Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3: My name is Matt, my name is Nol.
Speaker 4: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 4: our super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fakean. Most importantly,
Speaker 4: you aregute you are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 4: they don't want you to know. If you are listening
Speaker 4: the evening this program comes out. Welcome to November twenty first,
Speaker 4: hurtling headlong toward Thanksgiving here in the States, and we
Speaker 4: couldn't be more excited to bring you our weekly listener
Speaker 4: mail segment. We're going to have some follow up on
Speaker 4: wild animals, we are going to have follow up on
Speaker 4: expired food and gosh, before we get into any of that,
Speaker 4: we've been talking about the election recently here in the US,
Speaker 4: and guys, just quick gut check it was right, wasn't
Speaker 4: it to point out the weird stuff Russian government is
Speaker 4: saying to the president election.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, it's something that we've been hearing thrown around for
Speaker 5: a long time, and to have somebody that close to
Speaker 5: the head of Russia say something like that is you
Speaker 5: can't ignore it.
Speaker 4: Oh jeez. All right, well I appreciate that before the
Speaker 4: undersea internet cables that make this show possible do get sabotaged,
Speaker 4: We're going to do a cold open and then we're
Speaker 4: gonna hear from you.
Speaker 5: And we returned with our first piece of listener mail
Speaker 5: today coming to us from Bones. Ben. You set it
Speaker 5: up perfectly. This is pertaining to the twenty twenty four
Speaker 5: presidential election, and let's just jump right in Bones here.
Speaker 5: I've been on TikTok lately trying to be skeptical, and
Speaker 5: I keep running into stories about Elon Musk's company, Starlink,
Speaker 5: being used to keep ballot machines connected to Wi Fi
Speaker 5: conflict of interest, which is combined with several other factors
Speaker 5: to make some liberals think something is afoot. The evidence
Speaker 5: I've seen includes aforementioned Starlink connection, Elon Musk saying in
Speaker 5: an interview that he's ft if Trump loses, and joking
Speaker 5: about how much prison time.
Speaker 3: He would receive.
Speaker 5: Trump allegedly being in touch with a government official in Georgia,
Speaker 5: not your home state, the European nation Trump appearing to
Speaker 5: discourage his voters from voting, telling them quote, he doesn't
Speaker 5: need votes. We have the votes, don't bother with voting.
Speaker 5: We don't need votes. Found on NBC clip addressing this,
Speaker 5: Democratic officials seemingly hinting to not give up hope yet
Speaker 5: scores of alleged Democrat voters saying they checked the online
Speaker 5: status their votes only to find a message telling them
Speaker 5: to register to vote. This was people who were registered
Speaker 5: and had voted early in some cases, or that they
Speaker 5: hadn't voted, or that they're vote was still pending, and
Speaker 5: people were putting this together with a supposedly low Democratic
Speaker 5: voter turnout.
Speaker 3: I don't know, as much as it would make me.
Speaker 5: Feel better to believe that Trump, with Musk's help and
Speaker 5: pressure from Putin, stole the election, every accusation is a
Speaker 5: confession or whatever. I also don't want to fall victim
Speaker 5: to a lot of the same cycles and theories that
Speaker 5: prompted the January sixth insurrection of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: If we are sore.
Speaker 5: Losers, we're just as bad as the people we've tried
Speaker 5: to condemn. Also, Kamala's campaign only ran for about one
Speaker 5: hundred days. The American people didn't get a chance to
Speaker 5: choose her as our Democratic candidate, and I've seen some
Speaker 5: perspectives discussing why her campaign strategies didn't work on.
Speaker 3: Conservatives, so I feel conflicted.
Speaker 5: I know it's still early, since it's only been seven
Speaker 5: days at the time of this writing, but I wanted
Speaker 5: to see if you guys had any input or could
Speaker 5: maybe do any deeper digging into any of these theories
Speaker 5: to disprove or maybe even prove them. Looking forward to
Speaker 5: your insight and trying to remain neutral and undecided on
Speaker 5: how to react. Again, as much as it might make
Speaker 5: me feel better to believe it was rigged, this may
Speaker 5: just be the way we are as a country, in
Speaker 5: which case we have a lot of reevaluating to do.
Speaker 3: I hope you guys are having a nice.
Speaker 5: Day and week, and I hope this is something you'll
Speaker 5: be able to willing to touch on. You guys are
Speaker 5: awesome and have helped me a lot this past week
Speaker 5: with your level headed, rational conversations and cheerful banter. Keep
Speaker 5: on saying, feel free to read some or all of
Speaker 5: this on the air. I know it's long, but either way,
Speaker 5: thanks for your time. Love Bones, guys right off the rip.
Speaker 5: I just want to point to a really pretty cool
Speaker 5: piece that I found on Wired, and I think we've
Speaker 5: all taken a look at and that election denial conspiracy
Speaker 5: theories are exploding on X this time they're coming from
Speaker 5: the left. Conspiracy theories about missing votes which are not
Speaker 5: in fact missing and something being quote not right are
Speaker 5: being spread widely on X in the wake of Donald
Speaker 5: Trump's election victory. From that, I just want to pull
Speaker 5: a couple of quotes from this piece because I think
Speaker 5: it sums up kind of this whole conundrum perfectly. One
Speaker 5: of them comes from a former Biden administration disinformations are
Speaker 5: who is now the CEO of the America Sunlight Project,
Speaker 5: Nina Jankowick's who had this to say. It doesn't matter
Speaker 5: whether baseless allegations about voting irregularities come from the right
Speaker 5: or the left. The impact on our system of these
Speaker 5: lies is the same. People will end up trusting the
Speaker 5: infrastructure of democracy less, setting us up for more disinformation
Speaker 5: and dis engagement. These drop offs in trust take decades
Speaker 5: to undo. Take a look at countries in Eastern Europe
Speaker 5: that have been attempting to rebuild trust in the system
Speaker 5: since the nineties. We should all be wary of these allegations,
Speaker 5: no matter their source. And honestly, you know, this is
Speaker 5: kind of how I look at all of this, because
Speaker 5: it seems like the same kind of tired, sore losery,
Speaker 5: kind of disinformation commiseration, disinformation commiseration. How could it possibly
Speaker 5: be that just the Democrats got it wrong, they were
Speaker 5: campaigning on the wrong stuff. And yes, of course a
Speaker 5: lot of the Trump campaign's rhetoric and policy suggestions are
Speaker 5: divisive and some would call dangerous and scary, But it
Speaker 5: would seem that the big takeaway of the day by many,
Speaker 5: as evidenced by the voter turnout and the election maps,
Speaker 5: was things like the economy, things like people living in
Speaker 5: Middle America who do not feel like their lot and
Speaker 5: lives have improved, what policy wonks might call a referendum
Speaker 5: on liberal politics and do nothingism, you know, And I think,
Speaker 5: I hope I've made this clear. I am not a
Speaker 5: fan of either side of the political divide. I find politics,
Speaker 5: especially at this level, to be a nasty business. And
Speaker 5: I really don't have very much love or trust in
Speaker 5: very many people that take their political careers to this
Speaker 5: kind of level. In this kind of arena. But I
Speaker 5: can't help but feel like this is a lot of
Speaker 5: sore losership and people looking for an answer that just
Speaker 5: isn't there, and the way that they are searching for it,
Speaker 5: and that is much more easily answered with simplicity that
Speaker 5: it just the message from the left just was not
Speaker 5: resonating with enough of Americans. And that's just really how
Speaker 5: it feels to me and how it's and it's in anything.
