December 27, 2021 • 52 mins
In the wake of disaster, Amazon employees petition to keep their phones with them as they work. Biologists conclude mass poisoning is the best way to combat an island's invasive population of mice. Scientists are, apparently not for the first time, making some pretty serious breakthroughs in the art of getting pigs to breathe through their rectums -- and these scientists are wondering if, one day, humans could breathe the same way.
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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 the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Brady. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Mett, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Alexis codenamed Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. It is the top of one
of the last weeks, actually the last week of twenty one,
(00:47):
and around the world people are cautiously hoping, Um, you
know that next year will be better than the last
hashtag no counting crows as we speak. Uh yeah, I
don't know about you, guys, but I encountered a lot
of really disturbing news. A macron is as you hear this,
(01:09):
almost regardless of where you live, unless you are listening
on North Sentinel Island. Am, A crown is running through
your is running through your community, So please be very careful.
But we are keeping this show going. Uh oh. There's
also a thing where monkeys for some reason are mass
murdering puppies true story, throwing them out of trees. Jeez, Yeah,
(01:32):
we're not gonna do that today. Today we're going to
talk about the ongoing problems with Amazon, with workers rights,
with moves toward unionization, uh, and with the great injustices
of late stage capitalism. We'll talk about high level, nearly
genocidal efforts at pest eradication. And then we're gonna talk
(01:54):
a little bit about the future. Breathing through your ass,
these are all true stories. Let's let's uh, let's go
in just that order we laid out now. Uh. No,
excited about how we're going to connect these stories? Yes, yeah,
so no, Um, I think maybe we start with a
(02:17):
story you found because all of us have had close
eyes on the ongoing controversy with Jeff Bezos company Amazon,
which is an absolute giant in the world of shipping. Uh.
You may not know it, but the bulk of their money, folks,
for a long time has been in something called Amazon
Web Services. Still, we've all heard horror stories. Many of
(02:41):
our fellow conspiracy realists have written into us talking about
horror stories working in some capacity for with Amazon, and
the recent news of the tornado was just was devastating
and tragic. But just because that story has left the
news cycle doesn't mean the story ended. That's something we
(03:02):
always try to emphasize. And um, when I saw the
headline for what you posted, well, uh, this just blew
me away. It's one of those headlines that already has
like three terrible questions just in the first sentence, right, yeah,
it does. The headline I found on motherboard is no
one's life is worth a package. That's the quote. Uh,
(03:22):
Amazon workers are organizing for cell phone access. Wait a minute,
hold the phone literally or or don't or put it
in some sort of like, you know, our f proof
case and then you'll receive it back. What is this
a Dave Chappelle stand up special? No, it's apparently work. Um.
Many of us take for granted the fact that we
are allowed to, you know, be treated like adults at
(03:45):
our work and surely you know we're not supposed to
be messing around on our phones during work hours. But
it's important to have those phones to be connected to
the outside world. Two loved ones to parents maybe that
are dealing with health issues, especially in the midst of
a pandemic, and apparent children at children with the childcare,
(04:06):
with schools closing, who knows any number of things that
are incredibly necessary to have a tether to the outside
world forum so that you can act accordingly. But we
already know that Amazon has some pretty um inequitable I
mean to to put it mildly, policies around all kinds
(04:26):
of stuff. We hear horror stories about people not getting
bathroom breaks, having to urinate into jugs and all of
that kind of stuff. And apparently, and I didn't know this,
I don't know if y'all did, but they have had
a policy in place, UM where you're not allowed to
have a cell phone when you're working in one of
their warehouses. UH. That policy was suspended I think for
(04:47):
a bit um because of COVID and all of that stuff.
But they're talking about putting it back into uh play
um starting in January. And as a response to that,
Amazon workers in the Mid Atlantic region, thousands of warehouse
workers in that region are organizing or signing petitions to
(05:09):
especially in the aftermath of this horrible UH collapse of
an Amazon warehouse in Illinois that killed six Amazon workers. UM.
They are signing have signed the petition to allow workers
to have their phones for just the reasons that I
laid out, which are pretty common sense reasons. That collapse
was due to the tornado through. That's right, it was.
(05:33):
And there's another sort of side story that I wanted
to mention to UM. This is only being reported in
one place. We'll get to the cell phone bit in
a second. But from next Star Media wire, UH, there
is a report that a particular Amazon employee, who for
obvious reasons remained anonymous in Edwardsville, Illinois was instructed. And
(05:54):
now drivers are a different story. They obviously have to
have a cell phone for you know, reasons of community
hating with their hub, you know, with their UM supervisor, UH,
and all of that for getting information and all of
that and updating you know, on routes and what have you.
But apparently when a shelter in place order came through
in addition to you know, sirens indicating inclement weather shelter
(06:18):
in place, UH, this employee in Edwardsville, Illinois, UM allegedly
UH texted into their supervisor who and said, Hey, things
are looking really bad. I need to come back, uh,
to which the supervisor replied. According to a screenshot that
was sent to this news outlet, Okay, just keep delivering.
We can't just call people back for a warning unless
(06:41):
Amazon tells us to do so. About a half hour later,
the driver said that they were hearing tornado alarms, but
was told again to just keep delivering for now, at
which point the driver responded and said, um, well, I'm
hearing a shelter in place warning. There's nowhere suit of
BOLTU shelter in place other than the van that I'm in,
(07:03):
which is obviously not a suitable place to shelter because
it's a van. All the places they were delivering to
were closed. I found this everything in Desert dot com
as well as Bloomberg Like. The back and forth is crazy.
The most dystopian thing I saw um in the in
the full interchange was the supervisor eventually said, if you
(07:23):
decide to come back to choice is yours, but I
can tell you it won't be viewed as for your
own safety, safest practices. Stay exactly where you are. If
you decide to return with your packages, it will be
viewed as you refusing your route, which will ultimately end
with you not having a job come tomorrow morning. That
is an unhelpful ultimator. Uh, it's not only unhelpful, it
is just egregiously neglectful. The final communication that was shown
(07:47):
in the screenshot sent to Bloomberg UM was the sirens
are just a warning. UH. Of course, not very long
after the warehouse, UH did collapse to the roof fell in. UM.
The area was hit directly by the storm system and
things went very, very poorly. UM. So that's, you know,
(08:11):
part of the issue. It's separate from the cell phone
UH story, but you know, it just kind of shows
the culture that we're dealing with UH in Amazon. And
there's another part of this petition. Apparently Amazon is very
bad about having people come into work when conditions such
as floods, snow, ice, and heavy storms are well underway
(08:35):
until they've gotten the word that packages on freight vehicles,
trucks and rail and the like are not going to
make it to the warehouse. So they are clearly prioritizing
the delivery of these packages over the safety of their employees.
I think the chain of events here makes that very
very clear. UM. So they are not only asking UH
(08:56):
to have their phones not taken away. UM. There is
a quote from a source that was was interviewed for
this piece in Motherboards saying taking our phones away isn't
about safety, it's about controlling us UM and last week
or yeah, this was this is from just a couple
of days ago, workers at six Amazon warehouses in New
York City and washingtd C areas delivered petitions to their supervisors,
(09:20):
their warehouse managers asking for just this, to not have
the phones taken away and to be compensated uh for
work if they show up, because what has ended up
happening is that they will show up only to realize
that the inclement weather has caused the packages to not
be delivered to the warehouse via the larger freight delivery,
(09:42):
and then they're sent home with no pay. But they've
already made the potentially you know, hour long or more commute,
and then they have to get home. And if they're
in an area like New York where they were relying
on you know, UM commuter situations like UM metro or
rail or what have you, and then those systems have
(10:03):
been shut down, what are they forced to do? They're
forced to pay out of their pocket for things like
uber or lift. And there is a incident sited in
this article where someone had to take a nearly one
hundred dollar uber back home or a lift rather. Uh,
and what does that mean? That is essentially they're paying
out of their pocket for more than they were compensated
(10:25):
for showing up in the first place, right, and which
means they might people might eventually very easily be literally
unable to afford going to work, just the cost of
going to work. It's kind of like that depressing moment
anybody's experienced if you've ever worked in food service, where
you're you're making something, be it a burger or a
(10:47):
case idea perhaps, and then you start thinking, well, I
get paid X amount of dollars an hour, and this
cost X amount of dollars, So how much in time
would it cost me? Is this already minutes of my time?
This case idea? It's it's a brutal reality. Ben's hungry again, everybody. Well,
I mean, case idia is a beautiful thing, There's no
(11:08):
question about that. Um. What's not a beautiful thing is
the idea that someone literally has to choose between getting
paid and taking care of their kids. One co worker,
um with two children of this person that was quoted,
is said to have been dealing with an issue with
their special needs children. UM Quote. There are frequently urgent
(11:30):
situations where she needs to tend to them on the spot.
If the school calls and says to pick up your
kids for an emergency, the schools will call child protective
Services if you don't answer, claiming neglect of your children.
Amazon is making parents choose between foregoing pay or foregoing childcare.
The focus is never on workers well being and always
(11:50):
about being productive. Yeah, it's really rough, and another worker
was quoted and saying what I just said a minute ago,
but better to hear directly from the person living it. Quote.
The only factor they consider with snow is if the
packages get to them. Uh. Someone from a Bronx warehouse
was quoted saying whether the trucks can get there and
(12:12):
vans can get out is what determines their decision to
stay open. Amazon regularly pressures people to work in dangerous weather.
Last winter, we were called into work overnight even though
a major snowstorm had already started. Many of my co
workers used personal leaf time to stay home and stay safe.
Those of us who came in worked briefly and were
then informed, to no one's surprise, that the delivery vans
(12:35):
would not be able to make deliveries. So work was
over for the day, and this is all coming you know,
as pressure from management, who is of course being pressured
by their management, who of course being pressured by their management.
And it all comes down from the top from Mr
Bezos himself. It would seem that profits are valued much
(12:57):
more highly than workers safety and livelihood. And it feels
like a very very short sighted and thoughtless policy. Um.
