Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 26: #godisnotgreat

Episode Date: December 19, 2011

Visit Our Website for the show notes: http://dissonancepod.com Contest: Want two free plane tickets to the Reason Rally? Social Media Contest: Ten Point Vision of a Secular America. Christopher Hitchens' 'God Is Not Great' Trends on Twitter, Christians Threaten Violence, Police shave mohawks off punks at Indonesia concert, Saudi Woman Beheaded for 'Witchcraft', The nightmarish SOPA hearings, American public to Congress: Get out. All of you, Rival Campaigns Seize On Romney’s $10,000 Bet, Gingrich: I’ll ‘ignore’ any Supreme Court ruling I disagree with, Biology test omits creation theory, complains Kentucky educator, Anti-Gay Alabama GOPer Secretly Donated Sperm To Lesbian Couples In New Zealand, Jorge Santini, Mayor Of San Juan, Baffles Public With Astoundingly Strange Christmas Photo. Email stories: AFA Spokesman Bryan Fischer Says People Who ‘Disliked’ Rick Perry’s Anti-Gay Ad Approve Of Bestiality, Bradley Manning's gender identity comes up in testimony.

So in order to honor the passing of Christopher Hitchens, I wrote a sento. A sento is a type of a poem where you take the work of somebody else and you excerpt it at whim and you rearrange it. And I am a poet here in the Chicago area. And I decided that I wanted to write something about Christopher Hitchens when he passed. I think the only way to do justice to the man is to use his own words. And so that's why I decided to use the format of a sento. So this is the sento that I wrote to memorialize the passing of Christopher Hitchens. Dismissed without evidence.

Leaves me no cognitive dissonance. The only position is atheism. Shun the transcendent. The grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar, a friend of poverty, suffering was a gift from God. Necessary rather than sufficient.

Distrust anything put together by crude, uncultured human mammals. Terrify children. Simply ridiculous. Withdraw a respect from such fantastic claims. Throw out the ripening vintage. They refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves. Fool yourself into happiness while pretending not to do so. Balling and fearful infancy of our species asserted without evidence. Defy the foulness of theocracy, defy the foulness of theocracy, not in what it thinks, but in how. Only true as long as everybody agreed to it. The noble title of dissident must be earned. Modesty is too arrogant for me. The natural world is wonderful enough.

Goodbye, Mr. Hitchens. 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. This is episode 26 of Cognitive Dissonance, and we're grateful to have all of you here. Cecil, we lost a hell of a thinker and a hell of a writer this week.

Yeah, Christopher Hitchens passes away from cancer, complications from cancer. And I was actually, it was funny because I was up that night, Tom. You know, I have insomnia, so some nights I'm just, you know, I just wake up in the middle of the night and then I'm just up. So then I just started trolling around the Internet and I find the posts about Christopher Hitchens dying and I start to go to Twitter right away. You know, I thought, well, I'll go check out what's going on on Twitter.

And there was some people with their fucking undies in a bunch because of the hashtag GodIsNotGreat. I was shocked at the attacks that were coming out. People were saying, one person said something like, if you made this hashtag up, you deserve to die or you deserve to go to hell. I don't feel like I need to protect Christopher Hitchens after his death to say, oh, you can't make fun of Christopher Hitchens because there was a great article in Salon that I was reading yesterday. I think it was Greenwald was writing it and he was saying Hitchens after Mother Teresa and I think even Lady Di died, he like savaged them after their death. So I don't think he's off limits at all.

I think, you know, you want to criticize the guy, go ahead, you know, whatever. I think his writing speaks for itself. So if you're going to criticize him, criticize him. But when you're going to just say stuff like this that's completely uninformed and not recognize that it's a fucking book title. I mean you don't even do a search. You see God is not great and you're like, oh my god, somebody doesn't think God is great. You know, and they're like flipping out about it. Absolutely.

And, you know, you said it right. That man could fucking protect himself. Yeah. And there's very little to say about Christopher Hitchens that Christopher Hitchens hasn't said better. And so when you've got a man of that caliber in terms of his ability to speak publicly and in terms of his ability to write, it's very difficult to use words that are not his to pay him proper tribute. Absolutely. difficult to use words that are not his uh to to pay him proper tribute absolutely and so you know these yahoos who are whoever made this a trending topic i'll personally kill myself yeah i love that shit god is the best thing ever made amen amen what was that a prayer it was it's a tweet prayer

yeah if if that is the rebuttal yeah to one of the prolific and well-spoken men to have been an essayist and an author, big fucking deal. Right, right. He would laugh at you a week ago and I will laugh at you now. Right, right. There were some great tweets about this sort of thing, people posting a bunch of stuff. And one of them was – I'm going to paraphrase, but it's basically Hitchens dies. God is not great trends. Religious people threaten violence. Point of the book is proven. Right.

No kidding, right? Kidding, right? Listeners of this show will know that we not too long ago had Sean Faircloth on our show. Sean Faircloth is the author of Attack of the Theocrats. He's also a speaker and worker for RichardDawkins.net, the Richard Dawkins Center for Science and Inquiry, or Reason and Inquiry, something inquiry. Yeah, there's an inquiry in there. And they've got a contest going on right now. And the contest, we'll go ahead and post a link to it on our website. So if you're interested in putting together some new media presentation regarding a lot of the topics of this show, the topic of his book.

You can take a look at the rules. You can win an opportunity to meet Richard Dawkins. So we'll go ahead and post a link to that on our website. You can take a look at the rules. And if you win, just contact me directly and I'll let you know where to send the plane tickets. Or just one of them because Tom's going with me. and I'll let you know where to send the plane tickets. Or just one of them because Tom's going with me. Right. You have to spend, good Lord,

that's like losing the worst competition ever, by the way, to spend time with Tom. That's all I'm saying. I don't even want to spend time with him. That's all I'm saying. Are you kidding me? That's why Cecil and I have to do this show on Skype. We couldn't possibly get together in person for an hour. That would be, nobody could stomach that sort of punishment.

