Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 23: He Blinded Me With Violence

Episode Date: November 28, 2011

Obama leaves god out of Thanksgiving address, Sweat lodge sentencing, 12 years for being raped - or marry your attacker, blinded woman asks for mercy for her assailant, Australia tax breaks if you vaccinate, Pepper spray is delicious, occupy shooter, groping ghost. Birmingham Skeptics in the Pub Clips used: Jesus camp / Blue Swede hooked on a feeling mashup, Princess Bride, Quackery PSA, Bill O'Reilly and Megan Kelly, Michelle Malkin on Fox and Friends, Ghostbusters. Visit our site for the links to the stories: http://dissonancepod.com

Okay, Sammy, which cereal do you want? Uh... Oh, oh, can I get this one? Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please. No, we are not getting Democracy O's. Aw. But Libya and Egypt and Tunisia all get to have those. I saw something on Fox News about that kind.

Aw. No. Aw. You want me to give you something to cry about? No. Pick something else. What about these Occupy Puffs? They have 99% of the daily recommended...

Sammy, we are not getting that. What about this one? Theocracy Flakes. Ooh, look. It has little Holy Ghost marshmallows. It says here it has 100% of the daily recommended amount of homophobia and misogyny. It was designed by a creation scientist, so it has to be good. I want... No. No democracios. What about this one? Corporate Crunch. Hmm. It has 1% of all the daily recommended vitamins.

Hmm. It has 1% of all the daily recommended vitamins. Oh, and Sammy, it comes with this little toy. It's a police officer in riot gear. Oh, look at that little pepper spray can. Isn't that adorable? Oh, neat. If I get enough of it, I can send in two of the UPCs for a nightstick. Oh, let's get that one, Mom. Can we get two? Let's just get one for now. I'm going to get some of these theocracy flakes for your father.

You know how much he enjoys religious bigotry. I mean breakfast. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. This is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome mat. Welcome everybody to episode 23 of Cognitive Dissonance. We're glad to have you listening. The first story that we're going to talk about today is something of a tragic story. It normally is a tragic story, but this one actually is kind of uplifting. Although now that all the backlash is coming, it's not uplifting at all.

For those in America, you know, I know that for reasons I've yet to ascertain, we have listeners outside of the United States. I don't even understand why you have listeners in the United States. Yeah, admittedly. Here in America, we have a little holiday we like to call Thanksgiving. And I know that other countries also have a Thanksgiving holiday. But ours is to celebrate the, you know, the rape and pillage of the native lands. And so, you know, every year the president gives an address and President Obama's Thanksgiving address did not, Cecil,

thank the almighty. It didn't. I, you know, I think this is, this is particularly egregious because, you know, if people are unfamiliar with the Thanksgiving holiday in the Americas, here's, here's what happened. God came down with his musket and he shot the first turkey. And you need to thank God for shooting the turkey and for giving all the Indian smallpox. I think that's the things that we need to be thankful for in this country. And Obama sort of missed his cue, Tom. I love that God has a musket. He's like, not only needs a weapon, but he's limited to the weapons of that time.

He has one of those hats with the buckles on it, too. Wouldn't he just hit it with lightning because it cooks it at the same time, right? And God also showed the colonists what maize was. And so that's why. Why does God have to even be involved in this holiday? I can understand getting mad if he's like giving a fucking Easter address. But he's not even involved in this holiday. Right.

It's giving thanks. Like I do Thanksgiving. It's my favorite fucking holiday. because it's not a religious holiday. It's's like that's the myth that you're sold. But even the myth that you're sold as a kid about the very first Thanksgiving did not involve God. It was not a religious fucking holiday. They were leaving. If you're going to believe that myth, they were actually leaving for religious freedom, right? They were leaving the UK or at that time Great Britain or whatever. I don't know what the fuck the difference is.

But anyway, they were leaving one of those names of that country to come over here for religious freedom because they were being oppressed over there. They couldn't express their religion how they wanted to. So if you believe that myth anyway, then they came over here for that reason. And when you are having religious freedom, the lowest common denominator of religious freedom is atheism because there is no God, right?

Like that's the lowest common denominator. So you've got to at least be secular when you give your address, I think. Sure. You're going to leave – should you include all the gods? Right. They didn't talk about Allah. That's crazy. This is more of this sort of right-wing religious pandering that suggests that we have to keep God in America. Well, which God?

Well, our God, because the other gods suck. Sure, Thor is fucked. You don't want to talk about Thor anymore. Zeus is never included in Thanksgiving. He's a ghost at this point. You don't want to talk about Zeus. And plus, did you read the speech that he gave or listen to it? It's so innocuous.

He's basically saying like we should be thankful for the things that we have and try to help each other to overcome challenges. I know it's a difficult time. When the president has to say like I would like it if we were nice to each other to help one another through difficult times and that is a fucking controversial speech, you're just fishing. Yeah. You're waiting for – and this is, again, non-mention means anti-mention. Right. This is non-mention suddenly means he's anti-religious. No, he's just not expressing his religion.

There's a big difference. People don't get that difference. People don't understand that there's a qualitative difference between not mentioning it and being like, yeah, well, be thankful. And also your God sucks my balls. Like there's a total difference in those statements. I read this and I didn't gather from his speech that he's anti-Grizzly Bears. Right. Just because he didn't mention Grizzly Bears.

Right. I presume that President Obama is at the very least neutral on this subject of grizzly bears. We hope. We hope. Yeah. For the grizzly bear lobby that's out there that could be influencing him. The criticism in the article, it's President Obama told the nation in the address that if they support each other and look out for each other and remember that we're all in this together, then I know that we, too, will overcome the challenges of our time. How dare you, sir? How dare you? Yeah. This is outrage for the purpose of being outraged.

I mean, you know, they should have the Wiccans all be up in arms because he didn't mention Mother Earth. Yeah, right. This is – we didn't give thanks to Gaia, right? That's the – And the Hindus should be mad because they didn't mention one of their million gods or whatever or any of their million gods. So our next story actually is a follow-up. A sweat lodge guru has been sentenced to multiple years in prison. It looks like he's going to serve at least 600 days.

