Penn & Teller: Bull! 3x11

1. I'm Penn, and this is my partner, Teller.

2. Tonight we're very excited.

3. Teller is going to perform

4. the rarest, most dangerous and expensive magic trick ever performed.

5. I know this looks like regular cheesy hack Vegas

6. strip magic shit, but this is no ordinary magician's bird.

7. This is the incredibly rare, incredibly endangered dwarf.

8. Nevada snow does what we're about to do.

9. We could do jail time in the very least, be paying for this trick and legal fees

10. for the next five years.

11. Now, the morality of killing an endangered species is arguable, but the legality

12. is no doubt.

13. The Endangered Species Act is bullshit.

14. I find that

15. if I can get.

16. The of. The.

17. The world is populated by 35 million

18. plus species, and we're losing out on that at an incredible rate.

19. And that's going to have some, significant, consequence of this.

20. Endangered species in the United States and species as a whole are declining.

21. Unfortunately, there's as much an extinction crisis

22. in our country as there is in the rest of the world.

23. In the United States alone,

24. there are hundreds of thousands of different animal species.

25. Currently, 518 of them are officially classified

26. as endangered and threatened under the endangered Species Act,

27. which means they're on the verge of extinction.

28. The phrase endangered species pretty much comes from the Endangered

29. Species Act, a bill signed by that asshole Nixon in 1973,

30. which is your first clue that it's not what it appears to be.

31. The act supposedly protects both endangered animals and plants,

32. and its goal quote, to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which

33. endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved.

34. That's about as straightforward and honest as I am not a crook,

35. and I did not have sex with that woman to protect animals.

36. The act sets out to control the land they live on

37. and it's become the Land Non Development Act.

38. But we'll get to that.

39. This is Paul Watson.

40. Actually this is the plane that's carrying Paul Watson.

41. There he is.

42. He's the founder and president of the sea Shepherd Conservation

43. Society and a big name in the endangered species movement.

44. Boy, we're hoping we can get a ride in that cool plane.

45. Paul says we're in big, big trouble of the ecological kind.

46. Cue the scary music.

47. We are now living in an age of great extinction of species.

48. We will lose between 1980 and, 20, 45.

49. And at 65 year period of time, more species of plants and animals

50. that have gone extinct in the last 65 million years.

51. Paul's against all forms of hunting and fishing.

52. He thinks we shouldn't even eat fish.

53. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus and more. Jesus.

54. Is there someone against any and every tasty little thing

55. a person might want to eat?

56. But I say Jesus because I mean Jesus.

57. If we don't take measures to protect an endangered species

58. now, we're going to reach a point in the future where it'll be too late

59. and things will start collapsing.

60. He's talking about our environment and quite possibly life itself.

61. Life itself.

62. Holy fuck.

63. This show really needs a fourth season.

64. I gotta start paying attention.

65. Hey, what about this guy?

66. He looks calm and relaxed.

67. He'll ease our fears.

68. Well, scientists are telling us that we are facing

69. the sixth extinction spasm that our planet has ever known.

70. Oh, I feel better now. Hey, wait a second.

71. Oh, fuck.

72. I am Bill Snape, chairman of the Endangered Species Coalition.

73. Literally, species in the habitat they depend upon are declining by the day.

74. And scientists view this as a crisis, a biodiversity crisis.

75. But according to Paul and Bill,

76. this crisis is being well addressed by the Endangered Species Act.

77. I would argue that the number one success of the endangered Species Act is that

78. it has helped prevent the extinction of hundreds of species that had.

79. Otherwise we would have lost without the act.

80. in fact, the Fish and Wildlife Service

81. estimates that upwards of 40% of all currently endangered species

82. are either stabilized or recovering thanks to the Endangered Species Act.

83. It's working, it's working, it's working.

84. The problem is the Endangered Species Act is an absolute disaster.

85. Is one of the worst, laws that's ever been passed in American history.

86. And it is bad for people and bad for species who

87. fuck.

88. This is RJ Smith.

89. He's the senior environmental scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

90. And he says the government bureaucrats who offer

91. the endangered Species Act had a hidden agenda.

