Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 20: The Rumpshaker

Episode Date: November 7, 2011

Bankrupt Church wnat's food for pastor's sick wife, Faith healing kills again, Climate denyer changes mind, Bullying law passed in MI, Funny petition 1, Funny petition 2, Can't give you tea party story - it has been taken down, Reafirming In god We Trust, More damage to protesters at Occupy Oakland, Obama stimulus rebuked then taken, Rumpology. Clips: Richard Feynman on nutrition and knowledge, Christian asks people for their grocery money, Jesus Camp, Thing a Week 5 – Baby Got Back -Jonathan Coulton, Senate TV Michigan. Visit our site for the links to the stories: http://dissonancepod.com

Do you want to get cognitive dissonance streamed to your iPhone or Blackberry? If so, download Stitcher free today at Stitcher.com. What happens is at an even more mundane level, we get experts on everything. It sounds like this sort of scientific expert. They're not scientific. They sit at a typewriter and they make up something like, They're not scientists. They sit at a typewriter and they make up something like, oh, food grown with fertilizer that's organic is better for you than food grown with fertilizer that's inorganic.

May be true, may not be true, but it hasn't been demonstrated one way or the other. But they'll sit there on the typewriter and make up all this stuff as if it's science, and they become an expert on foods, organic foods and so on. There's all kinds of myths and pseudoscience all over the planet. Now, I might be quite wrong. Maybe they do know all this stuff. But I don't think I'm going to see. I have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to get to really know something, how careful you have to be about checking the experiments, how easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourself. I know what it means

to know something. And therefore, I can't, I see how they get their information. And I can't believe that they know it. They haven't done the work necessary, haven't done the checks necessary, haven't done the care necessary. I have a great suspicion

that they don't know, that this stuff is and they're intimidating people. 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 at. Welcome back. This is episode 20 of Cognitive Dissonance for those who are keeping count. Welcome back. This is episode 20 of Cognitive Dissonance for those who are keeping count. And I have to I have to make a quick note, Cecil, to say that although this show is skeptical and political, it is not journalistic or accurate news. This is not the news. If this is your only source of news, you're doing the news wrong. You're doing the news so unbelievably wrong. It's painful how badly you're doing the news at this point. We got a couple of emails.

First off, Tom, let's just both say thank you to Maddie at Stitcher for putting us on their favorite pods of the week. And we got a ton of people that came over and a bunch of brand new listeners for that. So thank you very much for putting us on your top pod, Stitcher. That was great of you to do. Yeah, we've got our downloads have really increased over the last week. And so I'm imagining we've got some new listeners we've yet to alienate. We're doing our best, though. I mean, we're going to give it hell.

I got to tell you, but we're so, we're so happy to have so many new listeners. And, uh, if you've put up with, uh, episode 19, well slog your way through episode 20 and we'll give you all the information on how to send us. I did want to say, uh, I did want to sort of, we did want to sort of open the show though, for people who haven't't heard us before or who have maybe just heard one episode. We got kind of an email from, we got an email from a person who was, who had some pretty good points, Tom. They're saying that we didn't really give enough meat of the story before we started talking about it.

You know, I'll admit that that was something that I didn't do properly when leading the stories, and I appreciate being let known that. I want to give context, as much context as is appropriate, to launch into really the meat of our show, which is joking about shit. And I think that that's important for us to just take a moment here to set aside that our show is here as an editorialist show.

It's not a journalist show. We want to make you guys laugh. We want to have a good time. Occasionally, we're inflamed and impassioned. Most of the time we want to make some jokes and point out some inconsistencies and some things that we get a kick out of and some stories we want to share. If I haven't been providing enough context, then I apologize and I certainly will make every effort to address that concern. And I appreciate you guys letting us know that kind of feedback is constructive and we can act on it. And our goal is to put out the best show we can put out for you

guys. Tom and I did a lot. We went the extra mile to record last week. Tom was very busy during the day. We couldn't actually record during the day. We had to record in the evening. Tom actually had to record late evening because I was two hours ahead in a time, in a different time zone. I was recording from a, like a fucking double tree, fucking Berkeley. Uh, I had, I had, you know, uh, a 40 hour plus work week ahead of me and had to mix the show on the road without all the, you know, the, with off shitty wifi. And it was just, I mean, it was a lot of work. We put a lot of work into getting that show out last week. And there's no real excuses for it. But we did a lot of extra work to try to make sure that there was a show last week that people could listen to.

So if it didn't meet everybody's expectations, we apologize. We try as hard as we can. But we have no staff and we make no money. So those are the two- I actually cashed my cognitive dissonance paycheck yesterday, Cecil, and it cost me like 40 bucks. Yeah, because it costs Tom and I money to actually buy the space. We have to pay for a website. We have to buy our own equipment. There's all these-

I don't even understand what most of that means. Yeah. Like you just. So to give you an idea, I don't understand how you buy a website. I'm looking at my computer. I don't even know where you put the money. It's definitely not the disk drive. You know, you don't put it in there.

I've been stuffing 20s in the little SD slot. I wonder why Libsyn hasn't gotten their payment yet. I'm treated like the self-checkout at the Jewel. But yeah, this show isn't free for us and we're not getting paid. So if you have problems with the sort of production schedule

or if you're going to get down on us about how we didn't post something fast enough, even though it was technically up at the right space. Somebody linked you to the wrong space and you didn't see that it was up. That's too fucking bad, dude. And it's too fucking bad because we don't fucking have a staff. The staff is us.

And we also work. So this is a free show. We hope you enjoy it. We hope you like it. But it's just a hobby, and it's not a – we're not fucking Imus, as you say in your email very, very correctly. We are not fucking Imus. We will never be Imus because Imus makes millions of dollars and has a staff of hundreds, and we have none of that. And I'd also like to point out that our staff is two, and I should be fired.

So, I mean, mean really for fuck's sake it's like it's always been the little women that caught the vision of giving beginning with jesus himself out of their private means some of you little precious ones have that little grocery money, some of that little money set aside, assure tonight the blessings of God on your family by giving it to God and speaking that. Say it, God, this is for blessings on my family. And this is a story that was actually brought to us by one of our listeners if you guys have stories you'd like to talk about and rail about certainly feel free to send them to us um this this is a story that discusses a bankrupt church it's not just a small church

though this is the uh crystal cathedral house of worship now i've seen photos of the crystal cathedral cecil and it's fucking massive. And cathedral is really the right word for it. It's sort of a modern cathedral. In fact, the Crystal Cathedral was featured on that World After People. Oh, really? This is what this building, which is basically all glass, is going to look like in 10 years and

20 years as it crumbles to dust. Well, that might happen a little sooner than anticipated. Holy shit, I just fucking Googled it. It's fucking insane. Holy fucking shit. That is out-fucking-rageous. Yeah, it is. This place is enormous, and it's all glass.

Oh, my God. Because you're not supposed to throw stones at it, so I don't know. That is one of the rules, I think, yeah. So if you're without sin, that's not the place to go. Right, right. Because you'd be fucking breaking that place like it's 83. Anyhow, it's bankrupt. Oh, yeah.

