Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 18: Herman Cain is not Abel

Episode Date: October 25, 2011

Clips: Orson Wells on Cold Reading, Herman Cain on WSJ, Sarah Palin on Fox News, Herman Cain and Uzbekistan on Think Progress, Anonymous, A Few Good Men. Stories: Rapture again, Rick Santorum and Abe Lincoln, Dan Savage wants Herman Cain to suck his dick, Herman Cain said Jesus was killed by a Liberal Court, Herman Cain 999, Michelle Bachmann doesn't know where Libya is, Herman Cain and Uzbekistan, Anonymous takes down child porn on Darknet, Tea party suggests business owners don't hire to spite Obama, Woman Beaten with frozen armadillo.

I got interested in mind reading and fortune telling, fake fortune telling, you know. And I got to know a lot of old fakes who had retired as millionaires, you know. And they told me their secrets, how you do it. They have things that are called cold readings. A cold reading is you warm up the sucker by telling him things that he says, how could he ever know that, you see? You say, you know, between the ages of 13 and 15, you had a great change came in your life. But that happens in everybody's life.

But he says, he came in and told me things I already see. You've got a scar on your knee. Everybody fell down and has a scar on their knee. Those are cold readings, you see. I have a scar on my knee. fell down and has a scar on their knee those are cold readings you see i have now i have a scar how did you know that yeah you see just something bigger than myself well now the point about this is that you after they're warmed up they're amazed by this knee bit and the rest of it they start telling you because you just say is it sitting you see from their face it is or it isn't then you tell it back and they say how did he do it you see so i was bored i was playing in kansas city with katherine cornell one time and we didn't have any matinee on wednesday so i hired a room and put

dr swami fortune teller you know two dollar two dollar readings for a whole day i was a fortune teller faking but then there began to happen to me the thing that does happen to fortune tellers, and which is the occupational disease of fraudulence, fortune tellers. And they have a name for it. It's called becoming a shut-eye. And a shut-eye in the argo of these crooks is the fellow who begins to believe himself. You see, and you make these wild guesses. One of them explained to me, he says,

supposing you're a night clerk in a hotel, and when you get the job, first of all, a fellow comes in and wants a single room. You look at how good his luggage is, how good are his shoes, and you tell him there's a room in the court, there's no room more. Yes, sir, depending on various pieces of evidence. He says, you've been a night clerk long

enough you glance and you tell him you've been a night clerk a little longer and you don't have to look the computer in here has made all of those deductions without you being conscious of it so the mind reader gets so that he without thinking does that and then they say it's true and the woman came in to me at the end of my my career as a fraudulent fortune teller in a bright print dress sat down looking perfectly all right and i said you've lost your husband last week and she burst into tears she had and then i quit And then I quit. Yes, it's one of those things.

Undoubtedly, it's not psychic. Undoubtedly, there was evidence of a tragedy. There was all kinds of things that went into the computer and got processed without me crookedly thinking what I'm going to say to her. And that's how it works, Evie. 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, Matt. This show is a landmark show. Listeners, heads snap up at this point. I can hear it. I can hear it. You know, everybody listening to this show thought that we would all be raptured by this point. I know it. You know, we're recording. It's post-rapture. I'm actually in hell right now. We actually, we initially got raptured. Then we got re-raptured.

It was just, it was a paperwork thing, you know. They didn't file it correctly in triplicate. I did play the Blondie song just – but only about a third of it because it's such a bad song. That song has the worst rap in it ever. Like the worst rap. Like the guy who was actually recording it with her was like, you're really going to say this? Like you're really going to say this? And she's like, yeah, yeah.

I'm going to talk about cars and people in bars. And, yeah, it's going to be awesome. Also, more Coke, please. Yeah. So we've just got to snap right into my favorite personal story of the week. Harold Camping seems to have disappeared. Perhaps it was a personal rapture, like a one-person rapture. Because he has canceled his show.

He's dropped out of sight, is what the news reports. I think that's an amusing way to phrase that. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. The fucking rapture. It was just, you know, here's the thing. It's a personal rapture, right? You know, like, you here it's a personal rapture right you know like you have to have a personal relationship with jivas so you get a personal rapture why would we share a rapture can't can't we get a little fucking individual attention

no god i'll be ridiculous what i love is what i love is that he answers the door in like his bathrobe and his walker and then he says to the people outside, we are not having a conversation. He said shaking his head with a chuckle. There's nothing to report here. Oh, Harold, you fucking douchebag. You convinced all these people in fucking May to like fucking get rid of their fortune, fucking disowned members of their family. Hell, one lady tried to fucking cut her own kid's jugular veins. Right.

And you're just like, oh, there's no story here. I disagree, Harold. I think there's a great fucking story here. And the story is you're a fucking idiot. If he had any integrity at all, he'd be liquidating all of his assets and trying to give a portion of that money back to the people who donated it. I haven't heard that story. I hear like a wry chuckle like, well, it looks like I was wrong again.

Yeah, it's fucking hilarious. Tell that to the fucking poor people. During a recession. Who gave you all their money? Oh, I'm sorry. We're not technically in a recession anymore. We're in a downturn, Tom. It's a downturn.

You know, what I just want to say about this, though, is that, you know, he predicted it once. He predicted it again. He's like, oh, yeah, I kind of fucked up. And, you know, it's going to be five months from now. Now is he going to keep on having it? So next time he's like, oh, yeah, I kind of fucked up. And, you know, it's going to be five months from now. Now is it now is he going to keep on having it? So next time he's like, no, no, I messed up. It's two and a half months from now. He predicted this in 1994.

Then he predicted it again recently. Then he repredicted it. And each time he said the same thing, right? He said, oh, you know, it's a math error. Get a calculator. Check your math. You know, don't trust 90-year-olds to do math either. That's also another lesson we can glean from this.

So Santorum's made some more insightful comments proving that he is a strong candidate for the GOP nomination. In that he equated gay marriage or his fight against gay marriage to Lincoln's fighting against slavery. This is exactly how he frames it. I have been a longtime advocate for states' rights. However, I believe, as Abraham Lincoln did, that states don't have the right to legalize moral wrongs. And what he's saying is the legalizing of moral wrongs in Abraham Lincoln's day was slavery.

And today legalizing moral wrongs is gay marriage in the, in the like fucking three places in the United States. You can actually fucking do it. What he's missing the point. It's not about moral wrongs. It's about freedom, right? Like,

let's look at it in that lens. Instead of looking at it as, I think something is wrong, let's look at it in a different lens. Let's say, I think that people should be free. People should be free. Now, what is that? Let's look at Abraham Lincoln. He thought people should be free.

