Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-09-25_THURSDAY_6AM

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Dan Schneider with MRC Free Speech America kicks the show off with me and I wonder if Zuckerberg at Meta is sincere about bringing back free spech on the platforms. Open phones and news follows.

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clouserdrilling.com. Now the point of doing talk radio here in Southern Oregon, and of course we welcome you to the show, by the way the number is 770-5633, and also viewable on Facebook Live, facebook.com slash Bill Meyer Show. It is about free speech. Free speech, of course, under attack a lot over the last few years. And, of course, now that we just cranked up the Facebook Live, it just seems like a great time to talk about what Meta was just announcing. We talked about this the other day, changing its policies on free speech and eliminating its third-party fact-checking system.

All right. party fact-checking system all right now my question is always okay is this uh kind of just a temporary a lull in the temporary uh situation or maybe a more permanent change of heart you might see this happening in a lot of other places and joining me to talk about this is dan schneider jan dan schneider rather is the vice president of the media research center mrc's free speech america and leader of the Free Speech Alliance. Dan, it's great to have you on. Welcome, sir. Bill, Oregon is a great place. It's great to be with you. All right.

And it is a great day with Facebook now switching sides, the free speech side. I hope you're right about that. Tell me about Free Speech Alliance first, because it's a bunch of different organizations that have all kind of found common cause here. Isn't that right? Yeah. So we lead the Free Speech Alliance. It has about 130 different members to it. Big organizations like the Heritage Foundation, smaller, state-based think tanks, communications outfits, people who really care and organizations that really care about our constitutional rights, and the bedrock of those rights is the right to speak, to be able to express yourself.

Without that right, we cannot have a constitutional republic. That's why it's so important that we do not allow these big tech behemoths to silence us. It is – and some people will say, well, but they're corporations. corporations. Be allowed to do whatever they want. I get that. I am a classical liberal myself. But even before our nation's founding, there was this idea in the law of common carriers. You're a common carrier. And that is like a typically very large kind of things that without which we don't have access to all other markets. The free market cannot exist if these common carriers obstruct the flow of funds, traffic, knowledge. So things like your telephone company, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, whatever, they are not allowed to deny service to people unless they're committing crimes. We require that service. And these

big tech platforms, they are just like AT&T. And in addition to not denying service, they cannot then discriminate. But that's what they're doing. And Facebook has done an about-face, and you mentioned the fact-checkers, these so-called fact-checkers. Yeah, I would put that in scary air quotes, actually, you know, the fact-checkers. They're subsidized by George Soros. George Soros founded the Poynter Institute that oversees fact-checking, and these are radical left-wing people who pretend to be fact-checking. What they're really doing is enforcing a left-wing narrative, and they try to force advertisers to cancel any media outlet that doesn't meet their left-wing standards.

Well, on Tuesday, these fact-checkers that were on contract with Facebook all over the world, they woke up to discover their contracts had been terminated. This is not pretend. Facebook literally gave them their walking papers. And at the same time, Facebook changed the algorithm for any kind of political or societal content. For a couple of years, any political content was being downgraded by Facebook. So you might have had 20,000 followers on your Facebook account,

but if you said anything about politics or whatever, you'd get two likes instead of 2,000 likes. Well, Facebook has changed that. And now the same algorithm that applies to puppy dog posts and that sort of thing will apply to political speech, too. Now, I must admit that I've noticed a change ever since the announcement because

I've got 5,200 Facebook folks here in Southern Oregon. It's great. Love them all. It's just that it got to the point where why would I even bother trying to do a lot of talking about it because I'm a political guy and it would normally get pretty much downvoted or very few people would see it. And you knew that. It was kind of like the shadow banning that was going on over in the old Twitter and less so now in the new X. I guess my question going here, though, is that, Dan,

you talked about the Facebooks of the world being common carriers. Are they considered common carriers in the law? Because the utilities, they really are that way. I know they've kind of taken that role on, but are they actually that in law, though? And that may be where the challenge comes in moving forward. Yeah, well, the two, actually, two ways that this is determined, either by a court that sort of analyzes what common carrier status looks like and then declares them that, or a legislative body does. Our U.S. Congress has not officially said they are common carriers.

