Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 25: Oh Tannen-BOMB!

Episode Date: December 12, 2011

Visit Our Website for the show notes: http://dissonancepod.com Rick Perry's "Strong Ad" Michele Bachmann On Glenn Beck Calls 8 Year Old Boy's Act "Shameless", One Million Moms, N Korea furious at South's Christmas lights plan, Noam Chomsky's "9/11", Atheists Who Go to Church: Doing It for the Children, Followup -Afghan Rapist, Mercy for the drunk Muslim girl gang who attacked woman, Islamic cleric bans women from touching bananas, cucumbers for sexual resemblance, Police: Suspect in Christian pamphlet hit-and-run turns self in, We were interviewed by Patrick Redmond, Skeptics in the Pub Birmingham, it came out last week. Clips: Bachmann talking about gays from Daily Show, The Simpsons, We wish You a Merry Christmas - by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), President Bush speech after 9/11, Atheists are Parasites - Fox News, Three Stooges, Blood of Jesus - Jesus Camp.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a fundamentalist wacko. But you don't need to be plotting the dominionist takeover of America every day to know that there's something wrong in this country when farmers plant two types of crops in the same field and children are allowed to wear clothes made out of two types of fabric. As president, I'll bring back Levitical law and make sure if a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put

to death. I'm looking at you, Newt Gingrich. Faith really didn't have much of a part in making America great, but hey, let's change history together. I'm Rick Parody, and I approve this message. Oh, you're still here? Enjoying the music, huh? Yeah, we didn't spare any expense. You hear those angels? We hired real angels. Genuine Texas angels.

From the Alamo itself. Because, you 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. This is episode 25 of Cognitive Distance.

For those of you keeping count. Wow, 25. What is this, our silver anniversary, Tom? Is that what this is? It is. What'd you get me? Did you get me something like a silver item? Nothing?

Absolutely not. You know how fucking expensive silver is now? Are you kidding me? I don't. Just put it on the expense account for the show. You didn't get your corporate card? Don and Don. There you go.

I bought you a Tiffany's bracelet. I had Jeeves drive mine over. Corporate card. Corporate card's so big you got to load it into the corporate jet. Right. My corporate card is actually made of gold. It's a gold card made of actual fucking gold. When you go places, you just cut off pieces of it for me.

I've got like a micro-plater. I'm just – Is that enough? Oh shit, I gave you too much. So 25 episodes. I just want to point out though, we just announced the end of Everyone's a Critic on our last show of Everyone's a Critic because we were focusing so deeply on this show, Tom. And in under a year, we started the show in April. So we've been going at this point now.

It's December now. So we started in the beginning of April. So right now we've been going for about seven, eight months. We've come out with 25 episodes in seven, eight months. That's pretty good. That's better than I think we've done for Everyone's a Critic for any of the years we'd ever done it. Oh, my gosh. It's better than the last two years of Everyone's a Critic.

I mean, I think it really is. Yeah, it totally is. And I think the reason why is because we really enjoy doing this show. And one of the things, too, is that we get a lot of people that send us messages and say, we really love the show. We really love the show. And that's why Tom and I really immediately realized that this show is great and fun to do because the audience really enjoys it.

So that's why your comments and your suggestions and your, uh, the just, just affirmations from you make us want to do this show more. So we want to thank everybody for listening and making it fun for us to do, but 25 shows, that's a pretty big milestone in under, you know, I mean, I would, I would have liked to have done it in under six months, but we did a pretty good job. So. Yeah. I mean, as a fame seeking attention whore, I am absolutely thrilled. Oh, that's's awesome i am famous amongst 12 people i'm so famous i could walk anywhere and no one will notice me oh i have to reintroduce myself to my family half the time are you kidding me

no i fucking pay for the house. The name is Tom. We had sex an hour ago. I know it wasn't memorable for me either. Tom. She forgets you only after an hour. I got a tiny URL. So, you know, we did we did a little short skit this week about Rick Perry's really ridiculous commercial. And I think we've got to start talking about that, Tom. Yeah. Rick Perry really fucking failed in every way that you can fail with this commercial. The thing that impresses me the most, though, about this commercial is is how many dislikes his ad has had on on the youtubes and right you know everywhere you go the response is uniformly negative nobody likes this because commercial is it's a bigot commercial and it's crazy and it's the logic is so internally flawed

um i was actually inspired to write Rick Perry a letter. I did write this letter, so I'm just going to read this real quick. And I would encourage you guys to write Rick Perry. Like, really bother this guy. I mean, if nothing else, it's funny. Dear Governor Rick Perry, I recently saw your War on Religion commercial online, and I have a few concerns. Your commercial indicates you don't have to be in the pew every Sunday to know that there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the

military, but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in schools. First, is it your assertion that Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a religiously motivated policy? Clearly, the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is being used here to juxtapose your concerns about religious celebrations and is therefore within a religious context. If Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a religious policy, precisely how does that not violate the establishment clause? Clearly, government should not pass any law that favors one religious view in favor of another, yet your commercial indicates very clearly that the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is religiously motivated. Of course, if I'm mistaken and it is not a religiously motivated policy, I'm baffled by its presence in your video. Please clarify.

Please clarify. I'm waiting for the clarification. Well, Tom, here's the thing. I'm a religious douchebag. Okay. Additionally, your commercial indicates that children cannot openly celebrate Christmas. I find this confusing. Christmas is a national holiday.

And public schools are closed on this day. Though I think it's worth noting that these same schools are not closed for other religious celebrations. If children are home with their families on this day, which governmental policy prevents them from openly celebrating Christmas? As to prayer in school, again, I'm baffled. I can find nowhere a law that prevents a student from engaging in silent prayer or in praying during lunch, recess, during passing periods, or other moments of free time. Kids already pray in schools. Certainly, public schools don't lead prayers or have structured moments of prayer, but as taxpayer-funded institutions, they're obviously unable to do so legally without violating the Establishment Clause.

You say that you're a Christian in your ad. Would you be comfortable having a Jewish teacher lead students in a traditional Jewish prayer or a traditional Islamic prayer? I doubt very much that it is a stretch to suggest that this might cause some concern over at the PTA. Choosing to promote the religious observances of one faith over another is a violation of the Establishment Clause when that choice is made on public land and funded by taxpayer money. You also suggest that these issues are based on Obama's war on religion. You and Obama share the same faith. Perhaps your inability to see eye to eye on its implementation should serve to highlight why government has no role in establishing religious practices or making policy on religious grounds.

If two G-men of the same faith can't agree, what hope is there to appease the many people from the many faiths that make up this country? I will say, though, snazzy Carhartt Jackie you got on. Respectfully, Tom. That's fucking awesome. I love it. I think that the best part of that is when you point out that two people of the exact same religion can't agree,

maybe we shouldn't be making policy. Right. Governmental fucking policy. And the other part, too, that I think is the one thing that doesn't get brought up a lot. But you always see, at least I see it on Facebook all the time, Tom, about the fucking prayer in schools. Constantly fucking see it all the time. Like, oh, they took prayer out of schools and our fucking nation went down the crapper since then. You know, like everybody's got these fucking dumb fucking fate.

Nobody will. Ninety eight percent of your friends won't post this dumb fucking status. You know, and I I see this. You can't pray in schools. First off, that's not true. You can have silent prayer. But then the idea that somebody would be be like, well, we need to have teacher instituted prayer. And your your answer highlights that perfectly. Like, OK, well, we need to have teacher instituted prayer. And your answer highlights that perfectly.