He has to serve 80% of his sentence. His sentence was like two years. He's already served some time, so he's got to put in at least 600 days. This is one of those nut jobs who claim to have some religious epiphany service nonsense in a sweat lodge. Sweat lodges, it turns out, are not a good place to spend long periods of time alive. Yeah, it turns out. What I don't understand about this whole thing, was he holding them against their will in there? No, no.

But as the conductor of ye olde sweat lodge, I think the understanding was that he should have at least known that you should not sit in a sweat lodge for hours at a time and provided people with ventilation and know, ventilation and like drink. Things they need to live. Yeah. Yeah. Those things, those necessities of life, like liquid in your body, not on the floor.

What I, what I, what I don't understand is I guess with, you know, you would, you would probably have the exact same feeling if somebody ran a clinic where they bled people, you know, where they're just like, well, we're going to bleed you to cure you. And then that somebody dies. where they're just like, well, we're going to bleed you to cure you and then somebody dies. This guy wound up putting on more, like putting up more and more heat to sweat out. What was he sweating out of people? I'm not sure what he was sweating out.

I think the thing that was particularly egregious is that these people passed out inside the sweat lodge and then were left inside the sweat lodge. You know, that's a clear indicator. I'm not a sweat lodge participant or runner. But that seems to me to be a clear indicator of somebody's non-willingness to participate anymore. When I see people pass out, I'm not just like, wow, I better leave them in the sweat lodge. Yeah, you know, they were doing really well before. They're going to be fine.

When you sweat the consciousness out. Yeah. When you're like, okay, I think I've sweat out everything I can sweat out. Right, yeah. Including my ability to remain upright. Yeah, my ability to remain cognizant is gone at this point. It has been sweated out with all the rest of the liquid in me. Yeah, I think that these things are, you know, you kind of want to say to the people who were involved in this, like, you knew what the snake was when you picked it up, dummy.

But at the same time, you've got to hold this guy liable for being an idiot. You know, like he's the one who survived. You know, like he's the one who survived. Well, right. And, you know, it's sort of disgusting that, you know, this guy, his defense was that, well, maybe it was some unknown toxin that killed them. Yeah. Maybe it was an unknown toxin. Yeah.

We of course can't know that. Yeah. Because the nature of an unknown is that it is unknown. Right. Right. You know, unknown is that it is unknown. Right. Right? So that's a bad deal. But more egregiously, it's like, no, it's not an unknown toxin. It's the sweat lodge. Right.

It's heat stroke. It's heat exhaustion. It's dehydration. Yeah. That's got to be a horrible way to die too. I'm reading here in the article it says the sweat lodge was the culmination of a five-day spiritual warrior and spiritual warriors in quotes retreat at the Angel Valley Resort near Sedona, which some 50 participants had paid up to $10,000 each to attend. You pay $10,000 to die in a sweat lodge? That seems like a – I mean, geez, I could cut that price in half. I was going to say I'll beat that price. Really, though, this is like a self-help thing.

I remember this now. I didn't before, but this is – I remember it now because we had talked about this, Tom, when this happened in October of 2009. We had talked about this on Everyone's a Critic. And now I remember this was like a self-help sort of Tony Robbins sort of go and get them. Also here sit in this fucking sweltering room for a while while you sweat out your life. Yeah, this is this is I hope they at least got their money back. Can you get a refund? I hope they at least got their money back.

Can you get a refund? Because really at the end, I understand that you wanted to be a spiritual warrior, but maybe you didn't want to be converted to an actual spirit. I can't help think about that. Remember that trading spouses or whatever show with that woman who's like, I'm a god warrior. Like I can't stop thinking about that woman who's like yelling about being a god warrior. Well, in his defense, I mean, he may as well have just been like, they're dark sided. Yeah, they're dark sided. Gorgos, slackics.

In the name of Jesus, we speak that. So our next two stories actually dovetail with one another, although in horrifying and depressing ways. The first story comes from CNN, and this is actually a story that unfortunately is emblematic of a situation, I guess, that many victims face in Afghanistan and other similar locations. Woman in Afghanistan was raped and she became pregnant as a result of that rape. In the justice system over there, which I'm hesitant to even use the word justice in relaying, actually sent her to prison, sent her to prison for being raped, not her attacker.

And then when she gets out, she's faced with a pretty lousy choice. She can either marry her rapist, or she can face possible honor killing repercussions from both of the her family and from the family of the perpetrator of the rape. It's an unbelievably heartbreaking story. I can't believe I, you know, I can't imagine Tom living as a woman in these societies where these women have no power. None. They are completely powerless. They are entities to be taken.

You know what I mean? Like they're just to be taken. I mean like this is like a caveman society. Like he's ooking and hitting her over the club and dragging her back by her hair to his cave at this point. This is ridiculous behavior for the second millennium. I know. You know what I mean? Like it's an odd thing that they would even consider to have somebody choose to marry their rapist.

Like she was raped, man. She was fucking raped. Don't you think that she fucking has a little contempt for the guy who raped her? Well, I guess, you know, she was sentenced to 12 years in jail. Contrast that with the last story that we just talked about, you know, where a guy was basically responsible for the deaths of three people. He gets 600 days. She is the victim of a terrible crime of a cruel and violent crime

and she spends the next 12 years of her life raising her child her child who is the product of her attack right in prison in an afghan prison yeah it's not a fucking country club that's for sure and then when she gets out, it's still not over. I mean, it's a system set up to enshrine the power of men over women, right? Absolutely. Because even when the woman is victimized, she is still victimized further by the by the state by the justice system and then when that's all over then the society destroys her by forcing her to marry i mean how in the hell is she supposed to marry her rapist i mean how do you how do you ever call that place home how do you ever feel safe

again right how are you ever whole as a person it's these things you know in islamic law i was just reading the emphasis is not on the crime of rape but on the shame the woman brings to her family by her sexual immorality fuck you i don't understand a culture that can that can possibly suggest that somebody being attacked against their will is responsible for something that occurs against your will. Don't we as reasonable people assume that if something was against your will, you cannot be held responsible for it? Because you didn't do it.