The window washing, the Windex bills alone for this place have to be astronomical right i don't know how you tithe enough to keep that place clean um and it's bankrupt the megachurch the uh reverend robert schuler um and his family have been paying themselves some pretty large salaries and doing some pretty irresponsible shit with the money, Cecil. Yeah. Fred, this is a article from Yahoo News. And they talk about this pastor. And the one thing that keeps coming up in this that I love is the limo service, Tom. That's the piece that I think is great.

What is it about religious figures and having to have their own mode of transportation like the Popemobile? You know what I mean? Like they all seem to have to have this sort of special mode of transportation. These people are showing up in limos and asking for people to cook for them because the wife has pneumonia and

one of the best parts of the article is when they specifically ask for certain dietary restrictions in the food in which they're asking for. Also, make me these specific foods. I'll send my limo by to pick it up. Your church is bankrupt. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Oh, my God. It's like fucking rubbing your ass in someone's face, too.

No kidding. It's like walking into the church and being like, okay, congregants to the right, money changers to the left. Form a line, guys. Form a line. I love the fact that they're like, they're like asking for food and then like totally fucking ripping that horse's mouth open. You know, just like, here's the gift horse.

What's inside? Right. I baked you cookies. Slap, slap, slap. How dare you? These have too much salt in them. Way to be fucking. I mean, like, first off, you bankrupt your church because, you know, nobody's paying attention, right?

There's this church is obviously well funded. I mean, you look at this church and it looks like the fucking Louvre. You know what I mean? Like it's just this amazing structure. And so it's well-funded. So they're obviously pulling in a shit ton of money. These people dipped into the endowment of the church. It's just like $10 million.

Hey, it's like a free $10 million just waiting to be spent. Church records are not – church financial records are protected. Right. So they can't be audited, you know, even by the IRS. They cannot be audited. So you can give an endowment to the church and the person who runs the church can be like, well, I'm in the money. They can fucking Scrooge McDuck around in that shit all they want.

Yeah. It's insane. So, you know, they can send their limo driver to go pick up. I like, too, that they have enough money for the fucking limo. Oh, yeah. There's certain things you can't live without, Tom. There's necessities. Go to the drive-thru.

You've got a limo. It's much better. It's home-cooked, you know? Made with love. Home-cooked to order. Made with love. Dear congregants, you are poor. We are not.

Here is my limo. Make me a food. Here's my limo. Please stuff a food. Here's my limo. Please stuff all of your foodstuffs in the backseat. In the name of Jesus, we speak that. Hookah, chaka, hookah, hookah, hookah, chaka, hookah, hookah, hookah, chaka. I'm hooked on a feeling. I'm high on believing. So moving on, we've got a story.

This is a story where members of a support faith, a we support faith healing group, followers of the Christ Church. They supported faith healing much to followers of the Christ Church. They supported faith healing much to the detriment of their child. Their child did not support faith healing. Healing was not supported and God didn't show up because their fucking kid died. And they were sentenced recently to six years. Is it six years? Yeah, six years. Six years in prison.

Good, assholes. Okay, so this article comes from the Friendly Atheist blog. It was posted on November 1st. Really good analysis of this, too. And I think I have a feeling like the person who's writing this, too, the blogger who's writing this, also feels the same way we do. Is very happy that these people have been sentenced. Um, the person, uh, who the, so the father, the baby was born, this was, uh, this was a home birth and the son was instead of called because he was a premature baby and he was, he was like, I guess, breathing is labored breathing and wasn't doing very well.

So the father, instead of actually calling the 911 or the wife calling 911, they anointed him with oil, which it didn't work. But it would make him slippery at least. And that's important. At least, yeah, at least he'll be slick. That way he can slide right into the hands of God when you die, right? I mean, like, you're greasing this kid up like a bar of soap in the bathtub instead of calling 911. I can't even imagine that. You're like, oh, I just had a baby.

Oh, that's great. What a fucking miracle. I'm so pleased. Oh, look, he's not breathing well. Well, bust out the Crisco. Lube him up. Send him over to Jesus. That's crazy.

You are fucking insane. What bothers me about this story is that six years is the maximum any of these murderers get. Right, right. That's crazy. Well, I want to read directly from the article here. And like we said, this is from the friendly atheist um shannon hickman said even if she wanted to call 9-1-1 she was powerless to act because her church calls for wives to submit to their husband's decisions to do so otherwise is a sin i would say that submitting to an idiot's decisions regardless

of gender is a sin that's what i would I would say. Your husband didn't make a decision, right? You submitted to indecision. No, he actually made a decision to murder the child. I mean, that's the decision he made. He made the decision to do nothing instead of something.

That was the wrong decision. In hindsight. This is right. Yeah. Who could have thought whoever would have guessed it would have turned out this way? Yeah. Well, I'll tell you who. The pediatric expert who testified said the baby had a 99.9% chance of surviving if he had been taken to a hospital.

This wasn't even a regular home birth. This was a premature home birth. Oh, man. That should fucking throw up some fucking flags, huh? This is, you know, the only thing that's good about this story is the courts are not allowing them to rest and be protected by the umbrella of religious freedoms when it comes to the safety of children. And I think we're starting to see some more stories

that are trending in that direction. I think it's insane that there's even a question about culpability, though, that you could actually show up to a courtroom and be like, well, look, I couldn't do anything because I had to submit to my husband. It's like, no, no, no. Fuck you. You are a genuine walking around two legged human being. Make a goddamn decision.

Yeah. Do a thing for the safety of your kids. And you can't do it then you can go to prison you can hang out there and see if that's better and then you can decide who jesus is fucking protecting now so tom you're you're a parent i am not a parent so i don't know what the i don't understand the bond between child and and um and parent. I don't understand it from the parent side. I understand it from the child side because I was born. I wasn't like spawned from fucking somebody's head or something. You were not hatched from an egg, for example.

But I don't understand it the other way around. Now, let me just ask you, and this is going to be a difficult question, but if your child was born at home, had some labor breathing, would you first choose to like – it almost feels like they love God more than they love the thing they just produced. You would have to because the instinct – I think you can actually take this right out of the parenting role. can actually take this right out of the parenting role. If you were in my house, Cecil, and you started breathing, having trouble breathing for whatever reason, your natural reaction when you see a human being in trouble as a decent person is to attempt to offer real substantive assistance. Right. If you are unable to do that, then you call an expert as fast as you can. I mean,

you, you take the steps that are necessary to help people that are in trouble. If you aren't doing that, then you are a terrible person. And there's no, there's no gray area here. Someone needs your help. You fucking help.

If you don't help, you're a shithead end of story yeah if that's your fucking kid if that's your flesh and blood if that's the thing that you created with your wife that you've been anticipating for fucking 40 weeks or less in this case yeah it turns out less yeah then and and there's a problem like i would have fucking nine one already dialed right now it's it's ridiculous to think that you could stare down at something that's that helpless if it was a fucking kitten i know rush it to the vet right right oh man this thing is in front of me it's helpless and small and i am the only person here to be able to offer aid and comfort. Right, right.

