Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 16: Occupy Everything

Episode Date: October 10, 2011

This Episode covers the week of Oct 3rd - 10th, 2011. Steve Jobs followed natural medine, Creationsts caught on camera, Occupy Wall St, Bill O'Reilly says people who need jobs should just get them, Herman Cain is delusional, Conservative infighting, Conservapedia: Border Patrol, Invisible man rapes girl. Clips used: The Nightline Face-Off: Does God Have a Future?, Creationism propaganda for children caught on camera, CSPN, Entertainment Tonight, WSJ.com Keep Conservatives United, A Few Good Men.

That everything that we call matter comes from something that is not material. That the essential nature of the physical world is that it's not physical. That the essential stuff of the universe is non-stuff. Call it what you will. Science tells us that nature is a discontinuity, that it's an on-off phenomenon. is a discontinuity, that it's an on-off phenomenon, that there are gaps between every two ones, where you find a field of possibilities, a field of pure potentiality. Science doesn't call it God, but what is God if not the immeasurable potential of all that was, all that is, and all that will be. Science also tells us that it's a field of non-locality, where everything is correlated with everything else.

Today science tells us that the essential nature of reality is non-local correlation. Everything is connected to everything else. That there's hidden creativity. There are quantum leaps of creativity. That there's something called the observer effect, where intention orchestrates space-time events, which we then measure as movement and motion and energy and matter. Did you hear anything in there that convinced you? You asked, Dan, what I meant by woo-woo. That is the very embodiment of woo-woo. Stringing together at a rapid patter

of a bunch of scientific sounding words sprinkled in with some spiritual new age words doesn't mean anything. 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 to episode 16 of Cognitive Dissonance. We're going to go ahead and jump right in. We've got some great stories here. I think chief among those stories for anybody who's been paying attention lately is the unfortunate passing of Steve Jobs. I know he's a relatively controversial figure. A lot of people loved him.

Some other people really, it turns out, loathed him. I didn't realize that. Isn't that amazing, Tom? I had no idea. I have somebody on my Facebook feed who is like fucking dancing on his grave. Yeah, I know who that is. I know who that is, and yeah, he's on my Facebook feed too. I was like, wow, really?

He's like at one point the guy put on like a piece of drama that was done about right and i'm just like i'm like that's a that's a movie dude like that's not that's not steve jobs that's like a movie i don't understand it that's that's it was i don't know the level of of of vitriol expressed was was surprising to me but turns out there's a fair number of people who don't like Steve Jobs. Can I just talk? Well, let's just talk about that for a second here, Tom. One of the things that you want to say to people, and I think you and I probably are going to agree on this. Was he the greatest inventor of our time? No, he didn't. I don't even think he really invented that stuff. You know what I mean? He's, you know, even if he came up with the idea, he's still having other people do the work. You

know, he's not, he's not fucking coding and fucking putting together the prototype of the iPhone four. You know what I mean? Like he's, he's got a whole team of people that does that work for him. And is he an evil bastard? I heard a lot of stuff about philanthropy, like, oh, he's never given any money to charity. No, not publicly. But when you have that much money, you know, you've got to figure that some of that money is going. Now, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. You don't know. But he publicly never gave to charity.

Okay, well, you know, maybe he had a reason for doing that. I just feel like there's a lot of vitriol about him, but then there's also a lot of fucking, like, gobsnobbing going on, man. People are fucking just gobsnobbing this dude like fucking, oh, he's the greatest guy ever. We lost the greatest. It's like, OK, you lost the head of a company. But, you know, big deal. I'll tell you this.

I've noticed that after he passed, my Mac did not disappear. Wouldn't start up. I'm using it right now. It's like beating on it like jobs. Make it work. My iPod did not cease to work you know it's unfortunate that he died in the sense that you know hey that guy you know made some cool stuff i bought or was involved he was involved yeah that's exactly he was involved i

don't know what his level of involvement was you know i mean he's he's a figurehead like the fin the figurehead is gone and um you you know, was he a visionary? I guess there's an argument to be made either way. I'll tell you what he wasn't. He was not a man who made good medical decisions, it turns out. No, he did not. Fortune magazine reported in 2003 that doctors discovered a tumor growing in his pancreas. Not a good place for a tumor.

Oh, no. Turns out, worst place on the body for a tumor? That's bad. Pancreas. Yeah. Survey says. Six months. We've surveyed 100 people.

We've asked them where the worst place to have a tumor is. 25 of them died before they could answer. Oh, that sad thing is that it's true. I know. You know, I remember I was listening to a, I think it was a radio lab, and they were talking about, like, pancreatic cancer is one of those, like, worst-case scenario cancers. So when you find something like that, it seems to me that, especially if you're somebody who's involved in technology every day you know that the thing to do is to say like well what are my options i have basically unlimited resources so to have this guy turn to a special diet and he kind of turned to some woo man yeah he did

he totally went the woo route it took him him over a year before he finally got the surgery. And they had said that he would get maybe 10 plus years because this surgery normally prevents people from dying for a while once they get it. And he waited a full year and he only got, what, like four or five years after that surgery. Right. He had a form of cancer that was described as highly treatable with surgery. And the tumor of his type was generally curative. But instead, he decided to go with a like a diet. Like, here's the thing.

There's a ton of these sort of I've got cancer. What should I eat diet treatment plans? And I thought about this and it's it that strikes me as insane. First of all, cancer isn't sc, the right food sources, I won't have cancer anymore, belies a total lack of understanding of what fucking cancer is and how food works. Yeah. No, it's totally true. I'm not suggesting that a good diet or a bad, that a bad diet doesn't have any effect on your life or that a good diet is not beneficial to you. Of course. I mean, fucking of course. Right. And, you know, if you have you have a bad enough diet, you you might end up giving yourself some some real problems.

Sure. But changing the foods you eat is not going to halt runaway cell growth. That's not a thing that happens. That's why nobody fucking prescribes it. Right. I don't get it. If you could eat more fruits and vegetables and get rid of fucking cancer, doctors would be fucking elated, right? The first guy who found this out and proved it to be true and published it in a paper and then it was peer reviewed and it was discovered,

wow, that fucking works. Celery works! Well, Tom, the thing is that the big medicine doesn't want you to know that you can cure it. They want to pay you for chemotherapy. But nobody considers big celery, right?