My relationship with my wife is through Skype and chat most of the time, for God's sake. So, Cecil, we've got to talk about probably the worst ending for a rock concert possible. They didn't go to the Waffle House afterwards. Right. I went to a lot of rock concerts as a young man, and some ended well, some ended not so well. However, in Indonesia, the police raided a punk rock concert, detained 65 people, and forcibly shaved their heads.

Oh, see, I think that that's perfectly reasonable, right? The picture, this is the picture. I got to call attention to this picture. So there's a picture of them doing this, right? And they're shaving off these guys' mohawks and removing their body piercings and what have you. And there is a picture. There's a guy in the foreground, but the guy in the background looks like he is about to cry. Absolutely does, yeah.

He's got his lower lip jutting out so far you could fucking use it as a shelf. These police, Cecil, overstep much? What is the harm with having long hair? What's the, you know, but this again goes against, it's obviously a very, it says it right in the article, it's a very conservative province of Indonesia. And this is really done specifically because it's a religious country. Yeah. I mean, these kids aren't just getting their hair cut either.

These kids were taken in vans, brought to a detention center. They spent 10 days in rehab, training with military-style discipline, religious classes, and Quran recitation. And after that's over, they'll be sent home. All this because they went to a rock concert. All this because they went to a rock concert. The thing is, in Saudi Arabia, they have rock concerts all the time when they stone people. Oh. Whoa.

They do them in a stadium. They do. They do. I'm going to rock you like a hurricane, I guess. That's the worst hurricane ever. I want to rock. Ouch. Fuck.

I do not actually want to rock. Been a long time since I've rocked. Oh. Sticks and stones? Less stones, please. Yeah, you know, these are the morality. Right. You know, that's really what it is.

And they're saying, like, we're not violating any human rights. Well, I mean, no, you sort of are. You are. You are. You're just fucking kidnapping people. I mean, you can call it detention. Sure, sure. You're kidnapped.

They've broken no laws. You're just the fucking morality police. And, you know, this is why, Cecil, I think it's impossible to pretend to separate religion and politics because we've got our own morality police here and yeah this is way more extreme than what's happening in the states I'm not pretending otherwise but um they are analogous you know these things are analogous I mean you've got people who have decided what's right and wrong for everybody and we're not talking about basic rights and wrongs you know know, like you shouldn't steal, you shouldn't kill folk, you know, I mean like the fucking basic, easy shit. But we're talking about like, you know, you don't follow my religious precepts the way

that I demand that they be followed. And as a result, I'm going to throw your fucking happy ass into detention for 10 days while you read my holy book. Well, there's some laws, I think, that every social contract sort of needs, right? There's some laws that if you are going to live in a society, you have to have these laws in place. They were in place long before people started, you know, chiseling shit into stone and pretending a god gave it to them. They were in place because in order to live in community, you have to have a certain set of rules. But at a certain point, preferences need to be taken out of that. You know, we'd really prefer you to have short hair. Well, that doesn't mean you get to detain me for a week, you know,

force me to read a bunch of shit and cut off all my hair. I feel like there's a sort of a really general set of rules that everybody should have. And then, you know, if you want to impose the other ones on yourself, great. Cut your fucking ear, man. Don't listen to punk rock. But don't make this other kid, this poor kid who wants to listen to it, not listen to it. That's crazy. It's, you know, I want to live my life this way. Okay, that's cool.

You should all live your life this way. Wait, what? What? Fuck you. There's lots of shit I would prefer, right? I'd prefer not to see a fat lady in a tube top. It doesn't mean I'm going to fucking ban them. I'd prefer fucking middle-aged old men don't mow their fucking lawn with their shirt off.

But, you know, I don't get to decide what fucking happens in the world. That's not part of a social contract. That's assholery. I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam. I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the gospel as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine and all those different places. You know, because we have, excuse me, but we have the truth. They're taking it a step further in Saudi Arabia.

Yeah, just a big step. A massive, enormous, like Buzz Aldrin style fucking step. A Saudi woman was beheaded after being convicted of practicing witchcraft and sorcery. This is from ABC News. Good God. Are you fucking serious? Fucking beheaded? Removing of the head?

They not only executed this woman for magic, but you beheaded her? They behead these people with a sword. Insult meet injury. That's how they do it in Game of Thrones, man. No kidding. That shit is fucking medieval made-up bullshit. Lots of times I'm just fucking speechless when it comes to stuff like this. You just beheaded someone because you had a suspicion that they were trying to be a witch.

What you want to say to them is like, okay, fine. You're going to try this person for being a witch. You got to fucking exhibit some witch-like fucking powers, I think. I think at some point it's like that fucking Holy Grail movie where it's like, fucking does she weigh the same as a duck? Okay, now we can fucking cut her head off. It's ridiculous. You got weigh the same as a duck? Okay, now we can fucking cut her head off. Right. It's ridiculous. You got to – I just fucking – I can't even say anything about this.