I don't get it. I don't get it. It just means that you've got to love something else more. You've got to value something more than human life, and that's the problem. When you value your religiosity more than you value human life, things like this occur, and it also makes you a shithead. Yeah. Yeah.

Also makes you go to jail. Right, turns out. Bad decision. One popular thing to do in American politics is to note that the summers in the United States over the past few years have been very warm. As a result, global warming must be real. What's wrong with this reasoning? It's only gone up 0.6 degrees. Yeah, it's not really a big problem, is it?

So Cecil, we've got an interesting article. The reason this article, this next article is interesting isn't so much because of the result that comes from it, but rather the source. So prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming, Richard Muller, has come out and said that he believes now that global warming is real. And although he didn't come out and say directly that he believed it to be manmade, he did indicate that greenhouse gases were potentially catastrophic. So this is interesting because he was a prominent skeptic of global warming. And his study was funded by the Koch brothers. Am I pronouncing that right? Yeah. I just call them Cox. By the Cox. Who have been just rabidly opposed to anybody who espouses actual science in favor of global warming. And what's interesting here is he was really setting out to say, hey, global warming is not real.

And at the end of the day, was unable to do so. Yeah, this is another bit where somebody actually does some actual research, somebody who's qualified to do some research, right, who can actually perform this and finds out they're wrong. They're like, oh, well, I came in here with a different idea and it turns out I'm wrong. This story comes from the Associated Press, by the way, by way of Yahoo News. Interesting article. And, you know, it shows the sort of thought process that goes into this. You're coming in with some sort of favored notion and leaving with a different worldview. It's got to be difficult for this guy.

I imagine this was very difficult. You're taking money from somebody who, let's be honest, is almost certainly expecting you to come up with a certain answer. Plus you're walking into it extremely skeptical of the claims that have been made, extremely skeptical of the decisions. Somebody who really bought into some of the notions behind what's being called climate gate and to analyze all the evidence. I have to say, though, this is why science works. Right.

You know, I've said it before and I'm going to keep saying it. You walk into it with a favored notion. You walk out of it with a changed mind. What gets you from point A to point B? Reliance on the data. It didn't matter what he hoped was true, what he thought was true. At the end of the day, it's what does the data point to? Well, it fucking points in this direction.

The only thing left then is after experimentation and analysis of the data is to arrive at the conclusion the data points to. And it's self fucking correcting. You see it correct right here in this case. This would not be the true. Not be the true. This would not be the case. Not be the true. This would not be the case. Not be the true. Holy shit.

That is not the true. If you were like an asshole with a podcast and an opinion, for example, or a religious goofball, or any of the other normal human responses that are subject to confirmation bias. And we're all subject to confirmation bias. And the advantage of science is it takes confirmation bias out of the equation. And may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us. Madam President, I hear the floor and suggest the admissible quorum.

Clerk will call the roll. Expressions of approval or disapproval are not permitted. So the state of Michigan recently passed a law allowing people of faith to bully whoever the hell they feel like it, as long as they can do so with some kind of religious or heartfelt moral justification, basically ensconcing their right of free speech to attack other people, as long as that right of free speech stems from a place of righteous fucking moral and religious indignation. And in a really impassioned and interesting speech by a Democratic lawmaker, you know, see, so why don't you go ahead and just play it? I think her words speak better than mine.

This is coming from YouTube, and it's a clip from Senate TV in Michigan. You know, I personally have had some pretty hard days here in the Senate this term. Whether it was what happened to the school aid fund, or raising pension taxes, or the continued assault on the middle class, I think this was my lowest point personally. Because here today, you claim to be protecting kids and you're actually putting them in more danger. There are at least 10 Michigan children in the past decade whose deaths are directly attributable to bullying. I have their names and their ages here, but I can't read them. I think they've been too victimized

as it is. But had this bill that you're going to pass today been law in effect while they were alive, how many of their deaths would have been prevented? Zero. You may be able to pat yourself on the back today and say that you did something, but in actuality you're explicitly outlining how to get away with bullying. Your exceptions have swallowed the rule. As passed today, bullying kids is okay if a student, parent, teacher, or school employee can come up with a moral or religious reason for doing it. You've set us back further, creating a blueprint for bullying. So this might solve a political problem that the Republicans have, but be clear, you are papering over the problem

that is a reality faced by hundreds of kids in Michigan schools every day. In fact, not only does this not protect kids who are bullied, it further endangers them by legitimizing excuses for tormenting a student. And the saddest and sickest irony of this whole thing is that it's called Matt's Safe School Law. And after the way that you've gutted it, it wouldn't have done a damn thing to save Matt. This is worse than doing nothing.

It's a Republican license to bully. I ask that my comments be recorded in the journal as my no-vote explanation. I don't even understand how a bill like this gets introduced, much less passed. like this gets introduced, much less passed. It's so unbelievably insane to allow bullying, to basically protect the rights of perpetrators of bullying because their rights are more important. Like their right to say terrible shit as long as they really believe it. Really? I mean, I don't even understand now how you would have any anti-bullying being prosecuted. Because the bullier, the person who's attacking the other person could just say, well, I fucking really believe it.

I really believe it. I really believe that I should be able to punch fat people because I don't like fat people. Well, doesn't this give license to white supremacists then? It absolutely does. I mean they really believe it. In their heart of hearts, they really think that African-Americans are a lesser species. So doesn't it give license to them to be fucking jackasses and fucking insult black and – I mean it's not just black because white supremacists are fucking, they are fucking

equal opportunity haters. Yeah, they just hate kind of everybody. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, pretty much everybody that ain't white. And this is, there's a guy on Reddit. We were reading on, I'm reading on Reddit here. There was a comment where somebody had found in the actual bill the piece that is the most egregious.

And his username is MeatBongos. And so MeatBongos posts on Reddit, and the piece I'm going to read from his post is, this section does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held belief or moral conviction of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil's parent or guardian. So it's saying right there that it doesn't prohibit. As long as you fucking believe it in your heart of hearts, you can say it. I mean, that's the essence of bullying. And you're protecting those people that can do it.

And she even says, we even listened to it a few minutes ago, like, this bill is named after someone who was bullied and it wouldn't have saved that person. It would have protected the people that bullied him. you really mean it. And that's really what this is. If your hateful speech comes from a place of religious or deep moral conviction, meaning you're not just fucking around, so who does this punish? This punishes the people who are casual about it.

They can go, you know, if you didn't really believe it, if you're just saying shit just to be mean, then that's bad. But if you're being cruel and you really believe it, well, you know, fucking bully for you, man. Literally. So we're going to take a quick break so you guys can send us your hate mail. Let us know all of the various things we're doing wrong. They are legion, I assure you. Yeah, it's going to take you a while.

And when we come back, we'll finish out with the rest of our show. You can email these assholes at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. For more information on this or any other episode, visit the Cognitive Dissonance website, dissonancepod.com. Like our show on Facebook to join in the conversation.

