May 23, 2018 • 45 mins
You might have heard this one before -- for years, various fringe researchers and commentators have argued that the government or some other shadowy entity is purposefully changing the gender of amphibians (specifically, frogs) throughout the United States. So what's the truth behind the headline? Join Ben, Matt and Noel as they separate the hilarious fiction from the disturbing facts of the case.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,
(00:24):
and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is no. They called me Ben. We are
joined with our super producer Paul Decan, and most importantly,
you're here. You are you that makes this stuff they
don't want you to know. Folks, Today, I vote we
start this show with a very short clip that some
longtime listeners may recognize one of my favorite clips. Prepare
(00:46):
yourself for the next twelve seconds. The frogs, the male
frogs think they're females. Now that's start up. When I
say that about a frog, I'm not bashing the gay frog,
but the chemical got in the water. In the excerpt
you just heard, YouTuber and radio host Alex Jones is
saying that chemicals found in water are turning frogs in
(01:10):
his words gay. Yeah. It's um. It's refreshing and maybe
a little surprising to hear that Jones took these great
pains just to let you the the listener know that
he has nothing against gay frogs or gay humans to
that matter, and you can listen to the entire um
(01:30):
let's call it a presentation on this matter via YouTube.
Their clips all over the place. Some official Alex Jones
channel clips you can find, as well as clips other
people if put on there. And this idea was popularized
by Jones years ago. Some of you have written into
us asking what the deal is about this over the years,
(01:53):
and the reason it stays in the public mind is
because since this idea was popularized by Alex Jones, it
became sort of a meme. And the crux of the
argument that Jones makes does not stop at frogs. We
just wanted to play We just wanted to play one
of the thesis clips here. Ye, he gets into the
gay bomb itself that we've discussed before in this show,
(02:16):
which was a real plan and it was more like
a sexual assault bomb in the nuts bolts of how
they thought it would work. But he sees the frogs
as one of the first signs that the government, whether
acting in concert with other forces or just unilaterally, is
attempting to increase levels of homosexuality or the ratio of
(02:39):
of homosexuality in the human population through a widespread dispersal
of chemicals, particularly in the water. Sure, why not? Why
wouldn't the government be doing that right, because you know,
they're on top of everything else, so they they've got
so much free time. You know, it's just really they
just have to worry about the fourth of July and
tax Day. That's it. So for a lot of people,
(03:04):
this is a wait what question, and today we are
hoping to discover whether there is any truth to what
might seem initially an insane story straight out of tin
Foilton's tin Foilton? Tin Foilton? Is that like the wh
who Bill? Yes, it's the you know, I think the
the four of us are going to have to have
(03:27):
to learn more about tin Foilton. Yeah, I think so.
Maybe we'll visit one day. Yeah. For now, let's get
right into the person Alex Jones. Let's get a little
backstory here. The person Alex Jones, Yes, person, as we know,
can be used to describe a number of things, especially
when you get into corporations or media personalities. There they
(03:50):
are all kinds of things here. So Alex Jones, if
you're a fan of this show, you are most likely
aware of this man. He's the creator of the website
info Wars, and he's in the host of this long
running radio show called The Alex Jones Show, and over
the years he has discussed just a whole host almost
all of the rumors and fringe theories that have ever existed.
(04:13):
Yeah Yeah. He's also been involved in a number of controversies,
from accusing the US government of perpetrating the Oklahoma City bombing,
the September eleventh attacks in the US, faking the moon landings,
and more. And he describes himself as a paleo conservative
libertarian and a lot of his stories to the general
(04:35):
audience would seem to come from a more right wing perspective.
He has been called a conspiracy theorist by outfits like
the Southern Poverty Law Center in New York Magazine, and
he didn't seem to totally embrace this, but he did
take it as a source of pride. His response was,
(04:56):
you know, I'm proud to be considered a thought criminal
in the eight against Big Brother. I love the phrase
thought criminal. Yeah. It's taking that George Orwell vibe and
planning with it. He's got a heart, it's pumping blood. Yeah,
you got a face hello, Well, in in a strange way,
(05:19):
he's got I don't know, just that that thing that
you're doing right here, the impersonation. There's a certain I
don't know, it's not respectability, but it's it's a cachet
or something that is very attractive of this, like this
man standing up in the world of lies telling the truth.
That's going to take active defiance, and you know, yes,
(05:42):
I take it anymore. Do you guys remember the first
time you ever saw Alex Jones. It's it's sort of
like easy to forget. He was in that Richard link
Ladder movie Waking Life. That was all of the like
you know, rotoscope kind of dreamy um look to it
and he's like a ranting, red faced, crazy guy in
the back of a cab. I want to say, that's it.
(06:04):
I loved Waking Life, and I that was not the
first time I saw Alex. It was for me. I
guess I think that was before he was really really
entrenched in like the public and the mainstream guy. I
think he was maybe more localized, like he was in Austin,
probably an Austin guy. Okay, yeah, so he was. He
was a super popular radio show host in Austin. And
(06:29):
I remember seeing Waking Life. For circumstances, I won't get
into on the air. I was I was confused, you know,
I was into it, but I was thinking, do I
recognize that guy? Yeah? Who is that? Sounds familiar? Are you?
Are you sure that's not a certain comedian named Bill Hicks.
And that's the story for another day. So throughout the
(06:53):
ninety nineties and the two thousand's, Jones expanded his work
and polished his voice or should we a whittled it, yes,
focusing on more things. He embraced the Internet through sites
like prison Planet, the aforementioned Info Wars. Prison Planet is
the more I say, I would say, the the edgy
or a little more out there version. Uh. And he
(07:17):
went to protest for political causes he believed in. He
ran for local office and uh weighed in as a
political pundit and more. The list of his views, as
Matt said, is extensive. He has been doing this for
a long time. And you know what I'm gonna say,
since we brought up Waking Life, I really liked his segment.
What's I was saying? It was also before he was
(07:39):
such a divisive figure, and I have a feeling that
link Ladder probably saw him more as an interesting uh
sort of almost like almost more of like a Joe
Roganny type where he's maybe a little problematic in his views,
but he's just kind of espousing some like existential crisises
that we all you know, are faced with. Yeah, account
he provides a counterpoint to a lot of mainstream views,
(08:01):
which is important in any discourse. Right. But over time,
Yeah really went went hard and paint right, And now
we can see looking back through his catalog of statements, writings,
and performances, we can see larger recurring themes. The primary
theme for Alex Jones is this idea of overarching government control,
(08:25):
the goal being a new world order, and the new
world order, the quick and dirty version is the governments
and large companies, industries maybe uh dynastic families like the
Rothchilds or something, are working in concert in secret to
manufacture economic disasters, to make constant surveillance normal, and, in
(08:48):
Alex Jones's opinion, most importantly, to perpetrate false flag attacks
or inside jobs and create a culture of fear so
that they can exploit everyone who's on the outside of
the inner circle. And Alex Jones that includes everything from
nine eleven and nine eleven attacks to like the Sandy
Hook School shooting, all supposedly with the intent of turning
(09:11):
public opinion in a way that is helpful to the
nefarious aims of said New World Order beneficiaries. And and
just to try and be fair to Alex Jones, he
does take it back to things like the Pearl Harbor attacks,
saying that you know, something like that causes the public
to be more pro war. Um, and you know, he
(09:33):
I want to say, he tries to connect make those
connections that we try to do on this show as well. Um,
It's just it becomes a completely different flavor when Alex
Jones starts going down the rabbit holes. Well, that's so,
that's part of it. Right. We know at basis that
governments do leverage public fear and concern quite quite well.
(09:55):
And we know that governments have, at least the US
government has partnered with pr firms in the past to
encourage a fear of marijuana, for instance, based on a
violently racist ad campaign. Right, And you can check out
our earlier episode about that. I believe we have one.
I can't remember. There's definitely a great video on it.
(10:18):
For reasons we won't go into on a family show,
My my Memories not a million percent for reasons. Yeah,
are you testing that government marijuana like I was? I
I cannot recall. Isn't that what I would be supposed
to say? So now we know a little bit about
(10:42):
how it gots started. Who is he? In two thousand seventeen,
his ex wife saw it custody of their children, either
joint custody or soul custody. Because she saw Jones' behavior
as unstable, they divorced in and particularly she pointed out
she was disturbed by what she saw as him threatening
(11:05):
Congressman Adam Schiff. Jones's lawyer claimed that Alex Jones was
quote playing a character and described him as a quote
performance artist, and this goes into the question of authenticity. Jones,
for his part, denied this, and he called his show,
oh yeah, he said it is the most the most
(11:27):
bona fide hardcore real mccarth finger is and then he
pounded his fist on the table. Here said Jones. Or
was it macho man Randy saving Macho man Madden Frederick
so uh so? And this whole ordeal, this trial gained
enough national attention that even Stephen Colbert went on his
(11:49):
his new show and had a whole segment on this
he played a clip with Alex Jones like doing a
full haunt Alex Jones. Can we hear it? Okay, this
is just too good. It's a nice little cut up.