So he, you know, worked on freeing the slaves with a lot of other people. Right, right. So I think, you know, homosexuals should have the freedom to marry whoever they want. If that person happens to be of the same sex, they happen to be of the same sex. I agree. Suddenly I am akin to Abe Lincoln because I agree. I agree in freedom. I believe in freedom. I think that's a better analogy than what he's trying to get. Yeah. That analogy actually kind of works. You know, this this idea that states should not have the right to legalize moral wrongs, it presupposes his position as unattackable that gay marriage is a moral wrong.

It's easy to say that slavery is a moral wrong. You have an injured party. You have human beings treated as fucking property. Right. Bought and sold at marketplaces. I mean, there is a clear victim in the case of slavery. You know, actually, in the case of slavery, it's more like 12 million victims. Sure, yeah.

Who's the victim? In order for something to be a moral wrong, don't I have to have a victim? Don't you have to be able to stand up and display in front of me the person who's been damaged by a consensual long-term partnership with a loving adult? Well, that's Rick Santorum. He's been damaged. Fairorum. He's been damaged. Fair enough.

He's been damaged. Fair enough. It's a moral wrong. Yeah. I think these people who compare themselves to great figures in politics and in philosophy and in religious figures, that's never a good idea, right? Nobody has ever come out smelling like roses when they compare themselves to Lincoln, Rosa Parks or Jesus. People do it all the time, like every election cycle.

Somebody is doing that. Right. And every election cycle, people like, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's always the people that are so far. It's like it's like the whitest guy comparing himself to Rosa Parks. Right. You know, it's never President Obama being like, you know what? Rosa Parks and me. You know, it's never that guy. It's always like fucking McCain, who's like, you know what? I sat with Rosa Parks. Actually, I bounced her on my fucking knee. 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 they 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 so herman cain um dan savage has called out herman cain herman cain's made some comments um regarding his stance on gay marriage and homosexuality. And really one of the more controversial things that he said is that he believes that homosexuality is a choice. In fact, he said something along the lines of, you know, show me the science and maybe

I'll be convinced. And I have to say, I actually, when I heard him say that, I thought, okay, at least he would be willing to ostensibly, I don't know if I believe him, but at least he's saying that he would be willing to revisit his stance. Sorry, I don't believe him. In the face of evidence. I don't believe that because the evidence is fucking legion. And so to remain ignorant of it is to remain at this point, I think, willfully ignorant. Right. I think that's true.

It's kind of the creationist stance, right? Like, hey, hey, whoa, show me the evidence. Like, well, here's the evidence. Oh, show me the evidence. Fucking I am showing you the evidence. I fucking rolled the evidence into a fucking paper log and I am beating you over the fucking head with the evidence. I'm swatting you like a disobedient dog with the evidence. Like someone's just going to like walk up to you with like a scientific paper,

whack him on the nose with it. Look what you did here, Herman. Look what you did here. Rub his nose in it. Rub his nose in the Santorum. Rub his nose in some Santorum. Well, I think Dan Savage has had enough of it. Dan Savage mentioned on the show previously.

He's a syndicated sex columnist. He's also got a podcast, Savage Love. He called out Herman Cain and basically said, hey, in fact, I'll read it. If being gay is a choice, show us the proof. Choose it. Choose to be gay yourself. Show America how that's done, Herman. show us the proof choose it choose to be gay yourself show america how that's done herman show us how a man can choose to be gay suck my dick herman name the time and the place and i'll bring my dick and a camera crew and you can suck me off

and win the argument very sincerely yours dan savage. That's fucking brilliant. You know, we talked about this a couple weeks ago when we were like, well, you know, when was the time in your life, you know, conservative politicians, conservative guys that think being gay is a choice? When was the time that you choose to be straight? When was that time? Because ask any – like I can ask any of my straight friends and hell, I'll ask you right now, Tom. Tom, are you attracted to any males like sexually? No. Neither am I.

No, I'm just not. I'm just not. That doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means that I'm not. So I know I'm a heterosexual. Like I just know that I am and I know it because that's how – I can't just choose to be gay. I can't just walk and be like, damn, that dude is fine. It just doesn't – those words just don't work for me.

So I know that I am a straight person. Everybody who is straight knows that they're straight. And they somehow have this awful problem like they think everybody is born straight. What Herman Cain is trying to say – here's what Herman Cain is trying to say is that everybody is born straight. So you don't have to prove that you're straight. You don't have to choose that you're straight. Right, right. Straight is the default. Straight is the default.

Yeah. So you have to choose to be gay. That's what he's saying. Anybody who's straight should understand why that argument doesn't work, right? Because I could no more choose to be gay than a gay person would choose to be – could choose to be straight. And what would the incentive be? In our society, there's no benefit either. It's not like being gay has a benefit.

It actually has a detriment. Suddenly you get bullied. Suddenly you get gay bashed to death. Suddenly you get people like Herman Cain, you know, basically saying that you're a faker. Right, yeah, that you've chosen to live a lifestyle that ostracizes you from friends, family, and community. The thing I think that I really want to focus on, though, Tom, I mean, Tom, I mean I think obviously we've talked about this shit in the past. But one of the things I want to focus on is this article in particular. I had found out this story a while back and I think you and I had even talked about it and joked about it.

But this article in particular, when I just did a search to sort of put it in our notes, I found this article was really scathing, just like attacking Dan Savage for saying this, like how horrible of a thing to say to Herman Cain. And I was just baffled by this article. Yeah, well, the article, I think, takes too seriously what's obviously a joke. Dan Savage isn't really saying, hey, let's get together for a sexual rendezvous, Herman Cain. If you think that, you're so stupid. Yeah, it's he's making a point and he's making a point in a humorous way.

