Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 37: Conspiracy Skeptics

Episode Date: March 5, 2012

Notes for week 2/27/12 Thanks to Karl from The Conspiracy Skeptic Death by denial: The campaigners who continue to deny HIV causes Aids India polio-free, declares WHO Grand Ayatollah or Grand Old Party? Santorum Says Separation of Church and State Isn’t Absolute The Most Inoffensive Atheist Bus Ad Ever… Rejected! Rush Limbaugh blasted for ‘slut’ comment Man pleads guilty to witchcraft charge Clips: Washington State Senate on Gay Marriage, Polio Announcement, Santorum, Fox news on Atheists, The Office, A Few Good Men Visit our Website at http://dissonancepod.com for all the links.

You know, I was married for 23 years to the love of my life, and he died six years ago. And I think of all the wonderful years we had, and the wonderful fringe benefit of having three beautiful children. I don't miss the sex, you know? And to me, that's kind of what this boils down to. I don't miss that. I mean, I certainly miss it, but I don't, it's not, it is certainly not the aspect of that relationship, that incredible bond that I had with that human being that I really, really genuinely wish I still had. And so I just, I think to myself, how could I deny anyone the right to have

that incredible bond with another individual in life? To me, it seems almost cruel. And someone made the comment that this is not about equality. Well, yes, it is about equality. not about equality well yes it is about quality and why in the world would we not allow those equal rights for individuals who truly were committed to one another in life to be able to to show that by way of a marriage my daughter came out of the closet a couple of years ago. And you know what? I thought I was just going to agonize about that. Nothing's different.

She's still a fabulous human being, and she's met a person that she loves very much. And someday, by God, I want to throw a wedding for that kid. And I hope that's exactly what I can do. I hope she will not feel like a second-class citizen involved in something called a domestic partnership which frankly sounds like a Mary Maids franchise to me. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. This is Cognitive Dissonance.

Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome mat. This is episode 37, and for this episode, we do have a special guest coming on our show. We're going to have Carl from The Conspiracy Skeptic.

But before we get into our conversations with Carl, Cecil, some news happening as far as the show is concerned. I think we need to go over. Yeah, you know, this has been a pretty good week for us. And I just want to do a couple quick thank yous, Tom, before we get started,

because our listener base is fucking awesome. I mean, really, truly, our listener base is awesome. And I just want to say to our listener base, thank you very much for rating us on iTunes.

Everybody who's rated us, we have more ratings at this point than a lot of podcasts that have been up for years. We have more ratings than them. And I just want to thank people for spreading the news, so to speak, on the iTunes page. It's very nice of you to do. It's nice to take a few seconds out of your day to send us a rating on there or to send us a positive tweet, a positive email. We love to get these things. We're very happy that you do that. But more importantly, I think, if you go to our page, DissonancePod.com,

at the bottom left-hand corner is a Reader's Choice 2012 About.com finalist image, right? We are right now a finalist for the Reader's Choice Awards Favorite Agnostic or Atheist Podcast of 2011. And we are clearly in the lead. And we're in the lead not because our podcast is so great. Oh, no, no. Let's not confuse the issue. No, no, no.

I mean, really, let's be honest here. But we are in the lead because our listeners are fucking awesome is the reason why we're – this isn't about us, right? It's not about our show being the better show. It's about our listeners being more engaged. Absolutely. And I think that's what it's really about. And so far, our listeners have been destroying this poll.

on here, the least amount of time so far, and also the shortest amount of back issues that we have, the shorter, we have fewer likes and fewer listener base than most of these podcasts that are out there. But people have been going to this site, and you could vote every day, and I would encourage anyone who's doing it, please keep voting. You're making it so we're number one, but people are voting enough so that we are almost doubling the percentage of anyone else who's even close to us. We have been going through this very well. I want to thank everyone for doing it. We have about 15 to 16 more days of this where people can go and vote. And so that means you have 16 more chances to vote.

We would encourage you to do it. We want to thank people who've done it already and encourage people to vote every day if you can. It's not, like I said, it's not about us. It's about the listener base being awesome. Yeah, we have an incredibly motivated listener base. And that is terrific. So thank you. For this episode, we are joined by Carl. Carl comes over from the Conspiracy Skeptic podcast. Carl is going to talk to us about our first story. Our first story of the day is from The Guardian. This story, I love the title of this story.

I love just the whole overall tone, actually, of this story. Death by denial. The campaigners who continue to deny HIV causes AIDS. And it's hard to say you love something about the AIDS crisis, but it's just such an absurd concept. Right. Right. The way that they write this story is great. You know, even the subheading as each of their followers dies. Those who campaign against HIV treatment simply move on to the next level of denial. I'm surprised this wasn't a more short-lived campaign.

I know. Literally. It's like the half-life of such thoughts would be lower, you would think. I'm surprised it has such staying power. Right, right. What I want to know is why is it that you have the empirical evidence, and the empirical evidence is the guy dies or the girl dies. But you still – and your spokesperson at this point is basically dead from the disease that you're denying. How do you think that works, Carl?

Well, it's like a very sick version of the parent sketch from Monty Python, isn't it, right? Yeah. It's not dead. It's pining for the shores. It's sleeping. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it is kind of stunning. It's like, okay, we find HIV in your blood, and this person dies.

in your blood and you know and this person dies of all and we know the mechanism how it's working and how it's getting into the cells and how it's reproducing and how it's getting out of the cells and all this information is up there and yet people sort of still kind of shake their heads yeah even from this article um i'm not getting any answers from mainstream as to why I'm healthy, why my husband is negative and why I can quit these drugs. She explains in her video. I think it's a crime. It's crimes against humanity. Her doctor was aghast. HIV treatment is for life.

He looked me right in the eyes and said, you've done a very stupid thing and you will be dead soon. My response to him. Well, that's funny because right now I'm feeling pretty good. That was in April 2007. She died four years later. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing about HIV, right? You might test positive for the antibodies, but it lies dormant for a while and then activates and kills you.

So, of course, yeah, I found these antibodies, but I feel fine. It's very easy to sort of just ignore things, especially when you feel fine. So here's what I can understand, Carl. I can understand why somebody would be in denial psychologically and personally, right? That makes sense. It's perfectly reasonable. But to campaign against it, to campaign, because there is a conspiracy here. See what I did there, a little tie-in?

There is a conspiracy here that's being claimed, right, that people claim that there is this grand conspiracy to trick the public into thinking that HIV causes AIDS. And I want to understand this a little better. Who's making these claims and what do they have to gain from it? Well, you know, Doosberg, which article talks about this Peter Doosberg fellow. There's different kinds of people who are different. There are different HIV denials that sort of come in different sort of classes. There's some people that sort of don't think HIV exists whatsoever.

It's just a virus that is sort of made up, and people who die of AIDS or die of something else, they die of improper living or not enough vitamin D or something like that. Oh, my God. Yeah. And then there are people like Doosberg who believes, yes, there is a retrovirus called HIV, but it's harmless. It's harmless.

Yeah, it's harmless. It's sort of like, okay, sure, we find HIV in these people who have died of AIDS, but we find these other viruses or we find these other things in people. It just happens to be there. Or maybe somehow whatever kills them, HIV is sort of a free rider, but it's not the cause. Dewsburg himself, what his game is, I'm not sure, other than fame and stuff like that. Some people just want fame. It's like Dewsburg, how old is he? He's like in his 70s. And a lot of times you have these scientists who, you know,

they've done good work for their entire career, but they've never made a name for themselves. And they've just, they're good scientists. They've published a lot of papers, but they've never, they didn't win the Nobel Prize. And they probably had a lot of papers, but they've never, they didn't win the Nobel Prize, you know, and they probably had a beginning where, like, you know, they're the smartest kid in their class, and they're the smartest kid in their undergraduate, and they're the smartest kid in their grad program, and, but that didn't continue, you know, they never went on to be the great scientists, and then they get tenure, and they're approaching retirement, or now they're, they've retired, now they've got, you know, that emeritus status, and they're approaching retirement, or now they've retired, now they've got, you know, that emeritus status. And they're like, you know what, I'm going to do something really radical.