I mean, everybody is all about convenience what Amazon provides,
but the more and more stories like this that we hear,
the less comfortable I think people with a conscience are
(13:18):
going to be uh using Amazon. Yeah, I'm really glad
this is in the news now, and several of the
Amazon stories that we've covered in the past, you know
what month or so, maybe two months. I'm really glad
we're getting to talk about this stuff because we do.
It is such an a simple, convenient service that we
all have on our phones now where we can just
get things, and we sometimes just imagine that it is
(13:42):
that simple, but it is it. You know what Amazon does.
The logistics required is ridiculously difficult, right, and that's from
each individual person that is like having to figure out
how these things, how everything gets from place a to
be to see, to to D and then finally to
(14:02):
your house. Um, and then all of the individual human
beings that are actually moving that single package. It's it's
ridiculously complicated, and it should be more expensive than it is.
I mean, it just should be. You could say the
same thing about the the livestock industry, right my, my,
My friends who are nationals from other countries are routinely
(14:26):
astounded when they see how comparatively inexpensive stuff like high
end steak is in this country. These prices are, for
a number of factors, lower than they should be. You
could reasonably argue if you factored in the prices and
if anybody out there is listening and working for Amazon
(14:46):
would love to hear your experiences, your war stories, want
to bring visibility to this. Uh. We also know that,
I mean, it's a leviathan. Like you said, matt Um,
it's something that some people will have difficult salty trying
to not have uh, any involvement with or any interaction
with at some point. The thing that the thing that
(15:08):
gets me about this is going back to that earlier
example of the the anonymous driver who was texting your
supervisor during a tornado you'll be happy to know. I
guess at least that this driver did survive. They were
finally allowed to shelter in place because the building, the warehouse,
(15:30):
was not able to take packages. That was it, because
the place they were supposed to go literally fell apart
and eight people died. The supervisor finally said, well, okay, okay,
I guess I'm convinced now, UM. And this article in
Motherboard was by is by Lauren Kiori Gurley Uh and
(15:51):
the other one I mentioned UM from News Nation citing
the Bloomberg report was by Michael bar Tomorrow from Next
Star Media Wire. And and just to wrap this up,
there is a statement UM from an Amazon supervisor named
Maria Boschetti or not a supervisor rather a spokesperson UM,
(16:12):
who previously had denied to other board that Amazon exhibits
this type of behavior pushes workers to show up during
inclement weather, and this is what she had to say, quote,
the safety and well being of our employees and the
drivers who deliver our package has always been and continues
to be our top priority. We did, in fact, closed
sites in advance of Hurricane Ida, and have closed sites,
cease deliveries or delayed shifts when appropriate in other events
(16:35):
involving hurricanes, flooding, winter storms, high winds, or wildfire smoke,
and we closely monitor ongoing weather events and follow the
guidance of state, county, and federal officials on the decision
of when to close the site. We evaluate different scenarios
and have closed sites when appropriate. Um, this sounds like
a company line. A lot of talking points exhibited here,
(16:59):
not surprising, but it does kind of run counter to
all of the evidence that we've seen, you know, in
real life. Uh. And it's also worth mentioning that the
supervisors who were presented these petitions refused to receive them, right, Like,
what's that about? I mean, I guess that's a policy
right there. They're they're told we do not take petitions
(17:21):
directly from employees. So they are essentially saying, we do
not hear you, we will not hear you. We're going
to cover our eyes and ears and be like those
little monkeys and those little figurines that you see at
thrift stores. Yeah, I think the I think the word,
the official word is you have to have petition prime.
They have to have that service to be able to
(17:43):
write correctly to a supervisor. If they can get at
they could get a thirty day trial trial petition prime.
But if you don't keep your membership, then you are
terminated on day thirty one exactly. Um. It's uh, it's rough,
and it's heartbreaking, and it's something that we should all
consider when deciding whether or not to to give this
(18:05):
company our business. But it's also one of these things
where they are essentially eating the cost of this delivery
fee uh and passing it on to the safety and
livelihood of their actual employees. And in order to do that,
they have to maintain the bottom line against all odds,
(18:27):
no way around it. Otherwise they're gonna start having to
pass on those um raises and humanitarian kind of you know,
acts towards these human beings to the customer, which in
their eyes would be a sign of failure, you know.
And Bezos does not seem like a guy that likes
to walk back anything. So it's gonna take something big
(18:51):
to to make this happen. And with that, let's take
the quick break here, a word from our sponsor, and
then we'll come back with some more strange news. And
we're back and we're heading out to Silicon Valley. Well,
kind of we're going to go on the map. If
(19:12):
you're all following along with your maps to San Francisco, California,
the Bay Area, Vallejo herself. If you're looking at San
Francisco and then you go do east, almost exactly about
thirty miles, you will find a small island system called
the Ferrellan Islands. And if you take a look at
(19:34):
it from the map, you make just say, oh, I
didn't even know those were there. But then if you
take your mind back to the times of Discovery Prime,
Oh remember them Prime Discovery Channel days when it was
all about just discovering things in the ocean, uh and
on Earth, well you may have seen many a shot
(19:54):
of these beautiful this beautiful island system. Everything from puffins
to all kinds of bird species that have been shot
by many a nature photographer exist and live on this
island system and not the Faroe Islands. Just that's a
different place if you're thinking of that one. This is
a different one. This is near San Francisco. It's beautiful.
(20:16):
I'm telling you, it's awesome, and you've seen images of it,
I promise you. So we're going here to talk about
a rodent problem. Have you ever had one of those
where you live a rodent problem? Ifinite actually, uh taught
my top my cats. Well, I say, todd's their natural inclination,
but to hunt them, which is which is a shame
(20:37):
because rats are so astonishingly intelligent. It's a matter of fact.
Because I know this is off tadget But if you're
looking for a good book to read, there's a wonderful
book about the history of rats which is just called Rats.
It's available now. I would recommend thrift books dot com.
But yeah, sometimes you have to. You have to get
rid of these for the safety of human beings. Right about.
(20:59):
Mice can care a disease. They can absolutely demolish food stores. Historically,
they can be a problem for human beings. Yes, um,
rodents of all type, not just rats. In this case, mice,
cute mice, little ones. They're really cute actually, But there's
a lot of them, and they're on these islands and
(21:19):
they shouldn't be there. Sea lions and some other mammals
exist here or like frequent in these islands, and for
a long time humans have showed up here for various reasons.
The mice came along with those humans, and they're an
invasive species they are taking over and this has been
a problem for well over a decade. And you know,
scientists have known about this does a protected wildlife area
(21:44):
where they realize, oh, this invasive species needs to be fixed.
We need to get rid of them. Not only are
they eating this very specific cave cricket that lives only
on this island, they're also eating salamanders that exist on
this island there disrupt think several other species that live there.
And the entire time, it has been debated, well, what
(22:05):
the heck do we do? How do we get rid
of all these mice? And one of the one of
the most prominent ideas was to kill him with poison.
Let's draw let's just rat poison the absolute crap out
of that island system and get rid of all these mice.
There are many many an issue with this, and that's
(22:26):
what brings us to today's story. We're gonna jump to
a story from way back in twenty nineteen and it's
from The Guardian. It was written by Alissa Greenberg. The
title is truly astounding. Inside the Fairyland Islands Battle against
the Plague of Mice. I would recommend you read this
first because this is this really sets up the whole issue,
(22:50):
and it sets up the concept of dropping thousands of
pounds of rat poison onto the island system as the
solution to get rid of all the mice. And back
in they're describing the plague like situation there, there is
a person named Pete Warzibach who describes it as sometimes
(23:11):
you'll see the ground moving as mice are burrowing, burrowing
their little tunnels underneath the ground. You'll see them back
and forth beginning in twenty nine. And you can read
that if you want to, and we can go over
all of these like the minutia of this if you
want to, guys. But really the main takeaway is that
if you drop rat poison on those that island system,
(23:32):
and even if just the rats eat it, some other
things like there's a burrowing owl species that lives on
the island, they consume the mice. And if you have
a bunch of poisoned mice and those owls are consuming
the mice, then the owls aren't going to be doing
so great. The other problem is these things are like pellets. Essentially,
the poison is distributed in pellets, and there's a seagulls
(23:56):
species that would eat those pellets right up, they're anything. Yes.
Is there a concerned that this would get through the
food chain to humans at some point? Probably not, Uh,
shouldn't affect the humans whatsoever. Just the species that exists there.
And we're talking about I think three hundred thousand birds
that frequent that that island again, as well as sea
(24:20):
lions and other mammals, um, just things that could the
mice could present a problem. It's specifically though I've seen
it mentioned that owl species and the salamanders. It's also
there's a problem with the specific type of poison, right,
it has a bad track record. But to just to
just to set the stage, I think you mentioned this earlier,
(24:42):
there's something like sixty thousand mice in total, and if
you look at the island, that translates to uh, it
translates to something crazy like mice per acre. So there's
not a way there in a pickle because there's not
a way to ccifically target like one area where the
(25:03):
mice are. It's every acre. Yeah, you got a carpet
bomb that, uh. And that's what the experts are saying.
The like the people who are who figure this stuff
out these hard problems are saying the only way to
get rid of all these mice is to get rid
of all of them by deploying poison across the entire system.
So that's that's article. I would jump forward just a
(25:25):
little bit to a Mercury News article that was posted
in June of this year. It's written by Jeremiah oting
O E. T T I N g uh. It again
just shows that this this theoretical plan of poisoning the
rats is moving forward a little bit. It's going to
(25:47):
be discussed by a couple of very important groups who
then actually decide whether or not this idea gets greenlit
and action is taken to make it occur. Then you
can jump to a sad Francisco Gate article that came
out on December. It was written by Andrew Chammings and
(26:08):
the title is controversial plan to drop poison on the
Fairyland Islands gets green light, And that just means that
the people who needed to approve it have approved it,
specifically the California Coastal Commission. This was approved as we
record this the previous Thursday. We're recording this on which
(26:29):
is one of my very good friend's birthday, Happy birthday, josh. Um,
it's official, it's gonna happen. Helicopters are going to drop
this rodent side, rodentist side, how do you rodent side,
rodent vibe side. But yeah, it is actually happening. And
(26:53):
we have a quote from one Jane Goodall, who happens
to be uh you know, one of the mostest anguished
conservationists on the planet. Oh that that Jane got all
the guerrillas in the midst one right, Yes, I mean it.