I'm just fucking stunned. You know, there's no proof. You have no proof in a country. I mean can you imagine what other fucking egregious offenses get beheaded when you don't have to prove anything? When you just pick – that person is a witch oh quick kill him well look i mean this is this is why having a magical worldview is unacceptable i mean and it's just fuck it it's unacceptable because if you have a magical worldview you believe in fucking magic you genuinely believe in magic cecil yeah and oh this woman's a fucking magician and she's fucking a witch and she's the magic powers and evil spells and it's like are you out of sleeping

beauty are you serious this shit is not fucking real at what point at what point do do do we stop even looking at religious people? Because this comes from a religious standpoint. You know, at what point do we not say, look, you guys are fucking insane. And we won't put up with it anymore. And we won't allow you people with your fucking crazy cockamamie bullshit magic dipshit worldview into the lives of reasonable rational people fucking woman lost her goddamn head you yahoos you fucking backwards hillbilly goddamn nation that's ridiculous and may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us madam president i hear the floor and suggest the admins of the court.

Clerk will call the roll. Expressions of approval or disapproval are not permitted. So the Stop Online Piracy Act is a bill being considered by a bunch of horrifyingly uninformed Congress people that don't know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to the interwebs. And the bill basically, Cecil, would allow a website to be shut down if any user of that site were committing an act of piracy or something that was deemed – Copyright infringement. Copyright or whatever infringement. is like 106, talk about the internet and make decisions for the rest of us based on the

internet is a bad fucking idea. These people, look, when you had that fucking Ted Stevens guy talking about the internet, the internet's not a big truck. It's a fucking series of tubes or whatever. That guy, if that's, you know, that's a guy who actually knows more about the internet than some of these other people. Like, this constantly happens. We trust our lawmakers to be informed about the bills in which they're going to be making into law.

And these people are horribly uninformed. Legitimately, we don't have educational prerequisites to becoming a lawmaker. We don't have educational prerequisites to becoming a lawmaker. Most other jobs of substance have educational prerequisites. You cannot be a doctor without going through medical school and passing the board and, you know, doing a residency. There's educational requirements. The same thing is true of many positions. The same thing is true of many positions, even positions at your local business or university or anything. They have – these are the prerequisites.

These are the qualifications. Educationally speaking, there's nothing that demands that our lawmakers be qualified to speak on issues of technology, much less fucking vote on them. And you have a group of people who do not know what they're talking about. You got old people, man. I mean, let's just fucking say it. You got old people. I'm thinking of my dad. I love my dad.

My dad is a 63-year-old man. You know, if you handed him, I was trying to show everybody. I had dinner with my family yesterday. I'm trying to show them a picture of this pig with two snouts and one eye, you know, just. So I'm like, oh, hang on. I'll put it. I'll pull it up on my phone. The befuddlement at the ability to do this, like rendered the table silent. I'm passing the thing around and the picture times out.

And he's like, what do I do? It's a black screen. I'm like, just hit the space bar. He's like, your phone has a space bar. And it's like, these are the people who are passing these laws. Right. Your dad's fucking TV is blinking 12 o'clock right now. I guarantee it. Fucking tonk, tonk, tonk, tonk.

He has not been able to program his VCR to record a thing in a long time. He owns a VCR! You know what I mean? That's the thing. You have these people in charge of this stuff, and one of the things that I've been reading a lot about this, and

more and more software companies and hardware companies are coming out against this bill. You know, when you have Google coming out against it, that's like saying, you know, we're going to be making sweeping changes to pharmaceuticals. But Merck and Pfizer are both against everything that's going to happen here because it's – and, you know, and all the people in the United States are against it too. So not only are like the companies against it, but the people in the United States are against it too. So not only are like the companies against it, but the people in the United States are against it. And then yet you still have fucking Congress blindly charging on.

This is an opinion article from the Washington Post. I think it's worth reading it real quick. He says, when you have a signed letter from the engineers responsible for creating the internet, pointing out that this bill would jeopardize our cybersecurity, balkanize the internet and create a climate of uncertainty that would stifle innovation Right. But yet these people fucking soldier on thinking – and that's I think the disconnect between Congress and the United States, right? I think that's what the disconnect is, is that they think they know what's best for us. They have convinced themselves over many, many years that they know what's best for somebody else.

And I think that's just the nature of politics, right? I mean, I think in itself, that's the nature of politics because you're having one person or several people represent a large group. So that's the nature of it. But these people don't even listen to their constituencies anymore. Like, that's the difference. I think at a certain point in history, there was at least some sort of way in which you could talk to the person and be like, look, this is a bad idea. And then suddenly, you know, 2 million to, you know, 5 million people come forward and say, look, man, this is a bad

fucking idea. And then suddenly they change their mind, like, OK, maybe it was a bad idea. But we don't even have that ability anymore. There's tons of fucking people signing petitions and they're just like, whatever. Where's that fucking big SOPA stamp? Well, you know, these aren't and let's let's be honest here, too. Like these aren't the users of the Internet. You know, these are the guys wondering why there's a space bar on a telephone. Right. You know, these are the guys like my dad who was talking to me yesterday about how he's listening to the radio and he now starts listening to hockey games.

He doesn't like hockey. But he's been listening to hockey games because it comes on the radio station that he listens to. I said, why don't you just change the station? He said, it's too much work to find a new station I like on the dial. He still has a dial for his radio your dad is fucking analog baby i know man but these guys are analog you know they they use the internet uh to to like go to travelocity and take their next vacation. Or go to fucking Rent Boy. You know. Right. Or find their rent boys. These guys don't do a thing on the tubes.

Yeah. I wonder if we're going to be looking back at this time, Tom, 20 years in the future, being like, man, remember the good old days of the internet when you used to be able to do stuff with it? When it was a useful function thing. Do you remember that? God. I fucking hope not. That makes me sad.

Why are you making me sad? Take that, Sunday morning sadness. Yeah. Fucking ruined your day. Stupid sad. If the beheading didn't, then this will, right? I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they pro-America or anti-America?

