5.6.2025 -- NLS -- Madison vs. Jefferson: Neal Unpacks Idaho’s Education Dollar Divide

On this episode with Neal and Julie, they dive deep into the confusing labyrinth of school district budgets, exposing how even seasoned lawmakers struggle to make sense of the financial data tied to educational outcomes. They explore stark spending discrepancies between Idaho districts—like Madison's $9,000 per student versus Jefferson's $15,000—and question why such variations exist when outcomes seem similar. Neal calls for more transparency, suggesting school districts report more digestible data so taxpayers and parents can better understand where education dollars go. Julie joins in pondering whether consolidating services like payroll could reduce overhead and whether per-pupil spending actually correlates with student success. They also discuss the generational shift in student engagement due to technology, the merits of fasting, oddball food habits, and why not all cultural celebrations (like Cinco de Mayo) are what they seem. As always, the episode weaves serious questions with lighthearted detours—including baking tips and childhood cereal box memories—making for a thoughtful yet entertaining conversation. 

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Transcript

Good morning. It is Tuesday. Welcome to the show. It's the Neil Larsen show. And if you'd like to reach the program, you can send a text to (208) 542-1079. That's the Stones Automotive Group call and text line. So, Julie sent me this story, which, reason number 10,972. I would not live in the UK. Listen to, this really quick.

And here we go. Welcome back to live tonight with me, Martin Dorney. Now, the labor run Rushmoor Borough Council has sparked outrage by proposing a sweeping injunction that could see Christian street preachers imprisoned for up to two years. And if the injunction is breached. Now over claims of causing offense or distress. Now, under the proposed terms, Christians will be banned from praying for individuals, handing out religious leaflets or Bibles by hand and laying hands on people in prayer, even with their permission.

Okay. So they're looking at a ban on street preachers in the UK. Do I care? Well, I do care because I care about human beings and freedom and and all of that. But the reason I bring this up, you have the lefty pearl catchers in the United States. Scream, yelling, having connections over Donald Trump and saying that he is an authoritarian.

No. That is authoritarianism. And it's a little surprising out of the UK. And a question that I would have actually two questions and possibly more. I reserve the right. The question is, yeah. Will there be a ban on public Muslim praying? And if not, we all know the answer to that question. The answer to the question is, but I highly doubt it.

This is about Christian preachers. So if it's only a ban on Christian preachers and Muslims can pray, then why? What? Why? Why do we pass this out the like, like that and I think that's a very important question. And it cannot be answered by rational brains, but it certainly is a hallmark of the left. So we have that and we'll talk about that a little bit later.

But I saw this the Mountain States Policy Center, I have become a very big fan of this group that they they well, they are what they say they are. They are they determined, not determined, but they examine policy and analyze policy. And the mountain states and, and Idaho is one of those in particular. And they have come up they talk about the school districts are, a maze of numbers and jargon that most citizens cannot easily understand.

Even lawmakers and some school officials have difficulty concluding if a district is spending money properly, has the resources it needs to be successful, or is making a difference in the educational outcomes of children. For example, Idaho's largest school district, has a budget that is hundreds of pages long, includes six different funds and 36 different programs. The budget is readily available for citizen review, but transparency doesn't mean much if it is not understandable.

This is why Mountain State's Policy Center recommends lawmakers adopt a public school transparency Act. I am so all in on this. This simple step would help taxpayers and parents determine whether their local district has enough funds and whether it is properly spending the cash in the classroom. As part of this idea, all public school districts would be required both on the first page of their budget and also on the front page of the district's main website to report six simple things.

Listen to this amount of total dollars. All funds local, state and federal spent by the district that year? None. That's number one. Number two amount of total dollars spent per student per year. Number three. Amount and percentage of total dollars allocated to the average classroom. Number four average salary and benefits. Number five. Average teacher salary and benefits.

Excuse me. Average administrator salary and benefits and then average teacher salary and benefits. And then finally the ratio of administrators to teachers to students. And that I love that. I think that is such a good accountability transparency piece that would not add great burden to anyone. Why are you picking on educate? I'm not a this is a taxpayer funded taxpayer owned education system.

We can have accountability and we can, we can make these sorts of demands. They may not like it. So here's what Mountain State's policy center did. They went through I and many, if not all of the districts in Idaho, and they, listed a bunch of metrics. And I want to ask a question of the ether for which there may be good answers, but I'm looking at really two things.

The total amount of money spent. I don't really get all hung up on that because there's such varying sizes of districts, so I don't really look at that number to close. But I do look at the resources per student that's very, very, important. And keep in mind, we just the last couple of years went through the battle over parental choice and education, where what do you do with state allocated resources when the final outcome you want is an educated child?

Okay. Pay no attention to all the steps in between. We have publicly funded and financed education in K through 12, and the outcome we seek is an educated child at the end. So if you look at that, the, let's just start with some of the area districts. Blackfoot School District spends, just under $12,000 per student with a 17 to 1 student teacher ratio.

So, one jumped out to me, Blaine County, almost $23,000 with an 11 to 1 ratio. If you look at Bonneville District 93, a little over 11,000 ratio 19 to 1. And, let's look, let's go all the way down to Pocatello. If we the if we look at Pocatello, they spend just under 14,000 per student, 18 to 1 teacher student ratio.

Idaho Falls School District 15,300 per student, 18 to 1 ratio. Okay, so that seems like this ratio is anywhere from I've seen as low as well. There's 111 to 1. And a lot of times those are in districts that have very few kids. So you see those ratios come up the bigger the district. But in in smaller districts it's lower.

But I wanted to hone in on one because I just scrolled through, I wanted to see, Madison's school district has just under 6000 kids. Their teacher student to teacher ratio is 20 to 1. Their expenditure per child or per student is under $9,000. So that's my question. And I think that's the the big golden question here is why can one school district spend 1516 Jefferson School District neighboring them, almost $16,000 per student there?

It's a bigger district, almost 7000 kids. But you have Madison that spends only $8,800 per kid. But just, a little over half of what the neighboring district spends spends. Now, there might be school administrators and public school officials out there listening, going, we don't want you to talk about this. This is a very uncomfortable conversation.

So why do they spend them under 9000 per kid in Madison? Why do they spend, over 15,000 in in Jefferson? The answer to that is I have no idea. Okay. I don't I really don't know. I mean, you demographically there you maybe you got some different things going on and I'm perfectly open to a good explanation here.

But what I don't want to have happen is someone put for putting forward an explanation, and then being done with looking at the rest of it. Because if we can educate kids and their districts that spend even less per child. But when you look at the big districts in areas that, are pretty middle class, how does one district spend that night?

I don't want to say that little. It's adequate. So little doesn't do it justice. But, how does that happen? Now, you might have a big benefactor that pays for all the facilities. I. I don't know how that how that works. So there might be some of those costs that are incurred by the, the local ag community, your or people who are very, very generous and they pay for things that taxpayers, otherwise would be paying for.

That's a very strong possibility. I think you also have districts where, you don't get too hung up on the student to teacher ratios, because you might have very high parental involvement. They help out in the classroom, they help read to the younger kids. So there might be some offsetting situations there. But the point is, it can be done.

And if I were the governor or if I were lawmakers, and I looked at this wide disparity in cost per child, that varies from one district to the next. Sometimes even neighboring school districts start asking questions because whatever they're doing in Madison County, and I want to throw out some kudos here to Doctor Jeffrey Thomas, who was for years the superintendent at Madison.