She's saying the no brainer thing here. Dropping super toxic
rat poison like this will quote inflict pain and suffering
(27:16):
on a great many sentient animals, which true, right, isn't
the issue too. They're they're doing this also supposedly to
protect the birds in the first place. Yes, yeah, it's
to protect several species of the again, those those cave
crickets that are native to that island system, the salamander,
(27:38):
the couple I think a few salamander species, correct me
if I'm wrong on that that exists there that they're
trying to protect. Because the rodents do eat those salamanders
and their eggs becomes a major issue. They also compete
for the same things the salamanders eat. It was confused
at first. Yeah. I was confused at first though, because
I almost was was thinking that we were talking about
this was already happening, and the rodents that were eating
(28:01):
the poison were then being eaten by the birds. Was
killing the birds and that was the problem, but it
wasn't the problem. They're eating something else that was messing
with the birds, And now they're going to feed the
rodents poison that the birds will then in turn also
potentially eat, which will mess them up further. Do we
we're discussing the plan, like the pros and cons of
the plan? Right? The pros are you wipe those rats out.
(28:22):
The ecosystem functions the way it did a hundred years ago,
the way it should right theoretically before human you know,
intervention came through and introduced the mice to the to
the equation. But in in this case it has not.
You know, they haven't air dropped the poison yet, but
they're about to. They're going to, and uh yeah, I
would just I would say read this article, get an
(28:45):
understanding of it, because it really does seem like it
can cause a lot more problems. There's some interesting concepts
that they've referred to as hazing, where they're talking about
bringing hazing dogs out to the islands to keep the
bird away as they deploy all of the you know,
the poison, as well as using I think some predatory
(29:07):
birds that would fly around the islands and keep other
species away and prevent them from eating the pellets, and uh,
I believe firing off weapons and making you know, loud
noises to scare away birds as they're deploying it across
the thing. But just imagining your mind, just helicopters on
their way out from the San Francisco Bay to this
(29:28):
island system and then just dumping this stuff with all
the skulls and crossbones falling down from the sky. I'm
picturing that scene in Apocalypse now where the helicopters. Yeah,
the crazy thing is, guys, there doesn't seem to be
a better idea if I made Devil's advocate for just
(29:51):
like a split second. There is a an environmental impact
report from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. It goes through,
you know, all of the potential fallout, and they do
say this is the best option and it is a
better alternative to what is currently happening. So while this is,
you know, on paper, feels bad, the actual Fish and
(30:11):
Wildlife Service, who I would argue, is not necessarily the
kind of agency that's in the pocket of big big
poison or something like that. You know. So yeah, I
know that no one's saying that, but I'm just saying, like,
if you read the Environmental Impact Report, it offers three
possible options, and they believe this one is is the
best one. So it does seem like it's coming from
a place of goodness, even if it does seem pretty
(30:31):
whacks cited in the articles that you had mentioned earlier. Man,
I think, yes, like the big credibility booster for this. Yes,
I apologize. I am kind of glazing over some of
this stuff. Guys. It's it's more complicated that I'm you know,
giving you the information that I'm giving to you right now.
But uh, this this whole thing is occurring. I want
to offer one because we gotta move on to the
(30:53):
next thingment. I want to offer one other solution, and Ben,
you already kind of brought it up in this segment.
Instead of having those helicopters come over and dropping the poison,
what if they parachute in a strike team of cats.
Y feline strike team gets in there and just takes
them all out over the course of a couple of months.
(31:15):
Cats so many, so many micro ecosystems or island ecosystems.
That's why the world is littered with islands that just
have mainly one like crazy life form, like snake island.
You know what, it would be a cat house. It's
also part of the reason people say you shouldn't have
(31:37):
indoor outdoor cats, because I've had indoor outdoor cats before,
and more often than them leaving me little rodent treats
on my front doorstep, they leave vivisected bird carcasses on
my front doorstep, so I think they almost like those better.
So this could well be a bag of cats that
we do not want to open. Okay, no, no, no, guys,
I'm gonna amend my my previous plan. A dozen neutered
(32:02):
main coons. Okay, they can't breed, are we neutering them? Like, well,
that's that's pretty common pre neutered. Yeah, that's that's a
very common thing. I was acting like, Oh, that's not
that's so cruel to neuter these port Now that's a
thing you do to cats. I'm with you, Matt. We
(32:23):
should do it. We should we should submit this to
the Fish and Game Service and and and uh, maybe
they can have that as an option. See, they went
through so many other things. I'm sure there was a
debate about, like, is there a reasonable way to conduct
mass sterilization on these rooms that would that would be
another thing, right, they believe, Yeah, they went through that
(32:45):
whole thing, and they believed that because of the like
rise and fall of the population over the course of
a year, you could you there would be a prime
time to try and sterilize a certain number, but the
ones that survived would multiply, you know, that that escaped
that treatment would multiply so quickly it wouldn't work as
(33:06):
at least that was their finding. Um So, anyway, weird situation.
Just I'm really just bringing this up to I don't know,
say it's weird that this kind of thing. It's very important.
They're brilliant people thinking about this this and how to
fix it, and it's still very difficult to come up
with an answer that you know, meets all the criteria
(33:29):
that we want to come away with this thing, you know,
without harming a certain, you know, without causing any harm. Right,
there's never a perfect solution in these really hard problems.
And I think that's I don't know the message of
this Sesame Street episode that we're doing right now too,
uh yeah. Or I I propose brought to you by
(33:51):
the letter B brought a cool brought a thought the
poison specifically that is going to be used. Can you
spell that? Bend? People need to look that up, like
look that look this rat poison up b R O
D I F A C O U M. It is
banned for use on the mainland. Yes, And there's a
(34:12):
second one though, because the three options that this study
put out, Option A was to do nothing, Option B
was to use this broda falcum uh d, and then
option C was to use a different um poison called
dia faconone fifty um. And by the way, I love
(34:32):
the term they use here. They call air dropping this
stuff in aerial broadcast rodent baits. Yeah. Well, let's see,
it's brought to you by the letter H. For hopefully
things will work out for all the species that we're
gonna drop poison on. All right, good luck everybody out
there on the islands. If you're listening Sea Lions. Um,
(34:55):
it's good. It was good watching you on Discovery Channel
back in the day. All right, we'll be right back
after a word from our sponsor, and we have returned
towards the end of the year. You know, a lot
of a lot of disturbing stuff is going on, as
(35:16):
I said at the top, but I wanted to bring
something that is in my mind hilarious because I am
emotionally three years old, and also maybe very helpful to humans.
We'll see why. The best way to set this up
is with a lovely little Twitter conversation I had recently
with Dan. Dan, you're listening. You know who you are.
(35:39):
Dan reached out to me at ben Bull and hs
W you can always do the same if you're interested,
and he suggested this as strange news, and it immediately
reminded me of some things that we see in science
fiction work like the ABYSS. It's some stuff we see
at the edges of medicine right now, and it's it's
something called ECMO because we all love a good acronym. Here. Uh.
(36:02):
Dan hit me to this by saying, Okay, if this
doesn't make it to strange News, I don't know what
will why the would scientists have come up with ways
for pigs to breathe through their rectums. That's from Dan.
It's a good question, Dan, and I want to give
credit where it's due. And I started looking into this
and that is that's kind of the future. So like
(36:23):
in UH in science fiction work, you know, if anybody
is familiar with the abyss or the countless deep deep
space exploration things where people travel out into the ink
beyond the Solar System and they have to go into
some kind of cryogenic state deep freeze, right, and often
they're in a they're in a capsule and they are
covered with liquid, with breathable liquid. How how are they
(36:48):
breathing that? It's something that we don't really spend too
much time on in the screenplays, but but people are
spending a lot of time on it. UH in the
real world. They're trying to figure out they're they're trying
to figure out and not for the first time, how
to what we can learn from humans and like thist
(37:11):
mice and other rodents breathing through their assholes, what can
it teach us for humans? It's all about a process
called ECMO extra corporeal membrane oxygenation. You can read a
great report over by Nicoletta Lantis at Life Science Pigs
(37:31):
can breathe through their butts? Can humans. If you want
something from a paper of note, then do check out
Breathing through the rectum saves oxygen starved mice and pigs
by Elizabeth Preston over at New York Times. So there's
a study that most of these things are referencing, and
I hunted down this study which was published in Cell
(37:53):
dot com actually just earlier this year called Mammalian and
Tarrell E T E r A L. Ventilation ameliorates respiratory failure. So,
first off, obviously this has shades of South Park vibes
right where there's that South Park episode where people figure
(38:15):
they can eat with their butt if you remember that one, Um,
we're definitely classed up the show in this one. It
also has shades of h who's that Supreme Court justice
who was quoted and saying he was into boofing. That's
the guy which is of course either taking alcohol or
(38:35):
drugs up your butt as well. So we know that
that tissue, vascular tissue in the anus is very very
porous and can take in uh, you know, materials and
get you high or drunk and potentially raise your blood
oxygen levels. Yeah, and this this story of course makes
the rounds because it has such a catchy headline, right
(38:57):
and because but jokes are funny comes from a really
tragic place. A guy named Dr Takanori tak b at
the Tokyo Medical and Dental University and since then Children's
Hospital Medical Center, decided to study this idea himself because
his father had a struggle with lung disease and mechanical
(39:21):
ventilators can keep people alive when their lungs aren't aren't
functioning well. But we know this equipment, We especially know
now this equipment is not always available even before the pandemic.
