Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 610: Emotional Support Church

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

Show Notes   Please provide feedback on the segment of our show where we read Carl Sagan's "Demon Haunted World."  

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it's political and there is no welcome at this episode 610 cecil yeah it's a big day. Is it? Happy anniversary. Oh, it is. Happy insurrectionversary. We are recording this on 1-6-22, which is exactly one year ago that violent conspiracy theorists broke into the fucking Capitol building digging for papers for Nancy Pelosi.

They're gotta be here somewhere, There's got to be something we can find. There's got to be something in there. Yeah. Remember that wonderful day where on the Capitol steps,

they erected a... Gallows. Gallows. Yeah. To hang the vice president. Hang Mike Pence. For doing his constitutional duty. They literally said,

Yeah. Well, only when they were chanting. Multiple times. And I think this is a quote, hang Mike Pence. And then they were going to- Hang Mike Pence. They were going to kill Pelosi.

Well, they didn't say that. They just- They eerily called out her name as they stalked the hallways. No. You're right, Tom. You're right, Tom. I'm overreacting.

Yeah, you know, you beat one cop to death. You know, come on. And everybody's all worked out. First one's a gimme. Holy shit, man. Yeah, man. It's crazy.

You know, you turn me on to something this week. I don't know. Fans of our show may also be fans of the New York Times Daily Podcast. The Daily Podcast hit or miss sometimes. Depends on the topic, of course. Sometimes they are very, I feel like sometimes they, they are off.

They, they missed the mark, but this time I think was really interesting. They first, the first daily this week, it's a three part around the insurrection. And the first one was a guy, a voice actor,

three voice actors, boy, basically reading the script of a guy who's being interrogated by the FBI, who was caught. He actually turned himself in after the insurrection. He turned himself in. He was eventually sentenced to three months, maybe in jail or probation.

Three whole months, man. It doesn't matter. In any case, he got three months in jail. He lost his job. He might've lost his kid. I don't know. But it's this big, sad story. Yeah, he got the big boo-hoos is what he got. Big, his job. He might have lost his kid. I don't know. But it's this big sad story. Yeah, he got the big boo-hoos is what

he got. He got a big sad story. Yeah. About how he wound up in the insurrection. His story was essentially, I didn't have anything else going on that day. It felt like it was historic, so I went down there. I didn't even know they were voting on anything that day. I

wandered in because the doors were open. It's actually kind of your fault the doors were open. Yeah, for real, he says this. When I fell, a policeman accidentally fell near me and I kind of helped him up. I was pushing him up. I wasn't fighting him. I helped him up. And that was his story that he told the FBI people. And the whole time I'm hearing this voice acted thing, I'm just like, you are such a fucking liar. Yeah, that's why I, so I'm listening to the daily and I listen to it almost every day, especially like, I usually will listen to the daily

when I'm driving back or driving to dropping off my stepdaughter at school. So like, I'll miss it if she doesn't have school because then my whole routine is off, right? Yeah. So, but I'm in the car and i'm listening to it and i texted cecil at a stop like so it's like you gotta listen to this fucking thing because it's making me so mad yeah it was making me so mad because he's weaving this fucking tale of naivete that is such fucking boiled bullshit. It is absolutely the least plausible series of events.

And that's how, through a series of unfortunate events, I lemony snicketed my way into the Capitol. I went into the Capitol. I came out with two adopted kids. I have no idea how that even happened. What is even happening? And now I've got to abuse them. I've got to spend my whole life abusing these children. This is your fault, rotunda police officers.

This is on you. I got to live in a weird fucking Tim Burton house for the rest of my life? Fucking A, man. I, like, I seriously, I could not believe some of the shit this guy is. Yeah, yeah, they didn't really stop us from going in. Yeah, I mean, they tried. There was six of them, man. Supes, dup I mean, they tried. There was six of them, man. Supes, dupes hard, man.

There was like six of them. Right. Like, what's crazy to me is the way he weaves his tail as if, you know, if the Capitol wasn't dressed so slutty, I wouldn't have entered it. Right. Exactly, man. That's literally what he says.

That's not literally what he says. But it's the same sentiment. It's very similar to what he's saying. basically saying, look, the doors were open. And I thought that I thought the police officers were like, come on in. There's a tour. There's a tour guide. There's a bus. They got those little handsets. They're going to tell you about what pictures on the wall. So wildly incongruous to the video we saw of the event of the chaos and the violence and the pushing and the screaming and the shouting and the fucking pepper spray. There was that one guy getting shoved through a Play-Doh fun factory. Right.

He's getting smooshed. He's just getting smooshed. The whole time he said he's screaming. That is actually the scariest. Watching that is like, that gives me the fucking. Because in the crush, he could easily die. Oh,

it's scary. Easily die. And he could not move. And he's screaming. And then the people who are pushing on him are like mocking him. Yeah. It is. There is an intense level of cruelty and there is video of this guy. Right.

So the FBI is. Oh yeah. There's video of the guy who's on the daily. Right. The voice actor, they did a voice act, but the guy who's there, he's got his own video.

He has his own video. And so the FBI's got like his cell phone video and his like social media posts and all this stuff. And so he's like, you know, at one point, the FBI's like, you know, at one point like you're telling the cops to retreat. He's like, no, no, no. I was telling the mob to retreat.

You see, I was on the side of the police. I love the police. Yeah, yeah. And then video comes out from the, more video comes out that was found by some of the internet sleuths

that are helping to find a name and identify the insurrectionists. Right. And at the end, toward the end of this, this guy weaves this totally impossible,

improbable tale of wild princess bride level bullshit. It's fucking big fish of the Capitol. It is. That's essentially what it is. Dude, it is. It's big fish. It's fucking Forrest Gump, bro.

It's big fish in the Capitol. At the end of it, there's going to be a funeral and everybody's going to tell you how much they love the guy. Yes, yes. And he caught the biggest fish in the world and he fought a giant and he fucked a mermaid. And that's how he got in the, that's how I got in the Capitol that one day. I was just minding my own business fucking this mermaid when and then bam there i am i didn't know she had a magical vagina that transported you to the rotunda the capital i would have entered her or the rotunda but like but then the video surfaces of him like straight fighting the car like fist fighting the cop. Right.

Like there's a bell and a referee. Mike Tyson runs in and bites his ear. And it happens like right before sentencing. Yeah. So right before sentencing this video, and the guy's like, all right, you got me on that one. Fair enough. Okay. Turns out I'm real sorry more different, harder. Then the judge, Tom, is like, okay, well, here's an extra month.

Yeah, they was going to get the guy, the guy was originally going to get two months, two fucking months. Two months. They asked for six, and then the daily, not knowing how to do math, said, well, they split the difference and gave him three.