It's it's a fucking satirical point. And this article misses the point and instead treats it as if it was like a genuine offer to allow Herman Cain to fillet him. You know, and that's I don't that's not at all like, you know, he said he uses the phrase suck my dick. You know, you don't you rarely actually have that action performed when that's how you present the offer. Right. Well, I don't know about you, Tom, but it seems to work for me. Right. Yeah. We'll move forward from here, but I'm going to doubt that very much you seem incredulous i don't know it's how you don't believe me you know that this article that that's that suggests um you know and it goes on to suggest that it is at best megalomaniacal for savage to assume that being

sexually attracted to men necessarily implies being sexually attracted to dan savage he's not fucking saying that stupid yeah what he's saying is herman cain isn't gonna suck anybody's dick because herman cain's not gay and herman cain knows he's not gay just like dan savage knows he's not gonna eat any pussy because he's not straight that's how that fucking works you don't perform oral sex on fucking genders you're unattracted to not that you will perform oral sex on anyone in the gender you're attracted to he's not really saying that you dimwit you know i'm heterosexual i'm not attracted to all women i'm just like all women are equal ah plus you know i have to say like fucking read dan savage's column i

know be familiar with his body of work before you talk about one of the things he has done god damn what a stupid motherfucker that guy is that's a dumb fucking article great question i think what helps is for that politician to have a foundation of having come from the real people of America, the working class, those who make up the majority of Americans who are so extremely concerned about the direction of our country. Take Herb Cain. So Herman Cain, man, I like this guy, Cecil. I like the GOP's field right now because it's a crazy field. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

And Herman Cain, initially, I was like, oh, he seems harmless. Oh, no, no, no, no. December 2010, GOP presidential primary candidate complains that Jesus was killed by liberals. And this is not out of context. Allow me to read this. After running through a list of reasons Cain believes Jesus to be a model right-winger, that's a stretch, the presidential contender concludes that the liberal court was responsible for his death.

The liberal court found him guilty of false offenses and sentenced him to death, all because he changed the hearts and minds of men with an army of 12. His death reset the clock of time. Never before and not since has there ever been such a perfect conservative. This is the greatest story. Mike posted this on our Facebook. And I have to say, this is a great find. One of my favorite parts of the article says, but his claim is baffling for all kinds of reasons.

Michael says, but his claim is baffling for all kinds of reasons, only one of which is the fact that liberals tend to be ideologically opposed to capital punishment. You want to say, OK, look, Jesus was a fucking hippie. If there was a liberal in the world that people look up to, it's fucking Jesus. I mean, he's a fucking he's rolling around, you know, feeding the poor, flipping over the fucking money changers place. I mean, he said he occupied the synagogue back then. He's like by Jerusalem. Yeah. It was OG. Yeah. He was fucking totally down. Like he's like an occupied, he was a fucking 99 percenter. Like, give me a break. Like Jesus was not a fucking – Jesus was not a conservative. And like really the idea that he would even bring this up.

Why would you even bring this up? Like the only reason you're doing this is to cater to the evangelical vote. Right. Like the only reason you're – because you're not doing this to cater to the normal person. Like the normal person doesn't care whether or not you fucking – you are like the embodiment of Jesus or whatever. Nobody cares. Like the normal person in this country does not give a fuck. It's the crazy people who will not vote for you because to conserve a status quo, that you want to look back at sort of an idealized time and function within that time period, right?

But Jesus was kind of a radical. Wasn't Jesus' whole thing thing about like like challenging authority and challenging the status quo wasn't that like a big part of why they fucking killed him 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.

So Herman Cain's got a problem with his 999 plan, and it's not that he's giving away pizzas too cheap. Five dollar, five dollar put, Lord. His 999 tax plan, really, for the godfather of pizza, this was a bad decision. I'm sorry. I just don't,

fucking A, really? Really? Anyway, for the, God, really? Fucking $9.99 tax plan? Can I get pepperoni on it?

Anyway. Oh, God. So, his $9.99 tax plan, he keeps saying things like, do the math. Just do the math. You know, he doesn't really expound on it in any meaningful sense. He's just like, do the math. And then people do the math and they're like, but people pay more money.

Yeah. That's more money. A lot more money. Not an insubstantial amount more money. And the people who pay the most? Wait for it. Lower middle class Americans. Of course.

He was hoping that we were going to use like Harold Camping's math. That's what he was hoping. Well, you know, 999 is a biblically significant number. Flip it over. Michelle Bachman was concerned about it. If you invert the number. Oh, gosh. Really?

So if I change the number into a different number and then reference your imaginary book, it's scary? 668 is the neighbor of the beast. You can't go with 667 either. It's just before. It's like the predecessor. It's like Junior the Beast, you know, like – So – 12, 12, 12, 12 is fucking horrifying by the way.

That's just – because that's like double the beast, man. Oh, man. That's a shitty fucking dice roll too. Double coupon Tuesday at the Beast store. It's terrible. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. So, okay, what is this plan really talking about here? What he's trying to say is that there would be a 9% sales tax.

There would be a 9% dollars that would come out of your wages, and then businesses would have a 9% tax. And one of the things that they're pointing out, which I think rightfully so, is that the businesses would have to fucking pass that on to the fucking employee or the customer in some way. Right. Because they're not willing to take that fucking tax on themselves because it's a brand new tax. They'll just be like, well, I guess we'll just get taxed. They're not going to do that. They're going to find a way to defer that cost. So they're either going to raise their prices for goods, which you're going to have to pay as the consumer, or they're going to raise their they're going to raise the lower the wage for workers, which you're going to pay as an employee.

So there's no way that this is not going to work its way down the fuck. I mean, shit rolls downhill, right? That's the fucking that's the fucking line. Well, shit is going to roll downhill. Shit is going to roll downhill. If they do this, they're going to the person who is the lowest on the ladder is going to get fucked because of this. A nine percent sales tax. It I think that is that is kind of ridiculous.

Here's a system you could use. You know, for every, like, certain amount of money that you make, why don't you get a separate sales tax? Why don't you have to show people a card that has your sales tax on it? A progressive tax that gets progressively more as more people – because the people that make the most money spend the least amount of money fucking providing regular things for themselves because they don't – like there's no way a person who makes a million dollars a year is eating way more than I am and spending all that money on regular stuff than I am. Like it's not. Truffles and saffron. Those people are thin anyway, Tom. So there's no way they're eating more than me anyway, period. Okay?

But secondly, there's just no way that they're spending that kind of money to subsist, right, just to live. Right. So the fact is is that they're getting off paying a lot less in taxes because most of their money isn't going to buying things for themselves like all the rest of us. So it's a regressive tax. It's naturally regressive to have a national sales tax.

Now, if you give people out or you give them less taxes as the lower they go, then that makes a little more sense at least if you're going to have a national sales tax. The other thing he's doing is taking away all the benefits of being married or not being married because in this country, you actually get penalized for being married or at least you did did i don't know if you still do i'm not sure uh but you you they take away the benefits of having children though because like the children you wouldn't get the exemption for the children you wouldn't have to pay though for like social security but then you wouldn't also have social security right yeah that's a bit of a bummer you know like where's my security i don't have any fucking security. Right. What? None of us pretend that we're going to have social security anyway.

