Podcasts about Indian

When an actor opens their mouth to sing in a movie, chances are high that the voice you hear will be their own. Even in music biopics, movie stars without much singing experience regularly go to great lengths to impersonate the most beloved vocalists of our time. Why not simply play Johnny Cash or Bruce Springsteen's actual recordings, the reasons why we care about them in the first place? When the world is full of beautiful singing voices, why force Pierce Brosnan to bray his way through Mamma Mia?What you hear when an actor unhinges their jaw is a matter that Hollywood has been negotiating since the dawn of sound. So in this episode, we'll learn about the “ghost singers” of classic Hollywood musicals, find out why they went extinct, and why today's music biopics so often fudge the music. Then we leave Hollywood for Bollywood, where the rise of the celebrity “playback singer” shows what can happen when good singing is the highest priority.In this episode, you'll hear from Slate's pop music critic Jack Hamilton; musicologist Dominic Broomfield-McHugh, editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Hollywood Musical; Stephen Cole, co-author of a memoir by the ghost singer Marni Nixon; Isaac Butler, longtime Slate contributor and scholar of American acting; and Nasreen Munni Kabir, who has written several books on Hindi cinema and curates Indian films for the UK's Channel 4.This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman. It was edited by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1968, American television boldly went where it had never gone before, broadcasting what's claimed to be the country's first interracial kiss in a TV programme. The moment of passion was between Captain Kirk of the starship USS Enterprise and communications officer Lieutenant Uhura, in Star Trek. Nichelle Nichols played Uhura in the cult series, and she was one of the first black women to be featured on American TV in a non-subservient role. Through archive BBC interviews, Nichelle explains the story behind that famous scene. Produced and presented by Reena Stanton-Sharma. Witness History is a short BBC World Service podcast about history that takes you inside big moments from the past through first-hand testimony and archive. Each weekday, in around nine minutes, we revisit one moment that helped shape the world and hear it through the voice of someone who was there. Scientists, artists, campaigners, soldiers, leaders and everyday people tell their true stories.When you subscribe to Witness History, you'll be taken inside turning points in world affairs from West Africa's fight back against Boko Haram in 2015 to the behind-closed-doors talks that led to the US-Cuba “thaw” and the surprise announcement of restored relations. You'll discover what it was like to experience disasters and how people recovered from them, including the Tabasco floods in Mexico, Portugal's worst train disaster, and the huge clean-up after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. You'll explore culture and ideas too: Sweden's Expedition Robinson, often credited as the first modern reality TV game show; the friendship between The Beatles' George Harrison and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar; and the night a tiger attack brought Las Vegas superstars Siegfried and Roy's show to a sudden end. And if you're curious about inventions, we'll tell you how air fryers, BlackBerry, YouTube, Alexa, GPS, superglue, the shopping cart (shopping trolley) and bubble tea were created.If you're new to Witness History, the appeal is simple: real voices, one strong true story, and a fresh way to understand today through events from history – all in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of tea or a walk around the block. Join millions of BBC World Service podcast listeners around the globe and enjoy the insight, context and detail Witness History will bring you.(Photo: Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Uhura in Star Trek in 1967. Credit: CBS via Getty Images)

When an actor opens their mouth to sing in a movie, chances are high that the voice you hear will be their own. Even in music biopics, movie stars without much singing experience regularly go to great lengths to impersonate the most beloved vocalists of our time. Why not simply play Johnny Cash or Bruce Springsteen's actual recordings, the reasons why we care about them in the first place? When the world is full of beautiful singing voices, why force Pierce Brosnan to bray his way through Mamma Mia?What you hear when an actor unhinges their jaw is a matter that Hollywood has been negotiating since the dawn of sound. So in this episode, we'll learn about the “ghost singers” of classic Hollywood musicals, find out why they went extinct, and why today's music biopics so often fudge the music. Then we leave Hollywood for Bollywood, where the rise of the celebrity “playback singer” shows what can happen when good singing is the highest priority.In this episode, you'll hear from Slate's pop music critic Jack Hamilton; musicologist Dominic Broomfield-McHugh, editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Hollywood Musical; Stephen Cole, co-author of a memoir by the ghost singer Marni Nixon; Isaac Butler, longtime Slate contributor and scholar of American acting; and Nasreen Munni Kabir, who has written several books on Hindi cinema and curates Indian films for the UK's Channel 4.This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman. It was edited by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1982, audiences around the world fell in love with a gentle alien stranded on Earth and the young boy determined to help him get home. Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial became a global phenomenon and gave us one of cinema's most memorable lines, ‘E.T. phone home.'Peter Coyote played Keys, the mysterious government agent on the trail of E.T., a role that became one of the film's most memorable characters.More than four decades later, Peter tells Gill Kearsley about the making of the film, reliving his favourite memories from the set and reflecting on its enduring appeal. He also reveals that he wrote some of Keys' dialogue himself.Witness History is a short BBC World Service podcast about history that takes you inside big moments from the past through first-hand testimony and archive. Each weekday, in around nine minutes, we revisit one moment that helped shape the world and hear it through the voice of someone who was there. Scientists, artists, campaigners, soldiers, leaders and everyday people tell their true stories.When you subscribe to Witness History, you'll be taken inside turning points in world affairs from West Africa's fight back against Boko Haram in 2015 to the behind-closed-doors talks that led to the US-Cuba “thaw” and the surprise announcement of restored relations. You'll discover what it was like to experience disasters and how people recovered from them, including the Tabasco floods in Mexico, Portugal's worst train disaster, and the huge clean-up after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. You'll explore culture and ideas too: Sweden's Expedition Robinson, often credited as the first modern reality TV game show; the friendship between The Beatles' George Harrison and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar; and the night a tiger attack brought Las Vegas superstars Siegfried and Roy's show to a sudden end. And if you're curious about inventions, we'll tell you how air fryers, BlackBerry, YouTube, Alexa, GPS, superglue, the shopping cart (shopping trolley) and bubble tea were created.If you're new to Witness History, the appeal is simple: real voices, one strong true story, and a fresh way to understand today through events from history – all in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of tea or a walk around the block. Join millions of BBC World Service podcast listeners around the globe and enjoy the insight, context and detail Witness History will bring you.(Photo: On the set of E.T. Credit: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

"This will never work in India."That's what Indian truck manufacturers said about electric freight. Now they build the trucks.Something is going on here at a speed the rest of the world has not yet noticed. Solar capacity has gone from under three gigawatts to more than 160 in ten years. Across the same decade, 171 million people moved out of extreme poverty.But in eastern Delhi, a woman who has lived beside an open mountain of garbage for fifty years asks Tom Rivett-Carnac for one thing: tell the world about us.So, in the second of three episodes from India, Tom goes looking for what is really driving this change, what it looks like up close, and whether it can deliver for the people who need it most.A cement executive who set a net zero target in 2018, when nobody else in his industry had, will give you the business case that green is profitable. Ask him what is actually driving him and he gives a different answer. Truck drivers on the Bengaluru highway who are not called drivers any more. A nine-year-old with a bicycle. This is the largest transition of its kind anywhere on earth, and it is happening right now.With Delhi-based journalist and filmmaker Adnan Bhat on the ground, and Dia Mirza, Shyla Raghav and Prachi Shevgaonkar on what it all adds up to.So what does it look like from the inside? And what happens to the people it hasn't yet reached?Disclosure: the electric freight programme in this episode, Laneshift, was founded by The Climate Pledge, which Global Optimism co-founded with Amazon, alongside the city network C40.Learn More⛰️ Read how Delhi's garbage mountains became heat bombs for the people who work them, Al Jazeera on the waste pickers of Ghazipur, a landfill now roughly as tall as the Qutub Minar

A new week means new questions! Hope you have fun with these!In Egyptian mythology, which warrior goddess of the sun had the head of a cat?Which well-known theater district do some claim derives its name from the dutch term "Breede Weg"?What is the name for a one-wheeled device attached to a motorcycle or scooter?Which kind of nut is traditionally found on top of a Genoa cake?Dennis Taylor's We are Legion, For We Are Many, All These Worlds, Heaven's River, and Not Till We Are Lost, are all novels in which series?Ovine refers to which animal?The scopes monkey trial was an American legal case involving which scientific theory?Which Musical did not win any Tonys when it originally played on Broadway, but has since won Best Revival of a Musical in 1996 and the Best Picture Academy Award in 2003?The final play from scrimmage of Super Bowl 47 had the same result as the first play from scrimmage of the very next Super Bowl. What was this result, which happens in less than 1/10 of a percent of all NFL plays?What was the first NASA program to land an object on Mars sucessfully?In Knitting, what type of knot is made when you cast on?What Academy Award winner wrote the screenplay to the first two Superman films?The Indian city of Chennai was changed in 1996 from what name?What is the second official language of Finland?MusicHot Swing, Fast Talkin, Bass Walker, Dances and Dames, Ambush by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Don't forget to follow us on social media:Patreon – patreon.com/quizbang – Please consider supporting us on Patreon. Check out our fun extras for patrons and help us keep this podcast going. We appreciate any level of support!Website – quizbangpod.com Check out our website, it will have all the links for social media that you need and while you're there, why not go to the contact us page and submit a question!Facebook – @quizbangpodcast – we post episode links and silly lego pictures to go with our trivia questions. Enjoy the silly picture and give your best guess, we will respond to your answer the next day to give everyone a chance to guess.Instagram – Quiz Quiz Bang Bang (quizquizbangbang), we post silly lego pictures to go with our trivia questions. Enjoy the silly picture and give your best guess, we will respond to your answer the next day to give everyone a chance to guess.Twitter – @quizbangpod We want to start a fun community for our fellow trivia lovers. If you hear/think of a fun or challenging trivia question, post it to our twitter feed and we will repost it so everyone can take a stab it. Come for the trivia – stay for the trivia.Ko-Fi – ko-fi.com/quizbangpod – Keep that sweet caffeine running through our body with a Ko-Fi, power us through a late night of fact checking and editing!

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The Fall of Baghdad In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we continue our exploration of Eugene Rogan's masterful The Fall of the Ottomans, examining the British campaign to capture Baghdad in 1917 – a victory that helped redeem the catastrophic humiliation of Kut.The surrender at Kut in April 1916 had been one of the worst disasters in British military history. Thousands of British and Indian soldiers, starved into submission, were marched into captivity and then worked to death building Ottoman railways. The British government was deeply wary of any further advances in Mesopotamia. But the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force, smarting from the stigma of defeat, was determined to score a victory.Drawing on Rogan's narrative, we trace the campaign from the cautious advance on the Tigris to the fall of Baghdad. General Maud, a commander who had been wounded in France and was the last man off the beach at Gallipoli, was determined to break the Ottoman defences. Despite orders from London that barred an advance on the city, Maud pushed forward – driven in part by a superstitious belief that 13 was his lucky number.The Ottoman Sixth Army, worn down by illness, desertion, and casualties, was desperately understrength. Halil Pasha had been forced to redeploy forces to confront a Russian threat on the Persian frontier, leaving Baghdad dangerously exposed. When the British finally broke through at the Shumran Bend, the Ottoman retreat became a rout – pursued by British gunboats that wreaked havoc on exhausted and demoralised Turkish soldiers.The recapture of Kut was a symbolic victory. But the fall of Baghdad, which followed shortly after, was the first major British victory in the Middle East – a triumph that had eluded them since the beginning of the war.Topics covered:The disaster at Kut and its aftermathGeneral Maud's command and his superstitious beliefsThe Russian threat on the Persian frontierThe battle for Kut (December 1916 – February 1917)The breakthrough at Shumran BendThe Ottoman retreat and the naval pursuitThe symbolic recapture of KutBritish fears of Muslim insurrection in IndiaEugene Rogan's The Fall of the Ottomans is available from all good bookshops. Please consider buying from an independent retailer.If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive ContentBecome a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory▸ Join the Community & Continue the ConversationFacebook Group: facebook.com/groups/ExplainingHistoryPodcastSubstack: theexplaininghistorypodcast.substack.com▸ Read Articles & Go DeeperWebsite: explaininghistory.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gandhi sits down with Rhea Raj to talk about her new music, modeling campaign, breakup, and the one very poor choice MANY Indian girls will make in their lifetime.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1995, Octavia E Butler became the first author to receive a MacArthur “genius” award for science fiction writing.From a young age she dreamed of writing books, but faced many challenges, including poverty, sexism and racism in the publishing industry.Her sci-fi books are now taught in schools and universities across the United States. She died aged 58 in 2006. Her friend Nisi Shawl spoke to Alex Collins in 2023.Witness History is a short BBC World Service podcast about history that takes you inside big moments from the past through first-hand testimony and archive. Each weekday, in around nine minutes, we revisit one moment that helped shape the world and hear it through the voice of someone who was there. Scientists, artists, campaigners, soldiers, leaders and everyday people tell their true stories.When you subscribe to Witness History, you'll be taken inside turning points in world affairs from West Africa's fight back against Boko Haram in 2015 to the behind-closed-doors talks that led to the US-Cuba “thaw” and the surprise announcement of restored relations. You'll discover what it was like to experience disasters and how people recovered from them, including the Tabasco floods in Mexico, Portugal's worst train disaster, and the huge clean-up after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. You'll explore culture and ideas too: Sweden's Expedition Robinson, often credited as the first modern reality TV game show; the friendship between The Beatles' George Harrison and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar; and the night a tiger attack brought Las Vegas superstars Siegfried and Roy's show to a sudden end. And if you're curious about inventions, we'll tell you how air fryers, BlackBerry, YouTube, Alexa, GPS, superglue, the shopping cart (shopping trolley) and bubble tea were created.If you're new to Witness History, the appeal is simple: real voices, one strong true story, and a fresh way to understand today through events from history – all in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of tea or a walk around the block. Join millions of BBC World Service podcast listeners around the globe and enjoy the insight, context and detail Witness History will bring you.(Photo: Mural depicting Octavia Butler. Credit: The Washington Post/Getty Images)

Photo: Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery in Carlisle, Pa. (Courtesy Office of Army Cemeteries) The remains of 12 Native children who died while attending the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania are beginning their journeys home. The Office of Army Cemeteries is beginning its latest round of disinterments at the Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery. The children died more than a century ago while attending the federal boarding school, which operated from 1879 to 1918. Carlisle became a model for the federal Indian boarding school system, where Native children were separated from their families and communities and forced to abandon their languages and cultures. Families and Tribal leaders are gathering at Carlisle as the remains are prepared to return to their homelands. According to ICT, this marks the ninth round of disinterments at the cemetery. The 12 students include four Alaska Native children and students from several Tribal Nations across the country. The repatriation process is scheduled to continue through October 12th, as descendants and communities bring the children home more than a century after their deaths. Red dresses and a sign reading “No More MMIW” adorn a tree in Heron Park in Springfield, Ore. during a special poetry reading on May 1, 2024. (Photo: Brian Bull) Violence prevention, victim advocacy and MMIP services across Indian Country are dealing with disruptions and cuts at the federal level, as Brian Bull of Underscore Native News and KLCC reports. A recent report from the Urban Indian Health Institute says more than 200 programs and organizations have lost funds or cut back services since President Donald Trump began his second term. Whether through the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” or initiatives against programs the White House deems “DEI” — diversity, equity and inclusion — or “woke”, many Native services are seeing support eroding. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they were “substantially impacted” by funding cuts since January 2025, with 60% of unmet need requests for safe housing support. UIHI director Abigail Echo-Hawk said this will exacerbate issues for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People crisis. “They're staying in their cars, they're becoming homeless, they're in shelters with their children, then having to move from one shelter to another. And in the worst case scenarios – that I know is happening – they're going back to the people that are abusing them because they don't want their children to become homeless, or they're in such desperate circumstances, they have no other choice.” State Representative Tawna Sanchez (Shoshone-Bannock and Ute descent), D-Oregon, has worked on MMIP and other Native issues. She is worried about how the Trump administration's continued implementation of HR 1 will affect marginalized communities and vulnerable populations. “The larger issue, right now, obviously, is: how do we value human life? Any life. And we have only begun to feel the effects of HR 1. The real effects are coming. And they're going to be hard.” Some Native advocates including Echo-Hawk say educating lawmakers can help. She said some anti-DEI initiatives have been reversed as tribes are political entities, not DEI. Another advocate, Desiree Coyote, is the family violence services program manager for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. She says there is an obligation from the federal government to honor all treaties signed with tribes. “This is part of what they agreed to do with us as tribal nations to help us ensure and protect our community in regards to public safety. I look forward to when the tribal nations – in regards to their sovereignty, as a way of ensuring intimate partner violence, sexual assault, dating violence, missing and murdered – are addressed quickly and in a meaningful way that benefits the people we serve.” The report, titled “Sacred Responsibility: Protecting Our People“, includes recommendations for tribal and federal agencies. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Wednesday, September 2, 2026 — Persistent heat puts strain on people, the environment, and the economy

Over the summer, thousands of young Indians took to the streets to demand sweeping reforms of the higher education sector. This unexpected wave of Gen Z mobilization was catalyzed by the emergence of the Cockroach Janata Party, a satirical meme that blossomed into a national movement. Protests that began over the state of higher education soon tapped into something much larger: growing frustration among young Indians over jobs, economic opportunity, and their prospects for the future. India's jobs debate is often framed around a familiar set of concerns: too many people working in agriculture, too few manufacturing jobs, an economy that is too-services oriented, and stubbornly high unemployment among the young. Our guest on the show this week has views on these subjects that often cut against the conventional wisdom. Vidya Mahambare is the Union Bank Chair Professor of Economics and Director at the Great Lakes Institute of Management in Chennai. She studies central banking and monetary policy, structural transformation, labor market dynamics and gender economics. She is also a prolific commentator and writes regularly for outlets like Mint, Business Standard, and The Print. She joins Milan on the Season 16 premiere of Grand Tamasha to discuss the economic drivers of the Gen Z protests, the link between unemployment and education, and the futility of the manufacturing versus services debate. Plus, the two discuss the exodus of young people from the agricultural sector, the misleading headlines on female labor force participation, and India's acute urban housing shortage. Episode notes: Vidya Mahambare and Vivek Yadav, “Indian farms have been losing their workers—at a time they need the youth to improve farming,” Mint, July 20, 2026. Vidya Mahambare and Vivek Yadav, “Employed women in Uttar Pradesh—what explains such a large increase within a decade?” Mint, July 1, 2026. Vidya Mahambare and Asrar Alam, “Elusive jobs: how AI will demand even greater patience of India's unemployed youth,” Mint May 11, 2026. Vidya Mahambare and Poonam Munjal, “Are young Indians under or overworked? Both are true but AI may change work hours as we go along,” Mint, April 14, 2026. Vidya Mahambare, “Urbanization pressure: India's housing policy needs a rethink,” Mint, April 22, 2024. Vidya Mahambare et al., “The employment profile of India's young adults,” Hindu Business Line, May 5, 2026. At 11:29 in the recording, the guest misspoke when she said: “By 2025, we want to have a 50% of higher education rate in India." She later clarified that she meant to say 2035, not 2025.