Thank you for saying that, because I stared at my- Do you know what the difference is? Like, you know, if you start at two, and your end is six, the middle is like you know you if you start at two and your end is six the middle is not three yeah that's one away from your starting point just do the dots like they did when you're in grade school and you had to draw the line and there was a number line or whatever seriously the daily oh it's seriously the judge split that why are these guys getting these

fucking bullshit hand slappy bullshit sentences tom it's so pathetic and these people you know the way this guy plays it off he makes it seem like i didn't have anything going on that day i'm not really into politics i don't really know anything about this stuff i didn't know there was a vote going on bullshit these people were whipped into a frenzy that's such a it's such a lie it's such a lie and you could tell from the very beginning and then they followed it up with another daily podcast today. Now, we're recording this on 1-6, so they're doing another one tomorrow,

and the one they're doing tomorrow, they're going to have another, they're going to basically recap what happened in the year, I think, I'm not sure, but they talked to Liz Cheney on today's daily. It's the second part of this, and Liz Cheney is completely under fire by her own party because she's the only one she's

literally the only Republican I can think of there might be one more Romney is still one more and then in the Senate Mitt Romney that are like no the president fucked up the day a couple days after although a lot of Republicans Mitch McConnell I mean we're talking about it on tonight's show there's a bunch of different Republicans that were all 100% fucking, he's wrong. He did the wrong thing. But Liz Cheney, you know, the only one,

you know, like her dad, straight shooter. You know what I mean? She tells it to you right in the face. Right in the face. She tells it to you

right in the face. And then you have to apologize for it. You better be sorry. You better be sorry. We don't like, I won't say. When she tells you

to go fetch that bird, you go get that bird. You get that fucking bird. You get that bird. You better be sorry. We don't like, I will say. When she tells you to go fetch that bird, you go get that bird. You get that fucking bird. You get that bird. You bring it back in your mouth. How weird is it? What a, what a world we are living in

where I'm on the side of a Cheney. When I am on the side, when I, when I am looking at my radio and Cecil, I'm thinking to myself, you know, the only one right now

that has a consistent grasp on reality is a Cheney. And what's crazy is you hear her talk and I still hate her. Yeah, she's horrible. Like when you hear her talk, she's like, oh, and what I really want to do is focus on how Biden is destroying America and how the Republican, the Democratic policies are going to turn this nation, destroy this nation. I'm like, lady, did you fucking see what happened on the 6th? Your policies did that. You guys created that monster. So don't come fucking crying to me when your fucking Frankenstein fucking monster

fucks everything up. And now you come to me and you're like, oh, yeah, no, I want to make sure I protect. You know, you can't have it both ways. I still blame you for creating him. At least you're taking responsibility though. And I'm okay with that if you'll take, but she's like the only one who's taking responsibility and she's going to lose her seat in Wyoming, man. I know, man. And, and even, and even that, like what she's trying to do is no true Scotsman, Donald Trump. He's not a true Republican because she wants her Republican party. Right. And what He's not a true Republican. Because she wants her Republican Party, right? And what she really wants is a Republican Party that hasn't existed now for at least five, six,

seven, eight years, right? So she wants a Republican Party that's fucking gone. And you got to look at politics always in the context of today. I think when you try to transport politics into a context outside of the present, it's a fucking failure. Liz Cheney wants a right, a GOP, a Republican party that she can still feel good about. She wants her dad's GOP, man. But that GOP literally doesn't exist anymore because the GOP is not a static thing. It is a conglomeration of the assholes who identify that way today. Yeah, it makes no difference. It's why I can't stand this like liberal Democrat shit or all the rest of that nonsense. Like all of it is constantly being redefined.

It is always redefined moment by moment, Congress by Congress, institution by institution. There is no such thing. There is no definitional a priori Republican Party, which exists as a fucking shining plinth for us all to compare ourselves to. It's not a platonic ideal. Right. It's not a GOP in the sky that we all look to and say, we want to be like that. You know, and it's also held together by the glue with Donald Trump. I mean, let's not forget that Donald Trump, for years, poisoned, he poisoned the well on so many different things. He poisoned the

well on discourse. He poisoned the well on voting. He poisoned the well on a lot of things. And these guys have not dropped those policies. None of them. So they're all still touting the same lies and they call it, they're literally calling it in this fucking daily, the big lie. And Liz Chaney is one of the few that is like, yeah, you know, he did what he was supposed to do,

which was take it to court, which I don't, I still disagree. I think like, especially when you hear those suits that were being brought in, where they're like fucking, There's nothing there. Like written on the back of like a fucking, like a,

like a Denny's placemat or whatever. And then they ran it in and it's in crayon. I got to the middle of the maze and that means that I'm president now. You have to crown me, you have to crown me

a Burger King crown. But it's just, it's just a fucking, like they basically brought in all these bullshit, bullshit, and different states are trying to sue other states. Like I don't agree with her when she said in this daily where she essentially says

they went through all the right channels. They didn't. They tried to game the system is what they tried to do. Really hard. And it didn't fucking work because there wasn't any of that. Like that like look we can either do the electoral college where it's it's handled by the states which is what we did and all the states came back with like pretty immaculate audits after the fact yep so we can either do that or we could do popular vote because guess

what dude you lost fucking both of them man you You lost both of them. So either fucking way. You want to do popular? Let's do popular. You want to do it the other way? Because we can just forget about the states altogether and just do popular. I'm down. Let's do it. I'm fucking down.

But the thing is, what they want is they wanted to go back and do it the House of Representatives way. And if they do it the House of Representatives way, they would have got Donald Trump in office. Because if they would have got it back to the House of Representatives. Then the House would have done what? Because even though they controlled the house, they still wouldn't have had the ability to flip those states that would have given him those electoral votes because they do it a weird, this gets like a weird fucking risk board thing they have to do. I don't even know if they have to order, they have to tell mom to bring down egg rolls, you know. But anyway, so in any case,

Liz Cheney and this other one were very interesting, but it is a year and nothing's happened. Dude, nothing. And people are going to say, oh, the investigation is still ongoing. It is. And Merrick Garland came out this week and Merrick Garland to his credit said,

whether you're there or not, we're not stopping. We're going to stop at any level. We'll prosecute at any level. Theuary 6th commission is moving fairly swiftly yeah like they are by all by all accounts they are moving fairly swiftly and there are like new revelations coming out all the time so the texts and things yeah they're coming out like crazy so let's let's talk about this story from the huffington post a A year later, GOP lawmakers still won't say if Joe Biden is actually president. So 147 Republican lawmakers voted to overturn the will of the American people in a democracy. That's what happened. The American people in a democracy fucking showed up to vote, and 147 Republicans said,

we don't give a shit about democracy. We just want our power to be in control. We just want it ensconced. We want to ensconce this guy that we have already had in power, or we want him to stay in power. Even though he lost the popular vote

by more margin than most people lose, and he also lost the electoral college by a large margin. He still lost both and he failed. And they still wanted to basically throw out, they wanted a do-over. They wanted a do-over for the entire democracy.

I'll pull it. I'll accept the president when I pull it out of the hat and it's not a practice or a Biden. That's what they wanted. It's not a Biden. My favorite part of this is when they asked Ted Cruz the question,

they said, is Donald Trump, is Biden the president? And they said in this, I want to read it, it says, Cruz, this is what the HuffPost said.

Say, wouldn't answer the question and he got in the elevator and said, Cruz stood in the Senate elevator as he spoke and the doors weren't closing for some reason.

HuffPost pressed him on why he wouldn't answer the question himself because he did refer them to his own office. He said, I refer you to my office for this. They pushed him on why they couldn't answer the question himself since it was about his own belief. For the next seven seconds, Cruz stared

blankly in silence until the doors finally closed. It's because he's waiting to get fucking instructions from the mothership. There's a delay. There's a slight delay. Light speed isn't instantaneous. And it's far enough away where there's a little bit of a delay. Seven seconds isn't that much.

Every time you get in an elevator, you lose reception. So what happens is Ted Cruz gets in the elevator and his fucking reception turns off. And he's just on hold until the elevator opens back up again. He's just got to wait. He's got to wait and he actually freezes in place. He doesn't,

like his arms are up. His arms stay up the whole time. Mouth still mid sense. Like a fucking old Twilight Zone where people are pretending to be mannequins. He's standing there and then finally when the doors open, then he starts moving again.

Yeah. It's like, oh, I'm sorry about that. Oh, I'm sorry. I was stuck in stasis. Sorry.