There are different states that have, like Texas and Florida, have said these are common carriers. But just because the U.S. Congress has not said that they are does not mean that they are not. The Supreme Court has not answered this question, are these common carriers. I was in the Supreme Court in the big net choice case. And that is where, you know, the lawyers for Google and Facebook and all these big tech firms specifically said that they have a right to discriminate against anybody for any reason, including if the person is black or the person is Christian. You know, they believe their right to discriminate supersedes all other laws. And that is obnoxious.

But they should not be allowed to discriminate and keep people out of the marketplace of ideas. AT&T cannot. It's unconstitutional and illegal for AT&T to do it. The tech platform should not be allowed to do it either. I know some will say that the socials have the right to do this because, well, this is free. They're not charging you anything. But on the other hand, we know that what is done is that they monetize information about you.

So you are paying for it in a certain way are we not yeah now look i i studied economics if for for anybody there who's studied economics you know you've got an x-axis and a y-axis when you're measuring you know goods and services and the x-axis is the the denomination for currency you can put a dollar sign there you can put a dollar sign there. You can put a yen sign there. And today, so much of our currency is actually data. Data is the currency. And so, yes, I'm a Borkian. If anybody knows what that means, Judge Bork, I am resistant to using antitrust laws, except for when consumers are harmed. Well, when you look at this, you understand that data is the currency of the realm here. Yes, consumers are being exploited and harmed, extorted by these big tech platforms. We must not allow them to do that.

Dan Schneider is the vice president of MRC Free Speech America and also leader of the Free Speech Alliance. We're talking about the sweeping change that Meta announced a few days ago. And I would imagine, are we seeing other social media that is also deciding that, hey, we're going to go along with this, or is it just Meta at this point in time? Well, obviously, it started with X, Twitter, when Elon Musk bought it. And by the way, and I think you alluded to this, there are still problems at X. There's a remnant of radicals still within the ranks at X. And Elon Musk is having to whack them down like whack-a-mole when he finds that they're still discriminating and still silencing. And we're going to see that at Facebook, too. We're going to see some bumps and lumps along

the way. But then the other tech firms, are they going to start to join forces? I'm sure many will. I am confident Google slash YouTube will not. They are the most radical of all. They exploit people the worst. You know, they are the font of all evil. And many people are going to be surprised by that because they don't think of Google in the same terms as Facebook and Twitter because they don't have a Facebook page. I don't even think most people connect YouTube to Google. Would you agree? I don't think they think of it. I don't think of it that way.

They're both subsidiaries of Alphabet. But Google acquired YouTube and lots of other properties all under the banner of Alphabet Company. But they so aggressively exploit data and information basically to influence how we even think about things. And they're a bunch of radicals who are manipulating the public. Do you think that the incoming administration may be looking at Alphabet under a more strict scrutiny? Well, here at the Media Research Center, my division, Pre-Speech America, we have done numerous studies that showed how Google was intentionally interfering in our election, burying Donald Trump's campaign website, burying information about him, directing people only to radical left-wing characterizations of Trump.

And you could say, some people say, well, it's a private corporation. It's allowed to do that. Well, if it's intentionally trying to interfere in elections, then it has to report these as in-kind contributions to the FEC. And Google doesn't do that either. Now, you see, that's a very interesting distinction. That's a very good point. They're right.

Everybody else that sits there and donates has to report it as an in-kind. Yeah. And so should Alphabet. Google does not, and they refuse to do so. But so they can't have their cake and eat it too. Well, as we were reporting this, Donald Trump did say, and we were very pleased, right on the heels of our study, he immediately said, if I'm elected, I will prosecute Google for these crimes. And we're pleased by that. Google should not be allowed to have its own set of laws that nobody else has to comply with.

Dan, do you think that the change of heart at Meta is sincere, or is this just a typical good business response when you realize that the political wins and political risk has risen for your company? What do you think? Yeah, well, it's both. It's kind of comical. Donald Trump has been saying he wants to prosecute the head of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and have him in prison for life. And I think most people have learned that you don't take Donald Trump literally, but you take him seriously.

