Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 21: Rick Perry's Top 3

Episode Date: November 14, 2011

This week: Irish President is an Atheist, Skeptoid on 10 worst websites, Chuck Norris on Vaccines, Chicken Pox and Lollypops, Personhood Amendment, Net Neutraliy, Herman Cain on China and groping, Rick Perry's 3 favorite things, Protester shot with rubber bullets, Gay Nurse preached to, Transgender burned alive, Burn an evolution book petition.     Clips used: Irish National Athem, Quackery PSA, Walker Texas Ranger, Anderson Cooper 360, Ted Stevens, Rick Perry get's played off by Keyboard Cat, Cspan on OWS, The Simpsons, Bachmann on homosexuality, Huckabee on Evolution,     Shows: Skeptics with a K Irreligiosophy

Do you want to get Cognitive Dissonance streamed to your iPhone or Blackberry? If so, download Stitcher free today at Stitcher.com. Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the Earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours. In every one of them, there's a succession of incidents, events, occurrences, which influence its future. Countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time. And our small planet, at this moment, here we face a critical branch point in history. What we do with our world right now

will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants. It is well within our power to destroy our civilization and perhaps our species as well. If we capitulate to superstition or greed or stupidity, we can plunge our world into a darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilization and the Italian Renaissance. But we are also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence,

our technology and our wealth, to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet, to enhance enormously our understanding of the universe, and to carry us to the stars. 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. To any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad, it's skeptical, it's political, and there is no welcome, Matt.

Of course, as soon as I say there is no welcome, Matt, I want to lead in first with a welcome. Yeah, of course you do. You do that every time. Cecil, this is episode 21 of Cognitive Dissonance. Awesome. And we've gotten quite a few listeners that seem to have come over to us from another show, which I believe is gone at the moment. It's Irreligiosophy. I'm probably horribly mispronouncing the name of that show.

It's a hard fucking name to pronounce, though. It's an amazing achievement that that show with a name so difficult to spell, right, that they have done as well as they clearly have. And we've taken some listeners that have come over to us from that show. And we're very grateful to have you guys. And we're glad that you're listening. And we hope you enjoy our show as well as you did Irreligiosophy. So welcome to all of you guys. Yeah, I wanted to mention, too, that a couple people, one of them I recognized as dumbass had posted on their forum. Because I noticed I can check the stats on our site, and I noticed there was a bunch of lead-ins. And I was like, why are people coming here from this site, this particular site?

And I was like, why are people coming here from this site, this particular site? And I went there. And the reason why is because I think it was Dumbass who said on one of their last posts, they said, well, we're done with the show. And he said, well, if you're looking for a show that is like this show, here is Cognitive Dissonance. And he posted it. And then someone else posted, I really look forward to that show too. So someone else had sort of reaffirmed it. And then we just got a ton of people that sort of bounced in posted it. And then someone else posted, I really look forward to that show too. So someone else had sort of reaffirmed it and then we just got a ton of people that sort of bounced in from it.

So we wanted to thank Dumbass specifically for posting that on their site. Thanks for spreading the word again. And as always, you can always listen to Dumbass' podcasts, which are located at dumbassguide.info. And in other good news, we got what I think is my favorite iTunes review, Cecil.

It's a pretty good one, Tom. You know, of all of our reviews, they've been mostly very positive. We have 54 or 56 ratings on iTunes right now. We're appreciative of at least 55 of them. They have mostly been very positive. We did, however, get a review, which I'm going to just go ahead and read. This was posted by Mr. Lightseeds. Poorly researched, yet highly opinionated.

I think that's pretty fucking accurate. I was thrilled when I saw that. I was like, oh, here comes a five. Here comes a five rating. Yeah. These guys fall into the same trap that so many other skeptic shows fall into. Namely, they have little first-hand knowledge of the subjects that they are discussing. But if something seems silly or unbelievable, it surely is.

If you seek out well-researched conclusions to inform your point of view, avoid these guys. A listener wrote into their latest show asking for scientific evidence to back their positions. The host declined because it doesn't have the proper scientific background. Enough said. Yeah, enough said.

You are right, Mr. Lightseeds. We are highly opinionated and poorly researched. I will say, however, that doing a quick look around to see what sort of shows Mr. Light Seeds enjoys, I thought, you know, I thought like, OK, well, clearly he's got some ideas. He wants to listen to some shows that are well-researched. I could stand to be better researched. Tom, you busted out your magnifying glass

and tracked his tracks down like fucking Sherlock Holmes. You know, I'm ninja like that in that I clicked somewhere. Yeah, I mean, you clicked his name, yeah. Just to see where he's been. Mr. Lightseeds enjoys What on Earth is Happening. This is a spirituality podcast. I took a listen to what on earth is happening about as much of it as I could

was it awesome or super awesome I'm gonna have to go with super super fucking awesome now these are this is just a short transcript some of the well researched yet not

opinionated information I was able to glean. I wrote some things down from listening to the show. Truth dictates the quality of the experience of your lives when you are in alignment with what is, and we speak the truth and live accordingly. And by

that, I mean natural law. Yada, yada. Yada, fucking yada. Also mentioned something along the lines of truth is nothing more than that which is. Wow. So I'll take a one. I'll take a star. I'll take a single star from Mr. Lightseeds.

We thank you for listening to the show. Sorry you didn't find us as well-researched as The Truth, which is. I think that that show is highly-researched. That guy probably read a Deepak Chopra book. At least one. I think he probably is very highly-researched. What I want to say about this rating is,

you're right. You're right. We are poorly-researched. I listened to another podcast this week, and we're going to talk about it probably later. It's called Skeptics with a K. Andy, British Andy, turned us on to it a long time ago, and I completely fucking ignored him. And then I waited until somebody else suggested it and then listened to it. And I was blown away with how well they understand logical fallacies, like specifically how quickly they can find exactly

what fallacy it is and mention it. And I was just like, like, this is a well-researched show. And I'm like, that's not our show. Like I was listening to it. I was just like, wow, that doesn't sound anything like us. Because we just, we're just, we are opinionated and we aren't like, we don't fucking spend hours and hours and hours researching these topics. But a lot of these topics, Tom, really, the research I have to do is,

where's your fucking evidence? What do I have to say about Bigfoot? It's like, okay, do I really have to research Bigfoot to know there's no fucking evidence of Bigfoot? Okay, where's your research on UFOs? There's no evidence on UFOs. Okay, well, fucking, what about the 9-11 conspiracy? There's no evidence. What about God?

No evidence. So it's like, how much fucking research do you want me to conspiracy? There's no evidence. What about God? No evidence. So it's like how much fucking research do you want me to do? Well, what are you going to do? Read a book that shows you that there's nothing in it? Yeah. What the fuck? You know, if there was a Bigfoot fucking walking around, I'd go to the goddamn zoo. I'd be like, hey, it's Bigfoot.

What's he? Read the placard. Yeah. There's no goddamn Bigfoot. You can't read a Bigfoot book to research Bigfoot. What would the fucking Bigfoot book say? Still nothing showing there's any Bigfoot. Or it would be a lie and say there is such a thing as a Bigfoot with no evidence.