Like, OK, well, what if he's a Jew? Well, what if he's a Muslim? And what about the atheist kid in there who doesn't want to pray? You've got to govern to the lowest common denominator, the lowest common denominator of religion. And the lowest common denominator of religion is secular. It's like somebody who's a humanist who doesn't believe in god well then you've got to govern to those people even if you were to stick to uh prayers being you know let's say you were to say well we're we're going to just declare a national religion because that's what you really have to you have

to do it yeah you know and we're going to say it's okay the national religion is christianity really which branch i know which one because that is a fucking deeply fragmented religion. There's a lot of discrepancy from belief to belief. There's a church who has an openly gay bishop. So is it that church that you guys are good with? Or is it the Westboro Baptist Church? You want them to lead your kids in prayer? Or the Catholic Church?

I don't want to send my kids to a class where they're fucking handling snakes. You know what I mean? Like, what the fuck? I don't want them fucking. I don't want somebody jumping around, fucking wriggling around on the ground, speaking in tongues. You know, oh, well, we can't celebrate Christmas. Well, that's because the national faith is Christian, but it's Jehovah's Witness.

They don't celebrate Christmas. I mean, it doesn't make any sense. It's your religion is not what let's's fucking – let's cut the bullshit. It's not one religion. It's not like we've all agreed. It's not like they've all agreed rather. All the Christians have gotten together in a big pile and they've all been like, all right, well, let's agree on the following shit. They can't agree on anything.

None of the major monotheistic religions agree member to member on every tenet of their faith. So how are you going to pass laws based on that? 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.

Similarly unpleasant is the fucking Yahoo. This is a story. It's actually a really annoying story. Michelle Bachman was having one of her public appearances, and she was approached by an eight-year-old activist? I don't know. She was approached by an eight-year-old who was almost certainly coerced into delivering a line to be recorded on camera to Michelle Bachman. And that was, you know, my mommy is gay and she is a lesbian and doesn't need fixing.

I think, Cecil, this is a deplorable act. And I'm no Michelle Bachman fan. I am not a Michelle Bachman fan either. But sending your kid up to her as a – first off, have the fucking – the gall or the guts or whatever, the fucking piss and vinegar to walk up to that person and say what you really think. Don't send your little kid up there because it's a political stunt is what it is. It's not a – and it's debasing sort of the other side. You're basically taking the people that are for LGBT rights and you're saying they're going to play dirty because this is playing dirty. This is sending a kid.

She can't react to this kid. She can't look at this kid and say, you know, well, that's just wrong or have a debate with the kid because the kid can only say one thing. He's like a little puppet. He walks up and says, mommy, not broken. You know, like, well, great. That doesn't it doesn't prove your point. And I also think it's just a fucking cheap, cheap political trick to send a kid up and say to the mother or say to Bachman for the mother something. Like I just think it's cheap. Your kid is not a fucking prop. You know, using this kid like a fucking prop is just – it's not a classy way to make a point at all. It's the antithesis of that.

It's crude and it's awkward and it devalues your point. If you've got something to say to Bachman, fucking say it. I remember when I was seven or eight years old, my dad would always make me, if we'd go to a restaurant or whatever, he would always make me order my own food. If I didn't order something, he wasn't going to order for me. So he'd be like, well, you just don't get a food if we're out and i was always kind of shy about doing that you know here's a fucking stranger and you're in a fucking strange place and it's crowded and you have to tell somebody something that you want i remember that was tough for me when i was in right remember eight years old we're talking about a third grader yeah you know we're not talking about

a kid with a depth of maturity he's a fucking third grader You know, we're not talking about a kid with a depth of maturity. He's a fucking third grader. And we're not talking about a kid who's weighed these fucking issues on his own. Exactly. You know what I mean? Like, he didn't grow up

in a vacuum. He grew up in a gay family. And I'm not saying that mommy isn't broken, okay? I'm not disagreeing with this kid at all. No. But this kid doesn't have

any other alternative viewpoints to even make this call. They're not his words, man. They're not his fucking words. You're just sending them up. You may as well fucking send Bender from Futurama up there if you're going to send a robot. Exactly, right? What the fuck?

But, but, you know, Michelle Bachman doesn't get away from this scot-free because she kind of recoils in horror from this kid. She totally does. She did not handle this well at all. Yeah. At all. She totally does. She did not handle this well at all. Yeah. At all. She just glares. I mean, the glare that she delivers,

like, rah! I mean, it's pretty... She's not a good person. Michelle Bachman is pretty deeply... She's also deeply fucking stupid. Yeah. Her appearance on Glenn Beck's show. Now, if you can't look good

as a conservative on Glenn Beck. Bachman and Palin have kind of struck out here, and that's pretty scary. Wow. I mean, this is your fucking home turf, right? Right. This is it. It's your own fucking bat boy right there. You know what I mean?

Like, sling him over the plate and knock him out the goddamn park. What the fuck? You have people on the sidelines going, Bachman, Bachman, Bachman. Right. There's little not gay cheerleaders, you know, dancing around. Not gay at all, though. Not even close to gay. Your husband's over there with them, not being gay.

Yeah, he's totally not being gay. Very actively not gay. Right. Very conspicuously not gay. Kind of, you know, thou don't protest too much. Is that how that goes? Yeah, the lady don't protest too much. Yeah.

But on Glenn Beck, you know, she makes some comments about, you know, in all the 5,000-year history of the earth or people, you know, marriage has always been between a man and a woman i like that everything about that sentence is inaccurate i mean there's she got the word earth right right everything else is just wrong five thousand years isn't an even in keeping she's shortening it from her own creationist nuttery. Like she just lopped off a thousand years. She didn't like those first thousand years. Neither did God. Turns out he made a flood.

So I think God didn't like those for a thousand years either. I don't think those count if you go not it. Yeah. After. And the floods really like the cosmic not it. Yeah, it totally is. Yeah. He just called a mulligan is what he did.

It's a fucking – Mulligan. So what else she says though is that it hasn't happened in the history of mankind. But Tom and I, we looked at the liberal source Wikipedia under same-sex marriage and ancient history. There are several entries here from China. There's some from the early Roman Empire. Now, did you check to see if any of those are more than 5,000 years old? Because then they wouldn't count. Because, again, God put back his Scrabble letters and picked new ones a thousand years into the game.

I got all Zs. He's like, X and J? What am I going to make with X and J? I got all Zs. He's like, X and J? What am I going to make with X and J? But another thing that I want to point out too, and this is sort of a broad statement that really affects I think both Bachman and Perry here. A lot of conservatives want to talk about how they're sort of conserving these values. That's why they call themselves conservatives.

We're conserving these values. That's why they call themselves conservatives. We're conserving these values. And what conservatives have really gotten away from, which is the saddest part, is they've gotten away from personal freedom. And right now, what we have is a clash between these two things. Conserving quote unquote values, meaning conserving sort of the status quo, which is one man, one woman marriage versus personal freedom. And I think if you're a true conservative, you should always be erring on the side of personal freedom. You should always be saying, OK, it's – our laws are unjust because nobody is saying, well, what we should really do is conserve the blacks can't vote. We should really conserve that women can't vote. We should really conserve that women can't vote.

