Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 188: Voting with a Buggy Whip

Episode Date: November 7, 2014

   

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It's skeptical, it's political, and there is no welcome at this is episode 188 of cognitive dissonance and cecil it is election day election day in the u.s for the congress and we're gonna lose the senate and i gotta tell you what man we fucking know how to throw an election we do you know unlike all these other countries that give you a fucking holiday to improve turnout. Right, right. We do it on a fucking random Tuesday in the middle of the month. What did they do? It's a fucking Tuesday.

It's not a random Tuesday. It's always the first Tuesday after the first Monday. Just so you know, it's such an antiquated system, right? You're like, Tuesday. Why is it on Tuesday? Why is it in November? And the reason why is because back when we used to, back when they really needed votes to start

coming in all at the same time, they had to standardize a day. And they had voting at the county seat. So you had to travel to get there. So they didn't want you, Tom, traveling on the Sabbath. Oh, my dear sweet Kung Fu Jesus. I'm fucking not even kidding.

So you have to instead travel on Monday to get to somewhere Tuesday. And the reason why it's in fucking November is because we were largely an agrarian society. Oh, my God. This is what we still do in 2014. The harvest is coming in. So I don't know about you, Tom, but I am so thankful I got my harvest in and was able to vote.

And when I went to vote, instead of using like a thing to poke in the chat, I used a buggy whip in order to vote. I just had a slave do it for me. That's terrible. I like showed up with like a fucking sheaf of wheat in one of my hands. I was like, a gift to you, kind sir, to the electioneering judge, you know, like, there you go. It's like Settlers of Catan.

You're like trying to trade it to somebody else for like a stone. You're like, look, I need bricks. I just need bricks. Can you trade me this wheat for the bricks? Oh my gosh, that is crazy. And like, isn't that nuts? And you know, the thing is that there will never be a change to this system because one of the, one of the strategies, I mean, an out and out, I mean, fucking we'll say it out loud, unbelievable as it may seem, strategy right now of the Republican Party is to reduce voter turnout. Because they know that when voter turnout is reduced, their party does better. And so moving Election Day, making it a national holiday or moving it to a fucking Saturday or something like that's just not going to happen.

Like it would be so heavily opposed that nobody would even bother to suggest it. Well, that and the Electoral College is also ridiculous, too, right? Like that. I like the Electoral College. I graduated from there. Don't fucking impugn my alma mater. How much do you donate a year to the Electoral College? Do they call you up with their drive donations shit?

They're like, hey, we have an alumni dinner. It's only like $400 a plate. Yeah. Don't they call you? I gave them my credit card number yesterday. I felt like that was legit. Yeah, that's awesome. What would be their mascot, do you think?

It's like a donkey-elephant hybrid? That's exactly it. It's like the lamest grest Griffin you've ever seen. It's like a sad Griffin. It's just like, it's just like a, it's like a donkey elephant hybrid. So it basically just looks like a fat dog.

That's like, it's just like, ah, fucking the donkey. It's like an America donkey. Oh man. What's the liberal libertarian parties thing? Is it like an Eagle? I hope it's an Eagle. It's a fucking Eagle. It's like an America donkey. Oh, man. What's the Libertarian Party's thing? Is it like an eagle? I hope it's an eagle. I'm sure it's

a fucking eagle. It's gotta be an eagle. It's probably like an eagle soaring majestically through clouds of hope. Yeah, with an M60. It's actually just Stephen Colbert's whole intro. And while it's flying it's smoking a blunt. Like those things.

But the Electoral College basically bears whole intro and it's and while it's flying it's smoking a blunt like those are the things that's there but the electoral college basically values smaller states at at a higher rate than it does larger states so like the individual in a smaller state say like wyoming has a much higher vote their vote counts for like almost three times what a person in california counts for it's just a stupid system. Dude, you got to Google libertarian mascot. Oh, no. It's amazeballs. First of all, just from the wiki, in the 1990s, several state libertarian parties adopted the libertarian, the liberty penguin. Oh.

Another mascot is a libertarian porcupine. There's a libertarian hippo. There's also a libertarian hippopotamus. Which are from fucking Africa. I like the porcupine. I guess the elephant is too. Yeah, I like the porcupine. I think you stick with the porcupine because they're a thorn in everyone's side. Right?

You know what I mean? Well, they're an equally unlikely animal. Like, that's not probably going to win either. I got the fucking craziest flyer from the libertarian candidate in Illinois and all it said on the front was like it said pro life, pro gun, pro freedom.

And I'm thinking, I'm like what fucking person isn't pro freedom, you asshole? I'm anti-freedom. I'm actually con-freedom. And on it is like a fucking flag with an eagle and the dude's face is like superimposed. God, give me a break. And it's full color, glossy.

And the first thing I thought when I went in today and I looked at the goddamn ballot is like, I've got to vote for Quinn. You've given me no fucking options that I've got to vote for Quinn. Like I've been voting Green Party for years in the gubernatorial election, because every year our fucking governor sucks balls. Well, I mean, to be fair, sometimes they are in jail. I mean... People from other countries are like,

wait, what happened? Our last, our previous two governors went to fucking prison. Thompson? Was it Thompson? No, it was Blagojevich, and then Like our last, our previous two governors went to fucking prison. Yeah. Thompson. Was it Thompson? No. No. It was Blagojevich and then the other one, the white haired older guy.

The fat guy. The fat one. Yeah. The one who, the death penalty guy. The death penalty amnesty guy. Yeah. He moratoriumed the death penalty. It was like the only good thing he ever fucking did.

And then he got. And then he went to jail. He went to jail. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I wonder if he and Blagojevich are fucking sellies. It's like

fucking Orange is the New Black or something. Right? I mean, like, the goddamn Illinois governors have their own fucking wing. Like, they have their own fucking, it's like G-block. Like, governor block. G-block? You don't want to go down a G-block. What's up?

