Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 12 - Prayers for Rain

Episode Date: September 12, 2011

This podcast is for the week of 9/5/2011 to 9/11/2011. News Items for this Week: Three homosexuals murdered in Iran for being Gay. In Uganda, AIDS patients pray for a cure instead of taking medicine. A statue of the Virgin Mary is credited with preventing a home from burning in the Texas wildfires. The jobless are encouraged to take their resume to church and put it on the altar to help them get a job. Rick Perry has a pray for rain weekend backfire, emphasis on FIRE. Perry cuts budgets for protecting against wildfires. Bachmann wants to get rid of the Department of Education, citing the constitution. Ron Paul wants to eliminate all funding for Planned Parenthood. New photos of the moon landing from the Lunar Orbiter. Clergy not admitted to 9/11 ceremony. Rick Perry cites Galileo when asked about climate change. Clips used: Intro clip: Steve Hughes: the "straightness" of gay men, and the "gayness" of straight men. Segment clips: Jesus Camp, “Bohemian Rhapsody” – Queen, “What Ever Happened to Mary,” Chumbawamba, Apollo 11 recording.

I will admit some of my friends, because they're in heavy metal, they do get freaked out by that kind of stuff. Which is very strange, because it's a very male dominated genre of music, heavy metal, but it's a very homophobic subculture. A lot of my friends, grown men, still freaking out. We don't like them Steve, we don't like them. Who mate? Pulchers mate. We don't like them. Why not mate? They're not real men mate. We don't like them. Why not mate?

They're not real men mate. They're not tough. They're not tough. They fuck men. That's hardly gay. What do straight guys want? I want a woman. Soft. Sleek. Feminine. What do you want, Dave? I wanna fuck a bloke.

I want a big strong bloke to fuck me in the ass. Or is that a bit tough for you and your pussy-loving mates? You and your vaginas. Yeah, well fuck you mate, cause we want cock, son. Cock! Go and play with your girly tits, you fucking fag. Straight, it's the new guy. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. This is Cognitive Dissonance.

Every episode, we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political, and there is no welcome mat. Welcome, everybody, for episode 12 of Cognitive Dissonance. You've got some great stories to go through today. Cecil, I have to say that launching a new podcast as the election season starts to really begin to ramp up. I'm not saying we're cheating, but it fucking feels like we're cheating. It certainly does, doesn't it? It's just the fucking, when you get these debates and you get the president's speech and all that, it's just like, it's like people just setting fucking balls on a t-ball stand for you.

Right, no kidding. Ready for you to just crank these fuckers out of the park. You know, at no point, I think, would anybody say like, how do you find your stories? You know, at no point, I think, would anybody say, like, how do you find your stories? With very quickly and with almost no force. Yeah, you almost spend hours in front of the internet. Like, you know, it's about 15 minutes because they're fucking, there's so many of them we have to fucking cull some. It's not hard. Let's put it.

Not at all. It's, you know, it's not like denying global warming. You know what I mean? Like, it's not hard. It's actually you know, it's not like denying global warming. You know what I mean? Like, it's not hard. It's actually pretty easy. You know, in news stories, though, being hard can be something of a problem in Iran. Zing! Oh, no.

Three men in Iran were hanged for having gay sex. This is a report that's very horrifyingly upsetting. It's also a little confusing. Now, I don't know about other listeners, but a few years back when Ahmadinejad said that there were no homosexuals in his country, I took him at his word. Right. Like that seemed pretty reasonable. I thought maybe there just were never any homosexuals in his country. Because why else would he say it? He seemed like such a rational guy.

Right. So to hang three of them is somewhat confusing. Well, I think he explained why there's no homosexuals in this country. Here's the thing about Ahmadinejad and this country in particular. They're fucking crazy. I don't know if you noticed this, but when you murder people because they like to have consensual sex with another adult, uh, you're a fucking crazy person. And what they killed that, you know, and it doesn't just stop at gay sex that they kill

for time. I want to read what, what they also punish, uh, what is also punishable by death. What is a capital crime in Iran? Murder. Okay. That, you know, and, and here's the thing, like there's a couple of these that if I were a capital punishment kind of guy, I could probably get behind, right? I could be like, okay, murder?

Let's say you had some fucking solid DNA evidence. I know we're going to bring this in because both you and I, Tom, I think the listeners will know neither of us are for capital punishment really. Absolutely not. And I think the reasons why both of us – I mean one of the major reasons why both of us are is because you can never really be sure when somebody has committed a crime and innocent people die. And I don't think an innocent life is worth any of the people that you're murdering. I don't think there's anything to be gained from that. Also, there's really no reason for vengeance. Justice is fine.

Let's keep it justice. Let's not step over the bounds into vengeance. But that's a fight for another day, right? Sure. the bounds into vengeance, but that's a fight for another day, right? Sure. If let's just cross that out and say you and I are both capital punishment kind of guys, murder, I think would fall in and be like, okay, I could get behind murder.

Yeah. If you're going capital punishment, you go murder. Like, yeah. Right. Right. And that's kind of a standard, right? And then you look at rape and I'm being, you know, maybe rape, but you know, it's hard for me to deny that. It's hard for me to say no rape because, hey, rape is a really awful fucking thing.

Some people that get raped kind of wish that they got murdered instead. They're so fucked up by it. So, OK, maybe. I'll throw rape on there. Armed robbery? We're starting to push the limits. I think to anybody, anybody who's really capital punishment. Armed robbery seems, I don't know, like I would think like aggravated battery would be worse than armed robbery. Yeah, I can think of other crimes where like armed robbery is pretty, I mean, don't get me wrong.

I don't want to be robbed at gunpoint. No kidding, right? I'm not suggesting anybody do that. Like I don't want listeners coming up to me and being like, I can rob this guy. He said so on his show. Look, I'm just saying I don't want you dead for it. Right, right. Well, and you know, like, okay, so armed robbery, let's just say that I could, you know, get to some sort of like, I don't know, fucking get a lobotomy and agree with you,

let's say. Drug trafficking. I don't know where that goes I can't even justify that but then the last two obviously are homosexual behavior and then adultery that's insane and what I was thinking about when I was reading this who's the victim here

I understand if there's a victim that's what the justice system seems like it's there for one person got fucked in this deal their brother got murdered understand if there's a victim, right? That's what the justice system seems like it's there for. One person got fucked in this deal. Their brother got murdered, or somebody got raped, or somebody got kidnapped, or somebody got held at gunpoint or savagely beaten or whatever. And the justice system steps in and says, you're going to submit to our justice, and we're going to put you behind bars. Maybe in conditions like this, we're going to submit to our justice and we're going to put you behind bars. We're going to take, you know, you're, you know, maybe in conditions like this, we're going to take your life away.