You guys know who he is, you know, Alex Jones says,
and four wars right popular Trump CUFIC fan. Donald Trump
is a big fan. And Jones right now is an
(12:10):
a legal battle with his ex wife, who says he's
too unstable to have custody of their children. And to
prove it, she's been showing the court videos like this,
George Washington with diary are running out of his pants
on top that horse, marching to kick ass, marching not
to give up, take that action. That's who we come from.
We let all these hunchbacks come rule us. I will
(12:33):
never coming to you, and the human spirit is rising.
You will not turn us in the animals. But Jones's
lawyers are defending him a very unique defense. They're saying
that when he says stuff like that, they said that
Jones is just playing a character. And here we kind
of see Alex Jones sort of turning a corner, you know,
going from his whole bona fide hardcore line to well,
(12:58):
you know, Stephen Colbert can go to his kids, he
doesn't take it home. He's playing a character. He's sort
of implying it, I too, am playing a character specifically, Yeah, exactly,
specifically Stephen Colbert from the Stephen Colbert Show. Right. But
he's also even referring to, like he said, he was
specifically referring to Stephen Colbert making fun of him and
playing that character. So that's even more meta and weird.
(13:19):
He he's saying, a guy playing me cannot take that
home to his kids, so therefore I can too. It's
similar to the Glenn Beck impression that Jon Stewart would
do for a number of years, Right, These people playing
larger versions of themselves, playing satirical versions of people who
(13:41):
play larger versions and themselves. The uru Burrows continues, and
and over the years, this character or this man who
where whatever it is, uh, it has caused he has
caused a lot of outcry. I'm okay with it. Well,
whatever Alex Shones is, Alex Jones, the whatever he chooses
(14:03):
to identify as yes, has has caused a lot a
lot of outcry. And we're gonna get into that right
after a quick word from our sponsor. Yes, as you
can already see, Jones has ruffled more than a few feathers.
Will give you a few of his controversial views and
(14:24):
or statements. To be fair, he may have changed his
position on some of these by the time you hear
this recording. I don't think so, but maybe depending on
what new information comes out. And a couple of these
he did, he has backtracked somewhat true or come up
with a more nuanced view. Absolutely, and the first one
(14:45):
that you might be aware of because it also made
national headlines where Alex Jones views on school shootings and
specifically the topic of crisis actors and their involvement within
these school shootings, particularly in the case of Sandy Hook UM.
He was criticized for claiming that no one actually died
during UM, the Sandy Hook event and among other shootings
(15:08):
as well, claiming additionally the eyewitnesses and survivors were actually
these paid professionals called crisis actors, and his argument hinged
on the idea that you could see the same people
at different tragedies, typically shootings, but also maybe bombings, stuff
like that. And then this led to what was very
(15:31):
controversial about this is that this led to some people
who believe this harassing parents of children who had shot
so dirty dirty business. He also believes the weather weapons exist,
and he is not wrong that it is possible to
perform acts of weather manipulation like the Chinese government did
(15:52):
in the two thousand eight Beijing Olympics, but that's more
to prevent bad weather or encourage weather uh that would
be beneficial for crops or agriculture, strategic cloud seating, right,
And we know that the US government did experiment with
whether as a weapon of war in the Vietnam conflict.
(16:13):
But he stated that governments can manufacture or geo engineer
hurricanes specifically. A lot of the time Alex Jones gets
in trouble because he states these things as though they
are fact, as though there is absolutely you know, without
without even having absolute proof, saying no, this is how
it is. He'll also do this thing, or he'll take
(16:34):
something with a grain of truth and just driving into
the ground and and and do a lot of assumptions
around that grain of truth to the point where you
lose the plot entirely, and that thing that might actually
be true becomes the basis for something that is utterly
absurd in my opinion. I'll go on record saying I'm
(16:55):
fine with interviewing Alex Jones. There's some things I want
to see. His opinion on uh, engineering hurricanes still is interesting.
We did a video on this a while back, and
the idea of manufacturing natural disasters is not as impossible
as you might think, because things like fracking, purposeful human
(17:18):
action can trigger earthquakes, so it is possible to manufacture earthquakes.
I'm I don't think he. I don't think he has
any solid proof of purposely manufacturing hurricanes because honestly, how
the hell would you steer them with a hurricane motor? Sure,
maybe maybe he owns a hurricane rudder rudder. Uh. He's
(17:45):
also anti vaccination in some respects, and that's been really
controversial for him. Uh. He has repeatedly stated his belief
in something called white genocide, which I almost want to
say in it different whoy genocide the idea that certain
groups of people are working to increase violence against those
(18:08):
identified as white, typically in the US and North America,
but also in Western Europe, while also reducing their population.
And he doesn't just get criticism from the mainstream, he
gets criticism from the fringe community, you say, oh, I
know what you are, Alex Jones. You're an agent of disinformation.
You work for the same people you claim to oppose,
(18:30):
which in this case, my friends, would mean that Alex
Jones is turning frogs you know. Oh boy, yeah, well,
and you know that I think is one of those
more valid points than a lot of the other things,
because when you have someone espousing somewhat credible ideas while
(18:52):
at the same time saying that the hurricanes are absolutely happening,
or vaccinations are absolute really you know, causing autism, or
these things are absolutely occurring. When you can when you
can have someone who is treated as somewhat credible on
one in one respect, but then also just saying the
craziest stuff on the other hand, it becomes dangerous for
(19:15):
both sides. But aren't all not to fall into relativism
in that? But aren't all people like that? They're just
not on YouTube, yes, but they Alex Jones has a
lot of people that listen to him. True one criticism
that he's come under fire four and this is something
(19:35):
this to be completely honest, this is something that I
have said before. He has come under criticism not just
for me, for a large range of branded products marketed
through a show on the website info Wars. And these
are things like prepper materials, dietary supplements, survival gear like
bulletproof vest and so on. You can see a John
(19:56):
Oliver Last Week Tonight clip on this and and some
of the dubious claims that have been made about these
dietary supplements. My primary issue with this is if you're
doing a show about an imminent economic collapse, right the
fall of the dollar or something, and then you segue
(20:16):
into convincing people to buy gold from you, it makes
what you said earlier, it lessens the impact. You know,
and I'm not saying it's automatically wrong, but it doesn't.
It doesn't feel as trustworthy. Reminds me of that Jim
Baker stuff. You know. He's this televangelist who prosperity theologist,
(20:37):
whose whole thing is built around selling these doomsday prep
materials and like survival food and these disgusting buckets of
beans and rule, you know, mashed potatoes, cream corn. Yeah,
who wants that much cream corn? Anyway? Uh, it's it's
it's true, it's true. It's similar. M Jones has also
(21:00):
at least Jones hasn't implied that people are going to
hell if they don't if they don't get prepping materials.
I mean, to hear Jones tyleer, we're already living in hell. Yeah. Yeah.
Just to bring this up to one of the video
clips that we were looking at for this, it's this
response by Alex Jones to the whole gay frogs thing.
(21:24):
And at the end of it, or let's say three
quarters of the way through, it shifts over to a
water crisis video or it feels like they're just shifting
topics to a water crisis video, but then you realize
the entirety of the rest of the video is an
ad for something that they are selling on infro Wars
about water purification. So that's I mean, that's stuff because
(21:46):
I see what you're saying, and it doesn't Again, it
doesn't automatically mean whatever you're hearing is bs, but it
is easy to make make you question that because there
are ulterior motives. The motive is to sell the water
our purification device. Well, here's an example. We do advertisements
on this show, right, but it's not products that were
(22:07):
directly selling to you that directly benefit us that are
directly tied to the topics we are discussing. Well, No
had that Blue apron Ad and the cannibalism episode that
was perfect though Aprin like that too, but that was
completely coincidence. So you can also argue that any episode
of ours ties in directly with the tushy Oh for sure.
(22:29):
You guys just super into tussies. I'm glad you enjoyed.