So there's certainly that pressure. And there's certainly a business pressure. Why in the world would you exclude half of potential customers? But here's the thing about Mark Zuckerberg. He is not a modern, woke mobster. He's not one of these modern radical lefties. He's a traditional Democrat, a Democrat of like the 1980s and 90s. You know, the ACLU back then believed in free speech rights and was the most aggressive advocate for the First Amendment. In the last 10 years, the left has completely flipped on fundamental constitutional rights. They now see rights as a threat to what they declare to be democracy, which is just them controlling everybody. But Mark Zuckerberg, he remains that sort of traditional Democrat, that traditional

liberal. And I really do believe he cares about free speech. I think in large part— I hope you're right. I'm just wondering if part of the fact is that he's a big MMA fighter. You know, he himself is in that. And I'm wondering if that is sort of— that sort of molds your worldview in which it's not just, in other words, you have to be worthy of something. You have to, it's a meritocracy kind of world.

You just have to be better at what you do. I think in the MMA world. I'm just wondering if maybe part of that influences his worldview now. Just kind of an observation you know uh just in the last 24 hours i've heard some doctors suggest that this might be changing the way he thinks about things that you know you don't enter that ring whether it's mma or boxing or whatever yeah without being prepared because you'll get hurt but if when you enter that ring prepared win or lose there's a real satisfaction in being able to perform at a really high level. And intellectually, he's always performed at a high level, and many of them, I think,

are beginning to speculate, well, maybe he's understanding that a meritocracy is good. It's good for one's soul. It's good for their self-perception and their own standing in the world. And this is a good thing to have respect for yourself. And this could be infectious and help a lot of people. I suspect you're right. I suspect this is encouraging a better way of thinking for him. You know, Dan, I hope you're right that these are sincere changes. My concern, though, is much like when President Trump or President Biden, as an example, would do executive orders. Things that are done by executive orders or by executive influence can then be reversed by whoever comes in next.

And it's kind of – it's thin gruel, really, in the grand scheme of things. Is it time, though, for actual legislation to pin these ways of communication around saying, hey, listen, you are common carriers. You cannot discriminate against people. You can discriminate against people for unlawful behavior, for illegal behavior. But other than that, if you're presenting yourself as a way to communicate free speech, you're free speech. That's just the way it is. What do you think? So, yes, we absolutely need to amend what's called Section 230 of the communication fact to clarify that these big platforms are, you need to function as common carriers and not be allowed to discriminate. We definitely need to do that. But when it comes to meta, look, he replaced his leadership team,

these radical lefties with conservatives. Now, he could reverse that. He changed the algorithm. He could reverse that. But here's what gives me comfort. His business model requires access to consumers and for consumers to be able to exchange ideas. Europe and other countries, Brazil, Canada, are aggressively fighting against his business model. And he has vowed on Tuesday to fight against the Europeans.

It is in his financial interest to stay on our side now. That's probably the thing that gives me the most comfort about this newfound position. I never thought I would hear anybody talking about Mark Zuckerberg this way. You know, actually having switched sides, you know, after a number of years. I'll tell you, this just reminds me of almost a man bites dog kind of story. But I'm glad you're reporting it, Dan. Dan Schneider is the vice president of MRC Free Speech America. And there's also the Free Speech Alliance section. And it's pretty easy to find out.

You can read more about this and all the other things going on when it comes to free speech because we're fighting for that all the time, too. It's mrc.org forward slash free speech alliance. I'll put that up there. And, Dan, thank you so much for sharing some thoughts about that this morning. And I hope that what you've talked about, that these changes for the good are going to be permanent. Okay? Thanks so much. Hey, thanks, Bill.

627 at KMED, 99.3 KBXG. You're on the Bill Myers Show. Here at American Rent Your Garage, we respect and support those in... Hi, I'm Michael with Gage of of construction and i'm on kmed 29 minutes after six and we're going to catch up with some of the news here with bill london and also town hall and then your calls i want to go over some of the other stories including the la fires you know it's it's um i have such mixed emotions about this because i i see this uh what's going on in Los Angeles. And I think about what we endured as all-metal fire victims here in Southern Oregon.