Right. So it's like, OK, well, I don't have any. Most of the shit we talk about has no evidence or is opinion. A lot of the stuff about politics, there's no real scientific data that proves that one way is better than the other. Consider it car talk without any good advice. That should be our fucking subline. But anyway, what I don't want listeners to do is go to the podcast that Mr. Lyseeds

mentions and just downvote it or whatever. Don't do that. Don't do that. Wevote it or whatever, don't do that. No, no, no, don't do that. We're just fucking around. Just don't do that. But if you want to counteract what Mr. Lightseeds has done, if you think that maybe Mr. Lightseeds

is in the wrong, you could either go to our iTunes site and give us a positive rating if you think that we deserve it, or if you don't think his review is accurate, just put no, It's not helpful. Those are the two things I think if you wanted to take action, those would be the things you would want to do. And remember, the truth is nothing more than that which is.

We say that every week. We should close this show with that. Sage fucking advice, man. so launching into our very first story um michael d higgins has been inaugurated as the ninth president of Ireland at a ceremony at Dublin Castle. Why is this important? Michael D. Higgins is an atheist.

An atheist president. End times. Rapture. It's coming. Of Ireland. Rapture. Well, you know, this is just a quick little story. I think, Tom, I don't think there's a lot to say about this other than like it shows sort of how close-minded we can be in the U.S.

with the way in which we have to choose a leader because you have to fucking bend down and thank God if you want to be a politician in this country. Absolutely. We have very few people that actually were out there, out atheists. Those are mostly people in state government. People in federal government, there's like one. So there's not a lot of people that represent atheists and secularists and humanists. And this is great. It's great that an entire country was just like, hey, this guy is the best guy.

Who gives a fuck what he believes? And fucking when it comes to whether or not there's a god, this guy can still be just as moral as all the rest of the people that we would have hired for this job. He just chooses not to believe in god. Yeah, I think this is – I mean it's very telling actually to have a country like Ireland, which has, if I'm not mistaken, some history of religious strife. Right. And to have a country like that bring on board a president who has no religious affiliation. I mean, what that to me partially says is we need a leader who isn't going to be

colored by this nonsense that has a place and that place is not in politics. We want a leader who isn't going to be colored by this nonsense. That has a place and that place is not in politics. We want a leader who's going to lead us through economic difficulty. He's going to take security concerns seriously and address those things. We want a leader who's going to lead the country in all of the ways that are essentially political. lead the country in all of the ways that are essentially political. But you don't need to hire somebody who's also your sort of fucking religious stand-in. Right. And I think that that's something that Americans seem to get a little confused about.

Either they believe that if you don't have somebody who's religious brought in as one of your leaders, so if you bring in somebody who's a leader and they're not religious, they're just gonna fucking immediately like run through the white house and be like i've got to hit the button you know blow up the whole world because fuck it why not you know that's that's just such a crazy fucking person's thing to to believe or you know they want to have a leader a political leader who can double as the sort of religious leader for the country, sort of like America's Pope or what have you, you know, some grand pontiff to stand at the podium. I think you're right. And I think one of the, you know, the fears that people have, if somebody is brought in and doesn't have the same belief structure as me, these people think that suddenly they're going to like close down all their churches or they're going to somehow have some sort of persecution against their particular sect.

And there's no, again, no evidence for that to sort of be actually the truth. People just seem to think that if you somehow brought like a secular president in our country that there would be like, oh, he's going to close down all the churches. And you're like, well, why would he? He just wouldn't care about your churches one way or the other. I'm going to church. I don't give a fuck. I'm Raymond Massey, and I have a special message for senior citizens. Today's doctors, drugs, and medical devices truly work medical miracles for young and old alike. But there are some as phony as a $3 bill.

Investigate before you invest in health services or products. Help stamp out quackery. So this next story comes from Skeptoid. This is actually pretty awesome. It's a top 10 worst anti-science websites. 10 worst anti-science websites. And I have to say, Cecil, the thing that all of these, almost all of these websites have in common is many of them veil themselves in this sort of veneer of science without having any actual science involved.

Right. And that's not true of all of them. Number 10 is Huffington Post. I don't think Huffington Post wraps itself in a veneer of much of anything, to be perfectly honest. Conservapedia wraps itself only in a veneer of total crazy fucking nut house. scientific flavor about them without having any of the restrictions and safeguards that science puts on claims to knowledge. I didn't really know about any of these websites beforehand. I was like, a couple of them, obviously, Conservapedia and Huffington Post. Sure, I knew who they were.

But most of these other ones, I'm like, I had never heard of a couple. I mean, guess a 9-11 truth I had heard of before. But most of the other ones, no, I had never heard of a couple. I mean, guess a 9-11 truth I had heard of before, but most of the other ones, no, I've never heard of them. This answers in Genesis is the craziest website I've ever been to in my life. It is as crazy as a website as you could possibly imagine. Um, I'm sure Mr. Lightseeds loves it cause it's well-researched. Um, but it's, it's ridiculous. And age of autism, obviously, you know, I had never heard of it, but this is a very typical sort of site. There's some fucking awesome stuff on natural news. The number one, like crazy, crazy site.

I didn't look at this one. How is it? It has some examples of current articles on natural news, new world order, implantable RFID chips capable of remotely killing noncompliant slaves are here. Let me tell you, on the front page it says sweet potato nutrition. Amazing facts you should know. That is the most phallic bowl of fucking potatoes I've ever seen in my entire life. Feeding prisoners genetically modified soy products may be cruel and unusual punishment.

Look, I would argue that tofu is cruel and unusual. No kidding, right? So anti-foaming agent found in Chicken McNuggets. FDA finally admits chicken meat contains cancer-causing arsenic. I mean, it's so awesome. It's like a compendium of crazy. Oh, that's awesome, dude. It's super great. This is a great link. We'll post it on our site. And if you want to listen to the podcast, I think, you know, it's pretty fast. It's not a long podcast,

so you can get through this pretty quickly. And that way for the lazy, you don't have to read it. Yeah. I have to, I have to, I have to tell you one more of these, Cecil, because every part of this is perfect. True fact. Aren't all facts true? A common ingredient in commercial breads is derived from human hair harvested in China. You cannot get a better story than that right there. That's actually delicious because I eat Chinese people's heads all the time. True fact.

Not meant to be a factual true fact. Well, all that is is true. All that true is is. I forget what it is. I forget what he said. Lens. Lens. In the eyes of a ranger, the unsuspecting stranger had better know the truth of wrong from right.

Cause the eyes of the ranger are upon you. Any wrong you do, he's gonna see. There's a new sheriff in town, Cecil. Actually, he's more of a Texas ranger. Pew, pew. Chuck Norris, it turns out, is the new face of anti-vax nutters. Chuck Norris has replaced Jenny McCarthy. I have to say, if you're getting a new face and you go from Jenny McCarthy, dumb but hot, and you go to craghead Chuck Norris, like really?

Yeah, certainly not an upgrade in the looks department. Absolutely not. I mean, unless you actually have to fight scientists. Right. Exactly. Right. Which is about what it's going to have to come down to at this point. slash playboy model slash fucking horrible actress Jenny McCarthy to martial artist slash horrible actor Chuck Norris.

Like, you did not upgrade. You fucking, you may have downgraded because he's fucking harder on the eyes. Yeah, I mean, this is the co-star of Firewalker, and I'm going to get my fucking medical advice from this guy, I somehow feel like maybe his credentials are somewhat lacking. Right. I'll go instead to a doctor for my, because they, you know, went to school for that, as opposed to the fucking dojo.

I love it. It's like, it's like, hey, Kobe Bryant, should I get this knee surgery? And it's like, hey, Kobe Bryant, should I get this knee surgery? I'm asking random professions for advice in other areas from now on. Like, no matter what happens, like, I'm going to get all of my tax advice from now on from fucking Snoopy. You'll be like, hey, is this tax deductible? Do-do-do-do-do-do-do. He'll be flying his fucking doghouse like the Red Bear. I'm like, that's not helpful.