Since we're talking about silly stuff, I just wanted to
point out one thing I think the most overlooked conspiracy
theory about Alex Jones is that he is a secret
acid house DJ. WHOA. Yeah, there's an article on Spin
that has screenshots from a video of his where in
the background you see like all of these vintage drum
(22:51):
machines like t R eight oh eights and and TB
three oh three's and all of these like, you know,
really high end electronic music equipment that and like you know,
e d DJ decks and monitor speakers and mixers and
all this stuff all in the background, And apparently there's
a screenshot of him commenting on some electronic musician kind
of doing a jam, an electronic space jam, and him
(23:14):
saying something like he's at a three oh three in
the background, So Alex Jones, Yeah, I'll ask him about
man many layers. Yeah, I'll ask him. And he has
earned the trust of a large audience. Despite the controversy,
He's had many mainstream appearances as a representative of fringe theory,
an interviewee, UH, an opponent of gun control, and while
(23:36):
he may be controversial or divisive, there's no two ways
about it, his story is indisputably one of success, whether
as a secret Bill Hicks and Acid House d J,
a radio host UH, or even politics. He's dappled with
that Trump's a fan. Yeah, Trump's a fan. Trump's a fan,
And he has a a very emotionally charged recount out
(24:00):
of how one of his associates turned him into a
Trump supporter, which you can see, you can see all
the stuff that we are talking about on YouTube. With
all of this in mind, to Matt's earlier point, knowles
earlier point, it's it's easy to see how somebody might
dismiss him out of hand, and he might be for
many people a poison well, and no matter what he says,
(24:23):
you will think that it's the worst kind of badger
bile that you've you've ever encountered online and again the
idea of turning frogs gay with it being part of
a larger conspiracy to turn people gay. For some reason,
it sounds like something you would read in the Onion.
It does, but what if there's at least a grain
(24:46):
of truth to it. We're going to sift through those grains.
Right after a quick word from Blue Apron or you know,
somebody else buy gold. Here's where it gets crazy. First,
we're joking about fighting gold. I mean, do it if
(25:06):
you want, but don't. We're not seriously telling yeah, account
right right, at least don't sell your gold at one
of those we buy gold places. That is a bad idea.
But that song is so catchy and look at he's
got so much gold. Just don't do it. So Alex
Jones is in this case either misleading or being misled
(25:31):
to some degree. But there is disturbing sand to this
story because part of it is true. There was a
two thousand ten study by Tyrone B. Hayes at the
University of California, Berkeley, wherein they found that a common
pesticide known as atrazine A t R A Z I
N E can turn genetically male frogs into female frogs.
(25:54):
And furthermore, the really crazy thing is that once they
were changed, these frogs became capable of reproducing successfully, so
they weren't turning quote gay, they were being truly genetically modified. Right.
And Haze and his team raised forty male African Claude
(26:15):
frogs and water containing atrazine and they did it, you know,
from cradle to grave, from larva sexual maturity, and the
levels were about what frogs would experience in the environments
where this stuff was used, you know, around corn production
so on, all the runoff, right, exactly all the runoff,
but it was still below the levels that the e
(26:36):
p A considers safe for drinking water. That is crazy.
And the other thing is that this wasn't the first
time work or look a hard look at atrazine had
been taken. Previous work had found that atrazine can cause
sexual abnormalities and frogs, such as turning some frogs into hermaphrodites,
like having both sexual organs I see right simultaneously. And
(27:00):
the control group consisted, of course, afford the other male
frogs in water that was attresine free, otherwise exactly identical
to what that would have been encountered. At the end
of the experiment, all the frogs in the control group
are still males, still still dudes. Ten of the frogs
in the group with atrazine in the water were quote
(27:23):
and this is haze language, completely feminized, meaning their genes
said that they should still be male, but they have
female anatomy, including ovaries, and they could mate and reproduce
with males. Yeah, it's confusing, right. So in both frogs
and humans, sex is genetic. So in people, genetically speaking,
females would have two X chromosomes, males would have one
(27:46):
X one Y. For frogs, the sex chromosomes are labeled
as Z or W, you know, just to keep things interesting,
and the female frogs will have dissimilar chromosomes Z and W,
while males will have matching one ZZ. And there's this
other plot twist. Although the feminized frogs can reproduce, they
(28:09):
only reproduce male offspring, and that further complicates the sex ratio.
So ten exposure turns these frogs into reproducing females, but
a hundred percent of the of the young that they
produce our male, and then another ten percent if they're
(28:33):
in the same water that turns. Yeah, so attrazine you
mentioned corn. It's a weed killer. It's mainly used for
corn crops, and the mechanism that occurs here is that
it affects the gender and frogs by mimicking a biological
compound and increasing estrogen production. So there's solid proof of
(28:57):
its gender changing effect on frog populations, and these effects
could apply to other amphibians too. Uh. Amphibians overall, though, unfortunately,
are in a state of serious decline globally um with
this effect of atrazine essentially being just another nail in
that particular coffin. This also has implications for other non
(29:18):
amphibious species, including possibly humans. Right true story. Yeah, so
atrazine has been found to not only induce breast cancer
in rats, but to have similar disruptive effects on hormone
levels and humans, So affecting mammals, rodents, possible humans. Yeah, yeah,
(29:40):
no word on birds yet, but the You can find
the study in full in the journal Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences published in There's another wrinkle to
the story as well. Some species of frogs already naturally
and spontaneously changed gender in the West Africa in common
(30:00):
read frog, and this occurs when the population doesn't have
enough breeding males. Chemical trigger activates the gene. And just
imagine this happening, folks. I want to make you uncomfortable
to have been. Imagine if this happened to you. The
group of people that you hung out with, your body
is somehow decided that the ratio was skewed, and then
(30:24):
this chemical trigger hits and your sex organs disintegrate and
you develop new ones. That's what happens to these frogs.
That is bonkers. I could not deal you know, I would.
I would be very upset. Yeah, I would, just I
don't know. I I couldn't deal with that. I have
a hard time getting a new haircut. I wonder if
(30:46):
it has anything to do with the regenerative properties that
some of these species I would say enjoy. Enjoy sure, yeah,
because I know there are there are other animals that
have something similar to this right where or the sex
can change? Yeah, yeah, we can name several, you know,
moray eels, uh rasses. Yeah, I think a clownfish do this.
(31:11):
Even the little gobbies, little gobbies, my dad had some
gobbies before. Oh yeah, what are they like? These? A
little fish Okay, they're not. I don't know if that's true.
My dad had a bunch of fish over the years.
I don't know if gobbies were actually one of them.
It sounded like something I remember him saying. But you
speak of them so fondly. Yeah, true makes me. It
(31:32):
makes me think of what was that old Hannah Barbara
cartoon where with the underwater fish people that had the
little snorts snorts like snorkel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I only
ever had, like I had a Japanese fighting fish um
and you know, if you put two of them together
or like you can hold a mirror up to them,
they're like go crazy. Yeah yeah, to fight. Oh yeah,
(31:53):
I was completely wrong. Gobies, gobbies, whatever they are. My
dad never had one of those. Oh did you just
text him? Yeah, just text of them, Like there's responsive.
I have no idea what that is. Okay, maybe he's
just denying it. That's probably what it is. So I
love that you mentioned clownfish. Clownfish are interesting because a
lot of times the way these gender switches occur in
(32:16):
nature are very specific. So it's not just a free
for all. What day or month do we feel like
being what thing or other thing? So in clownfish, there's
this hierarchy and there's always a female fish who is
like the queen of the clowns. Yeah, the matriarch of
the clowns. That sounds somehow infinitely more respectful. But when
(32:40):
she dies, the most dominant male changes sex and becomes
the matriarch of the clowns, and then the cycle starts again.
But the frogs in this study, the African claude frogs,
are not meant to do this. Do you remember that
was the name of Cartman's um frog stuff animals Claude frog.
(33:01):
Oh really, so I'm assuming a c l a U
D like Claude claude, you know, but just a little
side there for no good reason. Maybe uh, maybe maybe
Matt Stone and Trey Parker were trying to warn everyone,
you know. They they have been pretty deprescient about certain
things in that show from over the years. That's true. Luckily, humans,
(33:26):
unlike frogs, don't spend our lives laying around in water.
