Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 8: Hot Sex with a Fire Goddess

Episode Date: August 18, 2011

In the spirit of our no comments, just questions, what's your question? And to whom? Deepak, to say, would you like to have a short course in quantum mechanics sometime so that we can straighten out your slightly misuse of quantum notation? Thank you, Leonard. I would be honored, sir, and I accept your offer with great gratitude. And I would like to be educated so I can be clearer in my dialogue. Can I bother you for just a second? What is it? Do you, sir, believe in the infinite? I believe I understand to some extent the concept of infinity.

I'm not sure what it means to believe in the infinite. Okay, do you think that your mathematics requires the infinites to explain things that you explain to people? We do use the concept of infinity quite a lot. Thank you. We do. You're welcome. What is it about Deepak's use of quantum physics that bothers you the term non-local uh the use was not correct and the correlations of the i don't know the perry pacemaker and the different electrical things going on to disagree by the way oh i assume you did since you said that. I would love to talk about it.

I think consciousness is non-local. You know, I've never really run across a definition of consciousness that I understood. So maybe you could teach me something. A field, a superposition of possibilities. Okay, well, all right. I know what each of those words means I still don't think I know Be advised that this show is not for children

the faint of heart or the easily offended The explicit tag is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. This is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political, and there is no welcome mat. A lot of great stories to talk about in this episode, Cecil. I think we're just going to go ahead and hop right in. In some of the stories that we're going to talk about, we'll mention it in more detail as we come by.

They're the result of some feedback that we got from our listeners. We really appreciate that feedback. It will affect the show. got from our listeners. We really appreciate that feedback. It will affect the show. If you have suggestions or topics or ideas that you'd like to have us discuss and they're not asinine. Like our ideas. I mean, you've listened to this show at this point, probably. You realize our threshold for asinine is pretty low, actually. So really just any idea anything at all yeah absolutely anything is better than what we do so if you want us to critique the new muppets movie i'm down let's just fill in time

fill in time i've just sucked one year of your life away what did this do to you tell me So the first story we're going to cover is a story from Mother Jones. And this is kind of a recurring theme of religion being linked so many times to stories of abuse. This particular article was about these tough love homes. I'm sure everybody's familiar with the idea. Your kid is misbehaving and rather than parenting them, you ship them off to let somebody else do the work like a factory. Like a broken car or something. So you send them to the Fix My Kid factory, and lo and behold, it doesn't work. Not only does it not work, but they just fucking, like, abuse these kids terribly.

And one of the most distressing things about the article is that there's like no supervision. Like there's no regulation at all for these homes. That's it, yeah. Like these homes, if they're run by – if they're like faith-based homes, they just slide completely under the radar. Yeah, that's the scary part, Tom, isn't it? I mean I was reading this article and I was thinking, well, where's Department of Children and Family Services? Like where are those people at? Where are the people who, you know, like the child protection services, those type of people, those those departments, those governmental regulation organizations that we help fund so that children are safe?

Where are they at? In a lot of cases, the legislators that run the state most of the time will say, oh, but faith-based organizations, they're immune. They're excluded from this sort of scrutiny. And that's fucking terrifying because you could be doing anything. Like, I don't know, diddling kids because, hey, that's never happened before. Yeah. Where's the track record of tremendous successes? Like, you just look over history. Like, they have the Irish laundries.

I mean, there's the Catholic Church and its sex abuse scandal. You know, they've certainly treated altar boys like personal use disposable items. I mean, it's like, what the fuck? These, these, uh, faith-based organizations, they get a get out of jail free card when they commit these heinous acts

because they're faith-based. Well, we already get you a get out of fucking taxes card. Isn't that enough? And I don't even understand how you oppose this. How do you stand there? There was legislation, several pieces of

legislation mentioned in this article that were attempted to be put forth to say like, well, how about if we just make sure nobody abuses these kids? And people are like, oh, you can't stand in the way of our faith-based homes. And the legislation died. I want to understand how does the counter argument go, right? Like I'll put forth an argument. So let's do a little point. I'll be sane and rational. OK, you'll be religious. All right.