And, I think it's Superintendent Lords now. They're doing something right. They're they're taking the resources that the state has. They are educating kids very, very well with it, and they're appearing to be spending it fairly wisely because they I believe they're pretty well educated when they get done. So when people say, and, for some reason, if you're a liberal and if you're a Democrat, the more money you can spend per child, the better, regardless of outcome.

If you can spend more. No, I'm. You think I'm being flip here? I'm not being flip. They will say there there is a metric that they use and they talk about Idaho. And they say Idaho is the last state in the nation when it comes to per pupil spending. Okay. Well, there's you're missing something. Where do we rank in terms of education quality?

Because that's really what the we're not there just to spend money on kids. We're there to educate kids. And they forget to mention where Idaho falls in that metric. Or excuse me, where? Yes, where the state falls when it comes to that metric. And the truth is, we're about middle of the pack, so we spend among the least I think we sort of trade places with a few other states, but we're like usually 46 than and further down in per pupil spending.

But you end that with a comma, not a period. There's more to be told to that. And that more to be told is. However, per dollar, kids are pretty darn well-educated in Idaho. They don't want to tell you that story, because what that means is we're getting a good value for our dollars when it comes to education. And so when I look at this number, the Mountain States Policy Center, I think there are some and typically they're probably on the left or they're big business or excuse me, big government Republicans who look at that and just those higher numbers, those that higher expenditure per pupil that a loan to them is a virtue because certainly

to spend more per child is more. But I would I would I here's what I would say to that. If I came to you and I said, I just bought a Honda Accord for $20,000 and someone else said, well, I bought my Honda Accord for 30,000. With the Democrats philosophy of thinking, they would praise the dude who bought the Honda Accord for the higher price.

Tell me I'm wrong. Prove me wrong. All right, it's 822 on Newstalk 1078. Again, kudos to the mountain States Policy Center. They're doing a bang up job here. And I think more light, more scrutiny is always, always a good thing. We'll be back after this okay. And good morning. It's 826 on Newstalk 107 I Neil Larson along with Julie Mason.

So Julie, if you bought a donut for $5 and I bought a donut for $3, which donuts better are they? The exact same donut. Exact freaking same donut. I'm taking the $3 donut all the time. See, you don't value donuts very much. You'd pay more for your donut. There are people that will pay more and think they did a better job, but I'm not going to.

Yeah, you know what I did this morning? Speaking while we're on food. I got here. There was one lonesome calorie free soda in our, in our, there was only one diet soda left. Yeah. Okay. So I'm not going to name the brand okay. Because I don't, you know I'm like okay we do we do have multiple usually we have multiple.

And so I went in and I think it expired in 1997 because I'm like, that does not taste good at it right there. No, it's it's I think it's still on my desk in there. I took like one sip and I'm like, oh, that's terrible. So I'm sure it's probably just a year or two expired. I you know what?

I used to think that soda would last forever. I don't know why I thought that, but I thought, you know what? It's in a can and it's sealed and it's not. It's not going to break down. But but no, like, soda only lasts maybe a year and a half or two. Do you know what I did the other day?

What? I went through my baking cabinet. I threw away my baking powder, my baking soda, my cornstarch. I threw it all the way in. Bought brand new because I don't bake enough anymore that I'm going through it. Oh gosh. At an appropriate speed because I don't have kids here anymore. So who am I baking for. So it was it all expired.

I don't know if it was expired or not. I didn't even check. It's just time to refresh because if you're. Yeah, if you're baking powder is not good, nothing's going to turn out right. That's true. Get new stuff to go to waste in your cupboard. Right. I do bake occasionally. I made banana bread this weekend. Totally teasing you.

I mean, could you put part of it in the freezer, like, just, you know, keep enough out to bake with? And maybe, I don't know, I don't want to go to that kind of effort.

Putting it in the freezer. Yes, because then I'll forget it was there. That's true. Yes. That's true. All right. Welcome back. Have you had a chance to look over that Mountain State's Policy Center list of school? Oh, no. I told you what I was doing during my break. No. Are you planning a trip with your girlfriend?

So, yeah. He was really selfish during your monologue. I'm sorry. That's okay, but I. I do think. Why? Why pay more? Yeah. What is there? Wait, is that a is that a Walmart slogan? Why pay more? Some some store has a tagline I think there that is a like a tagline. Well, if it's not, it should be.

That's a marketing strategy because it and it is really trendy right now on TikTok for women to find dupes. So a cheaper version of something, especially in the beauty care industry. Yeah, like serums that some women pay $130 for. For an ounce. Yeah. And you can get a competing serum made with all of the same ingredients at Walmart for 1799 per ounce.

Like dupes are a big thing. I don't, and I'm not going to feel bad. So do you like scratch out the equate logo on it? Like, no, I have a generic bottle and I put it in there. Oh, you do okay. If somebody sees I have a quaint thing, I don't care. But you know your way some people do.

Let me ask you a question. Would you, because you are your fashion conscious. As am I. What are you laughing at anyway? So would you walk around with a pair of jeans if it had the equate brand on the back of it. I don't think it'd bother me like I, they don't do that to jeans but I don't think it would bother me.

I like women so into the psyche of those who work out. There is a very expensive brand that's way overrated. Yeah. And everyone knows its logo and it's usually placed right in the center of the back like on the leggings, like right where the waistband is at or whatever. Yeah. And there are many dupes for that clothing brand.

It's nothing special. Yeah. I don't need that logo on there to feel like my workout clothes are appropriate, I don't care. Yeah, I just don't care. I don't, I don't care either. Like, I don't care. I, I remember growing up, though, if you had Payless shoes, that was lesser than if you had Nike's or whatever.

Now, as I got older and became an adult, and even when I was a teenager, I realized shoes are something that you kind of get what you pay for. So I do buy name brand shoes and I have name brand shoes now because I do think they do last longer. And because yeah. So there are some things when the name brand really does carry with it higher quality.

But I think there's a lot of name brands that aren't any better in quality than what you get at the store, particularly when it comes to food. Yeah, I, I just, I, I don't understand why paying more gives something virtue. It's only accurate in certain metrics. And those are limited metrics. So when we go to education, just because you spend more per pupil doesn't mean you're doing it correctly, right?

Yeah. Circling back now. Yes to education. Yes. You're right. But that's that's how they view it. They're like if you spend more on the education, you're getting more on the education. That's just not true. That just doesn't it's not automatically true. Now, maybe it is, you know, because super superior education is going to cost more. But if you're looking at the mass production education that is the best or that's the highest, expectation that we can have of a government that's educating hundreds of thousands of kids in Idaho.

Right now, we're at about a third of a million kids that we educate. They're not all going to get a world class, you know, what's that big, what's that big private school in DC that all the snooty people to something of friends like. You know what I'm talking about? I don't want my kids there, but. Yeah, go right ahead.

I don't think that they'll grow up to be snooty elites, too. And I wouldn't want that. But we, the K through 12, K through 12 probably can't offer that. But you can get kids ready for college and a life of success. Oh yeah. So when you look at that, is our education, are you satisfied with an equate brand version of our education, or do you have to have a I don't even know what in top name brand is, of education.

