Satan Destroys America!

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4173 of The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world, albeit a visual world which only sees what it wants to see.

I am Andy Zoltzmann in London here in the Shed of Truth.

In that this room has been shed of truth.

It's good to have a fact clear out for a couple of weeks to keep it pure.

Joining me this week from irrespectively Australia and the USA, it's Josh Gondelman and Alice Fraser.

Hello to both of you.

Josh, this is the

first time you've been on the bugle as a citizen of what has now officially become a rogue state.

So

how's that working out for you?

It's very exciting.

I'm expecting my kind of government-issued eye patch to show up soon, and I'm just going to get on a boat and fight people in other boats, I think, is what I'm going to do.

Yes, we are recording on the 13th of November 2020.

Alice,

can we learn from Australia

where, essentially, we're going to look further at the state of the American election and aftermath.

Can we learn from Australia where no one stays in charge long enough for anyone to bother talking of war when they get democratically defenestrated?

Yes, Australia has a very well-balanced political system in that we have compulsory voting, which means that politics is by necessity incredibly boring,

and also

we just roll our prime ministers depending on what fashion our shoes are.

Like if they don't match the drapes, we get a new prime minister.

We change the drapes a lot.

That sounds like so much better a system.

We will touch more on these

matters in due course.

We're recording on the 13th of November, which is World Kindness Day.

So you can take 24 hours off and then get back to resentful, odious meanness for the next 364 days, everyone.

Tomorrow, the 14th is Loosen Up, Lighten Up Day.

The 15th of November is Philanthropy Day.

Keep trying world.

The 16th is International Day for Tolerance.

It's just not working, is it?

We need too many days.

17th of November, Unfriend Day.

Yes, we had enough of this wokery after four days of attempting to be what we're not.

Let's focus on what we're good at as a species: resentment and unfriendliness.

The thing to remember is it's also Friday the 13th today.

It's Friday the 13th where you are, and that means it's the only day of the year that you can go back to all of the idiots who ghosted you in the past and go with little ghost emojis and go, Ooh, there hasn't been a f boy here in 30 years

on this day, the 13th of November in the year 1002,

the St Brice's Day massacre took place.

English King Æthelred the Unready ordered the killing of all Danes in England.

So no wonder, some 1018 years later, the EU is being so difficult in those Brexit negotiations and not giving us exactly what we want.

They've got very long memories.

Æthelred the Unready,

his name does not in fact derive from the modern word unready, apparently, according to no lesser source than the internet, but from the Old English word unread, meaning poorly advised, which is a classic early British euphemism for f witted

and set and train a tradition of leadership that continues very much to this day.

There was an anecdote written by the celebrity historian William of Malmesbury,

a 12th century superstar of history,

that Ethelred had shat in the font as a child at his baptism,

which I guess is, you know, that's the kind of story that it's hard to shift, isn't it, from

your reputation?

It really sets the narrative, really.

Yeah.

I also think if I was going to be kind of, if I was going to be a historian, I'd want to be one in the 12th century just because there's so much less to have kept up on.

I mean, there were some decades where literally nothing happened.

You could just clock off, pick up your salary as a historian, and not have to do any work.

But now it's,

you know, the 24-hour news cycle.

It's just ruined it.

as always the section of the bugle is going straight in the bin this week we've got a how-to section

obviously with the lockdowns this year people have been trying to build up new skills we're going to help you this week with our how-to teaching you new skills including how to build an ark and we cannot emphasize enough the importance of dealing with the sewage issue

really caused Noah a hell of a lot of problems and is the etymological origin of the word ark in fact when he finally disembarked

he was asked what kind of boat is that and his instant response was just ah

how to cook a fossil it's tricky I'm not going to deny it very hard to make it tender and get the original flavours out how to adapt a family car for space travel part one take the current engine out part two will follow next week how to win Wimbledon quite simple really start playing tennis at an early age be good at it try really hard and take it from there failing all that sneak into Wimbledon at the dead of night and pretend to play a match against a made-up opponent and then emotionally climb up to the player's box to give your imaginary family a cuddle.

How to sneak up on someone whilst wearing a medieval suit of armor without being noticed.

Oil your joints.

Absolutely key.

And how to forge a vote.

Just make a mark in a box next to someone's name after the words Democratic Party.

It turns out it's as easy as that.

That is literally all.