Big celery would be all about this. The big farm industry is out to fucking get you. It would be big far versus big pharma in, like, a cage match. It's like, fucking, yeah, they're in the Thunderdome. So what I want to say, though, Tom, I wonder if it was in his nature to be kind of a gambler, right? I mean, is any one of these guys? I don't know all the five. I don't know the fucking story of Steve Jobs. I'm not a fucking Steve Jobs knob gobbler, but you know, I don't, isn't, doesn't it seem like sort of his MO to be somebody who says,

you know what? I've bet on the little guy before and I'm going to bet on the little guy again. We're the little company that could and I'm the CEO that couldn't that nobody thought could make it and I, you know what I mean? Doesn't it seem like something that would be sort of in his nature to do, to look at something that was alternative rather than something that was sort of mainstream?

Because he sort of built a career on that. I mean, he made a computer for artists instead of business. He made a bunch of things that were sort of designed more ergonomically than technologically. And so I feel like he's one of these people that would do something like this. I also think maybe there's a possibility he had his develop team on it but he couldn't come up with the eye cure quick enough. There's no app for this. There's no app for this. He had his develop team on it, but he couldn't come up with the eye cure quick enough. There's no app for this.

There's no app for this. The development team had to push it back, and, well, now here we are, Steve. Look, I get it, man. You made a fortune. Like, when everybody else zigged, you zagged. Right. Well, yeah, but you died. Yeah.

He could have had more years. He could have had more years. He could have had more years. I know. It's sad. I mean, it's sad because it's part of that mindset that, you know, that they got you, right? That the mainstream medicine doesn't have your best interests in mind. That you should go with the alternative. I am sympathetic. I'm more than sympathetic.

I am fucking on your side when it comes to saying, hey, when I see a problem, I want to look at every solution. I want to try, you know, let's think out of the box. Let's not just go, you know, the direct route. But, you know, we've talked about this in the past. Fucking walk and chew gum, right? Right, right. If there's a surgery that's offered that takes the tumor that's in your body direct route but you know we've talked about this in the past fucking walk and chew gum right right right if there's a surgery that's offered that takes the tumor that's in your body

and cuts the tumor in your body out and then they throw it in the garbage and you can eat better like you can have you can do both right it's not like the diet and the surgery are mutually exclusive and i do do understand saying, you know, I want to look at every treatment option available. And I but but fucking walk and chew gum here. I I can't imagine. I can't imagine putting myself in a position where I have something that is potentially life threatening and saying I wouldn't I wouldn't want to do the alternative thing because maybe it's better. I want to do the all of the things. Right.

And I think that a lot of times the alternative thing doesn't necessarily preclude you from getting surgery. Right. One thing I always wonder about this is, you know, Tom, if my fucking TV was broken, I would go to the TV repairman and be like, hey, man, my fucking thing doesn't work. He's like, oh, it's the flugelschmorg. And I'd be like, OK, man, my fucking thing doesn't work. He's like, oh, it's the flugelschmorg. And I'll be like, okay, can you replace it? Yeah, sure. And then he fucking replaces the flugelschmorg and my TV works again. Same thing with my car. Hey, you know, it's fucking knocking.

Oh, you got this thing problem with this other gigamal dork. Okay, can you fix it? Yeah, sure, I can. And then he fixes it. Like, we don't fucking and I understand. Don't get me wrong. There's fucking irreputable people in the world that might take you for a ride. And that's fixes it. Like, we don't fucking, and I understand. Don't get me wrong. There's fucking irreputable people in the world that might take you for a ride. And that's every profession. But, you know, when I go to see somebody and something is broken, I ask them to fix it.

And then they do. And then I pay them a money. And that's how that system works. But, like, for some reason, people feel like they go to the doctor, the person who, you know, probably has the best knowledge. I mean they're fucking, you know, fucking elbows deep in human bodies all the fucking time. They understand a lot about the human body. Do they know everything? Of course they don't know everything.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't know something. And so when you go there and they're like, oh, well, I think you should get the surgery. And you're like, okay, well, you know what? I don't think I'm going to do it. That's like going to the fucking TV repairman and be like, you know, I really think you should fix your fucking flugel gork. You know what? I think I'm just going to wash the screen. I'm just going to wash the screen and then I'm going to plug it back in. If it doesn't work, well then, you know, I washed the screen. Yeah. I poured some apple cider vinegar in the inputs. Turns out the input wasn't the problem.

Right. You know, I do understand that. And I think I understand where it comes from. It's this idea that like, well, I've got a body and I know my body and, you know, I am bodily. And again, I feel sort of sympathetic to this idea that, you know, you go to Dr. A and he says one thing and Dr. B says another thing. Right, right. And I get that. I understand that that would be very frustrating. But especially with somebody like Jobs where we have fucking unlimited resources.

Sure. You know, for most of us. Where you don't have to make an appointment at the fucking Mayo Clinic. Right. You just walk in and be like, I would like to be treated. And they would be like, we would like to treat you. Because if they don't, you could be like, fine, I'll just buy fucking Mayo Clinic. You can just walk in and be like, I would like to be treated. And they would be like, we would like to treat you. Because if they don't, you can be like, fine, I'll just buy your Mayo Clinic. What do you want?

You know? What do I need to do to get an appointment? You know, I will just buy all of it. Okay, fine. I own the Mayo Clinic now. When can I be seen? It's Wednesday at 3. I'd like to be seen at 3.09. You know? I fucking... So, for a lot of us,

we have, you know, we have to rely on where our insurance sends us. And if our insurance sends us to somebody and they say, do a thing, you know, some of us can't get a set. If you have an HMO, you kind of can't get a second opinion, you know, and that's a little frustrating because there is differing opinions on some of these things and differing options. And so to effectively evaluate your options is difficult when you have limited resources. That's not the case with this guy.

He has fucking unlimited resources. So go see 10 doctors. None of them would have said, eat a more balanced diet or here's some fucking supplements. Here's some Cheerios. I mean, again again try the honey nut kind they're delicious to treat cancer as as a as a as some kind of a nutritional defect is it crazy it's like well i'm gonna juice okay fucking juice you can juice the day before surgery and the day after surgery. Right. Get the surgery. Well, boys and girls, put your hand up if you've heard of the word evolution. Oh boy, I think just about everyone puts their hands up. Hands down. Put your hand up if you've heard that dinosaurs

lived millions of years ago. Dear, oh dear. Hands down. Put your hand up if you've heard that people came from ape-like creatures or something like that. You know I think just about everybody in the world has heard those things. And I want to tell you right from the start here, I don't believe that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, and I certainly don't believe that you came from ape-like creatures or anything like that. This is a video, we'll link to it on our website, of some creationist

nutters really going after their kids. Can we play, I'm going to play a quick clip from this, Tom, real quick. Just, I'm not going to play the whole thing. I would suggest you watch the entire thing to understand what we're talking about, because we're going to be talking about it in context, but I'm going to play you a short clip of what they say. Most Christians are viewed as ignorant because we believe in the Bible. Sometimes Christians feel like they're on the defensive because mainstream is so opposite and feeling like evolution is the broad-minded way to view things. But when you look at the Bible and you look at evidence, scientific evidence, it makes sense. It's just easy to explain to your children, you know, the flood and the fossils that are found.