Yeah, well, like, Harvard used to be the gold standard, right? Even among, like, elite colleges, there's even a, like a tiered system, like Brown University. People market like, it is so hard to get into Brown University. But you guys sit here and market, right? That doesn't make any sense. I and I fully believe it's not the education that makes it, a person.

It's the attribute that makes the person the reason they market. They're conflating it with the Cleveland Browns. Oh, is that what it is? That's the problem. And they just brought on Sanders. And that's not going to work. Yeah. Well for that that's going to turn out badly. Sorry. Go on I, I don't know I do believe this is switching around.

And I think part of it is based off the conversation we were having yesterday, that it's a brave new frontier. Yeah. Jobs don't look the same. Things are different. Those who think outside of the box generally are ahead of everyone else. Yeah. And so if you go to a university and you get duped that if I'm here for six years and I take these classes and I have $190,000 in debt, somehow it's going to be great for me.

You're the failure there. Yeah, I hope it works for you. But that's not the best program. You weren't taught how to think. Yeah. All right, let's go to the phones. Hi, caller. How are you? Hi. I hate this topic, that you're talking about here in my book update. I'm coming up with why American healthcare is broken. An update to the book I wrote in 2016.

And because I'm talking about government, a government controlled business, I also made the comparison to education. The other big government controlled business, Idaho. The data I came up with from 2022, Idaho spent 8748 per student. New York spent 30,282 per student. Idaho scores in math were 282, New York 274, and Reading the score in Idaho was 264.

In New York it was 262. And so, yeah, I made the point that Idaho is just more efficient in its education spending. How could they possibly be expected to educate a kid for a paltry $30,000 per year in New York? You know? Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's it's very clear. It's a matter of efficiency. Yeah, I would agree.

And thank you for the call. Good luck with the book. Yeah, I would say even though within Idaho we can look at and it like I did in the monologue, you could you can do a district by district comparison. And when you see Madison districts educating their kids for about $9,000 a year versus neighboring Jefferson District at $15,000 a year, the the Jefferson, I mean, clearly that extra money is not going into their driver's ed program.

And if it is, okay, disband the programs. But that was too easy. All right. That was low hanging fruit there. It was too easy to say that. But what I would say is do you get twice? Well, let me let me phrase it like this. Is your education only half as good in Madison County as it is in Jefferson?

I would venture to say no, I bet you get roughly equivalent education. So why is it 15,000 in Jefferson and 9000 in Madison? Well, you have plenty of metrics to look at too, like what are your graduation graduation rates? What are your go on rates? What are your attacked scores? Because I still think I mean, it's been a minute since I've had kids in school, but I think they're still required it to take that when they're juniors.

You have metrics to compare. Yeah. And so I this doesn't seem to be that hard to figure out. So then if Jefferson County and Madison County school districts have similar outcome rates, the question is why are they able to run it much more efficiently in Madison than they are in Jefferson? And that needs to be incredibly transparent to the taxpayers and to the parents so that they know.

Well, why are you spending all of that extra money on this and figure it out? Yeah, that's the best part of transparency is everyone actually gets better. Yes, you're right, they do. Why is there such an aversion to accountability in in K through 12? We don't want to destroy your system. It's our system. We want to make it better.

Like they want great educated kids. We we want to look and see. And we're not saying that the cost has to be identical from one district to the next. We get like when the last caller, called in and was talking about New York education versus Idaho, it's if you created the exact same education system and you transplanted it from, Idaho to New York, it's going to be more expensive in New York anyway because you have to pay higher taxes.

You have to pay your teachers more because it's the cost of living is just higher. So I don't have this expectation that an equivalent education is going to warrant an equivalent cost. But Jefferson to Madison, that disparity. And I would venture to say pretty much every area in Idaho is roughly the same, save maybe Blaine County and a couple of outliers, a couple of outliers there.

But for the most part that there's just such a wide range. It's it's it's many, many percentage points separated. Yes. Yeah. Yeah I you know, I don't know I, I don't know why people are adverse to transparency. I think that in as a whole I think I can universally say this about superintendents. It's kind of their little baby, right?

Yeah. Their district is in some cases a gigantic baby that your, your nurturing. And they don't they're really proud of what they do. Yeah. So my request would be well let's, let's obviously have pride in what you do. And I think multiple school districts that we're affiliated with in this area do some really great things. Yeah.

That doesn't mean you can't improve by having transparency and looking at ways that you can make it better is not a common story on how bad of a job you're doing. Yeah, it's these dollars are like, I don't want to use the word sacred because that has such a high level to it. Yeah, but these dollars that you get need to be treated carefully.

Yeah. I mean, it's sacred adjacent in my mind because it represents the hard work of Idahoans and taxpayers. And, you know, you you work hard, you go to work every day. And what the dollars are doing, which is educating your kids, that's sacred too. I mean, that's a promise. The actual outcome of the kid is the most sacred part in all of this.

Yes, I agree, so that that would just be my request of superintendents is let's figure out there are going to be some districts that you can't get down to Madison County's level. You just aren't going to be able to. But if you could reduce that cost per student by $1,000, yeah, why wouldn't you do that and spend that money somewhere else?

So, can I float an idea by you? What if you created a baseline, like, the legislature came along and said, here's what we think is a reasonable amount that you should spend per student. Some districts are going to be over that. You might have a few that are under it, but some are going to be over that and, and say every dollar that you can bring that towards the baseline, $0.50 of that, half of it can go for teacher raises.

Would that be an incentive. Well I think you would absolutely revolutionize the culture in education if teachers were going to be benefited by it. Look at the I could look at it and go well let's just reduce it by a dollar then. But if, if your point is let's just reduce it by a dollar, you're going to get all sorts of pushback.

I promise you, they can come up with all sorts of reasons why they need to keep spending way more money. I, you and I have been around the block timer, too. Yeah, they're going to find a thousand reasons why they need the money and to keep spending it. But if you create a culture where you're incentivizing the savings of that money and it goes directly to the people who we say we'd love to pay more so they can get paid more, then you have revolutionized that culture.

You're going to have teachers saying, we need to save money, because every dollar we can save, $0.50 of that will go to toward added teacher pay. Yeah, I, I'm great with incentives. We've talked about this in a lot of government programs. I am great with that. I would also challenge everybody that if you are affiliated like you have grandkids or kids or whatever, in a large school district in Idaho.

Yeah, I promise you've had the conversation somewhere along the lines of, you know that in that administrator so-and-so, we don't even know what they do yet. That administrator is probably it's a it's a district position. Yeah. And they're making $92,000 a year, when almost exclusively people can say that there's thing there's stuff to be trimmed. So to that point, there is a column on this Mountain States Policy Center report that is percentage of full time equivalents.

Who are teachers. Basically, you're saying how many of the people that you hire full time are in the classroom actually educating our kids? I, actually don't look at the numbers. I know you're looking at your screen if in and forget what you just said, I didn't get to it, so I don't. I'm still completely. If I asked you, what do you think that number number one is and what it should be, what would your two answers be?

Oh, you know what? I have no idea. I do not know. I would hope it's above 60%, but I'm going to guess it's far below that. I'll just rattle off the top five here 43%, 38%, 42%, 4147. The first one that gets above 50% Blaine County 54%. So they have more teachers than all the others, and it shows their teacher to student ratio is 11 to 1, which is a lot closer then.

