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 iHeartRadio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer Alexi's codenamed Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. It's that time of the week, folks. We're going to have some guests over in an indirect way, and you may be one of those guests. Dear fellow conspiracy realist. We are going to have We're gonna have an opportunity to talk about some shady FEMA exercises. Got multiple shout outs to a lot of people who are very concerned about a dystopian evil bill. They almost came to fruition in Massachusetts. Can't wait to scare scare ourselves with that one. And before we do any of that, let's talk eggs. Because we had so many great responses from our eggspiracy episode and it was one of those things where we hit a nerve, I think in a very good way, because we did our best to present the facts of what is being proposed as a conspiracy theory and how it spreads on social media. We asked for We had one correction with m RNA and we handled that in another episode, and then we had a ton of people writing to us from the US and abroad who have been raising chickens for a fairly short amount of time or for very long time, and everything you were saying agreed with what we were talking about and confirmed it for us. Regarding the intervening variables we called them, but the natural cycle of laying eggs. So that made mighty for sure, I mean, and there were multiples that we discussed that we were kind of just conjecturing a little bit based on what we kind of do, know, you know, from like science class in school. But it turns out, you know, if you maybe caught our social media video or I'm cowering in the background of a chicken coop while Matt bravely, in my humble estimation, interviewed a chicken, he called himself a chicken dad. I think about just the kind of a natural cycle of laying habits, laying you know behavior, And he pointed out that chickens spend a good portion of this particular period that where all of this egg expiracy stuff have been reported molting, and that when they molt aka shed feathers and grow new ones, that is like bodily energy. Again, I'm not a chicken scientist here. That's being used instead for that process instead of laying eggs. And we had a really kind of confirming email response to that from Barefooted Cowgirl. Subject of the email eggs starting off Barefoot Cowgirl here, chickens always back off laying in the winter, which is what we are in the midst of One factor is daylight. I always left a heat light on over the water, which served to keep the water wet when it got cold and also provided more light, so they laid more eggs. But they naturally lay fewer in the winter. I am sure temperatures are part of it too. The price of eggs goes up in the winter, then spring comes, days are longer, and buy Easter eggs are dirt cheap in the stores. Maybe these new backyard chicken owners don't know this. We had avian flu here and it takes a few months for chicks to mature and begin laying. If you kill a few million chickens, it's going to take a few months to get production back to scale, and there aren't enough eggs in the system to replace millions of layers all at once. I went to Walmart I do that about once a year last summer, and the entire egg shelf was bare. My locally owned, regular grocery store always had eggs, though different suppliers, different customer behavior, not my field of expertise. I am sure large poultry farms are developing better avian flu precautions. Chicken farms are hatching eggs, and chickies are maturing, and the days are getting longer. The price will go down soon. Not to say there wasn't some opportunistic price gouging. Ding ding ding. Also, chickens use a crop to digest feed, and you need to feed them something like gravel, oyster shell or egg shell so they can digest grain. Sounds weird, but they need it. Spring is coming BFCG Barefoot Cowgirl. This is adding to the perspective that we already just kind of went over. But I think the takeaway here is that a lot of this alarmism is manufactured, whether for political reasons or the kind of news cycle reasons we were talking before, like giving creating a problem to blame on the opposition. Maybe, but it would seem to me, based on what we talked about with our chicken dad and what Barefoot Cowgirl has to say here, that these are very natural ebbs and flows to the laying cycle. I think so, at least that's one of the things that I've seen. We keep getting messages like this the confirm it. Can I tell you my big takeaway from this message? Oh yeah, guys. It's the thing we've talked about in the past. Recently because of Christmas two economic motivation for large scale holidays. Barefoot Cowgirl talked about during Easter. That's like, all the way up into Easter, that's when the most eggs are being laid. So how do we sell all those eggs? We connect them to a holiday where families are going to buy way more eggs than they normally would to consume. Pumpkins, turkeys, seals. That's that's what's up. I'm sorry, that's all. That's only what's interesting. You say that meant that hit me because one of the reasons I sound a punchy on some recent recordings was because I was I was traveling and a lot of that time was in Japan, and it hit me how that country is so efficient with that. Every town has like a special festival right or region, and they have you know, specific agricultural products, often where it's