Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 09-09-25_TUESDAY_8AM

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Capt. WIlliam E. Simpson, Wild Horse Fire Brigade, convo on native american fire treatment, why it fails to stop wildfire, also lack of herbivory contributing to this, D62 quiz and some open phone calls, too.

Captain William E. Simpson, B. Second. He's an ethologist. Now, is it an ethologist? Is that how you pronounce that here? Yeah, good morning, Bill. That's correct. Yeah, ethologist, and he lives among and studies the free-roaming native species, American wildhorses. Wild Horse Fire Brigade.org. Award-winning producer of the microdocumentary film Wild Horses, author of a new study about the behavioral ecology of wild horses. published all sorts of books, 500 published articles. Fred of the show, good to have you back on here.

And we'd like to talk about fire and horses. It doesn't always have to be about horses, but certainly about fire. And you brought up something. Now, this is the fifth anniversary of the Almeida fire. We were talking about that a little bit earlier. I had, you know, Greg Roberts over at Rogue Weather on. And you had something going on in the fire world, too, and it has to do with, well, we're told that native land.

or Native Americans are the only ones that really understand fire process here. And yet, why is all the fire burning on the tribal lands right now? It's running to be to help me out. That's where it seems to be. That's what's going on, isn't it? That's something you brought up. Well, yeah, we're looking at where the Dillon and the blue fire and the log fire, you know, these fires are primarily on tribal lands.

And so the situation with the tribes is the indigenous knowledge is an important. part of, you know, America. It's an important part of their culture. But the thing is, is there, the, the landscape has changed radically over the time that those practices were, were effective. You know, if you go back to, you know, pre-settlement from the Europeans here in North America, you know, we had 100 million more herbivores out there managing annual grass and brush, and the key is annual. You can even burn it, but it comes right back next spring. But the thing is, is when indigenous knowledge was practicing, you know, cultural burning,

it was effective because it burned low and flow, because they had the herbivory, they had millions of more deer, elk, wild horses on the landscape, Buffalo, that were managing the fuel loads. So when you did burn, it didn't burn abnormally hot. It does now. Heat is a function of fuel. So, we all, you know, the problem right now, the big problem is, is a lot of our legislators do not have science advisors. You know, they're just, they're winging it.

You know, they talk to a fishing buddy who talked to another guy who maybe talked to somebody else that was a logger at one point or whatever. Or was a fireman putting out house fires. But the thing is, is they don't study evolutionary natural history. They don't study soil science. They don't study forestry. These are all combined knowledges that indigenous wisdom encompassed at one time. But the landscape has changed radically now because the keystone herbivores, and the term keystone means they are critical.

They are the center of the web, so to speak, of life. And because they benefit all the other flora and fauna around them, especially America's horses. American horses populated the rest of the world. a million years ago over Beringia. They went across from North America into Eurasia, and that's how they all got horses. They didn't have a single horse before then. So that was our gift to the rest of the world, was the horse, which, of course, built civilization. These horses have evolved here, and they've co-evolved with all the flora and fauna,

actually much more so than deer and elk and bison, which came across Beringia the other way from Asia here about 200,000 years ago. So all horses in North America originally evolved here 55 million years ago. The modern horse that we all see today, Equis Cabalas, has been here two million years, and it's based on carbon dating. There's no opinion here. This is hard science. Okay, so.

Yeah, what about the Buffalo versus the domestic cow, as we know? How did that, what changes happen over the years? they're both they're both uh of course the cow came across the settlers you know back in the 16th century um the the bison has been here about 200,000 years so the bison definitely predates there are bison fossils on the landscape there's not a single cow fossil anywhere in north America because they haven't been here long enough okay um so they're they're truly an invasive species and i know the ranchers they get all prickly when you say that well let me tell you though that invasive species is tasty, and that's all that matters here, Captain Bill.

Well, that's not at all that matters, though, Bill, because here's the thing. Even the USDA says they're an invasive species. Well, they've been, but there have been a completely anti-grazing group for a long time, though. No, moo, remember? The USDA is, no, no, the USDA is pro grazing. But let me finish. Okay. So the USDA says they're an invasive species right on their own website, but they also say that they're beneficial

if they're managed in agricultural areas. So they add that caveat. And I agree with that. I totally agree with that. You know, there's something I wanted to ask you about, though, here. We always hear this term invasive species. You know, invasive compared to what? Are our ecosystems in amber?