Speaker 5: It's it's an f you to the Democrats for running
Speaker 5: kind of a half assed campaign and changing the horse
Speaker 5: at the last minute, and Biden refusing to step down earlier,
Speaker 5: and all of that it could combine, seems to have
Speaker 5: yielded this result.
Speaker 4: It's a very unsuccessful center right party.
Speaker 3: Bones.
Speaker 4: I'd like to respond to Nole's questions by first thanking
Speaker 4: you so much for taking the time to write and
Speaker 4: list off some of the evidence that you're seeing and
Speaker 4: you're listening to quite objectively. One note we would have
Speaker 4: there is that a bit confusing President elect Donald Trump
Speaker 4: did contact an official Ben Raethisberger in the US state
Speaker 4: of Georgia, I think around twenty twenty, looking for eleven
Speaker 4: seven hundred and sixty or seven hundred and eighty votes.
Speaker 4: So that may be a bit of a crossed wire,
Speaker 4: but perhaps the most important thing to remember. And I
Speaker 4: agree with your points in regarding the proliferation of conspiracies
Speaker 4: now oddly similar, they seem to other allegations in the past,
Speaker 4: right with different political parties winning. I want to draw
Speaker 4: attention to an episode we did years ago, which I
Speaker 4: would typify as a sleeper hit. It's about the foundations
Speaker 4: of geopolitics, which is one of the guiding bibles for
Speaker 4: Russian disinformation and for the larger aim you could say,
Speaker 4: of the Putin regime. The Foundations of geopolitics teaches us
Speaker 4: that the goal of disinformation from foreign powers, as applied
Speaker 4: to the domestic us, is not necessarily to champion one
Speaker 4: party or one cause over another. It's to foment discord,
Speaker 4: to divide people as much as possible, such that you're
Speaker 4: promoting isolationism on the behalf of the United States. And
Speaker 4: we already see that beginning to emerge. So if you
Speaker 4: already have this is a question I'm not saying it's
Speaker 4: definitely true. If you already have a very successful disinfo apparatus,
Speaker 4: you're not going to just turn it off because an
Speaker 4: election cycle moved, you're just going to you know, It's
Speaker 4: like how you have a thermostat and sometimes you switch
Speaker 4: it to heat, sometimes just switch it to cold. That's
Speaker 4: what's happening. The engine, the HVAC is still very much running,
Speaker 4: and that's part of why we're seeing that. I would
Speaker 4: argue that's part of why we're seeing the proliferation of
Speaker 4: election conspiracy theories that your note Noll are, by beat
Speaker 4: very similar to what was alleged previously. Now the teams
Speaker 4: have just switched.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I'm not trying to be dismissive to anybody,
Speaker 5: you know, I mean, certainly we do have questions about
Speaker 5: these kinds of disinformation campaigns that Russia is helping run.
Speaker 5: To what degree these influenced the actual outcome of the election,
Speaker 5: not one hundred percent of share. It does feel to
Speaker 5: me that a lot of folks that aren't very up
Speaker 5: on politics, particularly, they voted for the person that they
Speaker 5: thought was more likely to create a change, whether they
Speaker 5: were reached by disinformation campaigns.
Speaker 3: I can't speak to that, and Ben, I know.
Speaker 5: That you feel maybe a little more strongly that these campaigns,
Speaker 5: these Fox campaigns had a much more substantial effect on
Speaker 5: the outcome of this election.
Speaker 4: What do you think it met?
Speaker 2: Okay, so I've got just two specific things on here.
Speaker 2: The first one is, did you guys see Bill Burr
Speaker 2: host Saturday Night Live on November ninth, So like last Saturday?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that did not see as was where that happened
Speaker 3: with McGee?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, he kind of filled in for the Dave
Speaker 2: Chappelle role over the past eight years. Right right after
Speaker 2: an election, Dave Chappelle would go on and at least
Speaker 2: from what I've read in the creator Lorne Michael's view,
Speaker 2: it's a somebody who can bring everybody together right, no
Speaker 2: matter how you felt after an election. Bill Burr similar figure,
Speaker 2: actually similar in when he came up in comedy and
Speaker 2: some of the things he talks about how he unites people.
Speaker 4: He wrote for the Dave Chappelle Show.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and he was on it several times in hilarious sketches. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but he came on and made a really salient point
Speaker 2: that made me want to talk to you guys about
Speaker 2: it and thank you bones for getting us here to
Speaker 2: this spot. He was mentioning that this campaign has felt
Speaker 2: like it's gone on forever, and he was questioning whether
Speaker 2: there was a single person who actually decided who they
Speaker 2: were going to vote for, like an actual undecided.
Speaker 4: Voter, right, the mythical unicorn.
Speaker 2: Because he was saying, basically, everyone knew who they were
Speaker 2: going to vote for before either of the major campaigns
Speaker 2: even started. And then all of this money gets generated
Speaker 2: through donors, right, and through these mechanisms where millions and
Speaker 2: millions and millions of dollars are generated, and for what
Speaker 2: to create basically video ads and audio ads and print ads,
Speaker 2: and to send teams across the country doing things and also.
Speaker 4: Events spots on SNL.
Speaker 2: Yes, well exactly where where one of the candidates shows
Speaker 2: up and then another candidate is like brutally ridiculed the
Speaker 2: whole time. Which is really a really interesting other thing
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk to you guys about, like just
Speaker 2: this idea of the perceived imbalance maybe that exists out
Speaker 2: there for someone who's just in the world watching what
Speaker 2: would be considered mainstream media, where there is there does
Speaker 2: seem like there's a bias, right, And just how does
Speaker 2: that perceived bias then affect somebody and how they almost
Speaker 2: want to fight against that thing that is the bias.