like known, you go here and you buy this this time because they're in season. And I was thinking, how brilliant that is economically. It's weird because I kind of cast I've cast dispersion on it in the past. We're talking about us stuff, you know, like, oh, this holiday is just made up to make sure that Company A sells a bunch of greeting cards. I don't think anybody has a hard time guessing who Company A is in that regard. But right, but it seemed like we had a thing in my esophagus. No, no, no, you know, the the organic human vocalizations we do on this show, they're kind of a hallmark of stuff. They don't want a bit of a harbinger and you can find them at Wallmart and so's it's strange, and you know you see this in other countries and cultures too. Right. The thing about this is all the letters that we received, which were excellent, were ten tended to point out, as you said, in all some commonalities, and one of those. One of those commonalities was the conspiracy. That we found most plausible in the expiracy episode was the idea of price gouging as barefoot cow girls says opportunistic actors. And about ninety percent some of the letters we got, we're people saying yes, pointing out the weather, pointing out molting and things like that, and then often toward the end of their letters they were saying, and yeah, price gauging totally because I don't remember I told you guys, but I think I did. But when I was out of the US, price gauge and eggs not a thing like whatsoever. You know. We also found, I think that with the you know, during the pandemic, it become it became much more popular to keep chickens in your backyard as an like a family right or as an individual keeping just a small group of chickens for egg laying purposes. It was more popular. So so I'm imagining there are more less experienced people keeping chickens. So then when you know, the new season comes around and it's the first time you've gone through that season with your new chickens. Maybe you literally just don't know some of these basic facts that some of the veterans know. Yeah. No, that's a great point, and it also made me wonder. Uh actually a few of our fellow conspiracy realists bought this. Up to that NOL they talked about baking bread. That was another big habit. But it had that Internet backlash pretty quickly. You know, people are going on Twitter or whatever and saying, if I see one more person baking bread bread? But uh, but I have to ask, did you guys, did you guys ever consider raising chickens or have you never baked a chicken? In my life? You've baked tons of chicken. I'm sorry, I've baked a chicken. I've not baked a bread. And I would not consider raising chicken much and good day, sir that it would bring me personally. Toriend used to, did I tell you my girlfriend raised chickens in her previous life and she had Martha and Snoop where her where he her, like roosters or whatever. You It wouldn't make her really happy. I just would not be a You know what though, It's it's like boiling a crab, you know where, Like, if you do it gradually, maybe I would. I could go from standing in that pen with you to eventually watering and feeding the chickens and not even being scared anymore. No, dude, you'd be sitting cross lego with them. And just what I grew I grew up interacting with with lots of animals, and chickens were some of those. And I think the thing that got me the most was it was a rite of passage, and I was probably too young for this was a rite of passage to have to kill one in processing. Yeah, and that changed. That changed the way I looked at it. So maybe psychologically for you, that could be um an inflection moment and you'll realize that you do have the power in that relationship. No, you're not You're not right. No, I mean, you're totally right. A lot of childhood fears, or like deep seated fears, they only remain that and things that actually affect you because you don't address them head on. And I think most people would be surprised at how able they are to get past those fears. But they're so used to the stasis of that fear that they don't bother ever like testing it, you know, I mean, I I hear you, man, and I'm fully aware that there's some rubicons that I simply could not cross, Like the sentenes Asia stuff just makes touching metal and cardboard insane. And I'm never gonna get I'm never gonna get over it because I can't kill it like a chicken. You know, I can stomp on the box. Well yeah right, I've lost countless wishing well opportunities because I'm like, yeah, oh you do it. But the but the egg thing. Also, I think it brings us to something we surprisingly didn't talk about much on expiracy, which was the importance of self sufficiency. That's the motivation that a lot of people had. And you know, it wasn't too long ago in this country when many people in the United States were raising chickens or had garden plots on their home, not because they thought it was a cool hobby to flex on Instagram. It's because they had to do it to survive. And civilization is never as far away from that moment as a lot of people in power want it to appear, right, because you want stability and safety. So I like we've talked in the past about things people have done to pursue self sufficiency. Not even crazy get off the grid stuff, but things like I'm going to have a rain barrel. It'll help with irrigation, and they've still run up across like municipalities that say, no, you can't still