Podcasts about Velvet Revolution

Katarina Gephardt, editor of the compendium "Home and the World in Slovak Writing", presented the method of focusing on historical events - such as the condemnation of Stalin's personality cult, the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution - that have shaped the Slovak literary canon. Senior radio editor and producer Tomas Bartonek talks about the "Golden Fond" project, in which public radio is reviving the results of the "hay day" of radio play production in Slovakia. Cultural tips for Febiofest IFF, Moyzes Quartet concert, innovative display of traditional wirework and more.

Katarina Gephardt, editor of the compendium "Home and the World in Slovak Writing", presented the method of focusing on historical events - such as the condemnation of Stalin's personality cult, the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution - that have shaped the Slovak literary canon. Senior radio editor and producer Tomas Bartonek talks about the "Golden Fond" project, in which public radio is reviving the results of the "hay day" of radio play production in Slovakia. Cultural tips for Febiofest IFF, Moyzes Quartet concert, innovative display of traditional wirework and more.

Welcome to Monday Night Live Welcome to another insightful episode of and now a leading expert on mnday Night Live! I'm Derek Arden, and this week, I'm joined by the fantastic Michael Dodd – a seasoned journalist, foreign correspondent, Media communication and interview techniques. Michael's career kicked off in Sydney with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), where he was trained in the art of asking “blowtorch on the belly” questions – tough, persistent inquiries designed to put real pressure on political figures. This phrase, coined by an Australian politician, became the backbone of Michael's journalistic style, pushing for truth and accountability. In our conversation, Michael shares his journey from covering politics in Canberra to witnessing the historic revolutions of Eastern Europe, including the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Velvet Revolution in Prague. He tells a captivating story of interviewing Václav Havel, the Czech dissident-playwright who would later become president. Havel's masterful response to a tough question about his political ambitions became a defining moment in Michael's career and illustrates how great communicators can turn pointed questions into opportunities for impactful messaging. As we shift to modern-day media dynamics, Michael offers a behind-the-scenes look at how journalists operate during high-stakes press conferences, like those with Prime Ministers or Presidents. He explains how competitive journalists, from Sky News to the BBC, often don't coordinate their questions but instead aim to deliver the sharpest queries for their respective audiences and editors. We also dive into Michael's transition from journalism to media training. He now teaches business leaders, politicians, and even sports coaches how to respond to difficult questions with confidence and clarity. His approach is rooted in integrity – always advocating for honest and effective communication rather than evasiveness. Michael introduces us to his golden formula, the ABCDE method, for crafting powerful responses to tough questions: A: Answer the question (or acknowledge it if you can't fully respond).B: Bridge – smoothly transition to your key message.C: Content – deliver your core message clearly and concisely.D: Dangle – set up your example or supporting evidence.E: Example – share a compelling story or data point to reinforce your message.Throughout the session, Michael emphasizes the importance of preparation and truth, especially in an age where disinformation can easily sway public opinion. We touch on the rise of false narratives, citing figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and the challenges this poses for credible journalism. Michael underlines the critical role journalists play in combating misinformation and holding power to account – a responsibility that's never been more vital. We also discuss how these media dynamics affect leaders in business and sports. Michael shares anecdotes from his media training with rugby league teams and how captains and managers can apply the ABCDE formula to defuse criticism and refocus on positive actions, even under pressure from hostile media or frustrated fans. From dissecting press conference tactics to reflecting on the wider implications of truth and integrity in public discourse, Michael brings a wealth of wisdom, wit, and practical advice to this conversation. For those interested in learning more about Michael's approach, he mentions his book, Great Answers to Tough Questions at Work, which dives deeper into his ABCDE strategy and how to stay composed and effective when the heat is on. If you're a business leader, media professional, or just someone keen to sharpen your communication skills, you won't want to miss this masterclass.

Petr Brod grew up in a German-speaking Jewish family in communist Prague, soon learning it was wiser to converse in Czech in public. Brod fulfilled his ambition of becoming a journalist following a move to West Germany in his late teens, and found considerable success; after a stint at the BBC that saw him work on some of its top political shows, he joined Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which posted him to his hometown when the Velvet Revolution ushered in democracy in Czechoslovakia. When we spoke Brod, today 73, also discussed his friendship with protest singer Karel Kryl – and what might have happened if the Sudeten Germans had not been expelled after the war.

How do we reinvigorate a global resistance that seems to have lost its way? In this thought-provoking episode of UPThinking Finance®, John Waters reflects on the challenges facing modern movements for change. Drawing comparisons to the unity and purpose of past revolutions, like the Velvet Revolution of 1989, Waters questions why today's resistance struggles to attract artists, intellectuals, and the broader public. He argues that fear, gatekeeping, and fragmentation have stifled the creative voices essential for meaningful progress.Waters offers a hopeful perspective, urging us to reclaim faith in humanity's potential for redemption and change. By fostering unity, humility, and purpose, he believes we can inspire the global resistance to serve its true goal—benefiting humanity, not power or profit. This reflection is a call to action, reminding us that hope and belief in a better world remain the most powerful tools for change.You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...Finding John Waters on substack (00:00)How to talk to people who are unaware of a problem (1:51)You can't trust people who are incentivized to follow the narrative (8:18)Why people won't speak out about the problems (12:30)Do we have hope—or do we surrender to the way things are? (16:07)Concerns and hopes of Trump's team (27:00)What do the political changes in America mean globally? (31:02) Question what technology and political systems are for (36:07)New hope, new thinking (40:00)Renewed Faith in things to change (52:10)John Waters is not affiliated with or endorsed by LPL Financial or Capital Investment Advisers.Securities and Advisory services offered through LPL Financial. A registered investment advisor. Member FINRA & SIPC.The financial professionals associated with LPL Financial may discuss and/or transact business only with residents of the states in which they are properly registered or licensed. No offers may be made or accepted from any resident of any other state. Resources & People MentionedThe Mythology of Progress by Charles Hugh SmithConnect With John WatersJohn's SubstackConnect with Emerson FerschCapital Investment AdvisersOn LinkedInSubscribe to Upthinking FinanceAudio Production and Show Notes by - PODCAST FAST TRACK

Miroslav Wanek is the leader of Už jsme doma, a Czech alternative band who this year are celebrating 40 years of existence. Už jsme doma have performed in over three dozen countries, most notably in the US, where they have notched up a remarkable 800-plus shows. Wanek, today 62, also has other strings to his bow. He could have entered politics after playing an active role in the Velvet Revolution in his hometown of Teplice, has taught at Prague's FAMU film school and worked on a highly popular animated series.

In honour of the 35th anniversary of the velvet revolution Ben Pascoe talks with some of those who were involved. Boris Zala from VPN and student leaders Boris Ondreicka and Peter Chowanec talk about what it was really like and what their strongest memories are after 35 years.

Today's episode is about November 17 and the Velvet Revolution in Slovakia. In the Slovak lesson, you will learn some new words from my dialogue. You will also learn how to say ”That's enough!” and “The Gentle revolution was important“ in Slovak. At the end of this episode, you can find my short dialogue talking about this peaceful revolution. Episode notesIn today's episode, I'm talking about November 17 and the Velvet Revolution in Slovakia. In the Slovak lesson, you will learn some new words from my dialogue. You will also learn how to say ”That's enough!” and “The Gentle revolution was important“ in Slovak. At the end of this episode, you can find my short dialogue talking about this peaceful revolution. Slovak lesson1.    Nežná revolúcia (Gentle Revolution)2.    pokojná zmena (peaceful change)3.    komunistický režim (communist regime)4.    búriť sa (to riot)5.    trestať (to punish)6.    stretnúť sa (to meet)7.    protestovať (to protest)8.    napadnúť (to attack)9.    hnevať nahnevať (to get angry)10.  dosiahnúť (to achieve)11.  Stačilo! (That's enough!)12. Nežná revolúcia bola dôležitá. (The Gentle revolution was important.)DIALOGUE:Učiteľka: Dobre deti, dnes sa porozprávame o 17. novembri 1989. Viete, čo sa vtedy stalo?Žiačka 1: Nie, pani učiteľka. Čo sa stalo?Učiteľka: Bol to dôležitý deň pre našu krajinu. Vtedy začala takzvaná Nežná revolúcia. Viete, čo to znamená?Žiak 1: Revolúcia znamená zmena, však?Učiteľka: Presne tak. Nežná revolúcia bola pokojná zmena. Ľudia chceli viac slobody. Pred rokom 1989 sme žili v komunistickom režime. Komunisti kontrolovali všetko. Ľudia nemohli povedať, čo si myslia, a nemohli cestovať, kam chceli.Žiačka 2: Prečo sa ľudia nebúrili skôr? (Why didn't people riot earlier?)Učiteľka: Mnohí sa báli. Komunisti mali silu a trestali tých, ktorí nesúhlasili. Ale 17. novembra 1989 to všetko začalo. V Prahe sa študenti stretli, aby protestovali. Boli však napadnutí políciou. To nahnevalo ľudí.Žiak 2: A čo sa potom stalo?Učiteľka: Po tomto incidente začali masové protesty po celej krajine, aj na Slovensku. Ľudia už viac nemlčali. Chceli slobodu a demokraciu. Nakoniec komunisti ustúpili a odstúpili od moci.Žiačka 1: Bolo to bez násilia?Učiteľka: Áno, preto sa tomu hovorí Nežná revolúcia. Nebola to krvavá revolúcia, ako v iných krajinách. Ľudia dosiahli zmenu pokojne.Žiak 3: A čo sa zmenilo?Učiteľka: Po revolúcii sme mohli slobodne voliť, cestovať, a hovoriť, čo si myslíme. Slovensko sa stalo slobodnou krajinou. Každý rok si 17. november pripomíname ako Deň boja za slobodu a demokraciu.Žiačka 3: A to, že teraz môžeme ísť kam chceme, je vďaka tej revolúcii?Učiteľka: Áno. Vďaka ľuďom, ktorí vtedy stáli na námestiach, máme dnes slobodu. Bez nich by život vyzeral úplne inak.Žiak 1: Takže to bolo veľmi dôležité, že?Učiteľka: Presne tak. 17. november 1989 bol jedným z najdôležitejších dní v našej histórii.Timestamps00:35 Introduction02:34 About November 17, 198911:05 Why the Gentle Revolution matter13:07 Slovak lesson18:23 Dialogue21:57 Dialogue with the English translation28:13 Final thoughtsIf you have any questions, send it to my email hello@bozenasslovak.com. Check my Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bozenasslovak/ where I am posting the pictures of what I am talking about on my podcast. Also, check my website https://www.bozenasslovak.com © All copywrites reserved to Bozena O Hilko LLC

News; Freedom Week to commemorate 35th anniversary of Velvet Revolution; St. Martin's Day in Czechia; Adam Stewart on Cimrman plays.

News; Freedom Week to commemorate 35th anniversary of Velvet Revolution; St. Martin's Day in Czechia; Adam Stewart on Cimrman plays.

News; senate approves restrictions of kratom and HHC; land exchange in flood-risk areas; songbook marks Velvet Revolution; Veronika Novotna, Czech UN Youth Delegate.

News; senate approves restrictions of kratom and HHC; land exchange in flood-risk areas; songbook marks Velvet Revolution; Veronika Novotna, Czech UN Youth Delegate.

In 2018, widespread protests dislodged a decades-long kleptocratic regime in Armenia. Known as the Velvet Revolution, these protests represented a culmination of decades of civil society organization and activism and the first surge of revolutionary action against Serzh Sargsyan following his attempt to cling to power.   In this episode of Collectively Combating Kleptocracy, Gayane Abrahamyan, an award-winning journalist and social justice activist, who served as a member of the Armenian Parliament as part of the My Step alliance, joins the host, Max Levites (Senior Governance Specialist, Center for Global Impact, International Republican Institute), to discuss the key foundations and mechanisms that fostered a unity between civil society and citizens, leading to the Velvet Revolution. Abrahamyan shares her unique perspective on the trajectory of this unity and the involvement of marginalized groups while also outlining the importance of Armenia's new-found democratic narrative as an outcome of the Velvet Revolution, among other short-term but key successes.

Matthew Bannister on American TV host Phil Donahue – pioneer of the daytime talk show.Countess Diana Phipps Sternberg, the Czech born interior designer who was at the centre of a vibrant social scene in London during the swinging 60s.Professor Mary Gibby OBE, the botanist who specialised in the study and classification of ferns.Toumani Diabaté, the Malian musician known around the world for his virtuoso kora playing.Interviewee: Bill Brioux Interviewee: Michael Žantovský Interviewee: Jess Barrett Interviewee: Suntou SussoProducer: Gareth Nelson-DaviesArchive used: The Phil Donahue show, Radio Ident, WLWD, Dayton Ohio, 1968; Phil Donahue interview, Television Academy Interviews YouTube, uploaded 06/06/2011; Phil Donahue interview on his career and becoming a dad, Today, NBC, 23/10/2024; Phil Donahue on literacy and education, ABC News, Uploaded 20/09/2024; The Phil Donahue Show, Marlo Thomas, 1977, Marlo Thomas YouTube Channel, uploaded, 21/09/2012; The Czech Republic, 1989's Velvet Revolution, BBC World Service, 07/12/1999; Czechoslovakia (1948), YouTube uploaded 13/04/2014; Gardner 4VT in narrowboat Swan, Myk Askin YouTube channel, uploaded 19/04/2010;Toumani Diabaté interview, Front Row, BBC Radio 4, 05/06/2014; Toumani Diabaté interview, BBC Radio 3, 29/05/2021;

