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2XX. 
Thank you for listening to Off the Hook. 
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall. 
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cough. 
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would. 
One big leap on, but the best is fed from worse. 
I hope that's understood. 
One big leap on! 
One big leap on topic. 
DJ Mount Zitzky. 
One big leap on everything. 
Gear zitzky. 
One big leap. 
One big leap. 
One big leap. 
One big leap in life. 
One big leap. 
Oh, wait. 
And there are turning hair on  Mad called Bergman. 
Thank you. 
And a very good evening to everybody. 
The program is Off the Hook. 
Emmanuel will stand here with you on this Wednesday evening, joined tonight by Kyle. 
Yeah. 
Out in Skypeland, we have Rob T. 
Firefly. 
Good evening. 
We have Gila. 
Good evening. 
And we have Alex. 
Good evening. 
Good to be back in New York. 
Welcome back. 
And I'm glad you're not in one of the many troubled spots of the world right now. 
And we're going to have a special guest in just a moment. 
And tonight, we're going to be kind of continuing in the vein of what we were doing last week. 
We were talking to our friend Greg, who had just gotten out of North Carolina after Hurricane Helene. 
And tonight, well, there's more. 
There's more upheaval on the way. 
And there's also quite a bit of verbal upheaval that's going on right now that's affecting almost all of us. 
And we have to take a good look at that. 
And we have to figure out how to counter that. 
But we'll get to that. 
We had a lot of feedback to last week's show. 
Here's from MaceGod60 on Mastodon. 
Great show. 
As to the question on the man who lost function because the company wouldn't update. 
Maybe companies that go out of business should make their programs open source when and if they go out of business. 
Also, there needs to be an open source library for computer programs, much like the Library of Congress. 
Once something is created, it should not just die with the creator. 
Now, this is referring to the guy who, what, he had a skeleton, something that, what's it called? 
Nobody? 
Nobody knows? 
Exoskeleton. 
Thank you. 
Exoskeleton. 
That's the word. 
And he needed a small part to repair. 
And the company said, you have an outdated version. 
Give us a lot more money or just we can't help you at all. 
It's a very common thing that we see more and more these days of hardware, software, just getting outdated. 
And you have to go along with their demands to add additional software or buy additional hardware. 
And it's called the right to repair. 
The right to make modifications to something that you have bought, whether it's a tractor, whether it's a computer, whether it's an exoskeleton. 
So, yeah, that story worked out thanks to the outrage. 
But there are many, many more like it. 
There are many, many more to come. 
And that's why right to repair legislation is so important to know about and to back up. 
And we also need to know the arguments that will be used against it and how we can counter those. 
Yeah, it's so infuriating when it isn't addressed with a sort of proper scheme for people that are repairing and trying to maintain something. 
But that overall, I think, results in people just doing whatever they have to do to make things work. 
And the downside, I guess, is that it isn't shared because the moment you start sharing it, you become a target from one of these firms that wants to force you to pay more or something. 
So it keeps the information from benefiting more people because the procedures or the way people develop parts or workarounds becomes sort of secret knowledge. 
And we are not about that here. 
And this is something that is so obvious. 
And with the advent of 3D printing, of course, and laser scanning and all the kinds of computer-aided design tools that are revolutionizing the ability for companies to just turn out different products constantly, should be able to take advantage of something that is allowed broadly, not something that is criminalized. 
Rob, it looks like you have something to say. 
Nope. 
Just, I agree. 
Well, don't look so interested then. 
Okay. 
All right. 
Well, we have more response. 
And by the way, you can write to us here at Off The Hook, OTH at 2600.com with your feedback, critiques, suggestions, et cetera. 
This comes from David. 
In response to your October 2nd coverage of the hurricane, a friend of mine in the Ashworth, North Carolina area lost cell service like your guest did. 
But his bank was not open and was not able to give out cash due to a lack of an internet connection. 
I thought this was alarming. 
And maybe you want to find a small single location bank or credit union to avoid that problem. 
Yeah. 
Internet access required in order just to give you your own money. 
That's a problem. 
Because failures happen. 
Lines are cut. 
Technology falls apart sometimes. 
One thing we should be able to count upon is getting access to our own resources. 
That's the whole trust thing. 
You know, we trust the bank to get it right. 
And clearly, a lot of us are not getting it right. 
A lot of us are relying too much on technology that can fail. 
And that is what we've seen quite a bit of. 
Yes, Alex. 
Yeah, I'd just like to point out one of my favorite points of Earth science that I learned from an episode of The Sopranos a couple of years back. 
And it's when Tony is in the hospital, he's recovering, and his wife, Carmela, gets him this book. 
It's a book of dinosaur stuff, dinosaur facts and things. 
And he's reading it, and he's reading it. 
It was a really cool episode. 
I think it was The Fleshy Part of the Thigh was the episode, if I recall correctly. 
But in any event, Tony was reading out to some of his compatriots the fact that if you were to make a timeline of the life of the Earth, and the timeline was as long as the Empire State Building, the period during which human beings were on the Earth would be a postage-sized stamp at the top of the Empire State Building. 
And I thought it was just absolutely incredible to think about how insignificant we are relative to the age of the Earth, and yet we feel like we have some kind of dominion or right to be here, and all these things are just going to magically work all the time, that everything is so consistent that we're quite literally the blink of an eye as a species for this planet. 
And I think when we have these massive hurricanes and these massive natural disasters, it's a bit of a reminder of that. 
No, wait, you needed The Sopranos to have that analogy drawn? 
Okay, whatever works. 
The Sopranos, yes. 
I mean, I learned most of my science from The Sopranos. 
The important thing is that you become educated through the outlet of your choice, and if it's The Sopranos, then fine. 
That's right. 
Barney the Dinosaur. 
Okay, one question, though. 
So we're a postage-sized stamp on the Empire State Building. 
How much for the dinosaurs? 
That's a good question. 
I don't know. 
I don't know. 
They didn't go into that. 
They should have gone into that. 
No, they didn't go into it, yeah. 
But it would be interesting to figure out what book Tony was reading from, though, and I'm sure it would have that fact in there. 
Well, he's a big fan of dinosaurs and the History Channel, but that's neither here nor there. 
Another letter entitled, My Town Was Underwater, from Tom. 
Yeah, I've been reading the magazines since 1992. 
My town is Marshall, North Carolina. 
We're a beautiful town north of Asheville. 
French Broad River flows north. 
Amazon filmed the Perihiro series. 
I don't know how to pronounce that word. 
I lost it spelled wrong. 
Jimmy's Bar was featured in that show. 
Okay, well, it sounds like a cool place. 
Anyway, my friends watched this building split in half, float down the street, and flatten my mechanic, the mechanic building, not the mechanic, I hope, Ponder Auto. 
The rest crash into our post office. 
The old copper phone bunker survived, but the whole end of town has vanished. 
And it sent us a bunch of pictures, videos. 
Of course, this is radio, so it's not really going to be able to be expressed well. 
But he mentions that his coffee shop was lost, lots of artwork, apartments, people. 
The courthouse, banks, florists, restaurants, bookstores, mechanics, lawyers, doctors, dentists. 
Water has now receded. 
We have a few Starlinks going downtown. 
Mud has been melting boots. 
I'm not quite sure how that works. 
Oh, we had a PVC plant upstream. 
I guess that'll do it. 
Hazmat suits are now needed to be down there. 
I helped dig out my veterinarian in short pants and no mask. 
We have all sorts of helicopters overhead trying to reach still cutoff neighborhoods. 
My power is back. 
My power company runs Fiber Internet, and it's operating emergency hotspots around. 
My fiber is cut somewhere for now. 
AT&T phone works well. 
People are still cut off and missing, and it's horrible everywhere. 
The city of Asheville won't have water for weeks or months. 
That means no toilet flushing without jugs of water. 
So much is missing, wiped off the earth. 
Restaurants, cafes, everything just went downstream and ended up in Lake Douglas in Tennessee. 
I just wanted to show you what's up, Tom. 
Thank you for that. 
And our hearts go out. 
Horrible stories that we've heard. 
But also really inspiring stories of people helping each other. 
And just putting in so much effort to save or salvage their communities and total strangers. 
We care so much about the people down there. 
It makes no difference, belief systems or background or any of that. 
I think we've all known that. 
And it's inspirational to see so many people pouring everything into helping each other. 
And I sure hope as these disasters continue to happen, we see more of that behavior and less, less of the garbage that's been happening on the Internet, on the media. 
And can we put an end to this, you know, just for a little while, at least to to be spreading rumors that no rescue is coming, that people have been abandoned, even that the federal government is controlling the weather and sent the hurricane to red states. 
These are things that are actually being said in all seriousness by some of the top people in the Republican Party. 
And on places like Fox News and all kinds of other networks and Internet sites and publications and things like that. 
It is so dangerous and harmful to be giving people the impression that an agency like FEMA is hunting for their property. 
Yeah, they're actually saying this, that that that lunatic Laura Luma was was was saying this and getting a lot of response, a lot of positive response, saying that FEMA, you know, tasked with rescuing people and infrastructure. 
And communities during natural disasters and communities during natural disasters and all kinds of disasters, actually, that they actually were the enemy and you should not cooperate with them and consider them trespassers. 
And they're trying to steal your land. 
And what was it, Kyle? 
They're trying to take some kind of ingredient out of the ground. 
Lithium. 
I'm sorry, you're Mexican. 
Lithium. 
Lithium. 
Lithium. 
I don't know if they have conference meetings late at night and come up with these ideas as to what the conspiracy will be, but it is all nonsense. 
And, you know, you can compare this to what happened with Katrina, because, you know, we were on the air then, too. 
And it's like night and day. 
Then the people involved in FEMA didn't seem to know what a hurricane was. 
They were absent. 
They didn't show up when they did show up. 
They were incompetent. 
They handed out supplies in the wrong places, mishandled communities, put people in places where there were no resources. 
It was an embarrassment. 
We all saw that unfold. 
Here we're seeing the opposite, pretty much the opposite. 
Sure, there are mistakes and you can't be everywhere at once. 
It's a very difficult place, as Greg was telling us last week, you know, mountainous and and just hard to reach. 
You know, that is how a lot of these communities are. 
A lot of people live in remote areas and they were hit so hard in this case, though, when you actually tune into the coverage, you see people doesn't matter if they're Democrat or Republican. 