Throw them all out.

That's what that's what they're trying to do.

Top story this week.

It's all over.

Apart from it being all over.

This is a US election and COVID vaccine special.

Both things are now done,

complete.

We found a vaccine, so the virus is over, apart from it not being over and it not being clear exactly how well the vaccine will work.

And the US election, well, we're recording this on the 13th of November, Josh, and the election still rumbles on 10 days after it took place, and a week after the result was confirmed.

And despite the result being pretty clear-cut in the end, and the election having been monitored by both sides throughout the world, having accepted that result, and it being really important to get on with stuff like trying to stop more than 100,000 people a day in America contracting coronavirus and the vague, charming, if antiquated idea that the US is at least in some respects still a beacon of hope for the world.

But despite all that, it's still up in the air.

It's still anyone's.

It's like a cat that's been kicked up in the air, has landed in a tree, and has then been gaffer taped to that tree by the person who kicked it in the air, who then says, Well, we're just going to have to wait until Mogsy finishes his flying lessons.

How was we recorded nine days ago on the Wednesday when it was was starting to become clear that Biden

was going to win, but it hadn't been confirmed.

And before Trump had really

given it

the full loon, let's call it.

How's the last nine days been for you in America?

It's been a roller coaster over here, and one of those roller coasters where a bunch of people have died, but they still leave it open.

I think that's a real problem, but that is the mood.

It was on Saturday, last Saturday.

It was very exciting, the mood where I live in New York City.

It was very exciting.

Not so much because Joe Biden inspires confidence.

He more inspires you to call your grandfather while you still have the chance, right, while he's still around.

But people were out in the streets celebrating and cheering that Trump was gone.

And this is where Donald Trump is from, right?

New York City.

Can you imagine what it's like to have people in your hometown just applauding the worst day of your life?

I can.

My high school did a production of Fiddler on the Roof, and the kid who played Tevya wasn't Jewish, and I was right there.

But that's that's not the point.

It's not the point.

I'm just saying I can't.

I've been there.

It's bad.

But practically before the car horns honking and jubilation had transitioned back to their customary honking and get the f out of the way, Republicans had started to gingerly signal that they thought there was fraud.

Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, joked, joked, he said, that he was preparing to transition into a second, transition peacefully into a second Trump term, which is the kind of joke you can't make when you're the Secretary of State.

That's like your gynecologist going, you're pregnant, psych, inappropriate.

We come to you for facts.

Well, in the South, you go to your gynecologist for a few facts and a religious sermon.

But like overall, the feeling here is like the Republicans are kind of...

tiptoeing towards a coup, right?

These little signals of we want to count all the legally cast votes, which is a little suspicious when you carve it out like that, right?

That's like saying, like

walking into a bar where a guy is screaming, I wouldn't cheat on you with anybody in this room.

And it's like, okay, what aren't you saying?

What are you leaving out here?

It is really like they're kind of approaching it slowly.

They're

they're like testing the waters.

It really feels like the

they're approaching a coup with the same method as like, wouldn't it be weird if we kissed?

I mean, like, I know, it would be like funny, right?

Like, because we're friends and it would just be like funny to kiss.

And that's what they're like, but with overthrowing the Democratic process.

Yeah, I mean, it's not surprising that the Republican Party is against transitioning, but

I feel like the coronavirus, much like the election, has been full of scary pricks.

And

I feel like the depressing reality of this kind of Trump

coup waggling or whatever it is, trying to figure out how to go to both the banana republic and the wealth gap at the same time, is that the people who voted for him are living in a completely different news landscape.

They're not dealing with the same scenarios that we are.

They've got this world in which the liberal media are deeply invested in stripping away your personal freedoms to call people the N-word.

But also, four senior officials from the Pentagon were fired or resigned this week, which is a way to turn the chill vibes of a lame duck presidency into the oh my god, duck presidency.

right with that goose that walks around terrorizing you in the video game it's an untitled aggressive goose presidency

Trump has reacted to to the

the outcome very much as you would expect anyone in his head and body to react like a deranged psychotic toddler.

He's fought very bravely, it must be said, against his long-term enemies, reality, mathematics, dignity, good sense, and democracy.

And we've got to give him credit.

You know, he has galvanized the American electorate.

He garnered more please don't be president votes against him than any candidate in history by a mile.

