You're listening to bill Handle on demand from KFI AM six forty.
KFI AM six forty bill Handle here it is a Monday morning Sinko de Mayo, and Neil, as I explained, was of course shaking his head as I promoted this segment and talking about child labor laws and what Governor Ron DeSantis out of Florida loves about. iHeart DeSantis straight out is.
In favor of child labor. I'll say that right now.
He and one of his speeches pointed out how much he admires an appreciated. iHeart because if you ever got a KFI T shirt, it was made in Pakistan by six year olds earning three cents an hour, and Neil bought them when he was, as.
A matter of fact, a head of promote for a very long.
Actually used American made shirts, believe it or not, and I don't believe it. Great quality, well, I was making the decision.
That's right, great quality as in, don't get them wet, don't sweat in them because the dye is going to run and.
Your's going to be black all over.
We got for you. No, I come from a silk screening background. I got the best baby but you.
Did actually Okay, So that part of the story maybe is an exaggeration. But the part about the Santis liking Charles Charles child labor, that is a real problem. So he's chasing a bunch of immigrant workers out of his state. Of course he is, because of he's made the removal of illegal migrants part of his mantra.
So here we are.
Labor shortage and some of the most important industries in Florida construction, agriculture, tourism.
So what do you do with it?
I mean, we've got all these job openings and we don't have the illegal migrants anymore to work the job, particularly construction and the construction and agriculture.
So what do you do? How about kids?
DeSantis, during a March twenty appearance with Tom Hoeman, who is the new immigrations are, said, what's wrong with expecting our young people to be able to work part time? That's how it used to be when I was growing up. Why do we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally when teenagers used to work at the resorts. For example, last year, eight states, of course, including Florida, all led by Republicans.
What they did is roll back a lot of the child protection laws.
The big one was Iowa signed in the law by Republican Governor Kim Reynolds.
Teams as young as fourteen.
Can work in previously prohibited hazardous jobs in industrial laundries, for example, as young as fifteen Light assembly work also allows state agencies to waive restrictions on hazard is work for sixteen and seventeen year olds, including demolition, demolition, roofing, excavation,
power driven machine operation sixteen and seventeen year olds. Now here's a philosophy here, and what is the premise of all this one is giving an opportunity for young people to actually do work that probably pays a lot more than sweeping floors. I mean, if you're operating machinery and it takes some skill to do so, you're going to get more money. Then you're not or than other jobs. And then what they're coaking this in is parental rights.
If parents give consents for kids to work constructions and do roofing and they're sixteen years old, how can you deny parents the right to send their kids or allow their kids. So you've got federal law that's going to go totally the other way. OSHA has already been decimated.
Dogs come in and really killed OSHA. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, it is a whole different world that we're looking at when I say that this administration has caused a shift in where America is going, and now we're talking about it's not gonna be the same child labor as we used to have.
There was a sixty minute piece.
If you remember where you had the meat packing plants that every day have to be scrubbed down, and I mean with steam pressure cookers. This is FDA rules, which is why American meat products are among the safest in the world, simply because of the cleanliness factor. So what these meat processing plants do is they outsource.
The cleaning overnight. And it is brutal. It is dangerous work. You're near machinery that can cut you have to crawl under.
Places using these steam pressure machines that.
Are incredibly powerful.
You put in the wrong way, you burn your hands. I mean, all of it very dangerous. And sixty minutes went to a couple of these companies and found fourteen year olds working. Well, that's against the law, or was Franklin Roosevelt talked about child labor laws that he undid
as an ancient atrocity. He said that in nineteen thirty three, we moved quite a bit ahead, probably some of the most I would guess, the most powerful labor protection laws for children out there, at least for a long period of time.
What's happening now we're coming back ye Two reasons.
One, business likes sixteen year old's running machinery.
It's going to be a lot cheaper.
There are certain conservatives who believe parents have the right, have the absolute right to allow their kids to do this. Now, some of these laws and by the way, I'm not saying put eight year olds to work, because part of the premise is you have a sixteen year old should be allowed to run machinery, assuming the sixteen year old is trained and is working limited hours. Oh yeah, limited hours used to be seven o'clock at night, now ten, and now it's nine o'clock at night. You can work
till nine. Number of hours restricted. That's kind of opened up. Two, it's a different philosophy for sure.
So we'll see what happens on this one. And it's just another one. And you know, maybe I'm wrong, but I kind.
Of like kids not working. I'd much rather have a forty year old illegal migrant.
Who do you think is making your pots and pants in China? Chinese people, young Chinese people, you.
Know, I don't know, it could be.
I have a twelve year old. I can't imagine her working machine, having machinery in like the next couple of years.