Step foot in fucking G block. But you're absolutely right about the disenfranchising of voters, though. I mean, like, that's actually, and that's, the thing is, is that they'll actually openly admit it. Because in their eyes, they think that they're disenfranchising the right group of people to disenfranchise, right? When they talk about voter ID laws. And they're like, oh, well, that's, those are the people that were for disenfranchising are people we don't want to vote anyway. Right. They're going to come right out and say it. We don't want those people to vote. Well, I mean, voter ID laws solve a problem that's not a problem. Right.

You know, I mean, it's that old it's a it's a solution in search of a problem. Like there's no grand, you know, voter ID fraud that's swaying elections. Voter ID fraud accounts for literally statistically negligent percentages. Not only do they not swing a vote, they're not even remotely statistically significant at all. Voter fraud is just not a thing. Let's be honest. America doesn't care enough.

Right. And like, let's say I voted twice. Like, what fucking difference would it make? How many people would have to commit that same fraud in order for it to swing, in order for it to matter? What if I voted 10 times? Like, how many more people would have to vote 10-fold in order for it to matter? You know, these elections are won and lost. Even when they're won and lost by slim percentage margins, there's still a lot of actual votes that are involved. So you'd have to have like this grand scheme of like people colluding together to vote multiple times. And like, it just doesn't even make sense. Nobody would do it. But God will forgive me if I lie about it just this once.

Tommy, tell them the truth. Tell them that you are a Christian. I would never deny my Lord. This story comes from the new civil rights movement. Duck Dynasty dad warns that the I stand Sunday. Such an awkward hashtag. Believers that they're headed for jail for being Christian. Sir Beards a lot, the Duck Dynasty guy, fucking spoke at the recent rally.

The rally fucking was so weird. The I Stand Sunday rally. Several thousand people get together, I guess, and all talk about how nobody's Christian. Right. Anymore. Nobody's Christian. Gather You gotta gather by the thousands and then claim how you're persecuted.

Let's all get together by the thousands and be persecuted together. Hey, we're a minority of the majority. And have no one say anything to us, right? Nobody stopped us on the way in. There was no police raid in the middle of it. It just so happened that you have this huge fucking screen behind you.

And what the fuck is with this guy? He comes out in his camo and his beard down to his belly button. You know, this is the first time anyone has looked this homeless and the Republicans actually paid attention to him. You know what I mean? Look at that fucking guy. Tell me he doesn't look like a vet. You know what I mean? Like a fucking Vietnam vet that hasn't look like a vet you know what i mean like a like a fucking vietnam vet

that hasn't like lived in a house in 30 years yeah he he totally looks like hollywood's uh like idea of like the like the crazy ptsd vet who's like shooting up the place or whatever yeah he looks he looks totally insane um and he absolutely does not look like he lives indoors. I mean, that's for fucking sure. This is a guy who, by the looks of him, has more than a passing acquaintance with fleas. I'm just saying. He's the guy from last week who has bed bugs as pets. He's the guy.

This is a guy whose friends socially groom him. Yeah. That's what's going on here. I like picking shit out of his beard. But he did have some things to say, Cecil, which I think bear repeating. He did say, for all you ladies in Texas, trust me when I tell you this. When you're seated in your restroom putting on your Maybelline, when I need to take a leak, I'm not going there.

When I need to take a leak, I'm not going there. And he's referring to the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, which allows people that are transgendered to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender. Right. So, you know, I like that he manages to insult both thinking men, women, and the transgendered community all in one sentence. That's amazing. The transgender community, I just don't understand why it's such a big deal. If a transgender person came into the bathroom that was identifying as male,

they came into the bathroom and they had the parts that would not allow them to stand at the urinal, they would use a stall and I would have no idea. Right? Right. The same thing goes if a transgender person comes in and they identify as a woman, but they happen to have male parts,

they're still going in a stall. So again, no one would know unless I guess they turned around and stood, you know, like in front of the toilet and then like pissed in the toilet that way. For like no reason. Right. For no reason other than to just like fucking freak people out,

I guess would be the only reason. But like the thing is, is like in both of those cases, there is no, nobody can see what's happening because there's a fucking stall around you and that's in i'm gonna say 99 of the bathrooms i go in there's a stall around those things on occasion you'll go into some weird fucking you know crazy bathroom where there's no stall around the shit you're just like what the fuck is going on right like where the fuck

am i i am in a place where they eat human beings. Like, that's where I'm at. I'm in a place. I'm in, like, fucking people under the stairs land or something. If you walk into a bathroom that does not have the walls around the toilet, like the little partition walls, when you walk in there and it's just a fucking squatter sitting there, you're like, the fucking least of your worries today is whether or not somebody who identifies as transgender, you know, is walking in and using that right.

Like, that's the fucking least worry you have because you are clearly in a place you do not want. You do not belong and need to shit. Yeah. Are you kidding me? They sell live bait there. And let me tell you, it's not worms. Okay. It is not worms.

It's just human fingers. You just get like a jug of human fingers. The best part is they get the pickled ones, and the guys are like, them are good eating. They fish them out of the jar of pickled eggs. They like intermingle them. God. I could see this guy having a pickled finger in his beard, though.

You know what I mean? Like, this is one of the things that he would pull out of his beard to save from later. Among the many. Well, his son was there, too, and I want to play,

this is from the exact same thing. Let's play what he had to say, which was only about a minute long. This is his son, Alan Robertson. He's a conservative pastor.

We also need people who are willing to tell our culture about what it means, what's going to happen, the dire consequences of unrestrained living against the will of God. What does unrestrained living mean? Yeah, it's just living without a leash.