Well, in fact, by five miles, if you stack the almost 80 million votes now in a big pile.

Now, unusually for someone who likes to claim that he's setting records for the biggest things ever, he's not responded very well to this.

Sergeant Snowflake is in full meltdown and we're enjoying, if that is the right word, and it's very much absolutely the wrong word, the final desperate thrashings thrashings of the Trump cantankracy and it's um

I mean it's been throwing away around the numbers you know how well he's done and all the you know he's got more votes than any other any other candidate in the history of humanity apart from the person he was up against um

he uh more people voted against trump uh than voted for the winning candidate in all the presidential elections held from 1788 to 1908 inclusive.

That is 31 elections worth of votes.

Now, I know those numbers are not relevant, but that's what happens with votes and statistics.

Those numbers are going to get twisted to prove a point.

Admittedly, at the time,

1788 to 1908, there were certain restrictions on the number of votes cast caused by bodily organs such as wombs and skin.

But still,

the point, more people voted against Trump than voted in favor of the president in the first 31 elections of American history.

There's

all this math, right?

Like all the contested votes.

Oh, he's down by 30,000 in the state, and he's going to contest.

But like, really,

this is only a function of like American democracy being so

messed up to begin with, because it's all about the Electoral College.

He's losing by 5 million, more than 5 million votes.

And he's going, but these 30,000 are the votes that are important.

These are the ones that can make the difference.

This is like, it's like watching a TV show called America's Got President, where like the public wants this, but like if Howard Stern says you're not the president, then you're not the president.

Well all men are created equal Josh unless they're born in Pennsylvania in which they're created

superhuman.

Superhuman.

I mean I don't know why anyone is surprised that he can't accept the results of this election.

This is a man who can't accept the topography and color scheme of his own actual head.

But I do think now, Josh, that it's, you know, there's been a lot of talk about reaching out and healing for America.

And I do think it's very important for the Republicans to reach out to these 80 million ordinary people who voted against Trump to show that they understand their concerns about America.

Those on the right have to get out of their bubbles and learn to empathize with the swell of opinion that drove this record vote against a president and not demonize and stereotype these 80 million people as just idiots.

I fully agree.

I think

there was this kind of wisdom.

I mean, wisdom is the wrong word.

It was an idea on the right, not wisdom, though.

There was this idea that like as if Trump lost, we wouldn't hear about COVID in the news anymore because it was all a scheme to put, you know, to dent and ding the Trump presidency so he would lose.

And there is no more

media bubble than that.

There's no more media bubble than the meet your media diet being like, science is going out the window once this guy loses.

Nobody's gonna care.

And it's like, of course that didn't.

It's ridiculous.

Of course that didn't happen.

Quarter of a a million people died to make him look bad.

And those are the ones that have voted.

The Trump reaction, I mean, it has been completely extraordinary.

And it is either the greatest piece of investigative journalism in human history that will make Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate Flim Flam look like an expose of the owner of a sweet shop eating a small chocolate bar and not paying himself for it.

Or it is the frantic ravings of a nuclear-grade delusionist.

And I guess, you know, what you think very much depends on whether you're the kind of person who likes things like evidence as a side order with their main course of accusations.

I mean, it's

I've spent a lot of time this week trying to read a breadth of news coverage from America, Josh, and it's left me essentially massively pessimistic about the entire future of the human species and

everything related to that issue.

But

is there any chance that there any kind of reconciliation?

Because as you were saying, it seems that basically the two sides are living in

sort of parallel universes, essentially.

And is there any way that any form of sort of cohesion can emerge from this?

You know,

I'm not sure.

It feels really tough.

Mark Zuckerberg reportedly said that Steve Bannon

hasn't broken the rules of Facebook Facebook enough to be suspended, to have his account suspended, after he said that Dr.

Fauci and the head of the FBI should be beheaded.

So it feels like as long as that's allowed, we're going to have a few picky differences of opinion.

As long as the right-wing media is like, you know, we should cut off more heads.

And the left-wing media is like, well, maybe you should use anesthesia before you cut off someone's head.

So it's like a little tough.

It's all about freedom of speech, Josh Gondelman.

But the problem with freedom of speech nowadays is that you don't have to do it to somebody's face.

I'm all for freedom of speech if they can then speech you right back in your face real hard.

Right, because then that becomes like the freedom of fists and we'll see, you know, it's like there's at least a next step there.

