto-growth - The Purpose Project Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepurposeprojectpod/ Other Resources: https://linktr.ee/thepurposeproject

In this episode of Intermittent Fasting Stories, Gin talks to Michelle Williams from St. Louis, MO.This episode is supported by Beautycounter! ​Gin says, “I fast clean, and so it's become important for me to clean up other areas of my life. But, I don't have time to read labels on every product I want to buy or memorize what's safe and what's not. Honestly, it can get confusing. That's why I rely on Beautycounter. They have done the work for me, and I can be confident that every product I buy is safe for me and the environment.” ​When you shop with Gin at beautycounter.com/ginstephens, you are helping to support the Intermittent Fasting Stories podcast with every purchase.In today’s episode, Michelle shares that she, "backed into intermittent fasting." As a teenager, she remembers feeling better when she skipped breakfast, because she wasn't ever hungry for it. But her mother always made a huge feast, and Michelle was not allowed to throw away food...so, she ate breakfast anyway. She was a healthy weight in high school and college, and very active in sports. After three children and then a divorce, however, Michelle struggled with her weight. She tried countless diets, cleanses and detoxes. By 2013, she asked herself: "What can I do to lose weight?" Recalling how great she felt as teenager by skipping breakfast and only eating dinner, she returned to this way of eating. At the time, Michelle did not know she was doing intermittent fasting. She dropped 40 pounds, but her family worried she was starving herself. Without the scientific knowledge behind IF, Michelle went back to eating all day long, gaining everything back (plus more). Six long years of more diets, cleanses, and detoxes followed.By January of 2020, Michelle felt hopeless. "I've got to find something," she told herself. While searching online for the next diet, she came across Delay, Don't Deny and ordered it. The book made so much sense to her, and Michelle held tight to three gems of wisdom, referring to these as Gin's Gems.The health benefits Michelle has experienced are clearer skin, a brightness in her eyes, alertness, and mental clarity. Prior to IF, her blood work showed pre-hypertension and high glucose, both of which are now in the normal range. Her cholesterol is down 30 points and her plantar fasciitis is gone! Michelle has lost 50 pounds, going from 245 pounds to 195 pounds. The advice Michelle would give new IFers: "Educate yourself on IF. Know what's happening in your body if you don't see it at first. Trust and enjoy the process! Health is your greatest wealth." Get Gin’s books, including her latest New York Times Bestseller, Fast. Feast. Repeat., available wherever you buy books! http://www.ginstephens.com/get-the-books.html Share your intermittent fasting stories with Gin: gin@intermittentfastingstories.com Follow Gin on Twitter @gin_stephensFollow Gin on Instagram @GinStephens Connect with Gin on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GinStephensListen to Gin on the Intermittent Fasting Stories podcast: Intermittent Fasting Stories on iTunes

Shauna Jensen is an Australian singer. This year she celebrated her 50th year in ‘the business’. She has been a member of multiple bands including Purple Vision and Flake. She was an original cast member of Jesus Christ Superstar, appearing on the Original Australian Cast Recording. Turns in Two Gentlemen of Verona and Betty Blokkbuster followed,Shauna's debut CD, Something Real, was released in 1997. By January 1998 she had won the award for Best Female Vocalist at the inaugural Goulburn Blues Festival; a festival which rivals the Blues Festival at Byron Bay.Shauna has worked as backup vocalist for the leading rock artists in Australia, including Jimmy Barnes, Australia's most beloved rock band Cold Chisel, Richard Clapton, Jon Stevens, Billy Thorpe, Hugh Jackman, Noiseworks, Powderfinger and INXS.For most of the 1980s Shauna was one of the most in-demand studio singers, a career which introduced her to the world of background singing on film, television, radio and in the rock music world, for the next two decades.The new millennium brought with it exciting new projects for Shauna. These include singing background vocals for Carry the Flame by Jon Stevens, the official song for the Sydney 2001 Olympics torch relay. In 2001 Shauna collaborated with legendary Sydney DJ Paul Goodyear and their first single is an uplifting house rework of the Sylvester classic Take Me to Heaven.Stages caught up with Shauna midway of her cabaret season at Claire's Kitchen at Le Salon.The Stages podcast is available from Apple podcasts, Spotify, Whooshkaa and where all good podcasts are found.

By January, there may be a new American president, but what probably won’t change is Washington’s stance toward Iran. Is military conflict inevitable? What value is diplomacy if one side fails to honor agreements? And, what are Iran’s options CrossTalking with Adam Roosevelt, Scott Ritter, and Mohammad Marandi.

✅Get 50% off First Month with Helium 10 Or Promo Code MyAmazonGuy50 ✅Get Amazon Consulting at https://myamazonguy.com/IPI storage-limit update to come in mid-DecemberThis Prime Day, small- and medium-size businesses saw record-breaking sales: more than $3.5 billion across 19 countries, nearly 60% more than last year. For the holiday shopping season, we are hiring over 145,000 seasonal employees worldwide to pick, pack, and ship your products. By January, our fulfillment center storage capacity will have increased by nearly 50 million cubic feet globally for standard-size items.In addition to these network improvements, we will continue managing inventory performance to ensure that all products have space available for the holidays. ASIN-quantity limits remain in effect, and we will continue to evaluate our capacity and make adjustments to allow for more of your products when possible.While our immediate focus is to help you have a successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday, some of you have asked about Inventory Performance Index (IPI) volume-based storage limits. We continue to review customer demand and our supply chain in light of COVID-19, and we will update you with further guidance in mid-December. FBA inventory storaghttps://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/XLRKWL8L5BMSHWB?ref=nslp_at_G5XYYJJTP9NAPN22_nslnk_1_XLRKWL8L5BMSHWB limitsNote: Effective August 16, 2020, the IPI threshold for storage limits is 500 (previously 400).To better manage fulfillment center storage space, so that products are received and shipped to buyers more quickly, inventory storage limits can be applied. Storage limits are based on volume (measured in cubic feet) and are set for each storage type. Your current and potential storage limits and usage are shown when you expand Storage Volume, which you can view in your Inventory performance dashboard and Shipping QueueStorage limits criteriaIndividual selling accounts have a set storage limit of 10 cubic feet; this value does not change. Individual selling accounts are not subject to storage limit increases.Professional selling accounts may or may not have storage limits, depending on the following criteria: Sellers who maintain an Inventory Performance Index (IPI) of the required threshold or above on either of two score checkpoints will not be subject to storage volume limits for standard-size, oversize, clothing, and footwear items. (See the checkpoints in the storage limits schedule below.) New sellers that have been active for less than 26 weeks, or sellers without enough sales data to generate an IPI score during both of the two score check weeks, will not receive storage limits.Professional accounts that do have storage limits will still have a minimum of 25 cubic feet for standard, over-size, clothing, or footwear inventory.Professional account holders can track their Inventory Performance Index in the Inventory performance dashboard and learn about IPI on the IPI Help page. The dashboard provides a hub for optimizing your FBA business, including customized recommendations to grow your sales and reduce costs. Your IPI score is updated weekly based on your ongoing inventory management.Storage limits are calculated using several factors including: Your sales volume (including your sales' seasonality periods) Your historical IPI scores Available fulfillment center capacity https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/XLRKWL8L5BMSHWB?ref=nslp_at_G5XYYJJTP9NAPN22_nslnk_1_XLRKWL8L5BMSHWB#amazonselling #amazonseller #amazonfbaSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/myamazonguy)

I caught up with Aaron 4 days after he finished becoming the *first person to circumnavigate Texas on a bike! In total he rode 3,014 miles in 58 days and he wrote weekly articles about his journey that you can read on Texas Monthly. In 2019 he rode every street in his hometown of Austin, TX, but towards the end of that project he started thinking bigger. Like the whole state of Texas bigger! In the fall he started planning a route, starting first by connecting towns that were about 60 miles away. By January he had a completed route and all he had to do now was convince his employer to allow him to do it! Aaron's laid back approach to these endeavours is refreshing. No KOM chasing or FKT attempts here, just fun, maybe silly, reasons to go ride your damn bike! *Maybe the second, but who's counting?

Released on September 24th, 1991 Nirvana's 'Nevermind' was expected to sell 500 thousand copies at best. It’s gone to sell over 30 million copies. By January of 1992 it surpassed Michael Jackson’s 'Dangerous' to go to number one on Billboard. As Rolling Stone later put it, "No album in recent history had such an overpowering impact on a generation. A nation of teens suddenly turned punk." In this episode we’ll get into the stories behind the songs, the album cover and, well, whatever, nevermind...TRACKLIST:1. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" 2. "In Bloom"3. "Come as You Are"4. "Breed"5. "Lithium"6. "Polly"7. "Territorial Pissings"8. "Drain You"9. "Lounge Act"10. "Stay Away"11. "On a Plain"12. "Something in the Way"13. "Endless, Nameless"Find DISCovery on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheDISCoverypodcasthomeThe DISCovery theme song "Woo Hoo" by Reebosound (https://reebosound.bandcamp.com)Please give the show a five-star rating and review wherever you listen to DISCovery!

What if it were God's Vision for 2020 All Along.... Special Guest: Kita Pearson. In December of 2019, we wrote down our visions for 2020 and completed our Vision Boards. By January, Kita and I had our perfect slogan for 2020. 2020 Perfect Vision! Some of you probably used it too! We believed God that all of our visions for 2020 would line up! We were so excited! Then the pandemic hit! One by one we saw where our visions were probably going to be delayed. As the pandemic progressed, and the world started changing, Kita spoke a powerful word. She said: What if our delayed 2020 Vision was actually what God wanted for 2020? What if the things we are seeing take place in 2020 are what God had envisioned for 2020? What if our “failed” vision boards, were God’s Vision for 2020 all along?Season 1: Episode 1: It was God’s Vision for 2020 all along. And His Vision is Perfect. 2020 Vision!

The story of Mulan – a girl who single-handedly repels a Mongol invasion after taking her father's place in the Chinese army – was a huge hit for Disney in 1998.However, the Waitaki District Council is more ambivalent towards a potential army of visitors. After being chosen as the filming location for Disney's live-action remake of Mulan, they were aware the film might bring huge numbers of tourists to the Whitestone geopark.The area is used to visiting film crews. It appears as a backdrop in the Narnia and the Lord of the Rings film franchises. However, early indications showed that the Disney-backed blockbuster had the potential to "blow the Lord of the Rings out of the water".So said Fergus Power, chief executive of Waitaki District Council.The film was expecting to be a huge hit, particularly in Chinese markets where the film had been mentioned 5.87 billion times on the social media network Weibo. By January the trailer for the film was shared 2.5 billion times."Mulan is more than your average story. It's taught in schools, in China," said Power."If you compare that interest to the rest of the world you still end up with the potential of a very high interest in these film locations."Aware that the film starring Liu Yifei had the makings of a huge hit, the district council was "aggressive" in pursuing the project and in helping the movie get made, said Power."We rolled out the Waitaki green carpet for them."However, as with any cinematic epic, the story isn't quite as straight forward.Covid-19 has disrupted both international travel and the film industry. Mulan was originally slated for theatrical release on March 9 this year, three days before the WHO declared coronavirus a pandemic, 10 days before New Zealand closed its borders to inbound tourists.As cinemas around the world were emptied and New Zealand's borders were closed to holidaymakers, the future of the film and its translation into inbound travel was thrown into uncertainty.While Disney has said that Mulan will still be getting a theatrical release in China, there is no firm release date. Elsewhere Mulan will be available to watch from next week, online only.Could Waitaki's roads handle the tourists? The Lindis Pass cuts through the Ahuriri river valley. Photo / FileHowever Waitaki is still optimistic that this will translate into future visits."If anything Covid-19 has provided some breathing space but expectations are that Mulan will bring interest and with that interest will come employment opportunities," said Powers.The council is still working with the Department of Conservation and central government to create management plans for an increased number of visitors to the delicate natural beauty spot.Margaret Munro, the general manager for Tourism Waitaki, said it's up to the area to look after its unspoiled landscapes, how ever many tourists arrive."Like all epic films they wanted landscapes that are void of any materials or power lines, that sort of thing," said Munro."They liked the raw landscapes of the area."However if the tourism demand is not properly anticipated or managed, the area risks ruining its appeal for both visitors and future film scouts."The Ahuriri Valley hasn't really appeared in many films. Particularly of this size," said Munro.The Whitestone geopark is currently being evaluated for Unesco world heritage status. With that status comes specific demands on conservation and management.There are already some tourism ventures in the area, which is popular with hikers and trout fishermen. Places like the spectacular looking Lindis luxury lodge which, on the banks of the Ahuriri, depends on the appeal of the area's pristine remoteness.However while borders are still closed to international tourists, the attention might at least still inspire New Zealanders to visit.As we discovered with the Lord of the Rings films, 20 years ago: it can take the spotlight of an international blockbuster for New Zealanders to dis...

Episode Notes:If you’ve ever found it challenging to be flexible with what your life plans look like, you’ll love my very first Connect Podcast Interview. Kim Konsten and her partner decided to quit their jobs to travel the world last August. By January they were on a plane with an intricate plan of where they’d explore. It was going beautifully… until the global shutdown happened while they were on a small island off the coast of Cambodia.In This Episode You Will Hear About:How growing up in Africa shaped her life and workHow to turn a lifelong dream into reality in spite of tragic eventsHow a health issue can lead to uncovering newfound giftsBeing flexible when the world shuts downHow Akashic healing worksResources:Connect to your purpose and elevate your wellness:Learn More: http://www.sheilabotelho.comInstagram: @sheilaabotelhoFollow Kim:http://ruwacoaching.com@ruwacoaching@allanandannie (her travels)Show Notes:Kim Konstan is an Akashic Healer and Founder and CEO of Ruwa Coaching. As an Akashic Records coach she supports you in understanding your purpose, taking actions accordingly towards living a soul-aligned life.Kim is a Reiki level 2 practitioner, speaks 7 languages including english, dutch, and spanish, and she was born in Zimbabwe where she got her middle name, Ruwa, meaning flower in Shona, the local language of Zimbabwe. This interview was recorded back in June of 2020 and you’ll hear how the global shut down had her stranded (happily) on a beautiful island. I’d love you to leave a 5 star review and share this episode if you found it helpful or encouraging!Rate, Review & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts“I love Sheila’s insights on The Connect Podcast.”*This interview is for educational purposes only and doesn't necessarily represent the practices of the host. Please consult your physician or health advisor before beginning any new healing or self-care protocol.