So this is an article also from The Washington Post. American public to Congress, get out. Get the fuck out. All of you. I love this. The American electorate is primed to throw out record numbers of incumbents in the 2012 election, according to new polling from the Pew Research Center. You know, when I first started voting, this is the episode where I just talk about my dad the whole time. When I first started voting, I asked my dad, I said, how do you know with all these judges and shit on the ballot?

I mean, how do you know anything about him? He said, you can't learn anything about him, which is probably not true. He didn't know the internet, Tom. Right, yeah. bottom it's probably not true right yeah this this granted this was 1996 so the internet was all fucking 14-4 modem dialing bullshit like you couldn't two-color green screen yeah well plus like it took you 20 minutes to get a fucking boobie on your screen yeah gosh by that time you're finished i mean come on right that's the thing you're like oh my god click navigate away are you serious at this well, that's plenty.

I'm 16. The anticipation alone was enough to get me where I need to go. Are you kidding? That's terrible. Why do all our shows devolve into porn? I know. I don't have any idea. Every show has like its own little porn section, you know?

Go with what you know. It's like one of those old school video stores, you know? Where there's that sort of porn section in the back and no matter what, you wind up in there. I had to chase my kid out of there once not too long ago. He's like running through the video store like playing hide and seek among the aisles. He like runs back and I'm like, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no. That's not Daddy, I like this room this will this room will scar you for life remove yourself i can't imagine what videos are at your eye level on the cover or something it's just nasty anyway so you're saying before we got enough like an internet porn conversation well Well, my dad said, you know, for the judges and everything, he said, what I do is just vote them all out. He said, I always just vote, I just vote no for everyone I don't know. I figure if I don't know them, they haven't done anything good for me.

And I've been doing that for like 15 years I've been voting. See, I don't think that that's a bad plan. You know, when I go and look, you know, we're laughing about it, but here specifically we have a ton of people. I mean where I live, I live in downtown Chicago. I live in the heart of Chicago. So in my district of Chicago, sometimes there's like 20 or 30 people I need to vote on. And I will obviously be well-informed about certain ones, not informed about others. But I do follow that idea that if somebody's in there already,

I normally vote them out unless it's a woman. I'm thinking, you know what the fucking government needs is more women in politics. So what I do is I go, well, that's obviously a woman's name. Vote for her, whatever. Vote for the woman, vote for the woman vote so i do that all the time i will consistently if i don't know somebody we're talking about little tiny things in our in my like city government is what i'm talking about i never do that on the state ballot it actually works as a you know because you're desperately unhappy no matter what happens so it's's like, well, if I'm unhappy, I'd rather be unhappy with new people. You know, it's like, and this is what's going to happen. 67% say they want to see most members of Congress voted out in 2012. I hope these stupid motherfuckers are quaking in their fucking boots right now. So Obama gets elected. And then that next election cycle, which was in 2010, there was just this big boom.

It was like they dropped the bomb and there was a swing of several votes from the House. Like the House, there was just this big swing of several votes where they dropped a bunch of Democrats and they picked either the Tea Party or the Republican candidates. And the Republicans came on swinging their cock right afterwards like, oh, we showed America and America has spoken and what they want is this stuff. And what turns out, you guys had no idea what America wanted. You had no idea. What you came in to do was lower taxes for the rich, raise taxes on the poor and basically like fucking fist fuck the rest of America. And now we're like, you know what?

We kind of want you out of there. And I think this is a great call. I don we're like, you know what? We kind of want you out of there. And I think this is a great call. I don't care. And you know what? People will be like, well, don't you want to make sure that the party that you most of the time agree with is in power? And I say, no, I just want to make sure that people recognize that they have to listen to what the people have to say. That's what I want. I don't care which party's in there. I just want them to listen to the people. That's all I want. You want them to have a fear of the people because that's, I think, part of the problem

is that they don't have any respect for us. Right. And then without respect, without a little fear at this point, they're not going to have any respect. Right, right. And, you know, I want all of them every morning when they wake up, I want you to worry about your fucking job like I do. That's what I want. I want you to wake up in Congress and I want you to be fucking quaking in your boots knowing you could be unemployed as soon as your term is over.

Because that's the kind of trepidation most Americans are living with right now. Absolutely. I agree completely, Tom. And I think, too, you know, being a politician like this, there's got to be some term limits set on this. They these people have free run reign to run, you know, multiple, multiple times. We have some of these senators that have been there for years and years and years and years and years. And this is a reason I think why, you know, when when the minimum age to be in Congress, I think, is, you know, 30 years old. When you have the lowest age is like

30 and nobody's 30. Right. Nobody's 30. Everybody is like, like 55, 60 years old in there. You have the wrong generation running this country. You don't have anybody who's thinking ahead. You have all these people who are just so fucking ingrained in what they want to do that they're just going to do it. And we have a ton of corruption. Just get rid of people. Just fucking start flushing them down the toilet, making them have to leave after a certain point. I think you'd change some things if that was the case. I'll be honest, though.

I don't really want to see Durbin go. I like Dick Durbin because he's at least a scientifically literate. I know. He's like one of the few scientifically literate guys. But he's also very popular. Yeah. I don't know want to see Durbin go. I like Dick Durbin because he's at least a scientifically literate. I know. He's like one of the few scientifically literate guys. But he's also very popular. Yeah. I don't know that he would go. Yeah.

I think he's great. I love Dick Durbin. I've always liked Dick Durbin. I'm very proud that he's like from our state. Like I always have this sort of pride. I'm just like, at least we got one. Yeah, right. We got Dick Durbin.