How do you go from anchoring primetime news on NDTV to leaving mainstream television, co-founding India's first short-form digital news platform, and bringing old-school editorial rigor to Gen Z — all while fighting algorithms and online polarization?In this episode of TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, host Dr. Abhay Dandekar sits down with award-winning independent journalist, former NDTV primetime anchor, and PEEK TV Co-Founder Priyanshi Sharma. Priyanshi shares her journey from mainstream television newsrooms to corporate business school at ISB, and her decision to build a new media model focused on unbiased, unsensational, fact-based reporting for global digital audiences.Priyanshi also breaks down her philosophy on why "every generation deserves old-school journalism," how the definition of the "informed Indian youth" shifted from apolitical to deeply engaged, why the boundaries between journalism, activism, and social media influencers must remain distinct, and how PEEK TV is detoxing online discourse to keep the global Indian diaspora connected to true ground realities.If you enjoy deep conversations on journalism, digital media, Indian democracy, technology, and identity across the global South Asian community, please LIKE, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE!--------------------------CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS:00:00 - Introductions and welcoming Priyanshi03:43 - The Journalist's Detox & Managing 24/7 News FOMO09:54 - The Informed Indian Youth: From Apolitical to Deeply Engaged15:15 - Delusion vs. Hope: How Youth Protests Re-Energized Indian Citizenship18:28 - Sponsor Break: TRAVELOPOD20:28 - Journalism vs. Activism & Influencers: Why Credibility Matters24:31 - Building PEEK TV: Short-Form Digital News Beyond Mainstream TV28:13 - Sponsor Break: Lotus Lane Coffee & Timberdog Ruffrest29:28 - Storytelling, Misinformation & "Detoxing the Discourse"37:52 - Algorithmic Polarization & Unlearning the "TV Anchor Tone"45:03 - Connecting the Global Indian Diaspora to Ground Realities48:01 - Hope, Dissent, and the Future of Independent Indian Media52:29 - Outro & Diaspora Community Shoutouts--------------------------EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS:• Old-School Journalism in Short-Form: How PEEK TV brings rigorous editorial standards and fact-based reporting to short-form digital video platforms.• Journalism vs. Activism: Why maintaining strict independence and objectivity is vital for stories to retain public credibility.• Detoxing the Discourse: Overcoming algorithmic polarization, echo chambers, and sensationalism to deliver balanced perspectives.• The Diaspora Connection: How independent digital media bridges the gap for global Indians seeking reliable, unvarnished news from the ground.GUEST & HOST RESOURCES:

Jong and Michael are once again joined by Chalice Williams of Reel Movie Junkie, to discuss the latest episode of Lanterns. The trio share why the John Stewart focused episode was needed more than a Hal Jordan-centric one, giving John an origin story, the Guardian's ignorance, the process of making a Green Lantern, what did Hal's facial expression mean at the end of the episode, how does Sinestro play into Hal's treatment of John, how the series doesn't spoon feed info to viewers, the ability of the series to add questions but add new layers with each episode, parents doing their best, the incredible performances of Jasmine Cephas Jones & J. Alphonse Nicholson, whether showing love is a stepping stone to fear, and much more! The group also share memories and thoughts on the passing of the legendary voice actor Peter Cullen, who passed away last week at the age of 85. Follow Chalice as she continues her "Road to Doomsday" series on social media, @HeyChalice on Instagram, Threads, and TikTok. For the latest in film/TV coverage visit Reel Movie Junkie online and subscribe to the Reel Movie Junkie YouTube channel, @ReelMovieJunkie where she'll also be posting her video series. Wanna go to Tokyo X, happening here in Houston on September 26th & 27th? Then listen this Friday beginning at 11am CST to ESPN 97.5 for your chance to win a pair of tickets to the event.Tokyo X returns to Reliant Center for an immersive weekend celebrating traditional Japanese culture, anime, gaming, food, fashion, music, automotive culture and live entertainment. More than 600 vendors, exhibitors, artists, cultural organizations and brands from Japan and the United States will come together for this incredible festival.Featured guests include Sean Schemmel, Masako Nozawa, Mario Castañeda and Ankur Javeri, the American, Japanese, Spanish, and Indian voice actors, respectively, behind Goku from the "Dragon Ball” franchise, the first time ever that all the voice actors for Goku will be in the same location on the same day! Plus, Karen Fukuhara (The Boys); Dante Basco (Avatar: The Last Airbender); animation industry veterans Gen Sato and Hidetoshi Omori; Formula Drift champion Dai Yoshihara; and many more. For the full list of guests, panels, vendors, activities, and more, head over to TokyoNightFest.com. Then visit Eventbrite to get your tickets today!Or just listen every Friday this month to ESPN 97.5 leading up to Tokyo X. During Michael's What to Watch segment on The Del Olaleye Show, he'll be giving listeners a chance to win tickets to this amazing celebration of Japanese culture.Rate, review, like, and/or subscribe to Comicast on whatever podcast app you're using; Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Castbox, Goodpods, Podcast Addicts, or whatever your podcast app of choice is!  Feedback, questions, or topic ideas for the show? Email us at comicastpod@gmail.com

#cuttheclutter The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) released the GDP data this week, which said that India's economy grew 7.8 percent in the first quarter of FY 2026-27. The growth numbers has sparked a big fight, with critics and opposition claiming that the estimates are inflated. In this special edition of #CutTheClutter, Chief Economic Adviser Dr V. Anantha Nageswaran joins Shekhar Gupta and debunks the ‘fudged data' claim. CEA also explains the new way of calculation, and reiterates that numbers are not being used in any way to inflate the growth estimates. He also says that the growth numbers for first quarter reflect the true underlying vigour of Indian economic activity. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To Read Bidisha Bhattacharya report: https://theprint.in/economy/why-is-modi-telling-us-to-save-when-economys-robust-gdp-growth-story-hides-cautious-household-subplot/3032106/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To Read Duvvuri Subbarao article: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2026/09/can-india-sustain-its-rise-duvvuri-subbarao --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To Read Business Standard article: https://www.business-standard.com/opinion/editorial/beating-the-odds-126083101459_1.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #asusexpertbook  @ASUSIndia.official  Checkout the ASUS Expertbook series: https://www.flipkart.com/asus-expertbook-core-ultra-store

Comedian Jeeveshu Ahluwalia gets brutally honest about money, fame, and why he "loves being a victim", plus an untold story about Imtiaz Ali, Ranbir Kapoor, and his first-ever film set.In this episode of xMonks Drive, host Gaurav Arora sits down with stand-up comedian and actor Jeeveshu Ahluwalia for a conversation that goes far beyond the usual "journey" interview. Jeeveshu breaks down how India's Got Latent compares to the Kapil Sharma Show, what actually happened to his own gigs after past comedy controversies, and why he thinks "trying to please everyone" is the real formula for failure.He opens up about growing up after his father's death, what money actually meant in a home that couldn't always afford newspaper, and how that shaped an almost obsessive relationship with financial security. Later, he reveals real numbers most comedians never discuss — from his first ₹800 gig to what top Indian comics like Vir Das reportedly charge per show today.The conversation also goes deep into his acting career: the first time Imtiaz Ali cast him in Tamasha, the moment Ranbir Kapoor's humility completely changed how he thinks about success, and his more recent dramatic role in Bandaa Singh Chaudhary. It's a rare look at Jeeveshu Ahluwalia as a craftsman — not just a comic, but a working actor, writer, and performer with over 3,000 shows across 15+ countries behind him.Timestamps 00:00 India's Got Latent Controversy00:38 Success Means Money01:49 Growing Up Without Money06:27 Enough Never Comes07:00 I Couldn't Care Less08:12 The People Pleasing Trap09:26 Latent vs Kapil Sharma Show13:29 Outrage Targets The Powerless14:50 I Love Being A Victim19:12 How He Writes Jokes21:23 Testing Material Live23:58 Adapting To Every Audience25:05 Marriage & Kids Banter25:32 Clean vs Edgy Comedy27:30 Reading The Room28:24 Bombing On Stage32:01 Never Abandon A Joke32:53 Blaming A Bad Show34:50 Self Lies & Real Love36:31 Fan Boundaries40:27 A Fan Message That Stuck42:19 Advice For New Comics43:49 Talent vs Luck44:44 Why Live Beats Everything46:41 Movies Feel Like Surprise47:32 Who Deserves The Credit48:47 Losing Creative Control49:42 Comedy Habits On Set51:02 Live vs Movies vs TV51:40 First Film With Imtiaz Ali54:27 Humility From Ranbir Kapoor57:22 Stars Who Stay Grounded01:01:19 Insecurity & Wokeism01:04:39 What Comedians Actually Earn01:08:23 One Wish, Next LifeWatch full episodes of xMonks Drive for more honest, unfiltered conversations with India's most interesting minds.

Medical device regulation continues to evolve across multiple markets. For manufacturers, the challenge isn't simply following every new publication—it's understanding which developments require action, which ones need monitoring, and how they affect existing regulatory strategies.This latest Medical Device Made Easy regulatory update reviews selected developments from July and August 2026 across Europe, Switzerland, the UK, United States, India, Singapore, and Brazil.

Check out Dr. Mrittunjoy's book here:-https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/840394/the-universe-is-pranking-us-by-dr-mrittunjoy-guha-majumdar/Check out BeerBiceps SkillHouse Courses Here - https://linktr.ee/bbskillhouseFor all BeerBiceps vlog content Watch Life Of BeerBiceps - https://www.youtube.com/@LifeOfBeerBicepsDownload my meditation and wellness app, Swa:aha.https://app.level.game/?c=zSbmYnShare your guest suggestions hereMail - connect@beerbiceps.comLink - https://forms.gle/aoMHY9EE3Cg3Tqdx9Follow BeerBiceps SkillHouse's Social Media Handles:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BeerBicepsSkillHouseInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/beerbiceps_skillhouseWebsite : https://beerbicepsskillhouse.inFor any other queries EMAIL: support@beerbicepsskillhouse.comIn case of any payment-related issues, kindly write to support@tagmango.comFollow Mrittunjoy Guha Majumdar's Social Media Handles:-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrittunjoy.guhamajumdar/X: https://x.com/Zeit_MjGMLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrittunjoy-guha-majumdar-6bb6a117/Website: https://mrittunjoygmajumdar.com/In this episode 536th (overall 1041st) of The Ranveer Show, Ranveer Allahbadia sits down with Dr. Mrittunjoy Majumdar, a scientist with experience at Harvard and Cambridge, to explore one of the biggest questions of all time - Does God exist?The conversation goes deep into Quantum Physics, Vedanta, Shiva, consciousness, and the nature of reality. Dr. Mrittunjoy explains how modern science looks at ideas like Quantum Entanglement, the Uncertainty Principle, String Theory, Time, and the Multiverse, and where these concepts connect with ancient Indian philosophy.They also talk about Brahman, Atman, Kashmir Shaivism, spirituality, and whether science can ever truly prove or disprove the existence of God. The episode also touches on Quantum Computing, Black Holes, Time Travel, Astrology, and the future of Quantum Technology.If you enjoy conversations around God, Science, Quantum Physics, Vedanta, Shiva, spirituality, consciousness, and the mysteries of the universe, this episode will give you a lot to think about.00:00 - Harvard Scientist On TRS05:54 - Science Meets Spirituality08:55 - What Exactly Is Metaphysics?12:17 - Are There Really 10 Dimensions?12:57 - The Strange Truth of Quantum Physics14:54 - When Physics Was Proven Wrong16:42 - What Is a Quantum?21:58 - Can One Theory Explain God?28:01 - Is Time Actually Real?30:14 - The Mystery of Quantum Entanglement33:28 - Are Plants & Metals Conscious?37:10 - Inside the Large Hadron Collider38:56 - Why It's Called the ‘God Particle'44:05 - How the Universe Changed Phases47:37 - Do Scientists Believe in God?50:00 - Brahman Explained by a Physicist57:20 - String Theory Made Simple1:00:59 - Quantum Computing Explained1:16:28 - What Hinduism Teaches About Uncertainty1:18:15 - The Mystery of Paramashiva1:27:32 - How Quantum AI Could Change the World1:35:14 - Can Time Travel Ever Be Real?1:49:39 - Does Astrology Have Any Science?1:55:25 - Is Temple Energy Actually Real?2:05:25 - Ending Notes

When the set fell apart for an ambitious cinematic space opera that was produced on a characteristically small Turkish budget, nationally famed director Çetin İnanç had to think fast to save his film. What resulted was a domestic hit in 1982, originally called The Man Who Saves the World. Now known as Turkish Star Wars, it's a production regularly referenced as the worst movie ever made. Louis Harnett O'Meara uses an archival interview with İnanç, originally recorded by Turkish movie historian Ali Murat Güven in 2018, to tell the story of a classic in Turkish Copy Cinema - a genre that has faded since copyright laws in Turkey have become more rigorously applied. Presented by Louis Harnett O'Meara and produced by Hunter Charlton. An Ember production.Witness History is a short BBC World Service podcast about history that takes you inside big moments from the past through first-hand testimony and archive. Each weekday, in around nine minutes, we revisit one moment that helped shape the world and hear it through the voice of someone who was there. Scientists, artists, campaigners, soldiers, leaders and everyday people tell their true stories.When you subscribe to Witness History, you'll be taken inside turning points in world affairs from West Africa's fight back against Boko Haram in 2015 to the behind-closed-doors talks that led to the US-Cuba “thaw” and the surprise announcement of restored relations. You'll discover what it was like to experience disasters and how people recovered from them, including the Tabasco floods in Mexico, Portugal's worst train disaster, and the huge clean-up after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. You'll explore culture and ideas too: Sweden's Expedition Robinson, often credited as the first modern reality TV game show; the friendship between The Beatles' George Harrison and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar; and the night a tiger attack brought Las Vegas superstars Siegfried and Roy's show to a sudden end. And if you're curious about inventions, we'll tell you how air fryers, BlackBerry, YouTube, Alexa, GPS, superglue, the shopping cart (shopping trolley) and bubble tea were created.If you're new to Witness History, the appeal is simple: real voices, one strong true story, and a fresh way to understand today through events from history – all in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of tea or a walk around the block. Join millions of BBC World Service podcast listeners around the globe and enjoy the insight, context and detail Witness History will bring you.(Photo: Turkish Star Wars movie poster. Credit: Graham Humphreys)

THIS IS A PREVIEW PODCAST. NOT THE FULL REVIEW. Please check out the full podcast review on our Patreon Page by subscribing over at - https://www.patreon.com/NextBestPicture Our 2008 retrospective has officially come to an end with our final podcast review for Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning film for Best Picture, "Slumdog Millionaire," starring Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal, Anil Kapoor, and Irrfan Khan. Loosely based on the novel Q & A (2005) by Indian author Vikas Swarup, the independent Searchlight film was a sensation in 2008 as it built up momentum through the fall film festivals and then exploded in cinemas through word of mouth and all through awards season, making it, to this day, the film with the most Academy Award wins since it won 8 at the 2009 ceremony. How has the film held up, though, after all this time, nearly twenty years later? Please tune in as Josh Parham, Dan Bayer, and I talk about the film's screenplay, the performances, the craftsmanship, its awards season run, and more in our SPOILER-FILLED review. Please check out our past reviews for "Frost/Nixon," "Doubt," "Changeling," "Revolutionary Road," "WALL-E, "Milk," "The Dark Knight," "The Reader," and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." We appreciate your support and hope you enjoy our review! https://youtu.be/fUZ9JDLdFy8 Check out more on NextBestPicture.com Please subscribe on... Apple Podcasts - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/negs-best-film-podcast/id1087678387?mt=2 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/7IMIzpYehTqeUa1d9EC4jT YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWA7KiotcWmHiYYy6wJqwOw And be sure to help support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month at https://www.patreon.com/NextBestPicture and listen to this podcast ad-free Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

BBC Newsnight presenter Paddy O'Connell speaks to Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu about why he thinks liberal democracy is in crisis, and how artificial intelligence could make it worse.Daron argues that liberal democracy worked because people were given a say in how they were governed and then benefited from their country's economy as it prospered. But western governments have made major decisions on issues like immigration without first building public agreement, something which was once important.In an interview with BBC Newsnight, he says that together, these changes have left many working people feeling that politicians no longer listen to them and have helped to fuel a rise in populism.Now Daron warns that the way artificial intelligence is developed and used, so far without consensus, could make it worse, by widening inequality and putting people out of work. “AI is going to transform every aspect of our lives, and we're not being asked. We have no say in how AI is going to shape our society. I mean people in the UK, people in the US. Even worse for 6 billion people who are outside of the US, UK, China. Their lives are going to be completely reshaped by AI and they have zero say whatsoever,” he says. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with Indian activist Sonam Wangchuk, South African minister Gayton McKenzie and New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman. You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. Presenter: Paddy O'Connell Producer: Osman Iqbal Editor: Damon Rose(Image: Daron Acemoglu. Credit: Europa Press News via Getty Images)

Low Value Mail is a live call-in show discussing current events, politics, conspiracies and much more.Every Monday night at 7pm ETSupport The Show:

Note: Much of the content in this podcast can be found in show participant Ross Anderson's book Understanding the Book of MormonThe Book of Mormon claims to be an ancient scripture that tells the story of God's people in the American continent. It was engraved on gold plates and translated by Joseph Smith through the “gift and power of God.” In fact, Smith claimed that “the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book” (History of the Church, 4:461). LDS missionaries seek converts by urging them to read BoM and pray about its divine authenticity.Anachronism Anachronism = events or objects that appear out of the proper time period in which one would expect themSynagoguesAlma 16:13 = Nephite evangelists preached repentance in synagogues, “which were built after the manner of the Jews”Nephites were descended from Jews → were Jewish (according to story)But synagogues were not developed in Judaism until 400 years after Nephites left JerusalemHow could the writer have know HOW the Jews built their synagogues?Plants / AnimalsMosiah 9:9 “And we began to till the ground, yea, even with all manner of seeds: with seeds of corn and of wheat and of barley.”Wheat and barley were brought to America by EuropeansSheep / goats / cattle / swine → introduced to America by EuropeansEconomy → use of money (coinage) vs. barter18th Century IdeasSince its publication, observers have noted that BoM contains many parallels to 19th c. American lifeAlexander Campbell: JS wrote into the BoM “every error and almost every truth discussed in New York for the last ten years”BoM decides all the great theological / social controversies of the ageReflects 19th c. theological & political themesOffers guidance on democracy, socialism, capitalism, various Protestant controversies like infant baptism, Calvinism, miracles, the fall of humankind, call to ministry, Unitarianism, etcSermons by Nephite prophets echo closely the form & language of 19th c. evangelistsConversion experiences described in BoM are similar to spiritual awakenings commonly reported in American revival movement of early 1800sWhy are the contents of an ancient work so closely tied to the concerns of one American generation?Literary SourcesA View of the Hebrews (1823) by Ethan Smith (Read it here)Argued that Native Americans descended from lost 10 tribes of IsraelThis was a pretty common view in early 1800sBoM shares several thematic elementsExtensive quotations from IsaiahThe New World peopled from the Old World by long sea voyageA religious motive for that migrationMigrants divided into civilized and uncivilized groups with long wars between themEventual destruction of the civilized by the uncivilizedAssumption that Native Americans are descended from these Israelite peopleRecord a change of government from monarchy to republicSuggest the gospel was preached in ancient AmericaIt is unknown whether JS had access to a copy of View of the HebrewsBut even if BoM was not directly inspired by it, the ideas expressed in it were common and popular in 19th century America; reflected in dozens of booksHistory of the American Indians (1775) by James AdairSpecific words and phrases describing Indian fortifications - same in bothMany other parallelsThe Wonders of Nature (1825) by Josiah PriestSimilarity in several passages → a pure coincidence?The Golden Pot (1827 eng trans), by ETA HoffmanSeveral alleged similarities in this story compared to the story of how the BoM / gold plates came forthBible AnachronismsAspects of how the BoM interacts with the Bible → don't reflect JS's timesKJV language = KJV translated in 1611, 210+ years before BoMEnglish had changed quite a bit → compare reading American lit from that timeLast of the Mohicans / The Scarlet Letter / Legend of Sleepy HollowBut BoM is written in full-on KJV styleKJV the predominant translation → extremely wide circulationIt was how Scripture soundedWhy would BoM not reflect the common language of JS's time?If not a conscious attempt to make it sound like ScriptureBoM contains verbal parallels to the 1611 preface to KJVWords / phrases in the preface, but not in the KJV text of BibleWhich, of course, ancient writers would not have had access toBoM has a timeline → approx dates when events took placeAlma 12-13 (dates) draws heavily on the book of HebrewsA variety of BoM's theological statements draw from / depend on interpretations already present in the NTProphecies from 1-2 Nephi (600-5454 BC) about coming of Jesus Christ use language recorded in NTReads more like a Xian doc vs a Jewish docIn a sense, these BoM prophecies know too much detail about Messiah - far more than OT prophetsSuggests an author familiar with the fulfillment of the prophecies after the factBoM version of Sermon on MountSome changes are made: no ref to PhariseesBut many issues in BoM version that presuppose 1st-century Jewish cultural / religious contextGoing 2 miles when forced to go 1The “jot and tittle” of Scripture“Dogs” as a metaphor for GentilesEtc.Does the Bible have the same issues?The evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls gives strong evidence of the reliability of the BibleSee: “What Are the Dead Seas Scrolls?”--The Unveiling Mormonism podcast pulls back the curtain on Mormon history, culture and doctrine. Join us for new episodes every Monday. Find resources to talk about these episodes at pursueGOD.org/mormonism.Help others go "full circle" as a follower of Jesus through our 12-week Pursuit series.Click here to learn more about how to use these resources at home, with a small group, or in a one-on-one discipleship relationship.Got questions or want to leave a note? Email us at podcast@pursueGOD.org.Donate Now--

Matthew Toffolo interviewed Rocky Karri, who discussed his award-winning sci-fi TV pilot script "Ammamma & Raag." Rocky explained that the story was inspired by his relationship with his grandmother and his own experiences growing up in Milwaukee with Indian parents. He described the process of writing the script at USC's MFA program and his plans to adapt it into a comic book. Rocky also mentioned his feature film script, "Open Arrangement," a romantic comedy about an arranged marriage with a modern twist. He shared his journey from Milwaukee to Los Angeles, his graduation from USC, and his current efforts to gain representation in the industry. The conversation also touched on cultural influences, personal inspirations, and the themes of love and self-discovery in his writing. —- Subscribe to the podcast: https://twitter.com/wildsoundpod https://www.instagram.com/wildsoundpod https://www.facebook.com/wildsoundpod —— Love for you to try the Indy Film Festival AP. • Daily new film festival of the best new films from around the world. New archived festival to watch anytime. • Library of over 500+ award-winning films to watch anytime. Go to https://www.wildsound.ca and sign up for the free 3-day trial. Check out the daily film festival (and previous ones from last month) at https://www.wildsound.ca/browse Always an amazing lineup of films. Inspiring for storytellers.