I think I've found the one sure answer. And then they sort of go off the edge. Angus Polling, like, he was sort of kind of a good example. But actually, well, maybe sort of a bad example, because he did you know win two Nobel Prizes but he just he just kept on going you know it's like okay I think uh you know that vitamin c can cure cancer so like a cult of success like uh like they're what strikes me is you know one of the things that you said is that people don't die obviously people don't die

with AIDS um you don't die because of AIDS itself. AIDS is the precipitating factor that leads you to become compromised, immunocompromised. And then one of these opportunistic diseases, often pneumonia, is going to be got the pneumonia is because you had this immunocompromised illness. But do you think part of it is perpetuated by the fact that people don't die of AIDS directly? Like you can't like cut somebody open and be like, oh, it was the AIDS. You can see it right here. It's this green thing. It has an AIDS on it. He's got the AIDS. You can see it. Hold up the AIDS so the cameras can take a picture. You got a picture of the AIDS? Is the flash on?

That's what sort of I think a lot of people who believe in conspiracies, that's why a lot of conspiracies sort of live on is that people like a very simple story, whereas dying of HIV, you're not dying of HIV specifically, you're dying of the rare cancers or the opportunistic infections. And so conspiracy theorists, they don't see kind of just one simple explanation. And again, like in a lot of things in science and medicine, it's messy, and there's error bars and degrees of certainty. And when they don't see that absolute certainty, then that's where their conspiracies can live,

in those sort of uncertain margins. And as well, I think there's just a lot of people out there that who, they just sort of take the stance that the official story is the wrong story. Whatever the official story is, they're going to be against the official story. Yeah, because the official story is the sort of, that's what people want you to believe. That's what they want you to believe. They want you to believe that AIDS is this thing that will kill you.

But what really is killing you is the medicine. That's what a lot of these people think, is that the cocktail of medicine that they're taking is the thing that is actually killing them. It's not the AIDS itself. And it really feels like what they're doing is losing evidence-based medicine in favor of anecdotal-based medicine.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I've never done antiretrovirals, but it doesn't sound like it's very pleasant. I mean, any kind of medicine has nasty side effects. You know, I have a friend who's on sort of antidepressant medication, and she gets on the medicine and sort of balances her out, and so what she starts to notice now is the side effects, sort of the dry mouth and sort of low sex drive and all that sort of stuff.

But she feels good and she feels sort of normal. And she begins to think, well, maybe my body's just healed itself. She goes off her meds and then she's feeling good for a while, but then some stressor happens in her life, and she sort of freaks out. It takes her a while to sort of rationalize again. Oh, yeah, wait, wait, yeah. Those meds kind of evened me out again.

And again, that sort of can happen with a lot of people on HIV. They'll start taking the antiretrovirals and they'll begin to think, well, maybe I'm cured. And now I'm just beginning to notice the really nasty side effects, the vomiting and stuff like that. What we need, here's how you solve this problem. You see, I have a podcast, so I know everything, right? So here's how you solve this problem. You have to have drugs that as soon as you take it, like as soon as you swallow, there's an immediate effect, right?

It shoots the AIDS right out your pores. It just blows it right through the pores. You're like a fucking Play-Doh fun factory for AIDS. They just flow right out of your pores. People don't know this, but it's star-shaped, actually. It's the star. Crescent moon! Crescent moon! But they've got to invent pills, and then immediately if you don't take them, right?

So if you're supposed to have a dose at 3 o'clock, at 3.01, you immediately become horrifyingly ill. You die instantly. You're just like, I don't feel good. I'm done. That's the only way. You know, I'm not going to advocate these pills. Seems like a bad idea. I'm not as gung-ho about this anymore, Tom. Tom, you're starting to scare me, actually.

I think we should just, every HIV pill, we just put, like, cocaine in it. I love these antireretrovirals. And I really want the next one. The World Health Organization has removed India's name from the list of the polio-ridden countries of the world. Union Health Minister Gulam Navi Azad informed this on Saturday while addressing the Polio Summit 2012 inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi.

The World Health Organization has taken India's name off the list of polio endemic countries. On January 12, this year, India officially marked the first year in history to record no new cases of polio. So I love this story. This story is fantastic. India has now been declared polio free. is fantastic. India has now been declared polio free. According to the World Health Organization, India, you know, no small country,

India, polio free. And Cecil, I have to note that it's not polio free because of anti-vaccination nuts. Like Jenny McCarthy is not a big fucking deal in India. India is polio free because people are getting the fucking polio vaccine.

I can't believe India is polio free. There's a lot of people in India, and I thought that they would play that game with the horses, with the wickets where they hit them. I would have thought that polio would be huge over there. I wonder who was paying for polio before. You know, that doesn't seem like a good deal at all. Polio free. Really? How do you make money by not by not selling your polio? I'll take two. This is one of those vaccines, though. You know, I haven't heard a lot of backlash about this vaccine. Like most of the time, the vaccine nuts always talk about MMR, right?

That's the one that they love to rail on because that is – those diseases, if you have a very healthy child, will not normally have long-term effects. But polio, on the other hand, will fuck your shit up. Like that shit will fuck you up. But there's other reasons why we don't have polio over here too. Um, but polio is, uh, polio is a big problem all over the world. And there's a lot of times where polio is almost eradicated, Tom. It's like, it's on the verge. And then some fucking nut huddle jump out and be like, Hey man, fucking given that vaccine or controlling your mind. And then people will stop taking the vaccine

and then it'll fucking burst again. And this happened in Africa, too. Yeah, this is one of those success stories. You know, polio is like we're so close. That's what the Rotary Club exists for. You know, the Rotary Club exists to help eradicate polio, to destroy. I mean, think about smallpox. Smallpox used to be the scourge of humanity. I mean, it just destroyed millions and millions of lives. Right. It doesn't exist anymore. Polio, same thing. Polio was a real and significant fear.

If your kid got polio, if they survive, you know, they spend time in an iron lung. They can be their lungs. Their bodies can be ravaged by this disease, just fucking ravaged by this disease. Now it is unheard of in the United States, but it needs to be unheard of across the world. It needs to be fucking completely destroyed. And the only way that we can destroy these diseases like polio, and the nice thing is the only good thing about shit going extinct is that you can make shit you hate like polio you know viruses can go extinct too and the only way to make them go extinct is just to give them no fuck it's this is habitat destruction this is something we're good at as a species right

like if yeah ask the tigers exactly if only, if only polio lived in rainforests. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. We would be just fine. Right. If it was like, well, you have to eradicate polio. Well, what do we need to do?

Well, we need to chop down the rainforest. Like motherfucker done and done. I will swing that ax while whistling. What are you kidding me? We just. Oh, look, there's a, there's a family of happy monkeys up in that one chop chop fuck it fucking we will deforest polio no problem yeah absolutely but if you have to get i mean this is even easier right you just have to get a shot like and the shot doesn't even really hurt just

like okay well what's the side effects i have much no side effects. You're just not going to have a horrible, horrible fucking crippling disease. Oh, OK. So India, man, that's that was a big frontier in this fight. That was a big frontier to get all of India because I don't know if people have noticed, but India is fucking big. Very, very big. We should export more Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy, though. Oh, very big. We should export more Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy, though. Oh, goodness gracious. If they were over there, though, and run in their mouth, people seem to, like, listen to asshats that, I don't know.

I don't know what Jenny McCarthy has that makes people want to listen to her. Yes, you do. Like, I mean, I understand what makes people want to look at her. I understand that. Right. But I don't understand what makes people want to listen to her. Now, unlike Islam, where the higher law and the civil law are the same, in our case, we have civil laws, but our civil laws have to comport

with the higher law. So this story is from businessweek.com, but you can find it virtually anywhere. It was kind of a big story. Santorum says separation of church and state isn't absolute. I read several iterations of this same article where he's basically being interviewed and they're discussing the JFK speech. There were concerns when JFK was running that JFK was Catholic. And as a Catholic, people were concerned that basically the pope would be de facto running the country. I can't even say that.

The pope's on the phone. He's like, ship your youngins here. Yeah. I mean, well, whatever. Palpatine is not going to take over the United States. We have a great thirst for your young ones. You must quench it. But Santorum, JFK gives a speech about, you know, to address this issue.