What the fuck? Oh, man. I love the idea that professional, like, because, you know, you're a martial artist. Okay, let's not pretend you're a fucking brain thinker, okay? So here's the thing. That's like saying, you know, like all professional athletes have something to say. Well, they saying all professional athletes have something to say. Well, they like to think they have something to say. We're interviewed frequently.

And they don't normally have something to say. What is the credence that Chuck Norris brings to this movement? Other than like he has like a bunch of jokes about him. I have no idea. Like he brings a fucking canon of Chuck Norris jokes with him. That's what he brings. It have no idea. He brings a fucking canon of Chuck Norris jokes with him. That's what he brings. It's pretty awesome. I love that Chuck Norris is making

statements. He's making these sort of supposedly factual statements about the thimerosal debate. Oh, God. Man, I know that your movies and television programming are stuck in the 80s and 90s, but your thinking shouldn't be as well. Like your evidence is fucking old fucking hat, dude.

It's been 31 years. I keep waiting for the Chuck Norris joke about him punching a dead horse back to life. for the Chuck Norris joke about him punching a dead horse back to life. Well, I, for one, am scared. Like, I think he's going to win the argument. He's going to win everything. I mean, he's Chuck Norris. He is hard.

Admittedly. Admittedly, yeah. He's difficult to defeat. Right, right. Wakefield is not just any researcher. His 1998 study on autism and childhood vaccines literally changed the way many parents think about vaccines. The study was based on just 12 children. That's right, 12 children. But many parents desperate for answers around the

world embraced Wakefield's claim that he'd found a link between autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella. So Cecil, there's a new, I don't know if I want to call it trend, because I'm not sure exactly how widespread it is, but there's a new crazy thing to do, which people evidently are doing now, which is sending chickenpox-infected lollipops through the fucking mail to strangers who then give the chickenpox infected lollipops to their kids to give their kids a disease. It sounds safe. I can it. I'm hard pressed to think of something less fucking advisable

than that I would almost sooner pull the pin on a grenade and wrap it really tight so it doesn't blow up I'm going to fucking wrap the hammer and put it in a fucking FedEx I'd rather dry hump a porcupine.

What are you kidding me? It's a crazy thing to do. This is ridiculous. And you know, like the thing about chicken pox that people, I guess I didn't even know until I read this article. One of the things about chicken pox is that it actually can kill you. Like it can be a fatal disease. Now, is it commonly fatal?

No, it's not commonly fatal. But people who get chickenpox, not from, if they get the vaccine, I guess they have a much less chance later on in life of getting shingles. But if you get it like for real, like from fucking licking a lollipop that another kid or maybe a grownup has done something to, um, then you have, then you have an opportunity to get shingles later on in life. And there's also the possibility that could kill you like a hundred people a year or so die from chicken pox. Yeah.

And that might be a statistically small percentage, but, um, just, just don't fucking see how many licks it takes to get to the center of your fucking virus laden Tootsie Pop that's insane you're joining a Facebook group that's how this is being done you could join a Facebook group you have no idea who's on the other end of that group

right and they're sending you something that they are saying is a lollipop licked by a disease infested kid. And let's not, let's not, let's not sugarcoat it. Chickenpox is a disease. I see what you did there. Chickenpox is a fucking disease. Why are we giving our kids diseases on purpose?

Right? Like, we're not sending them fucking malaria sausages. Right? It's like filled with mosquitoes. You cut it open. You got like some nice cheese and like a salami. You take a knife. Monopoly's mosquitoes fill the air.

Oh, no. Monopoly's mosquitoes fill the air. Well, what if some fucking creepy pedo dude got onto your Facebook group and was like, yeah, I'll send you one that's got chicken pox on it. And he, like, fucking rubbed it on his junk. Right. Or something. You know what I mean?

Like, I don't even know what you would do with it, but you could do some weird shit with a lollipop. You know what I mean? I have seen pornography. So I understand that there's some weird things that you could do with a lollipop. You know what I mean? I have seen pornography. So I understand that there's some weird things that you could do with a lollipop. So, you know, the very fact is, is like, like you're first off, you're trusting somebody that all you've seen is their profile picture on fucking Facebook. Right. So you're trusting somebody like that. You're sending a fucking disease via fucking U. fucking US post office mail or FedEx or fucking

UPS or whatever. So you're endangering the people that are around it possibly. Like that's fucking horrifying too. What if, like, let's just say like fucking some of that shit leaked out onto my hand. I'm an adult. I go home and touch my little, my little boy, Jimmy, who lives in a fucking bubble. And guess what? Jimmy fucking dies at chicken pox because he doesn't – he has some sort of immunodeficiency.

So now what? Now fucking my kid dies because you're some jackass who sent a fucking slobber-filled fucking lollipop through the mail. And who's to say it's chicken pox that's on that thing and not hepatitis? Oh, yeah. Or hepatitis and chickenpox. If you can load a virus onto a lollipop, who's to say the only virus being loaded onto that lollipop is chickenpox? And then what about the postal workers that have to handle this shit?

You know, they have to risk, they have to have a risk of getting fucking chickenpox or shingles. Right. If they're adults. I had a coworker that had shingles. She was laid up in the hospital for four fucking days. Fuck that. Four days, dude. That shit was serious. She was very, very ill. You know why? Because somebody doesn't want to give him a vaccine. Do you not know how fucking vaccines work? You get a small dose of the thing you doesn't want to give them a vaccine. Do you not know how fucking vaccines work? You get a small dose of the thing you don't want to catch. It creates an immune response that generates antibodies that mean that when you get exposed to that thing again, you beat it lickety split.

What are you doing here? You're getting you're doing the same thing. Just a bigger, bigger dose. Yeah, but you're saying like, oh, I just – I want to have the same antibody and immune response. I just also want to make sure I have the fucking pus-filled pustules and fever to go along with it. Look, man, why would you pass up pus-filled pustules and fever if you could have it, right? I can't think of anything. If you could fucking have it.

I remember when I got chicken pox. I got chicken pox late in life. What a horrible fucking experience that shit was. I had fucking my fever was so high that I was fucking delusional for like two straight days. Like I was fucking completely delusional.

I thought the fucking Chicago Bears were practicing under the covers on my bed for two days. I was fucking out of my mind and I got fucking, I was so itchy and nasty and just fucking all that shit. It's a fucking horrible fucking little, little fucking disease that you can get. It's a terrible disease. I wouldn't wish that on any kid, even if I hated that kid. Right. I, I had chicken pox when I was a kid and I had it quite badly and I have still have scars from chicken pox.

Why would you give that? Be like, oh, your body doesn't look horribly, horribly scarred. Fuck that. Here's some of the chicken pox. I would not like to have. Here you go. But isn't there a vaccine? Here you go.

Have a sucker. I trust you, Mom. I trust you, Dad. Now I'm fucking really sick. I hate you, Mom. I trust you, Dad. Now I'm fucking really sick. I hate you, Mom. How do you explain that? You know, if you happen to have a kid that's one of the 100, how do you fucking explain that at the funeral? I thought it was a good idea to give him a stranger's lollipop I got from the internet covered in viruses.