the water. What are you nestlely? Oh well yeah, even like having you know, going solar, you know, you have to kind of get permission to do that. And then there are programs where you kind of like, I mean, I know, this is technically a benefit to those that have the you know, it's like a tax right offer to them. But you can sell excess power back to the grid, I believe, But you still can't just do it in a vac. You might be able to quote unquote get off the grid, but you're still part of the grid, you know. Yeah, yeah, they once you plugged in. But which is the most paranoid sounding thing we said the show recently, But but we don't think that's true. Yeah, it's tough to fell at this point. But it also makes me really curious and something I think our our fellow listeners can share here is what are some simple self sufficiency tips that you know of that won't break the bank, won't get you in court, won't make you seem crazy. You know, it could be. It can be little stuff like how much food do you have on hand? Or you know, what's your bugout plant? Well, that gets some people might say that's crazy, Matt saying, no, responsible, it's responsible. We already talked about this guy's the bugout bag in the trunk looks like a murder kit when a police officer opens your trunk. Also, just maybe rebrand it bug out bag that this sounds a little on the crazy side. If we called it preparedness satchel, perhaps that would that would be a little better. Voye scout bundle. There you go. Yes, thank you, you win. No, it's not a contest. We gotta be ready. It's always it is a contest where not playing but the but the the idea. Yeah, Matt, No, that is a good point. You have to have things in there that in the wrong. You know what it's like seeing somebody buy stuff at a grocery store and watching their little items go down the line and starting to build a backstory about them. The only thing that makes going to the grocery store like fun and relatively not crazy making you know. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I like going into grocery stores that are specific to a community or specific to a type of like generally acknowledge diet, you know, like we've got great grocery store here, like Farmers Markets and h Mart and stuff like that. I like walking into those places just on vibes. You know. I'm saying this mainly speaking for people like my partner who can't stand going. I go four times a week for fun, because I like to, you know, buy for a recipe, you know, not just stock up for the winter. Oh I'm getting fresh rus every I'm going to use it tonight, I feel so you repeat, Yeah, I was Honestly, if I buy too much at one time, most of it will go bad. Oh yeah, that is just how my brain works. I guess we should bring it back to eggs. What other what non chicken eggs are people messing with our EMUs in the mix? Is they're already considered probably an exotic egg. Yeah, because we talked about even on the episode. You can you can find quail eggs at your local publics or Kroger or whatever. The you know, the equivalent of that is in your neck of the woods. Um, and that would not have been the case years ago. That would have been exclusively in the realm of like you know, bespoke kind of like a specialty food stores. Duck eggs. Duck eggs, Yeah, I love and a duck egg. Oh you know what I saw? I actually this is actually really appropriate. I saw a thing on Instagram. There are egg buffets in Japan, yes, for raw eggs, and you will get these eggs that are just like almost entirely yoke. And some of them are like, you know, chickens that are fed with like yuzu fruit and different peels and things like that, and it makes the egg taste like fruity, and you don't cook it. It's raw over rice. And that's the whole deal, the whole bit, man, No, thank you, well, it's how you raise them. Anyway. Well, that's the thing that whatever happened to concerns about salmonella, have those has gone out the window, because now it seems like people are you know, undercooking eggs and that's all just fine and dandy. Whatever happened to concerns about salmonella, I think the pandemic just took up that mental space in people's heads, you know, like the part of you that worries about sickness. It's like, forget the flu, Forget Samon, salmon ella, you know, which was always a confusing name. Anyway, don't forget salmon. You can't. They're a hardcore They swim upstream. I can't even do that, can you. Listener? I think we need to move on the next segment, guys. I think so we'll take a quick break here, a word from our sponsor, and then come back with more messages from you, and we are back. We are heading into some darker waters with a lot of people to think too many name. In fact, I don't know about you, guys, but I knew this story popped and actually made a note about it a while back because I think we didn't get to it. But woke up at sunset and there were all these messages from people who were incredibly freaked out to find the following story was real. It's very dystopian. It hasn't happened, just so you know, just to take mental care for everybody. What you're about to hear is didn't pass yet, but in late January there was a bill proposed in the state of Massachusetts, which is commonly thought to be a pretty progressive state, and this bill said that if you were a prisoner in Massachusetts, you can get time off your prison sentence by donating your organs. It's cool. Yeah, well, in advance of your demise or