You didn't do the thing. When morality is tied to your genitals rather than your actions, you're doing your society wrong. Of all the types of bigotry there is, misogyny is the dumbest of them all. It's half the fucking population for Christ's sakes. It's ridiculous. And then you see this country that is clearly misogynistic, hates women. I mean I would fucking – could you imagine hates women, wants, I mean, I would fucking, could you imagine, okay, Tom, you're a parent. I'm not a parent, but I have nieces and nephews

and things like that. And I look at them and I would think, man, if one of them were raped, I would be right there to try to help them through every moment of that process, trying to protect them. I would, you know, want to make sure that see that their person, the person who raped them went, you know, suffered something, went through some sort of justice system. How can you hate your children that much to have laws on the books like this? Because you hate your children obviously. Sure. This is – I mean this is – the only way that something like this happens is when your entire cultural setup is designed from the get-go to look at women as less than people.

Yeah. Because if you are looking at your daughter and your mother or your sister, you know, or just a woman on the street and seeing her as less than a person, then sure, you can pass laws that don't treat her as a human being. Otherwise, it's inconceivable. It's inconceivable. So, and, you know, I know that one of the responsibilities of women under Islamic law is not to tempt men. So because that is sort of enshrined also in that culture, it's, um, it, it, it sort of sets up a, you asked for it sort of mentality, right? Because if I've set up a culture that

says you're not to tempt men, well then, you know, if, if something, if you're victimized, then clearly you failed in your responsibility not to tempt the man. The man's actions then are simply a byproduct of your inability to control your temptress nature. What does it say about men? What does it say about men in a society like that? Not only does it degrade women in that society, but it also says that men can't control anything about themselves.

They're just walking around giant fucking pulsating hard-ons that have to fucking insert themselves into something immediately by force. Right. Like that degrades men beyond belief. It does. It suggests that all men are potential rapists and slobbering beasts only held back, you know, from their base nature by, you know, women covering themselves head to toe and not even looking like human, like looking, they make them look like R2-D2.

I was watching, it was a show, Anthony Bourdain does a travel show where he travels around. And if you don't know who Anthony Bourdain is, he's a chef who writes, who's a writer. And he travels all over the place to all these different places to eat. And he travels all over the world to eat in the country for a little while, like the main cities in the country. And he was in, I want to say it was like Saudi Arabia or something like that. And he was with this woman who was, you know, who asked him to come. And he was there walking around and going to these places and he went into a restaurant. And I remember this specifically,

he went into a restaurant there and the woman was, the women had a different line than the men. The men were in one line and the women were in another line and the women were required to be covered up. And one of the women was saying, the woman who was with him was actually saying, well, it's actually to protect us is what she said. It's to protect us from the men. You put us in this separate line so we don't have to be in the same line as these single guys. We're in the family line with the married men and their women and that's where we belong. And we're covered up so we could be protected from the men.

And I'm like – and I was thinking. I was like, OK, if that's your mentality, if that's what you're coming at this with, right, if that's what you're saying, our society values women so much that it has to protect them from the slavering beasts that are men. Why do you then reward the rapist? Right. Right. Why is it that the rapist is rewarded after he goes and rapes somebody and the woman is punished? That's a lie and you're lying to yourself to pretend to believe that you're covering yourself up to protect yourself from men. No, you're covering yourself up because men are obviously slobbering beasts that will fuck you any chance they get whether you give them permission or not.

You know, and the shame here is that, you know, this stems from this sort of backward religious fundamentalism. It's not that the culture in and of itself is necessarily misogynist. It's that the religious fundamentalism requires this misogyny. Right. And most religions, unfortunately, are incredibly misogynist. And that's that's a it's a damn shame that these these these nations set up a culture based on a religion that doesn't respect women. And, you know, this idea that, you know, oh, well, we actually deeply respect women and because of that we require them to be second class citizens dressed modestly to protect them from the slavish beast like nature of men. That's bullshit.

It's just bullshit. And a story like this is evidence of that bullshit. I've just sucked one year of your life away. What did this do to you? Tell me. And remember, this is for posterity. So be honest. How do you feel? Hey, let's roll right into another depressing story. Tom, what do you say? Yeah, let's let's do that because that doesn't make me incredibly sad. So this is a story. This is from The Independent. A woman blinded by acid, a spurned admirer in Iran threw acid on this woman and just horribly disfigured her, blinded her.

Just a terrible act of violence. And now, again, because their system of laws is insane to me, she was given the option. This guy was going to be blinded by acid as well in this sort of eye for an eye mentality that's part and parcel of that justice system. So they were actually going to put drops of acid in his eyes. That was his punishment. That is fucking redonkulous. And in an act of, I think, incredible compassion, this woman stopped them, said, no, don't do this. You know, so she halted this barbaric act from being perpetuated on the perpetrator of this crime.

And in so doing, she loses her right to compensation. So she was going to have to be compensated. She was rendered fucking blind and her face. I mean, her face melted. Yeah. And now the court's like, well, you wouldn't let us put drops acid in his eyes. So you forfeit your right to compensation. You look at the before and after picture on this article.

There's a picture, the second picture, not the first one that she has there where she's covered up, but the second picture where she's showing her full face. And one of her eyes is scarred closed. There's no longer an eye there. So if you're not interested in seeing something like this, don't go to this site because it's hard to look. It's hard to look at. Her eye is completely scarred over, and she's holding a picture of herself beforehand.