I pretend, Cecil. I snuggle up to my social security teddy bear every night and I pretend so hard. Given the state of my current life, there's no way I'm going to make it to an age where social security is going to be collectible anyway. I wake up, I look in the mirror, I'm like, I got a fucking, I'm a fat man with a high stress lifestyle. Are you kidding me? 67? Work till you die, baby. That's how it rolls. Oh man, I'm dying young. This is a terrible plan. This is a terrible plan. And one of the things that his campaign folks say is the Kane campaigns, his plan will not hurt

people with lower incomes because under his plan employers would save four thousand dollars in social security taxes and that's that's the real point right save money for businesses and that money could then be passed along to employees creating a system which everyone benefits it will not get passed along to employees no No, of course not. We've talked about this. We've seen this. Evidence demonstrates that just because a business can pay more money to an employee doesn't mean that it will pay more money to an employee. conglomerate A who is answerable to its shareholders to provide to them a profit and to increase the value of their stock, that they're going to receive a benefit of $4,000 per employee. And let's say they employ, let's say they're a medium to large company and they

employ 75 to 100 people. You're really going to sell me that they're going to take, you know, three or four million dollars a year and just give it back because they can? Really? They're not going to do that. They don't have they it wouldn't even be fucking fiscally responsible for them to do that. They have a responsibility to their shareholders to make as much money as they can. It's not – corporations aren't set up to be moral entities. So this idea that like, well, they could just give it back to the employee. Yeah, but they won't. They won't because they could claim it as profit.

Yeah, and why would they? And the other thing too, I saw a fucking graph recently where they showed fucking all the – like imagine if – like a line and there's bar graph going up or below the line and the, and the blues, you know, there's a blue line that shows how much more we'd be paying. And it showed the, the, the, the five different classes based on 20%. So it's the lowest 20%, you know, the, the second highest 20% and the up, up, up until the top 20%.

And everybody up the 80% of the people, 80% of the people that are making money in this country would pay more taxes with Herman Cain in there. The only people that would benefit are the top 20%. And they were down by a little, but the top 1% were down by over $200,000 in taxes. And the top one, one 10th of 1%, they were down by 1 point four million in taxes. And the reason why, Tom, is because there's no more taxes on capital gains. They take that out. Right. So there's no more making money off money. You don't get taxed for that anymore. So those people that are at the very, very top that really don't have to work anymore,

that just make money off of having money, those people just get exponentially more wealthy because there's no more tax on that. So these people are making money off this country hand over fist and they're just going to keep making it and then they don't pay their own fair share. How is that fucking – how is that even remotely fair? Like they're supposed to be calling this a fair tax. There's nothing fair about it. And I don't understand how it benefits the economy in general. If the vast majority of Americans earn their money through wages, wages then drive the economy. That's the money that moves around in the country. That's the money that goes to purchase goods and services from local businesses. That's the money that goes to buy TVs. That's the money that goes to purchase health insurance, all that

that's the real money, that's when you buy a house when you buy a car, if most people are making their money from wages, then wages are moving the economy, so if you depress people's ability to spend wages by taxing wages at a rate higher than investment, then you're

going to create an economy that is slower, an economy where the money moves less, the majority of the money moves less. Now, I know that the majority of the money is controlled, not by wage earners, but by the ultra wealthy. But those people aren't taking that money and purchasing goods and services. They're taking that money and reinvesting that money in the stock market. They're reinvesting that money in bonds and other forms of investment,

some of which are incredibly esoteric. But that money isn't working to create jobs. That money is working to create more money. You want to push the economy forward. You've got to put money in the hands of the people who spend money. Lord, the day is at hand. We are in the last days. You are Jehovah God.

So Michelle Bachman, another leader, not actually a leader any longer, in the GOP, she's a little geographically challenged cecil she doesn't seem to understand the location of such countries and when i say location i don't mean she can't find them on a map i mean she can't identify the continent how many continents do we have again seven and one of them antarctica We only have to contend with six? Right. You really only have to do six because one of them is easy to remember. And the other one is Australia?

That's just one country. So we're down to five. You've got to remember, boom, five continents. Yeah. North America has got three countries. You narrowed down to four. Right? I'm sorry.

Ain't that fucking hard, dum-dum. Yeah. It's really not that hard. She thought that what she said was now with the president, he's put us in Libya and he's now putting us into Africa. We're already stretched too thin. And and he put special operation forces in Africa. And she wasn't referring to Libya being in Africa. She was referring to other troops that we sent into the rest of Africa, even though Libya is directly in Africa. The article cracks me up because it just very dryly is like Libya, it should be noted, is in Africa, which is great.

You know, there's there's like this idea that the candidates don't need to know about. We don't need to know about those other countries. You know, I don't need to know if Libya is in Africa or, you know, Australia. It doesn't matter to me. You know, what do I care? And Herman Cain actually said, I don't know the president of Ubeki Beki Beki Stan Stan. So Michelle Bachman doesn't seem to think that it's important to know which continent. And we're not even talking about countries that we're not involved with.

I know. I know. We're talking about countries where we have fighter jets flying missions. Just figure out the continent, dum-dum. Just figure out the continent. Herman Cain doesn't think it's important. He doesn't seem to think it's important to know where Rebecca, Becca, Becky Sandstand is. I can't believe he said that. I can't. Let me just play that clip real quick for the audience here.

Are you ready for the gotcha questions? They're coming from the media and others on foreign policy. Who's the president of Rebecca Stan? You know, all of this stuff. It's coming. Yes. And how are you dealing with that? I'm ready for the gotcha questions. And they are already starting to come. And when they ask me who's the president of you, Becky, Becky, Becky, Becky, Stan, Stan, I'm going to say, you know, I don't know. Do you know?

And then I'm going to say, how's that going to create one job? I want to focus on the top priorities of this country. That's what leaders do. They make sure that the nation is focused on the critical issues with critical solutions. Knowing who is the head of some of these small, insignificant states around the world, I don't think that is something that's critical to focusing on national security and getting this economy going. What? Presidentialed. Really? Way to build bridges before you even get an office there, Herman.

That's good. You know, and the funny thing is that he chose Uzbekistan because I was just reading, you know, that Uzbekistan and the United States have actually been working toward creating a better relationship because it's important to have a relationship there in case we need entrance into pakistan uzbekistan is actually pretty conveniently located for some of our national security interests yeah so building relationships with what herman kane calls small insignificant countries is fucking important yeah i I don't understand how you could possibly support a group of people or a candidate who looks at your national policy and scoffs at the idea of being knowledgeable.

And it's like Dawkins said, you remember that article that Dawkins said of all the people in the United States that should be running for president, we get these people. We get the Bachmans. We get the Palins. You should fucking have somebody who's such a hyper genius that they could look at you and make your fucking head explode. Those are the people you want in office. You want somebody in there who when you say what's the capital of whatever the fuck, they could be like, yeah, I know the capital of that city. Oh, and they're important because.