They're all getting together and working and they know what they're doing and they're addressing issues. 
And they say this. 
They say this out loud. 
Governors of red states are saying, yes, we're getting everything we need. 
And, you know, if we need more, we simply ask for it. 
You know, it's not about getting political points. 
It's about saving people. 
And when you start spreading a narrative that that's not what's happening, that people have to fight each other, you know, for for food that's disappearing and that the situation is is really ominous. 
When in actuality, there is all kinds of hope that people can can look to, you know, to to get to the next day when when when when you're saying. 
All these negative things, it's the equivalent of, you know, phoning in a bomb threat, you know. 
And it's disgusting. 
And to see that this is happening in political campaigns, I you know, I never thought we'd get to a stage like this. 
I never thought this country, these people would fall into this. 
But, you know, I guess this is where technology comes in. 
This is where having sites like Twitter or X, whatever they want to call it, spreading lies. 
And they are 100 percent provable lies that Elon Musk is now 100 percent behind. 
And it's it's it's like he wants to destroy everything around and create a new environment where he has a lot more standing. 
It's it's a serious threat. 
It's a serious threat to our society at this point. 
And I've got mixed feelings as to how to handle this. 
And I'm sure everybody listening has has mixed feelings about that as well. 
But right now we're in crisis, you know, not just politically, but physically because of these horrible storms that, you know, seem to be happening a lot more than once in a century. 
How many times have you heard once in a century storm? 
Boy, there's a whole lot of them. 
And we had two. 
We're about to have the second one within two weeks in the same basic region, too. 
It's it boggles the mind. 
That is that is where we are today. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
Yeah, it's it's a symptom of the timeline that we're living in, that FEMA themselves have had to put up a page on their site addressing a bunch of the stupid rumors coming from Twitter and other social media. 
If you if you go to the front page of FEMA dot gov, click the Hurricane Helene link, because this this was put up when Hurricane Helene was was going on. 
And from there, scroll down to an area that says rumor response. 
And on that link, you will just see a couple of pages long list of various rumors that they're directly addressing, directly debunking and, you know, showing receipts and everything. 
And it is it is it is just mind boggling to me that they have to do this. 
I'm glad that they can do this. 
But, yeah. 
Well, they can do this, but in certain scenarios, which I'd rather not think about, they won't be able to they won't be able to. 
There are promises of disbanding certain federal agencies. 
I believe NOAA is one of them. 
Is that right, Kyle? 
Well, yeah, there's aspects of the the Project 2025 plan, allegedly. 
I don't know. 
I haven't looked at it myself, but that's the kind of stuff that these scientific organizations specifically represent, you know, factual based professions. 
And a lot of a lot of the leading members of those communities challenge some of the views that these politicians hold. 
And that and that to them is a threat. 
So they in the way I think we described is or has been described, they want to be punitive. 
They want to punish organizations they feel challenge their views. 
Same thing with their feelings about the media or whatever perceived enemy is a part of their grievance narrative. 
So, yeah, the organization that handles a lot of the leading research and really data gathering and disseminating conclusions and getting that integrated with emergency emergency management and preparedness parts of the government. 
And it's a pretty crucial role. 
And on top of just being an authority on day to day forecasting, which affects everybody. 
And it's important that it's a public service. 
And, you know, just to be clear here, it's it's not so much the organizations challenging these people. 
It's not so much the people going head to head with them. 
And it's science. 
It's science that they have a problem with. 
They can't come to terms with things not going their preordained way. 
And it's it's really it's really a disservice to to anyone who wants to get through this. 
And some of the stuff they do is really cool. 
Like, they're the same organization that's flying into the storm. 
And this is Noah with their hurricane plane. 
That's part of what they do. 
They don't do that because they're daredevils. 
They do that for science to get information. 
The scientists involved are pretty, pretty close to daredevils. 
But I don't know if they would. 
You have to. 
They would use that term. 
Science is a daredevil sport. 
It's it's harrowing, but it's important work. 
And it benefits a lot of people that are in the crosshairs of this thing. 
Anyway, so we were talking about Helene last week. 
This week, it's Milton, which right now is. 
By the way, does anybody know what happened to all the hurricanes in between H and M? 
That's I, J, K and L. 
That's four hurricanes in a week or two. 
Well, there was one gathering, I think there was a category one to the east of this one that was in the Gulf. 
Yeah, I didn't see a name for it. 
So I don't know what the other storms were, though. 
Anyway, Gila, it's the kind of thing you would know. 
Oh, I didn't see. 
Thank you. 
I think I mean, just they're the named storm. 
So there may have been a tropical storm, a tropical depression, something we didn't hear of that certainly didn't make it to the point. 
I mean, I'm assuming that, you know, when a storm gets big enough and does enough damage, they retire it from the list. 
Yeah, that happens rarely, but that does happen. 
And but for me, for them in two weeks, is that is that possible? 
It's very possible. 
I mean, there are storms that create there. 
And this is we're talking about like the whole Atlantic. 
So there are probably a lot of storms that happen that we just don't wind up hearing about. 
But yeah, to all right. 
Well, I'd like to know more about them. 
I'd like to know more about those missing storms. 
But anyway, the tropical storm don't know about Isaac was a category one. 
Joyce is a tropical storm finding out about Kirk and Leslie. 
OK, Kirk and Leslie would like to hear where you are exactly so we can prepare. 
But Milton is what we have to worry about right now. 
And that is being seen as one of the most catastrophic storms ever to hit the U.S., maybe the most serious one to ever hit Florida. 
Alex, we have your sister on the line, your sister, Rachel, who lives in Fort Myers. 
Rachel, are you there? 
Well, Rachel, if you are there, your microphone is muted because we can't hear you. 
And we can't see you either because you're an audio connection only. 
All right. 
Well, you know, did we test this out before the show? 
I asked people to test this out. 
What's this, Alex? 
We can barely hear you. 
Now we can't hear you at all. 
Every week, every week, Alex. 
We cannot hear you. 
You're either muted or something else has gone wrong. 
OK, well, you guys figure this out and wave your hands when you do. 
Yeah. 
OK, so we do have a sister. 
I know it's a hurricane. 
I don't know what's going on with Alex. 
He's in New York. 
But we hopefully will be talking to somebody who is in Fort Myers, which is pretty much right in the crosshairs. 
In all likelihood, they're dealing with some things, perhaps. 
I mean, it could be anything, connections or just that they had to step away, obviously, with an ongoing event. 
Well, that's true. 
Yeah. 
Maybe she's not near the mic because she is connected. 
Yes. 
Well, I can start reading another story. 
If I do that, I guarantee we're going to have a connection. 
Alex, is there any update? 
Hello? 
Ah, there we go. 
OK. 
Rachel, are you there? 
I am here. 
OK, and here would be Fort Myers, Florida. 
Yes, just about as you can see. 
I don't know if you can see my video. 
Now we see you. 
And we see the window behind you is actually made of wood or plywood. 
It's plywood now, yes. 
So you can't. 
It's really weird. 
You sent us a picture before. 
It's really kind of ominous looking, just windows with wood and nothing else outside. 
Yeah. 
You don't know if it's daytime or nighttime. 
It's like being in the casino, I guess. 
Yes, I suppose it is a gamble. 
Yeah, it's felt that way since like 1 p.m. 
when my husband and his brother put the boards up. 
But right now, the wind has been picking up. 
The storm surge, I know, is picking up. 
I cannot hear you guys. 
Are you still there? 
We are here. 
Can you not hear us? 
I just wanted to check in because, like I said, the wind is picking up quite a bit. 
I am about 30 miles inland now. 
And it seems that Milton is going north of us. 
It doesn't mean we won't get the effects of like what whips around behind us. 
But, yeah, for now, we're getting a lot, a lot, a lot of rain. 
Right. 
And you still have power. 
Have there been any short outages or feckers? 
The lights are on. 
This is a lamp given to me by my mother on behind me. 
So, for now, there is a light. 
And, of course, our condolences for the loss of your mother, Alex's mother, as well. 
Oh, thank you. 
Yeah. 
This is something that's unprecedented. 
I think we've talked to you before when there were storms happening. 
Does this one seem different to you? 
It seems different in that it shouldn't be happening in such close succession to the last one. 
When Hurricane Ian came and decimated this region, everyone said, oh, this is a once in a hundred year storm. 
And here comes another one, even stronger, two years later. 
So, that's the unusual thing. 
I mean, I think people are a lot more prepared and a lot more fed up at this point. 
So, they've evacuated. 
Hopefully, should be less lives lost. 
Hopefully. 
I hope. 
Fingers crossed. 
But, yeah, that's what's unusual. 
It shouldn't be happening. 
Can I ask why you did not evacuate? 
Well, because my home is actually 30 miles inland and we are way, way out of the flood zone. 
Okay. 
And until today, when the tornadoes started happening, there really wasn't too much of a risk. 
Hang on. 
Let's back up a second. 
When the tornadoes started happening, that's kind of a big deal. 
Yeah, there was a whole lot of tornadoes. 
There was a hundred tornado warnings. 
Like a gang of tornadoes just passed through town? 
A whole bunch. 
I've never heard that before. 
Yes, yes. 
Actually, no. 
Fort Myers got torn up by a tornado. 
Matt Lachey, the place basically on the road between where I used to live and the mainland, got torn up by a tornado. 
There is already a lot of tornado damage in the region. 
Fort Myers. 
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 
Sorry. 
My husband is reminding me of things. 
As if you don't have enough to worry about with the hurricane, a whole bunch of tornadoes as well. 
I think there was something like 14 tornadoes. 
Something around that. 
Across Florida. 
Florida is not wide. 
It is long. 
So it's moving up. 
But the tornadoes moved all the way across. 
There's going to be a lot of tornado damage. 
Now, so do you know what your evacuation zone is? 
Everyone gets letters in counties, I think. 
I believe I'm in Zone F in Lee County. 
Zone F is okay. 
The Zone A, I know they had to evacuate. 
Evacuation zone? 
E. 
Okay, well, I don't know if the letters really mean anything. 
E and F are right next to each other. 
Okay, well, I figured that much. 
But A, I think, is the closest to the water, as it is in Collier County as well. 
Yeah. 
So you're not in the evacuation zone. 
So I guess, you know, you did the right thing staying put. 
Did many people in your area, not that you can see anything outside, but did many people stay not to evacuate? 