And it just makes more sense to me. So there you go, Cecil. You know, these are people who are raising kids. And these kids are going to be at a massive competitive disadvantage with all of their peers, you know, because they're going to be in a place where they don't understand life. Like they have a fundamental lack of understanding. And from an early age, they're being taught, hey, don't think about it too much.

Or a trust authority, right? I mean, like there's one point where this guy where this guy is on the stage and he's saying, all right, boys and girls, does this look like your grandfather? And there's, like, a picture of a monkey and it's like, and all the kids in the audience are like, no, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And then he does one about his grandmother. What you want him to say is like, okay, boys and girls, do you know what a straw man is? Right.

You know, like, it's like, fucking dude, you, like, of course they didn't look like fucking monkeys, you fucking retard. That's like saying like that shit. That's like saying like fucking four or five generations ago they look like monkeys. I know. You dumb fucker. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's not plausible. Doesn't mean it's not, I mean, not even plausible that it's not fact at this point. It doesn't mean it's not – I mean not even plausible that it's not fact at this point.

Just the hatred that they have for evolution and for scientists because there's that one point, Tom, where he's like, who's always been here? And they're like, God. And he's like, OK, who are you going to believe, a scientist or God? God. Right. And then they flash up something that says like God said it. I believe it. It settles it and it's like wow, way to put this is a big problem I have with one of the many big problems I have with religiosity

and that's that what religiosity seeks to do first, it has to do it first is it seeks to put a period at the end of every sentence rather than a question mark. And it discourages people from thinking further by providing dogmatic answers to every question. Answers that they discourage, actively discourage you to question. It it it does not allow you to have a mind that continues to seek out further answers. You know, let's think about this in contrast. In the last episode, we talked about,

you know, the neutrinos that might be going faster than the speed of light. And, you know, that's causing physicists to stop and take notice and say, wow, you know, maybe we've got, maybe the theory of relativity isn't correct. And let's re-examine this and let's look at all the questions that this thing raises. And what's that? That's the exact opposite of the period at the end of the sentence, right? That's putting a fucking ellipse at the end of everything and saying, Hey, this is how we think the world works, but it's still open. We're still willing to reconsider. You know, you look at something like this and you look at

this woman who's saying like, well, you know, it just seems easier. Just, you know, it makes sense to me. And well, yeah, it makes sense to you. You just watched a PowerPoint on it. You know, you haven't stopped to consider it. You look at these kids, they interview a bunch of these kids and the kids say, well, you know, I mean, the Bible says that this is what happened. And they're like, well, how do you know? And they're like, well, that guy just I mean, the Bible says that this is what happened. And they're like, well, how do you know? And they're like, well, that guy just told me. Sure, that's what my mom said. Right.

You're not even getting the information from the source you cite. You're saying the Bible says it, but you're not even going to the Bible yourself. So you're getting secondhand information and citing the first, the primary source. It's, that's crazy. I mean, if you stop and you read the entire Bible cover to cover, and then the first, the primary source. It's, that's crazy. I mean, if you stop and you read the entire Bible cover to cover, and then you stop and you read the evidence for evolution, and you consider all the scientific evidence for evolution, and then you say, okay, I've read both the Bible

and I've read the primary body of information that discusses evolution, and now I'm prepared to make a decision. the primary body of information that discusses evolution, and now I'm prepared to make a decision. Okay, then that might be a reasonable conversation to have. But that's not at all the case here. You're going into it with a settled notion. You're going into it with a period at the end of the sentence. God said it, I believe it. That settles it.

So these kids are going to go into the world, and what are they going to think when they get into a science class? What are they going to think when they're presented with information and a world that will not conform to their mindset? Because the world doesn't conform to religious beliefs. It's, you constantly, if you're a religious person, you constantly have to make excuses for your religiosity. You constantly have to do these sort of intellectual backflips to force the world to look the way that your religion would predict that it does, right? Because religion makes predictions just like science does. But if the world doesn't fit a scientific prediction, the science will change. If all of a

sudden neutrinos start to move faster than the speed of light, well, the science will change. But religion won't. And so as the world continues to progress, and as we learn more things about our world, and as those things don't fit into religious dogma, the religion is not going to change. And so what's the religious person's response? It's to try to change the world to fit the religious dogma. And that happens. That happens all the time. That's what happens. I mean, that's how that's why that's why a guy like this has a whole audience full of people, because they're all looking at their book and saying, well, fuck what? It doesn't mention dinosaurs. Oh, well, a dinosaur is a behemoth.

Right. I mean, you would think that if dinosaurs coexisted with people, it would be more than a cursory reference. Right. You would think it would like, it'd be a big deal. It'd be like, well, there I was at the fucking rock quarry and I had to drive home with Dino in the car. I was just going to say.

And Fred begat Wilma. And Wilma be—bam, bam. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. I'm going to eat Fruity Pebbles every day this week. In celebration of your religious ignorance, I will eat my cocoa pebbles. There are some problems that we have on Wall Street. But the thing is, for young people to sit out there and say that we hate capitalism, we hate corporate America, that's kind of like what helped us get to where we are in 235 years.

And if we don't believe that the free market is going to be a successful means by which we can pull ourselves out of this recession, then the United States of America, that which really is the essence of who we are and our exceptionalism is going to be lost. So ignorance is all over the news. There's been a big movement in the States. This Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Wall Street has spread to occupy everything, you know, Occupy Chicago, Occupy San Diego. Chicago, occupy San Diego. And it's basically a disparate group of people coming together to protest. And they're protesting a variety of things. There's no there's not a strong central

organizing feature of them, but they they do have some similarities. They do have some things in common. However, they're being labeled, Cecil, as anti-capitalist. What happens there, I think, more often than not, when somebody labels you as an anti-capitalist, they're trying to make you look like a communist, right? They're trying to make you look like somebody who is not – who's unpatriotic. They're trying to – when you label somebody like that and you say you're an anti-capitalist, you're basically telling the rest of the people that you're talking to,

and this is a media, this is Fox News that's doing this, they're trying to tell their listeners and their viewers, hey, these people are un-American. These people are against the system. They're against the system that, you know, you've done well with for your entire life, the system that's lifted you up, even though it probably hasn't lifted you up at all. They're against the system. They are fundamentally anti-American. And so now you can drum up a support against this cause and make it – and also make it seem sort of frivolous and and just, you know,

almost like the whim of children. And, you know, it's a way to marginalize the message by marginalizing the people. Sure. And if you can do that, if you can make the people seem crazy, then you can seem you can make the message seem crazy. It reminds me a lot of the Tea Party, though, actually. It does. It reminds me a lot of the Tea Party, though, actually.