Nothing ever changes? That doesn't seem to make sense. I've always wondered about that. I'm going to ask you that. Yeah, that's a really great question. And I think it could help other people understand. That's a great question, Bill. Invasive means they didn't co-evolve with the other floor and fauna.

And that's really important because you scratch my back, I'll scratch your back deal. You know, it takes a million years for a species in an ecosystem to sort of, it's like, let's make a deal. You know, like the horses, they all eat the grass, but I'll reseed you. So your future generations will continue. Whereas a cow, because they're a ruminant. when they eat the plants, because they, you know, they burp up the cut and they chew it over and over again, it masticates the seeds. So very few, very few seeds of plants survive, the digestive system of a cow or sheep or a goat.

And whereas the opposite of the horse, but that took a long time for that relationship to form with the horse. And, you know, over millions of years. And so that's what makes them native. They have a relationship with, that's what, that's the indigenous. Indigenous peoples in North America. That's what makes them native here because they've been here long enough where they sort of co-evolve

and there's an interesting overlap. Native horses in North America have about a 50,000-year overlap with indigenous people. So, you know, they were, the Lakota considered the horse another nation. They called them the horse nation

because they respected them that much. They realized what they were doing on the landscape, receding and regenerating life, whereas these other animals that the settlers brought, yeah, they're beneficial, yeah, they taste good and all that other good stuff, but they have to be managed properly, and the horses is the same way. The BLM, you know, we can't have two-thirds of all-American oil horses jammed in Nevada. That makes no sense, and plus it also makes them an expense on the taxpayer rather

than any benefit. Right, right, yeah. So getting back to the fire, when cultural burning worked really well, we have. had millions of more urban wars. California's down two million deer. The BLM and the U.S. forests, they're rounding up the last forces. I mean, talk about ignoramus. Yeah, let me ask you then. I get this, and you've covered this pretty extensively in past conversations. My thing, though, is isn't this really about declaring war on rangeland grasses, an open land grass? Isn't that really our wildfire problem?

Well, yes and no. You know, the thing is is grass and actually grasses produce more oxygen than forest. People don't understand that either. Grasses are very critical for everything that wants to breathe oxygen, including us. So, you know, the thing is, is we need to have an ecosystem

that's functioning in balance and in a natural modality. So we've lost that because the herbivory was part of that whole system of managing this so it didn't burn abnormally hot. Yep. When you have a fire, if you log, okay, and I used to log, okay, my family were logers. When you open up the canopy, what happens is the grass and brush take off? Because you've just optimized growing conditions.

You've given it sunlight and access. There we go. Right. Right. So logging is fabulous. I like logging, especially with modern techniques, because now we're finally, good at it. We're ecologically more sensitive. The loggers understand that we have to have sustainability. We have to protect our forests. They're starting to get that message. Now, 40 years ago,

it was kind of like splash and burn. Let's get our money. But things have changed. So when you open the canopy in today's world of the landscape without the herbivory there, what happens is grass and brush will take over and then you burn the forest green faster. There's a lot of science now that says when you log in today's world where we have the loss of herbivory, you make fires worse. You increase the risk and frequency and intensity of fire by logging. Because you are opening up the canopy and opening up the ability for more of the grass to grow.

Now, the wild horses, you have been pushing for the wild horses to be used in remote areas. And this is something that you're, you know, it's been difficult for you to get some traction on this. And there may be multiple reasons. cheat grass. Do horses, wild horses, eat cheat grass? Yeah, they ate that and everything else.

They ate acorns, they ate mistletoe when the wind blows it out of the oak. They eat poison oak. I've got pictures of what, I mean, I've argued was the problem we have is legislators are misinformed. They are misinformed. You know, I had an argument with Amy, she's a, I think, Whitewater. Biden executive. She's, oh, horses only eat green grass. And I go, no, they don't. They eat brush. They ate all kinds of other stuff. Well, my expert in Burns told me, and I said,

just a minute, let me send you a video. And I sent her a video of a horse eating a branch off of an oak tree. Yeah, the brush. The leaves. Yeah, not the brush, the branch off an oak tree. And then she goes, oh, I'm corrected. You know, that's the problem. See, the reason I'm having so much trouble, bill is because people are misinformed. The BLM and the U.S. Forest Service lie by omission. Okay, that's how they lie to you. They lie by omission. Of course, the BLM is very bold.

They'll just tell you lie straight to your face. Oh, they're not native. They, this, that, and that, other things. Yeah, yeah, I've heard that all before. And I agree with your point that you've been making here. The reason I brought up cheatgrass, though, is that I had another guest yesterday, Gregory Ritestone, who was a geologist, and, you know, he talks about CO2 and various other things. And he says that out on the West, the real problem is the invasive species of

the cheat grass. And I'm looking it up here, and I realize that what even invaded my yard to a certain extent on the end, it's cheat grass. And this stuff grows before everything else, and it's next to impossible to get rid of. And what I'm concerned about it, and I wanted you to respond to this, you say that one of the things about having the wild horses chewing up on this stuff, is that the good seeds, it's able to repopulate. If it eats cheat grass, is it just going to spread more cheat grass, which is like gasoline out there when it dries out and catches on fire? Well, they're going to poop out whatever seeds they eat.

That was the evolutionary deal that was made over millions of years. But the thing is, is if you're pooping out the right seeds, see, we're working with Cal State right now and we're developing new technology. to set up feeding stations for our horses with the right seeds. And so you can out-compete. See, the thing is that there's very little knowledge and how to manage horses. I mean, the PhDs on our board acknowledge we know more about these horses than anybody. I mean, I should work for the BLM, but the BLM is not interested in managing horses correctly.

The BLM is interested in wiping them out. In fact, some of the guys who want to wipe out that big elk herd up in Wyoming, they finally got back to 175,000 elk, and some idiot legislator gets on the legislative floor, well, can't we just, and this is printed, can't we just fly around with a helicopter and mow them down, let the predators eat them? I mean, that's the kind of ignorance we have right now in the political world. No doubt about that. Let me go back to the cheat grass, though, and I'm just going to throw this out you. I'm just spitballing with you here, Captain Bill. All right, I always appreciate you you know, talking about these issues.

Since wild horses would tend to poop out whatever, as you put it, then they'd extrude, you know, the horses, the seeds from whatever they ate and they end up repopulating, what would you think about this? Could this, with the cheat grass on the public lands here, could you potentially then start, you take the cows out there, and you have them eat first, right? You have them eat first. They'll eat the cheat grass, let's say, various other things.

Since they're ruminant, they'll sterilize it, right? Because they will digest it several times, and they don't end up putting it out in their feces. Isn't that right? And then have wild horses take over and repopulate with good seeds. What would you think about that? Is that something which might work in the real world out there? Oh, Jeff. Definitely.

You definitely can do that, and there's people that have looked at doing that. But that's a great observation from your chair there. You put the sheep and the cows out there and let them decimate the seed bank and decimate the plants, which is what they do. That's what created the dust bowl in the 30s was overgrazing by invasive species of livestock. And then what you do is you set up feeding stations with seeds that you want to grow. And then the horses, when they poop, if you look at horse dropping, It's like a little potted plant, and you break it open, and it's just like you got some, a little peat ball down at the nursery, and inside of it is the fertilizer and the seed and everything. Yeah.

So you said, and we've done that here, right here at Wild Horse Ranch. We've fed, we've done experiments with best few and winter rye and oats. Oh, okay. So you use different types of grass, and you'll feed them to the horses so that they'll take those grasses and put them out there, right? We mix the seed with some grains, so they eat it really fast, and then, of course, they'll go out and graze other things. And then when the seeds come out, they'll grow in the landscape. And what we're studying with Cal State is the ratio of survivability due to seed size, because obviously even a horse has teeth, so some seeds do get broken. But we're finding that small seeds, like for our native grasses, you know, the various types of, you know,

Indian rice grass and pubescent wheat and crested weed and fescue and things like that have tiny little seeds. And those have a very high survival rate through the track of the horse. Now oak grass, I'm learning that the survival weight isn't as high, you know, because it's a big seed. You know what oats look like. They're pretty big. Yes, very big seed. And so, yeah, more of those get broken, but still a lot of them survive. So what we're looking at doing is I do want to work with.

the indigenous peoples to show them how to make their cultural burning more effective. Are they open to you showing them, you know, a way to? It's either we work together. I mean, as far as this goes, I'm the only real indigenous out here. I mean, there's no shasta living where I am on this landscape. I've been here for a very long time with these horses, doing what Native Americans did for a very long time. I'm living in nature and studying it, and that's what they did. So, but now, they don't do that very much anymore. And the areas where they do, the areas are depleted of herbivores,

so they can't see what they used to see 400 years ago. This is one of those challenges here, like you have mentioned, there is no one solution that is going to fix it. Logging by itself is not going to fix things. Horses by itself probably won't fix things either. It's multiple things. You need the deer back. You need the elk back.

You need the horses. You need all that in there. Right. And yet we're completely out of whack on our nature balance out there. But because there's multiple steps, it doesn't mean you do nothing. See, that's the thing. People are frozen in their footsteps because you have to take that first step down the path to success. Okay.

What is the first, what's the low-hanging fruit here? Well, of course, it's the horses. That's why I say that. We've got a corral. The government's paying $150 million of our dollars a year, $150 million a year to feed them grass in a corral that the government built with our money. And those horses, and of course, those are non-breeding because they've all been sterilized, but still they're good lawnmowers. We can get those guys out there like right now. There's law that lets us do it right today.

But where is the choke point? Where's the choke point on getting this done here? Well, the choke point is we've got people, you know, not heads out there that actually have seats in Congress and other places. And, you know, I'm not meaning to be disrespectful, but when you tell somebody here's the science, here's the truth, but then they'd rather go in the direction of what puts more money in my pocket, to me, then they're a nod head. Because what they're doing is they're hurting a lot of other people for a small niche group to be profitable. And I don't like that. You know, we're all suffering. We're all, you know, 5,000 Californians die prematurely every year for wildfire smoke.

Men, women, children, and then little kids are predisposed to cardiopulmonary problems. That can't happen anymore. We've got to stop it. So with indigenous, what we can do is we can work together to reestablish their, by the way, it's their cultural horses that I am protecting. These are their spirit horses. I mean, you want to talk about indigenous wisdom and let's talk about it, you know. These are the cultural heritage horses of Native Americans. And we're protecting them.

I'm doing some of their work for them here. So, you know, the bottom line is we can get these guys out there in places where they do want to do cultural burning, have them start mowing the lawn. And then that makes that practice more reasonable because then when you do your burning, it doesn't get crazy and get out of control and burn the whole damn forest down. Exactly. Captain William E. Simpson with me. We always appreciate his take on things.

And hello, caller, you're on with Captain Bill. Did you have a question or comment on this? Go right ahead. Absolutely, it's Todd and Central Point. Yeah, Todd. Bill, I was listening, forgive me, to NPR last week, and they did a whole segment on how wonderful Native American prescribed burns were and how the California legislature just passed some law that the Native Americans don't have to apply for a Cal Fire burn permit. They can just do whatever they want.

What do you think of that? Well, I think the problem is there's a lack of education. There's big gaps in indigenous wisdom right now because the last time they did it really successfully was when the herbivory was on the landscape and the proper density. So when you're burning for a new village site, you know, where you're going to put up TPs or you're burning to drive game out of a brush area, you know, there were smaller burns. They weren't burning 100 and 200 acres at a time. And then you had the herbivory that created this matrix of grazed and ungrazed areas so the fire didn't burn in a continuous layer of deeply flammable materials like we see today. You know, we've just got – and you look at the last fires, the Slater fire, the Dillon fire, the Blue Fire.

Those are all on tribal lands right now. And allegedly they've been engaged in indigenous burning there. So, and the reason it's not working is because they don't have that herbivory anymore, and nobody wants to sit down with the indigenous people. People have to, well, when I went to school, let me give you a little analogy. You know, one of my teachers, a great, great man, said, you can't teach somebody something that their cup is already full. There's no room to put anything.

You have to empty your cup and be willing to learn new things. And the thing is, is you just can't know it all. I mean, they've lost it, and then you look at some of the science on indigenous wisdom. See, are you talking about then that, you know, essentially there is a, okay, how's the way I could put this? They're not going to allow anybody to, so to speak, mansplain them. Is that kind of what you're, kind of what you're alluding to there? Well, I don't know about mansplaining, but. Well, you know what it's like when women will be upset at men and they'll say that.

Uh-oh. I know. The guy thinks he knows everything, and so going to manisplain me. I don't like that, right? No, you know, Todd's point is well taken because, you know, the thing is, they need, the indigenous people need to reach out for additional science and health. I mean, you know, two heads are better than one. They don't have all the answers. Yeah, well, it's not, it's not the year 1,200 anymore out there on the landscape. That's right. Okay, all right. You know, you put, you bring in. You gave me a lot of information on this conversation here, and you have the science and all the rest of it. I'm going to post it, rather, on the show blog today so people can see this because you do a lot of work.

You put an awful lot of work in here, and it's a bit of a deep read. But, you know, if you're interested in this, you want to find out more about the science behind Wild Horse Fire Brigade and everything else. You just go to wild horse fire brigade.orgie, but I'll put up today's information on KMED.com. And I appreciate you coming on, Captain Bill. All right. Be well. Well, thank you very much. And, you know, the good news here is we can actually do something that benefits all the stakeholders,

the indigenous peoples, the loggers, the ranchers, and the horse people. I mean, there's no, it doesn't have to be a win-lose proposition here. It can be a win-win-win, but we have to work together. If we keep fighting each other and everybody thinks that they only have the only answer, then we have this standoff. Yeah, I've got the answer. No, I've got the answer. No, I've got the answer.

And, of course, the answer is usually what gets you biggest federal government grant stream funding, right? Yeah, well, that's the sad part. You know, we sell everything off. We're not going to have anything left. All right. Thanks, Bill. We'll have you back. You take care, okay?

Bye-bye now. It's 836 at K. On the Bill Meyer show. If you're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 1063 KMED, now Bill wants to hear from you. 541-770-5633. That's 770 KMED. It is Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday.

Lock into that all you want. Keith writes me, hey, Bill, where did cheat grass actually come from? Where did it get invasive from? And I'm glad you asked that. because I didn't really know and looked it up during the break here. Cheat grass, which by the way, by the way, is scientifically known as Bromus tectorum, originated in Europe, southwestern Asia, and northern Africa. Now you're wondering, how did it get to the United States of America so that cheatgrass is everywhere and causing problems and burning hot in the fires?

Well, it was introduced to the United States in the mid to late 1800s because it was, in seed and straw shipments. And it was kind of a contaminant. It wasn't something that they wanted to bring here. It's just that there were some cheatgrass seeds in there, and then it grew pretty well. Of course, they called cheatgrass because it grows and pops out before everything else does.

Okay, there we go. Wild Sam and Steve's here. Hello, Steve. How you doing this morning? Welcome. I'm doing pretty good. What's up? Okay, cheat grass is fox tails.

Right, the fox tails. And that's a, you know, if you're looking around, you see foxtails and you are, that's cheat grass. And it has a lot of negative characteristics. It's called cheat grass because it sprouts in the fall and gets a head start on the rest of the grass in the spring. So that's one thing. And let me tell you, and when it gets into your beds and stuff, it digs down pretty deeply on its root structure. Yes, it does. and those seeds are their hairy little seeds

and they will work their way up into your nose or your ear or they really cause all our problems with sheep and cattle because of what they do. Okay, just a couple of thoughts about Bill's explanation of the horses. Right. Horses and sheep have opposing teeth. They have teeth on both jaws. they can they can graze grass right down to the roots cattle however have only teeth on their top jaw

and they normally use their tongue to wrap around grass and in kind of pull up and and saw off what they can get with their tongue so they can't cattle cannot eat the grass down that it's dead just just a point exactly and the other The other thing that is happening to the herbivory is we've stopped managing our predators. And so the predator prey balance is way out of whack. I remember back in the 60s, in the fall, in the late fall, when the snow would come, there were deer. There were so many deer, it was just you couldn't hardly pick which one you wanted to shoot.

Now we don't have that many deer in the woods. I think it's predominantly because of the predator-prayed problem that we have. There are too many cats and too many bears. They have to eat deer because there's nothing else for them to eat. They're competing for space. Which ends up keeping down the air bivory, which causes the problem of which we have been talking about. No lawn mowing or little lawn mowing going on out there. Yes.

Well, back in the early days of the West, the cattlemen hated sheep because they would ruin the pasture land. When they grazed 1,000 sheep through an area, the grass didn't come back the next year very well because the sheep, they overgrazed the areas. You know, moving him is a problem. And so there was a big fight between cattle and sheep growers. And that was one of the range wars that happened. Yeah, you're right about that, Steve. But, of course, you know where I learned about the range wars? You're going to laugh.

You're going to laugh about this. You know, because remember I was living in the city at that time in Pittsburgh. So it was a Warner Brothers cartoon, the Looney Tunes with Yosemite Sam with, I think it was Yosemite Sam and you had Bugs Bunny. One of them had sheep and the other had cows. And they always fighting each other. Well, I just wanted to add those thoughts to what Bill was saying. You know, I don't know if the horses can take over. But what I do know is when I was a youth, you know, a teenager,

there was way more deer out in the woods. And we were logging a lot in those days. And the money from the logging went into an escrow account to take care of the land. So the Forest Service was doing a way better job. of, you know, you cut timber in an area and you remove the overgrowth of the, you plant new stuff. Yeah, now, doesn't the money now from logging, any logging that just goes into the general budget, doesn't it? Yes, it does. There's no money left to manage the land, which that started in 1985 with the Grand Mredman Hollings bill.

Yeah. So we were doing it better before, in other words. That's our bottom line. All right. Steve, I appreciate the call. Thank you. I want to make sure and get everybody else squeezed in here on Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. Let me grab one more here. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Hello? Hey, Bill. Yeah, hi. Who's this? Hey, this is Bill again. Oh, okay, go ahead.

I just wanted to help Steve out with his morphology. Ruminids, cattle, sheep, goats, none of them have upper incisorses in the top jaw. They don't. They don't have any front incisorses. They have a dental pad. horses are the only large mammal in North America that have upper and lower front incisors. So just FYI. So all those other critters have to tug more to get stuff up into their mouth using a preensile tongue and their bottom teeth like a site. But all ruminants have a dental pad. They have no upper incisors. All right.

Thank you for the clarification. Let me go to the next one there. Hi. Good morning. Who's this? Good morning, Bill. It's Francine. Francine, go ahead. It's pebble in your shoe Tuesday.

That's right. And I've really got a pebble. What's that? Well, I hardly know what to do or where to turn anymore because every place, every time I reach out, I find out the options have changed. I like what? The option, just, you know, phone calls. Every time you call somebody, the options have changed. Oh, all of the options would you call on the phone tree. Okay. Right, right. All right. Okay. I didn't understand where you're going. All right, so listen.

Well, this is especially, I think you hear that on Pacific Power all the time. Listen, because our options have changed, right? Every single call I make pretty much, unless it's to one of my friends, their options have changed. Uh-huh. As far as my gender, my options have changed. Watch me closely. I don't know, Bill. It's just crazy.

I mean, why can't they just say, hi, here are our new, or, or just here, these are the, the way it is now or something. You know, I don't know. I didn't think about it before I called about an alternative, but just are, please this is all you need to do, is just like, they need to have one that says, if you would like to speak to a person, press one, and then that immediately will hang you up then because we can't have people answering the phone. You think?

It must be. You know, another thing I've noticed, Bill, is all my searches that I do on, you know, like what I use duck duck or index or whatever. They're all coming up with the same type of responses. It's like I was trying to find some weird dirt on, you know, one of the squad or something the other day. And it just kept coming up talking about what great people they were, no matter how I worded it.

Uh-huh. Was that even with the AI search assists that they're starting? You always get one that says this is from the AI, but then all the rest of them were just, it was, I mean, I'm giving up on it, unless somebody can tell me about a really, an actual... I don't know. I'm just under the impression here right now between artificial intelligence, deep fakes, and all the rest of it. You know, it was rumored that the former head of the CIA thought that I forget who this was.

I could look at it up. Lukisha could probably tell me, I'm sure. But that they'll know that they have accomplished their goal when everything that Americans think they know is total BS, okay? And I think that I think we're getting very close to that between AI search, AI this, deep fakes. You know, unless it's happening right in front of you, I don't know, can you trust it? I don't know. No, I know.

It's gotten really bad. I mean, I've been doing some research on a medical subject, you know, and I don't know what to even think anymore. I've just kind of given up. Yeah, all right. Well, you've got a soldier on anyway. I appreciate your call. Tubble on your shoe Tuesday. Hi, good morning. Who's this? This is Paul Williams.

Hello, Paul. How are you? I'm doing well. Good. This is pebbling your shoe, too. I've got a bolder in my programs about the BATF and BLM, U.S. Forest Service, and all the rest of it. Do you think it's ignorance or long-term agenda or a little bit of both that keeps these people from accepting any new or different science from that which they develop themselves? Well, you know, you are talking about, what do you call it, institutional sclerosis, you know, which kind of builds up there. It is very difficult, I would imagine, to get someone to change their way of thinking.

I mean, just look at humans in general. If I were to try to get you to think differently on something which is a deeply held cherished belief or even something you were educated on for quite some time. I think it's human nature, isn't it? I talked to Bill Wattenberg once. I don't hang out with guys like that. He's gone now, but on the radio program, and I asked him, I said, do you think there are any scientists who would abdicate their professional objectivity

to pursue some socioeconomic or political goal to make some gain by using just the unjustifies of me and what they believe? And he asked that there's plenty of them. Okay. You know, that was a very honest statement from Bill, wasn't it? Oh, yeah. Well, he was a pretty honest guy, in my opinion. I think so.

All right. Hey, I appreciate the call. Thank you for making it. 770563. In just a moment, the Diner 62 Real American Quiz. We got some great. This is going to be a little pallet cleanser, okay? Just fun, multiple choice, five answers.

You choose one. You get a $20 gift certificate. And then you get a chance to go to Diner 62 just south of White City. Fresh avocados available on their burgers, it's delicious, your lunch destination, all your hearty breakfast favorites, it's all there. 770563-770 KMED. If you have not won this in the last 60 days, win it next. You finally decided to switch to a gas dryer or range. Visit botanarrupingservices.com.

Diner 62, Real American Quiz, and let's get Tony on the phone here. Hey, Tony, how you doing? Hey, I'm doing good, Bill. Great. Tony, today, Nathan Hale volunteered to spy behind British lines. It was actually yesterday, September 8th, 1776. General George Washington asked for a volunteer for an extremely dangerous mission, gathering intelligence behind enemy lines before the coming Battle of Harlem Heights. It was 1776, Captain Nathan Hale, he ends up stepping forward and says,

I'm stupid enough to do it, okay? Brave enough, stupid enough, yeah. Yeah, exactly, that sort of thing. And anyway, British soldiers were on high alert for sympathizers. But anyway, September 21st, Hale was captured while sailing Long Island Sound trying to cross back into American-controlled territory. So prior to becoming a soldier and then a spy, what occupation was Nathan Hale pursuing? Was it A, a poet? B, he wanted to be a schoolteacher.

C, did he want to be a minister, a doctor, or a sheriff? shipbuilder. It's one of those five. What do you say? I'll say a shipbuilder. A shipbuilder. That sounds as good as anything. No, it wasn't. I'm sorry. Brother Brad, you're up here next. It's not shipbuilder, poet, schoolteacher, minister, or a doctor. What did Nathan Hale want to be? Absolute guess I'm going for minister. Minister, you're thinking that would sound good? No, it's not that either. Darn it. I know. Dennis is here. Hello, Dennis. It's poet, school teacher, or a doctor? What do you say? School teacher. You think he wanted to be a school teacher? Get on purrs? Yeah.

Yep, you got it. Hang on, Dennis, I'm going to get that to you, but Hale attended and graduated from Yale in 1773, after which he became a school teacher in Connecticut. After his capture, Hale interrogated by British General William Howe, and when it was discovered, he was carrying incriminating documents, Howe ordered his execution for spying, which was set for the following morning, after being led to the gallows legend holds that Hale was asked if he had any last words, and he replied with those now famous words, I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country. All right, 855, great story. And hang on, Dennis. We're going to to send you to Diner 62. We'll have another one later this week. 772.com.

You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 1063 KMED. Tony, is that you? It's me again. Okay, Tony, I know you didn't make it on the Diner's 62 quiz, but I'd love to give you a quick comment on pebbling your shoe Tuesday. Well, yeah, you were talking, I heard you talk about the Looney Tunes, Bugs Bunny, Yos 70 Sam, and the Range Wars. Yes.

It was actually a text Avery cartoon called Drag Along Droopy. Oh, that's what it was. You're right. It wasn't. I got the wrong, but I watched way to, I watched way too many of those. Yeah. You want a good laugh. You look up those Text Avery cartoons.

You'll laugh your butt off. They're quite politically incorrect, but, oh, they're so funny. Yeah. Droopy dog with... Drag-a-Long Droopy. Drag-along droopy. Have a nice day, sir, right? That kind of thing.

Oh, gosh. Those were great. And, you know, you think about it, the total un-PC take, all of those animators, those cartoon people, were... Oh, gosh, the best ones, I mean, I guess depending how you look at, the best ones are the, like, the car of tomorrow and the house of tomorrow with the, like, Dad's Chair, and then Junior's Chair, and then the mother-in-law's chair is an electric chair. Yeah, you got to love that. Great stuff. Hey, thanks for the reminder, Tony.