92. Government guys with a hidden agenda.

93. How can that be?

94. What they attempted to do in there was essentially write an act that

95. gave the government the power of complete and total national land use control.

96. Wait a minute.

97. Did you say total national land use control?

98. No, it's to save owls and little bunnies.

99. Other cute shit. I mean, is it it.

100. It's being used for something entirely different

101. than what people thought it was being used for.

102. No way.

103. The act has been used to tell landowners what they can do or what they can't do.

104. Here's how the Endangered Species Act works.

105. Say you have a piece of land and say you want to put up some awful piece

106. of corporate America like, let's say, a school for orphans.

107. Then the state tells you that there are gray suited tellers

108. living on your property, and gray suited tellers are on the endangered

109. species list now. Guess what?

110. You can't build all the land

111. as long as the gray suited tellers are there.

112. In fact,

113. you can't touch a twig on your own property without breaking the law.

114. And you can't kill the gray suited fuckers without seriously breaking the law.

115. Okay, so it's definitely time to sell.

116. But who's going to buy it?

117. Nobody. And the government will buy it.

118. Or even give you a penny in reimbursement.

119. You're fucked.

120. The land is worthless.

121. Thanks.

122. Endangered species act fucking gray suited dealers.

123. But it's not really their fault.

124. But it's the government's. Really.

125. But man, we still want to kill those gray suited fuckers

126. like kids.

127. You have.

128. But Bill Snape says our example is, well, bullshit.

129. There just aren't

130. private landowners that I can identify where the value of their property

131. has radically declined as a result of the Endangered Species Act.

132. The just. These landowners don't exist.

133. Truth is, Bill was worried after we taped this interview.

134. I don't know something about us making fun of him.

135. And that probably means he's watching the show right now in that

136. very living room.

137. Maybe he's even wearing that plaid shirt.

138. Well, Bill, welcome to bullshit.

139. Here's a tip.

140. Never agree to go on a show called bullshit

141. unless you've done your fucking homework.

142. You should have looked a little harder, Bill,

143. because now we're going to introduce you to a person you say doesn't exist.

144. Bill, this is Linda Bon Jovi.

145. Hey, if anybody has been screwed by the USA, it's her.

146. Linda has cerebral palsy and is wheelchair bound.

147. She teaches students with learning disabilities over the phone from her home.

148. Actually, it's not her home.

149. You see, Bill, she's homeless.

150. I became homeless, basically due to the four hurricanes

151. that we've had here and caused Signifi damage to my apartment.

152. So my best friend from college

153. basically said, if you need to come, stay here, come sit here.

154. And she opened her home to me.

155. This is where my hospital beds and its place in the middle

156. of her family room, which isn't the best situation for her or her family.

157. Nor is it the best for a woman in a wheelchair.

158. All her

159. bathrooms are upstairs, so it's been very difficult for me

160. to do my daily living activities

161. as far as showering, brushing my teeth.

162. So, Bill, you're probably wondering how Lindy's been screwed

163. by the Endangered Species Act.

164. Stay tuned.

165. We'll get back to Linda a bit later.

166. But first, Bill, a biology lesson.

167. About 99% of all the species

168. that have ever existed on Earth are already extinct.

169. They went extinct naturally, or they went extinct during the meteor impacts

170. that exterminated the dinosaurs.

171. And before that, the Permian extinction

172. 250 million years ago that exterminated most life on Earth.

173. Patrick Moore is the co-founder of Greenpeace only.

174. He left the group in 1986 because its focus, he says, became anti-capitalism.

175. Today, he's out to challenge the tactics of radical environmentalism.

176. We love Patrick Moore.

177. The biodiversity is higher on earth today than it ever has been

178. in the 3.5 billion year history of life on this planet.

179. This is a known fact, and the idea that we are now

180. driving this great mass extinction is complete baloney.

181. Baloney is smart guy jargon for bullshit.

182. There is no mass extinction of species taking place

183. on the earth today, and it is a complete fabrication.

184. You want to hear it again?

185. The co-founder of Greenpeace says.

186. There is no mass extinction of species taking place

187. on the Earth today, and it is a complete fabrication.

188. I think it's because all the other predictions

189. of ecological collapse and doom and gloom and Apocalypse

190. Now have not come true, and so they have to invent one.

191. If it's bullshit,

192. why did those Washington bureaucrats come up with the Endangered Species Act?