Allan Little recounts his journey from his student days in Edinburgh to working as a journalist the front lines of Cold War history in Eastern Europe and beyond. In 1989 he found himself on the night shift at the BBC's Today programme in London when the Berlin Wall fell. Witnessing the world change in real time Allan's desire to be part of these monumental events grew stronger. He shares is his experience as a journalist during the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. Allan describes the electrifying atmosphere of Wenceslas Square and the fear of a violent crackdown. Allan also takes us to Romania during the fall of Nicolae Ceaușescu's brutal regime. He recounts in detail the chaos, the gunfire, and the bloody reality of the revolution's human cost . The episode also delves into his time covering the 1991 Gulf War in Baghdad. He describes the eerie experience of watching the city being bombed from his hotel room and the resilience of the people around him. As the episode draws to a close, Allan reflects on the lessons he's learned from his career. He reminds us that while we may know what a society is transitioning from, we should be cautious in predicting what it is transitioning to. His insights are a powerful reminder of the complexities of history and the importance of journalism. Episode extras https://coldwarconversations.com/episode357/ The fight to preserve Cold War history continues and via a simple monthly donation, you will give me the ammunition to continue to preserve Cold War history. You'll become part of our community, get ad-free episodes, and get a sought-after CWC coaster as a thank you and you'll bask in the warm glow of knowing you are helping to preserve Cold War history. Just go to https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ If a monthly contribution is not your cup of tea, We also welcome one-off donations via the same link. Find the ideal gift for the Cold War enthusiast in your life! Just go to https://coldwarconversations.com/store/ Support the project! https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/ColdWarPod Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/coldwarpod/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/coldwarconversations/ Youtube https://youtube.com/@ColdWarConversations Love history? Join Intohistory https://intohistory.com/coldwarpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this week's Hemp Podcast, I recap my recent visit to the Heart of Europe, the Golden City, the City of a Hundred Spires, the capital city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia — Prague. The occasion for my trip was the European Industrial Hemp Association's 21st annual Conference, this year held in the Czech Republic. I was invited to be part of an American delegation representing the American hemp industry. The trip was funded through a grant from the USDA Market Access Program, or MAPS. The Market Access Program allows the Foreign Agricultural Service, the FAS, to partner with American trade associations, cooperatives, trade groups and small business “to share the costs of overseas marketing and promotional activities that help build commercial export markets for U.S. agricultural products and commodities,” according to the USDA website. The National Industrial Hemp Council was given official cooperator status by the USDA earlier this year, giving it access to MAP funding. At the conference, I witnessed my fellow Americans developing relationships and making business deals, and I saw the purpose of the USDA's Market Access Program playing out in real time. During the conference, I interviewed over 30 hemp people from around the world. On this episode we'll hear what people had to say about hemp in Europe, what the U.S. can learn from the Europeans, what the Europeans can learn from the U.S., and a whole lot more. Before the conference started June 5, Lorenza Romanese, managing director of the European Industrial Hemp Association, was hopeful for a successful event. “I hope that people will engage. I hope that people will go back home knowing more than what they knew when they arrived,” she said. “I hope that they are able to develop business opportunities.” Francesco Mirizzi is senior policy advisor at EIHA and focuses on the fiber and grain sectors. He said the fiber industry is well developed in Europe, thanks in large part to farmers and processors in France. “We kept production in Europe after the Second World War, and we have something like seven or eight big size decortication facilities that allowed us to build a market for fiber,” he said, “mostly dedicated to specific paper application composites, and especially in the automobile industry, and fibers for insulation material in construction and chives (hurd) for construction, like hempcrete.” An epicenter of hemp construction in Europe is war-torn Ukraine, less than 800 miles to the east of Prague. Sergiy Kovalenkov is a Ukranian hemp builder who has been teaching refugees displaced by Russia's war on Ukraine how to rebuild with hemp. “We train the refugees, the people that lost their houses. And they started to build their own homes during the war using local biomass,” he said. “So when you tell me you have problems, trust me, let's go to Ukraine. I'll show you what problems are,” he said. Hana Gabrielová, a recent podcast guest, is from Czech Republic and was instrumental in bringing the conference to her home country. She has worked with hemp for over 20 years and is involved in many ares of hemp in Europe, including as a board member of EIHA as well as a member of the CzecHemp Cluster, an advisory board to help guide and grow the Czech hemp industry domestically and abroad. Gabrielová was very kind to me, pointing me in the right direction on Czech food, restaurants, pilsner, and what I should see while visiting this ancient city. She recommended the svíčková (pronounced sveech-covah), which she described as the national dish consisting of a root vegetable cream sauce and high quality beef sirloin, served with dumplings. It was good. As for what to see in Prague, she said I should see the astronomical clock in Old Town Square and the Charles Bridge over the River Vltava. “They are not far from each other,” she said. “Prague is not too big so you can walk it out and have a nice afternoon and see everything basically,” she said. I took her advice and wandered around the city each day after the conference ended. I cannot express to you how impressive the city was to me, with its ancient streets of cobblestone and castles and medieval fortresses. So much history in one place. But not all ancient history. I was inspired to learn more about the Velvet Revolution that took place in 1989. It started as student protests against the one party rule of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party. Within a week, the crowd grew to over 500,000 people in Wenceslas Square, shaking their house keys, telling the communists to step down and go home. It worked. By the end of the month, the party relinquished control over the people. I think we can all learn lessons from this story. We the people hold the power. IN this episode you will hear: 15:22 Hana Gabrielová https://hempoint.cz/en/ https://www.konopius.com/ 17:05 Lorenza Romanese EIHA Managing Director https://eiha.org/ 21:18 Francesco Mirizzi Sr. Policy Advisor, EIHA 27:06 Laurie Blanchecotte Antoine Moussie La Chanvrière 32:51 Sergiy Kovalenkov Ukrainian Hemp Builder https://hempire.tech 36:13 Jörg Morgner Axel Philipps https://www.temafa.com/ 38:43 Otilia Frolu Romanian Hemp Cluster 42:45 Stephania Christodoulou Pavlos Kitsis https://klostiki.com/ 50:15 Daniel Kruse https://hempconsult.com/daniel-kruse/ 53:26 Catherine Wilson https://uk.linkedin.com/in/catherine-wilson-b2a7133b 58:20 Christophe Nourissier https://en.augur.associates/equipe 1:07:26 Maciej Kowalski https://kombinatkonopny.pl/ 1:10:27 Daniel Matthews, Caroline Matthews, Tatham https://tatham-uk.com/ 1:12:47 Frederic Vallier Maren Krings Federation of International Hemp Organizations     https://marenkrings.com/ Learn More about USDA's Market Access program https://fas.usda.gov/programs/market-access-program-map Learn More about the National Industrial Hemp Council https://nihcoa.com/ News Nuggets Pa. Gov. Visits Lancaster County Hemp Farm to Announce Ag Innovation Grant https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/news/shapiro-farm-visit-promotes-10m-for-ag-innovation-in-budget-proposal/article_65f3adfe-2755-11ef-a48b-4f9a0a14b320.html 2024 NIHH Hemp Building WorkshopJune 20 – 21 • maple park, IL Register: https://nihh.org/ Read Eric Hurlock's blog about his trip to Praguehttps://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/hemp/follow-lancaster-farming-at-the-2024-european-industrial-hemp-conference-in-prague/collection_64c3071c-1f54-11ef-aa56-63dfa0a4ce3f.html Lancaster Hemp Circuit, August 20-21Learn more and register: info@kingsagriseeds.com Thanks to Our Sponsors! IND Hemp in Fort Benton, Montana https://indhemp.com/ Pennsylvania Hemp Industry Council https://www.pahic.org/ Kings Agriseeds https://kingsagriseeds.com/ Forever Green https://www.getforevergreen.com/ Music by Tin Bird Shadow https://tinbirdshadow.bandcamp.com/album/dot-dot-dot

Interview with Michal Horáček, a successful song lyricist who has been a journalist, was active in the Velvet Revolution, became a gambling mogul and ran for president.

Interview with Michal Horáček, a successful song lyricist who has been a journalist, was active in the Velvet Revolution, became a gambling mogul and ran for president.

I'm a big fan of the History Daily podcast, where my good friend Lindsay Graham takes you back in time to explore a momentous moment that happened ‘on this day' in history. Visit Historydaily.com or search History Daily in your podcast app to learn more. As an introduction to History Daily I have selected two Cold War-themed episodes that I know you will enjoy. The first is the story of the nuclear-powered submarine USS Scorpion which disappeared in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with 99 men on board on May 22, 1968. The second is the story of the Velvet Revolution when on November 17, 1989. Police violently shut down a student demonstration in Prague, sparking a revolution that ended communist rule in Czechoslovakia. The fight to preserve Cold War history continues and via a simple monthly donation, you will give me the ammunition to continue to preserve Cold War history. You'll become part of our community, get ad-free episodes, and get a sought-after CWC coaster as a thank you and you'll bask in the warm glow of knowing you are helping to preserve Cold War history. Just go to https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ If a monthly contribution is not your cup of tea, We also welcome one-off donations via the same link. Find the ideal gift for the Cold War enthusiast in your life! Just go to https://coldwarconversations.com/store/ Support the project! https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/ColdWarPod Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/coldwarpod/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/coldwarconversations/ Youtube https://youtube.com/@ColdWarConversations Love history? Join Intohistory https://intohistory.com/coldwarpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 1168, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Finish The Line 1: The Beatles:"Yesterday all my troubles seemed...". so far away. 2: Francis Scott Key:"Oh! Say, can you see...". By the dawn's early light. 3: President Bush:"Read my lips...". no new taxes. 4: Clark Gable in "Gone with the Wind": "Frankly, my dear...". I don't give a damn. 5: Your mom:"Penny wise...". pound foolish. Round 2. Category: My Tv Dads 1: James Gandolfini led 2 types of families, each with their own unique sets of problems, on this HBO drama. The Sopranos. 2: In "Two and a Half Men", he was just Duckie playing Alan Harper, dad to the half-man. (Jon) Cryer. 3: On this show, Will moved in with his Auntie Viv and Uncle Phil, parents to Hilary, Ashley, Nicky and dance master Carlton. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. 4: Taiwanese immigrant Louis Huang makes a go of it in 1990s Orlando with his wife and 3 sons on this ABC sitcom. Fresh Off the Boat. 5: His 2017 Emmy award as dad and son on "This Is Us" was his second in two years--for your information, the "K" is for Kelby. (Sterling K.) Brown. Round 3. Category: Let'S Play Clue 1: This murder weapon could also light up the table in the dining room. Candlestick. 2: In the 1985 film based on Clue, this "Rocky Horror" actor played Wadsworth the butler. Tim Curry. 3: It's the main claim to fame of Anthony E. Pratt, a fire warden in Leeds, England. He invented the game ("Cluedo"). 4: He's the only academic among the 6 suspects. Professor Plum. 5: In the U.S. version, the game of Clue starts when this man is found dead in his mansion. Mr. Boddy. Round 4. Category: National Velvet. With Velvet in quotes 1: Bobby Vinton revived this Tony Bennett song and took it to No. 1 in 1963. Blue Velvet. 2: "Dark" mixed drink of stout beer and champagne. Black Velvet. 3: Holy Roman emperor Charles V spoke of power as "An iron hand in" one of these. a velvet glove. 4: Classic songs by this '60s band include "Venus in Furs" and "All Tomorrow's Parties". The Velvet Underground. 5: 1989 Czechoslovakian uprising that led to democratic elections. the "Velvet Revolution". Round 5. Category: Soft Rock 1: This French-Canadian woman topped the adult contemporary charts with "The Power Of Love" and "All By Myself". Céline Dion. 2: Putting the "easy" into easy listening, Lionel Richie sang, "That's why I'm easy, I'm easy like" this. Sunday morning. 3: Now known as Yusuf Islam, he embarked on the Peace Train Tour in 2014. Cat Stevens. 4: In the '80s this duo had a string of hits beginning with "Lost In Love" and "All Out Of Love". Air Supply. 5: Seals and Crofts made us feel fine with this tune, "blowing through the jasmine in my mind". "Summer Breeze". Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/ AI Voices used

Ahimsa ~ Velvet Revolution (14 August 2007 - MSN Sessions)

Georgia, Armenia, Partnership & Politics in the South CaucasusConversations on GroongTopics:Georgian Nationalism and IdentityGeorgia, Armenia, post 2018Accession to the EUStrategic PartnershipGuest:Archil Sikharulidze - TW/@achosikhaHosts:Hovik Manucharyan - TW/@HovikYerevanAsbed Bedrossian - TW/@qubriqEpisode 315 | Recorded: March 12, 2024Subscribe and follow us everywhere you are: linktr.ee/groong

SynopsisToday's date marks the birthday of a 20th-century Czech composer you perhaps have never heard of. Viktor Kalabis was born in 1923 and by 6 was giving public piano performances. All signs pointed to a brilliant career. But first, Kalabis had to face — and surmount — two major political hurdles.First, his formal musical studies were delayed by the Nazi occupation of his country in 1938, when he was forced into factory work; then, after the war, Kalabis met and married young harpsichordist Zuzana Ruzickova, who was a concentration camp survivor. Kalabis was a gentile, but in Stalinist Czechoslovakia, anti-Semitism was rampant and marrying a Jew was frowned upon. To make matters worse, they refused to join the Communist Party, hardly what one would call a smart career move in those years.Even so, Kalabis began to attract commissions and performances of his music at home and abroad, and following the 1989 Velvet Revolution, he assumed a more prominent position in his country's musical life.His symphonies, concertos and chamber works are now regarded as some of the most important contributions to Czech music in the late 20th century.Music Played in Today's ProgramViktor Kalabis (1923-2006): Piano Concerto No. 1; Zuzana Ruzickova, p; Czech Philharmonic; Karel Sejna, cond. MRS Classics MS-1350