American children have gotten soft.
They're just say I've gotten soft. Damn right.
That's and by the way, that's exactly the point that Ron Santas made.
Now, I want her to work.
She wants to work when she's old enough, but I don't know about operating heavy machinery.
All right, So what kind of work? So your kid is thirteen fourteen years old wants a job? Head there, what kind of work would you allow her to do?
She really wants to work, like at a movie theater. She loves grace. I think she also would work at, you know, like a clothing store or fast food. She really likes sushi. She'd like to work at a sushi restaurant.
Oh have you mentioned her there will be no movie theaters for her to work.
Yeah, yeah, we've touched on that.
Yeah, and those sushi cutting up the sushi boy those knives.
Yeah, yeah, she's pretty good.
She's a good cook. You know, we teach our child to be self sufficient as much as possible.
So yeah, me too.
Around handle. You didn't push around a mower at twelve.
No, I have never motor in my life.
Oh I was mowing lawns.
No, I never mowed lines. It's we used to have a Japanese gardener. Oh yeah, I mean those days, seriously, those were.
Uh well, this was a long, long time ago when the entire agriculture industry, the gardeners were all Japanese.
That become all Hispanic now.
Oh, candles. So back when I lived in the Newberry Park area, there was a flyer that said real Chinese gardeners, Authentic Chinese gardeners. They came out. It was an elderly gentleman. His young daughter translated all of these things. They were just wonderful. We signed a contract with them Monday when they came. They were Mexicans.
Eh, how is the unusual? Is that sound? That's it?
By the way, I have a great story with our Japanese gardner. Okay, but we'll do that another time. Great story I want to share with you about a guy
named Tom FREDI. He's Californian. And there's the immunologist by the name of Jacob Glanville who came across the media reports in twenty seventeen of a man who injected himself hundreds of times with a venom of some of the deadliest snakes cobras, mambas, rattlesnakes, and he kept on injecting himself, and you got Glanville going, wait a minute, this is kind of weird. For eighteen years freed Or Frede exposed himself to this venom and gained immunity to several of
the neurotoxins. I mean, the guy sort of a minor scientist, completely self taught, and he meticulously wrote all this stuff down. So the immun just said, let's go to work, and using the blood of a freyday, they have developed some serious anti venoms that are.
I gotta tell you, this is great stuff. And this is kind of and this is I love this stuff.
This is not new technology, This isn't high tech AI.
This is a guy.
Who on his own sat and says, like the Wright brothers, on their own, they just sat there and ignored everybody else and came up with the idea, and he said, tell you what, did he wake up one day and go, hey, I know what I'm gonna do today. How about I get bit by a cobra, or maybe I get bit by a rattlesnake.
And this is not religious in nature. Who are those people?
Those real religious fruitcakes who go to and they have their services, their church services, they carry carry around the venomous snakes, speaking with servants, serpents, neil you this stuff.
That's yeah, well that's what you said.
I remember that you talked about going to church and you that's what part of the Bible is, speaking with serpent spartan. And then they have taken that to an extreme and they go around and they dance and charity it.
Most of that stuff is on your side of the Bible.
Uh yeah, well anyway they dance around, I don't want to hear that. They dance around and get bitten the eyeballs by a rattlesnake. And then if they survive, they've prayed enough. And if they die, eh, God decided you weren't good enough, so win win for them. The point is is that usually venom from a venomous, deadly sneak is deadly.
In this case, this guy Fredy.
Was able to basically develop antibodies his own and then the blood was extracted. Glenville, the immunologist took the blood and it was pretty impressive what they were able to do. Now this is in my so far they haven't yet done human testing, but the anti venom that was developed and was just published, by the way, this paper after years of work saying we may actually have something here, and it all comes from this guy doing, you know, playing around with rattlesnakes and venomous snakes and.
Okay, why not it's fun story. Why not? Okay, story I want to share with you.
This is a story about well, we start with a story about this gal Adriana Aria and it's the basis of.
An LA Times. They have done this piece looking at what's.
Happening in the junior college and in Los Angeles in general. We start with the fact community colleges absolutely play a critical role in our demand for healthcare workers. We need healthcare workers of all kinds. Now, connect that with LA County or LA City. The community college district, more than half of the students live near or below the poverty line, and they are studying to become healthcare workers, some nursing, some vocational nurses, but just in general.
And that's what this.
Story is about, both the need for healthcare workers locally, how poor people are dealing with it, and this program that pays these students one thousand dollars a month as a pilot program, and that is with no strings attached. Okay, so what are these people that are out below the poverty line do when they're going to school. They're holding down jobs to pay the rent, to pay for groceries.