Yeah, his name's Dick, but still. His name's Dick, but he isn't. Dick Durbin sounds like a hat you put on your penis. You know what I mean? Have you got a Dick Durbin? No. You still want to party or what? I mean –

So Cecil, I was watching the – one of the Republican debates, the New Hampshire debates, and a bet popped up in the middle of the debate. This debate, for anybody who didn't see it, was, like, really aggressively immature and catty. It was a lot of, like, well, you said I didn't. No, I didn't. I never said that. I hate you. I'm telling your mom. It was really, really immature.

You're not going to Great America with me next weekend. Right. It was crazy. By the way, for our overseas listeners, Great America is an amusement park. We keep on referencing it, and we're not telling people what it is. They're like, Great America? What the fuck is that? It's an amusement park.

Anyway, go ahead, Tom. Sorry about that. But it's absolutely insane watching this debate. The pissing match that just went on back and forth was so poorly moderated. At one point— Who was moderating it? Facebook? I don't—yeah. I mean, it really—it was like YouTube commenters were moderating this fucking thing.

It was an outrage. YouTube commenters were moderating this fucking thing. It was an outrage. Mitt Romney and Rick Perry are griping at each other at one point. And they're just like facing each other and talking to each other. And Mitt Romney's like, oh, you want to bet? $10,000. He totally does too.

In this video that's in this article, and the article that we're talking about comes from New York Times. And it's embedded in the article is this video that's in this article and the article that we're talking about comes from New York Times and it's embedded in the article is this video. And Tom, I hadn't seen this until you showed it to me a few minutes ago. And I watch it and you just see this look come across his face and he extends his hand out. And he's just like, you want to bet? Ten thousand dollars right now. Let's bet ten thousand dollars. Like I expect like Rick Perry to be like, well, I'm not going to bet you $10,000, but I will pay a million dollars to sleep with your wife. You know what I mean?

Like really like this is the sort of, you know, I have so much money that I can fucking – I can just flaunt that shit all day. And that feels – it just feels like such a slap in the face to everybody else to just like casually bet $10,000. And Rick Perry to his credit didn't take the bet, which he would have won. He would have won that bet. Mitt Romney was aggressively not accurate with what he was saying. He was talking about the mandate for his state and whether it would be – whether he wanted to extend that mandate federally, which he said multiple times that he would be in favor of doing. And then but I can't even believe I'm saying Rick Perry to his credit anything and finishing a sentence.

You are so out of touch with with reality, with America, with voters. If you think that extending your hand and casually wagering ten10,000 is going to garner you some fucking support, really? What does it say about your constituency too if this resonates with them? They're basically voting on somebody who's like a – who's making bets in like the schoolyard. It's like a schoolyard sort of kid thing to do. Right. You're like, I bet you can't make that from that's the free throw line i bet you won't jump off the swing at the highest point but you can't spit and hit the swing as it's going by what a fucking child give me a break how do you win

voters that way who knows i do you think they're even interested in the voters at this point, or is it just a pissing match amongst in-equals? I was reading, too, Tom, this week, and again, you know, we always come back to Ron Paul, right? It always goes back to Ron Paul. And both Tom and I, I think I've seen some comments where people are like, why are they always talking about Ron Paul? And I think the reason why we always talk about Ron Paul is because he's just so fucking

different. He's just different. He's not the same. At least he doesn't feel like he's a cookie cutter fucking the same as all the rest of these guys that are in this New Hampshire thing, right? He feels different. He feels genuinely different than other candidates. But one of the things I was reading, he's like the only one who doesn't want to like

fucking attack Iran with a pickaxe at this point. I'm reading this stuff and I'm like, you know, even the Democrats are all like Iran, Iran, Iran. He's like, fucking stay the fuck away from Iran. And I'm just like, suddenly Ron Paul is fucking making sense in every way. It's only a letter different than Iraq. Did we not notice that didn't turn out great? Is anybody happy? Is anybody at this point like, man, that went well. So we're going to take a break and give you guys an opportunity to send us all of your mail, your Facebook messages, your tweets. You can give us a phone call and leave us hate-filled, invective messages. 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 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. Speaking of the Republican candidates, Newt Gingrich hopping on the fucking crazy train. I'll ignore any Supreme Court ruling I disagree with. This is from an article from the Raw story. Newt, that's not how it works man you you're trying to be president you're not trying to be fucking emperor yeah

listen palpatine i i know it's fucking exciting Darth Gingrich. But we do have three branches of government for a fucking reason. And it's not so you can ignore the one you don't like. You said he was hopping on the crazy train. I say that motherfucker has been the engineer for that crazy train for many years. This guy, you know, this reminds me a lot of a story we did a while back. And actually, both of us had heard it on Terry Gross did an interview with a guy who had done a big extensive report on signing statements. Yeah. And what a signing statement is, is when the president grabs a bill comes out, a brand new bill comes out.

The president basically writes a little note that says, I don't have to follow this shit. And certain presidents do it more than others. Bush, the second, did it like 700 and some times where a bill would come out and be like, yeah, I don't have to follow that shit. Or as Tom would say, not it. Like, not it. That's not me. So basically, like, fucking just like he just would he he just would say I don't have to follow that law. And the legislative branch is coming out with a law, but it doesn't affect me.

And the same thing here. The the Supreme Court is going to rule on something, but that doesn't affect me. And you're like, wait a minute. You guys don't understand why the fucking balance of government works the way it does. The reason why it works the way it does is so you don't get too much fucking power. And if somebody comes out and says that shit, why would you even consider fucking electing them? I don't have any idea. From this same article, the current GOP frontrunner's position challenges the landmark Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison in 1803. It's 2011. My math, not so good.

But it's been a long time since 1803. We've already celebrated the fucking bicentennial. Every 208 years or so, we have to – no, fuck you. Are you serious? Oh, man. That's fucking nonsense. That's nonsense. You just – yeah, I just – if I don't like what the Supreme Court says, I'm just going to – that's not a Supreme Court anymore.