Czech yeah! Prague is the unofficial capital of gay porn, and they are great at churning out the good stuff. Since the days of the Velvet Revolution, the locals have had an open attitude towards sex that has given us access to extra hot models, Czech hunters, and in one of today's videos, an excellent slow-mo replay. Don't be an eastern cock bloc and listen!Vanessa's MassageBe sure to rate Girls on Porn 5-Stars on Apple Podcast and Spotify! And leave your favorite search term OR your porn star name in the review for a chance to have it read on-air. Follow Us on Social Media:Show: @girlsonprnLaura: @ramadeiRachel: @_rrratchelShow Credits:Producer: Amanda CMixed and Edited by Grace HarperIntern: Matt WoodwardTheme by Eli JanneyAdvertise on Girls On Porn via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this day, November 24, in legal history, a pivotal event unfolded in Czechoslovakia, marking a significant turning point in the country's journey towards democracy. In 1989, the leaders of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, under mounting pressure and facing an undeniable surge for change, resigned from their positions. This resignation was a direct response to the widespread protests and political movements demanding democratic reforms, a wave that had been sweeping across Eastern Europe following the decline of Soviet influence in the region.Central to this movement in Czechoslovakia was Vaclav Havel, a distinguished playwright and political dissident, who emerged as a leading figure in the opposition. Havel, who had long been an outspoken critic of the Communist regime, played a crucial role in the Velvet Revolution, a peaceful series of protests that ultimately led to the end of 41 years of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. His actions, characterized by non-violent resistance and powerful advocacy for human rights, not only symbolized the yearning for freedom and democracy but also inspired a nation to strive for these ideals.The resignation of the Communist Party leaders on this day was a landmark victory for the Velvet Revolution and paved the way for significant legal and political changes in Czechoslovakia. This event marked the beginning of a transition from a one-party system to a parliamentary democracy, a transition that culminated in the election of Vaclav Havel as the first democratically elected President of Czechoslovakia in December 1989. His presidency represented not only a new era for Czechoslovakia but also symbolized the triumph of democratic principles over authoritarian rule in the post-Cold War era.The United Nations Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights, Marcos A. Orellana, has initiated an investigation into three companies historically linked to DuPont, along with the governments of the Netherlands and the United States. This probe concerns the human rights and environmental impacts stemming from the release of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from a Fayetteville, North Carolina plant. In letters sent to these entities, Orellana expressed deep concern over the apparent disregard for human rights and environmental protections demonstrated by DuPont de Nemours Inc., the Chemours Co. LLC, and Corteva Agriscience LLC in their handling of PFAS, known for their potential harmful effects.Chemours responded with details of their efforts to control PFAS release at their Fayetteville Works factory, including significant pollution control measures and water treatment systems, which have cost over $200 million. They also highlighted a barrier wall to prevent chemical migration to local waters and provided data showing decreasing PFAS levels in the adjacent Cape Fear River. Corteva, on the other hand, clarified that it is an independent agricultural company and has neither produced nor sold the PFAS in question, though it inherited some liabilities related to PFAS under a 2021 settlement.The Netherlands detailed its compliance with international law in its dealings with Chemours, including requesting U.S. EPA permission for PFAS waste export from a Dutch Chemours plant to the North Carolina facility, a move highlighted by Orellana as potentially exacerbating the problem.Orellana criticized the U.S. for inadequate health and environmental protections, alleging that American regulatory failures have deprived North Carolina communities of essential information to prevent harm and seek reparation. He pointed out that legal actions against the companies have been insufficient, with enforcement and remediation measures falling short. This, according to Orellana, undermines the community members' rights to information and effective remedies. As of the report, responses from the U.S. government and DuPont were not immediately available on the UN's website.You will remember we reported on 3M's $10.3 billion PFAS settlement back in September, it appears likely as more is learned about PFAS that more litigation and ultimately more settlements will be in the offing. UN Probes DuPont, Chemours Over Human Rights Harms From PFASA $25 million settlement between Apple Inc. and the Department of Justice (DOJ) over allegations of hiring bias against U.S. citizens has underscored a broader dilemma in Big Tech regarding compliance with immigration laws. The case highlights a disconnect between the Department of Labor (DOL) and the DOJ in enforcing these laws, particularly in the context of sponsoring foreign workers for lawful permanent residency. Apple's case is the second major enforcement action against a U.S. employer for biases in sponsoring foreign workers, following a similar case with Facebook in 2021.Under the PERM (Permanent Labor Certification) program, companies sponsoring foreign workers must meet additional DOL recruiting requirements, which some attorneys find outdated, such as advertising in Sunday print newspapers. Despite adherence to DOL regulations, companies like Apple find themselves scrutinized by the DOJ for potential recruitment failures. The DOJ alleged that Apple took measures to depress applications from U.S. workers, including requiring paper applications and not advertising PERM positions on its external website.Large tech firms are particularly vulnerable to such scrutiny due to their heavy use of the PERM process and the H-1B visa program. For many foreign workers employed in the U.S. on temporary visas, progress toward permanent residency is crucial for renewing their temporary status, especially given the long wait times for green cards. The DOJ's position is that employers are not permitted to deter job applications based on citizenship or immigration status. However, this has raised concerns among immigration attorneys who argue that complying with the letter of DOL laws might still invite DOJ enforcement actions, creating a challenging environment for employers to navigate.The Apple case, following the Facebook settlement, signifies a growing enforcement trend by the DOJ and raises questions about the consistency and clarity of regulations governing the sponsorship of foreign workers for permanent residency. It also suggests the need for federal agencies to harmonize their approaches and update recruitment mandates to reflect modern hiring practices.Apple's Hiring Bias Case Reveals Big Tech Foreign Worker DilemmaThe Biden administration has defended the race-conscious admissions policy of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in a recent legal challenge. In a brief filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, the administration argued that the academy's affirmative action policies are crucial for ensuring a diverse and effective military force, which is integral to national security. This stance comes despite the U.S. Supreme Court's June ruling that struck down similar race-conscious admissions policies used by civilian colleges.The lawsuit, filed by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), a group founded by affirmative action opponent Edward Blum, alleges that West Point's practices discriminate against white applicants, violating the equal protection principle of the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment. However, the Justice Department contends that SFFA lacks legal standing to sue and points out critical differences between civilian universities and military academies in their use of race in admissions.The administration emphasizes that diversity in the Army officer corps, fostered in part by West Point's admissions practices, results in a more effective, lethal, and legitimate force in the eyes of the nation and the world. The lawsuit seeks to end an exemption that allows military academies to consider race as a factor in admissions, an issue the Supreme Court did not address in its recent ruling.The Justice Department's brief highlights the racial disparities in the Army, noting that while Black and Hispanic people make up a significant portion of active duty enlisted personnel, they are underrepresented in officer positions. In contrast, white individuals constitute a larger percentage of officers compared to their representation in the enlisted corps. The case, which will have arguments heard on December 21, raises crucial questions about the role of race in military academy admissions and its impact on the composition and effectiveness of the U.S. military.Biden administration defends West Point's race-conscious admissions policy | ReutersThe 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans is proposing a rule requiring lawyers to certify their use of artificial intelligence (AI) in drafting legal briefs. This proposed rule, a first among the nation's 13 federal appeals courts, aims to regulate the use of generative AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT. Lawyers would need to confirm that any AI-generated text in court filings has been reviewed for accuracy, particularly citations and legal analysis. Failure to comply could result in filings being stricken and potential sanctions.This move comes as the legal community increasingly grapples with the implications of AI in the courtroom. The need for such a rule was highlighted by an incident in June, where two New York lawyers faced sanctions for submitting a brief with fictitious case citations generated by ChatGPT. The 5th Circuit's initiative follows similar actions by district courts in its jurisdiction, including the Eastern District of Texas, which recently announced a rule requiring lawyers to verify any computer-generated content.These measures reflect a growing awareness of the potential inaccuracies in AI-generated legal content and the importance of ensuring that AI tools do not replace the critical thinking and problem-solving skills required in legal practice. The 5th Circuit is currently seeking public comment on this proposal until January 4.US appeals court proposes lawyers certify review of AI use in filings | Reuters Get full access to Minimum Competence - Daily Legal News Podcast at www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

News; Charter 77 signatory stages hunger strike over low pensions for ex-dissidents; experts sound alarm bells for children's mental health in Czechia; UK historian Timothy Garton Ash on the Velvet Revolution and where Europe is headed today

In the tenth part of "The Slovak Snapshots" podcast, we'll traverse through a diverse landscape of news in Slovakia. From groundbreaking scientific achievements that will leave you in awe, to inspiring community initiatives that'll warm your heart, we've got it all covered. This podcast is purely about Slovakia in English.On Monday, November 13, Robert Fico issued a press release announcing the four news organizations are not welcome at the premises of the Government Office of the Slovak Republic adding that “We will review their access and work. Until then, they are uninvited guests.”In 1989, just eight days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a student protest against communist rule was violently staged in Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia. The crackdown on November 17th only strengthened the protest movement, and within days hundreds of thousands of people were in the streets, starting the Velvet Revolution, the beginning of the end of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.Slovak skier Petra Vlhová won the opening slalom of the new World Cup season in a commanding manner. In Levi, Finland, she performed the fastest ride in both rounds and triumphed with a victory of 1.41 seconds ahead of the German Lena Dürr. The podcast used a short sample from youtube.com/SME and youtube.com/EUROSPORT."The Slovak Snapshots" podcast is written and recorded by Zorislav Poljak in cooperation with Ivan Hrušovský and Peter Hanák.

November 17, 1989. Police violently shut down a student demonstration in Prague, sparking a revolution that ends communist rule in Czechoslovakia.Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more.History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A phone call linking Bratislava with Prague on the occasion of the 34th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution opens a special program in which Martina, Ben and Martin are discussing not only the change of the communist regime in former Czechoslovakia but also revolutionary events in personal lives of listeners of Radio Slovakia International.

Here are some historical events that happened on November 17:1558: Elizabeth I acceded to the English throne.1869: The Suez Canal opened in Egypt, linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.1911: The Omega Psi Phi fraternity, the first African-American fraternity at a historically black college, was founded at Howard University.1970: The Soviet Union landed an unmanned, remote-controlled vehicle called Lunokhod 1 on the Moon.1973: The Watergate scandal hearings began in the United States.1989: Velvet Revolution began in Czechoslovakia, leading to the end of 41 years of communist rule.2003: The world's first space tourist, American businessman Dennis Tito, returned to Earth aboard the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-32.2014: The Rosetta mission's Philae lander successfully landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, marking the first time a spacecraft had landed on a comet.These are just a few examples, and many more events, both significant and minor, have occurred on November 17 throughout history.Podcast Website:https://atozenglishpodcast.com/a-to-z-this-day-in-world-history-november-17th/Social Media:Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/Tik Tok:@atozenglish1Instagram:@atozenglish22Twitter:@atozenglish22A to Z Facebook Page:https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcastCheck out our You Tube Channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8ADonate to the show: https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/donationsRobin and Jack started a new You Tube channel called English Word Master. You can check it out here:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2aXaXaMY4P2VhVaEre5w7ABecome a member of Podchaser and leave a positive review!https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670Join our Whatsapp group: https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Freehttps://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcodehttps://freemusicarchive.org/music/eaters/simian-samba/audrey-horne/https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Joplin/Piano_Rolls_from_archiveorg/ScottJoplin-RagtimeDance1906/https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today's storyteller is Petra Gatek, sharing a story about how her cancer diagnosis precipitated a major shift in pursuing her true passion. Then we have a conversation about growing up under communism in Czechoslovakia, and becoming an entrepreneur after The Velvet Revolution.Petra's branding and photography services can be found here: https://petragatto.comFollow True Story London online: https://linktr.ee/TrueStoryLDNFind out about our live shows, workshops and past podcast episodes on our website: https://www.truestorylondon.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michal Horáček, co-writer of several of Czechia's best-loved songs, shares some great stories about his family, the Velvet Revolution, his bid for president and far more.

The nation's hopes rose with the 2018 Velvet Revolution, then came crashing down during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. Ruben Malayan is a calligrapher who not only lived through these ups and downs but, through his art, helped shape them. Support the show