It's living without a belt on. Your pants are always drooping. Fucking dirty-ass people walking around without their suspenders. Guilty, un-American, suspenderless people. If you don't have your suspenders, where the fuck do you hang your duck call from? I mean, come on. It will destroy us all. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be Lot.

I don't want to be in Sodom and Gomorrah waiting until the last possible moment and then look up and realize that I've waited too long. That my family now is on the altar of sacrifice because I didn't make a difference before the catastrophe came. There is an evil one, an enemy who is against us, and we have to take the fight to him. Just this last week, there was a headline that i read that said that i was having a meltdown i was having a paranoid meltdown you know what my quote was i said the evil one is attacking my family because we speak truth well i tell you what if that's a meltdown then i'm melting down because he is there and he is fighting us and we have to take the fight to him what the fuck does that even mean the evil one the evil one were you paying attention it's the evil one you know what he's did is he said some stupid shit and then he

personified the fucking backlash that's what I know that's exactly it you know and like I gotta tell you like if the evil one comes after me me, but my family is still like spectacularly wealthy and paid for speaking engagements and has money in the bank. What you think about that? A little tea pain there. Yeah. I mean, I guess I'm not really worried. Like, I guess when I think like the evil one is against me, I think like, oh, man, I'm born, you know, like poor and black. Yeah.

Like that would be the evil one is against you in America. Right. born, you know, like, poor and black. Yeah. Like, that would be the evil one is against you in America, right? Or even worse, I live in, say, like, I don't know, a South American country and live in a garbage dump and have to get my food out of the garbage dump every day. Right. Or like, you're being chased around by the fucking ISIS nuts who are, like, beheading everybody. I would say the evil, you know, the fucking evil one's against you.

Not like, yeah, I'm a fucking rich white dude in America. Look at me go. Evil one's against me. Give me money to speak. Like, whatever. That's awesome. The evil one is against me because, you know, what he did was he went out and said some crazy shit. And then people called him on his crazy shit.

Yeah. And now he gets to say, oh, well, see, they're Satan. When they call me on their crazy shit, now they're the Satan. They're the evil thing. Yeah, well, Satan's out to get his family. One duck call at a time. The problem is they respond to the Satan call.

Satan call? Satan's got a little caller. You know, he's got like a, it's like a duck call, but it's for souls. Right. It sounds like the koala at the end of last episode. It blows the fucking soul call and you feel like the stirring, like, ah, fuck, Satan,

stop blowing the goddamn soul call. I'm trying to watch CSI, you dick. This is the episode where they solve the mystery. And the guy confesses. This is where they get the forensic evidence to crack the case. And the guy confesses. Every single episode, they get the guy in the interrogation room, and they say to him, we know you did it.

Here's a fucking superimposed picture of you from a satellite that we got where we actually took a picture of your fingerprint from space. We zoomed in on your hair follicles. And the person's like, damn you kids, I would have gotten away with it. You know, it's like, it's every single episode. It's like fucking science Scooby-Doo. It's ridiculous.

The worst of those was Law and Order Criminal Intent. Did you ever watch that one? Oh, I didn't see that. I didn't watch it. Oh my fucking God god that fucking show i watched it like a handful of times and it was like they got a confession every fucking time just like that i mean just like that they'd be like yeah so and they'd look at some they'd look at like some uh some videotape evidence to be like zoom in enhance resolution zoom zoom zoom we've got his dna you're like, wait, what? What the fuck?

Wait, A-T-G-C We got that motherfucker, go! Oh, that's awesome, man That's so great Yeah, we've looked inside We actually counted all of his cells So we know it's him We just, we looked at his DNA

And we cross-referenced that with our DNA database of all people in the world and where they live. And we went and got him. I love that everybody's in the database. Every time. It's like fucking the person's in the database. Oh, their fingerprint? You got the fingerprint match?

Oh, well, the person must have been fingerprinted before. The worst of those was Dexter. Did you watch that show, Dexter? I stopped watching it after Lithgow was on. Man, that fucking show, that guy would be like, yeah, so I went in his apartment and I got his toothbrush and a hair follicle and a penis shard or something. And he'd take it back and run it through his lab

and it inevitably came up with people. People who were living lives that were not criminal lives. You're like, well, why would they be in your database? It's just like you happen to go to the police and be like, just in case I happen to get murdered by a serial killer, I wanted to give you my DNA. Yeah, exactly. Preemptively want to give you my DNA so that you would have it.

While I'm here, can we just take my last known photo? Is that a possibility? I would argue that anybody who argues for sodomy, ask them, is there any life in the rectum? Can two women produce life? And the answer, of course, would be no. Then the ultimate goal of life is life. So this story comes from the Huffington Post. Liberia's gay community under attack over Ebola outbreak. Because those things are related somehow.

Not at all related. It's ridiculous. The story is fucking sad. In Liberian capital where, you know, like you read about Liberian, like the first thing I think is like, you don't need to do things to make shit worse in Liberia. Like every day you wake up in Liberia, shit's worse. Like that's it. Just look around.

Like, how you feeling? Oh, fucking Liberian. So super bad. Terrible here. I hate it. I'm just going to say unfun. How's that? Yeah, right?

But the Christian nuts have been blaming Ebola on homosexuality, saying that Ebola was a punishment. And so, of course, that incites people to violence toward homosexuals. So no harm there, right? I mean, it's just a religion going around spreading the word of love. Doesn't it—it seems reminiscent of a story of the Jews and the plague in, like, the 1300s. I don't know. Yeah, right? When they blamed it on the Jews, they were just like, oh, well, it's the Jews' fault that there's a plague. And then they just, like, went out and, like, slaughtered a bunch of Jews because they were like, well, that's—clearly they're poisoning the wells, right?