We should really conserve that blacks should sit on the back of the bus and there should be separate drinking fountains. Because all of those were laws on the books. I mean all those existed as laws. But we overcame all those laws because we realized that they were fucking stupid. And I think at a certain point you realize that your law is fucking stupid and you go, you know what? Let's just err on the side of personal freedom on this one. Personal freedom it is. So when these people are saying this and coming out against gay marriage, it's more than just gay marriage that they're against. They're against personal freedom. Well, right. And what they're really telling us, right, is that it's not is that they're not they're

not here to protect personal freedoms for everybody. They're here to protect the personal freedoms they personally value. Right. Sure. And they will decide for you which of the personal freedoms you get and which of the ones they don't like. And so you don't get to have. That's really what they're saying. And we don't do this with any other type of any other person who wants to get married. Like we don't look at me like, OK, well, you guys are going to get married. You've got to go in front of the governmental marriage review board and you've got to decide. Like, no, she's look, she's way too fucking fat for you, dude.

She's like Jack Sprat could eat no fucking fat here. You can't marry that fucking heifer. You've got to find somebody thinner. Or, you know, you know what? Her skin is just a little different color than yours. I think we can't let you. You know, there's no fucking marriage review board. Like if I have a fucking penis and she has a vagina, suddenly it's fucking hunky fucking Dory that we can get

married. Yeah. Look, you can be a felon and get married. You can be a murderer and get married. You can get married in prison. Yeah. You can be an actual murderer. That's not a hypothetical.

You can be somebody who murdered his last wife. How do you sell that one? Right. But it's, there's nothing that bars you, right? There's no law that says, okay, alright, alright, we gave you one. You killed it. You have enough to do, government.

I don't want, I don't know how to break this news to you, but you've got some other fucking issues that have not been solved yet. Having solved all the other world's problems. Right. You haven't fixed it all. We're not like stepping back like, oh man. I woke up this

morning to go to Congress, but there was nothing to do. Yeah, we fixed it all. Everything's humming along so fucking great. I can't think of what else to do. Let's figure out what people are doing with their genitals. Yeah. Well, they're humming along. That's what they're doing. 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. Everybody dance now. We work hard. We play hard. So I got good news for anybody who wants to shop at Macy's.

Now, we don't do a lot of commercials here on this show. Yeah, we certainly don't do any paid commercials. Right. No kidding, right? But a recent incident reported actually on 1millionmoms.com. I don't think we're giving you the press you're looking for, 1 million moms. A recent incident at a Macy's. A transgendered individual wanted to change.

She wanted to go into a dressing room and change her clothes in the lady's dressing room. And the woman who was like manning the dressing room or what have you. And like that's your job. Whatever. But you, manning the dressing room or what have you, and, like, that's your job. Whatever. But you're manning the dressing room. You're totally going to be demeaning to her job. Like, come on. Fucking come on.

You're not even a rent-a-cop. Like, you're sitting in front of the fucking dressing room at Macy's. So she got all worked up because this woman walked in and was a transgender woman and said, no, you can't change here. You got to change in the men's dressing room and what have you. And it escalated to the point where this woman basically stuck to her guns. And Macy's, Cecil did the right thing and fired her happy ass.

And Macy's is now at least partially batshit crazy free around the dressing room. And so now there's this outrage with – they say one million moms, probably about maybe a couple thousand. They're going to send letters to Macy's. And I say, great. Don't shop there. Send your letters. It's wonderful. I think that this is exactly how consumers should bond together to vote with their dollar, so to speak.

I don't go to Chick-fil-A because Chick-fil-A, they have sent money to anti-gay marriage groups. And I think that that's fucking deplorable. So Chick-fil-A, I will never buy one of those little nasty fucking chicken sandwiches with my money. It will never fucking happen. This is how you vote with your dollar. This is what you do as a consumer. You not only vote – you not only pay for products that you want, but you also pay companies that you don't think – that you think are being ethical. There was that big push against Nike back in the day when they were using sweatshops, and they've changed how they've done everything. And now they're actually one of the more

socially responsible places that you could put your money nowadays. So there's a lot of places that have changed their image because of something like this. And maybe Macy's in the past has done they've caught some flack and changed their image. And now they're LGBT friendly. And I say to everybody in the sound of my voice, Macy's is LGBT friendly. So maybe you should go there. Right. Right. And, you know, to this woman was totally within her rights to stand up.

I we were talking about this before the show. I hope that if I were ever in a position in my work where I felt like I was being asked to do something that went against a an ethical belief that I have, I hope that I would stand up for that. I hope I would say, no, I'm not going to do that. And if I got fired, I got fired. Okay, great. You know, this woman is not a doctor. She's not a healthcare professional. She's the fucking Yahoo who sits outside the fucking dressing room, right? Right, right. You know, so it's not a matter of life and death. She can take an ethical stance if she so chooses. And, you know, the store has the right to fire her.

Great. They fired her. This everything played out exactly as it should have played out. I'm thrilled with this whole – because she's gone. Bye-bye, stupid. Right. Now I go to Macy's and I don't have to worry about asshole nutters like this. Your shopping experience is Yahoo free.

Right. Yeah. This would be wonderful if everybody did this right if everybody did because then you would know at a glance you'd know immediately like oh when i go to such and such a company it's filled with the batshit crazy chick-fil-a nutters well that's not a place i want to spend my time or money so fuck you in the ear dude i'm gone fuck off i'll go to macy's or wherever i'll go places where that are actually run by reasonable rational decent human beings and they'll have my money well cecil i have bad

news on the war on christmas it's on did we lose you know here in the states there's there's a bunch of pundit asshole nutters that are screaming all the time about the war on Christmas. Oh, kids can't, like Rick Perry, for example. Kids can't openly celebrate Christmas and all this sort of nonsense. Well, North Korea is furious. South Korea's Christmas lights plan. South Korea wants to put up a giant tree-shaped tower right near the border. And this is really pissing off the North Koreans.

The war on Christmas should never escalate to an actual war. It should never be a real war. You know, what kind of carols are they going to sing? Like, sleigh bells ring, are you shooting? The blood is glistening. Or like, jingle bells, shotgun shells shooting all the way. I think we can pick up a few of these. It's going to be fun to do, right?

Oh, Christmas tree would change, you know. Oh, Christmas tree. Oh, holy shit. And when the snow is actually human ash, you know, that's when I think you've got to stop. You've got to sort of quit at that point. It's hard to make a snowman out of human ash, it turns out. I'm dreaming of a white Christmas followed by nuclear winter. You know?

You don't want to wear your red suit, though, because that totally, like, that's not good camouflage at all. No, the snipers will pick you off like nobody's business. The snipers will fuck you up, man. They will fuck you up. You got, like, ornaments on the tree or, like, grenades. It's already that way in North Korea. Are you kidding me? Well, they don't have any food, so.

Right. Yeah, they got to eat eat something it's pineapple shaped delicious high explosive fragmentation grenades the difference between all that one documentary there's a great documentary from uh i think it's from frontline that you turned me on to between about north korea tom that's actually some really scary shit that happens over there the north korea is i've seen every documentary i can watch on North Korea and it's an unbelievable place. The one thing that really shocked me was the difference in height between the North Koreans and the South Koreans. They were saying like seven inches on average shorter because of the malnutrition.

It's an absolute epidemic. I've seen a whole bunch of documentaries about North Korea, and that place is not a joke. That's probably the worst place on Earth right now. Liberia is probably in the running for that. From the documentaries I've seen,

North Korea is... I hate to say this, but it's almost like 1984 come to life. And that's so cliche and hyperbolic and sort of ridiculous. But they genuinely have radios that stream propaganda into their kitchens that they cannot shut off. That's fucking insane. That's nutty, man.