like in the plea bargain. Yeah, you know, ten years up the river or three years in a kidney. No, I don't know. I think it's people who are already in prison, was the idea? No? No, I mean donating your organs in advance of dying. Yes? Ok? Are we just talking kidneys here? What other organs can be harvested in the narrow really narrow? Yeah? Yeah, And right now, the Federal Bureau of Prison says that prisoners anywhere in the US can donate organs while incarcerated, but only to immediate family members. You know. The concern being that there were a red market would grow up if people were allowed to do it for money. This just take a moment to say how red market is just so gross sounding. Yeah, it's like black market means the illegal trade. Red market means trading in guts. Yes, yeah, and we've got episodes on that. You can also check out our YouTube videos on that. It's disturbing stuff. It's very true, and it occurs in horrific ways across the planet. You can find communities where an incredibly high amount of people in maybe a very impoverished village in South Asia have donated their kidneys for a very small amount of money, and it has become somewhat normalized. Yeah, donated being sort of a loaded term there, right. Yeah. As ever, and we already know that there are prison systems that have problems with organ donation. The one that gets the most news in the US is China and its subjugation of minorities in that country. And there are you know, and you look at Falungong and they say that just for practicing their belief system members have had their organs forcibly taken. This bill is called HD three eight two two you can look it up now, and act to establish the Massachusetts Incarcerated Individual, Bone, Marrow and Organ Donation Program. Again, this did not pass. This is not We're not okay dystopian yet, but check out how problematic this is, taking like prison labor to like a new extreme. Wouldn't you say? Yes, Yeah, it's taking prison labor to a new extreme and it might be a harbinger of things to come check how problematic this is. And there is a response to everybody who took the time to reach out about this. The whole operation would have been headed by like each case would have been handled by a five member bone marrow an organ donation committee. Only one person on that committee is a prisoner's rights advocate. And this committee decides how much time of your life an organ donation is worth. So at the low end, you could donate like some bone marrow and get a couple months off your sentence. I don't know if that's a fair deal. No, is it like tiered? Do you get more for bone marrow versus kidney? Do you get more for two for like? I mean, I guess you can't. You can't donate both? Can you? Can you donate both kidneys? You can't? Right, you'll die without any kidneys. Let's you know what let's standing. I think it's mine too, just making sure let's check. Um no, okay, cool? That was my thinks A good presumption, you know, and actually donating organ parts, as we know from that time, I was trying to give away one of my eyes. Donate while you're alive, not to a family member, and just because you want to raise some serious red flags in the medical community. Right, giving blood is fine, you know, um, donating your hair is fine. But when you get to when you get to the other bits, people start to ask questions. And this law. The good news is, folks, that this law was probably not going to pass anyway. A lot of nonprofits and policy wonks were weighing in and saying, this is probably going to be considered a violation of federal law because of Congress's National Organ Transplant Act in nineteen eighty four that makes it a crime to quote knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human organ for valuable consideration for use in human transplantation. So valuable consideration like a hundred daily days office sentence. I see what you're saying, Yes, yeah, yes, yes. And then other people like people are coming from all directions about this, not just prison rights advocates or nonprofits. ABC pointed out that prisoners have tend to have a much higher group incidence of HIV, AIDS, hepatitis, tuberculosis even and so their organs might not be safe to transplant. I mean, presumably they would be tested, but we have heard, haven't we heard of cases maybe more in the past, of people getting say, blood transfusions that had not been tested and were infected with some or multiple of those things you're just talking about. And here's a twist. The bill's two sponsors were both Democratic state representatives, Carlos Gonzalez and Judith Garcia of Springfield and Chelsea, respectively, and they had a different rationale on this, And Garcia in particular was on Twitter saying the issue is that there is currently in Massachusetts no path to oregan or bone marrow donation, even for relatives. So like, even if you are incarcerated and you have a relative who could have a potentially life saving transplantation, then Massachusetts wouldn't allow it to happen. So that's where Garcia is coming from, and that's and Gonzalez also related a personal story. He said he has a friend who was hospitalized waiting to have dialysis three to four times a week while he's in line for a kidney transplant. He's a father of three children. He has stage four kidney failure. I'm thinking that this legislation can save lives, right, even if there are some ethical quandaries to say, the least