Podcasts about Granted

In February 1993, A man was walking his dog in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia one winter evening when he came across what looked like a large piece of tarp tucked under some shrubs. When he approached it to see exactly what it was.. He saw body parts.. Human body parts. Immediately, he called police, who, along with the rest of Philadelphia, would be heartbroken when they found who was under that tarp…. JOIN US, as we discuss the tragic MURDER of 17 year old Shilie Turner. RIP to Shilie

JOIN US as we discuss the listener requested episode about a beautiful young couple that was career oriented, had JUST gotten engaged, and was violently gunned down as they were unloading engagement presents from their car. JOIN US as we discuss the murders of Nia Haqq & Michael Muchioki. Thank you to listener Robyn M. for recommending this case. RIP to the victims

For analysis of the new housing figures Lorcan Sirr, Technological University Dublin lecturer and housing policy analyst

Was great to jump on with another guest from across the pond, Toby Pedley! Toby comes from a multi-generational farrier family and from an early age he grew up watching his dad shoe horses so he grew quite an interest in the trade and started learning as early as 11 years old. Granted, there's rules and regulations over in England so he couldn't actually shoe any horses until he was licensed but was immersed in the trade with his mentor Gary Harlow who lived just down the road. Since then, it has been a goal of Toby's to earn a spot on the England Farrier Team and this year he qualified, earning his spot on the team! This was a fun conversation with Toby and hope you enjoy it too.Thanks to Steven Beane for getting us set up with a mic over in the UK and help show your support by checking out his tool line at www.beanietools.co.uk if you're across the world or www.wellshod.com if you're in the US!Also check out our website-www.forgingbrains.comOur Proud Sponsors of the Showwww.farrierbox.com use code BRAINS for 25% off your first month's order!www.well-shod.com use code BRAINS for a surprise product in your order!www.worldchampionshipblacksmiths.com use code BRAINS for 10% off in their online store! (not including membership/contest entry fees)www.yukonforge.com use code BRAINS for 10% off your order!

Gordon Duncan, Alex Rae and Tony Watt are on tonight's Clyde 1 Superscoreboard, reacting to a big day of news in Scottish football. We're hearing more of your reaction to full-time scenes after Sunday's Old Firm game, plus news of St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson's potential Aberdeen appointment. Plus, your chance to win tickets to the Glasgow International Comedy Festival as Marc Jennings joins us on the show, and we're giving away a signed ball on Beat The Pundit after 7pm.

JOIN US for part 2 of the Grim Sleeper case. RIP to the victims

Simon Atkinson, BBC australia reporter on the Gold Coast, reports on the five members of the Iranian women's football team who have been granted humanitarian visas in Australia after their elimination in the Asian Cup.

The people who were granted the supernatural knowledge to build the Mishkan were unique in having developed a specific prerequisite, yiras shamayim.

If you woke up tomorrow and realized you'd been given “one more chance” at life, what would you do differently today?It's easy to treat life like something we're entitled to… until a hard season hits: pain, loss, setbacks, uncertainty. In this episode, Jay Setchell (in his 70s, mostly paralysed, having survived multiple near-death experiences and 73 surgeries) shares how to internalise that life is a gift before you're forced to learn it the hard way, and how gratitude, faith, and personal responsibility can carry you through your toughest winters.A simple mindset shift to stop asking “why me?” and start navigating adversity with acceptance, resilience, and clarity.Practical ways to build inner strength—so you keep moving forward inch by inch even when you feel stuck or overwhelmed.A powerful framework for radical ownership, including how to apply it even when life is outside your control.Press play to learn how to develop the “strength within you” so you can stay grateful, take ownership, and remember: no matter what you're facing, it's always too soon to quit.˚VALUABLE RESOURCES:Jay's website: https://neverquittrying.com/˚Coaching with Agi: https://personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com/mentor˚Send us a textSupport the showA personal development podcast for midlife professionals, offering actionable insights and practical tools for personal growth, self mastery, and purposeful living. Discover strategies for clarity, mindset shifts, growth mindset, self-discipline, emotional intelligence, confidence, and self-improvement. Personal Development Mastery features personal development interviews and solo episodes empowering professionals, entrepreneurs, and seekers to cultivate self mastery, nurture mental health, and create a meaningful, fulfilling life aligned with who they truly are. To support the show, click here.

Word for Today:Luke 16:8 KJV“…the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.”Reflection:Many people who worship idols are careful not to offend their ‘gods', yet those of us who worship the Living God take His mercy and grace for granted!

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The Pioneer Hotel in Tucson, Arizona used to be the hotspot for all of the rich and affluent in the city. It felt expensive and luxurious and SAFE. So no one was expecting a fire to break out that would kill over two dozen people on one of the busiest nights of the year. But was it an accident or was it arson? JOIN US as we discuss Louis Taylor and the Pioneer Hotel Fire. RIP to the victims

The Marion County Superior Court granted a permanent injunction in the ACLU of Indiana Religious Freedom Challenge to the state's abortion ban. Indiana schools can expect to see new A to F letter grades later this year as state education leaders approved a new school accountability model. Indianapolis has a housing problem and it's contributed to hundreds of individuals living on the streets every day. More information is available about the crash that injured Indiana Congressman Jim Bair and his wife Danise. A push to significantly restrict the sale of THC products in Indiana failed this legislative session. Want to go deeper on the stories you hear on WFYI News Now? Visit wfyi.org/news and follow us on social media to get comprehensive analysis and local news daily. Subscribe to WFYI News Now wherever you get your podcasts. WFYI News Now is produced by Zach Bundy, with support from News Director Sarah Neal-Estes.

The sudden death of the popular manager shocked the entire company. He was energetic and passionate about his work. He regularly worked with dozens of people on several key projects. His accidental death after work hours was even more traumatic to those who had been in meetings with him earlier that day. It can be ... The post Taken for Granted appeared first on Unconventional Business Network.

Don't take life for granted!: Friday, March 6, 2026Do you want to go deeper with me? Book me for a keynote, workshop, or coaching.Subscribe to get my message delivered daily: https://www.michaelallosso.com/goodmorning.html——————May your morning begin shattering expectations right out of the gate. I hope my message brings a smile to your face. May you gain knowledge, become inspired, or collect a trivial fact that you might use in a contest someday.-------For the past 30 years, I've changed my phone message EVERY SINGLE DAY! It's a daily activity, as automatic as brushing my teeth.​ I actually do 2 unique messages daily: one on my cell phone and one on my landline. The time has come to share them. (Perhaps the time has come to get rid of my landline?

I was recently talking with a client who said that he has a friend who was trying to re-connect with Islam this Ramadan and thought, "What better place to start, than the Quran?"  Granted, this person will have to read a watered down English translation and not the original, inimitably beautiful Arabic, but still, it should be all good, right?  The problem with Quran translations is that even one word misplaced can completely change the experience of the reader and their connection with Allah.  And there are a lot of bad English translations of the Quran out there. And, in recent decades, there have been some really good ones. But even the good ones translate some words in ways that can be very misleading to a native English speaker and someone who 'thinks' like a Westerner.  

Los Angeles in the 80s was an extremely dangerous place to be if you were a woman, specifically a black woman. Not only did you have to find a way to support yourself and your family at a time when unemployment was at an all time high, but you had to worry about making it back home safely every day because there were MULTIPLE serial killers active at the time, that specifically targeted black women. Some were caught quickly, and others were able to murder for years, even decades. So JOIN US as we discuss a murderer who was able to evade capture, for over almost 30 years. A man the media dubbed, the Grim Sleeper. (aka Lonnie Franklin Jr.) RIP to the victims

Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC | 03/04/26 | Docket #: 24-1238 24-1238 MONTGOMERY V. CARIBE TRANSPORT II, LLC DECISION BELOW: 124 F.4th 1053 CERT. GRANTED 10/3/2025 QUESTION PRESENTED: The common law permits a cause of action for negligent selection. For example, a person injured in a truck crash has a cause of action against someone that negligently selected the truck driver to transport property. A federal statute expressly preempts state laws "related to a price, route, or service of any motor carrier ... or any motor private carrier, broker, or freight forwarder with respect to the transportation of property." 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(1). The statute has a safety exception, providing that the statute "shall not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a State with respect to motor vehicles." Id . § 14501(c)(2)(A). The question presented is: Does§ 14501(c) preempt a state common-law claim against a broker for negligently selecting a motor carrier or driver? LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 24-1192

Hunter v. United States | 03/03/26 | Docket #: 24-1063 24-1063 HUNTER V. UNITED STATES DECISION BELOW: 2025 WL 5003582 CERT. GRANTED 10/10/2025 QUESTION PRESENTED: This Court has recognized that "no appeal waiver serves as an absolute bar to all appellate claims." Garza v. Idaho , 586 U.S. 232, 238 (2019). But the Court has "ma[de] no statement ... on what particular exceptions [to appeal waivers] may be required." Id . at 238-39 & n.6. In the decision below, the Fifth Circuit reaffirmed its precedent, holding that there are only two grounds on which defendants who sign general appeal waivers may challenge their sentence on appeal: (1) claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, and (2) claims that the sentence exceeds the statutory maximum. The Sixth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits adopt a similarly narrow view of the exceptions to general appeal waivers. In stark conflict, the First, Second, Fourth, and Ninth Circuits permit defendants who sign general appeal waivers to raise a broad range of constitutional challenges to their sentences beyond the limited exceptions recognized by the Fifth Circuit and the other courts on its side of the circuit split. The Fifth Circuit below also reaffirmed its precedent holding that an appeal waiver applies even when the sentencing judge advises the defendant that he has a right to appeal and the government does not object to that advice. Although other circuits agree with the Fifth Circuit, the Ninth Circuit squarely holds otherwise, releasing defendants from appeal waivers in identical circumstances. The questions presented are: 1. Whether the only permissible exceptions to a general appeal waiver are for claims of ineffective assistance of counsel or that the sentence exceeds the statutory maximum. 2. Whether an appeal waiver applies when the sentencing judge advises the defendant that he has a right to appeal and the government does not object. LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 24-20211

Today we're studying Genesis 25:31, 34 in just one minute! Grab your scriptures and let's dive into them together!And grab study guides for the whole family here: -Grab Kristen's copies of helpful PDFs and study guides here: https://shop.kristenwalkersmith.com/products/ Check out her monthly Come Follow Me YouTube videos here: https://kristenwalkersmith.com/youtube/- To get Cali's scripture study guide for adults click here: https://comefollowmestudy.com/shop/ Discount code: OMSSOr purchase on Amazon: https://a.co/d/4qocgeUGet our NEW 365-day Old Testament daily devotional book on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0p3Ds0t Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

D&P Highlight: Five men were convicted in a 1988 arson explosion that killed 6 KCFD firefighters. Now, one has been granted compassionate release. full 620 Mon, 02 Mar 2026 19:58:00 +0000 5Xtwwi73Fr0bmAccDNjuiqYoRlfcqRzY news The Dana & Parks Podcast news D&P Highlight: Five men were convicted in a 1988 arson explosion that killed 6 KCFD firefighters. Now, one has been granted compassionate release. You wanted it... Now here it is! Listen to each hour of the Dana & Parks Show whenever and wherever you want! © 2025 Audacy, Inc. News