And these like other people are talking about this. To
one guy, a gastro enterologists at Yale University, Dr Caleb Kelly,
originally thought it was a joke when he was asked
(39:42):
to read the paper. But what they're talking about is
multipurposing organs because a lot of other animals do it.
For example, than New York Times sites this. They're fish
that can use their gills to take oxygen from water,
but they can also pop their heads above the surface
and and breathe. They can have a gulp of air,
(40:03):
and the air they swallow, since their fish, they don't
have lungs, right, the air they swallow goes through their
digestive track and their intestines absorb the oxygen. So yet,
so what they did first was they anesthesize some oxygen
deprived mice, and while the mice were passed out, mice
are getting it very the rough end of the story
(40:24):
into this week strange news. But don't worry. We're pro
mice folks. So they drug these mice, they pump oxygen
up their butts, and this procedure helps them survive longer.
But it works best when researchers scrape the intestinal wall
the interior to fin it. No, so it doesn't make
(40:47):
it that particular step doesn't seem super great for humans,
but it does make me think, you, guys, if those
stories of alien abductions and probes are real, maybe they're
just trying to help you know. Now I have a question.
Isn't this the kind of thing where you know, if
you did pump oxygen up someone a humans anus, isn't
(41:09):
there a possibility of getting like a blood bubble or
something like that? Or getting like some sort of uh
like problem in your circulatory system that could cause a
stroke or something like that. You'd have to be very
careful about the pressure and all of that, wouldn't you. Yeah,
that's a great question. Uh it's to uh to bastardize
the great Marshall mcluin. Uh. The medium is definitely the
(41:31):
message here that is hopefully making the day for the
three people who care about that book. But but it's uh,
it's a good book. Um, it's not about pigs. Butts
I promise I've been doing more than just that today.
But the h to answer some of those questions, right,
the dangers of maybe having having these like gas bubbles, uh,
(41:54):
scientists try delivering oxygen in a liquid form, so they
make the chemical like a per floral chemical compound. And
this had even been tested as a as a type
of artificial blood uh a couple of decades back in
the early two thousand's. They they found that it boost
blood oxygen when an animal is really really deprived, and
(42:17):
they were surprised at how good it was when it
came to addressing severe hypoxia. Because you know, your colon
is capable of filtering substances into the body. The issue
here is that we have to be very careful with
the mix too, because it's not just like the medium
(42:39):
through which this is delivered, you know, liquid or gas,
but it's also it's also a problem of humans being
able to function on pure oxygen. Pure oxygen is not
what you're breathing as you listen to this now, And
if you breathe too much pure oxygen, it can be
bad for you. As counter and tuitive as that may sound,
(43:01):
it can have deliterious effects on your body. Can it
also get you high? Like, isn't that a thing like
oxygen bars? Or it's a way where people can literally
huff pure oxygen and it might makes them get more intoxicated,
or in and of itself can get them intoxicated. But
you don't like stay there for the whole weekend or something.
(43:22):
It's just like a quick hit. I've actually noticed that uh,
drug stores now sell canisters of oxygen that you can
with like a nose piece on it, that you can actually,
you know, huff yourself. Maybe huffing is not the right word.
Maybe that's only a term that's used for uh breathing
in you should not be making that's real like huffing
(43:44):
canisters of oxygen. Just yes, I've seen them in Walgreens.
Yeah you guys. Uh no, my neighborhood, there was it
oxygen bar just just across the street from the barbecue
place for a long time before the pandemic, and I
still didn't understand that. I think you could. They would
give you oxygen and they would also hook you up
(44:06):
to I v S, which just h it seemed like
a disaster waiting to happen for me. I wish them
the best, but I've never been in there. Yeah. I
go to old school bars and just just really quickly. Yes,
if you look online, you've used a website called sport
Ease pilot Shop where you can buy a large boost
(44:26):
oxygen ten liters of oxygen for give yourself a boost.
Oxygen deficiency symptoms include fatigue, stress, loss of energy, and
lack of focus. So, uh, this literally comes in a
thing that looks like an air freshener, but it's got
a whole thing that's fitted for your mouth and nose.
You just go suck right on that bad boy and
choose yourself up. And uh, I want to give points
(44:48):
to an internet forum always reading the first person who
obviously didn't read the headline it said, uh, obviously read pass.
The headline said, pigs can breathe oxygen via the directum,
so humans probably can. To top rate a comment, what
if I don't want to breathe through a pig's rectum,
kudos to you, zop not so I want to bring
(45:10):
us to I think a very accessible piece on this.
It was on News Scientists. It was also on the
French version of Slate. The New Scientist article is great.
It's just from a few days ago. It's by Michael
la Page and the headline is scientists keep inventing ways
for pigs to breathe via their rectum. Uh. Right now,
(45:33):
One of the things I want to do is try
trillions of tiny oxygen bubbles micro bubbles of oxygen, because
this can work if the lungs are maybe damaged by smoke,
or if they're damaged by you know, a disease or
a medical condition. But it really comes in when there
are very, very dangerously low oxygen levels such that you
(45:58):
would have to put someone on ventilator. So these oxygen
micro bubbles, their conjecturing can be just cycled in and
out of the body. It might even be a long
term sustaining therapy for severely injured patients. They just haven't
tested it out to those time points. So right now,
(46:19):
as you listen on this little spaceship Earth, somewhere I
don't know if this comforts who are scares you, fellow
conspiracy realists, But somewhere right now, whatever you're doing, there
are a bunch of very smart people. We're staring at
pig butt holes and they're thinking of how to save
your life, which is simultaneously gross gross out humor and
(46:40):
also kind of really inspiring. You know. This is why
I wanted to ask you guys. We can get in
the weeds of this, but we wanted to keep this
one a little bit short. I wanted to ask you, guys,
if you were given the choice between you having a ventilator,
which is a very painful thing, you know, um or,
or having some let's just call it backwards breathing to
(47:03):
be diplomatic, you know what I mean, just taking the
gas in instead of putting it out. Let's be adults.
The average human farts seventeen to twenty three times a day.
It's normal. You probably farted while you were listening to this.
What do you think about contaminating our own oxygen supply
by expelling while we're supposed to be absorbing. Sorry he
farted into the oxygen feed. I don't know. I feel
(47:29):
like I don't want to sound like a prude, but
I feel like I would go with the ventilator just
because I already understand that science rights it is. But
I mean, if you get that far, we know that
people that end up on ventilators sometimes there's no coming back.
So if this was a way to keep you from
getting onto the ventilator, maybe it gives people more of
(47:53):
a fighting chance. Yeah, maybe maybe it's uh, maybe you
can do both one one in the butt, one of amount.
It doesn't sound comfortable, No, it doesn't. It doesn't. Um.
It would require some specialized equipment, that's for sure. But yeah,
by the way, this this UM, this this oxygen that
(48:13):
you can buy at the the drug store. Like I
was saying, it is controversial. Uh, and it is a
relatively new thing, likely a product of COVID because you know,
the very reasons we're talking about people that are having
like low blood oxygen levels because of you know, their
reaction to to the virus UM and it is supposedly safe,
but it's the jury is still out and I think
the fact that it's not a medical grade oxygen makes
(48:36):
it legal to sell over the counter. But it's still
so new it's kind of weird. But I have noticed
at it's at a at A Walgreens and CBS is uh.
And it's weird too because it like tastes like peppermint.
That makes it sound like some something fun, you know, Yeah,
you know for kids. They're marketing to kids, just like
cattle and vaping. So uh. Back to dr take and
(48:57):
back to the idea of the um this new sort
of oxygen delivery in humans, it could save lives. Dr
to cab a part of my pronunciation there. Doctor has
begun to start up in Japan called e v A Therapeutics.
E v A we're all adults here stands for Enteral
Ventilation via anis as the name of his technique. That's
(49:21):
what he wants to call the company. Uh. They're still
in the early stages, but this means that clinical trials
on being a butt breather can begin as early as
twenty twenty two. Forward to the future, right, what a
time to be alive. I'd like to end on on
Dan saying, because Dan followed up, Dan has been haunted
(49:43):
by this for about a week. Dan said, you know,
I believe that if we find ourselves having to develop
new ways for pigs to breathe via the rectums, perhaps
the problem isn't with the pigs. What scientists work on this?
Is there an American Society of Pigs, rectum journal, two
people go at pigs ref thoms conferences? And why is
one way not enough? So more ways to make pigs
(50:04):
breathe through the rectums are needed? Isn't there a way
to leave pigs out of this? Asked Dan? I agree.
If you want to join the conversation, you can always
reach out to me on any number of weird stories,
Appen Bowl and HSW on Twitter, appen Bowl, and on Instagram. Uh,
we have a lot of ways to find us online,
(50:24):
not just as shows, but as individuals. It's true if
you would like, you can find me on Instagram exclusively
at how now Noel Brown and answer this question, why
is the term mouth breather considered an insult? And should
it be replaced with anis breather? Let me know you
can find me on on the dot org if that's nonprofit. Yeah,
(50:51):
that's it. You find it main cue the mice at
Twitter or whatever. Yeah, so um there there are a
lot ways you can reach us as a show on Facebook, Twitter,
and on YouTube. We are conspiracy stuff. Remember to like
and subscribe on YouTube. Yeah yeah, yeah, whatever, And we're
conspiracy stuff show on Instagram. And if you hear about
(51:13):
social media and you're like yeah, then I'll send you
pig rectum stories. But I'm not following a show and
I don't sip the social meds. I'm terrified of what
it can do to people's minds. Uh. Then I agree
with you, and that's why we always have another way
for us you to contact us. You can get a
little more analog and dial into our phone numbers. Say
(51:35):
it with me one eight three three st d W
y T Gay three minutes. Those three minutes are yours.
You can tell us whatever is on your mind. Give
yourself a sick nickname, a moniker and a k A. Uh.
Second most important thing on that call, let us know
if we can use your name on air. First and
most important thing about that call. Don't censor yourself. If
(51:57):
you have a story that deserves more than three minutes,
don't feel like you have to call ten times. All
you need to do is write it out in an
email and then you can send us the images. You
can send us, the inciliary links. You can send us leads.