India's alcohol beverage industry is worth around ₹5 lakh crore, and spirits make up roughly three-fourths of the market. But building a successful alcohol brand in India involves much more than making a good drink.00:00 Introduction01:21 How Big Is India's Alcobev Industry?02:13 Why Spirits Dominate India04:00 The Alcobev Ecosystem & Jobs07:00 India vs Global Alcohol Markets10:00 How the Indian Whisky Market Has Changed14:00 Premiumisation & Changing Consumer Preferences18:00 Building Premium Indian Alcohol Brands24:54 How Radico Kaitan Built Categories27:46 Are Alcohol Companies Profitable?29:05 What Does It Take to Launch an Alcohol Brand?35:00 Building a Brand Beyond a Great Product40:00 Distribution, Retail & Getting on Shelves45:00 Why Every Indian State Is a Different Market50:00 Regulation, Excise & Government Control55:00 How Alcohol Brands Scale Across India1:00:00 Indian Whisky vs International Brands1:10:00 The Future of Premium Indian Spirits 1:18:29 Ankur's Favourite Spirits 1:21:52 Final ThoughtsAnkur Sachdeva has spent around 25 years in the Alcobev industry, with stints at William Grant & Sons, Radico Kaitan, the Kajaria Group and Allied Blenders & Distillers. He was also involved in bringing Glenfiddich and The Balvenie to India, and today is building premium Indian whisky brands of his own.In this episode of the Prime Venture Partners Podcast, Jerome Manuel sits down with Ankur Sachdeva, Co-founder & CEO of Uppal Brewers and Distillers to understand an industry that most people consume, but few understand as a business.They start with the scale of the Indian market. Ankur explains why India's alcohol industry looks very different from global markets, where beer is the largest category, while spirits dominate India and account for around three-fourths of the market.The conversation then moves into the rise of premium Indian spirits. Ankur discusses brands such as 8PM, Magic Moments, Jaisalmer, Rampur, Indri and Royal Ranthambore, and how Indian companies have identified gaps in the market and built brands around them.But a good product is only the beginning.Ankur explains what it actually takes to launch an alcobev brand: from having a clear idea and building the product to manufacturing, capital, distribution and getting consumers to pick it off the shelf. He also talks about why a clever bottle or an unusual flavour may make an interesting product, but that alone does not necessarily make a successful brand.The episode also gets into the economics of the industry, including why established Alcobev businesses can operate at strong EBITDA levels, and what makes the category attractive once a business has established its model.For anyone interested in consumer brands, whisky, premiumisation, distribution, regulation or building businesses in India, this conversation gives a detailed look at how the alcobev industry actually works.Connect with Ankur SachdevaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asachdeva/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ankursachdevaind?igsi=MTdwNGljOGZ2dWtudg==Follow Jerome ManuelX (Twitter):https://x.com/JeromeAndManuelLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeromermanuelRead the transcript for the entire podcast here - https://bit.ly/Prime-Venture-Partners-And-Uppal-Brewers-And-Distillers About Prime Venture PartnersPrime Venture Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm backing exceptional founders building category-defining technology companies across SaaS, fintech, AI, healthcare, consumer internet and enterprise software.Learn more: https://www.primevp.in/Follow Prime Venture Partners:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2780448/admin/dashboard/X (Twitter): https://x.com/Primevp_inInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/primevp_in/Learn more about:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uppal-brewers-distillers/Website: https://soorahi.com/#IndianStartups #Alcobev #Whisky #ConsumerBrands #Entrepreneurship

A joke is never just a joke—not even in the eighteenth century. In American Laughter, American Fury: Humor and the Making of a White Man's Democracy, 1750–1850 (JHU Press, 2025) Eran A. Zelnik offers a cultural history of early America that shows how humor among white men served to define and construct not only whiteness and masculinity but also American political culture and democracy more generally. Zelnik traces the emerging bonds of affinity that white male settlers in North America cultivated through their shared, transformative experience of mirth. This humor—a category that includes not only jokes but also play, riot, revelry, and mimicry—shaped the democratic and anti-elitist sensibilities of Americans. It also defined the borders of who could participate in politics, notably excluding those who were not white men. While this anti-authoritarian humor transformed the early United States into a country that abhorred elitism and class hierarchies, ultimately the story is one of democratization gone awry: this same humor allowed white men to draw the borders of the new nation exclusively around themselves. Zelnik analyzes several distinct forms of humor to make his case: tall tales, "Indian play," Black dialect, riot and revelry, revolutionary protests, and blackface minstrelsy. This provocative study seeks to understand the vexing, contradictory interplay among humor, democracy, and violence at the heart of American history and culture that continues today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In today's episode on 1st September, we explain how the Essel Group's financial crisis unfolded and why the insolvency case involving its promoter has sparked a major legal debate among Indian lenders.Sign up for the FREE insurance masterclass from Ditto

Chronic back pain that no scan explains? Dimple Jangda sits down with Prof. Dr. Ali Irani — the first sports physiotherapist in the Indian subcontinent and physiotherapist to the Indian cricket team from 1987 to 1997 — to unpack why pain persists, why vitamin deficiencies are so widely missed, and what actually supports a long, mobile life.In this episode, Dimple shares her own diagnosis publicly for the first time: eight episodes of being bedridden with sciatica-like pain, MRIs, X-rays and blood tests that explained nothing — until one question from Dr. Irani led to an HLA-B27 diagnosis and ankylosing spondylitis.WHAT YOU'LL LEARN▪ The one question that changes a pain diagnosis: if pain is worst in the evening it's usually mechanical; if it's worst on waking and eases as you move, it points to something pathological.▪ Why vitamin D and B12 deficiency is so common — Dr. Irani estimates over half of Indians are deficient — and why sunlight alone isn't enough. In a study of eight Mumbai football teams training 3–4 hours daily in the sun, almost all players were still deficient.▪ The missing mineral: without enough magnesium, your body can't hold on to vitamin D3 and B12. Pumpkin seeds and roasted chana are traditional sources.▪ Why standard blood panels don't include D3 and B12 — you have to ask for them.▪ Swimming for spinal conditions, why extension exercises undo a day spent bending forward, and the posture problem behind widespread neck pain.▪ Brain mapping and the five states of mind — delta, theta, alpha, beta, gamma. Athletes recalling their best games measured in alpha; those recalling their worst measured in beta or gamma. Why chanting Om and echo sounds shift you into alpha.▪ Lung capacity and lifespan: why breathing rate correlates with longevity across species, and what pranayama does to vital capacity.▪ Grounding and earthing — why two-pin phone chargers have no earth, and what that means for your nervous system.▪ Flat feet, foot arches and why insoles change posture, knees and spine.▪ Colon health and medication absorption — why cleaning the gut can matter more than increasing a dose.▪ Ice versus heat, cold plunges, pelvic floor health, Indian versus Western toilets and hip replacement rates.▪ Dr. Irani's 40-day no-gossip challenge, and why he believes your relationship with your parents predicts your success.ABOUT DR. ALI IRANIHead of Department, Physiotherapy and Sports Medicine & Rehabilitation Centre, Nanavati Max Super Speciality Hospital, Mumbai. Physiotherapist to the Indian cricket team 1987–1997. Two PhDs, in Sports Medicine and in Anatomy of Body Movement and Dance. Chairperson (International Affairs), Indian Association of Physiotherapists.ABOUT DIMPLE JANGDAAyurvedic health coach, author of Heal Your Gut, Mind & Emotions, and founder of Prana by Dimple. Trained at Harvard in Lifestyle Medicine and at Stanford in Gut Health and the Microbiome.

Danish weddings have rules, rituals, and surprises most outsiders never see - and Indian weddings have their own glorious chaos. Kriti Prajippati returns to share what actually happens when cultures, ceremonies, and expectations collide, from gift etiquette and dress codes to the tiny traditions that can leave you completely lost. Kriti - comedian, content creator, and host favorite - also reveals how living in Denmark for nine years shaped her new solo show, debuting at the UP Festival in Copenhagen this October. Along the way, the conversation gets wonderfully specific: the midnight timing of some Indian weddings, the Danish custom of speeches and songs, the infamous sock-cutting tradition, and the awkward reality of trying to navigate it all as an international guest.You'll discover:what to wear to a Danish wedding, and what not to wearwhy gifts can range from cash to very personal, very unexpected choiceshow Danish weddings differ from Indian, Hungarian, and mixed-culture celebrationswhy speeches, songs, and staged performances can stretch a Danish dinner into an all-night affairthe rituals - from kissing customs to sock cutting - that can catch first-timers off guardMore of Kriti:Tickets for Kriti's show at Up Festival: https://upfestival.dk/om/komikere/kriti-prajapatiInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/kriticalcomedy/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KritiPrajapatiOther WAYDID episodes with Kriti: https://pod.link/1704607322/episode/NjczMjdkOWE0N2JmOTIwNTRlMDZkN2Nm

This brief reflection uses an anecdote about M. A. Carmichael to illustrate that God's answer of 'no' can be a profound act of protection and provision. The story highlights how a denied request for blue eyes ultimately enabled her effective ministry among Indian women by allowing her to blend in seamlessly. It challenges the listener to trust divine wisdom over personal desires, recognizing that what seems like a rejection may actually be a strategic alignment with God's greater plan. The narrative encourages faith in God's sovereign timing and purpose, even when immediate outcomes differ from expectations.

An overstimulated nervous system is my chronic problem, and the problem of many of us in our current society with its 24/7 connectivity and therefore constant demands and stimulation. And that's just tech. Not to mention other contributing factors such as disrupted circadian rhythms, lack of nature and natural light, lack of sleep, processed foods, pollutants in the air, water and soil, and nutritional deficiencies. Of all the interventions I have ever done to reset my nervous system, one found in the ancient practice of Ayurveda has proven to be the most effective – known as the queen of Ayurvedic cures, the Panchakarma is a prolonged nervous system reset and detoxification protocol with incredible results. I always come away completely reset and restored.  So I was thrilled to find a fellow aficionado from the medical world with data in her pocket, psychiatrist Dr. Judith Pentz , In this episode of the MindHealth360 Show, we sit down to explore what the ancient Indian healing system of Ayurveda can teach us about some of the most modern problems affecting our mental health – chronic stress, overstimulation, poor sleep, nervous-system dysregulation and our increasing difficulty creating space for genuine self-care. Dr. Pentz's journey into Ayurveda began after a health scare during perimenopause led her to experience Panchakarma, an intensive personalised Ayurvedic cleansing programme in India. What began as an attempt to support her physical health became something much deeper. She describes how repeated Panchakarma experiences affected not only her body, but also brought unresolved trauma, emotional patterns and questions of meaning and purpose to the surface. As a child and adolescent psychiatrist, she reflects on how many adults may carry wounds from childhood without fully recognising their impact. Together, we explore Ayurveda's highly personalised approach to health, including the doshas and the idea that modern life itself can push many of us towards imbalance through constant stimulation. Dr. Pentz explains why healing is not something that happens passively: sleep, food, breathwork, movement, boundaries, relationships and small daily rituals all influence how regulated and resilient we feel. We also explore the idea that physical cleansing, emotional processing and spiritual growth may be more connected than Western medicine traditionally assumes – and why sometimes the smallest "life-affirming choices" can be the beginning of meaningful change. In this episode, you'll learn: Why modern overstimulation can leave us with poor sleep, scattered thinking and a dysregulated nervous system. What Panchakarma is and how Dr. Pentz's own experience brought unresolved trauma and emotional patterns to the surface, changing her understanding of healing. Why Ayurveda looks beyond symptoms to food, sleep, relationships, social connection, spirituality and daily habits. Why many adults carry unresolved childhood wounds without fully recognising their impact. How daily breathwork, sleep, movement and moments of quiet may have a cumulative effect on mental and physical health. Why self-care requires active participation and daily discipline, and how boundaries and relationships became part of Dr. Pentz's own healing. Why disease prevention is something shaped by the choices we make everyday. Take the conversation further at IMMH 2026 At the Integrative Medicine for Mental Health (IMMH) Conference 2026, Dr. Judith Pentz will take the ideas explored in this episode into greater clinical depth in her session: Ayurveda and Personalized Medicine: The Power of Self-Care for Prevention and Longevity CE/CME presentation – exploring how Ayurvedic principles can complement modern psychiatry and lifestyle medicine, and how simple, consistent daily practices can support prevention, emotional balance, resilience and longevity. Dr. Pentz will be joined by more than 50 leading clinicians and researchers exploring the latest approaches to integrative and functional mental health, including Dr. Robert Lustig and Dr. Elissa Epel on mitochondria, metabolism and the biology of stress; Dr. Emeran Mayer on the brain–gut–microbiome connection in healthy ageing; Dr. Leslie Korn on safely reducing or discontinuing psychiatric medication; and Dr. Ilene Naomi Rusk on nervous system regulation, resilience and brain health. Taking place October 8–11 at the Town and Country Resort, San Diego – and online, IMMH 2026 offers up to 40 CE/CME and CPD credits, with 90-day on-demand access to revisit sessions you miss live.

An overstimulated nervous system is my chronic problem, and the problem of many of us in our current society with its 24/7 connectivity and therefore constant demands and stimulation. And that's just tech. Not to mention other contributing factors such as disrupted circadian rhythms, lack of nature and natural light, lack of sleep, processed foods, pollutants in the air, water and soil, and nutritional deficiencies. Of all the interventions I have ever done to reset my nervous system, one found in the ancient practice of Ayurveda has proven to be the most effective – known as the queen of Ayurvedic cures, the Panchakarma is a prolonged nervous system reset and detoxification protocol with incredible results. I always come away completely reset and restored.  So I was thrilled to find a fellow aficionado from the medical world with data in her pocket, psychiatrist Dr. Judith Pentz , In this episode of the MindHealth360 Show, we sit down to explore what the ancient Indian healing system of Ayurveda can teach us about some of the most modern problems affecting our mental health – chronic stress, overstimulation, poor sleep, nervous-system dysregulation and our increasing difficulty creating space for genuine self-care. Dr. Pentz's journey into Ayurveda began after a health scare during perimenopause led her to experience Panchakarma, an intensive personalised Ayurvedic cleansing programme in India. What began as an attempt to support her physical health became something much deeper. She describes how repeated Panchakarma experiences affected not only her body, but also brought unresolved trauma, emotional patterns and questions of meaning and purpose to the surface. As a child and adolescent psychiatrist, she reflects on how many adults may carry wounds from childhood without fully recognising their impact. Together, we explore Ayurveda's highly personalised approach to health, including the doshas and the idea that modern life itself can push many of us towards imbalance through constant stimulation. Dr. Pentz explains why healing is not something that happens passively: sleep, food, breathwork, movement, boundaries, relationships and small daily rituals all influence how regulated and resilient we feel. We also explore the idea that physical cleansing, emotional processing and spiritual growth may be more connected than Western medicine traditionally assumes – and why sometimes the smallest "life-affirming choices" can be the beginning of meaningful change. In this episode, you'll learn: Why modern overstimulation can leave us with poor sleep, scattered thinking and a dysregulated nervous system. What Panchakarma is and how Dr. Pentz's own experience brought unresolved trauma and emotional patterns to the surface, changing her understanding of healing. Why Ayurveda looks beyond symptoms to food, sleep, relationships, social connection, spirituality and daily habits. Why many adults carry unresolved childhood wounds without fully recognising their impact. How daily breathwork, sleep, movement and moments of quiet may have a cumulative effect on mental and physical health. Why self-care requires active participation and daily discipline, and how boundaries and relationships became part of Dr. Pentz's own healing. Why disease prevention is something shaped by the choices we make everyday. Take the conversation further at IMMH 2026 At the Integrative Medicine for Mental Health (IMMH) Conference 2026, Dr. Judith Pentz will take the ideas explored in this episode into greater clinical depth in her session: Ayurveda and Personalized Medicine: The Power of Self-Care for Prevention and Longevity CE/CME presentation – exploring how Ayurvedic principles can complement modern psychiatry and lifestyle medicine, and how simple, consistent daily practices can support prevention, emotional balance, resilience and longevity. Dr. Pentz will be joined by more than 50 leading clinicians and researchers exploring the latest approaches to integrative and functional mental health, including Dr. Robert Lustig and Dr. Elissa Epel on mitochondria, metabolism and the biology of stress; Dr. Emeran Mayer on the brain–gut–microbiome connection in healthy ageing; Dr. Leslie Korn on safely reducing or discontinuing psychiatric medication; and Dr. Ilene Naomi Rusk on nervous system regulation, resilience and brain health. Taking place October 8–11 at the Town and Country Resort, San Diego – and online, IMMH 2026 offers up to 40 CE/CME and CPD credits, with 90-day on-demand access to revisit sessions you miss live.