Speaker 5: I just think that, you know, I mean, the idea
Speaker 5: of liberals and the left or whatever, I just become
Speaker 5: synonymous with this sort of out of touch coastal elite,
Speaker 5: you know, kind of academic, you know, perspective that I
Speaker 5: think is a massive turn off to a lot of
Speaker 5: like working class Americans and otherwise, you know, I mean
Speaker 5: not even doesn't whatever.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 5: I think just a lot of people that are just
Speaker 5: tired of being soapboxed ats or this sort of.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: That's the big part. And I would I'm excited you
Speaker 4: guys are bringing this up in bones. I can't think
Speaker 4: you enough. One other aspect of this that is often
Speaker 4: I think missed in terms of the false equivalency or
Speaker 4: the false dichotomy of choices offered, is that there is
Speaker 4: no Yes. The US is a representative democracy, but it's
Speaker 4: sort of antiquated in several structural levels, including the electoral college,
Speaker 4: including the fact that there is only a highlander winner
Speaker 4: take all system. It's very difficult therefore, to build coalitions.
Speaker 4: The system is built to distribute poison pills to any
Speaker 4: viable third party. And I would also I would also
Speaker 4: propose the following thing, which is a painful thing to admit,
Speaker 4: because it's going to touch all of us listening tonight.
Speaker 4: Often when people are what would be called a term
Speaker 4: I think is somewhat condescending low information voters. Often when
Speaker 4: people are making a decision on whom to vote for
Speaker 4: in the presidential election or in any election, they're reacting
Speaker 4: to what we would call social currency. You want to
Speaker 4: gain approval and you want to gain prominence in your
Speaker 4: tribe or in your social sphere. So there are a
Speaker 4: lot of people who couldn't give a tinker's dam about
Speaker 4: politics past a certain point. But what they do give
Speaker 4: a damn about, even beyond a tinker's dam, they do
Speaker 4: give a damn about fitting in to their local everyday interactions,
Speaker 4: their church.
Speaker 3: Their golf club, whatever it might be.
Speaker 4: Gaining the approval of the peers within their dumbbar number sphere.
Speaker 4: So that happens to everyone, and that's I think that's
Speaker 4: a huge engine for this.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting living where I live now, you guys,
Speaker 2: and experiencing it as an adult because just so everybody
Speaker 2: kind of understands, I lived like forty five minutes away
Speaker 2: from Atlanta, like the city right when I grew up,
Speaker 2: moved into Atlanta, lived most of my life there, and
Speaker 2: now I've recently moved back, like roughly that same disc
Speaker 2: from the city, right. And while I was in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: that bubble you're talking about, Ben, was very much for
Speaker 2: one side, right, Like, if you expressed feelings for the
Speaker 2: other side, it was almost like you felt like the
Speaker 2: weirdo and.
Speaker 3: You would get made fun of face.
Speaker 2: Yes, And then now where I live, if you do
Speaker 2: the opposite for the other team, you feel like, oh man,
Speaker 2: people are looking at me, and people are the way
Speaker 2: he just dismissed me, I feel awkward and strange. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to talk about this anymore.
Speaker 4: I'm losing social currency and standing.
Speaker 2: Exactly what you're saying, Ben. So it does feel like
Speaker 2: what happens is you go internally with those thoughts and feelings,
Speaker 2: and then when you're doing things like polling numbers, right,
Speaker 2: and we're looking at all this stuff online, all these
Speaker 2: things we rely on and we trust, it's as though
Speaker 2: our political life has gone so deep inside unless you're
Speaker 2: in that whatever safe space you feel like you're in,
Speaker 2: and even then maybe it's performative.
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, and this is a danger. Again, This is
Speaker 4: not a condemnation of anybody at all who we consider
Speaker 4: rank and file like us, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Henry Kissinger talk to us a couple times, but we
Speaker 4: didn't really influence his decisions. Like Carlin said, it's a
Speaker 4: pretty elite group. And if you're hearing this, you're not
Speaker 4: in it. I think it's the social currency. I think
Speaker 4: it's a structural systemic problem.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And it's also just the level of division and heat,
Speaker 5: you know, around politics in this country has just reached
Speaker 5: such a fever pitch and I'm just personally sick of it.
Speaker 5: And I want to say this too, like, you know,
Speaker 5: the right have some issues with their policies and the
Speaker 5: way their attitudes towards women and their attitudes towards the
Speaker 5: trans community and the LGBTQ community, and.
Speaker 3: I have major problems and concerns with that stuff.
Speaker 5: But also, like I don't even know they believe half
Speaker 5: the stuff that they're talking about.
Speaker 3: I think they're trying.
Speaker 5: To be divisive, you know, and create that discord and
Speaker 5: appeal to the baser nature of certain parts of their base.
Speaker 5: And I don't necessarily think that the left are any
Speaker 5: more have moral high ground, some imagined moral high ground.
Speaker 5: I think a lot of what they do is performative.
Speaker 4: To foundations of geopolitics. Just makes me crazy, all of it,
Speaker 4: both sides.
Speaker 2: It makes me wonder. Guys, just going back to that
Speaker 2: last thing with Bill Burr, like, why the heck do
Speaker 2: we spend so much money on these elections, right and
Speaker 2: making such a big circus.
Speaker 4: Well, what are you gonna do pay for healthcare?
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: What if we somehow got these super packs. If two
Speaker 2: dollars gets donated to a super pack, one of those
Speaker 2: dollars goes into some fund that does fund let's say,
Speaker 2: healthcare for every American citizen, or you know, fixing the
Speaker 2: pipes in most major cities that still have stuff like
Speaker 2: lead in them and underserved schools.
Speaker 3: Despicable.
Speaker 4: I can't believe I have to say it before it
Speaker 4: becomes a hot take. The Department of the Education is
Speaker 4: a good thing to have around. Just gonna point that
Speaker 4: one out. We'll leave that there.
Speaker 2: That's it. Every election goes half seas into the Department
Speaker 2: of Education.
Speaker 5: Apparently there's a lot of fuffle coming out of the
Speaker 5: Harris campaign about how absolutely irresponsible they were with some
Speaker 5: of this money and just spending it on like Beyonce
Speaker 5: concerts or whatever it was. I'm not even sure exactly
Speaker 5: the Springsteen different ones, and they actually ended up in
Speaker 5: quite a significant amount of debt. And I got another
Speaker 5: email asking for more money after the election because it
Speaker 5: feels like they're trying to pay that back. And I
Speaker 5: just to your point, Ben, the amount of money being
Speaker 5: thrown around, it's egregious, and it makes me so sad
Speaker 5: because the things that could be done positively with that money,
Speaker 5: very quickly, it's just not happening. And we do, still,
Speaker 5: no matter who's in charge, live in a country where
Speaker 5: it's almost impossible to get reasonably priced healthcare, where it's
Speaker 5: other developed nations, wealthy nations like ours just get it for.