Here you have an example of how this disease is spread. I mean, you have scientific evidence that shows this is how the disease spreads. This is how it is carried. This is how, you know, when you're infected, when you're infectious, all these different things that we know about Ebola. But you're willing to chuck that right out the fucking window

and be like, like nope it's because they're gay that's why because god said god said that's why and so like fucking they're willing to just reject all the evidence all the evidence that's stacked up and this happens all the time with believers right they're willing to reject all the evolutionary evidence and opt in for a 6 000 year old world they're They're willing to reject all the fucking evidence that there was no fucking Noah's Ark and just say, well, there was a Noah's Ark.

It reminds me of that quote by Sam Harris that says, if someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that they should value it? And if someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic? You know, it's like,

these people are not, they're just deciding ahead of time that one thing equals another thing. Because that's like the whole religious philosophy of their being relies on that, on the validity of being able to do that, of being able to say, it doesn't matter what the evidence says.

It doesn't matter that you've got, you know the evidence says. It doesn't matter that you've got DNA evidence. It doesn't matter that you have an understanding of how viruses work, how they replicate, how they're passed from person. None of that means shit because they're not starting from a baseline which says let's start with logic. Let's start with evidence and let's build a world from there. Instead, it's like let's start with our conclusion. Conclusion is homosexuals are bad. Bad shit is caused by God. You know, like it's fucking backwards. And when you work backwards, your equations don't match. they're willing to throw away the evidence of how Ebola spread and all these things, and they're willing to just say that it's gays, and they're willing to use the Bible as their sort of guide to Ebola, we should, I think, talk about the regulations about defiling skin diseases.

And this is Leviticus 13. So Tom, why don't we start reading a little bit of this down to where we talked before where we talked about molds. I just want to talk a little bit about, just so our listeners know how to handle people with skin diseases, because I think this does relate a little bit to what happens when you have Ebola. Well, this is just generally good life advice. Sure.

And I have to think that if it came from God, it has to have held up as the preeminent way to manage. Before we start, I do want to mention that we were going to do this as a mad Leviticus, but this is so fucking crazy that there is no way to make it more crazy. Yeah. You seriously cannot interject random nouns and verbs, it actually comes out more sensical. So this is Leviticus 13. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, when anyone has a swelling or a rash or a shiny spot on their skin that may be a defiling skin disease,

they must be brought to Aaron, the priest, or to one of his sons, who's a priest. The priest is to examine the sore on the skin, and if the hair in the sore has turned white and the sore appears to be more than skin deep, that's a defiling skin disease. When the priest examines that person, he shall pronounce them ceremonially unclean.

If the shiny spot of the skin is white but does not appear to be more than skin deep, and the hair in it has not turned white. The priest is to isolate the affected person for seven days. Wait, so they had quarantine back then? They had quarantine. No shit.

I guess quarantine is biblical. For fucking shiny people. For people with hair that have not turned white. But if the hair has turned white, you're like, eh, you're just ceremonially unclean. It's fine. But what if you're old, Tom? Like, what if you're old and all of your hair has turned white?

You're just like, I have a shiny spot because I went bald. And it's like fucking, I guess you don't have to worry about that because there would be fucking no way to live to a ripe old age following this fucking medical gibberish. Right. Yeah. If this was your, if this was your way in which to handle things, probably you're not living to be white-haired. I love their solution to the problem.

Here comes next. On the seventh day, the priest is to examine them, and if he sees that the sore is unchanged and has not spread in the skin, he's to isolate them for another seven days. There you go. And on the seventh day, the priest is to examine them again. And if the sore has faded and has not spread in the skin, the priest shall announce them clean.

It's only a rash. Motherfuckers spent 14 days in quarantine for fucking poison ivy. What is this, walking dead? Right? What the fuck? They must wash their clothes and they will be clean. But if the rash does spread

in their skin after they've shown themselves to the priest to be pronounced clean, they must appear before the priest again. The priest is to examine that person

and if the rash has spread in the skin, he shall pronounce them unclean. It is a defiling skin disease. When anyone has a defiling skin disease, they must be brought to the priest. The priest is to examine them. How does this guy sleep?

A lot of people, you know, Jesus, could you imagine all the sores and shit you gotta look at? I mean, fucking walking around in the fucking fucking BC era like with fucking little bit of rash on your skin from living like

in the goddamn dirt among the fucking animals. Like, ah, I got a fucking rash. Oh, back to the priest. Jesus, priest has a shit job, doesn't he? It's a horrible job. God. Does this look like

a defiling skin disease to you? They're all old. Oh, I got a sore, Marty. I got a sore Marty I got a sore It has a white hair on it Did the hair spread? If the hair spreads you're fucked Talk to the priest

Don't tell him it's spread Is it shiny? The priest is to examine them And if there is a white swelling in the skin That has turned the hair white And if there is a raw flesh in the skin that has turned the hair white, and if there is a raw flesh in the swelling, it is a chronic skin disease, and the priest shall pronounce them unclean.

He is not to isolate them, because they are already unclean. What the fuck? If the disease breaks out all over their skin, and so far as the priest can see, it covers all the skin of the affected person from head to foot what disease is that that's the worst disease but this is my favorite the priest is to examine them and if the disease has covered their whole body he shall pronounce them clean so if you have fucking smallpox all over your entire fucking person, top to bottom, it's like, eh, super clean. Clean, bro. You know what I think they should do, you know,

because they clearly want to be biblical, is they should put this sort of thing into practice. So when you're at the hospital they normally they're like oh nurse we're gonna need an iv oh and can you uh can you get the priest and they have to like get the priest out of like a bubble a blister pack they like open the priest up out of a blister like a nice sterile beast out of a blister plaque and set him there just like now take a look at this really quickly see if you think this person's unclean i like i think the priest should just stand there with a fucking big rubber stamp.