In the dusty flood plain, 100,000 men and many times that in horses surround the walls of Baghdad. Catapults lob stones relentlessly into the city walls, hauled from great distance. Here, towers collapse under the barrage; there, ladders bring Mongol and subject peoples onto the fortifications, seizing them from the disorganized and panicking garrison. Arrows, some bearing messages, bring both confusion and injury where they land. The mighty Tigris River, the city’s lifeblood, is now part of the trap; pontoon bridges, from them dangling nets embedded with iron hooks, rest both north and south of the city to catch those trying to flee. The final ‘Abbasid Caliph sits frightened and overwhelmed in his palace, as the grasp of Hulegu Khan closes around him. Today, we discuss the fall of Baghdad, 1258. But first, we’d like to remind you that for those of you who enjoy the podcast, your support would be highly appreciated and would help us keep going. We have a patreon available for monthly or even one-time donations or, if you aren’t able to support us financially, positive reviews on Apple Podcasts or other review sites really helps us out. And now, I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.   We left our previous episode off with Hulegu destroying the Nizari Ismaili state, better known at the Order of Assassins, who had controlled a series of fortresses across eastern and northern Iran. By the end of 1256, Hulegu had reduced them to but a few holdouts, and he could begin to look to his next target. Considered heretics of the worst variety by most Sunni Muslims, the Persian writer Juvaini, a member of Hulegu’s retinue, described his victory over the Nizaris in glowing terms, Hulegu as a sword of Islam carrying out God’s will. Juvaini presents Hulegu’s war as a more ‘civilized’ form of conquest compared to that of his grandfather, Chinggis Khan. Destruction was limited to Ismaili territories and the towns and fortresses that failed to submit, as opposed to the veritable tsunami of bloodshed Chinggis Khan wrought on the Khwarezmian empire over thirty years prior. What Hulegu was soon to do in Baghdad and to the titular head of Sunni Islam would not be so praised, and it is perhaps no coincidence that Juvaini’s own chronicle ends with the fall of the Ismailis. As Hulegu left Ismaili territory in the final month of 1256, his eye was drawn to the ‘Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad.   In Islam, the spiritual leader of the religion was whoever was considered the successor to the Prophet Muhammad. For Shi’a Muslims, this was the imam- for Nizari Ismailis, the Imam was the ruler of Alamut, who had just been put to death on Mongol orders. For the majority of Muslims, known as Sunnis, the head of their faith was the Caliph, literally meaning ‘successor.’The first four Caliphs to succeed the Prophet were the “Rightly Guided,” the Rashidun, whose legitimacy is generally unquestioned by most Muslims. The Rashidun were succeeded by the Umayyads, who greatly extended Muslim rule east and west, across North Africa into Spain and across Eastern Iran into Central Asia. In 750, the Umayyad Caliphs were overthrown in the ‘Abbasid revolution. Claiming descent from the Prophet’s uncle ‘Abbas, it was under the early ‘Abbasids that the Caliphal capital was moved from Damascus to the newly established Baghdad along the Tigris River. Never comparable to the power of the Umayyads at their height, from the 9th century onwards the still vast ‘Abbasid empire fragmented with threat from all directions: the Fatimids in Egypt, the Samanids, Buyids and Saffarids of Iran and finally from the steppes, the Great Seljuqs, all of which ground the ‘Abbasids down until their state hardly stretched past the walls of Baghdad. The weakening of the Seljuqs after Sultan Malik-Shah’s death in 1092 allowed the ‘Abbasids to gradually reclaim independence and some authority, even repulsing a Seljuq army attacking Baghdad in 1157. The long reigns of Caliph al-Nasir and al-Mustansir, from 1180 until 1242, saw the ‘Abbasids reclaim much of central and southern Iraq. A far cry from the sweeping power they had held in the 8th century, by the 13th century they still remained influential and held prestige. For 500 years they had been the heads of Islam, and had long cultivated an useful image as invioable and holy, above temporal affairs though they were more often than not mired in them.    For instance, in the late 12th century Caliph al-Nasir was in conflict with the Seljuqs who continued to rule in Iran. He allied with the rising power northeast of the Iranian Seljuqs, the Khwarezmian Empire. Once vassals of the Great Seljuqs, the Khwarezm-shahs now butted heads with them as they expanded southwards, and the reigning Khwarezm-Shah, Tekesh bin Il-Arslan, was happy to ally himself with the Caliph. In 1194 at Rayy, modern Tehran, Tekesh defeated and killed the last Seljuq Sultan in Iran, Toghrul III, ending the dynasty and sending the Sultan’s severed head to al-Nasir in Baghdad. Rather than provide freedom for the Caliphate, Tekesh now wanted to step into the place of Seljuqs. The Seljuqs’ territory in Iran was largely annexed by Tekesh Khwarezm-shah, who soon began making aggressive motions to the Caliph. Al-Nasir encouraged the Khwarezmians’ eastern neighbours, the Ghurids, in their war with Tekesh. Tekesh died in 1200, succeeded by his son Muhammad II as Khwarezm-shah who, through luck, timely assassinations and military victories, overcame the Ghurids, consolidated power over Iran and in 1217 tried to march on Baghdad itself. Muhammad’s march on Baghdad was halted by a vicious snowstorm as he crossed the Zagros mountains, forcing him back. Returning to the northeast of his empire, Muhammad would there make the poor decisions which led to the Mongol Invasion of Khwarezm, covered way back in episode 9 of this podcast.   Now, some authors of the period assert that Caliph al-Nasir actually invited Chinggis Khan to attack Muhammad of Khwarezm- when placed in the context of the Caliph switching to support whoever was on the eastern side of his current foe, there is definitely a logic to it. However, as we described in detail in episode 8 of the podcast, the cause of the Mongol invasion can be found in the foolery of Muhammad Khwarezm-shah alone. Had the Mongols come on the invitation of the Caliph, then surely they would have publicized that to justify the attack and sow further confusion among the Khwarezmians.    In fact, in 1221 when detachments of Jebe and Subutai’s army penetrated into northern Iraq, Caliph al-Nasir was hardly welcoming. Along with the rulers of northern Iraq’s most important cities, Muzaffar ad-Din of Irbil and Badr al-Din Lu’lu’, the de facto ruler of Mosul, the Caliph organized a short lived military coalition, which proved unnecessary as the Mongols soon withdrew. Evidently, the ‘Abbasids spread a rumour that their army was absolutely gargantuan, their power unassailable and heavenly protected, and the Mongols were hesitant to commit. Had they paid close attention in the following years, they might have called the Caliph’s bluff. In 1225 that favoured Khwarezmian rapscallion, Jalal al-Din Mingburnu, defeated a Caliphal army after the ‘Abbasids failed to provide him assistance. Jalal al-Din chased the survivors right to the suburbs of Baghdad, then went north, defeated an army from Irbil sent to assist the Caliph and captured Irbil’s ruler, Muzaffar ad-Din. Caliph al-Nasir, by then elderly, paralyzed and blind for three years, died soon after Jalal al-Din’s attack, and was succeeded by his son, az-Zahir, as the 35th Caliph… for nine months. On Caliph az-Zahir’s death in 1226, he was succeeded by his own son, al-Mustansir, the 36th and penultimate ‘Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad.    As Caliph, al-Mustanir continued to try to strengthen ‘Abbasid control in Iraq and expand the army, but Mongol rule steadily spread over the region. By the start of the 1230s, Chormaqun Noyan and his lieutenants brought the submission of most of Iran and cast Mongol authority over the Caucasus. For Caliph al-Mustansir, the Mongol empire was a vast crescent to his north and east, where it stretched seemingly indefinitely. By 1235, Mongol forces mainly under Chagatai Noyan, “the Lesser,” were probing northern Iraq and directly, but hesitantly, testing ‘Abbasid hegemony in the region. In June 1237, Chagatai Noyan captured Irbil in what is now Iraqi Kurdistan, though the Citadel held out and in August Caliphal forces relieved the city. In February of 1238, an attack was launched on Baghdad, and a panicked Caliph al-Mustansir sent messages to the remaining independent Muslim powers from the Jazira and Syria down to Egypt for aid. Only 2,000 troops from the Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt,  al-Kamil, reached Baghdad, and in June 1238 a caliphal army was defeated near the city. However, the defences of Baghdad itself remained formidable and the city stood defiant while the Mongols turned back from the walls, unprepared for both a long siege and or the fearsome Iraqi summer.  Possibly, the Mongols suffered some sort of reverse while attacking Baghdad; some sixty years later, when the Persian historian Wassaf [vassaf] visited Baghdad, he recorded a Mongol defeat outside the walls, though this goes unmentioned by the other sources.    While Baghdad remained independent, the Mongols continued to take cities in the region. Chormaqun’s successor Baiju brought the submission of the Seljuqs of Anatolia in 1243; in 1244, the Mongol general Yasa’ur rode into Syria, dislodging the remnants of Jalal al-Din’s Khwarezmians. The Ayyubids of Syria, the successors of the once mighty empire of Saladin Ayyubi, largely submitted over 1244-5, and even Antioch, one of the last of the Crusader Kingdoms, offered its submission.  In late 1245 another attack on Baghdad was launched but soon aborted. The new Caliph since 1242, al-Mustasim ibn al-Mustansir, was lucky the attack was called off, for he was rather rapidly running out of allies. It seem that the new Caliph managed to avoid further attacks with a token submission: the Franscisan Friar John de Plano Carpini, present at the coronation of Guyuk Khaan in 1246, noted ‘Abbasid envoys were present in Karakorum and believed they paid a regular tribute.    The 38th and final ‘Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad, al-Mustasim, was not the equal of his father or great-grandfather. While al-Nasir and al-Mustansir sought to strengthen the Caliphate, al-Mustasim was more interested in the luxury of Baghdad, and was nearly universally condemned for decadence. A great lover of music, he sponsored an entire neighbourhood in Baghdad to house musicians, including the most famous of the age, Saif al-Din Urmawi. A lover of pigeon racing, art, calligraphy and treasures, al-Mustasim was also indecisive and easily swayed by factions in his court, some of whom, such as the vizier, sought accomodation with the Mongols, while others urged to meet them in battle. As we will see shortly, the result was al-Mustasim vacillating in policy, wavering between antagonizing the Mongols and sending them gifts. Essentially, the worst sort of man to have in power when Hulegu marched on him with upwards of 100,000 men.    Neither was weak leadership the only problem. Corruption and decadence of Baghdad’s elite alienated the lower classes. A weak currency and high food prices contributed to revolts; many of Baghdad’s soldiers increasingly found themselves unpaid and resorted to bandity or desertion. Topping off years of natural disasters- heavy rain, storms, annual flooding, in 1256, the Tigris, the river which runs through Baghdad, flooded for over a month, washing away much of Baghdad’s lower city. Attributed to divine displeasure at the decadent al-Mustasim, for decades afterwards this flood was remembered as the “Mustasimid flood.” As Mongol armies approached the city, pestilence killed many hundreds, if not thousands. The Caliph stood in a precarious position.   Likely in late 1255, Hulegu sent a message to Caliph al-Mustasim demanding, as Hulegu had done with other rulers across the region, that Baghdad supply troops to help in the attack on the Nizari Isamilis. Al-Mustasim refused. As the ‘Abbasids had been sending tribute in the previous years and were considered vassals, such a refusal was a declaration of independence. Hulegu, having been sent in part to find how sincere the Caliph’s submission was, now had his casus belli, for to the Mongols, the Caliph of Baghdad was now in open revolt. War with the Caliph was not intended to punish Islam specifically; had the Mongols caught the Pope and considered him a rebel, certainly he would have shared a similar fate. What mattered to the Mongols was submission to their divinely mandated rule; refusal to submit was blasphemy of the highest order.   After the fall of Alamut in December 1256, and spending some time near the still-resisting Nizari fortress of Lammasar, Hulegu stayed in Qazwin, just south of Alamut, until March 1257. From Qazwin he undertook a somewhat repetitive journey: from Qazwin he went to Hamadan, then to Dinavar, then Tabriz, then back to Hamadan, then back to Tabriz, then back to Hamadan in September 1257, from whence he would finally march on Baghdad. The reasons for this were multiple, and not just because Hulegu really liked northwestern Iran, though it did give him good time to evaluate the region. Firstly, Hulegu did not want to besiege Baghdad in the summer months, and instead needed to time the march so he arrived outside the city in the winter. Secondly, it provided time for his lieutenants to secure the neighbouring theaters: Kitbuqa Noyan secured through force and diplomacy Luristan and the passes through the Zagros mountains, ensuring Hulegu’s main army could march unimpeded when the time came. In Anatolia, Baiju Noyan had needed to put down a Seljuq revolt, culminating in the battle of Aksaray in October 1256. Baiju then needed to move back east, in order to march on Baghdad from the west when the time came.   Thirdly, Hulegu and the Caliph engaged in an entertaining round of diplomatic fisti-cuffs. Hulegu offered the Caliph another chance to surrender, repudiating him for his failure to send troops against the Nizaris. Hulegu’s threat, as recorded by the Ilkhanid vizier Rashid al-Din, went as follows:   “Previously we have given you advice, but now we say you should avoid our wrath and vengeance. Do not try to overreach yourself or accomplish the impossible, for you will only succeed in harming yourself. The past is over. Destroy your ramparts, fill in your moats, turn the kingdom over to your son, and come to us. If you do not wish to come, send all three, the vizier [al-Alqami], Sulaymanshah, and the Dawatdar, that they may convey our message word for word. If our command is obeyed, it will not be necessary for us to wreak vengeance, and you may retain your lands, army, and subjects. If you do not heed our advice and dispute with us, line up your soldiers and get ready for the field of battle, for we have our loins girded for battle with you and are standing at the ready. When I lead my troops in wrath against Baghdad, even if you hide in the sky or in the earth, ‘I shall bring you down from the turning celestial sphere; I shall pull you up like a lion. I shall not leave one person alive in your realm, and I shall put your city and country to the torch.’ “If you desire to have mercy on your ancient family’s heads, heed my advice. If you do not, let us see what God’s will is.”   The Caliph refused Hulegu’s demands, and when he sent back Hulegu’s envoys, they were harassed by the people of Baghdad; the Caliph’s vizier, ibn al-Alqami, had to send soldiers to protect the envoys to ensure they weren’t killed. When Hulegu learned of the incident, he derided the Caliph as a total incompetent, and then flew into a rage when he heard the official response, which called Hulegu a young and inexperienced man: somewhat humorous, considering al-Mustasim was only four years older than Hulegu. Hulegu’s response was about as subtle as you’d expect. Again, as per the account of Rashid al-Din, quote:   “God the eternal elevated [Chinggis] Khan and his progeny and gave us all the face of the earth, from east to west. Anyone whose heart and tongue are straight with us in submission retains his kingdom, property, women, children, and life. He who contemplates otherwise will not live to enjoy them. Love of status and property, conceit, and pride in transitory fortune have so seduced you that even the words of your well-wishers have no effect on you. Your ear cannot hear the advice of the compassionate, and you have deviated from the path of your fathers and forebears. You must get ready for battle, for I am coming to Baghdad with an army as numerous as ants and locusts. Be the turning of the celestial sphere how it may, the power to command is God’s.”   Upon hearing this message, al-Mustasim’s vizier ibn al-Alqami understood the colossal danger they were in, and fervently argued for the Caliph to appease the Mongols. Al-Alqami has something of a bisecting reputation in the Islamic world. For some, reading the Mamluk sources, the Shia Muslim ibn al-Alqami was a conspirator, plotting with Hulegu to topple the head of Sunni Islam for his own gain. For those reading from Persian and Ilkhanid sources, ibn al-Alqami was earnestly trying to steer the Caliph away from annihilation and save as many lives as he could. On this last response from Hulegu, al-Alqami was able to convince al-Mustasim to send gifts, only for the Caliph to be talked out of it by the dawatdar, Mugahid al-Din Aybek, the Caliphate’s top military man and a staunch supporter of resistance against Hulegu. Convincing the Caliph to abandon the expensive gifts, al-Mustasim sent the following message to vizier al-Alqami to assuage his worries:   “Do not fear the future, and do not talk fables, for there is friendship and unity, not enmity and hostility, between me and Hülägü and [Mongke Khaan]. Since I am their friend, they are of course friendly and benevolent toward me. The envoys’ message is false. Even if these brothers contemplate opposition to or treachery against me, what has the Abbasid dynasty to fear, when the monarchs of the face of the earth stand as our army and obey our every command? If I request an army from every country and mount to repulse the foe, I can incite Iran and Turan against these brothers. Be of stout heart, and do not fear the threats of the Mongols, for although they are powerful upstarts, they pose nothing but an empty threat to the House of Abbas.” If Rashid al-Din is accurate in recording this message, then it goes some way to demonstrate just how greatly al-Mustasim misunderstood the situation. al-Mustasim’s next letter to Hulegu spoke of monarchs who had attacked the ‘Abbasids and suffered divine retribution for it, noting specifically Muahmmad Khwarezm-shah, who for his attack on Baghdad in 1217 suffered the power of Hulegu’s grandfather. Hulegu sent another threat, promising to bring the Caliph “down miserably into the jaws of a lion,” and had enough of parlay.   Hulegu had only to check with the astrologers and diviners of his retinue in order to ensure the assault had good fortune. Variously they warned of failure, catastrophe, and death for harming the Caliph. Finally, Hulegu turned to the famed Iranian scholar rescued from the Nizari fortresses, Nasir al-Din Tusi, and asked what he thought of the matter. After thinking for a moment, Tusi told Hulegu that none of these things would happen. Hulegu asked what would. Tusi replied, “Hulegu Khan will take the Caliph’s place.” And that was enough for Hulegu. The border passes were now secured, and the march on Baghdad could begin.    As Hulegu marched through Kermanshah, massacres followed him. His army approached Baghdad in three directions. Kitbuqa took a route through Luristan, and would march on Baghdad from the south. Baiju Noyan came through northern Iraq, crossing the Tigris near Irbil and closing in on Baghdad’s west and north. Hulegu took the main army through the Hulwan pass and would close off Baghdad from the east, thus encircling the city.    As the armies entered Iraq, cities and towns across Mesopotamia surrendered to them. In January 1258 as the Mongols closed in on the city, the Caliphal army under the Dawatdar tried to repulse Baiju’s army. They were lured into a feigned retreat; a dyke was broken and their camp flooded. Few survivors escaped back to Baghdad. By January 22ned, the Mongol armies had linked up around the city. Not just Mongols, but subject Iranians, Turks, Georgians and Armenians made up this force, with a thousand Chinese siege engineers. The defenders of Baghdad were outnumbered and without hope. For a week, the Mongols prepared their siege lines. Pontoon bridges were built across the Tigris, nets and iron hooks hanging from them to ensure none could escape either up or downriver. No stones for the catapults were within the area, so they needed to be hauled in from elsewhere. A ditch was dug around the city, the earth from the ditch used to build a rampart with gates set in it. Protective coverings were built for the siege engines. With the typical thoroughness of the early Toluids, Baghdad was closed off, its fate sealed.   The assault began on January 29th. An incessant barrage of stones and arrows brought the defenders to their knees. The artillery upon the walls of Baghdad was poorly maintained and outranged by that of the Mongols, useless in the words of one source. Under mobile wooden shelters, the Mongols advanced on the walls, sending arrows deeper into the city. One of the Caliph’s daughters was killed when an arrow passed through a window in his palace. Messages were tied to arrows, proclaiming that all those who did not resist would be spared. By the start of February, towers and bastions along the walls were collapsing. By February 3rd, Mongol forces were capturing the walls. When one of Hulegu’s commanders was killed by an arrow sent from the city, he angrily forced his army on at greater speed.   Realizing just how monumentally he had erred, al-Mustasim sent envoys, among them the once bellicose Dawatdar, to discuss terms with Hulegu. They were quickly put to death. Nothing but the unconditional surrender of the Caliph himself was good enough. Finally, on February 10th, al-Mustasim and his family came out from Baghdad, and put his life in the hands of Hulegu. Initially, the Caliph was treated respectfully. Other notables came out to submit to Hulegu, and many others fled out of the city to escape the pestilence which had already claimed thousands within. These who came out were trapped between the walls of Baghdad and the Mongol palisade. Once the garrison and its weapons were collected, on the 13th of February, the sack of Baghdad began.   In popular culture, the sack of Baghdad is uncontrolled, disorganized, horrifically violent and results in the city’s utter destruction and death of a million people. In reality it was controlled, organized, horrifically violent and resulted in only most of the city’s destruction and deaths of thousands. Rather than wiping Baghdad from the map, it was more of an organized dismemberment. Evidence comes from multiple accounts, but we’ll focus on that of the musician, Urmawi. In contrast to the image of the mob running wild over Baghdad, Urmawi’s account, recorded by the Mamluk historian Shihab al-Din al-’Umari, records the Mongols meticulously planned the sacking. Depending on rank, commanders were given 1 to 3 days to collect loot from sections of the city allotted to them. In Urmawi’s case, his neighbourhood was allotted to Baiju Noyan and his retinue- notably just men Baiju picked to bring into the city with him, rather than a whole portion of his army. Urmawi greeted Baiju with gifts and hosted a feast for him, entertaining him with music and ingratiating himself to the Noyan. Baiju was so pleased he urged Urmawi to come with him to play before Hulegu. Hulegu enjoyed a concert before the walls of Baghdad, ordered Urmawi’s neighbourhood spared and protected with picked men, and even granted Urmawi gardens which had belonged to the Caliph.   Likewise, various sources note that a number of segments of the populations were spared and their property protected: Christians, notably Nestorian priests; Shi’ites and Alids; Khurasani merchants, Qadis, scholars, shaykhs and in one source, Jews. Individuals are mentioned petitioning Hulegu to spare their homes- likely for a hefty payment, of course- but in order to follow these orders, the forces looting the city had to be disciplined enough to actually take note of addresses. Even the oft-repeated statement that the Tigris River ran black with ink of the books of Baghdad’s library must be re-examined, for Nasir al-Din Tusi took many with him to Maragha, where he built his famous observatory. A number of sources indicate the city’s looting lasted only a week, rather than a full month.   Clemency was extended to multiple groups… but for the majority of the city’s population who did not fall into these categories, it appears no quarter was given. For all the gated neighbourhoods like Urmawi’s which were protected, many more were gutted and looted. Treasures collected over the city’s 500 years were stolen, the finest architecture of the ‘Abbasids ruined and torn down. Hulegu entered the city on February 15th, visiting the Caliph’s palace, where al-Mustasim was forced to reveal where he had hidden his wealth. 12,000 severed ears were brought before Hulegu to mark the slain citizenry. The dead littered the street; after a few days, the heat and stench of the rotting bodies led Hulegu to end the looting by February 20th. Notably, the city was not to be left to brigandage: a governor and Mongol officials were appointed, ibn al-Alqami kept his position as vizier, to clean up the bodies and restore the city.   On the 20th of February, Hulegu moved to the village of Waqaf to avoid the foul air of Baghdad, from which he apparently fell sick. At Waqaf, Hulegu had al-Mustasim put to death, most likely rolled into a carpet and stomped upon to avoid spilling his blood on the earth. His family soon followed him.  In European accounts, the popular version was that Hulegu locked Mustasim in his treasury, where he starved to death in an ironic punishment to mark the Caliph’s failures to pay for troops and defences.   So ended the 500 year old ‘Abbasid Caliphate. The impact on Islam is hard to understate. Since the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, there had been a widely recognized successor to him in the form of the Caliphs -Rashidun, Umayyad and ‘Abbasid. Most Muslims saw him as the spiritual, if not the actual political, head of Islam. For the Caliphate, seemingly inviolable and permanent, to come to such a violent and sudden end sent shockwaves throughout the Islamic world. Caliphates had been overthrown before; previous dynasties like the Buyids and Seljuqs had held the Caliphs as puppets and militarily defeated them, while the Nizari Assassins had claimed the lives of at least two; but never before had the Caliphate actually been erased from existence by a power claiming universal sovereignty in its place. Distant relations of al-Mustasim were eventually set up in Mamluk Cairo as new Caliphs, but were never widely recognized. The Ottoman Sultans would also claim the title of Caliph in time, but none have ever been able to step into the position held by the ‘Abbasids. It’s no surprise that many Muslims throughout the following centuries have referred to the sack of Baghdad as a scar of the psyche of the ummah, one which it has not recovered from today. With the fall of Baghdad, Hulegu could now cast his eyes onto Syria, down the Levantine coast to the newly established Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. The sense was real that Hulegu was about to bring the whole of Islam under the authority of the house of Chinggis. Our next episode takes us to the Mongol drive to the Meditteranean- and the famous clash of ‘Ayn Jalut, an episode you won’t want to miss. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast, and to help up continue bringing you great content, consider supporting us on Patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one.

