Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 664: Modest Needs Update

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

Show Notes

This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. 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. recording live from glory hole studios in chicago beyond, 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 Cardinal Pell. This is episode 664. Man. They're dropping like flies, Cecil. I want to mention before we get started,

before we get started, later on in the show, we will have an interview with Keith Taylor from Modest Needs. Tom had an emergency, so he couldn't make it, but no illusions from the Scathing Atheist and myself, We interview Keith Taylor, so stick around for that. Back to Cardinal Pell, Tom. Cardinal Pell, of all the people that you really wish just would have gotten really old and spent 40 years with really bad dementia, that would have been the guy.

That would have been the guy that you've been like, you know who I really want to see suffer is that guy. I want to see him wake up and have a panic attack for his entire day until he falls asleep. That's what I want to see. Yes, that's exactly right. You want him to have the kind of dementia, not like the kind of like pleasant doddering, where are my keys dementia. You want him to have the like filled right yes reliving the worst day of his life over and over again like some kind of hellish groundhog day that yeah yeah because he has escaped now yeah that's the thing it's like it's done it's over yeah this guy has escaped more times this is the fucking houdini of fucking catholic pedophiles like he just because he he was arrested and

convicted and then had his fucking conviction overturned on appeal yeah yeah it's fucking bullshit this guy is fucking he has escaped accountability so often the catholic church has escaped accountability almost completely yeah Yeah. Almost in its entirety. You're right. The Catholic Church. What are they? They wrote some checks here and there. Yeah.

That's what they did. I don't give a shit. I mean, I care about the checks in the sense that I wanted to bankrupt them. I want them to have to sell the Vatican. I want them to literally have to sell the actual Vatican. I want the church to be gone. It is a pedophile ring.

It's ridiculous that they're allowed to own anything. There shouldn't be a fucking single sacramental garb owned by the church. The church itself should not exist. America and Western Europe and all the nations of this country need to say, hey, you know what? If you are accused of, if your organization is accused of child sex trafficking, and then we find out that organizationally you covered it up, your tax exempt status is revoked forever. No appeals. Yep, forever. That's it. I'm not saying that if one person did something wrong,

but if you knew about it, if higher level management in your organization, if you're in a position of trust and authority and you didn't fix that problem and you hid that problem instead, immediately you're declared not a church. Absolutely. That's it. Yeah. That's it. You're done. Sorry. Fuck off forever. You know, and you should be forced to sell all of your properties in restitution to the aggrieved. And it's not, it's not that it's just the Catholic church, but the Catholic church is the biggest problem, right? Yeah. Other churches are a problem and other churches, other people in power and other churches do do bad shit all the time. But the Catholic church has been for the longest time, the was one of the biggest churches on the planet.

And what they did was they, they, they use their position of power to convince people to sweep shit under the rug, not prosecute priests who've done bad shit. And then they sent those people off away. So they couldn't be prosecuted. They've done, they've done all, like if, if this were a criminal organization, you would

say that's like the mafia. You would say that's like the, what that's like, what the mafia would do. They would use their influence and their power to corrupt people. And then they would do a bunch of evil shit and they would get away with it. And that's literally what the church did. Yeah, man. If this was Comet fucking ping pong pizza or whatever that was doing this shit,

imagine the uproar. Imagine the uproar. But why? Because there's a cross on the wall and like a bunch of people swinging incense. It's different. I don't give a shit. How is this different than somebody putting a... than any other organization? It doesn't make any difference.

You look at some of the other stances of Cardinal Pell, just to get an idea of what a horrible fucking person he is. What a terrible piece of shit this guy was. This guy has said that abortion was a worse moral failing than the Catholic clergy abusing children. was a worse moral failing than the Catholic clergy abusing children. So he is comparing women's reproductive health care to the rape of children and saying, yeah, you know what? On a continuum, women being allowed to choose

how their bodies function and seek medical reproductive care, that is actually worse than fucking a child. That is a thing he said. That's an actual thing that this guy said. He described contraception as heresy. To just like, you know, you slip a fucking rubber on,

that's heresy. You take the pill, that's heresy. That's a bold claim if you're a believer. Like, you call me a heretic, it's literally nothing. It doesn't matter. It's a bold claim if you're a believer. Like you call me a heretic, it's literally nothing. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Literally doesn't matter. Whatever. Yeah, it's like calling me a fucking school bus.

It's like, okay. I cannot even for a second think about that. I'm just like, whatever. I don't even, whatever. It doesn't even make any sense. Go ahead. Continue on. Oh, I got to tell a quick story about that.

So last year, for the last two years prior, during the pandemic, so for the school year of 2020 and the school year of 2021 or maybe 21, 22, I forgot. Time doesn't mean anything anymore. For two years, we sent my stepdaughter to a private school because the schools, the public schools here were closed. We found a very small private school with classes of like eight or nine kids. And she really was not going to flourish doing the schooling at home. So we sent her to school. The private school was associated with a Lutheran church. And so we're like, well, we don't love that, but at least it's

an education. So we had to get her somewhere. So she went to the school for a couple of years and had generally positive experiences at that school. But we did get something. We got some letter home that described the kids and said something, described the kids. It was like, oh, well, you know, we know that everyone's a sinner, so. What? And I was just like, the language was just,

and they wasn't even blamey or even particularly shitty. And I don't even remember what the letter was, but it was just a sort of like offhanded, like kids will be kids kind of comment, but kids will be kids couched in this religiosity of, well, you know, everybody's a sinner. And I was like, and I was slapped in the face with that for a moment because I remembered in that moment, Cecil, that like, there's a huge amount of people that believe in sin still. Sin and sinners. And I haven't thought in those terms my entire life. And I've been so far removed from thinking in terms of sin and sinners. It's like this heretic idea. It's like if somebody's called me a sinner, I'd be like, wait, what?

It's like saying that I have a cold because my humors were misaligned. You know what I mean? It's the same thing. It feels the same. It's the same thing. Also, just to add to Pel's list of reasons to fucking hate this guy and to be glad. And guys, it's okay to be glad when people are dead.

Oh my God, please stop worrying about that. Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. None of us. I mean, just, let me just, let me just fucking tear into that for just a second. We don't believe in an afterlife, man. It doesn't matter. And here's the thing. All the people who cared about George Powell also supported all the shit he taught that he did in his life, which was horrible. That's like saying like, man, all those people who supported that murderer, their feelings are hurt. Who cares? Yep. Nobody should care, man. We shouldn't care if their feelings are hurt. We shouldn't care about their feelings at all. These are people who supported a guy who protected pedophiles, all. These are people who supported a guy who protected pedophiles.