Actually, a lot of people in my area evacuated. 
And a lot of people, as I mentioned two years ago when I called in, I work on an island called Sanibel, which is an island that comes down, like, it's a barrier island, and it most definitely, and probably maybe underwater right now. 
It went almost entirely underwater during Ian, and might be, almost definitely will be this storm. 
So, uh, my immediate area where I live, not as many people evacuated. 
Sanibel people learned their lesson from last time because they had to be helicoptered out and whatnot. 
So, they did leave, and they did get the message. 
So, uh, but that's a scary, that's a scary thing. 
They hadn't, I heard from a lot of people last time saying, well, we made it through last time, we'll do it again. 
Now, how, you know, as far as the preparation, the buildup, are you seeing a difference between Ian and Milton? 
Yes. 
A big difference. 
A big difference. 
People, it's a lot more serious. 
It's a lot more understanding of the capability of these storms. 
It's, um, yeah, even people, even where I live, are freaking the fuck out, excuse me, as freaking out, uh, because they know, they know how it went. 
Uh-huh. 
Okay. 
Um, can you, uh, tell us what the mood on the ground is amongst the other people that have stayed around? 
People cooperating? 
Are they, uh, getting along? 
Um, as far as I have heard, for the most part, people are cooperating. 
I participate in some local, like, Facebook groups and whatnot, and people are helping each other. 
They're there as best they can. 
In my neighborhood, people are offering, you know, to refrigerate medications, if they have a generator, stuff like that. 
Um, but, I, yeah, a lot of people evacuated, but the people staying directly here are good. 
The people staying in my old neighborhood, which is one of the islands, um, people are getting antagonistic. 
Because it is very dangerous to stay. 
So, I'm seeing, in, in, online spaces, people being unkind to each other because they probably should have left. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
Yeah, I saw an interview that, uh, has been posted around quite a bit with, uh, the mayor of Tampa, who was on television and literally said, and this is the quote, uh, this is literally catastrophic, and I can say without any dramatization whatsoever, if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you are going to die. 
Yeah, I saw several times in the coverage, if you're staying in the evacuation areas, write your name on your arm, so that way we know who you are, like, when we find you. 
Very, very, very, very, very alarming. 
Wow. 
But, I mean, they're, they're not sugarcoating it. 
And, uh, the other thing that is alarming in these local groups is, as you brought up before, the misinformation of how it's man-made and purposely being brought upon us and that kind of thing. 
And FEMA will leave, will steal your house and all these very sad and not helpful things that are going around. 
I don't even know what to do about this. 
Is, is, is that kind of disinformation, is it landing amongst the folks that, that you see? 
They're believing this? 
They, they're believing it. 
Yes. 
Yes. 
And where are they hearing it from? 
I don't know. 
I don't know, because everyone is in their own information bubble. 
So, you don't know. 
They, they get in their own information bubble, and then they spread it on Facebook. 
Yeah. 
Facebook, Fox News. 
It's the same, the same basic problems that we have been focusing on over the years, where there's a lot of misinformation. 
That's, that's, that's to be expected, but the disinformation is, that's, that's got the, you know, agenda behind it. 
And it's, it can be so dangerous. 
I just want to, I want to read a definition from the American Psychological Association. 
Misinformation is false or inaccurate information, getting the facts wrong, but disinformation is false information, which is deliberately intended to mislead, intentionally misstating the facts. 
And the spread of misinformation and disinformation obviously affect our ability to improve public health, address climate change, maintain a stable democracy, and more. 
But remember, the disinformation, that's, that has an agenda. 
They're doing it for a reason. 
They're doing it to gain control. 
They're doing it to intimidate people and to force change in the direction they want. 
And, and using a natural disaster like a hurricane to do this, it's both disgusting and unfortunately effective, as, as Rachel is telling us, people are believing this crap. 
Well, Rachel, if, if you could address people waiting for Hurricane Milton to arrive, or people who are cleaning up after the disaster of Hurricane Helene, if you could address them as far as what they're hearing, what they might be believing, and what you believe to be what's actually going on. 
And then, please remember, we're on the radio. 
I know this word. 
Yes, yes, yes. 
I will try and control my New York mouth. 
What I would say to them and people who may be hearing one thing from one side and another thing from the other, what is true and what is actually happening, from what I've seen from going through Hurricane Ian, is that it's not an immediate process. 
You have to wait, you have to wait, you have to wait until there's internet, you have to fill out forms, you have to go through the very annoying bureaucracy of applying for government aid. 
That's what FEMA is. 
And that's what FEMA does. 
So it, they, there, there's a lot of disinformation about the $750. 
They send that to just about anybody, but they can't send thousands of dollars without checking in to make sure that there isn't fraud. 
That's what you would want. 
That's what you want as a taxpayer, that they don't just give your money to anybody. 
It's frustrating and it sucks. 
And I have seen people just last month celebrate that they got their house back together from Hurricane Ian to have to deal with this. 
And they're going to have to go through it, the whole rigmarole all over again. 
And whether they will or not, I don't know, because for a lot of people going through this is too much. 
But for Helene victims, that, you know, you guys did not expect that. 
That was not supposed to come your way. 
It was not supposed to do what it did to your towns and your homes and all of that. 
But, um, there is hope, there is help, and there is, it'll take time, but you will rebuild. 
You will. 
But it's not, the news won't still be there. 
They will have moved on. 
It'll be years from now before you're back together. 
And I know that for a fact, and that's not fun. 
But people won't be paying attention in a week or two. 
But you'll keep going, and you'll keep getting it together, and your community will thrive. 
I'm sure that's comforting to hear from people who have lost so much and stand to lose so much again. 
And, you know, um, I have to ask, have you thought of going somewhere else where maybe this doesn't happen as much, or is there anywhere else these days? 
Um, I've been looking into it. 
I, I periodically just search on, uh, Zillow, like, just for land. 
I can get a whole lot of land in Wyoming for not a lot of money. 
I haven't heard of many hurricanes hitting Wyoming, I guess. 
I don't know. 
And I work in hospitality, so it probably wouldn't work out too well for me. 
I can't work from a bunker. 
But, um, yeah, no, I, I love my house, and I've made it as lovely as I would like it to be. 
And I really hope I don't lose my roof tonight. 
Um, but, yeah, especially for the people in the barrier islands and the beach homes, Florida is definitely facing a reckoning. 
And I know Donald Trump joked that global warming will make more beachfront property. 
It obviously will not. 
As water rises, the land gets smaller. 
So, it'll be less beachfront property. 
And I'm, I'm not excited for my property to be on the beach. 
I, I don't want, actually want that. 
Well, on that note, actually, and I, you know, I'm sure this addresses, um, a lot of, uh, concerns that many of our listeners have. 
Uh, but according to the New York Post, Mar-a-Lago is sure to survive Hurricane Milton. 
And for a very unique reason, you guys know what this reason is? 
Former President Donald Trump's sprawling Florida mansion and club, Mar-a-Lago, will be just fine as Hurricane Milton sweeps over the area because it's tethered to a coral reef, experts say. 
It's tethered to a coral reef. 
Trump's official home in Palm Beach was designed to be storm-proof, made with reinforced concrete, uh, three-foot-thick walls and steel anchors holding the structure to the coral reef below it. 
That's according to the Palm Beach Post. 
Uh, it's also located on the Sunshine State's east coast, opposite from where the storm is expected to make landfall. 
Uh, however, pretty much everybody in the state is going to be affected by this. 
Um, and I'm sorry, but that story just disappeared because I have an ad now and I can't read that. 
Uh, I'll try to get it back. 
See if I can do that. 
But, wow, there, there was more to the story. 
But, yeah, people can calm down. 
Uh, Mar-a-Lago's going to be fine. 
Oh, oh, I'm so relieved. 
Maybe those classified documents were safe there. 
Who knows? 
Yes, my fears have certainly been allayed. 
I'm now, I'm no longer concerned about what Sherman's going to do, if Mar-a-Lago's going to be fine. 
We're good. 
We're good. 
No. 
But, Rachel, I want to ask you, but, you know, what's the plan there for tonight? 
I mean, obviously, I'm personally interested in your safety here, but, I mean, are you able to go outside at all, or are you just bunkering down and hoping, you know, that things are okay? 
And then, what about Waylon? 
And for our listeners who don't know the famous Waylon, Waylon is Rachel and her husband, Jesse's dog, who's really lovely. 
And I'm sure he needs to go outside at some point. 
We just don't want him to be heard by Tornado Tree. 
I'm surprised he didn't hear you say that. 
He, we did just take him for a W-A-L-K down the street. 
I think, I feel like I can hear his feet. 
He's in the other room. 
He is very smart. 
Whenever, whenever the weather gets spooky, he goes under the desk in our office room. 
But we just took a walk because we were in between vans of the hurricane, and we turned around. 
But then the wind was just blowing right in our faces. 
We were like, okay, that's the right time. 
For us, our house is made of concrete, and we have very few windows, and the sliders that we have are bordered up. 
We're going to be okay here. 
What happens for me, and going back to work, it might be like last time, where it's six weeks. 
I don't know if the roads, I'm, you know, it's a very uncertain thing. 
It's too early to know. 
Yeah, it's too early to know. 
The storm hasn't quite hit just yet. 
And I believe it's expected to hit around midnight. 
Is that correct? 
Midnight or, I don't know. 
They've been updated. 
They've been going back and forth with it. 
Also, it's large. 
So it could, I mean, my power and my Wi-Fi could go out at any moment. 
So apologies in advance. 
Well, that's the thing. 
You know, with Greg last week, we had been wondering where he was for days because we couldn't reach him, and we didn't know he was in North Carolina, for one thing. 
But it's just, it's the not being able to reach people to let them know you're okay, and that's super frustrating. 
Now, I've actually been warning, you know, since our mother passed, our cousins are taking over the helm of being worried about me. 
And so I'm getting all these text messages from cousins saying, are you okay? 
Are you okay? 
Are you okay? 
And I'm like, yes, but please don't be worried if Thursday you can't hear from me because I might not be able to get a message out. 
And that's what happened last time. 
And I remember actually calling Effie, Alex's wife, and saying, can you go on the Internet and tell me what's happening? 
I got a call out, made it to Effie, and she said, yeah, this bridge is down. 
This is broken. 
This is going on. 