Shownotes and Transcript... George Soros is one, if not the most, dangerous person in the world. This may sound like an overstatement but our guest today will explain why.  Richard Poe is a bestselling author and respected journalist, sixteen years ago he co wrote the most comprehensive analysis of the web that Soros has spun worldwide.  Detailing the connections, control, influence and how the monster we see today was created by the British and nurtured by the Americans.  This will shine a light on one of the most secretive and powerful individuals and show how ignorance has allowed his ascent. Richard Poe is a New York Times-bestselling author and award-winning journalist. He has written widely on business, science, history and politics. His books include The Shadow Party, co-written with David Horowitz; The Einstein Factor, co-written with Win Wenger; Perfect Fear: Four Tales of Terror; Black Spark, White Fire; the WAVE series of network marketing books; and many more. Richard was formerly editor of David Horowitz's FrontPageMag, contributing editor of NewsMax, senior editor of SUCCESS magazine, reporter for the New York Post, and managing editor of the East Village Eye. Connect with Richard... WEBSITE:     https://www.richardpoe.com/ TWITTER:     https://twitter.com/RealRichardPoe?s=20 SUBSTACK:  https://richardpoe.substack.com/ 'The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party' Available in print, e-book or audio book from Amazon  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shadow-Party-Hillary-Radicals-Democratic/dp/1595551034/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1 Interview recorded 21.6.23 *Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast. Check out his art https://theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com/ and follow him on GETTR https://gettr.com/user/BoschFawstin and Twitter https://twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin?s=20  To sign up for our weekly email, find our social media, podcasts, video, livestreaming platforms and more...  https://heartsofoak.org/connect/ Please subscribe, like and share!   Subscribe now Transcript (Hearts of Oak) Hello, Hearts of Oak, and welcome to another interview coming up with Richard Poe. He has co-written a book with David Horowitz. This was back in 2006, but still as relevant today. And that is The Shadow Party, how George Soros, Hilary Clinton and 60s radicals seize control of the Democratic Party. George Soros is a huge figure, and this is the first book that actually delves into his life and how he's been involved in color revolutions, coups all around the world. His life story, moving to the States, his involvement with the left. So much packed in. I know you will really enjoy listening to Richard unpacking delve deep into the life of George Soros. Thankful to have you with us today. Thank you so much for your time. (Richard Poe) Thank you, Peter. Great to be here. Good to be. And we are going to discuss your book. We're also going to discuss some articles, but just for the viewers. Richard Poe's probably 10, 11 different books and here are a number of them that we are going to look, Hilary's Secret War, but we're actually going to look today at The Shadow Party, How George Soros, Hilary Clinton and 60s Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party and you wrote that along with David Horowitz, who we've had the privilege of having on before. And now you're a bestselling author, a journalist, investigative reporter, and people can find at Richard Poe, @RealRichardPoe on Twitter and RichardPoe.com. And of course, Substack is there as well @RichardPoe. And I, Richard, I've actually found your your kayak video strangely entertaining, off-topic. I've enjoyed watching them. You must be a kayaker yourself.  No, I'm not. No, I am not. I just, I was intrigued. It was a whole, something completely different. So I enjoyed watching your documentary on it. Well, there is something fascinating about the kayak role. And it took me many years before I finally committed myself to learning it after, but I always used to just be mesmerized to watch people do that, whether on videos or in person, there's something magical about it. And once you actually learn it, it doesn't feel any less magical. It's, you know, of course, it's just like anything else. You learn the moves, you learn how to do it, But there's magic in it. It's something that just feels so wonderful. And I just had to make a film. A short film, five minutes, just trying to convey to people as best I could what this feels like, what it's really like to capsize in a small boat where you're jammed into a cockpit, you know, by your waist, hang upside down in the water, and then turn yourself right side up. You know it's, in a small way, I guess it's like jumping out of a plane with no parachute, and then somehow lifting yourself back onto the plane. Maybe that's too dramatic, but, that's how I like to think of it.  It's fun watching, of course, it's on your website, people can people can see it and there I mean just in The Shadow Party going to source there's so much to cover we'll we'll not do one of your marathon sessions that you do with Noor Bin Laden, those are all available for the viewers to watch you've just started doing them in video I know and that's all on substack but probably the book it's been out 2006 it came out. What led you to write it because now this is part of the conversation, the whole thing with, money, with control, with Soros. What led you to actually putting pen to paper on the book? Well I had researched Soros for many years. I first wrote about him in 1993, in my very first published book. It was called How to Profit from the Coming Russian Boom, and I had some expertise in Russia and I had been there as a business writer for Success Magazine. I had gone there a number of times in the early 90s to, cover the fall of communism and Soros was there, you know, he was part of the party, a big part of it. And at that time, I wrote very positively about Mr. Soros because I felt he was one of us, whoever us are, you know, us Westerners who are... And at that time, I believed very much in the Cold War narrative that we of the West represented freedom and democracy and all those good things. And we had to overcome communism. Communism was the great dragon. And, so Soros, I felt, was just one more person helping us to dismantle the Soviet Empire and teach the Russians how to become capitalists, quote-unquote, and become like us. It all seemed like a very noble enterprise at the time, and I wrote very positively about Mr. Soros and everything he was doing in Russia. I wasn't unaware that there was a dark side to Soros and some of his activities, but well, let's just say I wrote positively about him. And my book was quite influential. It was praised by the London Financial Times as being the first book to explain the privatization process in Russia, which was done by means of a voucher system. The government issued vouchers to every Russian citizen, every Soviet citizen, which were worth 10,000, how did it work? Each one was worth, you could be traded for 10,000 rubles, I think, 10,000 rubles worth of shares in any of the state-owned companies that were being auctioned off. And what happened, of course, is that this happened after my book came out. No one had a clue that this was going to happen. Soros and his cronies, they convinced Yeltsin to do shock therapy, as they call it, to basically de-control all prices and currency values, all at the same time, which led to immediate hyperinflation at catastrophic levels. And so these vouchers became worthless overnight and all the Westerners bought them up, and used them to acquire eventually the crown jewels of the Soviet economy. So this was one of the things that actually led, this is back in the early 90s, but it led to a lot of the ill feeling, between the Russians and the West, which we're now dealing with today, because at that time, the Russians were really.... There was an innocence about them. They were really so grateful in many ways. They wanted this kind of help from Westerners, and especially Americans. They trusted us in a very special way, in a way that they didn't trust other Westerners. And unfortunately, thanks to Mr. Soros and Jeffrey Sachs, who was working with him on this project, and a lot of people at Harvard University, almost instantaneously with the image of America as friend and savior was destroyed and we were perceived as a gang of thieves who were coming to strip the country of all its wealth. And I don't think that perception has ever left. So I was aware of that as it was happening, but as I said, that happened after my book was published. So my book was totally positive about Soros, but... Please tell me if I'm going to too many details about this, but to me it's a very interesting story because, see, Soros himself had declined my request to be interviewed for the book, but he did kindly allow me to interview some of his people, and I had some expectation that maybe, you know, Soros would like the book, it might lead to some further talks, interviews, whatever. But instead what happened is, I think it was only two years after my book came out, a very similar book came out. And this happens a lot in publishing, by the way. If they, the aesthetic of a certain book, they actually replace it with a similar book. So my book was called How to Profit from the Coming Russian Boom. This other book comes out a couple years later, I think it was from the Free Press. And it was called The Coming Russian Boom. They basically took a fragment of my title and made this other book, which also looked kind of similar, the cover design. And on the back of this replacement book, this book that was meant to replace mine, was a big plug by George Soros himself saying, if you want to read a book by real Russia insiders who really know what's going on, read this book. And just to make it clear, a known Soros operative wrote a review saying, Richard Poe's book is now totally out of date. You should now read this new book, which has an almost identical title to his and a similar colour design and which was published only two years later. So you ask, how did I first come across Mr. Soros? Well, it was that. Was I particularly upset? No, not really. I was on to other things, you know, writing other books. I just thought, Well, that's a little curious. But I think the reason they did that, I think the reason my book was disliked is one for the very reason that the Financial Times had said, because I had given such a clear, explanation of the privatization process and how it worked, and then shortly thereafter Soros and his cronies had completely corrupted the privatization process. So I think that was one thing that I did bad. And another thing I did, was I told the truth about the corruption in the Moscow city government, and I was clued in by certain people in Russia that Mayor Lushkov, who I had accused by name, was very disturbed with me, and that sales of my book in Moscow, particularly in the crucial airport bookstores where foreigners would be likely to buy it had been banned. And so, this was my very first book. You know, it got a star for excellence from Publishers Weekly, got reviewed in all the right places but obviously Mr. Soros didn't like it. He endorsed this competing book which appears to have been manufactured for the express purpose of outdating mine. So anyway, I don't mean to go into all that except just to emphasize that me and Mr. Soros go back quite a ways. I first ran across him, one might say ran afoul of him in Russia in the early 90s, as did so many people. And so then much later in 2004, I got a phone call from Chris Ruddy, the founder and editor of Newsmax. I was one of the original columnists at Newsmax. It was started in 1998, I believe, and I started in 1999. And Chris called me up. He says, look, we wanna do a big expose about George Soros and put it on the cover of Newsmax magazine. Would you like to write it? I said, sure, let's do it. And so, that led to my next encounter indirectly with Soros. I never actually have met him or communicated with him in person or directly, but it seemed every time I ran across him, something ill-omened occurred, you know, it was strange. So, I wrote this article, which seemed a perfectly legitimate exercise of free speech in the home of the free and the brave, the United States of America as working journalists. Why shouldn't we write an expose of George Soros? After all, he was coming out very publicly, speaking out on political matters, saying he was going to donate $25 million to oust President Bush from office. And that's why Newsmax wanted to write about him, all seemingly fair game, you know, and the type of thing one would normally write about. Well, so I wrote, what I wrote about was the same subject I'm writing about now, all these years later, that what Soros was actually doing, and what he was boasting that he was going to do was to go outside of the normal bounds of political electioneering in the United States. And he said, what I have done in other countries, I am now going to do in the United States. And he said, actually, he was going to do a regime change, quote unquote, to remove President Bush. So I was familiar at that point in large part because I had some experience in Russia, in Eastern Europe. I knew what a colour revolution was. Most people didn't at that time. I knew that Soros was involved in these things, and I knew he had helped overthrow a number of governments, not only in Eastern Europe, but all over the world. People think he just does this in Eastern Europe. He's done it in Africa, Asia, everywhere. But, um...When I heard Soros saying these things, I knew exactly what he meant, and I felt I need to explain this to the American people. And so my article was called George Soros' Coup, and it basically explained this guy does color revolutions, and he seems to be implying that he's going to do that here in the United States. Well, it didn't quite happen in the election of 2004, although there were some strange goings-ons from the Democrat side. But for our story right now, what is interesting is that my Newsmax cover story was a big success. I was immediately called to appear on The O'Reilly Factor with Bill O'Reilly. And I did a seven-minute spot on The O'Reilly Factor. The very next day, a completely new outfit, called Media Matters for America, which George Soros had helped to found. It was it was something he and Hilary Clinton and John Podesta and a few others had been totally involved with from the ground floor. So, they attacked me, in a way I'd never been attacked. I mean, there must have been three, four different articles all all about little old me, and basically saying that I was a liar, that I got all my facts wrong. You know, saying exactly the things that if they were true, would completely disqualify me to work as a journalist ever again. They were in fact defamatory. And... Well, can I just step back a little bit just to continue now, but colour revolution, it's something you have mentioned as a phrase, and I know there's a great article, we might get into the British aspect of it, but How the British Invented Colour Revolutions, you wrote back May 2021, and that's available on your substack, but that term colour revolutions probably will not mean anything to many people. It's still a term which isn't widespreadly used. Do you want to just touch on that to let the viewers know what you mean by a color revolution? Sure. A color revolution is basically, it's just a term that's used to describe what is basically a fake revolution. When foreign intelligence services go into a country and create a fake revolution which is meant to look like a people's uprising, a spontaneous uprising of the people, but is actually a foreign-sponsored coup, hiding behind the facade of a people's uprising. And just to give an example, not to get into my recent articles, but I recently discovered and have argued in some recent articles that the French Revolution and the Russian Revolutions were, in fact, color revolutions. It is my contention that the British Secret Services were behind both. But that's just to give an example where a revolution that most of us until now, until recently, have assumed, entailed some kind of spontaneous uprising by an aggrieved population. Yes, to some extent they were, but this, whatever discontent among the people may have manipulated by foreign intelligence services, making it a fake revolution, making it a foreign-sponsored coup, and this type of revolution has been nicknamed in recent years a color revolution. It's called that because often these revolutions use team colours to identify themselves. That for example, there was a so-called orange revolution in the Ukraine in 2004. And if you look at pictures on Google, you'll see crowds in a sea of orange banners, orange everything. And interestingly, even going back to the French and the Russian revolutions, They too had their team colors, team symbols. The French, of course, had their tricolour badges and their so-called Phrygian caps that they wore. Which were red with the tricolour badge on it. In the Bolshevik Revolution, of course, the colour was red again, red for socialism, red for communism. And they also wore a distinctive cap called the Scythian cap, which looks strangely like the Phrygian cap that the French had worn, but whatever. So even in such details as the use of these kind of evocative coloured symbols, and they weren't always colours. Sometimes they were flowers or other kinds of symbols. But they're called colour revolutions for that reason, because somebody decided to name them that. Originally, the first one that came to wide public attention was the so-called Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, during the fall of communism. And that too was, George Soros was heavily involved in that, as were many Western governments and intelligence agencies and so forth. And that was called the Velvet Revolution. It still is to this day. And that term Velvet Revolution actually caught on in Eastern Europe for quite a bit. Often these revolutions were called Velvet Revolutions, but somewhere along the line, they started calling them Colour Revolutions and that stuck. So I now use the term, it's not my favourite term, but that's what it means. A fake revolution generally orchestrated by a foreign intelligence agency or agencies, to masquerade as a popular uprising. And so George Soros has been involved in these, for many decades, funding them, being a public apologist for them, going before the press just to justify them and basically act as a propaganda voice to explain why it was necessary to do these. And the propaganda is very necessary because generally what happens in these so-called colour revolutions is that an election occurs, somebody wins, and that somebody is not the person whom the Western powers wanted to win. And so then they create an uprising saying the election was stolen, it was all fake, it doesn't match the exit polls, so let's bring all the people out into the street, often with quite a good deal of real violence. These things are often called bloodless coups, but I think they are rarely bloodless, and often they involve pretty significant violence. Certainly in 2000, when they overthrew Milosevic in Yugoslavia, there was very significant violence. They set fire to the parliament building. They had armed paramilitaries blocking all the roads around Belgrade, armed with military weapons. And... So, although they're considered bloodless, stereotypically, they're usually not. Any more than the Russian or French revolutions were. So, that's what it is. It seems like an exotic idea, but it's really not. Governments have been doing this for ages, but the British, in particular, I've learned in the last few years, have been doing this for centuries and really excel at it. It's often assumed that Americans are the ones who invented this and who are the best at doing it, but it's not true. Whatever we know, we learned from the Brits.  Let's go on Soros, because Soros, he obviously ended up in London as a refugee, then went to LSE, London School of Economics, went to the U.S. and it seemed to be that his desire was to to make money and return and something kind of happened on the way to the point where I think the midterms, I read somewhere what was a figure was a hundred and twenty eight million dollars I read and that made him the largest single donor in the midterms just past that election cycle and kind of something happened along the way for him just wanting to make money to actually being part of a mass funding campaign off the left?  Well I gave my theory on this very subject in a recent article called How the British Invented George Soros and basically the answer to your question, I think, is that Soros is not his own man. It is my contention that he was recruited as an asset of the British government, the British Foreign Office, and possibly of British intelligence agencies. The fact is that he has been from the beginning involved in activities such as regime change. In foreign countries, activities which, frankly, he would not be allowed to take part in unless, he were under the supervision of some intelligence agency or another. And it's often assumed that he works with the CIA and that he is a CIA asset, and that's generally the default position that most people take. But I believe that he is a British asset, and I made what I think is a pretty strong argument for it in my article. He came to England as a refugee from a communist Hungary when he was 17 years old. He lived in England for 9 or 10 years, during which he graduated from the London School of Economics. He started work in the city of London, learned the arbitrage trade. And during that time, it appears he was selected by a group of very powerful men who include some of the most famous names in global finance. And he was sent, I believe, to the United States to basically act as an agent for this group, this cabal, if you will, of British financiers. And one Lord William Rees-Mogg, who happens to be the father of Jacob Rees-Mogg, I have named him the man who created George Soros because he almost single-handedly created the legend or the myth of Soros as one, the greatest financial genius in the world, and two, as quote-unquote the man who broke the Bank of England. These myths, and I think both are myths, actually. Both of these myths were created and promoted by Lord Rees-Mogg and his colleagues at the Times of London. Rees-Mogg was the editor of the Times for I think 15 years and then he became a vice president of the BBC. But perhaps more importantly, he has a very unique position, or he had, he died in 2012, I call him a gateway or a bridge between worlds, because he was a man who was a very close personal friend of the British royal family, and he was also a very close personal friend of Lord Jacob Rothschild. And he was a bridge between the British aristocracy, you know, the British blue blood society, if you will, and the grubby world of City of London investment, where one had to rub shoulders with such characters as Hungarian refugees, such as George Soros. And Rees Mogg had that job. He moved between those worlds and he was a bridge between those worlds. And it's a little known fact that Soros' quantum fund, Soros actually leaked in one of his books, it was an authorized, and I think Soros actually commissioned this book, it was called George Soros, Messianic Billionaire, something like that by a guy named Kaufman. And in that book is a leak that the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth II, was one of the investors in the Quantum Fund. Now, there's a great deal of secrecy, as you know, regarding investments by the royal family, this information is closely guarded, but quite often they leak information about where they're investing, such as famously in the mining company Rio Tinto. There were a number of quasi-official leaks about royal investments in that company. And I think they do this in order to pump the stock. I mean, I think when these leaks occur, it's because they're trying to pump the stock. And there was such a leak regarding Soros' quantum fund. So I think, and it appears to me that Soros was really an artificially created person. I don't believe at all that he was was the greatest genius in the financial world. I think he was built up into that by Lord Rees-Mogg. And for example, his greatest act of genius supposedly was breaking the Bank of England. Where in 1992, he supposedly shorted the Bank of England to such an extent that Britain was forced to devalue its currency by 20% And it was a huge catastrophe. But in reality. That story, actually, the story that Soros did it, comes from Soros himself. And it can't be proven because his operations are in the Netherlands Antilles, which is a secrecy jurisdiction, a banking haven. And there is no way to prove what he actually did in that operation. But it's come out that there were many, many players, including some of the biggest banks, biggest pension funds, biggest financial institutions in the world who were taking part in that run on the pound. And Soros was allowed by Rees-Mogg and his colleagues at the Times to take credit for it. And they actually named him in a big banner headline, the man who broke the Bank of England. But he was just one among many and by far not the largest. So, why did Rees-Mogg do this? Well, he quickly demonstrated that because Rees-Mogg's next move was then to write a series of articles explaining to the British people why Soros was a hero and that his devaluation of the pound had saved Britain from having to honour its commitment to enter the Eurozone because by devaluing the pound by 20%, Britain was no longer qualified to enter the European exchange rate mechanism and was no longer qualified to become part of the Eurozone, and that's why it still isn't to this day. And so Rees-Mogg just sang the praises of Soros, called him a hero. He said there should be a statue erected in front of the treasury of him and things like that. And other British journalists have said similar things, that he should get a knighthood and so forth and so on. So that's why I say it was all a myth. Soros himself didn't actually do it single-handedly. And moreover, far from being an attack on the British establishment, It appears to have been a British economic warfare operation which the British establishment deliberately inflicted on its own central bank for political purposes, and for which Soros was assigned to take the blame or to take the credit. So once he had done that operation, then he was very famous. He had become a celebrity overnight. The Times was doing everything it could to convince people he was a wonderful guy. And they immediately started saying what a genius and a financial prophet he was. And Rees-Mogg started saying, oh my goodness, Soros is buying gold. Let's pay attention to what he's doing because if he's buying gold, maybe we should buy gold too. So what happened was, I think this was in 1993, Soros's next assignment for this group around Rees-Mogg and Jacob Rothschild. His next assignment was to buy a large number of shares of Newmont Mining Corporation, I think was and is the largest gold mining operation in North America, and he bought them from Jacob Rothschild and Sir James Goldsmith. And so Rees-Mogg, was telling everyone from the Times, look, Soros is buying gold, but some people noticed, well, yes, but Rothschild and Goldsmith are dumping it. So what does that mean? Despite these ambiguities and puzzlements, they did succeed in hyping the price of gold. The price of gold skyrocketed. Rothschild and Goldsmith made a killing, as I think did some of their other associates in the St. James Capital Group, of which Rees-Mogg was an officer at the time. And strangely Soros himself supposedly lost money on that deal, which is very interesting because although his myth touts him as a lone wolf who only looks out for number one for himself. It really looks like he took one for the team in the great gold scam, as I call it, this gold hyping scam. It appears to have been done for the specific purpose of allowing Jacob Rothschild and Sir James Goldsmith to realize a profit on their previous purchases of Newmont Mining, which had been performing sluggishly. And so this operation appears to have been done for no other reason than to allow these two men, to make some money. And Soros took a hit on that one. He took a hit for the team. He was a team player. So based on these kinds of things, I mean it goes on and on. You could say it's kind of circumstantial evidence, but it's pretty clear that from the beginning, Soros, whatever his gifts and abilities may have been, I'm sure he's very smart, I'm sure he was selected because he was deemed to be a talented person and all that, but he certainly is not the greatest financial genius in the world, that's not how he made his money. He made his money by being adopted by this very powerful group in the city of London and serving them, being a good servant and being the public face of them and their operations. And so he went to America and the rest is history. But now today, he's presumably still alive, despite recent reports of his death, I mean, who knows anymore who's alive and dead. So true. But he has passed it over, we're told, to one of his sons. Do you think it's the end then of that era? Do you think the damage is already done? Do you think it's being passed over just to keep the financial side and it's not the political engagement? What are your thoughts as you kind of see that transfer? Well, I don't imagine that with all the investment which I will say which the British have done in building up the Open Society Institute, I can't imagine they'll simply abandon it. Obviously, it's not going to be the same without George Soros there. Alex Soros, I presume, is nothing more than a figurehead. The man who runs the Open Society Institute is its president, and he's a guy named Lord Mark Malloch Brown, a name with which you may be familiar. Malloch Brown has a similar career trajectory to Soros. He has been involved for decades in regime change operations in foreign countries, in rigging elections in places like the Philippines, and other such targets. And then in 2015, He had just, there was a British takeover of this company called Smartmatic, and by the way, Smartmatic is going around suing people for billions of dollars, so if you want me to shut up right now, I will. I won't say another word.  Feel free to give us your opinion, Richard. Well, whatever else one may or may not say about Smartmatic, what they did was sell voting, a voting system. And so in 2015, the same Lord Mark Malloch Brown, who had notoriously been doing regime change operations all over the world, obviously connected with intelligence. He was a high-level UN official under Kofi Annan. I mean, this guy was obviously, you know, had some role in the intelligence community, I would say. I would say it's obvious. But now he's running the Open Society Institute, but he was given that position right after the US election in 2020. And some people said that was his reward. I'm not gonna comment about that. But his Smartmatic machines and software became very controversial. And in 2015, he was openly trying to market his Smartmatic system to the United States. In the States, it's the state governments which purchase, you know, they each has its own policy for voting systems. So he was trying to sell these to state governments and people often say, well, he never succeeded. I mean, they have a few Smartmatic machines in LA, supposedly, and not nowhere else. All I can tell you is. And this I believe is the very subject of this multi-billion dollar lawsuit that's going on, but there were people in high places who seemed to be in the know, who were close to the Trump campaign. I believe Rudy Giuliani was one, Sidney Powell, others who were basically saying that the Smartmatic software was actually being used by other companies to run other voting machines and that in fact the Smartmatic software was the evil potion that enabled them to do all these alleged alterations of the vote. So, is any of that true? Well, I don't know. I can't prove it. And, you know, anybody who opened their mouth in public and spoke of it is now being sued. You know, defamation law is a very good thing. People should be allowed to sue for defamation. I do think it's very odd to have foreign companies providing voting software to the United States of America and then being able to sue people into silence who legitimately raise questions about the integrity of those systems. I find that very strange and disturbing. But that's what's going on. You know, back in 2000, I remember very well, there was a dispute, started by, you know, Gore. Gore challenged the election result, famously, and for weeks and weeks and weeks, the world watched in astonishment and horror as the United States seemingly descended into a third world country unable to count its own votes. But no one at that time ever suggested that people should not be allowed to have an opinion or to speak? About whether they thought that Bush or Gore had won. That would have been unthinkable. Suddenly that's the case. Suddenly that's the situation we're in. But anyway, whatever that means. So this Lord Mark Malloch Brown was right in the middle of that, right in the middle of that storm, right in the eye of the storm. And let me just remind you that he was a long-time friend and collaborator of George Soros. In fact he lived next door to Soros in a house provided by Soros in upstate New York when Malloch Brown was working as a UN official. He was some sort of aid to Kofi Annan and he was basically put up by Soros. And they're very good friends. And they've collaborated on many regime change operations throughout the world, which is not the sort of thing every normal person gets involved in. But these two, for them, that's a big part of their lives and has been for decades. So strangely, you know, this same Malloch Brown ends up as the CEO of Smartmatic. And then as soon as that operation is finished, he's appointed by Soros to be the president of the Open Society Institute. And now he's disappeared from sight. And everyone's pointing to Alex Soros saying, Alex Soros is now going to take over for George Soros, and that's fine, but I've got my eye on Malloch Brown. I mean, I doubt very much whether Alex Soros is actually running it. In fact, I remember some years ago, Soros actually tried to pass on the baton to, at that time, I think all his sons, If I remember correctly, he was trying to... He was trying to turn over Soros Fund Management, which is his investment arm, to his sons, and then he all of a sudden reneged and took it back. And people said, I thought you were going to give this to your sons, why did you take it back? And Soros, here's an interesting father figure for you. He said, well, I discovered that my sons didn't have the talent to run it. And the interviewer said, what sort of talent do you mean? He said the talent for making money. Wow.  So without going into all the Freudian or psychoanalytic aspects of it, I mean, whatever else one can say about Mr. Soros' sons, I can't imagine they're big fans of their father. Can I just finish off on the book. In 2010, Glenn Beck did a series, Puppetmaster, that was based on the shadow party on your book. I know he was cancelled soon after on Fox. I don't know whether it was linked to that, but this was probably the first book to expose sources funding off of color revolutions which we've discussed. It's not something that people are supposed to discuss and then you produce this book by a large publisher which I always find intriguing. Maybe it would be different if you redid it today but that with Glenn Beck putting that in and bringing it with Glenn Beck's reach on Fox and then getting cancelled this obviously is something that you're not supposed to discuss. Yes, at that time, it was an extremely sensitive subject. I did not realize how sensitive it was until after I put my foot into the punji steak, so to speak. But I knew I was pushing it, and that's part of the reason why I invited my then employer, David Horowitz. I actually invited him to co-write the book with me, hoping that his name would not only help promote the book, and make people take it seriously, but I thought maybe it might afford some protection for me. And I think it did all of those things to some extent. I think it would have been much worse for me if I had tried to write the book myself, I think it was a wise thing to do. But nonetheless, I was punished quite severely by the powers that be for daring to write about that, because these color revolutions, these are intelligence operations, and especially at that time when people were not writing about it, when to write about such things and to do it with a co-author of the stature of David Horowitz, and then to appear on Glenn Beck reaching you know an audience of millions, a national audience on Fox News. If you're in the national security establishment, if you're somebody who's involved with these operations and you're trying to project a certain image of their innocence and spontaneity and then someone comes along and puts out a narrative that says, oh actually this guy George Soros is pulling the strings behind these things. Well, you know, we can see now how sensitive, a lot of these intelligence people are to anyone tampering with their narrative, you know, with all the recent hysteria over misinformation and disinformation. And so forth. Well, they didn't used to speak so publicly about it, still pretending, that they weren't involved in media, that is, the intelligence community. Now they've dropped that pretence. Back then, we still were allowed to have this illusion that we are a free press, and we can say what we want and all that, but clearly I was interfering with a very important intelligence narrative. And I was doing so almost uniquely, and certainly the size of the platform that I had accessed was, and getting on national TV and all the rest, it was a challenge to the, It was a challenge to the national security establishment, whatever you want to call them, to the security forces, if you will. It was a direct challenge to them, and I was a small target, nobody else was writing about this. So it was a simple matter to silence me. And I want to say, you know, we talk a lot today about cancellation, and you know, people being cancelled and un-personed. And it's important to understand, you know, nowadays we see Tucker publicly thrown out of Fox News and we think that's what it means to be cancelled or Matt Taibi kicked out of The Intercept. And so we have this illusion that to be cancelled means that you're publicly punished for doing something good and thrown out and then everyone rallies to your rescue and you're even bigger and better than before. And supposedly that's what it means to be cancelled. But those are not real cancellations. The way cancellation is really done, and the way it's been done traditionally, and the way it's done usually, especially in free societies like ours, is very quietly, behind the scenes, very insidiously, so that nobody even knows it happened. And that's all I'm going to say about that.  Well, that's perfect end. And let's again just leave the viewers the shadow party, how George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and 60s radicals seized control of the Democrat Party. It's available. I listened to it. You can get his hardback, paperback. It is a huge subject that is relevant today, if not more relevant than it was in 2006 when you wrote it. Richard, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for coming along, sharing your thoughts on the book. Thank you.  Thank you, Peter.

