Cocaine, chatbots, and crunchy yogurt walk into a bar

Grief, heat, and a plate of ants—today’s conversation pulls no punches. We open with a disturbing report from Brazil about a couple found dead in a motel bathtub, where alleged 122°F water and a space heater, combined with alcohol and cocaine, led investigators to call it heat stroke. The facts are gutting, and the framing invites scrutiny: what evidence supports the temperature claim after the fact, and why was a child’s birthday used as a narrative hook? We talk about how sensational details can blur compassion, and why good reporting should privilege clarity over shock.

From there, we turn to Zelda Williams’ stark message: stop sending AI-generated videos of her father. Her words hit hard—calling out the “slop puppeteering” of a beloved artist and the pressure on grieving families to accept digital revenants as tribute. We unpack the core issues: consent for posthumous likenesses, the emotional burden placed on the living, and the false promise that AI “future” equals cultural progress. Nostalgia is powerful, but when it becomes content extraction, it crosses a line.

Finally, we dive into a Michelin experiment: yogurt and desserts fermented with ants, inspired by a nearly forgotten Balkan-Turkish technique. The science is fascinating—enzymes and acids in ants kickstart fermentation—but fascination doesn’t erase the ick factor. We weigh tradition against taste, innovation against choice, and ask whether “sustainable” should ever be used as a cudgel to push diners past their comfort zones.

We end with two questions for you: Should AI recreations of the deceased be shared when families say no? And would you try ant-fermented yogurt, even once? Subscribe, share your take, and leave a review—your perspective shapes what we tackle next.

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Liberty Line each week on Sunday, look for topics on my X file @americanistblog and submit your 1-3 audio opinions to anamericanistblog@gmail.com and you'll be featured on the podcast. 

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Chapters

• 0:29 Opening & Three-Story Setup
• 0:48 Shocking Brazil Motel Death
• 3:18 Heat, Toxicology & Cause Questions
• 6:20 Zelda Williams’ Plea on AI Deepfakes
• 9:20 Ethics of AI and the Deceased
• 9:31 Ant Yogurt at a Michelin Restaurant
• 11:29 Ancient Recipes vs Modern Food Science
• 12:00 Two Questions of the Day & Sign-off

