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Dan brings us one, long tale today. We meet a young woman who moved into an old San Francisco house with roommates and then began to hear things. The more she hears, the creepier and more disturbing things get. I don't want to give away any more than that. No lore, no historical set ups, just a deeply disturbing story. Lynze balances out the show with three tales the go from creepy, to creepier, to creepiest! We begin with two young kids creeping out their mom, then we go on to an uninvited visitor and wrap up with three friends needing to GTFO. Hope you enjoy!Crime Wave At Sea 2.0! The website will be live as 1.30! In 2027, we will once again be going on the Crime Wave At Sea cruise! YAY!!! Not only will you have the chance to go on vacation with us but also, with so many other creators you love! LPOTL, True Crime Campfire, The No Sleep Podcast and even our friend Richard from Unexplained. And more- A Paranormal Chicks, Casefile (who will continue to remain anonymous!), and even a few tik-tok-ers, like Crime w Court and Crime Time Tea Time. It's shaping up to be an even bigger line up than the inaugural cruise.The cruise will be from February 8th-12th, 2027. Tickets go on sale Friday, February 13th at 12 noon ET/9am PT If you use our link, not only do you get $100 off, you also are guaranteed a private meet and greet with us and your fellow Creeps and Peepers! Go to crimewaveatsea.com/SCARED to get your discount code and ensure we get some hang time on the ship!And stay tuned for more info about the 2026 Cummins Family Scholarship!Do you want to get all of our episodes a WEEK early, ad free? Want to help us support amazing charities? Join us on Patreon!Want to be a Patron? Get episodes AD-FREE, listen and watch before they are released to anyone else, bonus episodes, a 20% merch discount, additional content, and more! Learn more by visiting: https://www.patreon.com/scaredtodeathpodcast.Send stories to mystory@scaredtodeathpodcast.comSend everything else to info@scaredtodeathpodcast.comPlease rate, review, and subscribe anywhere you listen.Thank you for listening!Follow the show on social media: @scaredtodeathpodcast on Facebook and IG and TTWebsite: https://www.badmagicproductions.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scaredtodeathpodcastInstagram: https://bit.ly/2miPLf5Mailing Address:Scared to Deathc/o Timesuck PodcastPO Box 3891Coeur d'Alene, ID 83816Opening Sumerian protection spell (adapted):"Whether thou art a ghost that hath come from the earth, or a phantom of night that hath no home… or one that lieth dead in the desert… or a ghost unburied… or a demon or a ghoul… Whatever thou be until thou art removed… thou shalt find here no water to drink… Thou shalt not stretch forth thy hand to our own… Into our house enter thou not. Through our fence, breakthrough thou not… we are protected though we may be frightened. Our life you may not steal, though we may feel SCARED TO DEATH." Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Scared to Death ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Hey BillOReilly.com Premium and Concierge Members, welcome to the No Spin News for Tuesday, February 3, 2026. Stand Up for Your Country. Bill shares details of his latest conversation with President Trump. Talking Points Memo: Bill calls out far-left leadership, blaming NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani for his response to cold weather and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Gov. Tim Walz for refusing to protect federal agents. John McLaughlin, CEO and Partner at McLaughlin & Associates, enters the No Spin Zone to challenge a new poll on Trump's approval ratings and discuss when polling starts to matter for the midterms. A look at Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson's (D) anti-ICE order and how the police union responded. The Clintons agree to testify before the House Oversight Committee as part of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Final Thought: A preview of Bill's one-on-one with NFL legend Joe Namath Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Kelly, Jan & Albert are joined by Albert's long-term boyfriend, Kyle, and do we hear wedding bells?? They discuss how and when to throw a wedding after 25 years of dating, wedding anniversary gifts, and Jan updates the team about her hilarious move mishap. Kelly spills on everything she knows about Mark's latest Broadway play, Fallen Angels, as well as the baby aka Joaquin's Broadway debut in the revival of Death of A Salesman. PLUS they debate the meaning of this weekend or next? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
A few years ago, Shabaz Ali was a chemistry teacher in Blackburn. Today, he's one of the internet's most beloved creators, best known as Shabaz Says, with millions of fans and a knack for skewering the most outrageous (and often tasteless) displays of online excess. Since quitting the day job, Shabaz has launched a podcast, performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and published his book I'm Rich, You're Poor. Beneath the humour though, there's always been something more serious at play: a sharp commentary on the psychological erosion that comes from spending too much of our lives online. In this episode, we talk about Shabaz's upbringing, being bullied at school, how his taxi-driver Dad didn't even realise his son was famous until recently and why no-one should ever spend £10,000 on an outfit. ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Introduction 03:03 The Impact of Social Media on Youth 05:14 Navigating Imposter Syndrome and Success 10:53 Embracing Authenticity and Overcoming Criticism 12:46 Growing Up in Blackburn 15:45 Challenges of Intersectional Identity 22:36 Family Perspectives and Cultural Expectations 24:04 Struggles with Poverty 25:20 Empathy 30:15 From Teacher to Social Media Star 31:24 Unexpected Career in the Hospital Morgue 33:38 Finding Viral Success Online 37:16 Representation and Finding Your Voice
Part two of our series on the death of two-year-old Parker Scholtes focuses on what came next. In this episode of Seeing Red, we examine the aftermath of Parker's death in Arizona — the public response, the investigation, and the long road toward trial. We follow the build-up through court proceedings, mounting scrutiny, and the questions surrounding responsibility and accountability. Finally, we look at the shocking conclusion to this case and what it meant for the family left behind. This is a difficult episode, dealing with the death of a child and its consequences. Listener discretion is advised. www.patreon.com/seeingredpodcast https://www.buymeacoffee.com/seeingredtw www.seeingredpodcast.co.uk Theme music arranged and composed by Holly-Jane Shears: www.soundcloud.com/DeadDogInBlackBag Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
DEATH OF THE DOLLAR The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What's Next in these increasingly turbulent times. To access our premium content, subscribe to the Trends Journal: https://trendsjournal.com/subscribe The Trends Journal Shop: https://trendsjournal.com/shop Follow Gerald Celente on X: https://x.com/geraldcelente Follow Gerald Celente on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geraldcelentetrends Follow Gerald Celente on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gcelente/ Follow Gerald Celente on Gab: http://gab.com/geraldcelente Substack: https://Trendsinthenews.substack.com TikTok: / trends.journal Follow Gerald Celente on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/trendsjournal.bsky.social Follow Gerald Celente on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@geraldcelentetrends Follow Gerald Celente on Truth: https://truthsocial.com/@TrendsJournal Follow Gerald Celente on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/Trends-Journal/ Copyright © 2026 Trends Research Institute. All rights reserved.
If meetings are draining your energy, killing momentum, and stealing your calendar — you're not imagining it. They're broken. And they're costing us trillions. In this episode of This Is Woman's Work, Nicole is joined by Dr. Rebecca Hinds, organizational behavior expert, Stanford PhD, and author of Your Best Meeting Ever, to expose why meetings are one of the most expensive, overlooked products inside any organization — and how to fix them. We get into: Why bad meetings are literally an old-school sabotage tactic (thanks, WWII) The real cost of ineffective meetings — and who pays the highest price The 4D CEO Test for deciding if a meeting should exist at all Why status updates don't belong in meetings (ever) The science behind why meetings over 8 people stop working How to measure meetings by return on time invested Why you don't need fewer meetings — you need better ones And how to influence meetings even when you're not the one in charge This conversation is part wake-up call, part permission slip, and part playbook for anyone done pretending “this is just how work works.” Meetings aren't neutral. They shape culture, power, and whose work gets seen — so if your meetings are broken, your organization is too. The good news? You don't need more authority to change them — just more intention. Thank you to our sponsors! Sex is a skill. Beducated is where you learn it. Visit https://beducate.me/bg2602-womanswork and use code womanswork for 50% off the annual pass. Connect with Rebecca Website: https://www.rebeccahinds.com/ LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-hinds/ Related Podcast Episodes: Leadership Unblocked (The Hidden Beliefs Sabotaging Your Ability To Lead) with Muriel M. Wilkins | 367 The Sixth Level Of Leadership with Dr. Stacy Feiner | 236 The 3 N's - Negotiation, Networking & No with Kathryn Valentine | 327 Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform!