I was, I was fumbling with being a humanoid. My apologies. I have been reanimated. Pay no attention to my brief stasis. But you know, they played around here. They,

they really did fuck around. And we're going to find out, I think, over the next several years. I don't think, I think they've essentially poisoned the well of democracy. Because I think in the next couple of elections, everybody's going to be doing the same thing. They're going to be saying the same thing. Doesn't matter who wins. People are going to say the election was rigged. I think at this point, we're at this place where,

and they did it kind of at the right time, if you think about it, when they're going to be passing all this gerrymandered bullshit. And now, if you go and say, well, they fucking gerrymandered this district beyond belief, now there's no way we're going to win.

They're going to be like, oh yeah, that's voter fraud. Is that what it what it is voter fraud well it's only only matters when it happens to you yeah and so it essentially they're just gonna be able to wipe this away and you know i i mean you can't poison the well on voting in the in a democracy no you can't you can't because you there's no takesies backsies on yeah and we also have we we now have a Congress, maybe not full, but full enough of trolls in charge, man. Like we've entered a new phase of politics where trolling is now like a methodology or almost a party, almost a political party. You've got this whole group of Marjorie Taylor Greene's and Lauren Boebert's and Madison Cawthorn's and Matt Gates and like there's and Tommy Tuber or whatever fucking guy's name is. Or what is his fucking name?

Tuberville. There you go. It's not Tuberville, though, because we call him Tuberville, but it's something that's like Tuberville. It's even worse. It's even worse than Tuberville. It's Tuberville, which is worse. You've got that whole bag of assholes. That's where you buy discount bats at Tuberville. It's Tuberville, which is worse. You've got that whole bag of assholes. That's where you buy discount bass at Tuberville.

Right. Welcome down to Tommy's Discount Tubervilles. Come on down to Tuberville. It's Tuberville and Tuberville. We got tubs. We got tubers. We got anything you want. You can grow tubers in your tubs.

He's just screaming at a microphone, spraying himself with a shower spray. Tuberville. Come on down to Tuberville. Dang, who get it? Tuberville. Somehow, I'm in Congress. No kidding, man.

What the fuck? Goddamn. Well, MTG got taken off Twitter this week. She did? Oh, yeah. So that actually, that's a, you know, it's kind of a big story. You know, it's not anything we were planning on talking about, but it is.

Her personal account got taken down. But her, like, professional account hasn't yet been taken down. But it will. She was spreading COVID misinformation, and you deserve it. Like, you just, I'm sorry, you deserve it. You just deserve it. That's not a place, we are too lenient when it comes to things like this.

When it comes to this story, this story about Ted Cruz, who won't be put on the spot to say a true thing, right? He won't let you ask him this question on a very simple answer. Is Biden the president or not? Refer to my office. We let these people get away with lying.

We let them get away with lying and then lying again and then lying again and obfuscating the truth and avoiding the question. And then we let these people get away with when it comes to public health. We let them get away with, you know, subvert. How many Congress people have subverted public health crews included throughout this entire pandemic? My name is McCoy. I'm a doctor. What am I, a doctor or a moonshadows and doctor? I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer. I'm a surgeon, not a psychiatrist.

Look, I'm a doctor, not an escalator. Spock, give me a hand. I'm a doctor, not a mechanic. I'm a doctor, not an engineer. I'm a doctor, not a coal miner. You keep saying that. Are you a doctor not an engineer i'm a doctor not a coal miner you keep saying that are you a doctor aren't you i don't know so i thought this was this was great this is from the uh ffrf the freedom from religion foundation retract dangerous anti-vax religious advice.

So I want to read what Senator Ron Johnson, and to be clear, Senator Ron Johnson is from Wisconsin. He gets a lot of credibility because he's got a doctor in front of his name. He's a fucking eye doctor. Okay, all right. Like, so I'm not saying there's anything wrong

with being an eye doctor, but I'm saying that he's not an epidemiologist. Sure. There is not an epidemiologist in Congress that I'm not, I know of. Yeah. So like, you know, we specialize, I have learned over the past fucking year, the hard way that like, if you don't go to a specialist, like you're not talking to somebody who knows what they're fucking talking about.

Like adjacent, adjacent expertise is not relevant. It's just not, you wouldn't go to a cardiologist to get your kidneys looked at So you don't go to a fucking eye doctor To ask them about the fucking epidemic So here's what Senator Ron Johnson Had to say On Monday, January 30 Appeared on the Vicki McKenna show

And after downplaying COVID-19 Asked listeners Why do we think that we can create something better than God in terms of combating disease? What the fuck? So he's talking about the vaccination versus natural immunity, right?

Well, motherfucker, here's the thing. Here's the reason we think we can do that. One, because vaccination is better than natural immunity. It's better. Right? And it's better in two ways.

One, it's better because it creates a stronger antibody response and makes you less likely to be sick. But most importantly, you don't have to get sick in the first place, you stupid motherfucker. You don't have to go through the actual sickness. Right. And you can get immune from it. What? It's superior in every way. Why not just let everybody have smallpox?

Well, I mean... Why even get rid of smallpox? We really should just let natural immunity take care of smallpox. It doesn't. And then just the idea that you would say that and be a doctor. Why would you prescribe someone eyeglasses then?

Why wouldn't you just let them see the way God intended them to see it? If they walk into a wall, that's a blessing from the Lord. The Lord wanted you to be a fucking boss-eyed asshole. Like just, what? The Lord is what is, why have a band-aid? Why even make a band-aid? Why clean a wound?

Why do any of that? Why move at all? Just like the Lord should provide. Yeah, absolutely. I'm just going to fucking lay in a heap and hope that Jesus pours Doritos in my mouth. Why have cars? Why do I, I don't need cars.

I have feet. I have fucking feet to go wherever I want. I don't need a plane. I can swim. I mean, these are the, this is the dumbest argument. You use technology and other things to make your life better all the time. And, and even religious people would look at this guy and say,

no, that's not like, like the people that I know that would, that would argue against this. If they were religious would say something like God gave you the gifts to overcome this obstacle. You know what I mean? Like that would be their argument

that they, and even though I think, I still think it's a bullshit argument. It's better than what he's saying. Isn't it like a favorite refrain of the right to say some version of God helps those who help themselves? Right?

Yeah. So how is it not that, well, we built this fucking vaccine and it's super duper works really great. Ah, you know what? Don't take that. Just get sick, roll the dices on whether or not you're going to get better.

Yeah. Roll the dices on whether or not the natural immunity even holds. Like that's one of the crazy things is like we're in the middle of Omicron, right? And Omicron's numbers are much more significant than any numbers we've seen by orders of magnitude at this point. And people are getting sick that had Delta. Where's their natural immunity? Well, the thing is like, you don't necessarily get natural immunity just from being sick. You can get the same cold more than once.

Not everything works. Like that's a simplistic childlike view of how fucking disease works. And no epidemiologist recommends that. Literally none of them are like, I don't know. Let's just hope that the next variant you have a natural immunity to.

Well, you don't. You could get Delta, you could get Alpha, and then you could get fucking Omicron. It's happening right now. Yeah, it's like a salad bar. Right? It's like a fucking bad fraternity that just keeps...

I just like, we're not even living in the same reality. And this is not somebody with little power. This is someone with immense political sway this is someone who is one of a hundred people who make decisions in a a body of legislators that decide things for the entire nation one of a hundred is he's one this this motherfucker's one percent of the senate one percent how outrageous that? There's only two senators for all of Wisconsin. First of all,

that's too, too many. Yeah, I know. Right, yeah. We should get rid of the Senate. I really think. I honestly believe. The Senate is the worst. The Senate is the worst.

There's no reason for it. The Senate is the worst. Get the fuck rid of it. What a bad idea the Senate is. I feel like you just do what, do the, the House makes sense because the House is like,

here's where the people are. The people make decisions for the nation, period. You, Iowa, get a say. You, Wyoming, you get a say. Get three people. Three people. Three people from there? That's a lot of people. That's half the, it's a lot of people. 50% of the population of Wyoming. Genuinely, it's a larger population percentage than you would get in California by a lot, right? A lot of those places that have those small percentages that send three people, their percentage of power in the body per person is greater than some of these large population centers. So you already have sway.