I mean, most of us. I would assume that is
an assumption. However, the levels of actresine the frogs were
exposed to again are still below the safety threshold for
the E P A and at this point, we didn't
find any proof, any proof full stop that this was
(33:47):
part of an overall plan to quote increase homosexuality and
the human population. And honestly, it's difficult to whoa what
would the motivation be. Would it be too decrease the
population something over a long long time because the population
is already decreasing and it has nothing to do with
atrazine in the water. Yeah, I could see that as
(34:09):
something maybe, but probably not. I mean, what do you
think about this? Well, the first thing I just want
to note here, while humans don't spend all day long
soaking up the atrazine and you know, runoff water the
way amphibians, these these frogs do, we do ingest a
whole heck of a lot of water. We have to,
(34:30):
that's how we survive. And you know, we were in
this country. We rely on usually public services to clean
the water that we drink. So in a way, we're
putting a whole lot of faith in you know, some
state and local governments, in our case, local governments to
(34:51):
clean the water we drink, which may be affected by
runoff of chemicals like atrazine. And it just makes me wonder,
what really are we getting in US because we've talked
about flint before, talked about other places where there are
serious issues with the cleanliness and chemical freeness of water. Um,
(35:13):
I don't know. Yeah, and is there's another question here.
Remember life straws. It was nuts about these for a while. Nope,
these portable water filters that you can use to drink
from incredibly dirty and contaminated sources of water. They don't
They don't help against radiation or I think some heavy metals.
(35:38):
But otherwise, as far as water borne diseases and micro organisms,
they're pretty effective and they save lives. But I don't
know if they prevent something like atrazine. Can I get
a prison Planet branded LifeStraw? You know what? I bet
if we write the LifeStraw directly and the price is right,
you can get them branded. However, where do you want
(36:00):
a prison planet or No? I'm just wondering if this
is the kind of thing that that that Alex Jones
would selve. Oh. Yeah, it's survival gear, and it's it's
a good piece of equipment. I used to have one, Yeah,
survival gear, but generally use you know, in in impoverished
areas of the world. Yeah, like in g o's probably
do them. And now I have to Now I have
to know, no, I have to know prison Planet has
(36:24):
info Wars does sell life straws really yeah, nice, Yeah,
they do sell life straws. Just just to get back
to the topic on hand, we were talking about a
depopulation before I derail this here, Ben, and we were
talking about how that's already happening for a number of reasons.
One of those is just this increased inequality and among populations. Yeah, yeah,
(36:47):
people can't afford the same quality of life by and
large that their predecessors could have. In the United States,
for instance. Since a lot of what Alex Jones focuses
on is US based, I feel like it makes sense
to focus on the U S as well. Obviously it
doesn't imply to every country, but yeah, the cost of housing,
(37:09):
the cost of transportation, food alone, food alone, the fuel. Yeah,
just trying to stay alive is difficult, you know. And
there's the other part, this concept that Alex Jones started
with that he just claimed that it was turning the
frigging frogs gay. That never happened once. It's that's not
(37:32):
what this was ever about. That was a phrase that
he used that is quite frankly homophobus. It's an utter misnomer.
I mean, they were spontaneously changing gender. That's even even
the implication of that in some way makes you turn gay.
It's it's just the most base, kind of offensive characterization
(37:54):
of that I could imagine. Yeah, it's I guess it's
a way too the alarmist or scare population. Well, that's
what we're saying earlier too, is that he'll jump on like,
you know, obviously there's some truth to the way this
chemical effects the anatomy of frogs, and this is really
interesting stuff and there's real research there, but he took
that grain of truth and just covered it in garbage.
(38:15):
Well yeah, and you imagine he if he's doing a
live radio show whatever, he's reading, the thought pops in
his mind and he just says it, and that's what
he said, and then that's what it became. And maybe
he has a research team who phrased the copy that
way for him or something, or you know, I don't
know how much control he has over what he says. Well,
(38:39):
you know, I've seen a lot of his videos and
I've watched him a lot over the years, and generally
what I see at least is him having printed out
copies of stories that have run in either prison Planet
or info Wars or in another publication, and he had
he literally has the copy printed out from whatever's verbatim
on the page, and he kind of scans it or
(38:59):
he knows he's got something he's going to talk about,
and then he just talks about it. Um, So it's extemporaneous. Yes,
that's why I'm thinking turning the free and Frog's gay
phrase came out when he actually was reading the article.
It's just that's the thought he happened. That's probably his
words and his words alone, straight from his his brain place,
(39:20):
and then do so if he is just speaking off
the cuff, then the function seems to scare certain parts
of the population, right, banking on homophobia as you mentioned earlier,
But the primary issue seems to be the decline of
wildlife and the dangerous state of the environment. Yeah, the
(39:41):
chemicals were pumping into it, oh Man. And so we
did find troubling indications that in this case there's a
tiny snapshot of a much larger phenomenon. The monitoring of
pollution in the water or the agencies that are charged
to do that or the industries that are charged to
self monitor are doing what they're supposed to do, or
(40:04):
they're not doing it as well as they're supposed to
do at least. And it's also this this learning journey
that we're on, like does this chemical actually have any harm? Well,
we won't really know until five twenty fifty years later
it's full effect. And that's the thing about e p
A regulations. You know, everything we've read about their intervention
(40:25):
here and say, oh, it's within limits for humans, you know,
So there are these caveats here, you know, And when
you get new pesticides and new chemicals, like you said, man,
it takes time to understand the full implications of what
they can do. And you might know an immediate implication
or that it's toxic or not that bad for you,
(40:47):
but you don't know down the road what it's gonna do,
you know, Like, I mean, there's no way you know
it's I don't know that That stuff does scare me,
especially when we see those guidelines being loosened right more
and more, and for you too as parents, I would
be interested, like do you ever run into concerns about
that sort of stuff daily? Yeah? I mean even like
(41:11):
you know, living in Atlanta, for example, like with the
small warnings, I remember there were days with my kid
that they don't let you, they don't let him play
outside because of an orange small alert. Yeah, it's a thing,
you know, and it's if we're not clamping down on
this stuff, it's just gonna get worse. There was a
water main break on one of the large corridors here
in Atlanta called Buford Highway, off of which I live,
(41:33):
and we could not drink water or use water. We
you were afraid to use water. Technically you can boil it, yeah,
and you know, you can take a shower in as
long as you don't get in your mouth. But if
you've got a two and a half year old, it's
very difficult to prevent them from getting any water into them.
They put everything in their mouth, they do. And but
that kind of thing has occurred several times since we've
(41:55):
had him, and it's just one of those other those
other things that just has to live on your shoulder
and you have to think about every moment of every
day because you've always struck me as someone who needs
more stuff to worry about. Yeah, definitely, But it's also
one of those things where like they're so little you
can do other than just being mindful of it and
(42:15):
being diligent. Uh, it can feel very stifling and very like,
you know, just frees up if you think about it
too much, especially when it comes to your kid, right, right,
And and the question of there's this great concept and
then terrifying concept called the tragedy of the commons. And
we've talked about this before. Everybody benefits from something that's
(42:37):
just around, like water, for instance, who is supposed to
take care of that? And this also goes to like
free public restrooms. Everybody will use them if they need to,
but who is supposed to clean them? Ever since those aqueducts,
we've been having to deal with this, right, So this
case may not be so much an instance of a
(42:59):
shadowy cabal with this weird, complicated scheme to gender bend everyone,
as it is a case of industrial powers bending laws
instead of genders to suit a profit margin or to
push legislation through the Asnal said, loosens some of the
regulations on pollution, but the fact remains attrazine like many
(43:19):
other chemicals that we will all encounter on a daily basis,
depending on where we live has dangerous and disturbing effects
on the world around us. We ended on a downer.
If we did it happens. Yeah, should we hear some more.
Let's hear a clip of Stephen Colbert and making fun
of Alextra. Lighten it up. I gotta tell you brain fighters.
(43:41):
Ben Franklin had irritable bowel syndrome exploding all over that
kite in the middle of a rainstorm. But did that
stop him. No, they kept going okay, and just it
went everywhere okay, And that's how he invented the moist towel.
(44:05):
There we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a good call. We
hope that you enjoyed today's episode, and we we want
to hear your thoughts on anything that this touched on.
Contamination frogs, this, this idea of switching gender. You can
(44:27):
hear a little bit more about that plan for gay
Bomb in our earlier episodes. And I think we're also
very interested to hear what you think about Alex Jones
and what you think about Waking Life. I'm so glad
you brought that up, the one. I love that movie.
Send your Waking Life reviews in You can find us
on Twitter or Facebook, where We're conspiracy Stuff on Instagram
(44:48):
or conspiracy Stuff Show. You can find us on our website.