Turns out I was wrong. Yeah. I have no sympathy for that person. Right. Asshole. What an asshole thing to do. That's fucking ridiculous. Have I mentioned this is kind of an asshole thing? Yeah. Idiots. So Cecil, some key Republican craziness was defeated recently. Actually, several referendums and bills that were up for election recently, just on Tuesday, many of them were roundly defeated across the country. I think probably the craziest and most dangerous and most thankfully defeated was Mississippi's personhood amendment. Now, this isn't the first personhood amendment that has been voted on. They've all been defeated, thankfully. Mississippi voters defeated a ballot initiative that would have declared life begins at fertilization.

And basically would have made miscarrying, aborting, for any reason, illegal. Would have made it murder if you declare that person a person. Also would outlaw, Tom, the morning after pill and intrauterine devices. Right. Like, that's the other thing, too. It's like suddenly, I mean, you know, the Republicans like to talk a good game, Tom. At least they used to talk a good game about how they're sort of hands off. They're like government should be small and out of your life.

Government should be small and out of your life. This is not an example of that. No, this is not. This is the exact opposite of what that is. And when you're coming to somebody and look, you can have your own stance on abortion. And I got into a conversation recently where I was talking to somebody about abortion and we were trying to talk about it. And I was like, you know, anything after the first trimester, I'm a little, I'm a little,

you know, I have some problems with that. You know, like I start to think about, you know, you know, I guess I, I wonder, you know, at what point are we, you know, is the abortion sort of, uh, sort of, because there is a life in there, you know what I mean? Like we've got to, you know, there is at some point it does turn into a life, right? But at some point it also is a fucking lump of cells. And I'm not going to be so naive as to think that it is sparked with the creation. The moment the fucking sperm hits the egg.

Yeah. But isn't that when Jesus comes down? Yeah, that's when Jesus comes down. And like rump shakes around and does his magic lightning bolt or whatever. No, there's no, He's got a magic lightning bolt alright. But you know but really

it's an invasion of people's reproductive rights to decide whether or not they want to have. I mean the morning after pill it is a lump of fucking cells at that point. It is not a fucking like we said, it's not fucking sitting in there reading fucking Sarton being like, when will I be born?

It's not fucking doing it. It's not a thing yet. It's just, it's a fucking, it's the same thing as like having your period at that point. So let's not pretend that it's a person then. And, and I'm glad that something like this gets voted down because it's nonsense. It's like saying like we're going to have a personhood amendment that fucking Olympus sells as a person and we're going to have a sky is yellow fucking amendment too. Right, right. Yeah, an amendment or a bill or a law does not change reality.

There's no way to sell me or any thinking person that something the size of a grain of fucking rice, you know, is a person. That's a human being just like you. Like, no. No, it's not. That does not have a brain. Right. The brain is sort of a big deal. You know, we have this idea that many people are pretty comfortable with, right?

That brain death equals death. Because if there's no brain, there ain't no thoughts being thunked. Right. There's not really a person in there anymore that you just have the shell. Well, the fucking shell forms first. Right.

And this idea that you could take like a lump of cells and be like, well, that's a person. Here you go. Like, really? Because that's not a thing yet. And really, the whole idea behind this law was to get this law passed and then it would immediately be challenged and appealed. And the whole idea was to push this up to the Supreme Court and have Roe versus Wade

reconsidered at the Supreme Court level. This was a way for nutters in Mississippi to create a law that would have federal implications by getting Roe versus Wade reconsidered and, in their minds, hopefully overturned. Well, Mississippi voters, not exactly the most liberal block of fucking voters. People recognize, like, the thing is that women in particular, who you may have noticed, are about half of us. Yeah. They recognize that this is a terrible infringement on their freedoms, on their bodies, on their reproductive health. You know, this is an attempt by a small moral constituency to try to decide what women do with their bodies, when they're allowed to do it.

And people say no to that shit. It's fucking nonsense. So score one for Mississippi. They deliver in other ways, but they want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a a big truck. It's a series of tubes.

So, Cecil, this is an interesting story, although the writing in it, I think, is unbelievably horrible. From The New York Times, Senate rejects GOP bid to overturn Internet rules. Now, this goes back to something that we've discussed before, Cecil, that although many Republicans talk the small government talk, the reality is that most of the time when they're protecting this ideal of small government, they're doing so in order to favor corporations and limit individual rights. And this, Cecil, I think is a great example of that. Yeah. And net neutrality, I think, is one of these things that I think the overwhelming majority of people are for keeping the net neutral. And what net neutrality means is that a company that is your internet service provider can make decisions about your service and provide you with content that they favor or not provide you with content that they favor. So if you were to have, say, you know, like let's say I had Comcast, and I do have Comcast where I live, and I had no other choices.

Now, I'm lucky enough to live in Chicago, so I have actually choices, although my condo building decides which place we're going to use. But I could have 3G service that's just completely wireless. I could also have DSL if I wanted. So there's a couple of other options I could have. Even if I can't have a cable provider provide my internet, I could get internet other ways. But I'd choose to go with Comcast. Well, if this rule came into place, Comcast could then decide, well, you know what? We're going to time out all Netflix videos. You know, suddenly

we're going to slow that down. We're only going to give you the ability to get to Netflix a couple of other ways. Maybe you'll have to see an ad first or something else. And what this is, is the Republicans are basically saying, well, what we want is we want a free internet, meaning that the people who provide it to you get to decide how they provide it to you. But that's a load of shit. If you really are truly for better business, for people that are doing things, you know, that are actually doing things well, think about it this way. Comcast can either do this a shady way to keep me away from Netflix. They can do it a shady way through this means, or they can do it like a legitimate way by offering better content, a more usable website. Suddenly I have

access to all the Fox movies that have ever been made in the history of Fox, you know, all those things that they could do to draw me legitimately away from Netflix's site. They have ways in which to do that, but instead they're choosing to do it in a way that's like forced. They could force me to choose them over Netflix by just limiting my service. And that's bullshit. That's not what the net is all about. That's not what the internet is about. And I think that it's telling that the Republicans are the people who are trying to push something like this through.

who are trying to push something like this through. Sure, and it's a cheap way to funnel money into providers, not of the actual, of internet service, right? Because what they can also do is just say, well, hey, you know, you want to get to Netflix faster? You've got to pay an extra fee. Yeah, it's more money. You know, I know that you get high-speed internet,

but you don't get high-speed internet for wherever you want to go as a consumer you get high speed internet and if you want to go to these certain sites and do these certain high bandwidth demand uh things then you have to pay an extra fee well i'm already paying a fee i'm paying a fee for your service and i'm paying a fee for the fucking uh content provider But it's a cheap way for them to try to make money off of the things you like to do already on the internet. They don't have to provide a better product, right? This is the very antithesis of the idea of the free market, right? The idea of the free market is whoever provides the best product is going to win out. But the reality is that for most of us, and I know Cecil, you said you have options, but for a lot of people, there are no high speed options.

A lot of them are none. Yeah. That's why I said I was lucky. Yeah. I have no high speed option. So my high speed option is in my area, it's Comcast. Well, if Comcast says, well, you like to go to Netflix and stream movies. And so I want you to pay another five dollars a month to do that. Or I'm going to throttle back your Netflix and it's going to become unusable for you. Well, that's a way for them to make money without providing a service. Sure. They're basically saying that that's like saying, like, imagine any other service that you go to. Imagine if you went to McDonald's. Right. And you said, well, I'd like a burger and fries.

You said, well, you know, burgers are actually our most popular item. So if you would like a burger, we'll give it to you, but it's 30 minutes. If you want it in five minutes, it's double the price. You'd be like, well, fuck you. I'll go to Burger King, right? The problem is you can't go to Burger King. But what if they're the only place in town? Yeah, what if they're the only place in the state? Right. You know, like, and that's the thing is Comcast, what if they're the only place in town? Yeah. What if they're the only place in the state? Right.