United States v. Hemani | 03/02/26 | Docket #: 24-1234 24-1234 UNITED STATES V. HEMANI DECISION BELOW: 2025 WL 354982 CERT. GRANTED 10/20/2025 QUESTION PRESENTED: Whether 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3), the federal statute that prohibits the possession of firearms by a person who "is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance," violates the Second Amendment as applied to respondent. LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 24-40137

Jabez cried out to the God of Israel... And God granted his request. [NKJV]

In this week's episode, I take a historical digression to look at the four major Thomases of the English Reformation - Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, and Thomas Cranmer. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragonskull series at my Payhip store: QUEST25 The coupon code is valid through March 9 2026. So if you need a new ebook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 292 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is February 27th, 2026. Today we are taking a digression into history by looking at the four Thomases of the English Reformation (with one bonus Thomas). We'll also have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing and publishing projects. First up, let's do Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragonskull series at my Payhip store. That coupon code is QUEST25 and as always, the links to the store and the coupon code will be available in the show notes of this episode. This coupon code is valid through March 9th, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this winter, we have got you covered. Now for an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I am very nearly done with Cloak of Summoning. As of this recording, I am 35% of the way through the final editing pass. This episode should be coming out on, let's see, March the 2nd. I'm hoping Cloak of Summoning will be available a few days (hopefully like one or two days) after this episode goes live, but we'll see how things go. In any event, it should be out in very early March, which is not far away at this point. I'm also 14,000 words into Blade of Wraiths, the fourth book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. Hopefully that will be out in April, if all goes well. That's my secondary project right now, but once it gets promoted to primary project once Cloak of Summoning is available, my new secondary project will be Dragon Mage, which will be the sixth book in the Rivah Half-Elven Thief series. I'm looking forward to that since it is going to bring to an end a lot of ongoing plot threads. So it should be quite a fun book to write and hopefully to read. That should hopefully be out in May or possibly June, depending on how things go. In audiobook news, Cloak of Titans, the audiobook narrated by Hollis McCarthy, should be available in more audiobook stores than it was this time last week, though it's still not on Amazon, Audible, or Apple. Brad Wills is working on recording Blade of Storms and I think the first six chapters are done. Hopefully we should have those audiobooks available to you before too much longer. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:18 Main Topic: The Four Thomases of the English Reformation Now without further ado, let's get to our main topic and it's time for another of my favorite topics overall, a digression into obscure points of history. I've mentioned before that Wolf Hall (both the TV show and the book) is a lot easier to understand if you are at least passingly familiar with the key figures of the English Reformation, which happened during the reign of King Henry VIII. But who were these key figures? I had a history professor who said that to understand the English Reformation, you need to know about the four Thomases of the English Reformation: Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, and Thomas Cranmer, since each one of them altered events in a major way. Fun fact: only one of the four died from natural causes and right before he was about to go on trial for treason, which would have likely ended with his execution. The English Reformation was a tumultuous time and the Tudor court was not a place for the faint of heart or the morally scrupulous. So let's talk about the four Thomases and one bonus Thomas today. But first to understand them, we should look at three background trends that converged and boiled over during their lifetimes. #1: Henry VIII needs an heir. King Henry VIII was quite famously married six times and executed two of his wives in his quest for a male heir. To the modern era, this sounds odd and chauvinistic, but one of the errors of studying history is assuming that the residents of the past had any interest in 21st century standards of behavior. By the standards of Henry's time, having a male heir to assume the kingdom after his death was absolutely vital. In fact, an argument could be made that Henry was attempting to act responsibly by going to such lengths to father a male heir, though naturally he went about it in a spectacularly destructive and self-absorbed way. Remember, Henry's father, Henry VII, came to the throne after a 30-year civil war, and there were noble families that thought they had a better claim to the throne than Tudors and would be happy to exercise it. A good comparison is that the lack of a male heir for Henry VIII was as serious a crisis as a disputed presidential election in 21st century America would be. You can see evidence for this in Henry's famous jousting accident in 1536. For a few hours, people were certain that he was dead or was about to die, and this incident caused a brief constitutional crisis. If Henry died, who would rule? His daughter, Mary, who he had just declared a bastard? His young daughter Elizabeth from Anne Boleyn? His bastard son, Henry FitzRoy? A regent? One of the old families who thought they had a claim to the throne? Now, these are the sort of questions that tend to get decided by civil wars, which nobody wanted. So Henry needed a male heir and it weighed on him as a personal failure that he had been unable to produce one, which was undoubtedly one of the reasons he concluded that several of his marriages had been cursed by God and needed to be annulled. Though, of course, one of Henry's defining traits was that his self-absorption was such that nothing was ever his fault, but a failing of those around him. #2: The Reformation is here. At the same time Henry was beginning to have his difficulties, the Protestant Reformation exploded across Europe. The reasons for the Reformation were manifold. There was a growing feeling across all levels of society that the church was corrupt and more concerned about money than tending to Christ's flock, a feeling not helped by the fact that several of the 15th and 16th century popes were essentially Renaissance princelings more interested in luxury, money, and expanding the power of the papal states than in anything spiritual. Many bishops, archbishops, abbots, and other high prelates acted the same way. The situation the early 16th century church found itself in was similar to American higher education today. Many modern professors and administrators go about their jobs quietly, competently, and diligently, but if you want to find examples of corruption, folly, and egregious waste in American higher education, you don't have to try very hard. Reformers could easily find manifold examples of clerical and papal corruption to reinforce their arguments. Additionally, nationalism was beginning to develop as a concept, as was the idea of the nation state. People in England, Scotland, Germany, and other countries began to wonder why they were paying tithes to the church that went to build beautiful buildings in Rome and support the lavish lifestyle of the papal court when that money might be better spent at home. For that matter, the anti-clericalism of the Reformation was not new and had time to mature. At the end of the 14th century, Lollardy was a proto-Protestant movement in England that challenged clerical power. In the early 15th century, the Hussite wars in Bohemia following the teachings of Jan Hus were a preview of the greater Reformation to come. Papal authority had been severely damaged by the Great Schism at the end of the 14th and the start of the 15th century when two competing popes (later expanded to three) all tried to excommunicate each other and claim control of the church. In the aftermath, Renaissance Humanists had begun suggesting that only the Bible was the proper source and guide for Christianity, and that papal authority and many of the church's practices were merely human traditions that had been added later and were not ordained by God. A lot of the arguments of the Reformation had their earliest form from the writers of the 15th century. Essentially, the central argument of the Reformation was that the believer's personal relationship with God is the important part of Christianity and doesn't need to be mediated through ordained priests in the official sacraments of the church, though such things were still important. Of course, all the various reformers disagreed with each other about just how important and what the nature of that relationship was, how many sacraments there should be, and what the precise relationship between the individual, the church, and the state should be (and that argument got entangled with many other issues like nationalism), but that was a central crux of the Reformation. So all these competing pressures have been building up, and when Martin Luther posted his statements for debate on church reform in October of 1517, it was the equivalent of lighting a match in a barn that had been stuffed full of sawdust and was suffering from a natural gas leak. #3: The printing press. So why did Luther's action kick off the Reformation as we know it and not the other proto-Protestant movements we mentioned? I think the big part of that is the printing pass, perhaps the biggest part. The printing press did not exist during the early proto-Protestant movements, which meant it was a lot harder for the ideas of reform to spread quickly. The Lollards in particular wanted to translate the Bible into English instead of Latin, but the Bible is a big book and that is a lot of copying to do by hand. In 1539, after a lot of encouragement from Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII decreed that an English Bible should be placed at every church in England. In 1339, that would have been an impossible amount of copying by scribes. In 1539, thanks to the printing press, it was essentially on the scale of the government embarking on a mid-sized industrial project, perhaps a bit of a logistical and organizational challenge and you have to deal with contractors, but by no means impossible. The printing press made it possible for the various arguments and pamphlets of the Reformers to spread quickly throughout Europe. Luther published tracts on a variety of religious and political topics for the rest of his life, and those tracks were copied, printed, and sold throughout Europe. In fact, he had something of a flame war with Thomas More over Henry VIII's "Defense of the Seven Sacraments". Kings and governments frequently tried to suppress printers they didn't like, but the cat was out of the bag and the printing press helped drive the Reformation by spreading its ideas faster than had previously been possible. AI bros occasionally compare modern large language model AIs to the printing press as an irreversible technological advancement, but one should note that the printing press of the 16th century did not require an entire US state's worth of electricity and an unlimited supply of water. So those were some of the undercurrents and trends leading up to the English Reformation. With that in mind, let's take a look at our four Thomases. #1: Thomas Wolsey. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was Henry's right hand man during the first 20 years of his reign and essentially the practical ruler of England during that time. He started his career in Henry's reign as the almoner, essentially in charge of charity, and it ended up becoming the Lord Chancellor of England. Since Henry was not super interested in actually doing the hard work of government, Wolsey ended up essentially running the country while Henry turned his full enthusiasm towards the more ceremonial aspects of kingship. Wolsey was an example of the kind of early 16th Century church prelate we mentioned above, more of a Renaissance princeling than a priest. However, as Renaissance princelings went, you could do worse than to have been ruled by someone like Wolsey. And if you were a king, you would be blessed to have a lieutenant as diligent in his work as the Cardinal. Granted, Wolsey did amass a large fortune for himself, but he frequently patronized the arts, education and the poor, pursued some governmental reforms, and deftly maintained England's position in the turbulent diplomacy of the time. He was also much more forgiving in questions of religious dissent than someone like Thomas More. Wolsey was the most powerful man in England at his apex, and the nobility hated it for him because his origins were common. So long as he had Henry's favor, Wolsey was untouchable and the nobility couldn't move against him. But the royal favor came to an end as Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon was unable to produce a son. Since Catherine had previously (and briefly) been married to his older brother Arthur before Arthur's death, Henry became convinced (or succeeded in convincing himself) that his marriage was cursed by God for violating the prohibition against sleeping with your brother's wife in the book of Leviticus. His eye had already fallen on Anne Boleyn and Henry wanted an annulment and not a divorce in his marriage with Catherine. In the eyes of God, he would never have been married at all, and then he could marry Anne Boleyn with a clear conscience. Here, Wolsey's gift for diplomacy failed him, but perhaps it was an impossible task. Catherine of Aragon was the aunt of Emperor Charles V, who at the time was the most powerful man in Christendom. All of Wolseley's efforts to persuade the pope to annul the marriage failed, partly because the pope had already given Henry VIII dispensation to marry his brother's widow. Wolsey's failure eroded his support with the king. Anne Boleyn likewise hated Wolsey partly because she believed he was hindering the annulment, and partly because he had blocked her from marrying the Earl of Northumberland years before she had her eyes set upon Henry. Finally, Henry stripped Wolsey of his office of Lord Chancellor, and Wolsey retired to York to take up his role as archbishop there. Wolsey's popularity threatened Henry and Anne, so Henry summoned him back to London to face treason charges. Perhaps fortunately for Wolsey, he died of natural causes on the journey back to London. His replacement as Lord Chancellor was Thomas More, the next of our major for Thomases. #2: Thomas More. More was an interesting contrast-a Renaissance Humanist who remained a staunch Catholic, even though Renaissance Humanists in general tended towards proto-Protestantism or actual Protestantism. He was also in some ways oddly progressive for his time. He insisted on educating his daughters at a time was considered pointless to educate women about anything other than the practical business of household management. Anyway, More's training as a lawyer and a scholar led him to a career in government. He held a variety of posts under Henry VIII, finally rising to become the Lord Chancellor after Wolsey. In the first decades of his brain, Henry was staunchly Catholic and despised Protestantism, in particular, Lutheranism in general and Martin Luther in particular. In 1521, Henry published "Defense of the Seven Sacraments" against Luther, and More helped him write it to an unknown degree. In their dislike for all forms of Protestantism, More and Henry were in harmony at this point. More was involved in hunting down heretics (i.e. Protestants) and trying to convince them to recant. During his time as the Lord Chancellor, More ended up sending six people to be burned at the stake for heresy, along with the arrest and interrogations of numerous others. This rather clashes with his "humanist man of letters" aspect, but More was undoubtedly convinced he was doing the right thing. And while he might have believed in education, he most definitely did not believe in