193. Let's find a politician.

194. Hold their feet to the fire.

195. Hey, how about this guy?

196. You political bastard? What's your name?

197. I'm Richard Pombo.

198. I'm a congressman from California.

199. I represent the 11th Congressional district.

200. You are going down.

201. What's the deal with the Endangered Species

202. Act, Come on, defend yourself, you spineless bastard.

203. I would have to say that the act has been a failure.

204. Say what?

205. Oh, sorry about that, spineless name calling.

206. Turns out Congressman Pombo is probably one of the few

207. on Capitol Hill who's actually read the Endangered Species Act.

208. And he's a rancher, so he's familiar with the many ways the U.S.A.

209. can fuck landowners.

210. He must have figured we were from front line or no.

211. I mean, why would security let bullshit into the halls of Congress?

212. What we need to do is go back in and figure out a better way to recover species

213. and at the same time, reduce some of the conflicts that we're having

214. with with private property owners and people throughout the country.

215. A lot of people talk about that.

216. The act, creates incentives for shoot, shovel and shut up.

217. I mean, that's sort of a standard joke.

218. Right?

219. That's what a landowner will spot

220. an animal on the endangered species list on his property.

221. Kill it, bury it, and not tell anyone.

222. Man, that is so not funny at all.

223. And now that we think about it, not a very good way to save endangered species.

224. Most landowners are not afraid of wildlife on their land.

225. They're just afraid of the feds on their land as well.

226. They should be.

227. The Endangered Species Act recommends the, quote, use

228. of all necessary methods and procedures to bring any endangered or threatened

229. species to the point at which the measures under the actor no longer necessary.

230. It's a bit about unnecessary methods.

231. It puts a Florida predatory stinkbug up a ass.

232. Yeah, because the

233. Endangered Species Act is so powerful, there's there's no way out of it.

234. There's no wiggle room.

235. it's the supreme law of the land.

236. Seems to trump all other laws, trump

237. the Bill of rights, the Constitution, and so on.

238. and if you want to stop some project, you just list the species.

239. Okay, guys, here's a quiz.

240. Which of the following provides a classic example of an endangered species?

241. A 50 cent cup of coffee.

242. David Blaine or the spotted owl of the Pacific Northwest.

243. Patrick.

244. Well, the classic case in endangered species

245. is the spotted owl of the Pacific Northwest. Correct.

246. You have one membership.

247. You don't have anything. Sorry. We're cable.

248. We were told back in the late 80s, early 90s

249. that if logging continued in the national forests of the Pacific

250. Northwest, that the spotted owl would go extinct.

251. So to save the spotted owl, the Endangered Species Act barred

252. logging in old growth forests where trees have never been cut down.

253. But then they discovered

254. that the spotted owl was in second and third growth forests.

255. So you think great.

256. The birds live in the younger forests where logging is cut down.

257. Trees and new ones have grown to replace them.

258. Now we can go back to a rotating form of responsible logging.

259. Right? Wrong.

260. So then they started restricting activity in those forests.

261. And as a result of all of that, we've gotten to the point

262. now where we import lumber from from foreign countries into our country.

263. When we stand with the greatest amount of forest land that we've had

264. since European settlers came to this country.

265. The whole crisis related to the Spotted Owl was a completely trumped up lie.

266. As a result, the forest industry was basically destroyed

267. on the lie that the spotted owl would go extinct.

268. The spotted owl is capable of living and breeding perfectly

269. well in landscapes that are dominated by second growth forests,

270. which is the majority of the mountainous lands in the whole Pacific Northwest,

271. all the way down into California and northern Mexico.

272. The recovery plan has done little of, if anything,

273. to protect the the northern spotted owl.

274. And at the same time has had devastating impacts on the economies

275. of many small towns, lost people's jobs because of it.

276. Congressman Pombo knows because it's hit his district.

277. But from the comfort of Bill Snape's Washington, D.C.

278. home,

279. everything's wonderful.

280. The Spotted Owl crisis is now a success story.

281. The ancient forest that the spotted Owl needs actually

282. have been protected thanks to the endangered species Act.