On February 20th, we hit a historic threshold. As Saturn and Neptune conjunct at the Zero Point of Aries, the cosmic "fog" of the last few years is finally lifting—but it’s leaving us with a heavy ultimatum: Your intentions are no longer enough. Since 2023, many of us have been swimming in the "Pisces soup"—dealing with exhaustion, escapism, and the loud whispers of the subconscious. We’ve had the dreams, but perhaps not the infrastructure. That ends now. As the planet of structure (Saturn) meets the planet of mysticism (Neptune) at the beginning of the zodiac, the universe is demanding Aligned Action. In this episode/video, we dive deep into: The 0° Aries Significance: Why this "Zero Point" is a global game-changer. From 2012 to Today: How the psychic field opening in 2012 led us to this moment of "Holy Surrender." The Death of the Fantasy: Why we must stop negotiating with our illusions and pick a lane. The Shadow Side: Navigating the "Crazymaking" energy, tyrants, and the lack of compassion in a fiery Aries season. The Spiritual Warrior: How to stand in integrity and use courage as the alchemy for fear. The Question for This New Era: If someone had X-ray vision into your soul, would your external life match your internal truth? It’s time to marry your intention with initiation. Key Dates to Watch: Jan 26: Neptune enters Aries Feb 14: Saturn enters Aries Feb 20: The Conjunction (The Bridge to the New Timeline) Want to dive deeper into February’s Astrology & Numerology and what this energy means for you? Sign up for Amanda’s February Workshop Host: Amanda Rieger Green YouTube: @soul_pathology Instagram: @soulpathology Website: SoulPathology.com Email: Podcast@soulsessions.meFollow Amanda on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soulpathology/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Growing up, George Saunders was the eldest boy with younger sisters, in a family full of women who gave him praise and special treatment. That created the confidence that fueled his ambition to become a great writer. In this lively interview, George talks about why that dream took decades to realize and what was essential to making it happen – including a karmic, three-week romance, a pivotal trip to the Afghanistan border during the Soviet war, and witnessing a “colossal fuck up” working in the oil fields of Indonesia. George's newest novel, “Vigil,” is out now and his substack is called Story Club.Podcast production by Andrew Dunn.Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus.And if you're new to the show, welcome. We're so glad you're here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna's newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is deathsexmoney@slate.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Growing up, George Saunders was the eldest boy with younger sisters, in a family full of women who gave him praise and special treatment. That created the confidence that fueled his ambition to become a great writer. In this lively interview, George talks about why that dream took decades to realize and what was essential to making it happen – including a karmic, three-week romance, a pivotal trip to the Afghanistan border during the Soviet war, and witnessing a “colossal fuck up” working in the oil fields of Indonesia. George's newest novel, “Vigil,” is out now and his substack is called Story Club.Podcast production by Andrew Dunn.Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus.And if you're new to the show, welcome. We're so glad you're here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna's newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is deathsexmoney@slate.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Peter Ormerod, author of "David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God," joins Joe and Alex for a special guest episode to discuss his new book and all things Bowie, his spirituality, and how it affected his music. As Peter writes, "We cannot know if Bowie ever found this God. But we do know that in searching for God, Bowie made art that shook the world and changed lives". Count Trippi among them - and listen to find out why. Check out the book and get your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/David-Bowie-Search-Life-Death/dp/1399422820 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Once again, the team journeys from Ilmater's Hope into the Dead Pines... Check out the PDF for Shores of the Silver Thrum! Story by Travis Vengroff & K.A. Statz (Game Masters) Produced, Edited, and with Sound Design by Travis Vengroff Executive Producers: Dennis Greenhill, Carol Vengroff, AJ Punk'n, & Maico Villegas Mixing and Mastering by Finnur Nielsen Transcriptions by Travis Vengroff & Florian Seidler Cast: Narrator / Co-Game Master – Travis Vengroff Narrator / Co-Game Master – K.A. Statz Father Sindri Westpike – Eyþór Viðarsson Rowena Granitepike / Glóey Westpike – Hem Brewster Soren Arkwright – Peter Joeseph Lewis Ildrex Mystan – Russ D. More Devoir – Melchior Riemens Music: (in order of appearance) Music Director / Arranged by - Travis Vengroff Music Engineer (Musiversal) - Gergő Lá "Danse Silencieuse" – Arranged and Performed by Travis Vengroff with Cello by Sam Boase-Miller and stock media provided by avinograd/ Pond5, Written and Performed by Andrey Vinogradov "Ilmater's Hope" - Written and Mixed by Steven Melin, Orchestrated by Christopher Siu, with Additional Copyist Catherine Nguyen, Lyrics & Translations by Travis Vengroff, Violin by Matheus Garcia Souza, Budapest Strings Recorded by Musiversal, Choir Recorded by Budapest Scoring "Sun for Grandpa" - Harp Performed by Steven Melin Dark Dice art by Allen Morris with lettering by Kessir Riliniki This is a Fool and Scholar Production. For early episodes and bonus content join us at: https://www.patreon.com/FoolandScholar Check out our Merch: www.DarkDice.com Free Transcripts are also available: https://www.patreon.com/posts/dark-dice-22460850 Special Thanks to: Our Patreon supporters! | Hem Brewster | Our Fool & Scholar Discord Lampreys! | Carol Vengroff Content Warnings: Agency (Loss of), Death, Feelz (you may cry), Gaslighting, Loss (Familial) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
On today's episode of The Lou Perez Podcast, I talk with clarinet player James Zimmermann about being a nine-year-old on Broadway (you may have seen him in The Will Rogers Follies back in 1991), why old people gravitate to the fine arts, the slopification of entertainment, blind auditions, and his firing from the Nashville Symphony. Check out my book, That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: On the Death and Rebirth of Comedy https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r Watch my sketch comedy streaming on Red Coral Universe: https://redcoraluniverse.com/en/series/the-lou-perez-comedy-68501a2fd369683d0f2a2a88?loopData=true&ccId=675bc891f78f658f73eaa46d Rock XX-XY Athletics. You can get 20% off your purchase with promo code LOU20. https://www.xx-xyathletics.com/?sca_ref=7113152.ifIMaKpCG3ZfUHH4 Support me at www.substack.com/@louperez Join my newsletter www.TheLouPerez.com Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/.../the-lou-perez.../id1535032081 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/.../2b7d4d.../the-lou-perez-podcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Lou Perez is a comedian, producer, and the author of THAT JOKE ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE: ON THE DEATH AND REBIRTH OF COMEDY. You may have seen him on Gutfeld! , FOX News Primetime, One Nation with Brian Kilmeade, and Open to Debate (with Michael Ian Black). Lou was the Head Writer and Producer of the Webby Award-winning comedy channel We the Internet TV. During his tenure at WTI, Lou made the kind of comedy that gets you put on lists and your words in the Wall Street Journal: “How I Became a ‘Far-Right Radical.'” As a stand-up comedian, Lou has opened for Rob Schneider, Rich Vos, Jimmy Dore, Dave Smith, and toured the US and Canada with Scott Thompson. Lou has also produced live shows with Colin Quinn, the Icarus Festival, and the Rutherford Comedy Festival. For years, Lou performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater (both in NYC and L.A.) in sketch shows with the Hammerkatz and his comedy duo, Greg and Lou. Greg and Lou is best known for its sketch "Wolverine's Claws Suck," which has over 20 million views on YouTube alone. In addition to producing sketch comedy like Comedy Is Murder, performing stand-up across the country, and writing for The Blaze's Align, Lou is on the advisory board of Heresy Press, a FAIR-in-the-arts fellow, and host of the live debate series The Wrong Take and The Lou Perez Podcast (which is part of the Lions of Liberty Podcast Network), and co-hosts Happy Hour Econ with Phil Magness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Growing up, George Saunders was the eldest boy with younger sisters, in a family full of women who gave him praise and special treatment. That created the confidence that fueled his ambition to become a great writer. In this lively interview, George talks about why that dream took decades to realize and what was essential to making it happen – including a karmic, three-week romance, a pivotal trip to the Afghanistan border during the Soviet war, and witnessing a “colossal fuck up” working in the oil fields of Indonesia. George's newest novel, “Vigil,” is out now and his substack is called Story Club.Podcast production by Andrew Dunn.Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus.And if you're new to the show, welcome. We're so glad you're here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna's newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is deathsexmoney@slate.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
When a workplace affair ends, the fallout doesn't stay private. Loyalties fracture, tension poisons the environment, and what was once whispered behind closed doors becomes impossible to escape. Careers, reputations, and mental health can all be collateral damage when personal betrayal collides with professional life.In the story today from Norfolk, the end of an affair leads to one person looking for revenge and ends in the most shocking violence.Join me at TrueCrimeFest in London in Marchhttps://www.truecrimefest.co.uk/Buy My New True Crime Content Creators Online Coursehttps://adam-s-site-be58.thinkific.com/products/courses/true-crime-content-creation-courseWriting Credit: Chris WoodYou can buy Chris's second book, 'Death in the Theatre' here: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Theatre-Chris-Wood/dp/1399009117Watch my YouTube channelhttps://www.youtube.com/@Adam-uktruecrime/videosListen/Watch the True Crime Catch Uphttps://audioalways.lnk.to/TrueCrimeCatchUpFind Our More About Mehttps://uktruecrime.comJoin UK True Crime Facebook Grouphttps://www.facebook.com/groups/UKTrueCrime Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Hey, real quick. Name even one of the top four Kathryn Hahn movies on IMDb. Just one. That shouldn't be too hard, right?? In This Episode: Streaming TV Update, Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere On Apple TV, Fast Forever, Extra Credit, Traitors Season 4 Be sure to check out Imagine Dungeons, our actual play D&D podcast! Support us on Patreon for access to our exclusive Official Chunky Discord server! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/two-chunks-and-a-hunk/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
What would you do if your life—or the life of your child—depended on an impossible choice?
Comedian Morgan Jay joins The Mental Game to talk mental health with Brandon Saho. Morgan opens up about his comedy career, mixing music into stand-up, losing his father when he was 6 years old, battling suicidal thoughts, going to therapy, his viral autotune crowd work, how his life's changed with recent fame and how he best takes care of his mental health today.
In this episode of the Alex Marlow Show, actor and comedian Jamie Kennedy discusses his evolving political views and experiences in Hollywood. He reflects on how the pandemic and the changing landscape of the entertainment industry have influenced his perspectives, particularly regarding free speech and the cancel culture that has emerged in recent years. Kennedy shares his journey from being a comedic entertainer to becoming more outspoken about his beliefs, emphasizing the importance of comedy as a platform for truth and social commentary. He also touches on the challenges faced by comedians today, particularly in navigating a humorless environment where political correctness often stifles creativity and expression. Visit https://www.SunpowerLED.com and use the code MARLOW for 10% off today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
DOCKET ALERTS:We bid a fond goodbye to Ed Martin … well, fond-ish.Liam Ramos, the little boy kidnapped by ICE in Minneapolis along with his father is back home after a judge in Texas granted his habeas petition. Read the scathing order here.Judge Jia Cobb re-imposed a temporary restraining order barring DHS from excluding legislators from immigrant detention facilities. Two immigrant rights groups challenged ICE's homebrew arrest warrants.The Trump administration finally got that perp walk of Don Lemon. Two weeks ago, a federal magistrate refused to issue an arrest warrant for Lemon, Minnesota journalist Georgia Fort, and three others who were present at the MLK Day protest at a church whose pastor David Easterbrook is an ICE supervisor. Now a grand jury has indicted all eight of the DOJ's original targets.Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit dropkicked the DOJ's judicial ethics complaint against Chief Judge James Boasberg of the US District Court in DC. The complaint is based on leaked notes from a closed judicial conference in March, which Law and Chaos is suing to kick loose under FOIA. The Signalgate administration says it has no idea how this judicial record wound up on its servers. Liz and Andrew sound off on Chief Justice Roberts forcing SCOTUS employees to sign NDAs.Donald Trump sues the IRS — it's like suing himself, but you get to foot the bill.And we ponder whether Trump can legally burn down the Kennedy Center Make the Kennedy Center Great Again.Plus for subscribers: Andrew's got a deep dive into the Death on the High Seas Act and the lawsuit filed by survivors of two men murdered in the Caribbean boat strikes.Justice Dept. demotes Ed Martin, stripping Trump ally of most authorityhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/02/02/ed-martin-demoted-justice-departmentLiam Ramos Habeas Orderhttps://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172886492/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172886492.9.0_3.pdfTRO Enjoining DHS from Excluding Legislators From Immigration Facilitieshttps://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.283200/gov.uscourts.dcd.283200.52.0.pdfThe Perp Walk Is The Pointhttps://www.lawandchaospod.com/p/the-perp-walk-is-the-pointUS v. Armstrong [Don Lemon Indictment]https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.231103/gov.uscourts.mnd.231103.39.0_1.pdfDOJ Attacks Judge, Claims Judicial Immunity For Itselfhttps://www.lawandchaospod.com/p/doj-attacks-judge-using-leaked-docJudge Sutton Dismissed DOJ Complaint Re Judge Boasberghttps://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/internet/judicial_complaints/files/2025/06-25-90173(Chad.MO.pdfRes Ipsa Media v. DOJ [L&C FOIA suit]https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71236135/res-ipsa-media-llc-v-department-of-justiceHow the Supreme Court Secretly Made Itself Even More Secretivehttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/us/supreme-court-nondisclosure-agreements.htmlTrump v. IRShttps://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.706172/gov.uscourts.flsd.706172.1.0_4.pdfBoat Strike Complainthttps://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.294916/gov.uscourts.mad.294916.1.0_1.pdfShow Links:https://www.lawandchaospod.com/BlueSky: @LawAndChaosPodThreads: @LawAndChaosPodTwitter: @LawAndChaosPodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Jeffrey Epstein built his empire on manipulation—preying on vulnerable girls who society would later dismiss as “unreliable.” His entire scheme was designed so that when the truth came out, the victims' credibility could be attacked and the public would fall for it. Even after his death, that same defense is still being used by his allies, lawyers, and media sympathizers. The people who demand “proof” and mock survivors are doing Epstein's work for him, playing right into the strategy he set in motion decades ago. And the worst part? Many of the powerful figures who partied, traveled, and did business with him refuse to sit for questioning or hand over records. If they were innocent, they'd welcome an investigation—but their silence screams otherwise.The truth is simple: the system protected Epstein, and it's still protecting those who enabled him. The survivors deserve a full reckoning, not another PR cleanup for the rich. Every politician, banker, and celebrity who covered for Epstein shares his guilt, and no amount of spin can change that. The public doesn't owe them the benefit of the doubt anymore. Justice means dragging every last enabler into the light.to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.com
In this episode, Kelsi Sheren engages in a deep conversation about the state of Canadian healthcare with Dr Ramona Coelho, particularly focusing on the controversial Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program. The discussion highlights the ethical implications of euthanasia, the biases present in medical decision-making, and the impact of mental health on patient care. The conversation also explores alternative treatment options, including psychedelics, and examines specific case studies that raise concerns about the application of MAID. The episode concludes with a reflection on the future of euthanasia and mental health support in Canada.Chapters00:00 Introduction to the Conversation01:55 The State of Canadian Healthcare04:06 The Impact of COVID-19 on Healthcare12:07 Human Biases in Medical Decision-Making14:09 Mental Health and Treatment Options21:57 Psychedelics and Alternative Treatments30:02 Case Studies in Medical Assistance in Dying41:01 Coercion and Lack of Care in MAID Cases52:15 The Future of Euthanasia and Mental Health01:01:34 Conclusion and Future Discussions - - - - - - - - - - - -One Time Donation! - Paypal - https://paypal.me/brassandunityBuy me a coffee! - https://buymeacoffee.com/kelsisherenLet's connect!Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@thekelsisherenperspectiveInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/thekelsisherenperspective?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw%3D%3DX: https://x.com/KelsiBurnsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/kelsie_sheren/Substack: https://substack.com/@kelsisherenTikTok - https://x.com/KelsiBurnsListen on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1O3yiobOjThKHtqyjviy1a?si=6c78bdc2325a43aeSUPPORT OUR SPONSORS - - - - - - - - - - - -MasterPeace - 10% off with code KELSI - http://www.MasterPeace.Health/KelsiKetone IQ- 30% off with code KELSI - https://ketone.com/KELSIGood Livin - 20% off with code KELSI - https://www.itsgoodlivin.com/?ref=KELSIBrass & Unity - 20% off with code UNITY - http://brassandunity.com
Today's Promise: 1 Corinthians 5:1 Every time you look in the mirror, you're reminded that your body is aging. No amount of workouts, supplements, or good intentions can stop it. Although this truth is sobering, for the Christian it isn't frightening. In this episode, we lean into the powerful promise of 2 Corinthians 5:1 and discover the hope God has given us beyond this temporary body. Scripture reminds us that our earthly body is just a tent. It is fragile, temporary, and fading. But God has already prepared something far better: an eternal body, handcrafted by Him, untouched by sickness, pain, loneliness, or death. A body that will never wear out and will perfectly fit who you truly are. This message invites you to face mortality with confidence, not fear. Death is not the end, it's a doorway. When this life closes, eternity opens. Be encouraged today as you're reminded that what's ahead is far greater than what's fading away.