It'll be five years this year, right? You know, 2021. And so much of this was predictable. In fact, it was predicted. You know, these kind of things. And there's all sorts of finger pointing going on. Some of it is fair. Other parts of it, not so fair.

And even some of the lessons that we learned here in Southern Oregon, I don't know if we've, you know, we really still haven't done much to fix the water supply issue. I might like to talk a little bit about that. Maybe get your opinion on it, too, because they're talking about dry fire hydrants, and everyone's talking about it. And then they're pointing at the DEI hire, the first gay black fire chief there. The other was worried more about DEI. Yeah, I'm sure that's true.

The other thing I would remind people is that they also had a shortage of firefighters. Why do they have a shortage of firefighters? Oh, you might remember that they required you to take the jab or else you got fired. So a lot of people quit, you know, and they fired and they quit a lot of people. You know, government rules and regulations, there are consequences for them up and down the food chain. But we'll kind of dig into that a little bit. And my voice, I think, is going to hold out okay. I've been suffering from, I've been holding off this cold.

Everybody around me has had colds for the last few weeks, you know, out in the social world. And I was doing just fine. And then it finally kind of broke through. And on the other hand, though, you know, I could become a voiceover guy now. I could be like Ernie Anderson, the late Ernie Anderson, you know, the love boat. I wish I could hang on to that part of it, right? You know, the low end. But end but hey we're going to be fine i hope you're doing well this conspiracy theory thursday we'll catch up with news we'll

talk fire we'll talk uh the burnt up electric bus in joe county yeah that happened yesterday boy that just uh scratching my head over that and a whole bunch more on kmed latest news brought to you by locally owned and operated artisan Bakery Cafe in South Medford. It's a full-service cafe offering breakfast, lunch, and specialty coffee. That's H-O-M-A-N-B-U-I-L-T dot com. Home and built. We build the best and fix the rest.

This is News Talk 106.3 KMED. And you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. The L.A. fires, of course, a tragedy. Five people dead. More than 100,000 evacuated. Thousands of buildings have been destroyed. Of course, we lost more than 2,000, 2,300 or so homes and businesses with Almeda. And we didn't make the headlines because I guess it's more important when the beautiful people,

when the wealthy elites have to deal with reality, I guess. Yeah. I'm sorry. I shouldn't sound a little sour about that, but it's always more important and more tragic when something happens to people in New York or Los Angeles, right? Isn't it? Not that it isn't tragic,

but I found it interesting how little Southern Oregon and Northern California ended up getting mentioned a while back when we were having our fire moment with Almeda. But I was thinking about this last night as I'm watching this, and I continue to see the same headlines. Fire hydrants are empty. Fire hydrants are empty. President Trump points fingers at newsome newsome points fingers back saying hey it wasn't me it wasn't me we have plenty of water this that the other yeah there is some evidence they didn't fill some reservoirs it's true but um i take our experience from almeda and i'm just going to use this as a teachable moment sort of thing and saying that we still haven't really learned our lesson because I would venture a guess that what happened down in Los Angeles, other than the fact that they did have a shortage of firefighters, thank you, DEI and the jab, et cetera, all that kind of stuff, they probably had the same situation that we had in Phoenix in Talent.

And that is blamed on plastic pipes. Mr. X and I and a few others were talking about that a few years ago after this. But remember the interconnect, you know, the big pipeline that connects the Medford Water District to Phoenix and Talent going down 99. I think it only has something like 2,000 gallons per minute is the maximum allowable water that will go through that. Maybe it's 4,000. Whatever it is, it was only enough. Enough water could flow through there at full capacity to run two fire hydrants. That's all you can do. That's all it would do.

At best, run two fire hydrants. And what happened every time a house burned down in Phoenix, Talent, South Medford, Ashland, you know, anywhere in that neighborhood of the Alameda. What happened every time a house burned down? The water would be pouring out of the pipes. I have no doubt it's the same sort of thing that would happen down in Los Angeles. It's almost like it doesn't matter how much water you may have had in a reservoir down there.