Speaker 3: Paying their taxes.
Speaker 6: See.
Speaker 4: I mean, how tough could decent healthcare be? Only every
Speaker 4: other developed country has managed to do it, So weird,
Speaker 4: it must be super tough. Anyway, I do have a
Speaker 4: piece of good news for you guys, and hopefully for
Speaker 4: you bones. And I mean this not as a platitude,
Speaker 4: but as a very real, concrete observation. You mentioned earlier, Noel,
Speaker 4: that you've never seen things as divisive. The US is
Speaker 4: a young country. It is still very much an experiment,
Speaker 4: and work in progress, but there have been more divisive times.
Speaker 4: There's a whole war about it, not at that point yet,
Speaker 4: So hopefully we can remember everybody hearing this, everybody living
Speaker 4: in the United States. You have far more in common
Speaker 4: with people than you have in disagreement with them.
Speaker 5: Yes, you know what I mean, Yes, rally around that.
Speaker 5: But it's going to be so hard. It's going to
Speaker 5: be a rough four years. Man.
Speaker 3: People are going to be very angry. Guys.
Speaker 2: How is the US? And I agree with you, the
Speaker 2: US is a young country, but it's also, at the
Speaker 2: same time, somehow simultaneously an empire that's nearing the end
Speaker 2: of its life.
Speaker 4: Right, went back to our earlier episode about empires and
Speaker 4: their two hundred year lifespan.
Speaker 2: Because it's both somehow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, the phoenix dies and is reborn. Right,
Speaker 4: how many different spin offs of the Roman Hire existed?
Speaker 4: You could tell when they were going downhill because they
Speaker 4: had to start adding fancier words to the name, like
Speaker 4: the Holy Roman Empire, you know what I mean, Star Trek,
Speaker 4: the next Generation.
Speaker 3: Roman Empire, the sequel, Yes.
Speaker 4: Yes, and I promised they wouldn't do any more porn parodies,
Speaker 4: but please inspire me but yeah, thank you again, Bones,
Speaker 4: And this is a conversation a lot of people are having.
Speaker 4: We endeavor to be objective, and sometimes being objective means
Speaker 4: making unpleasant observations. We're obviously not always going to agree
Speaker 4: with each other even here. Internally, I, for instance, am
Speaker 4: one hundred percent convinced that foreign interference and asymmetric information
Speaker 4: warfare played a egregious role in a lot of things
Speaker 4: that have happened to the US recently, and unfortunately those
Speaker 4: will continue. But fortunately, hopefully the US will continue as well,
Speaker 4: because we really need a stable country to keep this
Speaker 4: show going, right, Like, that's our main motivation. That's what
Speaker 4: everybody in DC is thinking. They're like, how do we
Speaker 4: make sure stuff they don't want you to know it
Speaker 4: can still record? Yeah, yeah, top of mind.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, oh yeah, one hundred and thank you Bones
Speaker 5: for helping us create that space. So with that, let's
Speaker 5: take a quick break here a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 5: and then come back with more messages from you.
Speaker 2: And we've returned and we're jumping to the phone lines
Speaker 2: to hear a message from old MICHAELA.
Speaker 7: Hey, guys, this is old Mickayla from Arkansas. Oh yeah,
Speaker 7: it's Collin about that squirrel thing. Right.
Speaker 6: Uh, I'm just saying right now, if I had a
Speaker 6: squirrel for seven years and somebody tried to come and
Speaker 6: take my squirrel, and I'm just speaking from my point
Speaker 6: of view.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna freak out if they try to raid my
Speaker 7: house and take my squirrel.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I know like ten people with different pets. I
Speaker 7: know a girl with a possum. I know a girl
Speaker 7: with raccoons, I know a.
Speaker 5: Girl with pigs.
Speaker 7: I know all people with crazy animals. I don't. I
Speaker 7: just never heard of anything like this. Why can't you
Speaker 7: have a pet squirrel?
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 7: I've never I think that that's just the government overplaying again. Man,
Speaker 7: I just can't.
Speaker 3: Just can't.
Speaker 7: By the way, I love you guys. I've been listening
Speaker 7: to y'all and Josh and Chuck for the last year.
Speaker 7: I cannot. I just want you all to post every
Speaker 7: day because I'm just always bored.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, we're gonna pose it right there. Mikhail has
Speaker 2: more to the message, but just first of all, guys
Speaker 2: love that reaction. So he tries to come into my
Speaker 2: house and take my squirrel.
Speaker 4: I heard the italics. Thank you, Michael.
Speaker 3: My squirrel from my cold dead fingers, you know.
Speaker 2: Man, and we talked in the episode where we discussed
Speaker 2: Peanut and nol Uh, we talked a little bit about
Speaker 2: why you can't have a squirrel, or at least the
Speaker 2: reasoning behind the raid, right.
Speaker 5: We also talked a lot about how there were some
Speaker 5: suspicious circumstances that did make this feel like government overreach
Speaker 5: and the targeting of an individual who has also had
Speaker 5: a pretty high profile.
Speaker 3: In the world of Internet adult content.
Speaker 2: Exactly did we go over some of the other like
Speaker 2: wild animals that may be kept as pets.
Speaker 3: I don't believe so.
Speaker 4: I think it's a great tice state.
Speaker 2: It does go state by state, and the squirrel thing
Speaker 2: is really interesting. I think maybe we pulled up the
Speaker 2: official map. There's a map on World Population Review. I
Speaker 2: think we talked about that. How like here in Georgia
Speaker 2: it's illegal to own a squirrel, but in Florida it
Speaker 2: is totally legal. In Arkansas it is legal to own
Speaker 2: a squirrel, but not in Kentucky. So just go go
Speaker 2: a little bit further, maybe crossover a river, and now
Speaker 2: you can't own a squirrel.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Also, you'll run into concurrent policies regarding what are
Speaker 4: called exotic animals, that would often be the non domesticated animals.
Speaker 4: We talked a little bit about a tame animal versus
Speaker 4: a domesticated animal. Most animals are wild, I would say,
Speaker 4: including the human ones, but the domesticated animals are a
Speaker 4: very small subset of the natural world. It's a fascinating story.
Speaker 4: But you can have to your point. Pretty much anything
Speaker 4: that is not considered a domesticated animal is considered an
Speaker 4: exotic animal. And you have to go state by state.