So the LA Community College District, the state's largest nine colleges, one hundred and ninety four thousand students, has this program giving and this young lady or she's a poster child, one thousand dollars a month and guaranteed income for twelve months to two hundred and fifty one students with a demonstrated financial need who are pursuing health careers, and the
participants can use the money any way they want. And what is the goal, of course, to eliminate that financial insecurity so students can in fact concentrate, because not enough students get out of junior college. Unfortunately, the success rate, the graduation rate isn't that good. So she is going to school and getting one thousand dollars a month. And then that was the fear in these pilot programs that
have gone on around the country. We give money to people for doing nothing, just free money, and therefore they're going to piss it away. Now they're going to spend it on drug, sex, rock and roll. And it turns out that's not the case. Turns out virtually every single case, the money was very well spent. It was judicially spent, and that's the case here. And it looks like that's the way this pilot program is going, and you're having people that are joining society a meaningful way.
Long term, is this going to help?
Of course it will, because you're getting someone who is graduating out of this vocational school or going on to a four year school, staying and going into the health field where we really need people. I mean, nursing nurses are at such demand right now that any nurse can get a job anywhere. We have such a shortage, and so long term, doesn't this make sense.
We don't know what the numbers are yet.
All that we can do is look at the prospective future. But when you think about it, do we even deal with long term because in the short term it's free money. It's almost like the Dire Straits song right money for nothing in the chick are free.
You know what do we do? You remember that song? It was a great song. Yes I do.
I just have an aversion to you referring to anything music wise. Sometimes that's not okay.
So we're going to pan out.
We're going to see how this pans out and see how it works. And obviously there are people that are in the conservative the conservative milk or saying come out, we're just not going to give tax payer dollars because that's what this is about. Giving someone a year of one thousand dollars a month, here's twelve thousand dollars. You can do anything you want with it. We don't care.
And it turns out that according to this pilot program, the money is being used to pay for groceries, help family because they all live with family for the most part, help family, pay for the rent in some cases, get people off the streets.
So far, so good.
The problem is we are not a society that is, we're not proactive.
We're very reactive.
That's simply the way we work and We're not good at playing the long game.
We just aren't. But I'm hoping this works. I'm okay with this. I'm okay.
Now let's finish up. And this has to do with AI and cancer cures.
There are certain.
Things that technology has done a great job of, but it just didn't pan out the way we thought.
For example, we just.
Received information from HHS Health and Human Services that we're finding out for example, the measles vaccine, which we thought was tremendous, Well it turns out not only does it cause autism, but it actually causes measles, and we didn't know that. It is not what we thought it was. Same thing with AI and cancer cures. I mean, this
was going to be the end all be all. As a matter of fact, guy by the name of Dennis has ABIs or Demise has ABIs and Nobel Laureate AI Research and CEO of AI company said he hopes AI will be able to solve important scientific problems and help cure all diseases within five to ten years. Well, this is out of the Atlantic because they took that and said, okay.
Let's take a look at that, because that's pretty amazing.
And this is a Nobel laureate who said this, This is not some political crackpot that speaks with a horse voice.
No, this is the real thing.
And we start with the fact that he and others who are saying this are executives of AI companies marketing AI.
So is it possible, Yeah, but it's.
A long way off from what I'm looking at. A lot of hyperbole coming because even if say open AI or a Google model propose a drug that looks like it's going to be able to cure a single type of cancer, because these are cancers are individual, you can't cancer is not all encompassing.
You got cancer.
It would still take years of laboratory and human trials to actually.
See if it was safe, efficacy.
Was there, and so there are guard rails with the or they used to be guardrails with the FDA. I don't know about it now coming out, but there are some serious guardrails.
And there are two ways from what I understand, that AI is involved.
The first one in which they think it might work is that new drugs are actually developed as a result of AI doing the work of the scientists who come up with this stuff. That is sort of back burner because what it looks like what AI is doing is able to synthesize and do a great job of putting all the information together, much like an amplified Google search, go through all of the literature and help science, help sciences create a new drug, not created on its own.
So we're sort of in the middle. We really don't know what AI is going.
To do, what it's about. I'm fascinated by this, I really am. Do I understand it not very much. What I do understand is the hype may be just too much hype.
I hope not for sure. All right, I think we're done. Guys.
Neil, you're back again tomorrow. Heather Brooker is a back. She's filling in for Amy. We start again tomorrow morning. Heather and Will are here with wake up Call.
Neil.
You and I come aboard Kono and you're always here and Gary and Shannon are up next. So catch you tomorrow. This is KFI AM six point forty.
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Catch My Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.