Yeah, a lot of smaller classes. Bliss at 55%. Okay, so we didn't even have a school district get to 60. Ignorance isn't bliss after all. Those people are well-educated. They got their stuff together in bliss. Yeah. Hey, I'm. I'm sure that if we were interviewing somebody from a school district, there's they're saying, look, your full time employees are also including administration.

It's also including, what do they call them, auxiliary staff or, like, aides. They have a different name. Paraprofessional. So that's what it is. Yeah. So the paraprofessionals, remember, these are full time employees. You probably aren't going to be able to count the most of the cafeteria staff, the bus drivers, anything like that. Yeah. They're not full time employees.

So if you're pushing back against what we're saying, remember, not everybody gets to be full time. So my question do two half time employees equal one full time? That's a good question I don't know I don't know. Yeah. Because you would have two bus drivers could create one full time position. Yeah. Right. Right. There are a handful of districts that get above 50%.

I would say you're basement on this. Your floor should be 50%. You should have at least 50% of your people as teachers. And if you're not you're, you're top heavy or side heavy with too many other ancillary. There might be a good explanation in some districts, like highly rural districts need a lot of bus drivers. Yes. So that that would make sense in some cases.

So okay. All right. I talked all the way through how many minutes. There we go. We'll we'll begin a new the bumper music. It's 847 on Newstalk 12788 52 Neil Larson along with Julie Mason and Julie and I just solved all the efficiency issues in, public education during this last commercial break. It was Doge on hyperspeed.

That's true. Well, I asked Julie the hypothetical question, and I honestly, I come at this with, not fully knowing how it all works, all right. So I'll I'll lead with that. But does every school district have a payroll, like, do they do their own payroll? And if they do, do they need to or can the state create that an issue that most people are on direct deposit anyway?

They don't even need a check. Yeah. So can that form be. Yes. Could the payroll be centralized to you. Right. I mean, obviously you're going to have human resource issues that have to be, dealt with. I would say there is a lot of complication because you're talking about individual schools and then departments like the bus, the transportation, everything.

Yeah. So I don't know the answer, but I think it's a it's a question worth asking. Also, people are asking questions in the text saying, well, what if Madison County, doesn't subsidize any of their sports programs? Yeah. I'm, I'm going to tell you that the school district my kids went to, I paid for all of their sports.

Yeah. So that school district wasn't Madison County, and they weren't there wasn't this extra money going to sports. I don't think in general. Yeah. Your child is getting a lot of extra money in sports. I think most districts are pay to play like. Yes. Yeah. So, so but I appreciate people asking that question, trying to figure out what's the disparity between Madison County and other districts.

Yeah. And someone said, I think there is a little more nuance than just purely Madison versus Jefferson. Jefferson County has a much, much larger area than Madison. There have been at least two newer school schools built. Well, I think Madison had one. I think with West Jefferson, Rigby and Riley, there are more facilities to cover now. Does that equate to almost doubled?

I don't know, but transparency would absolutely show if we are getting what we pay for. Agreed. Great question. I am totally open to it costing more because there's probably defensible reasons why it costs more. I'm not expecting identical, but I am saying it's almost double. Yeah, that's a lot. We'll be back. It's 855.

And good morning. It's 907 on Newstalk 1079. Julie, did you see the meme of the smoke coming out of the Vatican? And it was orange. Yeah. Come on, that's funny. It is funny. That's funny. And oh no that's an offense to the Catholic, the sacred rituals of the Catholic Church anyway. No that's just funny. Oh. We saw pictures of them meeting this morning.

Yes we we did, we did. So it's underway. Yeah. Yeah well I did I think it was you and I had this conversation. My brain's been a little bit, bit foggy. Where I think it would be great if, the, like, hospitals every time they have a baby, they emit either blue smoke or pink smoke. Yes. Yeah, we talked about this.

I think it would be fun. I think that would be fun. But somewhere someone is going to be offended. Oh, you know what? I think you know what? You need to have someone get offended. You know, there's one ingredient that you need for someone to be offended. Somebody else needs to be having a good time. And if you have that, you definitely will have someone offended.

Yes you will. That's the only precursor necessary. Yeah. How can I spoil this? Yeah, because we're really bad as a culture at this point, letting other people celebrate and enjoy themselves. Yeah, yeah. It's true, it's true. Let's see the Tyson they removed, they're removing. They're going to take a I saw this Julie let's talk about chicken for just a minute.

Because who doesn't want to talk about chicken. Do you like chicken. Oh I like chicken. Yeah. Chicken's good. Yeah. So Tyson's removing the artificial dyes from their chicken. And they're going to do it in like a month. This is not going to be like a multi or you know eight month process. No they're going to they're they're going to turn around in a month and take out the artificial dyes in their chicken.

And several people in the comments said if it was this easy why haven't they done it before. Like what is the why why I'm okay with them asking that question. Because I think that gets us to the end result of why, why is all of this stuff in there anyway. If we're Froot Loops because that's the, that's the example that's used all the time online that Canadian Froot Loops are actually different colors than American Froot Loops.

Same cereal. Everything's the same except for the coloring. Yeah, if that's what it is, just say that's what it is. Yeah, but explain what's the if other countries can get the same product without it, what's the need for it? And I don't have a problem with people asking that question of of big companies. Right. I and it is I let me form hypothetical answers because I don't know the real answer.

Would they say, well, marketing kids like bright cereal, like, it's fun to open that box of Froot Loops and have your purples in your oranges in your yellows be really vibrant. And so kids like it. And it's exciting. Not only that, if they have that good experience, when they open it up, they're like, that's what I want. Again, it's it's just like social media.

They they put things in there to like spike your dopamine a little bit with a thousand different factors. I think the same is true of cereal that they've they've created these bright colors because that's one more little added thing that endears you to that cereal. And somehow it's supposed to taste better because it's bright pink instead of muted pink, but well, yeah, yeah, I guess I don't.

I where I think that this question would be valuable and remind me about cereal boxes later, but where I think this question that you're asking would be valuable is that there are products in America that have chemicals in it that, triggers your body to want to eat more of it. It's actually scientific. Yeah. I know for certain, because my kids love Takis.

It has a chemical in it. Takis have a chemical in them. Yeah. That makes you go. I want another handful. I want another handful. You want another handful? It's understandable why a company would put that in there. Because then they sell more Takis, right? It can't be good for us. At a bare minimum, it's making us fat. I would agree with that.

So if that's the reason the chemicals in there, you got to be honest and get it out of there. Yeah, I think it also makes you charming and hilarious because I eat talkies too. So I, I, I bet they are bad for you. I know they are bad. I haven't had talkies in a while, but I but I will say I've had that experience where your eat it and like your it's excruciating your mouth and you can't wait to have more.

No, I'm not lying. I'm not a masochist, I am, but I but I get the same thing from jalapenos too. Like, yeah, it's it's not excruciating, but I will sit there and eat like, sliced jalapenos. Just. Can I make a confession? Sure. Because I did food prep just a couple of days ago, and I make these breakfast burritos that might have three carbs in them and close to 30g of protein, and they're amazing.

But I put Hal apenas on. I may or may not have. I didn't this last time, but in the past I may or may not have consumed some of the jalapeno juice like, oh my goodness, drink it to taste your poor insides. My mouth is watering right now thinking about it. Oh my goodness, it is delicious and it's excruciating.