But on the internet, like, I don't know, I've been,

I've been on the internet, and

it does seem like the country is coming together over the fact that I'm a twerpy little Jew.

So

maybe the healing has begun.

The American government's cybersecurity and infrastructure agency has issued a statement saying that the election was the most secure in American history, but there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.

Trump nonetheless has repeated

an unproven report that a voting machine system deleted almost three million of his votes.

I mean, maybe if he paid more taxes, he could have afforded a more secure voting system.

We just don't know.

But the thing is, Josh, I mean, there's no evidence that these things happened.

But what if they had happened?

What would happen?

What if they had happened?

Well, this is, you were talking about counterfactuals and bad statistics.

The talking point on the right is, if you don't count California,

Trump, you know, it's even.

It's like, yeah, sure.

And

if you don't count Texas, he won by 6 million.

And if you do count the rest of the world, he loses by 6 billion.

We just let everybody vote.

Like, there's no,

there's no,

that doesn't matter.

This is all, right, it's all counterfactual.

But I think you're talking about cybersecurity experts.

I've got a cybersecurity expert for you.

Right.

Rudolph Giuliani.

Oh, wow.

Rudy Giuliani, the cybersecurity expert.

That's technically, that's what he does.

That's his job.

Even though he's consistently butt dialing reporters and getting caught on hot mics.

So

he's more like the goofus of cybersecurity, where he's just like, don't do this.

He held a press conference last week.

It was announced that it would be at the Four Seasons.

And then, of course, it was immediately corrected to it will be held at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, which I think if you're going to go to a Four Seasons landscaping, don't f ⁇ around with partial.

Go for Total.

That's what I have to say.

It is the funniest thing that's ever happened in history.

It's somehow the funniest thing to happen happen to Rudy Giuliani this year.

And one month before, he was caught on camera by Borat with his hands down his pants.

We're not giving Rudy Giuliani the comedy credit he deserves.

He's like Will Farrell in the early aughts, just crushing left and right.

It's amazing.

It seems...

like Rudy Giuliani is just walking around answering his phone, ready to fall for stuff.

Like, I think we should have a prank show where someone, one person just pranks Rudy Giuliani for 30 minutes every week on camera.

Ashton Kutcher, whoever.

I would love it.

I would watch it every week.

But for some reason, people think this Italian Mr.

Magoo is like a convincing and authoritative presence on television.

And that's because one day, 19 years ago, he made a serious face on a serious day.

Here's my hot take.

And this is pretty scorching.

At this point in history, Rudy Giuliani is the primary beneficiary of 9-11, even more than Osama bin Laden because Rudy Giuliani is currently not at the bottom of the ocean although I do think he could be tricked into living there fairly easily

he's not just a yes man he's a yes and man he gets into real improv shenanigans

I had the I had the great joy of my my father was doing a meditation course for 10 days during the pinnacle of this election

cycle so I got to tell him about four seasons total Landscaping, and it may be the pinnacle of our father-daughter relationship.

What an incredible choice by your father.

I can't, that's

this.

He's the best guy I've ever heard of who's just like, I'm going to take 10 days off

during this period.

I'm just not going to be aware of things.

And then you get to go, oh, there have been so many things.

Just you wait.

So, Alice,

I've met your father, and he doesn't strike me as being a natural Trump voter.

So you're saying he took a 10-day meditation course

over the election.

So if you then extrapolate that over and assume that all people who wouldn't vote for Trump would do the same, that means that all Democrat voters would have been on a 10-day meditation course during the election.

So all their votes are fake, essentially.

I mean, the four seasons seasons debacle, and you know, it happened a few days ago, and I'm sure all buglers are aware of the details, but it didn't entirely bode well for

the Trump regime's efforts to discredit one of the most open and scrutinised elections ever held, that they couldn't organise a press conference and it not end up outside a gardening centre in between a sex shop and a crematorium.

That suggests that they might not have the personnel needed to achieve this takedown of

the election.

It really was like a beautiful metaphor, right?

Between a sex shop and a crematorium.

That's where the Trump presidency exists.

Because either they're trying to f us or they're just burning shit down.

One person who's not happy at all about the election is actor John Voigt,

who has described America's current situation as the biggest fight since the Civil War, righteousness versus Satan.

And let me emphasize, this is not him voicing a trailer for a new superhero movie.