283. Well, let's talk about that success story.

284. There are 1827 species on the U.S.

285. endangered species list since the act went into effect.

286. Only 40 species have been delisted.

287. Out of those, 49 are extinct. Oops.

288. So the USA didn't do much for them.

289. 60 were put off the list by mistake.

290. So they don't count.

291. That leaves 15 supposed success stories.

292. And what about those 50?

293. Well, I'll tell you.

294. Three are kangaroos in Australia.

295. Three year birds and plow that were undercounted.

296. Three bird species recovered predominantly because DDT was banned.

297. EPA did that, not the USA.

298. One is the American alligator.

299. Scientists overestimated the threat they faced.

300. One is the Robin sink foil, a New Hampshire plant that was saved

301. by planning some and moving some hiking trails so hikers didn't stop them.

302. One is the Colombian white tailed deer and one is a subspecies of Canada goose,

303. both of which were saved in large part by hunting restriction,

304. something that could easily have been done without the ESR regulations.

305. One is the Tinian monarch, a bird that its habitat destroyed

306. during World War two but was fine by the time the essay became law.

307. One is the gray whale. Now that's real shit.

308. We'll have more on that later.

309. And one is the Hoover's Wooly star.

310. Now, if you're paying attention, you realize that's 41.

311. The wooly star was miscounted and so removed from the list.

312. And yet it's also listed as recovery, something only possible

313. with a government program.

314. And what about something like that

315. new fairy shrimp found by scientists a couple of days before we taped?

316. Who knew there'd be a shrimp in the desert of Idaho?

317. How do we tell you that?

318. I mean, that's a brand new species.

319. Now, do we get a credit?

320. It's a good thing we have the Endangered Species Act.

321. What would have happened without it?

322. Let's check back with Lindy

323. Mangione, that lady from Florida and the world's fastest wheelchair.

324. Fuck. She bucks.

325. If you remember, we're telling Lindy story for Bill Snape,

326. the ignoramus in plaid who was so misinformed that he said this.

327. Just aren't

328. private landowners that I can identify where the value of their property

329. has radically declined as a result of the Endangered Species Act.

330. The just these landowners don't exist.

331. Quick recap Lindy is staying with a friend because she's currently homeless,

332. and there's not a bathroom on the first floor where she sleeps so well.

333. You go ahead, Lindy.

334. This is what is different.

335. She comes six days at a seven to help meet my daily needs.

336. I will to.

337. This is my mom says in Bergen County. Hi.

338. And she's going to be showing you where I take my shower

339. at this point.

340. Where you take a shower.

341. Okay.

342. Wait. Where are you going?

343. You go to the backyard.

344. We'll to bring Lindy out in her electric wheelchair,

345. and she sets her in this contraption, which is a shower chair made of PVC.

346. Now, will, to turn the spigot on and just

347. kind of washes the hair.

348. The body rinses towels

349. back into the wheelchair and back into the house.

350. Bill should live like this.

351. You want to save the environment, bill?

352. Dump your books and fancy house and shower in a friend's backyard.

353. Buck up man.

354. Think of the owls.

355. Could be living where you so smugly sit.

356. And want to be able to have an environment

357. that I can get around and independently,

358. and then I don't have to rely on other people to help meet my needs.

359. So five years ago, Lindy bought this piece of land

360. where she could build a dream home and be close to her mom.

361. My church is right at the end of the road down that way.

362. My mom's house is two blocks

363. that way.

364. I want to be close to my mom.

365. Five years ago she was diagnosed with cancer,

366. and I want to spend as much time as I can with her

367. without living under the same roof.

368. So why is Lindy building her house yet?

369. The plot thickens.

370. Before we tell you, we want to string Bill along a bit

371. because we really want him to watch this next part, and Bill's in it.

372. Bill.

373. Well, there has been a very well-funded attack on the Endangered Species

374. Act for over a decade, and this is mostly corporate America,

375. a real estate developers and the major natural resource extractive industries

376. who view the endangered species act as a nuisance to their economic profits.

377. Fucking corporate America.

378. Hey, wait till you and I are a corporation.

379. In fact,

380. most corporations are small mom and pop organizations who make everything wrong.