Period. The end. That's it. That's it. And the thing is, like, it doesn't matter if he did other good things. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. That's the other thing, is I don't want to hear any of that bullshit either. Like, well, you're only looking at the horrible shit. Look, if I make the

best meal that you've ever had in your life, Cecil, and I put just a very small piece of shit in it. Yeah. And it's a small turd. No, it's a tiny, it's a little one. It's a size of a pea. Sure. I made you a great big platter and there's just a little poo-poo in the poo-poo platter. It's, I've ruined the whole thing. Yeah. Right. You like people can do things that ruin who they are. People can do things that ruin who they are. Absolutely right.

And raping children is one of those things. And I don't care how much the church wants to fucking fetishize your fucking forgiveness, flagellation, confession, redemption bullshit. That arc does nothing for me. Yeah, man. Hard agree. Look, man, I'm sure Hitler painted nice paintings, okay? That doesn't make him a nice guy, okay? Same thing here. This guy could have fed a bunch of homeless people one part of his life. Maybe he did something good. I literally don't care. Don't care. Right. That's

not redeeming to me. There are some things you can do that ruin who you are. They are just are. He also fought, this guy fought tooth and nail against the legalization of same-sex marriage. He was, he is anti-LGBTQ. He is anti-women. He is a rapist of children. It's okay, guys, for all of us to say, whew. Yeah. Because the world got better. Thank goodness.

When he died. Yeah. The world got better. Yeah. Because the world got better. Thank goodness. When he died. Yeah. The world got better. Yep. Gay people drink beer. It's just a fact. But now it's not just gay people drinking beer. It's gay people drinking gay beer.

Really? This story comes from LGBTQ Nation. Hate pastors are now speaking out against beer because they say it makes men feminine. And I would say that is nonsense with the possible exception of blue moon. That shit is suspect. That's just suspect. That's not good.

Don't drink that. We're going to shift here real quick, Tom. Worst beer. Is it blue moon? Is blue moon the worst beer? Oh, my God. Of the like.

Of the ones that people think are good, Blue Moon is the worst. Blue Moon is undrinkably awful. It has, it's like a white wheat beer with coriander. It tastes so bad. Yeah. It is the worst beer. I hate it. It is undrinkable.

And people are like, oh, you got to put an orange in it. Oh, you got to, you got to. If I have to add fruit to my beer, then it's not good. I'm sorry. There's nothing you can add to Blue Moon that's going to make that palatable.

Like you could pour it down the drain and recycle the bottle. That is the best use of Blue Moon. You know what the worst beer to me is though? There's a couple of these. They're in a green bottle and it's like St. Polly's Girl

or Moosehead. Those are the worst beers to me. They taste so bad. They get that skunky flavor. They get skunked on purpose. And they're so terrible. It's just the worst. I can get down

with a small amount of skunkiness. I down with a small amount of skunkiness. I can do a small amount of skunkiness. The problem I have with St. Paulie, girl, and also that moose, moose heart or fucking moose lodge or whatever, moose head, they don't have any other good flavor. So there's not like a good barley flavor. There's not a good malt flavor. The hops are bland and uninteresting. So they just taste like skunk ass.

Yeah. Like I can do some skunkiness, but it's got to have something to balance it. Like, oh, that shit is fucking terrible. This is the most feminine conversation we've ever had right now. The ladies in the audience right now are into this. They're so into this. They are into this. Into this.

Do you want to play the audio? Yeah, I could play the audio. Sure. This is the Christian hate preacher. They are into this. Into this. Do you want to play the audio? Yeah, I could play the audio. Sure. This is the Christian hate preacher. What's his name? Steven Anderson. Steven Anderson. So everybody knows what this guy looks like.

And everybody knows he preaches from like his basement, his basement rec room. So that's what we're going to listen to. People who drink a lot of alcohol, they end up getting a beer belly. But not only do they get a beer belly, they get the man boobs. And I'll tell you why they get that.

Not only just because of getting overweight, but also because of the fact that beer has and it hops and there are phytoestrogen mimickers in beer that actually hormonally can, you know, make you more feminine as a man. So the reverse of being so manly because you drink so much alcohol, in fact, drinking beer specifically can actually give you more feminine features to your body and cause you to, you know, yeah, like I said. Can I just stop for a second? Can I just stop for a second? Can I just stop for a second? And like, how are you a woman sitting in this audience

and listening to these people talk? I know, man. And then they're like, God, and then you'd be like a woman? And women are gross and disgusting, awful pig creatures that we should hate. And you should never, ever want to be like a woman. How disgusting, like, how do you sit in the fucking audience as a woman? Cause you know, there's fucking dudes and women in the, I mean, I know there's probably 10 people in the audience, but still probably four or five of them are women. And you're just like, how do you sit in

the audience and hear this asshole talk about how, if he drinks beer, he's going to be more like you and he's going to hate himself. Yep. Yep, exactly. That messaging is so, everything about this messaging is not only just wrong, it's just wrong. It's super inaccurate. But it's also, it's crazy and it's wrong and it's inaccurate. It's insulting to everybody. Yeah.

It's just insulting to literally everybody. The idea that like a man who has any kind of like feminine characteristic is less desirable. Right. Is that's a that's a worse way to be male. Like, oh, OK, like that sucks. Like we're out of that stuff. The thing is that like with all the rest of the civilized, decent, progressive world, we have long ago, and by long ago, I mean, like, we started shedding this nonsense, like,

in the 80s and 90s that I'm aware of. We began the shedding of these strict feminine and masculine roles and began that process in relative earnest. I mean, look at like, look at the glam rockers, right? Yeah. That really sort of like crossed and shredded some of those boundaries. Look at like a lot of the fashion. Look at what's happening now all over in terms of like refusing to be defined as masculine

or feminine by these sort of stereotypical landmarks. Yeah. We're done with that. We're done with that stuff. We're done with it. We're done. The rest of decent, like decent, educated, progressive America is done with body shaming. We're done with that stuff.

Oh, you're going to get the fucking man boobs. Fucking fuck you. Here, how about that? Fuck you. Who cares? Move on boobs fucking fuck you here how about that fuck you who cares move on why are you done with all that look what is your obsession with my fucking man why are you staring at my chest go away like you're the one over there boob gazing dude not me right yeah right come over here i'll push i'll push these things together you don't want none of this. I call one thunder and one lightning, motherfucker.