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740-74-DOUBT That's 740-743-6828. Your help is fucking greatly appreciated. So Cecil, we had talked about the petitions at WhiteHouse.gov. WhiteHouse.gov has a system set up where you can petition your government and let them know what you think. People can sign the petition. You can create your own petitions.

It's actually a really great idea, although in practice, as we talked about on our last show, it does not actually do anything. So there's a couple of new petitions that seem to be in direct response to the response. There was a petition not too long ago saying, you know, hey, we should remove In God We Trust and gave some reasons why it was reasonably well thought out. Plenty of people signed it. The response from the Obama administration was basically, eh, no, just not going to do that.

That's political suicide, dummy. So now there's a new petition, which I'm just going to go ahead and read because I think it's fucking genius. There's actually two, Tom. You should read them both. So the first one is, we demand a vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response to this petition. Since these petitions are ignored, apart from an occasional patronizing and inane political statement amounting to nothing more than a condescending pat on the head, we, the signers, would enjoy having the illusion of success. Since no other outcome to this process seems possible, we demand that the White House immediately assign a junior staffer to compose a tame and vapid response to this petition and never attempt to take any meaningful action on this or any other issue. We would also like a cookie. I love it so much. So fantastic.

This listeners is a petition you should sign. We will put the link on our website and you could take a look at it. And then on the website is dissonancepod.com by the way. and you can take a look at it. And then on the website is dissonancepod.com, by the way. Other websites are imitations. Other websites are old websites. Please stop going there. Then we also have the secondary one.

We petitioned the Obama administration to actually take these petitions seriously instead of just using them as an excuse to pretend you are listening. Although the ability to submit petitions directly to the White House is a noble and welcome new feature of the current administration, the first round of responses makes blatantly clear the White House intends to just support its current stances and explain them with responses to everyone who has done any research already knows. An online petition is not meant as a replacement

for using a search box in a web browser. We, the people, those who grant you the power to govern in the first place, are requesting changes in policy directly, circumventing legislators who already do not listen to us. We, the people, request you govern for us, which means actually listening to us and actually acting in our interests instead of special interests. You are not above us. You are us. Govern accordingly. That's actually a really good one.

And I love that last line. You know, you are us, motherfucker. I'm going to start a petition, Tom. I hope you sign it. It's going to be real short, though. It's just going to be abortions for some, miniature American flags for others. Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos.

I hope you sign it. I just hope. That's phenomenal. I just hope you sign it. Yeah, the response from the last In God We Trust petition was really ridiculous. I mean, we discussed it in our last show. You can take a listen on episode 19. And I think these call attention to that.

12,000 people have already signed the last petition that we just read. I do like that you can petition your government directly on the website. I think that's great, but I agree wholeheartedly. If you're going to do that, then fucking take it seriously. Do a thing. That's what we're asking you to do. We're petitioning the website. I think that's great, but I agree wholeheartedly. If you're going to do that, then fucking take it seriously. Do a thing. That's what we're asking you to do. We're petitioning the government. It doesn't mean that the people get to just sign a petition and then you have to follow it. All the people sign a petition and you get 25,000 signatures that say you should be able to use a taser gun on elderly people.

Obviously, that's ridiculous and nobody would suggest that. Awesome, but ridiculous. Unless you're from an elderly. That's why I said it's awesome because I'm not there yet. Now, I will make a petition that take that away once I become elderly. Right. Well, of course. But until that point, I'm down.

You'd be irresponsible otherwise. Sure. Yeah. So, so clearly there has to be, um, you know, you can't just do everything that, that the we, the people petition site wants you to do. Um, but I do think that if enough people voice their opinion, um, it's deserving of a response that's thoughtful and considered. Right. And I think that the reason people are upset is that the response to the in God we trust petition was neither thoughtful nor considered.

And in fact was self-contradictory. Yeah, completely, where he's like, you know, he's saying that, you know, context matters, but he's not paying attention to any of the context in which it's being used. So, yeah, you know, it's basically just a pat on the head for us. Be like, hey, here you go. Here's a little bit of, you know, platitude and pat on the head and don't worry, everything's going to be fine. And then, you know, I mean, come on, this is ridiculous. What we want, what we want more than anything else is just to be heard. At least, you know, admit that you heard us. And that last one doesn't even feel like they heard us.

Lord, we just asked it to be covered with the blood of Jesus. Open hearts, Lord. Open hearts. So this next article is from RollCall.com. Republicans shift focus from jobs to God. Who could have seen this coming? So recently Congress voted to reaffirm the national motto of In God We Trust. So we've actually got two mottos for the unofficial motto out of many one. And then in God we trust, which is the national motto. And it was never under any.

Nobody was nobody was trying to repeal it. Nobody was trying to attack in any serious, substantive, legislative way. The national motto. Also, I would like to point out, the national model is fucking irrelevant to the current state of affairs. And they wasted time and energy

and taxpayer dollars debating it and then reaffirming it. You did nothing. A reaffirmation is not even a thing. It's redoing something that was never under threat. Yeah, I don't get it. Are they going to reaffirm all the Bill of Rights next?

Right, right. It's like when they stood up and just read the Constitution. Thanks. I know how to read. It was there, right? I could have read that. Oh, man, if only there was some place to read that document. Such a shame that it's a fucking secret document.

Yeah, suddenly we have an oral tradition. We have no writing. So they reaffirmed In God We Trust as our national motto. What a fucking enormous waste of time and money, you cocksuckers. I'm so annoyed with this. Not because it meant anything. What a fucking enormous waste of time and money, you cocksuckers. I'm so annoyed with this. Not because it meant anything. Not because our national motto is In God We Trust.

I think our national motto is probably the fucking least relevant thing to pay attention to right now. The total cost, this article is interesting because it breaks down, okay, well, how much did that cost? With a base salary for lawmakers of $174,000 and slightly higher pay for Speaker John Boehner, Cantor, and Pelosi, the public spends more than $77 million every year on congressional salaries. I recognize that's a drop in the bucket. If the House stays on schedule to be in session a total of 128 days this year, wow, way to really work, taxpayers spend roughly $592,000 per legislative day on salaries. With three items scheduled to be voted on on Tuesday, the total cost of members' salaries

and CRS's estimated floor operating costs means this resolution will cost at least $215,183 to accomplish nothing. Wouldn't you fucking kill for a 100-day work year? 128 days. I cannot even imagine. Oh, God. What is that even? I mean, gosh, that's like a fucking third of the year.

Yeah, let's see. 52 weeks out of the year, you're not even working three days a week on average. I work a few more days than that on fucking average. Yeah. That's insane. And they make a lot of money too. Yeah. And to do stuff like this.

It's like I understand that this is just a – what this is is somebody is fucking dropping their balls on the table. Exactly. You know what I mean? They're just like, hey, I'm going to drop my balls and you're going to have to see my balls. And you're like, okay, great. Pull your balls out. All right. Have we all seen him?