381. That plaid shirt bill is wearing to his fleece lined waterproof jacket.

382. And yet, for some reason, destroying corporations is one of the real agendas

383. of the environmental and endangered species movement.

384. Bash corporate America and stop any development

385. you can as long as you can keep getting lattes.

386. They are using endangered species issues

387. to basically fight against the establishment,

388. against capitalism, against globalization, against industry, etc..

389. How does the essay do that?

390. Well, say you've got a species called the red suit and teller.

391. There could be thousands of them

392. on the other side of the mountain, just a few miles away.

393. Well, let's say there's only a few right here where we are.

394. Oh, guess what?

395. The red suited teller is now an endangered species here, but not there.

396. So any and all development that was going to happen here can

397. of course it can't happen over there

398. where the red suited tellers really like living.

399. Yeah.

400. You can fuck up where they like to live, just not where they don't like to live.

401. Okay?

402. This is creeping me out.

403. Supporters of the USA claim they've saved many species from extinction.

404. And cite the gray whale is one of their great success stories.

405. Watch well, I think the great whales.

406. A great success story.

407. a species, that was, listed several decades ago.

408. and thanks to the Endangered Species Act, it's now off the list.

409. We stop harvesting gray whales, half a century ago.

410. And so they were naturally recovering.

411. And finally, the feds realized that there are more whales now than there were,

412. you know, in the 1800s, when we started whaling.

413. And so they took that off the endangered species list,

414. but that had nothing to do, with the Endangered Species Act.

415. Nevertheless, NASA crusaders continue to use this bullshit, save the whale claim

416. to raise money, claim political clout, and tug at your heartstrings.

417. Which brings us back to this asshole, Paul Watson.

418. You remember him?

419. He's the leader of the sea Shepherd Conservation Society,

420. and he flies around in that really cool plane, man.

421. Now, we've called him an asshole.

422. We'll never get a ride on that plane.

423. Well,

424. the things we sacrificed to make this show for you.

425. There's plenty of organizations protecting people out there.

426. There's not many organizations protecting endangered species.

427. I think the Endangered Species Act is, really the single

428. most important legislation that we have in the United States protecting,

429. non-human species.

430. So besides being wrong, what makes Paul Watson such an asshole?

431. He does things like ram Japanese ships with his boat

432. to stop them from fishing.

433. In 1986, he helped sink half the Icelandic whaling fleet,

434. which could have been more than a couple of boats, but still,

435. Paul gave us cool footage to use when we talk about him.

436. He thought it would prevent us from calling him an asshole.

437. Didn't work, asshole.

438. I've had numerous, experiences with whales.

439. In fact, I had one experience that changed my life completely.

440. A moving first person anecdote.

441. Do tell.

442. I found myself off the coast of California in front of 150ft

443. Soviet harpoon vessel that was bearing down on us.

444. The, Harpooner pulled the trigger and sent the harpoon

445. over our head and slammed into the backside

446. of one of the whales in the pod, and she screamed.

447. And it was this horrendous. It was a human like scream.

448. I mean, it was very unnerving.

449. Moby Dick is my favorite book.

450. I am so ready for this.

451. Okay, Paul Uba Ahab.

452. And I looked up into this

453. I and I the size of my fist and what I saw there really changed my life forever.

454. Because a whale understood what we were trying to do.

455. From hell's heart I stabbed thee.

456. Because with a great effort, it fell back.

457. And I saw him disappear beneath the sea.

458. And his eye disappeared.

459. And he died.

460. For Pete's sake.

461. I spit my last breath at the sea.

462. It's a movie being made on you. Yeah.

463. There is a movie being about to be made with Sean Penn.

464. Actually released.

465. Sean Penn, Sean Penn.

466. I'm thinking more George Wendt.

467. I hope that scene is in. I'm sure it will be.

468. His argument is for the beauty

469. and humanity, if you will, of the whale, and that may be valid.

470. He should argue that,

471. not claim that they're endangered because one personally touched his heart.

472. That's not what the word endangered means.

473. Let's check back in with Lindy.

474. She's got a piece of land close to her

475. mom in church, so all she's got to do is build her dream house.