freedom of conscience in several areas. To be fair to More, in the view of many at the time, Protestants, especially Anabaptists, were dangerous radicals. Likely More viewed hunting heretics in the same way as some modern politicians view hunting down covert terrorist cells or surveilling potential domestic terrorists. Harsh measures true, but harsh measures allegedly necessary for the greater good of the nation. However, the concord between More and Henry would not last. Henry wanted to set aside Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, which More staunchly opposed. More especially opposed Henry breaking away from Rome and becoming head of an independent English Church. At first, More was able to save himself by maintaining his silence, but eventually Henry required all of his subjects take an oath affirming his status as head of the church. Thomas Cromwell famously led a deputation to try and change More's mind, but he failed. More refused, he was tried on specious treason charges, and beheaded in 1535. Later, the Catholic church declared him the patron saint of politicians. This might seem odd given that he oversaw executions and essentially did thought police stuff against Protestants, but let's be honest-it's rare to see a politician even mildly inconvenience himself over a point of principle, let alone maintain it until death when he was given every possible chance to change his mind. Probably the most famous fictional portrayals of More are A Man For All Seasons and Wolf Hall. I would say that A Man For All Seasons was far too generous to More, but Wolf Hall was too harsh. #3: Now for the third of our four Thomases, Thomas Cromwell. After Wolsey's fall and More's refusal to support Henry's desire to either annul his marriage to Catherine or to make himself head with the church so he couldn't annul the marriage, Thomas Cromwell rose become Henry's new chief lieutenant. Cromwell is both a fascinating but divisive figure. For a long time, he was cast as the villain in Thomas More's saga, but Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall really triggered a popular reevaluation of him. Like A Man For All Seasons was too generous to More, I would say Wolf Hall was too generous to Cromwell. Nonetheless, I suspect Cromwell was and remained so divisive because he was so effective. He got things done on a scale that the other three Thomases of the English Reformation never quite managed. Cromwell's origins are a bit obscure. It seems he was either of non-noble birth or very low gentry birth and his father Walter Cromwell was a local prosperous tradesman in a jack of all trades with a reputation for litigiousness. For reasons that are unclear, Cromwell fled his birthplace and spent some time in continental Europe, possibly as a mercenary soldier. He eventually made his way to Italy and started working for the merchant families there, gaining knowledge of trade in the law, and then traveled to the Low Countries. When he returned to England, he became Cardinal Wolsey's right hand man. After Wolsey's fall, Cromwell went into Parliament and defended his master whenever possible. This loyalty combined with his significant talent for law and administration caught the eye of Henry and he swiftly became Henry's right-hand man. Amusingly, Cromwell never became Lord Chancellor like More or Wolsey, but instead accumulated many lesser offices that essentially allowed him to carry out Henry's directives as he saw a fit. Unlike More and Wolsey, Cromwell had strong Protestant leanings and he encouraged the king to break away from the Catholic Church and take control of the English Church as its supreme head. Henry did so. His marriage to Catherine of Aragon was nulled. The rest of Europe never accepted this until Catherine died of illness and it became a moot point. In 1533, he married Anne Boleyn. Like Cromwell, Anne had a strong Protestant bent and began encouraging reformers to take various offices and began pushing Henley to make more reforms than he was really comfortable doing. For example, Cromwell was one of the chief drivers behind the English Bible of 1539. This, combined with Anne's inability to give Henry a son, contributed to Anne's downfall. Unlike Catherine, she was willing to argue with Henry to his face and was unwilling to look the other way when he wanted a mistress, and this eventually got on Henry's nerves. Events are a bit murky, but it seems that Henry ordered Cromwell to find a way he could set aside Anne and Cromwell complied. Various men, including her own brother, were coerced and confessing to adultery with Anne on charges that were most likely fabricated and Anne's "lovers" and Anne herself were executed for treason in 1536. Cromwell had successfully used a technique that many modern secret police organizations and dictatorships employ- if you want to get rid of someone for whatever reason, accuse them of a serious crime, coerce them to a confession, and then have them executed. Joseph Stalin did basically the same thing when he purged the Old Bolsheviks after Lenin's death. Henry married Jane Seymour shortly after Anne's execution, and she finally gave Henry his long-waited son, though she died soon afterwards of postpartum complications. Cromwell also oversaw the dissolution of the English monasteries in the 1530s. Monasticism had become quite unpopular even before the Reformation, especially among humanist writers. The concentration of property in the hands of monasteries made for a ripe target. Using Parliament and with Henry's approval, the monasteries of England were dissolved, the monks and nuns pensioned off, and the various rich properties held by the monasteries were given to the king and his friends. Cromwell himself profited handsomely. This was essentially legalized theft, but there was nothing the monasteries could do about it. Cromwell pushed for more religious reforms, but that combined with the dissolution of the monasteries caused "The Pilgrimage of Grace" in 1537, a rebellion that Henry was able to put down through a combination of lies, stalling, outright bribery, and brutal repression under the Duke of Norfolk (more about him later). Cromwell was at the zenith of his power and influence, but his reformist bent and made him a lot of enemies. For that matter, Henry was increasingly uncomfortable with further religious changes. He wanted to be head of his own church, but essentially his own Catholic Church, not his own Reformed or Lutheran one. Cromwell's alignment with the reform cause gave his more traditionalist enemies a tool to use against him. Cromwell's foes had their chance in 1540 when Henry married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. Cromwell had heavily pushed for the match, hoping to make an alliance with the Protestant princes of Germany against the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor. For whatever reason, Henry took an immediate dislike to Anne and never consummated the marriage, which was swiftly annulled and Anne pensioned off. Henry blamed Cromwell for the failed marriage and Cromwell's enemies, particularly Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Gardiner of Winchester, were able to convince Henry to move against him. Cromwell was arrested, stripped of all the titles and property he had amassed, and executed in July of 1540. The sort of legal railroading process he had born against Anne Boleyn's alleged lovers and numerous other enemies of Henry's was used against him. This was one of the very few executions Henry ever regretted. Within a year, the French ambassador reported that Henry was raging that his counselors had misled him into putting to death the most faithful servant he had ever had. Once again, nothing was ever Henry's fault in his own mind. The fact that Henry allowed Cromwell's son Gregory to become a baron and inherit some of his father's land shows that he likely changed his mind about the execution. For once in his life, Henry was dead on accurate when he called Cromwell his "most faithful servant". He never again found a lieutenant with Cromwell's loyalty and skill. The remaining seven years of Henry's reign blundered from setback to setback and all the money Henry obtained from the dissolution of the monasteries was squandered in indecisive wars with France and Scotland. I think it's fair to say that the English Reformation would not have taken the course it did, if not for Cromwell. As ruthless and as unscrupulous as he could be, he nonetheless did seem to really believe in the principles of religious reform and push such policies whenever he could do so without drawing Henry's ire. #4: Now the fourth of our four major Thomases, Thomas Cranmer. If Thomas Cromwell did a lot of the political work of the English Reformation, then Thomas Cranmer wrote a lot of its theory. Cranmer was a scholar and something of a gentle-minded man, but not a very skillful politician. He seemed happy to leave the politicking to Cromwell. I think Cranmer would have been a lot happier as a Lutheran pastor in say, 1950s rural Nebraska. He could have married a farmer's daughter, had a bunch of kids, and presided at weddings, funerals, and baptisms where he could talk earnestly about Jesus and Christian virtues, and he probably would have written a few books on obscure theological points. But instead, Cranmer was destined to play a significant part in the English Reformation. He started as a priest and a scholar who got in trouble for marrying, but when his wife died in childbirth, he went back to the priesthood. Later, he became part of the team of scholars and priests working to get Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled. While he was at university and later in the priesthood, he became fascinated by Lutheran ideas and became a proponent of reform. As with Cromwell, Henry's desire to marry Anne Boleyn gave Cranmer his great opportunity. Anne's family were also in favor of reform, and they arranged for Cranmer to become the new Archbishop of Canterbury. The new archbishop and the like- minded clerics and scholars laid the legal and theological groundwork for Henry to break with Rome and become head of the English church with Cranmer and the rest of the reform faction wanted to be used to push for additional church reforms. He survived the tumults of Henry's reign by total loyalty to the king – he mourned Anne Boleyn, but didn't oppose her execution (though he was one of the few who mourned for her publicly), did much the same when Cromwell was executed, and personally sent news of Catherine Howard's adultery to the king. Because of that, Cranmer had a great chance to pursue the cause of reform when Henry died and his 12-year-old son Edward VI became King. Edward's uncle Edward Seymour acted as the head of the King's regency council, and Seymour and his allies were in favor of reform. Cranmer was at last able to steer the English church in the direction of serious reform, and he was directly responsible for writing the Book of Common Prayer and several other key documents of the early Anglican church. But Cranmer's of luck ran out in 1553 when Edward VI died. Cranmer was part of the group that tried to put the Protestant Lady Jane Grey on the throne, but Henry's daughter Mary instead took the crown. Mary had never really wavered from her Catholicism despite immense pressure to do so, and she had last had a chance to do something about it. She immediately brought England back to Rome and started prosecuting prominent reform leaders, Cranmer among them. Cranmer was tried for treason and heresy and sentenced to be burned, but that was to be commuted if he recanted his views in public during a sermon, which he did. However, at the last minute, he thunderously denounced his previous recantation, asserted his reformist faith, and vowed that he would thrust the hand that signed the recantation into the flames first. Cranmer was immediately taken to be burned at the stake, and just as he promised, he thrust his hand into the flames, and his last word is that he saw heaven opening and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Cranmer had spent much of his life trying to appease Henry while pushing as much reform as possible, but in his final moments, he had finally found his defiance. When Mary died and Elizabeth took the throne, she returned England to Protestantism. Elizabeth was much more pragmatic than her half siblings and her father ever were, so she chose the most expedient choice of simply rolling the English church back to as it was during Edward VI's time. Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer and religious articles, lightly edited for Elizabeth's sensibilities, became the foundational documents of the Anglican church. So these four Thomases, Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, and Thomas Cranmer were central to the events of the English Reformation. However, we have one bonus Thomas yet. Bonus Thomas: Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk. Thomas Howard was a powerful nobleman during the reign of Henry, and the Duke of Norfolk was frequently Henry's lieutenant in waging various wars and putting down rebellions. He was also the uncle of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, Henry's second and fifth queens. He was also involved in nearly every major event of Henry's reign. So with all that, why isn't Norfolk as remembered as well as the other four Thomases of the English Reformation? Sometimes a man would be considered virtuous by the standards of the medieval or early modern age, yet reprehensible in ours. For example, for much of the Middle Ages, crusading was considered an inherently virtuous act for a knight, whereas in the modern age, it would be condemned as war mongering with a religious veneer. However, by both modern standards and Tudor standards, Thomas Howard was a fairly odious character. For all their flaws and the morally questionable things they did, Wolsey, More, Cromwell, and Cranmer were all men of conviction in their own ways. More and Cranmer explicitly died with their faith. Cromwell's devotion to the Protestant cause got him killed since he insisted on the Anne of Cleves match. Even Wolsey, for all that he enriched himself, was a devoted servant of Henry after his downfall never betrayed the king. By contrast, Norfolk was out for Norfolk. This wasn't unusual for Tudor nobleman, but Norfolk took it to a new level of grasping venality. He made sure that his daughter was married to Henry's bastard son, Henry FitzRoy, just in case FitzRoy ended up becoming king. He used both his nieces, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, to gain power and lands for himself, and then immediately turned against him once he became politically expedient. In fact, he presided over the trial where Anne Boleyn was sentenced to death. After the failure of the Anne of Cleve's marriage, Norfolk made sure to bring his young niece Catherine Howard to court to catch Henry's eye, and to use the Anne of Cleve's annulment as a lever to get rid of Thomas Cromwell. Both stratagems worked, and he attempted to leverage being the new Queen's uncle to bring himself to new power and riches, as he had with Anne Boleyn. Once Henry turned on Catherine Howard, Norfolk characteristically and swiftly threw his niece under the bus. However, as Henry aged, he grew increasingly paranoid and vindictive, and he had Norfolk arrested and sentenced to death on suspicion of treason. Before the execution could be carried out, Henry died, and Norfolk spent the six years of Edward VI's reign as a prisoner in the Tower of London. When Edward died and Mary took the throne, she released Norfolk since she was Catholic and Norfolk had always been a religious traditionalist suspicious of reform. He spent the remaining year of his life as one of Mary's chief advisors before finally dying of old age. As I often say, history can be a rich source of inspiration for fantasy writers, and the English Reformation is full of such inspiration. Wolsey, More, Cromwell, and Cranmer can all make excellent inspirations for morally ambiguous characters. For that matter, you can see why the reign of Henry VIII has inspired so many movies, TV shows, and historical novels. The real life events are so dramatic as to scarcely require embellishment. So that's it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show and thank you for listening as I went on one of my little historical digressions. I hope you found the show enjoyable. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy, and we'll see you all next week.