Look, are we still talking about what, like this could go off the grill? No. Go ahead, go ahead. No, I, I look, I would never do it. Yeah, I will say this. I think you should look into what how opinions do to your pH balance. I was watching a nurse talk about your balance the other day. Yeah. And she was advocating that you eat you drink lemon water every day because it has acid in it.

And the acid will, level your balance because that's what is right. You either have too much or too little. I wonder what how opinions do to that. Maybe it's actually a really good thing. Maybe it might. I mean, I don't think it's a bad thing. Yeah, like, maybe you're adding enough acid and leveling your page that you're stopping cancer.

Have you ever drunk, Pickle juice? I don't like pickles enough to do that. I don't hate pickles. I just don't love them enough to drink the juice. Okay. Yeah, I do love lemon juice. Vinegar? I've drank vinegar and. Wow, apple cider vinegar is. Oh, well, I, I saw this real and everybody knows everything on the internet.

It's true. So. But they said if you take, like, a teaspoon, vinegar and you mix it in your, like a cup of water and it can be even a bigger, bigger than a cup, cup of water that it it does wonders for like your blood sugar. And now I haven't done the research on it, but I think people swear by, having vinegar in their, in their water and it's barely, barely.

You can barely taste it. So, this is what that nurse was talking about, that the reason we need the extra acid is because we eat diets. That shoves too far the other way. So it's our poor diet that's pushing us to the other way. So when you hear people say, well, sugar causes cancer, that's because it's changing the makeup of your body.

And these acidic things bring it more back into balance. Okay. Got that? Yeah. I don't know. I would look it up. I would look up and see what, how your juice does. So another whole string of this kind of video and sorry we are meandering just a little bit topically, but I've seen video after video of the benefits of an extended fast now in them where and they're talking like a 3 to 5 day fast where all you have is just water.

If you drink coffee, you can have coffee and there are a few things you can drink, but you can't eat anything. And after so many hours it it tips you. Obviously you go into ketosis, but then you there's another phase of it that's very beneficial. I can't remember the name of it. But then there's yet another one where stem cells start being produced and it it spawns all sorts of healing throughout your body.

Now I will say I watch this and I'm like, that just feels too good to be true. Like I maybe it isn't, but it feels like it. It's too good to, to be true. But these people that have had problems with their joints or certain ligaments or whatever, or even, you know, some people have even said cancer.

I want to be careful because I'm not making a claim or an assertion here. I'm saying what the claims and assertions are on social media, that if you do this, then there really is no, no, the result of that is you'll get the healing that you're seeking. So I don't know if it's true or not. Never tried it.

Yeah I think isn't it important that you add salt to the water. Oh maybe maybe I think so. I think in order for the body to function at a level, I think the water has to have salt in it. Could you do it, could you do 36 hours. I could do that. If I can drink water, I could go a long time.

I think I could do it too. Now do I want to do it? So the same thing with cold plunging. Could I do it? Yes. Do I want to do it? Probably not. Yeah, I however, the people that do it, they say after about 24 hours you're cravings go away and you start to feel really good because you've tipped into fat burning mode.

So you actually have a, you know, you have a source of energy and your cravings are gone. And you're you're fine. After a certain point, you're not hungry the whole time. Do you know what I'd love to know? A couple of end of questions to that. Is it, the same for men and women? Because the the body becomes completely different.

And, and as a sub context to the women, at what age is it okay for a woman to do it? Because your hormone levels are different depending upon what age you are. And then, another thing that I would ask is what does the body composition need to be like if somebody is at their ideal weight, should they be sustaining 36 hours without food, or does it or like is it better for people who are carrying an extra 10 pounds or an extra 12?

Yeah, I think those would be questions I would want to know. Yeah, because I feel like if somebody is teetering right there and like underweight, right. What is their body do during all of that. Yeah I, I don't know I'm not a doctor but but I would think if you're just doing one fast every few months you're fine.

You're probably okay. Yeah. Unless your body fat, your, your body fat percentage is down to almost nothing. You're you're still going to be you don't need it to lose weight. But if you're seeking healing, yeah, I'm guessing a doctor would say you'd be fine to try it. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Someone just said they intermittent fast and their eyesight has gotten better.

The glucose was at, like, 125. Now it's at 85 and a five hour eating window 5 to 10 p.m.. Somebody else said black olive juice. So I have a funny story about black olives almost every year around Thanksgiving or Christmas. My mom, this is when my dad was still alive. My mom, as they were preparing the food and the meal, dad would be probably watching football or talking to grandkids or whatever.

Mom would very discreetly pour all the black olive juice into a, glass and then put ice cubes in it and then take it over to my dad and say, here, do you want some soda? And he fell for it almost every like, was very funny. Yeah. I would drink black olive juice. Yeah, I, I love olives, so I'd be okay with that.

I wonder if there's health benefits to it. I don't know, I don't know if I've ever tried the juice but I might, I would, I would probably do that. I love black olives though. Yeah yeah. All right. 920 okay. Let me tell what I thought about cereal boxes this morning. Oh yeah. Yeah. So you here teachers. Anyone that works with the youth.

And this was based off of a story I, I can't remember which state it is, but they are banning, cell phone hours for kids. Like, if you're hours past a certain amount on the internet, on your cell phone, your cell phone shuts off or something like that. Yeah, I can't remember. Utah passed a, like a curfew with cell phones for kids so a parent can override it, but, cell phones are are sold with a chip installed that it doesn't work from, like 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. or something like that on the internet.

Okay. Yeah. So they were they were going over this and they were interviewing a teacher that was talking about how kids are have been so programed into phones and screens that they don't interact well with a human anymore, like when she's teaching, she can't even get them to pay attention to what she's saying. Yeah, or whatever. And she reference that they start with their screens from the second they wake up.

They don't even eat breakfast without looking away from their screen. They're eating breakfast, scrolling, eating breakfast, scrolling. And I thought in my head, you really can tell those people that didn't enjoy that time, sitting there eating a bowl of cereal and reading the back of the cereal box like that is a generational thing. Yeah, we read the back of the cereal box more than once, because that's the only thing you had in front of you while you were eating your cereal.

Oh yeah, that was a yes. So yeah, you can tell because that if we had the attention span to read the box of the back of the box of the cereal more than once. Yeah. These kids can't even go through the same video. My kids, we used to, like, play the first 45 seconds of a song and switch a minute.

I'm bored. I want a new song. Yeah. They can't even make it through an entire song. Oh, I know, yeah, it's it's true. We need to get back to the generation of reading the back of a cereal box. Yeah. There's also kind of a corollary to this. So I've heard that in the bathroom you read product labels when you have a few spare minutes.

Like, that's what I've heard only for men. Okay. Quick break. We'll be back. It's 922 on Newstalk 179. Like it's out. You need reading material. Like. And if it's the back of a shampoo bottle, then so be it. What really is in Neosporin? Have you. Haven't you ever wondered?

Somebody said they've done a four day fast only water. Black coffee. They go on to say I would not recommend it. During the week. I would do a weekend, because the hunger comes and goes. So does the energy. Yeah. So if you're trying to make it through a workday or whatever, maybe don't do it, then.