That's insane. Yeah, that's not a good place. I think I would not hang up this Christmas tree. I would. You know, I'd avoid it. You know, because maybe they can't reach Japan with their missiles, but they can certainly reach South Korea with their missiles. Right. And I think it's funny.

Like, this is like fucking with your neighbor. Yeah. Except your neighbor has a rocket launcher pointed at your face. Right? That's not the guy you're fucking with. It's fun to fuck with your neighbor has a rocket launcher pointed at your face. Right? That's not the guy you're fucking with. It's fun to fuck with your neighbor. Ha ha, I totally TP'd his house. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Oh, he fucking shot my family. That wasn't awesome. That's not a good... Worst Christmas ever. Although your gifts are much shorter. You don't have to get as many gifts that year. And you don't have to worry about the thank you cards. Yeah, no.

Which is nice because that's the worst part, really. Come on. Your headstone budget, though. That's a lot. All of this was brought upon us in a single day. And night fell on a different world. A world where freedom itself is under attack. Americans have many questions tonight.

Americans are asking, who attacked our country? The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al-Qaeda. collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al-Qaeda. They are some of the murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and responsible for bombing the USS Cole. This group and its leader, a person named Osama bin Laden, are linked to many other organizations in different countries. Osama bin Laden are linked to many other organizations in different countries. So Noam Chomsky, this is a pretty controversial figure, but Noam Chomsky's book, 9-11,

takes on bin Laden's death and specifically the imperialist mentality that sort of comes with and precipitated bin Laden's death. And Cecil, he had some pretty unequivocal things to say in his new book. I like the last piece that he says in this article here from Alternet. They're talking about – he's talking about how Osama bin Laden kind of – he sort of orchestrated the entire thing, not just 9-11, but he orchestrated all the things that happened after 9-11. All the goals that he wanted to accomplish, he sort of accomplished. He made America more paranoid. He made us clamp down more, lose more freedom. He made us mire ourselves in war and spend a lot of money doing that.

A lot of effects on our economy came from that specifically. So there's a – he's done – as one person, he did a lot. He did a whole lot and Noam Chomsky is pointing this out. But at the end of the article, it says – it's talking about how the United States had basically went in to Pakistan, a country that happens to be able – that happens to be a nuclear power. We went in and killed Osama bin Laden on their soil. And he says the United States even had the poor judgment to name this adventure Operation Geronimo. And as Chomsky says, and I'm reading directly from the article, as Chomsky says, the imperial mentality is so profound throughout Western society that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. Wow, that's fucking – I love that.

I think this guy is awesome. I mean he's at least unbelievably ballsy. He's honest. He's just fucking honest. People don't want to hear that shit. People want to be like, America, man. We fucking shot bin Laden in the face. That's what they want to think.

In the face? But when it comes down to it, he fucking dotted his eyes. But when it comes down to it, he wreaked a lot of havoc on our economy, on our way of life. Did we go over there and eventually kill him? Yeah, but it took a long time and a lot of man hours. And we got mired in two wars in two different fucking countries just to do it. One of them not even related to the fucking

topic. Right. And I think you know, Chomsky's point is that Osama bin Laden didn't get involved in those conflicts. We got our own dumb selves involved in those conflicts, you know, because we got goaded. We totally fucking flipped out. Yeah. And we should have. Don't get me wrong. Please don't misunderstand.

9-11 was a big goddamn deal. I'm not for a moment pretending that it wasn't. But I think the suggestion is that this is exactly what bin Laden was looking for. And we know that because he said so. Oh, I know it. Because that's what he fucking said.

But this is exactly what he wanted. You know, he wanted to do damage to the economy. He wanted to make us fear ourselves and our neighbors and to, you know, put things into place that restricted our freedoms to damage our economy. I mean, these are all things that that he got. I mean, yeah, he got killed for it. But I mean, are we really going to pretend that that these guys aren't willing to martyr themselves for this cause? I don't, I mean, Chomsky's right in the sense that you can't pretend like, ha ha, we got you. Right.

Really? We got you? Yeah, we got you individually. But if this is truly a war of ideas, are we winning? I'm not so sure about that. When we spent the last 10, 11 years of our collective national life, you know, and sacrificed the lives of thousands of our soldiers and soldiers from across the world, and the lives of how many tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians, it's very difficult to suggest that we are winning.

That's some fucking Charlie Sheen winning at that point. That's some tiger blood fucking DNA winning. Right. That's not actual winning. I do believe that atheists are parasites in the sense they're benefiting from everything that religious culture is built in America, but they're doing nothing to add energy into the system. So Cecil, this is an interesting story. This is from ABC News. This is from their religion section.

It's an article about atheists who go to church, and it suggests that they are doing it for the children. I read this and was just sort of baffled by it. I understand in the case. Now, they make a point early in the article that bringing your kids to church, if you're an atheist, makes sense. If one person in the relationship is an atheist and the other person is not, okay, we'll bring them and then you know let them decide for themselves what their what their thoughts are but um if that's not the case i don't even understand how this works you bring your kids to church you're an atheist which church do you bring them to yeah hop in the car okay it's sunday morning let's go to church okay which one i don't fucking know

because i don't belong to any of them. I don't think, I think they're all nonsense. Like, how do you choose amongst nonsense? I can only think that you would go to the church that you're, that you're like, that you maybe have a family history of going to. Or the one with the shortest sermon is the one I'd go to. Like, I'd rate them on sermon length and then decide that way. I mean, I'd go to Yelp and read reviews.

Like, what do you do? I mean, if gas is $4 a gallon, I think I'd go to the closest. Yeah, that's another good way to weed them out. The one that gives you free food, like the Catholic one, because you get the wafer and then you get a little sip of wine. Don't you get one where you can rip off a hunk of bread? I mean, I'm a fat man. I don't want a wafer. Are you fucking kidding me?

What the fuck am I going to do with a wafer? Is it a chocolate wafer? This better have a vanilla filling, man. Are you fucking serious? Can I at least dip it in syrup or something? Like, what the fuck? Do you have some bacon drippings? What the fuck? A wafer.

Can I get a Chick-fil-A sandwich here? I mean, it's a religious institution, right? I got to be there at nine in the morning on a Sunday. I will eat the fucking candles at that point. I do not care. You're like eating the parishioner next to you. Like half in your mouth. Please be with you.

Oh, I don't understand this either. in your mouth. Please be with you. I don't understand this either. And like I said, we were talking about this story earlier. And I said to you, I said, well, if the person that you're married to happens to be religious, I could understand this completely. But if it's not a mutual thing where both of you are like, or if it is a mutual thing where you're both atheists, what do you do? Bring the kid to a place that you don't really believe in? Now, what is the awkward conversation like later?

When like little Timmy is like, so will God help grandma? I'd be like, well, Timmy, there is no God. What the fuck are we doing wasting our fucking time at church, dad? I would much rather play with Transformers. Right. Right. Right. You know what? I don't understand as an atheist why you would want to inspire a mythical worldview. Right. That doesn't make sense. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And again, there's the real conundrum of picking which church do you go to, but then what age do you start bringing them? You know, I've got a

five-year-old. He's just turning five. I cannot imagine bringing a five-year-old to a church. Like, that's fucking, that's nearly child abuse to me. Like, he has no idea. I'll give you an example. Yesterday, my little guy and I, we were wrestling around and we were playing. And he brings out, like, he's got a bunch of masks and stuff. And sometimes we'll play, you know, like, pretend or what have you.