Not to say that the reservoir shouldn't have been full. Okay, I'm not saying that. But ultimately, if you have death by a thousand melted plumbing pipes spewing water at every house or business that burns down, boy, what are you going to do? How are you going to fight the fire with the hydrant system? And I've been running through my mind some of the ways that we might go about fixing that situation. I would venture a guess now.

I'm not a plumbing expert. I've worked on plumbing. It's one of the nastiest jobs. As far as I'm concerned, you plumbers, you deserve every penny you get, okay? Because I don't enjoy doing plumbing. But the one thing I've got to figure is that plastic plumbing is relatively inexpensive. It's convenient. It's easy to use and put together.

You're not using solder and all these other things to put together. But I think that when it comes to firefighting, we might be looking at the downside of it when you have mass fire events. And the place is burned down. All it would take is a few homes burned down, and then there goes the water pressure in your neighborhood, right? You see where I'm coming from? That's what happened in Southern Oregon. That was our experience. 7705633.

So anyway, that's one theory I'll throw out there on Conspiracy Theory Thursday. Michael's here. Hello, Michael. Good to have you on. Good morning, sir. So first off, I will say that I feel sorry for all the people who live there are actually harmed by these actions going on in L.A. Absolutely. You know, absolutely on that part of it. On the more cynical side of me, California is $270 billion in debt. All the local communities in California are $230 billion in debt. Now with all this destruction going on, that tax revenue base has been destroyed. They're not going to be able to collect taxes on a multiple million dollar home that's no longer there. Very true.

These are not generating tax revenue. So how are they going to continue digging out of this hole that they're continually in without all this revenue being generated in L.A. And it's a big chunk of the state's coffers coming out of L.A. Boy, I didn't even think about the financial side of it, but with you looking at it that way, this could be a, well, like they call it, the existential threat, financial, right? Right. I mean, there's no way.

I mean, what, is the federal government going to write out hot checks of $100, $200 billion? I don't think so. Not right now. Maybe they will. I'll say won't. They probably would have under Biden. But, I mean, prior to this incident or these incidents happening, you know, we think of it as one, but it really is multiple incidents. The state of California was on the brink of bankruptcy anyhow, you know, being half a trillion dollars in debt.

So where are they going to go? I mean, the addition of illegal immigration draining their coffers more is not going to benefit them financially. But the ultra, ultra cynical side of me is, why don't they have the illegal immigrants fighting fires? Well, even fighting fires they didn't have water to fight it with, from the sounds of it. Michael, good point. Thanks for making that. 770-5633. Good call. A good call as always. Let me go to Wild Salmon. Hey, Steve. system and and in in the water world pressure is determined it's called head pressure basically and it's it's how you calculate how much pressure you can get in a in a natural system you get 2.3 feet of head you get one pound of pressure yeah so that tells you how much to get 60 pounds of pressure. That's like 120 feet of head. 100 feet will give you 43 pounds of pressure. But if you have an overloaded circuit whereby you have a number 12 wire and you want 50 amps through it, you're going to burn up

the wire in pumping. Well, connect it to what's going on in Los Angeles if you could, though. Okay? The pipes aren't big enough. Okay. Thank you. See, that was the simple side of it, okay? Yeah, well, it's the pumps. The pumps that they have set up to deliver normal flow cannot handle the volume of fire

systems, just like Almeda. Okay. Let me, though, just maybe query that or challenge you just a little bit, though. I don't know if once you have all the plumbing bursting and flowing, I don't know if you could have enough water going in those pipes, could you? Well, that's certainly an issue, but the bigger issue is the supply side. I mean, that's the delivery side, and that's a problem. But the supply side is you only have enough water no matter how much pressure you're putting into it.

You're only going to get so much water out. Yeah, well, we tend to build systems for normal society. You don't build a water system to be able to handle the gargantuan, everything is on fire. You probably build your water system for what? Okay, we can handle two or three or four houses on fire at the same time. Back in the Midwest, they handle it with those giant tanks that are sitting way up in the air. They're 100-foot tall tanks. They have a very large supply.

You know, the water system runs off pumps that's pumping pressure into those tanks and to the supply of the system. Those tanks, they keep full with a large supply line feeding the whole system. So if the power goes out. And it keeps feeding. So do you think, though, that the West Coast is willing to go to, as they would call it in the Midwest, I want to go up there and climb that water tower, you know, in the South? I don't know either, but, you know, you can't fix an electrical system.