It does. There are a lot of similarities because, you know, the Tea Party professed to be about one thing, you know, taxes. Taxing up already. And then the reality, of course, was that when people showed up to the protests, they showed up with 100 different signs with 100 different agendas. And half of them were racist and part of them were Christian and part of them were like traditional social Christian conservative values. And some of them were about taxes. Right. I think I think few of them were about taxes. I think the interesting thing here is that there is a striking similarity between the Occupy protests and their desire not to be taxed, you know, and their issues with corporate tax structure.

Well, I think so. You know, there's a real similarity there. They can't come together because there are different sides of the aisle. And so I think that they can't see that they're kind of pissed about a lot of the same things. And these are legitimate things to be pissed about. We've said it before that the Tea Party movement, if it had been about taxes and that they had stayed on message, it would have been a legitimate movement, I think. I think so, too. And I think it would have had legitimate – they have legitimate cause for concern.

And I think it would have had legitimate they have legitimate cause for concern. The problem is that their message was basically diluted and hijacked by every conservative group possible. They're like, wow, we've got I mean, we're going to have tons of people. So let's get your abortion nutters out and let's get your super Christian crunchies out. Let's get your gun nuts out and let's get your racist anti-Obama nuts out, you know. And so then it became this sort of diverse collection of kooks. And it's a problem, you know, it damaged the credibility of the Tea Party so much that they are, I think, an irrelevance at this point. The Occupy Wall Street people have some legitimate gripes and legitimate concerns. And to see them also running into the same problems that the Tea Party movement ran into is frustrating. It's like, how do you, at this point, protest?

It's like, how do you, at this point, protest? How do you come together as a nation and say, hey, I don't care if you're on the left or right-hand side of the aisle. You know, shit's fucked up. Shit's fucked up when the banks put us in a position where we had to spend a gajillion dollars bailing them out. Right. And then immediately after they get bailed out, they all go on to make more money than they've ever made before. And nobody's supposed to be pissed about this. Like you bankrupted our economy. You damaged our economy.

You crushed our housing market. You were rich. You were threatening to be poor for 15 minutes. We bailed you out. Now you're mega rich again. Right. And people see this and they're mad about it. They're mad that these people aren't paying their fair share. They're paying, you know, like Warren Buffett is paying less taxes in proportion than his secretary is.

There's plenty of tax loopholes. I mean, hell, there was a quote from Reagan recently. I found this fucking clip from Reagan where Reagan fucking Ronald Reagan, the fucking, you know, giant fucking pulsating fucking hard cock of the right is saying, look, here is a, here's a fucking bus driver and here's a millionaire and the millionaire, you know, gets little tons of tax loopholes and the bus driver gives a third of his salary who should pay more in taxes and the entire driver gives a third of his salary. Who should pay more in taxes? And the entire fucking crowd, all Republicans, scream, hey, the fucking bus driver should pay less taxes. I mean, are you fucking kidding me

that that's where we are 20 or 30 years more into the future where fucking that's no longer the fucking case? That people on the right are looking and saying, no, no, no, that person, he's a job creator. That's a job creator. You can't tax the job creators. Well, you know what?

We haven't fucking taxed them for 10 fucking years and they haven't been fucking like shoveling the fucking jobs down the American people's throats. You know what I mean? Like there's still a fucking deficit of jobs. So let's, let's, let's stop pretending that that's working. And we're deeper in debt. Our country's fucking, you know, practically bankrupt. And it's just like you said, Tom, it's the entitlement state. It's like, you know, when the little guy gets bankrupt, too fucking bad.

Well, when the fucking big businesses get bankrupt, well, too big to fail. Right. Because they're the ones that are going to create the jobs. And there's genuine frustration over that. You can't have a system that favors people in a fucking country that prides itself on not favoring people. There's legitimate cause for concern. I think it's frustrating that the same message broadcast by a different group is now the subject of derision. And I don't think that's because there's not support. Polls show there's a tremendous amount of support.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. The problem is that we're so divided at this point that it's not about the message. It's about the messenger. I'm a little scared, too, in a couple ways. And this may sound fucking completely conspiracy theorist. So if you're listening and you think I sound like a fucking conspiracy nut, please send us an email at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com and tell me I'm crazy. But I just want to say like the media, it seems to me the media has either been painting it as kind of a bunch of kooks or they have been not covering it at all.

One of the things that's kind of alarming is it hasn't been trending on Twitter at all. And that's something that seems a little dubious to me. This is a big movement with a lot of people and a lot of people that aren't there are talking about it and using these hashtags and they're not showing up as trends on Twitter. That seems a little disingenuous to me. And I wonder if the media companies that, you know, are getting some sort of, you know, directive that they're saying, look, you can't report on this the way you should. And it feels it feels to me like there might be some pushback from people that are very powerful because you don't kid yourself. The fucking media companies, the places where we could consume our media

and gather our media, they're owned by this 1%. I can't do it. We'll do it live. Okay. We'll do it live! Fuck it! Do it live!

I'll write it and we'll do it live! Fucking thing sucks! Bill O'Reilly actually claimed that people from the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy movement, that a lot of these people are jobless because they don't want to work, and they should take a shower and get a job. Isn't that the most insulting thing you've ever fucking heard? Like, this is a guy who's never really known what it's like to be hungry. This is a guy who doesn't know what it's like to be,

you know, desperately unemployed, doesn't know what it's like to receive public assistance. You know, this is a guy who's been shitting nickels his entire life. So, of course, he's, you know, he's not going to have that same perspective that other people that have been in a bad situation will. I am always shocked at the level – and this is not an isolated opinion, Tom. His opinion is not an isolated opinion. His opinion is a pretty common opinion. If you talk about people that have been privileged their entire life – and I'm not talking about color here. I'm just talking about economically privileged, whether that's white, black, or, you know, whatever color. If it's, if you have

been economically privileged your whole life, you will feel like, you know, oh, well, you know, it's, it's real easy to get a job. Well, sure. Because my dad was a banker and I, you know, went to college and I got, you know, I, I skated through at a party school and then dad decided to send me for my, you know, my MBA. And then he hired me. And so I've always had a job and I've been making, you know, six figures. Now I'm up to seven. You know what? It's not that hard.