And he has, like, a Frankenstein mask. And he's got a mask that is very clearly a devil mask it's like red and black and it's got horns but he's never heard of the devil so he thinks it's a kitty cat mask because he thinks the horns are ears because he has no idea what the devil is he's never fucking heard of that shit right because it's bullshit and i'm not going to bring that shit up because he's going to ask we we drive sometimes past this church on our way to to school when i drop him off in the morning he asked me what it is i tell it's a business it's a business what do they have there nothing we're buying and that's it because i don't because he's little like he believes everything i said. He thinks that in a few weeks, a giant fat man is going to ride around powered by reindeer and give him presents for being good.

And I'm going to bring him to church? Really? Admittedly, it's about the same thing. It is? But at some point, someone is going to tell him Santa isn't real. Sure. At some point, somebody should tell some other people that God isn't real. Right.

We should have a podcast about that. We should. We should work on it. So speaking of Christmas, though, I think what a wonderful Christmas gift somebody could give would be to spend $2 on them, somebody could give would be to spend $2 on them, especially if those people like this podcast, to buy them our podcast app, Tom, that you could get right now on Amazon.

Oh, I like the lead-in. If you were looking for a Christmas gift, maybe you just want to spend it on yourself. You're sick of buying fucking gifts for everybody else on your list because you had to buy fucking Aunt Sally a gift and you had to buy your dog a gift and you're just furious and you just want to get that anger out, just spend $2 on her.

And if you really like it, buy it twice. Well, I think this would be a great time to take a break and give you information on how to buy our rap, how to hand us our ass, give us phone calls and emails and text messages and get in touch with us to send us all of your various forms of hate mail. We'll return after the break to annoy you with the rest of our show. You can email

these assholes at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com For more information on this or any other episode, visit the Cognitive Dissonance website, dissonancepod.com. Like our show on Facebook to join in the conversation. Just search for Cognitive Dissonance in 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. So we have to do a little follow up on a story that we've covered previously. And I also want to make a correction follow-up on a story that we've covered previously. And I also want to make a correction. So we covered a story recently about an Afghan woman who was raped.

She was imprisoned, and she feared that she might have to marry her attacker. Or rather, it was feared that she might have to marry her attacker because of some misguided, barbaric sense of honor that's unfortunately endemic to the culture. We got some facts wrong last time. It was pointed out to us by one of our listeners on our blog. I thank you for pointing out my various flaws. I will send you a list of the other flaws that I have. It will be lengthy. We mentioned on our show last time that the attacker was actually not in jail. I was mistaken. The attacker was in jail as well. He was in prison as well. So I apologize for the misread and the misinformation. This woman

was freed from jail, which only makes sense because she's the fucking victim of a horrific crime. But it is her plan now to marry her attacker. And she's freed from jail, I think, specifically because she chose that path, right? Like that's how she got out of jail.

Well, they're saying that that's not the case. They're saying that the two are not – like the government's official stance is that the two are not related. The government's official stance is that the two are not related. But common sense I think tells you that they are completely related because why would she agree to do it if she fucking is already out of jail? When you've got a culture that this is the only way that she can regain her sense of honor is to marry the person who fucking attacked her violently and raped her. Who knows? I think when you try to – as a person who grew up in Western culture, when you try to look at a culture like this and you try to understand the motivations of the people, I feel like there's no way I'm going to understand what drives this woman or people who live in this culture on anything more than the most fundamental human level. Because we simply don't come from the same set of basic assumptions and fundamental background. The disconnect between our cultures is so vast.

Because I see this and it's horrifying. It's genuinely fucking freak show horrifying that a culture would condone this, much less encourage this. Yeah. I looked into some Sharia law and I came up with a couple of things that they actually do there. If you get raped, you have to marry a rapist. A couple of little known facts. If you're caught shoplifting, they actually have to hire you as a clerk there at the place where you were shoplifting. If you're a victim of domestic violence, you're supposed to go out to brunch with the person. You're supposed to have a nice light brunch.

Nothing too heavy. You certainly can't have the eggs benedict because of the Sharia law against ham. So you've got to get something else on the menu. If you're a victim of vandalism, you have to take those kids to Great America. So that's like the next sort of level up. I like that it's Great America too. Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

Oh my god. It's pretty ridiculously awful. It's resoundingly awful. Oh, my God. It's pretty ridiculously awful. It's resoundingly awful. And I think that that this shows you that when you're following a fucking Bronze Age text, whether you're doing it in America and fucking saying gays can't get married or you're doing it in in these countries, these Muslim countries where they follow Sharia law and it's a Bronze Age book. You need to look at those times and say, you know what? We've fucking grown since then. And people shouldn't fucking marry their rapists. And maybe we should fucking stop being so fucking misogynistic and start treating, you know, half the population as equals since, you know, they equal us in number. Right? And in everything else.

Do you solemnly swear to tell truth all truth and nothing but the truth? Why don't you answer him? He's talking big right now mine i don't know what he's saying he's asking you if you swear no but i know all the words he's asking you if you'll swear to tell the truth truth is stranger than fiction judgey woody so see so this next story is from uh the uk this is. This story makes me so mad. Mercy for the drunk Muslim girl gang who attacked a woman. A gang of Somali Muslim girls attack this woman.

And the video is available. You can see it. There are so many weird things going on here. So they attack this woman. There's not enough context in the video to figure out why they attack her. I can't tell if they're trying to rob her or what. It says that it says the four defendants shouted, kill the white slag as they attacked this woman and dragging her to the ground. And it's a bunch of sisters attacked or four people. This judge, I don't understand what the fuck is wrong with this judge um the judge

is goes light on the attackers because they're muslims and they were drunk and since they're muslims and they're not used to drinking then they evidently were not used to the effects of the alcohol. And so the violence is somehow mitigated by this. It's a line of reasoning so convoluted and fucked up crazy. I can't even possibly begin to dissect it. By that same token, if I go to an Indian reservation here in the States and I fucking get crazed on peyote and start shooting up the place, the first like five shots don't count because i'm not used to peyote how does that work oh who exactly is used to peyote fucking i don't usually consume incredible amounts of peyote so

i had no idea i would think you would turn into lizard men and i would have to eradicate you know what the fuck yeah i i don't understand the one thing that makes me the maddest about this video is this fucking giant fucking wuss she's hanging out with. You know, here's the thing. These girls attack this woman and he's standing there fucking holding his coat half the time. Put your fucking coat down, dopey, and punch one of these girls in the face. Like, these people are attacking someone that you're with. Violently. You don't just fucking kind of toddle around.

They'll be like, right, right. Oh, excuse me. You shouldn't be punching my girlfriend in the face right now. Like, what the fuck, dude? Put your fucking coat down. I watch this video and I'm screaming the entire time at my inanimate computer because I'm so upset that he's not doing anything. And the judge, the judge says he accepted the fact

that the attackers may have felt victims of unreasonable force from Mr. Moore. Unreasonable force? What are you supposed to do? Fucking lay down in the fetal position when someone attacks you over there? I don't have any idea.