If you need 20 amps of DC current, you need a number 12 wire. If you need 50 amps, you know, you need a bigger wire. Yeah, well, that would be a big, big, big project, rebuilding all that kind of stuff. But I had another idea. We had one in White City, if you remember. Yeah. Why did that come down, do you know? I don't know.

Probably real estate. I don't know. I never did hear a reason for it. Yeah, the land was more valuable than the actual water use, I guess. Okay. Thanks for that, Steve. We have Ron in Grants Pass. Hey, Ron, go ahead.

Yeah, I listen quite often to the weather station, and they talk about the number of thousands of cubic feet, like right now, where you have huge rain events that go down the river and nobody benefits from. Now, what happens if we turn around and we put high-altitude storage in the ground type of water storage areas? What that does is provide, as you have already pointed out with your previous callers, an ability to come up with large volumes of water to fight fires, either from a pressurized high-altitude condition to the cities. But remember, you're fighting an environmental regulatory world. Forget that. Forget that. Well, no, you can't forget that because it won't be allowed to be built.

That's what I'm getting at. Let me finish this idea a little bit further. Okay. On a private level, if a person was next to a river and he had no use for his land because it was too rocky or something, perhaps he could donate an acre and maybe 12, 14 feet deep with a tax deduction for that donation to safety of the people where helicopters and trucks could come in and borrow and or take that water. But that water could be replaced every year from the

water that's uh let down the stream into the ocean yeah well you understand though that there are usually water rights connected people even here you're not allowed just to impound water all the time well that's why i said the person would if they have an interest in the society would donate their land to saving water for the public use. Well, yeah, okay, but I'm still saying there has to be a water right to it. Well, I don't want to get off into the weeds on that one, but yeah, it'd be nice. Yeah, that would be nice, but I think, you know, while we're fantasizing, okay? Appreciate the call because, you know, as long as you have an environmental regulatory

apparatchik way of running the world here, which doesn't really work, but it is in power right now. I don't know how you accomplish that. Because remember, magic fish. Look at the Klamath. Let me go to line one. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. Who's this?

Good morning, Bill. You know, looking at all these disasters going on and so forth, my concern is that I think so much money is being diverted into the woke agenda, the DEI and so forth, that it's basically bankrupting not just Oregon, but California. You know, you heard about the billions of dollars in debt and so forth. You see things like Pacific Gas and Electric not being able to take care of the foliage along their power lines because they have to take a huge amount of money and devote it into solar panels and wind farms and so forth. Everything has to be for the renewable engine or the renewable energy world. Here, you know, that kind of reminds me, what you are illustrating right now is something,

I don't know if you've ever read Noah Rothman, but Noah Rothman was talking with Hugh Hewitt earlier this morning when I was waking up out of my NyQuil-induced delusional slumber, okay? So I'm waking up listening to him, and Noah Rothman said something perfect, and it had to do, I'm going to paraphrase. The challenge that we on the West Coast in the blue bubble states like Oregon, California, Washington, is that they spend an inordinate amount of time. and treasure working on stuff that can't be fixed, and they use that as an excuse for not doing the things that cities and counties and states are supposed to do, like making the water run and putting out the fires and making sure that there is power.

You know, everything that is done from DEI to climate agendas, it has nothing to do with making sure that people are able to live. In fact, it takes away the ability for them to fulfill these goals. I thought it was very interesting. That's exactly what I'm saying, Bill. And I just see it over and over again. I mean, people that are all in SOCAN, they're not reality-based. Everything that SOCAN wishes to solve is not a problem. They claim it is a problem. There is no scientific evidence for their problem. There's a bunch of theorizing scientists, but that's all they have.