But, you know, they're doing it on behalf of the victim. Who's the fucking victim when you're consensually having sex? Who's the victim? Is it the guy who's like, I don't know if I like to think about that. You know, here I am eating my foot long, uncomfortably long hot dog. And I see you holding hands with your boyfriend there, and I look at my hot dog, and I look at your hands being

held, and I look at my hot dog, and I look at your hands being held, and I'm suddenly ill. So I'd like to murder you. I can't put mayo on anything anymore. Like, what the fuck? There's no victims, man! Well, right. You know, it's it's it's the idea that people would be made so uncomfortable by something. Right.

They would want to see other people die because of it. I get my head around that. I can't imagine. Look, I've been in some uncomfortable positions before. I put myself in an uncomfortable position. I'm usually the cause of uncomfortable positions but i would feel i you know i would be a little disappointed if i was like man that party was kind of awkward i'm gonna get killed now yeah right like the worst party ever everybody everybody has been in a position right where you you hosted a party and it didn't turn

out right and it was just a little awkward right you're like a party and it didn't turn out right. It was just a little awkward. You're like, oh, man, that didn't go how I hoped. Now I'm going to get hung. I made my guests uncomfortable. And as a result, I'm taking a short jump on a short leash. That's a bad deal. There is no victim.

It's just homophobia, man. I mean, that's obvious, right? It's a bunch of fucking complete lunatics who are so mired in their religious nonsense, and that's got to be where it comes from. It can't come from anywhere else. Right, because you're not going to be like, well, I'm uncomfortable, and now I want to kill them. We just made that joke.

It's absurd. It doesn't work. Right. So the only way for you to get to the point where you're like, well, I think they've got to die, is you've got some kind of religious scripture. Right. Which is pointing you in that direction. Nobody really wants people who make them a little or even very uncomfortable to be fucking killed for it. Nobody wants that.

That's insane. It's clearly got to come from some misguided religious belief. And, you know, there's three people now who've lost their lives in Iran, you know, just for, I don't know, wanting a little sexual release with one another. That's insane. Hunting a little sexual release with one another. That's insane. Well, and the other thing, too, you were talking about this a while ago, Tom, you and I, and you brought up the point. Like, I had said to you, like, there's a number of people. Actually, there's probably a majority of people I would not like to envision sexually.

You know, there's like a majority of people in the world that when I look at them, I think, you know what? I don't want to think about you doing anything at all with your junk. Like, I don't want to think about it in the world that when I look at them, I think, you know what? I don't want to think about you doing anything at all with your junk. Like, I don't want to think about it in the least. But that doesn't make me want to murder them. You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't make me want to kill them to think, oh, Jesus, you're fat and ugly and your wife is fat and ugly and you guys fuck? You guys fuck? You know, like, I don't want to think.

I don't want to. You know, look, people like to do it and I don't have to think about it because I have control over my own thoughts. So suddenly, like, just because, you know, that you have the knowledge that someone is homosexual, you have to kill them for it. Like, that's the most backwards, stupid thing you could possibly imagine. And that's why we get all up in arms when anybody here talks about, you know, no rights for gays, no rights for gays. It's like, fuck you. You can't say that. You can't think that. And I know this is fucking, this is totally not the same thing that happens in this country. There's no persecution like this from the government to people. Now, don't get me wrong. People in our

country kill other people because they're homosexual. OK, that fucking happens here. OK, doesn't just happen in Iran. People are gay bashed to death in this fucking country. So don't pretend that that shit doesn't happen. But we try to step in when our government tries to fucking sanction that shit. And we should every time. Anytime you try to strip people's rights away. Anytime you look at one person standing next to another person, you decide person A is worth less than person B. Yeah. It doesn't matter what the cause is. Because they like to do something in the bedroom that you're uncomfortable with.

I mean that's like – that's your excuse that you get to decide that they have less rights or they're less of a person or they they're deserving of less protections or, you know, that's that's nonsense. And that and the thing is that it leads in this direction. Yeah. You know, is it a long road? Yeah, it's a long road, but it does lead in this direction. I just pray over this equipment. but it does lead in this direction. I just pray over this equipment.

We speak over the PowerPoint presentations, all of the video projectors, and we say, devil, we know what you love to do in meetings like this, and we say you will not, in Jesus' name, you will not prevent this message from going out. No microphone problems, in Jesus' name. Along similar lines, it turns out that the health crisis, the AIDS crisis in Africa is actually much easier to solve than we had initially thought. You know, a lot of people

thought that it was going to take major international efforts, a lot of education, anti-retrovirals, condoms, you know, a lot of sex education. Just a tremendous problem. And it turns out it's prayer, actually, that's going to do it. Uganda health minister, that's somebody who doesn't need that job, by the way, claims that prayer cures AIDS. So there you have it. Problem solved. Uganda, you're choosing your health ministers wrong.

I'm kidding. Right? Like when your health minister is like, yeah, I don't really know much about public health. We should just pray the AIDS away. Right? That's not a thing you can do. That's fucking insane. It's tantamount to murder is really what it is.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, look at unverified faith healing. I'm reading directly from the article here. It's posing a threat to adherence to antiretroviral therapy by persons living with HIV and AIDS. So here you have all these AIDS groups that go over there, these aid groups. Pardon me, not AIDS groups, aid groups that go over there. And they offer – there's a big push right now. I don't know if you knew this, Tom,

but in sub-Saharan Africa, there's a huge push because AIDS is a fucking rampant over there. There's this huge push by lots of different organizations, the Catholic Church being one of them, that send over these drugs to these people and get these people to take these drugs that suddenly have come down in cost and they can people to take these, um, these drugs that, you know, are, that suddenly have come down in cost and they can afford to pay for these drugs. And these people that are over there that have AIDS are able to get these drugs every day. And, you know, they're able to combat AIDS in a big way over there. Uh, and then you have some jackass like this who's saying, no, no, no, just pray it away. It'll be fine. And then he gets him off the drugs.

And you're right, he is murdering people. Yeah, I mean, this is this. We're talking about an area that has legislation, you know, that would make homosexuality a capital crime, which we just talked about. Right. You know, we're talking about this health minister is close personal friend to the apostle Julius Oyet, who has stated that even animals are wiser than homosexuals. And his claims to have co-authored the Kill the Gays Bill submitted in 2009 by their college of prayer. submitted in 2009 by their college of prayer. You're anytime you pray and you reach the conclusion that you need to become eliminationist, that you need to, uh,

commit acts of, uh, you know, mass murder. You, you need to pause and reconsider who you're praying to. Like you need to carve a fucking new totem pole, man. Right.