You already are someone who has more sway than someone, than just a single senator from Cal or a single congressperson from California. Get rid of it. Why do we need to them? It just bogs everything down. And then if one of them is one way and one is the other way, nothing happens. It's all stacked in the Republicans' favor to slow progress. I know. It's all stacked in their favor to slow progress. It's the worst. All stacked in their favor to slow progress.

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Paint your life. Celebrate the moments that matter most. Where am I? This is the Great Hall of Judgment. Judgment? Oh, not to worry, Charlie. You'll go to heaven. All dogs go to heaven because unlike people, dogs are naturally good and loyal and kind.

Oh, that's true. This story is fucking unreal. It's everywhere and I can't even believe it. It's from LGBTQ Nation. Pope Francis denounces selfishness of adopting dogs instead of kids. I want to read what this fucking asshole said. Go ahead, Tom.

Speaking at the Vatican this week, the Pope said that it is, quote, a denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity, end quote, to choose a dog or a cat over a human baby. Civilization grows old without humanity because we lose the richest of fatherhood and motherhood

and it is the country that suffers, he continued. Today, we see a form of selfishness. We see that some people do not want to have a child, he said. Sometimes they have one, and that's it, but they have dogs and cats that take the place of children. This may make people laugh, but it is a reality, he continued. He even brought up straight couples who cannot have biological children and suggested adoption.

Having a child is always a risk, but there is more risk in not having a child and denying paternity. No, there's not. There's no risk in that. What is the risk in that? I don't know. Don't you think that they should be embraced?

Like, instead of rejecting this, I think the Catholic Church should embrace this, and this could be a new slogan. Groom dogs, not children. I think that would be a better. I'm going to tip my mic over. God damn. No, God damn.

But seriously, they need young kids because it's so hard to entice somebody who's older. What are you going to do? How are you going to entice a millennial? You got to pay off their student debt. Like, what do you do? The thing is like, they don't want student debt. Like, how do you do? Like, well, the thing is like, they don't want altered dogs. Like that's not,

that'd be hot. That'd be adorable though. Wouldn't that be super cute to have an alter dog that just comes up and walks up, you know, cause sometimes they'll have the dog bring the, the wedding rings up. If you see this, like the gold retriever comes up and it's got them in his mouth.

It's always a gold retriever. It's so, it's so fucking adorable. Cause you imagine if they had a, an alter dog comes up and he's got like a little basket of wafers and he walks up and he hands somebody and then there's like a couple

of hamsters that drag the wine up. It's like an ark full of animals. It'd be amazing. That's so amazing. You just reinvented a church I would go to. I know, right? I would go to a church of cute, adorbed animals. Yeah, exactly.

It's like a fucking emotional support church. Why do they all have a vestment that says, do not pet? They really need one though, don't they? Right? You should put those on the fucking kids. Put those on the kids. Put those on the altar boys. Maybe the Pope and the Catholic church shouldn't be calling for more kids to come.

You know? It's a bad idea. It's a bad idea. A lot of this story is a bad idea. Everything about this story is a bad idea. I recognize that this is not just a Popism, and this is certainly a Catholic Churchism. One of the reasons why,

when I first met my wife, she was a Catholic. And one of the reasons why she's not a Catholic anymore is, you know, I think over the years, just, you know, me and her talking about religion has made her think a lot more deeply about whether or not it's true, right? You know, having those conversations makes you wonder whether or not it's true. But another reason that she turned away from it, something that I talked about on the show when it happened, was the church had basically said, if you don't procreate, her priest literally told her, if you don't procreate, you guys should get your marriage annulled. Your marriage isn't worthwhile in the church because my wife was considering not having children. She was like, I don my wife was considering not having children.

She was like, I don't think I want to have children. And they said, you should just get your marriage annulled then. And she realized that what they want is a baby factory. What they want is they want to turn all women into baby factories. And they don't want to listen to what they have to say about whether or not they want to have their own autonomy or they want to live. I don't begrudge, of course, anybody for having children.

Have all the children you want. But I'm a child-free guy and I'm very happily child-free, like very happily child-free. So the idea that somebody outside is going to look inside of my life and make judgments on that, I mean, that's what the church is for. Let's be honest. That's what the church is for. But like the idea that someone was going to do that was really, that was too oppressive and that made her leave the church. So this is, this is something that they recognize they're not filling up like they used to.

The numbers are going down. The numbers are going down. And you also look at how many Americans become priests. There's a very, it's a very low number. It's like none. Very, very low number.

And, and the same thing goes for nuns. Nuns don't, there's very few. There's like none of them. Very none, very none. There's few of them. And they don't, most of the people that are priests here in the United States

or that are young are coming from other countries. So they're not refilling in that sense because many of these seminaries closed down. It's just 100% closed down. Oh yeah, man. And then now you're looking at fewer and fewer people in the pews. We talked a couple of weeks ago

about how the nuns is the biggest thing. And he's talking about what he wants is he does not talk. He's not talking about me. He doesn't care that I have a fucking cat or two cats. He cares that the lady who comes to his church isn't shitting out kids and putting them there so that he can indoctrinate them. Well, that's the thing is that for generations, it used to be that you gave one

of your kids to the church. Yeah, you had to tie the kid. Right. So, you know, you have like 43 kids or something, like the one you like the least, you know, like you ship off to the church or whatever. And no one's doing that anymore because that's a garbage practice. And people like, there's so many reasons for it. Women have fucking birth control now. Yeah. So they're not just like constantly having kids. And to be frank, glad to get rid of a mouth to feed and hand it to the church because at some point, eight, nine, 10, fucking 11 kids is really fucking hard for a bunch of poor people to try to raise.

That's a reality in many places. Sure. Absolutely. to try to raise. That's a reality in many places. Sure, absolutely. But when people become more prosperous, when women become more autonomous, when women have bodily autonomy over the reproductive system, all of a sudden the church is out of priests, man. And of course they are. It's an outdated, outmoded, ridiculous sex ring organization. Nobody's interested in it in no young people are like knocking down the fucking doors super excited to go to catholic fucking church well and and and you're absolutely right like like they've handled every single scandal the worst way possible throughout the entire history of the organization they've handled every single scandal in a way that

that is shameful and so you, you know, why would you want to go? I know Catholics, I know like hardcore Catholics that don't go to church anymore and they don't go to church anymore because of this stuff, because of the scandal stuff that's happening. Because more and more and more, you're finding out that these priests diddled kids and that's coming out more and more and more and you you're hearing about it. It's not just in one place. It's all over the world. It's an epidemic of sexual assault on children in the Catholic church.

And so these people that were hardcore Catholic their whole life, they're now like, I don't know that that's the same organization. Roll into that, the blatant misogyny of the church, which devalues women's voices throughout, doesn't give them the same level of care

or level of concern that they do the male voices. And where do you go eventually? You're an outdated system. Like you were great. You're probably super great and killing it, you know, four or 500 years ago. Yeah. But in the last 100 years,

it's been an absolute nosedive and it deservedly should be. Yep. And like, here's the thing, man. Dogs and cats are easier. Oh my God. They're so much easier.

Super easy. And they don't, like they're not a responsibility forever. Super easy. That's all I'm saying. It's way better. Once in a while, you know,

you got to clean up something. But I'll tell you what, a cat, when It's way better. Once in a while, you know, you got to clean up something, but I'll tell you what a cat, when you bring it home goes in a box. But day one, what do you got like five, four years before you could teach a kid three years before you could teach a kid to shit in the toilet. Like, I mean, come on, that's a long time. I've never changed a cat's diaper. Although it'd be pretty adorable. It would be kind of, cause you have to have a hole for the tail. It's like the hats for the donkeys

with the holes for the ears. It is. Also, like, I'll consider this shit when all the fucking adopted kids are adopted. I know.