Right. You know, not, I don't know who it is. Do you know who it is? Yeah, look, you know, 200 and whatever countries, I understand you don't know who the president of every country is. I think that's, but your approach to the information shouldn't be, well, that's not important. I don't care.

I don't care. Unimportant. How about, you know, I'm not really sure, but that's something that's important to. I don't care. I don't care. Unimportant. How about, you know, I'm not really sure, but that's something that's important to me and it's important to this country and I'll find out. And believe me, I'll do the research before engaging in a dialogue with them. Yeah. I'll respect their cultural traditions. You know, all the things that you need to do as somebody who's going to be the head of our foreign policy. And Michelle Bachman's the same way. She's like, and you know, like look, I understand what people are saying.

I think that there's some defense of this, of what she's saying. But I think it's pretty obvious that she didn't know that Libya was in Africa. I think it's pretty fucking obvious from that statement. She had no idea that Libya was in Africa. What she's – what people are trying to say is that she's referring to other places in Africa. But I think that's bullshit. You know, that's like her saying, well, here we are in the Middle East. Pretty soon we're going to other places in Africa. But I think that's bullshit. No. You know, that's like her saying,

well, here we are in the Middle East. Pretty soon we're going to have troops in Asia. Both Russia and Europe. Yeah. That's like her calling the Middle East a continent, though. Right, it is. You know what I mean? Like, referring to the Middle East as a continent. You're like, look, I'm not a fucking – I'm not a fucking constitutional scholar like you are, Mrs. Bachman.

And I'm not a fucking – I'm not a representative of my state. I don't – I certainly don't make the kind of money that you do. But I at least know that fucking Libya is part of fucking Africa. No, it's not sub-Saharan Africa, but it's Africa, and I know that. You don't have to have a JD from Oral Roberts University to figure this stuff out. You need a map. You need to have the interest in the world that is equivalent to an eighth grader in the model UN. Dear citizens of the Internet internet since its inception the world

wide web has become a prominent medium for individuals such as journalists and activists alike however a great injustice lurks beneath the surface a fun infestation of abhorrent animals have been growing parasitically spreading like cancer. Unknown to the world, it has consumed and victimized innocent children as well as adults. The growing trade of child pornography has become a major problem. While government organizations have put much effort into the dismantling of individuals and websites dedicated to this repulsive trade, the providers of this content have grown frustrated and moved their trades into a much seedier place known as the Darknado Network dedicated only to the iniquities that

are outcasted by the society we strive in. Unfortunately, a potentially benevolent resource has been corrupted by these sick and sadistic abominations of the world. When we came into this virtual realm, we were disgusted with the content that was provisioned and readily available for the perverted masses. We found that a majority of the Darknet pedophiles were using a site called the Alita City. We fully intend to make it uninhabitable for these disgusting degenerates to exist without the fear of prosecution or death.

This is our message, our manifesto. You may hold us to every last word, for we will never turn a deaf ear upon the screams of innocent children. You know who you are, and so do we. We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget.

Expect us. Anonymous, which is an internet hacking group, has exposed recently a very large ring of internet pedophiles. After hacking into Lolita City, which is a Darknet website, something I had never heard of until this article, they released the usernames and information of almost 1,600 people trading in kiddie porn. And they actually had kind of a pithy little statement, you know, saying like, hey, we found the documents, identified the users, and if the FBI, Interpol, or other law enforcement happens to come across this list, please use it to investigate and bring justice to the people listed here.

If you happen to find this thing that is right here near where I'm telling you to look, look at it. I have mixed feelings on this. And I first, I don't want to make sure and make clear that the mixed feelings are not I sympathize with pedophiles. I want to make sure that that is absolutely 100% not the case. I recognize that these people should be outed and I think that it's an awful thing to trade in child pornography. And I think if you do it and you get caught, I will laugh at you and I think you should get – every bit of the law should be thrown at you if that's you. I feel kind of weird about this though. I'm happy that it's done but vigilante justice

to me doesn't ever really sit well with me there's legal processes in place for a reason because we have protections from those legal processes there's a system that's set in place so that people can't just maybe do the things that Anonymous did

to find out who you are and then prosecute you on them. That might get thrown out in court, say. So there's protections, freedoms that maybe are protecting pedophiles but are also protecting all the rest of us too from other things. And if we start eroding away at those things, I feel a little leery. Now, I don't know the exact thing because I'm not, you know, I'm not Michelle Bachman. I'm not a constitutional scholar. So I don't know the exact laws and things that are that that might get broken by this. And I don't know if any of this evidence would be admissible even by the FBI. And that's another knock against this is if if the evidence is somehow which it may or may not be. But if the evidence is somehow just able to be thrown out because the lawyer is like, well, they got it illegally, then you didn't help anyone really.

And these people are just going to find another place, another dark hole on the Internet to go climb into and trade their child, their kiddie porn. Yeah, I feel similarly. I read this and I'll admit like my very first reaction was like, you fuckers you know because fucking child porn really um that's awful that's it doesn't need to even be said um the the concern is that vigilantism as a rule is just a bad idea and i don't think it's it's terribly difficult to understand why um it would be much better if you had organizations linked to justice organizations, linked to criminal justice like the FBI, like Interpol doing this work. It would be better if Anonymous could approach the FBI and say, hey, we have tools and resources at our disposal. We would like to contract for you.

We will fucking do it for free. And we can find out information that your organization may not have the tools and resources to find out. And that way, at least, they're working within the confines of an established system. The problem, of course, comes in when a group of people decides to to establish justice on their own. And even if Anonymous has the best of intentions all of the time, who's to say they always will? Who's to say that next week they don't target a group that is not the universally reviled pedophile, but let's say next week they target people who cheat on their taxes

or next week they target people that they otherwise disagree with in some way. And they attack those people and they create difficulty for those people. Let's say they attack people who aren't breaking a law, but people who are doing something which they think is morally questionable. Because they don't answer to anybody, it's entirely feasible and entirely possible that they could choose to do that. And that's one of the difficult things with vigilantism, with this kind of unjust justice. I'm glad that these 1,600 pedophiles have been exposed. I am. I'm very, very pleased.

I wish that it had been done through the proper channels so that they could be prosecuted properly. And I hope that they are prosecuted properly, but I don't know that this evidence isn't now tainted. Anonymous vigilante justice isn't justice. Yeah. I would implore all the listeners too, anybody who wants to weigh in on this, if you have an opinion, you could always go to DissonancePod.com, find our latest episode and comment on our blog, or you can go find us on Facebook. We're linked directly from our website, DissonancePod.com. It's at the top.