It's not even a Supreme Nacho. It's the subordinate court. Right. You don't get to just decide like well i don't like that law and so i'm just gonna go ahead and and if the supreme court says something's unconstitutional and i think it's not i'm just gonna decide it's not you that's not how we set this fucking thing up the government is not apple bees you can't send that shit back to me like I didn't ask for fucking seasoned fries. I need the regular fries. I mean, what the hell is the matter with you?

I'm just going to ignore shit I don't like. Wow, great. Elect me, autocrat. Yeah, fuck. Like, what is the matter with you? And there's no outcry. There's no, I mean, and from the Republican Party, the party that's supposed to be like, we don't want government, big government, big government, stay away from us. This is the biggest government you can have

when they just ignore the rest of the government. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. To me, it's pretty simple. A person either believes that God created this process or believes that it was an accident and that it just happened all on its own. So this is an article from Los Angeles Times. Biology test omits creation theory, complains Kentucky educator. This in Hart County in Kentucky, which is about 20 miles south of Louisville, a school superintendent has just been pissing and moaning that the state biology test does not contain creation theory.

Which creation story would you want in there? I know which one. I'm just fucking with you. I know which one. What is wrong with these people? Really, what is – I mean I understand that you want to tell your kids some bullshit or you want to make sure that you tell your kids what you think is the nature of the universe, right? But if you can't prove it to the rest of us, why the fuck should we care? Why should we just immediately say, well, a few people in this county believe in it, so therefore we should we care? Why should we just immediately say, well, you know, a few people in this county believe in it.

So therefore we should teach it. Or even if the majority believe in it, there's this great fucking Penn and Teller thing where they're like, if we're going to vote on what we teach, you can't – they do this skit where they have a rabbit. And they're like, well, imagine if we vote on what the sex of this rabbit is. It doesn't change the sex of the rabbit if we vote on whether or not the and the same thing you know you don't do this with fucking math you're not like well you know what i really don't think pi equals 3.14 once i don't think you know you don't do it with that you leave that shit alone well why can't you just at least say and that's because it's fucking with their worldview. It's basically fucking – basically tearing apart their worldview and saying, well, the things that you believe are kind of fucking nuts.

But even if you could just teach that shit at home, can't you just teach it at home? I mean how would your test look? How would the state even put together a test? You flip to page three and it's magic man in the sky time? That's crazy. You cannot educate people that way. It's just not even practical, Cecil. Just from a standpoint of can we do this,'s not practical you would have every science class

would be bogged down in theology and because you'd be sitting in front of a diverse group of students maybe not that diverse in louisville but still you'd be sitting in front of a diverse group of students and you'd be trying to say okay well you know this this is what's going to be on the test so you need to know this and there'd be students who were Jehovah's Witnesses and students that were fundamentalist Christians and students that were Catholics and students that were Jewish and students that were Muslim, maybe not in Louisville, but, you know, you'd have a diversity of religious opinion, even excluding atheists. You would have a diversity of religious opinion, and then you'd have a test

that only includes one religious opinion and then tries to pigeonhole it into science. You know, I don't give a shit if, you know, four out of five dentists agree that two plus two is seven. It's not fucking seven. Your polling data does not change facts, like you said cecil it this guy is a superintendent of schools this guy shouldn't be involved he shouldn't be he should be able to he should be told to go back to a school 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. So Cecil, again, we've got two stories vying for nuttiest of the week. This one, I just,

I just got, I love reading the title of this story. This is from Talking Points Memo. This one, I just got to love reading the title of this story. This is from Talking Points Memo. Anti-gay Alabama GOP-er secretly donated sperm to lesbian couples in New Zealand. What? The story is this. The story – I'll break the story down really quickly. This is from Talking Points Memo. This guy who was a politician – I guess he made a failed bid for governor at some point in 2010.

His name is Bill Johnson. He started like talking to some people halfway across the world to donate sperm because he had this need to reproduce that his wife could not fulfill. And his wife is not very pleased about this. No. You know, a lot of times when you, you know, donate your sperm. Yeah. Yeah. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Without the wife knowing it. Probably not a good call. Yeah. I've been married coming up on 11 years. Probably not a good call. Yeah. I've been married coming up on 11 years, and I think if my sperm were to go anywhere other than the agreed upon places. It's like a treaty you have to sign.

That shit is fucking shortlisted when you get married, right? It's like, well, here, here, and here. That's it. Every marriage is different, but you have to, here and here. That's it. Every marriage is different. But you have to come to an agreement. Right, right. And I think shipping that shit to lesbians in New Zealand when you're an anti-gay GOP leader or politician, I don't think that's on the short list. Although I don't know.

Maybe he's got a tiny URL. It hard to say anti-gay what's the thing that I don't get is is I guess the one thing you want to think is that he's trying to breed it out of him I don't understand what he's doing I love too for the story I love the photo of this guy because it's such a fucking self satisfying photo

I love it he looks like he just got done. He just donated. I just finished. He's kind of that sort of half sleepy like, and it's nap time. Oh, man. This is great, though. I guess he just wants to. I understand.

I think that that biological urge to reproduce is probably very strong in some people and I understand it. I just think maybe you should clear that shit with your wife and I don't know, maybe not openly attack gays and then donate to sperm to gays. I don't know. Maybe that's just me not wanting to be a hypocrite though. Well, it's a family value. That's part of the family values party. Right, right.

He's going to value his new family. It's going to be a party. He's inviting all the lesbians from New Zealand over. It's got to be a party if you invite the lesbians. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth.