It's America. Get used to it. It's very easy to see the world from that viewpoint. And I'm always shocked at the people that have had sometimes have had a hard time looking at the world and being like, oh, well, yeah, of course it's easy. I'm always shocked at those people. I know what it's like. I mean, I'm not going to say I was the poorest guy ever, but I grew up pretty in sort of some pretty bad poverty when I was growing up. And I never lose sight of that because it was a desperate time and it was tough.

It wasn't an easy thing to do. And I always wonder about these people that are just like, oh, it's so fucking easy. Right, right. You know, when he says, like, take a shower, like, I mean, he's clearly making like a dirty hippie sort of reference, you know, and that's, that's dishonest. You know, he goes on in the next breath to say like, well, the unemployment rate for college educated people is four and a half percent. Um, so they should have no problem getting jobs. So what he's suggesting is that these people are an educated group of people,

that for the most part these are college-educated people, and so they should have very little difficulty getting a job. Look, unemployment, first I think it's crazy that you're attacking the educated class. That's kind of insane. You know, that's that's kind of insane. Second, this idea that because you're employed, you should not have cause for concern. I'm employed. I have cause for concern.

Right, right. It's it's not the fact that you're employed or unemployed that gives you a reason to be concerned. There's also a tremendous number of people who are horrifyingly underemployed. Being employed doesn't mean that you're getting a sustainable living wage. You could be employed doing a number of different things. You can be employed and make barely enough to scrape by. You can be employed and still be on fucking public assistance. You can be employed, but not be able to find work in the field that you spent thousands of dollars educating yourself in. Right. And be crippled by debt because, you know, your your life growing up

as a young person sold you the idea of college equals prosperity. And now you're out. And what you really see is that, you know, working for a major financial institution equals prosperity. Right. And that, you know, trying to get a job as, let's say, a teacher means that you're unemployed or you're subbing with no benefits, you know, and not working for three months out of the year. Or, you know, there are so many instances where employed doesn't mean shit. And employed doesn't mean that you shouldn't be concerned. And when the educated masses are the ones that are pissed off, maybe it's time to stop and say, are the ones that are pissed off, maybe it's time to stop and say, wow, here in America,

even the people who have a college degree, those people feel disenfranchised. That's a problem. When the most educated group of people in your country, the college educated, gather together to say something is wrong, well, maybe those are the people we need to listen to. I'm sure you're aware of the fact that there are these protests going on down around Wall Street, Occupy Wall Street. They've spread to some other cities in the country. What do you make of that? What do they make of it?

What do they want? Well, I don't know what they want, but I think they think that the banks have given them a raw deal over the last few years. I don't have facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration. Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself. You don't think the banks have anything to do with the crisis that we went into in 2008?

They did have something to do with the crisis that we went into in 2008, but we are not in 2008. We are in 2011. Yes, they had a big part to do with it. And obviously you can go back and say, okay, what did the banks do to do this? These demonstrations, I honestly don't understand what are they looking for? To me, they come across more as anti-capitalism. That's basically what it comes across as. When I was growing up, I was blessed to have had parents that didn't teach me to be jealous of anybody

and didn't teach me to be envious of somebody. It is not a person's fault because they succeeded. It is a person's fault if they fail. And so this is why I don't understand these demonstrations and what is it that they're looking for. So Herman Cain's kind of interesting. This is a guy who's trying to be a viable candidate and he's doing better and better. Yeah, he is. He's trying to be a viable candidate for president. I think it would be interesting as an aside to have two black people going, you know, vying for the general

election. I think that would be kind of exciting. I wouldn't vote for Herman Cain, but I still think it would be kind of exciting to have that be a reality here in the States. It would be interesting to see the Tea Party protest signs then. We don't know what to do. They just hold up signs that say cognitive dissonance, you know. No, they just hold up a sign that says we're fucked. But he basically says he doesn't even understand the protesters or what they're protesting. And basically says that they have nothing to bitch about.

This is one of those guys I was talking about, though, Tom. This is a guy who his parents were poor. He grew up, you know, went to college. He wound up going to college. But, you know, his parents were poor. I think his dad was a chauffeur. You know what I mean? And His mom, like, cleaned. She was like a janitor.

And here's this guy who grew up poor and then forgot what it's like to be poor. And I wonder, too, you know, it's like he's one of these guys probably who thinks that, you know, anybody can make it. I mean, you know, and that the impossible things happen. I mean, he's a black guy in the Republican Party, so he's got to think that. That guy basically believes at this point that you can get bit by a radioactive spider and get magic powers. Exactly. That you can get irradiated and become the Hulk. That's what he thinks. He thinks that if you could Hulk smash anything. He's already experienced magic. I just wonder, you know know he's doing

one of the things he says in this he says like well that happened in 2008 it's not 2008 anymore I'm just thinking well the effects didn't just stop in 2008 fucko like the banks collapsing and doing like asking for all that money just didn't fucking like oh well that one second is gone in time

right and we haven't recovered there's no repercussions to that? I don't understand why you would even say that. We haven't recovered. Right. That's like saying like that. OK, so let's let's make a quick analogy. Let's imagine that three months ago I got hit by a car.

I got in a very serious accident and I was left unable to walk for a long time. You know, I had to do, like, a lot of rehab. My legs were broken. My hip was broken. Okay, so I'm in bad shape three months ago. It's like coming back to me in 90 days and being like, why are you so grumpy? What's going on?

Be like, well, I fucking can't walk. Like, well, you got hit by a car three months ago. Like, yes, but I'm not better yet. Well, why are you so grumpy? Here's your radioactive spider. I know. It's like, I would understand his viewpoint

better if the economy were fucking railing along or if two years ago it had recovered and it was railing and now it had flagged again. That would make sense. But there has not been a recovery. You know, like I got hit by that car three months ago and I'm still in intensive care. Right. And you're coming up to me

and being like, geez, you really seem in bad shape. What's all the grumpy Gus face about there? Somebody's got a case in a mug face. Are you insane? This is a guy, though, that looks at the national economy, and he looks at his own checkbook, and he uses his checkbook as a barometer for the national economy. He's like, oh, well, I got fucking a shit ton of money in the bank. America's doing great.