bundled up in there. I don't know, though, what what do you guys think about this? I mean, it doesn't seem like the right move right now in my mind instead of this, well, I don't know. Look, I'm not here to give the prison system answers for what they need to be doing, right, but it does feel like there's already so much labor going on in prisons, right, you could somehow incentivize through the labor and with actual money that is waiting for you at the end of your sentence, or something like real a real paycheck that just you have to wait until your sentence is over. It's like a pot that you accrue, right or something like that. That feels like way better, a much better way of incentivizing somebody to better themselves in some way however they can. However, it's possible while within the system, right, because I know that's a much easier said than done. But use that incentivizations instead of giving away some organs because we need a few more kidneys into or you know bone marrow. Well yeah, yeah, well said, I mean we shot through organ brokers. Though, who who who profits from this? The people who receive the transplantations. Yeah, but I mean there's no money changing hands. Like we know about body brokers. We did that whole episode on that, So I tend to assume when prisons outsourced labor from prison population labor, somebody is benefiting from that. Yeah, we absolutely have to do an episode on prison labor and we prospers. Yes. Yeah. And the twist here we're talking about the money, right, is that if a bill like this passes, let's game it out. Is it possible that legislators could be incentivized to impose harsher sentences? Would it help? But judge add a little bit on to a sentence to say, you know, this incentivizes bone marrow transplant I'm saving lives, you know, I'm giving you a chance to help for the greater good. Wow. Yeah, there's a non zero likelihood of that happening shortly after a program like this comes into play. Yeah, I mean you could also start arresting people for terrorism, so arrested activist. You know it has, It's worked for other governments in the past. Right, you need to you know, fresh supply of of some bits, some human bits. Uh, WHOA, I just got an image of you know, because we're in the midst of World War three. Obviously we had some some pretty intense announcements from both the United States and Russia. UH as World War three continues to UH to start. I guess is how you would say it. I just imagined prison systems being used as the blood supplies for troops, Like instead of donating bone marrow, it's just donating blood bags like a mad max my blood boy. Oh no, that was actually from Silicon Valley. You're right about blood, but I'm saying there was like a thing with Gavin whatever his name is, who Procana was like the you know Mark Zuckerberg stand in. He had like a dude, a young, virile man who would just hang out with him and do transfusions. And he was blood boys. What else could you donate? Partial liver? Probably donates skin right for skin graphs, but sixty days to a year or so office sentence, it just it seems like it opens a really dangerous door. So, regardless of what your philosophy is, your perspective is on the US prison system and all its problems and the huge problems with organ donations in knowing how many people need organs to live and they're just not going to get them in time. Whatever your perspective is on that, I think we can all agree that this is very bad. And if stuff like this passes, ever, then it sets a precedent, right, and if it survives for a little while, then it becomes normalized, and it starts to occur in other parts of the country, And then it gets to the Supreme Court, and depending on the mood of the Ring Grace that afternoon, it may become federal law. Right. No, no, thank you, no, thank you? Oh my god, guys, then it becomes donate your eye, and we have this exchange program to where you're going to benefit. You know, this person who needs an eye transplant, a new eye, and you, inmate, you lucky you. You get to try out this brand new ocular implant that's being developed by Meta. We're going to test it. Well, it's not like we haven't seen that. We were just on my Mamma told me talking about human experimentation and how that was absolutely a thing in the past, and that was usually involving you know, underrepresented communities and groups. Who's more underrepresented than prison populations. Is it outside of the realm of possibility that these types of things will just keep going further and further and further unchecked. I mean, it's always, it's always a possibility. This thing had luckily been oh what's the political phrase these it'd been walked back right after enormous public outcry. But it also leads us to another question. If you are incarcerated and you have the ability through a organ donation, bone marrow, transplanter, what have you, you have the ability to save a relative, then shouldn't you be allowed to do so? Honestly, I think the main issue for this, a lot of a lot of folks, myself included, is the faustium bargain of it, the transactional nature, you know. And then maybe there's the I'll say it too, you could write laws differently that could result in some people who shouldn't be out of prison getting out and saying, I just have the one kidney, but that's all I need to burn a house, you know. I mean that's a hypothetical thing. Sorry, hashtag not all arsonists or whatever you do? You