The Age is coming to an end, my friend. Twilight has fallen. But a little light still remains...== CAST ==Game Master - https://twitter.com/GrimJack21502Casey Mitchell - https://twitter.com/unMadeGamingShannon Locke - https://twitter.com/TheMetamancerGeorge Butts - https://twitter.com/BolognaSlapJerry Baker - https://twitter.com/MisterBittersCARobert Ott - https://twitter.com/KWFragsEditing by @unMadeGamingMusic / Instrumental by Aries Beats @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1At_G-08HQAtari Twilight is an unMadeGaming production. If you would like to learn more about the world of Atari Twilight and get some behind-the-scenes looks, please join Patreon at Patreon.com/uMGPodNetwork. Thank you for joining us on this 80's throwback, and we'll see you next time on Atari Twilight.

By many measures, Armenia has made significant strides in the fight against corruption since the Velvet Revolution of 2018. Eric Hacopian, a political analyst and the host of the online show Insights with Eric Hacopian, joins CIPE's Anti-Corruption & Governance Center podcast to discuss the noticeable reduction of petty corruption in Armenia and how that transition came to be. Listen now to hear Hacopian elaborate on how certain Armenian industries, most notably the information technology sector, led the business community's push for increased anti-corruption efforts, and describe the impact on the private sector as a whole. This episode is co-hosted by ACGC Director Frank Brown and CIPE's Head of Office in Armenia, Luiza Ayvazyan.