In this candid and deeply personal episode, Beverley Simpson shares her transformative experience of losing access to her 15,000-person email list—80% of whom were paying customers and clients—for 30 days. This isn't a doom-and-gloom story; it's a masterclass in identifying the difference between mistakes and misconceptions, diagnosing root problems, and building a bulletproof business in the online fitness coaching space. Beverley breaks down the cascading consequences of not understanding the real technical problem, the dangerous advice circulating online about email marketing, and the critical mindset shifts required to scale a profitable business. Whether you're just starting your email list or managing thousands of subscribers, this episode will fundamentally shift how you approach email marketing, audience diversification, and business resilience in 2026.Key Discussion Points:0:00-2:00 – Introduction and episode overview: Beverley shares what listeners will learn from her email list crisis2:00-5:00 – Context on Beverley's business model: Building low-ticket funnels and customer-focused email lists (60-80% buyers)5:00-8:00 – The crucial mistake in May 2025: Manually adding 2,000 people to a workflow, resulting in 4,000 emails sent in 30 minutes8:00-12:00 – The cascading consequences: Open rates plummeting from 40-60% to 6-8% and the panic that followed12:00-18:00 – The real problem revealed: Lack of email drip rate knowledge (emails need to send at 10-100 per minute, not all at once)18:00-25:00 – Death by a thousand paper cuts: Months of attempting fixes without understanding the root cause25:00-35:00 – Misconception #1: "Your email list is yours" – Why this is dangerous and what it really means35:00-42:00 – Misconception #2: "Don't build an email list until you make a million dollars" – Why this advice is harmful42:00-50:00 – Misconception #3: "One platform is enough" – The importance of diversifying your audience channels50:00-58:00 – The technical nightmare: Changing domains, warming up IPs, and the complexity of email deliverability58:00-65:00 – Christmas crisis: Getting bad advice from a "senior advisor" that made things worse65:00-72:00 – The breaking point: Screaming in Voxer with her mentor and the decision to turn off all ads and emails72:00-80:00 – The 30-day recovery: Turning off ads (which previously cost her from 50K to 2K in revenue), no fulfillment emails, and daily technical calls80:00-88:00 – The solution discovered: Understanding email send rates and getting back on track by February 1st88:00-95:00 – Guru energy and authority vs. expertise: Why perception matters and how to avoid being scammed▶️ Ready to build your profitable online fitness business the right way? Join my FREE training where I show you the exact system I use to turn $9 into $50k months. https://ptprofitformula.com/simplescaling// C O N N E C T Let's connect on Instagram! Send me a DM and let me know your biggest takeaway from this episode. Instagram: @BSimpsonFitness// C O N T A C T For business inquiries, please visit: https://bsimpsonfitness.comSupport the show
Host Jeff welcomes author Tim Cohen for the fourth installment of his Tribulation series. This episode examines Revelation 6 and the fourth seal, placing the events of the Tribulation into a larger sacramental and typological framework patterned on the Crucifixion Week. Jeff and Tim discuss how the four horsemen cohere, why the fourth rider is named "Death," and how that imagery ties to Psalm 22 and New Testament typology. Tim Cohen presents his view that the Tribulation Week mirrors the Crucifixion Week, and he walks through the sequence and timing he reads in Scripture: conquest, war, famine, then death. They discuss the identity and symbolism of the beasts and horsemen (including the pale/ashen horse), the heraldic and historical imagery Tim associates with King Charles III as the prophesied top-dog Antichrist figure, and the role of Satanic possession in that portrait. The conversation covers geopolitical implications and possible near-term signs, including Iran/Persia, North Korea, Russia and the shifting alliances Tim connects to prophetic patterns. Jeff and Tim debate the timing and nature of a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, the “abomination of desolation,” and whether a functioning inner and outer court or full temple is likely—Tim places construction in the early part of the fourth year of the Tribulation with key sacrificial activity stopping at the midpoint. Wider theological and eschatological themes are explored: the meaning of "firstfruits" and the 144,000, the relationship of Christ's death–burial–resurrection to the seven seals, what Revelation 11 and Daniel 9:27 suggest about sacrificial practice during the Tribulation, and the timing of the first resurrection. Tim also addresses common misunderstandings about Mystery Babylon versus Jerusalem, Mount Zion's future elevation, and the end-of-age topography and events leading into Armageddon. Throughout the episode Tim cites biblical language, Hebrew textual details, and historical typology (including references from his Messiah History and Tribulation Period series and The Antichrist and Capitoli). Listeners are directed to prophecyhouse.com for Tim's books and resources. Jeff and Tim close by previewing the next show (the fifth seal) and encourage listeners to keep studying and preparing spiritually while serving their communities. Want to Understand and Explain Everything Biblically? Click Here: Decoding the Power of Three: Understand and Explain Everything or go to www.rightonu.com and click learn more. Thank you for Listening to Right on Radio. Prayerfully consider supporting Right on Radio. Click Here for all links, Right on Community ROC, Podcast web links, Freebies, Products (healing mushrooms, EMP Protection) Social media, courses and more... https://linktr.ee/RightonRadio Live Right in the Real World! We talk God and Politics, Faith Based Broadcast News, views, Opinions and Attitudes We are Your News Now. Keep the Faith
In today's reading from Exodus 10-11, Fr. Mike explains how the ten plagues reveal that God is far greater than the Egyptian gods. We also discover more about how God wants to be worshipped through Leviticus 8 and Psalm 50. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.
February 9th, 2025. Boulder, Colorado. Megan Trussell was last seen walking on campus at CU Boulder after an argument with her roommate. She was reported missing three days later, and on February 15th her body was found on the highway off campus.We've been telling you about our Patreon and all the extra content we deliver and you either don't want more content or you're living under a rock. Go subscribe already. patreon.com/generationwhySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
When some Klingons start experimenting with augment DNA, they start a pandemic and kidnap Dr. Phlox to find a cure. But after Hoshi gets melded and Reed gets thrown in the brig, the rest of the crew chase down a Rigelian ship and find the Entrepreneur has been sabotaged. What could push us into the physical-media lifestyle? Who is Trip Tucker's Steve Stevens? Where do lady captains need to be careful? It's the episode that's going through some changes.Support the production of The Greatest GenerationGet a thing at podshop.biz!Sign up for our mailing list!Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Riker - Quantum LeapThe Greatest Generation is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFriends of DeSoto for: Labor | Democracy | JusticeDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Facebook | X | Instagram | TikTok | Mastodon | Bluesky | ThreadsAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.social Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
We discuss the Elizabeth Smart documentary about her kidnapping and miraculous rescue, and the complicated nature of healing from that trauma. We learn about a graduate student who was offended when people in the department asked him to stop microwaving his "pungent" food, so he sued the school claiming he was discriminated against. We talk about the people who created a secret apartment in the mall and lived there for a long time without being detected, why they did it, and whether we love it or are annoyed by it. Susie talks about a woman who was busted for drunk driving and drug possession, but handled it in a hilarious way.Brain Candy Podcast Website - https://thebraincandypodcast.com/Brain Candy Podcast Book Recommendations - https://thebraincandypodcast.com/books/Brain Candy Podcast Merchandise - https://thebraincandypodcast.com/candy-store/Brain Candy Podcast Candy Club - https://thebraincandypodcast.com/product/candy-club/Brain Candy Podcast Sponsor Codes - https://thebraincandypodcast.com/support-us/Brain Candy Podcast Social Media & Platforms:Brain Candy Podcast LIVE Interactive Trivia Nights - https://www.youtube.com/@BrainCandyPodcast/streamsBrain Candy Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/braincandypodcastHost Susie Meister Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/susiemeisterHost Sarah Rice Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imsarahriceBrain Candy Podcast on X: https://www.x.com/braincandypodBrain Candy Podcast Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/braincandy (JOIN FREE - TONS OF REALITY TV CONTENT)Brain Candy Podcast Sponsors, partnerships, & Products that we love:Visit https://www.carawayhome.com/braincandypod to take an additional 10% off your next purchase!Head to https://cozyearth.com and use my code BRAINCANDYBOGO to get these pj's for you and someone you love!Get $30 off your first box - PLUS free Croissants for life - when you go to https://wildgrain.com/braincandy to start your subscription today!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Episode 404: In April 2015, someone began targeting some of the city's most vulnerable residents: men living rough, sleeping outside, and often already failed by every system meant to protect them. By the time the killing stopped, three were dead: 37‑year‑old Miles Monias, 48‑year‑old Stony Stanley Bushie, and 65‑year‑old Donald Collins. Their killer was another man on the margins, a homeless drifter with a long history of violence and untreated mental illness, John Paul Ostamas. Sources: Media Release - April 28, 2015 - Winnipeg Police ServiceR. v. Ostamas, 2016 MBQB 136 (CanLII)R. v. Ostamas (J.P.) (2016), 329 Man.R.(2d) 203 (QB) | vLexR v Ostamas, 2022 MBCA 68 (CanLII)John Paul Ostamas | APTN ArchivesJohn Paul Ostamas | Global News, Videos & ArticlesWinnipeg's Duck Face Serial KillerWinnipeg's historyGarden Hill First Nation | WikipediaLittle Grand Rapids First NationApr 27, 2015, page 16 - Calgary Herald at Newspapers.com™Apr 29, 2015, page A5 - Telegraph-Journal at Newspapers.com™May 2015: Death and the homelessTHE FIRST NATIONAL INDIGENOUS BROADCASTER IN THE WORLD | APTNWinnipeg police charge man in connection with 3 murders | APTNMan charged with 3 Winnipeg killings came from ‘good family' in Eabametoong First Nation | APTNMay 2016: Guilty plea in killing spree'3 monstrous murders': Homeless killer John Paul Ostamas will get no parole for 75 years | CBC News‘Person of interest' located by Winnipeg Police: Sources - WinnipegPolice say suspect in Winnipeg deaths known to Ontario policeMurder charges for deaths of homeless Native men in ManitobaAccused serial killer John Paul Ostamas sought help from Kenora pastorStoney Bushie's friends, family gather for Winnipeg prayer service | CBC NewsOstamas tried to burn down Winnipeg hotel, police say - WinnipegThunder Bay-area man charged with murder after 2 homeless men killed in Winnipeg | CBC NewsFamilies honour victims of alleged serial killer John OstamasMan charged with killing 3 men in Winnipeg | CBC NewsWho is John Paul Ostamas, alleged serial killer in Winnipeg deaths? | CBC NewsHomeless in Vancouver: Homeless man charged in serial killings of three Winnipeg men | Georgia Straight Vancouver's source for arts, culture, and eventsHomelessness – Social Planning Council of WinnipegIndigenous Peoples and Homelessness | homelesshub.caHomeless in Vancouver: Serial killer may be targeting Winnipeg homeless | Georgia Straight Vancouver's source for arts, culture, and eventsLatest Winnipeg street census suggests homelessness at highest point in past decade | CBC NewsAMC Responds to Record Homelessness in Winnipeg | manitobachiefs.comUnderstanding Indigenous Homelessness28239_here_now_plan_report_FIN_WEB | PDF Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Renue Healthcare https://Renue.Healthcare/ToddYour journey to a better life starts at Renue Healthcare. Visit https://Renue.Healthcare/Todd Bulwark Capital https://KnowYourRiskPodcast.comBe confident in your portfolio with Bulwark! Schedule your free Know Your Risk Portfolio review. Go to KnowYourRiskPodcast.com today. Alan's Soaps https://www.AlansArtisanSoaps.comUse coupon code TODD to save an additional 10% off the bundle price.Bonefrog https://BonefrogCoffee.com/ToddGet the new limited release, The Sisterhood, created to honor the extraordinary women behind the heroes. Use code TODD at checkout to receive 10% off your first purchase and 15% on subscriptions.Why God Cannot Bless Canada - Is the USA Far Behind? // Don Lemon Was Not Arrested For Speech // There's No Such Thing as Resting In PowerEpisode links:'AGAINST HER WILL': Elderly Canadian woman euthanized by government after husband got sick of caring for her: report; The review raised concerns about potential coercion, citing the husband's caregiver burnout, limited access to in-patient palliative care, and the fact that MAiD assessments were conducted with the spouse present.Trudeau's Canadian medical professionals are now pressuring the mentally or physically ill, disabled, infirm and elderly to kill themselves by euthanasia (MAID) because of their “burden on the healthcare system”Today, Margaret Marsilla, mother of 26-yr-old Kiano Vafaeian, who Canada euthanized, read statements from several doctors who refused to approve MAID for him before Dr. Ellen Wiebe, aka “Dr. Death,” authorized it.Everyone needs to watch and understand this from a woman who exists because her mother was raped and chose to give birthDon Lemon admits to turning his camera off so as to not report "critical information."‘Heartbreaking,' ‘Terrifying'; CNN Suffers Epic MELTDOWN Over Don Lemon's Arrest‘What in the World'; CBS Flips Over Don Lemon Being Arrested for Role in Church MobTo All Those Dems Saying They'd Never Cheer The Arrest Of A Journalist… Let's Look At What They Did To Journalist @SteveBakerUSA For Covering January 6th! Unlike Don Lemon, Baker Did Not Conspire With Organizers. He Actually Covered The Event.Blaze Media journalist Steve Baker discusses his arrest at the hands of Biden's weaponized FBI, which included being put in leg-irons for misdemeanor charges relating to his reporting on J-6.I am finally out of prison. Happy to be free, grateful to be loved, and excited for what's next. My spirit is bright. My heart is full. My mind is sharpened. My soul is rejuvenated. My faith in God solidified. My faith in the American people reaffirmed.I was charged with a FEDERAL CRIME by @NatlParkService in St. Augustine, Florida for committing the GRAVE offense of asking Democrats questions on public property! Keep federal agents out of our cities... unless they're locking up conservatives for different opinions! - Kaitlin Bennett “Through Beauty 2 The Streetz, Shirley Raines gave Skid Row more than food and makeovers, she gave hope. She reminded us that dignity is a human right, no matter your zip code. A Sister to the people. Her impact will live on. Rest in Power, Shirley” - News ReportShirley Raines also said this: "The Queen of Gospel" Mahalia Jackson died on this day in 1972. Rest In Power!
Jeff and Christian welcome Jill Grodt from Indie Informer back to the show this week to discuss the latest GDC developer survey, Google's AI video game creator, and the curious case of Highguard.The Playlist:Jill: MIO: Memories In Orbit, Death Howl, TR-49, Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven, Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator, Christian: Chibi-Robo! Plug Into Adventure!Jeff: MIO: Memories in Orbit, No Rest For the Wicked Together patchParting Gifts!BONUS CONTENT: Interview with Will Powers from Pearl Abyss about their upcoming open-world adventure game, Crimson Desert.
Only two categories of ultra-processed foods have been associated with premature death.
The Awake Coach Bradley Burlingame joins Brian Nichols to reveal the Alcohol Freedom Process and why the 90-year-old Alcoholics Anonymous model is failing modern patriots in 2026. This episode exposes the intersection of the "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) movement, the rise of AI slop destroying digital reality, and the globalist "useless eater" narrative that weaponizes addiction against individual sovereignty. Bradley breaks down why traditional recovery methods are obsolete and how coping mechanisms like alcohol and processed food are tools of control in an era of CBDCs and government overreach. We expose the reality of "Rockefeller Medicine" and its historical grip on the addiction industry, revealing why the "Planet Fitness approach" to sobriety is keeping you stuck. You need to hear this blueprint for personal reinvention, which offers a science-backed, eight-week path to freedom that rejects the victimhood mentality of the past. If you are ready to reclaim your health, escape the digital matrix, and make yourself great again before the 2026 societal shifts hit, this is your tactical manual. Chapters:0:00 - Intro: Making Yourself Great Again2:35 - The Digital Trap: Why You Must Touch Grass4:12 - AI Slop & The Death of Online Reality10:38 - "Useless Eaters": The Globalist Depopulation Agenda15:47 - MAHA: The Political Shift in Public Health28:31 - Why Alcoholics Anonymous is Obsolete in 202632:00 - Rockefeller Medicine & The Addiction Industry Scam46:22 - The Alcohol Freedom Process: 60 Days to Liberty Studio Sponsor: Cardio Miracle - "Unlock the secret to a healthier heart, increased energy levels, and transform your cardiovascular fitness like never before.": CardioMiracle.com/TBNS Order Cardio Miracle (CardioMiracle.com/TBNS) for 15% off and take a step towards better heart health and overall well-being! WATCH The Brian Nichols Show on YouTube & Rumble. Follow Brian on social media: X.com/Twitter (https://www.briannicholsshow.com/twitter) & Facebook (https://www.briannicholsshow.com/facebook) LIKE, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE to The Brian Nichols Show for a BRAND NEW episode airing every THURSDAY at 9pm EST! Email Listener Questions to brian@briannicholsshow.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Why would the human mind sometimes appear strongest when the brain is weakest? On today's ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes to the show neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor, co-author with Denyse O'Leary of the recent book The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon's Case for the Existence of the Soul, and Alexander Batthyany, a leading researcher on terminal lucidity and author of Threshold: Terminal Lucidity and the Border Between Life and Death. The trio begins a two-part conversation discussing the phenomenon of terminal lucidity: what it is, what the evidence shows, and how it relates to debates about consciousness, mind, and human identity. This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Source
How can indie authors raise their game through academic-style rigour? How might AI tools fit into a thoughtful research process without replacing the joy of discovery? Melissa Addey explores the intersection of scholarly discipline, creative writing, and the practical realities of building an author career. In the intro, mystery and thriller tropes [Wish I'd Known Then]; The differences between trad and indie in 2026 [Productive Indie Fiction Writer]; Five phases of an author business [Becca Syme]; Bones of the Deep – J.F. Penn; Today's show is sponsored by Bookfunnel, the essential tool for your author business. Whether it's delivering your reader magnet, sending out advanced copies of your book, handing out ebooks at a conference, or fulfilling your digital sales to readers, BookFunnel does it all. Check it out at bookfunnel.com/thecreativepenn This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Melissa Addey is an award-winning historical fiction author with a PhD in creative writing from the University of Surrey. She was the Leverhulme Trust Writer in Residence at the British Library, and now works as campaigns lead for the Alliance of Independent Authors. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Making the leap from a corporate career to full-time writing with a young family Why Melissa pursued a PhD in creative writing and how it fuelled her author business What indie authors can learn from academic rigour when researching historical fiction The problems with academic publishing—pricing, accessibility, and creative restrictions Organising research notes, avoiding accidental plagiarism, and knowing when to stop researching Using AI tools effectively as part of the research process without losing your unique voice You can find Melissa at MelissaAddey.com. Transcript of the interview with Melissa Addey JOANNA: Melissa Addey is an award-winning historical fiction author with a PhD in creative writing from the University of Surrey. She was the Leverhulme Trust Writer in Residence at the British Library, and now works as campaigns lead for the Alliance of Independent Authors. Welcome back to the show, Melissa. MELISSA: Hello. Thank you for having me. JOANNA: It's great to have you back. You were on almost a decade ago, in December 2016, talking about merchandising for authors. That is really a long time ago. So tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and self-publishing. MELISSA: I had a regular job in business and I was writing on the side. I did a couple of writing courses, and then I started trying to get published, and that took seven years of jumping through hoops. There didn't seem to be much progress. At some point, I very nearly had a small publisher, but we clashed over the cover because there was a really quite hideous suggestion that was not going to work. I think by that point I was really tired of jumping through hoops, really trying to play the game traditional publishing-wise. I just went, you know what? I've had enough now. I've done everything that was asked of me and it's still not working. I'll just go my own way. I think at the time that would've been 2015-ish. Suddenly, self-publishing was around more. I could see people and hear people talking about it, and I thought, okay, let's read everything there is to know about this. I had a little baby at the time and I would literally print off stuff during the day to read—probably loads of your stuff—and read it at two o'clock in the morning breastfeeding babies. Then I'd go, okay, I think I understand that bit now, I'll understand the next bit, and so on. So I got into self-publishing and I really, really enjoyed it. I've been doing it ever since. I'm now up to 20 books in the last 10 or 11 years. As you say, I did the creative writing PhD along the way, working with ALLi and doing workshops for others—mixing and matching lots of different things. I really enjoy it. JOANNA: You mentioned you had a job before in business. Are you full-time in all these roles that you're doing now, or do you still have that job? MELISSA: No, I'm full-time now. I only do writing-related things. I left that in 2015, so I took a jump. I was on maternity leave and I started applying for jobs to go back to, and I suddenly felt like, oh, I really don't want to. I want to do the writing. I thought, I've got about one year's worth of savings. I could try and do the jump. I remember saying to my husband, “Do you think it would be possible if I tried to do the jump? Would that be okay?” There was this very long pause while he thought about it. But the longer the pause went on, the more I was thinking, ooh, he didn't say no, that is out of the question, financially we can't do that. I thought, ooh, it's going to work. So I did the jump. JOANNA: That's great. I did something similar and took a massive pay cut and downsized and everything back in the day. Having a supportive partner is so important. The other thing I did—and I wonder if you did too—I said to Jonathan, my husband, if within a year this is not going in a positive direction, then I'll get another job. How long did you think you would leave it before you just gave up? And how did that go? Because that beginning is so difficult, especially with a new baby. MELISSA: I thought, well, I'm at home anyway, so I do have more time than if I was in a full-time job. The baby sleeps sometimes—if you're lucky—so there are little gaps where you could really get into it. I had a year of savings/maternity pay going on, so I thought I've got a year. And the funny thing that happened was within a few months, I went back to my husband and I was like, I don't understand. I said, all these doors are opening—they weren't massive, but they were doors opening. I said, but I've wanted to be a writer for a long time and none of these doors have opened before. He said, “Well, it's because you really committed. It's because you jumped. And when you jump, sometimes the universe is on board and goes, yes, all right then, and opens some doors for you.” It really felt like that. Even little things—like Writing Magazine gave me a little slot to do an online writer-in-residence thing. Just little doors opened that felt like you were getting a nod, like, yes, come on then, try. Then the PhD was part of that. I applied to do that and it came with a studentship, which meant I had three years of funding coming in. That was one of the biggest creative gifts that's ever been given to me—three years of knowing you've got enough money coming in that you can just try and make it work. By the time that finished, the royalties had taken over from the studentship. That was such a gift. JOANNA: A couple of things there. I've got to ask about that funding. You're saying it was a gift, but that money didn't just magically appear. You worked really hard to get that funding, I presume. MELISSA: I did, yes. You do have to do the work for it, just to be clear. My sister had done a PhD in an entirely different subject. She said, “You should do a PhD in creative writing.” I said, “That'd be ridiculous. Nobody is going to fund that. Who's going to fund that?” She said, “Oh, they might. Try.” So I tried, and the deadline was something stupid like two weeks away. I tried and I got shortlisted, but I didn't get it. I thought, ah, but I got shortlisted with only two weeks to try. I'll try again next year then. So then I tried again the next year and that's when I got it. It does take work. You have to put in quite a lot of effort to make your case. But it's a very joyful thing if you get one. JOANNA: So let's go to the bigger question: why do a PhD in creative writing? Let's be clear to everyone—you don't need even a bachelor's degree to be a successful author. Stephen King is a great example of someone who isn't particularly educated in terms of degrees. He talks about writing his first book while working at a laundry. You can be very successful with no formal education. So why did you want to do a PhD? What drew you to academic research? MELISSA: Absolutely. I would briefly say, I often meet people who feel they must do a qualification before they're allowed to write. I say, do it if you'd like to, but you don't have to. You could just practise the writing. I fully agree with that. It was a combination of things. I do actually like studying. I do actually enjoy the research—that's why I do historical research. I like that kind of work. So that's one element. Another element was the funding. I thought, if I get that funding, I've got three years to build up a back catalogue of books, to build up the writing. It will give me more time. So that was a very practical financial issue. Also, children. My children were very little. I had a three-year-old and a baby, and everybody went, “Are you insane? Doing a PhD with a three-year-old and a baby?” But the thing about three-year-olds and babies is they're quite intellectually boring. Emotionally, very engaging—on a number of levels, good, bad, whatever—but they're not very intellectually stimulating. You're at home all day with two small children who think that hide and seek is the highlight of intellectual difficulty because they've hidden behind the curtains and they're shuffling and giggling. I felt I needed something else. I needed something for me that would be interesting. I've always enjoyed passing on knowledge. I've always enjoyed teaching people, workshops, in whatever field I was in. I thought, if I want to do that for writing at some point, it will sound more important if I've done a PhD. Not that you need that to explain how to do writing to someone if you do a lot of writing. But there were all these different elements that came together. JOANNA: So to summarise: you enjoy the research, it's an intellectual challenge, you've got the funding, and there is something around authority. In terms of a PhD—and just for listeners, I'm doing a master's at the moment in death, religion, and culture. MELISSA: Your topic sounds fascinating. JOANNA: It is interesting because, same as you, I enjoy research. Both of us love research as part of our fiction process and our nonfiction. I'm also enjoying the intellectual challenge, and I've also considered this idea of authority in an age of AI when it is increasingly easy to generate books—let's just say it, it's easy to generate books. So I was like, well, how do I look at this in a more authoritative way? I wanted to talk to you because even just a few months back into it—and I haven't done an academic qualification for like two decades—it struck me that the academic rigour is so different. What lessons can indie authors learn from this kind of academic rigour? What do you think of in terms of the rigour and what can we learn? MELISSA: I think there are a number of things. First of all, really making sure that you are going to the quality sources for things—the original sources, the high-quality versions of things. Not secondhand, but going back to those primary sources. Not “somebody said that somebody said something.” Well, let's go back to the original. Have a look at that, because you get a lot from that. I think you immerse yourself more deeply. Someone can tell you, “This is how they spoke in the 1800s.” If you go and read something that was written in the 1800s, you get a better sense of that than just reading a dictionary of slang that's been collated for you by somebody else. So I think that immerses you more deeply. Really sticking with that till you've found interesting things that spark creativity in you. I've seen people say, “I used to do all the historical research. Nowadays I just fact-check. I write what I want to write and I fact-check.” I think, well, that's okay, but you won't find the weird little things. I tend to call it “the footnotes of history.” You won't find the weird little things that really make something come alive, that really make a time and a place come alive. I've got a scene in one of my Regency romances—which actually I think are less full of historical emphasis than some of my other work—where a man gives a woman a gift. It's supposed to be a romantic gift and maybe slightly sensual. He could have given her a fan and I could have fact-checked and gone, “Are there fans? Yes, there are fans. Do they have pretty romantic poems on them? Yes, they do. Okay, that'll do.” Actually, if you go round and do more research than that, you discover they had things like ribbons that held up your stockings, on which they wrote quite smutty things in embroidery. That's a much more sexy and interesting gift to give in that scene. But you don't find that unless you go doing a bit of research. If I just fact-check, I'm not going to find that because it would never have occurred to me to fact-check it in the first place. JOANNA: I totally agree with you. One of the wonderful things about research—and I also like going to places—is you might be somewhere and see something that gives you an idea you never, ever would have found in a book or any other way. I used to call it “the serendipity of the stacks” in the physical library. You go looking for a particular book and then you're in that part of the shelf and you find several other books that you never would have looked for. I think it's encouraging people, as you're saying, but I also think you have to love it. MELISSA: Yes. I think some people find it a bit of a grind, or they're frightened by it and they think, “Have I done enough?” JOANNA: Mm-hmm. MELISSA: I get asked that a lot when I talk about writing historical fiction. People go, “But when do I stop? How do I know it's enough? How do I know there wasn't another book that would have been the book? Everyone will go, ‘Oh, how did you not read such-and-such?'” I always say there are two ways of finding out when you can stop. One is when you get to the bibliographies, you look through and you go, “Yep, read that, read that, read that. Nah, I know that one's not really what I wanted.” You're familiar with those bibliographies in a way that at the beginning you're not. At the beginning, every single bibliography, you haven't read any of it. So that's quite a good way of knowing when to stop. The other way is: can you write ordinary, everyday life? I don't start writing a book till I can write everyday life in that historical era without notes. I will obviously have notes if I'm doing a wedding or a funeral or a really specific battle or something. Everyday life, I need to be able to just write that out of my own head. You need to be confident enough to do that. JOANNA: One of the other problems I've heard from academics—people who've really come out of academia and want to write something more pop, even if it's pop nonfiction or fiction—they're also really struggling. It is a different game, isn't it? For people who might be immersed in academia, how can they release themselves into doing something like self-publishing? Because there's still a lot of stigma within academia. MELISSA: You're going to get me on the academic publishing rant now. I think academic publishing is horrendous. Academics are very badly treated. I know quite a lot of academics and they have to do all the work. Nobody's helping them with indexing or anything like that. The publisher will say things like, “Well, could you just cut 10,000 words out of that?” Just because of size. Out of somebody's argument that they're making over a whole work. No consideration for that. The royalties are basically zilch. I've seen people's royalty statements come in, and the way they price the books is insane. They'll price a book at 70 pounds. I actually want that book for my research and I'm hesitating because I can't be buying all of them at that price. That's ridiculous. I've got people who are friends or family who bring out a book, and I'm like, well, I would gladly buy your book and read it. It's priced crazy. It's priced only for institutions. I think actually, if academia was written a little more clearly and open to the lay person—which if you are good at your work, you should be able to do—and priced a bit more in line with other books, that would maybe open up people to reading more academia. You wouldn't have to make it “pop” as you say. I quite like pop nonfiction. But I don't think there would have to be such a gulf between those two. I think you could make academic work more readable generally. I read someone's thesis recently and they'd made a point at the beginning of saying—I can't remember who it was—that so-and-so academic's point of view was that it should be readable and they should be writing accordingly. I thought, wow, I really admired her for doing that. Next time I'm doing something like that, I should be putting that at the front as well. But the fact that she had to explain that at the beginning… It wasn't like words of one syllable throughout the whole thing. I thought it was a very quality piece of writing, but it was perfectly readable to someone who didn't know about the topic. JOANNA: I might have to get that name from you because I've got an essay on the Philosophy of Death. And as you can imagine, there's a heck of a lot of big words. MELISSA: I know. I've done a PhD, but I still used to tense up a little bit thinking they're going to pounce on me. They're going to say that I didn't talk academic enough, I didn't sound fancy enough. That's not what it should be about, really. In a way, you are locking people out of knowledge, and given that most academics are paid for by public funds, that knowledge really ought to be a little more publicly accessible. JOANNA: I agree on the book price. I'm also buying books for my course that aren't in the library. Some of them might be 70 pounds for the ebook, let alone the print book. What that means is that I end up looking for secondhand books, when of course the money doesn't go to the author or the publisher. The other thing that happens is it encourages piracy. There are people who openly talk about using pirate sites for academic works because it's just too expensive. If I'm buying 20 books for my home library, I can't be spending that kind of money. Why is it so bad? Why is it not being reinvented, especially as we have done with indie authors for the wider genres? Has this at all moved into academia? MELISSA: I think within academia there's a fear because there's the peer reviews and it must be proven to be absolutely correct and agreed upon by everybody. I get that. You don't want some complete rubbish in there. I do think there's space to come up with a different system where you could say, “So-and-so is professor of whatever at such-and-such a university. I imagine what they have to say might be interesting and well-researched.” You could have some sort of kite mark. You could have something that then allows for self-publishing to take over a bit. I do just think their system is really, really poor. They get really reined in on what they're allowed to write about. Alison Baverstock, who is a professor now at Kingston University and does stuff about publishing and master's programmes, started writing about self-publishing because she thought it was really interesting. This was way back. JOANNA: I remember. I did one of those surveys. MELISSA: She got told in no uncertain terms, “Do not write about this. You will ruin your career.” She stuck with it. She was right to stick with it. But she was told by senior academics, “Do not write about self-publishing. You're just embarrassing yourself. It's just vanity press.” They weren't even being allowed to write about really quite interesting phenomena that were happening. Just from a historical point of view, that was a really interesting rise of self-publishing, and she was being told not to write about it. JOANNA: It's funny, that delay as well. I'm looking to maybe do my thesis on how AI is impacting death and the death industry. And yet it's such a fast-moving thing. MELISSA: Yes. JOANNA: Sometimes it can take a year, two years or more to get a paper through the process. MELISSA: Oh, yes. It moves really, really fast. Like you say, by the time it comes out, people are going, “Huh? That's really old.” And you'll be going, “No, it's literally two years.” But yes, very, very slow. JOANNA: Let's come back to how we can help other people who might not want to be doing academic-level stuff. One of the things I've found is organising notes, sources, references. How do you manage that? Any tips for people? They might not need to do footnotes for their historical novel, but they might want to organise their research. What are your thoughts? MELISSA: I used to do great big enormous box files and print vast quantities of stuff. Each box file would be labelled according to servant life, or food, or seasons, or whatever. I've tried various different things. I'm moving more and more now towards a combination of books on the shelf, which I do like, and papers and other materials that are stored on my computer. They'll be classified according to different parts of daily life, essentially. Because when you write historical fiction, you have to basically build the whole world again for that era. You have to have everything that happens in daily life, everything that happens on special events, all of those things. So I'll have it organised by those sorts of topics. I'll read it and go through it until I'm comfortable with daily life. Then special things—I'll have special notes on that that can talk me through how you run a funeral or a wedding or whatever, because that's quite complicated to just remember in your head. MELISSA: I always do historical notes at the end. They really matter to me. When I read historical fiction, I really like to read that from the author. I'll say, “Right, these things are true”—especially things that I think people will go, “She made that up. That is not true.” I'll go, “No, no, these are true.” These other things I've fudged a little, or I've moved the timeline a bit to make the story work better. I try to be fairly clear about what I did to make it into a story, but also what is accurate, because I want people to get excited about that timeline. Occasionally if there's been a book that was really important, I'll mention it in there because I don't want to have a proper bibliography, but I do want to highlight certain books. If you got excited by this novel, you could go off and read that book and it would take you into the nonfiction side of it. JOANNA: I'm similar with my author's notes. I've just done the author's note for Bones of the Deep, which has some merfolk in it, and I've got a book on Merpeople. It's awesome. It's just a brilliant book. I'm like, this has to go in. You could question whether that is really nonfiction or something else. But I think that's really important. Just to be more practical: when you're actually writing, what tools do you use? I use Scrivener and I keep all my research there. I'm using EndNote for academic stuff. MELISSA: I've always just stuck to Word. I did get Scrivener and played with it for a while, but I felt like I've already got a way of doing it, so I'll just carry on with that. So I mostly just do Word. I have a lot of notes, so I'll have notepads that have got my notes on specific things, and they'll have page numbers that go back to specific books in case I need to go and double-check that again. You mentioned citations, and that's fascinating to me. Do you know the story about Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner? It won the Pulitzer. It's a novel, but he used 10% of that novel—and it's a fairly slim novel—10% of it is actually letters written by somebody else, written by a woman before his time. He includes those and works with them in the story. He mentioned her very briefly, like, “Oh, and thanks to the relatives of so-and-so.” Very brief. He got accused of plagiarism for using that much of it by another part of her family who hadn't agreed to it. I've always thought it's because he didn't give enough credence to her. He didn't give her enough importance. If he'd said, “This was the woman who wrote this stuff. It's fascinating. I loved it. I wanted to creatively respond and engage with it”—I think that wouldn't have happened at all. That's why I think it's quite important when there are really big, important elements that you're using to acknowledge those. JOANNA: That's part of the academic rigour too— You can barely have a few of your own thoughts without referring to somebody else's work and crediting them. What's so interesting to me in the research process is, okay, I think this, but in order to say it, I'm going to have to go find someone else who thought this first and wrote a paper on it. MELISSA: I think you would love a PhD. When you've done a master's, go and do a PhD as well. Because it was the first time in academia that I genuinely felt I was allowed my own thoughts and to invent stuff of my own. I could go, “Oh no, I've invented this theory and it's this.” I didn't have to constantly go, “As somebody else said, as somebody else said.” I was like, no, no. This is me. I said this thing. I wasn't allowed to in my master's, and I found it annoying. I remember thinking, but I'm trying to have original thoughts here. I'm trying to bring something new to it. In a PhD, you're allowed to do that because you're supposed to be contributing to knowledge. You're supposed to be bringing a new thing into the world. That was a glorious thing to finally be allowed to do. JOANNA: I must say I couldn't help myself with that. I've definitely put my own opinion. But a part of why I mention it is the academic rigour—it's actually quite good practice to see who else has had these thoughts before. Speed is one of the biggest issues in the indie author community. Some of the stuff you were talking about—finding original sources, going to primary sources, the top-quality stuff, finding the weird little things—all of that takes more time than, for example, just running a deep research report on Gemini or Claude or ChatGPT. You can do both. You can use that as a starting point, which I definitely do. But then the point is to go back and read the original stuff. On this timeframe— Why do you think research is worth doing? It's important for academic reasons, but personal growth as well. MELISSA: Yes, I think there's a joy to be had in the research. When I go and stand in a location, by that point I'm not measuring things and taking photos—I've done all of that online. I'm literally standing there feeling what it is to be there. What does it smell like? What does it feel like? Does it feel very enclosed or very open? Is it a peaceful place or a horrible place? That sensory research becomes very important. All of the book research before that should lead you into the sensory research, which is then also a joy to do. There's great pleasure in it. As you say, it slows things down. What I tend to say to people if they want to speed things up again is: write in a series. Because once you've done all of that research and you just write one book and then walk away, that's a lot. That really slows you down. If you then go, “Okay, well now I'm going to write four books, five books, six books, still in that place and time”—obviously each book will need a little more research, but it won't need that level of starting-from-scratch research. That can help in terms of speeding it back up again. Recently I wrote some Regency romances to see what that was like. I'd done all my basic research, and then I thought, right, now I want to write a historical novel which could have been Victorian or could have been Regency. It had an openness to it. I thought, well, I've just done all the research for Regency, so I'll stick with that era. Why go and do a whole other piece of research when I've only written three books in it so far? I'll just take that era and work with that. So there are places to make up the time again a bit. But I do think there's a joy in it as well. JOANNA: I just want to come back to the plagiarism thing. I discovered that you can plagiarise yourself in academia, which is quite interesting. For example, my books How to Write a Novel and How to Write Nonfiction—they're aimed at different audiences. They have lots of chapters that are different, but there's a chapter on dictation. I thought, why would I need to write the same chapter again? I'm just going to put the same chapter in. It's the same process. Then I only recently learned that you can plagiarise yourself. I did not credit myself for that original chapter. MELISSA: How dare you not credit yourself! JOANNA: But can you talk a bit about that? Where are the lines here? I'm never going to credit myself. I think that's frankly ridiculous. MELISSA: No, that's silly. I mean, it depends what you're doing. In your case, that completely makes sense. It would be really peculiar of you to sit down and write a whole new chapter desperately trying not to copy what you'd said in a chapter about exactly the same topic. That doesn't make any sense. JOANNA: I guess more in the wider sense. Earlier you mentioned you keep notes and you put page numbers by them. I think the point is with research, a lot of people worry about accidental plagiarism. You write a load of notes on a book and then it just goes into your brain. Perhaps you didn't quote people properly. It's definitely more of an issue in nonfiction. You have to keep really careful notes. Sometimes I'm copying out a quote and I'll just naturally maybe rewrite that quote because the way they've put it didn't make sense, or I use a contraction or something. It's just the care in note-taking and then citing people. MELISSA: Yes. When I talk to people about nonfiction, I always say, you're basically joining a conversation. I mean, you are in fiction as well, but not as obviously. I say, well, why don't you read the conversation first? Find out what the conversation is in your area at the moment, and then what is it that you're bringing that's different? The most likely reason for you to end up writing something similar to someone else is that you haven't understood what the conversation was, and you need to be bringing your own thing to it. Then even if you're talking about the same topic, you might talk about it in a different way, and that takes you away from plagiarism because you're bringing your own view to it and your own direction to it. JOANNA: It's an interesting one. I think it's just the care. Taking more care is what I would like people to do. So let's talk about AI because AI tools can be incredible. I do deep research reports with Gemini and Claude and ChatGPT as a sort of “give me an overview and tell me some good places to start.” The university I'm with has a very hard line, which is: AI can be used as part of a research process, but not for writing. What are your thoughts on AI usage and tools? How can people balance that? MELISSA: Well, I'm very much a newbie compared to you. I follow you—the only person that describes how to use it with any sense at all, step by step. I'm very new to it, but I'm going to go back to the olden days. Sometimes I say to people, when I'm talking about how I do historical research, I start with Wikipedia. They look horrified. I'm like, no. That's where you have to get the overview from. I want an overview of how you dress in ancient Rome. I need a quick snapshot of that. Then I can go off and figure out the details of that more accurately and with more detail. I think AI is probably extremely good for that—getting the big picture of something and going, okay, this is what the field's looking like at the moment. These are the areas I'm going to need to burrow down into. It's doing that work for you quickly so that you're then in a position to pick up from that point. It gets you off to a quicker start and perhaps points you in the direction of the right people to start with. I'm trying to write a PhD proposal at the moment because I'm an idiot and want to do a second one. With that, I really did think, actually, AI should write this. Because the original concept is mine. I know nothing about it—why would I know anything about it? I haven't started researching it. This is where AI should go, “Well, in this field, there are these people. They've done these things.” Then you could quickly check that nobody's covered your thing. It would actually speed up all of that bit, which I think would be perfectly reasonable because you don't know anything about it yet. You're not an expert. You have the original idea, and then after that, then you should go off and do your own research and the in-depth quality of it. I think for a lot of things that waste authors' time—if you're applying for a grant or a writer-in-residence or things like that—it's a lot of time wasting filling in long, boring forms. “Could you make an artist statement and a something and a blah?” You're like, yes, yes, I could spend all day at my desk doing that. There's a moment where you start thinking, could you not just allow the AI to do this or much of it? JOANNA: Yes. Or at least, in that case, I'd say one of the very useful things is doing deep searches. As you were mentioning earlier about getting the funding—if I was to consider a PhD, which the thought has crossed my mind—I would use AI tools to do searches for potential sources of funding and that kind of research. In fact, I found this course at Winchester because I asked ChatGPT. It knows a lot about me because I chat with it all the time. I was talking about hitting 50 and these are the things I'm really interested in and what courses might interest me. Then it found it for me. That was quite amazing in itself. I'd encourage people to consider using it for part of the research process. But then all the papers it cites or whatever—then you have to go download those, go read them, do that work yourself. MELISSA: Yes, because that's when you bring your viewpoint to something. You and I could read the exact same paper and choose very different parts of it to write about and think about, because we're coming at it from different points of view and different journeys that we're trying to explore. That's where you need the individual to come in. It wouldn't be good enough to just have a generic overview from AI that we both try and slot into our work, because we would want something different from it. JOANNA: I kind of laugh when people say, “Oh, I can tell when it's AI.” I'm like, you might be able to tell when it's AI writing if nobody has taken that personal spin, but that's not the way we use it. If you're using it that way, that's not how those of us who are independent thinkers are using it. We're strong enough in our thoughts that we're using it as a tool. You're a confident person—intellectually and creatively confident—but I feel like some people maybe don't have that. Some people are not strong enough to resist what an AI might suggest. Any thoughts on that? MELISSA: Yes. When I first tried using AI with very little guidance from anyone, it just felt easy but very wooden and not very related to me. Then I've done webinars with you, and that was really useful—to watch somebody actually live doing the batting back and forth. That became a lot more interesting because I really like bouncing ideas and messing around with things and brainstorming, essentially, but with somebody else involved that's batting stuff back to you. “What does that look like?” “No, I didn't mean that at all.” “How about what does this look like?” “Oh no, no, not like that.” “Oh yes, a bit like that, but a bit more like whatever.” I remember doing that and talking to someone about it, going, “Oh, that's really quite an interesting use of it.” And they said, “Why don't you use a person?” I said, “Well, because who am I going to call at 8:30 in the morning on a Thursday and go, ‘Look, I want to spend two hours batting back and forth ideas, but I don't want you to talk about your stuff at all. Just my stuff. And you have to only think about my stuff for two hours. And you have to be very well versed in my stuff as well. Could you just do that?'” Who's going to do that for you? JOANNA: I totally agree with you. Before Christmas, I was doing a paper. It was an art history thing. We had to pick a piece of art or writing and talk about Christian ideas of hell and how it emerged. I was writing this essay and going back and forth with Claude at the time. My husband came in and saw the fresco I was writing about. He said, “No one's going to talk to you about this. Nobody.” MELISSA: Yes, exactly. JOANNA: Nobody cares. MELISSA: Exactly. Nobody cares as much as you. And they're not prepared to do that at 8:30 on a Thursday morning. They've got other stuff to do. JOANNA: It's great to hear because I feel like we're now at the point where these tools are genuinely super useful for independent work. I hope that more people might try that. JOANNA: Okay, we're almost out of time. Where can people find you and your books online? Also, tell us a bit about the types of books you have. MELISSA: I mostly write historical fiction. As I say, I've wandered my way through history—I'm a travelling minstrel. I've done ancient Rome, medieval Morocco, 18th century China, and I'm into Regency England now. So that's a bit closer to home for once. I'm at MelissaAddey.com and you can go and have a bit of a browse and download a free novel if you want. Try me out. JOANNA: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Melissa. MELISSA: That was great. Thank you. It was fun. The post Research Like An Academic, Write Like an Indie With Melissa Addey first appeared on The Creative Penn.
In this conversation, I talk with Dr. Bob McCauley, a pediatric palliative care doctor and Episcopal priest. We explore the profound space where medicine meets the soul, discussing how he supports families through unthinkable journeys, the unexpected ways these children heal him, and what his work teaches us all about courage, presence, and living a meaningful life. 00:00 Introduction: A Meaningful Coincidence 02:40 What is Pediatric Palliative Care? 06:48 How Pediatric Care Differs from Adult Care 09:20 The Affordable Care Act's Compassionate Shift 11:47 A Day in the Life: The Palliative Care Process 19:46 The Emotional Impact & "Selfishness" of the Work 23:44 How Sick Kids Healed a Doctor's Soul 28:00 How This Work Transforms How You Live 33:47 The Story of Benjamin: A Case in Ethics & Faith 41:05 The Role of Faith and Doubt in Medicine 44:01 Spiritual Experiences at the End of Life 47:01 How to Find Help & Bob's Book Learn more about Bob:· Book: Because I Knew You - available at local bookstores and online retailers· Proceeds support pediatric palliative care at OHSU and Darkness to Light.· Website: becauseiknewyou.com· Resource for families: palliativedoctors.org JOIN MY COMMUNITY In The Space Between membership, you'll get access to LIVE quarterly Ask Amy Anything meetings (not offered anywhere else!), discounts on courses, special giveaways, and a place to connect with Amy and other like-minded people. You'll also get exclusive access to other behind-the-scenes goodness when you join! Click here to find out more --> https://shorturl.at/vVrwR Stay Connected: - Instagram - https://tinyurl.com/ysvafdwc- Facebook - https://tinyurl.com/yc3z48v9- YouTube - https://tinyurl.com/ywdsc9vt- Website - https://tinyurl.com/ydj949kt Life, Death & the Space Between Dr. Amy RobbinsExploring life, death, consciousness and what it all means. Put your preconceived notions aside as we explore life, death, consciousness and what it all means on Life, Death & the Space Between.**Brought to you by:Dr. Amy Robbins | Host, Executive ProducerPodcastize.net | Audio & Video Production | Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How to create a professional environment and a welcoming gym culture at your BJJ school, and what people do wrong, with Josh Peters. Josh is a 3rd degree black belt in BJJ, who has competed in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, Sanda, Sambo, kickboxing and Mixed Martial Arts. He runs combatprinciplesmma.com in Burtonsville Maryland. Follow Josh on Instagram at instagram.com/joshcpmma and/or on Facebook at facebook.com/combatprinciplesmma. Support Josh's run for county council at friendsofjoshuapeters.com. And if you want to comment on upcoming legistlation as suggested in this episode go to www.dol.gov/agencies/oasp/regulatory-programmatic-policy P.S. Check out my best-selling book, Perseverance, Life and Death in the Subarctic, available anywhere you get physical, digital and audio books and also here: https://www.amazon.com/Perseverance-Death-Subarctic-Stephan-Kesting/dp/1639368612/
This week I'm talking to Kimberly Clark Sharp about her book 'AFTER THE LIGHT: What I Discovered on the Other Side of Life That Can Change Your World' and her part in the Maria's shoe case.Death is nothing to fear-and life without fear can be lived to the fullest. This is Kimberly Clark Sharp's message from her extraordinary experience during the time after her heart suddenly stopped beating and she lay on the sidewalk, not breathing, and without a pulse. Swept into a peaceful loving place of brilliant golden light and warm comfort, she saw, for the first time, the meaning of life-and death. Thereafter, Kimberly, with hamster Toto at her side, left Kansas for Seattle-known as "the Emerald City"-to fulfill a destiny devoted to the service of others as foreseen at the end of her near-death experience. Guided by a new sensitivity to the presence of angels, demons and other invisibilities, Kimberly attained a Masters degree in Social Work at the University of Washington and began a career in medical social work that put her in direct contact with dying people-and people who almost died and came back. It is the inspirational stories of these near-death experiences, as well as Kimberly's own life challenges in love, family life and the diagnosis of breast cancer, that form the core of this surprisingly funny page-turner of a book.BioKimberly Clark Sharp, MSW, LiCSW had a near-death experience at twenty-two. She is the author of After the Light: The Spiritual Path to Purpose (Wm. Morrow & Co. 1995); audio (HarperCollins 1995). Kimberly Clark Sharp is the founder of Seattle International Association of Near-Death Studies, the world's oldest and largest support group for near death experiencers, since 1982. Kimberly is an international conference and workshop speaker, a consultant to news and entertainment media, and has been published in many textbooks, journals, and magazines. She worked for two decades as a clinical assistant professor at the University of Washington. She co-taught a Terminal Illness Seminar at the University of Washington, School of Medicine.https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0791LJL4H https://www.pastliveshypnosis.co.uk/https://www.patreon.com/ourparanormalafterlifeMy book 'Verified Near Death Experiences' https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DXKRGDFP Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
It's warming up up north, but it's so cold down south that the iguanas are freezing. And do you know what that reminds us of? The winter Olympics. And you know what winter reminds us of? All the people dying. Seriously, it's been quite a week.Topics:Alex's 37th birthdaySean Hannity sightingThe Boys of '80Iguana torporWinter OlympicsDesmond Wilson/Catherine O'Hara deaths (among others)CPAP MachinesEpstein shenanigansSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Strangulation allegations. Death threats. Statements that she would "always be his wife." Surveillance footage allegedly showing him at her home three weeks before her murder. Michael McKee is a board-certified surgeon who maintained medical licenses across multiple states while allegedly fixating on his ex-wife for eight years after their divorce.Former FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer analyzes the behavioral profile — what possessive language reveals about ownership mentality, why strangulation is the number one predictor of future lethality, and how someone with McKee's professional success allegedly hid this level of obsession.We examine why threats like this go unreported, what systemic gaps allow the pattern to continue, and what options actually exist for someone trying to escape an ex-partner they believe is capable of killing them.#MichaelMcKee #MoniqueTepe #DomesticViolence #Stalking #Strangulation #JenniferCoffindaffer #FBI #TrueCrimeToday #IntimatePartnerViolence #SystemicFailureJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspodInstagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/tonybpodListen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.
Leslie Howard and Richard Rosen, co-authors of SAVASANA - Between Breath and Death, talk with J about the importance of practicing final relaxation. They discuss the shortening of savasana over the years, death doulas and cafe's, the dissolution of self, the moment of death, guided meditation, asana and pranayama, reincarnation, falling asleep, alignment, using props and minimizing distraction, breath focus, rolling to the side, being the witness, fitness orientation, embracing things as they are, and recognizing the precious nature of life. To subscribe and support the show… GET PREMIUM. Say thank you - buy J a coffee. Check out J's other podcast… J. BROWN YOGA THOUGHTS.
The groundhogs are fighting, the Iguana lady, Florida tries to unfreeze, Melania and YouTube at the box office, Amy Kaufeldt makes a decision, Savannah Guthrie's mom goes missing, the other Super Bowl Halftime Show revealed, drama at the Emmy Awards, the worst HOA move ever and so much more!