Because you're getting a message. I know what's really happening is you're having a fucking imaginary conversation in your head with nobody and then coming to a conclusion that you've already gotten to and justifying it with your bullshit. But, I mean, there's just no fucking way. There's just no fucking way to spin this and not have this be murder. And the idea that you're going to tell people who have AIDS, you know, well, we'll just pray. We'll just you know, you just pray that away. And that's going to help. You know, don't worry about taking these drugs, these these drugs that have been

shown to be incredibly effective, that have lengthened the lives of people with HIV so dramatically that reduce the risk of transmission in childbirth from mother to offspring. Yeah, don't worry about taking those. Those are just based on facts and science. What you should really do is pray. And then we can watch, you know, as our population continues to be decimated by this horrible disease. That's a fucking great health minister you got there, Uganda. Way to rocket yourself into the 17th century, you fuckwits. Here's the thing.

Like, okay, here we are saying that prayer is going to stop this thing. Why would the faithful even get it then? Like, why would you even contract the disease if you're faithful? It's not like prophylactic prayer, right? You're just like humping away and you're like, oh, Jesus, yeah, oh, fuck, God, God, God, God, yeah. And then you don't get it.

I do that anyway. I don't know. Yeah, I guess I just don't understand, you know, the logic of your statement, but hey, that's fine. But, and you know, here's the thing, like all you have to say and nobody will care. Not a fucking single person in the world will care if you phrase it this way. Why don't you take your drugs but pray too? Yep. Nobody cares then. Nobody's like, hey, you know what?

That's fucking evil. You shouldn't pray and take drugs because they counteract the drugs. Nobody's saying that. Yeah, there's no story there, right? Yeah, instead it's just like, you know, we want you to fucking completely stop taking these drugs and pray. And that's it. That's all you get to do. It's either fucking or.

That's your health minister saying that to you? Where'd he get his degree, man? Because I want to burn that college down. It's probably already been burned down. It's probably in Uganda. It's salty earth so they can't fucking build it again.

I got to tell you, Cecil, if you were trying to burn down my church, I'd be fine. Right. Because I would put a Virgin Mary statue in it. And according to a family in Texas, that's what saved their home. This is a hilarious story. Family credits Virgin Mary statue for saving their house from wildfire. I guess instead of dropping water, they should have just dropped Virgin Mary statues, right? They get like helicopters full dropped Virgin Mary statues right they get like helicopters full of Virgin Mary statues

Virgin Mary is good for like a standard I don't know I mean here in the city a Chicago plot is 25 by 125 so that's like one Virgin Mary size but this is Texas and Texas lands a little bigger so I think you would actually need less Virgin Marys per capita.

Sure, sure. Which is good because that porcelain is not cheap. Right, right. And they break – dropping them from helicopters, you got little parachutes as they come down. There's like a force field. But Virgin Mary is not – I, let's not be ridiculous. You know, she's not all powerful. Right.

She's just a virgin. She's not a god. She's like, and she's not a demigod because that would be not monotheistic. She's like, what would be the word? There's no actual, she's like, well, we'll just call her fake. So, right. So, but she's still powerful, right? She's still powerful.

She can save your house because you believed. 384,000 acres didn't believe. But so they believed and so that's why their house was saved. The Virgin – it's a powerful statue. This is insulting in so many ways because of those people that lost their homes. You know, it's like you're basically flaunting and saying, I'm a good person. Yeah. I put the Virgin Mary here.

She saved our house. I'm a believer. I believe in God. I believe in the virgin birth. I believe in the Virgin Mary. And I was saved by the Virgin Mary because they found me more worthy than you. Awesome. Yeah. So that doesn't make you a cocksucker. Like that doesn't make you a fucking asshole. Yeah. It's kind of a shockingly awful thing

to believe. I mean, it really is. And I mean, what does it say about your God too? Like your God just is fucking indifferent to the suffering of other people? Sure. Your God's just like, well, you know, fuck you. You don't have a statue. So I can eat and paint your door red or whatever. Right. So.

In the name of Jesus, we speak that. Well, you know, there's a lot of things I didn't know, Cecil. I didn't know the power of the Virgin Mary. You know, in job hunting, I didn't know that I needed to have my resume blessed. A church, a Catholic church outside Buffalo, New York, is taking prayers for the jobless by actually physically taking their

resumes, putting them on an altar, and then praying over the resumes. So that way... so that way. So that way what? So that way what? That if they fucking up a company finds that their fucking resume is good, they'll still take it just as if they didn't have put it on an altar.

Yeah. You know what would be really nice if the church used their power as a huge network, for example, to match people who are in need of jobs with people who have jobs available. That would actually be useful, right? So the church takes in all the resumes for the people looking for work, and then they take company profiles from all the people who, you know, because it's a Catholic church. It's, you know, lots of fucking people. Some people have to have jobs to give. And then if they created a sort of like Catholic LinkedIn. Cool. Yeah, that would be kind of neat.

That would be something you could say. Look at that. That's a church using its hands instead of clasping prayer to actually work and get something accomplished. Man, that would be awesome. I don't know, man. Shaking your fucking incense and wang over the top of it and citing some incantations. That's not going to cut it. Does it give me more qualifications when I put it on there?

Like when I put it on there, do I get a fucking PhD instead of an MA? Right. Like suddenly I put it on there and I'm like, oh, well now I know how to use fucking Adobe After Effects. I had no idea how to do that before. Suddenly my resume says I do. Like here's what's going to happen. I'm fucking going to predict this right away. People that get jobs are going to come forward after this. And they're

going to say, I put my fucking resume on the altar and it got me a job. And they're going to count that hit. And the people that put their resume up there and they don't get a job, well, they don't get a job right away. Chances are they're going to get a job eventually. Sure. Right. That resume. Well, that's a hit too, too because because there's no time limit on it right you just be like well i put it on there fucking 40 years ago i put it on that thing and now here i am well because god's never held accountable for anything right i mean if it doesn't happen he worked in mysterious ways yeah like well he works in mysterious ways, he doesn't fucking work at all. He's just as unemployed as you. Right. Like, you know, if, if I walked up there, you know, like, and,

and I had my resume and I, and it got blessed. And when I took it back, I no longer had an English degree, but I had something useful. I looked down and I was like, holy shit, computer science. Yeah. That's, I can do something with that. Right, right. If it changed it from like English lit to useful degree, then that would be worth doing. I'd be like, oh man, I'm fucking prey over this thing all the time. I've made a lot of bad decisions. This is the greatest publicity stunt for, you know, for believers in the world because it's always going to result in a hit.