In the United States, in like 49 states, you could shoot these people. In the United States, in like 49 states, you could shoot these people. I mean, honestly, if you have a group of people, if you are outnumbered and attacked and the only thing they felt victims

of unreasonable force, he's sort of half-heartedly pushing them away. Oh no, stop. He doesn't even drop his coat. Put your coat down. I would prefer that you did not kick my girlfriend in the facial region. Right, right? What the fuck? James, pull the car around.

You know, look, it's rare that I'm going to say like, oh, you know, here in America, we'd have handled this violence better. Yeah. You know, that's, you're not going to hear that from me too often. But I will say this. Here in America, we would handle that violence better. Absolutely. Much better. Especially in a concealed carry state.

Right. Oh, my gosh. You'd have four fucking coffins is what you'd have. I can't even, like, unreasonable force? He gently pushes them away. Oh, no, no, please. I mean. I've suffered more damage in, like, a wave pool.

Like, what the fuck? This is baffling. Like, this comes from an area that every time there's a soccer match, they light the entire city on fire. They light the participants on fire. What are you kidding me? Unreasonable force. I don't understand that shit at all, man. There's four people attacking this woman.

And they beat their shit. They're fucking kicking her while she's on the ground. They're like, she's on the ground. They're like fucking stomping her in the face. Very unkind. That's unkind. So see, so this is an interesting circumstance because usually we like

to end the show, um, end the news portion of our show, I should say, with the most ridiculous story of the week. And that's why this is unusual. Because we have two stories today vying, I think, for most ridiculous story of the week. Yeah, yeah. Islamic cleric bans women from touching bananas, cucumbers,

for sexual resemblance. Oh, my. That's a wonderful little cucumber you have there. Stop jerking my curtain. This is. What? Really? Like, you're afraid of tube-shaped items?

No, he stumbled on the vegetable porn on the internet. I mean, come on. You know what this guy did? He was like, accidentally clicking, not accidentally, probably not accidentally at all, clicking around. And he came across some veggie porn. And he's just like, huh, that's what they do with cucumbers. This guy is lovingly caressing his zucchini and absolutely terrified

that women might do the same. You know? Yeah. This is insane. You're afraid I mean honestly like are we just gonna ban tubes in general? Like anything cylindrical? Like no. Uh uh. I love that a man has to cut it up for them.

In another room! In another room! If you're going to eat, you know, dick fruit, then you got to have a dude cut it up in another room so you don't even see it. It's not even that you can't touch it. You can't even be reminded of the shape of the cock. Isn't most architecture actually sort of phallic, too? Have you seen the towers and the mosques? They look like big penises, man.

Here's a picture. Hold on. Let me send you the picture, Tom. There's a picture of this mosque. There's a picture on Wikipedia of the Nur-Astana Mosque. I don't know exactly where it's at. Let me see where it says it's at on Wikipedia of the Nur-Astana Mosque. I don't know exactly where it's at. Let me see where it says it's at on Wikipedia here. So then you could take a look at it.

It's in Kazakhstan, and it's surrounded by four giant cocks. It's totally surrounded by – and the best part is each cock has like a little thing shooting out of it. It's ripped for her pleasure. It looks like they're actually ejaculating. After services, that's how the arch was invented. After services, they just flask it out. Each one has a cock ring on it and it's ejaculating.

So, yeah. Like, that's ridiculous. Like, that's the most phallic architecture I've ever seen in my life. And you're like, well, she can't eat cucumbers. That's ridiculous. Like that's the most phallic architecture I've ever seen in my life. And you're like, well, she can't eat cucumbers. That's insane. This is like this is coming from obviously from some fucked up, super sexually repressed. Oh, my God. Yeah.

Who has no ability to understand human sexuality on anything but the most repressed, absurd level. anything but the most repressed, absurd level. And, you know, it looks like from the article that most people are just shaking their heads in consternation and disbelief. Men have no right at all to ever condemn, like, what a woman's going to do. I mean, every teenage boy has done the worst shit ever, right? Like, a horny teenage boy looks around at his house and thinks like, I'd fuck that. He's fucked 40 things in the house. Right. Right.

And you're worried about tube fruit. It's a great, great line. I forget which comedian it was. But but talking about all the things he fucked when he was growing up. He's talking about like fucking his mom's fur coat or something. And he's like, his mom would come in the room. Oh, we're having liver tonight. He's like, that's okay.

I had it last night. I forget what comedian that was, but that's fucking, that's exactly it, right? It's like they've fucked everything. We, Lord, we just asked it to be covered with the blood of Jesus. Open hearts, Lord. Open hearts. thing we lord we just asked it to be covered with the blood of jesus open hearts lord open hearts so vying for craziest story um a woman in houston has been arrested for hit and run but the best part is she hits this kid with her with her car she hits a teenager with her car she looks out the window. Are you okay? She yells. He says, no.

You just hit me with a car. She throws a Christian pamphlet at him and drives off. That's not administering first aid, lady. Maybe he was bleeding and he needed something to wrap around him to stop the bleeding. Stuff this into the gaping hole in your chest. That giant fucking gash in your tummy. Just jam this in there until the paramedics come. Maybe she mistook the wounds for stigmata.

What do you say? You throw this out the window at somebody and then drive off. That's very Christian. Who would Jesus hit? Yeah. You know, who would Jesus run over? I mean, unless you're driving like a Chrysler Lazarus, this is a bad idea. This is a terrible idea.

Every hit comes right back to life. They just pop right back up. I'm OK. I'm good. It's fine. Yeah. Don't worry about that. That's a good hit there, though. $730 in medical bills the kid had. So, you know, he didn't fucking knock his noggin off, but at the same time, $730 probably got stitches or treated for some sort of broken limb of some kind. Yeah, it says he had bruised ribs. You know, he went to the emergency room with chest pains,

was diagnosed with bruised ribs. At the very least, he was diagnosed with being hit by a fucking car. Oh, that means that he probably like, he probably got hit and like rolled up on the car. Because that's like, you know, like most of the cars would hit you and then you'd fall on top of it. So he probably, I mean, she must have fucking really given him a whacking. Jesus is

her co-pilot. Couldn't he have gotten out of the fucking car? Jesus was texting. Yeah. I was sending a message to my church about how much i love god when i totally hit this heathen so i threw a christian pamphlet at him and drove off insult meet injury third degree felony man fucking a hit and run i don't care if you i don't care what book you throw out of your window it doesn't make it right right right i threw threw Beowulf at him. I thought that would be good because I ripped his arm off and Beowulf tears off Grendel's arm and I thought

they could relate. So no, that didn't work at all. That's a fucking awful decision, you fucking bitch. So we got quite a bit of email we've got to talk about. We got an email from Jake. Jake, you sent us an email regarding the Aussie vac tax. Before I talk about that, I do want to talk briefly,

and I won't give away your whole email address. But I have to talk about your email for a moment. I'm not going to say where, but it's anal fetus. Yeah, it's anal fetus. Wow. I actually, when I say I'm going to talk about it, I'm not really sure what I'm going to say about it. No, I think we're just going to mention it. It's anal fetus.

Anal fetus. Yeah, that's... I'm so uncomfortable right now, Jake. fetus. It's so uncomfortable right now, Jake. He said that after he thought about the Australian VAC tax, he was basically he raised some concerns that, you know, government is not to be trusted. And, you know, having them initiate something like this makes him very uncomfortable because government has a history of not being very responsible with its rights and responsibilities. And I have to say that while I agree with you in terms of your decision to be a little distrustful of government, I would counter that by saying this is something very specific and you can opt out.