You know, like, and that's the thing is Comcast. What if Comcast did this with their, you know, we're picking on Comcast, but they are one of these people that are involved in this sort of thing. So we're picking on one particular group, but we're just using them as example. But what if, you know, Comcast provides cable? What if they ran Comcast Sportsnet and that was a fine service but then you wanted to go see Fox Sportsnet or something like that on Fox and then you're like, oh, okay, well

every 30 seconds the picture goes dead for 25 seconds. Right. What if that were to happen? People wouldn't watch it and they'd be pissed off. They'd be like, well, man, I pay for this service and now suddenly I don't get Fox, I don't get this, I don't get that, I don't get these five other channels because they're unwatchable.

Well, that's not our problem. You got to pay extra for those. Not just pay extra, but like I'm already paying for your service. That's like having HBO and then having to pay extra for HBO. I know, isn't it? It's like I have HBO. Yeah, but you really like Game of Thrones. So we're going to charge you extra for Game of Thrones.

If you're like, well, it's fucking already on HBO. Or Showtime or whatever it shows on. Yeah, it's on HBO. Whatever. I don't watch that shit. So we're going to pause the show at the moment to take a quick break, give you the information on how to contact us, send us your hate mail messages. How you could give us a poor rating on iTunes, maybe? Always an option.

Remember, we are poorly researched. We are cognitive dissonance. 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. 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. Just search for Cognitive Dissonance on Facebook or go to our website for the link. You can converse with us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at dissonance underscore pod. Help us out by retweeting and reposting our shows. You can call us and leave us a message at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Long distance rates apply. Your help is fucking greatly appreciated.

This story could be the greatest story I've heard all day. Cecil Herman Cain gets better and better all the time. Now, you'll remember that Herman Cain recently expressed his disdain for the great country of Uzbekistan, which was heartbreaking to Uzbekistan Stananese, who were really concerned about what fucking Herman Cain, the godfather of pizza, thought about their country. You know, pizza. What do I care? But in the grand tradition of getting basic facts horribly wrong, Herman Cain. He listens to cognitive dissonance. long. Herman Cain. He listens to cognitive dissonance evidently. Herman Cain in an interview expressed his concern that China might develop nuclear weapons. Herman Cain's old. That's,

that's true, but this is great. I can, I just quote from this. Yes, they're a military threat. just quote from this? Yes, they're a military threat, Kane said on PBS NewsHour. In response to the question from Judy Woodruff, they've indicated that they're trying to develop nuclear capability, and they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we

have. So yes, we have to consider them military threats. They tested their first nuclear weapon in 1964. That's 14 years before I was born. Oh, my God. This is the greatest thing. Oh, my gosh.

This guy is so awesome. You know what? Ann Coulter had a post a while back that said our blacks are better than your blacks. Ann Coulter. What a piece of garbage. I want to just retort to Ann Coulter and be like, well, our trainees are better than you. But no, like what you want to say to her is be like, this guy is stupid. Like this guy is – he's clinically stupid.

Like you want to stand behind this idiot, this moron? Like now don't get me wrong. Like this guy, he's probably a little more smart than, let's say, Rick Perry is. But still, it's like, this isn't somebody you want to fucking hang your hat on and be like, this is our guy. This is the guy to run. Like, Ron Paul is fucking leaving all these people in the dust in such a fucking ridiculous way, it's sad.

And it's not even that hard to do, right? No. You just need to know who the nuclear powers are. Sure, and not grope somebody that doesn't want to be groped. That is key. That, it turns out, is key. Herman Cain's had one, two, three, four. Four.

People come out now and say that he's gotten a little hands-on. It's like a quartet. Well, you want to wonder, like, Tom, I wonder, and there was a comment, there was a little bit of back and forth on our blog about this, and it's great that people are actually having conversations on our blog. We encourage it. Our blog is located at dissonancepod.com.

You can find the latest episode and comment on that episode directly from the main page. And it's great that they're having these conversations, but they really focus on the fact that Herman Cain had – he had some unwarranted sexual advances on somebody he was going to be hiring, right? So like that's what the focus of the conversation was. Right. So like that's what the focus of the conversation was. Now, first off, that's really low class to be like out on a fucking interview with somebody, you know, for drinks and talking about the interview and then being like like even if it's just a fucking like, hey, baby, you want to come up and spend the night or maybe about 45 seconds with me up in my room. You know what I mean? Like even if it's just that, even if it's just that sort of unwanted sexual advance verbal, that's still creepy because you're going to be her superior. There's some power dynamic issues that happen there. She may want the job more than she wants to, you know, and then she doesn't want to have sex with you. You know what I mean?

Like so there's some really like creepy shit already packaged up into that. But just like fucking reaching over and fucking honking her tit like a fucking clown nose? Like, what the fuck is that? Like, what is that? And be like, hey baby, let's tune in Tokyo. Maybe he thought it would squirt seltzer at him. I'll have a gin and tonic.

I'm confused how these work. Seriously, like what the fuck is going on? Like this is a guy, like never is it fucking warranted to reach over and just fucking honk somebody's tit. Never is that fucking warranted. Unless it's like, she's like, I give you warrant, sir. It is, like you said, this is extraordinarily at the very best. It's low class.

Like this is a guy that's very it's very difficult to respect his decision making capabilities. Right. You've got somebody who and we don't know if the sexual allegation, if the sexual harassment allegations are true or not. We don't. But it is telling that there are four of them. Right. That kind of set one person, okay, well, you know, he's a high-profile character and maybe something's going on and there's certainly –

But when you get to four at this point, you've got to think that there's maybe something at least going on here. And the story that comes out is, you know, even if he didn't reach over and give her a grab, like he upgraded her hotel room and took her, you know, like he did a lot of things that seem awkward. Like really awkward, like really leading and suggestive. awkward, like really leading and suggestive. And this is a guy that's very difficult at this point to respect. And the disdain with which he's treated these women and these allegations is, it's not classy. And it's not been handled very well at all. Yeah.

At all. You know, at one point he makes a joke joke about, like, well, have you seen her? Like, I wouldn't hit on her. Like, he makes some comment that, like, well, she's unattractive, so I clearly wouldn't sexually harass an unattractive woman. And that's the implication. It's

like, wow. That's your defense? Like, I only grab the titties of the good-looking ones? Honk, honk. He also said – and this is a quote. I'm not sure where this is from, but I saw somebody posted this, and it says, for every one person that comes forward with a false accusation, there are probably thousands who say that none of that sort of activity ever

came from Herman Cain. Like, okay, well, you know, I've been around, you know, like, that's like a rapist being like, well, man, I've been around like 10,000 women in my life. I only raped seven of them. Oh God. Yeah. Like what? You could trust me with women. I mean, you're only like one in 10,000 or seven in 10,000. That's a low percentage of people that I've raped. Like, it's ridiculous. Like it's an idea. The idea is stupid. And I, you know, I, I do want to say, Tom, that your point is perfectly valid. These are allegations at this point. So when I said that he reached over, maybe he didn't, maybe none of this ever even happened, but you're right. There's something there if it's four people, but I even still think that, you know, being in that situation, being able to be traced back to that situation where you are having drinks with somebody who you might be fucking hiring and you're fucking have an upgraded hotel room for them and stuff like that.

