Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 44: Excommunication Breakdown

Episode Date: April 22, 2012

Afghan schoolgirls poisoned in anti-education attack Man made woman read Bible at gunpoint Vatican: American nuns need reform Vatican defends excommunication for raped nine-year-old girl's abortion Sri Lankan held for "witchcraft" in Saudi Arabia Brandi and Russel Bellew, Parents, Lose Children After Son Dies Due To 'Faith Healing' Family Flees 'Haunted House,' Sues Landlord Woman arrested for child abuse thought her baby was possessed Nugent threatens death if Obama wins in November Christian counsellor's attempt to cure gay man was 'malpractice' Dangers of Chinese Medicine Brought to Light by DNA Studies Clips: Intro: Bill Connolly on Most Haunted, Pulp Fiction, Jesus Camp, Jesus Camp + Blue Suede, Harry Potter, Ghostbusters, Ted Nugent, The Simpsons, A Few Good Men, Magnum PI Theme Visit our Website at http://dissonancepod.com for all the links.

Do you want to get cognitive dissonance streamed to your iPhone or Blackberry? If so, download Stitcher free today at Stitcher.com. he's talking to this fucking non-person he says there was a murder here and every time she wants a close up she goes I heard something they've got light seeking heat seeking, sound seeking equipment, laser beams, x-rays fucking searchlights

secret fucking pads under floors, they've got everything except a fucking ghost! Because there's no such fucking thing! Nonsense! There are no spirits! There's fuck all! There's nothing after you die! Nothing! Where do you go after you die? The same place you were before you were born. Nowhere. It's over.

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 44 of Cognitive Dissonance, and we have yet to have the plug pulled on us. Who's going to do that?

Yeah, the ratings. I don't know. I don't know, but I'm expecting it at any time. We'd have to get, like, attacked by fucking ninjas or something, like, on the way to record. I just figure my own inherent laziness at some point will pull the plug. Admittedly, our own fucking sloth will be the thing that actually pulls the plug on this show. I mean, I put more energy into doing this every week than my marriage. I'm a terrible husband. So throw that out.

Right. Sure. Yeah. No, I mean, it's pretty evident. There's no surprises. Yeah. No, no. I mean, it's evident.

So at all. But thanks for everybody for sticking around for episode 44. The first story, Cecil. This is from Reuters. Afghan schoolgirls poisoned in anti-education attack. Corey Cecil, this is from Reuters. Afghan schoolgirls poisoned in anti-education attack. Should have called in sick. Yeah, they did.

They did. The day after. They all called in sick. 150 Afghan schoolgirls poisoned after drinking contaminated water. Officials are blaming it on conservative radicals who are opposed to female education. Oh, that's nice. That's nice. I don't think this was as fun as a snow day.

You know what I mean? No. No, a poison day? The poison day is not as fun. The poison day is not. Yeah, that's... Because you can't... The problem is you can't make, like, poison angels and, like like poison snowballs and like poison forts.

Poison balls actually sting a lot when they hit you. They're not as delightful. They're not nearly as fun. Nobody's ever like, hey, let's go outside and play in the poison fort. Yeah, let's make a poison fort together. Yeah. That's terrible. Yeah, no, it just doesn't work out that way.

I feel like this is, again, we're making a lot of sort of connections here, but really the Taliban, a Muslim party, decides that education, it's like the last line. I'm going to quote directly from this Reuters article. It says, education for women was outlawed by the Taliban government from 1996 to 2001 as un-Islamic. So the reason why we're talking about this is because to be a good Muslim, according to the Taliban, women shouldn't have any education. That is as backward as you get. That is really, truly as backward as you get. and to take the next step of not only denouncing the women's education, but actually trying to injure the women who are trying to be educated, you're despicable.

You're despicable and worthless. People will say, I've heard the argument many times that, you know, that Islam is actually a more respectful religion to women than a lot of other Western religions because they treat their women with respect and there's this reverence of women, which is inherent in Islam. And you hear the lip service. I've heard that so many times. And that is impossible to reconcile with the reality. And this is not one of those situations where you can

say well but you know you're looking at it from a different culture and a different culture's viewpoint is you know suspect when you're viewing an outside you know and i'm saying i am sympathetic to that notion but 150 afghan school girls poisoned for trying to learn things. Women are not a minority group. They're half. When they're treated like a minority group, that's an insult in the first place. When you can say, when you even have to have a conversation that starts off with, well, this is how we treat women. No, I mean, you can have a conversation about how you treat dogs.

You can have a conversation about how you treat dogs. You can have a conversation about how you treat hamsters. Right? You can have a conversation about how we treat subordinate animals in our lives. You can't have a reasonable conversation about how your culture treats half its population. Yeah, because if they're treating it different than the other half, you're doing it wrong. Right, exactly. You can't sit down at the table. Can you imagine sitting down at your kitchen table and being like, Sarah, we're going to have a conversation about how this family treats you.

Right. Like, I'm fucking half the family. What are you talking? That's not a conversation about how we treat you. That's a dictate by you of how I will be treated. That's not a rational thing to do. 150 girls, school girls, poisoned kids. Poisoned kids. Just like when you're poisoning children, you're just like, what should we do? What do you got going on? It's God's work. It's God's work. I mean, really, when you're poisoning children,

when you're doing the most horrific shit humans can do to another human, you've got to be doing God's work, I think, at that point. I mean, really, it is God's work. And I remember, you know, because Allah's merciful. He is. He's merciful. And we know Allah because we're both apostates. Sure. And, you know, he's the guy at the end of the poison control line.

His name is Allah. And you call him up, you know, when your girl's sick. Right. And he's all like, yeah, I fucking poisoned her. I don't really care. Yeah, I really don't care, actually. Can you imagine calling poison control? You're just like, yeah, my kid is sick, boy or girl.

Please hold. Right. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. You're like, this whole music's going on for a really long time. You read the Bible, Grant. Right. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. You're like, this whole music's going on for a really long time. You read the Bible, Grant? Yes. Oh, there's this passage I got memorized. Sort of fits the case.

So this next story is just bizarre. It's just super fucking bizarre. In China Grove, North Carolina, a fucking total lunatic held a double-barreled shotgun to a woman's head and made her read her favorite scripture. That seems rational. The first thing that occurs to me, if you held a gun to my head and made me read my favorite scripture, thou shalt not kill. Yeah, that's coming to mind, I think, somewhere in there. Would immediately become a fucking fan favorite, right? You'd be like, where the fuck are those Ten Commandments?

Because we are rocking those things right now. I love that. At this moment in time, with the double-barreled shotgun pointed at my head by a lunatic, I really like Thou Shalt Not Kill. Thou Shalt Not Kill is a great one. Absolutely. I would definitely stay away from Woman is the Cause of All Evil.

I would stay away from that one. Woman is the Reason Why. There's Original Sin. Stay away from those Bible passages. Those are not going to help your situation. This is not. There's something about, I'm sure Jesus talked about forgiveness. Work your way into that. I'm sure there's got to be something in one of the Gospels that you could be like,

you know what? We should really be nice to each other and not shoot each other. I would make some shit up. Be like, thou shalt not shoot your girlfriend in the face. Shoot not lest ye be shot. Let's go. Somebody on Facebook said the sword's into plowshares. Shotguns into plowshares, please.