Tonight I tell the full story behind the rise and fall of my label Producers I Know, how I quit journalism to the become a full time label owner, A&R and creative consultant in August 2015. By November 2016, everything had gone to shit. By January 2017, I was back in Rap journalism writing Knowledge Darts for Mass Appeal. This is a story of triumph, failure and resiliency in the face of adversity. Much like the train in "Snowpiercer" I will never stop moving forward, no matter what happens. Only 10 more left! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Back in February, we spoke to Ian Jenkinson who along with 9 of his best mates, had spent 5 years saving for a dream trip. As they all turned 40 within about 8 months of each other, they decided to forgo parties and instead to save €50 a month from January 2015 until December 2019. The goal? Have a once in a lifetime trip. By January this year, they had amassed an incredible €30,000 to spend as they pleased and on the 2nd of March, they set off on a dream holiday. From the Everglades to the Kennedy Space Centre, Miami to New Orleans, the so called 2020 Vision brought the lads closer than ever. This morning, Ian Jenkinson spoke to Dermot and Dave about the trip and how the looming threat of Coronavirus became very real as they flew home from the US. [audio mp3="https://media.radiocms.net/uploads/2020/07/08115741/0807-930-Ian-Jenkinson.mp3"][/audio]  

The Cross & The Culture: Pornography | Fruit Of The Sexual RevolutionThe societal damage caused by the sexual revolution is far-reaching. "Rolling Stone" magazine recently boasted about the extreme forms of sexual perversion that took place on a daily basis during the course of a workday in their offices. Apparently, they had no reservations against informing the world that the women working there at that time would rate the sexual performance of the men they worked with via graffiti on the bathroom wall. These people and this magazine have played a major role in shaping the minds of young people over the years. A brief look at our society will confirm this fact, and heir influence has been devastating. The sexual revolution sought to tear down the societal institutions and constructs that were in place to protect young people, primarily women, from various forms of sexual abuse or exploitation. But this crowd convinced the world these institutions were restrictive and hindered their ability to truly live. They gave no thought to the possible consequences, they had no clue “she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.” They tore down these useful constructs thereby opening the flood gates of sexual perversion and confusion. This lascivious group of fools believed society's overall unwillingness to permit lewd behavior was repressive. The sooner they could set free from said repression, the sooner everyone could benefit from this new-found freedom. Too often lasciviousness is confused with liberty. From that time until now, This relentless overdose of sexual perversion helped to produce modern-day sexual saturation. We now live in a time when confusion and sexual perversion have merged into the same lane. We struggle to see the difference between the pediatrician and the pedophile. The school teacher is arrested on the basis of sexual relationships with her students. College campuses have phones lit with a familiar blue every few feet, in case the young girl can reach it before being raped. I wonder how many members of the sexual revolution in the sixty's have lately had to comfort a daughter who bore the fruit of their labors. Or maybe they had to weep over a son's prison sentence, a son who lacked understanding or societal constraints to prevent his carrying out sexual expression without the consent of his victim.   Our media is often far more influenced by the minds of pornography than we may know. The Daily Express, a newspaper in England is owned by Richard Desmond, who made himself into a media mogul through pornography. Rupert Murdoch, the one time CEO of Fox, including Fox News and Sky News, was at one time considered the largest producer of pornography in the world. How is that for being fair and balanced? By the way, Rupert Murdoch is also a disciple of Rick Warren. Just an interesting connection, a preacher with lying lips and a porn mogul intermingled with conservative news. You may also be familiar with another network owned by Murdoch called the Christian Broadcasting Network. It seems the revolution was able to break down an array of restrictive walls. The leading influences in the world around us seem to be in a rush to get us further down this road. Vulgarity, promiscuity, and perversion are conflated with seemingly mischievous behavior. Course hearts with unbridled apatite's demand the right to be satisfied maintaining no concern for anyone harmed in the process. This unbridled hedonism has led to various forms of profitably controlled chaos. The sexual revolution fought hard for its definition of freedom, kicking against every trace of moral restriction until little is left to kick against. The revolution rages on, but with few barriers left to break down, they have turned their attention towards ideas. The world is now expected to take a man serious that calls himself a woman. We are seriously expected to believe every baseless accusation made by women. Often the same women that fought for a society with no sexual boundaries. The idea that man is to have access to an endless measure of choice and pleasure is naïve at best and sinister at its worst. Regardless of the idea, people are being physically harmed as these ideas are lived out. Ideas have consequences, and moral societal constructs exist to protect the vulnerable.  This persistent demand for the ablation of restraint should be reaching tipping points. Unfortunately, the people that should care are too busy enjoying the content of the sexual revolution to mind. Outwardly they pose as if they have concern for the helpful moral restrictions of old, while behind closed doors they are participating or “taking pleasure in them that do them.” At least in part, this continued revolution takes ideological aim at anyone attempting to stand for any form of morality, especially a biblically prescribed morality. They use vile and subversive tactics to tear down any semblance of virtue. The easiest and possibly the most successful of revolutionary attacks are against the character of the individuals standing for any form of rightness. In our day, it's too easy to make manifest the failures in one's life, especially in terms of the virtue they intend to defend. If at any time in life they participated in the evil they now advocate against, their virtuous stance is then required to be viewed as enduring hypocrisy. Thus defenders of morality are halt in that they are too often double-minded, and fulfillment of unbridled appetites, at any cost, reigns supreme. Shock value is now the arbiter of truth, shock value can make one famous, even infamous. The trouble is the shock value of yesterday will not have the same effect today. Sensation hits its peak and then begins to fall rapidly. Thus the providers of sensations will have to be more and more extreme, and the consumers of sensation will speed ahead or chase close behind that next convention-breaking moment. At this point, extreme is the rule, the more extreme - the viler. The more vile - the greater the damage. Laws of obscenity still exist, yet at this point, they are but mere unenforceable suggestions. Relics left behind from a time when America cared. Today there is more pushback against legislative meant to curb obscenity rather than outrage over its existence. Obscenity is the rule, and they are not ashamed, neither could they blush. I recall the days when satire magazines in grocery store checkout lines were laughable commentaries of the absurd. We would see them and immediately shake our heads at the outrageous headlines. Today, the satire is everyday life in America, outrageous magazines are hard to sell because reality is so closely aligned. We now exist within a society that believes extreme forms of sexual perversion are in fact inalienable human rights. Pedophiles believe they have the right to engage in sexual activity with the children of their choice. We have well crossed the tipping point in our societal experiment with the unnatural. It will be hard, nationally speaking on a legal basis, to continue to deny pedophiles the freedom to harm children. If two men can marry one another and women can legally abort a living human being for the most arbitrary of inconveniences. How can any lines of restriction be drawn?  The existence of these ideas should be odd to anyone, but our governing laws now go as far as our population is willing to go. That is a scary thought, this means as long as society is willing to spiral out of control, the legal system is obliged to follow. The purpose of the existence of laws is to prevent the line from being crossed and to uphold some sense of natural and national morality, but when the laws are constantly moved along with the lascivious affections of the people, then laws no longer have a purpose. The inmates are now running the prison. We live in a world heavily weighted in favor of the perverse. The sexual revolution is not done yet. But this deeply engraved tendency of man to live out that which is hidden in the dark recesses of their minds was extent long before the rise of the perverts of the 1960s. Pornography is defined: Licentious painting or literature; especially, the painting anciently employed to decorate the walls of rooms devoted to bacchanalian orgies. Bacchus was the Roman god of agriculture, the Romans associated this false god with the harvest. He was said to be the son of Jupiter by a human woman. His main responsibility was to wander the world educating people on how to make wine from grapes. Curious to see the consistent connection between drunkenness and lewdness. Bacchus had a Greek counterpart, Dionysus. Dionysus is considered to be an earlier manifestation of the same god. He earned the title of a party god, primarily because of his promotion of drunken orgies. In the spring, Roman women would attend secret ceremonies, of which I would not dare describe, these sexual free-for-alls took place to honor their god. Due to his connection with the harvest, a celebration was held each year in his name at the beginning of October. His ultimate mission was liberation, during these perverted drunken frenzies it was said that he loosened the tongues of participants. As a result, the people involved were free to say and do what they want, in that moment, without consequence. This, of course, sounds like the modern-day Democratic Party platform. Bacchus is often portrayed as effeminate, funny, and lewd.  So as far back as the sixth-century, pornographic materials were painted on the walls of the rooms where this drunken perversion took place. As such, today pornography can be defined in a number of arbitrary ways. Loosely, it is the representation of sexual behavior in books, pictures, statues, motion pictures, and any media intended to cause sexual stimulation. This, of course, is very subjective and is limited or expanded based upon the relative taste or motives of each individual or group. The pornography of yesterday is the family television of today.  Interestingly enough, the word pornography is taken from two Greek words. Porni which means "prostitute" and the word graphein which means "to write." Thus its original use was to define any material that depicted the generally understood life and work of a prostitute. In our world today, this would describe a large portion of photos and videos that make up social media. Women today have been convinced exposure of their flesh is equal to liberation. The more women are given over to the characteristics of a prostitute, the more they claim to be free. Thus the subjective nature of pornographic material coupled with the apparent everyday practice of the average American woman certainly makes the term “pornography” broadly applicable. The term is relative to the individual or group involved, sadly Christians in America have become content with depictions the Bible would certainly declare inappropriate. Yet Islam will not allow such open debauchery to exist in their societies. That doesn't mean their societies lack various forms of sexual depravity, they most certainly do. This type of religious hypocrisy has existed for some time, in the medieval era, it was seen in the sexual depravity of Roman Catholic Monks and priests. That hasn't changed really, as of December 2019, 5000 new cases of sexual abuse were filed against the Roman Catholic Church which is expected to cost them another $4 billion. By 2019, thousands of victims have been named and billions of dollars have been paid in a feeble attempt to recompense the children that have been physically, emotionally, and spiritually damaged. In 2018 Pope Francis made a fool of himself in a rather unique way. He claimed the victims of the work of his clergy were fabricating their allegations. Yet later that year he apologized and went on to express shame and sorrow for a consistent history of abuse by the Roman Catholic Church. It seems a rather odd mistake to make for someone that claims to speak ex-cathedra. One rather notable case in 2018 involved a high ranking Cardinal and Bishop of the Catholic Church. The sexual predator preyed upon adult males and minors, but at least he opposed gay marriage and abortion. Fortunately, the Pope dealt harshly with him, he ordered him to a life of prayer and penance, whatever that means. The Vatican had a trial resulting in the laicization of their clerical pervert. He will serve no time in prison. It seems Rome is just carrying out the salacious fruit of their pagan roots. The works of Bacchus are still carried out and exported by one of the most pagan and depraved organizations to exist, the Roman Catholic Church. At this point, it should be considered abusive to allow a child or young adult to ever step foot inside a Catholic Church. Bacchanalian ideas were further propagated in Europe with the manifestation of the printing press. Over the years, as technology has advanced, it has somehow been used to further spread lewd literature and images. In 1558 the Heptameron was published, it contained 72 tales, stories that illustrate virtue and honor as well as the frustration of vice and hypocrisy. Much of the language was deeply sarcastic and meant to highlight the licentious lifestyles of monks and clerics. This book was among a group of publications that began to open the door for unnecessarily descriptive content. In the 18th century, printing technology became more advanced. Printing material developed the ability to regularly produce written content that possessed images. With this development came an underground group of perverts that began to traffic lewd materials. Books such as "Memoirs of a woman of pleasure" began to be commonly read. Pornographic pictures were produced under the guise of art, in Paris, these photos were widely produced and consumed. In France, these photos came to be known as "French Postcards." Soon pornography would be used as a means of social and political dissent. The use of pornography helped elevate ideas of sexual freedom for women, whatever that means, as well as contraceptives and abortion. They all seem to be branches from the same corrupt tree. By 1830, when Queen Victoria came to the throne, it is estimated there were more than fifty pornographic shops on booksellers row in London. During the Victorian Age, pornography flourished in England and in the United States. In 1890 a book called "My Secret Life" graphically detailed the life of a man whose only pursuit was sexual gratification. It was a lewd rebellion against the puritan based society of the Victorian era. Proponents of the sexual revolution would consider the production of such perverted material at this time in history heroic victories by the party of the sexual liberation of old. But, the revolution is not finished yet, it would later be televised. The 19th century brought about photography and soon motion pictures. Of the many wonderful uses of these inventions, pornography quickly seized its opportunity. Pornographic films were readily available as early as the 1920s in America. By the 1960s the sexual revolution is in full effect and a massive upsurge in pornographic film came to exist. The 1980s brought about a shift in the use of pornography, the invention of VHS meant sexual perverts could sit at home and watch alone in the dark. They no longer had to make their way to theater seats or enter a convenience store and embarrassingly purchase pornographic material. Now, they could take the theater home with them. Twenty years into the VHS era, more than 75% of all videos sold were pornographic. In the 1990s this problem was made worse by the invention of DVDs. As if this was not bad enough, in the ‘90s also came the world-wide-web. In rapid fashion, the pornography industry became the most profitable industry on the internet. But this again brought about a massive change in the dynamics. With the advent of the internet, individuals could take pornographic photos and videos of themselves and upload them to the internet. This has proven to be a disaster! Pornography developed many of the initial internet marketing techniques, this is considered a victory by the revolutionaries because mostly women were the developers. The mid-1990s brought about much debate over the use of pornography on the internet. It was hotly debated on the Senate floor, interesting to note, while the West is debating the use of pornography on the internet, Rwandans were being brutally murdered in the Rwandan Genocide. Nonetheless, over the years the pattern has been: new invention, expansion of pornographic materials, outrage by the moral majority, then a measure of acceptance of debased visuals by society. As the debate raged on, the question literally became: "How do we protect our children and Free Speech?" - So far, in terms of pornography, free speech has been safe. Children have become a hot commodity for the Roman Catholic Church and the Porn Industry. Human Trafficking, as an illegal industry has been fueled by the high demand of the porn industry. Due to its great lack in regulation along with its nearly endless freedom, it seems the answer to the question: free remains free, children have become abused captives. The concern was that children would find porn on the internet and ruin their hearts and minds, which they most certainly did. But the Porn industry decided to take the sexual revolution a step further and include debased means of harming children. The Senate did take up a resolution in 1995 that intended to target anyone that placed pornographic materials online. The idea was to prevent easy discovery by anyone under the age of 18. Oddly enough, Bill Clinton signed the Communications Decency Act into law. The Senate understood if something was not done at that time, the Sexual revolution would hijack the information revolution. By 1996 technological innovation and marketing would combine. A man who owned a marketing company that brokered ads for pornographic websites, in other words, a lewd fellow of the baser sort, joined up with man hoping to benefit from the technological underworld. The man owned a domain name that would be of great benefit for the perverted mindsets searching for pornography online. It soon became clear the federal regulation signed by Bill Clinton did little or nothing to stop the onslaught of pornography online. The idea of age enforcement didn’t stop children from accessing porn, and to make matters worse the massive demand now includes the abuse of children to help sustain the industry.  As the numbers of computers in homes began to rise exponentially, so did indecent exposure. This marketing group began to develop banner ads that would lead searchers to pornographic membership sites. The idea was to place these banner ads on scores of unrelated, but frequently visited websites. The ad would flash before the person enticing them to want to see more, so they click the link which takes them to the pornographic website. This idea would develop the standard for all future marketing in every area of the internet. Companies that have products to market online rely on this exact same method today. The value of such ads is still calculated in a similar fashion as well. The marketer would benefit from impressions, that is the number of times these lewd ads would load for visitors to a site. Secondly, by the number of clicks, which meant that someone was redirected from a legitimate website to a pornographic website. This initial marketing scheme profited the website owner some $30,000 per ad. The website owner put the word out in Las Vegas that he owned the online space and the marketing scheme needed for this to flourish. Porn drove the VCR industry in the 1980s, thus evangelist of the porn industry was warmly welcomed by the technology moguls of the day. Their hope was to have porn drive the information age just as it had done with VHS. Online businesses were failing, people were taking chances hoping to understand how to make money with .com's. Yet, the Wall Street Journal began to note how pornographic websites were strong in the black. It didn't take much to be successful, the website owner simply needed a blank slate to fill with perverted banners. Defiled minds would be happy to search out and pay for access to these visuals. The underground world of sexual exploitation would be hard at work creating the necessary content to be hosted on the various sites. The world at large moved past the outrage of stanch sexual content online to becoming amazed at the innovation of the respective marketers. The world of online pornography developed a means of credit card payments online, video hosting, etc. Major aspects of all we know and use online today were developed as a means of marketing and profiting by the porn industry. By 1997, the Supreme Court shot down the previous attempt at regulating obscenity on the internet. Personally I love freedom, especially freedom of speech. But we have reached a crossroads here in which pornography, as a form of freedom, is harming the lives of millions. Over the years Online Pornography has dominated the internet. I have to say, until doing the research for this series of Podcasts, I was naïve to the seriousness of the problem. As of 2018, laws against pornography are no longer relegated to obscenity, though that is bad enough. Current laws dealing with pornography are directly related to Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation. Current measures to slow down this massive form of victimization are prevented from moving forward by groups such as the ACLU, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Free Speech Coalition. Oddly, these groups often land on the side of exploitation all the while calling it a defense of freedom. The porn industry, of course, is against any forms of regulation. They often respond by stating their belief that parents are in the best position to protect children from pornography. Which is a novel idea, expecting parents to actually take some responsibility for whatever is set before their children's eyes. Furthermore, it does seem odd to be lectured by members of the porn industry regarding the safety and welfare of children. Child trafficking and sexual exploitation essentially exist today for the purpose of producing content for the porn industry. This provides a perfect picture of this present evil world. Irresponsible parents being lectured by pornographers that use children to produce their content. Even so, come Lord Jesus! Suffice it to say, this monster has been allowed to freely grow. One online porn mogul is the company MindGeek, they own several web-based porn sites that produce what they call "entertainment." MindGeek websites receive around 115 million visitors daily. Compare that to YouTube which receives around 30 million visitors daily.  By January 2020 pornography makes up around 12% of internet webpages. 25% of all search engine requests are related to pornography. 35% of all internet downloads are pornographic. 70% of men visit pornographic sites at least monthly. Women make up some one-third of all internet visits to porn sites. Sunday is the most popular day of the week that pornography is viewed online. Thanksgiving is the most popular day of the year for the same. Often, as much as 28% of computer-based labor visits pornographic sites during their workday.  In the age of Covid-19, this next statistic is most alarming. When kids are out of school for an extended period of time, searches for pornographic sites by children rises by 4700%. Now, the sites should not exist, but this is a direct result of failed parenting. As of April 2020, during the Covid-19 home detention orders, various watchdog groups report a 95% increase in online child pornography traffic. Let me be clear, I'm not speaking of children searching porn, I'm speaking of children being used in the pornographic content. Innocent casualties of the sexual revolution and the freedom to mass-produce pornography. This same group reports that pedophiles have seen the value of moving their sick practices of preying on children online. They are targeting your children.   The various groups that intend to exploit your children for the purpose of content by way of vile sexual abuse often use Facebook, Instagram, or twitter to accomplish their devious goals. Many of them also use dating apps, why your child would be on a dating app is further evidence of failed parenting. I would suggest parents have failed if their children have access to Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. The reality is these apps are used by and for adults. It is not safe to allow children to use them, the content is often vile and your children are exposed to morbid ideas. The relationship between the internet as technology and pornography as a form of content has explosively dangerous results. A massive number of people taken for the purpose of human trafficking are coerced online, often the young and vulnerable are targeted. Once they are in the hands of their traffickers, more than three-quarters of victims are then advertised online for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Porn sites are ready to receive any of the images from these exploited men, women, and children. Often Backpage and Craigslist are used to advertise them locally. The production of pornography is often facilitated by the use of force, fraud, or extreme forms of coercion. The physical and sexual abuse is recorded and photographed, then uploaded to the worldwide web for sale to the sick and twisted minds that have developed an interest in such materials.  I would like to end here with a testimony from a young girl that was abducted and forced into human sex trafficking. She is a victim of this form of free speech and the sexual revolution. Please understand this testimony is graphic, if you have any inclination to consume pornographic content, you need to listen to this testimony. If you are settled on the fact pornography is evil content that is not pleasing to God, therefore you will not consume it, then I would recommend not listening any further. By the time Rachel was five, she had already been sexually abused by a family member. This plunged her into a state of depression she could not understand at her young age. By age twelve, she was targeted by a sex trafficker. She didn't know his intent was to force her into this horrendous industry. They don't exactly show up with signs advertising their intent. No, he was smooth-talking and he had a nice car that caught attention. As Rachel was waiting for her friends to catch the bus, the sweet-talking man approached her with candy. He showed an interest in her to which she was not accustomed. The man, though much older than her, was such a gentleman, he really seemed to be able to relate to her. Over time, the man would show up there and talk with her, eventually, she gave him her phone number. One day he called her, which greatly surprised her. He asked if she would like to hang out, and she said yes, he showed up at an appointed meeting place in an expensive car. She was very excited to have this opportunity, especially with someone that seemed to care about her. The trip went great, the man treated her very nicely. This series of events happened repeatedly over the next few weeks until eventually, the man asked her to come and stay with him. She reluctantly agreed, they lived together for three months, during which he treated her like a princess. Eventually, she noticed other girls were passing through with his friends and cousins. She was suspicious, but uncertain what this was all about. Soon, the man that had treated her so well began giving her instructions. He began to inform her what would be required of her and how she could perform in such a way as to make them more money. Soon the instruction ended, and she was forced to start working. She would be taken from city to city, from 10 am to midnight she would be forced to perform. The first few days she was only required to see twenty men per-day, eventually, it was thirty men per day seven days per week. She estimates she was raped in this manner more than 40,000 times. She was forced into brothels, hotels, dark streets, homes, and on camera. The men she encountered were cruel and ruthless. Any attempts to protest or any complaints of dissatisfaction led to her being beaten by her trafficker with a chain. Rachel was ushered from place to place with other girls, some of whom were only ten years old, all forced into the same situation. Eventually, Rachel was found to be pregnant, after the birth of the baby her traffickers took the baby and used the child as leverage against her. Rachel was eventually rescued when an anti-trafficking raid kicked in the door. She was trafficked in this manner for four horrible years. While perverts sit and debate their sexual independence, girls like this are being forcefully violated. While fools argue their freedom of speech, children are being taken and used in vile ways by adults who intend to exercise that freedom. Something serious needs to be done. I'm afraid I have come across very little information in my lifetime that I have found to be so grievous. The connection between simply watching porn, exercising free speech, and the sexual revolution need to be clearly documented.    Modern man is so convinced they are so sexually enlightened. Convinced of their revolutionary freedom they no longer deal with shame, jealousy, frustration, confusion, etc. They can now sit back and enjoy the deep levels of contentment this newfound enlightenment brought about, except they are far from content. The demand for sexual freedom is now a freight train barreling full steam ahead. As such, it cannot stop, even if a child is found in the way, the child must be counted as an unfortunate victim of revolutionary sexual freedom. Chaos now abounds, unbridled lust walks to and fro arrogantly seeking whom it may devour. The sexual revolution has been a disaster, pornography, and human sex trafficking is the fruit of this disaster. Learn more about Plenteous Redemption: https://plenteousredemption.com/Hear more Plenteous Redemption Podcast Audio: https://www.plenteousredemption.media/  