All right. I think we should put forth this piece of legislation so that there's some supervision of these homes. Phenomenal. What else could the argument be? How else could the argument work? I don't know. How else could the argument be? How else could the argument work? I don't know.

I get – what do they – you know, and the thing is you read this article and you start thinking about how like an ultra-religious person would treat their child. And how is that different from anything that they're going through in this house anyway? Like forcing your child to have a strict – you know, I want to say moral code, but it's not a moral code. You know what I mean? Like the stuff that they do is not moral. It's just a strict code in which that they have to live by. The punishments in which they have to endure. You know, being ultra religious just with a family is, I think, kind of abuse.

So now ship them off to fucking crazy cuckoo fucking religious camp where they can't like this girl. I want to read from the article. It says the girl's behavior was micromanaged down to the number of squares of toilet paper each was allowed. Potential infractions ranged from making eye contact with another girl to not finishing a meal. to not finishing a meal. Roxy, the person who they're talking about in this article, who suffered from urinary tract infections and menstrual complications, told me she was frequently put on redshirt,

sometimes dripping blood as she stood. She was also punished with cold showers, she said, and endless sets of calisthenics after meals. What the fuck? Who the fuck thinks that's a good idea? Who's a fucking idiot in charge of this fucking place that thinks, hey, you know, we should do is fucking throw somebody, you know, that's at a fucking emotionally, you know, fragile age into a fucking cold shower or humiliate them by making them stand there and fucking bleed. I don't think it's a big surprise

either that a lot of these groups are for wayward girls right right because it's just another example of the suspicion with which the religious view women because really the book that you're basing and i pick a book pick a religious text absolutely yeah they're all misogynist as hell all of them are crazy misogynist age Yeah, because they're fucking Bronze Age texts, man. They treat women with scorn and fear. You know, it's like the people who are writing them have never fucking touched a woman before. Ever. Never. Never, ever, ever, ever, never.

And they know they never will. They're the enemy camp. Right. And they're just sitting there like, oh, God, those filthy, nasty, whorish women, like, trembling as they write. Fucking dick in one hand, pen in the other. It's ridiculous, you know? So it's no surprise that these women, like, because there's really, like, there's something

to be said about making a woman wear a red shirt, you know? It's, I mean, you don't have to, you don't have to read too far into that to be micromanaging their bodily functions, their hygiene functions, you know, making sure the girls don't talk to each other. This is all part of that culture of craziness and misogyny and basing shit on a book that doesn't make any fucking sense. This is why the show is called Cognitive Dissonance, right? Because how can you do that? How can you possibly reconcile your behavior and the world that you live in currently with a moral code that's 2,000 years old and probably didn't work then and was cobbled

together by a group of asshats at that point. I was just talking about the emotional sort of fragility of someone that age. Let me read another portion of this article. She says, after months of punitive mealtimes, punitive mealtimes, just those two words together. I mean, fuck you. After months of punitive mealtimes, including five-minute forced feeding sessions on girls on redshirt, she wolfed her food. Back in Maryland, she showed signs of eating disorder, self-destructive behavior, and severe depression. So put your girl in this thing. She's only in there, Tom, for three months.

And she comes back with an eating disorder, self-destructive behavior, and severe depression. You leave her in there for three more, and I bet you she comes back with three eating disorder, self-destructive behavior, and severe depression. You leave her in there for three more, and I bet you she comes back with three more fucking different neuroses. Yeah, or dead. Or dead. Because a lot of these girls attempt suicide or commit suicide. It's not – you just can't do that. And here's the – you said like what's the difference to one of these homes and being raised in one of these crazy, strict, hyperdisciplinary, nutter homes? And I think the only difference is that if you're in your home, at least you feel like the person who's disciplining you loves you.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So maybe even if it's crazy and it's strict and totally fucking off the wall, there's at least a sliver of hope there. But in a school, these people don't give a shit. You're just another. And let's be honest, too. I was reading this article.

This woman spent $20,000 for that three-month stay. The mom. That's how much it cost. $20,000. Times how many kids. Times how many months. It's a money-month stay. The mom. That's how much it costs. 20 grand. Times how many kids. Times how many months. It's a money-making venture. I mean, that's what it is as much as anything else.