This beautiful woman was scarred because some asshole was spurned. First off, eye for an eye, cruel and unusual punishment. Thank you. I mean, we don't always follow that rule, you know, see waterboarding. But but, you know, sometimes sometimes we do follow that rule. And thank goodness that we do, because what what a ridiculous thing to to to take somebody and try to hold them down and pour acid into their face when they've done something wrong and then to have the mercy to say, you know what? I don't want that to happen to somebody else. It happened to me. It sucked. I don't want it to happen to somebody else. And they're willing to say that,

but now you're losing all chance of getting any kind of compensation from this guy, which was pretty substantial. Well, you know, and under the Iran's Islamic penal code, women are only entitled to half of what men would be entitled to. So, you know, this again, this idea that like, well, it's set up to protect women. It's really, you know, it's all about, you know, no, it's not. I mean, why? Why would they just get half? They just get half because because we're protecting them by giving them less?

That's nonsense. That's utter nonsense. Anytime somebody's act of compassion is met with a reduction in their benefits, you're doing justice wrong. This is a terrible, terrible system. And this woman is just getting victimized again you know a system that sets up an eye for an eye I mean what about the guy who has to actually administrate

that punishment you wake up it's you know you rub the sleep out of your eyes you stretch like what's on the agenda for today oh I gotta go to work and drip acid in a man's eyes while these other guys hold him down screaming. Like that's, you have to have, you have to, in order to have eye

for an eye punishment, you have to have people who are willing to, on behalf of the state, commit acts of barbarism and cruelty and injustice. This is not how you do justice. That's not how you do society. This is another example, too, and we've talked about this in the show, of why here in the States the victim of a crime doesn't determine the punishment for the perpetrator of that crime. a crime doesn't determine the punishment for the perpetrator of that crime. You have to have a dispassionate third party who administrates that punishment for the crime.

When you don't have that, you have circumstances like this where, you know, maybe she maybe she was still furiously angry, which I certainly would not blame her for and said, fucking go for it. Drop some acid in old boy's eyes. Who wins? Now you got two blind people walking around and somebody whose job it is to drip acid in their eyes. I mean, it's just.

Well, what about this, Tom? I mean, like if you allow that sort of system over here, then what what stops coercion? What stops like this guy's family from coming up to her and forcing her to say, no, I want to pardon him. So we're going to take a well-needed break at this point to catch our breath, give you an opportunity to send us a hate mail and a list of the inaccuracies of our show. It's not going to be a long break, so you might want to hit pause to give yourself plenty of time to type. We'll also give you all the information that you need to contact us.

And we'll return for the rest of the show in just a moment. 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. 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- 8 2 8 long distance rates apply. Your help is fucking greatly appreciated. So I like this next story. Cecil, I like this next story a lot. Yeah. Well, this is a story out of Australia.

It's reported by the Herald sun. And in Australia, it's reported by the Herald Sun. And in Australia, families that do not get their kids vaccinated lose the tax benefit. You know, if you have if you have children, you get a certain tax benefit. Evidently, in Australia, you do as well here in the States. And if you don't get them vaccinated, if you don't contribute to that herd immunity, well, the state's not going to hook you up with a little tax benefit. This, I think, is a great tax incentive, a great way to incent people to do what's needed for the health of the herd, so to speak. Well, as listeners have pointed out to us in the past, that it's not about your individual child.

Listeners have pointed out to us in the past that it's not about your individual child. It's not about your child's immunity as much as it's about protecting other children too. And a kid who's healthy might not have some really crazy adverse effects to some of these diseases. They might be able to skate straight through these diseases. They might be okay at the end of it. But a kid who is immunocompromised, who has some sort of deficiency in his immune system or her immune system, there's a chance that they might not be okay. And those are the people you're trying to protect, the people that can't actually get immunized because their immune system is too weak to handle it. Constantly in the States, we hear all the time, oh, it's my kid I get to decide. It's my

kid I get to decide. Well, vaccines are a public health decision. They're not a private health decision. And this perfectly illustrates that. I think they should institute something like this in the United States. Hey, you don't want to get your kid vaccinated. That's fine. But what we're going to do is not give you the tax credit because we got to clean up your mess with tax dollars. Well, sure. And what it really does, too, is it puts those convictions to the test. Right. It says, OK, you know, how much do you really believe this? How much are you really willing? You know, because when you have skin in the game, so to speak, it's it's an easy thing to look at your healthy kid who and say, well, I'm not going to take him to go get vaccinated.

He's fine. She's fine. You know, there's nothing. You don't have any skin in the game at that point. Your kid is healthy. It's an abstraction. It's a question without consequence until somebody gets sick. Now they got skin in the game. Now you got money involved.

You got something on the table here. And so now it's not just a, well, you know, I'm just, you know, I, they don't sound like they're very good.

You know, I'm just going to go ahead and no, now, Oh shit, I'm going to lose how much money. Really? Do I really think that this is the case or was I just sort of hedging my bets and,

and looking at my healthy kid and making some assumptions based on, you know, their present health and extrapolating that into the future. And I think that that is often the case. I think that it's often the case that parents see that their child is happy, hale and healthy, and they don't want to do something that might potentially change that. They see the vaccine as potentially dangerous. And so, you know, maybe they don't have a strong conviction one way or the other, but let's just roll with the status quo. It's easy. Well, when the status quo is going to cost you a couple thousand dollars a year, maybe you make some different decisions. Well, we can hope. I hope that this does change some people's minds.

They're saying in this article, one in ten kids aren't vaccinated down there. That's becoming an epidemic at this point. Could you imagine, Tom, if one in ten kids weren't vaccinated in the United States? How many kids are in the United States, right? You're looking at, what, 75 to 100 million kids in the United States? Maybe more. That's a number fucking not intended to be a factual statement, by the way. So don't fucking tell me how many kids are in the United States because maybe more. That's a number of fucking not intended to be a factual statement, by the way. So don't fucking tell me how many kids

are in the United States because I don't care. I'm just giving an estimate here. So I don't know how many kids are in the United States, but let's just pretend for a minute. I know what I'm talking about. And I'm going to say there's 100 million kids in the United States. You know, that's a lot.