Because they're not saying, you know, you're going to get a job in a week. Nobody's saying that. They're just saying, put your resume on the altar. We're going to bless it. And then, you know, 10 weeks later, a year later, when they get that job, they're going to be like, well, I can blame it on God. And when things aren't going well, it's like you said, well, God works in mysterious ways. I'll get my job eventually. Or that nonsense about like, well, you know, God will never give you more than you can handle.

Oh, God, give me a break. That shit is insane. I can handle a lot. I don't want it all. I can handle so much money, you have no idea. Lord, the day is at hand. We are in the last days. You are Jehovah God.

So this is a hilarious graphic. We're going to post the link to this on our website. And by we, I mean Cecil. And there's a great graphic from Ferengula. Why isn't this an example of falsification of the power of prayer? As everybody, I think, who's listened to this show is aware, Rick Perry made an official government proclamation begging God to fix the weather. Can you just read, can you read that proclamation? Because I think, I think it's necessary for us to actually hear this out loud. Yeah. Some people, Cecil, are going to vote for this guy, by the way. Yeah. Oh, he's fucking, he's not doing bad in all the polls so far in the,

in the primary either, which is fucking terrifying. Whereas throughout our history, both as a state and as individuals, Texans have been strengthened, assured, and lifted up through prayer. It seems right and fitting that the people of Texas should join together in prayer to humbly seek an end to this devastating drought and these dangerous wildfires. Now, therefore, I, Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statute to the State of Texas, do hereby proclaim the three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as days of prayer for rain in the state of Texas. Pray for rain. I urge Texans of all faiths and traditions to offer prayers on those days for the healing of our land,

the rebuilding of our communities, and the restoration of our normal way of life. Didn't work out. Really didn't. This graphic from August 30th, 2011 is a U.S. drought monitor. It's fucking delightful when compared to The Prayer. It basically looks like America had its period on Texas. It's like this huge red spot. God, it is horrifyingly red.

It looks like a shotgun blast right in Texas. It's so red. It's like gaping wound red. It looks like a shotgun blast right at Texas. It's so red. It's like gaping wound red. It's awful. And I don't mean to laugh at Texans because I'm not laughing at Texans because I'm not praying to God for rain. Right. You know, that's laughing at Texans. That's saying, I mean, we're doing rain dances at this point?

I know. Really? Well, and here's the thing. I mean, we're doing rain dances at this point? I know. Gosh. Well, and here's the thing. Like, again, this goes back to counting the hits and forgetting the misses. This is a miss. This is a fucking clear miss. Right.

You cannot fucking miss more than this. But people will forget it. People don't. And like you said, there's no accountability, so they're not looking up to the sky and being like, dude, we fucking prayed for rain and you didn't come through. Fuck you. Nobody's saying that. Nobody's going to say that because the fact is that they're

going to go back to the God works in mysterious ways thing. And that's, you know, that's the other thing. That's why, you know, when last time we were busting Silverman's balls, that's the same thing here. You can't argue with them. You can't be like, well, you prayed for rain. It didn't work. Fucking ruined your state. Let it on fire. Your whole state was on fire.

That's the opposite of rain. And they'll be like, yeah, well, God works in mysterious ways. You're not going to convince anybody by pointing out the fucking ridiculous inconsistency between actual prayer and actual fucking things that happen. You can't win an argument that way. fucking things that happen. You can't win an argument that way. I mean, sure, between us and the rest of the people who are atheists or skeptics, agnostics who are listening to this, we're preaching to the fucking choir

though. So it's a totally different feeling on this show than it is on, you know, anywhere else when you're trying to argue with these people. You can't argue with them over this. You can't point this out to them. You point this out to them, they're going to be like, yeah, so what? You ain't God. You don't get to know the mind of God. Right, right. Right, yeah. God gets to be a complete mystery, so what you ain't god you don't get to know the mind of god right right right yeah god

gets to be a complete mystery so you know anything good is god and anything bad is us or chance or but chance can only work um you know chance can't can't be a factor um for things like evolution you know you can't have something like that. It's actually natural selection. I shouldn't use chance. It's not accurate. They do tend to mock the idea of chance as often as they can, but they'll certainly give credit to just random events.

Well, you know, sometimes things happen. Can't know. Can't know. You know what you can know? You can't know that when you cut your fucking wildfire battling budget. There are some clear indicators. This was really a smooth, smooth fucking move. So we're going to actually, for this story, Cecil, we're going to do something different.

We're going to go to our man on the street, James. James is too busy being on the street, actually. Very busy. To be on the show. Right. Meaning he has things to do with his life. But he did file this report, which I will read on his behalf. KVUE, the local ABC affiliate in Austin, Texas, reported in March of this year on volunteer firefighters who are struggling to cope with a 75% budget cut.

Here's an excerpt from the KVUE story dated March 23, 2011. State funding for volunteer fire departments is taking a big hit. It's going from $30 million to $7 million. Substantial. That's a hit. Yeah, it's a little bit of a hit. Those departments are already facing financial strains. The state's

Firemen's and Fire Marshals Association of Texas represents 21,000 state firefighters. The association says more than 80% of volunteer firefighters are reporting taking a personal hit in the budget crisis. And they've started using their own money to pay for equipment and supplies.

Bringing water from home. It's a bucket. I got my bucket. This story has been picked up in the wake of massive wildfires destroying thousands of homes across Texas. Posted by the website OpposingViews.com and reposted on Reddit.com, thus to lots and lots of peoples on Facebook and Twitter. The comments on Reddit were pretty awesome, including,

Every goddamn time when I cut funding for the fighters in SimCity, my city has all sorts of wildfires a few years later that ruin my development plans and put me way over budget. Could we at least have SimCity training for our governors, please? Which is fucking awesome. That is fucking awesome. They should totally have to make them sit down. That would be a great test, wouldn't it?

Like you make them, like, here's the fucking debate. You have the debate. And then you sit them down in front of a computer, and they do like they do with a StarCraft, where they show the big screen over them, these guys are playing Starcraft against each other. Instead, they're playing fucking SimCity and you get to see how their fucking policies that they're fucking touting run when they actually run it through an actual city and see what the fuck happens.

And suddenly everybody's like, oh, I don't know if I want to vote for any y'all. Well, you know, the problem is video games are all controlled by the liberal video game monopoly. Right, right. Obama actually writes most of that code himself, turns out. He's a busy guy. Yeah, very much so. Yeah. So, James, we appreciate your reporting.