And he discusses the separation of church and state. And Santorum says that the speech makes him want to throw up. That's cool because Santorum makes me want to throw up. So I guess fucking touche, Santorum. Right. Yeah, well, it's a fucking it's like that scene from Stand By Me at the pie eating contest, right? You start vomiting and I'll start vomiting. This will go on all day.

Right. The fact that we're considering for election, the fact that we're even considering to consider for election, a man who would say that the ideas of separation of church and state are not only not absolute, but are fucking vomit inducing to this guy that he's just like, oh, God. Oh, no, I can't. I feel a little someone separating church and state. I can tell I can feel. Oh, my God. I don't know where it's happening.

There is a great disturbance. Right. That's crazy. That's fucking crazy. Yeah. I, you know, I don't know why this guy, Tom, I'm about ready to break down in tears here. This guy, I can't believe our country. I feel so fucking mortified every time I look.

And he's like, and they're like second place for Santorum. And you're like second place in anything for Santorum. I can't like the only thing you could think second place for Santorum would be like worst smells. Like that would be the only thing I would think you would ever get Santorum in a second place of anything. It's horrifying to think that this guy who has no idea that the United States is a secular nation, is founded on principles that make it so there shouldn't be a head of state that is also the head of the church.

I can't believe that people are thinking, yeah, this is my guy. This is my guy. I'm going to go to the voting booth and I'm going to check that fucking disgusting little box with Santorum in it. Disgusting little box. And I'm going to be fine with it. I'm going to look myself in the mirror when I go home and be like, I love Santorum. I think Santorum is wonderful. I would drink a big, tall glass of Santorum right now.

Oh, God. Chug it. Chug it. Part of me says like, you know, voting Santorum should be classified in the DSM-IV, right? Like it should be diagnostic for mental illnesses. You should, it should be like, you know, it should be right up there with cutting yourself. Right. You know, it's like, oh my gosh, we have, we've got some work to do here.

This man hates himself. He voted for Santorum. Exactly. Exactly. You know, you're a step away from jumping off a bridge at this point. Every week, every week he says something nuttier than the last. And you can't think it's possible the week before. You're like, there's nothing else this guy could say.

He could pull he could fucking whip his dick out and start whacking it. And it would be less fucking crazy than what he just said. You know, but it's somehow he tops it every week. He tops it. How do we have a guy who's, who's managed to create an issue in 2012 around contraception, contraception? I mean, we're, we're going 50 years back to find things to be mad about at this point. Like we can't look ahead to find things to be concerned about? I don't know. I don't know.

What the next thing he's going to be doing is saying, you know, like, look, we've got to change how kids look at the world revolves around the sun. The sun obviously revolves around the world. And you can tell that, you know what I mean? Like, like, that's kind of where you're at with this guy. This guy is so backward and crazy and so fucking, I mean, just like the sexual thing with this guy, the thing that just makes me nuts is how much he wants to control your sex life and is completely fucking unapologetic as a Republican about it.

Just like, no, man, fucking A, you shouldn't do that. No gays. Sorry, can't be fucking gay. You can't get married. And you know what? There's no blowjobs and no more porn. And, you know, this guy wants to control every fucking ounce of semen that comes out of your body. He just wants to fucking lot that shit out.

Like, you got to have a prescription to fucking bust a nut under this guy's regime. Like, people are waiting in line at the doctor's office looking furtively about like – I would get a fake pad, one of those things. Just start writing my own prescriptions. Sir, do you have the requisite clearance for that erection? I haven't finished yet. Good night, at least. I got to – I mean he's sex obsessed.

He is. And he's sex-obsessed. He is. And he's religion-obsessed and he's just – he's an irrational person. And this guy is made sick at the idea of separation of church and state. You need to be reading more public documents, sir. You need to be reading more founding documents. He needs to read a document. I don't care what more founding documents. He needs to read a document. I don't care what it is. It's just to read a thing.

Actually, I do care what it is. Don't read the Bible again. Yeah, right. Put that down. Please step away from the Bible. That's not helping you at all. That's not getting you where you need to go. And where you need to go is not America.

And yeah, and perfect example is this next story, right, where you have the difference between Santorum or the Ayatollah, right? You could take a look at this list of things that were said. Which one do they come from, Santorum or the Ayatollah? And most of the time I was – I think I was right like 50 percent of the time. That's fucking terrifying. So this is a story from foreign policy dot com. And it's basically just a series of questions is a series of quotes. And you can you can decide as you go through it.

Who said it, Santorum or the Grand Ayatollah? And what strikes me about this, this is we shouldn't be surprised by this story, right? Religious fundamentalist nut jobs all sound alike. Yeah, that's true. There's no true. Wow. I can't believe the Muslim nut sounds like the Christian nut. Well, you know what? He also sounds like the Hindu nut and he sounds like the Jewish nuts and they sound like they all sound the same because they all want to control every aspect of everybody's lives they all want to be judgmental small-minded narrow dipshits of course of course they all sound alike why would anybody be surprised by this

but some of these quotes are truly astonishing um there is a war between two will powers, the will power of the people and the will power of their enemies. You read that and you think, I'm not sure which one said it. Yeah, I think that I think I was like that throughout the entire time. I would start to answer and then be like, No, I think it's the other one. And then sometimes be wrong. Like I said, about 50% of the time I was right, which is, you know, just average because there's only two fucking choices. So I'm going to be right about 50 percent of the time. Right. It's it's a scary thing that we're thinking and moving towards at this point, making this guy the nominee for the Republican Party.

This is a guy who clearly thinks that religious law is an important thing in our country, that people should be bound by religious law. You know, look at the Ten Commandments, Tom. The Ten Commandments, like the first fucking three of them, are like no other god before me. That's a terrifying idea to be putting forth somebody who's going to be professing this book and the highest law in this book is the Ten Commandments and three or four of them aren't even illegal. Right. Yeah. The three or four of them are just jealousy laws. They're petulant child jealousy laws, you know, where the,

you know, God doesn't want to have to share his ball with anybody or he's going to take it and go home and drown everyone and they have to get an arc and it's all very confusing but it's it's it's it's nonsense and you're right it's you've got a guy who's supposed to represent people of all faiths in this country you know that whole idea of a melting pot you know or the and you know people of all faiths and races and creeds you know they all get to to come to America and then we can ignore you all, you know, individually. It's that whole idea can't possibly be in keeping with somebody who looks at the Ten Commandments and takes it seriously. Because how is he supposed to represent me as an atheist when I violate for 40 percent

of his commandments on a regular basis or a Muslim or a Hindu or, you know, a Sikh? How is he supposed to be representative of those people? All of those people violate 40% of his God's laws every day. And you're going to tell me that this guy is supposed to be representative? I, you know, I don't have anything else to say about Santorum. I just think he's, I think he should be flushed down the toilet. The rest of the bowel movement. That's what we should start calling his party. The bowel movement.

The bowel movement. I think that's perfect. From now on, the Santorum party is part of the bowel movement. His banner should just be like a crusty rag. Should just be like an old towel. Oh no. Or like an old T-shirt. People just raise it up in the air.

It's sort of off-white with a brown smear. Or they just take their old underwear that they got skid marks on, and that's the sort of, that's the banner of Santorum. Yeah, some discolored tighty-whities. That's the, like, on a stick. Still more electable than Santorum, it turns out. Vastly. 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. This story is from Friendly Atheist, the Friendly Atheist blog.

It's patheos.com. This is just crazy to me. So in Loxowana County, Pennsylvania, an atheist group was trying to get an ad on a bus. And the ad, Cecil, was pretty offensive. It was. I mean, geez. It said, atheists.

Just, that's it. That's the whole ad. And then it had like a website for the NEPA Free Thought Society and American atheists. That's it. That is the entirety of the ad. Just just a reminder that these that this exists, that the option to not believe exists. And they refused to run the ad. What I love is that this same transit company thing, there's stuff that they put on that's actually religious.

They put those on their bus. They have one on the front of the bus that says consider adoption. It works. And they have God bless America running on their... Yeah. So you clearly have different messages that are controversial, right? I don't think consider adoption, it works. Is that all that controversial, to be honest with you? I mean, sure, consider it. Consider adoption, consider abortion. That's the nature of choice, right? You have the choice. You have the choice to abort. That's the nature of choice, right? You know, like you have the choice.