I think that's a little shady anyway. You know, I think even if there is nothing else that's left of this, that's true. That in itself is me saying, dude, what are you doing? It really just bespeaks a bizarre decision at the very least to be involved in somebody's nightly accommodations in any way. Like you want to, I've been on interviews, you know, and I've been taken to dinner by people that wanted to, you know, potentially hire me. And that's one thing. But to have somebody concern themselves with my overnight accommodations, we're starting to get into some territory that's a little iffy. Right. Right.

Absolutely. And now, Rick Perry's three favorite things. This week, ice cream flavors. I like banana nut. I like funky monkey. And what's the third one, Ron?

Ron Paul's like, moose tracks? Here, call Ron Paul. Maybe he knows. God, that's so awesome. Agencies of government. EPA needs to be rebuilt. There's no doubt about that. But you can't name the third one? The third agency of government, I would do away with the education, the commerce. And let's see. I can't. The third one, I can't the third one I can't sorry commerce education and the what's the third one there? Let's see. The EPA.

EPA. There you go. No. What an – I love the actual tape of this. You can't remember which things he's going to cut, which departments – departments of the U.S US government he's going to kill. Isn't that – like this is great. And one of the best lines on Reddit I saw was – all it said was, watch Rick Perry's campaign and before your eyes. And it was a link to that.

Isn't that the same one that also has like The Simpsons at the end of it where Bart is showing Lisa. He's like, watch. You can see right where ralph's heart breaks in two and like he's he's like got like a fast forward pause thing he's like when you can't remember three things you're well you're only being asked to remember three things and they are your three things. Right. You know, it's not like the guy has, you know, a list of 50 ideas and was asked to like rattle them all off in sequence. It's three.

Right. Well, he's got to remember a lot of other stuff evidently. Well, I love one of the comments on Reddit was awesome. It was just like, it's a mystery. Vote for me to find out which one it is. Like, that's the best part. I love that. I think that's awesome. Did you ever find out which one it was that he was talking about?

I actually was looking on Sarah Palin's hand to see if she had written it down. She didn't. Probably smeared. I think she was holding it up to him in the audience. And it had smeared it up. He's like, I can't. I don't remember. I don't clearly remember.

See, so you've seen the video, right? You can see that he's praying for the third one, right? He's like, come on, rain in Texas and give me the third one. Rain in Texas and give me the third one. Alas, to no avail. There are some problems we have on Wall Street. But the thing is, for 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. So the Occupy protests continue to chug along and the police continue to respond in a calm and rational way. If by calm and rational, you mean shooting people in Oakland, shocker, with nonlethal weapons who do nothing at all. There's a video on boingboing.net, which we'll link to on our site. We can see a guy. There's like a big line of police. There's like 9000 policemen. Right. They're all like.net, which we'll link to on our site, where you can see a guy. There's like a big line of police. There's like 9,000 policemen, right? They're all like lined up. Yeah, I know. And this guy has a video camera,

and he's the one clearly shooting the video. And he's just walking along. He's not taunting them. He's not throwing rocks. He's not like bristling with guard dogs or something. And they shoot him. They just shoot that guy for no reason he had a camera that's true he did have a camera and the best part is like he also had a fucking rubber bullet to the fucking

face ow the best part is like he walks down the line and like honestly dozens of police don't shoot him right so if he was a threat if this means that if he was a threat either dozens and dozens of police are unable to interpret him as a threat which means that all those police that did not shoot him are incompetent because they're unable to interpret threats. Or suddenly his camera morphed Transformers style into an assault rifle. It's an option. I'm going with B. Or some cop just shot him for no reason. I'm going to go with B.

Because I think, I just, it's not that I think it happened. I'm just hopeful that cameras can transform into AR-15s. You're all dead. Oh, be nice. Oh, my son doesn't stand a chance. The whole world's gone gay. Oh, my God. What's happening now? We work hard. We play hard. So this is actually quite a bizarre story. Suicidal lesbian Marine Corps vet went to the VA hospital and tried to get some help. She tried to get help because she'd been having suicidal thoughts. She thinks as a result of the post-traumatic stress disorder, she did serve

in wartime and was having a very difficult time, struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts. And rather than getting help, the nurse just gave her Jesus. That is not help, turns out. Yeah. And the reason why it's not help is because after she left, the person who said, I'm going to quote. Now, this is what the person said that she said. So, you know, we're hearing this from the person who was told this. We're not hearing this from the person who actually said it. But she's saying that the nurse said to her, maybe God's plan for you. Pardon me.

Let me start it over. Maybe God's plan for your life is to choose to return to the light. And then you could help your friends who are still in darkness and going to hell back to the light. When I started practicing medicine, there was actually a diagnosis for homosexuality. But they have gotten rid of that now since Obama. That is a terrible, terrible thing to say. It's also a horrifyingly inaccurate thing to say. Right. It's completely untrue. Homosexuality has not been a psychiatric diagnosis for years and years and years and years. That's

been a long time that homosexuality used to be, used to be, you know, back in the day. But it ain't been since Obama. That's maybe since Obama was born. That's crazy. And to tell somebody that they're going to hell and that their friends are going to hell. Yeah. And this person, you know, this person was religious. So to hear that from somebody else who is also religious, because, you know, who's the authority in religion?

You know, it's priests, it's people. And, you know, I mean, but somebody like this, they could just have as much authority as anybody else. So they're telling you you're going to hell. Well, suddenly you're already depressed. You know, you already don't think you're any good, probably. What is this going to add to that? How do you, how do you help somebody this way? Yeah, no, there's, there's nothing in here that implies that this, that this nurse was actually helpful at all. You know, when somebody's, this is a problem when somebody's religious beliefs so get in the way of their ability to practice medicine. What this woman was there for was because she had a depression and suicidal ideations.

And those things are treatable. And those things need to be dealt with with an immediacy similar to that of somebody complaining of chest pains or any other physical malady that you would present yourself to a hospital for. And to take mental illness and depression and suicidal ideations and to treat those things like they're somehow less than or that they are subject to your proselytizing. That's that that woman should be fucking immediately fired. There's no excuse for it. You know, imagine if you came in with a broken leg. You're like, fucking my leg really hurts because there's a bone sticking out of it and it's broken.

It's like, well, that's because you're going to go to hell. Like, I don't need that right now. Are you a believer in Jesus? Have you prayed about, you know, your leg? Have you prayed about it? That's not a fucking useful thing to do. There's another part of this article where the woman specifically right away asks, like one of the first things she asks is like, have you accepted God into your heart? Have you been saved by Jesus Christ?

And this woman had been. And it's like – and what that's saying to her is, well, you're not praying hard enough. It's blaming her for it. You're not believing hard enough. Right? You're blaming her for her own depression. How is that fucking helpful? Yeah. This is a horrifyingly bad thing to do i mean it's just that this is and this is a problem when when religiosity um is allowed to enter the uh medical sphere allowed to enter the military

sphere you know this this woman should be fucking banned from dealing with patients from here on out. If you can't keep, it's one thing to have freedom of religion. That's fine. It really is. If you want to pray in your home or in your church or in your fucking head silently, nobody can tell you otherwise. But when somebody comes to you for fucking help, medical help, and you're in a medical setting and you're a medical care professional and you instead take that opportunity to feed them guilt and blame and moral judgment, you're fucking doing it wrong, man. Yeah, you're doing it wrong. That's a terrible human being.

If you're involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it's bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement. And that's why this is so dangerous. It's a very sad life. It's part of Satan, I think, to say that this is gay. It's anything but gay. Speaking of terrible human beings, I could not even believe this story. There is evidently a trend. I couldn't believe this either of transgender LGBT people being set on fire. A trend of them being set on fire. Jr., 19, also known as Shelly, your treasure, was found on I-94, burned to death and discarded on the side of the road.