Stuff they don't want you to know dot com. Or
if you don't want to do any of that stuff,
you can just send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy Get how stuff works dot com, m
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,
(00:24):
and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is no. They called me Ben. We are
joined with our super producer Paul Decan, and most importantly,
you're here. You are you that makes this stuff they
don't want you to know. Folks, Today, I vote we
start this show with a very short clip that some
longtime listeners may recognize one of my favorite clips. Prepare
(00:46):
yourself for the next twelve seconds. The frogs, the male
frogs think they're females. Now that's start up. When I
say that about a frog, I'm not bashing the gay frog,
but the chemical got in the water. In the excerpt
you just heard, YouTuber and radio host Alex Jones is
saying that chemicals found in water are turning frogs in
(01:10):
his words gay. Yeah. It's um. It's refreshing and maybe
a little surprising to hear that Jones took these great
pains just to let you the the listener know that
he has nothing against gay frogs or gay humans to
that matter, and you can listen to the entire um
(01:30):
let's call it a presentation on this matter via YouTube.
Their clips all over the place. Some official Alex Jones
channel clips you can find, as well as clips other
people if put on there. And this idea was popularized
by Jones years ago. Some of you have written into
us asking what the deal is about this over the years,
(01:53):
and the reason it stays in the public mind is
because since this idea was popularized by Alex Jones, it
became sort of a meme. And the crux of the
argument that Jones makes does not stop at frogs. We
just wanted to play We just wanted to play one
of the thesis clips here. Ye, he gets into the
gay bomb itself that we've discussed before in this show,
(02:16):
which was a real plan and it was more like
a sexual assault bomb in the nuts bolts of how
they thought it would work. But he sees the frogs
as one of the first signs that the government, whether
acting in concert with other forces or just unilaterally, is
attempting to increase levels of homosexuality or the ratio of
(02:39):
of homosexuality in the human population through a widespread dispersal
of chemicals, particularly in the water. Sure, why not? Why
wouldn't the government be doing that right, because you know,
they're on top of everything else, so they they've got
so much free time. You know, it's just really they
just have to worry about the fourth of July and
tax Day. That's it. So for a lot of people,
(03:04):
this is a wait what question, and today we are
hoping to discover whether there is any truth to what
might seem initially an insane story straight out of tin
Foilton's tin Foilton? Tin Foilton? Is that like the wh
who Bill? Yes, it's the you know, I think the
the four of us are going to have to have
(03:27):
to learn more about tin Foilton. Yeah, I think so.
Maybe we'll visit one day. Yeah. For now, let's get
right into the person Alex Jones. Let's get a little
backstory here. The person Alex Jones, Yes, person, as we know,
can be used to describe a number of things, especially
when you get into corporations or media personalities. There they
(03:50):
are all kinds of things here. So Alex Jones, if
you're a fan of this show, you are most likely
aware of this man. He's the creator of the website
info Wars, and he's in the host of this long
running radio show called The Alex Jones Show, and over
the years he has discussed just a whole host almost
all of the rumors and fringe theories that have ever existed.
(04:13):
Yeah Yeah. He's also been involved in a number of controversies,
from accusing the US government of perpetrating the Oklahoma City bombing,
the September eleventh attacks in the US, faking the moon landings,
and more. And he describes himself as a paleo conservative
libertarian and a lot of his stories to the general
(04:35):
audience would seem to come from a more right wing perspective.
He has been called a conspiracy theorist by outfits like
the Southern Poverty Law Center in New York Magazine, and
he didn't seem to totally embrace this, but he did
take it as a source of pride. His response was,
(04:56):
you know, I'm proud to be considered a thought criminal
in the eight against Big Brother. I love the phrase
thought criminal. Yeah. It's taking that George Orwell vibe and
planning with it. He's got a heart, it's pumping blood. Yeah,
you got a face hello, Well, in in a strange way,
(05:19):
he's got I don't know, just that that thing that
you're doing right here, the impersonation. There's a certain I
don't know, it's not respectability, but it's it's a cachet
or something that is very attractive of this, like this
man standing up in the world of lies telling the truth.
That's going to take active defiance, and you know, yes,
(05:42):
I take it anymore. Do you guys remember the first
time you ever saw Alex Jones. It's it's sort of
like easy to forget. He was in that Richard link
Ladder movie Waking Life. That was all of the like
you know, rotoscope kind of dreamy um look to it
and he's like a ranting, red faced, crazy guy in
the back of a cab. I want to say, that's it.
(06:04):
I loved Waking Life, and I that was not the
first time I saw Alex. It was for me. I
guess I think that was before he was really really
entrenched in like the public and the mainstream guy. I
think he was maybe more localized, like he was in Austin,
probably an Austin guy. Okay, yeah, so he was. He
was a super popular radio show host in Austin. And
(06:29):
I remember seeing Waking Life. For circumstances, I won't get
into on the air. I was I was confused, you know,
I was into it, but I was thinking, do I
recognize that guy? Yeah? Who is that? Sounds familiar? Are you?
Are you sure that's not a certain comedian named Bill Hicks.
And that's the story for another day. So throughout the
(06:53):
ninety nineties and the two thousand's, Jones expanded his work
and polished his voice or should we a whittled it, yes,
focusing on more things. He embraced the Internet through sites
like prison Planet, the aforementioned Info Wars. Prison Planet is
the more I say, I would say, the the edgy
or a little more out there version. Uh. And he
(07:17):
went to protest for political causes he believed in. He
ran for local office and uh weighed in as a
political pundit and more. The list of his views, as
Matt said, is extensive. He has been doing this for
a long time. And you know what I'm gonna say,
since we brought up Waking Life, I really liked his segment.
What's I was saying? It was also before he was
(07:39):
such a divisive figure, and I have a feeling that
link Ladder probably saw him more as an interesting uh
sort of almost like almost more of like a Joe
Roganny type where he's maybe a little problematic in his views,
but he's just kind of espousing some like existential crisises
that we all you know, are faced with. Yeah, account
he provides a counterpoint to a lot of mainstream views,
(08:01):
which is important in any discourse. Right. But over time,
Yeah really went went hard and paint right, And now
we can see looking back through his catalog of statements, writings,
and performances, we can see larger recurring themes. The primary
theme for Alex Jones is this idea of overarching government control,
(08:25):
the goal being a new world order, and the new
world order, the quick and dirty version is the governments
and large companies, industries maybe uh dynastic families like the
Rothchilds or something, are working in concert in secret to
manufacture economic disasters, to make constant surveillance normal, and, in
(08:48):
Alex Jones's opinion, most importantly, to perpetrate false flag attacks
or inside jobs and create a culture of fear so
that they can exploit everyone who's on the outside of
the inner circle. And Alex Jones that includes everything from
nine eleven and nine eleven attacks to like the Sandy
Hook School shooting, all supposedly with the intent of turning
(09:11):
public opinion in a way that is helpful to the
nefarious aims of said New World Order beneficiaries. And and
just to try and be fair to Alex Jones, he
does take it back to things like the Pearl Harbor attacks,
saying that you know, something like that causes the public
to be more pro war. Um, and you know, he
(09:33):
I want to say, he tries to connect make those
connections that we try to do on this show as well. Um,
It's just it becomes a completely different flavor when Alex
Jones starts going down the rabbit holes. Well, that's so,
that's part of it. Right. We know at basis that
governments do leverage public fear and concern quite quite well.
(09:55):
And we know that governments have, at least the US
government has partnered with pr firms in the past to
encourage a fear of marijuana, for instance, based on a
violently racist ad campaign. Right, And you can check out
our earlier episode about that. I believe we have one.
I can't remember. There's definitely a great video on it.
(10:18):
For reasons we won't go into on a family show,
My my Memories not a million percent for reasons. Yeah,
are you testing that government marijuana like I was? I
I cannot recall. Isn't that what I would be supposed
to say? So now we know a little bit about
(10:42):
how it gots started. Who is he? In two thousand seventeen,
his ex wife saw it custody of their children, either
joint custody or soul custody. Because she saw Jones' behavior
as unstable, they divorced in and particularly she pointed out
she was disturbed by what she saw as him threatening
(11:05):
Congressman Adam Schiff. Jones's lawyer claimed that Alex Jones was
quote playing a character and described him as a quote
performance artist, and this goes into the question of authenticity. Jones,
for his part, denied this, and he called his show,
oh yeah, he said it is the most the most
(11:27):
bona fide hardcore real mccarth finger is and then he
pounded his fist on the table. Here said Jones. Or
was it macho man Randy saving Macho man Madden Frederick
so uh so? And this whole ordeal, this trial gained
enough national attention that even Stephen Colbert went on his
(11:49):
his new show and had a whole segment on this
he played a clip with Alex Jones like doing a
full haunt Alex Jones. Can we hear it? Okay, this
is just too good. It's a nice little cut up.