This guy's obsessed with male bodies. Yeah, man. He absolutely is. He is fucking obsessed. What he's really saying, part of what he's saying, and we know this

from his like long, long, long history of his weird, homoerotic, homophobic rants, right? Is I don't want men to drink too much beer because I won't be attracted to them anymore. I don't want them to get a big belly because then I can't jerk off to their six pack. That's don't drink a six pack. I want to see your six pack. It's what gets me hard is what Steven Anderson is saying.

He's worried dudes are going to like drink too much and develop body characteristics that he doesn't want to fuck or get fucked by. That's what he's worried about. I also want to touch on his, his comment about the estrogen thing, right? He's talking about hops having like some sort of like quasi estrogen thing in it that makes that, that makes guys, it's like those people who call you a soy boy, right? They don't know what they're talking about. They have no idea what they're talking about. They heard one time a thing about a thing that makes them freak out. And it reminds me of, I don't know if you remember, we had a guy on who was a vaccine doctor and he came on and he was

like, yeah, you know, people always talk about formaldehyde. They keep talking about how much formaldehyde is in vaccines. And he's like, there's more formaldehyde in a pair than there is in a vaccine, right? So there's more there. But the problem is, it's a scary thing. And this is the same thing, right? None of this stuff does anything to you, but even if it did, there's probably more in another substance out there that you probably consume all the time that he's not picking on, but it's just, he's just, he's just doing this thing where you find something and then you dig down enough so that you can scare other people about it. There's an ingredient or

something. So you can use that to try to scare the people who you're talking to about the thing you're trying to scare them of. Yeah. And I did look this up. Hops do contain phytoestrogens and they do contain a type of phytoestrogen, which I can't pronounce, which does appear to have some effect on the estrogen levels in the body. But the thing is, men have estrogen. Yeah. Men have estrogen just like women have testosterone. You have both estrogen and testosterone.

You need estrogen as a man in your system to have things that are manly like a libido. If you have no estrogen in your system, your libido drops to nothing. You have to have a balance. How much does it move your estrogen level? Exactly, yeah. Not fucking much. When I looked it up, it's not fucking much of anything. So like, does it have phytoestrogen?

Sure. If you drink a reasonable, regular person amount of beer, how much are your actual estrogen levels going to change? De minimisly. So who fucking cares? Yeah. Well, you worried about this. The reason that they're worried about this is that they are so insecure in their masculinity. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely terrified of that word estrogen. They don't even understand how their bodies work. They don't understand anything about hormones, but they are so insecure. Yeah. They're so afraid that anything is,

oh, it's going to take away my manliness. Yeah. My manliness. Yeah. They're terrified of this because they don't have any fucking self-confidence.

And what does that say about femininity to them? You know what I mean? Right. What does that say about femininity if they prize manliness only? What does that say

about your wife, dude? What are you saying? Right. You know? And so you could just tell, like this church drips misogyny. It drips homophobia. It's a, this is such a shitty group of people.

And I know it's a small group of people and I know we make fun of the fact that it's in like a church basement or whatever, but this is not a unique belief to this church, right? This is not a unique idea that this guy thought of. This is an idea that many people believe. These are common beliefs that this guy just happens to be dumb enough to say out loud and be recorded.

Yep, yeah, that's exactly right. He's saying the quiet part for a lot of people out loud. If you don't kill me, precogs are wrong and pre-crime is over. This story comes from Wired. I thought this story was kind of scary. Iran says face recognition will ID women breaking hijab laws. So, you know, obviously we've talked about it before on the show. about it before on the show. There are a tremendous number of brave women in Iran right now who are pushing back against the ruthless morality police and the ridiculous and awful and restrictive and

misogynist culture that they live in that forces them to cover their faces and cover their hair and to live shielded from view as if they, to make them second-class citizens, to intentionally, through religious conditioning, make them second-class citizens. And the Iranian government is using facial recognition software to look into these crowds and to spot these women and then to target them. And it is an absolutely terrifying use of really sophisticated technology to target women for not upholding this awful misogynist religion. Imagine having all the technology of these cameras

and this sort of face recognition technology and then using it to enforce a seventh century religion. I know, man. Like, I mean, that's like flying the fucking Curiosity rover up there and being like, hey, writing in the fucking soil, hey, God, can you hear us? Like, it's such a weird, dumb thing to do.

It doesn't make any sense. We have, you know, you've come so far to have all this technology, to have this stuff, and then we're using it to enforce this weird, crazy, old-timey belief structure that, like you say, puts women as second-class citizens. But the other thing too is it paints women who don't do it as unreligious, right? But that's not the case. These women who are fighting against this, they are just against an oppressive patriarchy. They're not necessarily not religious. They might be very religious. They just recognize that this is something that is

oppressing them and they want to not do it. I want them to have the opportunity to do it or not do it. I don't care what, you know, wear what the fuck you want, right? But that's not the case there. If you're using this to enforce this, they don't have the opportunity or ability to wear what the fuck they want. It is, you're absolutely right that it is, it's crazy that they have to try to live in two worlds at once. Yeah.

And it has to be a, I would think that there would be a real cognitive dissonance there for them, or at least that there should be. It's also the case, Cecil, from the Wired article, that in addition to not wearing the hijab because they choose not to, there's also a refusal right now to wear the hijab as specifically a form of political protest. And it's important to remember that in Iran, you cannot separate the political from the religious. Exactly. There is no distinction. There's not even the pretense to distinction, right? Because the political is the religious. The law is Sharia. That's how the laws, the tribunals, their court system. There is no secular politics in Iran. There is no secular courts in Iran. There is no secular functional government in Iran.

The two are absolutely married. So you cannot protest the government without also protesting the religion. And that's how the government controls the people, right? It's because they say, look, it's not that you're protesting me, a bad president, or me, a bad local. You are protesting Islam. So that's hering. Right, right. And by keeping those things, this is why the separation of church and state is so important. It's so essential.

Those fucking, the Christian nationalist lunatics that want to strip that away, the separation of church and state away here in the States. Look at what it is in Iran if you can't parse them out. If you can't parse them out, you cannot criticize the government.

The criticism of the government is a de facto criticism of the dominant religion of the government. That's heresy. Anything heretical can be punished by these extreme laws. It's all, this is control. Exactly.

That's what this is based on. It is based on control. And then look at, you know, you make the comparison to the United States and you say, that's what these Christian wackos want to do. And then you start looking at the things that they're trying to pass. Look at the laws they're trying to pass.