We've seen him over there? You in the back? Have you seen his balls? Yeah? I know they're small from back there, but you're just going to have to use your binoculars to look at his balls. Okay, we're done. His balls can go back in. Because that's all this is.

It's like somebody's flexing nuts, and they want to show everybody, hey, look at hey, look at – like you want to make a petition online to get in God we trust? We're actually going to reaffirm it. What does that mean? Nothing really. But we're going to waste time and effort and not do anything that can really help the economy because we want to make sure it's for shit next year when we get – fucking try to get elected. Well, and that's – and isn't that the fucking truth of the thing, right? fucking truth of the thing right you know that i don't know if they've noticed but people are a little unhappy about the state of the fucking economy right now right here in america and we want some fucking action and whether you like the president's jobs bill or not at least it's a thing

at least it's like hey i have an idea here's my idea and. And with the state of everything going on right now, to waste fucking time and effort reaffirming a national motto. You know, one of the other things they fucking voted on was whether or not we should print commemorative money to honor baseball. Really? Commemorative fucking money? You know what I want? Spending money. I'd like a money, just a money. It'd be nice. And there's a lot of people out there that don't have, you know, don't have a fucking pot to piss in right now because of the state of the economy. And they're going to, I mean, it's almost like they're laughing. It's, it's, you know, it's shit like this that start revolutions. You know what I mean? It's shit like this when you completely just have no fucking idea and your finger is completely off the pulse of the American people.

That's when shit starts going fucking pear-shaped. And you can't do shit like this and then fucking baseball of all things, try to make money based on that. It's like, well, next, we're going to next week, we're going to declare strawberry shortcake as the national sweet. You know, and it's like, well, fucking please stop doing that and start considering real issues. Just do it right now. And if you don't do it right now, you know,

the Occupy protests are going to fucking occupy the fucking Senate pretty soon. Well, it's like the fucking let them eat cake bill, right? Exactly. Fuck you. You know, if you're going to fucking disconnect yourself that thoroughly from the real problems that people face, that you would even consider, you should be fucking ashamed to do anything with the state of the economy right now as it is and as it has been for fucking years at this point.

For years. This isn't a little hiccup at this point this has gotten very serious so if you're not all the time all of your time is not spent working on fixing these problems you should be fucking fired can you imagine going into your job your real job you're honest to God, American working job, Cecil, and being like, you know, I know we've got some real things we need to work on. I know they are fucking important to the state of our business right now. I know that they have meaning to our organization. But instead, what I'm going to do is I'm going to just take a half a day and I'm going to think about baseball and I'm going to send emails to everybody about baseball. And about reaffirming our fucking company motto.

I would be fired fucking immediately. If my boss found out that I spent half a fucking day thinking about baseball, I would not have the next day. Yeah, the next day. Well, you could spend the whole next day thinking about baseball because this day you're not getting paid anymore. You know, the truth is that everybody is incredibly replaceable right now. There are so many people out of work that if at any point if the productivity of most people, I think, feel this way, that when you wake up in the morning, you have got to do a very fucking good job because there are so many people who want your job right now. There are so many people who are able to do your job right now because there are so many people who are out of work.

And there are some fields for which this is not as true as others. But for many, many positions, if you wake up in the morning and you fucking spend a half a day thinking about goddamn baseball, you're going to be fired because your employer can probably find somebody at or below your salary to replace you in an hour because there are that many people out of work right now. And as I said, there are positions and fields for which that is less relevant. But that is how so many American workers feel right now, the ones who are lucky enough to still be employed. Right. And you're going to waste my time on baseball and reaffirming a motto, a meaningless motto, a somewhat offensive motto to other people. You guys deserve seven days off.

Take seven days off. Oh, man, you guys must be tired from working 128 days a year. Man, I don't know how you guys keep up that grueling schedule of Monday through Wednesday. You guys should have a couple weeks off. Fucking assholes. Right in a row. There are some problems we have on Wall Street, but the thing is for young people to sit out there and say that we hate capitalism, we hate corporate America. You know, that's kind of like what helped us get to where we are in 235 years. And if we don't believe that the free market is going to be a successful means by which we can pull ourselves out of this recession, then the United States of America, that which really is the essence of who

we are and our exceptionalism is going to be lost. So in the asshole front, Army veteran injured in Oakland clashes with police. Oakland, this is an article from Reuters. Oakland does not have the best history as far as its police having temperate responses to large groups of people. Former U.S. Army Ranger and Occupy Oakland protester was in intensive care after he was beaten by police during clashes with demonstrators this week. This keeps happening, Cecil. This just keeps happening. As far as I'm aware, the Occupy protests have been pretty nonviolent. There have been some exceptions. But for the most part, these protests have been largely nonviolent.

And to have nonviolent protests met with such an overwhelming force response is out of keeping with the principles that are supposed to protect us as citizens in this country. This is sort of what we saw happening, I think, in other countries during the Arab summer. Or was it spring?

Arab spring. Arab after winter. I don't know. After winter sales event that they had. I forget. I don't know. But no, like during the Arab spring, they had this thing where it started out as protests.

There was a lot of pushback initially from the police force. And then eventually the police force started being like, fuck that. Like I'm not going to be doing what you said I have to do. And I think that that's probably going to happen, but we're going to have to deal with some damage before then, before that actually happens. One side's got to give up. And I think that these Occupy protests are just so strong and they have so many people behind them. I think that it's probably going to be the police forces that give up eventually.

I think that the will of the people out there is so strong that they're actually going to have to back down from these protesters in a big way eventually. Well, especially in Oakland. You know, here in Chicago, the protests are going to get shut down by winter. And that's just going to happen. It's not going to be fucking 20 degrees below zero whipping off the lake. And you're not going to write people in a goddamn tent city on the sidewalk. That's not going to whole fuck. No. Oakland, California, they can camp out for a long time. Um, and you know, people are starting to get agitated. Um, and I recognize that in Oakland that things did not go

terribly swimmingly, that there were some fires, some graffiti, some vandalism, things along those lines. But I also think that a lot of that is a direct response to the force presence that the police provide. to protest. They assemble to protest. And then you try to shut them down with force when you disperse them with tear gas, when you shoot them with non-lethal weapons. That's the best way to bring out the fringe element. That's the best way. And maybe that's, I know this sounds fucking conspiracy, but maybe that's part of the plan. Maybe that's part of the plan to say, well, we'll just fucking rile them up until they react. And then when they react, then we can say, well, they're violent.

Now we can shut them down. Now we've got to ration off. And then you can pass off their movement as just a bunch of people that wanted to be violent. Well, now they're marginalized. We've marginalized them. You know, it's like getting a dog and fucking shaking the shit out of it. And then when it bites you, being like, oh, he's a violent dog. He's an aggressive dog.

It's like, well, you shook the shit out of him. I shake the shit out of every dog I see. Just walk up. Just give him a good shake. Take that dog. When the people assemble, the police, their response should be to ensure the safety of protesters and citizens outside of the protest alike. of protesters and citizens outside of the protest alike. Their response should never be to try to contain or quell the protest.

That is, I think, a direct infringement on our right to assemble. And our right to assemble is part and parcel of our right to redress our government for wrongs. And if you're going to have a representative democracy like we have here, and if you're going to tout the value of a representative democracy, you cannot look at Syria and say, you're shooting your protesters. That's fucking evil. We condemn it. Look in Oakland. We're shooting them with non-lethal weapons, hitting them with batons, shooting tear gas at them. Yes, it's not they're not exactly analogous. I'm not drawing an exact analogy. But you cannot tout one as outside of the scope of human rights and civil rights. And then on the other side of the coin, say, you know, look at America. We're a representative democracy.

on the other side of the coin say, you know, look at America, we're a representative democracy. Our people have the right to redress their government for wrongs unless we don't like it or they're making too much of a mess, in which case we'll fucking disperse them with force. So this next story is actually a story from the Tea Party. Now, we've talked a little bit about this before. I think Cecil, you and I both agree that the Tea Party has a lot in common with the Occupy movement. They refuse to acknowledge it, but they do. They have quite a lot in common. They're both mad as hell and they don't want to take it anymore. The difference is TeaPartyNation.com has some pretty fucking wacky, wacky, wacky blogs. One of them suggesting that the Occupy Wall Street is running rape camps. The person is, I want to say maybe 15 or 20 times in their post, like quoting or citing the Glenn Beck show.

So that should tell you enough, I think, straight away that they're a little skewed. And one of the things that they're saying is that these people are there. They have these rape camps set up. And just that, you know, using those two words in conjunction when you're talking about the Occupy protests, that's pretty fucking insulting. Right. That means that it's an organized set of rape that is going on, that someone is actually like, okay, so at 2 o'clock, we're going to march over here and we're going to have our picket signs. And at 3 o'clock, we're going to meet back here for a muster

and we're going to talk about maybe how we can tweet this and how we can use social media to sort of put this forward. And at 4 o'clock, we're going to rape all you girls. So all you women are going to get raped. So that's 4 to... What do you guys need for 15 for 15? We'll say then we're going to go back to, you know, I mean, like, what the fuck?

Like, that's just a ridiculous concept anyway. And then secondly, you look at the stories in which they cite because somebody commented on their blog. Right. So somebody comments on this Tea Party blog that basically makes it look like there's rape camps going on and says, where's your fucking facts at? And they post a bunch of links to places that really aren't factual. And there's a couple of them, like one from the New York Post that I looked at that said that somebody came into the Occupy protest from outside, sexually assaulted someone. They then chase the person out, the people that are around, chase the person out. And when somebody asked, why don't you want to call the cops? They said, well, they didn't want to.

Well, let me just sort of dissect this, what happened there. And I'm just, you know, I'm fucking just throwing this out there. Again, this is opinion. There's no fact here. It's just me espousing an opinion about what happened. But first off, it's not a person from the fucking protest that fucking climbed in. It's some dude walking by who was like, hey, man, fucking, hey, there's a tent in there. Maybe there's somebody sleeping in there that's, you know, of the fucking opposite gender.

And I'm a creep. And I want to, you know, touch someone. So he climbed into the tent, got a little grabby feeling, got kicked out and ran away. Well, they handled it themselves. They did. They handled that in a way in which they could. But, you know, at this point, are they going to be the first ones to scream police? Because when you get tear gas shot out of a cannon in your face and you get a skull fracture, that kind of trips people off as to maybe the police aren't on your fucking side anymore.

So I don't have a lot of sympathy for the people who are like, oh, they're allowing rape. I don't have any sympathy for your argument. I think your argument is ridiculous. They're not allowing rape because they stopped it and they're not calling the police because the police are kind of against them. So you're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place here. Would you have rather they fucking strung the guy up by his balls and lit him on fire? Like I don't understand what are they supposed to do? Well, right.

I mean it's very difficult to fault somebody for not calling the police. And really that's the victim's decision. You know, nobody else is making that decision for somebody. It's difficult to fault somebody for not calling the police when the police are brutalizing you. You know, when the police are, you know, not in support of you or your movement, it's hard to feel like you would be taken seriously. And that's a personal decision. That's not a decision to be criticized by other people. That's the decision of the victim of the sexual assault and nobody else. And to politicize somebody's victimhood is pretty awful. unfortunately victimized by some shithead and uh to to politicize that and suggest that that is somehow endemic of the movement and sponsored by the occupy movement i know it's like a this week we're sponsoring like occupy wall street free rape i don't know i mean how does that even

how does that even work it's just silly and it's disingenuous and it's it's a it's a liar's position to take and uh it's it's dist silly and it's disingenuous and it's a liar's position to take. And it's distressing that somebody would look at this and say, wow, that seems plausible. That shows us how polarized we are. That you could look at a group of people who are like, yeah, we really don't want to get fucked by the banks anymore. Thanks for stopping to fuck us. But you can come over and fuck us. That's kind of insane.

It's ridiculous. And, you know, like the rest of this article, which is fucking written by like a fucking 14 year old, as far as I could tell, you know, it's like all caps, all underlines. And like, here's where I want you to know that this is this is where I'm, you know, this is where I'm putting my emphasis or however it works. There's a part where the people in this article, they just don't even understand what's even happening. They don't even get it.

And I'm going to read directly from this fucking obviously crazy person's article. They don't have the right to trash things and make parts of these cities uninhabitable. And now a couple of these words are either completely bolded or underlined. I'm not really going to go through the process, but uninhabitable is one of them. This is an insurrection. And these are the kind of dangerous mobs that led socialist to the socialist and communist collapses in the Eastern Bloc countries during the rise of the Soviet Union. The people in those countries never knew what hit them until it was too late! You don't

even understand what's happening. You really absolutely don't understand. You're using the word dangerous mobs. These people aren't dangerous. You're talking about socialism. There's nothing really socialist about this. It's about people getting away with stealing money from the

rest of us. That's not socialist. That's money from the rest of us. And that's not socialist. That's actually really the heart of capitalism, right? You know, favoring a corporation, that's not capitalism. The government favoring a corporation or a set of corporations, how is that capitalist? And yet these people just don't even understand the movement. Like we've gotten to the point in this country, Tom, it's so frustrating when somebody could say this and you'd be like, are you fucking clinically stupid? Like really, like are you so below average intelligence that you can't even fucking ook out a phrase that even resembles what's happening?

Are you so disconnected from reality because you're so plugged into Fox News that you cannot understand what's happening? Are you so disconnected from reality because you're so plugged into Fox News that you cannot understand what's happening? I think there's a confusion between being capitalist and being corporationist. Yeah, I really think you're right. It's like if you are critical of the advantages that certain corporations receive, and not all corporations, but that certain select corporations receive from the government, if you're critical of that, somehow you are anti-capitalist. That's not accurate. You know, the essence of the free market should be that nobody gets a better position at the starting gate than anybody else. And that's not the case here. It's not socialist to suggest that everybody

start off in the free market at the same starting point. You know, that's the essence of capitalism is to say, hey, you know, let the best man win. You know, it's a fight to the finish and that's capitalism and that's the free market. It's also nonsense. We've never had a free market. We never will. We've talked about this before. A free market would not be good for society or the economy. But regardless of that, it's not capitalism at its best. It's not really a free market when you favor a select group. And it's not even all corporations. It's certain kinds of corporations who derive their profits from certain vehicles that are favored over other corporations and over individual taxpayers. How is that socialism to suggest that that is a wrong that needs to be righted?