476. It seems Mr. Bluebirds on her shoulder.

477. Unfortunately, that bluebird is the Florida scrub jay.

478. It's basically.

479. And Dana, that species of bird that inhabits that land.

480. And for that reason, I am not able to build at this point.

481. I cannot fathom how the scrub

482. jay could possibly be characterized as an endangered species.

483. They're all over the South. They're everywhere.

484. Whether there's any desert or scrub bush.

485. So that's crazy.

486. Finding

487. out that I can build on this piece of property that,

488. ultimately, I wanted to build a home on.

489. I was very discouraged, but no biggie.

490. Lindy applied for a variance with the Florida Fish

491. and Wildlife Conservation Commission that would allow her to build.

492. After all, it worked for her neighbors.

493. To blocks down they had the scrub

494. j ban lifted to where you can build.

495. But on my lot, my specific lot you can't.

496. It doesn't make any logical sense.

497. And it really doesn't make sense when you find out

498. about the newest neighbors to Lindy's vacant lot.

499. Follow the money.

500. Yes, there's, a Walmart Supercenter being built in the area.

501. as you can see, the area is very busy with all these cars coming and going,

502. and it's a very residential area with many homes around it.

503. It's not what they would call, a preserved wildlife area.

504. So Linda out Walmart in. Yep.

505. Even the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission love

506. shopping at Walmart.

507. If poor Linda was going to live on her land, she'd have to write a report.

508. I basically said how it was going to protect the bird

509. there, that I was going to tear down the trees.

510. Walmart report was fine, but the commission said Lindy's wasn't enough.

511. I'll bet Walmart's team of attorneys had better penmanship.

512. Now Linda has to develop a more in-depth proposal

513. detailing exactly how she's going to try and save the birds

514. while she works on this, she'll be showering outside.

515. It's ridiculous.

516. The whole thing is absurd.

517. You would think that they wouldn't take my circumstances in consideration

518. and try and help, and that has not been the case.

519. I have been to my lot several times over the past five years,

520. and I have never seen a scrub tree in this location.

521. That scrub. Is he blue?

522. Wait a second. It's a scrub. Jake.

523. Lindy, quick!

524. Kill it, kill it, kill it and bury the little fucker.

525. It's not blue.

526. Oh, wait, it's not blue.

527. It's not a scrub. Jake.

528. Never mind.

529. We we didn't shout.

530. Kill it, bury it.

531. We said thrill it. Marriott.

532. Jesus.

533. I hope the fishing game people don't have TiVo.

534. I do value environmental issues.

535. I don't want to say that they're not important.

536. Okay, watch out, y'all.

537. Speed demons coming through.

538. A lot of these lawmakers, they make laws and they don't

539. understand the ultimate effects that it has on other people,

540. particularly with disabilities.

541. Man, it seems like she's talking right to Bill.

542. I'm so glad we won with the wheelchair case.

543. Let these cool.

544. And if I could say one thing to take a step back and look

545. and see what it is to live my life, and then make a judgment

546. on how you write your laws.

547. I mean, who wants to live this like showering outside

548. with a garden hose in 30 degree weather?

549. I mean,

550. I challenge one of you to try and go do that.

551. It's not easy.

552. It sucks.

553. Plain and simple.

554. I have you set me up from here.

555. Since you're leaving.

556. That Lindy's a tough bird and

557. a more important living thing than the fucking scrubs.

558. But that's not the choice.

559. They can both live.

560. It's the government that's fucking them both up.

561. We sure hope Linda gets to build that house.

562. Here's the first rule of bullshit.

563. If somebody says there ought to be a law, there probably aren't.

564. We all live in an interconnected world.

565. We don't know the consequences of a species dying off,

566. and then these species dying off is bad, whether it hurts us or not.

567. When we try to solve a problem

568. by passing a law, what we get is a bullshit political game.

569. So be nice to endangered species, but don't make laws

570. and don't feel too bad if we lose a species now and then.

571. Mother nature's one cold hearted bitch and she's running the show.

572. If she says it's time to go, it's time to go.

573. That may mean the spotted owl.

574. That may mean the gray whale.

575. That may mean you and me.

576. And besides,

577. many species are just fucking animals.

578. We. Hey

579. hey hey.