I would like shotguns into unloaded shotguns. Right. You know, the other option would just be to start reading Revelation and see if that crazy could fight his crazy. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The guy would probably just fall on the ground holding his ears and wailing after that. It would be like scanners, right? Like his head is

pop. It's on the perfect wavelength of crazy. And if you could match those wavelengths, you could break glass. Right. It's like a tomato in the microwave. Yeah. Boom. Oh. This is gonna be like,

you know, I think it's gonna become a party favorite though. Like, you know, I think it's going to become a party favorite, though. Like, you know, you're going to have pin the tail on the donkey, and then there's going to be read your favorite Bible verses at gunpoint. I think that's probably got to be, you know, it's on the Christian party circuit. This is the worst party I've ever been to. It's that, and then they take you in a van, and they simulate a kidnapping like those fuckers from last week. Yeah, absolutely. And then they exercise you after they're done. They beat you and exercise you. Make you dig. And then they exercise you after they're done.

They beat you and exercise you. Make you dig your own grave. Make you dig your own grave. I mean, this is a really good – this is kind of like – it's like murder mystery Christianity. You know what I mean? You're not sure what's going to happen. It's kind of like a LARP. We should put together a birthday party game. A Christian LARP birthday party?

Like a Christian birthday party game. A Christian LARP birthday party? Like Christian birthday party game. It's just one horrifying series of lunatics after another. Yeah, they have that. It's called Cabin in the Woods. It's called the Catholic Church. Or any of the other churches. Yeah, there's some stuff you just got to leave out of there because there's too much diddling to even keep in the game.

At some point you're just like, okay, okay, enough diddling. Can we move on to the next stage of the game? Do not pass go. Do not collect your underpants. This black light shows a lot of suspicious stains. They're all on your cassocks, sir. Is a ball gag really part of this hymnal? I can't sing around this.

It really isn't. This is terrible. Watch what you do with that candlestick. So speaking of the Catholics, they're on a roll this week. Come on. You know, it's surprising. Every time I hear that the Catholic church numbers are down, I'm surprised. I'm like, man, I would have thought your, like, fuck little kids campaign would have been, you know, more attractive to the youth.

A lot more people. Yeah. But now they're going after their own nuns. According to the Vatican, American nuns need reform. American nuns, according to the Vatican, have been influenced by radical feminists. And by influenced by radical feminists, they mean not paying enough attention to homosexuals. Right. And not opposing things that are right to life.

Yes. So instead, they're looking for social justice. And inherent in that social justice, you have rights for gays and rights for women and they don't like that. So when nuns are for social justice, they don't like that at all. I have been, I think more so than most people, I would say more so than the average, I know more nuns than the average person. I've worked with nuns in the past, and I can say, you know, through my own anecdotal experience, that I have been around some really inspiring people that are nuns, really amazing people. And there's a reason why there's sort of a leadership

role for men in the church, but there's no real leadership role for women. And I think that's the biggest mistake the church can make, Because when I see the contribution that these nuns make to social justice, to systemic change, I think, you know, why isn't there a role for women in the church that is the same as the priest? Or at least, you know, maybe it's different. Maybe it's a different role, but it's still a leadership role. It's really easy, I think, to be a feminist. I think it's really easy. All you have to do is shut off all the things in your brain that say less than. That's all you have to do.

You know, yes, there are differences between men and women. Yes, they exist. There's, you know, there's going to be a part of me, no matter how feminist I seem, that is still attracted to women, no matter how I fucking try to. I can't shut that off. That's part of my biology. I see somebody like a Selma Hayek and I'm thinking, man, that girl's I can't stop thinking about how hot she is. I'm sorry. That's the thing that happens. It's just my brain. It's just the way it works. I can't stop it.

But, you know, what I can do is stop thinking that she's hot and she's an object. Right. You know what I mean? I can stop thinking that she's hot and she's less than. That's real easy to do. It's real easy to think, you know, that women need more roles as leaders in our country and in the workplace. If we stop seeing them as, you know, once in-while leaders, we'll stop thinking of it as weird. The idea that it's radical feminization for these nuns to be working on social justice

and like they're talking about – they're not speaking out strongly enough against gay marriage, abortion and women's ordination. So basically it's like saying, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. You are not subjugating yourself enough. You're making us do all the work. It's exhausting to keep you bitches down. Listen, we need some fucking help. You guys are trying to help the poor and, you know, okay, fine, whatever.

I think Jesus may have said something about that. But didn't Jesus also say that women are not equal? Didn't he? That's not in there? No. Well, I fucking said it. So there we go, and now you have to do it. So why don't you, as a woman,

spend more of your time campaigning against your own power? What? Who would do that? Who would do such a thing? There's a reason why they're being fucking – they're saying that they need reform because these women are like, fuck you. Right. You know, what it makes me hope is that – and I have to think this is going to be the case. I can honestly tell you it is baffling to me to the point of being up in modern western culture and an 18 or 19 year old woman right now saying i'm gonna join the fucking convent that's what i'm doing with the

rest of my life given the sorry ass fucking uh state of this church given the homophobic state of this church, given the radically anti-feminist state of this church. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to enter because I want to be forced by the patriarchy to speak out against my own self-interest. That strikes me as reasonable. Lord, we just asked it to be covered with the blood of Jesus. Open hearts, Lord. Open hearts. From the Sydney Morning Herald.

Again, what the fuck? Vatican defends the excommunication of a mother and doctors of a nine-year-old girl. Nine-year-old girl gets raped by her stepfather. Nine-year-old girl. It's like a third grader. Oh, my God. Gets raped by her stepfather. Nine year old girl. It's like a third grader. Oh my God. Gets raped by her stepfather. Becomes pregnant with twins

as a result of that attack. And the mother and doctors wisely aborted. And the church excommunicated the doctors and mother. And, Tom, when you say wisely, you mean she was in danger.

This was a pregnancy that could have really cost her her life because she was a tiny girl, sickly. And they're like, oh, she's probably going to die. She's nine. They made a choice. They're like, you know what? It's gone. Yeah, it's a nine-year-old girl. Yeah. You can't. She's supposed to be a choice. They're like, you know what? It's gone. Yeah, it's a nine-year-old girl. Yeah.

You can't. She's supposed to be a mother? She's supposed to be. I mean, she's got to live a whole life. I mean, she's nine. Yeah. She can't be giving birth to twins. Yeah, she's a child herself.

Right. I mean, you're a child. You can't be giving birth to a child when you're a fucking child. And it's not like, I mean, she's at an age, it's so far beyond any way that you could, I mean,

consent isn't even a thing for a nine-year-old. It's like, I mean, a nine-year-old still has to ask if they can have a cookie. Right, sure. What about two kids? The thing I think when I heard this article, when I read this article, they didn't excommunicate the father, the stepfather who raped her. They didn't excommunicate him.