You know? I know. Like, when there are no more fucking orphan kids, then, like, then let's talk about maybe changing it. But there's plenty of kids that just don't have a fucking home.

Sure, yeah. The solution isn't have more kids. Yeah, I wonder if you're an adoptive parent, if you can be one of those people who yell at other people that have kids, like the people who yell at people who buy dogs or whatever. I wonder if you could have like a little... Oh, yeah. Oh, why. A little.

Oh, why did you rescue? Why didn't you rescue? Why did you rescue? Why didn't you rescue a kid? You should have rescued. Did you go to a shelter for that kid? Did you go to a shelter for your kid? I've never seen you act. Oh, really?

Uh, ta-da! I've been lying the whole time. Oh! You admitted it. Uh-uh. That was acting. What I just read right there was acting. I said I was lying and that wasn't even true. That was acting. All right. So, oh, you, I'm so, I'm good. I'm so, how are you feeling about all of what I'm doing? Did you like that?

Did you, did you think that was good? Tell me I'm good. Tell me it was good. Tell me I'm good. Tell me I'm good. Tell me that was good. Tell me I'm good. Tell me it was good. Tell me I'm good. Tell me I'm good. Tell me that was good. Tell me I'm good. Tell me I'm good. Tell me I'm good. Tell me I'm good. Tell me I'm good.

Tell me I'm good. Tell me I'm good. Tell me I'm good. Thank you. Is it that hard? Oh, what is happening? So this story comes from Huffington Post. GOP group calls out Trump's enablers in Congress by name in scathing Fox News

ad. What I love about this ad the most is where it's being aired. This is being aired on Fox and Friends, Tucker Carlson and Hannity. And Hannity. And here's the ad. I'm going to play it so you can hear it. The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress. President Trump is responsible. I just want to say that that was McCarthy who said that a second ago. So you know that was McCarthy. And then you can hear the turtle Mitch McConnell here talking. For provoking the events of the day.

The president's language and rhetoric crossed a line and it was reckless. That was Kang the Conqueror. The president needs to understand that his actions were the problem, not the solution. This is the cost of. I don't know who Representative Mike Gallagher is, but that's who's speaking right now. So the last last was Lindsey Graham right before that. Now this is Representative Mike Gallagher who's talking. I don't know Mike.

Telling thousands of people that there is a legitimate shot of overturning the election. They told the truth. Why won't they now? Accountability.gop is what's on the screen now. And this is something we alluded to in the beginning,

but really, many people were talking out about, I mean, I don't know if you remember, but Mitt Romney, the day of of came back and he had written a speech and was just on fire attacking Trump. And then the next day, Mitch McConnell went after Trump. Everybody went after Trump and then they changed their tune. Yeah. I think, I think what they, what these cowardly motherfuckers were and always do is they're always trying to read the room. Yeah. And they're trying to, they're just shifting to wherever they think the wind is going to blow.

You're right. You're right. So I think January 6th happened and they're like, holy shit, the people are not going to stand for that. We've got to condemn it. We've got to get out here. You know, people are going to turn. This is going to be the thing. This is going to be the thing that breaks Trump. So let's make sure that we divorce ourselves from this chaos and this mess. breaks Trump. So let's make sure that we divorce ourselves from this chaos and this mess. And then when inexplicably it didn't have any effect on Trump or his like popularity among the fucking credulous dipshits and the fucking brainwashed assholes who continue to fucking roll their fucking trucks around. Let's go brandoning their way through their lives. They read the room again. Yeah.

And they checked the way the wind was blowing. And now they're just like, but they're such fucking hypocritical cowards. These are human opinion polls. Yes. That's what they just walk around. They have no real convictions of their own. All they are trying to do is mimic the people around them.

You know, and it's funny too, because in that, again, I'm going to refer to the beginning of the show and we're talking about Liz Cheney. There's a part where they, they play a tape of Matt Gates flying to Wyoming and he flies to give a speech there for one of the people that are running against Liz Cheney in Wyoming. And he even said, how is she talking about the will of the people? She isn't, she isn't going for the will of the people she's going she isn't going for the will of the people she's going for she's going for this other thing and you're like yeah no she's going for the rule of law right like there's there's a difference like the will of the people up here is a garbage

will it's not a it's not a real will it's a cult of personality will yeah he's like he's like you're she's how can she represent the people she's a representative and it's like well but look if if i'm sitting in a room and everybody in that room walks in and says water isn't wet and the sky isn't blue yeah it does not change the fact that water is wet and the sky is fucking blue some things happened some things are true trying to you can't trump has convinced a huge segment of the population cecil that if you just say it enough man and forcefully that true things aren't true that things that happened didn't occur that you know what i mean he's and he he did it you saw it in the very beginning of his presidency you saw it when he declared that he had the biggest crowd that ever was and he didn't and

he just kept saying it anyway. And then fucking Charlottesville happened, and he just tried to repaint that entire narrative. And just, he just tried to say different things, like louder and more. And I think we're at this incredibly, and I don't want to overstate it, but I believe it. state it, but I believe it. I think we are at this wildly existentially dangerous place in politics, in our country's history, in our world's history, in our social history, where if we allow reality to become defined by the strength of the voices who scream it at us, yeah, we are fucked and we never get it back. We'll never be okay from that.

And you gotta, the problem is that you can't, we don't have a way to silence liars. And when somebody lies, we need a way to stop them and be like, no, that's a lie. There's a difference between opinions, right? You can have those differences of opinions,

but to say a lie, a blatant lie, you're like, no, the evidence says that's not true. So you can't say that anymore. You just can't say that. That's not a true thing. You cannot lie. And I don't know how to fix it.

And what happened was, is that up until that point, there was a public shaming where people would be like, oh my God, can you believe that guy lied like that? And you get called out on it, and there's a public shaming where people would be like, oh my God, can you believe that guy lied like that? And you get called out on it and there's a public shaming. It never affected Trump for a second. He never lost stride. He never looks back and he never pays attention to the people who are trying to shame him for lying. It was tens of thousands of lies he made while he was in office. He drew magic marker on a national weather survey map. I know. He drew magic marker just so he wouldn't be wrong. So his lie could be real. He's a liar.

And the problem is, is that people like let, let that happen. And the, the, the right sees it works. They see that it works. They see that it works and they're not going to stop using it. Yeah. That's, that's what I was talking about before. It's become this like political party or this political strategy where trolling has become, I really think it's like, it's an extension that is so fucking dangerous. Like I can't think of anything honestly more dangerous.

Look at how it's shaped the pandemic. Look at the fact that we still have a pandemic. Yeah. Look at how it shaped all of that. And it's, and it's been, it shaped the pandemic. Look at the fact that we still have a pandemic. Yeah. Look at how it shaped all of that. And it's shaped the election. It shaped the pandemic. It shaped how people viewed the BLM marches. It shaped all that stuff.

It shaped everything. And it's going to continue to do it. And I think the problem, I think this is also tied into some problems with social media. So because social media amplifies those lies and it amplifies those lies over and over and over and over again. And, you know, there's been studies that show that the more you hear something, whether it's true or not,

the more you believe it. And so, you know, you can run into some real problems amplifying those lies over and over and over again. And I don't know the best way out of it, but I know for sure that calling these people out in this ad, this isn't going to do anything. I know, but- It feels good. Yeah, it does. It feels good. It does. I don't think this ad will do anything. I think we need a thousand ads like this.