India now requires turbine data, control centers, and R&D to sit inside its borders. Plus a study on reverse flow loads in parked blades, Envision’s spare parts push across Southeast Asia, and Danish wind employment falling to 32,700. The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech, creators of the StrikeTape Ultra LPS retrofit. Subscribe to Uptime’s Substack newsletter. And check out Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” Youtube channel. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! The Uptime Wind Energy podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape. Protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit striketape.com. And now, your hosts Rosemary Barnes: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I’m your host, Rosemary Barnes, and I’m filling in for Allen today here with Jolanda Pedron. All right, onto our first story. India is drawing a line around its wind data. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has ordered every turbine maker on the approved list of models and manufacturers to report where its data actually lives. Data centers inside India, servers inside India, research centers inside India, and no real-time data leaving the country. The order went out last week with status reports due by month-end. And while the government tightens the rules on data, the hardware keeps moving in. Flender has just opened another generator plant in Chennai [00:01:00] Yolanda, I think this is gonna have a large impact on the number of companies who are, you know, there’s a lot of companies around today developing, like, smarts for wind turbines. There’s a lot of scope to operate turbines better, to improve power output, reduce maintenance costs, et cetera, and y- a lot of companies are taking advantage of that. Even Patlow has some projects going on in that sort of area. What do you think about the impact this will be? Is India planning to develop their entire own ecosystem for that aspect of the industry? I  Yolanda Padron: mean, it looks like it, right? Which is really, I mean, kind of groundbreaking. I know that we talked a couple weeks ago about Europe sort of being a little bit scared of bringing in, um, different manufacturers from Asia, um, and just the, the idea of cybersecurity being something really prevalent and really important to all of these people. So just if India starts siloing everything and that works, maybe that’ll translate to Europe.  Rosemary Barnes: Do you think that it, it can work? Has India [00:02:00] got the expertise in place already to, to make this work, or is this gonna be a real, like, handbrake on their, their wind industry continuing to develop as fast as it has been? Yolanda Padron: I mean, I’m really curious to see it because I don’t know if they’ll bring in a lot more experts to be able to, to do that.  Rosemary Barnes: I know the Indian, um, operating environment is quite different to other locations. I mean, it’s, it’s similar in a way to Australia in its dissimilarity, if that makes sense. I, I think there’s a lot of really India-specific problems, so of course Indian companies are gonna be best placed to take advantage of that. But what we’ve seen so far is a lot of, uh, companies from Europe or America coming in to y- you know, like tweak the way that they attack similar problems in other markets. They’re, you know, moving in to understand India better and take advantage of that. Now, of course, like not every smart operating method or aerodynamic improvement, they don’t all need [00:03:00] real-time data, and probably most of them don’t actually. So I think it’s not gonna like s- snip off this entire kind of improvement. But it is really interesting. It’s quite, like it is quite severe, the restrictions, and I haven’t heard of any other market, um, that is doing that. I, I don’t know, do you think it’s warranted or is it maybe like overly paranoid? I know when I heard that in, um, in Europe they’re not allowing Chinese manufacturers of inverters, for example, and I just felt like, “Ugh, is that a bit over the top?” I’m not sure. Um, yeah, what’s your opinion, Yolanda?  Yolanda Padron: I think it, it might be a little bit over the top. We live in such a globalized world that the idea of one country just siloing completely is, is a little bit strange to me. But- I guess if, if that’s, they have a, a reason for concern, then I guess it might make sense. But to your earlier point, like, I don’t know if the cost of doing this [00:04:00]would also come into play  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I think that there’s always a, a, a trade-off. It’s like when you have any kind of l- local content rule, which is similar in a way because it forces, um, yeah, it, it forces your own ecosystem to develop, and that’s, that’s great. Like, it is a missed opportunity if you just have, you know, like a huge new industry and you just import it all, then that i- is a lost opportunity for your own economy. But I mean, in the past, India has had pretty strong local content rules, and they do have a bunch of wind energy manufacturing, um, within the country. They are a country known for really great engineering, so it’s for sure not beyond them to, you know, step up. So yeah, I guess time will tell if this is a smart move from that point of view. I don’t think it’s actually the motivation behind this rule. I think it’s more of a, like, a cybersecurity, um, kind of perspective where you don’t want, you know, overseas companies having the ability to shut down your energy system, for example. Um, [00:05:00] so yeah, but it, it has the potential to have that other effect of, you know, like boosting the local industry or alternatively just slowing down the whole industry because they can’t get anything done. I guess that’s always that balance that you need to, need to look at when you’re looking at local content. So India is deciding who gets to control the data inside a turbine. Our next story is about something inside that same turbine nobody controls yet, the air moving across a blade that isn’t turning. A parked turbine might look like the safest thing on the site. Blades are locked, the rotor’s still, nothing turning, nothing generating. But a new study says that stillness is not safety. When the rotor is locked and the wind shifts, air can strike the trailing edge first and travel backwards across the blade. That is reverse flow, and in reverse flow, the models this industry uses to predict blade loads start to fall apart. Field data cited in the study suggests blades on turbines above 15 megawatts can go aerodynamically [00:06:00]unstable at winds as low as eight meters per second. That is nowhere near a storm. So this is actually already definitely a known issue, and I know that modern wind turbines don’t usually park with locked rotors, right, Yolanda?  Yolanda Padron: Yeah.  Rosemary Barnes: We, we saw that a locked rotor during installation was one of the causes of the Vineyard Wind fiasco, right? Where broken blade pieces washed up on the beach. So definitely something that’s known about.  Yolanda Padron: And it’s something that even onshore you have a, you have your system so that it tracks sort of where the wind is coming from. So even if it’s stopped, it won’t just be stopped at a specific angle, particularly in case the, the winds shift.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, and I’ve seen examples of blades failing when, um, there was a storm and there was power lost, so they weren’t able to yaw or pitch a turbine, and that also can cause… Like, any time that- Wind is going in a different direction than what the turbine desi- was designed for, you’ll get unpredictable stuff happening and often, [00:07:00] like, really bad loads. Like the harshest, um, conditions, loading conditions that a wind turbine blade has to withstand is not in operation. It’s if you’ve got just wind hitting like a bluff body, they call it, where a gust of wind just hits flat on the blade and tries to bend it. Like that is way, way stronger loading than, um, than anything it would see operationally. If you’re looking at, you know, like a really severe storm, like a one in 50 year kind of, um, wind speeds, and then if you have flow going on weird angles where it’s creating lift, then you can ratchet up those loads even more. So for sure a known issue. This study, it, it singled out turbines above 15 megawatts, which are huge. That’s a, you know, like a big offshore wind turbine. But I don’t think it’s limited to that. Like what would you think, Yolanda? Is this, is this like purely a big blades thing, or is this something that actually all wind turbines need to take into account? Yolanda Padron: Oh, this is definitely something that all wind turbines need to take into account. It’s something that we’ve seen a lot in the [00:08:00] US as well, um, onshore and s- wind f- uh, smaller wind farms and wind farms that have, you know, 200 plus, um, wind turbines on them, uh, the, the 1X or 2X turbines. Uh, this is also ver- a, a reason that it’s really important, right, to check your systems constantly, and I know that a lot of the, the owner/operators do that, um, in their regular maintenance checks. Um, but it’s, it’s, it’s an issue that, uh, if you don’t have the correct systems in place or if you just remotely reset things, uh, because you see an error that maybe you thought, “Oh, that, that must be just a glitch,” uh, then you start having issues like this that can cause catastrophic failures, not just on the blade but on the turbine itself if, if the blade ends up hitting the turbine, um, it, it ends up hitting the, the tower itself. Uh, and then [00:09:00] a similar issue, um, that can happen too is when you don’t have the correct systems in place for, for an emergency, and so the turbine can just overspin, and that also causes a lot of blade failures, uh, both onshore and, and offshore as well. But I think onshore it’s, it’s just the, the wind farms are so big that it’s It’s easy or, or easier to miss, like, one or two turbines, um, when you’re doing those checks. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. And I think another issue with keeping the rotors locked out, and one of the big reasons why they moved to pinwheeling as the, you know, um, turbine off kind of configuration, was with the, the bearings, right? Like, it’s not good for the bearings to be totally stationary. Um, so I think that it’s better to, yeah, pinwheel. It’s lower loads on the bearings.  Yolanda Padron: Something, um, similar to this as well, right, and, and I think Wind Power posted about it the [00:10:00] other day, um, about just, oh, it’s really common for, for sites to, to think of, of a financial solution to, to negative pricing being just fully stopping turbines that might not be producing at positive pricing. Um, and then, uh, that can also cause a lot of loading issues because you’re, you’re having a, a turbine at, at full capacity, and then it just stops.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, that’s true. The braking loads are, are one of the more extreme loads that turbines have to withstand also. I mean, hopefully if they’re curtailing, um, voluntarily, uh, they’re not doing an emergency brake kind of level. I hope that they’re being a bit more gentle on their turbines, but yeah, for sure, like, the easiest thing for a turbine to do is just operate normally its whole lifetime. That’s exactly what it was designed to do, and anything that deviates from that can reduce the t- life of the turbine, complicate things. So machines keep getting bigger, and the physics keep [00:11:00] getting harder. Meanwhile, the map keeps getting wider. Next, a Chinese manufacturer planting both turbines and spare parts across Southeast Asia. Stay with us Speaker: Are you overspending on lightning repairs? Most operators are because solving lightning damage is complicated. Weather Guard Lightning Tech helps operators reduce lightning damage. Our innovative StrikeTape lightning diverter protects over twenty thousand blades worldwide. Now, StrikeTape Ultra installs faster than ever. StrikeTape Ultra cures uptower in just fifteen minutes, even in cold weather. Visit weatherguardwind.com to schedule a call. Rosemary Barnes: China’s turbine makers are no longer just shipping machines. They are building the network that keeps those machines running. Envision Energy has secured its largest wind project in Vietnam, 200 megawatts with REE Energy, 25 [00:12:00] turbines, grid connection targeted for October 2027. It is also the company’s largest overseas nearshore project to date. And Batangas, Philippines, Envision has opened a distribution center holding major components and spare parts close to the projects that need them. Turbines first, then the parts network. Yelena, I’m just wondering if spare parts was a big headache for you when you worked in asset management, and do you think that this plan of, that Envision has is gonna be a successful one for Vietnam? Yolanda Padron: I think spare parts, having spare parts on site or near a site is always a good strategy. I know that sometimes it can get the, the accounting itself can get a little bit difficult because for at least, you know, in the US for tax purposes, you can’t really sell something from one project to another, so you, you have to be a little bit careful, um, as far as when you hold a part or you’re sending one part that might fit in multiple sites and where you’re technically buying that [00:13:00] from. Uh, but I think the spare parts that they’re having here I, I think it’s a, it’s a really good idea, right? Because oftentimes you might have a, a big, um, there might be a big queue for a particular component that fails years after, uh, it was produced, and then you– I mean, if you need it now and there’s a big queue now, then you need to wait until it can get to site, until it can be produced, until it’s your turn in line. Uh, and so just having those components on site or really close to the site I think is a really good idea.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, it’s really challenging. Like it’s, it, it’s easy to imagine how you could organize a spare parts network or, you know, just l- literally a bunch of warehouses holding spare parts for the kind of, you know, like one-off failures that happen routinely throughout a wind turbine’s life. But when you start to see a serial issue or if there’s just, you know, like statistically every now and then [00:14:00] you’ll get clusters of failures even if it’s not a serial issue, that’s when it starts to get really hard. So I know in Australia, and I’m sure it’s the case elsewhere, you kind of got to pair your spare parts inventory with the capability to repair and refurbish as well. Because sometimes it’s like, you know, you might do, like speaking of blades, which is my specialty, you might have a bill of, you know, maybe even a million dollars to do a really big repair on a blade, but that’s better than spending probably, honestly, the similar amount of money on a brand-new blade, but then that comes with a six-month or a 12-month, um, wait time. You know, like obviously you’re gonna save overall if you can get that turbine up faster. And we also see a lot of, um, in-country capabilities to refurbish, you know, all of the drivetrain components and, and everything like that, and I think that that is such an important complement. Like your spare parts strategy should never just be about having them physically sitting there, ’cause if you were [00:15:00] to have enough to cover any situation, then, you know, most of your components would go unused over the, the lifetime of the wind farm. And it’s not like they’re just swap in, swap out for any different wind turbine, right? Like they are usually quite turbine specific.  Yolanda Padron: I completely agree with the idea, especially with blades and how trif- tricky some of the new blades and their, their repair processes can be. It’s really important to have a plan and not necessarily just, “Okay, now I’m gonna throw this one out and bring in a new one, and always hold a new one,” because that’s really expensive. Um, and it’s also really, really important to, uh, that doesn’t matter what particular part it is, that whatever storage facility you’re using, that you’re, you make sure that the environmental factors impacting the spare parts are taken care of, right? So, um, I know I’ve seen spare parts for a battery site or spare parts for a solar site, uh, that just kind of end up degrading even more than the parts that were in [00:16:00] operations because no one was really looking at them. They were just outside in the elements, and then you just wasted millions and millions of dollars for really nothing. Um, something that you need to take to the landfill eventually or report.  Rosemary Barnes: Hopefully recycle it if it’s electronic waste.  Yolanda Padron: I completely agree that to, to be able to, to have any sort of replacement strategy, you, or any sort of spare parts strategy, you need to make sure that, that the replacement strategy is there and that the refurbishment strategy is there. If there’s anything that you can recycle in-house and use in-house, that’s a lot better than just landfilling anything or sending anything to be recycled elsewhere where it just piles and piles and piles up.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I think also it’s reassuring if you’re buying wind turbines from maybe a, a less well-known manufacturer or less well-known in your country, I think it is reassuring to have a, like just a stack of spare parts on site, because that will give you the confidence that if [00:17:00] and when things start to go wrong, you know, a few years into the wind farm’s operation, you are gonna have that capability. ‘Cause I think it is, like it’s a big leap to move away from the really, really well-known, uh, manufacturers into some of the less well-known ones and have the confidence that y- you know, you wouldn’t have any- anyone to ask what they’re like for service, uh, for example, and you might also not have confidence that they’re even gonna exist in, you know, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years’ time. So having the parts on site can give you that confidence. Although, as you say, if those parts aren’t actually functional when you go to use them, that can be worse than not having them in the first place because you thought that you were okay and then you find yourself scrambling. That’s not ideal at all. Yolanda Padron: Yeah, I completely agree. I did hear about someone who, um, had a, a blade that they They thought they, they didn’t really have the capabilities in-house to, to restore it, and so they sent it to be recycled, [00:18:00] and then later it was sold to them by their OEM, um, on site. And so I think that also speaks to the… And, and it was just because someone noticed the serial number was exactly the same and kind of noticed. It was, it was really honestly kind of a funny, funny thing in retrospect. But, uh, and it, it just speaks to the idea of you really need to understand if you’re holding spare parts and, and just in general, even if you don’t wanna hold spare parts. Um, the idea of being able to refurbish or have a plan to be able to refurbish the, the materials that you have on site is really, really, really important because it can save you so much money. I mean, the, I mean, the, for that case, just the, the transportation costs of hauling the blade off, of paying someone to recycle it, of paying for a new blade, um, and everything just to kind of be bamboozled in that way where you could’ve just repaired it on site is, is It’s almost a no-brainer, yeah. Rosemary Barnes: I gotta say, that’s like a real recycling win, right? Like, you can’t get [00:19:00] better than, than that. Uh, you know, you had a blade, you recycle it into a blade. It’s, you know, performing exactly the same function, better than shredding it and hiding it in a, you know, a footpath, a sidewalk, or something like that. Stay with China a moment longer, because the product strategy tells you as much as the project map. Mingyang Smart Energy has unveiled the Tianchi MCD 5 MW turbine at its factory in Guizhou. It’s the first machine in the company’s new medium-speed compact drive platform, a semi-direct drive that Mingyang says cuts component count by 60%. And it is built for sites nobody used to bother with: mountains, plateaus, places where the wind averages four and a half meters per second. Now, Yolanda, 5 MW is pretty big for an onshore turbine in locations. It sounds like, you know, these locations, aside from the, like, less than ideal wind resource, also sounds like places where it’s actually, you know, transport might be a bit of a constraint. I wonder what their strategy [00:20:00] is gonna be to get those large components and installation equipment in.  Yolanda Padron: Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s not gonna be the first site, I think, that we’ve seen that where they have to develop some sort of game-changing vessel or crane or something to be able to, to get things, uh, to the site. Uh, my, my first thought honestly was just kind of like, “Oh goodness, that might be a lightning nightmare depending on, on where they’re located.”  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, that’s true. Like we’ve seen in Japan, they have all their turbines on the ridges where the wind speeds are great, at least. Um, but they have been just absolutely destroyed by lightning, like really, really dealing with extreme situations. I think also, like these are low wind speed sites. Like what, what did they say? Four and a half meters per second average wind speeds? I mean, that’s like half what you would consider a good, a good site, right? And we know that the power in wind, it goes, like it increases with the cube of wind [00:21:00] speed. So, um, you know, like if you double the wind speed, you get eight times as much power. So it’s like all of the challenges associated with a high wind speed site in the mountains or, you know, somewhere tricky to get to you know, at least you’ve got eight times the power to make up for the effort of maintaining it. Uh, just it seems like, like a lot of effort to get to a low wind speed site, right? I think these turbines, the cut-in wind speed is gonna be two and a half meters per second, so you know, again, like you can reduce your, yeah, like the, the wind speed a- again by another factor of eight. It’s almost nothing at that wind speed. It really, yeah, I don’t know that you can make up for a low wind speed site by having a really low cut-in wind speed, right? Like, you’re still gonna end up with low power across the board.  Yolanda Padron: Yeah, and it’s, it’s strange too, I mean, we said it’s, it’s a mountainous region, right? And so, and the transportation [00:22:00] in itself, I mean, we talked about the idea of bringing them in is gonna be difficult. But I know that a lot of times we see a lot of blades that have issues down the line because of the transportation issues and because of the way that maybe they, they didn’t use the lifting points right, and there might be a lot more transportation issues or damages from transportation on the site if they come in and it’s a completely different terrain that they’re used to. Uh, and teams have to build in a completely different terrain to- that- than they’re used to, then that might also cause problems down the line. Not to mention the idea that I know sometimes in sites where there’s already roads, uh, it, it, because of the position of the turbines, because of the, the way that things are, are mapped out in development and construction, sometimes it’s a, a hassle for operations to, to get the correct cranes or trucks or everything in there to do any sort of maintenance. Uh, so [00:23:00] I can’t imagine in a place where it’s just really, really difficult to get to in general.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, and especially over the lifetime, you know, maintenance i- is gonna be such a challenge. So I think that it sounds like they’re aware of that because their emphasis with this new platform, dropping the component count by 60%, that’s a claim from Ming Yang that I haven’t seen the details of. It seems highly implausible but, um, yeah, I would wanna look into that a bit more to believe it. But they also say that their new bearings and gearbox features lift reliability by 10%, so yeah, I think that that is going to make their job a little bit easier, but yeah, I don’t know if it’s enough that would make me wanna invest in a wind farm with a, what was the number? Four and a half meters per second average wind speed. Seems marginal at best. So new machines for marginal sites built in China and priced to compete. Now let’s move [00:24:00] to Denmark, where the employment numbers show what that competition feels like from the other side. Back in a moment. Speaker 4: Delamination and bondline failures in blades are difficult problems to detect early. These hidden issues can cost you millions in repairs and lost energy production. CIC NDT are specialists to detect these critical flaws before they become expensive burdens. Their nondestructive test technology penetrates deep into blade materials to find voids and cracks traditional inspections completely miss. CIC NDT maps every critical defect, delivers actionable reports, and provides support to get your blades back in service. So visit cicndt.com because catching blade problems early will save you millions Rosemary Barnes: Numbers out of Denmark tell two stories at once. Green Power Denmark counted [00:25:00] just under 110,000 full-time jobs across the Danish energy sector in 2025. That is up 1,526 positions or 1.4%, slightly ahead of Danish employment overall. That is the good news. Inside the wind sector, employment fell to 32,700, a drop of roughly 500. Green Power Denmark blames international competition and unfavorable market conditions. Its chief economist calls the dip normal You know what, Yolanda? I think that if Denmark’s labor market is weak in the wind industry, there are many countries outside of Denmark that would wanna snap up that talent. I know that my own company, Pardalote, is included in those numbers of people that would really like to have Danish talent. I’m trying to s- hire someone currently that’s got wind turbine blade expertise, and I tell you what, that is not easy to do in Australia. So I would say if there are any Danes listening or watching who fancy a move to Australia, then please do get in touch [00:26:00]if you have some excellent wind turbine blade experience. Yolanda Padron: You guys would have a lovely, lovely boss. I’ve- I just gotta say that. The learnings that you have in Denmark and just the, the, the school- not just from the schooling, the, the onsite, I mean, it- it’s just historically Denmark’s been really, really great in, in wind. And there’s just so many bright minds, um, that d- I mean, if, if they can’t find a j- a job in Denmark, then I, I agree that there’s a lot of places in wind that if they’re, they’re okay with moving, they’ll, they’ll find a, a good spot that’ll receive them really happily. Rosemary Barnes: I know it is a bit of a, like, a cultural blocker. Danes more than other nationalities that I know are, are really, um, I don’t wanna say attached, it makes it sound like not quite the word I’m looking for, but they, they do really appreciate the region that they’re from and, you know, family is so important to Danes, so not the easiest thing [00:27:00] to just say, “Just move to the other side of the world.” But you know, I did it. It, it can be done and, uh, yeah, Australia is, has got very nice weather, especially at the moment. It’s, um, it’s gonna be… It’s been, like, in the high teens Celsius all this week, and this is, I’m in Canberra in still winter and, uh, yeah, like, on the weekend it’s gonna be 20 degrees. It’s, you know, normally 15 degrees is a really great one-off day in winter. It was my birthday this week and in Denmark there is a, a saying or a, you know, a belief that if you have good weather on your birthday, then that means that you must have been really good all year. And the weather was just, like, unprecedentedly good for my birthday, um, yeah, for a winter day. So obviously I was very, very good this year. Yolanda Padron: You’re a great person, and happy belated birthday.  Rosemary Barnes: Thank you. But it is something that I say every time we get another story about another Danish wind energy company that’s, you know, doing layoffs and, you know, I’m honestly surprised that it’s [00:28:00] only 500 fallen in wind energy. If you look at, like, even just the job losses at LM Wind Power alone, um, I think that it would be about that many, right? And so there are obviously some other companies um, growing to absorb some of the job losses, ’cause for sure we’ve covered more than 500 job losses just on the show. But I know I always feel really sad, um, not just for the people involved who y- you know, probably love wind energy and wanted to work in that field, but I feel sad that, you know, this was such a strength for Denmark, their, their wind industry, that they had been, you know, developing this expertise since the ’70s, honestly. Uh, really, really world leading and, uh, of course, like, globalization means that you can’t, like, stay siloed forever, and Denmark obviously also took advantage of that globalization to, you know, export. Wind industry was a huge export market for Denmark, and still is. Um, but I do, I, I just feel really bad at the companies that are losing, um, all of that, you know, institutional [00:29:00]knowledge and the really, really deep specialist knowledge. It’s, um, yeah. Uh, and they’ll go on to, you know, bring new skills to other industries, but it just makes me sad. As a wind energy lover and, um, you know, somebody who has a lot of friends that work in wind industry in Denmark, I do feel, feel sad. And there are some of my old colleagues who are amazing, like, literally the best engineer that I ever worked with, an electrical engineer, it, it was not easy for him to find a new job in wind. I’m actually not sure if he’s working in that industry now. And plenty of other, like, really, really talented engineers that have gone on to other, um, yeah, other different kinds of industries, and it just makes me a little bit sad.  Yolanda Padron: Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of people too that are com- And I agree, it’s sad. It’s really sad. But I, there are a lot of people too, some friends that, uh, just, you know, started doing consulting on their own, and it’s, it’s good to see that they’re still in wind, you know? Because they’re, they, they’re so smart and they have so much knowledge of so many years in the industry that they bring to the table, um, [00:30:00] that, I mean, it, it might even work out better for them, right? Because maybe now they’re not just wor- focusing on Denmark itself, and now they get to, to expand and do what they evidently love to do, uh, the, for clients around the world, which is really exciting.  Rosemary Barnes: Well, that wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy podcast, and my first as the primary host of the show, so let me know if you think I did a terrible job in the comments. Comments boost engagement, make me look better. So if today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn, and if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show. And don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. For Yolanda, and Matthew and Allen Hall in their absence, I’m Rosemary Barnes, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:31:00] podcast.

Send us Fan MailClinical psychologist and New York Times bestselling author Dr. Shefali joins Skin Anarchy to talk about conscious parenting: why emotional regulation starts with the parent, how mothers pass down beauty standards, and the blueprints for raising sons and daughters.Who is Dr. Shefali?A clinical psychologist and bestselling author who pioneered conscious parenting 16 years ago with her 2010 book The Conscious Parent, blending Western psychology with Eastern philosophy. "Children are undergoing the most acute mental health crisis of modern times, and parents are unknowingly messing it up."Why does emotional regulation start with the parent?Because the trigger is internal, not external. Dr. Shefali says children surface the exact feelings a parent was never allowed to feel in their own childhood. "It's not her who's unhinging me. I am unhinged." Real regulation means building an inner stability a delayed flight or a defiant toddler cannot knock off its axis.What kind of self awareness actually creates change?The kind that admits something must change. Knowing your favorite color is surface level; the harder work is accepting your own imperfection. "Most people don't want to change at that level... they want the other person in their life to change."How do mothers pass down beauty standards to daughters?Often unknowingly, by absorbing a narrow ideal themselves. Dr. Shefali traces it to what she calls "a white, skinny, rich female standard," which mothers internalize and hand down. Daughters absorb it whether or not a parent intends to, which is why she urges mothers to change the script first.How do you prepare a child for racism or comparison?By arming them early, before culture does the damage. She recommends teaching a child directly that people may judge their eyes, skin, or hair, then dismantling it with simple logic. "You begin to arm her... with an awareness that people are going to tell her, you don't look like the standard." She shares her own decades long work to undo an inherited belief that being Indian meant inferior.How should you raise a son?By honoring how boys are wired. Dr. Shefali describes boys as physical creatures who process through action, not words, and who need to feel purposeful. "If you want him to be regulated, let him move... give him a purpose." Unspent energy, she warns, can later erupt as aggression.What are the pillars of raising a conscious son?Seven, anchored by a few essentials: boys express physically, feel as deeply as girls, need purpose, need a male tribe, need guidance into healthy sexuality, and must be held accountable. "If boys learn to be accountable, they will grow up to be accountable men."Why do some cultures prefer sons?Partly biology, partly the lower cost placed on boys. Dr. Shefali notes the pressure many women face, especially in Indian culture, to produce a son. Wanting a boy to the exclusion of a girl, she says, is "a very rigid... primitive way of looking at life," since every seed still needs a female body to nurture it.How do you raise a daughter beyond her looks?By refusing to make appearance her identity. Dr. Shefali coupled her own identity to her looks after years of validation, and deliberately taught her daughter otherwise. "How you look is the least interesting part of you," she tells parents, pointing instead toward kindness, integrity, and hard work.Should we raise boys and girls exactly the same?She favors equity over identical treatment. Boys and girls are profoundly different in wiring, and denying that helps no one. "We should not want to ever be like a man. We should only want to be treated humanly." Equal in humanity, she argues, without pretending the differences do not exist.Listen to the full episode with Dr. Shefali on Skin Anarchy, available wherever you get your podcasts.Visit Dr. Shefali's website and pre-order her new books!Don't forget to subscribe to Skin Anarchy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred platform.Reach out to us through email with any questions.Sign up for our newsletter!Shop all our episodes and products mentioned through our ShopMy Shelf!Support the show

I was walking along the beach in Santa Cruz and two old dudes stopped to take a photo of me and my family. One of them said, "What an Indian summer." Haha, I had no idea what that meant. I Looked it up and it's that weird in-between period when summer is ending but fall hasn't really started yet. I got to thinking, that's kinda how life feels right now. This month I'm talking about building my own apps with AI, getting my hands dirty at AppSumo, growing TidyCal and SendFox again, raising two daughters, and trying to figure out how much work is actually enough. If you're building a business, experimenting with AI, or just figuring out what you want the rest of your year to look like, you'll like this one. In this conversation, you'll enjoy 3 BIG things: • Why building my own AI apps made me a better CEO • How to figure out what deserves your time between business and family • Why sometimes deciding what's already enough is a key to happiness. Enjoy these 3 things plus many nuggets along the way. I have also been sharing emails on my brutally honest advice on a variety of topics. People have been loving it. Sign up at noahkagan.com and join 350k other people who get juicy insights every month.   Links & resources mentioned AppSumo AppSumo Radar Rhino Voice, Noah's private, on-device AI dictation app Meeting Coach, Noah's real-time AI coaching app TidyCal, scheduling and paid bookings SendFox, email marketing Claude, the AI Noah used to help build and work through a lot of these projects Paperbell, Laura Roeder's coaching platform Indian Summer by Pedro the Lion, the song Noah mentions when explaining the episode title  

In 1976, American toy designer Jim Swearingen was working at Kenner, a mid-sized company in the American Midwest.When a script for a new film called Star Wars landed on his desk, Jim was intrigued. Larger toy companies had already passed on the chance to make the figures."It was difficult from the point of view that it was a movie, could be in and out of theater in weeks, maybe months," he said. "It was science fiction, and toy buyers at that time had been turned off to science fiction because they still had a lot of Star Trek on the shelf. "And it was opening in May, which is completely counter to the toy business. We sold toys from September to December."Jim tells Rowan Bridge how he persuaded his boss to take a chance on Star Wars, what it was like seeing the film for the first time, and about the race to get the toys into the shops.Witness History is a short BBC World Service podcast about history that takes you inside big moments from the past through first-hand testimony and archive. Each weekday, in around nine minutes, we revisit one moment that helped shape the world and hear it through the voice of someone who was there. Scientists, artists, campaigners, soldiers, leaders and everyday people tell their true stories.When you subscribe to Witness History, you'll be taken inside turning points in world affairs from West Africa's fight back against Boko Haram in 2015 to the behind-closed-doors talks that led to the US-Cuba “thaw” and the surprise announcement of restored relations. You'll discover what it was like to experience disasters and how people recovered from them, including the Tabasco floods in Mexico, Portugal's worst train disaster, and the huge clean-up after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. You'll explore culture and ideas too: Sweden's Expedition Robinson, often credited as the first modern reality TV game show; the friendship between The Beatles' George Harrison and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar; and the night a tiger attack brought Las Vegas superstars Siegfried and Roy's show to a sudden end. And if you're curious about inventions, we'll tell you how air fryers, BlackBerry, YouTube, Alexa, GPS, superglue, the shopping cart (shopping trolley) and bubble tea were created.If you're new to Witness History, the appeal is simple: real voices, one strong true story, and a fresh way to understand today through events from history – all in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of tea or a walk around the block. Join millions of BBC World Service podcast listeners around the globe and enjoy the insight, context and detail Witness History will bring you.(Photo: Children playing with Star Wars figures. Credit: Getty Images)

Last time we spoke about the beginning of the Battle of Hong kong. Japan's rise as a threat to British interests accelerated through the 1920s and intensified after invading China. Britain's response remained contradictory—diplomatically conciliatory yet militarily apprehensive. While Singapore and Malaya received substantial reinforcements, Hong Kong was acknowledged indefensible, yet the 1936 Defence Scheme attempted to fortify it as an island fortress. Governor Northcote urgently advocated evacuation, recognizing the futility of defense. London rejected this, fearing it would demoralize China and forfeit sovereignty claims. Reinforcement requests from commanders like Grasett fell on deaf ears until Grasett independently lobbied Canadian leaders. This persistence finally convinced Churchill to dispatch two additional battalions. On December 8, 1941, Japanese forces attacked across three fronts with overwhelming force. Within hours, the RAF was destroyed on the ground, demolitions proved ineffective, and British units rapidly retreated toward the Gin Drinkers Line, facing an enemy that outnumbered and outmaneuvered them from the opening moments.   #217 The Battle of Hong Kong Part 2: the Island Aflame Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. Around 1500 hours on 9 December, Colonel Doi of the 228th Regiment arrived at Needle Hill, just north of the Gin Drinkers Line, ahead of his main force. For two hours he studied the British defensive positions through binoculars, noting trenches and bunkers—and to his surprise, washing lines fluttering with white clothes. The sight spoke volumes about the 2 Royal Scots' lax discipline. Then fog descended, reducing visibility to barely twenty meters, and heavy rain obscured the landscape. Doi sensed a fleeting advantage but lost radio contact with his battalions. Worse still, the Shing Mun Redoubt lay outside his regimental boundary, making an unauthorized attack a serious breach of protocol. When his units finally arrived, supporting artillery remained unavailable, held up by demolished roads. Doi chose to attack anyway. Doi ordered the 2nd Battalion to scout the eastern approach while the 3rd Battalion spearheaded the main assault. Major Nishiyana commanded the 3rd, sending Lieutenant Wakabayashi and Kasugai with 150 volunteers to lead. The Shing Mun Redoubt itself comprised five concrete pillboxes and an artillery observation post, connected by underground tunnels named after London landmarks—Piccadilly, Haymarket, and others. The whole complex sat on small rises above Jubilee Dam, then the British Empire's tallest. Defending the redoubt was A Company, 2 Royal Scots, under Captain Jones—just three officers and 39 men. One platoon of 25 soldiers under 2nd Lieutenant Thompson held the forward positions. Against this stood 150 Japanese attackers, with another 1,500 troops in reserve. Battalion orders forbade using the concrete works as fighting positions; they were meant for the Vickers machine-gun team and artillery protection. No mines could spare the redoubt's perimeter. On the night of the 9th, roughly half the defenders sheltered in the observation post while the remainder manned pillboxes 401b and 402. At 2000 hours, Thompson led a nine-man patrol northward to check Needle Hill and Shing Mun Valley. Despite two and a half hours in the field, the patrol returned at 2220 hours without detecting the Japanese force massing just 500 meters away. By that time, Lieutenant Kasugai's assault group had crossed Jubilee Dam undetected, bypassed unmanned Post X, and assembled below Pillbox 401b. At 2200 hours, Japanese sappers cut through two lines of wire. At 2300—H-Hour—Lance Corporal Laird heard movement in the bushes and opened fire. The Japanese answered with grenades and rushed the pillbox lines. One team entered the tunnel system; another hurled grenades through the air vents. Corporal Campbell swung his Vickers toward Pillbox 401, catching Japanese headquarters personnel in the open. Sergeant Robb mustered a counter-attack force of thirteen men. Five fell as casualties—Laird, Basnett, Coyle, Casey, and Jardine. Casey was killed; only Jardine escaped. The alert triggered gunfire from the observation post's defenders, and Forward Observer Wilcox called down 4.5-inch and 6-inch artillery fire. Without strong reinforcement and leadership, four Royal Scots and an Indian sentry abandoned the northern positions and withdrew to the observation post. Captain Jones received orders from Brigade to counter-attack, but delegated the task to Thompson. As Thompson attempted to leave the observation post, he found the gate locked from outside. This calamity had a backstory: just before the attack, Thompson had admitted a civilian at the request of Force 163 (SOE's sabotage unit in Singapore). Private Wylie had taken the observation post key from Lance Naik Kishan Singh and, upon exit, locked the gate behind him. The three officers were now literally locked out of the battle. Second Lieutenant Mochizuki and his platoon infiltrated through open trenches and began attacking the observation post from above, attempting to breach the hatches. The defenders held for three hours before Japanese sappers forced explosives down the air vents. At 0230 hours, the blast killed two Indian signallers inside. Thompson sustained a severe eye wound from grenade shrapnel; Jones and Warrant Officer Mead were both wounded. The remaining fifteen defenders surrendered; eleven became casualties. Meanwhile, a Rajput patrol engaging Japanese forces in the river valley managed to drive them back toward the redoubt. One final pillbox endured for another eleven hours before suffering the same sapper treatment. By 0400 hours on 10 December, the entire redoubt was lost. For just two killed, the Japanese had achieved a decisive victory—the breakthrough that would shift the entire campaign's trajectory. By dawn, a Japanese flag flew triumphantly from Point 255.   Major-General Maltby's assessment was stark: "This was calamitous, for Shing Mun was the key to the whole of the left position." Yet the Japanese perspective differed sharply. Having achieved a breakthrough, Colonel Doi received astonishing orders to withdraw—his success had transgressed into the 230th Regiment's sector and violated the meticulously prepared war plan. Doi refused. After heated confrontation with Major-General Ito and Lieutenant-General Sakai, his insubordination was later censured, though a divisional staff officer, Oyadomani, bore the scapegoat's burden of rebuke for failing to restrain Doi's initiative. With Shing Mun secured, Doi methodically fed reinforcements into the position. Throughout December 10th, the Japanese remained uncertain of their advantage and adopted a cautious strategy, probing British lines to exploit the evident disorder. Brigadier Wallis ordered the Royal Scots to mount an immediate dawn counterattack supported by the Rajputs and artillery. Lieutenant-Colonel White demurred; his battalion lacked any reasonable prospect of success. The resulting counterattack proved half-hearted at best. At first light on December 11th, the Japanese pressed Golden Hill forcefully, only to be repulsed by Captain Newton's Rajputs and gunfire from HMS Cicala. White positioned D Company in shallow shell scrapes and rusted wire—inadequate defenses against Japanese assault. Captain Pinkerton led a desperate bayonet charge that morning, temporarily clearing the Japanese and enabling the evacuation of wounded. Yet B, C, and D Companies absorbed devastating losses; Captains Rose and Richardson fell commanding their positions. With the Royal Scots collapsing, X Company of the Winnipeg Grenadiers and armored support rushed westward to seal the widening gap along Castle Peak Road. Meanwhile, Maltby grappled with alarming reports: Japanese landings on Lantau Island southwest of Hong Kong. Heavy artillery drove them back. A second probe at Aberdeen, where Special Naval Landing Forces approached within 300 yards of the naval base, was repelled by Canadian machine-gun fire. In hindsight, these were mere feints—never intended as the primary thrust. The stratagem succeeded. Maltby retained his island reserves—the Middlesex and two Canadian battalions—precisely where they would be needed. Had Wallis executed a forceful counterattack on December 10th with the Royal Scots and brigade reserves, the Rajputs might have retaken Shing Mun while the Japanese remained disorganized. Instead, Colonel Doi faced a furious Sakai, who had flown down from 38th Division headquarters at Taipo for what amounted to a pre-court-martial examination. The moment passed. After only 48 hours of combat, Maltby concluded the mainland was indefensible. The three battalions would withdraw intact to Hong Kong Island to assume their fortress defense roles. The naval commodore objected—demolitions, supply transfers, and troop ferrying required more time. The evacuation order was deferred 24 hours until noon on December 11th. At that hour, the decision was finalized: the mainland would be abandoned under cover of darkness. Further demolitions followed—the China Light and Power Station, the cement works on Tsing Yi Island, the docks. Yet Brigadier Wallis believed this merely a precautionary measure; he anticipated holding the mainland for at least another week. The withdrawal avoided Kowloon's congested streets, where street fighting and fifth columnists might have entrapped the British—a calculation that proved prescient, as an IJA advance column of 350 men from the 3/230th infiltrated Kowloon on the morning of December 12th to cut off the retreating garrison. The Royal Scots and Canadians retired south to Shamshuipo Barracks and Jordan Road Pier in western Kowloon; the Rajputs and supporting gunners withdrew eastward to Ma Lau Tong, which anchored the fortified Devil's Peak Peninsula. Maltby intended to hold this commanding position permanently—it was easily supplied across the narrow Lyemun Strait. The evacuation proceeded largely as planned. The Canadians and Royal Scots embarked on the afternoon and evening of December 11th under Punjabi covering fire. The Punjabis faced a harder journey—a moonlit scramble along steep Kowloon hills laden with supplies but critically short of mules. One group lost its way at a crucial junction, splitting into two columns. One proceeded toward Devil's Peak as planned; Battalion Headquarters descended into Kai Tak Airport, threaded through Kowloon City, and was evacuated by Star Ferry at Tsim Sha Tsui, fighting until the final moment as the last man boarded. The Rajputs' commander, unable to reach his Punjabi counterpart, abandoned Ma Lau Tong for the closer Hai Wan line near Devil's Peak. By 0400 hours on December 12th, the Punjabis and one Rajput company, accompanied by the gunners of the 25th Medium Battery, crossed Lyemun Strait to Hong Kong Island. Morning evacuations continued with minimal Japanese interference—a surprising restraint. Naval support proved crucial. The withdrawal completed by the morning of December 13th, though 170 mules were lost to the desertion of Chinese laborers—a deprivation that would haunt the subsequent campaign. During this passage, the IJN attempted shore bombardment. The Japanese cruiser and supporting vessels found themselves outranged by the defenders' 9.2-inch guns. The damage inflicted proved sufficient to discourage future naval adventures; for the remainder of the battle, the IJN maintained a cautious distance and played only a peripheral role. The speed and execution of the withdrawal apparently caught the Japanese unprepared. Their most probable expectation had been a full-scale assault on Devil's Peak accompanied by heavy bombardment—a day earlier, an assault without artillery preparation had been driven back with severe losses. The British appeared stronger than anticipated. The defense of the mainland had lasted only five days. With the mainland secured, the Japanese pivoted toward Hong Kong Island. The first move was diplomatic rather than military. At 0900 hours on December 13th, a small boat bearing a white flag crossed the harbor. It carried Colonel Toda, Lieutenant Mizuno, Mr. Othsu Dak, and two European women—the prominent and heavily pregnant Mrs. Macdonald and Mrs. C. R. Lee, wife of the Governor's secretary, accompanied by her two dachshunds. The surrender terms were flatly rejected. Major Boxer delivered the written refusal personally. Mrs. Macdonald remained in Hong Kong to give birth; Mrs. Lee and her dogs returned to Kowloon. The Japanese commenced systematic shelling of selected targets. On December 13th, a 9.2-inch gun on Mt. Davis was silenced; Belcher's Fort sustained damage. The following day, a 3-inch mount on Mt. Davis was hit, killing Chinese gunners and triggering morale collapse; some deserted. On December 15th, the barrage shifted to the northern shoreline, deliberately targeting pillboxes. At 2100 hours that night, approximately three Japanese companies attempted crossing the harbor in rubber rafts toward Pakshawan but were driven off by machine-gun fire. Fifth columnists intensified their operations—signaling with mirrors, sniping from concealed positions, spreading propaganda to encourage Chinese desertion. Their impact might have been catastrophic had not Rear-Admiral Chan and Colonel Yee, armed with tommy guns and grenades, systematically eliminated many of these saboteurs. By December 16th, half the pillboxes between the racecourse and Lyemun Strait lay destroyed. The intended crossing site was unmistakable. On December 17th, the Japanese dispatched a second peace mission—Colonel Toda's team now accompanied by Mrs. Lee with her dachshunds and a pregnant Russian woman. Again, the overtures were rebuffed. On December 18th, the bombardment reached new intensity. Oil storage tanks ignited, sending dense black smoke cascading across the northeast corner of the island—perfect concealment for what was to come. All signs pointed to imminent assault.  I want to note something here, you sometimes hear about how race played a role in the Pacific War and indeed it did. Racist attitudes were found on both the western and Japanese side of the war. There is a fantastic book dedicated to this by the way called, War without Mercy by John Dower, highly recommend it. What is interesting is how these racial attitudes actually affected decision making during the war. Take General Sakai's night amphibious assault for example. Western soldiers such as the Canadians in Hong Kong reported they were told by their commanders that quote "Don't worry about the Japanese, they can't see at night, they all wear glasses" another Canadian soldier wrote in a diary "They don't see well, especially at night we knew this as a matter of fact." Indeed the week before the outbreak of the battle of Hong Kong, Canadian officers attending a briefing by a British officer were informed that "Japan's aircraft were mostly obsolete, its air force had little practice in night flying, and its pilots were myopic and thus unable to carry out dive-bombing attacks". You might be asking yourself, why did they think the Japanese were myopic? The scientific explanation of the day was this "That the Japanese suffered widespread inner-ear damage. What caused this? Japanese motherhood, the practice of strapping babies to their mothers backs, it was explained caused their heads to bounce about, like when they harvested rice and permanently impaired their sense of balance". I particularly love this quote, one of my professors dedicated an entire class to the bizarre racial attitudes before and after the pacific war. There was a belief the Japanese could not see well at night, many western air force commanders actually believed there were times of day like at dawn or dusk where Japanese pilots would not operate because of this hindrance. American military commentator Fletcher Pratt in 1939 analyzed Japan's military strengths and explained it had four major weaknesses. The first was scarcity of resources such as iron, and steel. The second was that the Japanese "can neither make good airplanes nor fly them well" as a result of " the Japanese as a race have defects of the tubes of the inner ear, just as they are generally myopic. This gives them a defective sense of balance, the one physical sense in which an aviator is not permitted to be deficient.". The third was that the Japanese were short-tempered and were inclined to waste men unnecessarily when operations did not go well. The fourth was that the Japanese would simply never date to provoke a war with the US. Again Mr Pratt was an American military commentator whose information came from multiple accounts given by high ranking military officials! The British military maintained that the Japanese avoided night operations on land because they were simply incapable of caring them out well, while they avoided nighttime aerial attacks, as well as dive-bombing for the same reasons Pratt said quote "their pilots were poor and their aircraft inferior.". So take this all to mind when I talk about how certain ranking officers go about making their decisions. By the evening of 14 December, evacuated mainland units had regrouped on Hong Kong Island. The defensive structure was restructured into two brigades: Brigadier Wallis commanded the East Brigade from Taitam Gap, while Brigadier Lawson headed the West Brigade from Wongneichong Gap. This reorganization placed the 5/7 Rajputs across the north-east perimeter, defending over 3,500 metres of coastline with B Company positioned on the hills behind Taikoo Docks. The Royal Rifles of Canada held the north-east corner from Stanley to points south, with reserve positions at Lyemun. Two HKVDC companies supported from Taitam Valley and Pottinger Gap, while the veteran Hughsiliers manned the North Point power station. British and Canadian artillery provided fire support across the northern approaches. The West Brigade held the north-western and south-western shores. The 2/14 Punjab stretched from Causeway Bay to Belcher's Point, protecting Government House and General Maltby's headquarters, with battalion headquarters at Mid-Level. The Winnipeg Grenadiers covered the south-west from Wanchai Gap, with one company detached to the brigade headquarters at Wongneichong Gap. The 2 Royal Scots, severely mauled at Shing Mun, were held in reserve with fresh replacements from the HKVDC. The Middlesex Regiment's companies were dispersed along 72 pillboxes encircling the entire shoreline, while an improvised Z Company of clerks, musicians and cooks defended battalion headquarters at Leighton Hill. Supporting artillery included 9.2-inch and 6-inch guns on Mt Davis and 4.7-inch guns at Belcher's Point. As darkness fell on 17 December, Japanese reconnaissance swimmers reached Taikoo, confirming the crossing site despite detection. Reinforcements arrived: 18 additional heavy bombers from Guangzhou and 26 fighters from Taiwan joined the aerial assault. The crescendo of artillery fire on the 18th, combined with masses of small craft gathering across the harbour, signalled the imminent invasion. Japanese divisional headquarters shifted to Ma Tau Wei near Kai Tak Airport; the 23rd Army moved to Taipo. The invasion force disposed itself with the right flank embarking from east and west of Kai Tak, the left from Devil's Hill area. At 1800 hours, the invasion order was issued; by 1930 hours Sakai himself arrived in Kowloon to oversee the crossing. At precisely 2000 hours, the 2/228th Regiment silently paddled their collapsible craft toward Taikoo Docks and the nearby sugar factory as artillery support commenced. Colonel Doi embarked with 80 headquarters personnel aboard a large barge, leading the second wave. The conditions favoured the invaders—a moonless night, sporadic showers, and thick black smoke from burning oil tanks obscured their movement. They reached the midpoint undetected before searchlights and machine-gun fire scattered the small boats, separating commanders from their units. Despite this chaos, the assault pressed forward. At 2140 hours the artillery shifted to deeper targets; at 2145 hours the first wave of 3/230th landed at North Point, followed minutes later by 2/228th and then 2/229th. Three red flares signalled a successful landing. All six Japanese battalions were ashore by midnight, though wire fencing delayed their advance and Bren carriers added to the confusion on the beach. General Sano arrived at Taikoo one hour later. The 5/7 Rajputs bore the initial brunt of the assault. Despite days of preliminary shelling, the Rajputs mounted a stubborn defence; Japanese casualties mounted rapidly. The anti-tank company suffered so grievously that only a single gun remained operational. The Japanese plan was tactical rather than frontal—bypass isolated positions for later elimination and push rapidly toward high ground. Overwhelmed by numerical superiority and losing most of their officers, Rajput resistance gradually crumbled. Contradicting all evidence, Maltby remained convinced the main Japanese assault would strike directly at Victoria from Kowloon. He therefore withheld the counter-attack, instead dispatching a platoon of Middlesex troops, Royal Marines, naval personnel, and the Rajputs' reserve company—supported by artillery—to establish a defensive line blocking the Japanese advance toward Central District. Three HKVDC armoured cars were sent to protect East Brigade headquarters; two more reinforced the Middlesex battalion headquarters. It was manifestly inadequate against six Japanese battalions. In post-war dispatches, Maltby conceded his grave miscalculation: he believed he faced at most two battalions, not a full division. As the 3/230th broke through D Company of the 5/7 Rajputs, the 2/230th came ashore nearby and wheeled westward toward Victoria. Their advance halted abruptly at the North Point power station, held by an extraordinary force: four officers and 36 men of the HKVDC Hughsiliers Platoon—alongside 39 civilian volunteers from China Light & Power and Hong Kong Electric, including the station manager Vincent Sorby—plus eight Free French soldiers commanded by Captain Jacques Egal, a Shanghai businessman turned soldier. Without exception, these men were World War I veterans, many aged 55 or older. Some had fought in the Boer War. Major J. J. Patterson, the Hughsiliers' commander, had served with Allenby's Camel Corps and been mentioned in dispatches six times; he was chairman of Jardine Matheson and a legislative councillor. Private Sir Edward Des Voeux, 8th Baronet, a millionaire bullion trader and secretary of the Hong Kong Club, had enlisted as a private when deemed too old for mobilization. Private T. A. Pearce, 67 years old, was chairman of J. D. Hutchison & Company and secretary of the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Captain Bruch, the second-in-command, aged 60, chaired a major trading house. The list extended through Hong Kong's business elite, each choosing to fight rather than flee. These old men held an entire regiment at bay. When Patterson called for aid, Maltby dispatched an HKVDC armoured car with a platoon from Z Company, 1 Middlesex, but the reinforcement was ambushed before reaching the station; only nine soldiers, including 2nd Lieutenant Caruthers, broke through. Unable to dislodge the defenders by assault, the Japanese resorted to bombardment. By 0145 hours on 19 December, surrounded and ammunition exhausted, the defenders withdrew to King's Road behind a disabled bus. The Japanese deployed three machine guns, killing or mortally wounding all but Private Geoghan. A Japanese officer, believing all dead, cautiously approached—only to have Geoghan, despite his wounds, surge from cover and charge. He killed the officer and four soldiers before collapsing from wounds. Somehow Geoghan survived. Those old men—civilians and reservists, businessmen and veterans—held the entire western Japanese advance for 18 hours, buying Maltby precious time to withdraw forces and establish a new defensive line. Their stand at North Point became one of the campaign's most improbable acts of defiance. As the 2/229th Regiment advanced southward toward Mt Parker, the 3/229th landed at Aldrich Bay and turned eastward toward Lyemun, where they seized an HKVDC 6-inch gun. Major Bishop of the Royal Rifles of Canada, unaware of the landings, dispatched 15 Platoon under Lieutenant Scott to check on A Company of the Rajputs. Unexpectedly, they encountered armed men in civilian clothes at Lyemun's gate—the first indication of the Japanese presence on the island. Yet senior officers dismissed initial reports of landings and lost positions as exaggerated, a critical miscalculation that proved catastrophic. At Lyemun Fort, the 5th Anti-aircraft Battery of the HKVDC was caught completely unaware and surrendered after minimal resistance. The Japanese then committed one of many atrocities that would characterize the battle, bayoneting 29 survivors. Alerted by 15 Platoon's report, Bishop attempted a counter-attack with two platoons to retake the fort, but the defenders could not scale the six-meter wall and withdrew with nine men killed. As the 2/229th pressed southward toward Mt Parker, they overran the Salesian Mission, which had been converted into an Advance Dressing Station. No. 8 Company of the 2/229th systematized a massacre of medical personnel and the wounded—an atrocity that would later become pivotal evidence at Colonel Tanaka's war crimes trial. Yet amid the chaos, several medical staff and wounded survived to testify: Gunners Y. K. Chan and Martin H. C. Tso of the 5th Battery, Captain Osler Thomas of the HKVDC, Captain Martin Banfill of the Royal Canadian Medical Corps, and Corporal Norman Leath of the Royal Army Medical Corps. C Company of the Royal Rifles, reinforced with captured Japanese machine guns abandoned by fleeing Rajputs, inflicted heavy casualties on the attackers, with one Japanese company suffering over 65 percent losses. Yet overwhelmed by superior numbers and suffering nearly two platoons worth of casualties themselves, the Canadians were forced to withdraw, leaving only a reinforcement platoon under Lieutenant Blaver on Mt Parker. When Captain Clerke arrived at dawn with 16 Platoon to reinforce the position, he found over 100 Japanese already entrenched. With no artillery support and only two platoons available, Clerke had no choice but to withdraw, abandoning Mt Parker to the enemy. By dawn on the 19th, the East Brigade faced catastrophe. Infantry strength had been halved, and losses of artillery were equally devastating. A series of misunderstandings and misinterpreted orders led coastal gun crews at Capes D'Aguilar and Collinson to destroy their own guns in confusion or lose them to the advancing Japanese. Of the entire artillery complement, only one 18-pounder and two 3.7-inch field guns remained operational. Wongneichong—literally "yellow muddy creek" in Chinese—occupies the center of Hong Kong Island, a valley separating the eastern hills (Mt Parker, Mt Butler, Jardine's Lookout) from the western massif (Mt Nicholson, Mt Cameron, Victoria Peak). This narrow gap formed the critical artery linking northern and southern Hong Kong, making Brigadier Lawson's decision to place West Brigade Headquarters there strategically sound yet tactically vulnerable. Recognizing the exposed position after the landings, Major Lyndon had located an alternative site south of Mt Nicholson, scheduled to open the following day. In response to the Japanese landings, Lawson dispatched three platoons of Winnipeg Grenadiers to block the advance. Lieutenant C. D. French took 18 Platoon to Mt Butler, Lieutenant G. A. Birkett's 17 Platoon moved to Jardine's Lookout, and Lieutenant L. B. Corrigan's platoon took the north-west approach to the Gap. As on Mt Parker, both French and Birkett were killed almost immediately, their small forces overwhelmed by battalion-strength enemy forces with artillery support. By morning on the 19th, two battalions each of the 230th and 228th Regiments were pushing for the high ground. The 2/230th rapidly occupied Jardine's Lookout while the 3/230th moved to Mt Nicholson and the 2/228th advanced toward the Gap itself. No. 3 Company of the HKVDC under Major E. Stewart held pillboxes around Jardine's Lookout, while No. 1 Company under Captain Penn defended Taitam Valley with forward positions at Quarry Gap. The pillboxes, despite heavy bombardment, held longer than anticipated—some for as long as 24 hours. Stewart maintained his company headquarters until the 22nd, four days of continuous fighting without adequate ammunition, food, or water. No. 3 Company suffered 80 percent casualties and ceased to exist as a cohesive unit. Realizing that the enemy had penetrated to Mt Butler, Brigadier Lawson decided counter-attack was essential. Major A. B. Gresham of A Company, Winnipeg Grenadiers, was ordered to retake Mt Butler and clear Jardine's Lookout. The Canadians initially succeeded, with Warrant Officer 2 J. R. Osborne leading a bayonet charge, but a strong counter-attack by three Japanese companies drove them back by 2200 hours. The Canadians held firm until 1500 hours, when Gresham attempted surrender despite waving a white flag—the Japanese shot him regardless. In the chaos that followed, a Canadian killed a Japanese officer in response, triggering a grenade barrage. Warrant Officer Osborne caught the grenades and hurled them back as fast as they came, but one landed in an impossible position. Without hesitation, Osborne threw himself on the grenade to save his comrades. This act of supreme self-sacrifice earned him a Victoria Cross—the first Canadian VC of World War II. At dawn on the 19th, Maltby dispatched A Company of the 2 Royal Scots under Captain K. J. Campbell to reinforce the Gap, but they lost all their officers with only 15 men reaching Lawson's headquarters. A group of sailors under Commander A. L. Pears came from the south, but were ambushed en route; only a few reached the Postbridge—a house just south of the Gap—which became an isolated strongpoint. The 3/230th captured the police station perched on a mound at the southern point of the Gap, then swept eastward to seize the anti-aircraft guns of 7th Battery (barely 250 meters from brigade headquarters) and continued uphill toward Taitam Hill to capture additional 6-inch and 3.7-inch guns. Maltby's response was to call down final protective fire from the HKSRA in Happy Valley, inflicting massive casualties on the 3/230th. At 1000 hours on the 19th, Lawson reported that his headquarters was surrounded and he was about to "go outside and shoot it out." Captain H. A. Bush provided covering fire as Lawson and his entire staff, including Middlesex signallers, were cut down by machine-gun fire across the Gap. Lawson's body was discovered two days later halfway up the hill behind his headquarters, dead from a gunshot wound to the thigh. Lieutenant Kerfoot of the 2/14 Punjab with his three Bren carriers arrived minutes too late to save him. IJA who saw the fight made a note stating "he died heroically". At 1330 hours on the 19th, Maltby issued "Operation Order No. 6" calling for a massive counter-attack to commence 90 minutes later. The plan was ambitious: A and D Companies of the 2/14 Punjab were to attack east from Victoria to North Point to relieve the Hughsiliers, while HQ Company of the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the 2 Royal Scots were to attack the Gap and Jardine's Lookout. Eight field guns were promised but never materialized. There was no reconnaissance, no proper orders, and minimal coordination. The Canadians were to rendezvous with the 2 Royal Scots at Middle Gap at 1530 hours, but the Scots were late; the Canadians advanced without them. Captain Pinkerton of D Company, 2 Royal Scots, was ordered at the last minute to attack up Wongneichong Gap Road—the same route A Company had taken only seven hours earlier and been decimated—because it was reported as "lightly held." Captain A. M. S. Slater-Brown led the advance with three Bren carriers and attached engineers, followed by D Company of the Winnipeg Grenadiers. Just as the carriers reached the burnt-out trucks of A Company, they too were ambushed. Mortars and machine-gun fire rained down from Jardine's Lookout, where the Japanese occupied captured HKVDC pillboxes. Slater-Brown and 2nd Lieutenant Bell, the battalion intelligence officer, were killed instantly. The Royal Scots waited in the roadside ditches until 0200 hours before launching an attack on the police station, reaching the steps before Pinkerton was severely wounded. Captain Ford's composite company attack at 0300 hours also failed. Simultaneously, C Company under Lieutenant F. L. Stanier attacked Jardine's Lookout—also unsuccessfully. This series of piecemeal assaults cost the Royal Scots eight officers and 68 soldiers. Growing increasingly desperate, Maltby ordered Major Hodkinson, Officer Commanding HQ Company of the Winnipeg Grenadiers, to attack the Gap and proceed to Mt Parker. Requesting reinforcements from A Company and the Royal Scots, Hodkinson launched his assault with covering fire from Lieutenant Corrigan on Mt Nicholson. The Grenadiers managed to reach Mt Nicholson with only five unwounded men, though Corrigan's group advanced to within 300 meters of the Gap road. Then came an unexpected stroke of fortune: while skirting Mt Nicholson, Hodkinson's group stumbled upon approximately 500 Japanese—probably from the 3/230th—eating lunch without posting sentries. The Winnipeg Grenadiers unleashed devastating fire, inflicting heavy casualties. By 1745 hours, Hodkinson's force was only 100 meters from Repulse Bay Road. With four men and a 2-inch mortar, Hodkinson worked his way to the abandoned brigade headquarters, bringing 20 walking wounded with him. He established a foothold at the Gap, receiving orders to attack the police station at 2200 hours. Two HKVDC armoured cars with Vickers machine guns came in support, but accurate enemy fire disabled both. Like Pinkerton before him, Hodkinson reached near his objective before being severely wounded. For this action of determination and courage, Hodkinson was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. By the morning of the 20th, the Japanese had consolidated control of the Gap, but elements of D Company, Winnipeg Grenadiers, still held various pillboxes north of the position. Initially, 17 and 18 Platoons occupied forward positions with Company Headquarters and 16 Platoon in reserve, positioned across Wongneichong Road almost directly opposite brigade headquarters. Forward positions were rapidly overrun and cut off from the company. They fought without officers until withdrawal to battalion headquarters became necessary. With Captain A. S. Bowman killed and Captain R. W. Philips wounded, command fell to Lieutenant T. A. Blackwood. An attempt by B Company to relieve D Company on the evening of the 20th failed catastrophically, killing all officers and 29 men. With fewer than 50 men remaining—all wounded—Lieutenant Blackwood continued inflicting heavy casualties on the Japanese until 22 December, when exhaustion and the complete absence of ammunition, food, and water forced surrender. D Company killed over 200 Japanese soldiers. Post-war Japanese reports refused to believe that a single company had held the Gap for so long. For their stubborn defense, Philips and Blackwood were awarded the Military Cross, and three enlisted men received the Military Medal. The battle of Wongneichong Gap was characterized by fragmented planning and poor coordination. On the night of the 19th-20th, no fewer than three separate companies attacked the police station, with another company assaulting Jardine's Lookout—all within five hours, all independently organized by local commanders. Had these disparate actions been coordinated into a single simultaneous assault, fortress headquarters' objectives might well have been achieved. By the end of the 20th, the British had lost the vital ground of Wongneichong, though Postbridge House remained as an isolated holdout. For the Japanese, Wongneichong became the single costliest engagement since the invasion began, with over 800 casualties and the regimental commander of the 3/230th seriously wounded. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.   Japanese landings on 18-19 December overwhelmed the East Brigade. Brigadier Lawson died defending the vital Gap. Desperate, uncoordinated counter-attacks by British and Canadian troops failed to dislodge the enemy. D Company Winnipeg Grenadiers held the position for four days against overwhelming odds before surrendering. The Japanese suffered 800 casualties but secured this critical strategic ground.