There's no way to look at a crime like this and not see this as a terrible hate crime. Right. Well, and then it's starting to become, you know, they they say in here there's a couple of other people. It says at least the seventh LGBT person burned alive in the past six weeks across the world. What – I'm not going to say we. What are you doing, weirdos? Like what the fuck is – like and this is a person who obviously hates themselves so much that they have to lash out at a person who is gay. They really hate themselves to be this horrifyingly fucking just brutal to somebody else. And, you know, we talked about, you know, there's a lot of times people will look down their nose at those countries in the Mideast where they, you know,

kill people like in Iran, where they kill people that are gay. And you're like, oh, look at those backwater places. This is fucking I-94 in the United States, man. It's, it's a, it's an example of such horrifying barbarism. And we've talked about this before, and I'm sure we'll talk about it many times again. You know, when you have these evangelicals who look at and selectively choose the works and passages from the Bible that serve to buttress their homophobia, Bible that serve to buttress their homophobia. And they spread that word and they spread that fear and they spread that hatred and they create a moral justification for other people's discomfort and hate. The natural response to this socially is these sorts of hate crimes. You know, you cannot keep feeding the fire and not expect it to burn.

And, you know, we have this idea that these religious folks, well, you know, you're entitled to your own opinion. Yeah, you are. But your opinion should be vilified as hate speech. When your opinion is bigoted, when your opinion is promoting, When your opinion is bigoted, when your opinion is promoting looking at another person as less than because of the way that they were born, it's hate speech and it results in hateful. And even when somebody is like – let's say somebody who comes to this isn't like particularly religious. This is a pocket of acceptance for them. You know what I mean?

Like there's a group of people that accept the same sort of bigoted beliefs that I do. So, uh, so this sort of thing is reinforced by them. Maybe or not, maybe they're not, you know, coming right out and saying, you know, you should burn gay people alive. Cause you know, if you say that you probably, you know, somebody should actually, you know, fucking smack you upside the fucking head, but you know, maybe they're not saying it explicitly. But when you start to permit people to treat gays as lesser people, this sort of thing is a natural result. It absolutely is. It's there's no way to take a segment of the population and label them as other and expect them to be treated as anything other than the other.

It's a way to create division and boundaries based primarily on religious intolerance. And this is the natural result. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. To me, it's pretty simple. A person either believes that God created this process or believes that it was an accident and that it just happened all on its own. Speaking of religious intolerance. We've talked about petitions before on this show. There's been a couple of petitions at whitehouse.gov that were totally useless. This is a hilarious petition at change.org.

True Christians, start an official burn and evolution book day. This person's a troll. It's such a troll. I don't believe this person exists. It's hilarious, though, about this petition. I'll go ahead and read this. Evolution, a religion of Satan, has taken over this world and is trying to destroy us Christians and our faith in God. How?

We must fight this lie of evolution. Although in this age of internet, it is not possible to wipe out evolution. So it's pointless. We can symbolically show that we will not stand for its lies. By burning books about evolution. I love it. God bless. show that we will not stand for its lies by burning books about evolution. I love it. God bless.

That is seriously the greatest part of the entire thing. God bless, sincerely, your name. It's fantastic. I think that is fucking awesome. What I love the most about something like this, they're saying that evolution is a religion of Satan. I know. Like we're talking about Satanism before. That's actually a denomination of Christianity.

It's your own demigod. Like it's one of the Christian demigods, right? I was thinking about this the other day. It's like you can't tell me that the Christian faith is monotheistic. Right. You have a lot of demigods. Yeah, yeah. You know. And they have angels and. You get angels and demons and they can all go around and live forever and do magic.

Yeah, so they're all gods of some sort. They're, at the very least, they're lesser gods. So, like, I don't understand how a demigod of the Christian religion has a different religion, which is evolution, which is not a religion. I love, too, this idea that you would be so afraid of another idea that you would want to burn all the books, right? Like, oh, I don't want people reading that. Then they're going to read it anyway. You even admit in your thing that they will find it. I would like to engage in the following pointless gesture.

Burn a book. Why? Well, because it's symbolic. It's symbolic of your need for ignorance. That's all burning a book is ever. No one has ever looked back. History has never been kind to book burners, right? Nobody has ever looked back and been like, remember those guys?

Fuck Alexandria! Fuck them! Bitches! Libraries are stupid. People who read books about thoughts be dumb. I'm for fossil fuels, man. I'm burning a windmill every week.

I'm burning the effigy of a windmill every week. Ideas are scary. Burn the ideas. That's not how ideas work. You can't burn an idea, dude. Burn the idea. That's awesome.

You're not good at this. This is a troll, though. I mean, like, we're making jokes about this, but this guy, whoever put this on there is a total fucking troll. Like, they're like, they put this on there specifically to get a reaction of people on the internet that would post shit like, are you fucking retarded? Yeah, but it's hilarious. And it only has 12 signatures. Yeah, I know.

That's the thing. It only has 12 signatures because it's so evident baiting, right? It's phenomenal, though. It's funny as hell. That's great. It's phenomenal, though. It's funny as hell. That's great.

So, Cecil, we've got some email we need to talk about. We got an email from Japan Don. Japan Don confuses me because he is a New Zealander living in Japan, and I didn't know that was possible. Can't get there from here. I don't know that was possible. Can't get there from here. I don't know how. Cecil, he also says that it should be referred to as Cecil and Tom because Cecil has the weaker voice and so deserves some help. Come to me, Steven. You're the weaker Baldwin.

It's true, Don. My voice actually can bench 225. It's okay, Tom. I'm actually can bench 225. Yeah. It's okay, Tom. I'm okay with me having the weaker voice. I have thicker eyelashes and longer fingers. And, Tom, I can reach things that are above like six foot on a shelf. So I'm okay with having the weaker voice. I'm kind of cool with it.

I am sort of leprechaun in shape. weaker voice. I'm kind of cool with it. I am sort of leprechaun in shape. So you've got me handily beat there. It is a good email, though. He goes through and talks about a bunch of stuff in the email. Thank you for sending it. We're happy that you're listening. We're happy that you gave us a rating on iTunes Japan, even if we couldn't read it.

We would urge you to give us a rating on iTunes Japan, even if we couldn't read it. We would urge you to give us a rating on English iTunes. But if you want to read on Japan, that's cool too. Thanks for doing it though. And I wanted to talk about New Zealand for a second, Tom, because I ran into an Australian recently. We start talking for a few minutes and we're having this conversation and she says to me, she's, she's like really, uh, trying not to insult me. So she's being very careful with her words and she didn't realize that I was a crass idiot. You

know, like I was putting myself off as somebody who I guess was well-researched. And then, so she said, she said to me, she said, well, I don't want to insult you, but you know, there's a, there's a, an idea about Americans around the world. And I was like, don't worry, you're going to insult, you're not going to insult me. She's like, it feels like you guys are kind of culturally unaware. And I'm like, oh yeah, we're fucking, we're culturally oblivious here. And she was like, she's like, yeah, she's like, well, let me ask you a question. Uh, do you, do you, can you tell the difference between say say, a New Zealander's accent and an Australian's accent? And I looked her dead in the face and I said, until you just said it, I had no idea there was a different accent.