I think when somebody like Ted Cruz is sitting in front of a journalist and refuses to answer a question, the journalist to say, we don't need to have an interview anymore. You're dismissed. Yeah. You know, we should treat them. They should not get airtime. If they're not going to be serious, if they're not going to get, they're going to answer questions, they should be dismissed. I'm sorry. No, I'm not going to have you on anymore. Yeah. You remember when we had that crazy fucking Republican atheist lady and you hung up on her. I'm sorry. No, I'm not going to have you on anymore. Yeah. You remember when we had that crazy fucking Republican atheist lady? Yeah, yeah. And you hung up on her.

I did, yeah. Because she wasn't a serious person worth spending time with. She was not a serious person. And that's why we hung up on her. She blamed George Soros for signs or something. And I was like, that's stupid. It was fucking bonkers. You're an idiot.

I hung up on you. Journalism needs to hold people to account. And if they refuse to be held to account, journalism needs to refuse to give them the time of day. Yeah. They should, they, you know, that's it. That's, I mean, that's it. You know, the Marjorie Taylor Greene thing we talked about earlier, like she got kicked off of Twitter on her personal account. I think that was intentional, right? She had five, she had five strikes before she got kicked off, but she gets to keep her, she gets to keep her... Congressional one. Congressional one. Thank you.

She loses her personal one. So what she gets is she still gets access to Twitter whenever she wants it. And then she also gets to be somebody who gets to go to Telegram and Signal and be the martyr who got kicked off of Twitter.

It's all winning for these people. Yeah. If truth is something that we are willing to sacrifice to a narrative of convenience, we are absolutely boned, man. And the institutions of power are our institutions of journalism. They're the Twitters, they're the Facebooks, they're the Fox News and the CNNs. They're ads like this. We need to keep showing people their own words.

Yeah. And every time someone talks like, I'm sorry, this is what you said. Yeah. If you don't address this, this interview is over. Yeah. Anything else, we're fucked. It's like I said last week, using that voter ID thing against, against the Republicans. If you say it enough and you keep saying, I wanted voter ID, even though you didn't want voter ID, which you wanted was a, what, what, what the, if I was a Democrat and I was pushing it, even though you didn't want voter ID, which you wanted, was what the, if I was a Democrat and I was pushing it, I would want something that would be like voter ID and name, but it would be so accommodating to everyone that there's no way a Republican would vote for it.

And then I would just say it over and over and over again that I wanted voter ID. I would make them, I would do exactly what they're doing to everyone else. I would do the exact same thing they're doing, but I just don't know that that's not the right path. Right. But it's the, it's, it feels like that's the only path. It feels like there's no way back up that cliff. No, because like we've got a national gaslighting party. Yeah. Yeah. Like we're fucking being gaslit every fucking day. That's why I feel

crazy all the time. Like I was, I texted you this to like, or this week, I was like, I feel crazy all the time because we're being gaslit constantly by these people who are telling us that the sky isn't blue and that water isn't wet and that January 6th wasn't an insurrection. And that they didn't condemn it themselves on January 7th. And they did. There's tape of them doing it.

Really like clearly and unequivocally. You see this right here? This is a book and books are for nerds. So for this week for Cognizant Book Club, we are nearing the end of this book. This is chapter 22, Significance Junkies in Demon Haunted World

by Carl Sagan. I want to say there's 25 chapters. Let me look real quick. 26 maybe. There's 25 chapters, so three more after this. this this starts out uh very much talking about uh a dead medium yeah so uh yes it 100 starts talking about the dangers of television and how bad television is and how bad it rots your brain and yada yada yada and i'm thinking

oh you sweets poor summer child i have no idea what the internet's going to do to your brain. You have no idea what the internet's going to do to our attention span. You have no idea what the internet's going to do to any of that stuff. So, I mean, it's really just talking about how TV, you know, could be a lot more about learning. There could be a lot more learning involved. And he spends a good deal amount of time talking about sports because I think it's an important connection for a lot of people to media as sports. Many people, I know you're not

a sports guy, but there's a lot of people who really do enjoy sports. And I, in particular, very much like sports. I had a chance to hear him talk about geometry and basketball, which I really thought was cool. And so he's talking about basketball in this and I'm a big basketball fan myself. And so I was, it was great to hear that sort of thing and talking about, you know, how people sort of intuitively understand some of these very complex ideas like statistics and, you know, geometry and all this drag. And, you know, when you talk about in football, how you have to lead people and how they understand the acceleration and all, there's all these very complicated things that you need to understand in order to do sports well.

And then to commentate it, you could also talk about it. But I think he also should understand that, you know, most people are there to just watch a big hit or a big play. They're not there to learn something. Right. And he really wants to try to turn television into something that, you know that we should learn about.

And so he spends a lot of time in this chapter talking about pretty much a dead medium. When was the last time you sat down to watch TV at a scheduled time? I know that it's a silly thing to think, but when he was writing, the only way you

could get around that was programming your VCR to come on at a certain time and go off at a certain time. And you had to have it perfect and whatever. And you had to like set up the timer. And you never trusted it. You never trusted it. You always were thrilled when it worked.

You always had to walk back in and be like, has it gone? Okay, it's recording. But you know, that was the only real way around it. TiVo in the early 2000s showed up and that sort of changed things with DVRs. But for the most part, when something came on

on TV, you sat down to watch it. Tuesday night was Dallas. You watched Dallas on Tuesday night. I remember

The Simpsons was on Sundays at 7 o'clock. Yeah. And I did not have plans Sundays at 7 because that's what time The Simpsons were on. I was a huge Simpsons guy

and like, I would be, I wouldn't work. Like I had, I was like, I watched my shows. That was your thing. That was my thing. Yeah. And then, you know, what happened later was,

you know, we allowed our, we gave ourselves those options to get away from that sort of thing. And so now, you know, really television was what, you were put in front of it and you saw what was in front of you. And now it's, you choose your programming, but that's essentially the internet too. I mean, the internet meant to

choose your programming too. You go to these places. I go to YouTube. I search for videos on YouTube about things I'm interested in. I don't just like, I don't, although I know that that function is there where you can just browse and look, look for other videos and similar videos and things like that. But, uh, but you know, I go and search for what I want and that's what I do on TV too. I search for what I want and I record it. And so like, again, it's, but he's very much talking about the debt that this medium and how it could be better. And I was thinking about, you know, I was thinking about the sports thing because, you know, my family, for example, we're exclusively on demand. So we only have streaming services, but so many people have so many people watch sports

if you and that is that's the only way tv remains relevant right sports tv is like sports that game is on when that game is on yeah you could watch it later but you don't want spoilers you don't want someone to drop the game you know so like if there was going to be any, and this is the part where I'm going to bag on Carl for a minute. If there was going to be any way to interject science and the love of learning into television, it would have to be integrated into live sports programming, right? Otherwise, we're now in an on-demand world. Yeah. And people have to demand it. Yeah. And people have to demand it. Yeah. And what I think Carl fundamentally doesn't understand about people,

Carl has a tremendous love of learning as its own desirable thing. He's got a wonder about things, about everything. I believe from reading this book that he overstates the general populace's love of learning to learn. His mindset, in some ways, he thinks is ubiquitous. Yes. And I don't think his universalization is accurate. Yeah.

I think kids love to learn in general, but I think they love to learn when it feels like play. I think people like to learn when it feels easy and comfortable. And then there are some people like Carl and many other people I know personally, but many people I know are very much the opposite. They're not looking to spend their time being challenged, doing difficult things, seeking out that which is, you know, I don't think people are that into it, man. I think we sneak learning into things.

Yeah. And that's how a lot of educational shit happens. And I think that's why a lot of messages are really dangerous because most of us get all of our messaging accidentally. And that's how we get all of our learnings. Yeah. And we learn the wrong things. Accidental stuff's really bad for you.