That's a whole lot to have 10 million kids not the United States. You know, that's a lot. That's a whole lot to have 10 million kids not vaccinated. Right. If that was the case here, we wiped out smallpox guys. Figure it out. What the fuck? Hey, remember when Joey got smallpox? No, neither do I. Cause it's fucking gone. Wipe the fuck off the planet. Just gone. And you could do that with so many different diseases. The problem is, is that we just don't want to play that game because we, there's some sort of idiotic notion that vaccines don't work. 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, 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 is actually a story. It's not so much a story. It's just the presence of a thing, which I did not know existed and am horrified to learn of.

This is Homeopathss without borders, North America. I was totally dumbstruck when I realized that homeopaths were traveling overseas to at-risk countries and providing quack cures, which is all homeopathy is. Right, right. I'm absolutely blown away by how grossly, negligently irresponsible this is. You know, if people don't know what homeopathy is, it's this nonsensical idea that water has a magical property to retain, you know, certain elements of things that are dipped within it that are then diluted to the point of absurdity. And that you're cured by having little tiny bits of whatever ails you within the water. It's I mean, it's just it's just utter nonsense.

Homeopathy is utter nonsense. You're basically just drinking water. It's, I mean, it's just, it's just utter nonsense. Homeopathy is utter nonsense. You're basically just drinking water. Well, I mean, drinking clean water in Haiti is an important thing, I think. So there is some positives there, but, but I, you know, also you're in Haiti and there are some things that are going wrong down there and some things that are rampant that need to be fixed and giving them nothing and saying you're fixing something is not, uh, you know, moving forward, I think. And I think that, uh, you know, this is a nonprofit organization. They call themselves a nonprofit organization. They say they're a 501c3 humanitarian organization. But I'd love to see their data sheet.

I'd love to see the sheet on which, you know, what do they spend? Because how expensive is sugar? You know what I mean? Like how expensive is the sugar pill that you're creating to put in these things? This has got to be a lot of people too who actually believe this stuff and believe it works that are volunteering. So you have – not only do you have people that are being convinced of it on the other side. You have people that have already been convinced of it on our side that are going down there. So you have people that have been convinced and conned by a quack up here to go down there and convince and con people.

And their intentions i think are probably pretty genuine you know i'm sure that their intentions are good but you know that in two bucks will buy a cup of fucking coffee you know this yeah it's not helping yeah you know and it's doing harm you know because these people think that they've been treated for an illness and they haven't you know the people it's it's one thing to market a bunch of sugar pills to some, you know, wealthy suburban suburbanite here in the States, you know, who has access to real care when these things don't work. It's an entirely different thing to move to an at risk population and provide them with the cure, not cure. That is homeopathy. It's nothing. You're giving them

placebo, um, at the very best, the best thing you're providing them is placebo. Um, and, and to suggest to them that, that this is a real treatment might mean that they put off actual treatments, you know, that they think, Oh, I've already taken my sick child to a doctor, They think, oh, I've already taken my sick child to a doctor, a Western doctor, which maybe they've placed some stock or faith into. And then they choose not to go to, I don't know, doctors without borders instead, right? And they don't get treatment and they don't get help. And, you know, what this also seems like it may do, and I could be mistaken, but it may further the sort of cause of homeopathy in these at risk populations. their groups that don't need it. They don't need homeopathy. They don't need Bibles and homeopathy. Those are the things they don't need. Can we stop exporting those things to Haiti and to other at risk populations? Can we export things like actual fucking medicine and food and clean and safe

drinking water? Can we do that instead? That's useful. You know, these people are spending money to do this. They're probably having tens of thousands of dollars donated to them as a nonprofit to fund their trips to Haiti. Almost certainly. So there are good, genuine, well-intentioned people who are misled through every step of the process about what homeopathy is, how successful it is, whether or not it's a viable treatment, those dollars could be spent so much better. Those dollars could be spent because it's not like those well-intentioned people would stop being well-intentioned. It's not like they would, you know, they're giving this money because they genuinely want to help. And I think that these

homeopaths are probably going down there because they genuinely want to help. If they could genuinely want to help and help. Yeah, and actually do the helping. That would be better. I think you're being a little hard on them, Tom. This person here studied at the Shiatsu College of Britain in Cambridge. I will kill you. I'm actually kind of shocked.

3,000 friends on Facebook, almost 4,000 friends on Facebook here for the homeopaths without borders. I think it's actually not Facebook policy to have a – somebody should report them. I'm not saying I will, but I'm saying somebody should report that Facebook page because it's actually a friend page rather than a public figure page. And being a public figure, you don't get a chance to delete people if they like you and things like that. So you know what I mean? Like they're able to control what's on their wall. I agree with you on all counts, Tom. I do think, you know, the people who do do this, like you said, they're probably well-intentioned. And if they were actually to do things that would benefit people, that would be great. But they're not doing things that benefit people. They're doing things that are purposely

keeping people away from good treatment and solid treatment. And they're giving them sugar pills. And that's bullshit. That's hurting just as much as the stuff that these people are ailing of. And I think it's bullshit. And I think that they should be stopped in some way because people are, are giving their money and donating their money to this cause when it's, it's a worthless cause. Um, first of all, pepper spray that just burns your eyes,

right? Right. I mean, it's like a derivative of actual pepper. It's a food product essentially, but a lot of experts are looking at that and saying, is that the real deal? Has it been diluted?

Because yeah, that should, they should have more of a reaction yeah so cecil at uc davis you can major in a lot of things including the culinary arts where you might learn the proper application of pepper yeah capsaicin. Yeah, you can learn it. Apply it. Did you see this guy walk down this line of people? At UC Davis, there was an officer. These people were blocking a sidewalk, God forbid, and they were blocking the sidewalk, disperse because this is a riot sort of pepper can, not fucking, you know, I got this for $19.99 at Spencer's, you know, to protect myself when I'm walking in my car in the middle of the night. We're talking like it looks like a mini fire extinguisher he's walking with.

And he shakes it off. And he just lets loose on this group of people in a serious way with this pepper spray. But it's fine, though, Tom, because, you know, as Megyn Kelly says, it's really just a food additive. Yeah, I could not believe when I saw this, I was blown away. These these were the like quintessentially nonviolent protesters. Right. Right. You know, they were just sitting on the ground.