There's the Facebook logo. Just click on that and you can like us and then join in the conversation there and comment specifically on this episode. If you think that this is a good thing or a bad thing, and if you have, you happen to be a lawyer or you know something about the law and you want to tell us whether or not we're right or wrong about this, feel free to jump in and tell us because I think Tom and I are both really conflicted on this. Happy that pedophiles got busted, kind of a little leery about how it happened. So at this point, we're going to take a quick break, allow everybody to sit back, relax, and type out your hate mail. Call us, phone us, email us, whatever you want to

do with your complete and total dissatisfaction with the show. And we'll return for the second half of the show in just a moment. You can email these assholes at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. Be sure to visit the Cognitive Dissonance website, disson gmail.com. Be sure to visit the Cognitive Dissonance website, dissonancepod.com. Be sure to like the show on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. The Twitter handle is at dissonancepod. Thanks to everyone who shares our

podcast through Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. We'd also like to thank the people who have rated us and subscribed on iTunes and Podfeet or promoted the show through message boards like Reddit. Your help is fucking greatly appreciated. So Cecil, the Tea Party had a great idea recently. They've urged all business owners interested, you know, that are part of the Tea Party that are following the movement, both of them. of them, they urged them to stop hiring.

Really the height of responsible behavior during a severe protracted economic downturn. You know, I find this actually very in character for the conservative movement in this country in general. I think that for the past several years, we have witnessed the conservative movement in this country in general. I think that for the past several years, we have witnessed the conservative party in this country, whether they're the tier party or not, because don't come up to me and tell me, oh, well, this is a tea party. They're different. They're not fucking different. They're the exact same thing.

But the conservatives in this country have for a long time stifled any move to do anything, whether it's, you know, whatever happens in the Congress, whatever the president puts forward, all those things have been stifled. You know, we talked about this a couple, I want to say maybe a couple weeks ago, where we had a grade sheet for the president where it was like, you know, whether he made a promise during his campaign and if he kept it or he didn't keep it. And there was some false on there, but there was a lot of – several that were – he kept a promise or he kind of kept a promise. And then there was a bunch, Tom, that you even remarked that were just stalled. Stalled, stalled, stalled, stalled, stalled, stalled, stalled.

And this is I think indicative of this party and indicative of this – the ideals behind this party, the ideology that they go on, which is we will not cooperate at all. We will not meet you in the middle of the road. We will not even come close to meeting you in the middle of the road. All we are going to do is push our agenda and our agenda only and that's all we're – that's it. That's the limit of what we're going to do in this country. And in fact, we would rather see the country fall apart than actually meet in the middle and do anything. Yeah. When you would deny people a job, an ability to pay their bills, to put food on the table, to give their kids health insurance.

Deny yourself the ability to increase your profits even. Because you don't like the president? That's insane. Like that's – that's like, that's a suicide bomber mentality, you know? Blow it all up. Fuck it. Who cares? Yeah.

You know? Blow them all up. Let God sort them out, you know? That's crazy, man. That's not reasonable. That's not a thoughtful position. That doesn't come from a place of rationality. That comes from this sort of knee-jerk reactionary position where you're just like, I don't like that guy.

I don't like his policies. I don't like where he's leading the country. Burn it all down. Burn it all. I mean, you're really encouraging businesses not to hire in this climate? Businesses that ostensibly could hire? Yeah. That are just going to choose not to hire people?

Yeah, we bring people on, but we don't want fucking President Obama reelected. Really? Really? Isn't that sort of insane? If your objection to the president is that you don't like his economic policy, but you're doing well enough that you're able to hire. And yet you choose not to hire and you then damage the economy, which you turn around and continue to blame the president for. How how do you do those fucking backflips to get from here to there? So Cecil, there's plenty of great stories this week.

This is a short story that is also one of my favorite. Westboro Baptist Church tweeted Steve Jobs' funeral protest via the iPhone. This is fantastic. You know, they're saying like Steve Jobs didn't create any of these devices. It was God and Steve Jobs. In fact, that's exactly what these devices. It was God. And Steve Jobs, in fact, that's exactly what they said. It was God. God did not create the iPhone.

God didn't create the iPhone. I did not create the iPhone. God's wireless network is prayer, for crying out loud. Because it is the stupidest fucking thing I've heard in a long time. They also, I like, WBC Steve surmised that Jobs is in hell. Surmised. I love that. So they were going to protest Steve Jobs' funeral via the iPhone.

Let me just say that if these are the people who are going to heaven, I am going to be thankful in hell. Like, I'm going to be so happy. Like be like, oh, you want to torture my balls again? As long as I don't have to look at that bitch, I'm happy. Do you know how tiresome and tedious these people would be after an hour? Oh my God. Spend an eternity with these idiots. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. And in what is my favorite story of the week, I'm going to read this one all the way through. Man allegedly beat woman with frozen armadillo. Dallas, only in Texas. A man used a frozen armadillo to attack a 57-year-old Pleasant Grove woman, Dallas police said.

The incident happened in an apartment complex parking lot. I love this story for so many reasons. I'm just trying to picture this, guys. Picture this. You're in Dallas. You're in fucking Pleasant Grove. Sounds nice. You're in an apartment complex parking lot.

Nice. You're in an apartment complex parking lot. According to investigators, the altercation occurred when the suspect was selling the carcass to the victim, who planned to eat the animal. The pair apparently began arguing over the price of the item when the man threw the armadillo at the woman. The animal first struck the woman in the leg and then in her chest. She was reportedly bruised by the attack. Detectives have been unable to find the man who could face assault charges. I need to understand a few things, Cecil.

You have to help me clear this up. Okay, go ahead. Okay, so you have a frozen armadillo. It's down my trousers. You meet someone in the parking lot to sell it. Right. Presumably this has been prearranged. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Craigslist. That's how you do it. There's a whole selling and buying armadillo thing on Craigslist. There's a tab on the top. I would guess that in Texas an armadillo doesn't stay frozen long in the parking lot, right? It's not like – I don't think the guy has a fucking churros cart full of frozen armadillos. No, he's got an ice cream truck and plays the Pop Goes the Weasel song. Armadillo's his.

I got armadillo's. Armadillo on a stick. So they start griping about the price. Right, sure. Well, you would think that they would have covered that beforehand. How much can a frozen armadillo cost? How much meat is on an armadillo? I'm looking at one of these things.

It definitely costs more than she was willing to spend. That's for sure. Fair enough. Right. So he chucks it out. Right. Sure. It hits her in the leg.