You have the choice to abort. You have the choice to consider adoption or the choice to keep the child or whatever you want. There's a choice there. I actually think that's a great sign. I don't disagree with it at all. How do you disagree with consider something? Like not do it, but just consider it. That seems like a very innocuous thing.

But at the same time, there are people that may take offense to that because it is not mentioning the other choices that also exist. And in some ways seems to be preferring a certain choice over others. So there may be somebody who might take offense to that. I don't know how you could take offense to the word atheists. You have to be a really, really, really stupid person, I think, to just be offended by that word. Well, sometimes words can be just scary. I'm just afraid of words in general. I'm afraid of the word Darth Vader.

I don't know about you, but I'm terrified of it. I don't like to be reminded of things that frighten me, Cecil. I like to live in a world where I'm sheltered from alternate viewpoints and ideas. Right. My lexicon doesn't have clown in it. Like, it just doesn't exist. There's no such thing as clown when you're talking to me. Can you imagine, like, you've got a policy where you have ads up, right?

I mean, because you're selling ad space on these buses. And your policy is that you won't take any ads, which can be deemed controversial or spark public debate. Right. What's wrong with sparking public debate? I can understand from a business standpoint not wanting to be embroiled in some kind of controversy. But sparking public debate? Hey, remember that time we had that vigorous back and forth?

That's bad for nothing. And it's funny because the blogger here even mentions this. It says, so either the ad is controversial or it's going to spark a discussion and this bus company wants no part of that. So they're specifically even in this article

and this blog, they're saying it. It's either going to spark debate or they just don't want any part of this whatsoever. And what debate could it possibly spark? Right, it's not promoting atheism. It's not like, it's either going to spark debate or they just don't want any part of this whatsoever. And what debate could it possibly spark? Right. It's not promoting atheism. It's not like – it doesn't say like be an atheist. It just says atheist.

Yeah, and he says. The next line. The next line. It says, frankly, I don't know what discussion it would even spark since no statement is being made. Now, I'm quoting directly from the Friendly Atheist blog here. But it's true, right? There's nothing to be said. They're not saying anything.

They're saying atheists exist. Somehow that is very, very, very offensive. It's like if it said, like, German Shepherd. German Shepherd. That's not a starting point for a conversation. I think they should just have ads that just say, like, pumpkin. And then a list for a pumpkin farm right next to it. That would be awesome. Yeah. I don't understand it. This is a great blog. The

Friendly Atheist blog. There's lots of great stories on here, but this is just one that we chose this week. We love this blog. And in fact, you know, I don't want to tip our hand too much. As a coincidental tie in. There's a possibility he will be on our show next week. So we're going to take a break here and we're going to give you all the information that you need to contact us on Facebook, on Twitter. You can even blast us with phone calls or emails. However you want to get in touch with us, please do. Also remember that if you subscribe to us on iTunes, that's mad helpful for us. So we would appreciate any iTunes reviews and subscriptions.

That's mad helpful for us. So we would appreciate any iTunes reviews and subscriptions. And we'll give you all the rest of the show that you need to get angry 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. This story blows my mind. This is from Politico. Rush Limbaugh blasted for slut comment. I got to read. I got to read what he said. What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke,

who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? Limbaugh said on his radio show. It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex,

she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We're the pimps. It makes you a poor thinker. It really does. It makes you somebody who doesn't understand how contraception works. I know.

She's not having, you could, first of all, first of all, you could have the no sex and still want to have contraception. Right. Because contraception is, you know, it's warranted for a variety of things. Like women who have like ovarian cysts will oftentimes be on contraception for medical reasons. That's acne on some women goes away because of the contraception. Yeah, it's a total. So there's a lot of reasons. We also live like let's say you're just somebody who's a little paranoid and you live, I don't know, in a state with a personhood amendment and you're concerned that you might be attacked and sexually assaulted and you don't want to be forced by the government to carry the

child of that assault to full term. Maybe you want to think about some contraception. So you could be having about some contraception. So you could be having the no sex at all. But even if you were having all the sex, like all of it, contraception's not more expensive. It's the same cost.

It's the same cost for having no sex and having all the sex. It's the exact same price. You could never sleep. You could just always have a dick. You could just be. You could just always have a dick. You could just be like, I am always having sex. 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I'm fucking on the computer.

I'm at work and somebody's thrusting away. It doesn't cost any one. It doesn't cost any more money. It's not she's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. It's not she's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. It's not a sliding scale. Yeah, and that's the thing is, well, would you rather pay for the day after pill then? Would you rather be cool with, okay, we're not going to pay for your contraception, but what we'll pay for is the day after pill.

If you're pregnant, you go ahead and take the day after pill. No, of course you wouldn't want to do that. And that's the thing is that he's mad. He's mad and saying, oh, we're supposed to pay for that. You know, when my wife and I were in college, we were in college together, she would go to Planned Parenthood to get her contraception, the birth control pill. Because there, if you go in and go there, they actually sell it for a relatively inexpensive price. But it still came out to be about, I want to say about $400 a year, no matter how you cut it. It was about $400 a year she had to pay for that contraception. And then she had to have two checkups a year because they required it to get on the contraception. You had to have like two different types of feminine checkups,

I think it was. And those cost, I think, about $100 a piece. So you had to go in there to follow their rules to get their contraception. And it was still not an inconsiderate amount of money to do that. So we're expecting people who are going to be sexually active. You're basically saying that no one should be sexually active when they're that age. You're mandating that no one should be sexually active in college. No, you can't touch each other while you're in college. Well, I hate to inform you, Rush, I know you can't see your dick, but a lot of people can see their dick

and want to use it. And that is a time of the life when they do use it, when they use it to excess because they finally just got out of mommy's house and they want to have a little fun. And sex is not a bad thing. Inherently sex is not an evil. Sure. Sex can have bad repercussions if you are careless about it.

But instead of breeding a sort of, I care about it, responsibility and making people feel responsible for their sexual actions, you just want to cut out the funding completely because you fucking can't think because you can't put a thought together. And then you're going to call her bad names. And then advertisers are going to pull their fucking shit from you. And now you're going to apologize. And even the apology is nonsense. It's a non apology. You know, he basically just backpedals and says he, you know, illustrates the absurd with absurdity. No, you called her a slut. You were a cruel shithead about it. No, you called her a slut. You were a cruel shithead about it.

Just stand up to it, dude. Stand up to it. You know what? We've called people bad names. I'll stand up to anything I call. You're a fat fucking pill popping prick. And I will stand by that rush. How's that?

Fuck you. And this is what I was hoping would happen. I posted on Facebook about this story. You know, I'm like, how can people get away with this? And people commented back like, well, you can say whatever you want. It's like, I fucking get it. I know you can say anything you want. It's not like I'm baffled by freedom of speech, but what I mean is sponsors and people should be leaving this asshole in droves. You know, what's also not considered is there's plenty of married couples, dedicated, monogamous, married couples who use contraception because

they just don't want to have kids. We use contraception for 10 years before I got a vasectomy. This isn't because and that's just permanent contraception, right? Like, yeah, this it's not like it's this is not this is an anti-sex thing. This is for this is this is a an attitude by people who are scared of sex and sexuality because there are so many reasons for someone to be on contraception. It doesn't have anything to do with you being promiscuous or you not being. And promiscuity is a personal fucking decision, right?

What you choose to do with your body and how much sex you choose to have, whether it's no sex or all the sex, that has nothing to do with the federal government. The federal government should not be, should not have a fucking take on that subject. What you do with the shit between your legs is your business. But the idea here is that this is an idea proposed by people who are scared of sex, who are anti-sex, who are extremely negative about all things related to sex and sexuality, and who clearly don't even understand how contraception works. And these are the people who are commenting on it in the public sphere?