You can't handle the truth. And then our last story, I demand that you go to our website. It's DissonancePod.com. You simply have to see the picture. What? Jorge Santini, mayor of San Juan, baffles public with an astoundingly strange Christmas photo. This was tweeted to us by Carlo, and I can't thank Carlo enough for this.

This is awesome. It came right before we started our show. And Tom and I go, Tom, you've got to see this picture. And it's his family. He's got a Christmas photo of his family. They look, that's a very nice looking family, Tom. They're all happy and smiley. I don't understand the two pets in the front, though.

They've got a picture in front of Santini and his wife is a stuffed leopard holding the fucking throat of an antelope a stuffed antelope yes killing it like it's it's totally like extra like biting into it that is supremely awesome looks all like oh fuck i'm getting killed and the leopard looks all like i'm fucking killing you because that is what that is the scene. Where do you go? Right. Well, you're like you're like it's Sears in the mall, you know, and you're like waiting in line for your family. And they're like, OK, so this backdrop or this backdrop.

I'm going to take the fake Utah Canyon lands. That's nice. Oh, that's very nice. And do you have any taxidermied animals killing each other? That would be great. I'd like to see a polar bear fighting a zebra. No. I'd like to see a grizzly bear eating a dragon.

Do you have that? I mean, what? Really? What I want to see is I want to take a picture with my wife in front of like a stuffed raptor eating Newman from Seinfeld. That's what I want. I just think it would be great if you could show up and they just had like a whole host of taxidermied animals that you could make fight. Of things eating other things. That would be great.

Yeah, in your photo. Yeah. Yeah, it's great that you've got this leopard eating this antelope, but I want to see some shit fight that doesn't really fight. That's what I want to see. I want to see the most mundane things. Like, I want to take a water photo with a blue whale eating krill. Like, that's what I want. Just like, what's happening?

Okay, everybody, pretend you're swimming. Pretend you're swimming. Now look at that girl on the left-hand side of that picture. She's so sassy looking. She is so sassy next to that fucking leopard. Sweet sassy. Is it a cheetah or a leopard? Which is it?

Somebody gave her some fucking early seduction lessons that maybe are a little. She's probably one of those little like five-year-old pageant queens. She's not. I mean, the leopard's not the only one predatory in this picture. Is it a leopard or a cheetah? I don't know. Do leopards even eat antelopes? Maybe it's a jaguar.

I don't know. I have no idea. It's a fucking animal of some sort. Yeah, it's one of the big cats. It's a large cat. I don't know. And there's a series of these, Tom. They obviously went to this this fucking like wildlife stuffed museum

to get their photos taken. The one I, and I want to talk about the last one, which is that little girl is again sitting like a high on a rock. Mom and dad are hugging.

The other two are sitting nearby and then there's a fucking stuffed ass giant eyed penguin behind them with some snowflakes in the front there. And the penguin is totally Q-tipping that dude. stuffed ass, giant eyed penguin behind them. With some snowflakes in the front there. And the penguin is totally Q-tipping that dude. It's totally, listen, he's fucking

eating a herring out of his ear or something. What is they, what are they thinking? Okay. A little to the left, a little. Oh, a little that's perfect you know he's probably trolling everybody he's like man let's take a fucking goofy fucking photo he's got to be trolling people because nobody would think this is normal i would totally send these photos out but you know one year for we haven't done christmas cards in years one year for christmas my wife and i went around our house and took random photos of random objects

in our house. And then we wrote just bizarre shit on the back of them. We had a photo of a doorknob and it would just say, life is suffering. Merry Christmas. I know a couple, you know the couple too, that took their baby, they had triplets

and they dressed their babies up as fruit and food and they took a picture of it, like, fruit and, like, food. And they took a picture of it for, like, Christmas. And it was awesome. It was so funny. And, like, I can totally see this as, like, a funny photo. Yeah. Right.

Like, just being goofy. Like, the thing is, like, it kind of has this sort of serious air, too. So maybe the people who know him know he's a huge joker and it's fucking hilarious. But maybe not. I don't know. Maybe he's trolling people. Maybe he's not. But it's awesome joker and it's fucking hilarious but maybe not i don't know maybe he's trolling people maybe he's not but it's awesome regardless the second picture has a bear looming in the background but looking all like i'm gonna eat you and then there's a pheasant flying i love the pheasant it's like overhead what's happening and the and the placement of the people in the second photo is so odd because in the foreground, in the bottom right, is the sun's head.

Yeah, it's just like some disembodied. That's because the bear just tore it off. My head. Right. And, okay, we're going to need you to move forward, forward, forward. Oh, he's fuzzy. Perfect. Almost out of the frame.

He's fuzzy. Perfect. We want you to be fuzzy and the rest of your family to be in focus. The bear, Cecil, has as much visual space on this picture as all three kids combined. The rest of the family. This is great. Thanks, Carlo. Thanks for sending that to us.

That's fucking awesome. Before we get started with any email, I wanted to play a voicemail we got this last week. Hey, Cecil and Tom, it's John. I just heard that everyone's a critic is slated for death. That's okay, though. I think you're doing the right thing. I liked everyone's critic, but it's cool you have more now for cognitive dissonance. Maybe two episodes a week now?

I hope your popularity continues to grow, and maybe you'll get picked up by a network like Fox or something. Anyway, take care and keep up the good work. Later. So thanks for the voicemail, John. I'm not sure what network's going to pick us up. I think we're looking at syndicating and sending our tape to the 700 Club. I think that's probably the best bet. All right, so we got some email.

The first email we got is from Jay Bird. Jay Bird, he sends us a link to the God movie. This is a link to the God who wasn't there. I've actually seen this movie. It's an interesting movie. I don't think it's going to tell you anything you don't already know if you're listening to this show already. But, hey, if you're listening to this show, you like being preached to. You are the choir for this movie and for this show.