This is his genuinely held belief.

But if he's right, then Satan moves in even more mysterious ways than God.

I mean, you've got to give them both credit for their distinctive moves, I guess.

But I mean, it's quite a curious way for Satan to go about just destroying America by encouraging the highest election turnout for over a hundred years

and

essentially

a system just about holding together under ridiculous pressure.

Yeah, I feel like if the devil took the shape of Joe Biden, we'd be like, come on, Satan, you've lost your fastball, man.

Another tweet I saw from

a former Republican congressional primary candidate for Pennsylvania, Dean Browning,

you know, the one, the white Christian guy who posted a tweet saying that as a black gay guy, everything is much better under Trump, leading to claims that he forgot to switch accounts to his fake account, which he uses for spouting bile under the guise of being black and gay, which, of course, as a Christian, he'd never do, and then claimed to be quoting a post he'd received from another Twitter user who issued a video claiming to be that person, which it turned out he was not.

That guy.

Anyway, Dean Browning, put out a tweet saying, what Trump built in four years, Biden will destroy in four months.

Now, I mean, building, built, seems a curious term, Josh.

I know I'm on the other side of the political seesaw from Mr.

Money.

He's built in very much the same way that Bashar al-Assad's architects have spent so much time building new residential and commercial districts in Aleppo.

But

for four months, that seems, I don't know, optimistic.

I mean, that's the dream.

There is nobody cooler than the Joe Biden that conservatives imagine.

God damn, he just, he wants to show up and give you health care.

And the whole country is just going to be a Marxist, highly lubed orgy.

And you're just like, wow, this guy sounds at least fascinating.

Like, if you were to hear the Republican descriptions of Joe Biden, and then you were to, without having seen Joe Biden, and then you saw Joe Biden and heard him talk, you'd be like, this guy.

No way.

No way.

It's like when you, when, like, someone you know now is talking about their best friend from childhood and like, he's fing awesome.

He just crushes beers, he's out there slaying chicks, and then you meet him, and you're like, dude, you just got fired from managing an Applebee's because you kept doing that prank where you put onion rings on your dick.

You stick.

And now, look, Joe Biden hasn't faced any consequences for his sexual misconduct.

But

what I will say,

he's probably not as bad as your friend from childhood, but he is not as awesome as the Republicans are building him up to be.

Tearing Trump's whole legacy down in four months?

That,

God, that is, I like dream of that.

Yeah, he's going to come into your house and steal your guns from you and then take your daughters and teach them how to sext.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vaccine news now and well, it's all it's all fine now.

Everything's been fine.

Yes, COVID numbers are rising alarmingly around the world, but there is hope of a less shit future in the not too distant future.

The Pfizer BioNTech vaccine initial trials have shown that it's 90% successful, leading the world stock markets to absolutely soil themselves with excitement that the economy of the world will get back to full exploitable action in just a few months' time.

Obviously, there are logistical issues with immunising the world.

Obviously the the old must come first and by old I mean old rich nations rather than the than people.

The the drug itself needs to be kept at minus seventy Celsius

or maybe it doesn't depending on which articles you read.

It might or might not work, ditto.

But still this has been unusually quick progress for a vaccine.

In the past they've sometimes taken thousands of years to find the right vaccine or the right prayer

or the right sacrifice to get rid of a disease.

I mentioned the 90% effectiveness in the trials.

The best prayers plateaued out at only around 30 to 35%

effectiveness, so not enough to stop the progress of some of history's top celebrity plagues.

Alice, you are our

vaccination and inoculation correspondent.

How excited are you about this development?

Look, I am moderately excited about this development, Andy.

I'm excited to see the ways in which people manage to politicise this life-saving technology.

I'm excited to see the ways in which it goes wrong and is badly distributed.

I'm excited to see the arguments that we have about who deserves to live and who deserves to die.

I think

that's a beautiful insight into the human character.

And I, for one, will be stabbing an old lady to death in order to climb over her still twitching corpse in order to reach this vaccine before it's fully proven, in fact.

Another issue that has arisen in the battle against COVID is the evil influence of Danish mink.

The disease has apparently spread to mink and the news has emerged that Denmark has been slaughtering millions and millions of mink.

I think it was it 15 million mink they were

up to 17 million

million mink now.

Will nobody think of the mink?

Yeah.