Kadie Major grew up a bubbly, cheerful girl in a small town just outside of Charleston, South Carolina. She always dreamed of owning a farmhouse where she could raise horses and grow her family. In high school, she fell in love with a quiet, reserved classmate named Aaron Major. They eventually married and settled into a house just minutes away from Kadie’s parents. By January 2008, Kadie Major seemed to have the perfect life. She and Aaron had a beautiful 10-month old baby girl named River Lynn, with a baby boy (to be named Aidan Robert) on the way. Everything was on the right track. Yet things aren’t always as they seem. Aaron appeared to struggle with depression during his college days, and the couple was prone to argument and bickering. Even Aaron’s mother, Ronda, had a series of unnerving interactions with Kadie. On the evening of January 16, 2008, Kadie asked her mother, Vicky, to join her for dinner. Vicky asked to postpone for another night. That dinner would never come. Tune in to Season 3, Episode 1 of Without Warning, in which renowned private investigator Sheila Wysocki utilizes crowdsourcing to uncover the mystery surrounding the deaths of Kadie, River Lynn, and Aidan Major. You can subscribe to Without Warning on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kadie Major grew up a bubbly, cheerful girl in a small town just outside of Charleston, South Carolina. She always dreamed of owning a farmhouse where she could raise horses and grow her family. In high school, she fell in love with a quiet, reserved classmate named Aaron Major. They eventually married and settled into a house just minutes away from Kadie’s parents. By January 2008, Kadie Major seemed to have the perfect life. She and Aaron had a beautiful 10-month old baby girl named River Lynn, with a baby boy (to be named Aidan Robert) on the way. Everything was on the right track. Yet things aren’t always as they seem. Aaron appeared to struggle with depression during his college days, and the couple was prone to argument and bickering. Even Aaron’s mother, Ronda, had a series of unnerving interactions with Kadie. On the evening of January 16, 2008, Kadie asked her mother, Vicky, to join her for dinner. Vicky asked to postpone for another night. That dinner would never come. Tune in to Season 3, Episode 1 of Without Warning, in which renowned private investigator Sheila Wysocki utilizes crowdsourcing to uncover the mystery surrounding the deaths of Kadie, River Lynn, and Aidan Major. You can subscribe to Without Warning on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In December of 2019, medical officials began noticing several mysterious cases of pneumonia in residents of Wuhan, China. As they began to investigate, patterns started to emerge. On January 11th, 2020, China reported its first death associated with a novel coronavirus. By January 30th, just one month after the disease was first reported in China, the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency. The virus continued to spread quickly, ferociously infecting countries like Italy, Iran, and Spain. On March 11th, the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. In the midst of the chaos and panic, several conspiracy theories started to emerge as people around the globe struggled to make sense of the events. Why do we believe in conspiracy theories? Can a conspiracy theory help us to feel in control during times of panic, or does it simply serve to make our collective anxiety worse? What can current conspiracy theories about COVID-19 teach us about our own psychology? Join Drs. Micono and Morelos as they discuss our fascination with conspiracy theories.

Luckin Coffee is a Chinese Starbucks competitor that has been taking China by storm. By January 2020, that’s only 2 years since opening their first store, they had a total of 4,507 stores, making them the largest coffee chain in China, surpassing even Starbucks. However, on April 2nd Luckin Coffee announced that an internal investigation found that its chief operating officer, Jian Liu, and several others, had fabricated the company's 2019 sales by "around RMB2.2 billion" or $310 million USD. Trading of the stock has since been halted on the U.S. exchange. In this video I share lessons of what we can learn from the Luckin Coffee disaster. Articles shared in video: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/LK/ https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/07/19/chinas-homegrown-luckin-coffee-takes-on-starbucks.html http://investor.luckincoffee.com/static-files/fad0e07a-ac5a-4881-9ff3-fdc6af395f6f https://secfilings.nasdaq.com/filingFrameset.asp?FilingID=13752710&RcvdDate=11/20/2019&CoName=LUCKIN%20COFFEE%20INC.&FormType=6-K&View=html https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LKOYMpXVo1ssbWQx8j4G3-strg6mpQ7F/view https://www.reuters.com/article/us-luckin-investigation-timeline/luckin-coffees-journey-from-hot-startup-to-5billion-share-wipeout-idUSKBN21L1HW https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/02/luckin-coffee-stock-plummets-after-investigation-finds-coo-fabricated-sales.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/03/luckin-coffee-debacle-is-a-painful-reminder-of-fraud-risk.html https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/04/03/should-i-sell-luckin-coffee.aspx https://www.benzinga.com/news/20/04/15753833/luckin-stock-drops-further-as-lenders-seek-to-seize-76-4m-shares-for-defaulted-loan Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/heydave7 Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heydave7 An Alternative Plan to Mitigate the Spread of COVID-19 and Get Americans Back to Work - https://medium.com/@heydave7/an-alternative-plan-to-mitigate-the-spread-of-covid-19-and-get-americans-back-to-work-d1c18c052bf0 Watch this video on what a 10x company is, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9HtG-jJSTY Watch this video on how new tech goes mainstream, https://youtu.be/gVsFsydllNo Check out my archived articles/posts on Tesla and investing: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/articles-megaposts-by-davet.23473/#post-485768 Disclaimer: All content on this channel is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as professional financial advice. Should you need such advice, consult a licensed financial or tax advisor. No guarantee is given regarding the accuracy of information on this channel. Author is long TSLA at time of original video publish date. Tags: Tesla, TSLA, Elon Musk, Model 3, Model Y, Cybertruck, InvestingSubscribe to Dave Lee on Investing on Soundwise

I Found The Source of the Coronavirus.Watch this video at- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU&feature=youtu.belaowhy86Hey Laowinners, After 2 weeks of painstaking searching, I refute the claim that the Coronavirus started outside of China. ◘ Support me on Patreon for early release, and much more! http://www.patreon.com/laowhy86 ◘ Donate and support this channel through Paypal http://paypal.me/cmilkrun ◘ OR Become a Sponsor on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChvi... Thanks to Snarky Guy for the footage - Check his China channel here - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaUl... ◘ My TV show: Conquering Northern China: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/conquering... ◘ Conquering Southern China https://vimeo.com/ondemand/conquering... ◘ Discount code for both shows: laowinning ◘ Join me every week for videos about China! Don't forget to subscribe! http://www.youtube.com/laowhy86 Be a Laowinner! Like comment subscribe! ◘ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/laowhy86 ◘ Instagram: http://instagram.com/laowhy86 Music in this video - The Muse Maker https://soundcloud.com/themusemaker ◘ Music used most of the time - New World Hip Hop https://soundcloud.com/apollodrivenz https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgir... Links for proof: http://www.whiov.cas.cn/105341/ http://www.whiov.cas.cn/105341/201911... http://www.whiov.cas.cn/105341/201912... http://159.226.126.127:8082/web/17190/20 http://159.226.126.127:8082/web/17190/46 http://gd.whiov.cas.cn/zxpy/yjsswgg/2... http://rfi.my/5OFG http://rfi.my/5OSZ http://gd.whiov.cas.cn/tzgg/201111/t2... http://www.whiov.ac.cn/tzgg_105342/20... http://blog.creaders.net/u/3027/20200... https://www.backchina.com/blog/261460... http://www.bjnews.com.cn/news/2020/02... https://bbs.pku.edu.cn/v2/post-read.p... Article Mentioned- https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-china-trail-leading-back-to-wuhan-labs/The Trail Leading Back to the Wuhan LabsBy Jim GeraghtyApril 3, 2020 1:20 PM  Medical workers in protective suits attend to a patient inside an isolated ward of the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, in Hubei Province, China, February 16, 2020. (China Daily via Reuters)There’s no proof the coronavirus accidentally escaped from a laboratory, but we can’t take the Chinese government’s denials at face value.It is understandable that many would be wary of the notion that the origin of the coronavirus could be discovered by some documentary filmmaker who used to live in China. Matthew Tye, who creates YouTube videos, contends he has identified the source of the coronavirus — and a great deal of the information that he presents, obtained from public records posted on the Internet, checks out. The Wuhan Institute of Virology in China indeed posted a job opening on November 18, 2019, “asking for scientists to come research the relationship between the coronavirus and bats.” The Google translation of the job posting is: “Taking bats as the research object, I will answer the molecular mechanism that can coexist with Ebola and SARS- associated coronavirus for a long time without disease, and its relationship with flight and longevity. Virology, immunology, cell biology, and multiple omics are used to compare the differences between humans and other mammals.” (“Omics” is a term for a subfield within biology, such as genomics or glycomics.) On December 24, 2019, the Wuhan Institute of Virology posted a second job posting. The translation of that posting includes the declaration, “long-term research on the pathogenic biology of bats carrying important viruses has confirmed the origin of bats of major new human and livestock infectious diseases such as SARS and SADS, and a large number of new bat and rodent new viruses have been discovered and identified.” Tye contends that that posting meant, “we’ve discovered a new and terrible virus, and would like to recruit people to come deal with it.” He also contends that “news didn’t come out about coronavirus until ages after that.” Doctors in Wuhan knew that they were dealing with a cluster of pneumonia cases as December progressed, but it is accurate to say that a very limited number of people knew about this particular strain of coronavirus and its severity at the time of that job posting. By December 31, about three weeks after doctors first noticed the cases, the Chinese government notified the World Health Organization and the first media reports about a “mystery pneumonia” appeared outside China. Scientific American verifies much of the information Tye mentions about Shi Zhengli, the Chinese virologist nicknamed “Bat Woman” for her work with that species. Shi — a virologist who is often called China’s “bat woman” by her colleagues because of her virus-hunting expeditions in bat caves over the past 16 years — walked out of the conference she was attending in Shanghai and hopped on the next train back to Wuhan. “I wondered if [the municipal health authority] got it wrong,” she says. “I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China.” Her studies had shown that the southern, subtropical areas of Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan have the greatest risk of coronaviruses jumping to humans from animals — particularly bats, a known reservoir for many viruses. If coronaviruses were the culprit, she remembers thinking, “could they have come from our lab?” . . . By January 7 the Wuhan team determined that the new virus had indeed caused the disease those patients suffered — a conclusion based on results from polymerase chain reaction analysis, full genome sequencing, antibody tests of blood samples and the virus’s ability to infect human lung cells in a petri dish. The genomic sequence of the virus — now officially called SARS-CoV-2 because it is related to the SARS pathogen — was 96 percent identical to that of a coronavirus the researchers had identified in horseshoe bats in Yunnan, they reported in a paper published last month in Nature. “It’s crystal clear that bats, once again, are the natural reservoir,” says Daszak, who was not involved in the study. Some scientists aren’t convinced that the virus jumped straight from bats to human beings, but there are a few problems with the theory that some other animal was an intermediate transmitter of COVID-19 from bats to humans: Analyses of the SARS-CoV-2 genome indicate a single spillover event, meaning the virus jumped only once from an animal to a person, which makes it likely that the virus was circulating among people before December. Unless more information about the animals at the Wuhan market is released, the transmission chain may never be clear. There are, however, numerous possibilities. A bat hunter or a wildlife trafficker might have brought the virus to the market. Pangolins happen to carry a coronavirus, which they might have picked up from bats years ago, and which is, in one crucial part of its genome, virtually identical to SARS-CoV-2. But no one has yet found evidence that pangolins were at the Wuhan market, or even that venders there trafficked pangolins. On February 4 — one week before the World Health Organization decided to officially name this virus “COVID-19” — the journal Cell Research posted a notice written by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology about the virus, concluding, “our findings reveal that remdesivir and chloroquine are highly effective in the control of 2019-nCoV infection in vitro. Since these compounds have been used in human patients with a safety track record and shown to be effective against various ailments, we suggest that they should be assessed in human patients suffering from the novel coronavirus disease.” One of the authors of that notice was the “bat woman,” Shi Zhengli. In his YouTube video, Tye focuses his attention on a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology named Huang Yanling: “Most people believe her to be patient zero, and most people believe she is dead.” There was enough discussion of rumors about Huang Yanling online in China to spur an official denial. On February 16, the Wuhan Institute of Virology denied that patient zero was one of their employees, and interestingly named her specifically: “Recently there has been fake information about Huang Yanling, a graduate from our institute, claiming that she was patient zero in the novel coronavirus.” Press accounts quote the institute as saying, “Huang was a graduate student at the institute until 2015, when she left the province and had not returned since. Huang was in good health and had not been diagnosed with disease, it added.” None of her publicly available research papers are dated after 2015. The web page for the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Lab of Diagnostic Microbiology does indeed still have “Huang Yanling” listed as a 2012 graduate student, and her picture and biography appear to have been recently removed — as have those of two other graduate students from 2013, Wang Mengyue and Wei Cuihua. Her name still has a hyperlink, but the linked page is blank. The pages for Wang Mengyue and Wei Cuihua are blank as well. (For what it is worth, the South China Morning Post — a newspaper seen as being generally pro-Beijing — reported on March 13 that “according to the government data seen by the Post, a 55 year-old from Hubei province could have been the first person to have contracted Covid-19 on November 17.”) On February 17, Zhen Shuji, a Hong Kong correspondent from the French public-radio service Radio France Internationale, reported: “when a reporter from the Beijing News of the Mainland asked the institute for rumors about patient zero, the institute first denied that there was a researcher Huang Yanling, but after learning that the name of the person on the Internet did exist, acknowledged that the person had worked at the firm but has now left the office and is unaccounted for.” Tye says, “everyone on the Chinese internet is searching for [Huang Yanling] but most believe that her body was quickly cremated and the people working at the crematorium were perhaps infected as they were not given any information about the virus.” (The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that handling the body of someone who has died of coronavirus is safe — including embalming and cremation — as long as the standard safety protocols for handing a decedent are used. It’s anyone’s guess as to whether those safety protocols were sufficiently used in China before the outbreak’s scope was known.) As Tye observes, a public appearance by Huang Yanling would dispel a lot of the public rumors, and is the sort of thing the Chinese government would quickly arrange in normal circumstances — presuming that Huang Yanling was still alive. Several officials at the Wuhan Institute of Virology issued public statements that Huang was in good health and that no one at the institute has been infected with COVID-19. In any case, the mystery around Huang Yanling may be moot, but it does point to the lab covering up something about her. China Global Television Network, a state-owned television broadcaster, illuminated another rumor while attempting to dispel it in a February 23 report entitled “Rumors Stop With the Wise”: On February 17, a Weibo user who claimed herself to be Chen Quanjiao, a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, reported to the public that the Director of the Institute was responsible for leaking the novel coronavirus. The Weibo post threw a bomb in the cyberspace and the public was shocked. Soon Chen herself stepped out and declared that she had never released any report information and expressed great indignation at such identity fraud on Weibo. It has been confirmed that that particular Weibo account had been shut down several times due to the spread of misinformation about COVID-19. That Radio France Internationale report on February 17 also mentioned the next key part of the Tye’s YouTube video. “Xiaobo Tao, a scholar from South China University of Technology, recently published a report that researchers at Wuhan Virus Laboratory were splashed with bat blood and urine, and then quarantined for 14 days.” HK01, another Hong Kong-based news site, reported the same claim. This doctor’s name is spelled in English as both “Xiaobo Tao” and “Botao Xiao.” From 2011 to 2013, Botao Xiao was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, and his biography is still on the web site of the South China University of Technology. At some point in February, Botao Xiao posted a research paper onto ResearchGate.net, “The Possible Origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus.” He is listed as one author, along with Lei Xiao from Tian You Hospital, which is affiliated with the Wuhan University of Science and Technology. The paper was removed a short time after it was posted, but archived images of its pages can be found here and here. The first conclusion of Botao Xiao’s paper is that the bats suspected of carrying the virus are extremely unlikely to be found naturally in the city, and despite the stories of “bat soup,” they conclude that bats were not sold at the market and were unlikely to be deliberately ingested. The bats carrying CoV ZC45 were originally found in Yunnan or Zhejiang province, both of which were more than 900 kilometers away from the seafood market. Bats were normally found to live in caves and trees. But the seafood market is in a densely-populated district of Wuhan, a metropolitan [area] of ~15 million people. The probability was very low for the bats to fly to the market. According to municipal reports and the testimonies of 31 residents and 28 visitors, the bat was never a food source in the city, and no bat was traded in the market. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization could not confirm if bats were present at the market. Botao Xiao’s paper theorizes that the coronavirus originated from bats being used for research at either one of two research laboratories in Wuhan. We screened the area around the seafood market and identified two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus. Within ~ 280 meters from the market, there was the Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention. WHCDC hosted animals in laboratories for research purpose, one of which was specialized in pathogens collection and identification. In one of their studies, 155 bats including Rhinolophus affinis were captured in Hubei province, and other 450 bats were captured in Zhejiang province. The expert in Collection was noted in the Author Contributions (JHT). Moreover, he was broadcasted for collecting viruses on nation-wide newspapers and websites in 2017 and 2019. He described that he was once by attacked by bats and the blood of a bat shot on his skin. He knew the extreme danger of the infection so he quarantined himself for 14 days. In another accident, he quarantined himself again because bats peed on him. Surgery was performed on the caged animals and the tissue samples were collected for DNA and RNA extraction and sequencing. The tissue samples and contaminated trashes were source of pathogens. They were only ~280 meters from the seafood market. The WHCDC was also adjacent to the Union Hospital (Figure 1, bottom) where the first group of doctors were infected during this epidemic. It is plausible that the virus leaked around and some of them contaminated the initial patients in this epidemic, though solid proofs are needed in future study. The second laboratory was ~12 kilometers from the seafood market and belonged to Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences . . . In summary, somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan. Safety level may need to be reinforced in high risk biohazardous laboratories. Regulations may be taken to relocate these laboratories far away from city center and other densely populated places. However, Xiao has told the Wall Street Journal that he has withdrawn his paper. “The speculation about the possible origins in the post was based on published papers and media, and was not supported by direct proofs,” he said in a brief email on February 26. The bat researcher that Xiao’s report refers to is virologist Tian Junhua, who works at the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control. In 2004, the World Health Organization determined that an outbreak of the SARS virus had been caused by two separate leaks at the Chinese Institute of Virology in Beijing. The Chinese government said that the leaks were a result of “negligence” and the responsible officials had been punished. In 2017, the Chinese state-owned Shanghai Media Group made a seven-minute documentary about Tian Junhua, entitled “Youth in the Wild: Invisible Defender.” Videographers followed Tian Junhua as he traveled deep into caves to collect bats. “Among all known creatures, the bats are rich with various viruses inside,” he says in Chinese. “You can find most viruses responsible for human diseases, like rabies virus, SARS, and Ebola. Accordingly, the caves frequented by bats became our main battlefields.” He emphasizes, “bats usually live in caves humans can hardly reach. Only in these places can we find the most ideal virus vector samples.” One of his last statements on the video is: “In the past ten-plus years, we have visited every corner of Hubei Province. We explored dozens of undeveloped caves and studied more than 300 types of virus vectors. But I do hope these virus samples will only be preserved for scientific research and will never be used in real life. Because humans need not only the vaccines, but also the protection from the nature.” The description of Tian Junhua’s self-isolation came from a May 2017 report by Xinhua News Agency, repeated by the Chinese news site JQKNews.com: The environment for collecting bat samples is extremely bad. There is a stench in the bat cave. Bats carry a large number of viruses in their bodies. If they are not careful, they are at risk of infection. But Tian Junhua is not afraid to go to the mountain with his wife to catch Batman. Tian Junhua summed up the experience that the most bats can be caught by using the sky cannon and pulling the net. But in the process of operation, Tian Junhua forgot to take protective measures. Bat urine dripped on him like raindrops from the top. If he was infected, he could not find any medicine. It was written in the report. The wings of bats carry sharp claws. When the big bats are caught by bat tools, they can easily spray blood. Several times bat blood was sprayed directly on Tians skin, but he didn’t flinch at all. After returning home, Tian Junhua took the initiative to isolate for half a month. As long as the incubation period of 14 days does not occur, he will be lucky to escape, the report said. Bat urine and blood can carry viruses. How likely is it that bat urine or blood got onto a researcher at either Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention or the Wuhan Institute of Virology? Alternatively, what are the odds that some sort of medical waste or other material from the bats was not properly disposed of, and that was the initial transmission vector to a human being? 14Virologists have been vehemently skeptical of the theory that COVID-19 was engineered or deliberately constructed in a laboratory; the director of the National Institutes of Health has written that recent genomic research “debunks such claims by providing scientific evidence that this novel coronavirus arose naturally.” And none of the above is definitive proof that COVID-19 originated from a bat at either the Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention or the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Definitive proof would require much broader access to information about what happened in those facilities in the time period before the epidemic in the city. But it is a remarkable coincidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was researching Ebola and SARS-associated coronaviruses in bats before the pandemic outbreak, and that in the month when Wuhan doctors were treating the first patients of COVID-19, the institute announced in a hiring notice that “a large number of new bat and rodent new viruses have been discovered and identified.” And the fact that the Chinese government spent six weeks insisting that COVID-19 could not be spread from person to person means that its denials about Wuhan laboratories cannot be accepted without independent verification. JIM GERAGHTY is the senior political correspondent of National Review. @jimgeraghty

In December 20-13, a two-year-old boy in West Africa died after becoming sick with a fever, vomiting and diarrhea. By January – that same sickness had killed three more members of his family. It wasn’t until March – three months later – that the mysterious disease was identified as Ebola. But by then – it had already spread. Over the next two years, Ebola would kill more than 11-thousand people and cost billions of dollars. Doctor Raj Panjabi was there.