Look at the Supreme Court rulings. These are all about control. These are none of these. These are all essentially Christian Sharia laws. That's what they are. So, you know, we can, and you know, that also too makes us, we sometimes feel a little superior. We'll look across the pond and we'll be like, oh, well, you know, that's not happening here. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it fucking is, man.

A hundred percent. It absolutely is. One hundred, one hundred percent. The same motivations, the same excuses, the same, you know, backdoor into morality when what you really mean is misogyny. It's all the same. There is no look. Oh, the only thing that's different is the fucking spices. Yep. Yep.

That's it. That's it. Are you telling me that this is illegal? Well, yes and no. well yes no this story comes from new republic kevin mccarthy on george santos well is there a charge against him yes yeah yeah there is yeah you dumb fuck there's charges against him oh yeah he's george santos is the lioness liar that ever lied a lie. Oh, my God. Like, he's just, he's ridiculous. He, like, the shit that that motherfucker has made up, and he is just, he's tweeting out shit like, yeah, I was elected to, you know, represent the people, and I will not resign.

And, you know, like, it's's in the fucking, the right nose. They need him. Yeah. They need his vote. Although they need his vote. They can't distance themselves. Did you see the people in New York that basically resigned because of him? Yeah,

man. They're like, no, man, I peace out. I'm done with this. It's so interesting. Cause at the local level,

he has no support, none, but at the national level, he has their quiet tacit no support. None. But at the national level he has their quiet taciturn support. He doesn't have their disapproval basically.

Right. That's what he doesn't have. Yeah. He's getting assigned to committees. It's not like they're pulling him from all his committee assignment. Unbelievable man.

He's going to be assigned to committees. How do you get committees as like a new that sounds bullshit. Like you're brand new. Yeah. I don't know.

Don't, I have no idea. I have no idea how that system works. None at all. Yeah. I don't know if everybody gets put on a committee unless you're stripped of your, you know, what's crazy now is that like MTG is going to be back on committees. Yeah. She was stripped of all of her committee assignments for being an awful anti-semitic monster yeah and now she's going to be because now the the fucking clown car on the right she's

going to actually be given some plum assignments on some really oh powerful time they want her there you had said as much years like like over a year ago when you said she's a huge draw for them they recognize this they know she's a star man she is a star and she's a huge draw for them. They recognize this. They know she's a star, man. She is a star. And she's got her, her, her lack of apparent intelligence does not diminish her value at all.

No, no. That's a feature, not a bug. It is. It absolutely is. It does not diminish her ability to draw. And it does not, it doesn't persuade her or slow her down at all. She consistently puts her just never look backward, never address what happened.

It's like Blitzkrieg marketing. It's just like, go forward, go forward, go forward, never leave, never stop. Never,

it's all gas, no brakes. And that's, and she does it so well. She does it so well. I wouldn't, I wouldn't be surprised if she's on that stage

for the Republican, Republican ticket next time around. I wouldn't be surprised. Oh my God. I wouldn't be surprised. Oh my God. I wouldn't be surprised. You are speechless.

We can't. I can't. We can't live. I just struck you dumb with that statement. Cecil, Cecil, we can't live in that. I won't live in that world. I won't live in that world. We cannot.

I will buy one of those fucking Swiss suicide pods or whatever. Yeah, man. And I'll climb it. What the fuck? And shoot myself into the next fucking, into the next universe. I'll be like, nah, man. Hard pass. Oh, God.

I'm going to get out my fucking emergency. I know. I'm just, I'm just, I know. I know. I have to get my emergency zombie heroin. Unending blackness is preferable to her presidency. Let me tell you. Unending void is her intel.

Are you kidding me? George Santos, though, is a disaster of a human being. But I think, I do think, I don't think anything's going to happen to him. I don't think anything bad is going to happen to that guy. The Republicans are so far from,

they are so far from any kind of ethical position right now. Yeah. They have, there are no principles. There aren't even,

and it's not even, we're at this crazy place, Cecil, where it's not even like the ends justify the means for the Republicans because there are no means. There's nothing that they're working toward. The ends justify the chaos. Oh, didn't they cancel the IRS the other day? Yeah, but it's not going to go anywhere. The House voted to, because the House can't do anything without the Senate.

Yeah. So it's the same. No, it's just, it's the same. I know, it's all. Their first order of business was to be like, hey, you know what?

We actually want there to be more wealthy tax cheats, not less. Although, actually, I might be wrong about that because I think that the House controls the purse strings

and I think they did revoke the funding. They did revoke funding for it, but they also went a step farther and made a law that will never make it. That's right. That's right. I conflated the two. Yeah, but they did. They did. of dollars in additional funding for the IRS that was specifically earmarked to go after,

to audit tax cheats that were in the upper class, the wealthier Americans. And because right now what happens is the IRS, let's say they want to audit somebody who makes millions of dollars. That person making millions of dollars will just bury the IRS with their own accountants and lawyers and paperwork. And so the IRS actually is less resourced because we live in a plutocratic system where a handful of ultra wealthy people have more power and control than the actual government. And so they don't fear the resources of the government. It's crazy. What's crazy is all these people, when you look at the districts for the house, you look at the median income for some of these districts, look at the low level of income for a lot of these districts. And these are rural white poor. That's who voted those people in there.

And then you look and you say, okay, what's their first order of business? They cut the purse strings to prosecute and get more money into the government to maybe help you. We took that away. We took that avenue away. That doesn't exist anymore.

And that was our first thing we did. So think about the ticket you just punched this November. The first thing they did was protect the people who get them in office, not the people who vote for them. 100%, man. And then they turn around and they just flat out lie about what they did. Yeah. They just flat out lie.

They say, oh, we're protecting the American middle class from being devastated by IRS audits. But that's not true. That's not true. That's just the money is specifically earmarked for people making $400,000 or more. Yeah. That's not the American middle class.

Yeah. That's the top 5%. And there's no way that got you in office. There's no way that vote got you in office. But that money that comes from that area, that got you in office. I don't think this vote got you in office, but that money that comes from that area, that got you in office. I don't think this guy's going anywhere. I really don't. I don't think so either. I don't think so either. Because nothing matters. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. And they will never hold anybody on their side accountable. We've seen that happen. No. They're

in fact, the only thing they're going to do this time is impeach Biden as many times as they can. They're going to try to make it. They're going to try to make, they're going to try to impeach him literally as many times as possible. And they also, the fucking house agreed to form a committee to investigate why everybody hates the Republicans, basically. That's a good one. Did you see that? That's, I did miss this one. They, they, they've, they agreed to fund me. Let me get what they called it real quick. They called it something like the, the weaponization of the government against conservatives. It's crazy. Let me read what they call it real quick.