guys think this kind of legislation that, if actually scrutinized, is just abhorrent to you know, a rationally thinking person. Do you think that kind of legislation is just pushed forward every once in a while sporadically to test the waters of the public, just to see, like, what could we get through. Do you think we could get that through right now? I don't know. Let's test it out. Let's see what kind of numbers we get back. I mean that implies that the cosign of the public even matters at all. We know so much of that stuff just happens completely behind closed doors. So I don't even buy that it matters that it's legal or that it's a law. I think they would just do it and not tell anybody. Well, I mean, I do see what you're saying, that just the waters of public sentiment. I think there's something to that for sure. Just scooch the Overton window over a little bit at a time. We're gonna pause and come to one more message from you, fellow conspiracy realist. Let's end on this the final twist of this story, which thankfully again hasn't happened yet. And maybe maybe it was just a bit of theater to propose this bill, But let's end with a line from Elizabeth Matos, the executive director of Prisoners Legal Services of Massachusetts, a nonprofit group that represents inmates. Matos told ABC News that similar bills have been introduced in the past in other states, and they just happened not to gain traction, but a time may be alive. See so people agree with you. We're gonna pause for a word from our sponsor. Everybody be safe with your organs and we'll be right back. And we've returned. We gotta message you, guys. We put out a call for stories about exercises that happened just before events and if anyone had taken part in any kind of exertion size like that. We got a response from two fab, the number two and then fab as in fabulous. What was that show? Absolutely fabulous. That's what makes me think of ab fab. I guess we should just jump right into this. Let's just first point out that this story includes one of our favorite things, guys, political monarchies, because we're gonna be talking about a president and a governor of the state who have the same debty. He did. He did he just like that, Just like that, here we go, two fab says, I'm writing in response to your question about participating in a homeland security exercise. Let's just say I've been around and have a lot of friends in a lot of places, especially certain three letter US government and international government organizations. First of all two fab oh Man flex. But also, okay, we continue here. In July two thousand and five, the second week of July, there was a quote Homeland Security summit unquote in New Orleans. Of course, that city would make world news only two months later. Reach back into your memories about the significance of New Orleans two thousand and five. So let's do that really quickly, guys, that Bush doesn't care about black people. Was that related related? Yeah? Yes. August two thousand and five, Hurricane Katrina one of the worst natural disasters to strike the United States in a long time, and the response to that situation, it's become one of the most scrutinized responses to a natural disaster in all of American history. So let's just remember that's where we are. And let's also remember that George W. Bush is president at that time, and his brother Jeb Bush is governor of Florida, one of the places that was struck by Hurricane Katrina, but not nearly as badly as New Orleans and parts of the Louisiana. So let's jump back in. This is too fab anyway, as a part of this summit, there were a lot of desktop exercises. These are also often called tabletop exercises everybody, And there were also reviews for disaster preparedness, specifically for New Orleans. And again this is July details and five are these tabletop exercises like modeling kind of yeah, almost like like like playing a game of risk, you know, if then and responses for it. And this is again we've talked about this a little bit and when exercises like this came up before, this is something that you have to do. And the problem is that oftentimes in retrospect it can look a lot like planning to do something instead of just preparing against the possible, because sometimes contingencies could be perceived as bad right for some groups, right, and well, like in the case of New Orleans, it's kind of like predicting a global pandemic. We said there was a pandemic on the way years ago on this show, and it's not because we had a crystal ball. It's because the numbers were there. And if you look at New Orleans, it's sure location, it's elevation, then it's kind of a matter of time situation, and that's why people were asking, like, well, what do we do when a big one hits? Exactly part of the tabletop exercise is what resources do we have to put in play when something like this occurs? How long does it take for those resources to get to the places where they need to be, and how you know, what are all of the things that they can do once they're there, right, And what places can people go when they need to take shelter, What do the levees actually look like? And how do we repair those levees? All that kind of now, so let's jump back into two Fab's message here. Myself and three of my friends from some of these three letter organizations were shaking our heads and went down for some beers down on Bourbon Street that evening and we're talking