I mean, the cynical side of me has got to look at this and say, you know, you're making a fucking mint. And it's just a plus for you that you get to abuse these people and have, you know, something of a clear conscience because you're doing it based on this antiquated book. How do you fucking find people to staff this thing? What, they put an ad on Craigslist, like looking for a fucking sadist fucking person to fucking completely ruin children's lives? Who fucking, who would, you know, the people who run this show, they're a piece of fucking work obviously, right? But the assholes that are individually in charge of these people, I got a lot of contempt for those people too.

You should realize, oh, fuck. What am I doing? You should. But it's like the Stanford prison experiment is all I can think, right? If you're raised in an environment of – Yeah. Yeah, I know think, right? You know, if you're raised in an environment of, yeah, I would imagine that they hire people who are part of their crazy Baptist community, right? You know, and it's like the Stanford prison experiment. If you're, if you're part of a

culture of violence, you assimilate into that culture of violence. And that's what this is. It's a culture of violence. It's violence against women. It's violence against the self. It's violence against human nature. And it's, you know, it's ultimately unsustain violence. It's violence against women. It's violence against the self. It's violence against human nature. And it's ultimately unsustainable, and that's why these things – but the idea that they're unregulated is baffling. That's fucking crazy. You know, reading again from the article, I just knew that when certain lobbies would stand up to say we have a concern about how this affects faith-based institutions, the bill was immediately amended. It was a very Republican legislature or it would immediately die, and that's still true.

Missouri isn't alone. In April, Montana State Representative Christy Clark, who campaigned on a faith and family platform, not my family, joined 11 other Republicans in scuttling a bill that would have regulated religious teen homes. A mother of three, she cast the home's residents as unreliable witnesses

who struggle with truthfulness. So that's good. So it's a little blame the victim here. It's a little, you know, churches can do whatever the hell they want there. It's why do you give them just a complete free reign? Why do you do that? Why would we as a people, as a fucking, you know, we elect these officials. It's a representative democracy, I think. I would hope

it is. Like, how are you representing your constituency? You're saying it's cool that this is going on? You're saying that to your, not only is it cool, but I want to protect this shit. I want to make sure that this stuff has the ability to continue. That's

fucking horrifying. That is horrifying. That's, that's fucking horrifying. That is horrifying. Yeah. And it's just because the religious right, if the religious right isn't behind you, you as a Republican are not getting elected. Yeah. So anything you do that threatens their ability to, you know, damages your credibility with that group, you know, now you're not going to get reelected. And that's, I mean, that's, that's kind of what it's become all about. It's all about, I got to get reelected. I going to get re-elected. And that's, I mean, that's kind of what it's become all about. It's all about, I gotta get re-elected, I gotta get re-elected. I know that Carl Sagan was an influence. Talk to us about that.

Yeah, he was, not that I was like drinking buddies with him, we were sort of a generation separate, but I was applying to colleges in high school, and I already knew I wanted to do, to study the universe at age 17 because I knew at age 9. So my applications were dripping with the universe. I was accepted at Cornell, and it's time to decide what school you go to, and a set of other schools as well. The admissions office, unknown to me, sent my application to Carl Sagan. He was already famous. He was already on Johnny Carson, Tonight Show. I sent to get him to just comment on it. Carl Sagan then sent me a letter, hand

signed, saying, I understand you're considering Cornell. If you come by and visit, I'd be happy to show you the lab. And I said, is this Carl Sagan? I showed it to mom and dad. Could this be? And it was. I wrote back and I said, yeah, I'm going to go up in two weekends. He met me on a Saturday morning in the snow. Gave me a tour of his lab. I'm in his office. He reaches back, pulls out one of his books, signs it to me. The time for me to leave, he drives me to the bus station. It's snowing a little heavier. He writes his home phone on a sheet of paper.

Said, if the bus can't get through call me spend the night at our place and i thought to myself who am i i'm just some high school kid and to this day to this day i have this duty to respond to students who are inquiring about the universe as a career path to respond to them in the way that carl sagan had to me. Moving on to some good news. Kind of good news. I have to admit, Cecil, this next story we're going to talk about makes me a little nervous, although I am initially hopeful. Cosmos is getting updated.

Cosmos is a documentary series that sort of launched the public persona of Carl Sagan, brought him into the everyday homes of many Americans. It was a documentary series from the 1980s, wildly popular and successful, remains that way to this day. It's being redone. It's being given an update. I am a little nervous about it for a couple of reasons. First, it's going to be on Fox. Not typically the most science-friendly of networks. I'm with you.

Seth MacFarlane is going to be involved. I guess he's going to be a producer for it. Seth MacFarlane, I think, is a funny guy. He's got some creative talents there. I think that's unquestionable. What exactly he brings to the cosmos remains to be seen. And I'm a little leery of updates of things that were once great.

Yeah. Because it tends to make them less great. Okay. There are a couple of downsides to Cosmos. And I think I got to say this. I feel bad saying this, but if you've watched these recently, Tom, and I know I've watched these recently, they are a little boring. And they're boring because we nowadays expect 35 cuts a minute.

And these are like five cuts a minute. So we're viewing something from, I want to say it was the 80s sometime when they came out, early 80s, I think. So they're pretty old. These are pretty old. This is a pretty old documentary with dated looking things and Carl Sagan, who talks in a very sort of monotone way. I mean, you know, you watch these things,

you could easily go to sleep to these things. At least I could. So, you know, there's some criticism to be laid at Cosmo's feet here. It's not, you're not going to play these things, Tom, for your son in 10 years, and he's not going to look at them and be like, holy shit, these are fucking awesome. He's going to look at these and he's going to be like, dad, I would either like to go outside, eat a food, or go to sleep. Those are the three things that I would prefer to do other than watch Cosmos with this guy with a mushroom for hair. That's what I would rather do.

Who speaks like Agent Smith from The Matrix. So there are some downsides there. I think Neil deGrasse Tyson is a great fucking choice because I think he's a very funny guy. I think he's – I like the way he talks. I like what he has to say. I like that he's – he seems like a guy who's kind of quick on his feet. I've seen him in debates and I've also seen him talk like sort of live and he's, he's a pretty good guy. He's a pretty funny guy. Seth MacFarlane is producing. I don't think he's

writing. So I'm not really too worried about that. The Fox thing scares me though, but I will reserve judgment until I see the first episode. Then I will either fucking hammer it or love it. I wish it was on PBS. And I know why they're not doing it on PBS. I read that. Like, I get it. It's understandable. But I still really wish it was on PBS.

I know. I know. So, you know, in other outer space news. This is fucking the greatest article I've ever read. I mean, it's on HuffPo. So, you know, it's going to be good when it's on HuffPo. I guess there's some ET researchers. I can't even say that out loud, really.

Like, what? Are you fucking kidding me? I can't even say that out loud, really. Like, what? Are you fucking kidding me? Who were a little unhappy with the new Cowboys and Aliens movie. They felt like it was not an accurate depiction of Cowboys and Aliens. Yeah. Cowboys and Aliens. Yeah.

Clearly you guys never got the memo that Cowboys and Aliens first is a fictional account. This was not intended, I don't think, by. And here's why Cowboys and Aliens is a fictional account. Because aliens are a fictional fucking account. The cowboy part was pretty good in that Cowboys and Aliens movie because that seemed pretty accurate. They had guns. They had hats and horses. There was Indians at some point.

It was all very pretty. Even that wasn't accurate. But still, it was more accurate than, say, the aliens that were here for gold in that movie. Some of the quotes in this article are fucking completely genius. Another case of interest to Torres was the sighting of some Bigfoot-like aliens by Native Americans in Northern California.

The Native Americans called them crazy bears. And they reportedly came to Earth in small moons that descended to Earth and they were apparently friendly and furry. They predicted the – Ewoks.

Ewoks. They predicted Ewoks. I like this part where he's like – now this is Webber talking at the end. He's like, now this is Webber talking at the end. He says, also, the movie shows that the aliens looking for gold, the only aliens interested in gold are the Anuki, an alien race from the Siris system that appeared in ancient Sumeria. There's so many facts on their side. They have all these like crazy.

This shit is hilarious. The same Torres guy says he hasn't seen cowboys and aliens. Well, why is he even part of this article? Yeah, you shouldn't be fucking commenting on it. But believes the truth is always more interesting than fiction. No, not in this case. No, no, it is not. Here's the truth.

No aliens ever showed up. This this is terrific. There's no evidence. No aliens ever showed up. This is terrific. There's no evidence of harmful alien abductions during that period. Webber, write to HuffPost Weird News. That didn't start until 1934 when the U.S. government, on FDR's

watch, you can hear his finger wag catcher, signed a treaty with the Orion Gray aliens. Signed a treaty? What, they have signatures? Then there was a parallel treaty treaty with the Orion Gray aliens. Signed a treaty where they have signatures? Then there was a parallel treaty made with the Third Reich in 1941. Oh my fucking god. Is this guy rubbing shit on himself during

this entire interview when they're talking to him? Is he like wearing a fucking diaper and like fucking like seriously, like you're a fucking crazy person if you really think this. They're not fucking here because if they were here, we'd fucking know they're here other than like fucking three fucking hillbillies who got abducted in scare quotes. So none of this fucking makes any sense. And when they keep on talking about like, oh, back then, back when the papers back then, they didn't suppress this information.

They put it in there. And all these people who had never seen a flying craft before, they described the flying craft. And it's just like, look, man, there's a lot of things that people mistake for fucking UFOs nowadays. I guarantee they were still mistaking those things back then for fucking UFOs. It's not like nothing flies. Right.

Right. It's not like nothing is in the sky. It's not like you look up in the sky and it's fucking void. Like, oh, what's upstairs? Oh, fucking don't look up because this is void up there. That's not the case. There's plenty of shit that flies around. So it is not a tremendous leap of the human fucking imagination extended over billions of people across a long period of time to come up with a few accounts of people who imagine they fucking saw something in the air. There's already, there's a fucking precedent for that.

Right. I mean, it's not an inconceivable thing to imagine. Wow. Can you imagine if like, if like there were things that flew like birds? No, like people size things.

Yeah. I mean, that'd be kind of cool, man. You're blowing my mind, man. Right? I can't. Whoa. I can't possibly. What are you, smoke? No, this is ridiculous.

People-sized things that fly. Whoa, I'm off to kill myself. I am an anti-coaster. I am an anti-coaster. I am an anarchoaster. Don't know what I want, but I know how to get it. I want to destroy, pass it by. Because I want to be an archer. Moving on, this is a story that our listeners,

or listener, I should say, wrote in to ask that we discuss on the show, and that was the riots in England. And so we found a couple of articles, or rather Cecil found a couple of articles. I just fucking read them. Like, that's the nod I make to the show, right, is I will read what gets sent to me sometimes. So Cecil was good enough to dig up a couple of articles.

I've been following this. I saw a couple of videos and interviews with people on YouTube and what have you regarding these riots. and interviews with people on YouTube and what have you regarding these riots. And what kind of blows my mind is here you've got riots that go on for days at a time. And there's a segment of the population who's just like, yeah, those riots are just by a bunch of people that want to smash stuff and steal things. No. No. Those are the riots that we have here in the States

after our sports teams win or lose. Yeah. Or Vancouver. Those are the riots by, like, just for the sake of fucking rioting because people in groups sometimes act poorly. Riots that go on for days and days are fucking always political in nature.

There's never a time where riots go on for days where you're just like, man, that large group of assembled people is carrying out acts of extreme civil disobedience just because they want to steal TVs for days on end. That is not a thoughtful way to consider these happenings. And Al Jazeera actually had a really interesting article about it.

They talk about a lot of different factors that go into this. And they sort of pick patient zero here for the reason why the riots started happening, and they say this Mark Dugan was shot by the police. I had heard, you know, I had seen a lot of different posts and a lot of different talk about this over the last couple weeks, but people were calling this guy, this Dugan, a chav, and I guess that means like what you would call a punk in the States or somebody, you know, like who's like a gangbanger, I guess, in the States.

Somebody who's just, you know, he's just out. He's a fucking ne'er-do-well. Somebody who's fucking not doing good things. And he fucked up and got shot. That's what some people say. Other people are like, hey, he just got shot because he was a black kid. And, you know, they just fucking can exert their fucking power on somebody and shoot him.

And I don't even think they had fucking guns over there, which is weird. Like I was like, why? Why do they have guns? They just had sticks. I didn't think they were allowed to have guns. Maybe they pointed the stick and yelled bang. Yeah. And then the guy fell dead.

It also stems from and I'm going to read directly from the article. The person sort of sums it up later on and says the reason why these things happened is, you know, that might have been the catalyst. But here's the reasons. We have a major problem with youth unemployment. There have already been cuts in services for young people. State education in poor areas is sometimes shockingly bad. Young people cannot afford adequate private housing. And there is a shortage of council built stock. I don't even know what that means. Economic inequality has reached quite startling levels. All this is the consequence of decisions made by government, and there is little hope of rapid improvement. So all those things combined sort of were like

the reason why this stuff sort of exploded. And that makes sense to me, right? It's not just one thing. It's a bunch of things that sort of get thrown in there. When you oppress people enough, when you push people down enough, they're going to eventually rise up. Now, I know, you know, this show is one of those things that across the pond people listen to. I know for sure Andy listens to this show.

I don't know. I'm only reading articles and I'm only seeing some things. I don't know what it's like to live in the UK. I have no idea. So this could just be our media or Al Jazeera, part of their media, looking at this as an outside observer. So if you have other information and you think that it's relevant, let us know. But I like from the things that I've gleaned, this is the most this is the the sort of way it went down in my opinion. Yeah, I think it's – it only makes sense when people don't have options or they feel like they don't have options. That's a source of real tension in a society.

And there's – just like there is here, there's a tremendous amount of – I was reading. Just like there is here. There's a tremendous amount of, I was reading, there's a lot of stratification between the upper echelon of society and the lower echelon of society. And that's never a recipe for success. There's never a time where you're like, man, how'd that dramatic inequality in our society work out? Good? No? Didn't work out real well i mean it's it's it's a recipe for for things like this to happen i just you know i watched a um i think

it was cnn but i'm not sure um i watched a couple of interviews with people and there were kind of a lot of people who were just like yeah they're just a bunch of thugs like they're just trying to you know just hooligans they're just trying to, you know, just hooligans. They're just trying to, you know, break shit and steal shit. And people just, I read some comment boards about this where people were just saying, yeah, there's just a group of, there's just a type of person that just likes to riot. I don't know that type of person. That type of person is unhappy 99.9999% of their life, right?

Because how often do you get a chance to be like, man, you know what I love to do? Right. I fucking love to riot. It's like my hobby. It's like this thing and I just, I love it. And whenever I hear on TV that there's a riot going on somewhere in the world, I hop on a jet and I try to make it to the riot. That doesn't exist.

That's retarded. That's a stupid thing to say. That doesn't exist. That's retarded. That's a stupid thing to say. To suggest that people are so simple, what that really says is I'm scared to look at this in depth. I'm not saying I'm sitting over here and I know what the answers are and I know what the causal factors are. But I do think that if you just assume like, well, you know, some people just like to riot.

I think those people exist, though. I think, you know, for that one percent of the time they get to riot, the rest of the time they're quiet riot. Come on, feel the noise. Oh, man. I would like him to go to the people of the United States of America and say, people of the United States of America, your Congress is bought. Your Congress is incapable of making legislation on health care, banking, trade, or taxes, because if they do it, they will lose their political funding, and they won't do it. But I'm the president of the United States, and I won't have a country that is run by a bought Congress. So I'm not going to work with a bought Congress and try to be Mr. Big Guy.

I'm working with the bought Congress. I'm going to abandon the bought Congress like Teddy Roosevelt did. And I'm going to go to the people of the United States and I'm going to say, you've got a bought Congress. And until we get rid of the bought Congress, which is Jimmy Williams' constant point, which is get the money out of politics. And until a president says that's the problem and says he's going to fix it, there is no policy that I can possibly see, no matter how brilliant your idea may be or your idea or my idea or her idea or your idea at home is that idea will not happen as long as there is the capacity to basically fire a politician who disagrees with me by taking funding away from him.

Is that a fair assessment? Money in politics is the root of all political evil. Speaking of shameful, shameful events in politics, man, the U.S. kind of had a little bit of a rough go. The U.S. had to raise its debt ceiling. This is actually not usually a cause for a lot of concern. The U.S. raises its debt ceiling kind of all the time. It's sort of like if you were your own credit card company and you're like, you know, I'm kind of getting close to the max on my card. What about if I had a higher max? You see, then I wouldn't be close to my max anymore. And we've raised our debt ceiling many, many times in the past. Now, all of a sudden, it has become this huge, it had become this huge political issue. If the debt ceiling had not gotten raised, presumably the U.S. would

have had to have defaulted on some obligations, you know, would have been, it's like the, you know, stoppage of government, like, oh my God, the government's got to been, it's like the, you know, stoppage of government. Like, oh my God, the government's got to stop, it's got to collapse. And then it doesn't. It's the same thing here. It's like, oh my God, that ceiling isn't going to get raised. Well, of course it fucking got raised. It was always going to get raised.

There was never a moment where it was not going to get raised. But the raising of it was held hostage by the the I mean, by the Republicans. I don't care how to spend it. This isn't a matter of spin. It was held hostage by the Republicans who insisted on seeing massive cuts in spending is what they wanted with no additional revenue. That was their that's how they're going to solve the problem. Just stop spending money. No additional revenue. And that, you know, obviously met with some resistance until the president fucking limp wristed it and lost basically and gave into every demand possible. And the debt ceiling got raised. Of course, the giant political fiasco that resulted from all this hand wringing and name calling caused the U.S.'s debt rating to get downgraded from triple A to double A plus, which a lot of people are not thrilled about. Yeah, there's no fucking reason to be thrilled about it.

I think it's like you said, we we talked about it earlier, Tom, where we were talking about Barack Obama before we started recording, and you and I were both sort of just like, well, way to fucking pansy that shit up in there, bro. You know, like these people come in with some demands, and you're like, I'm not going to fold to your demands, and then 24 hours later you're like, I will fold to your demands. And, you know, like what are they asking to do? I don't know if you had one of these classes in high school, Tom, but where they taught you how to balance a checkbook.

I don't know if you had that class. I had that class. No. Right? No. So they had a class in my high school that was like, you know, basic finances for adults when they first get out of high school. And if you were to go to the teacher and be like, look, here's what I'm going to do. and if you were to go to the teacher and be like, look, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm just going to cut all spending, all the discretionary spending that I can, fund some really crazy shit that I want to do and not get any income. The teacher would be like, and you failed the class. Here's your fucking giant F. You can't do this sort of thing. We're going to talk about later on Warren Buffett's letter, which is just exactly illustrates this point. There's no way to get out of debt in this country. There's no way to change

the deficit in this country if we do not raise taxes for the ultra-rich. Because those are the people who can pay the most taxes. Those are the people who have enough money that they first won't be injured by this raise in taxes. There's no detriment, really.

It's just a little bit less money. They get to, you know, instead of diving off a 10-foot fucking diving board into their giant pile of money, they have to dive off an 8-foot fucking diving board into a fucking giant pile of money. So, you know, there's no change at all, really, for them. They just get to help the country get out of debt because they made fucking boatloads of money off this country, fucking not taxing them for years. But instead, what they do is say, no, no, no, those people are cool. What we're going to do is cut all the fucking social programs for the fucking ultra poor in this country. We don't need that shit.

That's garbage. We don't need that. The rich need to stay rich. The poor need to stay fucking poor. And this is how we're going to solve our problems in this country. And S&P, the people who fucking rate credit, give credit ratings to things,

you know, they just walk by, they're like, hey, how's your humidifier? It needs a fucking double A plus fucking rating. Well, they came to the U.S. government, and they're like, hey, how's your fucking government? Oh, not so good. Here's your double A plus rating. Because of the fucking clown fucking car that we have fucking running this joint. Oh, yeah, when you put it like that, it sounds so bad.

Anybody who is not trying to get elected to public office knows that it's a farce. And the thing is that the Republicans know it's a farce and the Democrats know it's a farce. The fucking libertarians know it's a farce. Everybody knows it's not going to work. Like, the plan that was put in place is not a fix-the-problem plan. It was a we beat you up politically, and we got to show the world that we beat you up politically plan. Right.