Speaker 4: There's a great use of world ometer, I think. Also
Speaker 4: Forbes had a pretty surprisingly good article on state by
Speaker 4: state restrictions there. So sorry to everybody in let's see Delaware.
Speaker 4: Sorry Delaware, the laws are kind of stringent for you guys.
Speaker 2: Well, we'll check this out. MICHAELA mentioned raccoons right in
Speaker 2: the message I got somebodyho owns a raccoon, Well you can.
Speaker 2: You can own a raccoon in Arkansas, which is good
Speaker 2: to know. Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. And raccoons
Speaker 2: seemed awesome.
Speaker 4: Trash pandas I love them. They're little bandits, weird little hands.
Speaker 4: You're always washing their hands money money burn style. Yeah,
Speaker 4: raby stuff is a bummer. We got a great we
Speaker 4: got a great uh. We got several great pieces of
Speaker 4: correspondence about the importance of rabies, which we will probably
Speaker 4: have to wait till next week to get to. To
Speaker 4: your point, Matt and to your question, old Mikayla. Uh.
Speaker 4: We had a lot of people who had very different
Speaker 4: reactions to this. A lot of veterinarians are, you know,
Speaker 4: clearly centered on the sorry and tragic saga of Peanut,
Speaker 4: But a lot of other people are say, you know
Speaker 4: exactly what you said. I found the squirrel. I can't
Speaker 4: have the squirrel, and I can't get to you know,
Speaker 4: I can't look down my snout at this because I
Speaker 4: am neighbors with a murder of crews that I've befriended.
Speaker 3: And when you don't keep him in the house, you
Speaker 3: don't let him in the house.
Speaker 4: Though you know, they don't want them to know too
Speaker 4: much about the fair.
Speaker 5: They comes too clever And when you open your arms
Speaker 5: like the like the what is it clever?
Speaker 3: The night King?
Speaker 2: You know, cheez, I think that's in the crow bylaws.
Speaker 2: It just says one cannot own a crow.
Speaker 5: And sometimes if the sink so bad has happened, a
Speaker 5: crow will carry that soul back. O.
Speaker 3: Wait, never mind, know that's a a movie thing.
Speaker 4: You don't own a cat either. It just sort of
Speaker 4: agrees to exploit you for a while. But if you
Speaker 4: are interested in the federal level legislation, because we've said
Speaker 4: a lot of this stuff is state by state, you'll
Speaker 4: want to look at two things. The Animal Welfare Act,
Speaker 4: which said the rules and regulations of how animals should
Speaker 4: be cared for basically the foundation of what constitutes animal cruelty.
Speaker 4: And then yeah, spoiler, it doesn't apply to livestock, dude.
Speaker 4: But then there's the Lacy Act, which says you can't
Speaker 4: you know, it governs the kind of wildlife you can
Speaker 4: import to the states.
Speaker 5: Where where does that distinction exist between like, it's okay
Speaker 5: to murder cows in factory farming, but kiddies are off limits.
Speaker 5: Where does does that codified somewhere?
Speaker 3: Is that what you're talking I've always.
Speaker 4: Went Animal Welfare Act?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but who who decides that?
Speaker 2: Me the one.
Speaker 4: Not the animals. Yeah, I don't think the cows got
Speaker 4: the vote.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the leaders in Arkansas have decided that
Speaker 2: you are allowed to own up to six individual Bobcats.
Speaker 2: Are you guys familiar with what a bobcat is?
Speaker 3: Murderous beasts?
Speaker 4: Yes, very well, not carnally.
Speaker 6: Very well.
Speaker 4: Did you get pounced upon? Ben have some encounters? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well no, they will you up, that's for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well if they if if a Bobcat is messing
Speaker 4: with you, you've done something wrong.
Speaker 3: Bobcat gold wait here, this is very different.
Speaker 4: No, I trust him. If I was in an argument,
Speaker 4: if somebody told me that Bobcat gold Weight did something
Speaker 4: terrible to them, my next question would be, what did
Speaker 4: you do to bob You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Was it Ozark where they had bobcats? I think I
Speaker 2: think in Ozark they had.
Speaker 3: Bobcats the region the show, the show. I want to
Speaker 3: say that you might be right.
Speaker 4: I don't recall that particularly.
Speaker 5: But you know that would be considered by most accounts
Speaker 5: an exotic pat right, like some type type stuff.
Speaker 4: Because they're not domesticated exactly.
Speaker 2: You can get permits in a couple of places, but
Speaker 2: Arkansas is like, yeah, you can have six.
Speaker 3: I guess yeah.
Speaker 4: If you typically if someone has in veterinarian experts in
Speaker 4: the field. Don't get don't get mad at us. We're
Speaker 4: not giving you our personal opinions. We're giving you the
Speaker 4: laws as they stand state by state. For a lot
Speaker 4: of people who raise bobcats an attempt to tape them,
Speaker 4: they rescue them from a young age. Something very bad
Speaker 4: has happened to the bobcats caregivers, to their natural bobcat parents,
Speaker 4: in their natural habitat. What's interesting about this, Matt, remind
Speaker 4: me if I'm incorrect here. From what I remember about bobcats,
Speaker 4: they like many other felids, are not pack animals. They're solitary.
Speaker 4: So how do you have six individual ones?
Speaker 2: Well, you're I'm assuming, attempting to always replace your bobcats
Speaker 2: with new bobcats as you maybe sell them to other people.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's a bobcat mill.
Speaker 2: It was, well, I can't look, guys. I'm going by
Speaker 2: what I learned in Ozark, where they attempt.
Speaker 3: Okay, it is it is bobcats.
Speaker 2: They attempted to breed bobcats, but they got all females,
Speaker 2: so they were unsuccessful.
Speaker 5: And it was a joke because it was like, your
Speaker 5: dumb ass, you got all females yeah, the spicy blonde, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yes, guys.
Speaker 2: There's a whole other part of Michaela's voicemail that we're
Speaker 2: not going to go into, but it was all about
Speaker 2: Walmarts and food waste, and specifically like expired foods. We've
Speaker 2: talked about before on this show, talk about all these
Speaker 2: major companies that just throw stuff out in the back.
Speaker 2: That's how you get this concept of someone who's a
Speaker 2: freakin someone who will go around to the back exactly
Speaker 2: and not have to pay for food. You just get
Speaker 2: there's so much food back there and it just expired,
Speaker 2: so you know, some employees had to just take it
Speaker 2: off the shelf. Well, we sell by date, by the way, it.
Speaker 3: Doesn't immediately rot when that date.