He spends a little time talking about some of those mystery shows from back then. Oh yeah, like unsolved mysteries and stuff. I stop myself and think,

man, you would be appalled. He would be genuinely appalled. Could you imagine watching Ghost Hunters? Oh my God. Could you imagine him watching the cryptid guy

screaming the yodel in a fucking Sasquatch or whatever? Yeah. And watch any of those shows and listen to the language that they use. There's never a moment of doubt in any of those shows

that those things exist and that those things are real. And even in the Ghost Hunters shows, they've stolen the Mythbusters format where they'll go into a quote unquote haunted place and they'll walk in and then they'll say, oh, that door was open and that's what blew that thing. And then they'll put a busted on the thing so that they're saying in some ways that they are creating some credibility, but they're

still walking in there a hundred percent credulous, believing in spirits, believing in AVP. They hear an EVP and that to them is, if they hear anything on an EVP, a in spirits, believing in AVP. They hear an EVP and that's, that to them is, you know, if they hear anything on an EVP, a mouse can fart on an EVP. You turn that up and it sounds like fucking a demon. It sounds like a demon from hell. And it just like, and they will say, oh, that's perfect. That's ironclad. And your brain does this thing too. When you watch those. If you don't hear something or if you hear something and you don't see

the writing underneath it, like a subtitle, sometimes you can't hear it, understand it at all. But if the moment the subtitle's in there, it's clear as day. Yeah.

And they do that with those EVPs where they'll put like, help me or something on there. Maria, but that's what it sounds like. But it doesn't, but instead, they're saying, help me. And they'll be like, but that's not on there. But that's what it sounds like. But it doesn't, but instead it's,

they're saying help me. And they'll be like, but that's not what, it doesn't sound like that at all. It literally sounds nothing like help me. Turn your face away from the screen and try to figure out what it's saying in comparison. But it's just static and a smashing sound. It doesn't do anything.

At the end of this, he talks about what would be fun TV shows, and I think that they would be fun TV shows for Carl. I think so too, man. I think they'd be fun TV shows for Carl, but I thought about these, and I was trying to think about these in a YouTube world. And I was like, would any of these be good YouTube channels? Dude, hold on a second.

Carl Sagan, looking at YouTube, would fucking kill himself. Yeah, probably, I imagine. So, here's a short list. I'm not going to read them all. The wonders and methods. He's got a bulleted list. Possibilities of how we could do science

and television. Let's just presume these would be YouTube channels. And someone may surprise me this week and send me a message and be like, this is actually a YouTube channel. And it's massively popular. It could be. There's a very good possibility. There's a possibility. I don't know.

I don't know. I have no idea. I am looking at you skeptically, but I believe. I know. The wonders and methods of science routinely presented on news and talk programs. That's real human drama

in the process of discovery. Okay. A series called Solved Mysteries in which tremendous in which, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, one of the things he says is solved mysteries. And he says, including puzzling cases in forensic medicine and epidemiology. But I, I want to stop there and be like, yeah, but some, some, a lot of forensic science is garbage, right? So there's a lot that we've presumed is real.

And all those forensic files things, we all presume that stuff is real. But once you dig into a lot of that shit, once they got reviewed as an actual, we did a deep dive on this. Once they got reviewed as like an actual science, scientists were like, shut the fuck up. That's not real.

And so, you know, there's a, I mean, yeah, there is some things you can do forensically but not the things that they show you in these shows no no in these shows in these shows it's like well i took a a print of the shoe yeah and then i determined that it had to be a nike shoe uh manufactured between march 3rd and march 6th uh 1997. Sold at a store in Clinton, Pennsylvania. And could only have been sold to somebody about 6'4". Yeah. With a size 12.5 shoe, weighing approximately 209 pounds.

Sir, are you 6'4", weighing approximately 209 pounds? Also, are you black and have you picked out before? I'm sorry. Yeah. You can't speak. I did knock out your teeth before I arrested you. I will say this. Go listen to that because there are so many things in do this? Yeah. You can't speak. I did knock out your teeth before I arrested you. I will say this. Go listen to that

because there are so many things in that that you and I just didn't know when we were just, we were doing the research and we just stopped. Holy shit, for real? Like the bite mark thing

and then the print thing where they're just like latent prints and they're like, sometimes they don't get any prints. They get like a tiniest little thing and then the people can't even identify bite marks

when they send them out. There's so much stuff in there that's just garbage. And that fiber analysis? Fiber analysis. Nonsense. All nonsense.

All nonsense. The bullet casing thing from the, like, you might as well get an ESP guy. Like, there's so much stuff that's just bullshit. Go find that episode.

If you didn't listen to it, go find it. Because Tom and I jaw on the floor the whole time can't believe that this stuff has been passed off as real. Dude, it's dowsing for murderers.

It's 100%. That's what it is. That's a YouTube show. I would watch that. Dowsing for murderers. Dowsing for murderers. The plot's kind of, admittedly, the plot is a little,

it happens a lot at the same time every way, but you know. All right, I'm going to read two more of these. A separate series on fundamental misunderstandings and mistakes made by famous scientists, national leaders, and religious figures. That's cognitive dissonance. Get out.

And then a state-of-the-art computer graphics facility to prepare in advance scientific visuals for a wide range of news contingencies. He has, and there's more than that. I mean, there's a whole bunch, but he talks a lot. It's very idealistic this whole chapter super idealistic

and very much I felt like I felt like patting him I was like I was gonna pat him and be like bro I'm with you man and I was with him back then I will tell you I will tell you we read Neil Postman's Amusing Yourself to Death together we read a couple of other different

books together. And you and I, well, you know that there was, you know, advertising, anti-advertising magazines, you and I. Ad busters, yeah. We were involved with it a little bit. And then we, you know, there was a lot of things back then that were very counter-cultural. Like, you know, like Kill Your TV was a thing.

Like that was a thing that a lot of people talked about. And so I think back then, and when Carl wrote this and I read this, I was down. And I'm still down. I just don't think anybody else is. The thing is that none of that was wrong, right? Neil Postman is right.

Carl Sagan is right. We were right to be worried about the saltifying effect of television on the American public. We just didn't take it far enough. The thing is that we were, we were only wrong because we grossly underestimated how bad things were going to get as media evolved well beyond the television. Yeah. Yeah. So we would like to thank our patrons.

Of course, we'd like to thank all our patrons, but we'd like to thank our newest patrons. Oh, really? Radio, Jai, Natalie, Tantalon, Cordy, and people who up their pledges, patron saint of the no wipe ball. Jesus. I mean,

good Lord. Those are awesome. I just want to say patron saint of the no wipe ball movement. We should have a patron mixer one time. So you could meet bowl of piss. Thank you guys so much though. Genuinely. Really. Thank you. And, and we Genuinely, really thank you.

And we wanted to let people know that this last couple weeks ago on stream, we did an Ian commercial review. So if you like Ian's commercials, we did a review of Ian's, like half of Ian's commercials that were in a bracket and we had the audience pick which ones won.

And we basically did a whole bracket of his, a whole half bracket of his commercials. And we're going to be doing it again upcoming on the 27th. We'll let you know as time goes on. Also on the 20th upcoming on our live stream, we're going to be doing Ian's review. His performance review.

His performance review on live on the air that you guys can interact with. We're going to put things to chat. I'm going to have a bunch of straw polls that people can vote on. It'll be a lot of fun. So come join us on the 20th for that. The 27th,

we're going to be doing the second half of Ian's commercials. If you like Ian's commercials, show up, hang out with us. The streams are a lot of fun. We're having a blast. A lot of people are really enjoying them. We're having a good time.