They excommunicated the mother and the doctors because they performed the abortion. I just want to thank the Vatican for self-selecting out of moral authority right there. You've basically just said, you know what? We're not a moral authority. We're a dogmatic institution. That's all we are. We have a list of things that we think are right or wrong, and they're not based on human interaction whatsoever.

They're based on fucking fantasy. And if you want to follow the same fantasy as us, if you want to play Harry Potter with us, you have to listen to these rules. That's cool if you want to believe this stuff, but it's not morality. It's not moral. It's dogma. And then you have self-selected

so thank you. Thanks for doing that. They didn't excommunicate the attacker. They never excommunicate the attacker. You know, I've never seen you know, it doesn't seem to matter how fucking unbelievably evil you are. If it's not a hot-button

fucking issue, you don't get excommunicated. Right. So here's what's baffling. You can I could be a Catholic and I could murder my kid right now. I've got a five-year-old boy. I could stab him in the face and kill him. And I they'll be excommunicated. How the fuck could that possibly be fair? Here's another analogy. You could fucking murder your kid and have no problem, get forgiven,

but if you were to help your wife with stage four cancer, euthanize, you would be excommunicated. And then you just – but like you said, it's nice. It's right because this, what this does is this says, oh, I don't have to worry about your fairy tale bullshit. Right. I don't have to, you don't matter. Right. You guys have clearly made a, created a stance that is indefensible by any rationale.

Sure. It's only defensible if you believe exactly how they believe. And it's funny because they're finding out more and more Catholics don't believe how exactly they should believe. I talk to so—I interact with a lot of Catholics on a daily basis. And I will tell you that a lot of them—recently,, I was in a class and somebody in the class brought up, well, why aren't nuns allowed to be priests or whatever they would call them? You know, why aren't they allowed? And, and the people were like, I don't know the answer to that.

This is how organizations change is what one of the people said. It's like, that's how organizations change is when they have, they finally can't, they can't make other people understand their rationale and say, well, I guess we're just going to have to change. So there are a lot of Catholics that do not agree with what Vatican says. These people who live in the fucking realm of forms with their big giant fucking hats and enormous gold crosses and fucking little goddamn popemobiles where they're sealed off from the rest of the world. They have no idea how the real world works. They get their fucking – they get their lunch served to them by a fucking naked eunuch. You know what I mean? Like these people are so far outside of fucking rationality that they cannot interact with the real world in any way, shape, or form. So those people,

they've selected themselves out of the human race. And now you have the real people, the boots on the ground type of people that are like, your fucking, your laws and edicts are fucking strange and stupid and backward and bronze age and we're not going to listen to them anymore.

Doesn't that sound to you like the beginnings of a second Reformation? It does. It absolutely does. I mean, I can't help but hear that. Like, I hear that because I agree with you because there's so many, like, you look at the work being done on the street level and then you look at this nonsense. Right.

And they couldn't be more disparate. And you think, how are you part of the same organization? And it's because nobody's, I mean, they just fucking need to nail some shit to a door and call it a night. I do. They do. And start with the Pope's hat. Right.

I think you need to nail that to a door. Nail it right to the hat. Yeah. The new reformation is. Pin the hat on the Pope. That's another game we need. Pin the hat on the Pope. No, I would play that game.

That game would be fucking spectacular. I would play the fuck out of that game. You're a wizard, Harry. I'm a what? A wizard and a thumping good-a-night wager, once you trade up a little. This is a story from Reuters. A Sri Lankan woman was arrested on suspicion of casting a spell on a 13-year-old girl during a Saudi

family shopping trip. She might face death. What they do with sorcerers in Saudi Arabia. Rightfully so. Let me interrupt here. Rightfully so. Of course. You know, so it's twofold.

So for sorcerers in Saudi Arabia, first, they believe that's real. So that's the first thing they do. The first thing. Yeah. Got to overcome that bound. That's a hefty hurdle for a lot of us. It's a's real. So that's the first thing they do. The first thing. You've got to overcome that bound. That's a hefty hurdle for a lot of us. It's a big one. Then they behead you.

But that one's a little easier. Look, that's the only way to do it. Because otherwise they'll use magic. Like if you were just to shoot them, they would just use magic to stitch themselves back together. So you've got to take the head right off. Yeah. That's how you kill wizards and witches is by cutting the head from the body. You have to sever the head from the body and burn it and then throw the fucking ashes in the ocean.

That's the only way. I mean, what are we, irrational? I read a book. I read a book, Tom, and a book said to do that. And a book said to do that. So what I wonder here is like could you imagine – OK. In a country where you can be put to death for witchcraft, can I just accuse someone of killing someone else? Because they obviously don't need evidence to put you to death in this country.

So could I just say to somebody, be like, hey, I thought that guy killed somebody and be like, oh, did he kill somebody? Oh, I'm going to kill him then. Because there's obviously no need, like, there's no fucking Saudi Arabian CSI. Like, they don't exist. You know what I mean? Like, they don't even exist. They'd just be like, all they need is just a guy and a desk that you go up to and say someone committed

a crime, and they're like, oh, yeah, well, we don't actually, there's no investigation because there's no evidence. We don't need it. Well, you know, what strikes me as funny is if somebody was being suspected of magical crimes, which is what this person, because really like if you read the article, a woman, like a 13 year old girl walked past this woman and then began acting strangely. Yeah. So proximity,. So proximity.

It's proximity. And this is the first time in history that a 13-year-old acted funny. I know, right? Because 13-year-old girls just typically. They don't act funny ever. They never act funny. Salem. Salem.

Anyway, so. You've got somebody who's, you know, suspected of magic crimes. Right. So what non-magical means would you use to prove magic crimes? I mean, you're not going to, like, fingerprint. Like you said, there's no CSI because it's magic. Magic. You're just just gonna be like

did you commit did you do magic no it's not a thing it's not a real fucking thing and then you're gonna say well I'll prove the magic this person acted weird when they walked past you'd be like well they acted weird when they walked past a pillar

I was standing next to a pillar maybe the pillar did it can we behead the pillar it's it's this woman it might be fucking her head chopped off how can you have a how can you live in a society that you think is a a a good and just and polite society and and at some point you're like, oh, well, we're going to have to cut that person's head right off. I mean, wow. It never comes up in polite conversation, you know.

Would your solution to the problem is, woo-wee, that is a dilly of a pickle. And traffic court sucks over there because they're lopping off hands left and right. Judge Wapner has a huge sword. It's literally the people's court, too. Oh, my God. Judge Judy just fucking shoots a brother like just boom. There's like a fucking pit that opens up underneath and they just fall right into it i mean we may as well like we may as well make them fight bears at this point yeah gosh it's i

mean that's so ridiculous because there's no evidence man it's like you can basically accuse anyone of anything in a society that takes this shit seriously right like how do you how do you possibly have any sort of i mean there's a reason why laws work the way they work. There's a reason why there's a – you need a preponderance of evidence in this country in order for the DA to even take the case to try somebody for murder. Look at Trayvon Martin for crying out loud. They decided whether or not to try the person for murder. You're like, come on. Over there, all you'd have to do is just be like, hey, he killed that guy.