We read every single letter we get. Go ahead and
drop us a line. We are conspiracy at i heart
(52:17):
radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know.
(52:38):
Is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Brady. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Mett, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Alexis codenamed Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. It is the top of one
of the last weeks, actually the last week of twenty one,
(00:47):
and around the world people are cautiously hoping, Um, you
know that next year will be better than the last
hashtag no counting crows as we speak. Uh yeah, I
don't know about you, guys, but I encountered a lot
of really disturbing news. A macron is as you hear this,
(01:09):
almost regardless of where you live, unless you are listening
on North Sentinel Island. Am, A crown is running through
your is running through your community, So please be very careful.
But we are keeping this show going. Uh oh. There's
also a thing where monkeys for some reason are mass
murdering puppies true story, throwing them out of trees. Jeez, Yeah,
(01:32):
we're not gonna do that today. Today we're going to
talk about the ongoing problems with Amazon, with workers rights,
with moves toward unionization, uh, and with the great injustices
of late stage capitalism. We'll talk about high level, nearly
genocidal efforts at pest eradication. And then we're gonna talk
(01:54):
a little bit about the future. Breathing through your ass,
these are all true stories. Let's let's uh, let's go
in just that order we laid out now. Uh. No,
excited about how we're going to connect these stories? Yes, yeah,
so no, Um, I think maybe we start with a
(02:17):
story you found because all of us have had close
eyes on the ongoing controversy with Jeff Bezos company Amazon,
which is an absolute giant in the world of shipping. Uh.
You may not know it, but the bulk of their money, folks,
for a long time has been in something called Amazon
Web Services. Still, we've all heard horror stories. Many of
(02:41):
our fellow conspiracy realists have written into us talking about
horror stories working in some capacity for with Amazon, and
the recent news of the tornado was just was devastating
and tragic. But just because that story has left the
news cycle doesn't mean the story ended. That's something we
(03:02):
always try to emphasize. And um, when I saw the
headline for what you posted, well, uh, this just blew
me away. It's one of those headlines that already has
like three terrible questions just in the first sentence, right, yeah,
it does. The headline I found on motherboard is no
one's life is worth a package. That's the quote. Uh,
(03:22):
Amazon workers are organizing for cell phone access. Wait a minute,
hold the phone literally or or don't or put it
in some sort of like, you know, our f proof
case and then you'll receive it back. What is this
a Dave Chappelle stand up special? No, it's apparently work. Um.
Many of us take for granted the fact that we
are allowed to, you know, be treated like adults at
(03:45):
our work and surely you know we're not supposed to
be messing around on our phones during work hours. But
it's important to have those phones to be connected to
the outside world. Two loved ones to parents maybe that
are dealing with health issues, especially in the midst of
a pandemic, and apparent children at children with the childcare,
(04:06):
with schools closing, who knows any number of things that
are incredibly necessary to have a tether to the outside
world forum so that you can act accordingly. But we
already know that Amazon has some pretty um inequitable I
mean to to put it mildly, policies around all kinds
(04:26):
of stuff. We hear horror stories about people not getting
bathroom breaks, having to urinate into jugs and all of
that kind of stuff. And apparently, and I didn't know this,
I don't know if y'all did, but they have had
a policy in place, UM where you're not allowed to
have a cell phone when you're working in one of
their warehouses. UH. That policy was suspended I think for
(04:47):
a bit um because of COVID and all of that stuff.
But they're talking about putting it back into uh play
um starting in January. And as a response to that,
Amazon workers in the Mid Atlantic region, thousands of warehouse
workers in that region are organizing or signing petitions to
(05:09):
especially in the aftermath of this horrible UH collapse of
an Amazon warehouse in Illinois that killed six Amazon workers. UM.
They are signing have signed the petition to allow workers
to have their phones for just the reasons that I
laid out, which are pretty common sense reasons. That collapse
was due to the tornado through. That's right, it was.
(05:33):
And there's another sort of side story that I wanted
to mention to UM. This is only being reported in
one place. We'll get to the cell phone bit in
a second. But from next Star Media wire, UH, there
is a report that a particular Amazon employee, who for
obvious reasons remained anonymous in Edwardsville, Illinois was instructed. And
(05:54):
now drivers are a different story. They obviously have to
have a cell phone for you know, reasons of community
hating with their hub, you know, with their UM supervisor, UH,
and all of that for getting information and all of
that and updating you know, on routes and what have you.
But apparently when a shelter in place order came through
in addition to you know, sirens indicating inclement weather shelter
(06:18):
in place, UH, this employee in Edwardsville, Illinois, UM allegedly
UH texted into their supervisor who and said, Hey, things
are looking really bad. I need to come back, uh,
to which the supervisor replied. According to a screenshot that
was sent to this news outlet, Okay, just keep delivering.
We can't just call people back for a warning unless
(06:41):
Amazon tells us to do so. About a half hour later,
the driver said that they were hearing tornado alarms, but
was told again to just keep delivering for now, at
which point the driver responded and said, um, well, I'm
hearing a shelter in place warning. There's nowhere suit of
BOLTU shelter in place other than the van that I'm in,
(07:03):
which is obviously not a suitable place to shelter because
it's a van. All the places they were delivering to
were closed. I found this everything in Desert dot com
as well as Bloomberg Like. The back and forth is crazy.
The most dystopian thing I saw um in the in
the full interchange was the supervisor eventually said, if you
(07:23):
decide to come back to choice is yours, but I
can tell you it won't be viewed as for your
own safety, safest practices. Stay exactly where you are. If
you decide to return with your packages, it will be
viewed as you refusing your route, which will ultimately end
with you not having a job come tomorrow morning. That
is an unhelpful ultimator. Uh, it's not only unhelpful, it
is just egregiously neglectful. The final communication that was shown
(07:47):
in the screenshot sent to Bloomberg UM was the sirens
are just a warning. UH. Of course, not very long
after the warehouse, UH did collapse to the roof fell in. UM.
The area was hit directly by the storm system and
things went very, very poorly. UM. So that's, you know,
(08:11):
part of the issue. It's separate from the cell phone
UH story, but you know, it just kind of shows
the culture that we're dealing with UH in Amazon. And
there's another part of this petition. Apparently Amazon is very
bad about having people come into work when conditions such
as floods, snow, ice, and heavy storms are well underway
(08:35):
until they've gotten the word that packages on freight vehicles,
trucks and rail and the like are not going to
make it to the warehouse. So they are clearly prioritizing
the delivery of these packages over the safety of their employees.
I think the chain of events here makes that very
very clear. UM. So they are not only asking UH
(08:56):
to have their phones not taken away. UM. There is
a quote from a source that was was interviewed for
this piece in Motherboards saying taking our phones away isn't
about safety, it's about controlling us UM and last week
or yeah, this was this is from just a couple
of days ago, workers at six Amazon warehouses in New
York City and washingtd C areas delivered petitions to their supervisors,
(09:20):
their warehouse managers asking for just this, to not have
the phones taken away and to be compensated uh for
work if they show up, because what has ended up
happening is that they will show up only to realize
that the inclement weather has caused the packages to not
be delivered to the warehouse via the larger freight delivery,
(09:42):
and then they're sent home with no pay. But they've
already made the potentially you know, hour long or more commute,
and then they have to get home. And if they're
in an area like New York where they were relying
on you know, UM commuter situations like UM metro or
rail or what have you, and then those systems have
(10:03):
been shut down, what are they forced to do? They're
forced to pay out of their pocket for things like
uber or lift. And there is a incident sited in
this article where someone had to take a nearly one
hundred dollar uber back home or a lift rather. Uh,
and what does that mean? That is essentially they're paying
out of their pocket for more than they were compensated
(10:25):
for showing up in the first place, right, and which
means they might people might eventually very easily be literally
unable to afford going to work, just the cost of
going to work. It's kind of like that depressing moment
anybody's experienced if you've ever worked in food service, where
you're you're making something, be it a burger or a
(10:47):
case idea perhaps, and then you start thinking, well, I
get paid X amount of dollars an hour, and this
cost X amount of dollars, So how much in time
would it cost me? Is this already minutes of my time?
This case idea? It's it's a brutal reality. Ben's hungry again, everybody. Well,
I mean, case idia is a beautiful thing, There's no
(11:08):
question about that. Um. What's not a beautiful thing is
the idea that someone literally has to choose between getting
paid and taking care of their kids. One co worker,
um with two children of this person that was quoted,
is said to have been dealing with an issue with
their special needs children. UM Quote. There are frequently urgent
(11:30):
situations where she needs to tend to them on the spot.
If the school calls and says to pick up your
kids for an emergency, the schools will call child protective
Services if you don't answer, claiming neglect of your children.
Amazon is making parents choose between foregoing pay or foregoing childcare.
The focus is never on workers well being and always
(11:50):
about being productive. Yeah, it's really rough, and another worker
was quoted and saying what I just said a minute ago,
but better to hear directly from the person living it. Quote.
The only factor they consider with snow is if the
packages get to them. Uh. Someone from a Bronx warehouse
was quoted saying whether the trucks can get there and
(12:12):
vans can get out is what determines their decision to
stay open. Amazon regularly pressures people to work in dangerous weather.
Last winter, we were called into work overnight even though
a major snowstorm had already started. Many of my co
workers used personal leaf time to stay home and stay safe.
Those of us who came in worked briefly and were
then informed, to no one's surprise, that the delivery vans
(12:35):
would not be able to make deliveries. So work was
over for the day, and this is all coming you know,
as pressure from management, who is of course being pressured
by their management, who of course being pressured by their management.
And it all comes down from the top from Mr
Bezos himself. It would seem that profits are valued much
(12:57):
more highly than workers safety and livelihood. And it feels
like a very very short sighted and thoughtless policy. Um.
I mean, everybody is all about convenience what Amazon provides,
but the more and more stories like this that we hear,
the less comfortable I think people with a conscience are
(13:18):
going to be uh using Amazon. Yeah, I'm really glad
this is in the news now, and several of the
Amazon stories that we've covered in the past, you know
what month or so, maybe two months. I'm really glad
we're getting to talk about this stuff because we do.