You certainly put more effort into reporting that story than, well, than we did in reading it because we didn't even read the whole thing. You go out and you pray for rain. You shouldn't hamstring yourself by cutting the budget here. You know what I mean? Like you shouldn't – maybe he just figured the prayer was going to work though. You know what I mean? This article that James was quoting is like March 23rd. Maybe he knew.

I mean, he obviously knew already if he's going to be in April, going to be having his day of prayer. He obviously knew already. He's like, well, what the hell do we have to worry about? We got God on our side. Yeah, right. He's like, he's laughing to himself. He's like, little do they know, ace up my sleeve.

I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they pro-America or anti-America. In more crazy candidate news, CNN Politics reports a story where Michelle Bachman suggests that there should not be such things as a U.S. Department of Education. This is not a country that would go up in stature with this looney tune in charge, Cecil. She's talking about cutting the, you know, Department of Education. And, you know, there's people out there that argue, yeah, cut the fucking thing. What does it do for us? On and on and on. And that's not an argument I think I am prepared to have because I'm really, I don't really know as much as I should

about that, right? Like, I can't look you in the face and be like, well, they should keep it because of X, Y, and Z. I'm not going to make that argument, okay? But I am going to point out that axing the Department of Education is small potatoes, okay? It's tiny, tiny bits. And that's what people need to understand. Don't look at what these people are saying, like Ron Paul. We're going to talk about Ron Paul wanting to get rid of federal funding for Planned Parenthood later on. And whenever they talk about what they're going to cut, I'm going to cut this. I'm going to cut this. I'm just going to get rid of this. I'm going to get rid of the EPA. I'm going to get rid of whatever it is that they're trying to get rid of.

The two biggest things, you look at our budget, the two biggest things that are on our budget every time, number one is defense. And that's a fucking lot of money. I mean, it is a lot of money that's on there. And the second thing that's always on there, Tom, can you guess what it is? It's not education. No, it's not NASA. Certainly not NASA or education. It's Social Security.

Yeah. That's the second largest thing. It's not NASA. Certainly not NASA or education. It's Social Security. Yeah. That's the second largest thing that's on our budget. So Social Security, Medicaid, that sort of stuff is all lumped into one. Now, you fuck with that, you see what happens is you get the voting bloc pissed off because the people who vote in this country are old. OK? That's the people – most of the people in this country that vote are old. There are some young voters. OK, that's the people.

Most of the people in this country that vote are old. There are some young voters. But for the most part, the people that are on that stuff, they're going to go out there and vote. They're going to and they're going to come out in droves if you fuck with it in any major way. So that's kind of off the table. The military budget is never off the table. The military budget is always growing.

It's always huge. It's just enormous, giant fucking pit of money that we shovel fucking not shovel bulldoze fucking money into. I mean, we just, you know, you might as well just keep on stacking it up and just taking like a fucking pallet jack and throwing pallets full of money into a big hole because that's what it's, I mean, there's so much that's spent on it. It's ridiculous. And when they talk about shit like this, all they're doing is trying to rile up all those people that are the libertarian sect of this country that don't think that we should have any kind of regulation in

anything. And they think that we're wastefully spending. Well, the libertarians got to wake up and they got to say, look, you could talk a fucking good game about closing all those, all those institutions down, but you could, you know, that's not, that's a fucking drop in the bucket compared to the defense spending in this country. Absolutely. And until you start talking about that, that in a real way to really reform it, the only person that ever talks about is Ron Paul.

He's the only person. Don't make me like Ron Paul so much. Why do they do this to us? I don't know. First of all, the Department of Education isn't going anywhere. Right. It's nonsense. No president's going to walk in and be like, hey, guess what I did today?

It's for the children. Won't somebody think of the children? They can't think for themselves. We eliminated their education. And of course, I'm being a little ridiculous. You know, I understand that, you know, schools are funded by a variety of means, local, state and federal monies all play into that. Of course, I understand that. Like you said, there's no savings to be had here. It's not like you're not going to clap your hands together and be like, oh,

we well, well, budget crisis is solved. We got rid of the Department of Education. Done and done. EPA is gone. Department of Education is gone. No more budget crisis. How many bombers can we buy tomorrow? Yep. You know, it's not going to happen. They're looking at the wrong things. They're looking at things that, you know, sound to a certain segment of the population. Like you said, they sound like good ideas, but they have no effect. It'd be like if I said, you know, it'd be like if I was going bankrupt, right? It'd be like if I was swimming in fucking debt and I'm going bankrupt and I have a house payment that's twice my monthly income and I've got three car payments to make car payments to make and a heated in-ground swimming pool to take care of.

And I said, you know, I'm going to fix this problem by not buying coffee on Wednesday. That's not going to fix the problem at all. Sure, I'll save a little bit of money, but that wasn't the problem to begin with. So if it's not the problem to begin with, it's not going to be the solution. We keep proposing solutions that have nothing to do with the problem. And shocker of shockers, they're not going to work. Yeah, well, we save a little bit of money if we get rid of the Department of Education. Sure, maybe short term we'd save a little bit of money.

I think that would be a terrible burden to put on the states. But sure, federally we'd save some money. And it would be inconsequential. It would be a terrible decision. And there's no reason to even bring it up. She talks about it as if it's a constitutional thing. The Constitution doesn't have any place for the – well, the Constitution says – it basically outlines a system to make laws. It doesn't say that the only things you get to do are these things.

You cannot do any other things. It develops a system to make laws, enforce laws, and determine the constitutionality of laws. It does not say that you shouldn't pass laws or create departments. You know, should we get rid of Homeland Security? Because I didn't fucking see that in there. Right. I was just going to say that. Or what about government subsidies, Bachman?

Huh? What about government subsidies to fucking churches that pray the fucking gay away? That's not in the fucking Constitution. Well, you know, but it's, I, but, you know, I want the money. Right, exactly. You know, right. It's fucking, when it's convenient, I'll quote the Constitution and make it look like I'm some sort of fucking constitutional scholar. When really, I don't know my fucking ass from a hole in the ground.

You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers? I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. So we talked a moment ago about Ron Paul. And Ron Paul is, I think, the most excitingly disappointing candidate. He is at least talking honestly about real substantial issues as far as economics are concerned. It's just that he's also kind of socially nuts.