Yeah. I'm going to ask them, did you see lasting benefits? That's a little crazy about the Newark airport. Yeah. Losing contact, that'd be frightening. Oh, like cramping, like your muscles. James says pickle juice is great for cramping. Oh, yes, I've heard them. Okay. Yeah. And then Lisa, of course, Lisa says just eat an entire jar of pickled jalapenos.

You're not hungry for days.

Yeah. There's, there's lots of, like, residual effects. Yeah, very much so. Yeah. But does anybody else like me? Have you ever drink the, the new juice? I don't know why I did. It just looked good. And I'm like, oh, I crave, like, even talking about it. My mouth is watering. Like, I love how opinions that much.

So in my food prep, I needed 24 slices of Swiss cheese for my meatball to have it all equal out. But there were only 16 in the package, so we had some string cheese in the fridge. So I got eight things. It's really good. Like it's very. Does it melt. Yeah. String cheese melt. Really. Well okay.

Yeah I had that question yesterday when you were making the hollowed out. Oh yeah. The meatball subs. Yeah. How well does it melt? Good. Okay. Yeah. Mozzarella has a pretty low melting point, so it it melts pretty quick. And I mean, it's been in the oven at 350 for like 20 plus minutes. So. Okay. So yeah it comes out very melty.

What I read the entire message before reading on the air. Birdie at don't read it on the air. I tried to help you know juice drink tea when I was in the military. Oh, we got to go on. Just read the rest. At 925 on Newstalk 1079. The program is brought to you by our good friends at Town and Country Gardens, RECs and crew.

They've got loads of expertise. Julie. In addition to loads of hanging baskets and vegetables and plantable flowers and all the stuff that you need for your lawn, like mulch and soil and rocks in whatever you need. They have it at town and country gardens, trees. When I when we were there, the other day, right before their Firefly event, as we were walking out, there was somebody, buying a bear fruit tree.

And I'm like, oh, I remember those bear fruit trees. Because Rex talked to us about how some of the bear fruit trees in this area. That's the knowledge you're getting. Some of the bear fruit trees in this area take way better than a potted tree. And so that's why you need to go in there and talk to the experts, because you're going to figure out what's going to work best in your yard.

You don't want to buy a tree and have a die. Well, no, no, they know how to help you. They you you know, what I would do to this is this is amazing that they do this and can do this. Take pictures before you go there. Like go to your yard and say, I want a tree for this corner or I want to put it right here.

Is that going to be a problem? Or if you have something growing on your leaves, take a picture of it. They can help you. And they're like, well, that's the rust, which is a fungus or whatever. Yeah, we can help you with that. And just take pictures of what you need then help you out. Yeah, they're great friends.

Town and country gardens. They are south of Idaho Falls, across from the malting plant on Yellowstone Highway. Yeah. Okay. (208) 542-1079. And, we'd love to have you on the program this morning. Julie, some Russian space junk is about to enter the atmosphere. I not know this where it's going to land. Well, they're not quite sure, is it?

Is part of it going to burn up as it reenters? Well, there's a problem. It it was designed to withstand atmosphere reentry because 50 some years ago, the Russians launched it, headed to Venus. But something went wrong with the launch, and it entered this really wide Earth orbit. And it's just gradually the orbit has brought it closer and closer to the Earth.

And soon, sometime in the next couple of days, it's going to be so close to Earth in its orbit that the atmosphere is going to grab, you know, bring it in and it'll suck it in. And, but they're not quite sure where. And they, they think it's likely to land in the ocean just because most of the earth is covered by.

Yeah. So anyway, although speaking of that, it it'll probably create a nice little fireball somewhere over the weekend I saw on multiple local social media sites that a big fireball was was spotted over the weekend, like maybe Saturday night. One of the nights and people all over saw this thing. And there were even reports like in Montana and maybe Utah and Wyoming that, it it was and it was apparently very impressive.

I didn't see it, but a lot of people apparently did. Okay, I was going to ask, do I need to, like, beef up my insurance policy on my house? Because I'm sure, destroyed by Russian space junk is not in the by that right. I the the rules of my insurance policy. I wouldn't worry about it if I were you.

I mean, there is a tiny sliver of a chance, but I don't I don't. So you saying there's a chance? It's so close to zero. I don't think you need to call your insurance agent. Any time soon, so. All right. It is 930, and, the number to call 208542107. Ania Larson, along with Julie Mason. Julie, there's rumbles that Kamala Harris may be eyeing a comeback, and.

Oh, I hope it's true. Go for it like I can't, I love this. I might donate to her campaign if it'll make her more likely to to wage a comeback. Dear, I was gonna say. Did she finally complete the 12 step program so she's ready to reenter? Maybe I don't I don't know. We love you, Kamala. Yeah. So what are they thinking?

I think they're not. I think that they're really struggling finding a candidate that can fulfill any kind of an option for them. And so they're just it's like having to go to your third string quarterback and, you know, they're no good. Yeah, but you go to them anyway because you don't have anybody else. Wasn't it the 40 Niners a couple of seasons ago that they had so many.

Brock Purdy was hurt and yeah they actually played was it Christian McCaffrey. They put him in. Yeah. As quarterback. That's where they're at I heard they almost brought back John Amos. But yeah. No you're right though. They just they just don't have anybody to play the position currently. So now keep in mind it is CBS news that's reporting it.

So it's likely not true. Yes. Now Democrats divided over a 2028 Kamala Harris comeback. Sky News Digital presenter Gabriella Power says some Senate Democrats believe former US Vice President Kamala Harris can receive the party's 2028 presidential nomination if she, quote, plays it right. What Senate Democrats are said to be divided over a 2028 comeback by Kamala Harris after she lost all seven battleground seats by the way, she lost all seven battleground seats as the sitting vice president.

Yeah, she'll if she runs in 2028, she won't be the sitting vice president. And she will have the reputation of having lost and been humiliated, a failed candidate. So she's not even the saint. She won't even be as strong as she was in 2024, which is? Play your cards right. I mean, did she play them right in 2024?

Let that man let it have no soul or heart and let a dementia ridden man I don't. There's no way. Yeah. What does play your cards right. There is no no way. Many say she could still secure the nomination if she plays it right. Okay. There is no play. There's no play. But go right ahead. Hey, we'll enjoy it.

She has something to. What does she have? Us and Caroline love it. We'll celebrate it because she said the same thing. Go right ahead. Yeah, that makes that makes Caroline's job. You know, like when they're putting together pieces of. She can just sit there and compare the Biden administration over and over it, because you can do that from the press as the press secretary.

Well, I, I will say, and I look, in three years, we will be in earnest in the midst of a presidential race. It'll be in three years, it will be the primary season. And we'll decide. I, I still think we're you know, we've had a couple of, years in the last decade or so where we had 15 to 20 candidates running.

I don't think we're going to have that in 2028. Even if Trump's not running. I think Trump is smart enough. He's going to maneuver it, and enough promises will be given to keep people out. And you'll have some yahoos that will give it a shot. Like, you know, I don't know John Kasich or I. I mean, there's a number of yahoos out there that still think they have some fuel in their tank, but they're they won't go anywhere.

It'll be probably either JD Vance or Marco Rubio, maybe Ron DeSantis. I think it's going to be one of those three. And we already know that three years ahead they are out scrounging under every rock. They're looking under rocks they've already looked under multiple times, hoping there's something new there and they can't find anything that is going to match MAGA in 2028.