Oh, really? Kill him. Right. Just run him through. It's like a fucking conveyor belt full of people tied down with their heads sticking out so they could lop it off. Chop, chop, chop, chop. Well, you know what's crazy is Saudi Arabia doesn't have a written set of criminal codes. Oh, well, that's nice.

Yeah. They just have judges who interpret Islamic code, Sharia law. They don't have a set of written criminal codes. So you can get arrested for shit because you were arrested for it. And then you go in front of a judge who doesn't have... How do you even get made a judge in that country? How do you get made a judge? How do you become an attorney?

How do you become a lawyer? There's no written laws. How do you become a cop? What do you do? You're just like, well, I don't know. I mean, I don't know if that's illegal or not. I just, I decided to arrest that person. Because really, really,

the judges are actually less on the chain because you have to do something to break the law in the first place. You're like, well, who decides the law on the streets? It's obviously the fucking cop. You know, it would cut down on paperwork, though. It really would. You'd be like, I arrested him.

Why? Because I'm a cop. Because Allah said so, motherfucker. Whatever, dude. Fucking said somewhere in there that maybe there's a witch, so. Everybody on the thing arresting officer is Allah. Everybody. dude. Fucking said somewhere in there that maybe there's a witch. So everybody, everybody on the thing, arresting officer is Allah.

Everybody like arresting officer Allah. In the name of Jesus, we speak that. So this next story, this is from the Huffington Post. It's from their religion blog. Well played, guys. Brandy and Russell Bellew, parents. Not anymore. No. Lose children after son dies due to faith healing.

16-year-old son Austin died. So got sick. They prayed. That's not a real thing. Turns out, doesn't help. He died. This has happened before at the same house. You'd think you'd learn your lesson after your previous husband gets a leg wound and dies of sepsis.

You'd think. You'd be like, huh, that shit didn't work last time. Either God hates us or that's not a real thing to do. I think, Tom, another thing too is they should change this. They should stop referring to it as faith healing and start referring to it for what it really is, which is faith negligence. That's what they should call it. Exactly. Faith-based negligence.

Yeah. Or what you could do is just call it negligence. Sure. Right? It's like the faith part. You could cut off the faith-based part. It doesn't ameliorate the facts of the situation at all. Like at no point are you like, well, but you've got to take into account. They were faithful.

I mean, he thought it would work. That's awesome. He genuinely thought God was going to save him, so we're okay with that. Does it say in this thing? I can't find anywhere in this thing what was wrong with the kid. It doesn't say. I watched the video, too, and they never say. He was obviously a healthy kid, too, because they said he was on the track team or something.

He was on a sports team. Maybe he had lack of faith, and then that would have worked. No, yeah. Then I think faith-based negligence works. team. Maybe he had like lack of faith and then they could have, then that would have worked. No. Yeah. Then, then I think faith-based negligence works. But I've never heard of anybody dying from lack of faith. That's not a thing, right? That's not, no, you can't. Well, it is in, it is in Islamic countries. Yeah. He suffered from a severe beheading injury. You get sepsis from beheadings all the time. You know, Oregon's passed a law that has no tolerance for this sort of nonsense anymore.

Which is awesome. Fucking good for you, Oregon. Yeah. I mean, I'm baffled that any state would have, except Mississippi, you know, that any state would have any tolerance for this. Take that, Mississippi. Well, come on. That's not really a state.

That's like the toilet of America. That was our Mississippi listener. Sorry. Oh, yeah, there he goes. Fucking move out of there. Floating down the river right there. That's a disgusting fucking place. So great.

You got a 16-year-old, and then the state took all their kids away. Yeah. Which is a good thing. What if one of them got sick? Well, you'd fucking up the body count in that house, that's for sure. You're already two down. At some point, isn't your faith shaken? How does that work?

Pretty soon you're going to need an announcer that follows you around and goes, M-M-M-Mega Kill, you know? They're like fucking chalking a, you're like fucking smack talking to people on Xbox Live about how many people you killed in your house. And I put a lot of marks in the win column. Yeah. Right? You're just like, oh, I'm fucking 0-2. Fuck.

All right. Who had Austin Dyes in the brackets? Who had? No. Who had? Yeah, he was like a. Nobody did. Nobody would have guessed. he was like a – Nobody did. Nobody would have guessed.

He's like fucking 16 years old. Right. Fucking dead kid now. I hope these parents voted. Dick Clark? Dick Clark on that list? Absolutely. Dick Clark, yeah.

Shit, yeah. He's on the top of people's lists. Oh, no. He's on the top 40. Fucking Austin Sprout, 16-year-old? No. He's not winning any Deadpools. No.

Well, I mean, with parents like that, though. Yeah. Goddamn. I think your odds go up at a certain point. Real fucking fast. Yeah. Real fast. Can you imagine dying of a leg injury?

Be like, oh, my leg hurts. Well, we're going to have to pray about that. I would rather have a hospital. Oh, gosh. Dying of a leg injury. I mean, seriously. You're dying of a leg injury in fucking 2012. Right.

You're dying like it's the Civil fucking War. Like, that's what you're dying. You're dying like a fucking Civil War soldier. Right? You're like, I have a minor injury. Oh, remove minor from that sentence because all we're going to do is pray about it. Yeah, it's like dying from scraping yourself on a nail. Do you wonder if they even clean the wound out?

I don't know, dude. Oh, God. Because why would you? Why would you clean the wound? If you clean the wound out, aren't you acknowledging by cleaning the wound that there are microbes and what have you that should be flushed and removed because they can cause infection. And if you make that acknowledgement, is it that big of a leap? I mean, you've already prophylactically done some work to try to prevent an illness.

Right. So I would think that the logical thing to do, if you were to take this sort of fucking insane murderous nonsense to its conclusion, that illness, you would just be like, I'm just going to pretend that's not there. I'm just going to bleed. I wouldn't even try to stop the bleeding. Why would you? I mean, I guess stopping the bleeding would be the only thing, but you wouldn't want to change the cloth. You'd be like, why would I change the cloth?

There's no germs. And if there are, God wants them there. Well, doesn't God want you to bleed? I don't know. I mean, he'll clot you when he's ready to clot you. I just see God in one of those old leather jackets with the greaser hair and a knife. He just cut you. He's like, cut you, baby.

It's like fucking West Side Story with God and Jesus. When you're a jet from your first city. They're like, what's happening here? God killed Maria. So we're going to take a break to give you all the information that you need to find us on email, Facebook, Twitter. Google Plus!

I've been doing Google Plus! Tom got told. He got fucking, I don't know, he got told by one of our listeners, do Google Plus! Google Plus! I've been doing Google Plus! Tom got told. He got fucking, I don't know, he got told by one of our listeners, do Google Plus. And they helped him out. Thank you very much to John for helping us out with learning how to do to Google. It was very nice of him to give us tech support. I got immediately frustrated. I'm still frustrated at Google Plus.

But I'm working Google Plus, so you can find us there. You can find us at, you can send us nasty voicemails or praise-filled voicemails or hallelujah voicemails. I don't fucking care. Send me a voicemail. Just come on. Rate us on iTunes. We'll give you all that information. You can email these assholes at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com.