For fuck's sake, people listen to this guy? What I think, Tom, I really do feel like this is a way in which to make sure the poor stay poor. Right. If you don't have to pay for contraception for the poor, then they'll go, they will have sex and that they can't afford the contraception. They're going to have a child and having a child is ridiculously expensive. And while they might be taking a little bit off the government teeth, they're not taking my job because they can't educate themselves. They can't educate their child. They can't get out of that grip of poverty, no matter how they do it. So they're just stuck. They're stuck in that cycle

and then their kids will have kids and they're always going to be poor and their future generations are always going to be poor. And I feel like there is something to that. Now, I know it sounds conspiratorial. I get it. I understand. But I think it's more of an unconscious decision on their part to hate contraception because they really don't want to teach kids about sex. They don't want to teach kids about the consequences of sex and they don't want to talk about contraception and keep contraception available. Those are all things that make children happen. Right. And, you know, this is this conversation always happens revolved around female contraception. Right. Yeah. Nobody's pushing for no condoms.

Nobody's pushing for, you know, I was just watching something the other day that we're getting pretty close to male contraceptive pills. And I'll be very curious to find out if that garners the same kind of controversy. I wonder. What I think is that this is a way for, you know, contraception enables women to take control over their reproductive health, over their reproductive decisions, and over their bodies. And it enables men and women finally to be on a somewhat level playing field as far as,

because men have always been able to have sex without repercussion other than, you know, STDs, right? Men are not going to get pregnant. And they've also had the ability to decide whether or not they're going to impregnate someone through the condom, right? Right. So we've had that for a long, long time. And what the pill does is it gives women, and I can't even believe we're having this conversation at this point.

This is the conversation people had 50 years ago. But it gives women the ability to take control over their reproductive systems, their reproductive health, and it enables them to enjoy sex and to have an active sex life without fear of becoming pregnant. It enables married couples to choose the size of their family and the timing of their families so that women can work and enter and compete in the workplace. The pill is a revolution for female empowerment and health. And I think that's a big part of the pushback. I think you have dinosaurs like this guy who watched too much fucking Leave it to Beaver

growing up and have an idealized worldview about what it was like back in the good old 1950s. And they want to like turn back the clock. Yeah. When mom stayed home and she just when she got told she's having a kid she's fucking having a kid right and that's the way it's gonna be there's people that have pulled ads from him and i'm happy they pulled ads from him you see that when you're you're irreverent and you make fun of people you don't get ads as by us. You know what they say, fool me once, strike one, but fool me twice, strike three.

Cecil, we had a voicemail and we kind of skipped over a portion of it. And recently a story came out, which is sort of apropos to that piece of the voicemail. So somebody left us a voicemail discussing the three strikes rule. They brought it up in the voicemail. So somebody left us a voicemail discussing the three strikes rule. They brought it up in their voicemail. And you and I both have some thoughts about the three strikes rules. Some states, not all, have three strikes legislation. And that legislation basically says, hey, you commit three crimes. And on the third crime, your ass is going to jail 25 years to life. That's it. Done and done. And there's a lot of people who look at that and they say, OK, good.

That's going to get career criminals off the streets. You get three chances after all over the course of your life. Yeah, I think the one major thing that the three strikes rule overlooks is that there is a lot more crime centered around your income level and the amount of economic freedom you have. There's a lot more crime that's just inherently in it. I mean, think about where you live, right? If you live in a poor neighborhood, there's more crime there. People are more desperate. You're not dealing with the problems. There's

an idea nowadays called systemic change, where you change the system to then change the outcome of that system. So if you could change poverty by alleviating that poverty in some way, then you can start changing the systems that come from being poor, the bad things that happen from being poor, being malnourished, being undereducated, being a subject and victim of crimes, and also being a criminal. All those things come from those poverty-stricken areas. And so when we do the three strikes rule, what we're really doing, obviously it captures all different economic classes, but more than anything, we'll capture the people from the lower economic classes. It also really says nothing about what jail really is, what I would like to think jail is. And I think a lot of people that are liberal would like to think this.

Now, jail is in some way going to be a rehabilitative experience for someone. We know that's not how it works because I don't think we have enough money to put in a system to rehabilitate people. I also think we put too many people in jail that don't really deserve to be in there through the drug laws and such. But basically, the idea is that when someone goes into jail, you would hope that they come out of jail and are changed in some way. But the three strikes rule basically eliminates that. It says, well, we don't have to rehabilitate them because what's going to make sure they don't come back is the punishment. That's what's going to make people change their behavior, not actually getting in there and working with them and changing their behavior. Not to mention the fact that the three strikes rule

does not just relate to violent crime. Yeah. You know, I think that if you had it would be a more rational decision to say, you know, three violent crimes. OK, we can have a conversation about that. It's just basically three crimes. I mean, it's not it's not directed toward violent crime. Three felonies. Right. So you're talking, you know, what are felonies? Well, there's a lot of felonies that aren't violent. There's many felonies which aren't violent. If the idea is to get violent criminals off the street, off the street for how long? People, you know, research shows that disproportionately crime is committed by young people. And there's good biological reasons for that as well as social reasons for that. for that as well as social reasons for that. Is somebody still a threat, a violent threat?

It depends. It depends on what kind of crimes they committed. How old were they when they committed them? What's the context surrounding those crimes? I think when you have a law that forces the hand of sentencing to say, well, we're not going to take context into consideration. What we're going to do instead is we're going to house somebody for the rest of their lives at incredible cost to the state. Incredible cost. At 25 years to life, you know, what if somebody commits three felonies, you know, within 22? Yeah. I mean, you're talking about putting

somebody in jail for 40, 50, 60 years. You're housing them for that long. Now what you've developed is you've developed a system, a state within a state, you know, you've, you've developed an entire culture of prison and prisoners and imprisonment. And that's not to anybody's advantage. A UC Riverside sociologist recently came out with a study that the three strikes law has no effect on the drop in violent crime, no effect at all. So you're talking about something that is ineffective and something that has tremendous costs, social costs and economic costs. I don't get it. Yeah, I don't get it either.

I don't feel like giving someone a limit on what they should – I mean I understand the emotion behind it, right? And I think that's why people feel the same way about capital punishment. There's sort of an emotion behind it where you say, well, motherfucker, you fucked up twice before. Why should I give you another chance? You know, it's that Bush fool me once. Shame on shame on shame on me. You on Alabama. We have a saying.

It's that idea. It's that idea that fuck you. You know, you you you tried to pull the wool over my eyes once and I let you. And then I gave you the benefit of the doubt and you still fucked me. So fuck you. You know, I understand that feeling. I understand that that that that is a a sort of primal feeling about being tricked by someone. And everybody, I think, feels that feeling. But I don't know how we legislate that feeling. Legislating that feeling feels draconian. Right. It feels like there's no push and people get put away. There are absurd three strikes. There are people in jail for three strikes that have absurd criminal histories that

really didn't do really anything wrong at all. But it doesn't matter. They still got put away because these rules are inflexible. And that's the problem that you run into. And doesn't this just seem like giving up? It does. You know, where you're not solving the problem at all. You're just saying, fuck it, throw him in jail. How long? I don't know. Forever. Just forever.

Just throw him in there forever. And you're making a judgment saying they cannot be rehabilitated. There's nothing we can do. We tried. We tried already. Well, what would you do? You know, how would you treat your child? You know what I mean?

Like, imagine this is your child. Would you just give up? Would you say, you know what? I tried to train him three times to shit on the pot. He didn't do it. I'm just going to stab him in the throat, you know, or I'm just going to put him in this room where he can just shit in there because, you know, obviously he's not going to learn. And jail is destructive. And you know, the, the, this idea that you just, that jail is meant for long-term housing. You, you, we already have, I think, excessive idea that you just that jail is meant for long term housing. You we already have, I think, excessive jail time in this country, excessive jail time to strip somebody to call somebody a felon, to strip them of their freedom, to put them in prison.

You know, people get sent to prison for three, four or five years. Think about how three how long three or four or five years of your life is. And that's a small that's a short sentence. That's considered a very, very short sentence. So people get put into jail, into prison for very long periods of time in this country for relatively minor offenses. Meaning when I say minor, I mean like offenses that don't have a tremendous impact on society. So the idea behind, you know, imprisonment in a criminal justice system to me seems to say, hey, we all want to live in a safe and polite society. We have to have a system of rules.

There has to be repercussions for those rules. I understand that. But when the repercussions begin to grossly outpace the offense, which is what I think they've begun to do, now you create a culture of prison. You create a prison culture. And when people come out of prison, it's not like that idea that like, well, you served your time. So we wiped the slate. No, it never is. That's not true.