The MAGA heir apparent. Yeah, they're evaluating who can we rebrand because they can't run anybody on their current brand? No, they have to rebrand them. So that's the that's the now the question. Not who's got the skill set. The question is who can we rebrand and make the the country believe they have the skill set right. What a pathetic offering it's going to be.

Well it is it is going to be a pathetic offering. And like I know this sounds over the top because we're so locked in to how things have been like it's Republicans versus Democrats, and that's what the American political system is all about. I think Donald Trump is so good at altering the DNA. I it's possible that a new party will have to be created for the what I would call the sane left.

How wild would that be? It would be crazy, but I think they could. And don't think they're not talking about it. I mean, already the Democrat Party is it's just been completely hijacked by the crazies. And I don't I think they're going to you're going to have to have somebody and it might have to be led by people like Bill Maher and Van Jones and, you know, kind of these liberals that recognize why the party is in complete shambles and, and launch something new and different.

If they can't get their crap together in the next year and a half, I don't know, could be the option. Anything could happen. Let's go to the phones. (208) 542-1079 hi, caller. How are you? Good. How about you? Good, good. I was you're talking earlier about education. I was just kind of wondering how come we've never had, like, arithmetic state champions or compare schools or, you know, you know, English literature debate all of that.

You know, state champions that we do. There are there are state debate. Yeah, there's tournament tournaments there. If they were to look at the, you know, test scores or the scores that you guys are looking at and everything like that, you know. Yeah. And have overall state champions, I think, you know enthusiasm you know the money put towards it and everything would see results.

Yeah. That well yeah. You might like are you are you compare. I'm trying to read your motive for the point that you're making. Are you saying that because we have athletic state championships and they're pretty high, highly visible. We should have academic state championships that get as much attention? Is that what you're saying? Yes. Yes, that's what I'm saying.

Okay, I gotcha. I think you know. Because pointing out an ad hominem attack is not as sexy as a slam dunk. I think that might be one of the reasons why. Well, I could be advertising, too, you know, and the ASM, you know, that's true. I will say this. There are even in let's let's set aside the programs you're talking about and just look at the sports portion of this, even within that sub, category of just sports, there's more subcategories because sports like, football and basketball earn schools money or at least break even sports like baseball, volleyball, you don't get as much fan attendance.

Therefore you're not making ticket sales. But you still have to. You still have to run the game and pay for the electricity and all of that. So there's even subcategories where some sports get less love than other sports. And it's really driven by the almighty dollar. Yeah, yeah I agree. Yeah. Well, thank you for the call. I, I also think though you can benefit kids just as much, even though, you know, you're not showing up at an arena with 7000 people, it still benefits the kids to compete on the state level.

I think you're getting that benefit out of it. Yeah, well, as long as the child is being nurtured in a a usable skill for their future debate, a usable skill acquire is a usable skill. Yeah. This is part of our problem with some of the clubs that are given money. Is that what are they actually benefiting the child for their grown up life?

Yeah. You're not there for therapy. What a great. Can I also say, I think one of the reasons why and let's be honest, it's basically football and basketball. Those are the sports that really get the attention of the state and, and, and track and field to some degree, but not even really close to what, what football and basketball get.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the NFL and the NBA spend billions of they are billion dollar leagues. You have multi-billion dollar leagues, you have college basketball and football that are multi-billion dollar businesses. And so those sports have built in national marketing. That happens. And obviously that filters down into the high schools. And a lot of these high school athletes have hopes of going on their trains.

That's what keeps them going in their sport for some of these kids, is the hope that maybe they'll play in college and maybe even beyond that. Yeah, yeah. So the there's also a lot to be said about, becoming really good in whatever you like to do. Yeah. So these football teams start when they're young. These basketball league start when they can barely dribble the ball.

And you're not you're not starting any kind of debate or things like that at a way younger level. Yeah. Even choir has a very limited training ability. Till you get further into your public education. So there are some private ones, but it's not near as prolific. Yeah. So sports. And so that also makes a difference because you just learning how to do it when you're four gives you more confidence and you keep doing it.

And you know, but you're going to try to join the debate team when you're a freshman in high school, that takes a lot more guts because you haven't ever been doing it. Yeah, yeah. That's true. I'm just thinking of a development chess league. I you started when they're four. Did you see that mean castle that he did? That was great.

My kid plays rec chess. Yes. Yeah. All right. We'll be back. 941 on Newstalk 10792085421079. What's that? That's a really good point. They said somebody said they do celebrate the academic state champions. They're tied to basketball, football etc. that absolutely happened. I like the golf team, has an academic state champion. My son was on the golf team. And they qualified for state.

Yeah. Cheer always had an academic state champion along with their regular sport champion. So yeah they do they do highlight that at the state championship level. Yeah. Yeah. True. But I think kids who don't do any sports might argue that they don't have a chance for recognition on that. They could still, which I'm glad they do highlight the academic stuff.

They could argue about breaking news. Madison High School student tore their ACL walking to the debate. State. That's, we have, somebody you're not going to remember who I'm talking about based off of me telling the story, but Neal knows her. She grew up in our neighborhood. She was a debate champion at Hillcrest High School.

Paid for her four year education at Boise State on debate, then went on and did, two different universities in Europe. Yeah. And, she actually still lives in Europe. She married, like a maybe a guy from Great Britain, I don't know. Oh, cool. Yeah. He's not. He speaks English and like, it's not as like that's his given language, everything.

I don't know where he's from, but, Yeah, her whole life was shaped by debate. Yeah. And by the way, she was a cheerleader, and she still did that. Okay, I think our our school had a debate club. They didn't stop me.

I remember one time. Looking back now, I can see why the the teacher did this, but they had a night where legislative candidates could come in, and there was one candidate from Power County that came in, and he was Democrat. And I got up and I asked him a question about abortion because I was very I've always been pro-life and he's I mean, he was really old school Democrat.

And he's like, well, I always believed life began when you swatted the baby on the bottom. And he took his first breath. Anyway, I started asking fairly aggressive follow up questions. And the advisor, the advisors shut that down real quick would not let me keep going because it it was getting I didn't care, but it was getting a little awkward in the room.

So funny. I'm glad that he believe that. So that means it's true for everybody else. I always believed, well, there's there's 17 and 18 year olds that still believe in the mythical character. Around December 25th and those. Yeah. Not to ruin it for anybody. And they purposely believe because they've been told if they don't believe, they won't get those, benefits that come on December 25th.

Yeah. So just cause you believe it, maybe you need to upgrade your firmware. Yeah. Okay. Side conversation over. Yeah. Did you watch The Apprentice? No, I did, did you? Yeah. Yeah. I get why it was as popular as it was. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I kind of understood the premise, but I the only thing I remember the cultural impact of.

You're fired. That's all I remember. Yeah. So it just it had enough. It was just ludicrous enough just. Yeah. Just enough. Did de de de de de de de de de de de de de de welcome back. It's 947 on Newstalk one I said what are you laughing at over there. (208) 542-1079 is the Stones Automotive group calling text line.

We'd love to hear from you. So, Yeah. So, Julie, we've we talked a little bit about this yesterday, but I think it's the issue has ripened just a little bit. This idea of financial assistance for the self deportees. In America I'm all in I mean I understand in principle why are we paying even more taxpayer money.