And I think it's interesting to watch. Like I said, I don't think there's a whole lot of like, wow, that blew my mind sort of information. But I mean, really, what's going to blow your mind? Yeah. The God who wasn't there. Yeah, you're not listening to this podcast thinking anything blew your mind either. Wasn't there.

I do appreciate you sending this to me. And I enjoyed the movie. He also mentions that we are the voice of reason in a brainwashed world. That is true. One hundred percent true. Truer words, my good man. Truer words. Right?

We got an email from John, the title of which I love. An idiot makes idiotic statements about the Periad. Wow. You got this right. Oh, my gosh. This is that same dipshit, though, that's on the radio that we've played clips of this guy in the past. So Brian Fisher from the American Family Association, he's kind of insane. he's kind of insane he insinuates that

if you are one of the people who dislike the Rick Perry ad that you are pro-bestiality in fact the quote is so 640,000 people have gone to that video just to say I hate this thing I hate the guy that made it

I hate the message here I want sexual deviancy widespread in the military. I'm fine with the repeal of the ban on sodomy, the repeal of the ban on bestiality. Wait. There's been a repeal on the ban of bestiality? And wait, was that even mentioned in there? No, it's not. I'm fine with people in the military having sex with animals.

I'm down with that. I'm for that. I'm against anybody who would want to restrain any of that. What the fuck is matter with this guy? Nobody is saying if you dislike the Rick Perry video, you're not saying you want to go fucking alligator. I think, I think what happened was he was watching, uh, you know, a couple of different things on YouTube at the same time he was watching the Rick Perry ad. He accidentally clicked on the top,

and he came across his horse porn, and he was like, oh, somebody's, they're against people fucking, you gotta be against people fucking horses or whatever. I really don't understand how you get from, like, that seems so non-sequitur to me. It really doesn't make any sense. How can you take this person seriously if they can't even think a thought straight?

I have no idea. Wow. Who watches his show? This guy has a TV show. That's his job. I mean, Cecil, we have uninformed, poorly thought out opinions. And we have a podcast.

But I don't think we're ever this poorly informed. No. I won't ever look at somebody's like Newt Gingrich saying he's going to stop or ban things when they come from the Supreme Court and be like, and he hates NASCAR.

I would never, you know, like I would never say anything like that because it doesn't make any sense. You know, I would never glue two fucking disparate things together just because I want to make sure that people realize that I think, you know, that gays are bad. So I'm going to compare them to something that I think is equally bad. I would never do that because it doesn't make any sense to do it. Nothing he says in this little tiny quote. The repeal of the ban on bestiality? I don't even understand that. Is there a repeal on the

ban on bestiality I'm unaware of? This guy is insane. Again, you just want to say to this person, be like, you're a fucking idiot. You have no idea what you're talking about. In one scenario, you have two consensual adults having sex. And in the other, you have a fucking guy who wants to fuck something and an animal that doesn't know what the fuck is going on. And you're comparing the two?

You're a fool. No one should ever take you seriously for anything you say. You're an idiot and you should be fucking taken off the airwaves because you obviously influence really really dumb people who don't know how to change a channel the remote fell into couch cushions years ago and i ain't done got it yet what's that blinking light why does it say 12 it's always 12 o'clock around here. So we got an email from Joe. Joe enjoyed our letter to Rick Perry. I'm glad that you liked that. It says, here in the UK, we love the Republican candidates as they make our politicians seem normal. I can't wait to see a porno video starring Michelle Bachman posted on the internet.

I will never watch fucking that Skeletor ass woman doing anything. No. Joe, we appreciate your email very much. I'm glad that our shenanigans make your politicians seem normal. That's really what America should aspire to. It's a level of dipshittery so severe that other countries are like, woohoo. At least we're not Republicans. severe that other countries like,

woohoo, at least we're not Republicans. We're like the fucking, the Chris Farley of politics over here. Everybody just makes fun of. So we got an email from Jake. Jake is the gentleman whose email moniker is the delightful anal fetus. So anal fetus did send us an email saying that we did change his mind on the issue of vaccination taxes in Australia.

Jake, I hope you realize we weren't making fun of you. That was never our intention. Yeah, that wasn't our intent. We just thought it was a very funny email address. And we've said a lot worse things than anal fetus on this show. Anal fetus isn't even in the top five today. Yeah, it's not even anywhere near there. In the last minute.

Right. But I love that email address, actually, because it's delightfully awful. I adore it. Just got to keep the coat hangers away from your anal fetus. Oh, my God. Keep the coat hangers away from your anal fetus. Oh, my God. Keep the coat hangers away from anything anal. There's no way that ends well. Right, right.

And then we also got sent a story from Dusty. Dusty, thank you very much. You sent us a story about Bradley Manning's gender identity coming into play in his hearing. Manning's gender identity coming into play in his hearing. I don't even know what to say about this other than why are we still so obsessed with genitals and people's interest in genitals? He's not on trial for doing anything with his gender identity. His gender identity is not even remotely relevant to his leaking information. You want to bust this guy for leaking information, bust him.

You know, fine, try him, convict him. If he's guilty, he's guilty, and we can have that discussion. But to bring his gender identity into it? I don't know. I like the hashtag that Dusty names it, though. It's just, weird story! And thank you to all our Twitter people that send us tweets and talk to us on Twitter. I try to respond when I can,

but most of the time, at the end of every show, I just say, thanks for sending us stuff on Twitter. We do see it. We do see it and we do try to respond when we can. This is going to wrap it up for another show of Cognsonance. And we're going to leave everybody as usual with the skeptics creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead pan, sales pitch, late night info-docutainment.

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shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your signs. 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. Bye.