On this episode, we discuss the Law family. William, his wife Jane, and his brother Wilson, converted to the church in the mid-1830s and moved to the burgeoning city of Nauvoo in 1839. From that point forward, William and Jane were elevated to high-ranking levels of Mormon and city leadership. Joseph Smith and William Law became good friends and coworkers in Nauvoo government and military duties. But, something changed. By late 1843, William began to bristle about how much political influence Joseph Smith was gaining. By January of 1844, William was dropped from the Presidency of the church (Jo’s left-hand man). William, Jane, and Wilson Law eventually became looped together with the dissenter movement within the kingdom. They finally chose to act and formed their own sect of Mormonism in Nauvoo, collected affidavits of those wronged by the Nauvoo leadership and Joseph Smith, and established an adversarial printing press. The Higbees, the Fosters, and the Laws establishing this rival church and expose printing press would catalyze a sequence of events which would lead to the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Links: History of Hancock County by Thomas Gregg https://archive.org/details/historyofhancock00greg/page/296   History of Illinois by Thomas Ford https://archive.org/details/ahistoryillinoi00shiegoog/page/n318   William Law Biography https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/person/william-law   Wilson Law Biography https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/person/wilson-law   JS Reflections and Blessings https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/reflections-and-blessings-16-and-23-august-1842/2   An Interview with William Law http://www.mrm.org/law-interview   William Law, Nauvoo Dissenter by Lyndon Cook https://www.jstor.org/stable/43040880?seq=18#metadata_info_tab_contents   JS 1844 journal https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/journal-december-1842-june-1844-book-4-1-march-22-june-1844/1#full-transcript   Show links: Website http://nakedmormonismpodcast.com Twitter @NakedMormonism Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Naked-Mormonism/370003839816311 Patreon http://patreon.com/nakedmormonism Music by Jason Comeau http://aloststateofmind.com/ Show Artwork http://weirdmormonshit.com/ Legal Counsel http://patorrez.com/

In this episode, John and Chris will discuss the documentary about Bikram Choudhury, an Indian-born-American yoga teacher, and the founder of Bikram Yoga, a form of hot yoga consisting of a fixed series of 26 postures practised in a hot environment of 40 °C (104 °F). Bikram Yoga became a success in the United States and then across the Western world, with a variety of celebrity students.The documentary details allegations of rape, sexual assault, and discrimination against racial and sexual minorities against Bikram. By January 2014, five women were suing Bikram Choudhury with allegations including sexual harassment and sexual assault. Two lawsuits accusing him of rape were filed in May 2013, with other counts of sexual battery, false imprisonment, discrimination, and harassment. One suit describes a cult-like atmosphere where members of Choudhury's inner circle help him find young women to assault. Another suit claims that Choudhury recruits volunteers from overseas who were so in fear of his wrath that they would travel to the US and risk violating immigration laws in order to serve him. In 2017, a court awarded $7 million to his former lawyer, who gained control of his yoga business when Choudhury fled to India without paying her. Since then he has continued to train yoga teachers outside the United States in countries including Spain and Mexico.John and Chris will share their thoughts on all that, and talk about how yogis should really behave and conduct themselves among their students and the society in general. Yoga is meant to help us connect with a deeper part of ourselves and the yogis that we follow should not be viewed as the ones who can fulfill that for us because they only serve as a channel to help us see what is already inside us. Stay tuned to learn more.Key Points Discussed:The documentary about one of the originators of hot yoga (01:03)The reason why some yoga teachers yell at their students (03:05)Yogis are not the way, the way is the message (08:06)How a sexual predator is still doing teacher training (09:58)Waking and living a better life by knowing that we have what we need (11:54)--If you haven't already, be sure to join our Facebook Group! This is where we are diving into the concepts and strategies discussed on this podcast in more detail through our weekly Facebook Live sessions.--Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple ,Spotify, Google, or your favorite podcast app! Also, it would be amazing if you could leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

On this episode of the American Shoreline Podcast, Peter and Tyler sit down with Kathleen Ligon, Special Assistant to the Administrator of the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB), the state agency responsible for water planning and administering the state revolving funds for drinking water and clean water (i.e. sewage treatment) facilities. In the good old days, flood planning, mitigation, and flood control projects were largely handled by local governments -- cities, counties, drainage and levee districts and the like. The state did not play a leading role in either planning or funding flood projects. That all changed in the 2019 legislative session after the trauma of major flood events, including Hurricane Harvey (2017) and Hurricane Imelda (2019), which drowned the city of Houston and surrounding communities. Faced with an outcry of "never again," the Texas legislature passed Senate Bills 7 & 8 in June 2019 and voters in November 2019 passed Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that pumped $800 million into a new state Flood Infrastructure Fund (FIF). The new laws add flood planning and response responsibilities to the TWPD portfolio, with billions in new spending authority. The laws also require creation of new Regional Flood Planning Groups (RFPGs) in every river basin in the state and mandate that local governments in the basin work together to produce a Regional Flood Plan due January 2023. By January 2024, the state will compile the State Flood Plan, opening the funding spigots to the regions. To get the ball rolling, initial flood project applications for FIF grants and loans will be accepted beginning in March 2020. Along with the General Land Office, another state agency, more than $2 billion in new flood response spending is on the table in Texas, much if it available right now, with significant new funds for coastal communities. Spinning up these new flood management programs will not be easy but Texas is taking a solid step forward to address flood risks, especially along the coast. Is it a model for other coastal states? Find out in this interview with Kathleen Ligon.

This is a snippet from Breaking Walls Episode 99: New Year's 1948 On The Air ____________ In the mid-1940s Al Jolson’s career hit a low point. He’d spent only one season as host of his own radio program since 1939, when his Colgate Toothpaste Program was cancelled in June of 1943. Then in 1946 Columbia filmed a biography of his life. Larry Parks played the young Jolson, but Jolson’s voice was used in the soundtrack. The film won two Oscars, and again he was a hot property. Jolson was soon doing so many radio guest spots that it became a running gag among comedians. With Kraft’s ratings in a tailspin following Bing Crosby’s departure for ABC, Jolson was a wise investment. Kraft signed the star for $7500 per week and the Music Hall was once again Thursday’s ratings winner, with a 23.5 in January of 1948. ** At 9:30PM Eastern Time from New York, Casey, Anne Williams, Ethelbert, and Tony Marvin could be found where they were found on both Thanksgiving and Christmas: At work. This episode of Crime Photographer involves an arson, manslaughter, and a kidnapping, all taking place in the wee hours of the morning on January 1st. By January 1st, 1948, John Gibson, Staats Cotsworth, and Jan Miner were three of the busiest character actors on radio.

Marlys and Carissa interview Lisa Castro, an Every Girl, about her life in 2019. At the end of 2018, Lisa finds out her husband has decided he is in love with another woman. By January 31st, 2019 they're divorced, which starts a journey of healing and self-discovery. Although she would never want to go through the heartache again, she shares how it was the best thing that ever happened to her. Join Carissa, Marlys, and Lisa as they talk about real life and how to be brave. 

Hollywood Blonds: Episode 1 - Origin Story: Oct ‘92-Jan ‘93Happy New Year! On this very special episode Mike & JV, are presenting the first episode in the new special series, The Hollywood Blonds. On this episode Mike & JV will be covering the “Origin Story” October 1992- January 1993, Brian Pillman & Steve Austin are coming off of successful single runs and are teamed together briefly in October 1992. Austin & Pillman will be involved in a series of matches with Dustin Rhodes, Ricky Steamboat, Shane Douglas, & Barry Windham. Throughout October & November, Austin will team up with various partners including Arn Anderson & Dr. Death Steve Williams, while recently turned heel, Barry WIndham is teaming with Brian Pillman. By January 1993, Windham has his sights set on the U.S. Title and sets up Brian Pillman with Steve Austin to become his new partner. Austin & Pillman quickly get a title shot for the Unified NWA/WCW Tag Team Championships at Clash of the Champions 22 from January, 1993. Check out "Talking Taker” Alex & Travis are "digging up" the career of the Undertaker. You can now dig deep back into their archives and explore the 90's run of the Deadman. Booking the Territory: The Unprofessional Wrestling Podcast - Mike Mills, along with his hilarious & informative team of Doc Turner & Hardbody Harper breakdown episodes of NWA/WCW Saturday Night from 85-88 and Smoky Mountain Wrestling from the start in 1992, and they are currently in 1995. This week on the NWA/WCW episode they covered the NWA WCW from 09/03/88. On the SMW Show they will be covering 06/10/95, Ep 176. Join the Booking the Territory Patreon Page at Patreon.com/BookingTheTerritory at the $5 Tier to join JV & Mike on the “Extreme ECW Live Cast”. Mike & JV will be doing Watch Along Live Commentary coverage of ECW Hardcore TV. This week is Ep 15: HCTV 31 & 32: Nov 9 & 16, 1993. Check out Free Your Geek, check out their most recent episode, Episode 83: Stream a Little Stream of Me.Please reach out and support us on Twitter & Facebook @bottomlinecastPlease take the time to Subscribe and give us a Five Star Rating on Itunes! Feel free to make suggestions and chat with us, at @MPRU83 & @JOHNVANDAMAGEPlease Subscribe to our new YouTube channel, Bottom Line Wrestling CastThank you for listening!Find out more at https://bottomlinecast.pinecast.coSend us your feedback online: https://pinecast.com/feedback/bottomlinecast/75716731-a8fc-4beb-8f73-d6514c27685bThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.

The lines for returns start Dec. 26. Often you’ll get a gift card to use at that retailer to shop. The week between Christmas and New Year’s has become one of the busiest shopping weeks of the year, and an expensive one as well. Lines, crowds and higher prices. Better idea: January 6th or later is when to return items, unless that retailer has a tighter window on returns. By January 6th and later, shoppers have evaporated and excess merchandise and previous returns all get marked down. No crowds, no lines, lower prices. Amazon gifts can come with return vouchers. Make sure when you open a gift delivered by Amazon, you find the gift receipt in order to do a return if need be. Yes it’s hard to consider switching banks but Wells Fargo continues to prove it’s a criminal enterprise posing as a bank, unworthy of being trusted with you money. Follow up on a previous story – $2.5M of a widow’s inheritance was stolen by her Wells Fargo broker trading at Wells Fargo. The broker is alleged to have forged documents to generate massive fees. The only recourse: arbitration. Concurrently, the Office of the Controller of the Currency has sanctioned WF for ignoring employee grievances. They’re doing nothing to investigate employee complaints. You are at risk if you do business with this company that REFUSES to do right by people. About 1 in 8 of us are self-employed or have some kind of side gig. Tax is not being withheld with this type of work and you could get hit hard at tax time. You’re expected to pay 15.3% to social security and make estimated tax payments 4 times a year. If you don’t, you’ve under withheld and are penalized. If you also have a regular job, do maximum withholding, averaged out over the year by the IRS, to reduce penalties for not having paid through the course of the year. If solely self-employed, pay the IRS the sooner the better to stop the interest and penalty clock. You’re expected to make estimated payments 4 times a year, state and federal. For the solo self-employed, you can do a solo or self-employed 401K with generous limits to reduce your tax bill. For high earners, a SEP has a limit around $57K per year you can set aside for retirement, fee free – all to reduce the tax you’d owe otherwise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2004, Jack Abramoff was on top of the lobbying game. He was also bilking his own clients out of millions of dollars. By January of 2006, he pled guilty to mail fraud, conspiracy, wire fraud, and tax evasion. But the most surprising part is where Abramoff is now.

IFBB PROFESSİONAL BODYBUİLDER, Mr.USA Champion Biography Mr.USA Champion,IFBB PROFESSİONAL BODYBUİLDER. Vinny Galanti started training in 1983 when his dad brought home a sand weight set. By January of 1984 at age 16, Vinny started taking the # 10 bus from Jersey City to Bayonne NJ to train at Billy's gym, where the competition bug took a big bite, and he never looked back. Having over 25 years under his belt in the bodybuilding world, Vinny is known for his balanced physique, great posing, and dedication to the sport. In this Podcast we talk about: -Discipline -Overcoming Obstacles -Surrounding yourself with the right people -Utilizing a plan and executing -Discipline -Self Awareness -Learning from you setbacks

By January 14, 2020 Microsoft will not offer free support for Windows 7. After that date Microsoft will not offer updates, technical help and security. Every one must upgrade to Windows 10 to benefit from encryption, speed, security and tamper-proof operating system.Support the show (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JHSCA4VS8F2NE&source=url)

HOW PUBLIC OPINION WAS MANIPULATED TO SENTENCE MARIE ANTOINETTE TO THE GUILLOTINE. Public opinion can be a pulse check of the people, but it can also be mob rule. Author AK Patch is here today to talk about a case of mob rule that caused the execution of a queen. 1. What do have for us today, A.K? When times are desperate, when emotions run high, when opposing political parties vie for power, media can be used to foster hatred. I’m going to talk about how Queen Marie Antoinette ended up executed by guillotine in 1793. King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette were wed in 1770 as teenagers to foster an alliance between France and Austria. Monarchs live in splendor and sometimes don’t tend to suffering of the population. By 1789, overspending, drought, high prices of bread and taxes, and lack of representation in voting rights caused the people to revolt and threw out the monarchs and the aristocracy. What happened to them? Rumors of a military coup circulated. The people stormed the Bastille, a hated prison, on July 14, 1789 (still celebrated today). The French tried to create a new republic. 2. What happened to King and Queen? Restricted to their palace in Versailles and with the situation deteriorating, The Royal tried to escape France, but were caught and brought back to Versailles in 1791. A more radical group, the Jacobins, attacked Versailles and took the king and queen to prison in August 1792. By January 1793, Louis was sent to the guillotine and had his head snipped off by the heavy blade, watched by thousands who cheered the execution of the King. But what do about the Queen? 3. What happened to her? Put in prison, away from her children and family, in a small dirty room with constant on sight guards with little privacy, they kept her 9 months. Rumors were circulated building more against her. Songs were made up about her treason and guilt and sold by ballad-sellers. The famous statement of “Let them Eat Cake” was made up. They called a cruel, viscous, hussy. A German tigress. ‘I drain your finances,/ And I laugh at your pains: / By my foolish expenditure / France is a tomb.’ The papers even passed a rumor that she had sexual relations with her young son. They used media drive up the hate against her. In truth, she had no say in the governing. Her husband didn’t listen to her advice to reform. This was the time of Reign of Terror. During a ten-month period, around 17,000 people were sent to the guillotine. People loyal to her, tried to help he

In this episode of AmeerApproved I sit down with Eva Lau. She helped nurture and scale the Wattpad community from its infancy to become one of the largest online communities with tens of millions of monthly users around the world. With a sharp focus on investing companies with strong network effect as their defensibility, Eva has created the ASSET framework that many entrepreneurs and accelerators have adopted in their developing business strategies. Eva is regarded as an expert in this area. Wattpad was founded in 2006, following a collaboration between founders Allen Lau and Ivan Yuen. By January 2018, Wattpad had received almost $156.8 million CAD ($117.8 million USD) in funding from investors. This included a $17.3 million CAD in 2012 and a $61.25 million CAD round in January 2018.   Guest: Eva Lau, Managing Director and Co-founder Eva is a well respected entrepreneur-turned-investor in Canada. Before starting Two Small Fish Ventures, she was Wattpad’s Head of Community and Content. She helped nurture and scale the Wattpad community from its infancy to become one of the largest online communities with tens of millions of monthly users around the world. With a sharp focus on investing companies with strong network effect as their defensibility, Eva has created the ASSET framework that many entrepreneurs and accelerators have adopted in their developing business strategies. Eva is regarded as an expert in this area.  Prior to Wattpad, she was Director of Product Development of Brightspark Labs, a Toronto based accelerator. During her tenure at Brightspark Labs she mentored and helped many tech startups in Toronto. Eva is also involved in many incubators and accelerators, such as Creative Destruction Lab at Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto’s Entrepreneurship Hatchery, Ryerson’s DMZ, University of Waterloo’s Velocity and Techstars. She also serves on the board of Branksome Hall and a number of startup companies. Eva has a bachelor degree in Industrial Engineering from University of Toronto and an MBA from Schulich School of Business. Her husband constantly teases her that the two degrees offset each other. Eva hangs out online all the time.  She can be found here: wattpad: @evalau twitter: @MrsEvaLau linkedin: @Eva Lau

In January of 1948, Suspense producer/director Bill Spier left the show. Roma Wines had cancelled their sponsorship in November. Suspense was in the midst of an ill-fated hour-long show experiment, hosted by Robert Montgomery. By January of 1948, Spier was engaged to June Havoc. They were married on January 25th, the day after Spier left Suspense. When the couple finished honeymooning, Spier looked for his next project. He found it on the American Broadcasting Company. On March 4th, 1948, ABC's production of The Clock was moved to Hollywood and turned over to Bill Spier. The first episode under Spier's direction was called, "Nicky." It was a story about a man on death row who has no plans on going to the great hereafter. Spier tabbed radio actors who'd go on to become household names in the guest-starring roles, like Elliott Lewis, Cathy Lewis, and William Conrad. All three are featured in this Spier-debut episode clip.

The HALO Trust was founded in 1988 in response to the global humanitarian catastrophe caused by landmines. The problem was particularly acute in Afghanistan where thousands of civilians were being killed or injured by landmines and their presence was preventing the return of tens of thousands of refugees. So, it is a great honour to have the Director of the Halo Trust in Colombia, Ash Boddy, on Colombia Calling to speak about their work here.  For more than five decades, illegal armed groups in Colombia have engaged in conflict with the government. Improvised explosive devices or IEDs, (classified as landmines in Colombia) have been laid throughout rural areas, devastating local communities. For years, according to Landmine Monitor, Colombia was ranked as the country with the second number of landmine victims in the world. According to the National Authority, there have been over 11,600 mine and UXO victims in Colombia since 1990, were 39% correspond to civilians.  Boddy walks us through the projects currently underway in Colombia and how the Halo Trust works. By January 2019, HALO Colombia had cleared a total of 178 minefields (815.399m2), safely destroying more than 600 mines in the process. Additionally, through non-technical survey (NTS) HALO team have reported 876 veredas as landmine free. Together these activities have benefited more than 18,000 people. The most affected regions in Colombia due to landmines are Antioquia, Meta, Valle, Cauca, Narino and Putumayo. Tune in to find out more about the Halo Trust and their work in Colombia

Meet the newest judges at the Ninth Circuit! By January of 2019, eight new judges joined the bench. Six were elected – Judges Arendas, Ashton, Carter, Sanders, Shaffer, and Young. Two were appointed – Judges Beamer and Wish. And they all have been an incredible addition to the bench. Grab you headphones and listen in as Chief Judge Fred Lauten leads the group in a candid conversation about life, the law, and the road to the judiciary. Let us know what you think about the podcast.

As the war restricted automobile use, many Americans were forced to take public transportation. By December of 1943, railroads were carrying nearly two million people per month, many of which included military personnel. Threatened by a railroad strike, President Roosevelt ordered the War Department to take control of the railroads. By January 14, Railroad workers accepted terms with the government and returned to work.