You look at all the money that's being diverted, and they were a major influence upon all these decisions being made by the Medford City Council. I don't care whether it's a traffic flow or so forth, but it's this whole idea of a woke agenda, and it's really devastating. It is killing society. Now, you can tie the climate agenda. Okay, climate theory. Okay, oh, the earth has a fever and we're all going to die. And all we have to do is get rid of carbon, right? They can't prove it, but it's the theory which has implanted itself into the body politics. And it's really destroying a whole economy. And it goes into the influence of even traffic in Medford now because the normal job of a city when it comes to running the roads is to have roads that have very easy and smooth flow of traffic and commerce, getting from point A to point B smoothly, quickly, and with a minimum amount of time and fuel, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, everything about the climate-friendly or climate equity community, climate-friendly equity, you know what it is. That whole agenda is about destroying that, everything. Yeah, and didn't you have a picture of the EcoBus going up in flames? Yes, I did. Yeah, the Josephine Community Transit bus that went off in flames yes i did yeah the uh josephine community transit bus that went off in flames what does it all it's like one picture encapsulated oh i know we just said yeah i i just i just kind of deadpan that one when i put it up on facebook yesterday it's like yeah uh one of these uh josephine county transit buses well it's out of service today so there there we go. Thanks, Tom. Let me go to the next line here. This is

Bill Meyer. You're on Conspiracy Theory Thursday. Who's this? This is Vicki from the Applegate. Hi, Vicki. What are you thinking? Hi. Well, first of all, I agree with you about the plumbing, the piping. It should be metal. If they're going to build million-dollar homes, let's not go cheap. Second of all, I think that the water-holding tanks is a great idea, you know, and you don't necessarily need pumps because it's gravity-fed. If it's big enough, it'll have some pressure.

Well, yeah, you have to have pumps to pump it up there, but then, you know, it's able to augment when you have excessive draw, for sure. Right. And what about, you know, they're so into solar, why don't they just put a solar pump up there? I mean, come on. Well, you would be surprised at the amazing amount of energy it takes to move water. It's a lot of juice needed to do that. And also, they're right by the ocean. Why can't they build some kind of thing to... Desalinate? ...cult water? Oh, yeah, yeah.

There's been talk about that for quite some time, about doing such plants. But, of course, it takes lots of money, lots of capital, and also lots of energy, too. But, yeah, point well taken. I agree with you. But, you know, we could be having these kind of conversations about the California coast, too, for that matter. All right. Thanks, Vicki. It is 654-770-5633.

What's on your mind here? It's Open Phones on Conspiracy Theory Thursday at the Bill Myers Show. Quality Fancy. To all the award winners from Bicoastal Media, publishers of the Best of Southern Oregon magazine, visit bestofsouthernoregon.com today. The Bill Myers Show is on. News Talk 1063 KMED. Taking your calls at 770-5633.

The fires or anything else on your mind. I wanted to just revisit briefly here. You know, I was talking about how the plastic pipe melts and then all you have the firestorms come through the plastic pipes melt and then all the water is pouring out of the open pipes on all the burned down homes. And then there's no fire available to fight. Now, you could say in an ideal world, we would have tons and tons of pipes everywhere and maybe a big pipe that runs just the fire hydrant so that there'd be enough for the firefighters. Probably not going to be happening.

What would you think about this? We already have smart meters in our electrical system right now. And wouldn't it behoove us then? I don't know if you want to call it a smart water meter. But I could see where, you know, we're not going to be going back to copper piping, right? Too expensive and too inconvenient, I think, for a lot of people. What would you think about an automatic, like, okay, we have a mass fire deal and it, if it senses that you have, that you're just gushing water out of your house, that it stops.

Limits the flow. In other words, some way of sensing that your water has just gone out of control. Just a full flow. Just a full flow, boom. Off it cuts. Like a cutoff of some sort. Like an automatic cutoff. Whether it's something which is a sensor within the house,

and then you could have maybe a manual override. Just throw that out there. This is an example in which I think maybe some technology could be useful. Then other people would say, okay, there it is. Someone has control over your water coming in there too. Well, yeah, we already have some of this. But I could see this being helpful in an emergency in which as houses burn down in an area, you're able to cut off their water quickly so that way it leaves the water available to fight for the other houses.

Just thinking. Let me go to line three. Hi, good morning. You're on the Bill Meyer Show. Who's this? Bill, it's Herman. Good morning. Hi, Herman.