Denmark has decided to cull all of its farmed mink, which is up to 17 million animals, because of the spread of a mutant form of coronavirus.

Apparently, these mink get it and then change it up in their little mink bellies and give it back worse to people.

But of course, just

slaughter.

Just slaughtering the mink without a referendum or without legal basis has obviously resulted in a political outcry.

And the Prime Minister has admitted that the plan was, quote, unquote, rushed.

So this mass mink murder is apparently not not legally justified.

It's a COVID-based mink extrajudicial assassination.

The thing that is most shocking to me about this story is that I had no idea minks were still a thing.

Like how many 1930s mob moles are still running around demanding mink coats from their sugar daddies.

It was an extraordinary number.

Just because I've been to Denmark and I did not see a single mink.

anywhere.

Like this is going to be unpopular.

I don't like the killing of all these minks.

I mean,

it makes me sad to think about a mass mink slaughter on that scale, but I do.

1% of me likes the idea of something that makes the virus easier to get for just the rich because they're all posting pictures from their private islands, like multiple tests, we're all safe, we've been social distancing, we took our masks off for the picture on this island that nobody else has access to.

And I like the idea that maybe one super wealthy person who has thus far avoided all proximity to coughing and people

will put on a mink coat and go, oh no, is this in?

Whereas I've got a denim jacket at home that's totally safe.

Oh, of course, the Danes slaughtered all their denims in the

1750s to clear land for them.

The Denimark massacre.

That's the origin of the name, of course.

Britain news now, and the Prime Minister has resigned.

Dominic Cummings, the acting Prime Minister of Great Britain, has

well, he's quit.

He's going to leave number 10 Downing Street and his front man, Boris Johnson, by the end of the year.

Another one of Johnson's key aides also quit this week.

And this is awful.

This is an awful week for British democracy.

Cummings by walking out has let down all the people who voted for him last December to wield Machiavellian behind-the-scenes power incompetently.

And now people are wondering what was their vote?

What was their vote for?

I mean obviously it's a bit of an oversimplification to say that everyone who voted for the Tories last December was necessarily voting in favour of Cummings.

Many were voting negatively to prevent Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party Executive Director of Strategy and Communication Seamus Milne from being the unseen force behind the scenes.

But this is I mean, this has rocked British democracy to its core.

Has this made news in Australia, Alice, the resignation of Cummings?

Well, my Twitter settings are still based on the UK.

Twitter still thinks I'm in the UK because I like to trick my algorithms where I can.

But apparently, a senior Novaten source said that

Dominic Cummings has promised to be out by Christmas.

But Dominic Cummings has said to a BBC journalist that rumours of me threatening to resign are invented.

Rumours of me asking asking others to resign are invented.

And if anyone knows how to invent a rumour, it's the man who told you that Brexit would be good for the British economy.

It's been

a difficult time, I think, for the Johnsonian government.

The obviously non-transferable skill set of provocative campaigning has turned out not to be transferable to the actual job of governing a f ⁇ ing country, even a ridiculous one like the UK.

And so Cummings is on his way out, leaving Downing Street in the hands of poor Boris Johnson, a humble journalist, caught up in a job for which he has no relevant experience or skills through no fault of his own, other than his own responsibility for his actions, decisions and their consequences.

And he's posted an advert today asking for a full-time hench person.

Skills required include looking shifty whenever a camera is present, a post-graduate qualification in barefaced hypocrisy, the willingness to undermine democracy both for fun and work, and to treat Parliament like a plaything.

And also no point to allow the good of the country to become a distraction from the more important governmental business of controlling the news cycle, salary, the raw adrenaline of covert power.

Monster wolf news now.

Alice, you are our robotic

wolf correspondent.

This has been

a great time for robotic wolves.

Yes, indeed, Andy.

A Japanese town has deployed a series of monster wolf robots to deter bears.

I said what I said.

That is what I said.

This is so Japanese that if any other nation on earth was deploying robot wolves to deal with their bear problem, I would accuse them of cultural appropriation.

This is

the most amazing story and it brings me great joy.

Apparently these are sort of animatronic robot wolves that respond to the presence of movement by howling and making quote machine noises, which

I guess is turning, you know it's like the post-it note people when the glue wasn't good enough they turned uh it into a a benefit if you see pictures of these robot wolves they're on platforms they are terrifying they're like a halloween party gone wrong and uh they are they've sold apparently they've sold about 70 units uh unfortunately since 2018 apparently the market for robot wolves to deter bears is not as high as you would want it to be it

it has a shaggy body they are blonde and they have red glowing eyes.