Content note: discussion of ableism/sanism, forced medical procedures, the fucking patriarchy Welcome to the Spooky Sconnie podcast, the show that talks about the spooky, paranormal, criminal, and just plain odd Badger State. While we're known for sportsball and food, there's a lot more to learn about Wisconsin if you know where to look. In this first episode, I cover St. Coletta's School in Jefferson, Wisconsin, lobotomies, and the Kennedy family. Further reading History according to the school JFK Library link about Rosemary First-hand accounts about lobotomies including history Movie link on IMDB Transcript You're listening to the Spooky Sconnie Podcast. I'm your host Kirsten Schultz. I have lived in Wisconsin for 12 years now and one of the things that always surprises me and that has pushed me to create this podcast is when we talk about odd things, creepy things, paranormal things, there are only a few things that people think about when they think about Wisconsin and usually quite frankly it's Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer, and as creepy as those two motherfuckers are, there is so much more to this state then either have them or beer or cheese or the packers. And that's really what I want to talk about on this podcast. We'll touch on things from aliens to cryptids to plain odd facts to haunted towns, to serial killers and true crime. It will be a really fun journey and I'm really excited that you're listening. I hope this is something that you'll wind up liking and subscribing to, to kind of break with the traditional podcast thing. ----more---- Um, I do just want to list kind of my social media at the top of the show in case you want to peek around. The twitter is at SpookySconnie - that's s-p-o-o-k-y-s-c-o-n-n-i-e and our instagram is SpookySconniePodcast, so just pop the name of the podcast in there and the facebook page is also SpookySconniePodcast. So, hopefully that makes it easy for you to find. I think that's all the social media I've got set up right now. If you have creepy Sconnie stories you want to send in, you can send them in at SpookySconniePodcast@gmail.com. And I will eventually work on doing some listeners episodes, um, with this being the first episode of the podcast and want to do something like super creepy or super terrifying. But I wanted to do something I was really interested in. And um, as someone who lives with a number of chronic illnesses and deals with mental health issues, something that I was surprised to learn recently was that Rosemary Kennedy, lived in Wisconsin for the bulk of her life and that has to do with a place called St Coletta's in Jefferson. Jefferson is a city that's about halfway between Madison and Milwaukee. Madison is our capital, uh, and where the Wisconsin badgers reside and where I reside, and Milwaukee is probably the most well known Wisconsin city. It sits on the West Bank of Lake Michigan and um, that's where Jeffrey Dahmer played around. So... Some very different spaces as well, geographically, Milwaukee's very flat. Um, the, the glaciers back in the glacier moving era of the world, um, moved through that area pretty quickly. So there's a lot of flat land, whereas the further west you move in Wisconsin, you actually get to what is known as the driftless area where the glaciers didn't move through. And so I'm in Madison and, west of here, we have a lot of rolling hills and things like that. Jefferson is, I would say it where it starts to get a little hilly, um, but not enough to where you're like, whew, rollercoaster on the road. Jefferson's founders were settlers from New England and they really came during the 1800s. So it was while New England farmers were headed west into what was known as the wild kind of northwest territory. So what we're looking at are usually second generation or first, like, American-born generation, uh, you know, settlers who came, colonized this country and then started their movement westward when they came to Jefferson. It was basically forest and prairie and they started building farms and roads and government buildings and everything we kind of take for granted today. They really set themselves up as a, a place for education, a place for good schools, a place for abolitionism. Um, and it was relatively religious. We're looking at Episcopalians, we're looking at methodists. We're looking at baptist. Um, and that's, that's pretty par for the course when you're looking at people who came from New England in the 1800s. Uh, the school I'm going to talk about is called St Coletta. Um, it still kind of operates? It's In this interesting state at the time, and we'll get to that later, but I do want to address really quickly that the school was a school for the developmentally disabled. So if you do look it up, you may find the r word. You may find other ableist slurs, slurs, that are rooted in the discrimination against disabled people. And as a disabled person, I'm not going to use those because they piss me off and make you want to slap someone and I'm by myself. So I'd really like to not slap myself. So, um, you know, you're, you're welcome to look it up and, uh, take a look at other things and I'll put some links in the show notes, but this is not necessarily an investigation for the faint of heart when it comes to a discriminatory ideas. In 1904, a family approached Father George Meyer, who ran a school called St Coletta about accepting their developmentally disabled daughter as a student, uh, by September that year, four students had arrived and by December that grew to 10 students, which also included boys. So it very quickly became a coed school. Technically the school is organized by the sisters of St Francis Assisi, which is the, um, you know, religious chapter that was right there. The property immediately east of the city was purchased because the existing convent in school for girls that was operated by the nuns. By the early 20th century, a large campus with residence halls, chapels, an infirmary, administration building, classrooms, and even a natatorium occupied the southeast corner of highway 18 and county road Y in Jefferson? And technically this was in the town of Jefferson. It then became annexed to the city of Jefferson. A lot of places that have been settled had both the town and the city by the same name. In fact, actually Madison has both the town and the city and the town is only a few spots. There's actually one spot over here on the west side where I live that is still technically a town spot Most of the town is kind of in that, um, off of fish hatchery and um, oh, what's the other road? It starts with an R. I can't remember even though I lived off of it. It's fine. This is what happens when you have what we call brain fog. Um, which is something that you deal with, with chronic illness, it's like a, like a cognitive delay. So sometimes I might use the wrong word even though I know the correct one or it might not be able to find the information I'm looking for in my head. Rimrock. That was it. So it's a predominantly kind of the south part of Madison is technically town, which is fascinating to me. Um, by 1931, the 'St Coletta Institute for backward youth' as what it was called, became incorporated under a new title called the 'St Coletta School for exceptional children', which was chosen out of the consideration of parents, family members and residents. Um, and, and the myth at least is that one of the students, residents brought up, "hey, we don't walk backward, we're not backward youth." And, and while the change was good, backward youth is an awful term. Exceptional children is a bit inspiration porn-y, and I'll put a link in the show notes to Stella Young's talk about inspiration porn. She coined that term in a Ted talk and in writing before her death. And, um, there's so many layers of nuance to it that I'm not going to get into it here, but I highly suggest you look at it. Uh, we're just normal people, like anyone who's disabled in any way is just a normal person. We're not exceptional people for existing - that's kind of the cut and dry of it. And so they quickly became the most influential Catholic school in the United States that specialized in the care and training of people with developmental and mental disabilities or illnesses by 1948. Um, you know, they were expanding and building new new homes, new buildings, and really amassing a very large amount of residents by in 1963. This is, I'm going to just say this, knowing that I prefaced that there was the R word. I hate this so much. The first international awards for achievement in the field of mental retardation (Jesus Christ) which was sponsored by the Joseph P Kennedy Jr. Foundation was attended by, um, some of the sisters at the school. They started a habilitation program in 1965 that was started to encourage young adults to become more successful community members. and by 1976, a public law was passed that guaranteed a free appropriate education in the least restrictive environment for these residents - particularly focused on anyone with a disability, but, uh, it really affected these residents in a positive way. The Kennedy Foundation, um, gave a gift to the school, um, in honor of Rose Kennedy's 93rd birthday that was to help create a program that would eventually serve as a national model to help, um, aging people who were dealing with developmental disabilities. Now there's more that goes on with the school, but that's really kind of where our big, um, the most important part that we need to know stops. As I said, the school's kind of still running programs. Um, they kind of got rid of their main building and renovated it to, um, to be a corporate headquarters and all sorts of things they've expanded to not only helping people across Wisconsin, but now in like northern Illinois, all these different things. While important - and definitely, um, interesting to learn - don't really have to do with what we're going to talk about and you may have mentioned or you may have noticed that I mentioned several times, uh, the Kennedys and I mentioned Rosemary Kennedy at the top of the show. Rosemary Kennedy is the sister of JFK and RFK, and she was born in September 1918 - on the 13th in fact - and she was the third child and oldest daughter. They quickly noticed that she was a little bit slower to reach some of the youth milestones than her brothers were. So learning how to walk, learning how to crawl, speaking some of those kinds of things. She was just a little bit slower to reach those milestones. and, um, it doesn't really, when you, when you look at pediatric care now, there are some, um, mile stone kind of trackers almost that will help you decide with your physician, with your child's physician if the child should be tested for any sort of developmental delay or disability. Um, and they come at a number of different benchmark ages, you know, six months, a year, 18 months, two years, all sorts of things and they actually continue into young, young childhood and not just being a toddler, so that can be a really helpful for people. At this point, those weren't really developed. Um, but you hear a lot about, oh, parents notice that this person was just not as quick to do stuff. And I do want to say that that's not always a marker of um, you know, any sort of disability. My husband is a, was a very lazy baby and so he didn't really walk until he was like a year old because he knew if he cried, someone would come pick them up. So it's not always a marker of disability, but it is something that you could work with your child's doctor to, to keep an eye on 'em. We don't all follow the same growth patterns and some of us maybe learned to be a little bit more manipulative than others as we're children. Rosemary had a really nice childhood. She participated in most of the family activities, going to dances, concerts, visiting the White House when Roosevelt was there. Um, her father was appointed us ambassador to Britain in 1938 and Rosemary moved over to London with her mother and her sister Kathleen, and they just really enjoyed living there. When they came back in 1940, Rosemary was not making the progress that they wanted her to be making. Um, she was 22 at the time and she was becoming 'increasingly irritable and difficult.' And, unfortunately that is, um, about the time when Joseph Kennedy learned about lobotomies. Now I want to go into the history of lobotomies before we kind of continue on this because I'm a really big proponent of learning, uh, about what we're talking about. And lobotomies are terrifying. There are a lot of jokes that people make about lobotomies like, "oh, I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." And I think once you learn the history of these kinds of things, how harmful they were, how harmful they still remain. Um, it's really terrifying. And it's not something I feel like we should be joking about, but that's just me. And you can make your up your mind up after you hear about these facts. In 1936, a psychiatrist named Walter J. Freeman modified a leucotomy, a surgery that a portuguese neurologist, Egas Monez created to treat mental illness. He renamed it the lobotomy. And with his neurosurgeon partner James Watts, they performed the first ever pre frontal lobotomy in the United States on a housewife from Topeka, Kansas, Alice Hood Hammatt. In 1945, Freeman begins experimenting with a new way of doing the lobotomy after hearing about a doctor in Italy who accessed the brain through ice sockets. By January of the next year, he's performed his first trans orbital lobotomy. Um, this is also called an icepick lobotomy. His patient at the time was a depressed housewife named Sallie Ellen Ionesco. He rendered her unconscious through electric shock, something that's terrifying in and of itself. He then took an ice pick and inserted it above her eyeball, but closer in towards her nose. He banged through her eye socket and into her brain by using a, like a little mallet on the other end of that ice pick. And he made cuts in her frontal lobes. When he was done, he sent her home in a taxi cab of all things just by herself. He was convinced that he had cured her depression and he believed that cutting away the brain would help regulate mental illness because he thought mental illness was related to overactive emotions. And of course, cutting away your brain is the solution to overactive emotions. These kinds of things were really common, um, before the medications that we have now came to be, um, institutions were overfilled with not only people who were developmentally and physically disabled, but women who had the nerve to speak up, speak back to their husbands and those who tried to vote and those who read too much and those who are dealing with vaginal pain and a number of things could get you landed in an institution and labeled as insane. Um, there's a lot of racism involved and misogyny and discrimination against all sorts of people, including queer and trans people that happened in institutions and within the field of, I guess institutional torture, including lobotomies, including electro shock, um, and more, unfortunately, which is terrifying. And I think, um, being someone who is disabled, queer and trans, that terrifies the shit out of me because that is, you know, the history of my people and um, that's terrifying. It's terrifying. But, these kinds of miracle cures that really served to shut patients up and make them how we wanted them to be, um, was, was really what happens. And even today, um, that still happens with ABA therapy for autistic people. Um, that's really geared at "here, here are the skills you have to learn right now to be as normal and allistic (the opposite of autistic) as possible." Um, and that's not a way to go through life. I've tried it for chronic illness shit - it doesn't work. In the prefrontal lobotomy - because there's the difference between these two lobotomies - The doctor actually drilled holes in the side or the top of the patient's skull, you know, through, through the actual bone itself to get to the frontal lobes. And so it can be messy. It takes more time. In the transorbital lobotomy, you could actually just access the brain through the eye sockets, as I mentioned a bit ago, um, and Freeman really kind of created what we know as the transorbital lobotomy today. It left no scars apart from having terrible black eyes, as you can imagine. It took less than 10 minutes and it could be performed outside of an operating room. And Freeman believed it produced better results. Uh, in 1949 Egas Monez - the portuguese neurologist - wins the nobel prize for developing the lobotomy and Freeman nominated him. It was about this time that James Watts - Freeman's partner - expresses disapproval about the procedure and basically leaves the practice. He's done. Um, and at this point, Freeman's career really takes off. He does these like nationwide tours teaching at different state hospitals and institutions how to perform lobotomies and, by 1952 he performs or in that year, I'm sorry, he performs 228 transorbital lobotomies within a two week period in West Virginia. It was for a state sponsored lobotomy project that was called Operation Ice Pick. And it was a huge thing for him. Uh, newspapers and news agencies were flipping their shit to be there and see him 'cure', you know, people. Two years later though, a medication called chlorpromazine or thorazine as it's more commonly known, comes out and actually helps treat a lot of the conditions that these lobotomies were supposed to fix. The medication itself has a really interesting history. It actually came about because of a french pharmaceutical company. And I'm going to ruin this because french is not my strong suit called Laboratoires Rhône-Poulenc. I don't know. I suck at French. Um, they wanted to search for new anti histamine, which is something that treats allergies and immune system reactions and kind of stumbled upon this medication. And today it treats everything from anxiety and mood disorders to nausea and even chronic hiccups, um, which is fascinating and terrifying. I don't want, I don't ever want chronic hiccups. It largely replaced, for a lot of people, things like electro shock, things like hydrotherapy (which at this point was really drowning you and waterboarding you), psychosurgery, other brain surgeries to make you how they wanted you to act. And insulin shock therapy, which is also terrifying as fuck. They would give you too much insulin, you'd kind of be in this almost comatose state. They'd bring you back. What was happening in these institutions and schools and hospitals was legitimately torture in the name of medical science. And it got us really nowhere other than these are all torture techniques that we use today against "enemies of the state." So yeah, you thought you were listening to a fun podcast, didn't you? In 1967. Freeman performs his final transorbital lobotomy on a patient named Helen Mortensen. it wasn't uncommon for him to do a couple of lobotomies on people, and this was her third lobotomy. She dies from a brain hemorrhage after the procedure and, um, he's actually banned from operating ever again. His medical license got taken away, um, which is frankly far too late. Um, there's actually a case in 1951, he was treating a patient at Cherokee Mental Health institute in I believe Iowa. And he paused for a photo op because he was so excited and the photo op happens when he's got the pick in her eye and you know, is hammering, smiling at the camera hammering and um, he went too far into her brain and he killed her. And that's not an uncommon story. He kIlled hundreds of his patients, whether directly or indirectly because of the "operations" he was performing. He had no formal training in lobotomies. Um, I mean as a spearheader of the technique, you generally don't get formal training, but, um, you know, he didn't clean his instruments often between patients. He didn't wear gloves, he didn't wear a mask. He didn't operate in a sterile environment. He often did it in his, um, office, like, like his home office or like academic office. You know where it's dusty and shit? Yeah, he did there. And a lot of his patients were queer or trans and they were given lobotomies to change how they were expressing their sexuality or their gender. And that's something that's really hard to sit with. I don't have words. My heart is beating in my throat because I'm just thinking about how lucky I am to have been born 30 years later than what could have potentially killed me. It's terrifying. By 1968 freeman is going on cross country followup studies of his lobotomy patients visiting them, visiting their families, trying to kind of prove that his shit is working, which is still terrifying. About 50,000 people received lobotomies in the United States. Most of those were between 1949 and 1950. About 10,000 of those were transorbital lobotomies and the rest were mostly those prefrontal lobotomies. Freeman performed about 3,500 the bottom of his career during his career, sorry, of which were, um, 2,500 with these ice pick/transorbital lobotomies. Freeman believed that cutting certain nerves in the brain could eliminate too much emotion, could stabilize your personality, and I mean he wasn't incorrect with those things, um, but for the wrong reasons. Where he's cutting into the brain, it gives patients an inability to feel very intense emotions and, sometimes, any emotions at all. And they kind of aren't as worried. People expressed that they've seemed childlike. Some patients did improve, which is terrifying to lend any credence to this. Some essentially became comatose and for others it didn't really have an effect and still others died. If you're looking for a good, um, fictional account of a transorbital lobotomy, you can go read One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. Randall McMurphy is a character within that book who receives a transorbital lobotomy. Um, I dunno, I don't think it does it justice, but I'm a weird person. Freeman's most common rationale for doing this lobotomies was to treat things like schizophrenia. He also used it to treat suicidal depression, major depression as we know it today. And even chronic pain, which is a whole 'nother layer of terrifying to me. He had a quote, I'm in a New York times article 1937 - It wasn't his quote, but uh, but this article talked about the different things that a lobotomy could help with: "Tension, apprehension, anxiety, depression, insomnia, suicidal ideas to things like delusions, hallucinations, crying spells, melancholia, obsessions, panic states, disorientation psychalgesia," which is pains of psychic origin - I Think they really mean like psychosomatic, like that you're making up your pain essentially. Just bullshit. "nervous indigestion" - Hey, IBS pals! - "And hysterical paralysis." I don't know. It's ridiculous. He traveled in a van during his visit to all of these psychiatric hospitals, um, that he did over his career and basically had crossed the nation 11 times. During the time that he practiced, he performed the lobotomy on no less than 2,500. It could be more than that, this ice pick lobotomy. But it was on patients across 23 states, which is an amazing. The reach. He could perform over 20 of these operations in a day, banging them out quickly. And there were staff members who were horrified about how he treated patients about the procedure, about, you know, the, the likelihood of people dying during it and all of that. But there were, there were often people who couldn't speak up. Um, I read one account of someone who was an immigrant who was really just starting in medicine as an aid to freeman and, um, didn't feel he could speak up because Walter Freeman was Walter Freeman. How are you going to tell him he's wrong when you're just a peon? Um, again, terrifying and unfortunately still relatively common in medicine today. Um, this kind of the White Coat Syndrome is what we call it, that the white coat is seen as a, some sort of god like apparel and that a physician knows everything, sees everything and um, you should follow everything they say. And in reality - nerd tangent - In reality, whether you're a staff person or a patient, that's not the case. Studies have shown - and I did my master's capstone on this. I won't go too preachy, but, um, you know, studies have shown that patients who are more involved with their care, who gets the opportunity to participate in their care have far better health outcomes, you know, fewer emergency department and urgent care visits, lower health care utilization, lower health costs, etc. Etc. Etc. So, just uh, there's that, I guess. Coming back from our tangent and our discussion about lobotomies in general. Um, Joseph Kennedy approves Freeman to give Rosemary a lobotomy. Unfortunately, it left Rosemary permanently incapacitated and she was unable to care for herself. Um, this arch bishop was like, "oh, hey, you should send her to St. Colleta's." And um, the family traveled there. They built her own house on St Coletta ground so that she didn't have to deal with the overcrowding in the institution itself because after all, she's the Kennedy. She lost the ability to speak coherently. Her movement, um, took awhile to gain back. She lost the ability to walk for quite a long time, had to relearn it. Movement in one of her arms and the use of that arm was lost permanently. Her family really just kind of dropped her. Her mother didn't visit her for two decades and her father never visited after they got her there. After her father's death and only after his death she'd be taken on trips to go visit, you know, the Kennedy home every so often. And after JFK's election, um, in 1961 after he took office, the family came out publicly saying that she'd been diagnosed as a R word. It's a really sad story. I think people forget about her so much. Um, she had an older sister named Eunice Kennedy Shriver. I'm sorry, not an older sister a younger sister. I read my notes wrong. Um, and they were very close, very close. In 1962 Eunice started at a camp in her own backyard that was meant for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. And that camp actually involved into the Special Olympics, which is pretty cool. It's really nice to kind of learn the basis for how things like that came about. The Special Olympics is not perfect and I don't like some of the inspiration porn ideas that it sets up. But it is cool to know that that came from there and, um, I think that really pushed for the paralympics to start and things like that. So it's, um, it is kind of really cool. Rosemary lived at St. Coletta's for the rest of her life. She died in January of 2005 at age 86. On January 7th, Eunice said in her eulogy that Rosemary left a legacy that was long and deep, particularly for, you know, the beginning of the Special Olympics - but even when JFK was in office, he was pushing to improve, how the government handled disability and really used her story to try to spearhead that. And I'm really sad that he died at this point because who knows, the, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) could have been passed 30 years earlier. Um, you know, other things happened as well that, that she really helped with. Rosemary died at Fort Atkinson Memorial Hospital and her three surviving sisters - Eunice, Patricia Kennedy Lawford and Jean Kennedy Smith - And then, um, Ted Kennedy were all by her side. She was the fifth child of the Kennedy family to die, but the first to die from natural causes, which is also sad. There's actually an IMDB movie in there - err there's a movie that's listed on IMBD that's in the works right now about Rosemary and I am so fucking excited I cannot contain it! And I'm going to read some facts kind of about what they've got listed about the storyline, um, because I just think it's so fantastic. So she was really easy going as a teenager and a child. Um, as she returned, she became increasingly assertive and rebellious - how rare for a teenager! She had some violent mood swings and mood changes, but they thought that maybe that had to do with her own frustration with being expected to do so well and performed at these high Kennedy family standards. And then when you just didn't reach that, it's really frustrating and I could definitely see that shit. She began to sneak out at school. She, she was in a convent school in dc. She would sneak out at night and her parents were pissed. Joseph thought that she was bringing shame and embarrassing the family and could damage his political career and the political career of his sons, which was all he cared about. About of the 80 percent of lobotomies in the forties and the fifties were performed on women. They were very often performed at the behest of a man in their life, whether it's a father or a husband or even a son. And the youngest person that Freeman operated on was a four year old, so there were really, it was a very wide range of people, but it was often at the behest of other people and not someone coming in and being like, "doc, you gotta give you this lobotomy!" Joseph didn't tell his wife that they were going to do this procedure on Rosemary until it was done, which is terrifying. It was basically uh, they used an instrument that was basically like a butter knife to cut the brain tissue. And as they were doing such rosemary was awake. All of these patients were awake for transorbital um, and even for prefrontal at times. Um, she just had a mild tranquilizer but, but she was awake and they asked her to recite things like the Lord's Prayer or sing God Bless America or count or anything like that. And they made estimates on how far to cut based on how she responded and only stopped when she became incoherent. They estimated that her brain capacity went down to that of a two year old child. I hate the notion that we have to quantify those things. Um, I also really disliked the idea that just because someone may not be able to express more complicated ideas, um, means they don't have them. There are a lot of cases where even people in a coma, for god's sakes, and knew what was going on around them or could grasp the horrible things that family members were saying about them or around them and just maybe didn't have a way to communicate that outside their brain. And that's something everyone needs to remember. Anyone with a, with a medical condition, a chronic illness. it's not always that we aren't able to even comprehend things. Sometimes it's just finding the right words, sometimes it's finding the right way to communicate those things. I'm going back to the brain fog idea, right? It's really hard sometimes for me to find the words and that's actually why I do a lot more writing than I do podcasting and videos and things. Um, but it is really important, uh, to just remember that like, just because I might communicate better via writing doesn't mean that I'm like awful or the, my mental capacity is diminished that have so and so age child. I just hate those quantification - barf. Um, she, uh, again, she couldn't walk or talk after the procedure and she actually became incontinent for her entire life. So she had urinary and fecal issues, uh, which are awful at the time. That arch bishop Richard Cushing that I mentioned earlier told Joseph about St Coletta's. There were more than 300 residents there, which was, you know, growing rapidly. And the home they built for her was called the Kennedy Cottage. Two catholic nuns were really assigned to take care of her. And then there was a student that would come help - students across the years, and there were artists, uh, a woman who works on ceramics with Rosemary several times a week. Some of those kinds of things as she got allowances that other residents didn't often get. She had a dog, she'd get taken for car rides. She'd loved riding in cars. Um, and, and things like that that, that other people wouldn't get because after all, again, she's the Kennedy. Her, her family freely abandoned her for a long time. They would explain when, when John was running for reelection in the senate in the late fifties, you know, they explained away her absence, said, "Oh, she's reclusive. Oh, she's too busy, you know, working as a teacher for disabled kids. Oh, she's doing this, she's doing that." And they didn't tell people again until 61 after John was an office in the presidency that, um, she was dealing with developmental disabilities, but they, they also never said that that was the result of a procedure that Joseph approved. I mean, why would you? You wouldn't want that out there. Of course. I think in today's day and age it would be found out almost immediately and there would hopefully be an uproar. But after Joseph died in 1969 again, Rosemary was taken to visit relatives, visit home. Um, she'd learned to walk again. She always had a limp. Um, and she really didn't ever regained the ability to speak clearly, which is unfortunate. Um, she deserved to have that. She deserved to have a long life and a life full of support and care. She's buried beside her parents in holly hood's cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts. Of course, with this being the Spooky Sconnie Podcast, I mean, obviously we're going to talk about hauntings. I found just a smatterIng online. There wasn't a lot. Um, but I think they're interesting and they're, or do seem to be a lot of rumors, but there weren't a ton that I could find that weren't, you know, that, that existed across a couple of different sites and not just, "oh yeah, I heard one time x, y, z." And I really want it to not just be hearsay, but like, it's also weird to be like, don't be a hearsay ghost, like I don't know. So, one of the dormitories, Serra Hall, was built during that time when they expanded a lot, has had several occurrences where there's someone walking up and down the hallway in the second floor. But every one is in their rooms and all the staff members are downstairs. Then there's also these interesting occurrences where apparently there's a spirit on the second floor that likes to turn on the showers. Cause there's no one around and that's what happens. I don't know - it's interesting. Um, and they, they call her the girl spirit. So it would be like, "oh, that girl turned on the showers again." They would always just refer to her as a girl. Um, but I don't know, you know, I couldn't find anything about why they say she's the girl. Like has anyone seen her? Or is it just like did, was there a resident at some point that loves to just run and turn on showers and they assume that it's her ghost? I don't know, I couldn't find anything. Uh, there, there's that. And there's also some reports of weird cryptid-like appearances around the campus. Um, Wisconsin has a lot more cryptids than anyone knows. I think the Beast of Brey Road [I misspoke] is the one that people may know. And I think that's especially because there was a movie that came out earlier this year about that. There's a lot. And apparently there's a werewolf/wolf man that has been spotted in the area. Um, Jefferson itself has some interesting haunted history and it definitely could be related to this wolf. My idea. So, so there's that. There's st coletta's school in jefferson, Wisconsin. Um, I hope that you enjoyed this episode. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do next, but I have a ton of research sitting in my evernote and really just kind of going with the flow as to what I want to use for our next episode. My goal is to try to make this a bi-weekly podcast for now. That may change. um, and we'll see. I don't think I'd ever run out of creepy Wisconsin or Wisconsin-adjacent stories, um, but you know, some of them may be reaches, I think this one having the focus beyond Rosemary Kennedy might have been a reach, but I didn't know she lived here for so long. Um, so I think it's really important to tell that history. Um, and I think it's important to remember how those of us who are disabled have been treated historically. Um, and I promise not every episode is going to be so goddamn dark, but I think it's a good. I think that's a good base for maybe understanding kind of where I'm going with this podcast. Like I want it to be funny. I want it to be educational. I want it to be fucking weird. Um, but I also want us to all take away stuff from it. Not just from an educational basis, but like a snapple. I mean, maybe tomorrow I'll be talking with somebody who brings up the have of the kennedys were great and you're like, oh, but actually, and you can peel walking snapple cap. Can you imagine? Like somebody just dressing up as a snapple cap for halloween. that would be amazing. Don't steal my ideas, or do you. I mean, are you going to remember this by halloween? I don't know. I don't know that I'm going to remember this balancing. I'm gonna have to write it down. Anyway, thank you for listening to the inaugural episode of the Spooky Sconnie podcast and I will see you back in two weeks for our next installment. You just listened to the Spooky Sconnie podcast. It is produced every two weeks by me, kirsten schultz. The intro, outro music is from Purple Plant. You can find show notes and more over at spookysconnie.podbean.com, including a transcript in case you missed anything. Take a minute and rate and subscribe if you can. You'll help more people see the show by rating and you won't miss a single episode if you subscribe, and that's pretty dope. You can support the show over at patreon.com/spookysconniepodcast and you can email me anything you'd like me to know at spookysconniepodcast@gmail.com. Meantime, sleep tight. Don't let the badgers. Bye.  

By January 20th, the hype will be over. . Most people who made resolutions for the new year would have given up. . The gym will not be packed anymore. . Everyone will return to their « normal » life. . If you’ve decided to make a big change this year, here are six things you will need to make those resolutions stick: . 1- Commit 2- Have a plan 3- Know your WHY 4- Stay accountable 5- Have the right people around you 6- Set a future date to achieve your goal. Start the right way: https://bit.ly/2s32zG8

1. 4-1 in the Westgate contest brings my season long record to 42-26-2. Still looking to crack the top 25 for a big paycheck in three weeks.2. Athletes and entertainers make mega millions because they "move the needle" in their respective professions. If you are in the top ten percent of whatever it is that you do, you will always be paid obscenely.3. I'm still in the training stage of "card counting". By January, I'll be ready to "hit the streets".4. Cardi B is lucky she was fired as a grocery store worker for being chronically late. From there, it was on to stripping which bankrolled her music career. Lots of people take exception to her methods of getting to the top, but I for one, applaud her efforts.5. Who will replace Emma Morano as the world's oldest living person? She recently died at 117. If you are still healthy, would you want to live that long?

Bonita Summers with Spirit Kelowna! You can listen to Episode 17 of the I Love Kelowna Podcast right here. If you enjoyed this episode, an iTunes review would be SO appreciated! https://tinyurl.com/y8jax3xb SHOW NOTES Bonita is a psychic, life and business coach. Born in Montreal and lived there and many Ontario towns and cities. By January, 2011 she had been living in Kingston, Ontario for 15 years and all of a sudden felt it was time for a big move. She had a repetitive intuition about Kelowna, even though she knew almost nothing about our city at that time. A very profound and somewhat lengthy discussion about intuition and self awareness. Several examples from her life and mine. A surprising fact: Many people decide to come to Kelowna after having strong intuitions and dreams. Arriving in the dark, and waking up the next morning to the majesty of Big White: Gobsmacked. So many reasons for loving Kelowna. If you’re considering moving here, you need to hear this section of the interview. Bonita teaches yoga, and coaches on business, relationships, family, designs websites, walks dogs for SPCA. Yoga at a stagette? Yes, it’s true, and increasingly common! Intuition is knowing things without deduction. We are all born psychic. It is an inborn skill, but one that can be suppressed or cultivated. Everyone is an energy field, and that field contains all the information about us. So psychic and empathic skills are essentially learning to observe and interpret those energy fields. Fortune telling is not predicting the future but rather uncovering the subconscious patterns that are driving our decision making and our responses in each moment. It can take a lot of courage to look at our own shadows, but there is a lot of power and energy bottled up there. An enthralling journey to Tibet. A fascinating conversation at a bus stop with an angry man full of invective. Our life teachers often show up in disguises. A deep dive into the key differences between Masculine and Feminine Energy. The distinction between our Inner Voice and our learned Patterns. Learning to trust our gut instincts, read signals more accurately, and then trust our decision making. The story of Leonard Cohen who was embezzled of his entire life’s savings from someone he trusted. Walk your path without attachment to outcome, and being willing to surrender. A big shoutout to Natasha Rosewood from Energy Dynamics Unlimited!Support the show (https://paypal.me/lukemenkes)

B3i the blockchain insurance industry initiative In our 2nd episode I had the pleasure of chatting to Greg Crow, Global Head of Architecture at XL Catlin. Greg, is XL Catlin’s representative at B3i which stands for Blockchain Insurance Industry Initiative. For this episode we explore what is B3i, its journey in discovering the potential of blockchain for the insurance industry and we also discussed the choices insurers who haven’t joined B3i can make.   2 minute definition of blockchain The Greg Crow version of blockchain is all about the ability for everyone to see the same data and to have a copy of it in a certifiable and immutable way. Having a copy of that data is a real game changer as are smart contracts. For Greg, smart contracts are here to replace contractual paper documents into code. The code sits on the data on the blockchain and is triggered by a certain set of rules which can mean executing a claims payment or collecting a premium for example.   The blockchain journey What prompted XL Catlin to explore blockchain in 2016 was the desire to make it easier to administer contracts, especially reinsurance contracts. In Q1/Q2 2016 they partnered with a blockchain start-up called ChainThat to build a PoC (proof of concept). ChainThat blew them away at the speed at which they worked at in helping XL Catlin demystify blockchain technology. In November 2016, XL Catlin joined B3i by becoming its sixth founder and worked on numerous other blockchain initiatives including one with Maersk. By January 2017, B3i now had 15 core members and in September 2017 another 23 members joined including three brokers at the Monte Carlo RVS conference celebrating the launch of its prototype market testing phase named Codex1. Codex1 is a platform that enables a distributed ledger smart contract management system for Property CAT XOL contracts. Market participants will be able to more easily cede, handle and trade risks. Why B3i? As Greg says, members who join B3i have a range of reasons. Some wanted to learn more about blockchain, others wanted to take costs out of the industry and some heard about blockchain and wanted to be involved in it without knowing exactly how or why. B3i is here to build a blockchain platform for the industry, not necessarily to give its members a competitive advantage, but a platform for all market participants. However as in any consortiums, especially one with 15 insurance companies around the table, making decisions can be challenging. It is for this reason that B3i is reinventing itself from a consortium into a start-up with a start-up feel and start-up speed in the hope it can now scale up to generate the kind of value needed for the industry. To the question on whether or not a large insurance company should join B3i or attempt to build their own blockchain system, Greg advised that they should do both. They should both join B3i and try building your blockchain platform to increase your learnings. It is evident that at this early stage that there isn’t going to be one blockchain to rule them all. What’s next? Greg’s view on the big opportunity for blockchain in the insurance industry is: Contract administration Creating dynamic insurance policies for assets that go through different states in the supply chain It is in this second big opportunity where we see the obvious combination of utilising IoT (Internet of Things). IoT applications, will assist insurance companies’ clients who deal with logistic supply chain to track assets, by recording data onto the blockchain about assets. Whether it is B3i or a PoC run by an insurance company, 2018 has to be the year when we see an example of a real life blockchain project going into production. Who do you think it will be?   Your turn! Greg shares many other fascinating points in this podcast, so please have a listen and tell us what you think? If you liked the podcast please do review it on iTunes.

Prelude to a Queer Money Kiss from a Rose Prelude to a Queer Money Kiss from a Rose makes absolutely no sense as a Queer Money™ episode title, but it’s the last day of 2017, I’m tired, I’ve had four margs and I’m headed to a NYE party in short order. But, Queer Money™ will be amazing in 2018. Hear why. Prelude to a Queer Money Kiss from a rose in 2018 First, happy new year, and happy 2018! 2018 is a big deal for the Debt Free Guys personally. By January 03, we’ll have sold our condo and moved into an apartment in downtown Denver. On 01/07, we go on the first of many business and personal trips, this one to Los Angeles and Palm Springs. We have several brand partnerships to announce this year. We’ll be in Puerto Vallarta in April, get married in June and travel to Ireland and Spain for five weeks around September 12.

Three years ago Design Pickle didn't exist. It wasn't even an idea in founder Russ Perry's head yet. That's why it seems crazy to me that today the unlimited graphic design service is doing $400k in monthly recurring revenue! Back in 2014 Russ was running a creative agency, but he started to hate everything about it. “I felt like I was in a prison of my own creation,” he said. By January 2015, he'd shut down his agency and started working as a freelancer. Not wanting to build a similar prison again, he sought out a different business model -- one with a simpler service offering that was designed to scale. From taking on a friend as his first client to now completing more than 800 design jobs a day, it’s been an incredibly quick ascension and a great example of how to scale a service business. Note: Click here to download Russ’ top tips for scaling a service business from this episode. Tune in to hear how Russ grew his business from zero to $410k+ in monthly recurring revenue in less than 3 years. We cover his marketing strategies, his hiring best practices, and what Design Pickle does to keep customers coming back month after month.

In the winter of 1836, the Kirtland temple was nearing completion, the Saints were experiencing a period of peace after persecution, and 100 church members enrolled in a seven-week, intensive Hebrew language course. Besides being one of the most ambitious CES endeavors ever, the study of a difficult foreign language seems a bit random considering some of the students lacked even a basic pioneer education. Matthew Grey has studied this period of history extensively and believes that the Hebrew study was anything but random or casual. Rather it was an outgrowth of the larger translation project that Joseph had begun in the summer of 1835. A review of church history shows that Joseph purchased scrolls and mummies from Michael Chandler in July 1835. Shortly thereafter, he translated what became known as Abraham 1 and Abraham 2 through the use of a seer stone. He then began working on a “Grammer and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language” (GAEL). In the fall, he started looking for a teacher of Hebrew for the Kirtland School. By January, the school committee had hired Joshua Seixas as a Hebrew teacher. Joshua Seixas had published his own textbook and worksheets that were specifically designed for beginners. In his primer, he used his native Sephardic Hebrew in his transliterations, which varied substantially from the more common Ashkenazi Hebrew spellings. Because of the distinctive Hebrew transliterations in Seixas’s texts, we can trace Joseph’s use of his Hebrew training in succeeding years. What Grey found in his research is that Joseph used his training at key moments. Traces of Sephardic Hebrew can be found in revelations found in the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book of Abraham, and recorded Nauvoo speeches. For Joseph, there seemed to be no dichotomy between intellectual and spiritual pursuits. Translations were neither purely static nor pure revelation, but a mixture of both. He used his intellectual training to unpack theological possibilities by creatively reworking traditional translations.  Some of the most distinct Mormon teachings revealed in Nauvoo such as the nature of God, expansions on the plan of salvation, and even verbiage in the temple ritual can be traced to Joseph’s Hebrew studies. Join Laura Harris Hales as she discusses with Matthew Grey the influence of Joseph's Hebrew study on his subsequent teachings and the vital piece of the Book of Abraham translation puzzle this new research provides. Download Transcript

Under the Mango Tree increases agricultural yields by teaching rural farmers to keep bees.  Vijaya Pastala and Under the Mango Tree are a good illustration of something that I believe which is, miracles find you while you’re in motion. Vijaya started experimenting with her business idea in January 2009. By January, 2010, Vijaya had 8,000 rupees in the bank. That’s less than $120 USD. At the time, the monthly cost of running Under the Mango Tree was around 34,000 rupees. Under the Mango Tree was gaining positive press, but beneath the surface, Vijay’s personal savings, which she was using to fund the company, were running out. During this crisis, Vijaya received a request for a meeting from a stranger. Given all that she was managing, she considered turning down the meeting. It turned out that the stranger was willing to provide the funds needed to meet their operating costs. By May 2010, Under the Mango Tree won the UnLtd India competition, which provided their first seed investment. Other money was to follow, including support from Acumen. Under the Mango Tree works with marginal farmers, that is farmers who have an income of about $600 per year. They train farmers to transfer wild bees into a bee box. As a result, the farmers increase their productivity, their income and their savings. Under the Mango Tree also helps farmers to gain access to markets for honey and other bee-related products. Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Vijaya Pastala “We work with marginal farmers.” “There are only five types of bees that make honey and out of those, there are only two bees that can be boxed.” “It takes a farmer 18 months to become completely at ease with being a beekeeper.” “We are a honey brand in the market in India.” “We have created an ecosystem of beekeeping.” “We train women’s groups to create a swarm bag or a bee veil.” “We’re like a one-stop-shop on beekeeping.”    “It’s farmers who are training other farmers.” “Agriculture is something I’ve always worked on.” “I understood the importance of sustainability.” “The hybrid came into being from day one.” “I realized that, in India, we don’t really showcase the origin of the honey.” “When you’re an entrepreneur, it’s on your head – everything.” “Yields are going up 40% to 60%.” “We have trained about 700 women beekeepers.” “We have six women who are training other women to be beekeepers.” “Keep knocking on doors.” “Use your network.” “Don’t be shy in asking for help.” “Set yourself a timeframe.” Social Entrepreneurship Resources: Under the Mango Tree: http://utmt.in/ Under the Mango Tree on Twitter: https://twitter.com/UTMT Under the Mango Tree on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UTMT.in Under the Mango Tree on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/utmt_honey More Stories of Sustainable Development Goal 2, Zero Hunger In 2017, we’re emphasizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In February, we are focusing on Sustainable Development Goal 2, Zero Hunger. You can read more about Sustainable Development Goal 1 here, Sustainable Development Goal 2 here, or learn about the Sustainable Development Goals here.