Speaker 2: Very good point. But there's also things like, you know,
Speaker 2: bananas get a little too brown while sitting there on
Speaker 2: the store, so they get rid of them, or you know,
Speaker 2: there's a little bit of mold found growing on let's
Speaker 2: say the strawberries or other berries or things.
Speaker 5: Where there's cheese with mold, which was yes, sorry, I'm
Speaker 5: thinking of the Mister Beasts debacle where they've got moldy
Speaker 5: cheese and these kits is such.
Speaker 4: A huge problem I'm glad we're at least gonna mention
Speaker 4: it here, because you can get arrested for distributing free food.
Speaker 4: That's happened to me in the past. You can skirt
Speaker 4: with the law on that. There are, obviously there are
Speaker 4: good reasons to require licensing and oversight. But the food
Speaker 4: waste in the United States is egregious and tremendously evil.
Speaker 4: I am under the impression, or at least when I'm
Speaker 4: spoken with legal experts about this, I'm under the impression
Speaker 4: that the reason that food waste is not distributed to
Speaker 4: the needy or the hungry there are a lot of
Speaker 4: people who are hungry in the US, is because it
Speaker 4: might run the risk of incurring legal liability.
Speaker 3: True.
Speaker 2: Yes, but if you're a behemoth like Walmart, which old
Speaker 2: Michaela goes into extensively, you can donate. You can set
Speaker 2: up a pretty extensive donation program for certain types like
Speaker 2: categories of food, which they do, which weirdly props to
Speaker 2: Walmart Art. I'm reading in Axios about and it's from
Speaker 2: northwest Arkansas, so like this is directly applicable maybe or
Speaker 2: at least closely applicable to Michaela's experience. They are not
Speaker 2: only donating a lot of food. They've put these pretty
Speaker 2: cool new machines into their system where all of the
Speaker 2: food waste goes out through this machine that then gets
Speaker 2: it separates the packaging. It says ninety seven percent of
Speaker 2: the packaging gets separated from other foods, you know, or
Speaker 2: the actual food product. Then most of that becomes recyclable
Speaker 2: materials for things like soil and like nutrient rich stuff
Speaker 2: that can actually grow more food rather than just going
Speaker 2: into you know, the dump and creating methane and doing
Speaker 2: all that terrible stuff that dumps do.
Speaker 4: Or feeding raccoons. That's also part of it.
Speaker 2: There you go, and if you're in Arkansas, those raccoons
Speaker 2: are good to go, and you could put them in
Speaker 2: your house if you want.
Speaker 4: I hate to say it, but their hands are probably
Speaker 4: cleaner than most of ours listening to the show today.
Speaker 4: They wash them a lot. You're right, they might have
Speaker 4: a mental thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh yeah, OCD raccoons.
Speaker 2: Well, anyway, if you want to check this out, the
Speaker 2: Axios article we found is titled Walmart tackles food waste
Speaker 2: with new tech, written by Worth Sparkman, and it isn't
Speaker 2: from that long agos July thirtieth, twenty twenty four, so
Speaker 2: this is pretty recent stuff. Check that out if you're interested.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much Old MICHAELA for writing in for
Speaker 2: your experience and your attitudes generally around somebody coming in
Speaker 2: and taking your dang pet squirrel.
Speaker 4: And we've returned for one more piece of listener mail.
Speaker 4: We've had a fascinating correspondence a lot of response to
Speaker 4: our stories about how human animals encounter other animals, especially
Speaker 4: the ones that are not considered domestic. Have we talked
Speaker 4: a little bit about the difference between tamed wild animal
Speaker 4: versus a domesticated animal. There are actually very few types
Speaker 4: of non human animals that are considered domesticated in the world.
Speaker 4: We are grateful to a conspiracy realist who wrote into us.
Speaker 4: We had you know, as you guys know, talking with
Speaker 4: our pal Anonymous owl. Anonymous Owl has veterinarian experience. VET
Speaker 4: tech works often with situations similar to those we described
Speaker 4: involving our pal, Peanut the squirrel. Do we want to
Speaker 4: give a quick recap on Peanut for anybody who's wondering.
Speaker 5: Just that it was essentially a rescue squirrel that a
Speaker 5: gentleman living in upstate New York had in his home.
Speaker 3: Apparently a neighbor or.
Speaker 5: Some Luki Lou reported this squirrel, and then a department
Speaker 5: that deals with wild an animals essentially came in conducted
Speaker 5: a raid on the home, wherein they confiscated Peanut the
Speaker 5: squirrel and Fred the raccoon, and ultimately euthanized them both
Speaker 5: while testing for rabies, because that is apparently the only
Speaker 5: way that you can test for that.
Speaker 4: Great summation there, Noel, here's the letter we received or
Speaker 4: what of the letters? Because this is a correspondence, be
Speaker 4: well aware of folks. Sometimes the void writes back. Anonymous
Speaker 4: Owl hipped us to this by saying, dear dudes, you're
Speaker 4: more than welcome to share my perspective if you'd like.
Speaker 4: I did empathize with the idea that Mark, the human
Speaker 4: owner captor partner of Peanut the squirrel, had run into
Speaker 4: difficulty finding someone to take the squirrel, but I am
Speaker 4: not sure if he was trying to contact wildlife centers
Speaker 4: or just local animal shelters who would not have been
Speaker 4: able or allowed to take the squirrel. And Anonymous Owl continues, again,
Speaker 4: we're taking excerpts from multiple pieces or passages of correspondence.
Speaker 4: Anonymous Awl says where I am, the closest wildlife rehabilitation
Speaker 4: center is at least fifty miles from me. I took
Speaker 4: a turtle there once, which I found on the road
Speaker 4: with a broken shell. Side note, turtles are extremely territorial,
Speaker 4: and if you take one to be rehabilitated, they ask
Speaker 4: you to come back and drop it off in close
Speaker 4: proximity to where you found it. Otherwise it will try
Speaker 4: to get back there and that can be quite dangerous.
Speaker 4: So a little bit of myth busting around turtles. I
Speaker 4: didn't know turtles are territorial.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't know that either.
Speaker 4: I remember snapping turtles. There's some you know, FAFO type animals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just trying to imagine. I've seen those videos
Speaker 2: of I don't know if it's like a box turtle
Speaker 2: or something like that. I only know the native Georgia
Speaker 2: ones that I've run into, and like a couple of
Speaker 2: tortoise species that I've seen, but the ones that like
Speaker 2: will slam their shell into stuff, like put poke their
Speaker 2: little head back in and slam their shell Like Is
Speaker 2: that how you defend your territory as a turtle.
Speaker 4: Right right? Also common misconception that is not just dumb
Speaker 4: exoskeleton on a turtle's body. They are able to feel
Speaker 4: impact or attack on their shells, so be kind to turtles.