So come check them out. They are every Thursday night, 9 p.m. Central time. That is on Twitch, on YouTube, and on Facebook. And if you miss them live, you can watch them on YouTube after the fact. Yeah, and on Twitch too for like a week. So you can watch them there. And on Facebook, I think they live on. So give them a watch and you guys can still comment.

We'll still read your comments. So on this week's episode notes, so if you go to dissonancepod.com and you click on this week's show, this is 6-10, you will see in the notes, there's a survey. Tom and I are wondering broadly from the audience

a couple of questions about whether or not you guys are enjoying Cognizant Book Club. There's going to be a couple of questions about whether or not you guys are enjoying Cogdiss Book Club. There's going to be a couple of questions on there. I haven't actually made the survey, but my suspicion is the questions will be like, do you like it? There'll probably be a sliding type scale of how much you like the segment that we're doing on Demon Haunted World and what books, whether or not you like this particular version of it or if you like David Icke better. And then probably we'll ask you like ways to improve it,

like some open-ended questions. Please take a minute and just go to, you know, fill the survey out. This is part of the show that's just been added. Most of the show isn't up for debate. Most of the show- We've been doing it 600 times. We're going to keep doing it.

Exactly. We do what we do. But this is a newer portion of the show. And we're doing it 600 times. We're going to keep doing it. Exactly. We do what we do, but this is a newer portion of the show, and we're looking for feedback from people, whether or not this is something we keep in the show, we keep doing it. We're probably going to be asking, we'll probably have a patron

poll soon to figure out what books we're going to do, and we're actually going to talk about some books tonight in the email section, but I just want to let you know, take a look at this last week's episode notes so you can take a look at this last week's episode notes so you can take a look at this survey and then you can figure out whether or not you want to, you know, just participate in it with us

and just let us know whether or not you like this segment. We've got a couple of suggestions for books. This one is from Doug and Doug says, well, you guys should maybe read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky? I think I read this, although I don't know that I remember. I read a couple Chomsky books, but I don't know if this is one of them. It's funny that you say that because I think I saw a documentary.

There's a Manufacturing Consent documentary. Okay. And I know that I've seen that. And I know that I saw Chomsky speak regarding manufacturing consent at Southern Illinois. Southern Illinois. Were you there with me? Did we go together? We shook his hand, didn't we?

Were you? Did we go together? We shook his hand, right? Yeah. We shook his hand and didn't, there was a guy that we were with did something really weird. Yeah, he was real, he was real cringy. I actually, we all stood in line. I remember this. We just walked by and shook his hand like really weird. Yeah, he was real, he was real cringy. I actually, we all stood in line. I remember this.

We just walked by and shook his hand like really quickly. It was a very quick like, I didn't, but I, With somebody we were with, I remember the comment he made.

It was an extraordinarily cringy comment. He spoke so slow. What I remember about Chomsky is how slow he talked. Like, I remember sitting there just being like,

he could finish this sentence eventually. It was very slow. I remember he was old back then. Yeah. Is he still alive? He's still alive, dude. Wow.

Yeah. I remember meeting him though. And I remember him standing there awkwardly against the wall and he was just leaning back against the wall. And there's so many people coming up like genuinely, I think there's a lot of people who probably really liked him. Really admire him. Like really admire him.

And they said some stuff, but it's just like, I didn't know him and I only knew him cause the other guys knew him. So I was just like, cool speech, bro. Well, I like,

I also hate like, especially with intellectuals. Like I don't want to meet them. I dislike meeting people like that. I don't want to do it. I don't want to shake their hands. I don't like that part. Like for me,

I, uh, divorce the ideas from the person. Like the ideas are what's important to me. The person, like, I don't want to like, one,

we're not getting to know each other. Yeah. Two, like this is not the important part of your ideas. Your ideas are important regardless. So I have always disliked that meet and greet stuff. Like I hate it so much actually. So I remember standing in that line being like,

I don't want to be here so much. What I remember too is you and I went to go see on the opening night downtown, we saw Howard Zinn's Can't Stand Still on a Moving Train or something like that. I don't remember what it's called. It's a really bad movie. But it was a movie that we thought

because we had read Zinn's People's History and we were both like, wow, there's a lot of stuff in here that is out of the history books and it just felt like such a groundbreaking work for both of us. We went to go see it and it's all this cult of personality. I remember you asked the question and they're just like, yeah, we like him. Yeah, I remember

the directors were there and I'm like, how do you make a movie like this and avoid this sort of fawning cult of personality problem? And they're just like, we like Howard Zinn. Yeah. I'm just like,

I don't want to be here anymore. I know. Same thing. We both walked out and we were like, this sucked. This is the worst thing I've ever seen. It was terrible. I've never watched it again.

Yeah. We saw that. We saw it at the Siskel. We saw it at the Siskel. We did. We saw it at the Siskel. We saw the Derrida movie there too. Derrida.

I hated Derrida. Why do we watch intellectual movies at the worst? We stopped. We saw it at the Cisco. We saw the Derrida movie there too. Derrida. I hated Derrida. Why do we watch intellectual movies in the worst? We stopped. Yeah, it's the worst. Okay. So another person said, this one is from

re-examining my ethics after playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I'm like, that name, that patron name is great. Book suggestion, the founding myth why Christian nationalism is un-American by Andrew Sedell,

the Freedom from Religion Foundation attorney. So that's a possibility. That's interesting. You know, like that's an interesting book. I wonder too though, some of these like really close, like very easily secular books, I don't know that I'm going to get a ton out of that.

Maybe I will. Maybe there's history in there that I didn't know. I'm going to get a ton out of that. Maybe I will. Maybe there's history in there that I didn't know. I'm not sure. I'm not going to throw away your idea, but I think about it and I think like, I want to, I want to, I really kind of want to read something that excites me. You know what I mean?

That like- Yeah, I don't want to read something that rhymes with everything I already know. Yeah, yeah. You know, it feels, it feels, it feels like something I, yeah, like something I know already. Yeah. yeah. You know, it feels like something I know already. Yeah.

Tim says, book suggestion, speak of the devil, how the satanic temple is changing the way we talk about religion. Now that might be interesting because that would really explore a lot of that because I don't know a lot about him. So it'd be interesting too.

Tango says, Radley Belko's Rise of the Warrior Cop. Guys, I would love to get Radley Belko on the show just to talk to him. It was such a good book. I think Tom would really enjoy this book. But yeah, that might be an interesting book to put on there because that one is really eye-opening. Talks about the history of the police working this way up until like all the drug war stuff and how they got all their money and just like how it corrupted everything. It's a really good book. I should read it no matter what. Yeah.

So yeah, we got some good suggestions. We'll definitely look into it. So catch us on stream. Like we said, the 20th and the 27th. The 20th is Ian's review. The 27th is we're going to go over some commercials that Ian did. So check it out. The 20th is Ian's review. The 27th is we're going to go over some commercials that Ian did. So check it out. Come hang out with us on stream. It'll be a good time. But we are

going to wrap it up. And just like we do every time, we're going to leave you with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water downward spiral, brain dead pan, sales pitch, late night info-docutainment. Leo Pisces. Cancer cures. Detox. Reflex. Foot massage. Death in towers. Tarot cards.

Psychic healing. Crystal balls. Bigfoot. Yeti. Aliens. Churches. Mosques and synagogues. Temples.

Dragons. Giant worms. Atlantis. Dolphins. Truthers. Birthers. Witches. Wizards.

Vaccine nuts. Shaman healers. Evangelists. Conspiracy. Double speak. Stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive.

Doubt even this. the opinions and information provided on this podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only all opinions are solely that of glory hole studios llc cognitive dissonance makes no representations as to accuracy completeness current, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information and will not be liable for any errors, damages, or butthurt arising from consumption. All information is provided on an as-is basis. No refunds. Produced in association with the local dairy council and viewers like you.