I don't understand how that's socialism at all. Nobody is suggesting that we all pay into the kitty and pull from the kitty equally. That's not what is being suggested here. There's not even any real genuine socialist principles that are being suggested here. It's a reconfiguration of the current capitalist system. The capitalist system that we have is heavily regulated. The capitalist system will always be heavily regulated. This is just, you know, hey, we'd like to rejigger the capitalist system so that it doesn't favor the corporation over the individual. And everybody's a fucking individual. So that's better for the everybody. So I don't understand how this is supposed to be some radical socialist movement.

It doesn't have anything to do with socialism, not actual socialism. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers! I want the truth! You can't handle the truth! So this is kind of interesting. This is a story that came out of Politicus USA. I'm not real sure how that's supposed to be pronounced. This is a this is reveals some letters. Republican Representative Eric Cantor has gone on the record saying that the government

cannot create jobs, that that is not the place of government, that at the best it's a redistribution of wealth, that stimulus money cannot create jobs, it cannot create wealth. Later, when stimulus dollars were being allocated, he wrote a letter saying that he would like money to the tune of $75 million of federal stimulus money for his district, shock of shocks, for high-speed rail. High-speed rail, quote, provides a sensible and viable solution to our region's transportation challenges. It is estimated that creating a high-speed railway through Virginia will generate as many as one hundred eighty five thousand jobs, as much as twenty one point two billion dollars in economic development and put nearly six point five million cars off the road annually.

There seems to be some cognitive dissonance here. A little bit. A little bit. I'm actually all for him getting the money. I mean, I love the idea of this. All I want him to do is come up in front of everybody and publicly apologize. That's all I want him to do and then I say

they should totally vote to give him the money then. And this is exactly it. The reason why he's saying that, the reason why all these sounding, you know, these little sound bites are being thrown off is because they want them for the commercials that are going to be coming up in the next nine months.

They want to make sure that, you know, Eric Cantor or whatever his name is, is going to be standing out in front of everybody saying, you know, government money doesn't create jobs. And then, you know, like what you need is a man like me in office, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And even though it's a total fucking lie, and even though nobody's going to fucking remember it when it comes time to actually pull the fucking slot

in the voting booth, this is your one chance to catch it. And, you know, try to catch this shit whenever you can. And this is not a fucking, this is not a Republican-only fucking thing. They all do this. They all make statements that are blanket statements that in the end,

they wind up fucking backpedaling on because all they care about at this point is being elected. They stopped caring about us a long time ago. There's money on the table. You know, there's money on the table. He's going to leave $75 million that he could get for his constituents on the table and say, Hey, I'm taking a principled stance based on my own words. Of course not. Of course not. His constituents wouldn't stand for that. Because at the end of the day, there's what you say and then there's what you do. And those two things don't go to bed. So they toss it and they leave it And I pull up quick to retrieve it

So Cosmos says Cecil, we have got to end the show with my favorite thing. This is my new favorite thing. I think you found this. Where the hell did you find this? The Skeptic Boards on Reddit? Yeah, of course.

This is phenomenal. This is something called Rumpology. This is from the Skeptic's on Reddit? Yeah, of course. This is phenomenal. This is something called Rumpology. This is from the Skeptic's Dictionary, also known as butt reading. This is the art of reading the lines, crevices, dimples, and folds of the buttocks to define the butt owner's character and get a glimpse of what lies ahead by analyzing what trails behind. This is fucking hilarious. Rumpology. She suggests the foremost American rumpologist suggests that this was practiced in ancient Babylon, India, Greece, and Rome. I got news for you.

People have been feeling up butts. This is not limited to ancient Babylon, India, Greece, and Rome. It happens right here in America. Tom, I don't know if you knew, but I'm actually a rumpologist. This does not surprise me. I am. I'm a rumpologist. I tell several women all the time

to back that ass up. I'm always telling them that. And it's funny here because there's this awesome one where she says, she does readings by mail. Just send her a digital photo of your rump and she will analyze it for a fee of $125. Ladies, if you're listening, I'll analyze it for free. So if you want to send me a picture of your ass, you know, I'll analyze it for free. Hey, that's a nice answer.

What are you going to say? Like, you see a picture of like a flabby ass, like, well, you know I'll analyze it for free hey that's a nice answer what do you say like you see a picture of like a flabby ass like well you know you look like you are a calm person read here you ain't been working out you like to take it easy you enjoy television

I'm guessing you have a sweet tooth he knows so much I love too that this is the art of reading I'm guessing you have a sweet tooth. He knows so much. I love, too, that this is the art of reading the dimples and crevices of the buttocks. I think the worst part of the buttocks, by the way, the crevice part, is probably not the part you want to be reading. There is mentioned also a blind rumpologist who feels up the butt. So whereas Jacqueline Stallone, she can obviously, she's good. She can do this off of a picture. Right, sure.

The blind guy, it's braille. What are you going to do? Feel it up. You just got to feel that booty. All I want to do is zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, and a boom, boom. What is rumpology going to tell you about somebody? Even if it worked, right? It seems to say, like, here are some personality characteristics about you. Okay. Why do you know those things?

Because they're about me. It's not like it's like, I feel your rump, invest in so- so i felt up your butt you know buy a toyota it's not like you're getting advice all you're getting is like i felt your butt and these are some personality characteristics about you okay thanks please get your hand off my butt why you be touching my butt to tell me that I'm like a calm and deliberate person? I fucking either know that or I don't. What action are you going to take at the end of a butt reading other than a long, hot shower and a sob in the corner?

You'll never be clean again. You know, this is also one of those jobs, too, that the reason why it's so high, it costs so much is because there's occupational hazards. You know what I mean? Like, you're giving the old butt reading, somebody rips a fart in your face. They'll be like, oh, yeah, no, don't worry about it. That shit happens all the time, you know? Yeah, what happens when they pull down their pants and there's fucking skid marks? It's fine. I'm a rumpologist. I see this all the time, you know? Yeah, what happens when they pull down their pants and there's fucking skid marks? It's fine.

I'm a rumpologist. I see this all the time. It's like, it doesn't mean anything to me. Yeah. Actually, actually, I read the skid marks. You can read the skid marks. It's like tea leaves. Tea leaves are so much more hygienic, though.

I got to read this. I have discovered a new version of reflexology which identifies a homunculus represented in the human body over the area of the buttocks no you didn't you just like to touch butts dude look and you like to get paid 125 125 dollars and you get pictures of butts in the mail? This person wins. I am going to be a lot of things-ologist. Yeah, no kidding. There's a lot of things I'm going to be an ologist of. The following thing.

Send me photos of you. This is outrageous. I'm sending my picture. No, don't. I'm going to send this. I would do this if it was free. I'll do it, but I need an extra big envelope. What I'm gonna send this I would do this I'll do it But I need an extra

Big envelope What I need is a large envelope To send a picture Yeah well I mean This is gonna be like A panoramic You know It's uh

You gotta hire like A landscape photographer To take a picture Right they're like Okay I'm gonna take the picture Back up Back up Back up

Back up Back Okay go outside Back up. Back up. OK, go outside. We need a wide angle lens here. Go to the state line. Right. So we got several comments on our Facebook page about my assertion, inaccurate assertion, I should say, that there is no such thing as Satanism. I will cede the point that I was wrong. There are several versions of Satanism. What I guess I should have been more clear about is there is no such thing as Satanism from the direction that the Christian nutters generally take Satanism to mean, which means a group of people gathered together in a cult, sacrificing kids and praising the Christian demigod of Satan.

Right. That is not a real thing. I understand there's people have sent us like there's Levian Satanism and then there's, you know, this Satanism out of Norway and all of this. But none of it really has anything substantial to do with Satan. And that's more what I was referring to, although I did speak inaccurately. So I'll cede that point as gracefully as I'm able to cede a point, you bastards. Whatever. This shit is fucking made up. I'll fucking affirm it.

It is fucking made up. And it's fucking nonsense and i have to also point out that if satanism in the sense of actually celebrating the character of satan from the bible if that was real that would be a christian denomination because it has to stem first from biblical theology so satanists are actually a denomination of Christianity. Send your letters. We want to talk about an email we got where there was a lot of corrections. A person by the name of Kevin also found our show on Stitcher's Top Picks and said, hey, first time listener, got a few comments about the Jesus Ween episode. And most of these are

things I think that I had said that were inconsistent. They were inaccuracies. I think I said something about human lifespan. I said something about human beings being around for a million years. I just said something about Alistair Crowley writing the satanic Bible. None of those things were true. And so he corrected me on all of them. Thank you for sending this in, Kevin. We appreciate it. My suggestion for you, though, in the future is to just put this somewhere where other people can see it. We have a blog, DissonancePod.com.

A great place would be in the comments section or on our Facebook page. Just throw it up there so other people can add to this gigantic list of things that we get wrong every episode. Look, at some point I want to compile some kind of a book, and really I want to take all of your work and turn it into – seriously, we can only get better with the show if we have good constructive criticism. The best place for that criticism really isn't in the private sphere. I appreciate the email. Thank you.

But put it out there. We put this show out there for you. If you've got something you want to say, put it out there on our Facebook page. Put it on our blog. Let's have a discussion about these things. We like to make fun of a lot of different people on a lot of different topics.

I don't mind a little ribbing from you guys either. Put it out there in the public sphere. Let's make the show better. This criticism, when it's constructive, is only going to help make a better show for you guys. So thank you very much for the email. And, uh, we suggest that although you're, you're certainly welcome to email us that if you have specific, uh, issues of redress, yeah, put them out there. Let's, let's talk about them.

Let's create a public forum for these things. Especially if you want to ask the listeners, too, like a perfect opportunity for the guy who sent the email that was like, hey, you guys kind of suck because you didn't put all your stuff up in the right spot at the right time. Ask other people if they run into that problem. I look at the stats and I see that nobody ever really clicks on any of our links. So if nobody's clicking on our links, part of me feels like, you know, maybe the information that we're putting up in the notes isn't even useful. So if you find the notes useful and you want to sort of, you know, say that this guy is on point, that's perfect. That gives us more information to make this show better. And if you think you have a way in which to make the website

more intuitive or a better way in which for us to add things to the show or put things up, let us know. I mean, we want to make, we want to make it better for you, make it, you know, obviously we don't want to make it super hard for us because, you know, we are dedicating a lot of time to this, but we want to make it better for you. So please let us know. So we got an email from Molly. Molly, she thought that we might find the atheism tapes interesting. I've actually listened to all the, or watched all of the atheism tape documentaries. They're available on Netflix. Watch Instant. I think they are interesting. I think they're totally worth people's time. If you're interested in the subject matter, the Atheism Tapes basically are a part of a documentary that had been cut for BBC. And this is sort of the extended version. And there are some really interesting interviews with some unbelievably bright people and interesting people.

And you can get them, like I said, on Netflix, watch Instant. And I think they probably will re-air on BBC from time to time, although I'm not really sure how that works because I live in, like, a big country. That was terrible. I want to thank Robert for bringing my attention to the Android app piece that was on our page. For some reason, we are no longer available in the Android market. I don't know why, but our Android app is off the Android market.

However, we are still available on Amazon. It's still the same price. It's $1.99. We get a dollar of that, so it's not just wasted money. I know that the people who design the app, they're going to get a dollar..99. We get a dollar of that, so it's not just wasted money. I know that the people who design the app, they're going to get a dollar. We're going to get a dollar. So if you want to, you can go to dissonancepod.com if you have an Android phone. It looks like right now, and I don't know if I'm going to change this, it looks like it says Android Marketplace.

I mean, if you click on that image, it will take you to where you can get the app. But I may change that to some sort of Amazon thing this week if I get the opportunity. I'm not promising anything, but if it changes and you don't see an Android face on there anymore, now you see an Amazon face, that's what's going to happen. That's where you're going to click to get the app. Rob, sorry it wasn't there for you, but we hope that it's going to be there for you when you go back to the site. Like I said, I fixed that link. I also made the site a little more intuitive based on some of the emails that we got. I received some messages where people were saying they couldn't find our show notes. It's funny because nobody, I look at these stats and nobody ever looks at clicks on any

links for any show notes ever. And then the one time that they want to find the show notes, they can't. So what I did was I actually put, um, if you look on our site now on the, on the far left side, you have our big, this is dissonance pod.com. Now we have a big player in the center where you can play the show, share the show, do all kinds of great stuff through that wonderful Libsyn player. in the center where you can play the show, share the show, do all kinds of great stuff through that wonderful Libsyn player. But right below it is a post, a link that says latest episode. That will take you to all the show notes for that episode. Now underneath that is a drop down box for past

episodes. So if you're interested in listening to any of the past episodes or seeing any of the show notes from past episodes, those are available there. Remember that you can always call the show, too. That's at the bottom of our webpage. You can share this show in many different ways. And you can listen on Stitcher. And we want to thank, again, Maddie from Stitcher for putting us on that wonderful list that has helped us greatly. And, Tom, I just talked a lot, but I think we're done. You think we're done?

I think we're done. All right. Well, as usual, we're going to leave you all with the skeptics' creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead, pan, sales pitch,

late night info docutainment. Leo, Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques, and synagogues, temples, dragons,

giant worms,lantis dolphins truthers birthers witches wizards vaccine nuts shaman healers evangelists conspiracy double speak stigmata nonsense expose your sides thrust your hands bloody evidential conclusive. Doubt even this. We'll be right back. Thank you. you