I was like, I had no idea that an Australian and a New Zealander didn't sound exactly the same. She's like, wait, so you know that band that has that show? And I was like, Flight of the Conchords? And she's like, yeah. She's like, you don't think they sound different? I'm like, they sound exactly how you talk. Americans are as culturally unaware as it is possible to be. Look at Herman Cain. We might elect him to be head of America. I just think that that's really amusing that we have – like I just seriously had no idea that those two things were even separate in any way. Would not have occurred to me.

We are going to get some awesome email from New Zealanders, though. I thought New Zealand was like a floating raft of Australia. Like, I thought it was like the pool raft of Australia. Right, it is, it is. That's terrible. That's just terrible. It is. That's terrible.

That's just terrible. So like we said earlier, I was listening to this show, Skeptics with a K. It was sent to us by somebody who follows us on Twitter, Skepticat sent it to us. And I got to a conversation with her about it. It's a really great show. And I know that we normally, when we say, oh, this show, if you're looking for a show that has some good content and is well-researched, because this isn't our show, you should look up, and we normally send people to like Skeptic's Guide, or we send them to

like Skeptoid, places like that, and those are great places to go, but if you're looking for something that I think is a little more, it's a little closer to us, they're well-researched, funny, and they swear, Skeptics with a K is a great place to go. I listened to aresearched, funny, and they swear. Skeptics with a K is a great place to go. I listened to a couple of episodes this week.

I'm going to start downloading them and listening to them. A couple times I laughed out loud while I was listening to it. So they're great. I think they're a great show. So if you want to find a podcast that's similar to ours but very, very, very British, you should listen to that show. I've listened to it. I thought it was an excellent show. Yeah, I think it's well put together.

And these guys, they do know their stuff. They really are very intelligent guys, and they put together a solid show. So if you want to give that show a chance, I would say give it a chance. It's definitely worth your time. So we also got an email from John. John, I love your email. Yeah, I love it too. John gives us a few pieces of advice including fuck the assholes who

complain about anything regarding a free podcast. I like you, John. I don't know you, but I like you. John's enjoying the show. He also came over from Irreligiosophy and has been plugging us on the Skeptoid listserv.

We really do appreciate that. All of the plugs, all of the word of mouth that has been going out about this show is really helping us. And we're just absolutely so grateful for it. So I can't say that enough. He also links to the site that is one of the craziest things I've ever seen. It's AmericanCross.org. I don't even understand it. It took – I tried to open this at work.

My internet service at work is fucking barbaric. It's so slow and ridiculous. This is the greatest page ever, by the way. Best design ever. I'm opening it up in Chrome and the ribbon on the far right is obscuring half of the words. Well, in Firefox, there's a ribbon right through the center of it. Right through the center. So you can't even see it.

You can't even see like part of it. You're just like, well, that's unreadable. Way to go, dummy. This is like a time cube style scroll down. Oh, yeah. Which means nobody has ever read this entire page. You've been talking about it for the past three minutes. I'm still scrolling.

It's really ridiculously long. And that's just the main page. You can click. There's 25 buttons on the left that you could click through. Yeah. The artist renderings is awesome. If you click on the artist rendering, that is the greatest. It's like an MS Paint.

Oh, the victorious. rendering, that is the greatest. It's like an MS Paint. The victorious. Oh, it's great. This is a great website. Evidently, this person wants to make a giant cross made out of reflective material and put it up somewhere. You can only get so far into this, but we thank

you for sending the link. We're going to link to it because we want people to see it, so we'll put it on our website. It's so crazy. It's a skyscraper cross. It's awesome. Super awesome. I would live in the skyscraper cross. This is clearly somebody who really enjoyed, like, frying ants with a magnifying glass.

We also got an email last night, actually, from Prescott. Prescott is a new listener to Cognitive Dissonance. He also came over from Irreligiosophy, which he calls the one true podcast. I think that's what their tagline is actually. Is it? I think it's funny. I think that's very funny. So we're very glad to have you.

Although I think the guy, that one guy who has that what in the world do we know or whatever, that shitty fucking podcast we talked about at the beginning, he would argue that his is the one true podcast. Well, the truth is that which is. So, you know, what you going to do? Prescott raised a concern. Ball's in your court now. Yeah, whoa. What do I do with this now? So much information burning in my brain.

My mind's all a flutter. I'm going to burn a podcast I don't leak every week. I'm just going to burn it. Just throw it in. I'm going to have a podcast burning in the front yard. It's like one match in the wind. You're trying to get the internet.

You're trying to burn the Wi-Fi out of the air just selectively as it streams. Prescott had a concern about the show. Notably, he was concerned about episode 11. We talked about it a couple of times. David Silverman. We were a little critical of David Silverman. He comes to his defense. Prescott, I think your points are well taken, and thank you for emailing us.

I don't know that I want to go into a long-riffle bottle. We both like Silverman, I think, overall. I think we both like him. I just think that sometimes when you get on shows like Fox, they can bring out the worst in somebody, and sometimes I think Silverman overreacts. There's other times that I see him on Fox, and he's fucking brilliant. He has a hard job to do, a job I would not want to do, a job I would not be good at. And so my hat goes off to Silverman. I think he's great.

But sometimes he does do some things and say some things that make – that can – because he is sort of viewed as like the fucking atheist pope. And because he is sort of viewed as like the fucking atheist pope, they sort of look at him and they're like, hey, that guy's – if he says something that isn't I think perfectly on point, people can misconstrue it and make – and it makes all of us look bad even though we're not really a fucking collective of anybody. We're just a collective of people who don't really believe in something. Right, right. And he has a good point. Silverman provides a way to get an idea across that you're not alone. Right. And that's good. It's very, very good. There's a lot of people, you know, Cecil, you and I are fortunate enough, we live in the Midwest, but we're in a liberal area of the Midwest, the Chicagoland area.

And so I don't think you and I feel terribly isolated in our atheist belief. And so I don't think you and I feel terribly isolated in our atheist belief. But there are certainly many, many people in this country who feel extremely isolated. Prescott mentions that he lives in Texas. I cannot imagine living in Texas and being atheist. I think that would be a little bit difficult. And if Silverman and others give an outlet to those folks and give them a voice and give them an opportunity to feel like they're not alone in not believing in the nonsense, then fucking more power to you. And, ProScout, we're so glad you're listening.

Thanks for coming over to the show. We got a couple of plugs on our Facebook page, so check out the plugs. Minnie Molly, this person, I don't know if I'm mispronouncing your name. You do a lot of great stuff for us. I'm just going to call you Mini because that's the first name here on Facebook. But Mini does a great job of posting our stuff everywhere. Like we get links from this person constantly. So thank you, Mini, for publicizing the show.

But this person posted on our blog a skeptically speaking podcast. So obviously this person really enjoys it, Evolution in Politics. It kind of follows directly a lot of the stuff that we talk about, so give it a listen. I haven't listened yet, but give it a listen. And then somebody published a book and posted it on our site and said

that only a true Cognitive Dissonant fan would read this book and love it. And it's John and Me, the Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Obsession to Become a Guest on the Daily Show. So this book is out on Amazon. They have plugged it on our site. If you have a Kindle and seven extra dollars and you wanted to buy this person's book, I'm sure it would be very good. Or maybe it wouldn't. I don't know.

I didn't read it. I haven't read it. It may or may not be good. And I certainly do or do not endorse it. This endorsement, endorsement, not meant to be a factual statement. Yeah. Well, uh, we are going to wrap up the show as we normally do with, uh, 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 and towers tarot cards psychic healing crystal balls bigfoot yeti aliens churches mosques and synagogues temples dragons giant worms atl 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. Thank you.