Speaker 4: We also asked Anonymous Owl whether they would be interested
Speaker 4: in providing quote, a brief step by step process on
Speaker 4: how the average human should proceed when encountering an injured
Speaker 4: animal in the wild, and oof, we got a good guide.
Speaker 4: Here we go injured wild animals. Number one. If you
Speaker 4: encounter an injured wild animal, the first thing you should
Speaker 4: do is contact your state's Department of Natural Resources, not
Speaker 4: a shelter. Chances are, Anonymous Owl says they can direct
Speaker 4: you to a wildlife rescue or rehabilitations. Here at Maryland
Speaker 4: it is Wildlife Services, which has a toll free number.
Speaker 4: Anonymous Owl also mentions that as much as PEDA can
Speaker 4: be a controversial organization, it does provide a state by
Speaker 4: state resource list of contacts to make when you find
Speaker 4: a wild animal and will round robin this because it's
Speaker 4: a bit long, but it is important for all of
Speaker 4: us listening. Number one continues, Do not try to take
Speaker 4: the animal anywhere on your own. As we know, there
Speaker 4: is an ever growing number of pathogens that can jump
Speaker 4: from animal to human aka zoonautic and can cause all
Speaker 4: kinds of havoc. Depending upon the type of injury, you
Speaker 4: could end up causing more harm than help, much like
Speaker 4: trying to move someone if you don't know they have
Speaker 4: a broken spine, etc. And then also, of course the
Speaker 4: all caps note, the risk of rabies is always present
Speaker 4: in a mammal in a wild mammal, So if you
Speaker 4: see a mammal acting in an anomalous way we're summarizing here,
Speaker 4: unusual behavior can be a sign of rabies or chronic
Speaker 4: wasting disease. Contact your state's wildlife department. Let's go to
Speaker 4: number two. If someone can hop on the steering wheel
Speaker 4: for this, what do we do with orphaned animals?
Speaker 3: Number two, orphaned animals.
Speaker 5: If you find an orphaned animal, always keep in mind that,
Speaker 5: unlike dogs and cats, many wild animals can survive without
Speaker 5: a parent mere days after being born. Squirrels can survive
Speaker 5: on their own at ten days old. Again, the best
Speaker 5: thing to do is to contact a wildlife rehabilitation center.
Speaker 5: They will let you know how best to handle the situation.
Speaker 5: They may tell you to put the animal in a
Speaker 5: box with a heating pad if it is cold, et cetera.
Speaker 5: All caps here, guys. It is a myth that the
Speaker 5: smell of a human will cause the parents to abandon
Speaker 5: the baby. Also, not all orphans are orphaned. Rabbits leave
Speaker 5: their babies alone for long periods of time throughout the
Speaker 5: day and come back to nurse them.
Speaker 3: Baby.
Speaker 5: Owls on the ground can sometimes be fine because owls
Speaker 5: learn to climb trees.
Speaker 3: Before they can fly. Did not know any of that.
Speaker 4: Ooh side note, speaking of uh, speaking of stereotypes about
Speaker 4: flying creatures, guys, I just learned. Anonymous ally also just learned.
Speaker 4: You probably already knew this. Vampire bats can run. They
Speaker 4: can run on the ground super fast.
Speaker 2: No, do not say this, so you know if your
Speaker 2: ankles are not safe.
Speaker 4: Your ankles aren't safe. They're gonna get them.
Speaker 3: They're running at you and biting at your ankles.
Speaker 4: So you knock one out while it's flying. You just
Speaker 4: slap it away and you're like, hey, don't worry, I
Speaker 4: got this. We're gonna make it to the temple before
Speaker 4: the eclipse. Make sure to turn around because they might
Speaker 4: be skittering, scattering, skip a duop and towards you. There's
Speaker 4: a third point, though, on this scale.
Speaker 2: Moving on to anonymous owls number three. Here, here we go,
Speaker 2: never feed wildlife. If wild animals are regularly fed by humans,
Speaker 2: they will lose their fear of humans, which may sound
Speaker 2: like a Disney movie yay, until it gets them hit
Speaker 2: by a car, shot by a hunter, or poisoned or
Speaker 2: killed due to being a nuisance. Not to mention, if
Speaker 2: they can carry rabies, they can be seen as a
Speaker 2: threat and killed. Even birds. Once you begin feeding them,
Speaker 2: you'd need to continue because they teach their young to
Speaker 2: come to you instead of finding food in the wild,
Speaker 2: and if you stop, they do not know how to
Speaker 2: find food on their own. That's horrifying. Yeah, that's horrifying.
Speaker 2: It says, if you want to help birds and wild
Speaker 2: animals find food, plant seed and fruit bearing native plants
Speaker 2: from your area. Boom okay, now that sounds nice, and
Speaker 2: I think I believe you, anonymous owl. But what of
Speaker 2: this bird feeding industry that we've created?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yes, classic human. Also, we had an excellent exchange of
Speaker 4: thoughts regarding Corvidet in particular, you know, magpies, jackdaws, ravens, crows,
Speaker 4: and an anonymous howl gave us some great advice with that,
Speaker 4: some great insight, just saying, look, yeah, feed them, but
Speaker 4: you're right, don't let them in your house. And you know,
Speaker 4: don't feel like you have to center yourself being around
Speaker 4: when they eat, because you know, the big problem with
Speaker 4: humans is they sort of tend to center themselves on
Speaker 4: this stuff, often to the danger of other humans and
Speaker 4: to the danger of wild animals.
Speaker 2: And one other thing to add on this something I
Speaker 2: learned while I was at local home depot guys. I
Speaker 2: was buying bird food, specifically for a bird feeder I
Speaker 2: wanted to put on my porch upstairs. I thought it
Speaker 2: would be super fun to have birds coming through and
Speaker 2: I could sit on my porch and just have some
Speaker 2: coffee and be like, ooh birds because I actually really
Speaker 2: like birds flying around.
Speaker 4: Who does know?
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: A very kind older gentleman, as I was going to
Speaker 2: check out with this huge thing of bird feed, said oh,
Speaker 2: don't do that. All you'll get is snakes. And I went,
Speaker 2: what what are you talking about? And he said, I'm serious.
Speaker 2: If you start feeding birds, especially on your house in
Speaker 2: your porch, you are gonna get nothing but snakes.
Speaker 4: It's like, no way, I've just pictured, I'm just picturing data.
Speaker 4: Carvey's Joe Biden right now, I'm serious, right now? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: guess what.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But he was very serious and adamant, and he was like,
Speaker 2: I mean you do you but you have kids? And
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, I have a kid, and don't
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 3: Don't do it.