The sacred grove — a patch of forest set apart by custom and belief — appears in nearly every culture that has ever lived beside trees. Join host Shelby Bundy as she discusses what made a grove holy in Celtic, Indian, and Greco-Roman traditions, how those spaces functioned as sites of ritual and protection, and what happened to the reverence when the groves were cleared. 

A joke is never just a joke—not even in the eighteenth century. In American Laughter, American Fury: Humor and the Making of a White Man's Democracy, 1750–1850 (JHU Press, 2025) Eran A. Zelnik offers a cultural history of early America that shows how humor among white men served to define and construct not only whiteness and masculinity but also American political culture and democracy more generally. Zelnik traces the emerging bonds of affinity that white male settlers in North America cultivated through their shared, transformative experience of mirth. This humor—a category that includes not only jokes but also play, riot, revelry, and mimicry—shaped the democratic and anti-elitist sensibilities of Americans. It also defined the borders of who could participate in politics, notably excluding those who were not white men. While this anti-authoritarian humor transformed the early United States into a country that abhorred elitism and class hierarchies, ultimately the story is one of democratization gone awry: this same humor allowed white men to draw the borders of the new nation exclusively around themselves. Zelnik analyzes several distinct forms of humor to make his case: tall tales, "Indian play," Black dialect, riot and revelry, revolutionary protests, and blackface minstrelsy. This provocative study seeks to understand the vexing, contradictory interplay among humor, democracy, and violence at the heart of American history and culture that continues today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

#cuttheclutter Nepal's devastating floods have triggered a massive search-and-rescue operation. In this episode, we focus on the area where the largest destruction has taken place, the hydroelectric tunnels along the Trishuli River system, where hundreds of workers are believed to be trapped. Our reporter Akanksha Mishra, reporting from Kathmandu, also talks about the search for missing people, the status of Indian pilgrims & workers, the challenges faced by rescue teams & and the risks of building critical infrastructure in one of the world's most environmentally sensitive regions. Watch episode 1891 of #CutTheClutter with Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To Read Soumya Pillai story: https://theprint.in/feature/nepal-rasuwa-floods-disaster-prone-district/3029810/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To Read Akanksha Mishra stories: https://theprint.in/environment/88-indian-workers-rescued-by-nepal-army-11-member-indian-team-arrives-to-help/3028504/ https://theprint.in/feature/rescued-mothers-asking-about-their-children-nepal-red-cross-chief/3028918/?amp https://theprint.in/feature/nepal-army-says-only-bodies-are-coming-out-of-tunnels-those-rescued-were-from-outside/3029578/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #asusexpertbook  @ASUSIndia.official  Checkout the ASUS Expertbook series: https://www.flipkart.com/asus-expertbook-core-ultra-store

A joke is never just a joke—not even in the eighteenth century. In American Laughter, American Fury: Humor and the Making of a White Man's Democracy, 1750–1850 (JHU Press, 2025) Eran A. Zelnik offers a cultural history of early America that shows how humor among white men served to define and construct not only whiteness and masculinity but also American political culture and democracy more generally. Zelnik traces the emerging bonds of affinity that white male settlers in North America cultivated through their shared, transformative experience of mirth. This humor—a category that includes not only jokes but also play, riot, revelry, and mimicry—shaped the democratic and anti-elitist sensibilities of Americans. It also defined the borders of who could participate in politics, notably excluding those who were not white men. While this anti-authoritarian humor transformed the early United States into a country that abhorred elitism and class hierarchies, ultimately the story is one of democratization gone awry: this same humor allowed white men to draw the borders of the new nation exclusively around themselves. Zelnik analyzes several distinct forms of humor to make his case: tall tales, "Indian play," Black dialect, riot and revelry, revolutionary protests, and blackface minstrelsy. This provocative study seeks to understand the vexing, contradictory interplay among humor, democracy, and violence at the heart of American history and culture that continues today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