Here in the States, and I don't know how it is everywhere, but here in the States, it's very difficult to get a job as a felon. People ask on every application, have you ever been convicted of a felony? They will run your criminal record when you try to get a job. You will be turned down for more work. You know, it's not like, oh, I made a mistake when I was, you know, 19, 20 years old. I screwed up. I was running with the wrong crowd. I didn't have good opportunity. You know, whatever the reason is, I fucked up. I committed this crime. I did my time. And now we're now we fucking hit the big reset button. Yeah. You're taking out. There's no reset. But you're taking options away from them. Right. They get out and they have less options than when they

went in. And so it's perpetual. And some people think, oh, well, that's that's what they deserve. They fucked up. And it's like, well, you know, people fuck up in their life. And if you just want to you just want to be vengeful, you have to really decide whether or not you're going to have a revenge based justice system or you're going to have a revenge based justice system, or you're going to have a way in which a rehabilitative justice system. And I think you got to lean toward the rehabilitative or else you're just going to have a fucking, eventually we're going to have a fucking prison planet on the moon. Right. And it's, it's not advantageous to society as a whole, because what do you do with these felons when they come out of jail? And them back in. And I think that's the heart of the three strikes rule.

It's like, well, we don't know what to do with you anymore. Yeah. We've made the punishment. We got so tough on crime. We don't know what to do with people anymore. Yeah. There's no way to integrate you back into the world. Although I will say it's difficult to take advice from this professor since he does look like Lion-O from the Thundercats.

He looks like you could swing from his beard. He looks just like, like, that's a mane. That's not a beard anymore. That's a mane. This guy could fucking battle on the savannah for a pride. You got three strikes at his barber and they just threw him out. You want answers? I think I'm entitled.

You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. So our last story comes from the ven. You can't handle the truth. So our last story comes from the venerable Vanuatu Daily Post. I get all my news from there. Yeah, I mean, I'm constantly checking out Vanuatu. Hold on a second. What is that?

Is there, is there logo, a dildo with a ring around it? Is it like a dildo and a cock ring? Because it kind of looks like a dildo and a cock ring. And it actually appears to be vibrating. It does. It looks like it's sort of, yeah. It's an exciting place. Vanuatu?

Yeah. Very exciting. Might move there. I like, too, that there's a picture, like, what to do in Vanuatu on the right-hand side of the website. Is this kind of a volcano? Exploding. And then there's somebody jumping off a cliff from, like, a bungee.

It's like, what to do in Vanuatu? Blow up. And jump away from explosions. Not a good place to be. So a man in Luganville escaped a six-month prison term by pleading guilty to one count of witchcraft. Now, it went all the way up to the Vanuatu Supreme Court, evidently. They must not have a lot of business. That's how you plead. Like when you're pleading to a charge, it goes up to the Vanuatu Supreme Court, evidently. They must not have a lot of business. That's how you plead.

Like, when you're pleading to a charge, it goes up to the Supreme Court in Vanuatu. But to be fair, he did spit. If he's walking down the street, he spit, and somebody's like, oh, he's a witch. And they're like, oh, well, let's bring him to fucking court. Bring him to the Supreme Court. Like, that's your system? I would hate to see if he had lentils early in the day and he farted. Like, that would be worse, I think.

This would waste Judge Wapner's time, right? Yeah. This is... Are you kidding me? He spat, and then somebody was like, he spat, and I immediately felt cold. Yeah. Wow. Immediately felt cold.

He must have gotten some fucking wind on that loogie. Right. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It was the magic loogie. It just kind of went through the air, hung there for a second, came back. Yeah, it was like the JFK bullet loogie. Yeah, the JFK bullet. It's a magic loogie. Yeah, I don't know. I think that, you know, they might have a case against this guy. They had enough of a case for him to plead guilty. Could you imagine living in a country, Tom, where you could be fucking charged with witchcraft for spitting? I am full of mucus. I'm spitting all the time.

Right. I keep a spittoon in every room. Like, my house is like an Old West saloon. Oh, man. That's awful. I mean, like, you just, you know, you're walking down the street, you're like, man, I got a little bit of something. I want to spit it, but sorry, I might go to the Supreme Court for fucking witchcraft if I do. Right. You're haul down the street. You're like, man, I got a little bit of something. I want to spit it. But sorry, I might go to the Supreme Court for fucking witchcraft if I do. You're hauled in. Their streets must be clean over there. Exceptionally clean. Yeah, because if you litter, you're fucked.

Everything is a sign of witchcraft. Every excretion of the body is a sign. And if the evidence is I felt a cold draft. So the evidence that this guy had to face was I had a subjective but perfectly normal experience. Right? Okay, Bailiff, please enter Exhibit A. Well, we don't actually have any physical evidence at all. None.

Really? What do we have? This guy said he felt a little cold after the other dude spat. Burn the witches. Put him in the fucking pillory. Are you kidding me? What to do in Vanuatu? Well, don't spit!

Let me tell you, they should actually be throwing witches into the volcano in this picture. I would be shocked if they don't drop at least one witch into a volcano a year. Yeah, that's a witch a year. Volcanoes get hungry, though. You do have to feed the volcano. Admittedly, admittedly.

And then I think they try to tease the volcanoes by bungee jumping into them and then bouncing out. Fucking the rope's too long. That's how they get rid of the witches. They just make the rope a little longer. They actually num-num-shabai those guys like fucking Indiana Jones Temple of Doom. They're just like. It's reaching their hearts. The heart catches on fire and still beats. It's tremendous.

It's awesome. Yeah, it's natural. Natural phenomenon. Vanuatu. I hate to call you backward. Because that's insult to backward things. But you are backward, Vanuatu. Yeah.

I know where my next destination for vacation will not be. And that is a place where if somebody gets a chill, I might be sentenced for witchcraft. Good thing she didn't have diarrhea. They'd have hung him. Either that or make him the leader of the Santorum party. Flags at ready. The bowel movement. So welcome back to Carl from the Conspiracy Skeptic podcast.

Carl, you and I have actually talked through the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe Forum. That's kind of how we met. But what really got you into your own podcast? And do you think that Skeptic's Guide was kind of an inspiration for you? You know, it was more like the Penn Radio Show way, way, way back. Oh, yeah, yeah. I was living in Korea back then and sort of listening to the Penn Radio Show every day as I sort of walked to the subway station. And I thought to myself, you know, I should do a podcast. I should do a podcast. What can you do a podcast about? And then I sort of realized, oh, wait, you know, I'm living

and working in Korea. And why not do a podcast about life in Korea? So I did, for a few years, I did a podcast called Soul Survivors. And then eventually, you know, I was tired of not being able to vote and being treated like a second-class citizen and wanted to go back to my home country. So I moved home, and I'm like, I should do another podcast. And previous to podcasting, I used to do a website called the Conspiracy Archive. Previous to podcasting, I used to do a website called the Conspiracy Archive. I archived a lot of the weird conspiracy documents. People were sort of floating out on all the various news groups, like USENET news groups. Sure.

Trying to sort of organize them and trying to figure out different themes to all the different conspiracy theories. And I thought, oh, you know what? I'll just do a podcast different conspiracy theories. And I thought, oh, you know what? I'll just do a podcast about conspiracy theories because one of the things I really like about conspiracy theories is there's sort of no end. It's just sort of a bottomless well. Every time you sort of peel back one layer of the onion, there's always some other level. And eventually it's like, well, maybe maybe there is no such thing as government.

Maybe it's just all one massive corporation. Then it's got to be the space aliens. Right. And it's fascinating to see how far somebody will go down the rabbit hole. And one and one of the things, too, is that even if you do present clear evidence for the reason why this conspiracy doesn't exist, people will just deny the evidence. I mean, there's always a way to sort of rationalize it. It's like, you know, it's a car moves forward, but there's parts of that car that work in the opposite direction. So, uh-huh.

Yeah, right. Well, we're great storytellers, right? Like, human beings are tremendous storytellers. So integrating some new piece of evidence into this story isn't terribly difficult for a storyteller. You're just like, oh, what a twist, you know? Like, fine, it wasn't Colonel Mustard with the candlestick, but, you know, it's...