It is such an a simple, convenient service that we
all have on our phones now where we can just
get things, and we sometimes just imagine that it is
(13:42):
that simple, but it is it. You know what Amazon does.
The logistics required is ridiculously difficult, right, and that's from
each individual person that is like having to figure out
how these things, how everything gets from place a to
be to see, to to D and then finally to
(14:02):
your house. Um, and then all of the individual human
beings that are actually moving that single package. It's it's
ridiculously complicated, and it should be more expensive than it is.
I mean, it just should be. You could say the
same thing about the the livestock industry, right my, my,
My friends who are nationals from other countries are routinely
(14:26):
astounded when they see how comparatively inexpensive stuff like high
end steak is in this country. These prices are, for
a number of factors, lower than they should be. You
could reasonably argue if you factored in the prices and
if anybody out there is listening and working for Amazon
(14:46):
would love to hear your experiences, your war stories, want
to bring visibility to this. Uh. We also know that,
I mean, it's a leviathan. Like you said, matt Um,
it's something that some people will have difficult salty trying
to not have uh, any involvement with or any interaction
with at some point. The thing that the thing that
(15:08):
gets me about this is going back to that earlier
example of the the anonymous driver who was texting your
supervisor during a tornado you'll be happy to know. I
guess at least that this driver did survive. They were
finally allowed to shelter in place because the building, the warehouse,
(15:30):
was not able to take packages. That was it, because
the place they were supposed to go literally fell apart
and eight people died. The supervisor finally said, well, okay, okay,
I guess I'm convinced now, UM. And this article in
Motherboard was by is by Lauren Kiori Gurley Uh and
(15:51):
the other one I mentioned UM from News Nation citing
the Bloomberg report was by Michael bar Tomorrow from Next
Star Media Wire. And and just to wrap this up,
there is a statement UM from an Amazon supervisor named
Maria Boschetti or not a supervisor rather a spokesperson UM,
(16:12):
who previously had denied to other board that Amazon exhibits
this type of behavior pushes workers to show up during
inclement weather, and this is what she had to say, quote,
the safety and well being of our employees and the
drivers who deliver our package has always been and continues
to be our top priority. We did, in fact, closed
sites in advance of Hurricane Ida, and have closed sites,
cease deliveries or delayed shifts when appropriate in other events
(16:35):
involving hurricanes, flooding, winter storms, high winds, or wildfire smoke,
and we closely monitor ongoing weather events and follow the
guidance of state, county, and federal officials on the decision
of when to close the site. We evaluate different scenarios
and have closed sites when appropriate. Um, this sounds like
a company line. A lot of talking points exhibited here,
(16:59):
not surprising, but it does kind of run counter to
all of the evidence that we've seen, you know, in
real life. Uh. And it's also worth mentioning that the
supervisors who were presented these petitions refused to receive them, right, Like,
what's that about? I mean, I guess that's a policy
right there. They're they're told we do not take petitions
(17:21):
directly from employees. So they are essentially saying, we do
not hear you, we will not hear you. We're going
to cover our eyes and ears and be like those
little monkeys and those little figurines that you see at
thrift stores. Yeah, I think the I think the word,
the official word is you have to have petition prime.
They have to have that service to be able to
(17:43):
write correctly to a supervisor. If they can get at
they could get a thirty day trial trial petition prime.
But if you don't keep your membership, then you are
terminated on day thirty one exactly. Um. It's uh, it's rough,
and it's heartbreaking, and it's something that we should all
consider when deciding whether or not to to give this
(18:05):
company our business. But it's also one of these things
where they are essentially eating the cost of this delivery
fee uh and passing it on to the safety and
livelihood of their actual employees. And in order to do that,
they have to maintain the bottom line against all odds,
(18:27):
no way around it. Otherwise they're gonna start having to
pass on those um raises and humanitarian kind of you know,
acts towards these human beings to the customer, which in
their eyes would be a sign of failure, you know.
And Bezos does not seem like a guy that likes
to walk back anything. So it's gonna take something big
(18:51):
to to make this happen. And with that, let's take
the quick break here, a word from our sponsor, and
then we'll come back with some more strange news. And
we're back and we're heading out to Silicon Valley. Well,
kind of we're going to go on the map. If
(19:12):
you're all following along with your maps to San Francisco, California,
the Bay Area, Vallejo herself. If you're looking at San
Francisco and then you go do east, almost exactly about
thirty miles, you will find a small island system called
the Ferrellan Islands. And if you take a look at
(19:34):
it from the map, you make just say, oh, I
didn't even know those were there. But then if you
take your mind back to the times of Discovery Prime,
Oh remember them Prime Discovery Channel days when it was
all about just discovering things in the ocean, uh and
on Earth, well you may have seen many a shot
(19:54):
of these beautiful this beautiful island system. Everything from puffins
to all kinds of bird species that have been shot
by many a nature photographer exist and live on this
island system and not the Faroe Islands. Just that's a
different place if you're thinking of that one. This is
a different one. This is near San Francisco. It's beautiful.
(20:16):
I'm telling you, it's awesome, and you've seen images of it,
I promise you. So we're going here to talk about
a rodent problem. Have you ever had one of those
where you live a rodent problem? Ifinite actually, uh taught
my top my cats. Well, I say, todd's their natural inclination,
but to hunt them, which is which is a shame
(20:37):
because rats are so astonishingly intelligent. It's a matter of fact.
Because I know this is off tadget But if you're
looking for a good book to read, there's a wonderful
book about the history of rats which is just called Rats.
It's available now. I would recommend thrift books dot com.
But yeah, sometimes you have to. You have to get
rid of these for the safety of human beings. Right about.
(20:59):
Mice can care a disease. They can absolutely demolish food stores. Historically,
they can be a problem for human beings. Yes, um,
rodents of all type, not just rats. In this case, mice,
cute mice, little ones. They're really cute actually, But there's
a lot of them, and they're on these islands and
(21:19):
they shouldn't be there. Sea lions and some other mammals
exist here or like frequent in these islands, and for
a long time humans have showed up here for various reasons.
The mice came along with those humans, and they're an
invasive species they are taking over and this has been
a problem for well over a decade. And you know,
scientists have known about this does a protected wildlife area
(21:44):
where they realize, oh, this invasive species needs to be fixed.
We need to get rid of them. Not only are
they eating this very specific cave cricket that lives only
on this island, they're also eating salamanders that exist on
this island there disrupt think several other species that live there.
And the entire time, it has been debated, well, what
(22:05):
the heck do we do? How do we get rid
of all these mice? And one of the one of
the most prominent ideas was to kill him with poison.
Let's draw let's just rat poison the absolute crap out
of that island system and get rid of all these mice.
There are many many an issue with this, and that's
(22:26):
what brings us to today's story. We're gonna jump to
a story from way back in twenty nineteen and it's
from The Guardian. It was written by Alissa Greenberg. The
title is truly astounding. Inside the Fairyland Islands Battle against
the Plague of Mice. I would recommend you read this
first because this is this really sets up the whole issue,
(22:50):
and it sets up the concept of dropping thousands of
pounds of rat poison onto the island system as the
solution to get rid of all the mice. And back
in they're describing the plague like situation there, there is
a person named Pete Warzibach who describes it as sometimes
(23:11):
you'll see the ground moving as mice are burrowing, burrowing
their little tunnels underneath the ground. You'll see them back
and forth beginning in twenty nine. And you can read
that if you want to, and we can go over
all of these like the minutia of this if you
want to, guys. But really the main takeaway is that
if you drop rat poison on those that island system,
(23:32):
and even if just the rats eat it, some other
things like there's a burrowing owl species that lives on
the island, they consume the mice. And if you have
a bunch of poisoned mice and those owls are consuming
the mice, then the owls aren't going to be doing
so great. The other problem is these things are like pellets. Essentially,
the poison is distributed in pellets, and there's a seagulls
(23:56):
species that would eat those pellets right up, they're anything. Yes.
Is there a concerned that this would get through the
food chain to humans at some point? Probably not, Uh,
shouldn't affect the humans whatsoever. Just the species that exists there.
And we're talking about I think three hundred thousand birds
that frequent that that island again, as well as sea
(24:20):
lions and other mammals, um, just things that could the
mice could present a problem. It's specifically though I've seen
it mentioned that owl species and the salamanders. It's also
there's a problem with the specific type of poison, right,
it has a bad track record. But to just to
just to set the stage, I think you mentioned this earlier,
(24:42):
there's something like sixty thousand mice in total, and if
you look at the island, that translates to uh, it
translates to something crazy like mice per acre. So there's
not a way there in a pickle because there's not
a way to ccifically target like one area where the
(25:03):
mice are. It's every acre. Yeah, you got a carpet
bomb that, uh. And that's what the experts are saying.
The like the people who are who figure this stuff
out these hard problems are saying the only way to
get rid of all these mice is to get rid
of all of them by deploying poison across the entire system.
So that's that's article. I would jump forward just a
(25:25):
little bit to a Mercury News article that was posted
in June of this year. It's written by Jeremiah oting
O E. T T I N g uh. It again
just shows that this this theoretical plan of poisoning the
rats is moving forward a little bit. It's going to
(25:47):
be discussed by a couple of very important groups who
then actually decide whether or not this idea gets greenlit
and action is taken to make it occur. Then you
can jump to a sad Francisco Gate article that came
out on December. It was written by Andrew Chammings and
(26:08):
the title is controversial plan to drop poison on the
Fairyland Islands gets green light, And that just means that
the people who needed to approve it have approved it,
specifically the California Coastal Commission. This was approved as we
record this the previous Thursday. We're recording this on which
(26:29):
is one of my very good friend's birthday, Happy birthday, josh. Um,
it's official, it's gonna happen. Helicopters are going to drop
this rodent side, rodentist side, how do you rodent side,
rodent vibe side. But yeah, it is actually happening. And
(26:53):
we have a quote from one Jane Goodall, who happens
to be uh you know, one of the mostest anguished
conservationists on the planet. Oh that that Jane got all
the guerrillas in the midst one right, Yes, I mean it.