Right. And then in the chest. Right. It traveled up. Do you want to know how he did that? I do. Because he throws an armadillo like Captain America throws a shield. That's how.

I'm thinking of like the magic bullet theory. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. That's exactly it. He can ricochet. He has a mutant power. He can ricochet. He has a mutant power. He can ricochet armadillos off of surfaces. So that's what he did.

He hit her leg and then it bounced up. I think she was kneeling down or something. That doesn't even make sense. She was upside down. She was hanging upside down. I'm just trying to imagine. She was hanging upside down like a bat from a tree. Was the armadillo thrown at her with such force that it hit her leg and then bounced up?

I'm thinking it's in a bag and he used it like a bolo. He's just spinning it around. It's like a sling. He's like fucking whipping it at Goliath. He's just like got his armadillo and he's spinning it around. He lets go. It hits and just the spin of it just bounces it into her chest. Maybe he like curved it into a boomerang shape before he froze it he's like out in the parking lot just practicing his

armadillo boomerang and you know when the woman comes by and just casually inquires about the price of this armadillo are we are we really this me my good sir how much is that frozen armadillo you seem to be spinning around that's a fine looking is that frozen armadillo you seem to be spinning around? That's a fine-looking boomerang armadillo you got there. Are you going to eat that? Oh, yeah, that's awesome. How much meat is on an armadillo? I'm amazed by this.

We're so broke as a country now that we're eating armadillos? So we got some emails and comments. On our Facebook page, we got a suggestion by Rob that we check out War of the World Views, Science vs. Spirituality. This is a book that is duly authored by Deepak Chopra

and Leonard... I'm sorry, Leonard. I can't. I just can't. I even listened to the video where they introduce you and Larry King's just like, we got Deepak Chopra and Leonard... He does the same

thing. He can't pronounce it. I really am sorry. It's M-L-O-D-I-N-O-'s M-L-O-D-I-N-O-W. Malad now, I'm going to guess. I'm probably horribly butchering that. This looks like a decent half a book. Yeah. Guess which half. I don't really have an interest in reading a book that juxtaposes science with nonsense. Yeah. We have a show for that. It's called Cognitive Dissonance.

Yeah. You know, I just don't – I am not going to give credence to anything Deepak Chopra says. I've listened to the guy speak and all he does is put together like a string of buzzwords. And I just don't want to – I don't want to sit through a whole half of a book that's like a string of buzzwords. And I just don't want to sit through a whole half of a book that's just a string of buzzwords. It's not going to do anything for me. Yeah, and Deepak Chopra, I've heard him. He's all style and no substance. Well, there's nothing there.

There's nothing interesting that he's ever fucking said or anything intelligible he's ever fucking said. It's a string of nonsensical scientific and new age sounding words blended together in a fucking blend tech you know like it's it's like he throws his thoughts and was like will it blend i say oh here's what i say i say if you want to sit through and sift through this book i think that it's probably a good idea if you're open to that if you think that you could give deepak chopra a chance, I just won't give him that chance. Like prove to me that you're, you have something to say other than buzzwords and I'll give you a chance, but I just don't think he has anything else to say.

So I won't give him that chance. Um, I think there's some people that you just have to treat as suspect right away. There's no, there's no way I'm going to believe anything that like Kevin Trudeau says. Like if Kevin Trudeau writes a book, which he has several times, I'm not going to give that book any credence. I'm not going to open it. I'm not going to crack it. Uh, I'm not going to believe anything that like Kevin Trudeau says. Absolutely. Like if Kevin Trudeau writes a book, which he has several times, I'm not going to give that book any credence. I'm not going to open it. I'm not going to crack it. I'm not going to pretend that it has anything to say. It's just it's going to be garbage. It's going to be fraud because that's what he's good at. So we got a comment from John on our last episode. John commented that he hopes they hurry up and get the Yeti ready to run for the next presidential election. I wonder if he looks like Bumble from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. They would have captured him, but they knocked him off a cliff accidentally.

So bad times. Bumble. That is awesome. Yeah. Maybe one of them, maybe one of the people that are running right now is a shaved Yeti. I'll let you decide who. Yeti Santorum. I actually think it's Bachman, but I don't know.

That would explain the confused look on her face all the time. It would certainly explain those eyes, that's for sure. Where are my snowy mountains? I get here. Explain those eyes. That's for sure. Where are my snowy mountains? All right. So we got an email also from Eric.

Now, this was a couple days ago before we did our last podcast and we neglected it on our previous show. So we're going to talk about Eric's email now. Eric said that he's reading Demon Haunted World and he's liking it so far. He wanted to make one suggestion that when we discuss something that is blatantly anti-science, if we could give some of the actual science that refutes the nut jobs. I will say that oftentimes when we do that, the things are included in the articles that we're reading. And like a lot of people who have commented in the past and said we're not a science show, we're not. We are not a science show. And we don't have – first off, we don't have the time to do that sort of thing because the show is kind of high maintenance. But also we just don't – we just don't feel like that's kind of the show that we've built.

Yeah, I appreciate the comment very much. I appreciate the thoughts and the suggestions. We want your thoughts and suggestions on how to appreciate the thoughts and the suggestions. We want your thoughts and suggestions on how to make the show a better show. I don't think we're going to do this just because I don't think that we have, to be honest, the credentials to do that and not in the way that you want it to. I was trying to make myself feel better by not saying that, but go ahead. Oh, no, I'll just tell you. I'm not. No, no. You know, Cecil and I don't work in the sciences. Oh, no, I'll just tell you. I'm not. No, no. You know, Cecil and I don't work in the sciences.

We both appreciate the sciences. We're interested. We're you know, I try to read a fair amount of science, you know, but it's popular science that I read, you know, not science fiction. But I read books like Demon Haunted World. I read books like Dawkins's books, which I've read most of now, you know, things like that are science books, but they're not, they don't give me a position to speak from authority as far as, you know, hey, the science here is valid or invalid. I have to take other people's word on that. And so since I'm relying sort of on secondhand credentialing, I don't really feel comfortable laying out the scientific case for things. We'll reference materials when possible. But Eric, we really appreciate the suggestion. Thank you very much.

Anyone who has suggestions to make our show better, try to condense it. That's the – Put it in real simple language. That's all we're saying. I would use small font too to keep it within a certain hundred or two pages. Now, Tom, we have gotten a lot of comments on our blog, and Tom is going to read a few of these comments. We got one from Episode 8. There is evidently a lot. Now, Episode 8, the title of it was Hot Sex with a Fire Goddess.

There is evidently a lot to realize about this. I suppose you made certain nice points and features also. Yeah, well, we did. We did. There certainly is a lot to realize about hot sex with a fire goddess. I love these bots. You certainly are a bot. That's for sure.