This episode we'll be looking at a bunch of different references referring to the various provinces, particularly those on the far edges of the archipelago. For more, check out:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-144   Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua, and this is episode 144: On the Edge The ships sat low in the water, bobbing gently against the docks at Naniwa.  The captain eyed them warily as the officials went over the manifest.  The Seto Inland Sea was generally calm and smooth sailing—at least compared to the open ocean, anywhere else -- and yet, as he looked, he could only think of how sluggish these ships would be.  They were laden down with cargo—silk, cloth, thread, and of course provisions for the men accompanying them.  But more than that, they were laden down with iron.  Tons of iron ingots, destined for the far reaches of the archipelago.  First to Suwa, but then on to the Dazai on Tsukushi, no doubt to be forged into weapons for the defense of Yamato. But that wasn't the captain's concern.  He just needed to make sure that the ships weren't weighed down too much:  as long as they remained buoyant, they would make the journey, even if they had to travel at a snail's pace to do it.  But if the ships sat too low in the water, then all it would take was some uncooperative waves and the ships, crew, and cargo, would be sent straight down to the palace of the dragon king, beneath the waves. Fortunately, with enough ships, it looked like that wouldn't be too much of a problem, as long as the goods were properly spaced out.  Now to just hope that the weather cooperated.  Even in the relatively safe waters of the Seto Inland Sea, you never know what could happen…     So last episode we talked about two large projects that Ohoama is said to have started.  First was the history project, which likely led to the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki.  Second was the start of a brand new capital.  This episode, we are going from the macro, down to the micro—smaller events that just weren't covered in previous episodes.  For the most part the next few episodes are going to be a grab bag of various items, but I'm going to try and put some semblance of cohesion to this.  Next episode we'll be looking at some of the laws that they made, including the law code and examples of the kinds of punishment—and forgiveness—that the court could bestow.  This week, however, we are going to cover a bunch of stories focused on the areas outside of the Home Provinces.  We'll look at the Dazai in Tsukushi—and elsewhere.  We'll talk about how the provinces were governed, and what concerned them.  Granted, a lot of what concerned them, at least from the Chroniclers point of view, were taxes and economic production.  So we see recorded concern with taxes and with what was there—the land and the people that worked it.  Also with natural events, like droughts and tsunami, which would affect that same economic production.   We're starting off with the Dazai, and the person in charge there.  The Viceroy, as it is often called in English. The Dazai appears to have started off with something of a military purpose.  It was a gathering place before ships would sail off to the Korean peninsula, raiding up the rivers, or trading with their allies.  As the archipelago began to be more embroiled in the wars of the peninsula, it was that much more important.  And when Yamato's ally, Baekje, fell, and it looked like Silla and the Great Tang might turn their attention to the islands that had been a thorn in their side for so long, it became a bulwark against potential invasion. However, it also had another function.  It was the jumping off place for warships, but also for embassies and trading missions.  It was also the primary destination for most ships approaching Yamato.  They would take a route through Tsushima island, and then Iki island, and continue to the main coast of Tsukushi—Kyushu, and up and around to the sheltered waters of Hakata bay.  At some point they would even move that initial contact farther out, to Tsushima island itself.  Ships would dock on one side of the island, and transport their goods to a Yamato ship on the other side, with a pilot who knew the waters.  The local island officials could then send word ahead to the Dazai that they were coming.  No surprises, and nobody jumping the gun thinking that a fleet of warships was on their way. The Dazai played a key role in defense, trade, and diplomacy.  When the embassies arrived, they were entertained at the Dazai while word was sent to the court.  If the court deemed it appropriate, then they might have the ambassadors take the journey the rest of the way.  Otherwise, the court at the Dazai would stand in for the sovereign, and receive the messages, and various diplomatic gifts that were sent along. This was a powerful and also highly lucrative position, and it is reflected in the people who were granted the title.  This was the Dazai no Sochi, or Oho-mikoto-mochi no kami. We see the post held by Soga no Himuka in  649, during the Taika era.  Then we see Abe no Hirafu in the reign of Takara Hime, 655-661.  Hirafu would go on to become the Minister of the Left.  Then we see Prince Kurikuma. We talked about Prince Kurikuma before—he was Ohoama's ally in Tsukushi who refused the Afumi court's request for troops during the Jinshin no Ran.  He is one of the few figures that we have more than just a bit of information on.  For one thing, we have two different appointments to his position as viceroy in Tsukushi—there is one in 668, and another in 671, with Soga no Akae being given the post in between.  There are some questions about whether or not those were different people—the first one might have been someone named "Kurisaki" or "Kurimae", but it is generally assumed that was just misspelled, and it may be that there were just some questions as to when he was appointed.  We also know that he was a friend to Ohoama.  The Afumi court said as much, and in the Jinshin no Ran, when he and his sons stood up  to the Afumi court's request for troops, he came down heavily on Ohoama's side.  It is no wonder that he would have still been in such a powerful position.  His sons, by the way, are named as Prince Mino and Prince Takebe; we've seen what appears to be different Princes named Mino, but it is possible that this is the Prince Mino mentioned elsewhere in this part of the record. Sources suggest that Kurikuma was a descendant of the sovereign Nunakura, aka Bidatsu Tennou, and that he was an ancestor of the Tachibana clan.  There were stories about him in Tsukushi, beyond those in the Nihon Shoki, and while he isn't always named explicitly, one can infer that he hosted a number of embassies and ambassadors in his time.  In fact, in his position as head of the Dazaifu in Tsukushi, he was in what was perhaps the most lucrative post outside of Yamato.  In addition to being in charge of trade, diplomacy, and military readiness, the Dazaifu oversaw all of Tsukushi—the island of Kyushu, and was like a miniature representation of the central government. I suspect it is the military responsibilities that saw Kurikuma being appointed to the post of Director of Military Affairs—Tsuwamo-no-Tsukasa-no-Kami, or Heiseikan-cho. That was in the 3rd lunar month of 675, just a few years into Ohoama's reign. This would later be known as the Hyoubu-shou, or Ministry of War.  The appointment would not last long, however.  A year later, Kurikuma would pass away from disease.  Prince Kurikuma is one of those enigmatic and yet somewhat exciting individuals that exists beyond just the Nihon Shoki.   The Shoku Nihongi and later sources give us additional details, which may or may not be accurate.  Even moreso, there are stories in modern Nagasaki prefecture about Prince Kurikuma helping to regulate the animals that lived in the waters surrounding Kyushu.  According to the Shoku Nihongi record, he was reportedly granted the 2nd princely rank upon his death—which, if true, would seem to say a lot about how he was viewed at the time. Moving into the year 676, we see an edict that restricted governorships to individuals of the rank of Daisen and below.  The exceptions to this were the Home Provinces, Michinoku, and Nagato, and let's explore why these areas were excepted. Home Provinces make sense, as that is where the capital is and this more prestigious area was therefore deserving of a higher ranked noble.  Michinoku was the opposite geographically: it was the general wilderness of Tohoku, and the land of the Emishi.  It was also the farthest east of the capital, so I suspect they wanted someone of rank to handle that.  The governor of Nagato, however, is interesting.  Nagato is part of Honshu, the main island, just north of Kyushu, across the Shimonoseki strait.  Similar to Michinoku, Nagato was one of the most remote provinces on Honshu.  It was also an important province for potential defense and trade, and often coordinated with the Dazaifu in Tsukushi, to the south.  As such, it was also considered a more prominent posting than other governorships. It is somewhat interesting that the Dazaifu is not mentioned, but I suspect this is because the head of the Dazaifu was not, in fact, a governor, but more akin to a viceroy.  After all, they had to be entrusted with a certain amount of authority to be able to conduct military, trade, and diplomatic business without constantly sending back to the Yamato court for instruction.  We've already seen that there were Princes and other men of wealth and status who had been given that posting. Interestingly, in this reign we see at least one other viceroy—one other Dazai, or Ohomikotomochi—and that is in Kibi, of all places.  From what we can tell Kibi was one of the main rivals for power and authority in the prior centuries.  It has come up again and again in the stories.  Unfortunately, most of the stories only hint at what we think actually happened.  Today, when we talk about *the* Dazaifu we are almost exclusively talking about the one in Kyushu.  Besides being far flung from the center of power, it had huge responsibilities. Comparatively, though perhaps not as directly involved with trade, the rulers of Kibi were important figures, as demonstrated by the amount of manpower they were able to leverage for building their large, kingly tombs.  We talked somewhat about that back in Episode 48, looking at Tsukuriyama Kofun, one of the largest in the archipelago.  Furthermore, Kibi was well-placed on the Seto inland sea to be able to control the passage of ships.  The Kibi Dazai appears to have been established around the time of the Taika reforms, though it is only mentioned once in the Nihon Shoki, and I don't see any other examples of it.  There is also evidence that it was given authority over not just Kibi, but also the neighboring province of Harima.  Eventually, however, Kibi would be broken up into the three provinces of Bizen, Bitchu, and Bingo, and it would no longer need to be aggregated under a single administration.  Rather, each province would get its own governor, overseeing a much smaller part of the whole.  From this I can only assume that there may have been other, similar situations, prior to the various provinces being broken up like that. A couple months later, in the 5th month of 676, we are once again discussing governors.  First was a decree about governors who weren't paying their commuted taxes on time.  Aston goes on to note that non-rice taxes were due in the middle of the 8th month—at least for the home provinces.  Near provinces—a little farther away—taxes had to be received by the end of the 10th month, and for those a bit farther away—in the middle distance—they had to be there by the 11th month.  Finally,  the taxes from the farthest provinces were due by the end of the 12th month.  This would have given officials time to collect the taxes and to transport them all the way to the capital.  So when the chronicles talk about governors not paying on time, not keeping to this schedule may have been what the court was getting at—or at least some kind of similar schedule with deadlines, since it might have been modified over time.    Another record, that same month—actually a few days later—concerns specifically the governor of Shimotsukenu—or Shimotsuke, on the other side of Honshu.  He sent in a report that that province had been hit pretty hard that year with a poor harvest.  In fact, it was so bad that many peasants were seeking permission to sell their children.  The court ultimately denied the request, but this does speak to a rather disturbing—yet not exactly uncommon—cultural practice.  I don't think we need to get into the different nuances here, beyond a look at the fact that this was likely not a new practice, but it does seem that the appeal to the government for permission to sell one's children was something new.  Perhaps this came with all of the records and registrations that the government had undertaken to know who was in what household.  Regardless, one can hardly imagine that most parents would willingly take this option unless they had no other choice, and I suspect that it is meant to show both the desperation of the people in Shimotsuke, as well as the harsh benevolence of the sovereign, who would not permit the children to be separated from their families.  Of course, we aren't told how the court otherwise ameliorated the situation, since moral righteousness is tremendous, but doesn't suddenly fix the problems with the harvest or cause food to appear out of nowhere.  One hopes that the court at least sent some amount of rice or other provisions to help the people. Although it was Shimotsuke in the 5th month, in the 6th month we see a more general report of a large drought.  Messengers were sent throughout the land to get people to donate cloth, and make prayers to the kami, while Buddhist Priests called upon the power of the Three Precious Things.  It was all to no avail—the usual rains didn't come, so the wugu, the five grains didn't grow, and peasants starved.  The five grains per se are  rice, soybeans, wheat, and two types of millet, but in this case the term is just a stand-in for all types of agricultural produce. Possibly unrelated, but somewhat telling, two months later we see a record of the court granting sustenance-fiefs of all Royal princes and princesses down to the high ministers and female officials at the palace down to the rank of Shoukin.  So only two months after the peasants of Yamato were apparently starving, the court is handing out stipend increases to the elite.  So… yeah…. We do see a focus in the 8th month on an Oho-barai, or Great Purification.  I'm going to talk about this more in a future episode, though, so just noting here that they seem to have been working to purify the land and that may have been part of ongoing spiritual attempts to request the support of the kami in what appear to be difficult times.  There were also plenty of examples of attempts to make merit by demonstrating righteousness and reading various sutras. Moving on to the events of 677, things seem to have been going better than the previous year, so maybe all that merit-making had an effect?  Either way, we don't see any mention of droughts or famines this year, and we make it to the ninth month, when we see a notice that any vagabonds who returned after being sent back to their hometown would be set to forced labor.  Vagabond, in this case, is "furounin", or "person who floats on the waves".  This appears to be the origin of the term "Rounin", which would later refer to masterless samurai.  At this point it seems to refer mostly to commoners who were expected to work the land—and when workers abandoned the land that had implications for the government's tax base system.  