She's saying the no brainer thing here. Dropping super toxic
rat poison like this will quote inflict pain and suffering
(27:16):
on a great many sentient animals, which true, right, isn't
the issue too. They're they're doing this also supposedly to
protect the birds in the first place. Yes, yeah, it's
to protect several species of the again, those those cave
crickets that are native to that island system, the salamander,
(27:38):
the couple I think a few salamander species, correct me
if I'm wrong on that that exists there that they're
trying to protect. Because the rodents do eat those salamanders
and their eggs becomes a major issue. They also compete
for the same things the salamanders eat. It was confused
at first. Yeah. I was confused at first though, because
I almost was was thinking that we were talking about
this was already happening, and the rodents that were eating
(28:01):
the poison were then being eaten by the birds. Was
killing the birds and that was the problem, but it
wasn't the problem. They're eating something else that was messing
with the birds, And now they're going to feed the
rodents poison that the birds will then in turn also
potentially eat, which will mess them up further. Do we
we're discussing the plan, like the pros and cons of
the plan? Right? The pros are you wipe those rats out.
(28:22):
The ecosystem functions the way it did a hundred years ago,
the way it should right theoretically before human you know,
intervention came through and introduced the mice to the to
the equation. But in in this case it has not.
You know, they haven't air dropped the poison yet, but
they're about to. They're going to, and uh yeah, I
would just I would say read this article, get an
(28:45):
understanding of it, because it really does seem like it
can cause a lot more problems. There's some interesting concepts
that they've referred to as hazing, where they're talking about
bringing hazing dogs out to the islands to keep the
bird away as they deploy all of the you know,
the poison, as well as using I think some predatory
(29:07):
birds that would fly around the islands and keep other
species away and prevent them from eating the pellets, and uh,
I believe firing off weapons and making you know, loud
noises to scare away birds as they're deploying it across
the thing. But just imagining your mind, just helicopters on
their way out from the San Francisco Bay to this
(29:28):
island system and then just dumping this stuff with all
the skulls and crossbones falling down from the sky. I'm
picturing that scene in Apocalypse now where the helicopters. Yeah,
the crazy thing is, guys, there doesn't seem to be
a better idea if I made Devil's advocate for just
(29:51):
like a split second. There is a an environmental impact
report from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. It goes through,
you know, all of the potential fallout, and they do
say this is the best option and it is a
better alternative to what is currently happening. So while this is,
you know, on paper, feels bad, the actual Fish and
(30:11):
Wildlife Service, who I would argue, is not necessarily the
kind of agency that's in the pocket of big big
poison or something like that. You know. So yeah, I
know that no one's saying that, but I'm just saying, like,
if you read the Environmental Impact Report, it offers three
possible options, and they believe this one is is the
best one. So it does seem like it's coming from
a place of goodness, even if it does seem pretty
(30:31):
whacks cited in the articles that you had mentioned earlier. Man,
I think, yes, like the big credibility booster for this. Yes,
I apologize. I am kind of glazing over some of
this stuff. Guys. It's it's more complicated that I'm you know,
giving you the information that I'm giving to you right now.
But uh, this this whole thing is occurring. I want
to offer one because we gotta move on to the
(30:53):
next thingment. I want to offer one other solution, and Ben,
you already kind of brought it up in this segment.
Instead of having those helicopters come over and dropping the poison,
what if they parachute in a strike team of cats.
Y feline strike team gets in there and just takes
them all out over the course of a couple of months.
(31:15):
Cats so many, so many micro ecosystems or island ecosystems.
That's why the world is littered with islands that just
have mainly one like crazy life form, like snake island.
You know what, it would be a cat house. It's
also part of the reason people say you shouldn't have
(31:37):
indoor outdoor cats, because I've had indoor outdoor cats before,
and more often than them leaving me little rodent treats
on my front doorstep, they leave vivisected bird carcasses on
my front doorstep, so I think they almost like those better.
So this could well be a bag of cats that
we do not want to open. Okay, no, no, no, guys,
I'm gonna amend my my previous plan. A dozen neutered
(32:02):
main coons. Okay, they can't breed, are we neutering them? Like, well,
that's that's pretty common pre neutered. Yeah, that's that's a
very common thing. I was acting like, Oh, that's not
that's so cruel to neuter these port Now that's a
thing you do to cats. I'm with you, Matt. We
(32:23):
should do it. We should we should submit this to
the Fish and Game Service and and and uh, maybe
they can have that as an option. See, they went
through so many other things. I'm sure there was a
debate about, like, is there a reasonable way to conduct
mass sterilization on these rooms that would that would be
another thing, right, they believe, Yeah, they went through that
(32:45):
whole thing, and they believed that because of the like
rise and fall of the population over the course of
a year, you could you there would be a prime
time to try and sterilize a certain number, but the
ones that survived would multiply, you know, that that escaped
that treatment would multiply so quickly it wouldn't work as
(33:06):
at least that was their finding. Um So, anyway, weird situation.
Just I'm really just bringing this up to I don't know,
say it's weird that this kind of thing. It's very important.
They're brilliant people thinking about this this and how to
fix it, and it's still very difficult to come up
with an answer that you know, meets all the criteria
(33:29):
that we want to come away with this thing, you know,
without harming a certain, you know, without causing any harm. Right,
there's never a perfect solution in these really hard problems.
And I think that's I don't know the message of
this Sesame Street episode that we're doing right now too,
uh yeah. Or I I propose brought to you by
(33:51):
the letter B brought a cool brought a thought the
poison specifically that is going to be used. Can you
spell that? Bend? People need to look that up, like
look that look this rat poison up b R O
D I F A C O U M. It is
banned for use on the mainland. Yes, And there's a
(34:12):
second one though, because the three options that this study
put out, Option A was to do nothing, Option B
was to use this broda falcum uh d, and then
option C was to use a different um poison called
dia faconone fifty um. And by the way, I love
(34:32):
the term they use here. They call air dropping this
stuff in aerial broadcast rodent baits. Yeah. Well, let's see,
it's brought to you by the letter H. For hopefully
things will work out for all the species that we're
gonna drop poison on. All right, good luck everybody out
there on the islands. If you're listening Sea Lions. Um,
(34:55):
it's good. It was good watching you on Discovery Channel
back in the day. All right, we'll be right back
after a word from our sponsor, and we have returned
towards the end of the year. You know, a lot
of a lot of disturbing stuff is going on, as
(35:16):
I said at the top, but I wanted to bring
something that is in my mind hilarious because I am
emotionally three years old, and also maybe very helpful to humans.
We'll see why. The best way to set this up
is with a lovely little Twitter conversation I had recently
with Dan. Dan, you're listening. You know who you are.
(35:39):
Dan reached out to me at ben Bull and hs
W you can always do the same if you're interested,
and he suggested this as strange news, and it immediately
reminded me of some things that we see in science
fiction work like the ABYSS. It's some stuff we see
at the edges of medicine right now, and it's it's
something called ECMO because we all love a good acronym. Here. Uh.
(36:02):
Dan hit me to this by saying, Okay, if this
doesn't make it to strange News, I don't know what
will why the would scientists have come up with ways
for pigs to breathe through their rectums. That's from Dan.
It's a good question, Dan, and I want to give
credit where it's due. And I started looking into this
and that is that's kind of the future. So like
(36:23):
in UH in science fiction work, you know, if anybody
is familiar with the abyss or the countless deep deep
space exploration things where people travel out into the ink
beyond the Solar System and they have to go into
some kind of cryogenic state deep freeze, right, and often
they're in a they're in a capsule and they are
covered with liquid, with breathable liquid. How how are they
(36:48):
breathing that? It's something that we don't really spend too
much time on in the screenplays, but but people are
spending a lot of time on it. UH in the
real world. They're trying to figure out they're they're trying
to figure out and not for the first time, how
to what we can learn from humans and like thist
(37:11):
mice and other rodents breathing through their assholes, what can
it teach us for humans? It's all about a process
called ECMO extra corporeal membrane oxygenation. You can read a
great report over by Nicoletta Lantis at Life Science Pigs
(37:31):
can breathe through their butts? Can humans. If you want
something from a paper of note, then do check out
Breathing through the rectum saves oxygen starved mice and pigs
by Elizabeth Preston over at New York Times. So there's
a study that most of these things are referencing, and
I hunted down this study which was published in Cell
(37:53):
dot com actually just earlier this year called Mammalian and
Tarrell E T E r A L. Ventilation ameliorates respiratory failure. So,
first off, obviously this has shades of South Park vibes
right where there's that South Park episode where people figure
(38:15):
they can eat with their butt if you remember that one, Um,
we're definitely classed up the show in this one. It
also has shades of h who's that Supreme Court justice
who was quoted and saying he was into boofing. That's
the guy which is of course either taking alcohol or
(38:35):
drugs up your butt as well. So we know that
that tissue, vascular tissue in the anus is very very
porous and can take in uh, you know, materials and
get you high or drunk and potentially raise your blood
oxygen levels. Yeah, and this this story of course makes
the rounds because it has such a catchy headline, right
(38:57):
and because but jokes are funny comes from a really
tragic place. A guy named Dr Takanori tak b at
the Tokyo Medical and Dental University and since then Children's
Hospital Medical Center, decided to study this idea himself because
his father had a struggle with lung disease and mechanical
(39:21):
ventilators can keep people alive when their lungs aren't aren't
functioning well. But we know this equipment, We especially know
now this equipment is not always available even before the pandemic.
And these like other people are talking about this. To
one guy, a gastro enterologists at Yale University, Dr Caleb Kelly,
originally thought it was a joke when he was asked
(39:42):
to read the paper. But what they're talking about is
multipurposing organs because a lot of other animals do it.