For more information on this or any other episode, visit the Cognitive Dissonance website, dissonancepod.com. For more information on this or any other episode, visit the Cognitive Dissonance website, dissonancepod.com. Like our show on Facebook to join in the conversation. Just search for Cognitive Dissonance in Facebook or go to our website for the link. You can converse with us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at dissonance underscore pod. Help us out by retweeting and reposting our shows. You can call us and leave us a message at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Long distance rates apply. Your help is fucking greatly appreciated.

So this story, Cecil, is from Good Morning America. Not such a good morning if your, is from Good Morning America. Not such a good morning if your house is haunted. Bad morning. Family flees haunted house and sues landlord. Yeah, of course you would. Why wouldn't you do that? New Jersey couple suing their landlord after saying that paranormal activity caused them to run out of their rental home.

I don't think I'd be terribly sympathetic. I own a rental property. If my renters called me tomorrow and they said, you know, Tom, the house is haunted. We're going to have to sue you. We're going to want our security deposit back. Fuck you. Not only am I leaving and breaking the lease. It's rare that I'll come across a story from the United States that even Judge Judy would throw out.

Even Judge Judy would be like, this is nonsense. I mean, come on. I watched it too because they're like, and they have proof. So I watched the video and the proof is, two guys were downstairs. There was for some reason a bowling pin sitting on the ground standing up. And as they move away, the bowling pin falls down. Therefore, there's a ghost.

Also, at one point, they're like, while our cameras were rolling, the woman's like, I told you to get out of this house. She says it to the house. And then one of the lights that was flickering goes on. And you're like, uh of the lights that was flickering goes on. And you're like, uh-oh. Dun, dun, dun.

So, okay. Let me make sure I have the evidence straight. A bowling pin, which is designed to fall over. That is its purpose. Falls over. Right. A flickering light. A signal of something electrical with a bad connection.

Right. The connection changes. The connection status of a flickering light. Changes. Changes. And that is a ghost. That's a ghost. I will believe it when you fucking get its ectoplasmic self into my office.

When you open up the little box, when Egon shows up or, you know, when Bill Murray has the fucking thing trapped with his proton pack, then you can give me a fucking phone call and I will give you your security deposit back and eat my hat. I'll fucking burn the house down myself. Right. I was wrong. That is full of ghosts. Man, insurance owes me a lot of money.

I don't know what to do about that. Fucking ghosts. Yeah. You know, like, here's the thing. I will believe even, I will go one step further than you, Tom, and say, if you take me to the room and the fucking clown is coming out from under the bed and fucking everything's spinning around the room and I hear ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, and fucking big fucking claws reaching out of the closet. I'm fucking fine. Here's your security deposit back. Here's a $500 I'm fucking sorry money. Right.

I get it. I understand. But you know what? When a bowling pin falls over in your house, like, do you know how much shit in a year falls over in your house without explanation? Right. Because things sometimes just fall over. And a bowling pin is meant to fall over! That's the design of the thing!

The use of the thing is so it falls over! That's unbelievable. That's your fucking evidence. Why do you have a bowling pin on the ground? That's actually a ghost test. Yeah, it is. It's a little known.

As a paranormal investigator myself as a as a amateur investigator none of which is true i you know what i do is i just set up bowling pins in places it's a good idea fall over right i just run out screaming i know it's a ghost and i ask somebody to give me a security deposit that's what i do i think that's that's the way to go i make thousands It's worked out for me. One guy in this video is awesome because he's like, I believe this family 110%. And I'm like, how do you believe them 110%? How do you believe?

You believe them more than their credibility is worth? Is that what that means? I like one of the comments. How many good American people remember the 80s? I was just asking because if you do, then you all know who these people should call. Oh, that's awesome. Do you believe in UFOs, astral projections,

mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness Monster and the theory of Atlantis if there's a steady paycheck in it I'll believe anything you say wow this is from Tampa Bay's news leader WTSP in Clearwater Florida Clearwater police arrested a woman for child abuse after she tried to toss a three-month-old baby into the ocean because she thought it was possessed by demons. Turns out the baby was actually just a baby. And the woman was fucking crazy. Yeah, it turns out, yeah, it's just a baby.

Fucking crazy. Yeah, it turns out, yeah, she's just a baby. You know, even though infants can swim, throwing your three-month-old infant into the ocean is probably not an advisable idea. I don't know that three-month-old kids can swim. I think they just flail at that point. They're more of a bobber than they are a swimmer. They're more of a bobber than a sinker. But she believed her kid was covered in snakes and lizards.

Lady, you live in Florida. Everything is covered in snakes and lizards. Chances are. You were probably covered in snakes and lizards. I used to live in Florida. You're constantly covered in snakes and lizards. You just, like, wake up, like, oh, hang on a minute. I got to shower off the snakes and lizards.

It's Florida. The only reason anybody settled there is because we invented air conditioning. Yeah. Throw your baby in the ocean. That's ridiculous. That's certainly the only reason why old people live there. Right. The police found this woman standing half naked on a seawall about ready to chuck her kid into the ocean. Again, because she thought the baby was possessed.

If you were a demon, this is the thing. Cecil, you're a demon. Okay, I'm with you on this one. You can possess a human body. Okay. This is a cool, I like this job. There's no downside yet. It's a good job so far.

You might get cast into a pig, though. I don't know can you call the teen girl girl exorcism squad yeah we'll talk about that you know i gotta i gotta check my wallet i gotta see what sort of supplementary services they offer a little expensive yeah um all right so on your right there's a three-month-old baby. Three-month-old. Got it. Not real strong. No. On your left, there's a full-ass grown woman. Who do you fucking possess? What good would it do you to possess a baby?

You'd be like, ah-ha-ha. Maybe the demon likes boobs. Like, that's the only reason I could think that she'd want to be the three-month-old. I don't understand. And, you know, when they say, okay, I thought my baby was possessed, you're like, no, your baby wasn't possessed. There was a snake on it or something. That's not the same as possessed. What good? How would you even know a three-month-old baby was possessed?

If you're a demon, why would you put outward signs of you being inside the baby? They all projectile vomit anyway. There's nothing you can do. Yeah, it's hard to pick the possessed one out of the baby crowd. You know what I mean? They're all shooting fucking stuff out their mouth and ass constantly. Well, he seems to sleep a lot, and all he wants to do is eat and fart and poop. He eats shit, scream, and fart. That's all they want to do is eat and fart and poop. Eat shit, scream, and fart.

That's all they want to do. That's just a baby. Yeah, well, you know, there's no fucking, no prerequisites to birthing a kid, that's for sure. At least they caught this idiot. I know, man. Because that was a fucking, that's a shark food. You throw that in the water, that's a shark food.

The ocean is not the place for three-month- oh no that's not no no no that's at least not for long because i'll tell you this right now if barack obama becomes the president november again i will either be dead or in jail by this time next year and if you take that adamant we the people defiance. Remember, we're Americans because we defied the king. We didn't negotiate and compromise with the king. We defied the emperors. We are patriots.

We are braveheart. We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November. Any questions? So this story is from CNN Politics. Ted Nugent. Ted Nugent. I'm baffled by who lets this man speak in public. Yeah.