Because they're illegal and they need to go back home because they're not going to go back home. Many of them if we don't help them get back home. So self-report will pay for your plane ticket. I think it's up to a thousand bucks. Do it through the CBP app. And when you go back home then you can get in line to come back here the right way for a lot of the illegals.

That's a fairly attractive offer, I think. I think it is. Can we can we pair this concept also with the fact that there was heavy reporting yesterday on Cinco de Mayo, that there were certain cities who canceled all of their celebrations because they didn't want ice to target. Yeah. And I say that with air quotes. Target the celebrations.

Yeah. Okay. Your perceived. You want me to feel bad? I don't know why. That's a weird you do you want me to feel bad that they had to hide? I'm not going to feel bad that an illegal had to hide. Don't be illegal. Yes. And I that's my thing with. We'll get. We're. We have enough heart. You're asking me to feel bad that they canceled their Cinco de Mayo celebration, but I I'm I'm pushing the boundaries too far to offer them.

Be kind. Yeah, and offer them $1,000 plane ticket to get out of here. So they're not illegal anymore. They're concepts are so messed up or they are messed up. They are. And it's like you're the one that's illegal, right? Right. And you get to decide where my compassion lies. I'm supposed to be sad for them that they couldn't celebrate one day out of the year.

I yeah, yeah I, I yeah I that's an odd thing. I hadn't seen that story. So that is kind of odd that they're canceling them. And my thought might be well if if you're inviting illegals to your party might be a good idea to cancel it like I or if you're allowing illegals to work on your farm. That thought may have crossed my mind, but I didn't want to mention it.

But now that you have, someone said this. I actually had this conversation with my daughter yesterday. Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican American holiday, not Mexican. Okay, that is this. Okay? Can I ask really offensive question? Not racially offensive. Okay. Except to white people. Okay. Is Cinco de Mayo one of those holidays that white people like to celebrate because they think they're being culturally sensitive by celebrating it, but it's not really celebrated by the the core culture.

I'm sure there are some who do that. I'm sure, I'm sure. And then I think there's just a group of people that like to have tacos and walk like I Julie, we have the same brain. I just said, any day is a good excuse to eat tacos and Glock, so I'm all in on that. You know, it's like, you know what?

This is what it reminds me. At the risk of getting struck down right now, you don't have to wait till Christmas to believe in Jesus. Or to be a Christian.

I'm not going to say the rest, but I'm just saying. What I was thinking we should tell them what the text said about BYU Idaho. Okay, so we were talking about education earlier, and somebody referred to BYU. Idaho is Jesus tech I yes okay. Yeah.

I think Jesus might be happy about that. I think he'd be okay with it. I think he lost a little bit of that. Yeah. He might I think you would. You're going to answer all the angry texts, though. Okay. I'll take them. And someone said, we are Irish once a year and we're Mexican once a year.

That's all it is. I look. Yeah, and I love Saint Patty's Day. And I open up everybody to celebrate, because why can't we have fun? I yes, I would agree with that. I would agree. So I, I honestly don't know the I don't know the rules around cultural appropriation. I don't I really don't I, I remember a story out of Utah.

This girl wore a beautiful Japanese themed prom dress. Yeah, no Japanese people were offended by it, but a whole bunch of white liberals were this culture. It was in that it was in the apex of everybody freaking out about anything. I think was 2019, the like, the MeToo movement and everything. Yes, we were on. We were just on fire about everything.

Yeah, right. So I saw that. I actually don't think that would even be a story today. I think we're back to a point where if a very Utah looking white girl wants to wear a beautiful dress that happens to have a Japanese theme to it, nobody cares. We just don't get bothered by it anymore. Yeah, a much healthier place to be.

It totally is. And now look at me, Julie. Do I look like I have any Hispanic or Mexican blood in me? Not at all, not at all. That's not going to stop me from enjoying tacos and I. Yeah, you know this about me. If I, if I could, if I had to limit myself to one ethnicity of food for the rest of my life, no question about it, it would be Mexican food.

Same for me. They they have it down pat. Same for me. That's exactly how it would be. Yeah, I don't know. Look, if you want to cancel your Cinco de Mayo, celebration, you're just hurting the people around you. If you're the governor or the the city mayor that canceled those celebrations, you're just a grump, a bump, a lump, a grandpa bump, a lump.

I like that term. Yeah. Is that really a term. No, but I used to say that to my kids. I would look at them and I'd go if you were a Care Bear you'd be grumpy, bump a lump today I like that. We're going to use that again okay. All right. It's 954. We'll be back. We'll wrap it up after this.

So Wednesday, the annual. You may not have any Hispanic in you, but you do do yard work. Okay. I don't know what that even means. I so can I say something about that? Yeah. When I am walking and people have yard services. Yeah. The Hispanic gentlemen are so kind, they stop mowing and allow me to walk really on the sidewalk of whatever house they're working on.

I get past and then they begin mowing again. It's very polite. Oh, wow. So that no rocks or anything kick up and grass I the noise. Yes. Very nice. That's nice. That's good. Yeah, yeah. Not me. I just keep on mowing. If I'm walking in front of Neil's house. Hold on. Let me run over the pinecones. Hold on.

Yeah. Oh. Yesterday when I left here, I was here forever. Last night, doing a couple of we share podcasts. But when I left and it was kind of drizzly. Yeah. All the rock trucks were out, down by the, Eagle fountain. Oh, really? Yeah. Just rock trucks scattered on the grass eating something. I don't know what they eat.

And does the rain bring it up? Do they eat worms? I don't know, I don't think so. I don't know what they were snacking on, but they were snacking on something in the grass. That is weird. Do we have another town? Country? Okay, we'll do that right now. Okay. Usually the place that I see the rock trucks are.

As I'm walking further south at snake River landing, and I go on the sidewalk between the houses and the little manmade creek that they've made. Yeah, there's usually half a dozen rock trucks throughout there. Okay, so if we ever have a big interruption in the food supply, we have a back, we have rock trucks. Would you, if you had to.

Oh yeah, I would. Yeah, I could eat a rock truck if I had to I might be a make a good casserole. You know. Stew. Yeah, yeah. 957. Want to spend our last, moment here talking? I mean, not I'm just for the show today. Not like, for our lifetimes, but, I want to talk about town and country gardens.

They have a great selection. Of course. We talk all the time about the the. You know what I did? You know what I did? I was on once in a while. Julie. I get on Google Maps and I just start exploring the world. That's what you do when you're on a budget. So I, I get on Google Maps, I zoom in on my house.

Okay. And I don't mean to sound braggadocious and it's been within the last couple of years. It probably last summer. It is the greenest yard around. And I'm like that right there is the four step lawn program from town and country. Right. You I know you we get paid to do this. This is not hard to talk about.

My grass is so much healthier, greener, lusher since the four step lawn program I don't like. Sure Rex, I like that you pay me. But I would say it even if you didn't pay me, it's that good? Yeah, it is really good. Super easy. Just show up. You walk in the front door, it's kind of in the next section over.

You walk through the double doors and on pallets there and it there's a little sheet that you get. It tells you exactly when to apply what, how much you need for your yard size. And you just put it down. Water and mow like you normally would. And you're going to have a beautiful, lush lawn. It's that easy. So, Town and Country Garden south of Idaho Falls on the Yellowstone Highway across from the Budweiser plant.

All right, everyone, that's going to do it for the show today. Julie and I will be back tomorrow. Okay. See you then.