In this episode, I interview Leadership Coach Petra Holic both about her early life experiences and her current work with individuals and teams. Talking about her childhood and her inspirational mother, Petra describes how, as a young family, they twice attempted to leave Czechoslovakia during the socialist era, but were prevented from doing so on each occasion. Despite her mother being taken as a political prisoner, Petra and her sister defiantly held on to each other and their dreams of fleeing to another country, eventually emigrating with their mother to Canada after the Velvet Revolution. Petra details her early months in Canada when, as a young student, she started school with no English language skills, but quickly adapted, learnt the language and began a successful working career, supported by the strength, determination and love of her mother and sister. Now, Petra explains how she finds herself back in Slovakia, the country she calls home, and reflects on what it means to have lived through and experienced so many changes and positive challenges in her life. Having worked for many years in and now with many large corporate companies, Petra talks about her own business, supporting individuals and teams as a leadership coach. Petra describes this role as a "partner in thinking", allowing her clients to reflect on what they want from their careers. This is true whether it is as a new, first-time manager, or an experienced executive, navigating their way through mid-career challenges and reflecting on their life purpose and achievements to date. Petra talks about the importance of being an interested but neutral participant in the process of helping clients to talk about their lives and careers. She helps people to make sense of what's happening to them as someone who is supportive, but impartial and independent. Petra considers how it is very important to continually invest in her own career in order to be the best version of herself and the best coach she can possibly be with her clients. She also describes her non-profit activities supporting young people through her non-profit Educoach.sk https://www.educoach.sk/ Please contact Petra Holic and find out more about her work and career by visiting her LinkedIn profile at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petraholic/ The general aim of the #podcast series is to be entertaining for all listeners, as well as being educational, assisting upper-intermediate and advanced level English language students with additional listening practice. I've been told the podcasts are the perfect travelling companion for long car journeys, train rides and even for airplane adventures. For more information on this podcast series, please review the full episode list on your chosen podcast platform or email johnscottlawton@hotmail.co.uk. Please visit my LinkedIn profile at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-scott-lawton/ if you would like to be a guest on my programme or to view my work. Please use a sound comment if using the Spotify App, if possible, to ask any questions or to comment on the language used in this podcast. Finally, please take a look at my website where I post additional content to support this podcast series: https://johnscottlawtonsenglishyouknow.wordpress.com/ #lifestory #coaching #story #storytelling #leadership #managers #management #mentor #coach #mentoring #careerdevelopment #guidance #support #Canada #Slovakia #English #Englishlanguage #speaking #listening #IELTS #TESOL #TEFL #ESL #E2L #Czechoslovakia #Velvetrevolution #podcast --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-lawton/message

In-depth interview with Michael Horáček, popular song lyricist, journalist, Velvet Revolution figure, ex-betting industry heavyweight and 2018 presidential candidate.

answering questions from the gram @songsoftoriamos ~ 1. Maybe California (6 May 2009 - Vienna, AUS) 2. Purple People (16 December 2001 - Poland Radio 3) 3. Space Dog (13 April 1994 - Dusseldorf, GER) 4. Wild Way (1 August 2014 - St Louis, MO) 5. Take to the Sky (2 December 1999 - Wallingford, CT) 6. Bouncing off Clouds (11 July 2010 - Bruges, BEL) 7. Happiness is a Warm Gun (9 June 2014 - Stuttgart, GER) 8. Climb (29 September 2017 - Berlin, GER) 9. Don't Make Me Come to Vegas (26 May 2014 - Rotterdam, NET) 10. Northern Lad (4 October 2011 - Luxembourg, LUX) 11. Selkie (8 August 2014 - Nashville, TN) 12. Icicle (18 April 1994 - Milan, ITA) 13. The Beekeeper (19 June 2005 - Copenhagen, DEN) 14. Sweet Dreams (7 October 2001 - Washington, DC) 15. Velvet Revolution (8 November 2011 - Belfast, IRE) 16. Cruel/Sweet Sangria (1 August 2015 - Stockholm, SWE) 17. 16 Shades of Blue (31 May 2014 - Zurich, SWI) 18. Dragon (28 October 2011 - Antwerp, BEL) 19. Amber Waves (1 August 2008 - Dranouter, BEL)

A discussion of Murray Rothbard's Introduction to Etienne de la Boetie's "The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude". The connection of La Boetie's essay to the French Reformed is explained. Also highlighted is the main idea of the Discourse, that state tyranny relies on popular compliance, and when such compliance is withdrawn, the tyranny ends. https://reformedlibertarians.com/008/ 00:00 Start 00:32 Episode description Rothbard's introduction: https://mises.org/library/politics-etienne-de-la-boetie La Boetie's essay: https://mises.org/library/politics-obedience-discourse-voluntary-servitude Audiobook: https://mises.org/library/politics-obedience-discourse-voluntary-servitude-audiobook 01:24 About Murray Rothbard article: https://mises.org/profile/murray-n-rothbard audio: https://mises.org/library/who-is-murray-rothbard 01:44 Summary of Rothbard's introduction 04:55 Flashes Of Liberty on La Boetie https://mereliberty.com/podcasts/etienne-de-la-boetie 05:06 Summary of La Boetie's bio and the French Reformed (Huguenot) connection About Huguenots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenots A 3 part presentation from Bill Edgar on Huguenots: a. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk0n5umun6A b. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDUc3O-WKt8 c. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnqzmf7Ay5A 08:48 The question of the consent of the governed 12:32 Episode 2 on Romans 13 https://reformedlibertarians.com/002 13:45 The peaceful underthrow of the state by withdraw of popular compliance 15:41 Larken Rose's videos The Tiny Dot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6b70TUbdfs The Jones Plantation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb8Rj5xkDPk Film: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/jones-plantation-feature-film-post-production/ 16:27 Working together to spread the message The First Follower video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ 18:12 The Velvet Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution 18:43 The crucial educational task of de-bamboozling The Reformed Libertarians Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute: https://libertarianchristians.com and a member of the Christians for Liberty Network: https://christiansforliberty.net Audio Production by Podsworth Media - https://podsworth.com  

Czech out this new government.