Speaker 2: So I got warned off. Then I looked it up
Speaker 2: and sure enough, because of the in the backyard, there's
Speaker 2: like a little creek and so you know, wild area.
Speaker 2: He was like, no, the snake's He was right, the
Speaker 2: snakes would be joining me.
Speaker 4: They'll find it.
Speaker 3: He sure will, and not being sad. I don't know.
Speaker 5: I've mentioned on the show a few times how I
Speaker 5: can often follow a victim to cleverly targeted Instagram ads.
Speaker 5: But more than a few ridiculous items from that, but
Speaker 5: also some good things. But I did see an ad
Speaker 5: the other day for a bird feeder with a camera
Speaker 5: in it.
Speaker 3: That you can link up to your phone, so you
Speaker 3: can like watch your little feathered friends, you know, frolicking
Speaker 3: around on the bird feeder. Shoot you can start a
Speaker 3: TikTok off that thing.
Speaker 4: You'd be a millionaire months bird can and this would
Speaker 4: definitely show anonymous hel that we're listening to those concerns. Sorry,
Speaker 4: that's great. So the last point you make anonymous howl,
Speaker 4: which again is of great value to all of us tonight,
Speaker 4: gathered around the fire of the dark number four, become
Speaker 4: an ally anonymous howl. You say you can carve off
Speaker 4: a section of your yard if you live in a
Speaker 4: rural area and stop my wing it, toss bird seed
Speaker 4: other seed into the grass, leave it alone. You'll also
Speaker 4: be providing a safe space for animals like rabbits, deer, etc.
Speaker 4: To bed down for the night, and a safe place
Speaker 4: for insects like butterflies and mantis to make lay eggs, pupate,
Speaker 4: et cetera. If you have and you anticipated our question
Speaker 4: here anonymous ol. If you have an hoa homeowner's association,
Speaker 4: this may be harder, but you can create a flower
Speaker 4: bed of native plants which are usually drought resistant, So bonus,
Speaker 4: you will not only provide natural food that is not
Speaker 4: directly associated with human presence, but also something with which
Speaker 4: animals can associate with their natural habitat. Also followed by saying,
Speaker 4: of course, if you have the opportunity or the inclination,
Speaker 4: donate to your local wildlife rehabilitation centers. These generally do
Speaker 4: not receive any federal or state funding. They need food,
Speaker 4: they need funds, they need care, they need staff. They
Speaker 4: also may accept volunteers, though heads up, not aiming this
Speaker 4: at any particular conspiracy realist. If you do volunteer at
Speaker 4: a wildlife rehabilitation center, they may require you to have
Speaker 4: a Rabi's vaccine. So for everybody foaming at the mouth
Speaker 4: hearing that, it's probably already time for you to visit
Speaker 4: the doctor.
Speaker 5: Sure, And if I could also just mention a quick
Speaker 5: snippet from another listener that wrote in about this, because
Speaker 5: it was something that I said, I think in error
Speaker 5: someone I think Matt it was no mentioned a quote
Speaker 5: from a person who said a blood test can be
Speaker 5: done to check for rabies. That may be true, but
Speaker 5: to my understanding, it is not acceptably accurate. The only
Speaker 5: reliable way to test for rabies is to test the
Speaker 5: brain tissue. So I just wanted to put that out
Speaker 5: there because I did think that was It was something
Speaker 5: that was I think in an editorial piece that I
Speaker 5: brought where someone I believe a colleague of the writer
Speaker 5: of the piece, said that this could be done with
Speaker 5: out destroying the animal.
Speaker 3: But apparently that is a non reliable.
Speaker 5: Thing, and rabies is a big deal and apparently too
Speaker 5: even if you release a squirrel like this in the wild,
Speaker 5: if it's imprinted on a human and it does get rabies,
Speaker 5: it will come back a lot of times, which can
Speaker 5: then cause this, you know, spreading of this very deadly disease.
Speaker 2: Just to add on to that, a listener called in
Speaker 2: with a voicemail specifically talking about that, and yes it is.
Speaker 2: It is brain specific brain tissue that has to be tested.
Speaker 4: To be examined. Yeah, to the detriment of the animals survival. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: that's correct. And again going back to our last part
Speaker 4: of this listener mail segment, thank you so much, anonymous ow.
Speaker 4: We asked you for a step by step guide for
Speaker 4: everyone who has encountered a wild animal, has been fortunate
Speaker 4: enough to do that, and for a lot of people
Speaker 4: listening tonight. You know, you run into an injured creature,
Speaker 4: you are not a bad person, so you're not going
Speaker 4: to kill it for fun. You might have to kill
Speaker 4: it if it's already in pain and there's no way
Speaker 4: to save it. But it's invaluable to understand the best
Speaker 4: steps to ensure the safety of the wild animal as
Speaker 4: well as the safety of your fellow human animals. Now
Speaker 4: we're gonna call it an evening. We hope everybody is
Speaker 4: having the best time as you experienced this show. So
Speaker 4: happy November twenty. First, the holidays are coming up. We're
Speaker 4: all in this together, animal and human alike, so we
Speaker 4: would love to hear from you. Please join us. Tell
Speaker 4: us your favorite encounters with the wild. And also, you know,
Speaker 4: try not to get rabies over the holidays. We know
Speaker 4: those Thanksgiving dinners can get a little dicey. Tell us
Speaker 4: what's on your mind. Join up with the cause. We
Speaker 4: can't wait to hear from you. You can find us
Speaker 4: on email, you can find us on the telephone. You
Speaker 4: can even find us. This is a true story on
Speaker 4: the Internet.
Speaker 5: True even if that that weird uncle is foaming at
Speaker 5: the mouth.
Speaker 3: It might not be rabies. It might just be a
Speaker 3: thing he does.
Speaker 5: But you can indeed tell us here Thanksgiving horror stories.
Speaker 5: Tell us of your holiday struggles right too, as you
Speaker 5: can find us all over the internet at the handle
Speaker 5: Conspiracy Stuff. We are on Facebook, on x FKA, Twitter,
Speaker 5: and on YouTube at that handle. However, on Instagram and
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Speaker 2: if we can use your name and message on the
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Speaker 2: got more to say than can fit in a three
Speaker 2: minute voicemail one instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 4: We are the entities that read every single piece of
Speaker 4: correspondence we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the
Speaker 4: void rides back. We're grateful for every piece of correspondence
Speaker 4: because these listener mail segments often inform episodes do in
Speaker 4: the future. Please stay tuned. We have more on the way.
Speaker 4: Check out our episode, a two part series on the
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