You know, she informed us. 
We were here, but we still couldn't get the information. 
Now, I imagine you, like most people these days, don't have a landline that rely on cell phones. 
Yeah, of course. 
And what we saw in North Carolina was that the cell phone towers went down, and that was why so many people could not communicate. 
Landlines also can go down, especially if wires are cut or, you know, if it's overhead wires, but they tend not to nearly as much as the complete failure that you get when power is lost, both to Fios and to cell phones. 
Do you know where the nearest landline is? 
So maybe a way that you can get a message out in case a cell network does go down? 
That's a good question, but right behind my house is a high school, a junior high, an elementary school, and a library. 
And it's also a shelter. 
So I'm actually super-duper close to where there probably will be a way to get a message out. 
Okay, that's good. 
And it's good to have people in the neighborhood that you can talk to, that you can have a support network going. 
And that is extremely important to anybody listening who might be in the path of this, and there's a lot of people in the path of this, and, of course, future storms as well. 
It's important to have all these means of communicating. 
Rachel, we only have a couple minutes left, but is there anything that you would like to see done better as far as preparation or response to this kind of a storm? 
I would, this time around, I would like it to be shut down faster and fact-checked and made known all the misinformation, all the disinformation. 
So people, because it's going to harm people, that FEMA's not going to help you, FEMA's going to take your house, like all these, the hurricane is man-made, that stuff I would, if it's possible to stop that in some way, that would be great. 
Because seeing people saying, this is man-made, as it's coming towards them, in their community, it's alarming. 
But I also have something from The Sopranos. 
Oh, no. 
That stick with me in these times. 
It was a post-it note on Tony's wall while he was in the hospital, and nobody actually knows who put it up there. 
And it's an Ojibwe saying, Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while, a great wind is bearing me across the sky. 
Yeah, I remember that, and I think it might have even been the same episode. 
Why are we quoting The Sopranos so many times tonight? 
I had no idea, no idea it was so deep. 
Well, I think it was the padrino clandestino who put it there, you know, the secret godfather. 
But that was, I think that's a very apt phrase, perhaps, for us to end with. 
Yes. 
And a great sentiment. 
We have to go, Overtime Returns, at 8 o'clock on YouTube, channel 2600. 
Please join us there. 
Rachel, you're welcome to join us as well, as long as your power holds up. 
But best of luck to you. 
Please stay safe. 
Please look out for those around you, and we hope to hear from you in the future to see just how things turned out. 
Write to us, OTH at 2600.com, and we will see you here on WBAI next week. 
Please, please support WBAI. 
Go to the website, give2wbai.org. 
Give the number 2, wbai.org pledge. 
Whatever you can afford, if you got something out of this particular conversation tonight, please ensure that more, hopefully not related to storms, more conversations where we take a critical look at technology, at misinformation, disinformation, all of that. 
Remember, you're fed disinformation, you spread misinformation, and we can do better. 
See you next week. 
  And good evening to everybody here on Overtime on YouTube, where we have not been for the last couple of weeks, three weeks, I think. 
And we won't be here next week, or possibly the week after that. 
But we're here now, and that's the important thing. 
At least I think we are. 
Rob Gila, can you confirm that we are in fact on YouTube and not just talking to ourselves? 
We are in fact running on YouTube. 
Welcome to the 19 people who are with us right now. 
Although I guess I'm one of them, so 18? 
Wow, so it's almost like we're talking to ourselves. 
But we do sound good. 
I don't understand. 
You know, there are all these videos on YouTube that are nothing. 
You know, somebody closing a door. 
And 10,000 views for a 10-second video of someone closing a door. 
And we talk about important issues here. 
We have 18 people. 
I mean, seriously, folks. 
I'm not berating the folks who are there, obviously. 
We need more folks like you. 
I'm seriously the folks that aren't here. 
Yeah. 
Maybe they just don't know about it. 
Maybe that's it. 
Maybe we have to tell everybody. 
Do they get a million live viewers? 
I don't know. 
I don't know how any of this works. 
I don't really care either. 
I just would like to be able to make sure people who want to hear what we're talking about know about it. 
It's true. 
And, oh, we're up to 20 already. 
See, that's how you do it. 
That's how you get people. 
You have to get every single listener, every single viewer. 
Yes. 
We do tend to, our numbers do tend to increase in a bit. 
So, see, we've got more coming in now. 
And I do recognize that because we did not have overtime the last couple of weeks, that may have been part of it. 
People may have just gotten out of the habit. 
Yeah, but, you know, the Olympics happen every four years. 
And people remember that. 
You know, they show up for that. 
Guys, there's blanket wall-to-wall advertising for the Olympics. 
That's true. 
For months. 
And a listener named Larry just said, it's not the quantity, it's the quality. 
Thank you, Larry. 
We're glad you're here. 
And, Rachel, we actually got a comment for you. 
A listener with the handle JessMess831 in the chat says, Rachel, your cute voice. 
So, I'm assuming that's somebody you know. 
I hope that's somebody you know, because otherwise we just, like, you're getting random creepers in our YouTube chat. 
And welcome to the internet. 
But, yes, folks on the YouTube chat, 26 now, by the way, I'm going to be obsessively counting. 
If you have questions for us, stuff for Rachel, any venting you want to do, while we wait for Rebel to call in. 
Which, technically, because, you know, we banned Rebel because he called multiple times the last time we were on. 
We said, you can't call the next show. 
And then we weren't on the week after that or the week after that. 
So, technically, he should be banned from this show. 
But, you know what? 
I'm feeling charitable. 
And I'm willing to just say, you know what? 
You were banned from the show that never aired. 
But don't do it again. 
Or we'll ban you multiple times. 
So, and it goes for everybody, too. 
You know, if you call in to make, you know, to say something, you shouldn't call back and hog the time. 
Because other people can't get through when you do that. 
You find that funny, Gila? 
That policy of fairness? 
That's not the thing that was entertaining. 
Tim in Connecticut, excellent point. 
This is the next show, which, technically, Rebel was banned from the next show. 
No, I am entertaining by watching the sibling interaction in two of the Skype windows. 
It's very funny. 
I didn't see that. 
Okay. 
Anyway, Rachel, sorry to bother you with all this nonsense that we go through. 
Please continue. 
Anything else that you would like to share with us, including things that maybe you can't say on the radio? 
Feel free on YouTube. 
Anything goes, apparently. 
Well, I had to unmute myself. 
I just want to say I don't have anything to unload. 
I would actually like to say I love my big brother with all my heart. 
Oh, that's very cool. 
And I'm so lucky to have him and to have him worry about me and to share as much DNA as I do with one person. 
The one person in the whole world is him, and he's the best. 
Thank you, brother. 
Well, I'm right back at you, Rachel. 
You know, I love you very much. 
I worry about you. 
Yeah. 
And if Mom were here, she'd be right in the – it would be really tough. 
It would be, like, really nerve-wracking to think about what we have to do to make sure that she got her oxygen and that the hospitals were ready. 
I mean, oh, my God. 
Was she also in Fort Myers? 
No, she was north of Tampa. 
Oh, boy. 
That's even worse for that. 
She wouldn't have been closer to where the hurricane is going. 
Wow. 
It actually would have been worse. 
Yeah, I'll say. 
And you have to realize there are so many people that are in various stages of health that are being affected directly by this thing who must be going through all kinds of panic and uncertainty right now. 
So our hearts go out to them, but also, you know, more might have to go out to them to get them through this in days, weeks, months, years ahead. 
And I just wonder how many of these things are going to happen. 
You know, it's tornadoes, hurricanes, all sorts of extreme weather and rising sea levels. 
And I'm just – I'm so sick of having to entertain people who don't believe it's real. 
You know, at some point, you just got to start ignoring them and leaving them behind while we try and figure this out and stop it from getting worse. 
It is so difficult to have to do that as a person who works behind a bar in Florida. 
Because people talk about it like it's just normal. 
All the misinformation, all the lies that are being fed, they just spout it constantly. 
And trying to be a neutral person behind the bar is one of – it's hard. 
I bartended in New York. 
That's hard. 
But this is hard in a very different way. 
Oh, am I on? 
You're on, we heard you. 
Yeah. 
Okay. 
Yeah, I mean, it seems like there's been a lot of stories about the massive amount of disinformation that's being spilled about this. 
And even President Biden had called out a few – I think he called out Trump and – Yeah, he did. 
He was good. 
He was good before he was outraged, as so many of us are, by this disgusting crap that's being spewed out. 
So, I was worried that it was going to go unchallenged a week ago. 
I was starting to see it. 
Kyle and I took a couple of days and went up to Canada to get a car part. 
And I emailed or texted Alex saying, hey, I'm in London, too. 
And you were in London, England last week. 
But, of course, I was in a different London. 
And you fell for it for a little bit. 
There you go. 
I did for a second. 
I mean, I didn't assume. 
It's different. 
But we went up there and listening to AM radio on the way, including two stations from New York City, WOR710 and WABC770. 
And, basically, they were just spewing these lies nonstop with saying that this is what FEMA is not doing and this is, you know, the plan that they have and how this is a complete failure on Biden's part. 
And none of it was true. 
And we knew none of it was true because, you know, you see the people interacting. 
You hear what the Republican governors are saying about how they're getting everything they need from FEMA and they're on the phone with Biden. 
And while, you know, nothing is perfect, it certainly seemed to be a really good and effective effort for an almost impossible situation. 
That's going to be made even more impossible with yet another storm coming and affecting even more people. 
But it's just, you know, I was thinking this earlier. 
It's just so refreshing to see people who know what they're doing and aren't just pointing fingers and trying to cast aspersions on the other, you know, or blame people and make up stories. 
It just seems today that lies are okay. 
You can just make things up and people believe it. 
People might not believe it, but they even, you know, Vance even said he's going to make up stories, whether it's about Haitians eating cats in Ohio or failures of FEMA that didn't happen. 
They're just going to try anything, see what sticks to the wall. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
Yeah, I was chatting with some friends recently about this and someone I know talked about how they were being served on, like all these conspiracy theories on threads and on TikTok about this, particularly about how the leftists created Hurricane Milton to interfere with Florida's election. 
And my favorite thing about that one is that, I mean, all the people who genuinely believe that, also if you ask them if human-made climate change was a thing, they would definitely say no. 
But both of these things can be true at the same time. 
How do they have both beliefs in their head? 
There is no such thing as human-made climate change. 
And yes, humans can control the weather. 
Okay. 
Wow. 
No, it's supposed to only happen to Republican states. 
So, why not, when there's wildfires in California, why not the Democrats put it out? 
Yeah, yeah. 
With a storm. 
Because that's what they would expect them to do. 
Oh, you're right. 
Sorry. 
You're right. 
You should try being right-wing for a day. 
It's a lot of fun. 
You just, basically, you impose your will on others. 
You stop listening. 
You talk over people. 
It's great fun. 
I do have a question, though. 
Huh? 
Which is, as a Jewish person, I would like to know what to do with my Jewish space laser and how I'm supposed to be affecting the weather with that. 
You've got to read the manual. 
Read the manual. 
It should have come with it. 
All you've got to do is protect New York City. 
That's all I want from you. 
Because that's where my nephews are. 
It's interesting you didn't mention protect where you are. 
You didn't mention Fort Myers. 
But, okay, priorities. 
I get it. 
People don't know Jews here. 
I'm the closest thing to a Jewish person in Fort Myers. 
You do know Jews here. 
I don't. 
Nicole is absolutely Jewish. 
Okay. 
I know one Jewish person here. 
Okay. 
You found a Jewish person in Fort Myers. 
That's... 
Congratulations. 
The priority is to stay safe through the night. 
And when Milton comes barreling up to your door, hopefully it's... 
Her brother is my dermatologist. 
And his name is Alex. 
Well, it's a small world, isn't it? 
802-321-4225 is our telephone number. 
Please join the conversation if you have anything to say that might be of interest. 
Or if you're in harm's way or in the path or know someone's in the path or have been in the path before or anticipate being in the path in the future or don't want to talk about this and want something else to express. 
802-321-HACK is our telephone number. 
And we'd love to hear from you because we haven't been on in a couple of days, a couple of weeks. 
We have a phone call already. 
And I'm going to pick it up. 
And good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Hi. 
I know I'm not on the radio, but I'm on the internet on YouTube. 
And Rebel, you were just sitting there waiting to dial that number for the last three weeks. 
I was laughing at me. 
Welcome. 
Welcome back. 
Welcome back. 
At least I'm not in Florida. 
I mean, like, I have family that have, you know, lived down in Miami, like, 50 miles north of Miami, and they get hurricanes. 
But hopefully this hurricane's not going to be like a Katrina type of hurricane. 
Well, as far as strength goes, I think it already is. 
But the question is, you know, will the water come in? 
Will the tides go up as high as they're predicting? 
I don't know. 
We'll know a lot more in 24 hours. 
Okay. 
Well, today we have some phone numbers to call. 
Of course we do. 
All right. 
Let's get through this quickly. 
Nobody wants to make it last longer. 
The following, our phone numbers, that call. 
Hopefully this works. 
It never works. 
Okay. 
So why even say that? 
You know it's not going to work. 
I had it three weeks ago, so hopefully it will work. 
So hold on. 
All right. 
Here we go. 
He calls us, puts us on hold, and we're supposed to just enjoy this. 
Hold on. 
Awkward periods of silence, and people just staring at each other. 
So while we're waiting, on the note of this storm being like Katrina. 
Who's talking? 
Wait. 
Oh, okay. 
Sorry. 
I didn't know that voice came from nowhere. 
So this storm's not going to be like Katrina, because it's not going to get an area populated near me as heavily as me. 
Hang on one second. 
We'll get back to you. 
You are over 50. 
I've been hacked. 
We're over healthy. 
Okay. 
You're over 50. 
Hold on. 
I got really confusing really fast. 
Congratulations. 
Just for calling today. 
We're offering you a free medical alert device. 
I don't want... 
It's a little life-saving button. 
Rebel, what is the point of this? 
Why are you calling this number? 
Okay. 
Hold on. 
I can call and hear a pitch for some medical device any time. 
Thanks for calling. 
This is Jessica on a recorded line. 
Hi, Jessica. 
What's up? 
Can you hear me? 
Jessica, can you hear me? 
Jessica can't hear me, Rebel. 
Great. 
So with our promotion today, you actually have the opportunity... 
Jessica lied. 
She didn't hear me. 
...medical alert device. 
Jessica, are you AI? 
She's a robot. 
You know, it's that little line you wear or on your neck that you press in case of an emergency or even a fall. 
This is a robot on the phone. 
Yes, I... 
Kyle, what do we do? 
I want to know if this device works with hurricanes. 
Sometimes it's really expensive to buy a device like this. 
So we make it really simple for you. 
We pay for the entire unit itself and then ship it right to your house for free. 
And then, of course, we guarantee 100% peace of mind 24 hours a day. 
No, it's not always activated. 
How the hell are you supposed to talk to it then? 
What? 
I didn't understand anything. 
I totally understand. 
No, you don't. 
Honestly, anyone can fall and get hurt, even the healthiest of people. 
So it's really important to have a way to call for help in case of an emergency. 
So this just keeps talking no matter what. 
It's not actually responding in any way. 
Rebel, will you... 
I'm sorry. 
I can't believe I'm saying this. 
Rebel, will you get back on the phone and talk to us about this? 
Well, no, but just for calling... 
...to receive a special gift. 
So just please stay on the line while I translate the call. 
Just for calling in today, you have the opportunity to receive special pricing on TV, Internet, and phone services... 
Special pricing. 
...from DirecTV. 
DirecTV is your source for the ultimate in entertainment. 
No, it's not. 
...bundle DirecTV and high-speed Internet from AT&T and get the best of both worlds for one low price. 
Sign up today for qualifying DirecTV service and get a $200 AT&T Visa reward card... 
We still have that morphine. 
I think I need it. 
...reduction required. 
To take advantage of this offer, press 1 now to be transferred to a DirecTV... 
Oh, for God's sake. 
Emmanuel, are you there? 
I shouldn't be, but I am. 
Thank you for choosing DirecTV, so we can better direct your call. 
How many different robots are we talking to here? 
It just never ends. 
Press cues. 
Bring yourself. 
Actually, you know what? 
This isn't a good one. 
What was your first clue? 
Rebel, I'm going to press this button here, and we can't hear Rebel anymore. 
Go ahead, Gila. 
You had something to say. 
So just a couple of questions, which is, first of all, do we now have to count DirecTV as a sponsor of Overtime? 
Because they definitely just got some free advertising on our show. 
No, because I will say that DirecTV is the worst bunch of conniving bastards you will ever encounter. 
They will rip you off. 
They will steal your house. 
They will not give you aid during a hurricane. 
That should pretty much negate any kind of promotional benefit. 
I don't disagree with you in the least. 
I just, you know, that was a thing that occurred to me. 
Also, just a couple notes from the chat. 
Tim in Connecticut tells us that the Weather Channel currently has Milton at 120 miles per hour, Category 3 hurricane right now. 
And Funsox says, and I quote, Oh, come, Rebel, this isn't the time for your shenanigans. 
And again, not saying it, just quoting it, not saying I disagree with it, but do want to thank you, Funsox, for saying what it is. 
But when is the time for, I maintain there is no time for Rebel's shenanigans. 
But I would postulate, posit, if you will, that there's rarely a time for said shenanigans, but all the more so, tonight is not the time. 
Okay, we could say that, too. 
It's John Lennon's birthday, after all. 
Especially because we're off for two weeks. 
We're going to be off probably for another two weeks for overtime. 
This is all the overtime we have for a while. 
It's a point of order on the table. 
It's also John Lennon's birthday, so please act accordingly. 
Go ahead. 
The Rebel's shenanigans were allowed in interest of getting them out of the way, let the record note. 
Okay, all right, fair enough. 
Are they out of the way, though? 
That's the question. 
I do have one additional question, actually, in re the Rebel's shenanigans. 
Okay. 
Because this was the next show after he was banned. 
Right. 
And if he calls on a show where he's banned, the ban gets extended. 
Well, we did talk about that before. 
And we said that, since I was feeling charitable, that I would just allow for the two weeks where we didn't hear from him or anybody, including us, that will just, you know, say, don't do it again. 
And hopefully that's been the case. 
See what charitable gets you. 
Yeah, that's true. 
Well, it was something. 
It was a tour through robots. 
And Rebel is not still on the line, is he? 
He is. 
No, he's not. 
I don't hear anything. 
No, he's not on the line. 
Unless we're on hold. 
Are we possibly on hold? 
I didn't catch the last word of that, what was on that line. 
Well, the thing is, with Rebel, you don't have to actually respond. 
He'll continue having the conversation, even if you don't say anything or go somewhere else. 
So he might very well have said, I'm going to call this now. 
Please hold while I do that. 
And we're right now on that hold. 
That could be what's happening. 
Because I do hear silence. 
And, you know, Kyle says we're still connected. 
He might have already called and were, like, leaving a message somewhere. 
Oh, yeah. 
That's possible, too. 
To some robot's voicemail. 
All right. 
Well, you know what? 
What? 
I thought I heard a voice. 
Okay. 
He's not there. 
So we can move on. 
802-321-4225 is our phone number. 
Rebel, you are instructed. 
That was your call for this week. 
Do not call again. 
I will not be charitable. 
In three weeks, you will be banned then. 
And I'll write it down this time. 
Do you want me to enforce that? 
How can you enforce it? 
Well, I mean, you can instruct him. 
But if I get a call that I recognize, do you want me to skip it? 
Well, yeah. 
We're not going to pick it up. 
You're the line of defense. 
Do you want me to pick it up and hang up? 
Well, I don't know how you deal with unwanted callers. 
We could program it so that... 
I'm saying I have ways of dealing. 
I can deal. 
It forwards to a different number and bothers somebody else. 
Is that a non-Rebel call? 
As far as we know? 
It is now. 
Good. 
Wait. 
Are you saying you just called back? 
Yeah. 
Okay. 
Rebel, if you continue to even attempt to plague us with phone calls, that will count. 
So don't do that. 
Yes, Gila, go ahead. 
I have been asked to relay a message from Fonsocks. 
Manchester 2600 is having their meeting this week, day after tomorrow. 
I'm confused. 
It's not the first Friday of the month. 
It's not the first Friday of the month. 
And because this is my evening to talk about my religion. 
I feel kind of bad for any Jews who want to go to the Manchester 2600 meeting because it's called Nidre this Friday night. 
But, you know, that's just me. 
So, yes, Fonsocks, consider your shout-out shouted. 
Thank you for the information. 
And Bobcat, our eternal ray of sunshine, does point out that global warming can be reduced by not driving 40-year-old vans that get eight miles. 
I'm assuming you mean per gallon, Bobcat, not per hour. 
I think he also means 40-year-old vans as a shot to the 2600 van. 
That's what you're talking about, isn't it? 
Yeah. 
You said four. 
It's 40, right? 
It's a 40. 
Oh, I heard four. 
Okay, 40. 
I talk fast, man. 
All right. 
Well, just for your edification, it doesn't start anyway. 
So there. 
Well, then, how do we drive it over the image on YouTube? 
You push, Rob. 
You push. 
All right? 
That's a commitment. 
All right. 
That's what we do between the end of the show on WBAI and the beginning of Overtime is we all get together and push the van so it appears on the YouTube background. 
All right. 
Kyle, do we have any other phone calls? 
We do. 
And in the van's defense, it is a collector's item. 
It is. 
We're looking for the collector. 
Okay, it is a vintage automobile. 
So, yes, you have a call. 
You smacked my microphone. 
Are we all right? 
I had gestured. 
Okay. 
A little bit too hard. 
A little too hard. 
802-321-4225. 
But somebody's on the line now. 
Is that what you're saying? 
I'm saying. 
Okay, good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Go ahead. 
Yes, that was my fault. 
I hung up on you by accident. 
Okay, Rebel, apparently you can't hear us because you're not listening, and you should be listening. 
This is your call, and this is your notice that this is the end of that call. 
Please, that's it for this week. 
Okay, but I'm not calling from a line where I can do conference calls, so you don't have to worry about that. 
I'm not worried about that. 
And I'm going to say a very pleasant good night to you, unless I'll make it an unpleasant good night. 
Thank you for calling. 
And we'll talk to you again next show. 
And that's it. 
Cut the line, Kyle. 
Thank you very much. 
I don't mean to be so dramatic about this. 
Look, let's get back to the damn hurricane. 
For God's sake, that's the news item. 
Not what Rebel's going to do next. 
So, Rachel, have the winds kicked up at all? 
Or anything to report? 
Um, well, they did for like a minute. 
But otherwise, right now, we're in a lull. 
Okay. 
Yeah, it's mostly north of where we are. 
Is my dog super cute or not? 
Yes. 
Thank you. 
Yeah, that's about it. 
That's what's going on for us here. 
So, um, can you see outside at all in any of your windows? 
I can go outside if you want me to go. 
No, no, no, no, no. 
That's not what I'm asking. 
I'm just wondering if you can see outside. 
Like, can you tell how bad it's getting out there? 
Or are all your windows bordered up? 
Um, all my windows are mostly bordered up. 
But, like, we can't even hear anything. 
Like, it's actually pretty chill. 
It's a little breezy. 
Husband just opened the door. 
And. 
Now we can talk to him properly because we don't have somebody on the phone. 
There is a call. 
Yeah, but he's not up. 
Or she's not up. 
So, we don't, haven't begun that conversation yet. 
Call or we'll get to you in a moment. 
Thanks for your patience. 
Um, yeah. 
Actually, where we are, we're not in a storm surge area. 
So, we're fine. 
Where, um, the ocean is going to come into your house, those people are not okay right now. 
No. 
And it's not, that's not here. 
Fort Myers Beach is pretty underwater. 
Fort Myers Beach is underwater. 
Sanibel's flooding. 
So, when you say underwater, how underwater? 
Like, a foot? 
Six feet? 
Last I, last I saw, about a foot. 
Okay. 
Of the whole island. 
So, you know, people are in other places. 
But that was, like, two hours ago, so we don't know. 
And considering it hasn't even hit land yet, that's, uh, that's ominous. 
That's very ominous. 
Well, the storm's actually, like, an hour and a half north of us. 
So, my Floridian husband? 
So, realistically speaking, we've seen the worst we're going to see of it. 
The coast is, the coast should be seeing the worst they're going to see of it this far south right now. 
Okay. 
Up around Sarasota, they're, they're going to get it worse than we did. 
So, wait, you're talking as if it's, it's over? 
Is that true? 
Well, for us, for us, it's pretty much past. 
Really? 
Yeah, but it's, it's a little breezy outside. 
It's making landfall, but it's making landfall an hour and a half north of us. 
Okay. 
And that's not going to affect you when it makes landfall up there? 
No, not really. 
We're, we're, we're 30 miles inland. 
You know, last time Rachel was on the show with Ian, we had evacuated from a coastal town to where we currently live. 
So, we are pretty well out of the way of the storm at this point. 
Would you say that that applies to people further south as well? 
Further south and inland, yes. 
Further south and on the coast, they are currently dealing with storm surge issues. 
Right, right. 
So, it's, it's basically to the east and to the north that, uh, is, is in the path right now. 
To the, to the pretty much direct north, vaguely west of us, uh, is where the eye of the storm is right now. 
Okay, so we're talking Tampa. 
A little south of Tampa. 
All right. 
Sarasota. 
Sarasota, uh, Bradenton area. 
So. 
Now, from what I heard, Tampa Bay has been pretty much evacuated. 
The city of Tampa Bay. 
As it should have been. 
Yeah. 
Uh, and, uh, Tampa, um, uh, I imagine a lot of people evacuated from there as well. 
Uh, but that seems to be the place that they've been predicting for a couple of days now is really going to bear the brunt of it. 
There have been mandatory evacuations for all of southwest Florida, uh, in A and B evacuation zones. 
So, the people along the coast and in lower lying areas have been evacuated since yesterday morning, I believe. 
They were all supposed to be out of their, out of their areas by noon today. 
Now, a couple of questions about that. 
Um, apparently a mandatory evacuation is not really mandatory because you can stay. 
Right? 
Right. 
They, they can't force you to leave, but what happens is they won't send emergency services in for you. 
Once you've hit a certain point in the storm, it's a risk to the emergency service workers' lives, the first responder lives, to send them in so they won't go. 
Okay. 
After there's been a mandatory evacuation, you're on your own. 
And every county seems to have zones. 
Is that true of every county, A, B, C, D, E? 
Every county's got the, they're the same zones, but it's, every county is following the same idea. 
Uh-huh. 
So, like, A is going to be your lower lying coastal areas, B is the next step up from there, and it goes up to E. 
Okay. 
Wow. 
Interesting. 
We're in an E evacuation zone, uh, at a flood level X. 
So, we're high and dry. 
How'd you get to X? 
That's, that's, uh, quite a jump. 
You know, I don't know why they decided to make that jump. 
Wow. 
Okay. 
So, all the counties in Florida have that system, A, B, C, D, and E? 
Mm-hmm. 
Interesting. 
Okay. 
I've learned a lot. 
I've learned a lot about mandatory evacuations in Florida. 
That's, uh, that's, that's something. 
I don't know if any of the state does it that way. 
Wow. 
I didn't know that. 
So, I just learned that along with you. 
Wait, you live there and you didn't know that. 
I, I'm a New Yorker. 
I'm sorry. 
Yeah, but you live there. 
Okay. 
Well, it's a learning experience. 
So, through the, through hurricanes and the Sopranos, there's no end to the education you can get. 
Um, all right. 
We have a phone call? 
Yeah. 
There's someone waiting. 
Someone is waiting patiently. 
Let's join this person. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off The Hook Overtime. 
Good evening, gang. 
This is Tim in Connecticut. 
How are you today? 
Tim in Connecticut. 
How are you doing? 
Not too bad. 
I don't have a hurricane in my face. 
I'm fine. 
Not yet. 
Not yet. 
There's one with your name on it, I'm sure. 
Yeah, never say never. 
But, I went, what I really wanted to relate, and this is not hurricane related, but it's kind of weather related. 
I had the opportunity last week to rent a car and go to a function that was for three days. 
Hertz gave me a Chevy Malibu, which was a Wi-Fi car. 
Wi-Fi car? 
So, it had, you know, internet connectivity, but it had no radio. 
Oh, my God. 
That didn't bother me at all, but as I was going through the mountains in Pennsylvania, I noticed things like, foggy ahead, tune your radio to 1610 AM. 
That's just, 1610 AM is one of these low-power stations that just tells you if an airport is open. 
Exactly, and it's not like I could find that on tune-in, since I didn't know what station it was. 
Wow. 
I've never heard of that. 
So, Wi-Fi radio. 
I mean, you know, a lot of times, since actually 99.5 doesn't hit my area of Connecticut very well, and I will pick up WBAI on tune-in, but I can call it eight letters. 
If I say 99.5, I'm sure it'll try and find a station in Connecticut that's 99.5. 
True, and I know there's a translator station at 99.5 there that went on a few years ago and kind of obliterated us in Connecticut. 
When you tune in on tune-in, I'm just curious about this. 
Do you notice a whole lot of advertising before you get the actual signal? 
Yes. 
I don't know who's responsible for that. 
It's really, it goes against WBAI's image to have all these commercials, but it goes on for like three or four minutes at least. 
Yes, but it's one time, and then I get to listen to the entire program commercial-free. 
Right, that's true. 
But there are some stations that don't do that, and I don't know if we make any money off of that. 
It's just, I think it's a bad look, personally. 
Right. 
One of the things, though, I did want to get across was, I don't think when they decided to take the AM and FM radios out of the cars, that anybody thought about traffic notifications given to people on the highway. 
Right. 
Yeah, I mean, there are all kinds of problems that you're going to run into. 
I mean, it depends on a Wi-Fi signal being available, right? 
And there are many places where there is none. 
If you're driving in the middle of the desert, what are you going to listen to? 
Same thing with OnStar and everything that was available in the car, but I mean, I wasn't going to have it very long. 
I was just surprised that there was no option. 
Right, right. 
You know, that reminds me, the rental car we had when we went to Canada, what was it doing, Kyle? 
It was attacking my phone for some reason. 
Oh, yeah. 
It was the most bizarre thing. 
That's right. 
The Android Auto, basically, we were trying to charge a phone. 
While using Waze. 
Right. 
But that was sort of beside the point. 
It was just the mere act of physically connecting to this car, which had just one USB port. 
Now, typically, you can control what that USB port does or does not do from your phone. 
Great. 
So I go to do that in the notification that you've connected this device. 
And the option, just charge the phone, is that's all I wanted to do. 
Didn't want to, like, transfer all the contacts into a rental car. 
No, no. 
That is exactly what this kind of thing could easily do, depending if you're not... 
Never do that, folks. 
Never transfer your contacts. 
Yeah. 
Never transfer your contacts. 
So, you have lots of different infotainment systems across makes and models of cars these days. 
But they're usually running either, well, some version, if it's compatible with Android, that does something like this. 
This one was incredibly hostile and, in some way, was basically not allowing the charge-only part and kept reverting it either. 
I really don't think this was the phone software because you've been able to control other systems from the notification part of your Android device. 
So, like, this system basically bypassed that control somehow, or at least it wasn't working from the phone to be able to just isolate that. 
And then every time you denied it in the system, it would come back on, like, a couple moments later as though it had just connected again. 
Right. 
And it would notify in the device as well as on the screen in the car. 
So you basically had to sit there closing these things over and over again or just ignoring it. 
I found out the only way around it was to turn the phone all the way off and let it charge without connecting that way. 
Without using the phone. 
But the thing is, it's called Android Auto. 
And we kept getting these notifications, install Android Auto, no, cancel, and it just comes back and keeps doing it. 
I think at one point you uninstalled it. 
I deleted the damn app from my phone. 
Not that that was causing the issue. 
It was just there in peace, but it was being mercilessly attacked by the car. 
And I successfully uninstalled it, but then I was getting an error message on my phone constantly because this thing was trying to contact my phone and install or access Android Auto. 
And it was weird because while we were charging the phone and it was on, the light would keep coming on the phone every time it sent a message, which was about once every five seconds. 
So the phone wasn't charging because it was constantly turning on and vibrating. 
It was ridiculous. 
I've never seen anything like that. 
It was the most annoying, frustrating thing I've encountered in a rental car with my phone. 
Can I talk about the voice note? 
Oh, yeah. 
We left a voice note. 
Now, it was a polite one. 
I'll see if I can find it. 
Consider that just even in this conversation how polite we are generally as humans. 
But it could have been steeped in profanity and foulness. 
But we kept it fairly like, I don't know. 
You do have the recording, so I'll let you pull it up. 
But yeah, we were feeling like kind of, I guess, cheeky, feeling a bit annoyed with the system. 
And we did other things in this infotainment system, changing typical stuff like the clock as much as we could, the increments from miles to kilometers, everything we could to modify the whole system. 
But, of course, these systems have lots of apps or at least a lot of really weird things that a typical rental car customer would maybe not need or take advantage of. 
This was one of them, this voice notes. 
And just imagine how much more fun we could have had with this. 
Yes. 
Carlo, are you still there? 
Sorry, we didn't mean to interrupt you. 
No, no, that's okay. 
I was going to say that my Motorola phone that I was using is also Android, and I didn't have any of the intrusiveness. 
It sort of married up very well. 
The other thing is, of course, make sure that the phone is deleted from the rental car before you give it back. 
Absolutely. 
You never want to leave your contacts in there. 
A lot of people do. 
A lot of times we find contacts that people have left or even driving directions or things like that. 
It's, you know, a lot of privacy can be lost in a rental car if you're not careful. 
And this car was aggressively trying to get me to transfer my contacts and all sorts of data. 
All righty. 
Anyway, back to everybody else. 
I usually try to hold back so we can get some new people calling. 
There's still 29 on the chat. 
Somebody else's turn. 
Thanks a lot. 
Yeah, well, we'll clear the line. 
Thanks for your call, and we'll look forward to talking to you in the future. 
All righty. 
Bye-bye. 
All right. 
Good hearing from you. 
Okay, and we have – you want to describe what this thing was? 
It was some kind of way that you could leave voice notes. 
I don't know what the purpose of it is, but in the car there was a menu item. 
You press a button, and you record a message. 
Yeah. 
You already said it. 
It's a voice note. 
But why? 
What's the point of it? 
What is it for? 
A car owner wanted to do that. 
Presumably, maybe it syncs with a device if you're allowing it to in the ways we were trying to prevent it from doing. 
But also, maybe they are trying to – I don't know why this is a feature. 
And it's a feature no one asked for, but, yeah, you could leave all kinds of little notes in the car or record maybe even surreptitiously some interaction in a car from the car. 
Imagine that, you know, for all your entrapment needs. 
I don't know, but we had some fun with it. 
We sure did. 
I'm going to try and play. 
The thing is, you gave me – I didn't do anything. 
I'm doing my job. 
Don't tell me about me. 
You fixed it, but then I went to a different program, and now it's not fixed anymore. 
I'm trying to start this from the beginning so that it plays back what we left on the voice note. 
And I am going to hold the phone up. 
I'm sure it's going to be awkward and not sound good, but we're going to try. 
Yeah, you see there's no sound. 
Okay, there we go. 
Now, hold on. 
There's a little bell that was muted, but now I have to get back to the point where it started. 
You know what? 
Someone else say something for a moment while I figure this out because this phone is annoying the hell out of me. 
Tim in Connecticut actually just reported in the chat that Milton made landfall in Siesta Key while he was on the phone. 
That's right. 
I saw that, too. 
Yeah. 
Oh, shit. 
Yeah. 
You can say that here. 
Sorry. 
I'm sorry. 
I want you to mute that. 
Whatever the fuck we want on YouTube. 
It's really okay. 
Here we go. 
I found it. 
Thank you, Carl, for your help. 
And we're going to play the voice memo now that we left in our car. 
And there's no sound because it's muted, like I told you. 
It mutes for some reason. 
And, yeah. 
Hang on. 
We'll have this. 
It's not really that momentous. 
So don't get your hopes up too much. 
But apparently we could have left a whole bunch of these voice memos. 
Okay. 
And here it is, as promised. 
Hey, if you're hearing this, it's a good car. 
You know, it's a pretty good car. 
But don't connect your phone to the Bluetooth. 
Because it'll keep pestering you to connect things to your phone. 
And it just, it gets so annoying after a while. 
Well, it's also the USB. 
Yeah. 
It's mainly the USB. 
It's mainly the USB. 
Because you're going to try to get power with the USB. 
Yeah. 
It's probably already active with Bluetooth. 
But it really isn't the Bluetooth. 
It's the USB cable. 
Because this thing wants to put all these menu options to control your phone on the dashboard. 
It's nonsense. 
But it is a process. 
You know, it wants to copy, like, all your contacts and everything. 
So it's just a total waste. 
Really avoid it. 
Don't try to charge your phone. 
Right. 
Or even, you know, if you do Bluetooth, do, like, the minimum. 
Yeah. 
Oh, man. 
I think I've captured that. 
Hang on. 
Hang on. 
I don't want to get pulled over. 
I don't know. 
We're good. 
We're good. 
Yeah. 
So don't do that. 
Don't plug your USB thing in. 
If you have to use GPS, do it without powering your phone at the same time. 
Otherwise, it's a good car. 
Pretty good car. 
Yeah. 
And we hit a joint in it somewhere, too, to see if you can find it. 
That's it. 
That's the message that somebody will hear if they... 
See, now my phone's making all kinds of noise because I unmuted it for a second. 
That's what you can do, too, if you have a voice memo feature in your rental car. 
Who knew? 
Comments? 
Thoughts? 
Yes. 
Does your phone have a typewriter? 
No, that's a news bulletin. 
Your news bulletin sounds like a typewriter. 
Yeah, because it's coming from the newsroom. 
That's what it used to sound like. 
You can program sounds in your phone. 
I mean, am I the first person to do this? 
What's the phone number again? 
Oh, yeah. 
802-321-4225 is our phone number, and we only have a few minutes left, so please give us a call. 
Thanks for listening, everyone. 
Yeah, yeah. 
Milton makes landfall. 
That's the bulletin, by the way. 
The hurricane moved ashore in a populous stretch of central Florida, knocking down trees, ravaging mobile homes, and leaving hundreds of thousands without power. 
All right. 
So that's happening. 
Yep. 
As always, you can submit story ideas or share your opinions about some of our discussions with us using the email address OTH at 2600.com. 
We accept all file types, and typically English is our preferred language. 
And ASCII, yeah, like regular text is also preferred. 
Is the SecureDrop information still available on the website? 
Yeah. 
Do you have something very secretive and salacious you want to share? 
I believe 2600.com slash SecureDrop will give you all the info you could possibly want. 
There's been some questions about that lately, people asking, and yeah, that is still active. 
And will be, yeah, maintained continuously. 
Let's put it that way. 
Yes. 
So if you want to use that, feel free as well. 
It's a secure way of sending sensitive information. 
And the website has instructions. 
You can read all about it. 
It uses the Onion Network and a lot of just basic stuff to give you a little bit of distance as far as your identity. 
It's not foolproof by any means. 
And please, if you use it, don't talk about it. 
Well, that's the whole point of doing it, you know, surreptitiously. 
It's not to advertise that you're doing it. 
Yes. 
Yeah. 
Like, don't, like, get a billboard asking why your submission didn't get read aloud on air and you didn't win the pageant or something. 
That's not useful. 
That's not a real discreet way to use it. 
It doesn't help you to do it that way. 
So would you say that the first rule of SecureDrop is we don't talk about SecureDrop? 
Well, yeah, exactly. 
I mean, especially if you are depending on it being a part of your overall anonymity scheme, you don't want to know. 
If you're a whistleblower, say, at a company, don't use your email address to send us a clear text email saying, did you get my SecureDrop submission? 
It's basically a surefire way to absolutely disqualify anything you send to us. 
If you identify yourself as having used it, we're going to ignore what you send because we don't want to know, for our own purposes, who we're talking to. 
That's the entire point of it. 
So to have used it and then stomp around and huff and puff at us that it didn't work or that you didn't see the skywriting airplane that we printed your submission with for all to see, then you're kind of missing the whole point of using it. 
But we'll check it just because people have mentioned it extra as an organization. 
But it is active and feel free to use it. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
Talking of some of our extracurricular activities, a little bird told me that you can get Hope videos for the most recent Hope. 
You know what? 
I totally forgot about that. 
Yes. 
Hope XV was the conference that happened back in July. 
It was a lot of fun. 
We all had a great time and, yes, videos are finally out. 
It took us a while because there's so many things going on, but they came out today. 
In fact, they're on the store, store.2600.com or 2600.store. 
That also works. 
And you simply go to the video section and click on Hope Downloads or Hope Flash Drives or do we call it thumb drives? 
I'm not sure. 
And they're all there. 
Everything from the conference is there. 
We are going to get them on YouTube. 
It's just it's a pain in the ass getting things on YouTube because of all the restrictions and technical issues. 
But we are doing that. 
We just wanted to get this out of the way first. 
And look, it's October. 
We finally did it. 
So please support Hope. 
Support 2600 by getting those. 
Again, all the videos. 
There's nearly 100 altogether. 
They're all DRM free, meaning you can copy them freely. 
You can share them. 
And there's no copy restriction of any sort. 
We also have some really cool features that we never had before involving captioning. 
Now, I don't use this, so I don't exactly know how it works. 
But it's, I believe, .srt files. 
We have them in English. 
We have them in French. 
We have them in Spanish. 
We have them in German. 
So every single talk is in all those languages. 
And we also have a text transcript in English of the entire talk in a .txt file. 
And I'm told that this is much better than the crap they offer on YouTube, you know, where they try and translate words. 
I don't think it's like that. 
I haven't tested it myself. 
But when you get the flash drive, you're going to get a whole lot of files. 
They all come together. 
If your player understands it, you can activate it. 
If not, you know, it's just going to be there. 
And, you know, it's something we're quite proud of. 
And, of course, you also get the MP3, the audio version. 
So some people like to copy all the MP3s onto a flash drive and listen to it in their car. 
And that's a fun activity. 
So we suggest a flash drive for that so you don't have to download a whole, you know, 100 different files. 
But if you do download, you'll get a zip file and unzip the zip file and you'll have, I believe, seven files for every talk. 
An MP4, an MP3, four SRT files, and a .txt file for every single talk. 
Yeah, it's cool. 
And, of course, Jolie, our good friend over at Internet Society, did the lion's share of the work here. 
And, boy, that guy is amazing as far as what he can do. 
And they look better than ever. 
They really do. 
I'm so impressed with the many, many hours he put into this. 
Yeah, we definitely would like to extend a big thanks to the New York chapter of Internet Society and everything that those contributions were to make these available as they are. 
Because it is looking really, really well done and well captured. 
And I'm sorry, we have a phone call? 
Yes. 
Okay. 
And we're sorry to our listener who has been waiting patiently on the phone. 
Good evening. 
You're on Off the Hook Overtime. 
Hi, it's Bobcat. 
Hey, Bobcat. 
What's up? 
I'm going to give you some information about anthropomorphic, you know, anthropogenic climate change, formerly known as global warming. 
The amount of carbon dioxide released worldwide has increased by 60% since 1990. 
Okay. 
Now, the United States is 25% of the world's economy. 
And historically was the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. 
So, the world went up by 60% since 1990. 
And the United States went down by 2% since 1990. 
The United States is 35 years ahead of the rest of the world in reducing greenhouse gases. 
And my information comes from the United States federal government websites. 
Okay. 
Well, you know, that's impressive. 
And I'm happy to hear that. 
The impact isn't spread just to where people change it. 
I mean, it's a global phenomenon. 
And the effects and the consequences, sort of, of those changes are felt broadly. 
If you believe the federal government's statistics... 
You need to blame us or China. 
Well, okay. 
You know, at this point... 
I think humanity, I think... 
Well, I believe in pointing the finger at China if they're guilty. 
Yeah. 
Do more. 
Definitely do more. 
Follow our lead. 
But if the federal government is saying this and we believe what the federal government says, then by all means. 
You know, it's a pat on the back. 
But keep pushing. 
And get the rest of the world to follow. 
No, lead by example. 
Complaining about what Americans are doing as being not enough is way more than the rest of the world has done. 
They need to catch up. 
Now, I perfectly understand why China and other countries are burning more coal, because they're raising the living standard of people. 
The reason everything went down since 1990 and went up since 1990 was the fall of the Soviet Union. 
And we have more people burning stuff to make energy to make stuff, so that people can have stuff. 
Mm-hmm. 
And the rest of the world needs to do better. 
I mean, China's building a gigawatt coal-fired power plant every single week. 
Mm-hmm. 
And we'll be doing so for quite a while. 
No, I agree. 
We have to lead by example and shut down coal, replace it with cleaner energy, and show the world that it works, you know, that we can do this. 
That's what we've been doing. 
Fracking has allowed us to change from coal to natural gas. 
Mm-hmm. 
And that is the major reason why our carbon emissions have decreased so much. 
Well, fracking comes with its own set of problems, and I don't want to get into that right now. 
I'll be talking all night. 
But, you know, like you said, we're on a good path. 
Fracking has imaginary problems. 
It's like it's imaginary that we can do anything about the rest of the world burning more coal. 
What are we going to do to them? 
We can't stop them. 
Mm-hmm. 
Well, Mother Nature always has the final say. 
Just let's remember that. 
And we're kind of seeing her wrath lately. 
So that's all I'm going to say. 
Weather's not climate. 
No, weather's not climate. 
But when you see global temperatures going up over a course of centuries, that's, you know, that's not just weather. 
That's climate. 
And the rest of the world has to get on board and do as well as the United States has done. 
All right. 
Well, let's go to the UN and get that message out there. 
They don't care. 
Well, someone has to care. 
You've got to get the message out. 
Anyway, thanks for your call. 
Thanks for bringing it up. 
All right. 
Take care. 
All right. 
Oh, Alex Jones. 
I'm just shouting. 
You guys on Skype, you know, you can chime in any time. 
Whenever someone calls up with these issues, I'm always the one that's got to, like, you know, bring up facts and things like that. 
I know. 
Well, I'll tell you, I'm exhausted because for me, it feels like 3 o'clock in the morning right now. 
I mean, I'm in New York. 
You have no excuse this time, Alex. 
No, I mean, I just got back to New York from Rome. 
So I'm exhausted. 
My poor brother. 
I know. 
Yeah. 
Well, it was work, but, you know, it's still Rome. 
It's not bad, you know. 
We'll take it. 
We passed Rome while we were driving. 
We passed Rome. 
We passed Paris. 
We passed Amsterdam. 
We went to London. 
Who knew all these exotic cities were in upstate New York and Ontario? 
There's Moscow there as well. 
It is. 
I was going to say, there's Mexico and upstate New York as well. 
Oh, I didn't go there. 
Wow. 
Next time. 
You were too far south, I think. 
There's Swastika New York. 
You know that? 
That's the actual name of the place is Swastika. 
Are you kidding? 
I'm not kidding. 
Look it up. 
I think there's one in Canada, too. 
Apparently, it means something else, but I wouldn't live there. 
I wouldn't want to live there. 
It literally does, but that's not cool. 
Yeah, call it something else, for God's sake. 
But I feel like if you're going to look the city up, do it in private incognito mode. 
Yeah, yeah. 
Google will give you all kinds of... 
Yeah, no, no, no. 
I mean, that's very normal for Buddhist places. 
When I traveled to Japan, on just Google Maps, there were Swastikas, because they were showing where temples were. 
Wait, they showed the Swastika as a symbol? 
Yes. 
Oh, boy. 
Yes. 
I'm sure you can still do it. 
If you just zoom in on places in Buddhist countries, you could find a Swastika. 
I can't imagine the amount of misunderstandings that has spawned. 
Yeah, no, it was very alarming for me. 
A bunch of skinheads showing up, being all disappointed. 
But I was in Japan, so I was like, I mean, well... 
There are quite a few Swastikas. 
Yeah. 
I don't know how we got into this. 
I just mentioned that there was a town with a weird name. 
Well, there are quite a few Swastikas in the filigrees and, you know, decorations in buildings in this city that were built before the war. 
And then there are the other kind that are also proliferating, which I'd rather not get into, but... 
Yes. 
Well, okay. 
Symbols are symbols. 
Here, we take one more phone call. 
Try to take one more phone call. 
802-321-4225. 
If anyone else is out there, we'll give it two minutes or so. 
So, but as Alex is, I'm also exhausted. 
And I did not go to Rome. 
Hmm. 
I know. 
Yeah. 
It was for a hackathon that I was there, the Ethereum Rome hackathon. 
It was over the weekend, which is really... 
It was very cool. 
But also, yeah, it was a little exhausting because, you know, it's very late nights. 
And I was in Oxford before that for a reunion in London a couple of days before that. 
So, it was a long trip. 
Holy shit, the Mets won. 
I'm sorry. 
I'm sorry. 
No, I'm sorry. 
What? 
The Mets were going to the National League Championship. 
They won the Grand Slam home run. 
God damn it, I missed it. 
I forgot about it yesterday, and they won just now. 
This just happened. 
And the Mets are... 
They advanced. 
They beat the Phillies. 
I'm sorry, Philadelphia. 
Can't win them all. 
I didn't even know who they were playing. 
Or... 
I didn't know they were playing at all, but... 
Yeah. 
Go Mets. 
That's what happens when you go to Florida. 
You lose track of the Mets. 
And, you know, here in New York, we have one baseball team and one corporate team. 
And guess what the baseball team is? 
Yeah. 
So, our Queens heroes are moving on. 
People ask me why I am not a Yankees fan, and I say, have you met them? 
Well, if you do meet them, you'll notice they're all clean cut. 
They are not allowed to grow their hair long. 
They are not allowed to have beards. 
Then, look at the Mets. 
Just look at the Mets, and you'll see why they're more endearing. 
Obviously. 
Yeah. 
No, it's very... 
Actually, my Navy guy, co-worker, is a Mets fan. 
And I'm like, yeah, obviously, you would be. 
You would be, motherfucker. 
Pardon me. 
Well, on that note, we are going to shut things down tonight because we're done with phone calls. 
Please write to us, OTH at 2600.com. 
Rachel, it was great having you. 
Hope things work out. 
If, in fact, the brunt of the storm is over, that's great. 
But keep your fingers crossed. 
Keep alert. 
And I guess we'll talk to you next hurricane. 
What, in a week or two? 
Like 10 years. 
Yeah. 
Could it be 100 years from now? 
Let's hope. 
All right. 
Thanks, everybody, on YouTube. 
Again, OTH at 2600.com is our email address. 
Please write to us with your thoughts, comments, and whatnot. 
And we will see you back on YouTube, I guess, in three weeks' time. 
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Bye.