Yeah, Republican lawmakers approved a new House subcommittee designed to probe the weaponization of the federal government, giving the panel access to intelligence and power to oversee ongoing criminal investigations. It passed on party lines. This is essentially a, hey, we think that the government is beating up on Republicans because it's looking into our wrongdoing. So we're going to look into the guys that are looking into us. It's fucking bonkers. It's this Ouroboros government.

That is unbelievable, i know that's that's also one of the they did this three days ago it's one of the first things that they did this is where we're at believe we are in a complete fucking shit show stalemate we've let we've let a party of trolls hijack our entire political system. Yeah. That is where we're at. Yeah. I don't know how we get out of it. Yeah, man.

I don't know either. I genuinely don't. I don't know either. And then they stack the deck when it comes to eliminating polling stations. They stack the deck when it came to gerrymandering. You know what I mean? Yeah. It doesn't look...

It certainly doesn't look bright, let me tell you. It doesn't look, it certainly doesn't look bright, let me tell you. It doesn't. And if you're, even if you're like an establishment Republican and you thought, I'll play with this fire because I need it and it gains me power, but I'll be able to control it. You cannot control it. You cannot because these are chaos agents.

They don't care. You know, the Boberts, the Matt Gaetzes, the Santos who will do whatever the fuck, the MTGs, there's a whole host of these fuckwits. Their whole purpose, their whole reason to be is the chaos. They don't have an agenda. They don't have a platform. All they are is purveyors of empty rhetoric and chaos. They want to sow as much chaos as possible. They want to throw this system into gridlock at every turn. I am actually

really scared, genuinely scared about what's going to happen when we have to get to the routine raising of the debt ceiling. Yeah, what happens? We have to raise the debt ceiling in order to pay our bills. No, what happens? You're right. I don't think we're going to do it.

It's going to be really interesting because there's going to be a lot of fighting. There's going to be a lot of fighting. And in order to keep the government running, you got to keep raising it. So, yeah. I am really worried that these people, one, don't understand what the debt ceiling is. Yeah. And two, they know that the word debt is a word that the American people don't like to associate with the government,

even though most people don't know what the debt ceiling is and they don't know the difference between the debt ceiling and the deficit, for example. No, they think that they conflate the two. Yeah. Yeah.

So I would, and I am not sure that the Boberts of the world know the difference. No, I don't think so either. And I really think, Cecil, that we might be in a position where we default on our national deaths. Could be, and I will say this, you know, what's going to be good though is going to be listening to the speeches when nobody knows what they're talking about and they're giving a speech about it. I know, right? And there won't be only one.

There will be multiple speeches where they're going to do it. Can you imagine what they're going to sound like? It's going to be outstanding. I can't wait. While the world burns, at least it'll be funny. So. Sheriff! Sheriff!

Sheriff! Sheriff! Yes, Ms. Thunderstorm? Have they found Cindy Campbell's father? No. Isn't he a suspect? That is classified information. Where are you getting that?

I'm sorry, but my sources are strictly confidential, Sheriff. Hey, Gail. Gail Swallows. So we've got to talk about this story as well. This is from NBC News. You can find it anywhere. Biden aides find second batch of classified documents at new location on Monday. The White House acknowledged a small number of classified documents had been found in an office that Biden had used.

Yeah. I am of the mind that you got it. I want to see a special prosecutor. I do. Yes. And one was appointed. I want to see that happen. It's like, nobody is above the law, period. Not the president and not the former president. And I think that's why he is going to great lengths to try to show that this is how you cooperate. Because they immediately appointed a special prosecutor. They immediately did.

They were like, boom, do it. And so you're like, okay, cool. Well, now when it comes time for Trump to have any problems, you'd be like, well, Biden did it. Yep. Yeah, I mean, time for Trump to have any problems, you'd be like, well, Biden did it. Yep. Yeah, I mean, you do have to. I'm not making excuses for Biden having classified documents. I want to be very clear.

I am not making excuses. I am also concerned that there's not a better system for logging these fucking documents. 100% concerned, yes. If I go to the library, yep i gotta check the book out yeah somebody knows if i didn't fucking return it i would think that with all these classified goddamn documents there should be a system for tom's got the document hey we should get it back sometime like you're going through the effort of choosing

a classification level. Yeah. There should be some kind of numerical designation. This is classified document number 127-938-5A7.

Oh, where is it? Well, oh, Tom has it. Well, that's fine. Well, Tom doesn't work here anymore. Well, I need classified document 1234587,

you know, again. Yeah. Like I have to have it back now. Yeah. We have, we clearly have no tracking system for what appears to be really fucking delicate information. We should be worried about that. Dude. That is a worrisome thing. I know they fuck it up sometimes, but every, every time most people travel, their luggage gets to the same place that they're going, right? Most of the time, right? They have a system to know there's this many pieces on there and they had these tags and then they have a checking system to make sure all that stuff gets in there. That's just luggage, right? That's not sensitive documents and that's not a hard system to make sure you have all your shit like it just to the

idea that these are just so loosey-goosey and you could just walk in and be like i don't know i'll just grab a couple of these and then just wander off with them and then never have to give them back like what in the sweet fuck is happening there man i know figure it out this shouldn't be something that should be in somebody's possession and i that you know of course i think you got to applaud somebody who says they immediately found out and they immediately went after him. They had to go after Trump.

They had to follow, go after him and say, we need this stuff. They knew he had some stuff and so they went after him. Biden brought this to their attention. So good on him for bringing it to their attention. But I want to see him make sure

that anything that is super important that he should have returned and if he gets something happens to him because of it, okay, all right. Same. No one should fucking be above the law,

period. That's the end of that sentence. The end. And I don't want to deal with anybody else who thinks differently. I don't think my side should be above the law.

And I sure as fuck don't think your side should either. This is going to create a really weird scenario. This is like a perfect, like, I don't know what world we're in anymore. I don't know what to call this epic Cecil. But if you're a Republican, before this Biden news happened, right, you had to spend your time downplaying the damage and the, you know, when a president takes classified documents, you know, also there's a difference, by the way, between a handful of pages and 12 or 13,000 documents, right? Absolutely.

No, that's true. I'll agree. But the media on the right and the politicians on the right, you know, they spent all this time saying, oh, it's not a big deal. Months. That's not a big deal.