You guys know who he is, you know, Alex Jones says,
and four wars right popular Trump CUFIC fan. Donald Trump
is a big fan. And Jones right now is an
(12:10):
a legal battle with his ex wife, who says he's
too unstable to have custody of their children. And to
prove it, she's been showing the court videos like this,
George Washington with diary are running out of his pants
on top that horse, marching to kick ass, marching not
to give up, take that action. That's who we come from.
We let all these hunchbacks come rule us. I will
(12:33):
never coming to you, and the human spirit is rising.
You will not turn us in the animals. But Jones's
lawyers are defending him a very unique defense. They're saying
that when he says stuff like that, they said that
Jones is just playing a character. And here we kind
of see Alex Jones sort of turning a corner, you know,
going from his whole bona fide hardcore line to well,
(12:58):
you know, Stephen Colbert can go to his kids, he
doesn't take it home. He's playing a character. He's sort
of implying it, I too, am playing a character specifically, Yeah, exactly,
specifically Stephen Colbert from the Stephen Colbert Show. Right. But
he's also even referring to, like he said, he was
specifically referring to Stephen Colbert making fun of him and
playing that character. So that's even more meta and weird.
(13:19):
He he's saying, a guy playing me cannot take that
home to his kids, so therefore I can too. It's
similar to the Glenn Beck impression that Jon Stewart would
do for a number of years, Right, These people playing
larger versions of themselves, playing satirical versions of people who
(13:41):
play larger versions and themselves. The uru Burrows continues, and
and over the years, this character or this man who
where whatever it is, uh, it has caused he has
caused a lot of outcry. I'm okay with it. Well,
whatever Alex Shones is, Alex Jones, the whatever he chooses
(14:03):
to identify as yes, has has caused a lot a
lot of outcry. And we're gonna get into that right
after a quick word from our sponsor. Yes, as you
can already see, Jones has ruffled more than a few feathers.
Will give you a few of his controversial views and
(14:24):
or statements. To be fair, he may have changed his
position on some of these by the time you hear
this recording. I don't think so, but maybe depending on
what new information comes out. And a couple of these
he did, he has backtracked somewhat true or come up
with a more nuanced view. Absolutely, and the first one
(14:45):
that you might be aware of because it also made
national headlines where Alex Jones views on school shootings and
specifically the topic of crisis actors and their involvement within
these school shootings, particularly in the case of Sandy Hook UM.
He was criticized for claiming that no one actually died
during UM, the Sandy Hook event and among other shootings
(15:08):
as well, claiming additionally the eyewitnesses and survivors were actually
these paid professionals called crisis actors, and his argument hinged
on the idea that you could see the same people
at different tragedies, typically shootings, but also maybe bombings, stuff
like that. And then this led to what was very
(15:31):
controversial about this is that this led to some people
who believe this harassing parents of children who had shot
so dirty dirty business. He also believes the weather weapons exist,
and he is not wrong that it is possible to
perform acts of weather manipulation like the Chinese government did
(15:52):
in the two thousand eight Beijing Olympics, but that's more
to prevent bad weather or encourage weather uh that would
be beneficial for crops or agriculture, strategic cloud seating, right,
And we know that the US government did experiment with
whether as a weapon of war in the Vietnam conflict.
(16:13):
But he stated that governments can manufacture or geo engineer
hurricanes specifically. A lot of the time Alex Jones gets
in trouble because he states these things as though they
are fact, as though there is absolutely you know, without
without even having absolute proof, saying no, this is how
it is. He'll also do this thing, or he'll take
(16:34):
something with a grain of truth and just driving into
the ground and and and do a lot of assumptions
around that grain of truth to the point where you
lose the plot entirely, and that thing that might actually
be true becomes the basis for something that is utterly
absurd in my opinion. I'll go on record saying I'm
(16:55):
fine with interviewing Alex Jones. There's some things I want
to see. His opinion on uh, engineering hurricanes still is interesting.
We did a video on this a while back, and
the idea of manufacturing natural disasters is not as impossible
as you might think, because things like fracking, purposeful human
(17:18):
action can trigger earthquakes, so it is possible to manufacture earthquakes.
I'm I don't think he. I don't think he has
any solid proof of purposely manufacturing hurricanes because honestly, how
the hell would you steer them with a hurricane motor? Sure,
maybe maybe he owns a hurricane rudder rudder. Uh. He's
(17:45):
also anti vaccination in some respects, and that's been really
controversial for him. Uh. He has repeatedly stated his belief
in something called white genocide, which I almost want to
say in it different whoy genocide the idea that certain
groups of people are working to increase violence against those
(18:08):
identified as white, typically in the US and North America,
but also in Western Europe, while also reducing their population.
And he doesn't just get criticism from the mainstream, he
gets criticism from the fringe community, you say, oh, I
know what you are, Alex Jones. You're an agent of disinformation.
You work for the same people you claim to oppose,
(18:30):
which in this case, my friends, would mean that Alex
Jones is turning frogs you know. Oh boy, yeah, well,
and you know that I think is one of those
more valid points than a lot of the other things,
because when you have someone espousing somewhat credible ideas while
(18:52):
at the same time saying that the hurricanes are absolutely happening,
or vaccinations are absolute really you know, causing autism, or
these things are absolutely occurring. When you can when you
can have someone who is treated as somewhat credible on
one in one respect, but then also just saying the
craziest stuff on the other hand, it becomes dangerous for
(19:15):
both sides. But aren't all not to fall into relativism
in that? But aren't all people like that? They're just
not on YouTube, yes, but they Alex Jones has a
lot of people that listen to him. True one criticism
that he's come under fire four and this is something
(19:35):
this to be completely honest, this is something that I
have said before. He has come under criticism not just
for me, for a large range of branded products marketed
through a show on the website info Wars. And these
are things like prepper materials, dietary supplements, survival gear like
bulletproof vest and so on. You can see a John
(19:56):
Oliver Last Week Tonight clip on this and and some
of the dubious claims that have been made about these
dietary supplements. My primary issue with this is if you're
doing a show about an imminent economic collapse, right the
fall of the dollar or something, and then you segue
(20:16):
into convincing people to buy gold from you, it makes
what you said earlier, it lessens the impact. You know,
and I'm not saying it's automatically wrong, but it doesn't.
It doesn't feel as trustworthy. Reminds me of that Jim
Baker stuff. You know. He's this televangelist who prosperity theologist,
(20:37):
whose whole thing is built around selling these doomsday prep
materials and like survival food and these disgusting buckets of
beans and rule, you know, mashed potatoes, cream corn. Yeah,
who wants that much cream corn? Anyway? Uh, it's it's
it's true, it's true. It's similar. M Jones has also
(21:00):
at least Jones hasn't implied that people are going to
hell if they don't if they don't get prepping materials.
I mean, to hear Jones tyleer, we're already living in hell. Yeah. Yeah.
Just to bring this up to one of the video
clips that we were looking at for this, it's this
response by Alex Jones to the whole gay frogs thing.
(21:24):
And at the end of it, or let's say three
quarters of the way through, it shifts over to a
water crisis video or it feels like they're just shifting
topics to a water crisis video, but then you realize
the entirety of the rest of the video is an
ad for something that they are selling on infro Wars
about water purification. So that's I mean, that's stuff because
(21:46):
I see what you're saying, and it doesn't Again, it
doesn't automatically mean whatever you're hearing is bs, but it
is easy to make make you question that because there
are ulterior motives. The motive is to sell the water
our purification device. Well, here's an example. We do advertisements
on this show, right, but it's not products that were
(22:07):
directly selling to you that directly benefit us that are
directly tied to the topics we are discussing. Well, No
had that Blue apron Ad and the cannibalism episode that
was perfect though Aprin like that too, but that was
completely coincidence. So you can also argue that any episode
of ours ties in directly with the tushy Oh for sure.
(22:29):
You guys just super into tussies. I'm glad you enjoyed.