What did Dr. Deming really mean when he said to "cease dependence on mass inspection"?    In this episode, Balaji Reddie and host Andrew Stotz unpack why one Ford manager's decision to fire his inspection team missed the point entirely. They explain how inspection can help leaders understand and improve the process, rather than simply sort good from bad.    They also explore why Deming's 14 Points must be understood as a system, including his evolving call for cooperation and win-win thinking among employees, customers, suppliers, and even competitors. Whether you are new to Deming or have studied his work for years, this conversation offers a sharper way to think about quality, systems, and improvement.   TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.0 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with Balaji Reddie, an educator and trainer in the teachings of Dr. Deming and quality management generally. Balaji, how are you doing today?   0:00:25.1 Balaji Reddie: Oh, I'm doing good. We're meeting after a small little gap, and in the interim I think a few things happened. One of the major things, I think you and I were really happy to see that Bill Scherkenbach sent us a lovely photo. So Bill, if you're listening to this, thank you so much, of course we thank you for the photo. We mentioned the last time or rather when we were speaking that I said that there used to be a group of people that used to meet over the weekend. I don't know what the actual protocol was, but all of the so-called core Deming people, you know, like Gipsie Ranney and Nida Backaitis, I hope I'm getting the names right, Barbara Lawton. And I remember Henry Neave saying he was a part of that. So I didn't see that in the photo. So, maybe one of the weekends he was there over in America and so he was there because he mentioned this. And so Bill very kindly said what it was christened. It was christened the Cosmos Club. And then he shared a photo. So Bill, thank you so much. And also helping us identify most of the people in that photograph. If sometime we could share it with the Deming Institute, if they could show it as part of the... If ever we convert this into some kind of video later on with some slides and things like that, they could add that in.   0:01:53.0 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, it's still wonderful.   0:01:53.7 Balaji Reddie: That was wonderful. Yes.   0:01:54.9 Andrew Stotz: It's a great picture. In fact, I'm gonna just make sure that I download it for today's episode.   0:02:00.9 Balaji Reddie: Yes, yes.   0:02:01.7 Andrew Stotz: Because I'll supply it to the Institute and ask Bill if we can use it. Let's see.   0:02:08.4 Balaji Reddie: Yeah, I mean, I presume that he would want us to ask, but he is very big-hearted. I think he wouldn't mind at all.   0:02:14.7 Andrew Stotz: He looks like a spring chicken in that picture. [laughter]   0:02:17.2 Balaji Reddie: Oh, yeah, all of them. There was Joyce Orsini too there. It was nice to see the whole jing-bang gang, as they call them, [laughter] the Cosmos Club. But wonderful. So, yes, so last time we were discussing point number one and we saw his interpretation in the broadest sense of constancy of purpose. I shared also what he was saying towards the end of his life that he said, "Create and publish the statement of the aims and purposes of the company or other organization." So he was envisioning that it's no longer one company. It's a family of companies working together. And so there has to be something that binds all these companies together because today's business is very complex. The family is actually globally dispersed. And so there has to be a common thread that links all of these organizations together and that has to be the statement of purpose. Why do we exist? Each could have their own, you know. Because that's what Deming said in the word interdependent components of a system. And interdependent means being independent and mutually dependent simultaneously. So independent does not mean isolated. It means autonomous, that means you go by yourself. You could have your own purpose, but you need to align it with the purpose of the companies you're actually contributing to, which is amazing. So he asks us to look at it that way. And he said that the purpose should be to impact people in the broadest sense of the term. And you, in fact, brought that up, that quality, and we saw what he meant by quality. And then I think we discussed the purpose of educational institutions, et cetera, et cetera. What should they be?   0:04:07.5 Balaji Reddie: So that was point one. Now we get to point two. And I'll start with the original wordings which he wrote in 1986. So let me just pull that up here. He says here that, "Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age." And then he very specifically states, "Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities and take on leadership for change." Now, let's look at it both ways because in 1990 he reworded this completely. But let's get back to what he meant in 1986, the new philosophy. Now, what was the new philosophy? What did he mean then? Recently I heard, or I think I saw, Dr. Joseph DeFeo, that is the current CEO of Juran Institute, release a version of the 14 points, or rather saying that these were Dr. Deming's 14 points. And I saw what he wrote there about point number two, which was his interpretation. Now, when I look deep, actually, it looked more like Dr. Juran's interpretation of the 14 points. Incidentally, talking about Dr. Juran and the 14 points, it's no secret that Dr. Juran always said that Deming did not speak much about management, he spoke only about statistics, blah, blah, blah. But there was, if you know, part of the inner circle of Dr. Deming was Dr. Myron Tribus. And Myron Tribus, if you know, was a director at MIT for some time, right? And around the time Deming was there at the Center for Advanced Engineering Study. And when... He, of course, went and met Dr. Juran to speak to him about the 14 points, and then they had a discussion for half a day on the 14 points, and Dr. Juran agreed with every single one of them. He said, "Yeah." He said, "He's spot on." But then he said that he never spoke of management then, and so he stuck to his version that he taught statistics to the Japanese. Anyway, let's leave that aside.   0:06:19.0 Balaji Reddie: But when he spoke about point two, and that's what Juran's interpretation was, that the new philosophy was quality should be the basis for running a business. That was the new philosophy, right? And he said that top management, of course, Deming always said that top management should be involved because unless that happens, nothing happens inside the company. So the new philosophy, what now we interpret is what Dr. Deming was trying to say in 1986, was "quality is the basis for running an organization," right? And quality, again, what we discussed last time, in the broadest sense of the term, not just of a product or a process, but the way you conduct yourself as a business, as a people. So that was the new philosophy. And he said that you should take on leadership for change, and he aimed it at Western management at that point in time, right? So that was the 1986, and he goes on to explain that, saying that we are living with commonly accepted... Because he was trying to shock the Americans at that time, right? If you try to realize when they woke up to quality in the 1980s, primarily to be... I mean, to their credit, to the American businesses, that they were doing a lot of course correction. They realized that they had done things wrong for 20 years, and a lot of course correction started happening, and they started seeing benefits. So they started interpreting that as improvement when actually it was just a correction. And I think Deming wanted to bring in that shock treatment to them, and he said improvement is not enough, right? So at that point in time, that new philosophy was basically that, okay, you're doing it right, but it's not enough. And that's why it has to come from the top. So top people have to be involved. And that was how they interpreted this.   0:08:12.1 Balaji Reddie: And we also looked at it that way. But in 1990, he changed the wordings of the point two, and that was in light of what he had started professing, which was a System of Profound Knowledge. So I'll just read out what he wrote in 1990. He says now, "Adopt the new philosophy of cooperation and win-win, in which everybody wins. Put it into practice and teach it to your employees, your customers, your suppliers, and" why not "your competitors." So that was, I think, the new philosophy. Much of the stuff, if you start seeing, Andrew, when I look at all the 14 points, the 14 points have to be interpreted through the 14 points.   0:09:06.7 Andrew Stotz: Right.   0:09:07.8 Balaji Reddie: You need to understand the purpose of each point. You need to understand that they're a system. And that's why you can't just read them sentence by sentence and want to implement them, if you know what I'm trying to say here. They're a system by themselves. So you need to interpret them the right way and through the 14 points... I don't know if I'm making sense to you, but that's exactly how these are. He wanted it to be that way. So you can never tell that you've understood it completely. You're getting me? You're learning something new about it every single day. And as you start looking at things around you through the lens of Profound Knowledge, you will see things differently. And sometimes you see some gaps with the sentences that Dr. Deming was uttering, and then you say, "Okay, okay, this, this, this, I understood it now. I need to make this correction." Right? And so you can never say that I've completely understood them. I mean, after all these years, still reading Out of the Crisis, still doing the series with you, has been a catharsis for me. It's revisiting these things all over again. This, despite the fact that I've been teaching this regularly to my students for the last 20-plus years, it's still new for me.   0:10:24.4 Andrew Stotz: And so could I describe what you just said about interpreting it within the system is that really, that's the thing about systems thinking, is that you can no longer look at an individual part. Every time you get a deeper meaning or understanding of an individual part, that changes the way you view the overall system and the interconnectedness of everything.   0:10:48.6 Balaji Reddie: Exactly.   0:10:48.9 Andrew Stotz: Where life would be much more easy if we could just, "Okay, I understand that one thing deeper and deeper. I can make a control chart better and better and better."   0:11:01.1 Balaji Reddie: So, it's crazy. And this realization came on me way back in, I think around '98 or '99, when I was teaching this, the 14 points, for the third or fourth time. I think I mentioned this in episode one and two, where I told you that it was very easy for me to teach the works of Philip Crosby, very easy to teach the work of Dr. Juran, because they gave methods, they gave steps. But Dr. Deming didn't give anything. You just couldn't show the wording on the slide and get away with it. You had to explain what he wanted us to do. And then, I mentioned this before, you can go back and listen to that episode, but I said that it suddenly struck me, "God damn it, these points are a system." And when I was describing this and I explained this to Hazel Cannon, and she said, "We call this in Deming-speak an 'aha' moment. You had your 'aha' moment." She said, "That's the beauty." She told me once that in the middle of the night, at 3:00 in the morning, she understood what he was trying to say, and she called up Dr. Deming.   0:12:11.3 Balaji Reddie: And he was very, very patient. He listened to her. And she said, "I'm sorry. I..." He said, "I knew you'd understand." That's all he said. So he used to be very happy when people used to call back and suddenly say, "We realized it now, what you were trying to say then." So it's a moment of realization. So this point to... If you read some of the notes that he gave to the Japanese in 1950, and incidentally, it's they who made the notebook and then he added on to it, if you know, Elementary Principles of the Statistical Control of Quality, first edition and then the second edition. And when they made the first edition, they had actually done this without his permission. But when they told him that we made these notes, they thought that he would be a little upset because of copyrights, blah, blah. But instead he was so happy that they'd done that, he actually helped them with the second edition. And if you read those notes, a lot of things there where he was speaking about cooperation, about understanding people. So that may not have been explicitly stated by him in his lectures in Japan, they understood it. Right? And that's a very... I don't want to sound communal here, but a very Asian way of looking at it. Because our languages are very metaphorical, so we always look for different meanings to the statements being uttered. And we always look out for what has this person actually not said, which I... Or rather, yeah, has not said, which I have not heard, but I need to hear. Right?   0:13:46.5 Balaji Reddie: So that's amazing, how they looked at what he was saying. I'll give an instance here where he talks about the use of the control chart, and he says that you can use it for training a worker. And then if you see that before and after training, there's been no change in the control chart, well, then the worker's attained his optimum. Then use that worker somewhere else. He talks in a very positive way about understanding people. And then going back to what we spoke in our second episode about the principles of leadership, it comes back there, that choose people in the right way and optimize all of their aims, hopes, et cetera. So coming back here, the new philosophy, basically, now we can interpret it as what he intended it to be in 1990. He said, "Win-win." But the original wordings are also... You don't replace it, you add on to it, right? So we look at it this way, that he meant that quality should be the center point of running your business. People at the top should be involved. And now we talk about cooperation, win-win. And he says this, "Teach and practice this." Now, all these things are easier said than done. We know that. But we should make an attempt. So employees, your customers, your suppliers, and your competitors. Sometimes it could be funny, right? You go up to your competitor and you say, "Look, I think we've done enough of this, going at each other's throat. Let's get together to do something." And obviously the other person will say, "What's the agenda?" They'll think you have some hidden agenda. So it's gonna be difficult when you start doing this. But I think that's become... Slowly people are warming up to that idea of being close to your competitors and learning with them and from them. Right? We don't look at them as a rival in the true sense, trying to cut the other guy down and things like that. But that's the way it is. And if you say that it's a cutthroat thing, but we need to have some things in common before we decide to branch out and go our own way. Right? So there has to be some kind of a cooperation so that win-win... But main thing is to win, that is, everyone wins. He says, "Some may win less than others, but we all win just the same." So the whole purpose was that. Yeah.   0:16:02.4 Andrew Stotz: It's interesting because I remember hearing that when I was younger and the first thing is cooperating just within a team. The second one is cooperating maybe within a department. Another one is cooperating within a business. And then... That's already hard enough to get to. And then he talked about cooperating within an industry. And of course, there are anti-trust laws in America, which he wasn't talking about colluding on prices to take advantage of the position against the customer. But he was also... I think if we look at AI right now, the development of artificial intelligence, and to what extent could the industry work together to safeguard, for instance, or to understand the development of the energy needed to do this, you know.   0:16:54.4 Balaji Reddie: Yes.   0:16:55.3 Andrew Stotz: Or how do countries across the world work together to make sure that one doesn't have an unfair advantage with AI or with energy or that type of thing? So, yeah, it was definitely interesting when I first heard it. But as I look at it now, I get what he's saying about the industry cooperation.   0:17:15.3 Balaji Reddie: Yes, I saw this in our country, in India, where you had the rival mobile service providers getting together and realizing that the hardware needed was the same, the software would be different. So they got together and created a company, you heard that right, a company, that set up mobile communication towers. So there are no multiple towers everywhere for each mobile provider. There's one set of towers, and it was a separate company. And by the way, that company went on to win the Deming Prize.   0:17:48.0 Andrew Stotz: Interesting, interesting. It's interesting that the concept for point number two is... And sometimes I read it and I think, "Adopt the new philosophy." It's kind of obvious, isn't it?   0:18:04.1 Balaji Reddie: Yeah. [laughter]   0:18:05.8 Andrew Stotz: And that's where part of what you're talking about, about understanding all of it through the Deming 14 points lens.   0:18:13.7 Balaji Reddie: Right. Yes.   0:18:14.9 Andrew Stotz: But I can also think... I wanted to highlight back for those people that weren't around at that time. I graduated from university in 1989. I went to work at Pepsi. And so Out of the Crisis came out about 1986. And I remember during my years at university, the Japanese were just killing the American car manufacturers. And the motorcycle companies were killing... Honda and the others were killing Harley-Davidson.   0:18:43.2 Balaji Reddie: Right.   0:18:43.5 Andrew Stotz: Even to the extent that Harley-Davidson and others went to the government to try to get Reagan to give them tariff protection, which he did, in fact. But there was a huge debate I had in class, I remember, about protection versus competition. And it just highlights what was going on. And so Out of the Crisis, as you mentioned, the title, just the idea of shocking people to say, "We're in a crisis," I think at that time it was really apropos. And also the other part is he's talking about Western management.   0:19:21.1 Balaji Reddie: Yes.   0:19:21.4 Andrew Stotz: Western management. And now you look at... Japan was really doing great at that time. And now we have Japan and China that's also made huge strides. And so it's just so fascinating that he was directing it at Western management for sure, that we've got to fix things. And sometimes I look back and I think, "Oh yeah, Western management learned and improved," because we've got so much innovation going on in America as an example and all of that.   0:19:52.6 Balaji Reddie: Right. Right.   0:19:53.4 Andrew Stotz: But sometimes I look at the developments of the Chinese or Japan and I think, "Hmmm...Did we learn? Did we learn?" Look at the trade balance, look at the amount of debt, look at that in the US and you think, "I don't know." I'm curious, how would you score it?   0:20:09.5 Balaji Reddie: Yeah, I mean, that's just what I had to say. So the whole approach towards this whole thing being holistic, not just looking at it from a very narrow point of view and realizing that we need each other, we can't do without... We call them competitors, but they are also helping us do a better job. They're pushing me to look out for what I'm good at and I don't have to put somebody else down to show myself as big. And if I contribute to the industry in a very big way, not only do I gain, others gain, and if I share, then they would also share with me, right? So that realization, I think, is coming in. And if you think about this, it was very interesting, the mathematician by the name John Nash, if you remember him, he actually postulated this in terms of mathematics in 1950, and he got a PhD from Princeton for this. Now, I would give full credit to the jury listening to his dissertation, defending his thesis, that you had to do this because, interestingly, he gets a Nobel Prize for that in 1974. It took 24 years for the world to figure out what he was trying to say. And you want to go read that, he was thinking win-win.   0:21:41.7 Balaji Reddie: So I often wondered if Dr. Deming, John Nash, did they know each other? Obviously, they didn't, but they were thinking and saying the same thing in two different parts of the world. He was doing that here in the US and Deming was talking about this there in Japan, and he was talking about telling the Japs that Japan must see itself as a system. And so all their companies actually work together. We see them as versus; they don't see each other as versus. You're interestingly saying this about the two-wheeler companies, the bikes... In India, we had just one or two bikes before the four Japanese companies came in. It was Suzuki, Honda, Kawasaki, and Yamaha. And they tied up with different Indian companies. Now, of course, after a long time, they've all gone their separate ways. But as a teenager, I remember these. And the funny thing was all four motorcycles were different and all four sold well. All four. And they sold in different parts of the country.   0:22:43.8 Balaji Reddie: I can tell you this firsthand because just after I completed my engineering, I was looking for a job. So I had some time to myself and my mother's friend, she ran a market research agency and she just called up one fine day and said, "Would Balaji care to do this market research for me? It's about bikes." So I had to travel north, south, east, west and tape a conversation with bikers asking them which motorcycles they liked among these four. And these four, the plants were set up at four different places in our country. So north, south, east, west, typically, you know how vast India is in that sense. And the one... It was very interesting. The bikes that were made in the north were sold very well in the south, and some made in the south were sold very well in the west. It was crazy. But there was, of course, one motorcycle that would always stand out and people would say that, "Yeah, this is the one which really..." But that would always be the case. But by and large, everyone did well. Looking back, I say that, wow, they were practicing this without us knowing it.   0:23:51.6 Balaji Reddie: And even now, if you know, I don't know whether this happens outside of India, but Suzuki and Toyota in India have collaborated with each other to use the car body, if you know what I mean. The insides would be their own inside. Suzuk... Maruti is the name of the Indian company that's tied up with Suzuki Motor. So you have Maruti Suzuki and Toyota. They have common bodies, names are different, but the inside is Toyota technology and Suzuki technology. So they've decided, they just realized that they need each other, right? And they're doing exceedingly well, both. Just both.   0:24:33.7 Andrew Stotz: Sharing the platform.   0:24:36.0 Balaji Reddie: Yeah. It's crazy. And you don't start bothering so much about trying to defend yourself, right? You go ahead and focus on what you're good at. So this point two, the new philosophy, what it meant before and what it means now, I would not say it replaced it, but it's just added on to it, where he said that top management should be involved. That was the new philosophy, that quality has to come from the top. Western management waking up, et cetera. The Western managers to see quality is the basis for running your organization. It should be your strategy. And he just says as an extension of that strategy, we need to get together and cooperate and think win-win. So that's the new philosophy. It takes us, he always says, a new reward system would come in. It would be a better applied science. You can read that in The New Economics, that what is the purpose of this entire new philosophy, The New Economics, where he explains this.   0:25:39.2 Andrew Stotz: Yeah.   0:25:41.4 Balaji Reddie: In a nutshell is point two. So the purpose was to shock the Western management at that point in time, but also in a different sense, try to open the eyes of people even now that please don't think small, think big, right? The new philosophy tells us look beyond the boundaries that you've artificially created and see what you can do with the others, including your competitors. And don't look at them as adversaries, rather than partners in something that both of you will grow. Maybe not evenly, but you will grow. So that was...   0:26:18.7 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. One last thing for me on that is just the idea that he reinforces the focus that quality is, the key is the customer in that process of quality.   0:26:33.8 Balaji Reddie: That's right. That's right.   0:26:34.4 Andrew Stotz: As opposed to it's not about quality, quality, quality, control charts and QC circles and all that. It's about what is quality in the eyes of the customer and how do we better deliver that. So that always gave me so much comfort when I learned what he was teaching, that he wasn't just... It wasn't all about quality and tools. It was about quality in the eyes of the customer.   0:27:00.8 Balaji Reddie: Right. So that's why he said tools are just 3%. And you can be 100% excellent at the 3% and still run out of business, right? He always said that. So you need to apply this in the broader sense of the term. So that was...   [overlapping conversation]   0:27:08.5 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. And the problem is if you don't understand the system and you don't understand the whole teaching, then even if you're good at the tools, you may misinterpret from the tools.   0:27:25.6 Balaji Reddie: Yes. So, right, so that was point two.   0:27:30.4 Andrew Stotz: Whoo!   0:27:31.3 Balaji Reddie: So now we come to point three. [laughter] Now point three... Yeah, we just got I think 15-odd minutes, but I'll cover some part of it and I think we'll continue with this.   0:27:34.0 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, yeah. We good. I got time.   0:27:42.5 Balaji Reddie: Point three. Now this again has been so crazily misinterpreted. All right, so I'll start with the wordings once again, I'm referring to the document what he wrote. And he says now, "Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place." Now if you look at that, he was talking much about the act of inspecting and the entire activity-based and saying don't depend. The keyword was "cease dependence," because if you hear what happened in one funny case where the manager from Ford went back and just sacked all his inspectors saying Dr. Deming said we don't need inspection. But that was, I think, overstating it. But nevertheless, the keyword is dependence. Don't depend on inspection. And then he said, build quality into the product in the first place. And then he quotes Harold Dodge who said you cannot inspect quality into a product. Quality is already there. Inspection just reports what's happening. It doesn't tell you where... You know.   0:29:00.4 Andrew Stotz: Yep.   0:29:03.4 Balaji Reddie: Andrew, can you hear me?   0:29:05.8 Andrew Stotz: Yes. Keep going. So what you're talking about is the idea of thinking about quality not from the perspective...   0:29:20.2 Balaji Reddie: Yeah, we got disconnected.   0:29:21.7 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. What I was saying you're talking about is this idea of cease dependence on inspection, that it doesn't mean inspection's completely gone, but it means starting at the beginning of the process and thinking about how do we improve things from there. So continue on.   0:29:37.3 Balaji Reddie: Yeah, so I just said here that he was not so much at that time when he wrote this, like I said here, it was misinterpreted because, yes, he did start with saying the activity, the activity-based thing about inspection, that we should not depend on it. And I think I mentioned that Ford... One of the managers of Ford, misinterpreted that and sacked his inspectors and things like that. But he said that eliminate the need for inspection by building quality into the process and the product in the first place. So the word was dependence. And so he did not say that you need to eliminate the act of inspecting. In fact, it's very interesting what he actually spoke about this in the workbook which you get when you go a four-day seminar on video which was created by General Motors, right?   0:30:30.6 Balaji Reddie: So those video cassettes, and then the workbook that came with that had a very interesting take on inspection. So he said that it doesn't mean that we're gonna stop. He said you'd be a fool to keep yourself in the dark about what's happening in the process. You need to know what's happening in the process. So he's not saying that do away, he's saying use inspection. So now he actually said this, and here's where the interpretation comes in: understand the purpose of inspection. The purpose of inspection is to give yourself more and more knowledge of the process, not for sorting bad from good, because good and bad product come from the same process. We need to fix the process. And this is to be interpreted if you talk about how he looked at this, because if you read what he spoke about the nine heavy losses, when we discuss those, he says that one of the losses was performance appraisal. So I want to ask those people who say that this interpretation, isn't performance appraisal quality by inspection? You're sorting bad from good based on some arbitrary measure that you created in your head. You decide what's good, you decide what's bad. You're God, is it?   0:31:52.9 Balaji Reddie: I mean, Douglas McGregor actually wrote an article on this saying that managers don't like to play God, right? And he's the one who advocated, no, we don't need performance appraisal. It actually harms. And Dr. Deming just said the same thing. So if you read Douglas McGregor's book, The Human Side of Enterprise, there's a new version, the annotated version, where they've given commentary of what some experts or some the interpretations of the text. And I was amazed to see Dr. Deming's name come up there and saying that Dr. Deming also concurred with this and said it in very plain words that do not carry out performance appraisal. And he likened it to using inspection to create quality, whereas we know it doesn't. So fix the process. Right? And then people again take this in piecemeal and start quoting Deming: "A bad system will beat a good person anytime." I don't know what to say here, really. I mean, he obviously he said... He was trying to explain that you cannot judge that person based on the output of the system. I mean, it's an output of the system, the person. So you need to look at it that way. I don't know whether I'm making sense here, but that's the way to look at this point number three. Right? And he says that don't depend. Use the inspection to understand the process. Now, he says here, and I think I've got the text in that, he says, "There will always be inspection. We must never deliberately leave ourselves devoid of information on how the process is doing. Is it still in statistical control? Is there a trend? Were our efforts towards shrinkage of variation or change of level successful? The function of inspection is optimization of the whole system, including suppliers of materials and services and the ultimate consumer." So he very clearly stated this, that this is a system. And this was the system he was talking about, right? And he says here that it's not about just manufacturing, service. It's if you are really, really interpreting this, then you'd also remove performance appraisal in the process, right? Because that's quality by inspection. Uh-oh.   0:34:21.2 Andrew Stotz: The Human Side of Enterprise, the annotated edition, is available on Amazon. Just looking at it right now, this annotated edition came out in 2023. So I haven't read it, so I'm gonna check it out myself.   0:34:42.1 Balaji Reddie: Yeah, I think I lost you again.   0:34:44.5 Andrew Stotz: Yep. I just went through the details about The Human Side of Enterprise and that latest version or edition that's just come out that you've mentioned. It came out in 2023.   0:34:57.0 Balaji Reddie: Right, right. So you could get that, read that book, you'll get to see it. And he very clearly... Did you record that bit where I read out the text?   0:35:09.4 Andrew Stotz: I don't remember that.   0:35:10.8 Balaji Reddie: Okay, I'll just read it out again so you can edit it later. So, yeah, he says here, "There will always be inspection. We must never deliberately leave ourselves devoid of information on how the process is doing. Is it still in statistical control? Is there a trend? Were our efforts towards shrinkage of variation or change of level successful? The function of inspection is optimization of the whole system, including suppliers of materials and services and the ultimate consumer." Did you get that? Did that get recorded?   0:35:45.5 Andrew Stotz: Yeah.   0:35:46.0 Balaji Reddie: Yeah. So that's exactly what he meant. He said that he was not talking about the act, and he said you would have some inspection. Now, interestingly, a very, very different take on this that, yeah, I told you Myron Tribus was talking to Dr. Juran about this, and Dr. Juran gave his interpretation. Because if you know, he invented this badly misunderstood and abused term called cost of quality, right? And if you know why he invented it and what happened later, I don't even want to get into it. He said, "The only way I could grab management's attention was to present my problem in terms of money. If I explained to them and said to them that there is... This process running at 90% efficiency, they would be happy. They said, "Great." He said, "No, it's not great." And then they just wouldn't listen. They said, "90% is great." So he said, "How do I talk to them?" And so he went back to them and said, "Okay, your process is running at 90% efficiency." They said, "Yes." He said, "But you're paying 100% salary to this guy to do 90% good work, and then you're paying 100% salary to another guy to remove the 10% bad work, and then you're paying 100% salary to a third guy to correct that bad work." And that's how he invented cost of quality.   0:37:11.8 Balaji Reddie: Now people have gone and overindulged in this and they start having arguments about what is the category and where should it fit in and... Anyway, what he was trying to say is there are some activities where the more money you spend, the better it is. And so he came up with that cost of prevention and of course, I mean, conformance and non-conformance. In conformance, there were two categories. One was called prevention, where the more money you spend, obviously the better it is, but you get... You know, the returns on them will come much, much later, like training and spending money on the right things like maintaining your equipment, blah, blah, blah, research and development. He also gave a category called appraisal. And appraisal, he says, these are all activities which are necessary evils. [laughter] That means you can't eliminate them, at the same time you should not overtly depend on them to create quality. And one of them was inspection. And he says you should not spend more than necessary on inspection, just enough.   0:38:16.1 Balaji Reddie: Now here's the question I get, how much do we spend? [laughter] And the trick which I read somewhere and I saw that because I interpreted these points both ways. So when you start doing this, you walk into a company, make them calculate how much money they're spending on inspection right now. So let's say it's $100,000 or rupees or whatever. Now you start implementing the improvement processes, you start understanding the process and you start, well, the works, control charts, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you start seeing that the process is getting better and so your defects are coming down and things are getting better generally. And so you're spending lesser money on inspection, you're spending lesser time on inspection, your resources are going in the right direction. And so that amount starts coming down and you keep doing that and you keep doing that and then you reach a point where you say, "Okay, this is it. I need this much of inspection at a bare minimum to keep myself," like Dr. Deming said, "not devoid of any information." I need to know what's happening. So that need-to-know basis, just enough, now that becomes the cap, right? And you say now, "If after this I see an increase in the money being spent, then... It's not that I'm going to go and just eliminate. I'll try to find out why." And if you look at it, that's exactly what Dr. Deming said, understand the purpose of inspection is to make the process better. The product, of course, will get better and you use the inspection intelligently to understand because good and bad products come from the same process. This is absolutely true for both manufacturing as well as services. You always can look at the activities and see which are the ones which are prone to a lot of mistakes that can happen and then you try to help the person carrying out the process. "Can I eliminate this? Can I reduce this?"   0:40:14.0 Balaji Reddie: And talking about AI, I think AI can help a lot in that, in much of the so-called mundane activities which are repeatable and being done on a regular basis. You can bring in AI over there, use it in the right way. Right? Even for the inspection thing, they talk about it, but yeah, like I said, we need to keep our eye and just keep glancing at it, but not going and standing in front of the process all the time. You don't need to do that. Just... So like Dr. Deming said, watch that... Look at the trend, the impact of my action that I need to inspect. So in that sense, like I said, the act of inspecting will never go away, but our reliance on that will come down drastically. And once in a while, just glancing through, just letting us know that things are going according to plan is the right way of looking at this. Anyway, I think that's all we have time for today, Andrew.   0:41:10.2 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. So I'm gonna wrap up by saying 290 years ago, Benjamin Franklin said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."   0:41:23.2 Balaji Reddie: Wow.   0:41:24.2 Andrew Stotz: Well, it's a lot of what you've just described is the idea of starting at the beginning and trying to reduce the need to depend on inspection. I love the stuff that you talked about about... He didn't say eliminate inspection, he said reduce the dependence. And that really reminded me that there's a purpose. And as you've described, the purposes of inspection isn't only just, "Okay, we don't want something bad going out to the customer," but what it really is about is understanding how are we doing. How have the upstream preventative or improvements that we've done in the upstream resolved or reduced what's happening at the downstream? I think that was a major thing for me as a young guy when I first heard Deming, to understand that, start at the beginning and try to get things right from the beginning, that will reduce the amount of trouble that you have towards the end. So, fantastic.   0:42:22.2 Balaji Reddie: That's true. That's true. All right, then.   0:42:24.5 Andrew Stotz: Well...   0:42:25.1 Balaji Reddie: We meet again next week or week after that to continue this.   0:42:27.0 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, I look forward to it. And for the listeners out there, remember to go to deming.org and jump into DemingNext to continue your journey.   0:42:36.5 Balaji Reddie: Yes.   0:42:37.0 Andrew Stotz: This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming, which is, "People are entitled to joy in work."   0:42:45.3 Balaji Reddie: "Joy in work."