Yeah. Ron Paul, in a statement regarding his pro-life views, said that he would, as a congressperson, he's never voted for any budget that includes funding for Planned Parenthood. Instead, I've introduced Taxpayers' Freedom of Conscience Act. I hate that. To cut off all taxpayer funding of abortions, so-called family planning services

and international abortionists. You know, you hear Ron Paul speak so openly and so fervently and with such passion about small government. And then at the same time, you see this kind of thing and you think, here's a guy with a moral position who would take his moral position and use government power to impose it. And it's more that big government when it's convenient for me, small government when it's convenient for me. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a couple things I want to point out that he says that I, that I, like, really, really wholeheartedly disagree with.

He says, second, I will veto any spending bill that contains funding for Planned Parenthood facilities that perform abortion and all government family planning schemes.

Dude, seriously? Like, what Planned Parenthood does, most of the things they do, and we talked about this before, you know, when you can't just fucking make numbers up, you can't just fucking make shit up. Mostly what Planned Parenthood does is like cancer screening and family planning and birth control. Those are the most things that they do. The tiny little bit of money that they do get in that they don't use from federal funding they pay for abortions with doesn't come out of your pocket doesn't come out of the you know doesn't come out of ron paul's

pocket it doesn't come out of my pocket it doesn't it comes out of the people who fund uh planned parenthood that pay that that fund that organization directly doesn't come from the government so let's let's first first, that's a false statement to even consider that they're, that that's what their money, the money is going for. But secondly, so he's got this, he's got this introduction of the tax prayers, freedom of conscious act. Motherfucker. I don't want to kill Iraqis. How's that? I don't want my fucking tax dollar to go kill Afghanistan. People from fucking Afghanistan. How's that? Where's my fucking freedom of conscience? I don't get my freedom of conscience.

I don't want fucking my money going to fucking investigating people, holding people at fucking Guantanamo indefinitely. How's that? Where's my fucking freedom of conscience? I don't get it. But you get to have, you get to fucking decide where funding goes? Nobody gets to decide where funding goes, asshole. If everybody really, I mean, if there was real freedom of conscience, if you got to take a look and say, I'm only personally going to pay my taxes to fund the issues

that are important to me, that's a terrible, if you're going to do that, then there's no reason to have government. Right. That's what you do as far as charity is concerned, right? You look around at the world and you say, these are the issues that are important to me, and I'm going to give money and spend my time working with these organizations because these are the organizations to which I have an affinity. You can already do that. The whole point of government is for

everybody to kick into the kitty and once you have this giant pool of money to use that money to further certain aims. It's not so that you can pick and choose what you want a la carte you know it's not i'm sorry government doesn't work a la carte right you would have a dysfunctional government you could have most people just wouldn't pay any taxes that's what they would do they'd be like well you know i have a conscientious objection to uh road building so i'm not going well, you know, I have a conscientious objection to road building, so I'm not going to pay those taxes. And I have a conscientious, people just wouldn't pay any taxes. So, you know, there isn't any real freedom of choice. It's basically a freedom of

conscience. It's basically, you don't like abortion, you're couching it in bullshit language, and you're trying to get rid of it. You know you can't get rid of it by law, so you're trying to back your way into it by cutting out the funding of the people who do it. And again, it's big government. It's making a moral decision on what people can and can't do with their lives and their bodies and legislating based on that. I'm going to step off the landing. That's one small step for man,

one giant leap for mankind So Cecil, I have some hope Not much because I'm not a hopeful person That this next story is going to put at least some nutters to rest So as we all know there's a fair number of kooks Who believe we did not land on the moon. And their evidence is absolutely unbelievably sketchy at best. They clearly have never watched Mythbusters. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took some tremendous photos, though, that show basically evidence of the moon landing. basically evidence of the moon landing.

You can just see pictures of where the astronauts took a walk, where the moon buggy, the LRV was driving. You can see the tracks. You can see the parking spot. You can see the descent stage for the Challenger. You can see all these evidence, all this physical evidence on the moon, on the fucking moon. But I still don't think it's going to shut up most of them. Yeah, you know, this looks shopped.

I can tell from some of the pixels and from seeing quite a few shops in my time. Here's the thing. Okay, it's real easy to explain this away by just saying that, right? Oh, they fucking use Photoshop, man. They use Photoshop. All they do is just draw a little line in there and make it look like it. What I want to ask the people, though, and, you know, because obviously that's going to be their defense is it looks shabby. But you want to ask them and be like, okay, so you don't think we went to the moon.

What level of space exploration do you think we do? Do you think that us sending satellites into orbit, is that bullshit? Is the space station bullshit? Does that exist? Yeah. What about the Mars rover? Was that an actual thing? Did we do a flyby of the far outer planets with Voyager?

Did that actually happen? Did we actually do that? And with this, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. You know, here we have a little tiny satellite that's going over and taking a look at all of the surface of the moon. Is that actually happening? Is it actually happening right now? Or are they, like I said, are they shopping it? Are they getting the photos and then shopping it?

You kind of want to ask somebody that and be like, well, what's your logic for this now? Because there really is no other way to technically prove it to these guys unless you take them up in a fucking spaceship up to the fucking moon and set them on the moon and be like, look, there's the fucking rover. Can you see the rover? Can you see the lander? In the face of all this evidence, they could look at it and say, oh, no, I don't buy it. I don't buy it. They're trying to fake it. They're still trying to fake it.

Years and years and years and years. What's the point of trying to fake it at this point? Yeah, there is no point. It would be, you know, what is this a response to? You know, our movement has gathered no fucking no momentum. That's what it's gathered. Your movement of nuts has gathered no momentum at all. Nobody pays attention to you.

You're boring and uninteresting. The myth busters busted you, for God's sake. So there would be no reason for NASA to put this out there. You know, it's not like this is a direct response to a burning fucking controversial question. Went to the moon. We fucking went to the moon we fucking went to the moon man we've got pictures we've got video we've got uh now we've got uh you know additional pictures of

the sort of like leftovers on the moon which will never blow away or anything they'll just fucking always be there for all time forever yeah you. You know, I think the coolest thing the Mythbusters did, I don't know if you saw that episode. I did. But, you know, there's like a reflector that was left up there. And the coordinates of that reflector are known. You can shine a fucking laser at the goddamn thing, and it will bounce back to you.

And knowing the distance from the Earth to the moon, you can calculate how long it took and be sure that that's what you hit. Yeah, but again, like these people will be like, well, they just rigged the machine up. Oh, my God. I mean, like there's a way out of this all the time. I can just make shit up. I know. I can just say you're lying to me all the time over and over and over again.