For example, than New York Times sites this. They're fish
that can use their gills to take oxygen from water,
but they can also pop their heads above the surface
and and breathe. They can have a gulp of air,
(40:03):
and the air they swallow, since their fish, they don't
have lungs, right, the air they swallow goes through their
digestive track and their intestines absorb the oxygen. So yet,
so what they did first was they anesthesize some oxygen
deprived mice, and while the mice were passed out, mice
are getting it very the rough end of the story
(40:24):
into this week strange news. But don't worry. We're pro
mice folks. So they drug these mice, they pump oxygen
up their butts, and this procedure helps them survive longer.
But it works best when researchers scrape the intestinal wall
the interior to fin it. No, so it doesn't make
(40:47):
it that particular step doesn't seem super great for humans,
but it does make me think, you, guys, if those
stories of alien abductions and probes are real, maybe they're
just trying to help you know. Now I have a question.
Isn't this the kind of thing where you know, if
you did pump oxygen up someone a humans anus, isn't
(41:09):
there a possibility of getting like a blood bubble or
something like that? Or getting like some sort of uh
like problem in your circulatory system that could cause a
stroke or something like that. You'd have to be very
careful about the pressure and all of that, wouldn't you. Yeah,
that's a great question. Uh it's to uh to bastardize
the great Marshall mcluin. Uh. The medium is definitely the
(41:31):
message here that is hopefully making the day for the
three people who care about that book. But but it's uh,
it's a good book. Um, it's not about pigs. Butts
I promise I've been doing more than just that today.
But the h to answer some of those questions, right,
the dangers of maybe having having these like gas bubbles, uh,
(41:54):
scientists try delivering oxygen in a liquid form, so they
make the chemical like a per floral chemical compound. And
this had even been tested as a as a type
of artificial blood uh a couple of decades back in
the early two thousand's. They they found that it boost
blood oxygen when an animal is really really deprived, and
(42:17):
they were surprised at how good it was when it
came to addressing severe hypoxia. Because you know, your colon
is capable of filtering substances into the body. The issue
here is that we have to be very careful with
the mix too, because it's not just like the medium
(42:39):
through which this is delivered, you know, liquid or gas,
but it's also it's also a problem of humans being
able to function on pure oxygen. Pure oxygen is not
what you're breathing as you listen to this now, And
if you breathe too much pure oxygen, it can be
bad for you. As counter and tuitive as that may sound,
(43:01):
it can have deliterious effects on your body. Can it
also get you high? Like, isn't that a thing like
oxygen bars? Or it's a way where people can literally
huff pure oxygen and it might makes them get more intoxicated,
or in and of itself can get them intoxicated. But
you don't like stay there for the whole weekend or something.
(43:22):
It's just like a quick hit. I've actually noticed that uh,
drug stores now sell canisters of oxygen that you can
with like a nose piece on it, that you can actually,
you know, huff yourself. Maybe huffing is not the right word.
Maybe that's only a term that's used for uh breathing
in you should not be making that's real like huffing
(43:44):
canisters of oxygen. Just yes, I've seen them in Walgreens.
Yeah you guys. Uh no, my neighborhood, there was it
oxygen bar just just across the street from the barbecue
place for a long time before the pandemic, and I
still didn't understand that. I think you could. They would
give you oxygen and they would also hook you up
(44:06):
to I v S, which just h it seemed like
a disaster waiting to happen for me. I wish them
the best, but I've never been in there. Yeah. I
go to old school bars and just just really quickly. Yes,
if you look online, you've used a website called sport
Ease pilot Shop where you can buy a large boost
(44:26):
oxygen ten liters of oxygen for give yourself a boost.
Oxygen deficiency symptoms include fatigue, stress, loss of energy, and
lack of focus. So, uh, this literally comes in a
thing that looks like an air freshener, but it's got
a whole thing that's fitted for your mouth and nose.
You just go suck right on that bad boy and
choose yourself up. And uh, I want to give points
(44:48):
to an internet forum always reading the first person who
obviously didn't read the headline it said, uh, obviously read pass.
The headline said, pigs can breathe oxygen via the directum,
so humans probably can. To top rate a comment, what
if I don't want to breathe through a pig's rectum,
kudos to you, zop not so I want to bring
(45:10):
us to I think a very accessible piece on this.
It was on News Scientists. It was also on the
French version of Slate. The New Scientist article is great.
It's just from a few days ago. It's by Michael
la Page and the headline is scientists keep inventing ways
for pigs to breathe via their rectum. Uh. Right now,
(45:33):
One of the things I want to do is try
trillions of tiny oxygen bubbles micro bubbles of oxygen, because
this can work if the lungs are maybe damaged by smoke,
or if they're damaged by you know, a disease or
a medical condition. But it really comes in when there
are very, very dangerously low oxygen levels such that you
(45:58):
would have to put someone on ventilator. So these oxygen
micro bubbles, their conjecturing can be just cycled in and
out of the body. It might even be a long
term sustaining therapy for severely injured patients. They just haven't
tested it out to those time points. So right now,
(46:19):
as you listen on this little spaceship Earth, somewhere I
don't know if this comforts who are scares you, fellow
conspiracy realists, But somewhere right now, whatever you're doing, there
are a bunch of very smart people. We're staring at
pig butt holes and they're thinking of how to save
your life, which is simultaneously gross gross out humor and
(46:40):
also kind of really inspiring. You know. This is why
I wanted to ask you guys. We can get in
the weeds of this, but we wanted to keep this
one a little bit short. I wanted to ask you, guys,
if you were given the choice between you having a ventilator,
which is a very painful thing, you know, um or,
or having some let's just call it backwards breathing to
(47:03):
be diplomatic, you know what I mean, just taking the
gas in instead of putting it out. Let's be adults.
The average human farts seventeen to twenty three times a day.
It's normal. You probably farted while you were listening to this.
What do you think about contaminating our own oxygen supply
by expelling while we're supposed to be absorbing. Sorry he
farted into the oxygen feed. I don't know. I feel
(47:29):
like I don't want to sound like a prude, but
I feel like I would go with the ventilator just
because I already understand that science rights it is. But
I mean, if you get that far, we know that
people that end up on ventilators sometimes there's no coming back.
So if this was a way to keep you from
getting onto the ventilator, maybe it gives people more of
(47:53):
a fighting chance. Yeah, maybe maybe it's uh, maybe you
can do both one one in the butt, one of amount.
It doesn't sound comfortable, No, it doesn't. It doesn't. Um.
It would require some specialized equipment, that's for sure. But yeah,
by the way, this this UM, this this oxygen that
(48:13):
you can buy at the the drug store. Like I
was saying, it is controversial. Uh, and it is a
relatively new thing, likely a product of COVID because you know,
the very reasons we're talking about people that are having
like low blood oxygen levels because of you know, their
reaction to to the virus UM and it is supposedly safe,
but it's the jury is still out and I think
the fact that it's not a medical grade oxygen makes
(48:36):
it legal to sell over the counter. But it's still
so new it's kind of weird. But I have noticed
at it's at a at A Walgreens and CBS is uh.
And it's weird too because it like tastes like peppermint.
That makes it sound like some something fun, you know, Yeah,
you know for kids. They're marketing to kids, just like
cattle and vaping. So uh. Back to dr take and
(48:57):
back to the idea of the um this new sort
of oxygen delivery in humans, it could save lives. Dr
to cab a part of my pronunciation there. Doctor has
begun to start up in Japan called e v A Therapeutics.
E v A we're all adults here stands for Enteral
Ventilation via anis as the name of his technique. That's
(49:21):
what he wants to call the company. Uh. They're still
in the early stages, but this means that clinical trials
on being a butt breather can begin as early as
twenty twenty two. Forward to the future, right, what a
time to be alive. I'd like to end on on
Dan saying, because Dan followed up, Dan has been haunted
(49:43):
by this for about a week. Dan said, you know,
I believe that if we find ourselves having to develop
new ways for pigs to breathe via the rectums, perhaps
the problem isn't with the pigs. What scientists work on this?
Is there an American Society of Pigs, rectum journal, two
people go at pigs ref thoms conferences? And why is
one way not enough? So more ways to make pigs
(50:04):
breathe through the rectums are needed? Isn't there a way
to leave pigs out of this? Asked Dan? I agree.
If you want to join the conversation, you can always
reach out to me on any number of weird stories,
Appen Bowl and HSW on Twitter, appen Bowl, and on Instagram. Uh,
we have a lot of ways to find us online,
(50:24):
not just as shows, but as individuals. It's true if
you would like, you can find me on Instagram exclusively
at how now Noel Brown and answer this question, why
is the term mouth breather considered an insult? And should
it be replaced with anis breather? Let me know you
can find me on on the dot org if that's nonprofit. Yeah,
(50:51):
that's it. You find it main cue the mice at
Twitter or whatever. Yeah, so um there there are a
lot ways you can reach us as a show on Facebook, Twitter,
and on YouTube. We are conspiracy stuff. Remember to like
and subscribe on YouTube. Yeah yeah, yeah, whatever, And we're
conspiracy stuff show on Instagram. And if you hear about
(51:13):
social media and you're like yeah, then I'll send you
pig rectum stories. But I'm not following a show and
I don't sip the social meds. I'm terrified of what
it can do to people's minds. Uh. Then I agree
with you, and that's why we always have another way
for us you to contact us. You can get a
little more analog and dial into our phone numbers. Say
(51:35):
it with me one eight three three st d W
y T Gay three minutes. Those three minutes are yours.
You can tell us whatever is on your mind. Give
yourself a sick nickname, a moniker and a k A. Uh.
Second most important thing on that call, let us know
if we can use your name on air. First and
most important thing about that call. Don't censor yourself. If
(51:57):
you have a story that deserves more than three minutes,
don't feel like you have to call ten times. All
you need to do is write it out in an
email and then you can send us the images. You
can send us, the inciliary links. You can send us leads.
We read every single letter we get. Go ahead and
drop us a line. We are conspiracy at i heart
(52:17):
radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know.
(52:38):
Is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart radio app,
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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