That's not a big deal. Now that it happened with Biden, they have no choice now but to say, well, that's a big deal for him. And it's a big deal for him too. No. No.

It's only a big deal because of him. Yep. It's only a big deal for him. And it's a big deal for him too. No. No. It's only a big deal because of him. Yep. It's only a big deal for him. And they can get away with it. And they do. They literally can immediately switch positions upstream as instantly. And consistency means nothing. It doesn't.

Yeah. It doesn't. so tom had a emergency tonight so he he's not joining me for this interview, but no illusions from the scathing atheist stop by. Noah, how are you doing? I'm doing great, man. How are you doing? I'm doing wonderful. And we are joined, Noah and I are joined by Keith Taylor from Modest Needs. Keith, every year Noah and his team and Tom and I, we team up for Vulgarity for Charity. And over the past couple of years, we've had some really great years. And we've really sort of pushed people as much as we could to try to donate and try to get the money to the people who need it.

We know that Modest Needs is one of those groups. Keith, thank you so much for joining us today and chatting with us. Well, I can't thank you enough for letting me be here. And most importantly, before anything else, I have to thank the listeners, both Cognitive Distance and Skating Atheist. This year, what did we do? $200,000. And that's before we matched it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's before we matched it. We doubled that. So what, 400,000 that we did before the end of November? Yeah. So you have a truly generous, really amazing bunch of people out there that listen to you. And I can't tell you how grateful we are on behalf of the people that they've already helped.

So thank you very, very much. Yeah, you know, it's so funny. We went into this year. We were saying, like, you know, what do we want to do? What do we want to set as our goal? And Eli, the, you know, optimist among us, I guess, he says, well, we should set $400,000 because, you know, we almost hit that last time and blah, blah, blah. And we're like, oh, come on. In this economy, there's no way. let's not set ourselves up to fail.

There's no way we're going to hit $400,000. Uh, and, and, you know, like look over and over again, I think we've underestimated our listeners and they've always surprised us. They've always come through and in, in, in ways beyond what we, uh, ever expected. Yeah. Pretty amazing. That was a, I'm not going to lie in this, in this economy, I was pretty dumbfounded myself. It was pretty great. So that was amazing. Thank you.

Yeah. Keith, I know that we talk about this on our show and Noah, I'm sure you've mentioned it many times. Can you just like give us the 30 second elevator pitch for what Modest Needs is? Yeah, it's really easy. You know, Modest Needs is a nonprofit, it's really easy. Modest Needs is a nonprofit organization where people come together and help the working poor.

That's really it. It's a very simple idea. There are lots of organizations out there that we really need that help people who really have nothing. They have nowhere to go, nowhere to turn, and they're homeless. They have no food, no clothes, no shelter. And we fund those organizations to an extraordinary degree, and we should fund those. But up until Modest Needs, there really wasn't an org that would help a person who was, say, working. This is a very average situation, a very normal situation in the U.S. right now, especially working, maybe a single This is a very average situation, a very normal situation in the US right now, especially working,

maybe a single parent with a couple of children making, say, $25,000, $26,000 a year. And then there's a short-term emergency, right? The car breaks down. Or, I don't know, the kid has to go to the doctor and the insurance deductible hasn't been paid fully yet. So they have to pay for full cost of a doctor's appointment and an x-ray and maybe some medication. People forget

that just one little emergency like that is often how people end up in the cycle of poverty because if you don't have the money and there's no resource for you and you don't have family and friends, you borrow it from yourself. You borrow it from the rent. You borrow it from the car payment. The next thing you know, you've started into a cycle that you can't easily escape. And Modest Needs is here to enable people, just like your listeners and people all over the country and the world, to step in and stop that cycle, usually for very small amounts of money. We have had a couple of larger grants here and there,

but the maximum is normally around $1,500 or $1,600. And it's amazing what you can do with that amount of money. It's insane. Just being on the brink of that, and then that little boost keeps you from those other services that you were mentioning, the services where people are in desperate poverty. There's a chance that you can fall down into there and the chances you getting out of that is really slim, but you catch them before they actually hit that bottom,

which is, that's the sweet spot and that's where you want to be. And you guys have helped so many people over the years that way. I'm really proud of what we've all been able to achieve together. And it continues to be an inspiration to me every day. And I hope to all of you too. Well, yeah. I feel like there's two different ways in which I tell my audience about Modest Knees. One way is, of course, with Vulgarity for Charity. But the other way is very often, they come to us because they have nobody to come to. And they're like, hey, can you maybe help us out? Maybe tell your audience about our fundraiser. And I always tell them about Modest Needs. So you started this interview off thanking the listeners. But on behalf of the listeners, I want to thank you as

well, because there are a number of listeners that I've talked to that Modest Needs has helped when they were in pretty desperate times. It's such a it's such a great resource not to, you know, obviously we love the work we do with Vulgarity for Charity, but just knowing about the organization and referring people to it, you know, I think we've ended up helping an awful lot of people that way as well. Well, that's great to know.

And that makes me really happy. Thank you. So Keith, tell us sort of the effect and the impact that our listeners had for this November. Well, this November, I mean, let's just be honest. I mean, 2022 was a hard year. Yeah.

Insane inflation. You know, I think every charity across the board saw decreased giving. And it was simply harder than normal to reach the number of people that we would typically reach. And we were no exception going into November. And frankly, because of the folks that, well, all of your listeners and the whole Vulgarity for Charity campaign, I mean, we ended up with $400,000 that we could spend helping families who, you know, who really, I mean, it really came down to this folks. They weren't going to get the help. Okay. They weren't going to get it. That's it. They weren't getting it. And you, you gave it to them. So that's what it came down to. And I don't know what we would have done without you because, I mean, some of the people, I mean, we could have helped some of the folks that we've been able to help so far.

Not even close. I mean, we were cutting. Every week we do what's called a funding list, right? And we send the funding list for everybody that's going to get the grant checks that week. And a nice good week we'll do 15, 20, 25 checks, maybe $15,000, $20,000 a week. I consider that to be a real victory. And we finish up Vulgarity for Charity and the first funding list I get is $120,000. That's a big, big difference. So, you know, thank that's, that's the impact that it had. It's, it's the kind of giving that doesn't take long to have an impact. It has an instantaneous impact. There were people

who weren't going to have homes in December that had homes because of this. They weren't going to be able to keep working because they weren't going to have transportation to work and they kept their jobs and people who really, really, really needed to continue medical care who wouldn't have had that if it had not been for this campaign. And yeah, I'm sometimes unsure that your listeners really know just how impactful their contributions are, but they really do change lives. And not just for the short term, really for the long term, because a lot of these folks that you help, they come back and they help other people once they're back on their feet. And it becomes this cycle that's just really

something to be celebrated. Do you have any individual stories you'd like to tell? Any individual grants that you were able to give out that, that really touched you? No, I'll, I'll, why don't I give you one? Let me get, let me give you one that I really love because this is, this is the kind of stuff that just gets to me. Now I, I love it whenever we can help somebody, but when we can help somebody who has really been put upon for no good reason, I especially love that.