A joke is never just a joke—not even in the eighteenth century. In American Laughter, American Fury: Humor and the Making of a White Man's Democracy, 1750–1850 (JHU Press, 2025) Eran A. Zelnik offers a cultural history of early America that shows how humor among white men served to define and construct not only whiteness and masculinity but also American political culture and democracy more generally. Zelnik traces the emerging bonds of affinity that white male settlers in North America cultivated through their shared, transformative experience of mirth. This humor—a category that includes not only jokes but also play, riot, revelry, and mimicry—shaped the democratic and anti-elitist sensibilities of Americans. It also defined the borders of who could participate in politics, notably excluding those who were not white men. While this anti-authoritarian humor transformed the early United States into a country that abhorred elitism and class hierarchies, ultimately the story is one of democratization gone awry: this same humor allowed white men to draw the borders of the new nation exclusively around themselves. Zelnik analyzes several distinct forms of humor to make his case: tall tales, "Indian play," Black dialect, riot and revelry, revolutionary protests, and blackface minstrelsy. This provocative study seeks to understand the vexing, contradictory interplay among humor, democracy, and violence at the heart of American history and culture that continues today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Allen covers Clearway’s 800 MW wind farm in Maine, the state’s largest ever, along with Suzlon’s $1.2 billion project in India and Masdar’s growing battery pipeline in the UK. Then Mingyang lobbies the UK’s new Prime Minister to reverse its ban from British waters. The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech, creators of the StrikeTape Ultra LPS retrofit. Subscribe to Uptime’s Substack newsletter. And check out Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” Youtube channel. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Up in Maine this week… they picked a spot for a wind farm. Eight hundred megawatts. The biggest the state has ever seen. Hold that thought. Halfway around the world… India broke ground on something even bigger. And in between… a Chinese company knocked on Britain’s door. Again. Start in Aroostook County, Maine. The woods up there grow timber… and wind. The Maine Public Utilities Commission chose Clearway Energy to build eight hundred megawatts of turbines on commercial timberland in the rural north. Avangrid will string the power line to connect those turbines to the New England grid. Commission Chair Phil Bartlett says the project will save Maine ratepayers at least three hundred and eighty-seven million dollars. Two-point-four billion in economic output. Thousands of construction jobs. Six hundred megawatts stay in Maine. The rest goes to Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont. Five states… one wind farm… one forest. Now fly east across the Atlantic. In Rochdale, England… Abu Dhabi’s Masdar just flipped the switch on its second battery storage plant in Britain. Thirty-five megawatts. Seventy megawatt-hours. Enough to power thirty-five thousand homes a day. And it responds to grid swings in milliseconds. This is part of Masdar’s one-billion-pound pipeline of battery projects across the UK. Three gigawatt-hours planned. One of the largest storage buildouts in the country. Wind needs a partner. Batteries are volunteering. Now south… to India. Suzlon just broke ground on thirteen hundred and twenty-five megawatts of wind in Ananthapuramu, Andhra Pradesh. The investment… about one-point-two billion dollars. Sixteen hundred new jobs. Suzlon already has a blade factory in the region. Capacity… twelve hundred and sixty megawatts a year. And the company is training twelve thousand young people, including three thousand women, in green energy skills. India’s wind sector just crossed fifty-eight gigawatts. It was twenty-one gigawatts in twenty fourteen. And staying in India… Saudi Arabia’s Alfanar Group just put one hundred million dollars into its Indian turbine subsidiary Senvion. Thirty-four million released this month. The rest in weeks. Senvion builds one-point-five gigawatts of turbines a year. Saudi money. Indian manufacturing. Global ambition. Now… one more item. And this one has an edge. Ming Yang… the Chinese turbine maker banned from British waters on national security grounds… wants back in. The company had plans for a one-point-five-billion-pound factory in Inverness, Scotland. Fifteen hundred direct jobs. Eight thousand in the supply chain. Labour ministers shut it down in March. The Ministry of Defence worried about spying. European rivals complained about Chinese state subsidies. Now Ming Yang is lobbying the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, to reverse the ban. The company says it can deliver “growth in every postcode.” That phrase… is Burnham’s own. A government spokesman says there are no plans to review the decision. So what does this week tell us? Supply chains are going local. Saudi capital into Indian turbine factories. Maine insisting on new transmission before new generation. Britain locking the door on Chinese hardware while Abu Dhabi builds its battery network. The message is clear. Countries want wind power. But they want to own the pieces. Watch for this. Permitting… not technology… is the bottleneck now. Maine’s project was authorized in twenty twenty-one. It is twenty twenty-six and they are still years from turning a blade. And storage is no longer a side conversation. Masdar’s billion-pound UK commitment says batteries are becoming infrastructure… not experiments. For professionals in this industry… the work ahead is not just building turbines. It is building trust with governments who are choosing energy security over speed. And that is the state of the wind industry for the 31st of August 2026. Join us for the Uptime Wind Energy podcast tomorrow.

This episode is part of Supernatural India, a new Indian Noir series exploring the monsters, myths, spirits, legends, and folklore of India. Each story in this series draws from the rich supernatural traditions of the subcontinent, where fear is shaped by place, memory, ritual, belief, and the unknown. From forest spirits and cursed beings to village legends and ancient hauntings, Supernatural India maps the creatures and myths that have lived in Indian imagination for generations. Indian Noir is an Indian horror podcast featuring original Indian horror stories, Indian creepypastas, paranormal tales, supernatural fiction, dark fiction, and immersive audio storytelling. Each episode is written, narrated, and produced by Nikesh Murali, Commonwealth Short Story Prize-winning writer, bestselling horror author, and professional narrator. - Buy my collection of horror novellas TALES OF HORROR at https://amzn.to/42XxAu5 - Donate via https://ko-fi.com/U7U03JREM to cover the web hosting and sfx costs. - Follow me on Instagram instagram.com/indiannoir This podcast is rated R 18+. It may contain classifiable elements such as violence, sex scenes and drug use that are high in impact. This podcast may also contain information which may be triggering to survivors of sexual assault, violence, drug abuse or mental health issues. Listener discretion is advised. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We talk about the state of the Scarabeo, what the greatest tool may be, an addition to the stable, a scooter movie, another fantastic year of AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days, VMD demo rides, an Iron Butt that was better and worse than expected, a big Honda recall, Sena bringing mesh to everyone, Indian's very long Sturgis edition name, two more Himalayans, sidecars eyeing a return to the Isle of Man TT, and more... News starts @ 01:30:10 Music Picks (two picks this week):Situation by Johnny Blue Skies & The Dark Clouds A Thousand Miles From Nowhere by Dwight Yoakam Check out our shirts & stickers! Recalls: 2017-2026 Honda CMX300/CMX500/SCL500 - Steering recall News: Sena debuts the MeshON - mesh intercom for any Bluetooth headset Indian unveils the 2026 Chief Vintage Sturgis, SD Edition - yep, that's really the name Indian Chief Vintage Sturgis, SD Edition - official page Sturgis through day 5 - 69 DUI arrests and 3 fatal crashes Laconia Bike Week's executive director hurt in a crash on the way, right here in Avon, OH Royal Enfield Himalayan 750 spied looking production ready - EICMA debut, says the CEO Royal Enfield Himalayan 440 expected next month - the 410 bored out Sidecar racing may return to the Isle of Man TT next year TT Sidecar Sustainability Review - First Stage Report Reference Links: To Be Someone Movie Trailer Wendy on the Arrive Alive Podcast Motojug Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge English (#1113) hits a bear and keeps on riding in the Hoka Hey (Note: I got his number wrong, I said #1103, but his Hoka Hey # is 1113)~~~~~~~~~ Email us at podcast@motohop.co Website: https://motohop.co Merch: https://motohop.co/merch Instagram: @motohop_ & @ms.motohop ========= Our Favorite Podcasts: Cleveland Moto Motorcycles & Misfits Noco Moto Creative Riding ========= Find the best AMSOIL products for your vehicles: https://motohop.co/oil

Welcome to Science Quest!

On the 5 September 1986, hijackers took over a Pan-American Airways flight during a stop-over at Karachi Airport in Pakistan. The armed Palestinian terrorists wanted to fly the plane to Cyprus and Israel, to free members of their organisation who were jailed there. But, after the pilots escaped the cockpit, the plane stayed on the ground for 16 hours with almost 400 passengers on board. When the power on the plane ran out – the hijackers began to shoot indiscriminately. 22 people were killed and more than 150 injured. Madhvi Bahunga was a Pan-American Airways flight attendant, who was on the plane that day. She speaks to Tim O'Callaghan. Witness History is a short BBC World Service podcast about history that takes you inside big moments from the past through first-hand testimony and archive. Each weekday, in around nine minutes, we revisit one moment that helped shape the world and hear it through the voice of someone who was there. Scientists, artists, campaigners, soldiers, leaders and everyday people tell their true stories.When you subscribe to Witness History, you'll be taken inside turning points in world affairs from West Africa's fight back against Boko Haram in 2015 to the behind-closed-doors talks that led to the US-Cuba “thaw” and the surprise announcement of restored relations. You'll discover what it was like to experience disasters and how people recovered from them, including the Tabasco floods in Mexico, Portugal's worst train disaster, and the huge clean-up after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. You'll explore culture and ideas too: Sweden's Expedition Robinson, often credited as the first modern reality TV game show; the friendship between The Beatles' George Harrison and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar; and the night a tiger attack brought Las Vegas superstars Siegfried and Roy's show to a sudden end. And if you're curious about inventions, we'll tell you how air fryers, BlackBerry, YouTube, Alexa, GPS, superglue, the shopping cart (shopping trolley) and bubble tea were created. If you're new to Witness History, the appeal is simple: real voices, one strong true story, and a fresh way to understand today through events from history – all in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of tea or a walk around the block. Join millions of BBC World Service podcast listeners around the globe and enjoy the insight, context and detail Witness History will bring you.(Photo: Flight 73 the day after the hijacking at Karachi Airport. Credit: Kraipit Phanvut/AFP via Getty Images)

The Indian bot farms were very upset with our coverage of H1-Bs and the Indian culture of scamming yesterday. Let's see what they had to say. Tucker Carlson hosted former Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino who made some wild claims about Trump and immigration despite evidence to the contrary. Let's see if they're true. No one thinks about Canada, so Canada decided to throw a temper tantrum and get in a trade war so America would pay attention to them again. Turns out that wasn't a great move for them. GUEST: Josh Firestine Link to today's sources: https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/sources-august-27-2026 Watch the Biological Males Shouldn't Compete in Women's Sports: CMM here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq6UhyW9WZo&t=329s Tip creators, not the platform with Rumble Wallet. Get started with Rumble Wallet and use the code CROWDER5 to claim $5 in US Stablecoin (USA₮)! Download now: http://wallet.rumble.com/crowder Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary. Offer available to US residents only. Offer not available in New York State. Must be 18+. Offer is available for a limited time and for the first 1000 wallets activated and funded. Restrictions apply. Details and full official rules available at http://rumble.com/promoofficialrules. This is a paid advertisement for Rumble Wallet. Rumble is compensating me for this ad. Go to http://kalshi.com/r/crowder and $10 credit on your first $10 trade Foundation Daily is made up of premium ingredients to reduce inflammation and stress and promote clean energy and mental clarity. Subscribe now and receive 40% off for life. https://foundationdaily.com/ Share clips from the show! Where to get clips: Telegram: http://t.me/LWCClips Discord: https://discord.gg/nfRAZxEbAV Join Rumble Premium to watch this show every day! http://louderwithcrowder.com/Premium Want to be informed? Check out the 3-in-3 podcast. Here's the best path to victory on the most debated topics: https://threekeyfacts.com/ Get your favorite LWC gear: https://crowdershop.com/ Bite-Sized Content: https://rumble.com/c/CrowderBits Subscribe to my podcast: https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/podcast FOLLOW ME: Website: https://louderwithcrowder.com/ X: https://x.com/scrowder Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/louderwithcrowder Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stevencrowderofficial Music by @Pogo

They just can't keep my name out of their mouths. After an Indian heritage restaurant owner decided to verbally attack me online, a group of mostly Indians decided to hold a forum to trash me even further. Luckily, I'm everywhere, even in their Spaces chat, where they accuse me of being a racist, inciting violence, and spreading hate. They love calling me “racist” for the smallest reasons, including my dislike of Indian food. Strong accusations coming from people who have said some atrocious things. I did some digging on the ringleaders of the Spaces chat, and what they say is beyond hypocritical — it's horrifying. A Democrat running for Congress in Texas was BUSTED spending hundreds of donor dollars on cookies. Leftists have no issue spending money freely when it's not their own. Congressional nominee Brandon Herrera (R-Texas) joins the show to dish the dirt on his opponent, Katy Padilla Stout (D-Texas). No surprise that liberals immediately turned the heartbreaking loss of Dolly Parton into a political argument. Even in a moment meant to honor a country music icon, they can't resist dragging Trump into it. ► Watch my video where I call out the restaurant owner who threatened me:  https://youtu.be/wJs08ognDBs   ► Catch up on my H-1B visa investigations:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkJEwf2wliqrtNlYs9D78nmE_Gnja_PpC    ► Email me at saratips@blazemedia.com if you have uncovered potential fraud in your area.   ► Subscribe to my second YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SaraGonzalesTX?sub_confirmation=1    ► Patriot Mobile Use promo code SARA for a FREE MONTH of service. PatriotMobile.com/SARA Timestamps:  00:00 - They're Calling ME Racist? 25:43 - Exposing Their Racist Posts 34:04 - Cookie Spending Spree 42:51 - Libs Politicize Dolly Parton's Death Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices