Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI A
Speaker 1: six forty.
Speaker 2: KF I am six forty Bill Handled here a little
Speaker 2: bit under the weather.
Speaker 1: All right, some of the stories we're looking at.
Speaker 2: Volodimir Veolinsky said he's ready to give up his leadership
Speaker 2: leadership if that will lead to a piece between Ukraine
Speaker 2: and Russia. And you know, interestingly enough that when the
Speaker 2: Elon Musk memo went out to the entire government of
Speaker 2: the United States and the employee saying, tell us what
Speaker 2: you have done in the past week, give me gives
Speaker 2: five good things or five.
Speaker 1: Things you have done.
Speaker 2: Otherwise if you don't reply, that will be we will
Speaker 2: interpret that as your resignation, which I don't quite get
Speaker 2: how that's your resignation. But you've got some agency's are
Speaker 2: saying don't bother, including the FBI under cash PTEL. It's
Speaker 2: kind of interesting now the story the ongoing fight, if
Speaker 2: you wanted to a fight, because this may be where
Speaker 2: Trump and Gavin Newsom actually come together. Trump has said
Speaker 2: he will help California. When they met and Trump landed
Speaker 2: at lax and there was Gavenusom down at the bottom.
Speaker 1: Of the tarmac, the bottom of the Astairs Trump.
Speaker 2: They were both for the microphones, and Trump said, I'm
Speaker 2: going to do whatever I can.
Speaker 1: You are going to get the support of the US government.
Speaker 2: Well, with that in mind, Gavin Newsom is asking Congress
Speaker 2: to approve an additional forty billion dollars in aid to
Speaker 2: help LA recover.
Speaker 1: And this is no.
Speaker 2: Doubt going to become the costliest natural disaster.
Speaker 1: In US history.
Speaker 2: And he sends a letter to the House Speaker, the
Speaker 2: House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries.
Speaker 1: And others who were on the House.
Speaker 2: Appropriations Committee, which is going to be responsible for allowing
Speaker 2: payment or determining how much. And estimates of the economic
Speaker 2: gloss have swelled more than two hundred and fifty billion dollars,
Speaker 2: real estate loan thirty billion dollars. Sixteen thousand structures were destroyed,
Speaker 2: thirty seven thousand acres of Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Pasadenia, of
Speaker 2: course Altadena, and Newsom talks about what the money would
Speaker 2: be used for rebuilding homes, infrastructure, business schools, churches, healthcare facilities,
Speaker 2: and Newsom rights in his letter, make no mistake, Los
Speaker 2: Angeles will use this money wisely.
Speaker 1: This is an additional by the way.
Speaker 2: An additional sixteen eighteen billion dollars from the FEDS FEMA,
Speaker 2: which is intended to rebuild property and infrastructure debris cleanup
Speaker 2: which FEMA is doing that is estimated at five billion dollars.
Speaker 2: And the letter doesn't even go into the dispute over
Speaker 2: the Trump administration threatening to oppose conditions on federal aid,
Speaker 2: one of them being and it's already happened the water
Speaker 2: coming down from northern California, because had the water come
Speaker 2: down from the Delta, then the fires would have been
Speaker 2: able to be put out, even though the water has
Speaker 2: nothing to do with the water pressure on the amount
Speaker 2: of water that Palisades and the other communities had at
Speaker 2: hand or would have at hand. So what it does
Speaker 2: doesn't mention a word about that. It just thanks the
Speaker 2: President for fast tracking there were a debris removal, debris removal.
Speaker 1: And offering a hands all hands on deck approach to recovery.
Speaker 2: I knew some rights were entirely grateful, internally grateful, and
Speaker 2: LA will continue to serve as a beacon to the
Speaker 2: world and putting the city on solid ground in the
Speaker 2: coming years is going to be hugely important as it
Speaker 2: hosts the FIFA World Cup, the Olympics, and we will
Speaker 2: be thriving for the century to come.
Speaker 1: Well, will this get approved? Well?
Speaker 2: It hinges on the willingness of Republican lawmakers to give funding,
Speaker 2: for example, the House Appropriations Committee, which funds virtually everything,
Speaker 2: and you have the Republicans that are in charge, and
Speaker 2: they have they hate California. As Trump feels and talks,
Speaker 2: Republicans in Congress follow and so some Republicans have suggested
Speaker 2: linking the AID to imposing the water policy, new voter
Speaker 2: ID requirements, helping the FEDS deal with finding and helping
Speaker 2: deport immigration.
Speaker 1: Straight out.
Speaker 2: He's threatened to withhold federal funding the states that did
Speaker 2: not support his agenda, and frequent critic of California new
Speaker 2: some The bottom line is he hates California. California is
Speaker 2: as anti Trump as any state in the Union. And
Speaker 2: when you're anti Trump, it comes back fivefold tenfold. And
Speaker 2: one of the possible conditions being discussed simply defunding the
Speaker 2: California Coastal Commission, which regulates coastal development and protects public
Speaker 2: be that beach excess. Now I want to say something about,
Speaker 2: you know, stopping the educate, disbanding the Department of education.
Speaker 2: A department was founded in nineteen seventy seven. Okay, how
Speaker 2: are our kids reading scores now? How are our kids
Speaker 2: mass scores now less than they were when the Department
Speaker 2: of Education was founded? Is there an argument to be
Speaker 2: had that that government has to look at itself?
Speaker 1: Is there fraud? Is there a waste? You bet there is?
Speaker 2: Did the Biden administration ignore that completely? Yes it did.
Speaker 2: Did the Biden administration put more emphasis on LBGTQ rights
Speaker 2: and immigration than it did on inflation, on the issues
Speaker 2: that Americas actually care about the economy? Yes, it did.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons that the election went to Trump.
Speaker 2: So is there a method to the madness? The problem
Speaker 2: is the amount and the speed of which is going on.
Speaker 2: You know, there are eighteen and nineteen year old kids
Speaker 2: that work for Musks that are going through the various
Speaker 2: departments and cleaning them out. One nineteen year olds reported
Speaker 2: is an advisor, a senior advisor to Musk and doge.
Speaker 1: I mean that's wild stuff, all right? Moving on, and
Speaker 1: this has to do with solar power.
Speaker 2: Now, when I built a Persian palace, I didn't put
Speaker 2: in solar power, but as soon as it became sort
Speaker 2: of available and became popular.
Speaker 1: I immediately put in solar panels.
Speaker 2: And because solar panels that they generate more power than
Speaker 2: most houses use, the power goes back to the grid automatically,
Speaker 2: and the power companies had to pay for that at retail.
Speaker 1: Well, that started going down down, and then it.
Speaker 2: Turned out that it would pay at wholesale, and then
Speaker 2: laws were passed that it they don't pay for any
Speaker 2: that goes back. And then but first tier one like
Speaker 2: my house had the Persian Palace, still were under the
Speaker 2: old system. And then now laws are being considered that
Speaker 2: you can forget all of it.
Speaker 1: And so what is the bitch and the moaning that's
Speaker 1: going on, Well.
Speaker 2: Those people that don't have solar are arguing that they
Speaker 2: are subsidizing people that do have solar.
Speaker 1: I don't care about selling back to the.
Speaker 2: Grid at all, because I have a new solar system
Speaker 2: and I get no credit for anything goes back to
Speaker 2: the grid. I just like the idea that I'm not
Speaker 2: paying for power. Now, I happen to be in the
Speaker 2: most expensive utility in the United States, and I do
Speaker 2: not pay for power used in the daytime, so I
Speaker 2: charge my car for example, during the day, I only
Speaker 2: turn my lights on during the day, which is very strange,
Speaker 2: but I try to use the least amount of power
Speaker 2: at night. But I bought a battery system too, and
Speaker 2: right now it has some issues. So today you can't
Speaker 2: buy a solar system without batteries. And the bottom line
Speaker 2: is you don't use power from the grid. You don't
Speaker 2: because of the battery I did initially, but in goes
Speaker 2: the battery system, And so a bunch of ideas are
Speaker 2: out there floating around where you have the utilities themselves arguing.
Speaker 1: The subsidy doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine utilities are arguing in favor of rate payers.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's where you talk about the fox guarding
Speaker 2: the chicken house, the chicken coop, And it's true, it's true,
Speaker 2: that's the case. And they're going in front of the PUC,
Speaker 2: the Public Utilities Commission, which controls the amount of money
Speaker 2: that power companies can charge. They can't get a rate
Speaker 2: hike without the PUC saying absolutely. And the PUC just said, okay,
Speaker 2: a rate hike simply to deal with the infrastructure, because
Speaker 2: how much.
Speaker 1: Of that you think went down?
Speaker 2: So life is a changing And there is a report
Speaker 2: from the Commission and the advocates who are in favor
Speaker 2: of charging taxing solar roof recipients or solar rooftop installers
Speaker 2: homes that have solar rooftop rooftops, and they're saying a
Speaker 2: major reason for our fast rising electrical rates are in
Speaker 2: fact solar power. Now, you would think that because everybody
Speaker 2: is on solar power, rates would actually drop because.
Speaker 1: There isn't as much demand.
Speaker 2: And when there's no demand, what happens if you look
Speaker 2: at economics, Sorry about that, I'm coughing through this. If
Speaker 2: you look at the rules of economics, if you've ever
Speaker 2: taken economics one oh one, when demand drops, guess what
Speaker 2: else happens? Prices go down. It's the other way. And
Speaker 2: the argument is those that don't are paying for those
Speaker 2: that do. Those that do generally have more money. Solar
Speaker 2: systems are pretty expensive. I mean a low of ten
Speaker 2: twelve thousand dollars up to a high of well, I'm
Speaker 2: not even gonna mention how much my solar panels cost
Speaker 2: at the Persian Palace.
Speaker 1: I mean it was insanity.
Speaker 2: And the way you figure out the cost of a
Speaker 2: solar system is the payback.
Speaker 1: When does it break even?
Speaker 2: And if it breaks even, at five or six years,
Speaker 2: you've paid back the money you've invested. That's damn good.
Speaker 2: If it takes eight or nine years, that's not bad.
Speaker 2: If it takes fifteen years, you're already dead by the
Speaker 2: time that this thing is paid off, and it doesn't
Speaker 2: make much sense. And then the issue do you lease
Speaker 2: do you buy? If you lease, it's generally a twenty
Speaker 2: five year lease which the new home buyer gets with
Speaker 2: the house. My lease is three high LEAs. My lease
Speaker 2: is three hundred and five dollars. That's what I pay
Speaker 2: for energy, three hundred and five dollars a month. Now,
Speaker 2: keep in mind I am in the most expensive utility
Speaker 2: district in the country, So for me, three hundred and
Speaker 2: five dollars is a bargain. I have a pool, I
Speaker 2: use a lot of energy rechargeable batteries.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to go into why. You can
Speaker 1: talk to my fiance about that.
Speaker 2: Rechargeable batteries cost a fortune to run on electricity. Okay,
Speaker 2: here's something else that's not fun, and that has to
Speaker 2: do with AI. Couple of years ago, chat GPT came out,
Speaker 2: and who do you think is using it the most?
Speaker 2: No surprise students, and they rely on chat GPT to
Speaker 2: write essays because students hate essays and one of the
Speaker 2: things about essays, the teachers want you to think instead
Speaker 2: of just regurgitate.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's.
Speaker 2: Theoretically what essays are about. So guess what kids are cheating?
Speaker 1: Oh? What a shocker.
Speaker 2: And teachers have responded because they're using chat gpt to
Speaker 2: identify cheaters, and some have resorted to unreliable online checkers.
Speaker 1: As opposed to chat GPT.
Speaker 2: One university professor failed an entire class after the screening
Speaker 2: tool he uses said that all of the students were
Speaker 2: using chat GPT in his classroom. Others have hidden like
Speaker 2: little text within the assignments instructing chatbooks to use the
Speaker 2: word banana and frge sign in the when someone uses
Speaker 2: chat gpt.
Speaker 1: Guess what teachers are losing.
Speaker 2: There was a Pew Research Center study that was just done,
Speaker 2: and I love real science, and when real research comes out,
Speaker 2: I tend to quote it. A quarter of thirteen to
Speaker 2: seventeen year olds recently admitted they use chat ept to
Speaker 2: write their homework.
Speaker 1: That's double what it was a year earlier. I think
Speaker 1: this thing isn't exploding now.
Speaker 2: Cheating, I mean, who Number one doesn't cheat or try
Speaker 2: to cheat at some point.
Speaker 1: Conor you ever cheated in homework? Of course you have, no,
Speaker 1: Please suck it up. You're such a liar. And have
Speaker 1: you ever cheated? Yes, no, cheating.
Speaker 2: Everybody knows what cheating is. Come on using other people's works. Plagiarizing,
Speaker 2: of course you have.
Speaker 1: In a mean way.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm I'm sorry. You cheating really benign? Well, cheating
Speaker 2: theoretically is bad, and I'm gonna explain. And artificial intelligence,
Speaker 2: these blots have become ubiquitous and ubiquitous and capable. And
Speaker 2: now the researcher saying, is this technology affecting how we
Speaker 2: learn and think?
Speaker 1: That's the issue.
Speaker 2: It makes us think less, it makes us not think.
Speaker 2: So last week, a little interesting here, Bill, is that
Speaker 2: the teacher, in order to filter to see if they're
Speaker 2: using AI, has to use an AI filter. No, that's
Speaker 2: different because that's not a question of cognitive thinking. That's
Speaker 2: simply a question of trying to find teachers. Well, but
Speaker 2: now they have to be But I don't understand. So
Speaker 2: last week researchers at Microsoft and Cardnegie Mellon provided evidence.
Speaker 2: Here's the evidence offloading our brains to AI system. Well,
Speaker 2: it lowers the ability to use our brain. There were
Speaker 2: three hundred nineteen quote knowledge workers people working in computer science, education,
Speaker 2: business administration, and found that the use of AI was
Speaker 2: associated with lower levels of critical thinking. I remember well
Speaker 2: the bar, for example. When I took the bar, wanted
Speaker 2: a lot of critical thinking. I mean, there was no
Speaker 2: way around it. They want to know that. People want
Speaker 2: to think. Same thing with a lot of essays that
Speaker 2: you write in school. What happens is workers who use that,
Speaker 2: students who use that are less likely to engage their brains.
Speaker 2: GENAI tools appeared to reduce the perceived effort required for
Speaker 2: critical thinking. The researchers noted it used improperly cheating. For example,
Speaker 2: tech can and results in the deterioration of cognitive facilities,
Speaker 2: and reliance on it leaves our cognitive muscles.
Speaker 1: Atrophied, unprepared.
Speaker 2: If we don't think, we don't use those brain muscles.
Speaker 2: And I know that's neurologically kind of insane, but that's
Speaker 2: a reality. And so has it happened before? It goes
Speaker 2: back to Socrates? Huh. Socrates feared that reliance on writing
Speaker 2: writing itself interfere with our memories and led to a
Speaker 2: real surface level understanding of important arguments pocket calculator. Remember
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies panic, Oh my god, students aren't going
Speaker 2: to learn math.
Speaker 1: Well, guess what.
Speaker 2: Students don't learn math and we do just fine because
Speaker 2: who can do square roots anymore?
Speaker 1: Search engines man.
Speaker 2: That led to a lot of issues digital and we
Speaker 2: forget things as soon as we're told them because all
Speaker 2: we do is look them up. All we do is
Speaker 2: put in search words, like I just did with the
Speaker 2: pope pope joan, a woman pope and the do they
Speaker 2: now check that.
Speaker 1: A woman that it's a man who is pope by
Speaker 1: checking balls his balls.
Speaker 2: Yes, but all you have to do is look it up,
Speaker 2: which I did, Balls, Pope, Pope Joan, election of Pope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all there. But here's the.
Speaker 2: Difference, as they point out, all of those is very
Speaker 2: different because it allows us to store information. AI promises
Speaker 2: to think on our behalf. There is the difference, and
Speaker 2: what are they going to do about it? Well, here's
Speaker 2: the problem is that people who hate AI hate limiting AI.
Speaker 1: No one wants AI, that doesn't that's the whole purpose.
Speaker 2: One of the authors of the study says, humans appreciate
Speaker 2: comfort and if you have a tool that takes difficult
Speaker 2: things away from you and makes your life easier. Guess
Speaker 2: what happens we use it? Look at Pope Joan. Okay,
Speaker 2: let me start with I do not hang with a
Speaker 2: lot of people, very very few people I socialize with.
Speaker 1: Neil. Do I socialize with you? Probably more than anybody else? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do. Another person, Well, let me go through it. Cono.
Speaker 1: Do we socialize? No? Correct? And do we socialize now? Also? Correct?
Speaker 1: Michael Monks do we socialize? I've asked you, that's correct,
Speaker 1: and I say no.
Speaker 2: Someone I do socialize with is Jim Kinney. Jim and
Speaker 2: I hang and one of the things we talk about
Speaker 2: a lot is the health system, because well we talk
Speaker 2: about the health system and how broken it is.
Speaker 1: And he comes from a doctor's viewpoint.
Speaker 2: People just don't trust doctors anymore, not the way I
Speaker 2: used to, or not the way they used.
Speaker 1: To I still do. They're wary of the healthcare system
Speaker 1: supposed to make.
Speaker 2: Us feel better and cure us, but when it doesn't
Speaker 2: because we have more diseases, not that we have more diseases,
Speaker 2: we have recognized and discovered more diseases and more drugs,
Speaker 2: and it's just so complicated that we want answers and
Speaker 2: we want them now, and if the doctor doesn't give
Speaker 2: it to us, we go to the web WebMD for example,
Speaker 2: then see I need surgery, No you don't. Or you
Speaker 2: do need surgery, no I don't. Here's what you should try.
Speaker 2: Here's a supplement. It's not the same. So we've always
Speaker 2: relied on doctors for or pain and life saving decisions.
Speaker 2: People are less confident now we think doctors just don't care.
Speaker 2: And there's a reason for that. Do doctors care less well?
Speaker 2: People going to medical school, actually, I think are more
Speaker 2: involved in trying to help people because the money isn't
Speaker 2: nearly as great as it used to be. The problem
Speaker 2: is is that doctors are so stressed.
Speaker 1: They see so many people.
Speaker 2: Case in point Jim, when someone goes when he goes
Speaker 2: to the er, he does a shift.
Speaker 1: He doesn't sit down.
Speaker 2: He is on his feet running from er room r
Speaker 2: bay to er bay for twelve hours without stopping. Lunch
Speaker 2: is grabbing a sandwich and still walking and going. So
Speaker 2: the other reason is that we don't have enough doctors.
Speaker 2: We certainly don't have enough. In turn us we're getting older,
Speaker 2: we have more chronic condition.
Speaker 1: We need more treatment. We need more prescription drugs.
Speaker 2: You know, the average an older adult takes four daily medications.
Speaker 1: I must take eight or nine.
Speaker 2: Thirty percent of people on medicare see five or more
Speaker 2: doctors every year.
Speaker 1: And here's the other pain in the ass.
Speaker 2: If you have a pain there, every time you see
Speaker 2: a new doctor, you have to retell.
Speaker 1: Your story over and over again. And I mean that
Speaker 1: happens to me.
Speaker 2: Where I go for any treatment, any numdic medication, he
Speaker 2: goes through the whole list. The nurse or the tech
Speaker 2: will spend fifteen minutes with you or with me going
Speaker 2: through the list. And so we're all, every one of
Speaker 2: us think the healthcare is broken.
Speaker 1: Is there an answer?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Are we going to think less of doctors? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think medicine is getting better, but only for those
Speaker 2: of us to have really good insurance, you know, for
Speaker 2: folks to say we have the best medical system in
Speaker 2: the world. Yeah, go to Appalachia, go to Squirrel Hollow,
Speaker 2: where the nearest clinic is one hundred miles away, and
Speaker 2: tell them how great our medical system is. Just want
Speaker 2: to make it feel better. Okay, this is KFI A
Speaker 2: M six forty
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty