Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 679: Toe the Line

Episode Date: March 27, 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 welcome mat. This is episode 679, Cecil, I think. It is.

It is. I knew it and had extreme confidence in that number. Thank you very much. I had to change it. But yeah, it was. Okay. Well, you changed it to the right number. I changed it to the right number.

This is an Abraham situation, right? I changed it to the right number. You stayed my hand at the last moment. I did. I stayed your hand. And I appreciate it. This is the relationship we have. And I am back in the studio, baby. Back in the studio.

Back in the studio. Not COVID plus. Here we go. How was COVID? Was it awesome? I loved it. Every day was a gift. What a wonder. You know, my favorite thing about COVID is now that I've had it, knowing that I can get it again. That's the real

joy of it. Did you see they're taking down the COVID response team? The government today released the thing that said that they're just disbanding it. Whatever. Now that you got it, they're like, Tom got it. We're done. We got him. We got that

son of a bitch. Three years we tried to protect them. We're done now. I quit. They're all retiring. Yeah, everything is like, John Hopkins took down their data tracking. Yeah, there's no more tracking anymore. The Times doesn't put it on the first page anymore.

You got to go look for it specifically. Like, it's just, the pandemic is over, except for the parts where it's not. Yeah, yeah. Except for that it's still raging. Yeah. So, but you know. Well, pandemic,

I think, you know, the death numbers are probably down. We've learned how to control it, I think, a little better. At the beginning of this month,

they were about 500 a day. Yeah. So at the beginning of the month, we're still losing a 9-11 a week. So it's still like, it's better than it was, but it's still like

four times as bad as the flu. Yeah. And it never stops. Yeah. I imagine after a couple of years, it'll probably be about, you know, half again the flu. And then a couple more years, it'll be. I hope so. It'll be the flu.

I am hoping that that's what happens. I think that's probably going to happen. I am going to hope that that's what happens. I don't have any evidence whatsoever to back that up. And I'm just going to hope it.. And I'm just going to hope it. Like, I'm just going to hope it. But I loved COVID. I thought it was great.

I can talk about that sort of thing now because we're not on YouTube. And I can basically say a bunch of shit about COVID. We can say anything we want. And then they fucking don't ban your channel for medical misinformation. Which was never medical misinformation. Which is not never at all. No. Yeah.

Fuck YouTube. Yeah, turns out. Fuck goddamn YouTube. See, he fine. Now, give me money or I shoot him and I shoot all you motherfuckers. So the story comes from, surprisingly, Fox News. Trump raises a million and a half dollars for presidential campaign since warning of arrest in looming New York City incident. So the looming New York City incident, if you've had your head under a rock, is there is the ever-present threat, and it appears to be getting

closer, but still nothing has happened, that Trump will be indicted for campaign finance violations related to the Stormy Daniels payoff. So that's what's going on. And Trump this last week, truth out on like Sunday or Monday, that I'm going to be arrested on Tuesday. Big protest to take back your country. Please support your favorite president. By the way, here's a place to donate. Here's a fucking linky link for my GoFundMe or whatever. Here's a chance for you to donate. And that's what he did. Right. Was he, he used it as, and I think Trump, you know, as much as we shit on him,

because he's, I don't think he's a smart guy, but I do think he's crafty. Yeah, he's strategic. I think he's strategic. And I think what he did, what he does all the time is,

he constantly utilizes any bad news about him to monetize. Right? So he does that all the time. But I think the other thing that he does and recognizes is that constantly utilizes any bad news about him to monetize, right? So he does that all the time. But I think the other thing that he does and recognizes is that every second he's out of the spotlight is a bad second for him. And so he's constantly, if he could have just made it all up,

it doesn't matter. He doesn't make it all up. Because if he makes it all up, then he's again in the spotlight. And then there's a bunch of people. And imagine if he got like a shit ton of protests and a bunch of people marching around for him. I didn't see much.

No, the protesters did show up, but they showed up that were pro-arrest Trump protesters. Yeah, well, there you go. So protesters showed up being like, lock him up. I read an article this last week. I think it was in the Times, but it could have not been. It could have been somewhere else. But it was talking about how sources close to the president in Mar-a-Lago say that he's obsessed with the perp walk, that he wants to be perp walked.

Because if he can get perp walked, he can stay, like to your point, he can stay in that spotlight and he can be like, look, they got me there. Look at the fascist, you know, left wing ultra radicals. Right. So, and that's not how it would go down. They like from everything that I've read, if he does get indicted, the secret service will make an arrangement for him to surrender himself privately in order to avoid what he wants to have happen. What he wants is for agents to kick the door down and have this big like Elian Gonzalez. That makes sense, Tim. Yeah. Yeah. Because he'll fundraise the fuck out of that. Can you imagine the fundraising he would get out of that? It's not just fundraising, but he's

positioning himself as an enemy of a state that a lot of people dislike. Yeah. Right. So, you know, it's not just MAGA Republicans who dislike Biden. Right. And if they do something, then, and I think it also is in some ways, I think there might be even some tug at independent voters because independent voters, you know, they normally do lean towards that libertarian streak, right? Independents normally do that. And the government overreach, if you can sell that as government, I mean, like, guys, this isn't government overreach. Like, he paid a fucking porn star

with fucking campaign money. To quiet her so that it wouldn't damage his campaign. So, I mean, like, literally, it's fucking the most illegal thing you could do. Right. And it's not like he's, this isn't, like, overreach. This is literally somebody saying, we are holding you accountable, but he's going to play it off as overreach. Right. And it's not like he's, this isn't like overreach. This is literally

somebody saying, we are holding you accountable, but he's going to play it off as overreach. Yeah. What he's doing, like he's fomenting a kind of Ruby Ridge,

Waco-esque vibe. Yeah, sure. Right? He wants this like vibe to go out into the, into the zeitgeist. He wants a duck blind or whatever. Yeah, right.

Yeah, exactly. Whatever that was, I don't even remember those people. Those fucking idiots in Oregon. I don't even remember them at this point. Oh God, who the fuck were they? They were nuts. But it's the same kind of vibe.

Yeah, right. He wants that like, you know, government is coming for your guns. Government is coming for your president. It's great. Government is overreaching. Like he wants all that. That is exactly what he wants.

Because then he can sell more fucking, you know, coins or whatever with his stupid fucking Photoshopped image into it. Speaking of his image, Tom, let's talk about this next story about the AI. I'm going to put it on the screen for people who are watching on Twitch.

If you want to see this, you can go to our website, disininspod.com, and you can look at the show notes for this episode. But Tom. Yeah, man. Let's look at some of these. I don't like this, man.

This is one of his faked, a faked arrest photo. Well, real quick, the article from Ars Technica is called AI Faked Images of Donald Trump's Imagined Arrest Swirl on Twitter. Yeah, they were shared by a lot of people. Right. And so here's one. It is, you know, Trump. This is clearly AI. So the first picture, to me, looks very fake, right? It looks like a painting almost. It does, right. It has this very, like, unreal quality to it. Like his hair is brushed more than normal. Everything, yeah.

It looks like if it was not an actual picture. Like, it looks like a painting. It looks like AI pictures, right? It looks like an AI painting. It's good, but it's not great. And these are the other ones. I'm going to go to Twitter to take a look at these.

So this one is the first one here. Again, it looks, it doesn't look like him, right? Like, the rest of it around kind of looks like something. But in this image, Trump is leaning forward

and running forward. He kind of looks like a Chris Farley type run. Yeah. You know what I mean? And it almost looks like someone maybe in a Trump mask running. It doesn't, to me, it doesn't look like Trump. It doesn't.

The face looks weird. Also, I can't figure out the leg situation. The leg situation is, it looks like he has three. It does. And it looks like he has three different legs. It also looks like, because AI does weird shit. It also looks like Trump's hip has its own bat utility belt on it.

Yeah, it looks like he has his own, his own, yeah. And that happens sometimes too where they'll just put something on. Things get all fucking mishmashed. There's another one too. And this one, this one is, I think,

the most realistic. This one is Trump being pulled away, sort of being held. Again, it's hard to parse where any of the limbs are. As soon as you start looking at it, you're like, this doesn't actually make a lot of visual sense. It very much looks like something you would see in like a Lovecraftian universe where people are just coming apart or something. It's very creepy. He looks kind of like a spider in this, if you look at it for a long time. But if you just glance at it, this is the one to me that looks the most like a thing.

Yeah. Just because his face doesn't look as fake and he's being pulled away. But in any case, these photos started to make the rounds and a bunch of people didn't know if they were real or not. Like, I mean, there's a bunch.

I mean, there's genuinely a ton of these. If you click on the Ars Technica image, there's a ton of these. I'm going to flip through some of them. You know, like there's Trump running down the street and he's running away from a bunch of cops. Now, those are unrealistic because there's no way that Trump could run.

Can you imagine Trump running? Here's him losing. This one is just baffling. Like he lost a sleeve of his suit. Yeah, this is really funny, guys. It looks like he's got like a breakaway sleeve coat, like stripper coat or something. Very Chris Farley-esque.

You know what I mean? Like that guy in a little coat stuff. You know what I mean? What's funny is though, right now Cecil and I are looking at these on a big screen TV, right? So we're using a large screen TV as our monitor.

That is true. That's true. If you look at these on your phone, and they're not even like full size on your phone unless you click on them to expand. Right, right. These would look much more compelling.

No, I think you're right. That's how most of us get our images. I think you're right. I think you're right. It's something I hadn't considered. I normally look at almost everything I look at, I look at it on a computer screen.

Right. I look at some things on my phone, but most stuff I look at is on a computer screen. Well, I don't want to write my own behavior large if it's not true, but I look at almost everything the opposite. Sure. I look at almost everything on my phone. Yeah. I recognize, I think I'm an outlier. Well, I don't, yeah, I don't know. I think I'm probably an outlier. I mean, if we put, if we did a test, a poll for the audience, I imagine most people are on their phones more than they are on anything else.

Yeah, that's my inclination too. And I think if I'm holding a six-inch screen in my hand and I'm looking at an image that doesn't even take up the whole screen, the image quality

and my ability to tell truth from reality is going to change. Well, and then the people who are watching on Twitch, if they're watching on a phone or an iPad right now, this may not look like anything to change. Well, and then the people who are watching on Twitch, if they're watching on a phone or an iPad right now,

this may not look like anything to them. Right. Especially if I don't zoom in, right? Because right now I'm looking at Twitter and in Twitter, there's these two boxes right next to each other. And it's small.

It takes up maybe, you know, one 16th of the real estate of the entire screen. Yeah. And so it's a small piece of the screen. And so I feel like you're right. It's something that hadn't occurred to me. But the worst part about this is, is that,

is that Twitter doesn't do anything about it. No. Yeah. Like that's something that we're really going to have to get our arms around in a significant way. Right. One of your many AI arms. Yeah, man. You're like, just, you haven't got, you've got as many as you want. So you can just have like a fucking hundred AI arms.

We're all AI octopi. Like, that's what we are. So, yeah, like, we're going to have to figure this out because there's got to be some kind of digital watermarking

that identifies AI images and that get flagged by these social media sites. Because if there's not, like, these images are rudimentary, but also like AI is brand new. It's going to get better. I mean, what fucking month is it? It's fucking March? Dude, by July. Yeah. And they're already doing stuff on other mediums because deep fakes are starting to come

out. In fact, I mean, it might've been two or three years ago where you could take your phone and take a picture of yourself and it would then map it onto a famous movie star's role. Yeah, I remember this. So you could put yourself on. I know I had a couple of friends who kind of looked like Johnny Depp. And so they did a Johnny Depp thing

where they were walking around with, I even know a girl who kind of looks like she did it. And so I think there's people who do these sorts of things. In fact, I saw a guy I know has a big beard. He did a Thor one. And so they've been doing this sort of thing. And then like deep faking people is a lot easier now. We talked recently about deep faking voices

while you weren't here, but we also talked about it. I did hear it though. You and I have also talked about it too. Deep faking voices while you weren't here, but we also talked about it. I did hear it though. You and I have also talked about it too. Deep faking voices. There's a bunch of people online that are using Barack Obama's voice as a narrator because Barack Obama has thousands of hours of him speaking and it sounds a lot like him.

Sounds really good. It sounds a lot like him. I mean, it doesn't sound exactly like him, but it sounds a lot like him. And that's only going to get better. It's only going to get better. It's only going to get better. And when it sounds, the thing is that like, I truly believe that the problem is that this doesn't have to get perfect. It just has to get good enough for the way that we really actually consume information, which is that we consume information in short, uncritical bursts.

Yeah. Right. in short, uncritical bursts. Yeah. Right? And it's the reason that disinformation and misinformation was such a big part of the 2016 campaign. Sure. Because we don't read past the headline. Yeah. We aren't critical in our consumption of media. So when deepfakes and AI-generated images and deepfake-generated voices are good enough

that it's like, well, wait a minute, I got to go back and be critical. Yeah. We're not going to do that. Yeah. If our first impression is, oh yeah, I saw Tom say this horrible thing. Or yeah, I saw a video of, you know, Cecil sinking a fucking warship in the black sea. You're going to be like, wow, that's that fucking happened. I saw a video of it. I know like that's, I think the real danger. The real danger is not like, will the experts be able to tell?

The experts already knew that bullshit was bullshit in 2016. The experts have known that vaccines are not problematic. Yeah. Right? But that's not really the issue. That doesn't mean people listen to them. Right. It doesn't mean that there's thousands,

it's tens of even millions of people who don't listen to them. Right. So that's where I get, like, kind of crazy is, like, I know that there's people like, oh, like, if you look at this and that, you can tell a Photoshop from a not Photoshop. And it's like, yeah, but that's not the point. The point isn't to fool the experts. Well, I mean, the point is to fool the every man. There's a guy we ran into at two conferences, Captain Disillusion, his name is on YouTube. We had a couple of conversations with him and he was a really interesting guy, but his YouTube is even more interesting

in the fact that he goes out and finds these fakes that fool almost everybody. It's like 99% of the people out there think it's fake. Right. He's the only one who could be like, no, there's like, this is wrong and this shadow's different and this reflection's bad or whatever it is that he can see that other people can't. And it's because he's in

it, right? It's because it's the same reason why I can tell a difference between, you know, AI voice versus not AI voices because I'm listening to voices all the time when I'm editing, right? Right, yeah. I'm in it. I'm listening to it. So I get it. My brain knows the difference between these two different voices. You're an expert. And you know, I actually, it's hilarious when I'm listening, whenever I hear a voice actor, I most always, I'll just turn to Sarah and be like, oh, that's Patton Oswalt. She'll be like, oh, you're right. It is Patton Oswalt. You just get it in me. I just get it in me. Like as soon as I hear somebody's voice, like, because I spend so much

time in voices that my brain has honed itself. It's sort of built up these neurons around this thing that I do. And so I become pretty good at sort of picking voices out, understanding, you know what I mean? So like, and I know that, but the problem is, is that I'm an anomaly, right? That Mr. Captain Disillusion, he's an anomaly. He's not somebody who can, like, you can't, not only can you not, does he have an entire YouTube dedicated to this where he's trying to teach people, but it's never going to go everywhere, right?

No matter how popular he is. No, right. And people are still going to be like, because it's the confirmation bias will enter into that, right? Yeah, for sure. For sure, you're going to want it. You're going to say, oh, look, here's an expert who said this is fake.

And you're going to be like, well, I don't have, I don't believe that expert. Yeah. You know? Look at the people who immediately reject Snopes. Right. There's so many people out there. If you send them a Snopes, they're like, yeah, but that's Snopes.

That's Snopes. I don't do that. I don't, I ignore Snopes and I ignore PolitiFact and I ignore, because they ignore all of the sources that might collide with the decision that they've already made. And the expertise thing, Cecil, I think of like, I have, I think of a couple of instances that are just like kind of interesting corollaries to me. Like if I'm not a food guy, like I like to eat

food. Sure. I like to cook, but I am no expert in either. Right. Like I don't have a calling. I don't have real calling expertise, but you do. And other people I know do. And if I pick up a food and I eat it, I can tell if I like it, but other people can pick up a food and be like, they can pick out, oh, this has saffron. And you can start picking out all these because you've trained your brain to interact with your senses in that way. I have friends that are very good about music. I am not. So for music, music to me is a big, giant wash of sound. And someone that's very good at music will be like, oh, listen to the hi-hat in this piece. And I'll be like, what are you even saying?

Yeah, no, I can't do that either. I can't pick out an instrument amongst the— I mean, I can for a few seconds. I mean, I can too. I can. But you have to tell me to do it. You'd have to, yeah. You'd have to really tune me into it. And really the same is true of food.

If you're like, yeah, can you taste the basil in this? I'd be like, oh, you know I can. But otherwise, it's this wash of sensory information. And I really think that the problem with media that we consume is that we are awash in this sensory information. Sure. And it hits us in the same kind of ways.

And unless we are trained to pick out the hi-hat and trained to recognize the basil and trained to know the difference between an AI voice and the authentic thing, we're just not going to do that work. Because why would we? Because we're going to move on to the next spoonful or skip to the next track.

And I started talking about it earlier, but I lost track because I started talking about those deepfakes. But the deepfake thing is being tagged by users on other platforms because they're being told, if you deepfake and we catch you, we're going to bounce your account.

Right. So you got to make sure that everybody knows it's a deepfake. But the problem is, is Twitter has done nothing and they're not, it doesn't feel like they're planning on doing anything.

In fact, even in this article, at one point they say something like, we reached out to fucking Elon Musk and Twitter and they sent back a poop emoji. And you're like, are you kidding me right now? Like this could be, and I don't like, I know I'm that guy, but like this could be one of the most important things

we fail to do. Yeah. You know, if we fail to identify, because the other thing is that AI isn't just producing content, AI will also be able to produce bots and produce accounts. And if the threat for me is if Tom produces bad content, Tom gets kicked off of social media. Well, I don't want to get kicked off social media.

I won't do that. But if the threat is that if a bot produces bad content. Yeah, you can just make a million bots. I just flood this thing with bots and I'll flood it full of like images and videos and sound clips. And the way we combat this, I think is using AI to combat it. You have to. You have to use AI to then find it and then be like, oh, that's the thing. And then, and, and you have to have buy-in from these places like, you know, like, like Twitter. But if you, if, if, if Twitter has buy-in, that's a big deal.

It is. If they don't have any buy-in at that's a big deal. It is. If they don't have any buy-in at all and they don't care, suddenly their entire platform is a cesspit of just a bunch of bots, a bunch of AI, a bunch of stuff you can't tell is real or not. And that may or may not be a nail in the coffin. That could turn them into something. It could be really bad for them. Yeah, I do hope that if they don't... That could turn them into something. It could be really bad for them.

Yeah, I do hope that if they don't... One of a few things I think has to happen, either the platforms themselves have to do exactly what you said. They have to use AI to identify and flag other AI, right? So that we have some ability to have trust and faith in the media that we're seeing. If they don't do that, then there has to be a sort of broad social agreement that that's a trash site. That that's like 4chan. That that's not where sophisticated, smart, decent people go to do anything. Because 4chan ultimately is a trash site.

Like nobody real goes to 4chan and does anything of substantive value at 4chan because everybody in the rest of the real world is like, that's a trash site full of garbage people. And I have to think that that's what Twitter would have to become. Where journalists would leave it. Everybody with any credibility would just be like, we don't play here because it's a trash site. If it becomes super trashy,

businesses will just exit us away from it. Right. And that's a big blow because suddenly that's a lot of your, you know, a lot of the people that are pushing content will just leave, like you say, the businesses of news organizations, but then just businesses in general. Yeah. And so then it's just a bunch of, you know,

a bunch of people who paid $8 a month to be a blue checkmark. Right. No matter how I figure it, it's too late for no Bible. So this story comes from Deseret News. I also found this, by the way, on Yahoo News, so I did double check it in a couple of places. Somebody wants the Bible removed from

Davis County School Libraries. So I love this because these schools that have put in systems that allow for parents to report as objectionable any content or any materials they want, they can't be discriminatory and say like, well, you can only report books that are problematic from this list. There's a mechanism you can report anything. So there are people like, oh, well, I mean, the Bible has rape and incest and has horrible graphic murder of children and babies and genocide and bestiality. So the fucking emissions like donkeys and like, oh, let's report this. Let's report the fucking Bible.

We should report every religious text constantly. You should always do it. If you live in a place, and this is like a call out to the listeners, if you live in a place that has these horrible fucking mechanisms in place in your school districts, you should make it your general practice. Every Friday, just pick a time and date and be like, oh, Friday I take a lunch and I report the Bible.

Yeah. That's what I do. I just constantly report the Bible and the Koran and just report them all. Report every religious text. Yeah. I think, you know, these laws are so pernicious that are taking these books away from people

who identify with the books and making them feel like less than human, right? You know, you're taking away someone who can find someone else in the world or find a story in the world that reflects their own lived experience, right? Talking about LGBT, you're talking about, you know, specifically they're going after

a lot of black books with like black protagonists. This is grotesque. This is genuinely grotesque. And what's shocking to me is like my dad, when I was growing up, he told me to do not to do a lot of things. I think I did every single thing he ever told me not to do. I think, you know, every single thing that he ever turned to me and said, hey, stay away from, stay away from weed. I was like, sure. Yeah. I will. Yeah, for sure. Dad, I'd never touched that demon reefer or whatever. But you know, like when I was a kid, I, I, everything my dad said that I shouldn't do,

I think I pretty much did. And if my dad had a bug up his ass about a book, you'd have read it. I'd have probably fucking read that book. And it's so shocking to me that these people, you know, this is what they are constantly shouting to this entire school district. You're not just telling that to one person.

You're doing this to a whole, you're basically banning the book. If I go into the book and they're like, oh yeah, you can't get that book here because it's this. Now I want to read it even more.

Yeah. Now I want to read it. It feels like this should backfire, especially if you're doing it to teenagers.. It feels like this should backfire, especially on if you're doing it to teenagers. It should. But I think that the, I think that neither the cause nor the effect are all that much the goal. You know, I think the goal is to produce this story. The goal is not to, because the danger of kids, like just being honest, like the danger of kids reading books that are going to be upsetting to anyone

in an age where we have a cell phone with open access to the internet is so absurd as to be laughable on its face. I can grab my phone and first I can download a PDF copy of almost anything I want for free. So if I'm a kid, I have a phone. I almost always,

I almost every fucking high school kid or junior high school kid has a phone. I can access any material I want for free. So if I'm a kid, I have a phone. I almost always, I almost every fucking high school kid or junior high school kid has a phone. I can access any material I want. I can access far more objectionable material. You can see somebody die instantly.

I can watch anything. You can watch any kind of, any kind of, any sexual encounter, period. Any sexual encounter. Consensual or not. Yeah.

I can watch the most objectionable possible material at any time, day or night, with a cell phone. The whole idea that we're complaining about books, the purpose is the complaint. I really think that. I think that we're not, I think the whole idea of like,

oh, you know, what if kids get their hands on this book? Nobody cares. I really don't believe anyone cares because we haven't said like, what if our kids get their hands on the internet? Yeah. That's a million times more concerning.

Yeah. We're not worried about, we're not passing laws to put net nannies on every fucking phone for every kid K through 12, right? If we were really that worried, we'd be doing shit like that, but we're not.

What we want to do is we want to have a culture war issue. Yeah. We want to have a wedge issue. We want to have grandstanding and podium moments. And, you know, weepy, won't somebody think about the children pearl clutching bullshit? That's the goal. And they're getting their goal.

They're getting it. Is this, this is, I think, then fueling that fire, isn't it? If you are saying, I want to take the Bible out, this is another talking point to them to say, see, they want to ban the Bible. And we need to make sure that that's why we ban these other, aren't we giving them a talking point if we do that then? We might be. The only caveat to that is that it might be the case that they can't realistically have their cake and eat it too. might be the case that they can't realistically have their cake and eat it too. So we've found that so many laws in this country are one way,

and they do not give a fuck at all when somebody puts up a fucking statue of Baphomet. They don't fucking care. You're right. So you're right, and I'll take back what I said. Like, maybe the real answer is don't give any of this any oxygen. Yeah. You know, if I was a parent, I am a fucking parent. I got fucking four kids. How did I even say that? Jesus Christ. How easy they forget. Tim's fucking sitting on a roof with a fiddle and there's like a million kids. So I would not give a shit, to be perfectly honest.

If I found out that at my kids' high school, they pulled all of the LGBTQ and books about race, they pulled them out. I honestly would not get that worked up because my kid has access to a fucking cell phone. And if he wants to read a book, I'd be like,

yeah, man, we'll just go to the public library. I'll buy it for you. We'll download it on PDF. There's a million ways for me to get this for you without spending any money. The problem is it feels like you're playing tic-tac-toe and they've already sort of cornered all the board. Yeah. If you give this oxygen and you do what you said earlier, you might be playing into their hand. Yeah. If you don't and you ignore it, then you're ignoring it and maybe then it gets worse.

You know what I mean? It feels like there's no good answers. And you know, like we've seen time and time again, these laws get ignored or these, these, these fucking school boards. They're like, fuck you. I, I don't care that I'm feeling cognitive dissonance right now. It literally doesn't matter to me. So yeah. Yeah. This is a thorny one. I mean, it is, it's, it's tough, but like, as I, as I, as I'm talking it out, I just think, I think more and more like, what is the point of fighting with these guys about nothing? Yeah. What is the point of showing up? Like they, if they want to ban all these books, fine. Like I just like, let's start. I don't know. Like we, I w I don't want people to

not have access to materials that represent that's the problem right is because so I am I'm stuck I don't know it's hard

it's a hard place to be and it's because you know the thing is is like what if you're somebody who not only has you know

wants to read about these lived experiences people who are like you who are not you know the norm or whatever I don't know like the mainstream

right and then you're also happen to not have a lot of means right who are like you who are not, you know, the norm or whatever. I don't know, like the mainstream, right? And then you also happen to not have a lot of means. Right. So you just don't have the ability to find it. And now you're like, well, fuck this poor kid who wants to just like learn about how, like why they feel these things. There's just nothing.

And the fucking, the worst part is, is that anything that ever gets kicked up to the fucking Supreme Court now. Yeah. It's a fucking mess. Yeah. And the thing is, is it'll never be legal in any of these shithole places across the country. That's true.

Where these, you know, you ban it locally. They take it to some Supreme Court with fucking, you know, some guy with a fucking 10-gallon hat who's going to shoot it down. And they're going to do it all the way up to any kind of level until they get to the main one. And there's still just as many 10 gallon hats on that fucking Supreme Court. It's all fucking 10 gallon hats. So you're essentially fucked.

And tell me, tell me if this comes before Amy Coney Barrett is like banning books, if she wouldn't be like, oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Fucking 100%. Yeah, ban the fuck out of books.

100%. Burn them all. I don't even care. And here's my exception for the Bible. The rest of them, though, need to get burned. But I mean, genuinely, you know,

we're in a bad space in America. Yeah. It's in a bad space. And, you know, I think the one thing I want to tell you, though, get on your fucking school board. Yeah, man.

Get on your school board. Go out there and fucking, and just put your name out there. I went through my ballot this week. I'm voting this week. I went through my ballot this week. I'm voting this week. I went through my ballot, Tom, and I looked up every single person on the fucking school board. Good for you. And I fucking voted for every single person who I thought wasn't going to ban a book. That's what I did, right? I don't have a fucking kid. I don't have a dog in this hunt, but I don't

want to ban books in my fucking district. Now, I'm outnumbered. I know that, but my vote matters to me. Right. And I'm going to do it every time. And the thing is, is like, I watched videos of this lady who's just like, yeah, you know, I just want to make sure that I give every kid an opportunity. She had like such amazing, like she's making a video for like 40 people on YouTube. Just trying to go out there. My suggestion, go out there and just fucking get on your school board. Cause these little jobs, these mean something. Yeah, they do.

These little jobs mean something. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. I would, you're 100% right. And I would add to that, that when you are feeling, and it is okay, but when you are feeling particularly disillusioned about the strength of your ability to make change

and you vote for, you know, we're on this show and we tell you vote blue, vote blue, vote blue. And then you say, well, you don't fucking do anything. Nothing ever changes. The reason all this happened is because of judicial appointments by Donald Trump. Yeah, you're right. If nothing else, literally, if nothing else,

if Trump had not won, none of these judicial appointments would have been made yeah none of these and i'm talking about at a low level not all at the high level federal judges and low courts man because your 10 gallon hat point is exactly the right point you we are we at this point in many jurisdictions in this country we don't have the ability to meaningfully bring grievances to the courts because the judicial appointments made by the Trump administration are so egregiously colored with right-wing nut jobs. That incompetence, incompetent, incompetent as the day is long, like, like genuinely like people who've never held a position of real- Like a travel blogger.

Yeah, right. Crazy shit. Yeah. I'm joking. I think he was like a law blogger. But even still. Even still. So it's bad. It's real bad.

So when you are feeling like nothing ever changes and nothing ever matters and why should I bother? This is actually a reason why you bother. This is it. This is it. Because even if nothing else, this. And locally, this is how you change it. I is it. Because even if nothing else, this. And locally, this is how you change it. I mean, literally, that's what they did. Well, the thing is, guys, the Republicans

understand this. They've been working the local scene now for the better part of the last 12, 14 years. And they've been doing a better job than we have. And so, you know, like... There's a lot of young people that have kids, though. You know what I mean? Like, get these young people out there that have kids. You know, the people who are older like young people that have kids, though. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, get these young people out there that have kids.

Yeah. You know, the people are older like us. Their kids are starting to get older. They're going to stop caring as much about the school board. Yeah. You get these young kids, these young people who have kids. They're going to be the ones who are going to change this. And hopefully you can flip it back.

Yeah, absolutely. And this week, at least virtually the entire Senate stands accused of being indifferent to women's rights. This story's from ABC News. Texas abortion law means a woman has to continue pregnancy

despite fatal anomaly. I read that as fetal anomaly. It also would have worked. It would have worked fine. A fatal fetal anomaly. Yeah. A fetal fetal anomaly. Anomaly.

So this is a terrible story. This woman got pregnant. She was thrilled to have gotten pregnant. She was thrilled to have gotten pregnant. It was unlikely for her to be pregnant. I think she had PCOS. She got pregnant anyway. And the developing fetus has a massive malformation of the brain. The brain was not separating into two spheres. It did not contain all of the normal brain structures. And there's essentially no way that there is going to be a meaningfully alive, well person that comes from this pregnancy.

They said it was a 1 in 16,000 chance that it could be possibly saved, live past the second day. Yeah, live past a few days. And they said that even with massive interventions interventions, like ventilators and breathe, like, like that, it's like, it's like an even smaller percentage of the makes it to a year. Yeah. There is no potential meaningfully for there to be a, a life here of, of independence, a life here of like cognitive life, you know, self-awareness and sentience, there is a potential for an enormous amount of pain and suffering. Absolutely.

On every level. And to make it even worse, because of the way that this anomaly causes the fetus to grow, the head will be almost certainly too big to pass through the vaginal canal, which means that this woman will be forced to not only give birth, but to give birth via cesarean section, which is a vastly higher risk. Danger, more dangerous. Yeah, way to deliver and is very painful to recover from. A cesarean section is a major abdominal surgery. It's not a minor procedure.

It's a major abdominal. So this poor woman, because of Texas's horrible laws, is going to give birth to a baby via a terrible surgical procedure she has to endure in order to have a baby that will never be meaningfully alive. Right. She's stuck now in this position, and there's no way to change this, right? This is the laws down there. What happened is that they've basically made it, you know, the fucking 15th century.

Yep. Where they're like, sorry, nobody ever gets an abortion ever. And I mean, they did say at one point, like if her life is on the line, right? They say if their life is on the line, then there's a possibility that it can be, but you're like, how often is that?

It's not as often. What happens is, is that the baby is not going to live. Like it's not going to live or it's not going to meaningfully live. It's not going to have anything. You know, it's not going to know what it is. It just dies, right? It just like comes out, breathes twice and dies. And so what you're doing is you're making someone prolong their grief for how long, right? Now I've got to carry this baby, right? For a long time. And then constantly be reminded that I'm prolonging this grief over and over and over and over again. And, you know, the difference between giving, having an abortion and not seeing anything versus having a baby and then having to see it. And now it's like a baby. So now you're like, well, I want to bury it. And like, I mean,

it's like a whole thing. You're making this person drag this out and suffer. You're just saying, I want you to suffer and here's how I'm going to make you suffer. And guess what? There is no way out of this. The only way out of it is to leave the state. And if you do, maybe you come back to Texas and they say, hey, I'm going to sue the Uber driver who drove you to the fucking airport. I'm going to sue your husband for taking you. This is state-sponsored trauma. It is. That's what this is. And one thing that occurs to me, this is terrible, and I don't want this to happen, but over a long enough course of time with enough people, this will happen,

is that at some point, somebody is going to be in a situation like this, and they will die in childbirth. Yeah, yeah. And so some woman who should have been able to gain access to healthcare will be denied healthcare. She'll be forced to give birth. Something will go wrong because birth is inherently risky. And she will die in childbirth. We have actually, in America, we have some of the worst, in fact, I don't want to say some of, we have the worst maternal mortality rates of any developed nation in the world. So this is not like an outside thing that

never happens. It's going to happen. So at some point, and then someone is going to sue the fuck. Someone is going to sue the ever-loving shit out of the state of Texas. I hope so. And that might be the only way anything happens, is that maybe this will gain some notoriety and attention that way. Some poor fucking human being is going to have to suffer at the hands of the state, be traumatized, be forced, have their rights taken away and eventually die. And then if we all get real lucky, that might spur change.

That is actually the weirdest best case scenario. And it's a terrible, it's this lady. It's a shitty scenario, right? It's a shitty scenario because you have to basically put that woman up as a fucking sacrifice. Yeah, man. You are rolling that person out, putting them on an altar and sacrificing them so you can get something down. It's disgusting. It's horrible. It's grotesque. But I think another way out of this, there's another story. And this is from

Idaho. The only hospital in this Idaho city plans to shut down its labor ward because of shortages and bills that criminalize physicians. And I feel like one of the ways to combat this is if the people who are doing this work just leave, go somewhere else because there's a need somewhere else and people are traveling somewhere else and they leave and they go somewhere else.

And then suddenly you just don't, they're shutting down the entire ward. Yeah, they're shutting down the whole labor and delivery ward. Sorry, we don't do this anymore. And then suddenly you just don't, they're shutting down the entire ward. Yeah, they're shutting down the whole labor and delivery ward. Sorry, we don't do this anymore. And we don't do this anymore because there's laws that stop us from doing life-saving procedures on women,

natural, normal procedures that we've been doing for years. And we're not going to do that. We're just not going to do it. They're going to have to go, we're going to shut the, so it's not just shutting down abortion. It's shutting down birth. It's the whole birth is gone. So, you know, there's plenty of people there that want to have babies. And then they're like, well,

I can't even get a fucking doctor now. I can't even get, there's, there's like two of them and I can't ever get seen. I have to try, you know, make it so that they have to travel to give a birth. If you've got to travel to give an abortion, they should have to travel to give birth then. Suddenly that rule is going to change. I think so too. I think as awful as it is, these assholes have made healthcare so difficult to come by that something is going to have to break in the system. And I don't wish this on anyone. I wish exactly the opposite. Exactly the opposite.

It breaks my heart that I think that this is what's going to have to happen, but people are going to have to die in transit on their way to a hospital 100 miles away because the local hospital doesn't have- It's all about death. Yeah, that's going to be the thing that- Something terrible has to happen.

That's going to be the thing that turns to cramp. Yeah, because what else would move them? What else could move these fucking stone humans, like these fucking awful fucking people? It almost has to be, almost, it almost has to be one of their wives. Yeah. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. It has to be their daughter or their wife. It almost has to be somebody who's connected to them in a way that's more than just a constituent. Yeah. I think that's exactly true. And I think that that at some point, people are going to do what these doctors in Idaho are doing, and they're going to do it in Florida,

and they're going to do it in Indiana, and they're going to do it in Ohio. And they're going to say, I don't want to live here anymore because I was trained to practice medicine this way. And if I can't uphold my oath, my Hippocratic oath, if I can't do what I know I've been trained to do in order to sit, then I'm going to go someplace where I can feel good sleeping at night.

And I would do the same thing, right? I would not be able to wake up and go to work and watch somebody suffer because a fucking bureaucrat made that decision and know that I could help and not jump in and help. And I would not be able to square that. And I would have to say, look, in order to protect my fucking emotional sanity,

I got to go. Yeah. Well, I mean, when we talked to the doctor in Texas, they weren't sure of their own future there. They had immediately said, I don't know, I might not have a job, so I might just leave. And what you're going to probably see

is sort of a satellite cities that are around these states. Right. So New Mexico, all along the New Mexico border, you'll probably see dozens of cities with abortion clinics right over the border. Right. Same thing with like any state that, you know, borders a red state, right. Illinois will have, you know, Gary, it's Gary and then Chicago. So Chicago is already there. But if you go down the state a bit. Oh, yeah. you know, Gary, it's Gary and then Chicago. So Chicago's already there. But if you go down the state a bit, you know, there might be, you know, five or six different cities along the way, along the major interstates where you get off and exit one is an abortion clinic. Yeah, man. I think, I think that that's probably going to be, you ever go to a, I've done a lot of camping in the Southeast part of the country and big parts of the Southeast

part of this country are dry counties. Yeah. And as soon as you cross over from, you know, County Hillbilly to County Les Hillbilly, where you can buy beer, the very first thing, it's like, it's an exit. You can, you could draw a line. Crazy Kaplan's. Crazy Kaplan's the fucking fireworks place. If you want to get fireworks in Illinois, you go one exit over into Indiana and there's like a sign called Crazy Kaplans

with a guy who looks like he has, like he's shaky and he's got a bunch of sticks of dynamite in his hand. He looks like the last guy who should be handling fireworks.

He literally has, his eyes are bloodshot. It's the most terrifying sign I've ever seen. But their fucking mascot is a shaky old guy Uncle Sam looking guy. With a bunch of fucking like bloodshot eyes with like bombs in his hand.

And you walk over and you can buy anything you want, literally anything you want. And I say it's the first exit, but it's pretty close. It's close to the border if it's not the first. It's within the first couple of miles. Yeah, it's within the first, I would say within the first 20 miles easy. Yes. You can easily get off and go over to Crazy Kaplan's and get fireworks.

And it's going to be, I think it's going to be the same thing. Whenever you ring these, like, like Michigan will have along their line as long as they stay blue, you know, for Ohio and for Indiana.

We have to start, and Cecil, I don't care what it costs to bankroll. We have to start Crazy Kaplan's abortion claim. And we need to have a big sign on the billboard in Indiana. He's got fucking fetuses and two big faces. He's got a bunch of bombs and you're just like, no. Crazy Kaplan's abortions.

And he's just like, it's just like Crazy Kaplan and a bunch of like coat hangers. Somebody's been overshooting a baby. I try to walk on my heels because I have no skin left on my toes. This is from the Kansas City Star. Woman's toes grew back because of prayer, Missouri pastor says. Website wants proof. Oh. Just got to read chunks of this.

Yeah. Following claims from a Missouri pastor that prayer regrew a woman's amputated toes, a new website is asking for proof. Uh-oh. And Verizon is asking for $25 for home internet. Go ahead. Without showing photo or video evidence, James River Church pastor John Lindell told his congregation a creative miracle took place. Okay, hold on.

Yeah. Who asks for video evidence from any fucking church? Because if that's the case, I want to be like, okay, where's that God picture? Yeah, right. Yeah, I'll take literally any evidence. Where's any evidence you have of Jesus? Of anything? A single evidence.

You don't have a single evidence. No evidence? Okay. Involving a woman named Chrissy Thompson. An assertion was made during the Week of Power conference held March 12th through March 16th at the Springfield Area Church. According to the Springfield News Leader, Lindell was joined by guest speaker Bill Johnson. I don't care about that. Scroll down. There we go. Video from the conference has been removed. Lindell said Thompson

was shot three times in 2015 by her husband and had to have three toes amputated. And when I read that, I thought, that's a hell of a shot. Hold on. One toe per bullet. Hold on. She was shot three times. She had three toes amputated. Do you think he did it from the hip each time? Do you think he announced the piggies? Did he tell me where they went? Did they go to market? This is terrible.

Because I'll tell you what, they went to market. They're never coming back. Hold on though. My favorite is the video from the conference has been removed from the church's Facebook page, but it still remains on social media and the website showmethetoes.com.

Showmethetoes.com, guys. Show me the toes, provide proof. And so here's the video. Why don't we watch this, Tom? Let's watch it together. We can watch the voice of Chrissy Thompson, too. There we go. So how long is this?

I can't. Amazing things are happening. People are being healed online. And so this involves a creative miracle. Chrissy Thompson was shot three times in 2015 by her husband and was in a coma for two months. And God didn't intervene then. God's like, man, these wings are good. Let me tell you. This woman suffered horrific domestic violence. She's in the middle of a coma, and he's like flossing or whatever. I was walking around, and somebody's like, thank God. What about her toes?

Oh, well. I got finished my coleslaw. Howdy. I better get those little piggies to come back for market. That's fucking amazing. Hey, 101 for market. That's fucking amazing. Hey, 101 roast beef. That's fucking amazing. Because I had some roast beef.

And this little piggy's my hound doggy dog. The need to have three toes amputated. When Pastor Bill asked if anyone needed a creative miracle, Chrissy responded that she had three toes amputated. Kelly, who serves on... Jesus, this music is the worst. This is so bad. This music is the worst.

Also, can we please distinguish between a creative and non-creative miracle? What the fuck would be a non-creative miracle? I feel like a creative... God does your taxes? No, yeah, maybe. That's what I was thinking. I was thinking like,

you could hire a guy to do a website or a miracle and that's a creative miracle. So you could like go on Fiverr and they have creative and uncreative miracles. Yeah, like it would be a creative miracle

if like, I don't know, you just had infinite spaghetti when the kids were over. Is that one creative? It depends on how good the sauce is. The prayer team told her that the Lord wanted to grow her toes back tonight. So Kelly. But I didn't bring bigger shoes.

Hey, you know, you're a little tootsie. God wants to grow back your tootsie. Here's the thing, Cecil. Oh, man. We had one gimme from God. And there was a little blind boy with brain cancer. Oh, Jesus Christ. But then there was Chrissy Thompson.

Had her take off her shoe, anointed where each of the toes would be, and began to pray. I pulled one out from behind her ear. I was like, ooh, look at my, ooh, I got your noose. I got your toes. Wouldn't it be great

if they anointed in slightly the wrong spot? You know? Or they just let her toes grow out. She's got, she's got like one like on her ankle like a cat

like a little like a dewclaw a little bit of anointing oil spills on like the sidewalk she like splashes on her stomach and it spells thug life in toast no regerts oh my god alright alright alright toe the line skin began to change color Oh, my God.

All right. All right. All right. Toe the line. Skin began to change color. Pretty soon there was a pulse in the foot that she could feel. Could she not feel a pulse before? It was her whole fucking foot dead?

She's got bigger issues than a couple of missing toes. This sounds genuinely terrible. All of the sudden, Chrissy said, are you kidding me? Yes. I saw the toes begin to grow. Can you imagine clapping for this? Could you imagine sitting there and hearing from me like,

are you fucking serious right now? Right? Right? It's like, that happened that happened that did happen oh cecil i break out my cell phone and take a fucking picture if i think my cat is laying down funny you know what i mean if i think if i came over to your house yeah and you're, dude, dude, holy shit, watch this. And you grew a fucking limb. I would be like, holy fuck, dude. And I'd have my goddamn phone out. I know.

It's not like a TikTok. Are you kidding me? Come on. Are you serious? I take a picture of fucking everything now. Maybe they were on the road. They were in a tow truck. Tow truck. It's a tow truck. Tow truck.

It's a homonym. Homophone? I don't know. Yeah! Grow them toes! Man! They are really... Grow them toes!

Wouldn't it be great if somebody had to lose three toes or for her to get three toes? There's like somebody opens some box and they press a button and someone's toe shoots off their body. Somebody looks down and their toes are shrinking back into their foot.

Just like, what did I do? What is this? You can press the button and someone can grow a toe, but someone loses his toe too? Well, you see, it's the laws of thermodynamics, you know? Toes can neither be created nor destroyed. Good Lord. Thank you, Lord.

Are you fucking kidding me? Hey, there's more. Several other team members joined in to pray with Kelly. Bone began to form where there was none before. No, it didn't. It would be awesome

if they didn't grow bone toes. That would be amazing. Like floppers? Yeah, I got two regular toes and three limp toes. It's like one of those fucking vinyl gloves you put on except for it missed the fingers.

So they're just like hanging there. For Chrissy, you want to stay standing because I mean, this is me back up here. As the ladies prayed for Chrissy over the next 30 minutes, all three toes grew.

And by that point, were longer than her pinky toe. Within an hour. But they were all big toe shaped. She just got fucking four giant big toes on her foot. And one pinky toe. It'd be awesome if they,

like it messes up and it gives her fingers so she's got prehensile feet. Well, hot dogs. Oh, hot dogs it gives her fingers. So she's got prehensile feet. Well, hot dogs. Hot dogs. Hot dog fingers. I got toes everywhere all at once. On all the toes.

Hold on, what did it have? Pinky toe. Within an hour, nails began to grow on all the toes. Oh, nice. Go to the pedicurist. This morning, she went to it to Kelly's husband the toes. Oh, nice. Go to the catechurist. This morning, she went to it, to Kelly's husband, the medical doctor.

She went and was examined. She has three toes. Of all the things in the world that happened, that did not happen. That never happened so much. It literally never happened so much. I love so much, Cecil, that there is now a website

called Show Me The Toast. Show Me The Toast is the best website. It's fucking delicious. ShowMeTheToast.com is the best website ever. Guaranteed. Fuck, it's so good.

Stinks in here. Smells like meat. Rotten meat. Kids, why would you bring that rotten meat in here of all places? Kids, you stupid motherfuckers. What the hell's wrong with you kids? This story comes from stuff.co.nz. Burgers for baptism.

13-year-old baptized without parents' consent. So I read this whole story. And here's what happened. Some religious nuts had a big cookout barbecue thing. And they set up a big kiddie pool. And they lured a bunch of kids and stuff over with like burgers and stuff. And then they're like, hey, you want to get baptized? And then so the kids are like,

fucking I'll do whatever to get a burger and like a little dash in the pool. That sounds fine. Then they go home and they tell their, and this is the part where like, I think I have a different take.

They go home and they tell their parents and they were like, I was baptized. Their parents are incensed. Their parents are like, holy shit, you were baptized

without my consent. I would not feel that way. I really wouldn't. I'd be like, wait a minute. Are there more burgers? That's what I was thinking too. Like, cause I'll go, I'll take a little swim and get a burger. If there's a double cheeseburger at the end of it and you could grow three of my toes back, I am totally in. I'm in. I'm in. I'm a hundred percent in.

I actually would not be mad because I don't believe there's any magic water. Right. Like if somebody, if my kids, like I got baptized, it'd be like, that's not a real thing. The burger you ate, that's real. I feel like, I feel like one of those things though, it's like, like, would I want them sitting my kid down? I don't have kids, but would I want them sitting a kid I was taking care of down and telling them the stories of the Bible that I disapprove of? Right.

The ones that, the ones that talk about how gay people should be stoned or something. Right. I'd be upset by that. That would be upsetting. Right? Yeah. And I think when people get mad about this stuff, they don't know what they talked about.

And that's fair. You know what I mean? And that's fair. They know what the fucking, they know that it's probably a shit. If you're tricking kids with fucking fried meat to get fucking baptized, chances are you're not a very fun church. If you're tricking kids with fried meat, chances are you caught a curry. I'm just saying.

Like, I'm just saying. My kids will not get into a van for candy, but if there's a fucking bacon van, we're all getting in the van. I'm going to beat, I'll beat the kids into the van. They will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. That's it. Like, if there was a fucking bacon van

rolling down the street, they'd have to push me out of it. I am right there with you on the food part of this. I will say this though. The, the, this is a common tactic.

It is. And it's gross. It is gross. And you, you even said like, you were lured out to one of these like, Yabba-Dah-Habba-Dah places, right? Oh yeah, thousand percent, yeah.

You were lured out to one of these places. Now you were lured out by possibility of maybe getting some trim. But still like, you know, the fact is, is that there's a lot of this stuff that goes on and they, you know, like they'll put on things like haunted houses or you know they'll do they'll do these cookouts they'll do these things you know man that they put on cookouts all the time i work on a campus

and the religious groups on campus they do food shit all the fucking time because it gets people in the door yeah You're a hungry college student. You want to go fucking go eat a food. They're going to have a barbecue and you're walking by. They want you to come over and eat so you could talk about, and then maybe next week you'll come back because you're fucking hungry again. Like that's what it's all about. College campuses. If you work on any college campus, you know, food is what gets people in the door. It is what it's how your event gets popular is by having good food, man. That's just it. And I, and I'm making a lot of jokes, but I, I would actually be, I'm, I'm goofing around about the bacon van only a little, but like,

I, this also teaches, is it wrapped in bacon or full of bacon? Okay. Now these are important questions, but like, there's a consent issue here. Like that we really should not. It is. It's so funny how the right is so like, oh, don't take a kid over to like a drag queen, you know, book reading or whatever. But, you know, like we will happily. It's your own kid. It's not like we're going out collecting Republican kids and taking them. It's your own kid.

And they're like, you can't show them that. Right. But we will absolutely violate your right to consent with our religious principles. You know, like we don't want you to do that when it comes to, you know, your own non, not even violating consent, your own children and their choices. But when it comes to religion, they're like, yeah, look, consent isn't important because look, once you get here, consent will not be important. Yeah. Consent is not something we actually respect. Because you couldn't take a 13-year-old there and have sex with them. Right. Well, I mean, but you can begin to groom them

that they can do things without their parents, without telling their parents. Yeah. You can begin to say, I'm not even really, really joking. Like it does kind of set the play for sometimes you do important things and don't tell your parents. But I, but I will say like, you're absolutely right. But I think like, you know, there's rules around what a kid can consent to. Right. And you're asking them to do something.

I mean, this isn't even, you know, if we're on your level, where we're all fucking in this thing where we're like, yeah, we have an eternal soul that lasts forever. Like, of all the things a little kid who can't consent to even have sex can do, he can consent to do something for his eternal soul? Yeah, right. What? He can't join the Columbia House DVD club. Yeah, exactly. Like, are you kidding me? He can't smoke a cigarette. He can't drink a beer. He can't join the Columbia House DVD club. Yeah, exactly. Like, are you kidding me? He can't smoke a cigarette. He can't drink a beer.

He can't go off to war. I can't get a tattoo. He can't get a tattoo. Right. But he can fucking say for the rest of eternity he's a Christian or whatever. Yeah. Now he can get married if his parents want to sell him off. That's true. Depends on where you're at. Depends on where you're at. About half this country. And I mean, the dowry was

a truck full of bacon. Well, okay, so now you're speaking my language again. Now you're making things more complicated for me. So, in a couple weeks,

or in a week, maybe we're not sure exactly when, we're going to have Michael Marshall on the show. So look out for that. We are going to be releasing,

not this week, but next week, we'll be releasing a goofy news show. So look out, be on the lookout for that. If you want to be a patron, you can go to patreon.com slash dissonancepod or dissonancepod.com and click on and become a patron on a per episode basis. They get lots of great stuff,

including an extra funny show, which we just released it for patrons. And they get, if they're a $2 patron, they get Tom's reading of the deep dives, which we do every month. So we encourage everybody who wants to become a patron, go get that extra stuff. I think that's going to wrap it up though for this week.

So we are going to leave you like we always do with Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit, couched in scientician, double bubble toil and trouble, pseudo quasi alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, 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, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, double-speak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your signs. 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

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