I mean, life ultimately has a certain randomness to it. People like narratives, and simpler the narrative is, it more sort of batches up all the randomness into one thing. And you use that thing as something sort of big and evil and scary. If there's one thing you can hope to bring down through, you know, through voting or pipe bombs or something like that, then somehow that's more comforting than just knowing, you know, I could go out my door tomorrow and a car could just randomly hit me. And it's not that I got too close. You got too close to the road. because... Yeah, right? I have this image of you, Carl, where you're in this massive

warehouse-style room with papers, your archive of conspiracies, trying to come up with the unified conspiracy theory, right? The one to rule them all. You've got yarn connecting page to page in an intricate web of,

I've almost got it! I've got flavored coffee, a a lava lamp and Tylenol. That's awesome. So, so Conspiracy Skeptic Podcast, I think the title sort of gives it away, but what kind of show is it? Right. Yeah. So it kind of started off as Conspiracy Skeptic Podcast, sort of conspiracies of today and

the not tootoo-distant past. That was sort of my sort of catch line because I thought, you know, I don't really want to go back to, like, who killed Caesar or something like that. Awesome conspiracy theory. Yeah, and originally it was going to start off as I think it was going to be

like just a 12-part podcast. I was going to do 12 episodes and I told my listeners it's going to be bounded, because there was a podcast way, way, way back called, I can't even remember it now, this is how far back it was. It was about evolution.

It was about an evolutionary biologist. He sort of did a podcast about evolution, and every episode was just amazing. But eventually he sort of ran out of topics, and he just sort of, it just sort of disappeared, you know. And I found a lot of podcasts for sort of doing that. It would start off very strong, they'd start off weekly and then bi-weekly and then they'd just fade away. And I thought to myself, you know, I'm just going to do 12 and that's it. You're

not going to think, you know, boy, Carl's only, Carl's only doing it every two weeks now, once a month. But I got so much really great email and stuff like that that I thought, okay, I should continue this. But it's becoming kind of onerous to sort of write and research. And then I thought, why not just get other podcasters or bloggers, people out in the skeptical world, to sort of come on as a guest? And we could talk about their favorite conspiracies, sort of shifting the burden of research. And then I also found I was getting a lot of listeners who were writing to me and going, well, why don't you do a podcast about water fluoridation? Why don't you do a podcast about this or this?

And then I would write them back and I and go, you know what? You seem to have done all the research. You're not a known name in skepticism, but why not just come on my podcast? I really started interviewing a whole lot of listeners. Oh, nice. the most fascinating people. I got one guy who does, he makes plastic wounds for TV in England, and that's his job. And he did a, you know,

I'm sort of coked up here on cough medicine, stuff like that. Oh, Charlie, right? He did a podcast on Jack the Ripper, and he just knew everything about Jack the Ripper. And so I'm sort of really finding, you know, that there's a lot of talent out there in the skeptical world that people acknowledge.

And they're much better at a microphone than I am. And so just bringing them and introducing them to the world of skepticism. We find that, too. Everybody pretty of skepticism. We find that too. Everybody pretty much we interview, we find that too. We're like, yep, they're better than us. That's why we only keep them on for part of the show. We're just like, no, you're not going to stay on the whole fucking show. What are you, kidding me?

There's got to be some reason for people to actually listen to our portion of the show. If we keep having – Yeah, we can't have people that are knowledgeable and funny on our show all the time. You know, we got to do we got to break it up. And one of the questions here, you ask your listeners what their favorite conspiracy is. What's your favorite conspiracy? You know, you actually you sort of nailed it at the beginning of the podcast. Yeah. The HIV conspiracy.

Because that's actually one of those ones where, you know, a lot of these conspiracies have, you know, kind of a big tent thing, where, like, especially creationism. It's like one of the big proponents of, you know, creationism is he's a moony. And you think to yourself, why are all these fundamentalist Christians, why is he their go-to guy when he's a moony? Like, everything about his faith uh faith would you know they would like to burn that guy at a stake right but but uh but when he talks about creationism he's like their go-to guy and and but hiv doesn't have this like big tent they're they're they're they're

really there's kind of like people who believe i think i said at the top of the show right you know who think that hiv doesn't exist and people think that it does exist but it's harmless. But there's also people too that think, yes, HIV exists. It kills you but there still is the cure for HIV out there that they're not telling you about. And if you get these people in a room, they just whack at each other. They hate each other. There's something, I forget the guy's name, he's a dentist, a dentist of all things, and he's one of the big

leading HIV denialists out there. And there's a radio show that had him on and then a Duesberg fellow we were talking about at the top of the show. And the dentist guy was just accusing Duesberg, we were talking about at the top of the show. And the dentist guy was just like accusing Duesberg of crimes against humanity. And, you know, in the name of, you know, the world court of the, you know, the knights of chivalry. Like this guy somehow.

What? This man is a dentist? People open their fucking mouths and let him stick sharp shit in their face? He thinks he's a knight of some shibboleth order. He is. I mean, come on. Does he say knee? I hope so. I hope so so much. He literally thinks

he's the descendant of Jesus Christ. Oh, gosh. Yeah, this is where you want to get your information from. Why would somebody have this guy on a show? That's the other baffling like this guy should be you know he should be relegated to the just just the crazy i mean nobody should ever pay attention to this guy instead people are going and like yeah you can do a root canal on me by the way you want to be on my show? I haven't had anybody fucking crazy on lately. I mean, that's one of the problems is that I was listening to there's kind of a conspiracy

radio show here in Canada, our version of maybe Coast to Coast. Gosh, Coast to Coast rules. That is a nut hut show, too, right there. Coast to Coast, the callers that call into to coast to coast, they all start off like all those people start off like, well, everybody knows that aliens really are running the Illuminati, which is part of the New World Order. And he'll just be like, oh, yeah, yeah. So, OK, given those, you know, unalterable facts, please, sir, do continue. Elucidate, sir. Right. They were doing some of the, you know,

they had a bunch of anti-vaxxers on, and the sort of noted, like, I couldn't get a doctor on to sort of counter these claims. They were all busy being doctors. Yeah, well, the problem is that a lot of times it's like, I mean, there are doctors who will go out there and

they're quite innocent, and they think, like, geez, you know, I'll show these people go out there and they're quite innocent and they think like, geez, you know, I'll show these people the evidence and they'll understand. And then they get hate mail and death threats and people find out where their children go to school and they completely freak out. So a lot of times these people are just out there putting out these claims and legitimate science, like real scientists are like no you know my co-worker tried to do something like that and he you know he had to get police protection for his family because they're you you are an enemy of the universe oh good lord that's horrifying oh my

god yeah you're like you've got like a reptile face under your plastic skin or something i gotta ask you something here carl What do you think of the moon landing people? The people who think that we didn't go to the moon, like Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan, I mean, he's the classic example of where the conspiracy just has to keep widening. Where Phil Plait, when he was debating them, he sort of noticed, like, don't you think that the Soviets, you know, wanted to be the first people on the moon? Don't you think that the Soviets wanted to be the first people on the moon? Wouldn't they have sort of – they monitored the whole trip and would not they have revealed the conspiracy?

Exactly. No, they were good friends. We had this really – the thing is the Cold War was a conspiracy too. The Cold War was a conspiracy that we started before we did the moon landing hoax in order to hoax the moon landing yeah absolutely it's like the pre-hoax hoax oh gosh well that's exactly what joe said did he really i don't know if there's nation states maybe they're just all together and like i don't know if there's nation states one one move just just sort of widened conspiracy but and two it's like, well, you know, China wants to be the

first people on the moon. China wants to put people on the moon. Like, wouldn't they you know, wouldn't they reveal the hoax too? Wouldn't they just fake it themselves, right? Because then you would have, if it's fake, let's presume it's fake and we faked it. And let's say Russia does it

and they have an equally good fake then we'd have to call out and be like no that's a fake and then it'd be like oh wait i'd call attention to your fake then so you've kind of got to let the bluff go right you'd be like oh fuck i guess they made it too up there as well uh-oh they are on the moon rocks too when yeah it's like when you're at a party and, that really hot chick is talking about the band she loves and you've never heard of it. And you're just like, oh, yeah. Yeah, I saw them in concert in 93. Oh, yeah.