All right. That's just makes me. Do you know what I'm talking about? Drives me crazy. So, all right. Listen to this. Single mom, two kids. She has a 20-year-old in school who's pursuing a graphic design degree.

And then she has a much younger son. All right. The 20-year-old's father passes away unexpectedly, and her 20-year-old son is obviously distraught. So his mother did what I think pretty much anybody would do. She took the day off from work to be with her son so he could mourn the passing of his father. Right? Totally reasonable. She got fired for that. Oh, wow. They fired her. And they fired her in an economy where getting a job again is really, really tough. So they ended up behind on their house note.

And they were on their way to a pretty solid eviction. It actually wasn't a house. It was an apartment. But they were about to be evicted. I think we got to them with 72 hours to go. Wow. But these are people, these two folks would have been essentially on the street, yeah, if it had not been for the Vulgarity for Charity campaign.

And I'll read you what they wrote. We asked them to leave a little thank you note. Listen to this. This is just so nice. It says, I could cry right now. In fact, my heart is so full that even if I did cry, they would be happy tears. Life has been rough, and I think my children see that in me with every day and tasks that I have to do for them.

I don't know what to say, except I humbly thank everyone who has helped me, who has helped create this safe feeling, and the stress is lifted from us. It's the holidays, and there's supposed to be happy times, not times to have a heavy heart and stress. This really truly does save my family from another loss. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. My children know there is good out there. Well, you know what, what the first time I'd ever heard of your charity, Keith, was when Cecil talked about it on his show and he talked about it in connection with the charitable moment from his childhood. One of those things that stuck with him that, you know, where someone else had been charitable and generous with with with his family when it was in a tough time. And that, you know, reinforced his faith in humanity.

And it's like, you know, yeah, like it's very important that we help people with their rent and stuff like that. But holy shit, if you're helping people with their faith in humanity, that's a, you know, that's a hell of a, that's an accomplishment on a whole nother level. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. Most of the people who come to us have already been told no by everybody else, mostly because they just don't fit the demographic, right? They make, they make too much to, to qualify for help from those places. just don't fit the demographic, right? They make too much to qualify for help from those places. They don't qualify for like the Toys for Tots things, Toys for Tots. They don't qualify for any kind of like state

or city rental assistance or, you know, it's really a shame. And so when they actually find out that, I mean, the first thing that they're actually just astonished that modest needs is even real. I mean, 20 years under our belt, so you would think they would get that by now. But no, they're just astonished that this is a real thing, that regular people will really just do this for them. And then when the help really comes, it does seem to change people's attitudes. Listen, can I share one other story with you? It's not specifically from November, but it really does go to show you the long-term impact of these things that you would just never guess.

This happened to us actually, gosh, we learned about it, I guess, the end of last year, but it's so worth sharing. So this is from the very, very beginning of Modest Needs, which we're 20 years old. Well, we just turned 20 last year. And so in our very first year, one of the grants that we made was this person who is some grad student who wrote to us when it was us. I say it was just me. It was me and a computer trying to figure out what to do with this. And and she wrote and she had she was getting a master's in medicine and she had gotten an interview at a really prestigious medical school and she couldn't afford to get to the interview. And she was asking for like fifty dollars to go on a Greyhound bus. And it was like 500 mile bus ride.

And I was like, yeah, okay. Cause that's going to be really conducive to your medical school interview. And so we had a little bit of money. And so a plane ticket was like just a little bit more. So we flew her there. And so it was great. We funded the application.

We flew her to her interview. She left a testimonial, said, thank you so much. And that was it, right? 20 years ago. Last year, we're just getting the mail and we get this letter from some unbelievable hospital, I think in Minnesota. And we open it and it's from this person and she's the head of pediatric medicine at this hospital. And she's writing to tell us that her pediatric specialty is cases like children who every other doctor has tried and they can't save the child. So they send them to her and she's like, you know, I have a, I have a better record

of, I save more than I lose, but I wouldn't be able to do any of this if it hadn't been for the faith that somebody had in a med student, you know, 20 years ago. So I just wanted to let you know that these things, you know, they're like people walking around alive now because of you. Thank you. It was, it was just, it was just stunning. I was framed now that letter, but wow. So, you know, you know, you just never know how, I mean, that was a, like I said, seriously, a couple of hundred dollars. And so really, really, you know, small change of world of differences is what we've have missed out on a great pediatrician. We could have missed out on like, think about all of the great minds and great skills that the world has lost out on because somebody couldn't afford to get to the interview. That's exactly right. That's exactly

right. And we don't think about that too often, but I think we should be thinking about it more. And this is a great time to think about it. I don't think we've ever seen, at least not in my lifetime, I don't think I've ever been as conscious of, as I am now, of how much it costs to go somewhere, right? Like across town or anything like that. But yeah, you're absolutely right. this last year, we've seen inflation rise. Have you seen any uptick in people looking for need because inflation is hurting the working poor? Or do you expect that in the next year, it's going to go up? Oh, we absolutely have seen. Actually, I'll tell you what we've seen. It's been that the needs have stayed fairly constant, but because disposable income is dropping, contributions have dropped. And so, do you see what I mean? So, people who can give, you know, maybe larger donors haven't been as impacted, but that's not who we work with. We work with people who are normally giving, say, $25, $100, $200.

And if all of a sudden the cost of eggs goes from $5 to $15 a dozen, those are the people who all of a sudden can't make a contribution. So the contributions that they do make become fewer and further between, and we have to learn to stretch it more. But we definitely are seeing the results of inflation on the applicant side of things as well. It's just that where we're seeing it first was on the donor side, if that makes any sense. Yeah, yeah, totally. And I know that when we talked last, you had said some of the most important ways to give to modest needs. While one-time donations are amazing,

you really are always looking for people to get on a monthly giving plan for you guys because then you guys can plan ahead and use that money. It's just an easier way for you to plan ahead and use that money to help people. Oh, that's absolutely right. I mean, if you normally give $300 a year at the end of the year, I mean, that's wonderful.

I'm grateful that you're doing that. But if instead you'd give $25 a month every month, boy, that would be a lifesaver in, say, July. Yeah. You know, everybody's gone. Right. So that's just something else to think about. And then, you know, if you want to give a little more at the end of the year, that's great. But yeah, I'm all for the monthly pledge plan. If you want to do that, we have all of that set up for you at modestneeds.org. All you have to do

is go over and, uh, you know, make a quick donation and say, you know, where it says give monthly say yes. Uh, but, uh, yeah, that's, that's absolutely right. Monthly contributions are incredibly helpful. You see the waxing and waning of the amount of money that comes in, it sounds like throughout the year. Have you seen any real changes? I know we talked to you at the beginning of the pandemic. This was a year we had taken off because we had bitten off way more

than we could chew with vulgarity for charity. We had 1,200 roasts to do. It was just way too much. We had to rethink Vulgarity for Charity a little the following couple of years, but we were seriously two years in. It was just too much. But you had done really well that first year of the pandemic. You had said when we talked, you said, you know what? People are really, really very charitable this year and we've done okay. And so we talked about moving it on to the next year. Have you noticed that that's still the case as things sort of dropped off? Since I know the beginning of the pandemic feels different than it does now. We are still technically in a pandemic, but you know, but has it changed?

Has that changed? Yes. What's happened is that now, I mean, before we had a special pandemic program, right? And people could give directly to that. But now it seems that COVID is going to just be a part of our lives. And so we've had to integrate that back into our regular programs. During 2020 and 2021, especially 2020, 2020 was the biggest year we ever had. We had, oh my gosh, I can, I think we actually sent, when I say millions, I mean, millions of dollars to people who, uh, you know, had, had problems with COVID short, uh, people who were frontline workers. I mean, we just,

I mean, our donors were unbelievable. 2021, we did pretty well for about six months. And then people just sort of seemed like they just were tapped out. You know, they had given as much as they could. And so we still, you know, we still see some, some flutters every now and then, but I don't think, I don't think anybody is seeing that same level of COVID generosity that we saw right at the beginning of the pandemic. Yeah, I figured as much, you know, and it's, and it's, it's a shame, but you know, you, you can only sustain that kind of excitement and that kind of goodwill for only so long. I mean, we are just human. And so sometimes that's just, I mean, you can't, you can't say forever. Okay. It's still COVID. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Keith, we wanted to thank you so much for coming on today. And we wanted to thank you for all the amazing work you do. I know that the atheist community doesn't believe in saints, but we do believe in good people, and you are one of the good people.

So thank you so much for all the stuff that you do. You're so welcome, and thank you for being such an important part of this work. We couldn't do it without you. Thank you so much. So we'd like to thank our patrons. Of course, we'd like to thank all our patrons. I'd like to thank our newest. Of course, we'd like to thank all our patrons. We'd like to thank our newest patrons,

Shan F16, Clo, and Faithless, and the people who up their pledges, Shirty Bear, Chris, and Vincent. Thank you so much for your generous donations. We want to also thank Keith Taylor from Modest Needs. We do Vulgarity for Charity almost every year. Some years we have extra stuff that we have to do

for like a very long time. But we, you know, Vulgarity for Charity is a target for us every year to try to help motivate our audience to do something good for a group of people who really need help.

And Keith helps facilitate that and we cannot thank him enough. I also want to thank No Illusions and the Scathing Atheist for joining me for a quick interview. It was great to have him on. And I also, again, I say this every time, but I want to thank them for inviting us on to play in Vulgarity for Charity Land. This has been their idea. Keith from Modest Needs was our contact. We had worked with them in the past. And so we brought that to the table, but this was their whole idea and they brought us on to help

with it. And we are so happy that we have had this opportunity to collaborate with people who we already collaborate with on a project, but who we have an opportunity to collaborate with and to work with to try to do some good every couple of years. And Noah this year pointed out that we've raised over a million dollars over the last several years with Vulgarity for Charity. And that's a huge deal. That's amazing. And Keith, you really couldn't ask for a better charity run by a better guy. Yeah. You really couldn't. We just feel so good about working with modest needs. When Cecil and I began doing charitable efforts, one of the things that we talked about was making sure that the money

that was raised went to a cause that had immediate effect. That wasn't just a cause like, and it's not because these are bad causes. So it's not like the ACLU, right? Which does great work and should be funded and you should absolutely give them money. And it's not like the SPLC, which does great work and you should absolutely give them money. But it's not like the SPLC, which does great work, and you should absolutely give them money. But Cecil and I just felt drawn personally to a style of giving and raising money for organizations that were just very grassroots and that had a very one-to-one, I gave you 500 bucks, well, great, $498 of that was used to help fix my catalytic converter so I could drive to work. It just appealed to us. And Modest Needs is so on the ground. They're so tangible.

They're so personal. And so is Keith. And that organization means the world to me. And that partnership means the world to me. I couldn't be happier that we've been drawn into this and that we've had this multi-year, multi, a million dollar plus success because of our listeners. Yeah, for sure. It is just such a point of pride for me. And it's the charitable giving of our listeners

and our listener base, the people who have a little extra and want to help somebody out who needs it. And that just shows that, you know, the group of people who listen to this show, they have good intentions and want to help people.

And they're good people. And we've shown that year and year and year because every year it goes up. And so it's been great to work with them. And so we want to thank Keith. Of course, we want to thank No Illusions. And we want to thank the Scathing Atheist crew in its entirety because, you know, again,

they invited us on to come hang out with them on this. We are not going to do any email this week. We didn't get a ton and we're sort of out of studio or there's no video this week. And so it's a lot of, we're just sort of catching our breath. We are planning on doing a live stream next week. So you can come catch us 9 p.m. Central.

It might be the last live stream for a little bit too. So this will be one for you to come catch because we might not be doing them as regular in the future. And we're going to get to that in a couple of weeks, but we still have to hash some things out. But the live stream this upcoming week on Thursday night, come catch it 9 p.m. Central. You can catch us on Facebook on uh twitch and on youtube that is gonna wrap it up though this for this week we are gonna leave you like we always do with the skeptics creed credulity is not a virtue it's fortune cookie cutter mommy issue hypno babylon bullshit couched in scientician double bubble toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead, pan, sales pitch, late night info-docutainment. 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, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. 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, 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. you