Unlike the Patriot Act where you can't opt out, you can opt out of this. Yeah, you can – the Patriot Act, you can't take a tax break and suddenly not be subject to the Patriot Act's laws. Like if I take a tax – if I take – give up a tax break, suddenly I'm completely immune to the Patriot Act. That's not how it works. So there's an opt out for people who want it. And it is very specific.

It's it's and it's against a known enemy, so to speak. Right. Like the Patriot Act is this sort of amorphous group of laws to sort of make us sort of feel protected. Whereas vaccines work and they they are proven to work. We got a couple of emails from Chad. Chad, you know, first, great show. Thanks, Chad. We like it. We're kind of required to like it, though.

It's true. But he sent us a rather lengthy email about religions being not so much monotheistic, but monolatristic. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing that, and I'm sorry for doing it. And he also goes on to mention that a lot of these supposedly monotheistic religions are, in fact, if not polytheistic, they at the very least contain many demigods. I've said before on the show, I think that Satanism is probably just a Christian offshoot or a denomination. Well, sure. And then you got to look at all the saints and how they treat the saints,

how they treat the Virgin Mary in certain sects of Christianity. There's a lot of worshiping of someone who isn't God in those traditions. It's a really interesting email, though, and thank you for sending it. At the top of it, he says to us, Tom, he says, what specific things can we do to give you critical mass to keep this thing going? And I presume he's talking about our podcast. You know, we're always happy when people just tell their friends about us. If you are a skeptic or an atheist or a liberal or all three, and chances are you're all three,

you probably hang out with people that are of the same mind or at least, you know, have two of those qualities or something. You might want to just suggest the podcast to those people. Just say, hey, you know, I found this podcast. Post it on your Facebook. Post it on your Twitter. You know, the people who follow you might get turned on to it that way. So there's social media ways. There's, you know, normal traditional ways in which you can just tell

friends about it. Just spread the word. Tell people about it. Say, hey, you know, I like this thing. Give them the disclaimer. You know, obviously give them a disclaimer that it's, you know, it's fucking explicit and we're going to swear a lot and we're going to tell some off-color jokes. And, you know, we're not all that smart so make sure to say all those things and then their expectations are exactly where we want them so yeah you i'm reminded of that uh snl skit the lowered expectations you know that's that's really where you need to right to be with this right chad also sends us an email um where he addresses he quibbles with us on a couple of issues,

climate change and illegal immigration. I don't really want to, and this isn't to discard your points, it really isn't, but I don't really want to turn the email section of the show into like a point by point discussion of climate change and illegal immigration. I will say that I very much appreciate your email. You raise some interesting points. I will say that I very much appreciate your email. You raised some interesting points.

These are discussions we'd like to see, I think, move to like Facebook or move to our page, to our blog. So post them there and then see if you can get other people to talk to you about those things. I will say that when I read these things, I think these are great points. And that's why I think that, you know, especially issues that are really gray, like climate change, I think, you know, even though there is this scientific consensus, I think, I think, you know, there's some interesting points you make about what the downside is. And then there's also some things that you talk about in illegal immigration. I agree on some of the things that you say. And that, again, is a gray issue. And I don't have the answer. But I know that there are some bad things that happen because of these things.

And that's what we talk about. We talk about some real easy shit on this show because that's sort of simple-minded here. But we'd love to see this sort of conversation moved over to Facebook or, like Tom says, the blog. So people can engage you at least and talk to you about these points. like Tom says, the blog. So people can engage you at least and talk to you about these points. And there's one thing we've discovered. It's that our listeners tend to be far more well-informed and erudite than we are. Absolutely. Yeah. And there's people that would have a good conversation about this with you. So I want to just say quickly to the Twitter user, I am the swoop. Thanks for sending us tweets all the time.

I don't get a chance to reply to you all the time, but thanks for retweeting our shows and for sending out our stuff to people. I also want to send out a sort of Twitter hello to Rich from, I think he's from New Zealand. He retweets our stuff too. If you can find all these people on our page, if you just search for us and then you look at our history, you can see that people have retweeted us. So you can always follow them.

That's always useful if you go and follow those people too. It basically creates that community that helps us retweet and helps us send out the message to other people that might not have ever heard about our show. We also got an email from Matthew. Now, Matthew tried to post a review on the Australian iTunes store. His review is the greatest review ever. And I do want to say that iTunes reviews are crazy helpful for us. So when you talk about what other things you can do, us. So when you talk about, you know, what other things you can do, iTunes reviews, they look great for us as far as, you know, the more we have, the more popular our show is going to look on iTunes, the more likely people are going to be when browsing randomly about to take a listen to it. So if you like the show or if you don't like the show, I don't give a shit. Fucking rate it. Just fucking rate it. And then i can mock you on air yeah you know what right but matthew

did try to rate us on the itunes store uh it didn't take it's an explicit podcast he says why can't we put up explicit reviews rating five stars title awesome this podcast felches wombat santorum and that's the end of the story right there. Like I could stop right there and be satiated and be like, ah, like basking in the felching wombats and torum. I love it. I love it. I'm still not convinced the wombats a thing. I don't. I'm just saying.

Review. I came across this podcast after reading the book. Mistakes were made by not by me, which is about cognitive dissonance. In comparison to this life changing, wonderfully written book, this podcast is like watching a monkey fling crap at a wall. But it's really funny. I think that encapsulates everything we do, man. That's just...

I love it. Man. And plus, you should see my walls. Yeah. He even points out, he's like, they are uninformed and opinionated and they admit it. It's like, yep, that's exactly us. Booyah. Yeah, we thank you.

Thank you for the rating. Even if it didn't make it anywhere, we thank you, Matthew, for the rating. Tom, we get a lot of bots that send us stuff. And we are plagued constantly on our comment section on our blog with a ton of bots because these bots want to get in to send a message to us so that they can get in and then start posting a bunch of fucking spam on our blog. So every day, more than, I would say, 90% of the comments we get on our blog are bots. But some of these are just priceless.

And Tom, we want to read one specifically this week, so go ahead. Our bot of the week comes from ASD 201-54-321 at AOL.com. Here's looking at you, guy. The author is financial advice. Presently,

what did you say? I considered necessary! Exclamation. Maybe to facilitate bidding, transpire my inspiration on behalf of the week. Keep it emergence. Keep it emergence. I love that. That's our new tagline from now on.

Keep it emergence. Here at Cognitive Dissonance, we've been keeping it emergence since April 2011. Bitches! Keep it emergence, bitches. cognitive dissonance we've been keeping it emergent since april 2011 we also got an email from uh come on do it do it huan wu shun wu kim huan wu i'm gonna say huan is it huan you think i don't know maybe do they pronounce i don't know how they pronounce that i don't know how they pronounce that. I don't know how they pronounce it. So Juan Wu is how I'm going to say it. And he says, I'd like you to butcher my name in your podcast. So there you go. Done and done.

So Juan Wu is what I'm going to say it is. First of all, fuck. And fuck you too for making one of the greatest podcasts I've ever heard. He doesn't have a lot of choices, I guess, in Korea. It's like the one podcast that gets through. One of them is like Kim Kardashian's podcast. Look, man,

if I were you, I'd be less worried about this podcast than the war on Christmas. You'd be getting in your bunker. I would just throw that out there that you guys might have a Christmas tree of doom coming your way. An O-Tanen bomb is literally a bomb.