Since we're talking about silly stuff, I just wanted to
point out one thing I think the most overlooked conspiracy
theory about Alex Jones is that he is a secret
acid house DJ. WHOA. Yeah, there's an article on Spin
that has screenshots from a video of his where in
the background you see like all of these vintage drum
(22:51):
machines like t R eight oh eights and and TB
three oh three's and all of these like, you know,
really high end electronic music equipment that and like you know,
e d DJ decks and monitor speakers and mixers and
all this stuff all in the background, And apparently there's
a screenshot of him commenting on some electronic musician kind
of doing a jam, an electronic space jam, and him
(23:14):
saying something like he's at a three oh three in
the background, So Alex Jones, Yeah, I'll ask him about
man many layers. Yeah, I'll ask him. And he has
earned the trust of a large audience. Despite the controversy,
He's had many mainstream appearances as a representative of fringe theory,
an interviewee, UH, an opponent of gun control, and while
(23:36):
he may be controversial or divisive, there's no two ways
about it, his story is indisputably one of success, whether
as a secret Bill Hicks and Acid House d J,
a radio host UH, or even politics. He's dappled with
that Trump's a fan. Yeah, Trump's a fan. Trump's a fan,
And he has a a very emotionally charged recount out
(24:00):
of how one of his associates turned him into a
Trump supporter, which you can see, you can see all
the stuff that we are talking about on YouTube. With
all of this in mind, to Matt's earlier point, knowles
earlier point, it's it's easy to see how somebody might
dismiss him out of hand, and he might be for
many people a poison well, and no matter what he says,
(24:23):
you will think that it's the worst kind of badger
bile that you've you've ever encountered online and again the
idea of turning frogs gay with it being part of
a larger conspiracy to turn people gay. For some reason,
it sounds like something you would read in the Onion.
It does, but what if there's at least a grain
(24:46):
of truth to it. We're going to sift through those grains.
Right after a quick word from Blue Apron or you know,
somebody else buy gold. Here's where it gets crazy. First,
we're joking about fighting gold. I mean, do it if
(25:06):
you want, but don't. We're not seriously telling yeah, account
right right, at least don't sell your gold at one
of those we buy gold places. That is a bad idea.
But that song is so catchy and look at he's
got so much gold. Just don't do it. So Alex
Jones is in this case either misleading or being misled
(25:31):
to some degree. But there is disturbing sand to this
story because part of it is true. There was a
two thousand ten study by Tyrone B. Hayes at the
University of California, Berkeley, wherein they found that a common
pesticide known as atrazine A t R A Z I
N E can turn genetically male frogs into female frogs.
(25:54):
And furthermore, the really crazy thing is that once they
were changed, these frogs became capable of reproducing successfully, so
they weren't turning quote gay, they were being truly genetically modified. Right.
And Haze and his team raised forty male African Claude
(26:15):
frogs and water containing atrazine and they did it, you know,
from cradle to grave, from larva sexual maturity, and the
levels were about what frogs would experience in the environments
where this stuff was used, you know, around corn production
so on, all the runoff, right, exactly all the runoff,
but it was still below the levels that the e
(26:36):
p A considers safe for drinking water. That is crazy.
And the other thing is that this wasn't the first
time work or look a hard look at atrazine had
been taken. Previous work had found that atrazine can cause
sexual abnormalities and frogs, such as turning some frogs into hermaphrodites,
like having both sexual organs I see right simultaneously. And
(27:00):
the control group consisted, of course, afford the other male
frogs in water that was attresine free, otherwise exactly identical
to what that would have been encountered. At the end
of the experiment, all the frogs in the control group
are still males, still still dudes. Ten of the frogs
in the group with atrazine in the water were quote
(27:23):
and this is haze language, completely feminized, meaning their genes
said that they should still be male, but they have
female anatomy, including ovaries, and they could mate and reproduce
with males. Yeah, it's confusing, right. So in both frogs
and humans, sex is genetic. So in people, genetically speaking,
females would have two X chromosomes, males would have one
(27:46):
X one Y. For frogs, the sex chromosomes are labeled
as Z or W, you know, just to keep things interesting,
and the female frogs will have dissimilar chromosomes Z and W,
while males will have matching one ZZ. And there's this
other plot twist. Although the feminized frogs can reproduce, they
(28:09):
only reproduce male offspring, and that further complicates the sex ratio.
So ten exposure turns these frogs into reproducing females, but
a hundred percent of the of the young that they
produce our male, and then another ten percent if they're
(28:33):
in the same water that turns. Yeah, so attrazine you
mentioned corn. It's a weed killer. It's mainly used for
corn crops, and the mechanism that occurs here is that
it affects the gender and frogs by mimicking a biological
compound and increasing estrogen production. So there's solid proof of
(28:57):
its gender changing effect on frog populations, and these effects
could apply to other amphibians too. Uh. Amphibians overall, though, unfortunately,
are in a state of serious decline globally um with
this effect of atrazine essentially being just another nail in
that particular coffin. This also has implications for other non
(29:18):
amphibious species, including possibly humans. Right true story. Yeah, so
atrazine has been found to not only induce breast cancer
in rats, but to have similar disruptive effects on hormone
levels and humans, So affecting mammals, rodents, possible humans. Yeah, yeah,
(29:40):
no word on birds yet, but the You can find
the study in full in the journal Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences published in There's another wrinkle to
the story as well. Some species of frogs already naturally
and spontaneously changed gender in the West Africa in common
(30:00):
read frog, and this occurs when the population doesn't have
enough breeding males. Chemical trigger activates the gene. And just
imagine this happening, folks. I want to make you uncomfortable
to have been. Imagine if this happened to you. The
group of people that you hung out with, your body
is somehow decided that the ratio was skewed, and then
(30:24):
this chemical trigger hits and your sex organs disintegrate and
you develop new ones. That's what happens to these frogs.
That is bonkers. I could not deal you know, I would.
I would be very upset. Yeah, I would, just I
don't know. I I couldn't deal with that. I have
a hard time getting a new haircut. I wonder if
(30:46):
it has anything to do with the regenerative properties that
some of these species I would say enjoy. Enjoy sure, yeah,
because I know there are there are other animals that
have something similar to this right where or the sex
can change? Yeah, yeah, we can name several, you know,
moray eels, uh rasses. Yeah, I think a clownfish do this.
(31:11):
Even the little gobbies, little gobbies, my dad had some
gobbies before. Oh yeah, what are they like? These? A
little fish Okay, they're not. I don't know if that's true.
My dad had a bunch of fish over the years.
I don't know if gobbies were actually one of them.
It sounded like something I remember him saying. But you
speak of them so fondly. Yeah, true makes me. It
(31:32):
makes me think of what was that old Hannah Barbara
cartoon where with the underwater fish people that had the
little snorts snorts like snorkel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I only
ever had, like I had a Japanese fighting fish um
and you know, if you put two of them together
or like you can hold a mirror up to them,
they're like go crazy. Yeah yeah, to fight. Oh yeah,
(31:53):
I was completely wrong. Gobies, gobbies, whatever they are. My
dad never had one of those. Oh did you just
text him? Yeah, just text of them, Like there's responsive.
I have no idea what that is. Okay, maybe he's
just denying it. That's probably what it is. So I
love that you mentioned clownfish. Clownfish are interesting because a
lot of times the way these gender switches occur in
(32:16):
nature are very specific. So it's not just a free
for all. What day or month do we feel like
being what thing or other thing? So in clownfish, there's
this hierarchy and there's always a female fish who is
like the queen of the clowns. Yeah, the matriarch of
the clowns. That sounds somehow infinitely more respectful. But when
(32:40):
she dies, the most dominant male changes sex and becomes
the matriarch of the clowns, and then the cycle starts again.
But the frogs in this study, the African claude frogs,
are not meant to do this. Do you remember that
was the name of Cartman's um frog stuff animals Claude frog.
(33:01):
Oh really, so I'm assuming a c l a U
D like Claude claude, you know, but just a little
side there for no good reason. Maybe uh, maybe maybe
Matt Stone and Trey Parker were trying to warn everyone,
you know. They they have been pretty deprescient about certain
things in that show from over the years. That's true. Luckily, humans,
(33:26):
unlike frogs, don't spend our lives laying around in water.