Somebody commented on our Facebook, like, when was Ted Nugent last relevant? And I'm thinking, never really relevant. The guy sang songs. I don't even know what songs, Tom, this guy sang. I cannot think in my head. I think he sang a song like Cat Scratch Fever, but I'm not sure. I think that's his song.

I only think that because somebody made a joke about it on our Facebook page. That's the only reason I think that that's the case. So either I'm getting played by someone on Facebook, which is very possible. Which is possible. Yeah, because who listens to Ted Nugent? That's the thing. Like, this guy should be just screaming fucking vile insults in his bathroom alone in a dingy motel. Vile insults?

He's just screaming in a mirror, just yelling at himself, cutting himself. He's clearly insane. I don't know. Who's paying attention to this guy? You've got to hear. I'm just going to read some of what he had to say. If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.

If you can't go home and get everybody in your lives a clean house in this vile, evil, America-hated administration, I don't even know what you're made of. He accused the government of, quote, wiping its ass with the Constitution. You're living under a rock someplace. He sounds like everybody I've argued with on the Internet. We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November. Am I any questions?

Ride into the battle. Who the fuck do you think you are? Fucking Galahad? Dude, you should be on fucking extreme jousting or something. What the fuck? I want to read Tom real quick just a list of his songs because I figure this is fun, right? Because I figure this is fun, right?

Great White Buffalo, Cat Scratch Fever, Wango Tango, Stranglehold, Wang Dang Pootang. Hey, am I any questions? Dog Eat Dog, Free For All. That's a song I've heard before. Free For All. Scream Dream, Weekend Warriors. This is the part where he chops people's heads off on the horse. Only on Saturday.

She's got to work the rest of the week. Baby Please Don't Go. I don't know that. Snake Skin Cowboys. I don't know that. Live It Up. Not sure. Smoke Screen Again. No.

And then Out of Control. So I've only heard of two of these songs, but I think probably his most poignant work is Wang Dang Poo Tang. I think that's almost certainly, you know, this is who you should listen to is a guy who sings a song called Wang Dang Poo Tang. The man's a poet. I mean,

he really is. Really? You can't come up with that stuff unless you're a genius. It doesn't write itself. Yeah. Technically it does. Am I? Any questions?

That's fantastic. Am I any questions? That's fantastic. Am I any questions? What a fucking lunatic. Who hires this guy to speak? Why is he speaking? Well, you know, NRA, man. I mean, NRA. You're talking about the NRA.

I don't understand why the NRA is busting Obama's balls. He's done nothing. I know. He's done no gun control work. Well, what you want to say to this guy, you want to be like, OK, he says he says all this stuff about about Obama. He's like, oh, you know, we've got to get this evil, vile. We got a clean house in this evil, vile, American hated administration. You're like, OK, well, why is it America hated?

Because they're fucking the approval numbers are still good. So it's not America hated. It's you hated, jackass. And then you're like, OK, well, it's evil and vile. How is it evil and vile? You don't even fucking you're not even putting that shit to any kind of test whatsoever. Just saying it is evil and vile. OK, well, it's evil and vile.

Why? You're not explaining. And you're like, they just wipe their ass with the Constitution. Like, what does that even mean? Give me an example. Like, if you want to talk about NDAA relative to that, like, let's have that conversation. Sure. OK, fine.

There's a legitimate conversation to be had there. You want to talk about, you know, going back on your word about not pulling out of Afghanistan and Iraq fast enough or at all. Let's have that conversation. There's a valid conversation to be had. Right. There's real criticisms, but when you're just like, hey, he's vile and evil. Am I any questions? Like, what? Fucking a lot of questions. You're crazy.

One is, why don't you use proper syntax? You should make a sense. You should try to formulate your sentences a little better. Nut. You fucking nut. People won't fucking tilt their head like a dog and look at you quizzically if you speak correctly.

They want you to be like, murr. Right. You hear that and you're just like, I am unable to process these words in any. Exactly. I don't speak fucking nugent. Yeah. I'm not even going to eat nugent because it's so similar. That's not true.

I'll eat Nugget. Admittedly. Who are we kidding here? Oh, I have a big bowl of Nugget every morning. You just pour it down my throat. You're all sick. Oh, be nice! Oh, my son doesn't stand a chance.

The whole world's gone gay. Oh my God, what's happening now? We work hard. We play hard. Everybody dance now! This story is from The Telegraph. Christian Counselor's attempt to cure gay man was malpractice. I like this story. I like this story because this guy goes to a psychotherapist.

Man walks into a psychotherapist. Tell me you stop me if you heard this one. And, you know, she tries to cure him of his gay. if he's gay. Except for that, you know, no responsible medicine system recognizes homosexuality as a psychological disorder anymore. That shit's been overturned for a long time now. So you can't cure somebody of something that's not an illness. Well, she gave it a whirl, and it's being called malpractice now. And it should be male practice. These people who seek to treat the homosexual community by changing them, by changing their sexuality,

that should always be male practice. And if you're going to somebody and they're supposedly providing the service and they're not a medical care professional and you can't treat them for malpractice, they should be cited in some way for practicing medicine without a license, because they're offering counseling. I don't understand why people who are totally untrained and unlicensed, why priests and rabbis and imams, why they can get away with offering

psychological health services when I can't. I love too that this was part of an undercover sting. Good, good. There should be no quarter for these idiots. These people should be stripped of their licenses. They should be made to feel foolish. And they should be bankrupted. Because what good are they doing in the world? These are vulnerable people that are coming to a therapist. You don't go to a therapist because everything's feeling great. You're not like, best day of my life.

You know what I'm doing? Hitting the therapist then the gym, boom. That's not a thing. Dude, it's my birthday. I'm treating myself to the therapist. Right. Exactly. Oh, man, I was going to go to Great America or I could go to the therapist. What?

Yeah. No. So you're a vulnerable person coming to this individual with a problem. What should happen is you should go and say, look, I'm seeking reparative therapy, which is what this guy said. And they should say there's nothing to fucking repair let's talk about how you're fine instead of yes i will accept on its face your claim of being broken and then try to fix a problem that is not a problem it's like if you were a doctor and somebody who was obviously already thin came to you and said i want to get my stomach fucking stapled or whatever. You wouldn't do it.

You'd be like, I can't do that for you. You're not you're not, you know, morbidly obese. You're fucking you know, your clothes are hanging off of you. I can't do that. Same thing with like, you know, any other medical. You know, I want to get fucking I want two heads. Sorry, you can't have two heads. I can't sew another head onto you.

Same thing here. You just can't. You can't go into somewhere and be like, I think I'm broken. And be like, well, you're not broken. There's nothing wrong with you. So why don't you just hang out and pay me money? Yeah, no kidding. And that's the other thing.

You know, she didn't do this shit for free. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. So this story is from Science Now. Dangers of Chinese Medicine Brought to Light by DNA Studies.