Welcome. Hey, you know, you're talking about my wheelhouse, and I will tell you, first of all, the fire hydrant systems are not designed for a wildfire. No. They're designed for house fires, okay? Yeah, you have a house fire or two on a block, and that's what it's for, right? That's right. I experienced that on the old fire in Lake Arrowhead in California. We started drawing off the fire hydrant system and then after a while, everybody's drawn off it and then there's no water.

So you have to remember this type of event that they experienced in California is a wind driven firestorm. So you have to try to think of it as a hurricane or a tornado. There are things you can do before the event takes place, but once the event is happening, there's not much you can do. Air support doesn't work after about 20 miles an hour wind. It's not reliable. And you cannot put firefighters in front of a wind-driven fire. You're just going to kill people. That's a very interesting point. It almost seems like it wouldn't have mattered how many people you had, right?

Absolutely. So this fire started in the wild lands and it developed into a firestorm. And by the way, this firestorm is in a canyon, right? Exactly. It's like a perfect Venturi effect. You know, the wind goes through there just racing at 100 miles an hour. It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah, there's nothing you can do. And when that hits the track of homes, the homes just become another fuel source that is preheated before and then the embers land on it, and then they're just another fuel source. So there's nothing you can do.

I watch the videos, and it brought back memories of my younger days working in that environment. But, you know, it's interesting. Herman, let me ask you then. Is this an example of the hubris of humanity, though, that thinks that um no matter what we always have control over something because after all we are human look at all the power we have no i think it's more of it'll never happen to me oh i think it's more of that. You know, and as a kid, I used to watch the fires go through Malibu before there were homes there. And I mean, it was pretty regular.

Every year something was on fire in the Malibu mountains or somewhere. And they were wind driven, Santa Ana winds around the San Fernando Valley. And then they build homes there. Do they not understand that that has a history of fire? It is the risk that you take when building there, for sure. Let me ask you there before I quick, I'm running out of time here, and then we'll have to get back to some more calls, but would you think of an automatic full-flow shutoff as being a good idea?

Is there some way to do that, do you think, in the water systems, so that way when you have multiple fire, you know, when you have a firestorm or more than your average just fire, that you can actually preserve pressure for fire fighting? Is that something which is practical? It's not a bad idea. I don't know how that all works and what the mechanics of, but at the end of the day, Bill, you're not going to put anybody in front of this.

You're going to, you you're gonna you can't you can't do it the heat is unbelievable it creates its own weather i know and it's so fast it'll overtake you before you know what what happens yeah that makes sense thank you harman let me grab two more calls here before news and then we'll have some more open phones after about 7 30 or so hi good morning good morning. Who's this? Welcome. This is not so crazy. Yeah, Gene.

Yeah, I was there for the event of the water tower that got destroyed. It was destroyed by a four-foot pipe in front of Kirkland. When I was driving to work, I seen a backhoe operator standing there with this geyser of water shooting up out of the ground. Oh. And somebody talking to him. So that big water tower is gone because somebody couldn't see a four-foot pipe when they were digging. Oh, was it one of those things that they didn't think it was worth rebuilding? I forget the reason why that came down.

Yeah, they just salvaged the thing. And now all we had to do was put air pressure back into that tank and blow the dent that was in it back out. Okay. Maybe somebody can tell me why they took it down. It could be that maybe it's just old and wasn't worth repairing. I don't know. Thanks, Gene. Hi, good morning.

This is Bill. Who's this? Hi, Joe. Hi, Lucretia. Okay. morning this is bill who's this hi hi hi lucretia okay so are you are you going to have more time do you need more time because i'll have more time after 7 30 i'm almost out of time right now i don't know do i get a minute well you not right now right now it's pretty quick why don't you give me a call after 7 30 news i got another half hour okay i don't i don't, I don't want to, you know, you might have something really interesting. You always have some interesting theories on the fires.

Okay. I want to make sure you have time, but I'll do it after. We'll do it after 730. Okay. So I'll get your, I'll have your theme ready to KMED, KMED, HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass, open phones a little bit later. We're going to talk about Trump's legal battle coming up here in just a moment with the Supreme Court.