about how there really wasn't any plan for the event, and all they were really evaluating was how do I clean up after the fact. That's horrifying, right, that's pretty objectively horrifying to think, because the exercise is accepting that the disaster has occurred and then just estimating like the damage control, right and recuperation process exactly. This is not going to the doctor to see if anything is wrong. It's oh man, something is really really wrong. I better go to the emergency room. It's like, yeah, yeah, I like that comparison. It's like walking in and saying, okay, Dot, when I get this heart attack, which is definitely happening, should I keep eating cheese burgers? Well? Yeah, But the right thing to do is how do I prevent myself from having a heart attack or, in this case, having the levies all break and flooding the entire city. So let's jump back in one more time. Guys, we're almost here. How do I clean up after the fact? So that's the end of that sentence, not how do I evacuate? What communications will I need to bring in temporarily, etc. This was the expertise I was helping with as an expert for the military. Anyway, we were walking down Bourbon Street and I happen to spy this T shirt that literally said Homeland Security Federal Emergency Evacuation Plan, Run, motherfucker running. The only plan is get the hell out of there. Sorry, I hope you can bleep that there. Doc. Sorry about that, tufab says I laughed so hard that I bought the T shirt for us to give the guy that was running the tabletop, which I did the next day. We all had a hearty laugh at the time, but as you know, it was not very funny. Oof exactly thought this was something your listening audience should hear. They did these practices, and all those who were experts told them that they just didn't have a real plan and it needed a lot of additional work, way too little attention, way too late. I've noticed that you can't find much about this conference other than it happened. I suppose they are quite a bit embarrassed about this very strange fact. If it had been anything but a hurricane, you might think it was intentional. Oh that's a strong ending, too, fab Right, it's a really good point. Yeah, if it's a natural disaster like this, it's way less likely that it was a man made thing that any illuminati, it doesn't matter how powerful you are, could have caused that hurricane to form and strike in that particular place. Right. I'm not saying it's completely out of the range of possibilities. We just haven't seen any evidence that you can actually form and target it any kind of weather patterns. We know about things like cloud seating and stuff that can affect weather, but not like this. Yeah, weather modification is a real thing, and it is It has been used for decades of decades, and it is being used around the world. But the problem is, according to everything that we can find improve this is a very scattershot approach. There's no sophistication, you know what I mean, because weather is all part of a global interrelated system. Pulling a string somewhere puts pressure on a string somewhere else, and even now some of the smartest people in the world aren't quite sure how all the strings connect over time exactly. So guys two fab pointed out that if you look for this thing, this exercise that occurred in July two thousand and five, it's very difficult to find information about it. I agree. I found a few things that I thought y'all might find interesting. The first one comes from a little website that's so much fun to find when when you're just typing it out because you kind of just have to. It is gov info dot Library, UNT dot edu Sey Yeah, oh so sexy, And in there you can find a paper that appears to be it begins at page fifty nine of something titled a Failure of Initiative, and it runs down not very far, but anyway that it starts at page fifty nine, and if you scroll down to page sixty eight, you can find one sentence about this exercise. I believe it's about this exercise. It's under the heading US Army Corps of Engineers, which is an active duty military unit. I'm just gonna read the sentence to you. In July two thousand and five, the district where they're talking about New Orleans, the district sponsored a hurricane preparedness conference for federal, state, and local emergency managers. And that's literally it. That's literally it. It doesn't go into details, that's it. Okay, So do a government document. To me, this is like a report on what a lot of these different organizations did, I guess in preparedness. Right. So there's also the Mississippi National Guard, what they did, the US Coast Guard, the Alabama National Guard, Louisia, Louisiana National Guard, the d D all kinds of stuff. It's just pointing out this is what they were doing in preparation for these kinds of things. So there's that The next thing I found is from a Politico article written by a fella named Brownie. Do you guys remember Brownie? That's me? Give any recollection? No, really, I don't, okay. A guy named Michael Brown that used to be a huge part of FEMA back during the George W. Bush presidency, and he was lovingly referred to as Brownie by George W. Bush. He wrote an article in Politico and it was written in twenty fifteen, and it's the title of it is stop blaming me for Hurricane Katrina. That's literally the title of the article, which is very silly to me, but it does make a lot of sense because he, well, I don't