So the State was invested in ensuring that people didn't just move somewhere else—at least without asking permission and being properly registered.  This does seem different from an actual fugitive, such as someone who was banished who tries to leave their place of banishment. The following month, the 10th month of 677,  we see that Kawabe no Omi no Momoye was appointed head of the Minbukyo, the Minister of the Interior.  In addition, Tajihi no Kimi no Maro was made a Daibu, or high official, of the province of Settsu.     The term "daibu" could just refer to high ministers of the court, but the "daibu" of a province appears to be similar to a governor, but with more expansive and comprehensive authority.  Settsu is one of the five home provinces, and as such an important part of the geographical heart of Yamato.   So we have the local chieftains, the governors, the viceroys at the Dazai, and also, apparently, a "high official" in some regions, each with what appear to be overlapping but slightly different portfolios. The next month we see that the Viceroy of Tsukushi—whoever had taken the place of Prince Yagaki—had his officials present a red crow to the court.  The person who caught the crow was granted five steps in rank—not a small reward.  Also, local officials had their own rank raised, and taxes were remitted to the peasants of that district for a year.  Finally, a general amnesty was announced across Yamato. We talked in Episode 141 how something like a red crow would have likely represented either the three-legged crow in the sun or the legendary Suzaku, the fiery bird of the south.  Either way, it was clearly an auspicious discovery.  It is interesting that we don't see any names at all associated with this event.  We do, however, see that people were no doubt incentivized to report such things up to the court.  Whoever found such a curiosity would likely have been celebrated by all of those around given the court's broad show of appreciation.  No doubt the local officials were more than pleased given that they were also likely to receive some of the benefits that accrued if the court was well pleased. As far as the type of events I'm focusing on this episode, there isn't much recorded between the red crow of 677 and a few years later in 682. Picking up in the 3rd month of that year, we get a record of the Emishi of Michinoku being granted court rank, incorporating them further into the growing Yamato polity.  As I talked about a little earlier, Michinoku on the other side of the archipelago, so this event really shows expansion of Yamato and solidification of its power over the rest of Honshu.  It is easy to forget that much of the Tohoku region was not firmly under Yamato control at this time.  They may have claimed it, but the people and culture there were still considered distinct and not a part of Yamato, proper.  But they were making inroads. In the following month, the 4th lunar month of the same year, 682, we are back on the west coast and see Tajihi no Mabito no Shima as the latest Viceroy of Tsukushi, sending as tribute a large bell.  It is somewhat interesting that, compared to the past few viceroys, Shima is actually a member of a noble family and *not* a Prince.  Of course, there was no requirement that the Dazaifu be overseen by a Prince—that certainly wasn't the case for Soga no Akaye, but it is interesting given how Ohoama had been making appointments, so far.  Even if they weren't princely, it is clear that this was an important posting, which says a lot for Tajihi no Shima, even if we didn't know anything more about him.  Fortunately, there are a few clues. For one thing, there are records that claim he was descended from one of the previous sovereigns, but he did not hold the title of "Prince".  That is reflected in his family's kabane of "Mabito", however, or "True person", which seems to indicate at least a nominal descent from a previous ruler.  Shima would continue to rise in the government, and would eventually serve as the Minister of the Right and then Minister of the Left, and at one point he would be the highest ranking noble in the government—though that was still a ways off.  All of this speaks to the importance of the position of viceroy, and probably gives us a clue as to why the Chroniclers were so interested in someone sending a bell, large as it might be, to the government. A day after the bell tribute arrived, Emishi of Koshi, including Ikokina and others, requested 70 households of prisoners of war to create a new district.  While we've talked about the Emishi of Koshi, before, what is particularly interesting is the request for prisoners of war—captives.  Were these Wajin, or Japanese, who had been captured by the Emishi and they were requesting permission to resettle them?  Were they asking for 70 households of people being held captive by the Yamato government?  It isn't clear.  It also isn't clear if "Ikokina" is the name of an individual or of multiple individuals.  Aston originally translated it as Itaka, Kina, and others, while Bentley's more recent translation suggests it is one name.  However, given that this is an Emishi name, being transliterated in Kanji through a Japanese translator, it is hard to know without further sources. From the fourth month to the 7th month of 682, we see a small entry that presents were given to men from Tanegashima, Yakushima, and Amami no Shima.  This simple entry is important mostly just because of its mention of continued contact with these islands south of Kyushu.  This helps us maintain some idea of the extent of Yamato's influence. In the late summer of 683, we once again see a drought.  It began in the 7th lunar month and lasted until the 8th.  A priest named Douzou prayed for rain and eventually obtained it. Douzou is said to have been a monk from Kudara, or Baekje.  Aston suggests that this means he was a priest of Kudaradera, but it isn't really clear to me.  In the early 8th month, we also see that there was a general amnesty ordered throughout Yamato, which I suspect was connected with the disaster of the drought and an attempt to help build merit and otherwise strengthen the state in the face of natural disaster and potential unrest. At the end of 683, we see a survey team being sent out.  The sovereign sent Prince Ise along with Hata no Kimi no Yakuni, Ohoshi no Omi no Homuchi, and Nakatomi no Muraji no Ohoshima with clerks and artisans to tour the realm and determine the border of the various provinces, but they were unable to determine them all in a year. This really must have been quite the task.  Certainly, the provinces were the ancient lands which people had been living in for some time, but there was never really a need for political lines on a map to determine where the boundaries were.  People generally knew if they were in one or the other, and unless there was a very contentious piece of property, mostly you didn't worry about which exact land or province you were in.  Now, however, the court was in the midst of trying to lock down all of the data about the land, including what was where and how much there was.  After all, their entire tax base was built on arable land, so they had to know where it was and what to expect.  There is no way that such a project was going to be completed in a single year. I would also note that Aston has this particular record misplaced.  He seemed to think it was on the 23rd day of the month, but it is then followed by the 17th.  It seems that Aston just got his dates wrong, and can you blame him?  There was a lot that he was dealing with. We do see, almost a year later, in the 10th month of 684, Prince Ise and others are once again sent to determine the boundaries of the provinces.  Second time's the charm, maybe?  Evidently not, because we then see another mention in the 10th month of 685, where the court gave them gifts of robes and trousers as they headed back out to the Eastern Countries one more time. In the 11th month of 684 we are given a small report of a huge disaster.  The governor of Tosa reported that a great tide had risen high, with an overflowing rush, and destroyed many of the ships used to convey tribute. Tosa is on Shikoku, facing out to the Pacific Ocean.  It is the first piece of dry land just past the continental shelf.  As such, a quake just off shore could create conditions not dissimilar to the 2011 disaster in Fukushima, and send a tsunami wave flooding the coastline.  It looks like that is what happened, which would have devastated the fleet.  Since Shikoku was an island, they relied on those ships to get taxes and tribute conveyed up to Yamato.  So this was Tosa letting the court know that the "sea ate my homework." I can't help but wonder if this tsunami wasn't related to an earthquake recorded for the month earlier, which we mentioned back in Episode 139.  It was a huge earthquake that seems to have had a tremdous impact.  Much of it was mentioned as being focused on the Toukaidou region, but that region still lies along a related fault line all the way down through Shikoku.  It may be that it took a while for the two events to be reported, and there may not have been an understanding that the event in one place could have had an impact elsewhere. I don't know if they had yet connected that earthquakes could cause tsunami or not.  On the other hand, it could be that it was a separate, but related quake, or even an aftershock, which caused the tsunami. Overall, the year 684 does not appear to have been the best.  We are told that in the lower district of Katsuraki, there was reported a chicken with four legs.  Then, in the district of Higami, in Tanba province, there was a calf born with twelve horns.  These don't sound like great omens, and given the tsunami, and the earthquake, and other such things, I can perhaps understand why the court focused on trying to do some merit-making towards the end of the year.  For instance they pardoned all criminals except those guilty of capital crimes.  And we are also told that Iga, Ise, Mino, and Wohari were notified that in future years, if they were paying commuted taxes—that is taxes other than rice, in lieu of service—that force labour would be remitted, and vice versa.   That is, if it was a year where they would pay in corvee labour, the commuted taxes would be remitted instead.  In other words, they didn't need to do both in one year.  Similarly , in the 7th lunar month of 685, we are told that the Provinces on the Tousandou, east of Mino, and the Toukaidou, east of Ise, were all exempted from sending in conscript laborers as part of their taxes. We aren't told exactly why any of this was done, but I suspect that it had something to do with either construction going on in those regions, or just needing to have people to work the fields.  Labor could always be remitted just because of something good like a good omen, but in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, I wonder if there wasn't a lot of rebuilding that had to take place, and maybe the court just wanted to make sure those regions had the people they needed for those projects. The Tousandou and the Toukaidou were just two of the 7 official circuits around the archipelago.  In this case, the Toukaidou hugged the coastal areas, heading from Ise out to modern Tokyo.  Meanwhile, the Tousandou would have cut through the mountains in the middle of that area of Honshu, passing north of Fuji and through modern Gunma.    The other circuits were the San'youdou, the San'indou, the Nankaidou, the Hokurikudou, and Tsukushi, which was considered its own "circuit".  The San'youdou and San'indou were the Yang and Yin roads, going through the western part of Honshu. The San'youdou was along the Seto Inland Sea, while the San'indou was along the Japan sea.  The Nankaidou, or South Sea Road, was the Kii peninsula and Shikoku.  The Hokurikudou went north on eastern Honshu, through the Koshi region. Finally, Tsukushi, which would also be known as the Saikaidou, or Western Sea Road, was its own circuit In the 9th lunar month of 685 we see Commissioners or Royal Messengers appointed to six of the seven circuits, the Hokurikudou being the one left out.    The commissioners were to tour and inspect the provincial and district offices and make sure they were good.  Each person took a facility manager and a secretary to assist them.  Bentley notes that there is, in later legal codes, a role of "Inspector", who was similarly expected to tour and inspect the various provinces – but these were assigned on an as needed basis, so it wasn't a permanent position. Along with the inspection of the government offices, there was one other edict that same day in the 9th month of 685: the court ordered that male and female singers, as well as pipers/flute-players should pass down their skills to their descendants and make them practice singing and the flute.  Thus they effectively created hereditary musicians which, at the time, was how you made sure that you had the different professions and skillsets you needed to run the State. Then, in the 11th month of 685, we see a bunch of iron sent to the General Magistrate of Suwa.  How much is a bunch?  10,000 kin, which is thought to be equivalent to roughly 6.6 tons.  That is a huge amount of iron, assuming the record is true.  At the same time, the viceroy of Tsukushi requested 100 bolts of coarse silk, 132 pounds of thread, 300 bundles of cloth, 4000 feet of labor tax cloth, 6.6 tons of iron, and 2,000 sets of bamboo arrows.   And by all accounts, the court sent it all out.  No idea why—but there we go.  Presumably it was to make things—probably clothing and weapons. We see something similar in the 12th month, when the ships carrying the newest border guards out to Tsukushi were battered by bad seas and, eventually, they were left adrift in the water.  They were rescued, but lost all of their clothing, so rather than sending clothes, the court sent cloth.  450 bolts of cloth were sent, to be made into new sets of clothing for the soldiers.  Sending raw materials makes sense.  After all, there were likely artisans all over the place who just needed them.  Furthermore, that way you could customize the equipment to the people who would be using it, rather than shipping off finished goods. And with that, I think we are going to call it.  Next episode will be a similar overview, but we'll take a look at some of the laws that were passed, as well as how they dealt with law and order in the archipelago. Until then, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom, it is our duty to win. We must love and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.” These are the famous words of freedom fighter Joanne Byron. A woman that fought tooth and nail for the black community in New York, only to be wrongly arrested, physically abused, and framed for murder by the powers that be. So JOIN US as we discuss the political justice powerhouse that you guys may more commonly know as Assata Shakur. Happy Black History Month yall!! To ACCESS the FULL VIDEO EPISODE + ALL PICTURES associated with the case. Join US on PATREON: ⁠⁠www.patreon.com/blacktruecrimepodcast⁠ Follow us on INSTAGRAM: @BlackTrueCrimePodcast Subscribe to our YOUTUBE Channel: www.youtube.com/c/blacktruecrimepodcast Join our PATREON for full video episodes and exclusive content: www.patreon.com/blacktruecrimepodcast For MERCH, visit: www.blacktruecrime.com/shop-merch JOIN OUR FB GROUP: https://www.facebook.com/blacktruecrimepodcast Intro & Outro music credits: Horror by Paradox Beats Original Beat production ownership is retained by the original producer where applicable. This beat is being used with private/owned leasing rights GRANTED by the producer(s). This audio is 100% free to listen to on this show.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Emmanuel Berbari gets a blessing from Big Mac on his home run call, plus NBA records are made to be broken.