And it's in the town of Takikawa on the northern island of Hokkaido.

They've just purchased and installed two monster wolf robots after bears were found roaming their neighborhoods in September.

And city officials had said there'd been no bear encounters since, but there'd been a massive uptick and people suddenly shitting themselves in the street.

I mean, sod the vaccine.

This is the kind of genuine scientific breakthrough.

All humanity can truly, can truly celebrate Josh.

I mean, it's like a scarecrow, but a robot, and for bears,

not crows.

It's not crows.

And it's a wolf, not a kind of fanciful man.

Here's my question.

Are they not afraid of the robot wolves turning against them?

This feels so inevitable.

If there was a movie where the first scene was robot wolves being installed by

a town to stave off their bear population, the last scene would be a robot wolf paw poking up from the dirt.

The end, question mark.

This seems so inevitable.

How bad are the bears in this town?

That this is the solution.

How many pies are being stolen piping hot off of windowsills that they've enlisted a robot wolf army against the bears?

Just seeing some breaking news that Donald Trump is claiming that Republican voters were scared off from voting by Democrat-run Wolf Blitzer robots.

So

this is, you know, we might not hear the end of this.

Strangely naked statue news now, and Britain has been torn apart once again by division, this time over a new statue of the pioneering late 18th century feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.

A new statue unveiled in London this week.

Not of Mary Wollstonecraft, it must be said, but for Mary Wollstonecroft, featured a, what can only be described as extremely naked woman emerging from a sort of artistic creation of other women.

And

I mean it's been variously criticised, Alice, this sculpture of

the so-called mother of feminism, as inappropriate, philosophically incoherent, willfully odd, artistically pointless, bafflingly pubic, distractingly boogular, and just a bit shit.

So, I mean, how do you view this

statue of this remarkable woman?

Andy, as a leading influential news voice, I'm here to tell you that I have no opinion on the statue.

I mean, I think the statue is fine.

I guess it's a statue.

If you don't like the statue, make your own statue.

I feel statue-based politics is much like statues themselves, which is to say, briefly eye-catching and essentially a waste of your precious, precious attention real estate.

I mean, sure, you can care about more than one thing at once.

You can care about statues and building a place where women are given the same opportunities and support that any other human is given.

But also, you know for a fact that you only care about this statue because you saw someone else caring about it.

And I bet there's a hundred ugly statues you don't give a shit about.

And if you love Mary Wollstonecraft so much, name one of her albums.

And don't say her daughter Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, because that doesn't count Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, or as we call her, Mary Wollstonecraft's monster.

I mean, the same thing happened, Josh, when Michelangelo unveiled David, of course.

Mickey Chisel was strongly criticised at the time.

People said, Why can't we just appreciate David for his stone-slinging skills?

Why do we have to see his nutsack?

And you know, this is inevitably happens whenever any work of art is released.

People will divide opinions.

Well, of course, they did have to adapt the original David, which instead of a penis had a tinier David on the front.

They turned that into a much less offensive penis shape.

Yeah, that was confusing and upsetting to people.

As I said, it's not a statue of Mary Wollstonecraft herself.

I think, however, it is a statue of a woman who has taken her clothes off before dressing as Mary Wollstonecraft for a fancy dress party.

I think that's my interpretation.

You can definitely see in her eyes the thought of putting a Mary Wollstonecraft outfit to an outfit.

It's important when you're making statues for important figures in history who are undercovered by

who are undercovered by our traditional mainstream history teachings.

If you want to bring these people to the forefront, what you want is an amorphous blob of feminine spirituality with a nude lady lunging her merkin at you.

I feel like that's a very important statement to make, especially before you've made an actual statue of the actual Mary Wollstonecraft

or read A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

You've both mentioned the pube situation is unreasonable.

It's like the pasta from Lady in the Tramp's first date.

Like, it's just a pile of pubes.

That brings us to the end of

this week's bugle.

We'll be back next week with the latest on Donald Trump's heroic overturning of the

election result by 160 million votes to zero.

Josh, thanks very much for joining us and providing your

wit and insight on this.

Have you got any other shows or podcasts to alert our listeners to?