Their arms were linked. They're doing the human chain thing, you know. But they're the antithesis of violent right now. And this dude, like, walks by and he holds the canister in the air like, hey, I'm about to pepper spray these motherfuckers. And blammo does he blast them. And he blasts them point fucking blank in the face. Yeah, he's aiming at all their faces yeah and it is it is unbelievable to watch i mean my jaw dropped open you know i i saw afterwards that um the cops

later said that they feared for their lives oh my god is that ridiculous the crowd is like 20 feet away from them and all they're doing is going, boo. You know, that would mean that we would fear for our life every time somebody heard our podcast. You're suggesting there's a crowd for this podcast? Two is not a crowd. I'm suggesting that there's a lot of boos at least. I don't know. It's genuinely crazy. Plus I love like one of the comments from the article says, well, if they were afraid of the crowd, why didn't they pepper spray the crowd?

Yeah. I mean like that's what you would do. Instead they pepper spray these protesters. And Megyn Kelly on Fox actually has the gall to say that, well, pepper spray, it's really a food product essentially. It's essentially a food product. It's a food product. Yeah. Boiling oil is essentially a food product.

Exactly. Exactly. I mean you can do a lot with boiling oil. French fries is one of them. You can stop the advancing galls also with hot oil. There are a lot of things that are essentially another thing. Yeah. That doesn't mean that they should be applied to the face. Right?

There are a lot of things that you might consume or that are not facially applied. That's crazy you know a bowie knife is essentially a large shape straight razor you shave with it like that's what do you a nuclear bomb is essentially a microwave use it to heat up a hot dog you're fucking idiot my wristwatch is essentially big ben i don't understand like where that even comes from. But, you know, we're we're we're bagging on her in the beginning. But I think, you know, as much as I dislike Fox and I think that they do say a lot of things in this little bit, we're going to post the link. It's from Media Matters is where we get this from. We're

going to post the link on our site so you could actually go and watch the video. But, you know, throughout this video, I don't think that they're being so obtuse that, at points they are. Don't get me wrong. When she says it's a fucking basically a food additive, you're a bubblehead at that point. Everything you say is suspect. And Bill O'Reilly's trying to be a little insightful, or not insightful.

I guess it's inciting, I guess is what he, not insightful, inciting. He's trying to he – not insightful. Inciting. He's trying to incite when he's saying things like, oh, well, you've got to let the police do what they want to – give them the free reign to do as they must if they feel in danger. And I'm just thinking, dude, you didn't even watch this. And she even calls him out on it at one point and says, if you watch the tape, it certainly doesn't show that they look like they're in danger. And if you watch the tape, I don't know who the fuck would think they're in danger. Like, you would have to be like an elderly person and a walker to feel like you're in danger in that crowd.

I don't think the elderly would feel in danger. Who's in danger? They're like the only ones armed. I don't understand that. That's like rolling up in a tank. Right. Right? And just being like, I feel in danger.

Blah, blah, blah. I know that at my house I've got a salt shaker and some pepper spray on the table. Sure. Sure. I think that's pretty normal. Have you ever like cleaned a bunch of jalapenos or a habanero, Tom, and then like accidentally touched your face or your junk? Like you are fucking dancing around being like, oh, fuck, that burns, that burns, that burns. And that's just a little tiny bit of capsaicin that got on you. Even just one habanero. If you

were to take one habanero and like rub it on your face. Like I think Megyn Kelly should have to rub a habanero on her face. Cecil, I love spicy food. I adore spicy food. And I cook with peppers as often as I can. And I have rubbed my eyes, actually. I just full on rubbed my eyes after cutting jalapenos. And I thought my head was going to fall off. Like, it really hurts. And that jalapeno compared to pepper spray is so mild. Oh, I know. It's a match versus a floodlight in comparison. You know, they're not even in the same ballpark. And it really burned.

It burned for a long time. It sucked. It was not my favorite day. What does this say, too, I think, about where we're at in this country where people can't even protest anymore? Now, look, they're blocking the sidewalk. I get it. I understand. You want to try to move them.

I get it. But nobody's in danger, OK? If you were to pick them up and grab them, what's the danger? How are you in danger? Well, you're in danger of throwing your back out because you're lifting them up off the ground? What is the what's the what's the reasoning for this pepper spray? I understand using pepper spray if like, you know, like a fucking pit bull is running at you or if it's a fucking, you know, a guy with a knife or a,

you know, even a guy who's trying to punch you and attack you. I understand. Please have to use a sort of a reasonable amount of force to stop people who are trying to, you know, use violence against them. I understand that that's a policy that should be followed. And I, I endorse it when it's somebody who's going to try to attack a police officer. But at this point, what is the purpose for this other than to just show that you are the big swinging dick there and you can fucking spray people in the face and get away with it? Well, I think what we've, what we're seeing more and more, unfortunately, is the use of these sort of non-lethal weapons, tasers, pepper spray,

things along those lines, to get people to do the thing the police tell them to do, to ensure compliance, rather than resorting to force only when a threat of force is present, right? It seems to me that if there's a threat of force, that the police then have the right to use force to counter that, to say, okay, well, there's a clear and present danger here. I need to address it. But what we're seeing time and time again is stories keep coming out where somebody doesn't want to, you know, get on the ground fast enough or, you know, somebody doesn't turn around quickly enough

or somebody is argumentative or a protester is sitting, you know, arm in arm with their other protesters. And rather than trying to have a dialogue or address the situation in another way, in a nonviolent way, it's easier just to reach to your fucking bat belt and whip out the pepper spray and just spray the shit out of them. Well, now they're incapacitated. Now you can do whatever the hell you will with them. And I think it's a disturbing trend when these sort of non-lethal weapons are used to ensure compliance with the police. Because that's not really – that's not the role of the police is to ensure your compliance with them at all times. Their role in our society is to protect and ensure the safety of the citizens of the society, not to ensure the compliance of the citizens of the society. And I feel like these are often way overused. And this is a terrible example of that.