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:15

Hello, good morning. Okay, we have three stories for you. The first one is kind of dark. I have to I do have to admit this. I don't know why I wanted to share this with you, but it's just astounding to me what people do. I don't get it. Okay, so this husband and wife. Let me read the headline. Cop and wife high on cocaine die while celebrating daughter's fourth birthday after overheating in bathtub. You heard that right. So the story I I don't understand why they this New York Post has to throw in they were celebrating their four-year-old daughter's birthday because I don't think the birthday had anything to do with it. Uh and who celebrates their daughter's four-year-old birthday by getting drunk and high on cocaine? Who does that? Terrible parents, that's who. Alright, here we go. A police officer I just cannot believe this story. Now it's not in America. A police officer and his businesswoman wife died from heat stroke. I think it was more than heat stroke, after getting into an overheated bathtub. What do you mean an overheated bath? Who do I don't understand? Was it a whirlpool, but they're calling it a bathtub? While drunk and high on cocaine, as they celebrated their four-year-old daughter's birthday, authorities in Brazil have said, so it's from Brazil. This place explains a lot. Military cop Jefferson Luis Sagaz Sagaz 37 and his nail salon owner partner Anna Carolina Silva 41 were found dead in a motel in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina on the night of August 11th, Brazil outlet G1 Globo reported. The couple had spent the day celebrating their young daughter's birthday, drinking alcohol and doing cocaine before going to a nightclub and checking into the Dallas Motel at around midnight. What the actual TF? What do you mean? This is how they celebrated their four-year-old daughter's birthday? This is insane. I I'm I'm not even gonna say what I'm thinking, but you know what I'm thinking. When they failed to pick up their daughter the following day, relatives raised the alarm and reported the pair missing. The bodies were found in the motel bathtub. Authorities ruled that heat stroke was the cause of the death, but that the cocaine and alcohol in their blood may have dulled their reactions to the severe heat. You think the water in the bathtub had reached 122 degrees. How do they know this? If they didn't find them till the next day, the water was not that hot the next day. How do they know this? How do they know? Unless they did something on the bot they checked the body temperature? I how do they know? Somebody tell me that. Somebody tell me that who was listening. How did they know that the water reached 122 degrees Fahrenheit while this oh while a space heater in the room was also turned up high? Investigators found. What? Did they what? I mean, it's summertime, is it not summertime over there? Do they not know how to turn, you know, the was there no heat, regular heat in the hotel room? I I I don't understand this. The cause of both deaths was I can't even pronounce those words. Exogenous poisoning, EXO G E N O U S poisoning favoring the process of heat stroke with intense dehydration, thermal collapse, culminating in organ failure and death. What a way to go! My goodness gracious Traces of cocaine and very high blood alcohol levels were revealed in toxicology tests. The use of cocaine, which in doses alone could cause torpor, T-O-R-P-O-R, I don't know what that is, drowsiness and even coma co coma in the individual combined with alcohol, which also causes this high doses such as torpor, coma, and drowsy Okay, whatever. I just don't understand this. Further examination of the motel room, the couple's car and security cameras was carried out while civil police forensic reports were able to rule out carbon monoxide poisoning, drowning, or electric shock, as well as anybody else being involved in their deaths. These circumstances, combined with the substances found in their bodies, led the civil police to conclude that the cause of death was sudden and not due to third-party intervention. Uh-huh. Okay. So it tells us what torpor is. T-O-R-P-O-R is a state of physical dormancy similar to hibernation where the body's metabolic rate slows considerably. Uh wow. The couple had been uh almost together for almost two decades and had no history of violence in the relationship. Uh wow. This is crazy. I don't know. We need, I think you think there's more to the story than that, or do you think that's it? Just another example, don't drink and do drugs, people. I just, wow, I'm I'm just I'm amazed. Alright, so this next one we're gonna go to Robin Williams' daughter is pleaing for people to stop sending her AI videos of her father. Robin Williams' daughter, Zelda, begs fans to stop sending her gross AI videos of late actor. It's not what he'd want. Yeah. She there everybody's she is saying everybody is calling this the future, but really what you're doing is you're taking old stuff and regurgitating it, and it's not good. Robin Williams' daughter has a message for the late actors fan. Zelda Williams, 36, took to social media this week to beg people to stop sending her AI-generated photos of the iconic comedian who tragically took his own life in August 2014 at the age of 63. Uh please just stop sending me AI videos of dad, Zelda began in a post shared to her Instagram stories on Monday, October 6th. Stop believing I want to see it or that I'll understand. I don't and I won't. I don't blame her. I'd get pissed off, I'd be upset too. I've seen way worse, I'll restrict and move on. But please, if you've if you've got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even full stop. It's dumb, it's a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it's not what he'd want. To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to this vaguely looks and sounds like them, so that's enough, just so other people can churn out horrible TikToks. A slop puppeteering them is maddening. You're not making art, you're making disgusting overprocessed hot dogs out of the lives of human beings out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else's throat, hoping they'll give you a little thumbs up and like it. Gross. I mean, some people will say, Well, she doesn't have to watch it, but apparently these people are sending them to her. I guess she and then some people will say, Well, she doesn't have to be on social media. Bullshit. Shut up. And for the love of everything, stop calling it the future. AI is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be reconsumed. You are taking in the you are taking in the human centipede of content and from the very, very end of the line, all while the folks of the front laugh and laugh and consume and consume. That is insane. That's crazy. Uh wow. Good for her for speaking out. And there's lots of pictures of her with Robin together when she was a little and even as an adult. Um, bless. Bless her heart. I mean, I'm on her side on that, that's for sure. All right, next up, well, and maybe that should be the question of the day. What do you think about that taking dead people and making AI out of it and putting it out there on the internet? What are your thoughts on that? That will that's the question of the day. I don't like it, but you know, what am I? Alright, so next up, this might also be a question of the day. I need your thoughts on this. This is the last story, and then we'll move on. I mean, then we'll end it. We'll end the episode. Michelin starred restaurant serves yogurt and with ancient recipe using ants. Remember, these people are trying to force insects on us. Yogurt made with ants was served at a Michelin restaurant after scientists recreated an ancient recipe. Okay, it's ancient. These people are dead. Why are you trying to revive an ancient recipe? Yogurt ice cream sandwiches in the shape of an ant, mascarpone-like cheeses and cocktails, all inspired by using the insect as a key ingredient, were dished up to diners as part of the experiment. Would you that's a question of the day? Would you eat this that I'm that I just described? Would you eat this dessert with ants in it? No, that's my answer. Pass. The yogurt tasted slightly tangy and herbaceous and had flavors of grass-fed fat, according to the research team. That sounds disgusting. Doesn't that sound appetizing? The yogurt uh Danish scientists received near the near forgotten recipe that was once common across the Balkans and Turkey. So that explains a lot. The team showed that bacteria, acids, and enzymes in ants can kickstart the fermentation process that turns milk into yogurt. You know what? We live in 2025. There are other ways to do this. Why do you want to go back to ancient time ways of doing things? I don't understand these people. They have nothing else better to do. They say their work published in the journal iScience highlights how traditional practices can inspire new approaches to food science and even add creativity to the dinner table. That sounds stupid. What do you mean? Highlights how traditional practices can inspire new approaches. We've already done that. We're doing that right now. We don't need any more stuff like this. You don't need to go back in time. Alright, I know. I'm just going on. Anyway, that's on the New York Post if you want to go see that. Oh my gosh. Okay. So there were your couple of the questions of the day. I'll give you two. One about the AI and then one about insects. My answer to both of them is no. A hard no. Okay, I gotta go. Thanks for listening. Bye.