know, tell me what you guys think I'm going to jump down to when he's talking about this specific exercise. This is Michael Brown writing and speaking. After nine to eleven, I was concerned FEMA was not ready for genuinely catastrophic disasters, so I asked Congress for funding to study several catastrophic scenarios, including the possibility of a Cat five hurricane hitting New Orleans. The tabletop exercise, which we dubbed Hurricane Pam, was held in July two thousand and five. One month before Katrina hit. The results struck fear in everyone involved. Hurricane Pam taught us too late that Louisiana and New Orleans were ill prepared. The state's emergency manager was under federal indictment, its emergency operations in disarray. I'm going to continue a little bit further. The senator asked why he's speaking with senators as he's been questioned, like, what the heck happened? Brownie? The senator asked why, if we knew from the Hurricane PAM exercises in July two thousand and five that New Orleans and Louisiana were ill prepared, why we didn't make the necessary changes to policies, procedures, statutes, and funding so that the city and state would be prepared for Katrina in August two thousand and five. Guys, why do you think they were unable to prepare for that disaster one month before it occurred because we didn't know was going to occur. Well, it's something we talked about on the show all the time. The machine that is the US government and state governments moves so ridiculously slowly glacial pace, and for anybody listening, several decades in the future. Glaciers were these big sheets of ice that were around different parts of the world, and um for a long time people knew they moved very slowly, and somehow the Titanic still got sunk by one. It took me a glacial amount of time to realize you were explaining what glaciers were. All A glacier in an iceberg aren't exactly the same thing, but they're they're close. Oh right, ice was this really cool form that was super cool. It sure was, but this this isn't because I think Matt m Just to add on your point there also we have to remember that infrastructure funding can be really tough. Oh yeah, it's not a sexy thing to run an election on. You know. No, it's not. No, it is not. Oh and if you do it right then it's also there's a higher likelihood that your efforts won't be appreciated because no one will really understand what could have happened, like what happened in Katrina. Everything's been fine for a long time. Why do we spend all this money? Like, oh wait, it continues to be fine because you spend all the money. Whoops, guys, One last thing I found on this and then we'll get out of here, and thank you so much, too, fab for sending us down this rabbit hole on Columbia dot Edu. I found it looks like some kind of report. It says Hurricane PAM Exercise concludes. Now you'll remember that Michael Brown there in Politico is stating that Hurricane Pam is the name of this test, this tabletop exercise they ran in July two thousand and five. Well, this here, this document guys, says Hurricane PAM exercise concludes. But it says the release date here for this. It looks like some kind of PR message press release. It's dated July twenty third, two thousand and four. H and let me just read the top part of this says it's in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Hurricane Pam brought sustained winds of one hundred and twenty miles per hour, up to twenty inches of rain in parts of southeast Louisiana, and storm surge that topped levies in the New Orleans area. More than one million residents evacuated, and Hurricane Pam destroyed five hundred thousand to six hundred thousand buildings. Emergency officials from fifty parish, state, federal, and volunteer organizations faced this scenario during a five day exercise held this week at the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge. So, guys, this is another exercise also titled Hurricane PAM that occurred the year before the other Hurricane PAM that was also, we can say kind of thing, and it was also run by FEMA here, and Michael Brown was a part of it at least if this document is to be believed. Maybe they just got the dates wrong, but it does. It is an article that says it was last updated Friday, July twenty third, two thousand and four. Okay, So curious or and curious or I just don't know because I can't find it anywhere, But listen, listen to this craziness. There is a u RL on this thing that it's got a FEMA dot gov address, slash news slash press release, and it's got a date of one twenty five, two thousand and six. I can't tell you which one of these dates is accurate, or maybe they're all accurate. It was just posted to different places at different times. Is the implication that it was drafted like an advance and it was sort of like held in reserve like they do with celebrity obituaries. No, I don't think so, Okay, I think maybe, I mean, it is possible, but I think Hurricane Pam might just be the title that's used for some of these exercises. Maybe, so it might be multiple exercises possible, maybe because they'll want a section off the names so you don't use it in other in other iterations. But then also, you know, some people might cynically respond, well, FEMA has been unorganized in the past. First tough to tell, but you did find a heck of a discrepancy. I think, yeah, I just don't understand it. 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