Cecil, it turns out when you take ground-up antelope bones or horns or whatever, you're really just eating goat parts. Yeah. I love that they went through all the trouble to go find out exactly, did DNA studies on this stuff that they claimed was from an animal. And then they went out and, you know, I mean, it's like fucking, it's like, it doesn't matter whether it's, you know, my shit or somebody else's shit. It's still shit. It doesn't fucking do anything. So the idea that you're going out and being like, oh, I'm going to fucking figure out whether or not this came from the actual

antelope, it doesn't do anything anyway. It doesn't matter what it is. It's garbage. But they're lying to you even in the fact that not only are they lying to you that it's going to cure you, but they're also lying to you in the idea that it's actually what they say it is.

You come to them with a legitimate problem, right? Like my chi is out of whack. My feng shui isn't working. My chi is out of whack. I already tried cupping and that was, that didn't do anything. I thought it would, you know, it was cupping. It seemed rational. It seemed like it would work.

You know, I tried cleansing with foot patches. That was also ineffective. So, you know, clearly the next step is antelope horns. And then you get fed goat horns instead. That's just tragic. They're grinding shit up and feeding it to you because you're so fucking stupid you're buying it. That's why. I could grind up anything.

I could just fucking—you could eat carpet fibers. And it doesn't matter because the placebo is still gonna work exactly that's what they're relying on what it is yeah and that's what this shit relies on it relies on the fact that you know the placebo effect is a real thing and it relies on the fact that most people have minor illnesses or complaints that go away over time. So most things are going to resolve. Not all, obviously, not all. But most things are going to resolve over time. So if I tell you to eat carpet fibers for 14 days,

most of the time after two weeks you're feeling better. Okay, great. And if you're not, you died anyway. So you're not really gonna be fucking giving me a bad yelp review for my carpet fiber therapy on your deathbed you're giving yelp reviews like this fucker killed me i can't believe it how do they do the uh how do they do the erectile dysfunction shit i wonder like i want because there's a lot of this a lot of this is aimed at male potency right there's

a lot of this garbage like call it what it is on this they're boner you gotta put this giant fucking tiger penis in your mouth and you're gonna feel more like a man like no no i won't no it's not gonna work that way no but they they they say like okay well uh you know use this giant tiger penis or whatever you cut it up and you get to eat it. And then and now you're going to feel better. You're going to have like a stronger heart on or whatever. But that's like what I wonder how they get away with that. I wonder how they can keep selling those things. It's got to be the placebo effect.

But I can't think of anything else because you're saying that things get better after two weeks. Maybe that doesn't get better after two weeks, but maybe there's enough placebo effect for it to get better. Well, I also think that there's probably a shame component. So with the boner pill thing, right, who's the guy who goes and says, didn't work for me? Yeah, I couldn't get it out, man. It still doesn't fucking work. Because there's a lot of shame and embarrassment involved in the problem anyway. It's still like a limp rope, man.

I can swing that thing around fucking lasso shit with it silly putty in a coin slot what can you do for me here nothing nothing at all so you know you're gonna be the guy who's like i ate a whole tiger cock and it didn't help i choked down a tiger cock i love that too it's like well you know i understand that but you know the problem clearly is a lack of tiger penis in your diet. How much tiger penis do you eat in a week? Well, doctor, I've been eating very little tiger penis, actually, because. Oh.

Well, there's your problem. You know, really. Yeah. Tiger penis is like vitamin C, you know. You don't have enough vitamin C. You get scurvy. You don't have enough tiger penis. You can't get a boner.

You know, so. Because we all know tigers get fucking rock hard cocks. Like that's just, I mean like of the species on the earth, the tigers have the biggest rock hard cocks. Wouldn't you eat like elephant trunks instead? Like if you're just. You'd have a prehensile cock. They call that the French tickler. Well, the thing is, is that you don't have to unzip your pants with your hands, though.

So we're going to go over a little bit of email here. We got an email from Religion Poisons. He had mentioned, Tom, something that completely baffled both of us, that when we talked about the Moroccan rapist who had to marry his – the woman who was forced to marry her Moroccan rapist, that that's not Sharia law, that that's actually French law. Yeah, I was shocked to read this. I really was quite surprised. I remember in the article it said that.

That's unbelievable that this comes from French civil law. And according to the gentleman at Religion Poisons, this is like a law from 1962. 19 – 19! Not 14! I know. Not four. So that's awful. Yeah, that's

terrifying. We were wrong. So take that, us. Yeah, well, whatever. That's fucking... Jeez, if you did that with every show, come on now. If the end of the show was filled with corrections, the show would get a lot longer. Let's just throw that out there. It'd be like two minutes of actual

stories, the rest corrections. So we got a comment on our blog that we want to talk about. This is from Johnny. Tom, do you want to read Johnny's comment here? I love your show, even when people are sick. Wait, who am I fooling? You guys are sick every week. Anyway, I wanted to just note that the website, SeattlePie.com

belongs to the former Seattle Post Intelligencier. Intelligencer. Intelligencer. I like Intelligencier. I like that better. It kind of sounds like a ray gun. I'm going to shoot you with the Intelligencier. Thank you, actually.

I'm going to go take the SATs. A newspaper which provided goodness To our fair city from before the great fire Of Seattle Yes we had one of those too Until just a few years ago when it went web only It is not a website devoted to everyone's favorite real number

So STFU libs I love that This is especially egregious Because it is supposed That if you calculate pi back far enough You will get back every combination of numbers that exists. That in turn means that by charging a company with including pi in their masthead, they are essentially also including everything which can be expressed in numbers. You know what else is essentially encoded with numbers on the internet? Child pornography.

Spam mail. Pirated software. Every single cryptography key out there. what else is essentially encoded with numbers on the internet child pornography spam mail pirated software every single cryptography key out there every single possible cryptography key for that matter the recipe for making a nuclear bomb if you love freedom you will not accuse the seattle post intelligence or website of being Seattle Pie again. Johnny, thanks for the correction about Seattle Pie. Yeah, I know. Happy that you correct us on Seattle Pie. Tom, what's in Seattle Pie?

Is it hair bands? Is that what it's filled with? It's like a nice bubbly crust filled with flannel shirts and hair. Is that what's in there? You cut it open, it's just fog and a light rain. It's like, this is moist. It's like this is moist. At least the pie is moist. The pie is organized really well.

You can only eat it while sitting slanted on a hill actually. I love Seattle. That's a fucking hilly ass goddamn wet place to live though. Thank you very much for the correction. Our apologies go out to Seattle Pie. Seattle Pie won't probably hire us now. Seattle P.I.? Seattle, yes.

It's like Magnum P.I. It's just like Seattle P.I. All of a sudden there's like a big oversized mustache on the space needle. Yeah, that would be awesome, actually. Somebody's got to Photoshop that. That's Seattle P.I. Flies around in a helicopter. Bad cheesy fucking music playing all the time. That's the Seattle PI. Flies around in a helicopter. Bad cheesy fucking music

playing all the time. That actually sounds like Seattle. Yeah. Oh no, this is a line from Hednett. He sends us a line, or she sends us a line that says, Did you know if you mix Taco Bell hot sauce

with ramen noodles, it tastes exactly like poverty oh no that's the saddest thing i read all week that's awesome so that was fantastic um oh that seems so accurate too i know i i love hot sauces and like taco bell hot sauce is just a consolation prize it's neither hot nor technically a sauce, I don't think. It's really just bad. So we got a message from Michael. Michael is a Baltimore-based comedian and recently had to deal with some misogyny.