He's just got two stamps. And he's standing there fucking bored, chewing some fucking gum DMV style. You know, like, next, clean, bunk, unclean, bunk, unclean, bunk. And just like stamps them in the fucking head with a fucking big rubber stamp. And, you know, I think we're done reading this because it just goes on and on. It keeps on talking about, like, it's like when the boil is on the skin and it heals, and the place where the boil was, a white swelling or reddish spot appears, they must represent themselves to the priest, and the priest has to do all this shit.

When someone has a burn on their skin and it's reddish white or white spot appears on the raw flesh of the burn, the priest has to examine it, blah, blah, blah. And if the hair looks like this, then it's fucking clean and unclean. And then, like, if they have a sore on their head and the chin and blah, blah, blah. They just keep on going on and on about all these, like, different, like, I don't even know. It's like a fucking instruction manual for rashes. Well, we got to read the very last section because I think it's the most important part. It really shows the Christian charity that everyone is so up about.

So anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, unclean, unclean. As long as they have the disease, they remain unclean. They must live alone. They must live outside the camp. Jesus. So not only are you fucking isolated and shunned from your community,

and that's their form of disease control, but you're also required to look crazy and dirty and homeless. Like it's an actual requirement to look filthy. Holy shit, Phil Robertson has a disease? He's unclean. Want to contact the guys? Go to DissonancePod.com to get links to their

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Go to patreon.com. That's p-a-t-r-e-o-n.com forward slash dissonance pod. Or click the link on the podcast homepage and you can donate to the production of Cognitive Dissonance on a per episode basis. If you can't spare any money, take a second to give us a five-star review on iTunes or Stitcher or spread the word about the show. We want to send a big heartfelt glory hole to all the patrons and people who rate us. You fucking rock. Stories from the Huffington Post. Jesus is fucking hot, yo.

I mean, seriously. Last week he was shredded. This week he's hot. This week he's hot, man. Mysterious image appears in smoke plume during Fresno fire. Mysterious image, Cecil. I thought this was terribly mysterious when I saw it. It didn't just look like a bunch of smoke at all to me.

It totally looked like Jesus. It looked like Blackbeard the pirate to me. And the thing is that since I know what Jesus looked like from the photos, that's my favorite part when shit looks like Jesus. Like, what are you fucking talking about? You have no idea that could look like fucking Phil Robertson. It does look like Phil Robertson, actually. It just looks vaguely human.

That's what it looks like. Vaguely human. Like, they play this and they show this image. But I think it's just blind luck that they happen to find it at this point. Because you could find any image in a bunch of smoke that's pouring out of something if you go frame by frame. It's just like looking at clouds when you were a kid. You look up and you're like, that one's a fucking Scotty Dog. And that one's an airplane. And that one's Big Mac or whatever.

You know what I mean? You're looking at all these things and you're able to tell and just associate the shape with a familiar shape. And we find faces in everything. I mean, let's be honest. We find faces in, you can find faces in anything because the human body, the mind of the human is made to recognize faces. You know, it's like fucking, it's like programmed into us. programmed into us. So when you fast forward, when like, let's say you, you go through this and you, and you, you go frame by frame, there's probably a million things you could, you could point to just like the constellations, right? There's a million things you can point to and be like,

this is a thing. And that's, that's a, can't you see the, like the dog, it's got the tail coming out over here. And you could easily find anything you wanted to find in there. They just so happened that they, that they stopped they stopped the the they had a freeze frame right when someone else was coming by to carry someone away or something right that's why that there's a freeze that's the only reason why you would see it because you would never see it if this was like farther back in the video this would never have appeared because no one would have stopped the camera at that moment because I watched this. And when you watch it, you can't see it at all. Like it's just fucking it's so fast.

You can't see the way this this smoke looks exactly at that moment when the camera is frozen. There's no way to see it. And it's only you can only see it when when there's a freeze frame because it just flows by too quickly. Well, it's like, you know, this is not one of those moments. This is not like a fucking Lion King moment where the skies were, you know, blue and then fucking clouds came from out of nowhere and joined together into the shape of a fucking lion and started fucking chit-chatting with you for a little while to deliver a message. There's a fire! Like, there's a fire and a lot of smoke and this shit happens. Like,

there's just like, Hey man, there's a lot of smoke. Like let's randomly look for images in it. Great. Awesome message. Jesus. Like that's the best you can fucking do. You weak sauce demigod. That's the most fucking pathetic goddamn message. Like, Oh yeah, I'm going to send those people a message, but just the people in Fresno. No more specific than that, I'm going to send those people a message, but just the people in Fresno. No, more specific than that. I'm going to send a message just to the people in Fresno with video cameras. No, more specifically, just

to the people in Fresno videotaping a fire who freeze-framed it at the exact moment that I appear, and then I will say and do nothing. That is my message. My message is fucking nothing. Because I'm a fucking impotent, ridiculous cloud of smoke. Yeah, it's the same thing when they're like,

oh, look at what's left of the World Trade Center as the crosses. Yeah. After it's over. And you're just like, yeah, well, there's a lot of crosses in construction. That's how things are constructed. That's how construction works. Right. And so, like, if there's a cross there there's a cross there but fuck that if your god actually your god

exists and he and he made a cross stay and killed all those people fuck you Ah, Akbar, Akbar, Allah, Akbar, Allahu, Akbar, just little Allah. Thank you, Chicago. So this comes from CBS News. Campaigning for ISIS in the West. So this is actually the transcript from a televised program from 60 Minutes where Islamic radicals in London are being interviewed about accusations that they're recruiting British citizens to go to Syria and Iraq and join ISIS. And of course, they deny it while at the same time laughing about it pretty much and being like, yeah, we're not doing that.

It's just that what we're doing is exactly fucking that. And one of the guys that's interviewed is this Anjum Chowdhury guy who we have talked about on the show before and have seen him pop up again and again and again, searching for news articles before. And I got to tell you, Cecil, it's genuinely upsetting to hear this guy fucking flip questions backward on this reporter. Yeah, I fucking, not only that, but there's like, there's other people that they're talking to as well that are just as, you know, I guess it's hard to describe their militancy as anything but ultra-radical. Because that's, I mean, at one point the guy says something like,

the woman from CBS is talking to him and he says, ultimately, this is a different guy, this is Abu Ramshaya, I don't know, that's what I'm going to call him, so just take it. Sure, yeah, I nailed that. Ultimately, I want to see every single woman in this country covered from head to toe. I want to see the hand of the thief cut. I want to see adulterous stone to death. I want to see Sharia law in Europe and I want to see it in America in America as well.

I believe our patrols are a means to an end. And he's talking about the the morality patrols that are in London where they're walking around and taking alcohol away from people. And there's videos of these people fucking beating people up or also like strong arming them into getting out of their neighborhood and stuff.

And she says, back to him, she says, the only thing I would say is that America and the United Kingdom, we have a system of democracy. And he says, a backwards one, a barbaric one and she says that allows people to choose what they want and allow what they want and allows people freedom and she's and he says so why can't i choose sharia when in rome overthrow caesar and commit sharia and she

says in your own home you can do whatever you want and he's like but what about in the public why can't i tell you to cover up i'm free to do that and the like the idea is that this guy is either he is so clinically stupid that he doesn't understand where his freedoms end and someone else's begin or he just does not give a fuck because he feels like he's empowered by some fucking magical spirit in the sky to speak exactly what this magical spirit has told him to speak. Yeah, and you know, I actually think it's probably a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B. You know, this sort of thinking is so difficult for me to understand. The same guy, Cecil, that you were just quoting, this Abu Rami Yashashvashvash, this guy was talking earlier, he was talking with the Clarissa Ward, the

journalist, about his mother. Now, he was a convert from Hinduism, and his beliefs bar him from loving his own mother, and she asks him about that. And he says, I don't love them as non-Muslims, but I desire for them to become Muslim and embrace Islam. And she pushes it and says, but you love her as your mother. And he says, she's my mother and she has rights over me. So I have to take care of her. I have to look after her. I have to make sure that, you know, she's protected and secure. So I fulfill my obligations. And I think this is really key. But do you feel love for her?

She says, and he says, it is not allowed for me to love non-Muslims. So that is something that is a matter of faith. As long as you have a religion, which teaches that it is not allowed for one person to love another person, end statement doesn't matter why you do not have a religion of peace you do not have a religion of love you do not have a religion that i can ever fucking reconcile there is no way that you can have a religion that says i am not allowed to love people who aren't my who are not like me, like, right? This is like, this is the most depraved, reductionist, tribalistic bullshit that has no place in a pluralistic modern society. It is a cancer. This sort of thinking is a cancer. It is not allowed for me to love non-Muslims. Well, then fuck you, buddy. I mean,

what else can you possibly say? This is like conversation over if you run into somebody like this, because what could you possibly, I mean, logic, reason, evidence, and love are all off the table, Cecil. What else can you possibly bring to this conversation? I don't think you can bring anything to this particular conversation. And anybody who thinks that this sort of level of adherence to this religion is a good thing, there's nothing you can do with these people. I don't think, I mean, I'm not going to say like, fucking, you should drop a bomb on them. No, no.

Or fucking murder them or any of that stuff. Because I think that's stupid too. But I also don't think that you should reason with them because you can't. So I think that that's off the table. So you should just, I think you should just ignore them. You just be like, fucking ignore these idiots. Um, but I, I think that there is also, uh, you also have to say that there are going to be people who reject this level of, of religion.

They're going to reject this level that this person's at. This person's a fucking, you know, an A, let's say. There's going to be lots of people that are Bs and Cs and Ds. They're still going to call themselves Muslim, but they're not going to be as adherent to the religion. And I don't think that those people necessarily are bad in any way. But the problem is that it's not just when people start saying, oh, it's just the radicals, it's just the radicals.

There are entire countries that are ruled by Sharia law. There's entire countries where the things that he said, every woman would be covered, we'd cut the hands of thieves, we'd stone adulterers. Those things are everyday norms. There's entire countries where that's the norm, where that's a thing that just happens every day. That's barbarism. That's what that is. That's fucking,

that's ridiculous. That's not something that should be happening in 2014. And I don't care if it's one country or four countries or 10 countries that are doing it. It shouldn't be happening at all. And it's happening specifically because of this religion. I said, who's that guy on the other side of the glory hole? It's Jesus. This story comes from the Friendly Atheist blog. Child molesting priest sentenced to 15 years in prison wants out after six months because he's learned his lesson. So Reverend James R. Shook of the Archdiocese of Louisville was convicted

of sexually abusing a teenage boy. Specifically, he was charged with three counts of sodomy and one count of indecent and immoral behavior with an individual. It led to a 15-year prison sentence. But six months in, he's pretty much tired of prison. He didn't like it.

Not a fan. Yeah, would like to... So he's petition much tired of prison. He didn't like it. Not a fan. Yeah, would like to. So he's petitioned a judge. He went to the judge and said, hey, I get it now. That is my favorite quote. He says he now realizes the importance of obeying and conforming to the community's rules. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Before, when you were sodomizing a teenager, you didn't realize that that was like let's stop with this vengeance-based justice system let's move into a rehabilitative justice system let's make sure

that people stop doing these crimes and rather than reinforcing their bad behavior over and over and over again through our own prison system which is you know completely evident that being said fuck this guy you know what i mean like of the like i i can separate myself from that and and say that i understand that policy should be different and that you know they should be like treating this guy in a way that helps him cope with what he did and change how he is so he doesn't do it again. But at the same time, there's a part of me that's just like, fuck you, dude. Get fucking bent. You know, it's real easy to sit on the outside and get shit covered up, you know, whatever, and not have to deal with anything for a long time.

This happens decades ago. So you were out and about for decades after your crime and now you have to be punished for it. And now you're like well it really sucks in here it's like oh that's really a sad fucking story bro man i can barely hear you over all those fucking violins i know man it's like you know there's evidently a thing called shock probation yeah i saw which i think is interesting it allows inmates to be released after serving between one and six months of their sentence under the belief that they've been so shocked by their experience that they would be deterred from future crimes.

And I wasn't aware that the prisoners used the shocker. Yeah, only when you get out of line. Yeah, right? Yeah. I like that. Like, shocked. You're being released because you are shocked by it. Like, doesn't that kind of have to start off with, like, no, I didn't think it was going to happen to me.

Like, you have to, in order to be shocked by prison, like, if I did something illegal and I went to prison, I don't think I'd be shocked. I think I'd be dismayed. Right, yeah. Shocked. Like, oh man, I totally thought they'd be cool if I did it. That rule sounds like, uh, it sounds like, uh, the fucking affluenza bullshit. You know what I mean? Like that rule to me sounds like it's a way to get somebody out of jail that clearly can pay a lot of money to get out of jail or has some sway to get out of jail that sounds like one of those weird rules that's like like because normal people you know fucking person who did math or whatever and then goes to jail because they had like a

bunch of meth on them you know because they bought a bunch of math or something they go to jail i'm sure they're fucking sufficiently shocked that they're in jail. They've never been in jail before. And I'm sure it fucking sucks giant donkey balls, but they haven't done a crime. I think that is one of these crimes that, uh, would qualify for that.

You know what I mean? Like, it feels like it's like those people who write a check and they could jump drive like 25 times in a row. So this story comes from io9.com. It's not much of a story, but it is interesting. It says, the Vaccine Information Center, which contains no actual information, is encouraging parents to stick anti-vaccine warning labels on candy for Halloween.

And the candies say, you take a perfectly delicious Reese's, by the way, and you defile it. Or a Kit Kat, which is also decidedly awesome. The only bummer about a Kit Kat is that when they get the little fun packs of them, there's only two in there. There's two, yeah. So it's like, I mean, you got to eat like 30 of those things

before you're full. I know. It says, thinking about vaccinating your kids, know the risk before you take it. Doesn't even make sense, actually. It should be before you take them, not take it. God, just

if you're good at propaganda, propaganda more good. What I see when I see this is it feels like two great myths that taste great together. I mean, at one point you have the people that are checking their candy before the kid eats it. You know what I mean? Like there's a group of people out there that like go through each piece of candy because

there could be a pin or whatever in there. I don't even know what you put in candy to make people injured or sick or whatever it is. That's all on Snopes. The idea that somebody's going to poison the candy. Did your folks do that? Did they inspect that? Yeah, when I was a kid, they used to look at it all the time. My dad would just not eat anything while I trick-or-treated.

I would have to take it home. My dad would go through each piece, one by one, and now I realize the fucking genius of that system. And I actually understand now a little better as a parent. I've come to understand, Cecil, where that urban legend really originated from. And it's a great way as a parent for you to sort through your kid's candy and pull out the shit you want to eat. Right, exactly.

Like, I always gave my candy to my mom, and then it would come back with no Almond Joy. Right? Like, there would be, it'd be like fucking, I'd be like, I thought I got like 12 Almond Joy. She'd be like, no, wasn't a fucking single Almond Joy in there. Go to your room. Right, it's like, all the Snickers have razor blades again this year. Yeah.

I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. Should we call the police? No. Don't call anyone. Yeah. You can eat this fucking apple. Here you go, kid.

Here's your fucking apple. But it strikes me as a great way to get people that I think are already susceptible to this kind of advertising. Right. Because they're willing to believe this other myth. Maybe they're willing to believe this myth of this fucking thing I put on the candy. You know. Yeah. Right. myth, maybe they're willing to believe this myth of this fucking thing I put on the candy, you know? Yeah, right. I make, because there's no way that a kid's ever going to see that or care about it.

It's not for the kid. It's for the parent who's going to sort through the candy later on. You know, I actually cannot think of a less relevant place, though, to put your energy and your ad than on a piece of paper surrounding chocolate given to a child. Exactly. That's just going to be discarded. Are you kidding me? Faster than you can imagine.

You may as well burn it onto a Koran for all the fucking good it'll do you. You might as well fucking write it on a comet. You know what I mean? You will get more ad, because it is going to be so gone so fast. It'd be like if somebody brought you a steak and they like branded into the steak. Yeah. You know, like- I would never see it.

Did you read your steak? No, it's a fucking steak. I ate the goddamn steak. Actually, when the waitress came, I just held my mouth open and she just shoved it in my maw. That's what happened. I have her chew it for me and spit it into my mouth like a baby bird. Chew it? Are you kidding me?

She just drops the whole steak in there, plate and all. I'm not more. I pass plates, no problem. I just pass it. At this point. I'm like a pelican, how many I can fit in there. I'm so big. I can just fit like cups, dishes, small stoves.

He's eating the whole thing don't if i spill anything on the fucking tablecloth you better watch out because i'm not that's not i'm going home with that in me sir you should not eat the sterno underneath the buffet like what but it's so deliciously blue you want answers i think i'm entitled You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers! I want the truth! You can't handle the truth! This story comes from the Raw story. Iowa's Joni Ernst, Obamacare is bad because people should rely on the churches for help.

Did she win tonight? I don't know. Let's take a look. Let's be sad. Oh, she wins election! Oh, God. Oh, she won! So she told a bunch of supporters at a relatively recent rally that they should oppose Obamacare because the job of caring for the poor

is not the purview of government. The poor, she said, should rely on churches and charitable organizations for help. I would point out that churches and charitable organizations still exist. Yeah. Right. And the poor still need more help. Right. What is stopping them right fucking now?

What is stopping them from fucking fixing the poverty problem as we speak? Nothing is standing in their way. They're not like, they're not like sulking in the corner because Obamacare is there. They're not like, fuck, we were going to help all these poor people. We were going to help them get all their fucking medical stuff

and we were going to give them all these wonderful food that we collected in all these pantries. But now that like the government's taking care of them, we're just fucking mad. Can you imagine the pastor standing out there like, hey, free soup, soup kitchen. Fucking homeless guy walks by. He's like, fuck you, I got government soup.

Preacher. He fucking dumps the soup on their head, fucking spikes some bread in their face. And then the preacher's in back in their food their food pantry, just like, he's like picking up all the boxes of cereal and just tearing them open in frustration. He's just like, nobody wants my cereal. God damn, what am I going to do with all this food? Fuck off, you asshole.

What the fuck? You don't know that there's people fucking you know like it's it's all like i just don't understand there's so many times in our society nowadays where it's all or nothing it's either all it's got to be all 100 church care no they can supplement what the government doesn't do and the government can supplement what they don't do and we can fucking reach more people is that that fucking hard to understand i'm not a fucking brain surgeon but i just figured out that you can reach more people if you work together like that's a fucking a hard thing to understand you'll learn

that like fucking like fucking kindergarten for christ's sakes what how is it that you're so disconnected from reality as a fucking human being, as like now a senator, an Iowa fucking senator, that you just don't understand that when you work together, both government and fucking churches, you can reach and help more people. It reminds me of when the atheist group was trying to give away food and donate and be all charitable and good. And the fucking churches are like, no, you don't believe in God. Go away. Get out of here. And it's like, wait a minute. What the fuck is that? You're just turning away help.

Why would you turn away help, you bag of dicks. So it's our great hope to have a guest next time. We'll see what we can do. We're not promising anything. We're also going to be on Incredulous very soon. We'll let you know when that comes out. Another thing we wanted to mention, we wanted to sort of plant the seed early because we're getting this is November.

About a month from now, I think it's on December 6th, but we'll give you the exact time and exact way to find it later on. We are going to be on a 24-hour podcast-a-thon with David Smalley for one hour at 10 p.m. I think it's on the 6th. Yeah, it promises to be a lot of fun, actually. We'll be hanging out. When we're on that show, we're going to be getting together here

in illustrious Glory Hole Studios at 10 o'clock at night. So, I don't know about you, Cecil, but I will be drinking. Yeah, I'm going to be drinking, too. And one of the things that we wanted to mention, we wanted to talk about this. The reason why I want to mention this early is not only do I want you to go listen to us

live at 10 o'clock on David Smalley's show so we can just get a ton of people to listen. You guys, there'll probably be plenty of ways to interact with us. So they'll not only be reading questions off Twitter, but there might also be an opportunity for people to call in. So we want to make sure that we get as many people as possible to listen on that evening. But specifically, David is running a 24-hour podcast-a-thon for Foundation Beyond Belief. And during that hour, Tom and I are going to match donations up to $2,000. So what we'd love our listeners to do is to save up their pennies

for the month of November, and come December, hurt us as bad as you can during that hour. So go over and, and, and pledge a hundred dollars and we will spend a hundred dollars of our own money to, to match your donation. So we want to try to get, if we can, 4,000 plus during that hour. We think that we can, we'd like to be the group that brings the most money to the table and shows that not only Foundation Beyond Belief is an amazing charity, but also that Cognitive Dissonance has a bunch of people who care about other people.

So if it interests you and you're thinking about giving something, especially around Christmastime, this is a great Christmastime donation, and we're going to match your money. So this is a great way to give double. So we'll keep you informed as time goes on, but we'd really love to go there and go there with guns blazing and show them that cognitive dissonance listeners really do give back to the community. Well, I'll tell you what.

Our listeners have shown time and time and time again that they are generous, philanthropical listeners. There's a real, like, every time we've put the call out, every time, Cecil, we've put the call out and said, hey, here's a cause. We think it's worthwhile. Go check it out. People have generally really stood up and responded. And I just think it would be awesome. I mean, it's a badge of honor for you guys, as the listeners, to be able to say, hey, here's who we are as a community. Here's who we are as a group. Like this is something cool that we did. And, uh, you'll be able to point to it

and fucking thumb your nose at other podcasts that aren't as awesome. And that's the most important part of charity. It is looking down your nose at other people. That is exactly why I do it. So, uh, that wraps it up for, uh, for this episode, we're going to be people. That is exactly it. That's why I do it. So that wraps it up for this episode. We're going to be back. This is a midweek show, so we'll be back this upcoming Monday and we'll keep you informed about our other

places that we're going to be. You can hear us, but until then, we're going to leave you, as always, with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water downward spiral, brain dead pan, sales pitch, pitch late night info docutainment leo pisces cancer cures detox reflex foot massage death and towers tarot cards psychic healing crystal balls bigfoot yeti aliens churches mosques and synagogues temples dragons giant worms

atlantis dolphins truthers birthers witches, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody. Evidential. Conclusive. Doubt even this. conclusive.

Doubt even this. The opinions and views expressed in this show are that of the hosts only. Our poorly formed and expressed notions do not represent those of our wives, employers, friends, families, or of the local Dairy Council. We'll see you next time. you