The groundhogs are fighting, the Iguana lady, Florida tries to unfreeze, Melania and YouTube at the box office, Amy Kaufeldt makes a decision, Savannah Guthrie's mom goes missing, the other Super Bowl Halftime Show revealed, drama at the Emmy Awards, the worst HOA move ever and so much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Oren Zeev is one of the most prominent solo capitalists in venture. He is one of the most no BS investors of our time. Oren manages over $1BN in AUM and is known for his "radical alignment" approach, often taking $0 in management fees. His track record includes massive successes like Navan, Audible, and Houzz. AGENDA: 03:11 – Why the Best Investments Always Look "Wrong" at the Start 05:58 – The AI Tsunami: How to Spot Beneficiaries vs. Victims 10:43 – The Death of Incumbents? Why Most AI Predictions Are Wrong 14:12 – Why Chasing Hyper-Growth is a "Disaster Waiting to Happen" 19:41 – The Biggest Mistakes From 2021 and Investing Lessons From It? 25:52 – Is the Future of Venture Boutique or Mega Fund: Does the Middle Die? 32:00 – The Great VC Shakeout: Why 50% of Funds Will Slowly Die 38:52 – Why Oren Zeev Takes $0 in Management Fees 50:48 – Why VCs Should Never Tell Their LPs What They Are Doing? 59:11 – How I Missed Investing in Facebook and Lessons Learned
🧭 REBEL Rundown 🗝️ Key Points 💉 Hydrocortisone Saves Lives:The 2023 Cape Cod Trial (NEJM) showed a clear mortality benefit and reduced need for intubation in severe CAP patients treated with hydrocortisone.📊 Guidelines Are Catching Up:The SCCM (2024) and ERS now recommend steroids for severe CAP, while ATS/IDSA updates are still pending.🔥 Redefining “Severe”:Patients requiring high FiO₂ (>50%), noninvasive or mechanical ventilation, or PSI >130 meet criteria for steroid therapy — even outside the ICU.🍬 Main Risk = Hyperglycemia:Elevated glucose was the most consistent adverse effect, but rates of GI bleed and secondary infection were not increased.🧭 Early, Targeted Use Matters:Start hydrocortisone within 24 hours of identifying severity — especially in patients with high CRP (>150) or strong inflammatory response. Click here for Direct Download of the Podcast. 📝 Introduction Corticosteroids have long sparked debate in the treatment of bacterial pneumonia — once viewed with skepticism, now increasingly supported by high-quality evidence. In this episode, Dr. Alex Chapa joins the REBEL Core Cast team to explore how the 2023 Cape Cod Trial (NEJM) reshaped practice and guideline recommendations for severe community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). 📖 Historical Context & Long-Standing Skepticism For decades, the use of steroids in pneumonia was controversial.Early Use: Steroids entered practice in the 1940s and 50s for autoimmune inflammation, but there was immediate hesitation regarding secondary superinfections.Mixed Data: From the 1980s to the 2000s, small studies emerged on severe pneumonia and ARDS, but the data was inconsistent. Different trials used varying definitions of “severe” pneumonia and different C-reactive protein (CRP) cutoffs, making the data “spread” and easy to “cherry pick” to support or deny a benefit.Past Guidelines: This uncertainty was reflected in official guidelines:2007 (ATS/IDSA): The American Thoracic Society and the Infectious Diseases Society of America did not address the topic due to insufficient data.2019 (ATS/IDSA): Pre-COVID, the guidelines recommended against using corticosteroids in severe CAP. They acknowledged no benefit for non-severe pneumonia, but the data for severe pneumonia was considered too weak to endorse.Pre-Trial Consensus: Prior to 2023, the consensus was to avoid steroids in non-severe pneumonia, while severe pneumonia remained a “gray area” with no treatment showing a clear mortality difference. 📜 The Landmark Cape Cod Trial (NEJM 2023) The Cape Cod trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2023, reignited the discussion by providing robust, positive data.Trial Design: Phase 3, multi-center, double-blind, randomized, controlled trial.Intervention: 800 patients randomized to two groups, Hydrocortisone as a continuous infusion (200mg/day) versus a placebo infusion.Taper: On day 4, clinicians would decide whether to continue the infusion or begin a taper based on clinical response.Population: Patients with severe CAP, defined by meeting at least one of the following criteria:Pneumonia Severity Index (PSI) > 130.O2 by FiO2 ratio < 300.Need for mechanical or non-invasive ventilation (with PEEP ≥ 5).Need for high FiO2 (>50%) via non-rebreather or heated high flow.Primary Outcomes: Death for any cause 6.2% (hydrocortisone) vs 11.9% (placebo)Secondary outcomes:Death from any cause at 90 days 9.3% (hydrocortisone) vs 14.7% (placebo)Endotracheal intubation 18% (hydrocortisone) vs 29% (placebo)Hospital-acquired infections 9.8% (hydrocortisone) vs 11.1% (placebo)Gastrointestinal bleeding 2.3% (hydrocortisone) vs 3.3% (placebo)Vasopressor initiation by day 28 15.3% (hydrocortisone) vs 25.0% (placebo)Key Findings: The trial demonstrated superiority for hydrocortisone 📋 Updated Guidelines & Current Practice The Cape Cod trial, along with subsequent meta-analyses, has begun to change official recommendations.Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM): In 2024, an SCCM expert panel, reviewing the Cape Cod trial and 18 others, strongly recommended corticosteroids for severe CAP. They concluded that steroids reduce mortality and the need for mechanical ventilation.Meta-Analysis (Smit et al.): A 2024 meta-analysis in Lancet Respiratory confirmed the 30-day mortality benefit.European Respiratory Society (ERS): The ERS has issued a recommendation to use steroids for severe pneumonia but still urges caution regarding side effects.ATS/IDSA: As of the podcast recording, the ATS/IDSA had not yet updated their 2019 guidelines. 🛠️ Practical Application for Clinicians Defining “Severe” CAP: The key is to identify patients who qualify as “severe”. This can be done using:Scoring Tools: The PSI is the best validated tool for mortality but is cumbersome. Simpler tools like CURB-65 or SMART-COP are practical and acceptable for defining severity. 2023 meta-analysis from by Zaki et al showed both work well, but CURB-65 has better mortality prediction early on.Cape Cod Criteria: Any patient meeting the trial’s inclusion criteria (e.g., high-flow O2, non-invasive ventilation) qualifies, regardless of location (ED, floor, or ICU).Biomarkers: While not required, a CRP level was used in many studies. A CRP > 150 (Cape Cod) or > 204 (Smit meta-analysis) strongly indicates severe inflammation that would benefit from steroids.Clinical Judgment: A patient who looks “sick,” has “soft” blood pressure, or has dense infiltrates and high oxygen needs (e.g., >50% FiO2 on high flow) is a candidate.Adverse Effects:Hyperglycemia: This was the most significant risk identified, with rates between 6-12%. This is a primary concern, especially in patient populations with high BMI.GI Bleed & Secondary Infection: Fears of these side effects, which contributed to historical skepticism, were not borne out in the Cape Cod trial. The data does not support being overly concerned.Other Side Effects: Mood changes, delirium, insomnia, and agitation in the elderly are known side effects of steroids that were not specifically addressed in the trial but remain clinical concerns. 🔄 Clinical Pathway for Steroids in Severe CAP Unanswered Questions & Future Research Possible remaining questions:Biomarkers: Can we find a more precise CRP level to distinguish moderate from severe disease? Could other markers like ferritin or IL-6 be used? Dosing & Tapering: How much immunomodulation is needed, and when is it truly safe to taper?Gender Differences: Early data suggests females may respond better to steroids and experience fewer side effects. The question of female patients with severe CAP require less corticosteroids needs further exploration. 👉 Clinical Bottom Line The current literature, spearheaded by the Cape Cod trial, now supports the use of corticosteroids in severe community-acquired pneumonia. The best evidence currently points to hydrocortisone, started early (within 24 hours) after severity is identified using a validated tool. While hyperglycemia is a risk, the previous fears of GI bleeding and secondary infections were not substantiated in recent, rigorous trials. 📚 References Chapa-Rodriguez A, Abou-Elmagd T, O’Rear C, Narechania S. Do patients with severe community-acquired bacterial pneumonia benefit from systemic corticosteroids?. Cleve Clin J Med. 2025;92(10):600-604. PMID: 41033846Dequin PF, Meziani F, Quenot JP, et al. Hydrocortisone in Severe Community-Acquired Pneumonia. N Engl J Med. 2023;388(21):1931-1941. PMID: 36942789Chaudhuri D, Nei AM, Rochwerg B, et al. 2024 Focused Update: Guidelines on Use of Corticosteroids in Sepsis, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, and Community-Acquired Pneumonia. Crit Care Med. 2024;52(5):e219-e233. PMID: 38240492 Post Peer Reviewed By: Marco Propersi, DO (Twitter/X: @Marco_propersi), and Mark Ramzy, DO (X: @MRamzyDO) 👤 Show Notes Alex Chapa, MD PGY 5 Pulmonary Critical Care Fellow Cape Fear Valley Medical Center Fayetteville NC 🔎 Your Deep-Dive Starts Here REBEL Core Cast 149: Review of Corticosteroids in Community-Acquired Pneumonia Corticosteroids have long sparked debate in the treatment of bacterial ... Thoracic and Respiratory Read More The post REBEL Core Cast 149: Review of Corticosteroids in Community-Acquired Pneumonia appeared first on REBEL EM - Emergency Medicine Blog.
In 2007, Vicki's husband Andrew set off from Tasmania in a kayak, aiming to become the first person to paddle to New Zealand, but a month later authorities received a distress call and then his kayak was found with no sign of Andrew.Vicki and their little son Finn, were waiting with friends and family for Andrew at Milford Sound when the devastating news came through.This episode of Conversations was produced by Jen Leake, the Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.It explores love, mountaineering, sea kayaking, solo sea kayaking, extreme adventure, psychology, adventurer, the Tasman Sea, gale force storms, ocean currents, waves, swells, Fortescue Bay, rescue, kayak design, hypothermia, family, grief, yoga, writing.To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you'll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com“The Left has done itself a huge disservice by demonizing men,” says Sebastian Junger, while discussing his recent piece, “Young Men and How the Democrats Lost Them.”The post ran on his new Substack, named TRIBE, also the title of his 2016 book, though readers may know him best from his 1997 blockbuster, The Perfect Storm, about the sinking of the commercial fishing vessel Andrea Gail. More recently, Junger is the author of In My Time of Dying, a chronicle of a medical emergency that brought him within seconds of death.“And then my dead father appears above me to welcome me to help me cross over,” says Junger. Did it make sense that Junger, an atheist, would be visited at that moment by his father, who was “a physicist and an atheist, which is like atheist squared”? Or is that the wrong question? Had he come, as physicist Sir Author Eddington did 100 years ago, up against the essential nature of existence and concluded, “Something unknown is doing we don't know what.” Nancy and Junger talk politics, publishing, the liberal publication that asked him to write a piece about what it means to be a man in today's society and then spiked it because, as the editor wrote, “The science seems solid but the conclusions go against the prevailing political currents at this publication,” and the public capacity for collective resistance, viz. Minneapolis.“At the end of the day, our politics have to be calm and reasonable,” Junger says. “If they're inflamed and angry, it leads to chaos and conflict.”Also discussed:* Sebastian Junger, flip-phone devotee* Substack is the new busking* On 95% of workplace and combat fatalities being male: “You can kill enormous numbers of men with almost no impact on the population. You kill the same number of women and the population crashes.”* “Megyn Kelly's, in my opinion, almost sociopathic remarks…”* The deeply empathetic filmmaker Meg Smaker and the shame of the people who don't want her work seen* Some love for National Review* Hemingway's penchant for five-syllable titles* The sinking this week of another fishing boat off GloucesterPlus, Junger on Restrepo, the documentary he made with his late friend Tim Hetherington (“A human and experiential look at what it feels like to be a soldier in combat”); on WWI/WWII reporter Mary Heaton Vorse (“One of the most extraordinary voices in American literature”), the sexiness of a book that fits in the back pocket of your jeans, and much more!NOTE: Sarah's schedule kept her from being on this podcast, but she will be back soon.This podcast sounds 95% sexier when you become a paid subscriber
In this episode of the OutThere Colorado Podcast, Spencer and Seth chat about a treasure hunt taking place at 14,000 feet in Colorado, a recent bike path death in Breckenridge (and the call for witnesses), a canyon that's got new trails and is totally worth checking out, a big change at Colorado's most iconic beer festival, and more.