The most detailed figures the government has ever made public on the program's outcomes arrive via a parliamentary inquiry.View the full article here.Subscribe to the IMI Daily newsletter here.

Tonight we will be chatting about how be do research on a equipment! Granted maybe Ben and I take it to an extreme sometimes, but there is a common methodology that can be used for pretty much anything you want to look at. Hopefully during tonight's chats we make that a little easier to understand!

In December 2000, two brothers embarked on a week-long crime spree in the Wichita, Kansas area. They are the two men responsible for a horrifying quadruple murder that has become known as the Wichita Massacre. JOIN US as we discuss the upbringing and the unforgivable acts of the Carr Brothers. RIP to the victims

Pung v. Isabella County | 02/25/26 | Docket #: 25-95 25-95 PUNG V. ISABELLA COUNTY, MICHIGAN DECISION BELOW: 2025 WL 318222 CERT. GRANTED 10/3/2025 QUESTION PRESENTED: Isabella County confiscated the Pung Estate's private home for approximately $2,200 in taxes and fees (that were never actually owed). The lower courts used the artificially depressed auction sale price rather than the property's fair market value as the starting point for its damages calculation. The Sixth Circuit and others have held that the "fair market value" taken is not what is owed to begin to fulfill the constitutional compensatory obligation imposed by the Fifth Amendment. That defies this Court's precedents. And if it is not taken within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment, it is otherwise an excessive fine under the Eighth Amendment by imposing a punishment by pilfering far more than ever needed to satisfy a small debt. The questions presented are: 1. Whether taking and selling a home to satisfy a debt to the government, and keeping the surplus value as a windfall, violates the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment when the compensation is based on the artificially depressed auction sale price rather than the property's fair market value? 2. Whether the forfeiture of real property worth far more than needed to satisfy a tax debt but sold for fraction of its real value constitutes an excessive fine under the Eighth Amendment, particularly when the debt was never actually owed? LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 22-1919, 22-1939

WarRoom Battleground EP 955: Republicans Should Not Take The Hispanic Vote For Granted In Texas

Enbridge Energy, LP v. Nessel | 02/24/26 | Docket #: 24-783 24-783 ENBRIDGE ENERGY, LP V. NESSEL DECISION BELOW: 104 F.4th 958 CERT. GRANTED 6/30/2025 QUESTION PRESENTED: Whether district courts have the authority to excuse the thirty-day procedural time limit for removal in 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b)(1). LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 23-1671

So sorry about the audio! The term we know as “Uncle Tom” is NOT based on a man named Tom. It’s actually the title of a book.. And the man the book was written about, spoiler alert, was NOT A SELL OUT like so many of us have come to believe. In fact, he was an enslaved man that was intelligent, freakishly strong, a husband AND the father of 12 children that just wanted to protect his family and LEGALLY pay his way to freedom. So how did his legacy get twisted into something that it’s not?? JOIN US as we discuss who “Uncle Tom” REALLY was. And his name was Josiah Henson. To ACCESS the FULL VIDEO EPISODE + ALL PICTURES associated with the case. Join US on PATREON: ⁠⁠www.patreon.com/blacktruecrimepodcast⁠ Follow us on INSTAGRAM: @BlackTrueCrimePodcast Subscribe to our YOUTUBE Channel: www.youtube.com/c/blacktruecrimepodcast Join our PATREON for full video episodes and exclusive content: www.patreon.com/blacktruecrimepodcast For MERCH, visit: www.blacktruecrime.com/shop-merch JOIN OUR FB GROUP: https://www.facebook.com/blacktruecrimepodcast Intro & Outro music credits: Horror by Paradox Beats Original Beat production ownership is retained by the original producer where applicable. This beat is being used with private/owned leasing rights GRANTED by the producer(s). This audio is 100% free to listen to on this show. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Havana Docks Corp. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises | 02/23/26 | Docket #: 24-983 24-983 HAVANA DOCKS CORP. V. ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISES DECISION BELOW: 119 F.4th 1276 CERT. GRANTED 10/3/2025 QUESTION PRESENTED: The LIBERTAD Act is an essential pillar of United States foreign policy toward Cuba's hostile and anti-American regime. Title III of that Act creates a private right of action for United States nationals who have a claim to property confiscated by that regime against persons who traffic in that property. 22 U.S.C. § 6082(a)(1). The Act specifies that such trafficking "undermines the foreign policy of the United States" by, among other things, "provid[ing] badly needed financial benefit" to the Cuban regime. Id . § 6081(6). The question presented here applies in every case brought under Title III, and will determine whether that provision continues to advance U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba: whether a plaintiff must prove that the defendant trafficked in property confiscated by the Cuban government as to which the plaintiff owns a claim (as the statute requires), or instead that the defendant trafficked in property that the plaintiff would have continued to own at the time of trafficking in a counterfactual world "as if there had been no expropriation" (as the divided Eleventh Circuit panel held below). LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 23-10151, 23-10171

Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Corporación Cimex, S.A. | 02/23/26 | Docket #: 24-699 24-699 EXXON MOBIL CORP. V. CORPORACION CIMEX DECISION BELOW: 111 F.4th 12 CERT. GRANTED 10/3/2025 QUESTION PRESENTED: In 1960, the Cuban government confiscated the property of American nationals and transferred it to state-owned enterprises. After years without a diplomatic resolution, Congress enacted the Helms-Burton Act, which created a damages action for American nationals against "any person ... that traffics in" such confiscated property. 22 U.S.C. § 6082(a)(1). The Act defines "person" to include "any agency or instrumentality of a foreign state," id. § 6023(11), and expressly contemplates "judgment[s] against an agency or instrumentality of the Cuban Government," id . § 6082(d). The question presented is: Whether the Helms-Burton Act abrogates foreign sovereign immunity in cases against Cuban instrumentalities, or whether parties proceeding under that Act must also satisfy an exception under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 21-7127, 22-7019, 22-7020

For many high-capacity humans, authority has always felt conditional.Granted when you perform well.Withheld when certainty slips.Reviewed through hierarchy, feedback, and approval.In this Sunday episode of The Recalibration, we turn toward what I call Vertical Alignment. This isn't a new stage or a productivity practice. It's an orientation. A resting place for identity beyond effort, striving, or evaluation.This episode flows from my personal faith in Jesus, because for me, real alignment doesn't happen apart from the One who authored identity itself. Vertical Alignment asks a different question than the rest of the week. Not “How do I lead better?” but “Who am I becoming in relationship with God?”We explore what happens when competence reaches its edge. When certainty thins. When the next step isn't visible. For driven, responsible people, these gaps often feel threatening. Like something to fix quickly. But what if the gap isn't a failure? What if it's where authority stops being proven and starts being received?Drawing from 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NLT), we sit with the truth that grace doesn't replace responsibility. It re-sources it. Authority doesn't flow from having it all together. It flows from being held when you don't.This is not mindset work.It's not spiritual performance.And it's not about becoming passive.Identity-Level Recalibration (ILR) begins at the root, not the behavior. When identity is secured vertically, it no longer needs to be defended horizontally. The nervous system rests. Striving softens. Leadership begins to flow from overflow instead of effort.Today's episode is for those who feel capable, faithful, and quietly tired of carrying authority like a task. It's an invitation to let it rest somewhere deeper.Today's Micro Recalibration:When uncertainty appears today, ask quietly:“What if this gap isn't a problem, but a place God meets me?”No forcing belief. No fixing. Just openness.Explore Identity-Level Recalibration → Schedule a conversation with Julie to see if The Recalibration is a fit for you → Learn about The Recalibration Cohort→ Join the next Friday Recalibration Live experience → Take your listening deeper! Subscribe to The Weekly Recalibration Companion to receive reflections and extensions to each week's podcast episodes. → Follow Julie Holly on LinkedIn for more recalibration insights → Download the Misalignment Audit → Subscribe to the weekly newsletter → Books to read (Tidy categories on Amazon- I've read/listened to each recommended title.) → One link to all things...

On this week’s China Compass, after looking at China’s newly opened (visa-free) door to Canadian and British nationals, as well as a personal admonition to visit China, we work through what might as well be a Chinese propaganda article from Wired.com, listing 23 ways we are (supposedly) already living in the Chinese century. I sure do hope they got most of these wrong! Welcome to China Compass on the Fight Laugh Feast network! I'm your China travel guide in exile, Missionary Ben. Follow me on X (@chinaadventures) where I share a new Chinese city or county to pray for every single day. Feel free to write anytime: chinacompass@privacyport.com. All my books, substack, patreon, and everything else can be easily found at PrayGiveGo.us! My Missions Resources: The Autobiography of John G. Paton (JohnGPaton.com) Borden of Yale: The Millionaire Missionary (BordenofYale.com) Unbeaten: Arrested, Interrogated, and Deported from China (Unbeaten.vip) The Memoirs of William Milne: First Protestant Missionary to Malaysia (PrayGiveGo.us) China Grants Visa-Free Access to Canadian and British Nationals https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2026/02/15/china-to-grant-visa-free-policy-to-canadian-and-british-nationals-from-feb-17 As Trump Retreats from Climate Goals, China is Becoming a Green Superpower https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-8d2b6944-4f7a-45b4-96fd-2d92499ff97d 23 Ways You're Already Living in the Chinese Century https://www.wired.com/china-issue/ Now let's take a look at this coming week's Pray for China (PrayforChina.us) cities… https://chinacall.substack.com/p/pray-for-china-feb-22-28-2026 Thank you for listening! Subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! There’s also a Paypal link at PrayforChina.us if you’d like to give to our China ministry. Last but not least, for (almost) everything else we’re doing visit PrayGiveGo.us. Luke 10, vs 2: the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few, therefore ask the Lord for more. Talk again soon!

On this week’s China Compass, after looking at China’s newly opened (visa-free) door to Canadian and British nationals, as well as a personal admonition to visit China, we work through what might as well be a Chinese propaganda article from Wired.com, listing 23 ways we are (supposedly) already living in the Chinese century. I sure do hope they got most of these wrong! Welcome to China Compass on the Fight Laugh Feast network! I'm your China travel guide in exile, Missionary Ben. Follow me on X (@chinaadventures) where I share a new Chinese city or county to pray for every single day. Feel free to write anytime: chinacompass@privacyport.com. All my books, substack, patreon, and everything else can be easily found at PrayGiveGo.us! My Missions Resources: The Autobiography of John G. Paton (JohnGPaton.com) Borden of Yale: The Millionaire Missionary (BordenofYale.com) Unbeaten: Arrested, Interrogated, and Deported from China (Unbeaten.vip) The Memoirs of William Milne: First Protestant Missionary to Malaysia (PrayGiveGo.us) China Grants Visa-Free Access to Canadian and British Nationals https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2026/02/15/china-to-grant-visa-free-policy-to-canadian-and-british-nationals-from-feb-17 As Trump Retreats from Climate Goals, China is Becoming a Green Superpower https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-8d2b6944-4f7a-45b4-96fd-2d92499ff97d 23 Ways You're Already Living in the Chinese Century https://www.wired.com/china-issue/ Now let's take a look at this coming week's Pray for China (PrayforChina.us) cities… https://chinacall.substack.com/p/pray-for-china-feb-22-28-2026 Thank you for listening! Subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! There’s also a Paypal link at PrayforChina.us if you’d like to give to our China ministry. Last but not least, for (almost) everything else we’re doing visit PrayGiveGo.us. Luke 10, vs 2: the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few, therefore ask the Lord for more. Talk again soon!

There are consequences to our decisions, the decision to work too much, to check out of a marriage, to not deal with our issues. The problem is that we fool ourselves believing that we can live with those consequences.