And unless I physically go up to the fucking moon and, you know, ride around on the fucking lunar lander, then, you know, you can't prove to me that you haven't been to the moon. Well, you know, there's no reason to lie. Like you got to understand there's got to be a motive here and there's no motive. Like the motive I can understand if you're going to say, well, back in the sixties, we wanted to make sure that, you know, we were the first to the moon and we wanted to shove it in the Russian's face and yada, yada, yada. It's like, okay, well, great. Well, what about now? Why is there still fucking evidence of it then? Well, sure. And now it's like, what are you going to suggest?

That, like, the Discovery Channel is in the pocket of big NASA? Oh, God. Give me a break. You know, like, there's no money. Big NASA, didn't they lose all their funding? Like, what the fuck? It's like fucking little NASA. Now it's like a volunteer organization.

Right. We may as well just treat them. Just have Rick Perry run it. Volunteer and cut their funding. So there's something of a controversy still going on. And it's obviously the anniversary of September 11th. Today, actually, the day that we're recording, so the show will come out a little after. And every year there's some kind of memorial service and what have you that's held. And clergy are being specifically omitted from the 9-11 ceremony. And there's a fair amount of protest about this.

I think it's a totally right decision. Yeah, I think so too. And, you know, here's the reason why they give. It's not about no religion being there. What it's about is it's about the people's families, right? Like that's why they're – that's what they're talking about. And I've seen fucking posts all over Facebook. They're like the 9-11 first responders were there the day of 9-11.

Nobody tried to kick them out of ground zero then. But now they're not allowed to go to ground zero on the tribute day. You know, if you're outraged, repost is your status, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Look, man, first, there's only enough fucking space for for, you know, there's only a certain amount of space that you can have. And I think having a 9-11 memorial ceremony with the 9-11 first responders is a valid thing to do. I understand that. But the way that they chose to do this

particular 9-11 service at Ground Zero was to have the victims' families there. And there was only a certain number of people that could show up. So it was victim's families, and that was going to be it. And then a few other people, I don't know exactly who, but I know that specifically they were just keeping it to victim's families.

Okay, so there's only so much space you can do. So the victim's families show up, and then you have a memorial for them because you're memorializing the people who died. So let's stop pretending that we need to fucking insert the clergy there or insert the 911 first responders who I have fucking loads of respect for. I would buy them an unlimited number of beers if I would meet them. I would never stop buying them drinks. Trust me, I have so much respect for these people.

But I just don't. I mean, I think that, you know, if you make a decision and you're not invited, then fucking so what? Stop fucking pretending that you deserve to be there. You don't deserve to be there. If 3,000 or so people died and you can't, if everybody, if the families of those 3,000 people are there and those families are, let's say, four people, five people, small, we're talking about 15,000 people. It's not an insubstantial number of people. The ceremony has always been done in such a way that they read aloud the names of all of the people who passed. And they have a few breaks. They have,

they have moments of silence in between the readings. So the readings go on for hours. Sure. Um, and there's, there's several breaks and look, if you want to pray doing that during those breaks, then pray during, right. I would imagine many, many, many people in, in that great audience. Um, during that memorial service, I would imagine a great many of those people are doing just that. I imagine that they're praying. But why does the prayer, why can't the prayer be silent? Why can't the prayer be personal and individual in order for it to be meaningful? What clergy member is so hubristic as to stand there and say, I have something to say?

You need to listen to me. I don't want you communicating with your God directly during this special moment, during this time of national sorrow that we put aside to remember the lives that were lost on this day. You should be listening to me. You shouldn't be listening to the internal dialogue within yourself. I've got something to say. You know, fuck you, man.

What do you have to offer? You've got nothing to offer. Let the families, you know, let the Jewish families and the Christian families and the atheist families and the Hindu families and the Buddhist families and the Muslim families, let them all have their own private moments with their own deities or non-deities. You know, to stand there and pollute that moment by having some asshole preacher speak for you? Yeah. Fuck that.

I mean, that's just treating them like children. I see a little silhouetto of a man. Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the fandango? Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening me. Galileo, Galileo, Galileo. All right, and I think we're going to end on my favorite story of the week, Rick Perry's Galileo. Oh, Rick Perry.

Rick Perry, no matter what you're doing, man, you're doing it wrong. When the subject of science came up, I'm just going to read directly from this because it's awesome. When the subject of science came up during last night's Republican debate, all eyes drifted to Rick Perry. This would be the case, right, because he doesn't know what the word means. Perry, this would be the case, right, because he doesn't know what the word means. Yeah, sure. Just recently in New Hampshire, you recently said that weekly or even daily, scientists are coming forward to question that human activity is behind climate change. John Harris from Politico said to the governor of Texas,

which scientists have you found most credible on the subject? And Perry said, Galileo. Galileo. I love his response. Galileo was outvoted for a spell. What a fucking fucktard you are. Galileo was outvoted for a spell. And I understand what he's trying to get at, right? Like Tom, like, like what he's trying to say, even though his, you know, he couldn't wrap his

brain around the real concept here is trying to say, look, uh, there have been scientists in the past who have been in the minority. And those scientists then have been proven right over time that they've been the scientists that have been in the minority have come forward with their research. The people that, uh, were in power at the time said, no, no, no, no. Uh, that's a bad thing. It's not right. Uh, and then, uh, and then over time they've been proven correct. I understand what you're trying to get at. Uh, but the problem is, is that you're a really religious guy, okay? And being a really religious guy who say prairies for rain,

you can't look at things like Galileo and be like, well, he was outvoted. Well, he was outvoted by? Yes, I do. Who, Tom? The clergy, man. He wasn't outvoted by other scientists. Like you're his his metaphor is fucking backward, man. I love the idea that a religious nut who's taking a fringe view in order to of science is using Galileo as his poster child.

Look, man, the scientists weren't arguing with Galileo. The religious nuts were arguing with Galileo. And by arguing, I mean torturing. We argue with people at Guantanamo all the time.

We have this argument with people at Guantanamo. We had this argument with Bradley Manning for a while. Yeah. The arguments tend to be short, very, very short. Rick Perry, you're doing it all wrong, man. I mean, this is a guy who doesn't believe in climate change. OK, fine. There's a fringe group of non-scientists that don't believe in climate change. Okay, fine. There's a fringe group of non-scientists that don't believe in climate change. But, you know, what he should be doing is shifting the focus, you know, to economics because there's, you know, economic costs to acting on climate change. And so if he wants to put forth that agenda, there's a way to do it. Siding with Galileo? First of all, half your followers won't know who Galileo

was. Right. Right. That's not going to work out for you at all. That's just utter and complete nonsense. You've got your metaphor backwards and upside down and a little bit sideways and to the

left of reality. It doesn't work at all. And you're Rick Perry, man. Like he's I know he's the only scientist you can name. I get it. You're very happy. You remember the name of one scientist. But dredging up the name of a scientist hundreds of years dead in a debate about a current scientific issue is kind of the retarded.