Prague, Czechia: Travel Snaffoos, Bone Cathedrals and the Velvet Revolution

In this rerun, we get back to the 33rd anniversary of the 1989 Velvet Revolution

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In this episode of The Raz Report, Jason Raznick speaks with Jakub Rehor, Co-founder and CIO of Lucy LabsJason and Jakub talk about:What is a perpetual swap?How To Navigate Crypto VolatilityWhich is a better investment - USDC vs USDTWhat happened with Terra USD?Algorithmic Stable CoinsAdvice for retail crypto investorsAdvice for institutional crypto investorsWhat works in crypto trading vs what works in traditional financeGuest:Jakub RehorCo-founder and CIO of Lucy LabsTwitter: https://twitter.com/jakubrehorLearn more about Lucy Labs here!Host:Jason RaznickFounder, CEO of BenzingaTwitter: https://twitter.com/jasonraznickSign Up to Benzinga Pro today to receive most exclusive interviews, news and stock picks fast!https://pro.benzinga.com/Click here for more episodes of The RazReport.Disclaimer: All of the information, material, and/or content contained in this program is for informational purposes only. Investing in stocks, options, and futures is risky and not suitable for all investors. Please consult your own independent financial adviser before making any investment decisions.Transcript:In this edition of the RazReport we have Jakub Rehor Co-Founder and CIO of Lucy Labs. Jason Raznick: This is going to be an exciting one because he has tons of experience working at hedge funds from Third Avenue and just being in this industry, being in the McKinsey. So I'm going to stop talking now and start asking questions, Jakub, you have a lot of interest in experience from crypto to equities being at multi-billion-dollar value fund for many years. But before we get into all that fun stuff, where did you grow up?Jakub Rehor: I grew up in Czechoslovakia, so it was in the 1970s and 1980s. So it was still a communist country and it was a very different place than then living here in the US now.Jason Raznick: So you went through the Velvet Revolution? Jakub Rehor: Yeah. The Velvet Revolution. One thing I might mention, because it has something to do with crypto is there was an interesting currency situation in Czechoslovakia.So you had the national currency, which was the crown and that's what you were to earn and you would spend in regular shops, but you also had hard currency stores that had stuff that the regular shops didn't have. And if you want it to be shopping in those hard currency stores, you need i the special vouchers that that were exchangeable for a higher currency.And you could go into these stores and use these vouchers to pay for, more luxury luxurious stuff. And nobody would really ask you how you got your hands on it. That it was a, it was just considered to be okay. And the third currency that was circulating in the country was the Deutsche Mark.If you were planning to go on a vacation abroad or you were planning to live it up and go to restaurants and buy some souvenirs you would use Deutsche Mark. So there was really like three currencies in circulation in the country. And there was a gray market where people would be changing from one currency to another.So I'm familiar with with a situation where technically you have a single currency, but you have actually in reality, multiple circulating currencies with fluctuating exchange rates. And the connection to crypto is that people are talking about now, oh, why would we even have something like Bitcoin running in parallel with whatever the country currencies is?And it's so strange and there will be never any need for it. And I'm like, no, that's normal to me. I grew up with that. That's just absolutely normal state of affairs.Jason Raznick: And so you going with those multiple currencies, do you think then, like the Bitcoin revolution will be here stay? Jakub Rehor: Oh, it's absolutely here to stay. Nobody will uninvent Bitcoin. We now know that it's impossible. Whatever happens to Bitcoin in itself somebody will come up with a new cryptocurrency. It's just you'll never put this genie back into the bottle. What Bitcoin did was to do something that was considered impossible.Prior to that, a lot of people have tried to create native internet currency, and a lot of them foundered on the same set of problems. They, it was centralized. It was easy to shut down. It was referring to an underlying FIAT or underlying commodity and it was difficult to keep the ledger synchronized around the world.And Bitcoin solved all of these problems. It really, it is a real breakthrough in computer science.Jason Raznick: It brings you back to when you were growing up in Czechoslovakia where there were multiple currencies.Jakub Rehor: Yeah. And the problem that Bitcoin solves are very often not problems that we have here in the US here, the payment systems work pretty well here.Banks work pretty well. You're not worried about your ATM stopping working tomorrow. So explaining the value of Bitcoin to Americans is a little bit like it, it sounds a little bit unreal, the problems that it's trying to solve, but you go outside of the US you go to countries like Cyprus or Lebanon, Venezuela Iran. They get it. They mean they understand that solves their problems today and here.Jason Raznick: So going back to your upbringing, you ended up going to school at Yale. Was that from Czechoslovakia or like how'd you end up in Yale?Jakub Rehor: So I was studying electrical engineering and Czechoslovakia, and I was involved in the students strike.I joined the national student strike coordinating committee, which was part of the Velvet Revolution. We basically built the check internet very early on.We connected all the universities across the country hook them up and we use that network to print and distribute all the materials that the the development revolution leaders were putting out. Our goal was to break the monopoly, the media monopoly that the communist media had and get all this information out into people's hands.And we mentioned to do that in a space of a week, about a week and a half. We we hooked up basically all the printers and copy machines and fax machines that we could get our hands on. And we were printing we're printing posters and materials by the tens of thousands. We had them on all the streets in the country.Jason Raznick: And did it catch on?Jakub Rehor: Yeah. When the student strike started it originally was just a couple of schools and then it snowballed it started at the theater academy. Then, we joined as the electrical engineering and pretty much all the schools very quickly joined on and 10 days after the start of the strike, we were able to organize a general strike where the whole country shut down for 2 hours. To send the message to the government that we can prove that we have general support for what we stand for.And in order to organize the general strike, you really needed to coordinate all this information, get it out, get it into the right hands. Early on we realized that kind of, again, there's a connection to Bitcoin.The problem really wasn't in trying to encrypt the communication on our network. We didn't really care if the secret service was reading us or not, because we were putting it out and posters and all that stuff. Anyway, the real challenge was to authenticate the information. We were worried that the state security would try to inject some provocative material in there to try to disrupt us by sending false information. And there, so authentication was, it was more of an issue than.And it's very similar to Bitcoin where all the transactions are visible to everyone. They're not encrypted, which address sent how much to what address, but the important part is authenticated. You cannot fake sending money. You cannot send money that you don't have.Jason Raznick: So then you make your way to America and you go to Yale. Did that change you? Did the Velvet Revolution shape the person you are today? Jakub Rehor: Yale was a wonderful experience. You are surrounded with a lot of bright, talented driven people and it's it was a great environment to encourage you to go and and pursue whatever interests you have.Jason Raznick: so from Yale, did you go right to your first job?Jakub Rehor: Yep. Went straight to McKinsey. Spent a couple of years at McKinsey doing consulting at various places. Jason Raznick: What kind of companies were you consulting for at McKinsey?Jakub Rehor: It was a very interesting batch of companies. My first client was a, it was an online service, actually, one of the first online services.This was before internet really caught on. So in those days you had the three companies, CompuServe, Prodigy, and AOL, and they had a strategic issue. What do we do about this internet thing? Are we just gonna ignore it? Because we have much content on our own network or are we going to take this bet that over the long-term the content that's available on the internet is going to be better than what we have inside our network.And okay. If you decide to take that bet what does it mean? What kind of technology do we have to build? How do we connect our customers with that? How do we do our marketing? It was really interesting times. It was the early days of the internet.Jason Raznick: Is that something that you were striving towards? Jakub Rehor: Yeah. It's like basically whatever I did, I couldn't get away from the internet and the technology. It just follows you everywhere.Jason Raznick: Then you left McKinsey. And is that when you went to Marty Whitman's Third Avenue?Jakub Rehor: Not directly, at first I went to Sanford Bernstein. Then I went to Putnam Investments and then I ended up at Third Avenue. So I actually started doing value investing at Sanford Bernstein. I was an equity analyst and then worked my way up through being more senior, all the way to PM level at the Third Avenue.And so I spent a long time analyzing balance sheets, analyzing companies, analyzing businesses and making investments and running portfolio construction, running a managing risk and all that wonderful stuff.Jason Raznick: So at Third Avenue, we came all the way to PM. How many people were there at Third Avenue?Jakub Rehor: At the time it was about 100 people, about 20 people were in the research department or in the investment.Jason Raznick: What made you want to go from McKinsey to Wall Street?Jakub Rehor: The best part of working at McKinsey was doing the strategy, research and thinking longer term, the hardest part of working McKinsey was doing cost cutting.So one of the studies I was on was that a electrical utility where, they had a capital budget that it was getting a little bit out of control and you had to go in there and start cutting expenses. So you would go and identify the projects that needed to be shut down. And that's it's pretty stressful situation because you talk to people whose jobs are linked directly to these projects.So they know that if this project gets canned, they may have no future of the company. So they will, they try to fight really hard to preserve it. So you end up in this like hand to hand combat where you fighting against the people you're trying to help. It's quite stressful. And it wasn't all that enjoyable.Going into Wall Street and equity investing is very much like becoming a strategy specialist, right? You're thinking about longer-term issues. You spend a lot of time researching what's going on, but luckily you don't have to go there and actually do the hard things that are required to run a business.Jason Raznick: So then you start researching this crypto space. And is that when you're like your co-founders you got ready to create lucky Labs?Jakub Rehor: Yeah, that was pretty much around 2017, early 2018.So my co-founders: One of them came from investment banking and private equity. He was actually the CEO of Lehman Brothers, North American Equity Sales. So he's very familiar with that side of the business, with things like prime brokerage execution, operations, all that stuff. And the other co-founder is a technology specialist and he started his career working at JP Morgan, working on their foreign exchange trading desk.When it first became automated in the early 1990s and his latest project before we started Lucy Labs was he was a consultant for ISDA, which you may be familiar, it is the is the organization that regulates over the counter derivatives trading. And they had a long project stemming from the financial crisis in which they are forcing over the counter traders to put up margin.Historically OTC trades were done without a margin. Which led to problems when Lehman Brothers blew up. And the ISDA, a margin project went on for several years to create the methodology, to calculate margin requirements for any derivative ever traded anywhere in the world. So you can imagine that was a huge project. And our co-founder Rob was was the lead consultant.Jason Raznick: What are the first two things you did Lucy Labs? Jakub Rehor: The first thing was let's figure out what works here. This is a completely new market that we don't know anything about, which is very exciting. A little bit scary too. So we rolled up our sleeves and start figuring out how to do execution here, how to find investment opportunities, how to get historical data, how to put it all together and roll out to an investment strategy.And so we did that, we were a prop trading fund for three years, we were doing it with our own. And investigating as much as we could about the market.Jason Raznick: Are there that work in traditional finance, but don't that don't work in crypto?Jakub Rehor: So I would say even most things in traditional finance don't really work in crypto. So coming in as a value investor, there's really no value investing in crypto. It's very difficult to figure out intrinsic value for any of these projects. People have tried, we have certainly tried it's a very difficult problem.And I don't think that anyone has found a way to make it. What does work is a momentum-based strategies. So momentum is something that has worked on all sorts of assets over long periods of history. And so when we started looking at crypto, we had this theory that, it probably will be working in crypto as well.And we were pleasantly surprised how powerful the momentum factor is within crypto. It is it is actually quite surprisingly powerful. Crypto is very much driven by sentiment by retail trading and a momentum just captures that very well. Jason Raznick: And this volatility is macro volatility. What do you make of it in the crypto space? The past few weeks? Jakub Rehor: We've been in this space for 4 years and this is just par for course, this is actually not even particularly. Painful period in the sense that we've lived through the bear market of 2018, we've lived through the 2000, 20, early years in the bear market in 2018.Just to give you a little comparison, Ethereum was down 95%. From peak to trough in a space of less than a year. That's a very painful situation. Bitcoin was down over 80% peak to trough. So that's what a bear market in crypto looks like. Similarly in 2020 to March, 2020, we went through a 24 hour period in which Bitcoin dropped 50% in 24 hours.In crypto you have to deal with the volatility. Your models have to take that into account. You cannot be leveraged you, your risk management has to be, on top and you just have to expect that there is a, there is always something scary happening.Jason Raznick: How do you guys go about trading in crypto? Jakub Rehor: So we do a bunch of things, so I can describe a few of those things.Let's talk about the momentum trading. We have a pretty active program in which we take long positions in crypto coins when momentum is positive and we go to cash when momentum turns negative. You look at the recent historical performance and in general, there is an autocorrelation of performance. So things in crypto that have gone up recently have a tendency to keep going up and things that have gone down recently have a tendency to go down. So that's the bet you want to be taking. The downside is you will miss the turning point. So when things start bouncing off a bottom or an instinct, things start rolling at the top.You're going to miss that, but that's actually over the long-term, that's a price that's beneficial to pay. So we would when there is a bear market in crypto thing, things start selling off, we will generally go into cash. And that's certainly what we've been doing. Most of this year in that our models started putting us into cash towards the end of last year, towards the beginning of this year.And we were almost completely in cash for the past month or so.And you don't necessarily even need a very elaborate models, any sort of trend model will tell you to get out of the market over the past month or so.Jason Raznick: Okay. So then how do you know when to get in? Jakub Rehor: You wait, you miss the bottom. You see the market turning around, you see the price momentum picking up, and then you jump back on with the expectation that you will probably get in 10 or 15% above the bottom price. But again, in the longterm, that's a very good trade-off to take.Jason Raznick: So are you guys getting back in now?Jakub Rehor: No, we're still waiting for things to stabilize.Jason Raznick: When do you think that will be? Jakub Rehor: One thing I've learned is not to try to predict the markets. it's way too hard. So I, I have no idea when this will turn is there more downside it's possible? Again, in 2018, we've seen 85 to 90% drawdowns in crypto. So it's certainly possible is that what's going to happen? I have no idea. We're going to, we're going to let our models tell us when to get in.Jason Raznick: Are you in straight cash or are you doing stable coins? How do you handle that? Jakub Rehor: There are a number of things you can do in the crypto market if you want to be market neutral. There are strategies that you can do to generate returns. So I can mention a few of them.So one is a trade in crypto that does have a counterpart in traditional markets. And it's called a Basis Trade. The idea here is you may have a derivative, let's say a future that's trading at a different price from the underlying, so you can have a future on Bitcoin trading at a premium to the spot price of Bitcoin.And a simple trade is you can go short the future. You can buy the underlying spot and at the future expiration, that gap is going to close. And you're going to collect that spread. So that's the traditional basis trade that works in traditional markets. People do this in US treasuries and commodities and all sorts of things. But it also works in crypto and in crypto, there's actually a slightly, different version of this.The dominant product in crypto trading is a Perpetual Swap, which looks a little bit like a future, but it has no expiration. And the way the mechanism works is that when there is a difference between the derivative price and the underlying price, there's a funding rate that goes from one side to the other.When the derivative is more expensive than the spot, the people who are long are paying people who are short. So you can put a short position in the perpetual swap. You can put a long position in the spot and collect the funding rates. And that's a trait that historically has been providing returns of about 10% to 15% per year. There are periods when it makes more money than that. When there is a lot of speculative excitement and speculative mania we have seen it book 30%, 40% annualized. And then there are times when people are running away from the market and you will be generating maybe 0% or low single digits.Jason Raznick: I personally put some money in stable coins, USDC right? What you were describing is too complicated for me, I won't understand.Jakub Rehor: Stable coins is a safe place to be when things start falling apart. But of course, stable coins, it's a minefield as well. There are multiple kinds of stable coins. There's the very simple kind of, that works like a money market fund in traditional finance. There it's a fully backed by reserves and the stable coin is just a token. It works like a share in the underlying fund. And the fund hopefully is fully collateralized and it always has a 100% of its assets in cash or cash like products. So USDC is a great example of that, right? That's a that's a stable coin that's fully backed.Jason Raznick: Would you say USDC is very safe?Jakub Rehor: I would. I would put also USDT with USDC. So people think that USDT is an algorithmic stable coin, but it's not. It's exactly the same idea as USDC. They are also backed by reserves. they started disclosing their reserves and the composition of their reserves. So you can look at their statements and figure out what. How well back they are and how much confidence you can have in them. So USDT is actually a fully backed stable coin and it's not subject to the same problem that the algorithmic stable coins have.Algorithmic stable coins are completely different. And there are really two kinds. You could imagine a situation where you do not have US dollar reserves backing you, but you can have crypto reserves backing the dollar peg value of your stable coin.Because crypto is so volatile. What you need to have is you need to be over collateralized, right? If you're issuing $1 worth of stable coins, you probably want to have at least $2 worth of crypto backing you because if crypto falls down 50% you are still fully backed.So over collateralized, stable coins are, they're not necessarily that great because crypto can fall more than 50%, but at least it's a reasonable stab at approaching this problem. There's a whole, another class of algorithmic stable coins that are under collateralized. So they issue $1 worth of liabilities and they have less than $1 worth of assets, and that is crazy stuff. And those are bound to blow up. And Terra USD was definitely one of those where they were under collateralized. They issued billions of dollars worth of the pegged stable coin. And the mechanism that they had was saying if a lot of people come in and try to convert to US Dollar at parody, we have these other things that that we can print unlimited amounts off, and we're going to print this thing and we're going to sell it. And that way we'll generate the value for the stable coin, which obviously is insane because when you have a run on the bank when you have a run on the stable coin, the value of the stuff that you are printing is starting to collapse so you have to keep printing more and more to generate the same amount of value. And you end up diluting that second asset to zero and you end up breaking the peg. Terra USD is not the first one where it happened. There was a bunch of other ones in the past. It is absolutely amazing to me that people keep falling for this. But here we are, people put tens of billions of dollars into this.Jason Raznick: What do you think got people so into it? Jakub Rehor: There's the old saying in the markets, "Bulls make money, bears make money, and pigs get slaughtered." People just got really piggish. These 20% yields sound amazing.I think that a lot of people did understand that these yields are unsustainable and they are they were funded by the VC investors or the launch of funds that that Luna the project behind the stable coins raised.So they understood that these 20% yields wouldn't last, but they thought, I'll just collect them for as long as I can and get out. And, as we know, getting out is the hard part.Jason Raznick: Getting out is the hard part. And so when you're in cash, do you guys do just say "Hey, I'm going to buy some USDC"?Jakub Rehor: Sure, we do that. Jason Raznick: What about Terra Luna?Jakub Rehor: No, forget it. Nothing algorithmic. We wouldn't feel comfortable with that.There is actually an interesting innovation going on, so I would say. There is one potential new kind of algorithmic stable coin. That is interesting to watch. It's tiny. It's still an experiment. We'll see if the experiment is successful or not. But the idea is similar to what I just described about the basis trade, right? So when you have a basis trade, you sell a derivative and you buy the underlying spot. What do you actually generate is like a synthetic stable coin. You create a synthetic dollar that. And there are people out there who are trying to generate to create synthetic dollars exactly. By doing this, by putting these offsetting positions on the derivatives and the spot markets, and they're doing it on decentralized exchanges. So that is an interesting idea because it's not really subject to the same risk that the traditional algorithmic stable coins are because even in Iran, you should be able to liquidate both sides and and be able to defend the peg.Now. It's still early days. There's only, I think few million dollars experimenting with this approach. And a lot of this depends on the infrastructure outside of these folks control. If you are issuing a stable coin like that, you need fairly liquid markets in the derivatives that you use to back this up, those markets have to provide a 24 / 7 availability. You have to be able to withdraw money fairly quickly. So the infrastructure really needs to be there. And the danger is that we are still too early and the infrastructure cannot support that. But it's a very interesting.Jason Raznick: And are you guys trying to get involved with these experiments or are you just watching it? Jakub Rehor: We're watching at this point and cheering on from the sidelines.The whole crypto space is a thousand experiments right now.Jason Raznick: Do you think there should be more regulation in the crypto space? Jakub Rehor: Regulation is coming, there is no doubt about it. Regulation makes sense when the market is a little bit more mature and it becomes obvious what is the right thing to do and what is not the right thing to do.Regulators are not really equipped to know upfront. What is a good idea and what is a bad idea. And right now, you see a lot of the regulators around the world, including the US stepping back and trying to figure out what the heck is going on. What should we allow? What should we not allow? And that allows the space to do a lot of experimentation and sort of by learning, we're going to discover what is a good idea and what we should just. Let it happen again.I think algorithmic stable coins is a very dangerous idea and we're getting a lot of evidence for that. And I think the regulation is going to clamp down on that. At the same time, fully backed, reserved stable coins are sailing through this crisis pretty well and I think the regulation again should reflect that and encourage that sort of product as opposed to the more algorithmic ones.Jason Raznick: Who is Lucy? Jakub Rehor: Our CTO came up with that. There was a fairly famous fossil form of the early human, like before humans really evolved to become modern humans. And it's so it's it hearkens to that. It's like early steps in this new world that is being that is developing in front of us.Jason Raznick:What else does Lucy Labs do? Jakub Rehor: So we have a blog on Medium we just launched, a blog talking about crypto products. The first post specifically talks about perpetual swaps. The history of them. It's a product that's unique to crypto doesn't really have an exact equivalent in traditional finance. So we spend a little bit of time explaining how it works and what are the tricky things to be aware of working with that. And we're really enjoying that. So I think we'll be doing a lot more to have that.Jason Raznick: What are perpetual swaps? Jakub Rehor: So perpetual swaps it's super interesting. It's a version of a future. Traditional futures of an expiration. So usually every three months or so the future expires and it's settled either with the underlying or it gets settled in cash. And when the crypto exchanges started taking off, that was the product that they offered and they discovered that retail investors actually had a real trouble.managing Futures, the managing the expirations. People would forget that, third, Friday in June or whatever is the expiration date. And they would log into their account once every two weeks. And one day they would log into their account and their position was gone and they will be like, oh my God, what's happening.The traditional futures turned out to be not a great fit for crypto. So a number of exchanges started experimenting and one of them called Bitmax which was based in Hong Kong in those days they played with different things. They tried to shorten the futures to have expiration every 48 hours then every 24 hours. And finally they decided what if we never expire this thing? Just make it perpetual. Then the issue you have, how do you make sure that the swap price doesn't drift away completely from the underlying, if you don't have expiration that will force those two prices to converge, how do you make sure they don't just, it just doesn't walk off into space.And the innovation they came up with is they first started thinking of referencing some outside interest rate that would and you were to charge the people who were on the wrong side of the trade. So if the future was too expensive they would charge people who were long. And the question is, how do you set an interest rate in crypto, like what is the Bitcoin interest rate? There's really no good answer for that. So they decided let's just generate it from the price itself. Let's just look at the difference between the price of the swap and the price of the underlying. And let's charge that difference.That will force people who are long to be paying a lot of money and hopefully it will incentivize them to close the position and sell the long position, which will force it back to the equilibrium price. And when they first came up with that, nobody knew if it would work or not. It was a real experiment. It was a kind of stab in the dark. And in the first 6 months, it was pretty hairy. The prices were all over the place. The swap price was drifting away from their underlying and it was a little bit chaotic, but after about six months ARPS figured out how to play this game and over the past 2 or 3 years, that market has really matured and it became the predominant way of trading crypto outside of the US. The perpetual swap markets are anywhere on the order of 5 to 10 times greater than the underlying spot markets.Jason Raznick: One of the things you mentioned earlier with Marty Whitman, you are an investigator and you're looking for opportunities to companies and you can value, invest and see stuff that people aren't seeing. Is this similar to that?Jakub Rehor: It's very similar. It's again, you're being a detective and you constantly ask questions like what's going on and why? The way we really wrapped our head around the perpetual swaps was we were taking regular positions in the spot markets, and then we saw liquidity as much better in the perpetual swap so why not start trading that we started trading that. We're getting hit with these funding costs. And we're like, oh, we hate paying these funding rates. Hear me out. What if we start collecting them instead? How would you go about it? And very quickly we figured out, okay, you can create the synthetic position and do this.And yeah, you stay, you learn by doing. The way you discover these opportunities, you are active in the space. You trade, you do experiments and you discover things that you didn't realize were happening and you'll find new opportunities all the time.And we'll help amplify your blog and get people to get the word out.Jason Raznick: What advice do you have for crypto investors?Jakub Rehor: I would say with retail investors, crypto is a very risky, very volatile asset space. You do want to be in it longer term, but be aware that these 80% drawdowns are happening and are likely to happen for the foreseeable future.So position sizing is the most important thing you need to worry about. If things get really tough. Can I survive this, don't put on too big a position and definitely do not put on leverage. Retail investors tend to get in trouble with too much leverage on their positions.But longer term. Crypto is very likely to be around for a long time. And learning about it is best done by trading and being active in the market. Be there and trade it. But keep it Small enough that you can afford the pain of the downturn, similar to what we're seeing today.for institutional investor, my advice is slightly different. I would still say you should be experimenting in this market. The interesting thing is the infrastructure for trading that's being built in crypto markets is, I would say a hundred years ahead of what's in the traditional markets that you are used to, the efficiency and effectiveness of the trading platforms is going to absolutely steamroll, the traditional trading venues.And I would recommend to start learning about how things work there so that when it happens, you'll be prepared. I'll give you an example, the huge difference between a traditional infrastructure and the crypto infrastructure in traditional infrastructure. Let's say you trade futures and the way you to say you're trading futures on wheat, for example.So you have to put up a margin and at the end of each day, your position is marked to market and the exchange calculates any additional margin that's needed. And you have until the next morning to come up with the cash to keep the position. OIn that period between the calculation of the margin and depositing of the cash, the exchanges that.If you actually go bankrupt, the exchange may not be able to collect. And, they have a fund to insure them against that. But it is a real business risk for the exchange, which is why they set the margins very high. To live with having that risk on their balance sheet.So the size of the margin is a function of the payment cycle and the settlement cycle. In traditional finance, the settlement cycle has to be at least 24 hours because the traditional payment rails take 24 hours to get, your payment from your bank to the exchange or the broker.So by nature, they cannot offer high leverage in the products that they. Just because of the settlement counterparty risk issue.You go to crypto exchanges and you realize that they have the recalculate, the margins at a much higher frequency. The exchange. I mentioned BitMax, actually, they started recalculating margin on every tick.So every trade happens, they go and go through a million accounts that they have and recalculate the margin requirements immediately. So they don't have that 24 hour delay for them to be at risk, they can liquidate positions much faster than that. Because of that they can lower their margin requirements. And some of these guys used to offer a 100 times leverage. Thankfully they reduced that now, but you can still get 20 to 25 times leverage on your crypto positions. The exchanges can afford to do that without putting themselves at risk because of this much faster settlement cycle that they have available.Now, if you are an institutional trader and you doing things like hedging, you're doing things like arbitrage. Where do you want to execute? You obviously want to execute at the place with lower margin requirements because you'll have a better capital efficiency. You'll have a higher return on capital.So liquidity is likely to stay at these crypto exchanges that have the newer techniques. And we're seeing that clearly in, for example, the Bitcoin futures market. CME rolled out its Bitcoin futures product in December, 2017. So it's four years now. And they only have about 5% market share in global Bitcoin futures trading, which is amazing.CME is leading venue for derivatives trading. How come they cannot get more market share than that? And the response is because of the, how slow their settlement cycle is. They are requiring 35% margin for any Bitcoin position while the crypto exchanges, they may ask for 3 to 5% margin for the same position.So again, as an institutional investor, you'll be better off trading on these new exchanges.Now these guys, the crypto exchanges are coming into the US so right now, there is a hearing in front of the Congress Senate Agriculture Committee. And and there is a application with the CFTC in which FTX, which is one of the leading crypto exchanges is trying to bring this 24/ 7 trading in commodities with instant margin calculation, and an instant settlement so T plus 0 seconds. If this gets approved and really, there's no reason why it shouldn't be it needs to work its way through the regulatory process, but if this gets approved and you will get a fully regulated exchange with these parameters, can you imagine what that's going to do with people like CME?The reason CME is doing things this way is that's how you did it in 1868. When you were started, when you literally had a guy, in the morning, run to the bank with a check. And deposited with the clerk on the exchange at 7:30 AM. And if the check wasn't there by 8:30 AM, the positions would be liquidated that's and it's baked into all of their systems.They are, it will not be easy for them to upgrade their system to be able to compete with this.Jason Raznick: Do you personally buy Bitcoin or were you an early investor in Bitcoin? Jakub Rehor: Oh yeah, way too early. I bought my first Bitcoin back in 2013 or something like that. It was $14. I was down 80% within a month of my purchase. So yeah, it was a small amount of money.Jason Raznick: Do you have a favorite crypto?Jakub Rehor: I'm still partial of the Bitcoin, my first love.Jason Raznick: The last one is what's your worst or your first job? That's a question I always ask.Jakub Rehor: I did all sorts of things. I painted houses. I work in the fields. I worked in bakeries. So it's a very wide range of things and honestly, they're all fine. I think any job is what you make from it. What you make of it. You can learn a lot of from just painting a house.Jason Raznick: And if people want to check you out, where should they go?Jakub Rehor: We are at https://lucylabs.io/.Jason Raznick: Thank you for coming on the RazReport. We appreciate it.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-raz-report/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Markos Kounalakis is a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and an award-winning, nationally-syndicated foreign affairs columnist, author, and scholar. He's also a veritable legend in the world of Journalism, covering the developments in Eastern Europe at the end of the 20th Century, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Velvet Revolution in Prague. He was present at the Warsaw Pact meeting, covered the early phases of Yugoslavia's civil war, and went to Afghanistan with the Soviets to cover the last stages of their military occupation and the rise of the Mujahedin. He's also the first Second Gentleman of California, married to Lt. Governor Elani Kounalakis.