And I think, you know, you're right. You know, they're not being as flip as we made it out to be. But to even joke that, isn't this a food product? Yeah, that's ridiculous. It's insane. Like, essentially, isn't like a taser just a heart rate monitor? It's like playing Operation, right? Yeah.

Oh! Yeah, well, see, now, these are separate problems when you have the fact that these encampments, I call them the Kampolinski kids, are becoming basically lice infested criminal magnets across the country. And you do have to question in this case where you have these people who are stoking violent rhetoric, where that's all coming from. where that's all coming from. And there is a larger plan of manufactured crisis and chaos that has been in the works in academia and places like Columbia University,

Cloward-Piven Strategy, of fomenting this kind of agitation as an excuse for bigger government intervention. Fox News has a grand tradition of getting things right. Very, very right. Very right. Including the facts of the recent shooting. There was

charges brought against Oscar Romero Ortega Hernandez, who needs more names, for attempting to assassinate President Obama after he fired an assault rifle at the White House. Didn't somebody do that a few years back, too?

Yeah, somebody tried to do that, and it didn't work out so well for him, too. Do they not understand that the president isn't a house? That you can't just shoot the house? I don't think they get it. Yeah, if you shoot the house, you make the house face, which is like the two windows, like make a sad face. And then you've won the game, I guess. I don't understand. It's not a video game where you shoot enough bullets into it and it blows up.

Right. Yeah. You shoot enough bullets into anything and it'll blow up. So this guy took a few pot shots at the White House and that's going to go poorly for him. Drive by on the president. Poorly for him. Drive by on the president. Yeah, sadly he wasn't out on the stoop drinking his gin and juice while you went by, you know. So Fox News is reporting that – reporting him as the Occupy shooter.

Sure. Even though he has no relationship at all with the Occupy movement. I like that one of these people on this Fox and Friends. Now, this comes from Think Progress, and there's a video that's embedded here. So you have to go to travel to Think Progress to see the video. But one of the people says, what would have happened if this was Tea Party person who tried to do that? Well, he wasn't an Occupy person, so who cares? The same thing.

He would have been taken down by the Secret Service and arrested. That's what we do with people who shoot at houses. That's like a standard response. We don't ask them their political affiliation once they have the assault rifle in their hands.

Like, whoa, whoa, sir, sir, are you a Republican or a Democrat? We need to get this shit independent. Oh, you're a like, whoa, whoa, sir, sir, are you a Republican or a Democrat? I mean, we need to get this shit independent. Oh, you're a Republican? Well, enjoy your rifle. Yeah, I hope we have your vote in 012. Yeah, well, the thing, the reason why is because they put up this manhunt to search for him, and they stopped in the Occupy protest at D.C. because it's only a couple blocks away from the White House.

So they went there. They're like, well, shit, that's a great place to fucking hide if you're trying to hide from law enforcement because they don't – they're not trying to keep the law enforcement people inside the Occupy protest. Makes sense. So they went there and they didn't find him. End of story. Being in a place or near a place does not mean you're affiliated with that place. Right. You know, I go to Starbucks occasionally and get a coffee.

That is the end of my affiliation with fucking Starbucks. If I shot somebody, I wouldn't be the Starbucks shooter. Yeah, if somebody lives in Battle Creek, Michigan, and they kill somebody, they're not a serial killer. Oh, no. Come on. That's a, no. Come on. That's a good one. Come on. That's where they make cereal.

For overseas listeners. Oh, come on. That was awesome, Curry, and you know it. It was. I was like, Battle Creek. Wait, cereal. I got it. That was like the hand grenade of jokes.

It was totally a grenade. It took me a minute. Yeah, it's a hand grenade. Whatever. I'm hilarious. Take that, audience. If the ionization rate is constant for all ectoplasmic entities, we could really bust some heads. In a spiritual sense, of course.

So our last story, because we have to end on the best story possible. I don't understand this one. Is inscrutable nonsense. Right. This is from the Canterbury Times. This can't be a real story, by the way. Which I do have to say that I initially read that as Canterbury Tales, and I had flashbacks from my English degree. I was like, oh, no.

Do you got to read it in Old English? I did have to read part of it in Old English. Oh, good lord. I did not know Old English, and that is nonsense. it in old English and I did not know old English and that is nonsense. So I actually liked the Caterbury tales when I read it in actual American English. But this is a story about a woman who's basically having night terrors and totally flipping out about them and saying that it's ghosts. She says that she struggles to sleep because of a groping ghost.

My wife has the same problem. Yeah, it's like those celebrity ghost stories which are all like sleep paralysis, where the people are like, I was laying in bed and I saw a ghost. You're like, well, dude, you probably had some sleep paralysis because that happens to a lot of people. And the same thing here. It's like, she's just having, you know, like you said, night terrors or whatever. And she's, but instead, you know, you get the vicar involved because, hey, he's a vicar. I love this story for so many reasons. Like the use of exclamation points, you don't get that a lot in responsible journalism.

I appreciate that. Right. I also like the reference to Ghostbusters. Right. So I'm going to read a couple of the choice lines from this thing. I kicked frantically and it went away. Next time it came, I hurled the duvet onto the floor. Exclamation point.

That's just, oh, that'll teach him. I'll tell you what. If I was undead and I saw a duvet flying across the room, fuck that. I'm going back to the netherworld or wherever I came from. What's a duvet? I think it's like a comforter or something for British people. It's better than a bedpan or something. You know what I mean?

Like, that's getting thrown on the floor. It's time to leave. I told my 16-year-old granddaughter and she was gobsmacked. You should hit your granddaughter. Gobsmacked. I love it. Isn't that an American band? Aren't they like an American hair band? Gobsmacked? The best one is the Ghostbusters

line. But this was very creepy and it is giving me the jitters. It's harassing me. I need to call them the Ghostbusters. Lady, the Ghostbusters is a fictional movie. That's not a thing. Just like the ghost in your room is not a thing. Right. I also love Spirit Medium Ray, a 52-year-old lorry driver.