Yes, I have my podcast Make My Day.

It's a comedy game show with one guest per episode, so they're guaranteed to win.

And we're doing a live stream show on December 3rd to benefit Fairfight, Stacey Abrams' organization that is their mission is sinisterly allowing every Democratic vote to be cast and everyone in general.

Obviously, it's to protect fair and free elections and voting rights.

So we're doing

a live stream version that day with Gary Goleman and Emmy Blotnick and more guests to be added later.

Alice?

Nothing quite so charitable.

I have a show on the 27th of November at the comedy store in Sydney.

You can buy tickets to that

online or go via my Patreon.

If you're not in Sydney, I'm going to be running a live stream.

And again, details on my Patreon, patreon.com/slash Alice Fraser.

I'm trying to run a live stream because they wanted to make me do a two-drink minimum, and I didn't want to do a two-drink minimum because I don't like that.

Well, you want to be a little bit more than a minute.

I feel it's exploited.

I heard you talking about live comedy shows, and a single tear shed from the corner of my eye.

Speaking of comedy that you are allowed to do, Josh Gondelman, also you, Andrew Zaltzman, I have a podcast called The Last Post.

It's a daily satirical news podcast set in an alternate dimension.

We have signed up to do 366 days of this year and we are getting there, which is something that I did not expect at the beginning of this year.

It's been a delight, so join us there.

Thank you for listening, Buglers.

We will play you out with some lies about our premium-level voluntary subscribers to join them and keep the bugle free, independent, and flourishing.

Go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

And you can also find there our spectacular array of merchandise involving a few things.

Don't we, goodbye.

And before I record this week's lies I should point out that in between recording the show and recording the lies Dominic Cummings has fully left Downing Street instantly.

This is the problem with recording a show and not putting it out within half a second of saying the words these days.

Things change.

Lies time now.

Ricardo Johansson hopes that it transpires that the Louisiana purchase in 1803 was, rather than an outright purchase of land by the USA from France, a 220-year leasehold agreement.

That would mean that, in the year 2023, 800,000 square miles of America would revert to French ownership, explains Ricard.

I'm not saying the French would do a better job, but I just think the looks on people's faces would be absolutely priceless, on both sides, and the food would get better.

Leith McKindawar wonders how long the Pilgrim Fathers squabbled before deciding on their name, and how many options they rejected before settling on Pilgrim Fathers.

It's okay as names go, says Leith, but it's not all that.

But I can understand why they rejected the Boty Stropstrop squad, the Westward Weirdos and the Holy Herd.

But whatever, it's clear they did not consult the ladies, typical 17th century men.

Simon Peacock thinks plate tectonics should be banned.

I don't see what good they do, says Simon.

They just cause earthquakes and very slowly shuffle the continents around, but in a really uninteresting way, unless you've got a few hundred million years to spare.

And I don't care if you think I'm oversimplifying things, I've just had enough.

Catherine Millikan goes further than that even and expresses considerable disdain for the Andromeda galaxy.

People always go on about it, but what use is it to me?

asks Catherine.

It's miles away, the piddly bit of light that actually reaches us from there is already two and a half million years out of date, and it contains a trillion stars.

That's way too many stars in my book, so it's hard to take any of them seriously.

Doug O'Brien assumed that the French cold meats term charcuterie referred specifically to foodstuffs that a shark would eat.

He was corrected on this linguistic misapprehension by an attendant at an aquarium in Marseille whilst throwing a packet of salami into a 5 million gallon tank full of fish.

Large, hungry, carnivorous, delighted fish.

On which subject, Peter Fermoy wonders, given that some bigger, widely eaten fish are called mackerel, why we don't simplify things by referring to smaller fish like sardines and anchovies collectively as mickerel.

He also thinks that pike fish on this naming system are definitely way too big.

They should be plankton-sized at most, says Peter.

And finally, Andrew Putman thinks that the best way to cook cabbage is to shove the leaves in a toaster.

The key, however, notes Andrew, is not to try a toasted boiled cabbage mash-up.

That is a recipe for a very fractious bath time.

Here endeth this week's lies.

Goodbye.

Hi Buglers, it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new podcast, Mildly Informed, which is in podcast feeds and YouTube right now.

Quite simply, it's a show where me and my friend Richie review literally anything.

So please come join us wherever you get your podcasts right now.