I want to see Galileo's papers on climate change. I want to see those. Because if you're talking about climate change, maybe you should bring up a climate change scientist. The reality is that Rick Perry has nobody who he's really – I mean he's just making a general comment here. And they're like, oh, yeah, people have been coming forward all the time about this. Well, who? Sure. It's like asking somebody what papers do you read? What newspapers do you read?

Oh, you know, all of them. All of them. All of them. Yeah, I read them all. I like to read all of them. It takes all – it takes my entire day. Sure. Yeah. So I don't really do anything else. It takes all, it takes my entire day. Sure. Yeah.

So I don't really do anything else. I just, yeah, this is just, it's insane. And there's no answer to it, right? Because there is no real scientific debate. There's no scientific debate. The debate in the scientific community has been fucking settled. Climate change. She's coming.

She's here. Isn't that good? Caused by us. Right. That shit is that question has been fucking settled by massive consensus. There's not a substantive debate. There's not scientists coming forward every day, like out of the woodwork, like pulling themselves up, like into the light of day from, you know. No, come on. Fuck you. That's nonsense. That's what you would like people to believe because that way they'll get on board with your insane economic policies. So we did receive an email.

We received an email from Randall. Randall says he likes the show. He says we laugh a little bit too much at our own jokes. Somebody's got to, Randall. Randall says he likes the show. He says, we laugh a little bit too much at our own jokes. Somebody's got to, Randall. I mean, if it's not us, then who? And way too much frat boy potty mouth. I fucking take exception to that. That's bullshit.

I don't know about you, Tom, but the reason why I swear is I'm stuck every day at work. I never swear at work. I don't make comments. I don't swear. So when I'm not on the clock and I'm not pretending like I am somebody I'm not, I just get comfortable. And I just swear. I mean, I grew up around fucking truck drivers for Christ's sakes. I curse on the show because, um, I curse as a human being. I don't like, like bad words don't

make me feel uncomfortable. Um, I just not, I'm just not worried. I never even think about cursing, to be honest with you. Expletives, when I'm talking about things that infuriate me, expletives do tend to come to the fore. I'm not going to lie. You know, when Rick Perry's involved and Michelle Bachman and people are getting hung in Iran, expletives seem like a reasonable. They seem like they really fit. I'll go. Expletives. This is also a podcast, so it's not exactly licensed by the FCC. It's licensed by the fact that Skype is free.

Rayno took exception. He disagreed with us about what we said about Mr. Silverman in our last episode. In a very obscenity laced email, I will point out. It was very funny. I think there's three or four F-bombs in here.

Three or four? Jesus. Obviously, you're trolling us. It's cool, dude. We get it. But we think it's funny. We thought it was funny. And we do appreciate the email very much.

I think we knew when we were doing it that people were going to disagree with our feelings for Mr. Silverman. Look, we don't dislike Mr. Silverman. We do think he needs to grow the goatee back because otherwise he's not evil enough looking and intellectual enough. But Mr. Silverman has been awesome in debates in the past. But I think it's important that when people are not awesome, but they're still on your side, that you take them to task for it. You know, just like Randall took us to task on our show.

He thought we missed the boat. He came at us with it. That will make us better at our jobs. I'm going to tell you right now, Tom, he's an intelligent guy. I watched him talk to Megan Kelly or whatever her name is on Fox. He had this Skype interview with her, and he was fucking outstanding. I mean, he was really outstanding. It's a difficult position to take.

He was talking about the 9-11 cross at Ground Zero and how he didn't think it should be included in the memorial at Ground Zero. And he was articulate and he was on point and it never grew into a heated debate. she says, well, the cross was found at ground zero. He said, well, there's hundreds of crosses. It was a cross-frame structure. And then she's like, well, it was found at ground zero. And he's like, well, and they straightened it too. You know, he's like pointing out, like, it wasn't a perfect cross. They straightened it, and then they welded it, and they, like, welded Jesus all over it too. He was pointing out the actual facts instead of just saying, well, God didn't come down and straighten it.

You know what I mean? Like he can easily have resorted to insulting them or insulting God. He could have easily resorted to it, but he didn't. He stuck to points. He had his talking points set up. And even at the very end of the entire debate that he has with Megyn Kelly, which is very reasoned and neither of them raised their voice at all. debate that he has with Megyn Kelly, which is very reasoned, and neither of them raised their voice at all. He says something like, this is an unpopular position that American atheists are taking,

but we feel it's necessary. We realize it's bad PR, but we just feel like it's something that we have to do. Hats off to you, dude. That's great. He did a great job. And I've seen him. He talks about the Bill O'Reilly. Randall talks about the Bill O'Reilly piece he did.

I thought he was great on Bill O'Reilly. I did too, yeah. You know, but I feel like, I feel like when I watch this, he let those shrill people control what he was going to say. He was put off by what they were doing and he immediately resorted to trying to convince them through logic about, you know, and then he's like,

and he's kind of making fun of them. So it doesn't work. And I think he just did a bad job there. Do I think he does a bad job in general? No, I think he's actually pretty good at his job. John sent in on our Facebook page and he asked us what the name of that Richard Dawkins new children's book is. And it's called The Magic of Reality, How We Know What's Really True. It's a book by Dawkins.

When did it come out? It's The Hardback out on October 4th, I guess, is when it's coming out. As soon as it comes out, I'm going to buy it. I'm going to buy it right away. It looks like it's going to be a great book. I mean, great book for children. So if anybody's interested in reading a Dawkins book and indoctrinate their children very young, it would be a great way to do it. You're going to convince them to believe in reality.

Things that are true. And then they'll be thoughtful about subjects. How dare you? Well, as usual, we are going to end the show with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is

not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead, pan, sales pitch, late night info-docutainment. Deadpan sales pitch. Late night info docutainment. Leo Pisces. Cancer cures.

Detox. Reflex. Foot massage. Death in towers. Tarot cards. Psychic healing. Crystal balls. Bigfoot.

Yeti. Aliens. Churches. Mosques and synagogues. Temples. Dragons. Giant worms. Atlantis.

Dolphins. Truthers. Birthers. Witches. Wizards. Vaccine nuts. Shaman healers. evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense.

Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. Thank you for listening to Cognitive Dissonance. If you want to reach us by phone, you can call us at 740-743-6828. That's 740-74-DOUBT. Long distance rates apply. Long distance rates apply. Send us an email at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at dissonance underscore pod. Bye.