I don't know what a lorry is. Says he can draw the gross ghost into him while Barrel, 59, will envelop it in a vortex of light and send it to the other side. That'll be 1,500 pounds, ma'am. Right. We can just let him back go. We can just let him go into the ballroom here, ma'am. Right. I was thinking the same thing.

I also can imagine the circumstance you're like i got him did you bring the vortex of light the guy's like patting his pockets i don't have my vortex of light it's really just a mag light you know don't cross the beams i love love it. Methodist minister. I was approached by Mrs. Birch, but I fear I may not be in a position to help. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. I have no expertise in this at all. I'm neither a trained counselor nor from a church with a tradition of exorcism.

It is very difficult to know how to respond. Yeah, it is. Actually, I know how to respond. Just laugh at it because it's ridiculous. Who's hunting for a story so bad that an old lady having bad dreams makes your paper? Canterbury Tales. Canterbury Tales, it turns out. So we got a fair amount of email and some comments on our Facebook page.

We also got some new ratings on iTunes. For the new ratings on iTunes, I just wanted to say thank you very much. We appreciate everybody who goes to iTunes and gives us a rating. Your ratings help to promote our show. So if you want to torture other people with this show, which why wouldn't you? Yeah, of course. Yeah. If you have to suffer through it, you should make other people suffer through it too. Absolutely. So, I mean, it is the podcasting equivalent of a waterboarding. Right. So go on iTunes. It's the podcasting equivalent of a good Megyn Kelly face spray.

And not with pepper spray either by the way it's essentially a food product yeah but we also got some email we want to talk about some of the email that we did get um we got an email from jace jace was uh blown away that we were able to get an A-list skeptical celebrity like Sean Faircloth. So were we. Yeah, like he actually asked us, which is kind of funny. Yeah, there wasn't any really getting. Yeah, we didn't get anybody. He asked us and we said yes. So that was the extent that we went to to get it.

He mentions we were laughing at the phrase of honor killings and it makes us seem a bit like sociopaths. And he even mentions it a little later on in his email, but if we don't laugh at that shit, Jace, we're going to cry at that shit. That story that we were talking about last time was just so horrible.

If we can't bring some sort of levity to that tragedy just by kidding around with each other, it's just not going to be something we even want to even bring up. So when you take our podcast into consideration, you leave the regular normal social things about what's right and what's wrong and what's okay to laugh at at the door because we break those boundaries every time. Yeah.

If you haven't noticed a certain strain of irreverence. Yeah. Yeah. By this point. Yeah. I mean, we're making jokes about a coat hanger abortion. You know, nothing is really safe at that point. That is not a lot of sacred cows on this program.

No. But we thank you very much for your email. Joe sent an email and also posted on our wall on Facebook. I love Joe's post on our Facebook wall. He just says, obscene, irreverent, mocking, and offensive. In a word, brilliant. Thanks so much for listening. We appreciate it, Joe.

He also sent us an email. He talks that he's actually another Brit who listens. And he sent us an email about Dominionism. And it looks like the person who was on that show that we talked about, we had talked

about a Terry Gross show. Point of Inquiry also interviewed this person about Dominionism as well. And you can find that on Point of Inquiry also interviewed this person about dominionism as well. And you can find that on Point of Inquiry. Her name's Rachel Tabachinick, I think. I don't know. I have no idea if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but that's how I'm going to pronounce it.

You can always search for it at pointofinquiry.org. And then we got an email from Robert. And then we got an email from Robert. We had mentioned in several shows back that Westboro Baptist Church might just be trolling all of us. And Robert came to us and pointed us to an article from RamblingBeachCat.com, which is Stop Taking the Westboro Baptist Church so seriously. I read through this and I had a lot of mixed feelings about it. But I think it's an interesting read and we appreciate the feedback. I'm still not convinced that they're trolling us or not trolling us.

I'm not convinced that they're convinced. Yeah. At this point. You know, it's almost like the crop circle people have begun to believe that they're the aliens, you know? This last week we were on – we actually just finished an interview with Patrick Redman from the Birmingham Skeptics in the Pub. That's – you can do a search for it on Google, just Birmingham Skeptics in the Pub, and you'll find his website. If you go to skepticsinthepub.co.uk, you can also find him as well. He runs a podcast where he interviews people that he finds interesting. I have no idea why he found us interesting, but he did. And he wanted to talk to us. Worst show ever. Yeah,

I know. It's like the lowest rate of show for Patrick is going to be this one. But we're going to be on his show soon. I don't know when it's going to come out. It may be in the distant future, in the near future. But we're going to have Patrick on our show next week. So you're going to want to tune in next week when we interview Patrick for a little bit. And we're also going to talk to him about a news story that came out this week about somebody who's anointing children and adults with AIDS at a church with water instead of actually treating them.

We're going to be talking about that next week with him. But we had a great show with him. And for all the people who always wonder, like, what the hell are you guys doing and why are you doing it? He asked some great questions about us. And we really kind of defined, I think, for him what our show is all about and why we think our show is what it is and what it's for, what our show is sort of made for. So if you want to listen to that, give Patrick a listen. He's a great interviewer, and he's a lot of fun.

He's a really nice guy, and he's very British. He is extremely British. I needed subtitles. I really seriously, like, I was, I, like, wanted to hit the, I was, like, ready. I was, like, okay, well, I got to subtitle this guy. His, his accent is so thick. You want to spread it on toast. You're just like, I got to eat it with my bangers and mash or whatever.

At one point in, in, in, uh, our back and forth trying to set up the interview, uh, he did sign off with toodle pip. Yeah. So I think he's just trying to confirm that he's British. I think so too. But, uh, it really was a lot of fun. Bob's your uncle. So Bob is your uncle, it turns out. And with that, we're going to leave the listeners, as always, with the skeptics creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit.

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Couchton, Couchton, Couchton, Couchton, Couchton, Couchton, Couchton, Couchures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques, and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, double-speak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your signs.

Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll see you next time.