Jennifer Hill asks Pam Jackson how she broke out of her comfort zone and lost over one hundred pounds? Pam shares her inspiring story of how she looked at herself in the mirror one day and no longer recognized herself. She then made significant life changes that led to her ability to successfully lose the weight and keep it off permanently. Pam now shares her story and her recipes on her blog Healthywithcurves.com and inspires others around the world to make the necessary life changes to live a happy and healthy life. http://healthywithcurves.com For the last 20 plus years, Pam Jackson had been extremely overweight. Her weight ranged from 250 to 260 pounds during that time. She knew she was at an unhealthy weight, but did not want to put in the effort to do anything about it. For an event she would lose 10 or so pounds with fad diets, but then she would always gain the weight right back after the event. In August 2011 at the age of 41, she decided to try again and not give up this time. She realized that losing and maintaining weight are lifestyle changes, not just a temporary diet. By January 2013, she had lost 100 pounds and as of today she is still enjoying her healthier lifestyle to the fullest. On her blog she shares delicious recipes from my kitchen and other fantastic bloggers. Also, Pam shares some “get moving” exercise and her favorite things that have kept her excited and motivated about staying healthy. Fin more on Pam's success stories on Everyday Health, Yahoo Health and Women’s Health Want to join me for a night of all you can drink Patron and all you can eat tacos for charity? Then please donate $100 or more here: act.buildon.org/fundraise?fcid=833150 and that will count as your ticket for the March 11th event to raise money to build our first school in Senegal. Thank you!

Jennifer Hill asks Pam Jackson how she broke out of her comfort zone and lost over one hundred pounds? Pam shares her inspiring story of how she looked at herself in the mirror one day and no longer recognized herself. She then made significant life changes that led to her ability to successfully lose the weight and keep it off permanently. Pam now shares her story and her recipes on her blog Healthywithcurves.com and inspires others around the world to make the necessary life changes to live a happy and healthy life. http://healthywithcurves.com For the last 20 plus years, Pam Jackson had been extremely overweight. Her weight ranged from 250 to 260 pounds during that time. She knew she was at an unhealthy weight, but did not want to put in the effort to do anything about it. For an event she would lose 10 or so pounds with fad diets, but then she would always gain the weight right back after the event. In August 2011 at the age of 41, she decided to try again and not give up this time. She realized that losing and maintaining weight are lifestyle changes, not just a temporary diet. By January 2013, she had lost 100 pounds and as of today she is still enjoying her healthier lifestyle to the fullest. On her blog she shares delicious recipes from my kitchen and other fantastic bloggers. Also, Pam shares some “get moving” exercise and her favorite things that have kept her excited and motivated about staying healthy. Fin more on Pam's success stories on Everyday Health, Yahoo Health and Women’s Health Want to join me for a night of all you can drink Patron and all you can eat tacos for charity? Then please donate $100 or more here: act.buildon.org/fundraise?fcid=833150 and that will count as your ticket for the March 11th event to raise money to build our first school in Senegal. Thank you!

http://www.leanblog.org/audio172 StoreSMART is partnering with me on this contest where you can win one of four sets of books, along with a selection of sample supplies that can help you with 5S, visual management, and other Lean methods.By January 31, 2017, we'll select four winners who will each get a set that includes: Lean Hospitals, 3rd Edition (signed by Mark Graban) Work That Makes Sense (signed by Gwendolyn Galsworth) The Batz Guide for Bedside Advocacy (a great patient safety guidebook) One winner's package will includethe book Visual Workplace Visual Thinking instead of Work That Makes Sense. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Many important developments are taking place in our market as we head into 2017. Today, I want to talk about how you can take advantage of them. Buying a home? Click here to perform a full home search Selling a home? Click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation Call me at 215-576-8666 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation Welcome back to the hot real estate market! What kind of news and updates are happening out there right now? As you know, I’ve been telling you to take advantage of the low mortgage rates we’ve seen the last few months because they would eventually rise again. Sure enough, in the last couple of weeks, they’ve risen above 4%. You shouldn’t worry too much about it, though, because that percentage is about where they began in 2016. Even if interest rates rise all the way up to 5% in 2017, that’s still nothing to fret over. I remember that during most of the 1990s they were regularly as high as 8%. Many experts such as myself predict that by 2020, homes will increase in value between 10% and 21%. That’s a nice return on your investment. As you can see from my home price expectation survey slide in the video above, if you bought a house right now and closed next month at $250,000, in five years, that house will appreciate in value by $43,201. By January of 2022, then, it will be worth $293,201. That’s what you can expect in terms of potential growth in your family’s wealth over the next several years. For my next slide—the state-by-state forecasted year-over-year percentage change in home price—we see that there is no state where prices are predicted to be negative. Here in Pennsylvania, we have a 4% appreciation rate, which is great. If you can’t wait until spring to sell your home, hold that train of thought. The number of listings will increase substantially as the new year begins, including new construction homes. This will lower the demand for your house. You’re much better off putting your home on the market now. “Don’t wait until spring to list your home.” My next slide detailing the inventory levels of the first five months of 2016 confirms this strategy. During January and February, the number of homes on the market was very low, which meant that competition was also low. Starting in March, inventory levels started to pick up because everyone thought of spring as the perfect buying season. By April and May, they had skyrocketed. Typically, as a year gets older, more and more homes will be built. Why wait for that? Don’t follow fake news headlines on social media or on television. Those outlets like to scare people, and they don’t understand the market as well as us experts. If you decide to list your home now, there are two points I want you to consider. The first is to never list it with an agent who tells you a price you want to hear. Experience shows that a common mistake that sellers make is overpricing their home with an agent who is the least competent person to actually get that price. Instead, hire an agent who’s going to consult with you with integrity, negotiate for you as though it was their own home, have systems in place to organize all the details, and, most importantly, have high-tech marketing that will attract buyers before the home even goes on the market. The second point is don’t get duped when selling your home. I get calls all the time from sellers who failed in their previous attempt at selling their house because they felt obligated to list with a friend or family member. Never do something like that with an asset as important as your house. Instead, hire and expert marketer and negotiator. Find someone who has sold hundreds of homes throughout their career rather than dozens. Keep in mind that my next home seller seminar is coming up on Saturday, January 21st at the Hilton Garden Inn. We’re starting at 9:30 a.m., and you’re also invited to breakfast at 8:30 a.m. For more details, visit homesharkseminar.com If you have any questions about what’s happening in the market, please feel free to give me a call. Also, stay tuned for my next video where I will share some awesome staging techniques to help your home sell quickly and for top dollar. Talk to you soon!

On the 12th episode of the Fitlandia Podcast Christa sits down with Larry Dukes to discuss his story of fitness transformation. On discussing his tipping point, Larry talks about how he reached a peak weight of 315 pounds, but didn’t even realize how big he’d gotten. After a trip to Thailand last year the heat started to get to him, and he wasn’t able to do some of the same activities that other people were. In November of the same year he was visiting friends in upstate New York when they got caught in traffic following a Giants game. As they tried to push their way into the train someone yelled “better watch out for the fat guy!” He turned and said the only thing he could think of which was “you’d better be careful kid ‘cause the fat guy is hungry.” That experience stuck with him, and eventually he got home and it really began to sink in. He wasn’t able to wear a lot of the clothes, he had trouble fitting in airline seats, and his own weight was keeping him from doing things he wanted to do. His family had a history of Type 2 diabetes, but when a doctor diagnosed him with gout he decided then and there that something had to change. See Ya, Sugar! By January 14th he started, and the biggest thing was cutting sugar. He was drinking 64 ounces of soda a day, and decided to flip that relationship and replace that with 64 ounces of water. He got a Fitbit and became obsessed with it. From there he got rid of cookies, brownies, and sweets and completely changed his relationship with food.  “This is not a journey you can take with somebody else forcing you. It doesn’t matter who’s nagging you, if you haven’t bought into it nobody can get you in that frame of mind but yourself.” - Larry Dukes Larry goes on to discuss his weight loss and how the initial wave of losing so much water weight was a great motivator. That slows down and plateaus, but he says instead of continuing to try to lose weight he focuses on maintaining that weight and lifestyle. There’s tons of great food out there that’s unhealthy, and he still enjoys them, but it’s now all about moderation. That’s key for him. It is about a healthy change, but “sometimes ya gotta eat Grandma’s cake.” The important thing is being able to maintain your choices. There’s all sorts of pre-packaged food diets, but what happens when you have to go to a party, or a restaurant, or stop your subscription? Are you going to be able to do that? You have to make smart changes that you know you’ll keep. Food is still going to be a part of your life, so make sure it’s a change you can make. Larry’s life has changed since that diagnosis, he’s lost 80 pounds, his resting heart rate and cholesterol are way down, his blood pressure is impeccable, and his gout is nearly gone. His doctor is “jumping up and down” with his changes. Larry is now feeling better with himself, feeling better physically, and feeling better emotionally. His story is a prime example of seeing a change that needs to be made and committing to it wholly. Change is possible, you just need to want it. Ready to learn how you can make your own transformation? Visit www.fitlandiafitness.com today and start your free trial. Podcast listeners using the code PODCAST at checkout get 30-days FREE and 10% off for the life of their membership.

By January 1st 1916 the war, which was supposed to be over by Christmas was now 522 days old. And 1916 would be the year of the war, it would be the year that everybody remembers, it would be the year of Jutland, the year Verdun, the year of the Somme. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“[Passionate Crusaders] shows that the efforts of an honorable and courageous few can create small steps to change history. This detailed, well-told, and inspiring story will be of value to students of the Holocaust, American history, and human rights.” –From the Foreword by Dr. Leon Stein, Professor Emeritus of History and Education Director Emeritus, Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. Passionate Crusaders tells the gripping story of a few righteous Americans who sought to do what many thought impossible in 1944—save Jews who had not yet been murdered in the Holocaust. By January 1944, Treasury Department officials Henry Morgenthau, John Pehle, and Josiah DuBois had already convinced President Franklin Roosevelt to create the War Refugee Board, an agency with the authority to provide rescue and relief for Jews and other groups persecuted by the Nazis.

Tinder is the location-based dating app which was launched on October, 2012 and made a real breakthrough. By January 2014, the app boasted more than 10 million users. By December of 2014, the app had been downloaded more than 40 million times with users swiping 1 billion times per day. On February 3rd the company reported that Tinder saw 100% year over year growth in monthly active users.

The years between 1219 and 1227 saw the gradual resumption of royal power. It also saw a power struggle between Peter des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester, and Hubert de Burgh the Justiciar. By January 1227 when Henry took control of the royal seal, that struggle at least seemed to be fully resolved in favour of Hubert. 

In this interview, Leigh Hatcher speaks with Nebraska pastor Todd Burpo, author of the book Heaven is for Real. When Todd’s son Colton was 4, he suffered from an undiagnosed ruptured appendix. The book, Heaven is for Real, details Burpo's claims that during the months after emergency surgery, Colton began describing events and people it was impossible for him to have seen or met, such as his miscarried sister, whom no one had told him about, and his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born. Within three weeks of its November 2010 release, the book debuted at #3 on the New York Times bestseller list. By January 2011, there were 200,000 copies in print, and the book hit #1 on the New York Times list.

On May 31, the one year anniversary of the Israeli attack on the unarmed passengers in last year's International Peace Flotilla that killed nine people aboard the Mavi Marmara, including an 18-year old U.S. citizen of Turkish descent named Furkan Dogan, organizers for the U.S. Boat to Gaza announced that they are expecting some 50 people to be aboard The Audacity of Hope, a U.S. flagged boat, that will be a part of the International Freedom Flotilla II that will sail from a port in the Mediterranean in late June and travel to Gaza. Aboard the boat will be US citizens from many different backgrounds, ages, and communities across the United States. Four passengers will be travelling from the Pacific Northwest on The Audacity of Hope, one of those passengers, Erin DeRamus, is my guest on today's program. Erin is currently a resident of Portland, OR, a practitioner and instructor of acupuncture and qigong (a meditative movement practice for internal cultivation), and the last few years she has worked in public health and recovery with the local Native American Rehabilitation Association. Erin travelled to the West Bank in December of 2008 to train mental health practitioners in a basic ear acupuncture protocol for the treatment of PTSD (port-traumatic stress disorder). She was in the West Bank during "operation cast lead", when Israeli forces without warning began a devastating bombing campaign on December 27, 2008. By January 18, 2009 some 1,400 Palestinians had been killed and large areas of Gaza had been razed to the ground. We will be duscussing Erin's background, training, her experiences, and her reasons for making the decision to join the U.S. Boat to Gaza. Additional information: New York Times Article, Lara Lee Video, Unedited Mavi Marmara footage smuggled off of the ship (15 minutes), Lara Lee speaking to the United Nations, Democracy Now Coverage and Interview with Lara Lee, Alice Walker Statement, Petition to support International Fotilla Contact Information: http://ustogaza.org/, http://witnessgaza.com/

Hi there, I’m Jack and I’m Raminta and welcome back to Lithuanian Out Loud where we offer the world the Lithuanian language.  Here we are still in the month of February which in Lithuanian is…vasaris. According to the Wikipedia pages entitled, Vilnius TV Tower, and the page, January Events, the tallest building in Lithuania is the Lithuanian Radio and Television Center or Lietuvos radijo ir televizijos centras.  Sadly, it was also the location of the Vilnius Massacre during the events of January 1991.  Lithuania was the first nation to declare independence from the Soviet Union.  The Russians had occupied Lithuania since 1945, so even though World War II had ended for most of the world, the war didn’t end for Lithuania until 1991.  Soviet troops, tanks, planes and ships still controlled Lithuania. On 11 March 1990 Lithuania declared independence but going from a declaration to full independence wasn’t going to be easy.  Russia had other ideas.  By January 1991 the Speaker of the Lithuanian Supreme Council Vytautas Landsbergis called for independence supporters to form crowds and protect government buildings and other important locations.  On January 8th and 9th more Soviet troops poured into Lithuania to head off any attempts of revolution. On January 10th, Michailas Gorbačiovas announced a military intervention was possible within days. On January 11th, Soviet troops attacked and took control of many government buildings, TV stations, radio stations, airports and railway stations.  On the 13th of January Soviet tanks attacked the Vilnius TV Tower but the civilian crowds refused to give way.  The Russian tanks drove through the crowd crushing unarmed Lithuanian civilians.  14 people were killed that day at the tower by machine guns and after being run over by tanks. Today you can visit the site of the massacre and at the base of the tower there’s a small museum dedicated to the patriots who lost their lives.  At the top of the tower you can have a meal in the rotating restaurant which has a spectacular view of Vilnius. --- In lessons 0050 and 0051 we worked on galininkas or the accusative case.  Today we’ll practice some more with this declension. Let’s get back in the taxi and see some of Vilnius, but first we need to learn the names of some Vilnius landmarks.  Today’s lesson focuses on how to name things in Lithuanian.  To do this we need to use kilmininkas or the genitive case.  If you need a review just listen to episodes 0022, 0030, 0031, 0033, 0037, and 0039. When we name something, such as Castle Street or Cathedral Square, we give the street a name and we give the square a name.  Castle Street – Cathedral Square.  When you name something you use kilmininkas or the genitive case.  The first word, castle, in Castle Street is declined.  The second word, gatvė, is not affected.  The first word, cathedral, in Cathedral Square is declined.  The second word, aikštė, is not affected. Here are some new words.  Kaip pasakyti lietuviškai?  How do you say it in Lithuanian? center                                         centrascenter                                         centrascity center                                   miesto centrasdowntown                                   miesto centras In this example the word for city is miestas.  The first word, miestas, is declined using kilmininkas.  Miestas changes to miesto.  The second word, center – centras is unchanged. bend                                         vingiscurve                                        vingisBend Park (as in river’s bend)    Vingio ParkasCurve Park                               Vingio Parkas the television                             televizijaa television                                televizijatelevision tower                         televizijos bokštasthe television tower                   televizijos bokštas genocide                                  genocidasgenocide                                  genocidas genocide museum                    genocido muziejusgenocide museum                    genocido muziejus air or weather                          orasthe air or the weather               oras a port or a harbor                     uostasthe port or the harbor               uostas an airport                                oro uostasthe airport                               oro uostas Okay, now let’s name things using Vilnius landmarks.  Remember, the first word is declined using kilmininkas, the second word is unchanged.please repeat, prašom pakartoti… Vilnius University                  Vilniaus UniversitetasVilnius University                  Vilniaus UniversitetasCastle Street                          Pilies gatvėCastle Street                          Pilies gatvėCathedral Square                   Katedros aikštėCathedral Square                   Katedros aikštėGediminas Castle                   Gedimino pilisGediminas Castle                   Gedimino pilis Okay!  Now we’ll add the phrase, “I’m going to…"  Notice that in the following examples the first word of whatever is named stays in kilmininkas.  When we say, “I’m going to…" we have to use the accusative case or galininkas because the destination is the direct object of the verb.  We’ll go over direct objects and verbs more in the future.  Again, when something is named, for example, Vilniaus Universitetas the first word of the named thing is declined, Vilnius changes to Vilniaus.  I’m going to Vilnius University. When we decline Vilniaus Universitetas using galininkas or the accusative case, the first word, Vilniaus stays in kilmininkas and the second word Universitetas is declined and changes to Universitetą.  So, keep in mind the first word stays in kilmininkas, the second word is declined in the new declension.  Vilnius University                        Vilniaus Universitetasto Vilnius University                     į Vilniaus Universitetą the television tower                      televizijos bokštasto the television tower                  į televizijos bokštą Now we’ll show you how to use the verb, važiuoti in the present tense.  This is the verb we use when we’re talking about going somewhere using some kind of means of transportation.  When you use važiuoti, you’re saying, to go, to drive, or to ride, using a car, a bus, a train, a bicycle, whatever.  You’re not talking about walking somewhere.Please repeat, prašom pakartoti… I’m going                                          aš važiuojuI’m going                                          aš važiuojuHe’s going                                         jis važiuojaHe’s going                                         jis važiuojaShe’s going                                        ji važiuojaShe’s going                                        ji važiuoja I’m going to Vilnius University              aš važiuoju į Vilniaus UniversitetąI’m going to Vilnius University              aš važiuoju į Vilniaus UniversitetąI’m going to Castle Street                     aš važiuoju į Pilies gatvęI’m going to Castle Street                     aš važiuoju į Pilies gatvęI’m going to Cathedral Square               aš važiuoju į Katedros aikštęI’m going to Cathedral Square               aš važiuoju į Katedros aikštęHe’s going to downtown                       jis važiuoja į miesto centrąHe’s going to downtown                       jis važiuoja į miesto centrąHe’s going to the television tower          jis važiuoja į televizijos bokštąHe’s going to the television tower          jis važiuoja į televizijos bokštąShe’s going to The Genocide Museum   ji važiuoja į Genocido muziejųShe’s going to The Genocide Museum   ji važiuoja į Genocido muziejųShe’s going to Bend Park                     ji važiuoja į Vingio parkąShe’s going to Bend Park                     ji važiuoja į Vingio parkąShe’s going to the airport                     ji važiuoja į oro uostąShe’s going to the airport                     ji važiuoja į oro uostąI’m going to Gediminas Castle              aš važiuoju į Gedimino pilįI’m going to Gediminas Castle              aš važiuoju į Gedimino pilį Now, that was a challenging lesson!  In the next lesson we‘ll work some more on the names of places in the capital, Vilnius, Lithuania and we‘ll give you much more practice with the concepts here.Sveikinu!  Congratulations for making it through another episode!  Sveikinu! Alright, that’s it for today, we’d like to thank you very much for listening, we appreciate it. To leave us comments call our voicemail number that’s in the title of every show or call our Skype voicemail at Lithuanianoutloud – that’s one word, and leave us a message there. If you’d like to see the Lithuanian spelling of any word in this series just go to WWW dot Lithuanian dot L I B S Y N dot com. If you’d like to get these lessons every time a new one is available just go to iTunes and do a search for Lithuanian Out Loud and click subscribe.  It’s completely free.  But, if you don’t want to subscribe on iTunes, just send us an email asking us to alert you every time a new episode hits the internet.  And feel free to make copies of our lessons, put them on cds and pass them out to your friends. Thanks to CCMixter.org, Ditto Ditto and Vieux Farka Toure for the podcast music. Thanks for tuning in, tell your friends about us, we’ll see you on the next episode of Lithuanian Out Loud. I’m Jack and I’ve never met a Lithuanian I didn’t like.  Viso gero!  Sudie! http://www.Lithuanian.Libsyn.comSkype voicemail:  Lithuanianoutloudemail Raminta and Jack at: lithuanianoutloud@earthlink.net Thanks to:  CCMixter.org, ditto ditto, and Vieux Farka Touré for allowing us to use the music for this podcast.http://www.vieuxfarkatoure.com/http://www.ccmixter.org/