Some people were – some comedians were railing against something that was going on, basically attacking women, and asked us how you would deal with something like that. Tom and I, we record a show. So if somebody were to come on our show and be a jackass, I would just edit the fuck out of them and make them sound like a douche. So I don't know that I would have a way in which to deal with people on a live system. Man, I feel for you. I can't imagine if somebody were berating my girlfriend for being female, which it sounds like is all that they've got, right? That's the thing that strikes me when somebody is being particularly misogynist.

The only thing you've got, the only weapon in your arsenal is that there's a girl. That's it. So, I mean, to my way of thinking, the only response to that is, you're clearly a substandard human being. You're not good at this. Crawl back under your rock and get out. We got a question from Mark, Tom. We actually had two questions. Have we ever criticized the Democrat? And have you ever voted non-Democrat? Now, I'm going to answer the second one first. Yes, I voted non-Democrat several times, actually. I voted in every election so far since I've turned 18 and I have voted probably about even back and forth between parties, sometimes Green Party,

sometimes Independent Party, sometimes Republican parties and Democrat parties. Yeah, I voted all over the board. I haven't. I voted most. I almost voted Green Party back in 2000. I came very close, but it felt pointless. I was scared of Bush, so I didn't. But it's not for lack of wanting to. I don't know if you listen to the show or not, Mark, but the first question, have you ever criticized the Democrat?

Yeah. I mean, we've been critical of Obama. We were very critical of Obama when he signed the NDA. I think that was an unjustifiable decision. It was a nearly criminal act, I think, to sign that fucking thing. So, yeah, we've absolutely been critical of him for not being as aggressive on gay rights issues as he said he was going to be. We've been critical of him for breaking campaign promises. Yeah, we've been critical of of Democrats in the past.

Abso-fucking-lutely we have. I think the people mistake what we do here and they think, oh, well, you guys are just like a, you know, sort of like a political machine in some ways. And I think what what I want to say to people is there's no way, I think, nowadays to be a humanist. And we've said on this program that humanism is, you know, that feminism is just a subsect of humanism. So there's no way to be a feminist or a humanist or somebody who likes the idea of social justice and to follow things that are going on in the Republican Party and say, that's my that those are my guys. You can't I don't think you can be I mean, you can be a token woman in the Republican Party, I think. And, you know, definitely get some attention. But I don't think you're ever fighting for women's rights in the Republican Party.

You're never looking and saying, you know what? We don't treat women the same way. So so uh, so let's stop doing that. No Republicans would ever say that. They just don't do that. So that's why we don't ever treat any of those people with respect. Now, don't get me wrong. Somebody stands up there. Like, uh, we were talking about Huntsman, like that guy stands up and says some shit. And you're like, Oh, I like that guy. You know, Ron Paul says some things. I'm not going to say that I get a lot of shit for this. A lot of people like to fucking shovel shit at me for this because I think once in a while Ron Paul says some shit that seems fiscally responsible. I still stand by that.

I think his social polities are fucking cuckoo bonkers. I think the guy is fucking – he's got his head so far up his own ass when it comes to social policies. I'm terrified. But once in a while he'll say some shit. I'll be like, you know what? His fucking fiscal policy makes a lot of sense to me. But I'm also, you know, I'm not a fucking economist. I just see it as like a normal working class stiff and say, hey, that makes sense to me.

So I think we range all over the board. over the board, but with the main issues that we cover on this show, humanism, feminism, secularism, those things can't be found in the other party. And they can't be because the right, and we've talked about this, has been hijacked. It's been taken over by the religious right. So Republicans, you know, they're fucking disqualified from the race a lot. Yeah, and they won't get my vote because of it. Yeah. Got an email from Brandy, who is a bonafide crazy cat lady, Tom.

That's fantastic. All I picture is the cat lady from The Simpsons. I know, me too. Just throwing cats, just like an endless supply of cat projectiles. But this is a comment I think you made last time about a search party. Oh, yeah. Your cats don't make sense. She says, I've written to you previously.

Thanks for keeping up the wonderfully feminist podcast. I've only one quick comment. I'm a bonafide crazy cat lady. I like that she describes herself as festooned by four cats. I love that. Yeah. And when I recently rolled my car, my four cats did not form a search posse to come and find me.

I'd love to see them in like the slicker, the rain slicker with the hat, like on the horse, like following the little posse of cats. The problem is the cats have such a hard time controlling the dogs. Yeah. The sniffer dogs, you know, it's just –

Stop sniffing me. They just run in circles chasing – Stop sniffing me. Either – I am not what you're looking for. The dog just resents the hell out of it. That's the thing. It's like, well –

Furious. The cat tries to ride them. It's just chaos. It's not good. Not good. But thank you for the email. We appreciate it. So in a few weeks, we're hoping if everything goes through, in a couple of weeks, we're going to have on Jake from the Imaginary Friends Show podcast.

And Jake has a podcast in Australia. He was on that list from about.com of atheist podcasts, and he actually contacted us first and said, hey, I listen to your show. You guys are good. We listen to his show. We like him quite a bit. So we've been trading emails back and forth

trying to figure out when we're going to be on each other's show. It looks like it's going to happen in a couple weeks, but if you get a chance, go over and check out the Imaginary Friends Show podcast. You can find it on iTunes, and I think you can just Google it and it should pop up. Although I don't think he has an RSS feed on his site. It seems like you get much

more recent episodes from iTunes. But there's a really great one that he pointed to me to specifically, Tom, which I think you listened to as well, which was where he was talking to one of those nutters from the Westboro Baptist Church. And it's great because he he makes some really funny comments in there where I've actually laughed out loud several times.

So if you get a chance, check his podcast out. He's a lot of fun. So we're hoping to have him on in a couple of weeks and we'll get a chance to talk to him. It's just hard to set up because there's like a four day time difference or something. It's like he's on like Mars somewhere. It's like what it's day, it's night. When it's night, it's day. It's fucking chaos.

It's crazy. It's crazy. So, oh, we also got a tweet this week, Tom, that we had to translate. I had to run through Google Translator. It's so funny that we have people who listen to the show that not only have a second language, which I do not have. You barely have a first language. I know not have. Well, you barely have a first language. I know. Jesus.

And then they also pay attention to American politics, like proving once again our listeners are so much smarter than we are. Well, I'm certain that you pay attention to the political machinations of all countries, right? I mean, you're... No? No. No.

Me either. No. No. I actually responded to his tweet with, I don't know, you're... No? No. No, me neither. I actually responded to his tweet with, I don't know what this says, but thank you. He probably said, you suck a bag of tits. Oh, they're making fun of us in other languages now. So thanks again for listening.

And as always, we are going to leave you with The Skeptic's 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, Healing Water, Downward Spiral, Brain Dead, Pan Sales Pitch, Late Night Info Docutainment Leo, Pisces, Cancer Cures

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