Right. Yeah. It's the best time to make some plans for the future. And it is time to be happy. I've read this post, and if I could wish to suggest you some interesting things or advice, maybe you can write next articles referring to this article. I want to read even more things about it. OK. So basically what we're saying here is that all we get is bots that fucking post comments on our fucking blog.

So please, if you have something to say and you want other people to see it, you can either go to the Facebook page or post it on our blog. We got an email from ZV470 on Twitter. He sent us a direct email, and he said it's a bit embarrassing to be mentioned on your show. Hey, ZV470-o, we're going to embarrass you one more time. And we actually got into a little bit of a discussion about what happened with Steve Jobs. And ZV470 is an Apple apologist, and he's a Steve Jobs apologist. And he says that he had heard some things, I guess, in his biography that's coming out. Steve Jobs actually regretted his decision to not get the surgery early on.

And it turned out to haunt him later on. So he realized he made a mistake. And maybe, you know, that doesn't surprise me that in hindsight you would see that. But, yeah, I think it's a sad thing. And we talked about it a little bit online. And he's right. It's a tough thing that Steve Jobs wound up choosing the wrong path when it's pretty evident that the surgery could have helped him out a lot more.

But we're happy for all our New Zealand listeners. And I saw recently the guy who said that we were too American. Actually, his Twitter handle, I believe, is at Uncaring Tulip. He had said to us – he had said – he had mentioned us on Twitter as a podcast that he listens to now. So I don't – I think we have de-Americanized enough to reach some of those New Zealand listeners. We're very happy to do so. Well, American presidential politics are deeply important to the New Zealanders. I don't...

I know. So we got a message from Kobe. He just heard our last episode with the Jerusalem school segregation. He also sent us a link, and I have actually read this article, that the same shit is happening in New York.

New York has a bus line that is requiring girls and women to sit in the back of the bus. And if they don't, they're harassed by the Jewish community that rides this bus. I think they're Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox Jews. I don't recall. Well, that's insane. What else are you going to say about that? Kobe, thanks for sending us the story. I'll tell you what is with the picture here. I do not understand the picture. Does that person have a cake on their head?

What is happening? I know. I love this. And he's got like his cake box there. It's like he's wearing a snare drum, like a fuzzy snare drum. It's like a cake hat with a chin strap. Like it's the strangest looking hat I've ever seen. It's super, super, super odd. I really don't understand how this happens in New York. Yeah, I don't either. I mean, really? Back of the bus?

We've kind of got a bad history of that. Yeah. So we also got a comment from Dumbass. Dumbass said he doesn't see any reason why the percentage of people who vote should be higher. He doesn't care about that. He also feels that there are plenty of good reasons to not want to vote, particularly if you don't like the candidates. And he doesn't agree with the idea that if you don't vote, you don't have the right to bitch. Sorry. I strongly disagree with you there. I think there are people all over the world who have fought and continue to fight for the right to be unhappy with the candidates they're presented. And I feel, you know, look, we have we have limited opportunities in this country, Tom, to to participate in our democracy. There is very limited opportunities for me to actually participate. And really one of the few things I get to do as a citizen of this country is walk into

that voting booth and choose who I want to be elected. Now, I understand the hesitation that people have when they say, well, I don't like the people that are running. And I get that. I don't know that I liked anybody that I voted for in the past. You know, I've been voting for at this point, 20 years, and I don't know that I have voted for anybody really that I've liked. I don't know that that's a requirement for somebody to be in office. I don't know that I'm ever going to get to know these people in any way, in any real way anyway. I feel like what I'm going to probably have to do is get to

know, you know, what they're trying to sell me and decide whether or not that is a good thing or a bad thing. I think being an informed voter in this country is not a hard thing to do. I think voting in an election is a pretty easy thing to do. And I think if you don't participate in the election, you're basically opting out of a system that a lot of people would fight and die for. I get not being sold 100 percent on a candidate, but I don't understand in a period of American history where we are so polarized that you don't see one of the two options as more frightening than the other. Right. You know, even if you don't like anybody else, and I know that's a shitty thing to, I know it's demoralizing.

I recognize that. Fucking, I'm demoralized too. Yeah. But I vote. I absolutely vote. Because, you know, I don't necessarily think things are going to get better, but I feel like they can get a lot worse.

Yeah, and I would urge people who are not informed not to vote. I understand that gripe, and I get that. I recognize that if you're not an informed person, you probably shouldn't be voting because chances are the only information you're getting is off of attack ads and garbage like that, and that's not worth anything. Your vote is basically useless. But I think that people who people should spend a few minutes, you know, gosh, it's it's under, you know, under 200 minutes a year to be informed about the politics that are going to affect your life and affect the lives of everybody in this country. It's a responsibility, really, of the people who live here. So we want to end the show talking about a very an interview Tom and I are going to be doing

soon. It's not going to be happening right away, but we're going to be doing an interview soon with a guy by the name of Pat, and he runs a podcast from the Birmingham Skeptics. It's called Skeptics in the Pub, and you can reach it.

It actually has a radio station. I'm just going to put the link in our web notes so you can just go straight there. But it's skepticsinthepub, all one word,.co.uk. And there's a ton of different – I'm actually on the podcast page, and there's a ton of podcasts here. So if you want to listen to a good podcast, it's an interview podcast. He has a lot of podcasts here that interview a lot of great people. And there's a lot of people on here. I remember I was scrolling through. I listened to the Steven Novella show. I listened to a couple other ones that are very good.

And we're going to be on the show soon. We're not sure exactly when this is going to happen. We have to talk to him. We have to set up a date. We have to talk to him, actually do the interview still. But this is in the works and we're going to be on somebody else's show eventually. And we will plug it again when that comes up, but we wanted to make sure that we plugged it ahead of time. So you had an opportunity to listen to this great show. And then I think we're also going to have him on our show, right? We are. We're going to, we're going to have, we're going to have Pat on our show for a segment to talk about a news item too. And he was excited to do this. So it's going to be, it's going to be in the future. We're not sure when,

cause we have to set it up like a week in advance. And Tom and I's schedules are going to be in the future. We're not sure when because we have to set it up like a week in advance. And Tom and I's schedules are going to be messed up for a little while. In fact, next week I'm probably going to be recording on the road. So there's some crazy stuff that's going to be happening in the near future. But we're going to definitely do this, and this is going to be in the near future. And then we're also hoping to have another guest eventually, another surprise guest later on. But that still has to get hammered out. Okay, so until next time, we are going to leave you as always with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue.

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