Quizmasters Lee and Marc meet for a trivia quiz on topics including Musical Instruments, Scottish Things, Carnivals, Board Games, Song Lyrics, World History, Movies and more! Round One MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS - At what fret are the same notes as the open strings found but an octave higher on a standard guitar? NATIONAL PARKS - What national park was established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872 and is widely considered to be the first national park in the world? SCOTTISH THINGS - A glengary with a toorie and a cockade is a traditional Scottish what? PARROTS - Puck, an African Grey parrot, holds the Guinness World Record for having the largest what, in a bird? FRENCH LANGUAGE - Kinshasa, the African capital of which country, is regarded as the largest French speaking city (after Paris)? CARNIVALS - Parade teams compete annually at the Sambadrome Marquês de Sapucaí, a purpose-built parade area that is located in which country? Round Two BOARD GAME RULES - According to the official Monopoly rules, to what bonus is a player entitled when having landed on the Free Parking space? WORLD HISTORY - The Communist government of which country was overthrown during the Velvet Revolution? TIK TOK - Starting a Tik Tok trend in 2021, 'Wellerman' is a song that had users obsessed with singing songs from what obscure genre of music? LYRICS - "An Afro Black Boy with the gold teeth with dark skin looking at me like he know me / I wonder if he got the G or the B / let me find out and see, coming over to me" are lyrics to a Billboard Hot 100 song by what artist? CHICAGO - 1060 W. Addison, listed by Elwood Blues as his home address in Blues Brothers, is actually the address of which famous Chicago landmark? CORPORATE SLOGANS - "More experience than our name suggests" was a slogan for what airline? Rate My Question ALCOHOL - Whiskey is a spirit distilled from grains. What percentage of corn needs to be used for whiskey to be considered bourbon? ETYMOLOGY - According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, from where and when does the slang expression "suss out" originate? Final Questions LANDMARKS - The world's tallest lighthouse is located in which European country? Factoid Alert MOVIES - In the first movie of the franchise, Austin Powers claims that condoms are only for me of what profession? SPORTS DOCUMENTARIES - The 2005 documentary Murderball focuses on the rivalry of the 2004 U.S. and Canadian Paralympic teams of which sport? Upcoming LIVE Know Nonsense Trivia Challenges April 13th, 2022 - Know Nonsense Challenge - Point Ybel Brewing Co. - 7:30 pm EDT April 14th, 2022 - Know Nonsense Trivia Challenge - OOPS! All Podcast Questions - Ollies Pub Records and Beer - 7:30 pm EDT You can find out more information about that and all of our live events online at KnowNonsenseTrivia.com All of the Know Nonsense events are free to play and you can win prizes after every round.

November 1989 was serving INSPIRATION: The fall of the Berlin Wall! The Velvet Revolution! The debut of Queen Latifah! The introduction of queer icon Ursula the Sea Witch! The Baby-sitters Club's addition of literacy tutoring to their ever-expanding list of services! Brooke and Kaykay discuss Mallory and the Mystery Diary's ode to the joys of reading and its model of educational empowerment, with digressions on Pee-wee, potatoes, and the badassery of Helen Keller.Visit us at our website, and follow us on:FacebookTwitterInstagramNOTE: We will no longer be posting to or sharing content from Spotify, due to the company's decision to prioritize misinformation over truth. New audio home for our soundtracks coming soon!

Alex Jaffe, Tim Rogers and Brandon Sheffield continue the celebration of Patron-submitted questions, upending the dirtbag for even more “What is the ____ of video games?” Questions this week: Dirtbag Sailor Silica asks: What is the squeezing through a gap while the next area loads for previous eras of video games? (03:02) Dirtbag Dilson asks: What is the video game equivalent of a sommelier? (04:27) Dirtbag Walt asks: What is the The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension of video games? (05:08) Dirtbag MoxBagel asks: What is the This restaurant packaged the salt and pepper packets in a bag with the napkins and now the napkin is all peppery and unpleasant to use of video games? (08:35) Dirtbag Kory asks: What is the OK Computer of video games, and what is the Kid A of video games? (12:13) A Dirtbag We Don't Have the Name Of asks: What are the farm-to-table restaurant and microwave dinner of video games? (14:39) Dirtbag UG asks: What is the Joe Pera Talks with You of video games? (19:15) Dirtbag Roman asks: What is the 1989 Velvet Revolution of video games? (22:02) Dirtbag Chopemon asks: What is the Chinese food buffet of video games? (24:07) Dirtbag Dusty asks: What is the DMC DeLorean of video games? (26:29) Dirtbag TapeVulture asks: What is the British accent of video games? (29:39) Dirtbag Chopemon asks: What is the hanging up of holiday decorations of video games? (34:43) Dirtbag Marshall asks: What is Ross Dress for Less of video games, and what is the TJ Maxx of video games? (34:43) Dirtbag A Dry Cleaner for Dogs asks: What is the hoop trundling of video games? (40:42) A Dirtbag We Don't Have the Name Of asks: What is the James Joyce's Ulysses of video games, and what is the Alfred Lord Tennyson's Ulysses of video games? (42:55) LIGHTNING ROUND: The Gaagaagiins Six (46:00) Recommendations and Outro (54:05) Discuss this episode in the forums, please! You'll be glad you did! A SMALL SELECTION OF THINGS REFERENCED: Bedouin Sheep dog Yorkshire Terrier Chihuahua Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008) Galaxian Ridge Racer Mass Effect Sommelier DS Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) Ed Harris (not in Buckaroo Bonazi) Jeff Goldblum (is in Buckaroo Bonzai) Knightriders (1981) Breakin' (1984) Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984) Destroy All Humans! Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work Final Fantasy VII Leonard Part 6 (1987) Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985) Kinect Seinfeld Curb Your Enthusiasm Joycon drift OK Computer Kid A Braid Rez Katamari Damacy Atari Jaguar Kid Acarus FarmVille Diner Dash FarmVille 2 VIDEOBALL Butt Sniffin Pugs Where in North Dakota is Carmen Sandiego? Line Wobbler Harvest Moon / Story of Seasons series Dragon Quest Builders series Joe Pera Talks with You Michigan: Report from Hell Animal Crossing series Velvet Revolution Yakuza: Kiwami 2 Cyber Troopers Virtual On Fighters Megamix Fighting Vipers DMC DeLorean The Guy Who Wrote The Ready Player One Back to the Future (1985) E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon Double Dragon Neon The Simpsons Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles WipEout Octopath Traveler Fatal Frame Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer Final Fantasy VI Ross Dress for Less TJ Maxx Marshalls Far Cry 6 Target Meijer ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove! Hoop trundling A Hard Day's Night (1964) Irritating Stick James Joyce's Ulysses Alfred Lord Tennyson's Ulysses Super Mario Odyssey Recommendations: Tim: Listen to some more podcasts, subscribe to patreon.com/insertcredit Brandon: Cellular shades Jaffe: Stop playing gacha games, read more comics Hosted by Alex Jaffe, with Tim Rogers and Brandon Sheffield. Edited by Esper Quinn. Original Music by Kurt Feldman.

The King of Stuff welcomes Matt Welch, editor-at-large for Reason.com and co-host of The Fifth Column podcast. Jon and Matt chat about the rise of political independents, the negative polarization of modern parties, and celebrate the 31st anniversary of the Velvet Revolution! Subscribe to the King of Stuff Spotify playlist featuring picks from Jon and his guest. Being International Teenage Fanclub... Source