What's wrong? What's wrong? I might be president. Clearly things are just fine. Yeah. president. Clearly things are just fine. Yeah. No, things are not just fine, you nut hut. Well, and then he's also talking like, oh, I just think it's anti-capitalism. And she's like, oh, and I just think you didn't think about it.

I know. OK. We've got to talk about the anti-capitalism thing. True capitalism does not exist. We don't have a free market. We've never had a free market. Let's stop fucking around and pretend we want a free market. We don't want a free market. Nobody wants a free market. A totally free market unregulated by government doesn't work. It would lead to chaos. We've had it. It's the fucking Wild West. It's child labor. It's seven day work weeks.

It's a lack of safety and environmental controls and factories and businesses. It's madness. It existed. You know, it didn't work. Right. It's monopoly all day long. You know, look at what constantly happens in every facet of the business world. You know, I mean, let's look right now at media and banking. You know, that wealth and that power over time consolidates, you know, as company A starts to do better than companies B, C and D. They either crush or absorb those companies, gaining a larger share of the market and becoming more monopolistic. You know, government comes in and has done so many things that override the free market. You know, OSHA is an example of overriding the free market.

OSHA doesn't make any sense from a free market standpoint. Environmental regulations override the free market. Trust busting and monopolistic controls, anti-monopolistic controls, they override the free market. a shitty way to live for everybody. So there's always a balance between governmental control and regulation and the Wild West free market. So this idea that because people are upset as power and wealth continues to coalesce into a smaller and smaller handful of people and corporations, as people express their concern and frustration about that, the idea that that's anti-capitalist, that's a liar's idea. There's no such thing as capitalism and a totally free market in the States. There hasn't been since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. No, I agree.

I think I totally agree with you. I think that, you know, there has to be some sort of regulation. If we if you start pulling away regulations, problems happen. See 2008. Right. You know what I mean? Like, all you have to do is roll back the clock three years and look at the fall of 2008 and say, what the fuck happened? was is that Wall Street nearly collapsed. And there was just this like just complete panic with our markets because nobody knew what to do, because everything was fucking built on a house of cards, because there wasn't any regulation and because people were were selling these loans because they could make money. There's a lot of blame that can get thrown around there. But a lot of people like to just pretend that all it was was people that, you know, that you hear about it all the time. The Democrats, the Democrats allowed people that could have never gotten loans to get a loan. No, it was the banks that it wasn't fucking, you know, wasn't Obama on fucking cold calls being

like, you know, you really need to give this guy a loan. You know, it wasn't like that. It's these are people that are just like, hey, man, we could make a fuck ton of money if I trick this guy into getting a loan and not even trick him, just fucking convince him to get a loan, convince this guy to get a loan. And I can make a shit ton of money. People pulling down fucking outrageous salaries because people were gobbling that fucking shit up. Well, then it falls apart. Now what?

It was fucking a house of cards and it wouldn't have been a house of cards if there was more strict regulation in there. Shit, Tom, you're not a fucking financial analyst and you knew it was a fucking house of cards three years before it fucking fell. You were telling me this is not a fucking sustainable way to fucking treat the housing industry. It's not sustainable. And you told me three years before it collapsed. Maybe sooner you told me that.

Because it never made any sense. You know, I used to be a closer. I used to close loans, and I would go out. I would drive out to these homes that were garbage. I mean, they were awful homes. They were places that honestly, I've been to homes that should have been bulldozed, that were unsafe to live in, that were in terrible neighborhoods. And I would close a loan for somebody who, you know, made $2,000 a month, who was, you know, and they're, and they're closing loans that

are 250, 300, $400,000. Oh my God. And you look at it and you're like, your, your payment on this loan exceeds your monthly income. It's more than you make. Your home isn't worth what they say your home's worth. And I closed hundreds of these loans, hundreds of them. It was crazy. It never made any sense. And it broke the back of the U.S. economy. Yep. And here we are, and Herman Cain is saying, well, that was three years ago.

Yeah. Well, when you break your back, you don't just, you know, snap to the next day. Unless you're the Hulk. Unless you're the Hulk. Herman Cain is the Hulk. It's just in. He doesn't get on a plane. He just jumps from fucking pole location to, like, the new fucking place where they're going to have the debate.

He just jumps back and forth. Cain, man. Somebody needs to draw Herman Cain as the Hulk. Okay, that is your aside. That's phenomenal. Rick Perry says his vaccine mandate on young girls was about cancer. This was about trying to stop a cancer. Only doctors opposed Perry's order for safety reasons,

and the pro-family Texas Eagle Forum said it was all about the money for his campaign and for his cronies. Even worse, Rick Perry's wife had worked for the company that makes the vaccine. Now, the question is about Rick Perry's character. Paid for and authorized by Keep Conservatives United. The Republican Party is having some problems with vaccines. Doesn't surprise me over much since they have a problem with science and medicine and dinosaurs.

But they're having some problems with vaccines. A pro-Michelle Bachman ad and her comments regarding Rick Perry's stance on the HPV vaccine. They seem to be getting weirder and crazier, Cecil.

And it's kind of nice that the two nut huts, like the two biggest crazies. Yeah. And I think it's saying something when Mitt Romney, who's a guy who wears magic underpants, isn't one of those people. Right. It's amazing, isn't it? When you're saying, oh, yeah, the guy with the magic underpants, he's probably the best of the lot. Right.

So when you got the two most extreme and they're just bickering like kids and they don't know how to do it right, Cecil. You know what I love? I absolutely love that this ad was paid for by Keep Conservatives United dot com. I love that this ad was paid for by KeepConservativesUnited.com. I love that this ad was paid for by that. I think it's great. I mean, you know, if you can actually freeze frame this at 27 seconds and it says, what about Rick Perry's character and right underneath KeepConservativesUnited.com. I know. I love it.