“That's the buzz word: every time somebody says, ‘tipping point', you must drink…”   Whether it's measured by a string of commercially successful albums or one's own personal preference, almost every metal band has (at a minimum) produced a TRILOGY of albums that represent a three-album run of back-to-back-to-back awesomeness.    “That's the law, man…it's gotta be three…rules is rules.”   Granted, we're all very well aware that some bands have far exceeded such a phenomenal feat THRICE in a row. But to keep things fair, we limited our parameters to the perfect TRIFECTA of albums representing a band's turkey, hat trick, or as we refer to it here at Bunkerpoon Palace, “the power threesome of perfection”.   “It's a quadraplatic-ogy…”   When in doubt, remember that “y'all should be more like Paul” and keep in mind that you “can't say that word!” because “all therapists are gonna be upset”.    Go ahead and fire up your “Grinder Tinder” account, discover the wonders of “self-service hibachi”, and get ready to “Ride the Puppets of Justice” when you JOIN US for A TRILOGY OF PERFECT METAL ALBUMS.   Visit www.metalnerdery.com/podcast for more on this episode Help Support Metal Nerdery https://www.patreon.com/metalnerderypodcast Leave us a Voicemail to be played on a future episode: 980-666-8182 Metal Nerdery Tees and Hoodies – metalnerdery.com/merch and kindly leave us a review and/or rating on your favorite Podcast app Follow us on the Socials: Facebook - Instagram - TikTok Email: metalnerdery@gmail.com Can't be LOUD Enough Playlist on Spotify Metal Nerdery Munchies on YouTube @metalnerderypodcast Show Notes: (00:01): “It's a Quadraplaticogy…” / #tippingpoint / Russell's Korean BBQ Reflections /  “So it's like self-service hibachi…”/ “You leave the place with meat sweats…”/ #hoggin / “If you want to fuck up the meat…”/ Old restaurants that have gone away: On The Border, Rio Bravo, and Barnacles / “That's where I met my wife, bro…”/ “That will never not be hilarious to me…”/ “How's that shouldra?”   (4:55):  ***WARNING: #listenerdiscretionisadvised *** / ***WELCOME BACK TO THE METAL NERDERY PODCAST IN THE DIGITAL BUNKERPOON UNDERGROUND!!!*** / “Have you hit your tipping point yet?” / “We got a great, fantabulous email to read…”/ ***EMAIL US at metalnerdery@gmail.com *** / “No, there's no blah…you can't yada, yada, yada…”/ #FuckTheSuits / “Wait, what?” / (Thank you, Paul!) / “Y'all should be more like Paul…” / #BeLikePaul / “We also got an email from Justin…” / #Crumbsuckers #AgnosticFront #Leeway #Whiplash #Voivod / “He also had a lot to say about #WrathchildAmerica (he's a big fan) …”/ #recordscratch / “Can't say that word!” / #PDF /  “All therapists are now gonna be upset…”/ #AgnosticFront HAPPENED YESTERDAY (Liberty And Justice For… - 1987) / “Dude, we're like metal sommeliers…”   (14:14): ***PATREON US at patreon.com/metalnerderypodcast *** / “I might join our own Patreon just to get laid…it's better than Grinder Tinder…”/ “That's the buzz word: every time somebody says ‘Tipping Point', you must drink…”/ NOTE: the first Agnostic Front album, Victim In Pain, was released in 1984… / ***EMAIL US at metalnerdery@gmail.com & SOCIAL MEDIA US at #metalnerderypodcast on #YouTube #TikTok #Facebook or #Instagram & VOICEMAIL US 980-666-8182!!!*** / “Whether it's 5 or 5,000, you do the same show…”/ “I've got you on camera, talking in black face…” / #TyroneTaintler / “I did the voice…”/ “He has thoughts…”/ “Follow through…execute.”/ “I leave here needing to take a shower…”   (19:19): #TheDocket METAL NERDERY PODCAST PRESENTS: PERFECT TRILOGIES aka THREE ALBUM RUNS / TRIFECTAS / #era / “We got on this topic after talking about Flick of the Switch and the 3 albums that came before that…just back-to-back-to-back awesome.”/  #LedZeppelin (“You're only picking 3?”) / “IV is #AtomicAcidBlues …” (24:32): “What about Maiden?” / #IronMaiden / “Number, Piece, and Power…”/ “We're talking ‘in a row'…”/ “Somewhere In Time is the beginning of the next wave…”/ “There's a line…”/ “Everybody's got a magic window…” (26:39): #BlackSabbath / “To not include the first 6 is terrible…”/ #TheFirstSix / “Technically…I think Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is the line where they started to change…”/  “I'm hitting my tipping point just talking about it…” (28:32): “What about #Megadeth ?”/ “Talking about favorite 3 in a row…”/  ***EMAIL US at metalnerdery@gmail.com and TELL US YOUR FAVE 3 IN A ROW!!!*** /  #DIO / “I think that's fair…” / “That's a great song…”/ “What about Pantera?” /#PanterA / “Now this one's hard…” / “From #CFH forward, not a bad one in the bunch…” (33:03): #Metallica / “Yeah I knew you would…so are you…”/ #RideThePuppetsOfJustice /  “Okay, speaking of seasoned…”/ #Slayer / “If I'm guessing, I bet I know everybody's 3…”/   “Let's go back in time a little bit…Floyd…and here's why I bring up Floyd…”/ #PinkFloyd / “I like Animals…”/ #markthetime / “What about #TooL even?”   (37:37): “There's no way to do this…it's not gonna work…”/ #OzzyOsbourne / “That's the law, man…it's gotta be three.”/ “That was The Last In Line for Ozzy…”/ “I would have liked to have heard what the next would have been with Randy after Diary…”/ #Helmet / #KISS / “Awww, Dayum!” / “Was it though? Was it live?”/ ***Check out “No Regrets”, the autobiography by Ace Frehley*** / “Come on, can we hear that, a little bit?”/ “It wasn't racist dude, that's how they be talking…”/ #tippingpoint / “What were your three, Bill?”   (42:20): #Exodus / “Let's call it a predictive top 3…”/ “I like baked potatoes…”/ #Testament / “It's kinda hard to beat that…/ #Kreator / “Not as familiar…” / “Is the internet doing internet shit again?”/ “Great, Adobe Acrobat is gonna love this…they're getting nothing but free publicity…”/ #Overkill / “They started breaking with ‘Taking Over'…”/ “But…”/ “I think you listened to metal longer than I did…” / “Yo man, it's February we can talk like this and shit…”/ “There was a tipping point in my life as well…”/ “I did all that stuff, but…”   (48:12): #KoRn / “Korn is Korn…”/ “What is that? Can you do it one more time?”/ “I think he's at his tipping point…”/ “Okay…just for funzies…”/ #VanHalen / “Diver Down…kinda got forgotten about…”/ “You cannot take away the first album…”/ “Let's take a different take…tack…tip…”/ “Of the #BonScott stuff, what is the 3?”/ “I think we've hit our #TippingPoint…”/ “We live here now…”   (54:43): “It's weird without music…it's like foreplay without sex…”/ #JudasPriest / “This is kinda interesting…it's like metal bingo…”/ “Their catalog is so…weird.”/ “Filling in for the music…”/ #onmicburpASMR / “There's females somewhere that get wet every time I do that…”/ #Anthrax / “For me, it's easy…”/ “Dude, you said ‘brooding', that's pretty awesome!”   (59:03): #DeathAngel / “That's tough…I dunno…”/ #KingDiamond / “Bolth, could be…” / “That was easy…because…high school.”/ #MotleyCrue / Our favorite 3 in a row and/or the most commercially successful 3 in a row…/ “That's nothing but whores and blow…”/  “Shameless poon worship…”/ “Whores and coke will derail your career…”/ #DefLeppard / “Animals? I think you've just got a thing for animals, dude…”/ “Oh my God, NOW we've gotta play something…”/ “Anybody that's looking for a hit producer, hit me up…”/    (1:06:04): “How about this one?”/ #Sepultura SLAVE NEW WORLD (Chaos A.D. – 1993) / “I can feel the cleansing coming on…”/ “I had no idea those (albums) even existed…”/ “I'm gonna let Russell go first though…”/ #SuicidalTendencies /PLEDGE YOUR ALLEGIANCE / TRIP AT THE BRAIN (How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can't Even Smile Today – 1988)   (1:17:00): “Ooh, we've got one more…”/ “We always hit our tipping point, and we always find one more…”/ #Forbidden / “It's like Zeppelin and Sabbath…all of ‘em.”/ “Rules is rules…”/ #DiAnnoMaiden / “Those 2 are almost kinda like Forbidden Evil and Twisted (Into Form) …”/  “How about this one?”/ #FlotsamAndJetsam / #DOWN / “Wait a minute, that's bullshit, because they've only got the first 3…”/ “Have we ran the well dry?”/ “Okay, Type-O…?” #TypeONegative / “Bloody feces? It's a dual album…”/ “OHHH! #Whitesnake had some good albums…”/ “Those were 3 great #LedZeppelin sounding albums…”/ #Soundgarden / “Back when I broke my leg…and got to do pharmaceutical heroin for 8 years straight…”/  “All those words did not belong together…that was bizarre…”/ “That should be another episode: bands we never got…” / #PearlJam   (1:27:47): “Since we're talking the 90's, can you pull up #NIN real quick…”/ #hotgothchicks #industrialmetal / “You're getting poon and some secret bush…”/ #NineInchNails THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL (The Downward Spiral – 1994) / #usethoseheadphones / “Those are the last notes of ‘Head Like A Hole'…is it ‘Head Like A Hole' or ‘Closer'?” / “So that's where that comes from…I didn't realize it came from that.”/ HEAD LIKE A HOLE (Pretty Hate Machine – 1989) / “Was it Closer?”/ CLOSER / “That's it…so it goes from sex, shooting ropes, to shooting…different kinda ropes…”/ THANK YOU FOR JOINING US!!! #untilthenext #outroreel

4:20 pm: Tiffany Justice, Executive Vice President of Heritage Action, joins the show to discuss her piece for the Washington Examiner about how women are not falling for the anti-SAVE Act propaganda from Democrats.4:38 pm: Andrew Arthur, Resident Fellow in Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, joins the show for a conversation about a recent report showing President Joe Biden granted “quite amnesty” to nearly one-million illegal immigrants.6:05 pm: Karol Markowicz, Opinion Writer for the New York Post, joins the show to discuss her piece about how the rise of transgender killers is proof that a major mental health crisis is unfolding.6:38 pm: Representative Kristen Chevrier joins Rod and Greg to discuss her proposal to prevent those receiving SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) benefits from using them to purchase “ultra-processed food.”

A judge grants bond to a South Carolina pastor’s wife accused of standing by during decades of sickening child sexual abuse. A Kentucky lottery winner who became an overnight millionaire is back in jail after a woman called 911 saying she feared he might hurt her. Drew Nelson reports.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's Merciless Monday on The Coach JB Show with Big Smitty as Super Bowl Champion Shaun King joins to RESPOND to the Disappointing 2026 NBA All-Star Weekend, Trinidad Chambliss being Granted a 6th Season, and more! Big Smitty will breakdown The MAC Voting to add FCS Sacramento State into the league as a football-only member starting in 2026! Join us for this and much more on MERCILESS Monday on The REALEST Show on Planet ERF! Like, Comment, and Subscribe! The Coach JB Show with Big Smitty is the realest sports show on Planet ERF! We discuss what other talk shows & debate shows refuse to discuss! We are LIVE 3 hours a day from 6-9am pacific with the realest guests on Planet ERF! Coach Jason Brown is the star of the hit Netflix series "Last Chance U", master motivator, and legendary JUCO football coach!! Darnell Smith Fox Sports very own, Ball State Alum, and Nap towns finest! Merciless Monday | Talk that Talk Tuesday | Work-Boot Wednesday | Truth Telling Thursday's | Free Game Friday Matt McChesney on Monday/Friday Steve Kim on Tuesday/Thursday Shaun King - Former NFL QB Monday/Wednesday/Friday Live M-F 6am-9am PST. Subscribe and become a member today, $2.99 for general membership or $5.99 to join Slap Nation and get access to the exclusive Coach's Crew group Chat!! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

today’s case, we are focusing on enslaved people, specifically WOMEN, that stood up against their caucus cuckolds and decided to do the KILLING instead of waiting to be killed.. SO JOIN US as we discuss the enslaved women that decided they’d HAD ENOUGH. RIP to the victims

The guys react to Dolphins GM Jon-Eric Sullivan's comments on Tua at a season ticket holder event, calling it fairly generic as he emphasized the team is evaluating everything before making a decision. They explore whether Tua could potentially reunite with Mike McDaniel in Los Angeles and debate how realistic that scenario might be. The conversation also touches on Dolphins fans being deeply divided — and at times vicious — over Tua's future. Plus, they're surprised to learn DJ Uiagalelei is still in the league with the Chargers and discuss Trinidad Chambliss being granted a sixth year of eligibility after once being viewed as a potential top NFL draft quarterback

-Chambliss will play for Ole Miss in 2026-The judge who ruled on the case had a football signed by TrinidadOur Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Teddy Pendergrass was a legendary singer and songwriter from the 60s and 70s that attracted the attention of women world wide. But when one of the closest women to him is murdered, and then he suffers a near fatal accident years later.. Are people wrong to suggest that the two may be connected? JOIN US as we discuss Teddy Pendegrass and the murder of Taaz Lang.RIP to the victims

Jennifer Evans was murdered in the summer of 1995 while vacationing in Virginia. Two Navy Seal recruits were arrested and convicted of her murder. The men were Dustin Turner and Billy Brown. At the time, both men pointed the finger at each other as the man who killed Jennifer.  Dustin Turner was sentenced to 82 years. Billy Brown was sentenced to 72 years.  Years later, Billy admitted he was Jennifer's killer. Since then, Turner has left no stone unturned in his attempts to exonerate himself and gain his freedom. And after several parole denials, things changed in 2026.  Dig in with Margot and she updates you on one of the most infamous Navy military murder cases of our time.  Check out the Target of Opportunity Documentary on Amazon Prime:  https://amzn.to/4tlfDnF ⸻

JOIN US as we discuss the contract killing of Rudolph Tyner, by the “Meanest Man in America”. RIP to the victims