I mean, most of us. I would assume that is
an assumption. However, the levels of actresine the frogs were
exposed to again are still below the safety threshold for
the E P A and at this point, we didn't
find any proof, any proof full stop that this was
(33:47):
part of an overall plan to quote increase homosexuality and
the human population. And honestly, it's difficult to whoa what
would the motivation be. Would it be too decrease the
population something over a long long time because the population
is already decreasing and it has nothing to do with
atrazine in the water. Yeah, I could see that as
(34:09):
something maybe, but probably not. I mean, what do you
think about this? Well, the first thing I just want
to note here, while humans don't spend all day long
soaking up the atrazine and you know, runoff water the
way amphibians, these these frogs do, we do ingest a
whole heck of a lot of water. We have to,
(34:30):
that's how we survive. And you know, we were in
this country. We rely on usually public services to clean
the water that we drink. So in a way, we're
putting a whole lot of faith in you know, some
state and local governments, in our case, local governments to
(34:51):
clean the water we drink, which may be affected by
runoff of chemicals like atrazine. And it just makes me wonder,
what really are we getting in US because we've talked
about flint before, talked about other places where there are
serious issues with the cleanliness and chemical freeness of water. Um,
(35:13):
I don't know. Yeah, and is there's another question here.
Remember life straws. It was nuts about these for a while. Nope,
these portable water filters that you can use to drink
from incredibly dirty and contaminated sources of water. They don't
They don't help against radiation or I think some heavy metals.
(35:38):
But otherwise, as far as water borne diseases and micro organisms,
they're pretty effective and they save lives. But I don't
know if they prevent something like atrazine. Can I get
a prison Planet branded LifeStraw? You know what? I bet
if we write the LifeStraw directly and the price is right,
you can get them branded. However, where do you want
(36:00):
a prison planet or No? I'm just wondering if this
is the kind of thing that that that Alex Jones
would selve. Oh. Yeah, it's survival gear, and it's it's
a good piece of equipment. I used to have one, Yeah,
survival gear, but generally use you know, in in impoverished
areas of the world. Yeah, like in g o's probably
do them. And now I have to Now I have
to know, no, I have to know prison Planet has
(36:24):
info Wars does sell life straws really yeah, nice, Yeah,
they do sell life straws. Just just to get back
to the topic on hand, we were talking about a
depopulation before I derail this here, Ben, and we were
talking about how that's already happening for a number of reasons.
One of those is just this increased inequality and among populations. Yeah, yeah,
(36:47):
people can't afford the same quality of life by and
large that their predecessors could have. In the United States,
for instance. Since a lot of what Alex Jones focuses
on is US based, I feel like it makes sense
to focus on the U S as well. Obviously it
doesn't imply to every country, but yeah, the cost of housing,
(37:09):
the cost of transportation, food alone, food alone, the fuel. Yeah,
just trying to stay alive is difficult, you know. And
there's the other part, this concept that Alex Jones started
with that he just claimed that it was turning the
frigging frogs gay. That never happened once. It's that's not
(37:32):
what this was ever about. That was a phrase that
he used that is quite frankly homophobus. It's an utter misnomer.
I mean, they were spontaneously changing gender. That's even even
the implication of that in some way makes you turn gay.
It's it's just the most base, kind of offensive characterization
(37:54):
of that I could imagine. Yeah, it's I guess it's
a way too the alarmist or scare population. Well, that's
what we're saying earlier too, is that he'll jump on like,
you know, obviously there's some truth to the way this
chemical effects the anatomy of frogs, and this is really
interesting stuff and there's real research there, but he took
that grain of truth and just covered it in garbage.
(38:15):
Well yeah, and you imagine he if he's doing a
live radio show whatever, he's reading, the thought pops in
his mind and he just says it, and that's what
he said, and then that's what it became. And maybe
he has a research team who phrased the copy that
way for him or something, or you know, I don't
know how much control he has over what he says. Well,
(38:39):
you know, I've seen a lot of his videos and
I've watched him a lot over the years, and generally
what I see at least is him having printed out
copies of stories that have run in either prison Planet
or info Wars or in another publication, and he had
he literally has the copy printed out from whatever's verbatim
on the page, and he kind of scans it or
(38:59):
he knows he's got something he's going to talk about,
and then he just talks about it. Um, So it's extemporaneous. Yes,
that's why I'm thinking turning the free and Frog's gay
phrase came out when he actually was reading the article.
It's just that's the thought he happened. That's probably his
words and his words alone, straight from his his brain place,
(39:20):
and then do so if he is just speaking off
the cuff, then the function seems to scare certain parts
of the population, right, banking on homophobia as you mentioned earlier,
But the primary issue seems to be the decline of
wildlife and the dangerous state of the environment. Yeah, the
(39:41):
chemicals were pumping into it, oh Man. And so we
did find troubling indications that in this case there's a
tiny snapshot of a much larger phenomenon. The monitoring of
pollution in the water or the agencies that are charged
to do that or the industries that are charged to
self monitor are doing what they're supposed to do, or
(40:04):
they're not doing it as well as they're supposed to
do at least. And it's also this this learning journey
that we're on, like does this chemical actually have any harm? Well,
we won't really know until five twenty fifty years later
it's full effect. And that's the thing about e p
A regulations. You know, everything we've read about their intervention
(40:25):
here and say, oh, it's within limits for humans, you know,
So there are these caveats here, you know, And when
you get new pesticides and new chemicals, like you said, man,
it takes time to understand the full implications of what
they can do. And you might know an immediate implication
or that it's toxic or not that bad for you,
(40:47):
but you don't know down the road what it's gonna do,
you know, Like, I mean, there's no way you know
it's I don't know that That stuff does scare me,
especially when we see those guidelines being loosened right more
and more, and for you too as parents, I would
be interested, like do you ever run into concerns about
that sort of stuff daily? Yeah? I mean even like
(41:11):
you know, living in Atlanta, for example, like with the
small warnings, I remember there were days with my kid
that they don't let you, they don't let him play
outside because of an orange small alert. Yeah, it's a thing,
you know, and it's if we're not clamping down on
this stuff, it's just gonna get worse. There was a
water main break on one of the large corridors here
in Atlanta called Buford Highway, off of which I live,
(41:33):
and we could not drink water or use water. We
you were afraid to use water. Technically you can boil it, yeah,
and you know, you can take a shower in as
long as you don't get in your mouth. But if
you've got a two and a half year old, it's
very difficult to prevent them from getting any water into them.
They put everything in their mouth, they do. And but
that kind of thing has occurred several times since we've
(41:55):
had him, and it's just one of those other those
other things that just has to live on your shoulder
and you have to think about every moment of every
day because you've always struck me as someone who needs
more stuff to worry about. Yeah, definitely, But it's also
one of those things where like they're so little you
can do other than just being mindful of it and
(42:15):
being diligent. Uh, it can feel very stifling and very like,
you know, just frees up if you think about it
too much, especially when it comes to your kid, right, right,
And and the question of there's this great concept and
then terrifying concept called the tragedy of the commons. And
we've talked about this before. Everybody benefits from something that's
(42:37):
just around, like water, for instance, who is supposed to
take care of that? And this also goes to like
free public restrooms. Everybody will use them if they need to,
but who is supposed to clean them? Ever since those aqueducts,
we've been having to deal with this, right, So this
case may not be so much an instance of a
(42:59):
shadowy cabal with this weird, complicated scheme to gender bend everyone,
as it is a case of industrial powers bending laws
instead of genders to suit a profit margin or to
push legislation through the Asnal said, loosens some of the
regulations on pollution, but the fact remains attrazine like many
(43:19):
other chemicals that we will all encounter on a daily basis,
depending on where we live has dangerous and disturbing effects
on the world around us. We ended on a downer.
If we did it happens. Yeah, should we hear some more.
Let's hear a clip of Stephen Colbert and making fun
of Alextra. Lighten it up. I gotta tell you brain fighters.
(43:41):
Ben Franklin had irritable bowel syndrome exploding all over that
kite in the middle of a rainstorm. But did that
stop him. No, they kept going okay, and just it
went everywhere okay, And that's how he invented the moist towel.
(44:05):
There we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a good call. We
hope that you enjoyed today's episode, and we we want
to hear your thoughts on anything that this touched on.
Contamination frogs, this, this idea of switching gender. You can
(44:27):
hear a little bit more about that plan for gay
Bomb in our earlier episodes. And I think we're also
very interested to hear what you think about Alex Jones
and what you think about Waking Life. I'm so glad
you brought that up, the one. I love that movie.
Send your Waking Life reviews in You can find us
on Twitter or Facebook, where We're conspiracy Stuff on Instagram
(44:48):
or conspiracy Stuff Show. You can find us on our website.
Stuff they don't want you to know dot com. Or
if you don't want to do any of that stuff,
you can just send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy Get how stuff works dot com, m
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