I know. Here's what they're doing. They're going through all of this information and throwing a bunch of information at you. And this is at factcheck.org. And they're saying all of the information in this thing, most of the information in this little commercial is false. It's just not true. And they're saying like, oh, Perry's wife worked for Merck. And you're like, yeah,

like 10 years before he made the decision and only part time, you know, like you, but they'll pull that out. And this is exactly what politicians do, right, in these commercials. And that's why you've got to say during political season, my best advice to you is

never watch a single political commercial. I completely agree. Never watch a single one. I urge everybody who's going to vote to watch the debates, watch the actual moderated debates. If you want to and you think you need to, go to the actual websites and read, but don't watch anything because they will manipulate you. They will try to manipulate you. I saw a fucking Rick Perry ad recently. It looked like Braveheart. He's like fucking riding on a horse and he's like fucking like Rick Perry's fucking swooping into the, save the government. And they show like all this stuff like beforehand about like how the

government's going down and they show Obama saying, we're sick of all this stuff and I'm going to promise you change on and on and on. And they keep showing like fucking like Wall Street failing and all this. And it's like fucking completely manipulative. And it doesn't help anyone. It doesn't, you know, this doesn't, when you watch shit like this, you just see how bad our political system has become. And I want to say too, as a throwback to those Wall Street folks, you know, yeah, you're out there protesting now. Get your fucking ass to

a ballot box when it comes time in fucking in. And I'm talking in the primaries, too, because there's elections every, you know, every like twice a year. I think in the upcoming year, there's going to be two times you get a chance to elect people. And you get a chance to not only elect people, but you also get a chance to decide who's going to run against the president. You get a chance sometimes in certain states. You get a chance to decide that shit. Get to a fucking polling station. I understand you fucking up in arms now. Be up in arms in six months and a year.

Please do it. Please come to a fucking polling station. I don't understand why more people don't vote. I don't, I mean, it only takes moments to fucking vote. I mean, it really does. Right. Fucking vote. If you care at all.

I mean, if you care even so much to turn on Colbert, vote. Just vote. Yeah. It's not that big a deal. The Republicans are tearing them, like these two idiots are just tearing themselves apart. They're tearing themselves apart. And I think it's delightful as somebody who thinks both of these people are fucking lunatics. I think this is awesome.

Like they need to have more unity. If this is their version of unity, unity. Yeah, I would I would like to see more unity. So going back to a an ongoing segment that will randomly smatter into our show as we see fit. Just forget. That's the problem. I know. I'm going to forget. We're like, oh, we got this fun segment, and then we just fucking forget

about it. Well, to be fair, we have no other segments. Right? This is the only thing that it's his own thing. Yeah, it's true. And we can't remember it. You know what we should do is we should write it on our hand. So from Conservapedia, the trustworthy encyclopedia, it says right underneath it, we have Minutemen Border Patrol. It's so funny because I just listened the other day to This American Life about these guys.

The Minuteman Border Control is a group of concerned volunteer citizens that help federal border agents with defending the borders of the United States. Enforcing America's sovereignty? I love defending. I love that that's the word they chose is defending the borders. I like enforcing America's sovereignty. Like, all of a sudden there's going to be a threat to the fact that we're a sovereign nation. I want to see the guy be like,

I claim this land for Mexico. Like some guy, like, they're flooding over and planting flags, and we're just like, fuck, we lost Nevada. I'm like, that's not good. These groups target states that border Mexico to prevent unauthorized entry of illegal immigrants, including Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. They advocate a secure border, which includes the construction of a border fence system and a virtual fence system.

That's actually to catch virtual immigrants. It is. Anybody who surfs the web near the border, they're fucked. They get caught in the virtual fence every time. It's a bitch. It really is. President Carmen Mercer, the Minuteman's Civil Defense Corps, has disbanded the organization.

Civil Defense Corps. Wow. This just, I love America because you can name anything anything. Right? Like, this is a country that has a bank called Fifth Third Bank. Right? One and two thirds bank. How does that even work a bank called Fifth Third Bank. Right? One in two thirds bank. How does that even work?

He said the mental attitude of many Americans is turning meaner. And we are concerned that this could cause problems. What does that even mean? I don't know. Like that last sentence doesn't make any sense. The meanies. You guys are a bunch of meanies. Taking my illegal immigrants and going home.

Rising aggression in the country, U.S., Mexico, and decisions by lawmakers in Washington who have pushed amnesty down our throats. Pushed amnesty down our throats. Amnesty isn't something that has been pushed down our throats. Amnesty isn't something that's real pushed down our throat. Amnesty isn't something that's real. There's not been amnesty granted. If it's been pushed down our throats, shouldn't we be choking on it by now? We fucking spat that shit out. No.

What I don't understand is the last line, Tom. It says, Jim Gilchrist's Minutemen Project organization is still in operation with chapters in over 15 states. I don't understand is the last line, Tom. It says, Jim Gilchrist's Minutemen Project organization is still in operation with chapters in over 15 states. I don't understand that either. Don't tell me they're on the Canadian border. Do not tell me they're up in fucking Washington watching the border, making sure the Canadians don't fucking sneak down here. Don't sneak down here and what? Fucking use our health care system? Right.

What the fuck? They're just showing up and being? Fucking use our healthcare system? Right. What the fuck? They're just showing up and being like, whoa, this isn't better. It's just a little warmer. This is shitty. That's the only thing we have. That's it. It's just like, whoa, it's warmer. We can't even make fun of Canadians' money anymore. I know.

I was just in Canada and I was like trying to make jokes about like, do you take real money? And then they're like, yeah, we take a lot of your fucking real money. Yeah. Idiot. Give me three for the one. You fool. Yeah. Fool.

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty. I love, too, that it says like this is confusing. Right. Because the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps has disbanded, according to two sentences above. Right, sure. But it's still in operation in 15 states.

What? This trustworthy encyclopedia is confusing. I am not convinced it's very trustworthy, actually. I'm not convinced it's an encyclopedia. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers! I want the truth.

You can't handle the truth. And we need to end our show with what I think is my favorite story of the week. I'm going to go ahead and read the whole thing. This is from Asia One News, a Singapore press holdings portal. Hubby claims wife raped by invisible man. A man has claimed that his wife was raped by an invisible man, Sin Shu Daily reported. The youth in his 20s said his wife would remove her clothing, touch her own body, and moan while sleeping at night since a month ago. I'm going to be in my bunk. He sought help from a medium who then told him someone had used black magic to take away the wife's soul and rape her. The couple from Bintua, Saralock.

That's not a place. Lodged a police report, but the police could not do anything to arrest the invisible man. It's very difficult to arrest invisible people. Your wife is masturbating, dude. I got to break it to you, dude. It's in Malaysia. I just looked it up.

This place is in Malaysia. Fucking reach over, dude. Yeah, let's join in. You know, I think that's an invitation there, son. If I woke up and my wife's like fucking naked and fucking writhing around, I'd be like, hmm, Jackie P for me. Time for me to perform my marital duties. What is wrong with – this guy is a guy in his 20s. I know.

And he's married. Like you haven't seen this before? I don't. Maybe he hasn't. So the other thing I want to talk about... She never responds to me like that. The other thing I want to talk about is the picture here with the image of the legs

wrapped around the pillow there. I know. It's so awesome. They should arrest the pillow. I can't do anything but chuckle at that. It's not an invisible man. It's obviously a pillow. Like, cops show up and they're, like, tasing the pillow. Like, it an invisible man. It's obviously a pillow. The cops show up and they're tasing the pillow. Like, it's not working.