I love that band. And you're just the whole time like, don't mention a specific song. Don't mention a specific song. Please don't ask me if I went to the concert last night. So, Carl, if people were going to find your show, how would they do it? Yrad.com. Yrad.com forward slash CS. I bought a four-letter domain way back in 2000 or 2001. Yrad.com forward slash CS.

Well, thanks for coming on, Carl. We really appreciate you coming on. You can catch Carl on The Conspiracy Skeptic. You can find it on iTunes. You can also catch him online at YRAD.com forward slash CS. Thanks again, Carl. Thanks for having me on. Bye-bye.

So we got some email. We got an email from Andrew. Andrew actually shed a lot of light on how the Koran could have gotten burned. I know I made a comment like burning books is never a good idea. I don't stand by that, though. I'm just saying. If you've got a big pyre in your base, your army base, and you just burn the everything. Wouldn't you just be quiet about it?

Be like, we burned the Koran. Be very quiet. That's the other thing. Who's talking about it? Who's really saying, like, hey, well, we're just shoveling all this random shit into the fire because that's how the military disposes of its garbage. Like, he's saying in this email, he basically says fecal matter, like, all their garbage, just burn it all. Yeah. That makes sense.

Yeah. Okay, so they're just burning the everything. And some Korans just made their way over there. Okay. Makes sense. But maybe shut your fucking gob about it, you know? Maybe just don't broadcast that. Hey, I'm in a country where they're really not going to appreciate this.

Yeah, that's just a bad idea. But thank you very much for the email, and we appreciate it. And if we are ever in the Champaign area, we will look you up. So we got an email from Javier. Javier, I love this. He's the first black Colombian living in Norway. Absolutely. Listener.

I think you've got that one sewn up, Javier. Yeah, no, absolutely. You're demographic. It's you, pretty much. That's fantastic. So thank you very much for listening. We appreciate all of our Norwegian listeners. I don't know.

The one of you. The one of you is going to be there. I want to send a message out to the National Atheist Party. Kathy Kodan has sent us two emails. Kathy, if you're listening, please send us an email that's not a form email and tell us that you listen to the podcast and we will have you on. But if we get a form email from you that says, hey, you should have me on your show because I've been on other shows, we are not going to respond. But if you're a listener, Kathy, we'd love to have you on. Absolutely. We'd love to have you on, Kathy. So if you listen to the show and you want to send something other than this form email you've sent

us twice, feel free. We'd love to have you on. So we got an email from David. David sent us a news story for a priest who basically refused to give communion to somebody during their, like their mother had passed and, you know, they were doing a Catholic service and the woman was gay. And so the priest refused to offer her communion or absolution. Thanks for sending the story. We're not covering because it's got a happy ending. You know, I mean, that's not really our bag. Come on, David.

You know this show. Come on now. It actually, I will say that, you know, a lot of other parishioners and other clergy stepped up. Yeah. And pretty widely condemned that guy for his actions and, you know, offered this woman a great amount of comfort and solace. And so that's that's actually a good story, despite the fact that one lone bigot decided to turn an awful day even worse.

You know, you got to wonder about people like that, too. It's like, yeah, you know, death nearby. That's tough. But, you know, I'm going to basically withhold God's sacrament from you. It's not mine fucking to withhold, but I'm still going to do it. What a douchebag. That's pretty standard. I'm sure that's what Jesus would have wanted.

Absolutely. Jesus would be like, no, no, now speak. Speak for it. Speak for the wafer. He's holding it above his – he makes it balance it on your nose. Yeah, he's holding it on his nose and he's got to snap it into his mouth. That's how they should do it. That's how they should do it all the time.

Jesus is like click training the disciples. They just like all sit like boom, boom. No, when they do something bad, they throw like that little tube of rocks at them to make them. It scares them. Throw like a jar of coins around. Pisses them off. The problem is it didn't work for Judas. Right.

That was the whole. No, absolutely not. So we got an email from John. John sent this in. This is fucking awesome. This makes me feel so dirty, but fucking so awesome. John basically found this religious toys website on Google Plus. I think he's the only user.

And he posted this directly on our – he took a picture of it and sent it directly to us. And this religious toys website, the Jackhammer Jesus is the first one. It's got a cross. I mean I've never seen a dildo with a hilt on it before. But that's what this is. That's a sword. That is a – you could really do some damage with that. I like the Virgin Mary one.

I love the idea of penetrating yourself with a virgin. That is very funny. I think that's fantastic. That is very funny. Yeah, the Bible Thumper is a Bible you can fuck. Which I think is fucking hilarious. Sorry Nana, I'm sorry for saying that. But Nana, you could use the Grim Reaper.

Oh my God. Because there's nothing worse than a dead fuck, I guess. Oh. Yeah, this is a website that is in the poorest of tastes. It really is in the poorest of tastes. And I love it. It's very funny. But it's fucking hilarious.

And then we did get another email from Lois. She's righteously angry in this email. She is so angry. She's righteously angry in this email. She is so angry. You should read up firstly. You should go from firstly. Firstly, if I'm not wrong, the Limbaugh should never ever again get laid by woman, man, or livestock.

Livestock? No matter that he is a huge asshole and a great target for various indiscriminate tumescent creatures. Oh, that's awesome. Grandma Lois just tears it up. Yeah. Just tears it up.

You know, we appreciate all of your emails, Lois. We really do. And your anger mirrors our anger. It really does. I feel an affinity here. It really does. I call her Grandma Lois, although she's probably as old as my mom. So I probably shouldn't be doing that.

But thanks for sending your email, Grandma Lois. We appreciate it. We did get a voicemail, Tom. We got a voicemail this week. We did, but I'm not going to read it. And that's because Google Voice did a remarkably good job. Yeah. So it just wouldn't be very funny. I don't know what it is. Maybe just have like that perfect Google voice voice. Yeah, it's pretty good. We're going to play the voicemail for you. Hey guys, just listening to your last episode. My name's Chris and there's this great website called All Mormons Are Now Gay. And you can go on the site and you can type in a Mormon's name or have them generate one for you.

And you can go ahead and make them gay after they're dead. It's just like their baptism practices. So I thought you guys might like to know about that and keep up the good work. Thanks. Bye. Yeah, we had seen a lot of people had posted all this different stuff about the Mormons. You know, all dead Mormons are gay now and things like that. And this is great. It's funny. We kind of got on the joke a little late.

We realize that now that we weren't, you know, as well-researched as we should be because this show is... Shocking. I find that shocking. You know, it's very well-researched. So we were like, hey, this will be funny. And then next week, it's like, oh, yeah, everybody made that joke already, like three weeks before you made it. So we kind of failed.

But, you know, the thing is, is we don't listen to other people. And that's how I think you can stay fresh, is just by not listening to other people and pretending that your jokes are the only ones. Right. Isolationism is definitely the key to success. Yeah. For sure. And there was a little backlash too about like why the fuck would you care that somebody is – on our Facebook page somebody had said, why would you care that somebody is saying that you're a Mormon after you're dead?

You're all dead anyway. It doesn't matter. It's all made up. But I feel like let's just change it. Obviously, this is a little hyperbole. But imagine if somebody was saying, you know, after your grandfather's death, that he was a pedophile, even if he wasn't a pedophile, that would piss you off. He's claiming something that he's not. And that's the thing that pisses people off is that they're making claims about something that isn't true. And it just makes people mad. And the people there are people who are upset by it. I wouldn't be upset by it if they did it to me. But I think that that's just evidence that they didn't know who I was. Right.

Yeah. Like I've said before, I want to be converted to all the religions. Absolutely. After death, all of them. So if I die while we're still doing this podcast, if you guys can please convert me to all of the religions. We'll have a whole show dedicated to it. I'm grossly out of shape. So it's very likely. Yeah. I mean, three or four podcasts left in you. I'm not going to hit 50. Yeah. Let's put it that

way. Well, we've we've come to another the end of another podcast here. We want to thank Carl, the conspiracy skeptic. You can find his show on iTunes and look for us on his show in the near future. He had interviewed us as well. So you can find out. We'll post it on our Facebook when his show goes live. But we want to thank Carl again for coming on. And as always, we will leave you with the skeptics creed. Credulity is not a virtue.

It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy 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 evangel 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.