But he says that in Korea, I guess we're assuming it's a he. Oh, I guess we are. How dare we? The nerve, the gall, the unmitigated temerity. Part of me doesn't believe that women listen to this show anyway. Women haven't been listening to me for the 33 years I've been around.

Why would they start now? They could probably sense the tiny URL. Yeah, exactly. He says, or she says, here in Korea, religion and rationality suffers more than U.S. of A. If you don't know, your megachurch is there. Look, puny in our eyes. If you don't know, your mega church is there. Look, puny in our eyes.

And then he sends us a link of a church with an average attendance of 800,000 a week. Why do you fit 800,000? I mean, that's got to be in several services, right? Because you can't fit 800 grand into one place. Because if you could, you could knock out a 50th of your population with one bomb. That's crazy. That is insane. One Christmas ornament, well-placed. Boom.

It's all done. Don't put up a tree there. That's all I'm saying. God damn. 800,000 people per week? Yeah. It's got to, yeah. Holy shit.

I wonder how many people can fit in that church. I don't know. Dude, that is absolutely true. Our mega churches are not mega. No. They're fucking tiny compared to this thing. Jesus. I went to a church with my dad when I was a kid.

If there were 60 people in the pews, it was fucking crowded. You were like, good God, get the fuck out of here. I can't hear myself think. 60. 60? 800,000 people. Yeah. God damn.

How many pigs do they have to roast for the fucking pig roast? All of them. That is the answer. It's all of the pigs. It's like a whole barge of pigs waiting outside for the roast. It also says that and this is sort of not as awesome. It was inspired to make a podcast of his own or her own, failed miserably, costing my friendship or lack thereof. He wanted some tips on getting out a good podcast.

My first tip – now, Cecil, I know you've got some good tips. Find somebody to do all the work. That's been instrumental for me. It is. It's worked out for you, Tom. Yeah. OK. So podcast tips. I'm going to give a couple people some quick podcast tips here. The first one I would tell people is have good chemistry with the person you're going to be you're going to be working with. You can't do a podcast if you if you don't have good chemistry with the people.

Tom and I have good chemistry together because we've been friends for a long time. So that works out great. But other people sometimes, they don't know each other as well. And that's not going to work out. Just get on there with a buddy. That's the best advice. Or do a monologue show like Dumbasses. You know what I mean?

Like you could do another show, another type of show. There's plenty of shows out there. We particularly like the buddy show. But there can be other shows. And specifically monologue shows work out great. If you're going to record, record locally and then mix it post-production. So don't record it via Skype. Don't have everybody call you and then record it via Skype. I find that that gets muddy and doesn't work very well.

If everybody records separately, you can edit. And then the third tip, the last tip I want to tell people is cut out the fucking pauses for Christ's sakes. You know, I listen to these podcasts sometimes and people will be like, so what do you think of that? Oh, I like that. Like that is too long a pause. You have to cut that pause out because people don't want to listen to dead air. That's why radio, there's almost never any dead air. I think didn't they used to have like dead air warnings?

When there was dead air, there would be like a fucking alarm or a light would go off to let you know there's fucking dead air. I don't know, man. But if there was that in the podcast, we would be on fucking DEFCON 4 all the time. Because there's so many podcasts out there where the person doesn't understand timing. We cut out a lot of our show and tighten it up because you got to tighten it up so people understand that it's more like a conversation than it is two people monologuing next to each other. And that's what it sounds like most of the time. Just cut out the pauses, get with somebody you like and record locally, not over Skype. If you're going to talk, talk over Skype.

Tom and I do it every week, but we record locally and then mix in post-production. That's my three tips to making a better podcast. And I guarantee you can make a good podcast out of that. Now, as to topics and how to be a good podcast host, I can't answer that because we have a terrible – Just do something you're passionate about. Well, we have a terrible podcast anyway. That's true.

I don't know why somebody would ask us how to make a good podcast. That's the thing that's baffling to me. Don't do all the things that we do you know i can yeah take our model reverse it wait if they reverse it though i have to do all the work so never mind don't reverse it yeah yeah don't we'd never come out with an episode i did want to mention a letter we got from laurie and now laurie is a guy's name i think so uh uh because we said there's no women who listen to our show but she says she says

been listening for decades just a quick question while you're not too busy and then she puts in in parentheses Tom what is the compelling buffer music you use

just before the input section in the back of these episodes so Tom what is that music I have no fucking idea I don't know what you're talking music we have music I don't know what you're talking about. Music? We have music?

I don't know. No, Tom. She fucking asked you. What the fuck is the music back there, Tom? I don't know how you get music on a computer. It doesn't make any sense to me. What are you talking about? That's awesome.

I don't know where any of this shit comes from. I answered. I did answer. Somebody asked this question, which could be the person who you turned on. She said she turned her husband on and then a couple of coworkers at work. So maybe they asked on Facebook. But somebody just asked this question. If I don't list the clip in our podcast, then it's royalty-free music that we got from GarageBand.

And that particular clip, that strings clip that you're thinking of that comes on right before the email portion is called Spritely. And it's a four-second clip from GarageBand. It's royalty-free music that they provide with the program. So that's where it comes from. Actually, all of our theme music comes from GarageBand. So we have altered none of it, actually. It all comes straight from GarageBand. So we have altered none of it, actually. It's all come straight from GarageBand. And what's awesome, Tom, is I'll listen. Fox News uses our intro song as part of their intro on

their news site. I've heard several GarageBand clips played on television, on radio. Yeah, they use them all over. It cracks me up every time. It's like, really? Yeah. You guys have budgets. Yeah. And they use it because it's free and it's easy to use. We want to remind people quickly before we sign out here that we were on Skeptics in the Pub UK. We said last week we didn't know when it was coming out. It is currently out. So if you go to our website for last week's show, you'll find links to it. I'll link to it again for this show.

It's Skeptics in the Pub, Birmingham, Skeptics in the Pub, that's one word,.co.uk, an easy way to find it. You click on the podcast side on the side of the blog there and it'll take you to their podcast, which we recorded. And I thought, you know, we didn't come off as total assholes. I think we talked about our brand of skepticism pretty well. Yeah, well, I mean, we didn't come off as total assholes. I think we talked about our brand of skepticism pretty well. Yeah, well, I mean, we were interviewed by Patrick Redman, who did a great job. Yeah, he did a wonderful job. And so, you know, he can take a couple of schmucks like us

and actually make us seem presentable. I mean, it's lipstick on a pin. It really is. Yeah, I mean, yeah. But he did a great job, and we didn't come off as the raging assholes that we thought we would, although Tom couldn't help himself and dropped a bunch of F-bombs.

I know. His show is not explicit, and I didn't fucking care. What's so funny is that he puts on the bottom under the thing. He's like, they're a bit sweary. Well, how about fucking Tom is a fucking bit sweary because I didn't swear once on his show. I like how I can't get away from it, and I'm the one who's got a little kid. I know. Right? I should be able to just flip that switch right right

yeah I fucking can't so shit well as always we're going to leave the listeners with the skeptics creed credulity is not a virtue it's fortune cookie cutter mommy issue hypno Babylon bullshit couched in scientician double bubble 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 atlantis 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. The opinions and views expressed in this show are that of the hosts only. Our poorly formed and expressed notions do not represent those of our wives, employers, friends, families, or of the local Dairy Council. Thank you.