He's continuing to resist. The invisible man has gotten away. He's full of downy goodness. I love that it's an invisible man. She's over there fucking rubbing one out, dude. Figure it out. The fuck? You could fucking lend a hand,

my good man. She's playing with the pearl. Figure it out, dude. This is a win-win, and you're still managing to lose. He called the cops. He called the cops. Why are you waiting for advice? Look it up on the internet. How does the cop show up and be like, you want us to do what now?

Arrest an invisible man because a medium told you that your wife's soul was being raped? What? Wait, your wife is doing what? I have to investigate. Wait out here. All right, so we want to start our email section with a message we got from Mike. Now, Mike sent us a message, and he said, the title was Marriage in America, and he says, love the podcast.

Thought you might be able to have some fun with this. Keep up the good work. Mike, I just want to mention that you sent us like 40 pages of random code. Like, that's all it is. Yes, did not work. I think my computer's actually been taken over by your computer. I'm not sure. Um, but you just sent us a big batch of code. So if you want to resend that, uh, then we'd be able to talk about it, but I didn't see anything that was in there.

No, I, I, I couldn't view it either. It looks like me trying to do a something on a computer. I'm sympathetic because that is basically every email I've ever sent. Right. It looks like you hired a couple monkeys just to type for three days. Randomly. Bang on the keyboard. We got an email from Drew. We had mentioned Drew last time. Drew tried to post us a crazy textbook.

We trumped his crazy textbook with the crazier, crazier textbook. So Drew's also got a show, and, and it's a philosophy over beers. He's got a website philosophy over beers.com. We'll post a link to it. Um, it looks terrific. Uh, we, I watched, I watched a minute and a half clip on there. That's the maximum attention span I'm able to sustain at any one given time. Um, clearly your skills with, to computers is tremendous because I, I, I, I can barely even watch this thing. I actually know After Effects and know the amount of time that he put into that. And it looks, it looks spectacular, Drew. Great job. We got some more Android app feedback, Cecil from Dusty. I like this because like this because we've only sold two Android apps.

Right. So we've gotten feedback twice. The other Android app we sold was bought by my wife. Right, right. So I bought the other one. This is great, though. Fucking awesome. Two shows in a week. I agree, Cecil. It is the damn Rapture. You guys suck big, wet yak balls. Yak balls this time. Are those bigger? They got to be bigger than donkey balls.

Why are they wet? What's with this yak? Well, we're sucking on them. No, we're sucking on them. They're going to be wet. Well, I'm very glad to fillet yak balls for you, Dusty. If it gets me feedback, I guess I'll do whatever it takes at this point. James sent us a photo, and I'm just going to post the photo.

I'm not going to tell you about it. Just go find the photo on our website. James, thanks for sending it. It entails the Pope. That's all I'm saying. The Pope is in a photo. If you want to see the Pope in a photo, you have to go to our website. So we also got an email from Luke.

Luke has some suggestions for the show. I'm not going to go over all the suggestions for the show that he had. I appreciate that very much. If anybody has suggestions for the show, segments you'd like to hear, ways that you think we could improve our show other than me spending money and buying a decent microphone, I would love to hear it. So send us these suggestions. Luke, thank you very much. Luke also sent us a couple of clips that he suggests we might use in our intro. These are good clips. We listened to them. Thank you. We'll definitely consider these. Again, we really enjoy getting this kind of feedback from our listeners. And thank you very much for the email, Luke. I want to mention too, he says,

you know, one of the things he says in this email is he says that there's a lot of times that we agree and that, you know, sometimes we don't take the devil's advocate side. And I'm going to just throw this out there that a lot of times there is no devil's advocate side when it comes to skeptic stuff. There really isn't. On the one side, you have like crazy woo, and on the other side, you have reason and science. And there's, there's no way either Tom or I is going to take a side. That's going to be like, yeah, Steve jobs should have fucking changed his diet. No, I don't think either of us is ever going to say that. And I think the reason why is because, you know, like we just, we just fall on this side of the spectrum. And a lot of times politically, Tom and I just fall on this side of the spectrum. Neither of us are really

going to just step up and, and, and just try to disagree. I think just to disagree. I don't think that we're going to be able to do that. Yeah. I don't want it to be dishonest, but we do appreciate the feedback. I mean, I, I don't want to seem like we're just saying thanks, but no thanks, but thanks. No, thanks. We appreciate it. No, thank you, Luke. That is, that is good. I just wanted to mention that one thing where you, you mentioned, you know, it'd you mentioned it might be better if we argued a little more. I get that. I understand that. And there's a lot of people even in the Movie Review podcast that we do where they're like, well, you guys agree on everything.

It's like, well, if I didn't say – if I came out and just tried to be argumentative, to be argumentative, it would be disingenuous. It just wouldn't make any sense. Right. We got – I got to say ZV470 on Twitter. He's great. He always retweets stuff for us Always mentions us, recommends our podcast Thanks ZV470 The guy lives in New Zealand, he's awesome

I read his tweets, he's a great dude So thank you again, we really appreciate it We also got a tweet that included A link to Religion Poisons, this is a blog Religionpoisons.wordpress.com um i i just want to talk real quick cecil about the image on the top image best banner ever it says thank you jesus and it's got this woman like with her arms up and like looking up at the sky because jesus is north

for helping me find my car keys he's got an athlete with his hands clasped together. For letting me throw that touchdown. And then it's got the most horrific image of a starving baby. There's no text underneath it. So if you want to go there, like Tom said, it's religionpoisons.wordpress.com. We will be, religionspoisons is the name of the Twitter account. So we will be, Religions Poisons is the name of the Twitter account. So we will be going to your blog.

I'm going to put it on my blog list to go and check some stuff out. So we'll probably use you in the future. Thanks for sending your blog to us.

And if you have a skeptical blog and you'd like us to mention it, or if you have a skeptical podcast you'd like us to mention, feel free to send it

to us, guys. We're going to throw you shout outs because we love that this community is so tightly knit and that they communicate like this and that they get ideas off of each other. We love that about this community. It's this sort of idea that knowledge reciprocates itself and it just keeps on growing. So yeah, send us stuff.

We'll mention it. It's almost like we're creating like a virtual border patrol against nonsense. And with that, we will leave you with the skeptics' 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. 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. Nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody. Evidential. Conclusive. Doubt even this. 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. Send us an email at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com.

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