That's all it was. It was muscle. This was a muscle situation. This was a, hey, we're a year away from an election. Muscle. And that's increasingly, it's maddening, right? The economy just is not getting better. It seems to gain just the littlest bit of traction and falter and gain a little bit of traction and falter. And every time there's an attempt, a real or honest attempt, to say like, hey, we've got a problem. Can we fix it? Or even if there's not an attempt to say we've got a problem, let's fix it. It's like, hey, this is the fucking bare minimum necessary to do.

The bare minimum. We have to raise the debt ceiling it's like well let's turn into a giant fucking political haymaking machine and not actually solve any of the world's problems at all like let's just not fix this at all you know what happened to the infrastructure bank idea that was a fucking great idea. Okay. Kind of falls by the way. Oh, later. You know, well, we won, so. Yeah, you won. Okay, great. So there's some cuts in spending.

They're inconsequential cuts. Hate to tell you. They're fucking inconsequential cuts. They're not going to fix the problem. They don't solve any of the underlying issues at all. You know, it's like saying, it's like saying, Hey, uh, dad, I'm $150,000 in credit card debt, but I'll tell you what, I'm not going to buy any more Snickers bars and I'm going to cancel Netflix. So booyah. Yeah. You're not going to get out of debt at that. You're not going to get anything done. Yeah. You're not going to get out of debt at that rate. You're not going to get anything done.

It's like you watch these clowns and, I mean, like you said it, they're clowns, man. And it's impossible to respect the system at this point. And the only people that were fucking happy with what happened are those fucking, you know, fucking bucktooth jackasses out in the world that are fucking so happy when anything bad happens to Obama they're like fucking giddy they're like fucking jerking off every time somebody says something bad about him those are the assholes that are like

he had to back down fucking retards like that's the only people that are happy with it because all the rest of the thinking people in the world they're're all like, well, that didn't fucking do anything. Fuck, we're worse off than we were. Fuck. You know, and that's – and it turns out that that's like 85 percent of the population because Congress is fucking raiding.

Right after that happened, dropped down to like fucking 14 percent approval. So 85 percent of the country is like, well, that was fucking stupid. But the 15% of fucking, you know, fucking Obama haters out there that can't stand the fact that a black man's fucking president, those are the jackasses that are fucking beaten off tonight to this. These problems aren't new. These problems are problems that have built up over decades. And there hasn't been a Congress that's been mature enough or a president that's been mature enough to take this head on. I can end the deficit in five minutes. How? You just pass a law that says that anytime there's a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for reelection. Now you've got the incentives

in the right place, right? So it's capable of being done. Cecil, you had mentioned the Warren Buffett op-ed. There was an op-ed inil, you had mentioned the Warren Buffett op ed. There was an op ed in The New York Times written by Warren Buffett. Does he do this a lot, by the way? I don't know. Do you know? Does he need the money, the extra cash? Does he get paid by the word?

His op ed is something everybody should read. I think it's it's really wonderfully written. It's so clear. It's so concise. It's not – here's the thing about Warren Buffett, right? Warren Buffett has so fucking much money. Fucking Scrooge McDuck, dude. Right.

He could buy Scrooge McDuck and eat him. He could confee that motherfucker. Bring me that canard right now, motherfucker. Mmm, right. Delicious, Scrooge McDuck. Bring me another Huey Louie and whatever the hell there is. Oh, man. They're delicious.

Right, right. Mr. Peanut's grabbed my monocle. Fucking teenage duck, man. But, you know, so he writes this op-ed article, which you had referred to previously. And he's basically saying, like, look, I don't pay as much taxes as the people that work for me. Right. Because I'm insanely rich. Right.

And the difference isn't it's the way he makes the money. Right. When you're me, the way I make money is I wake up in the morning and I begrudgingly go to work. That's the way I make money, right? And that's the way most people in the world and in America, at least, make money. You wake up, you go to work, you do a thing, they give you money for it. You pay taxes. That is not at all how the wealthy make their money. Yes, they wake up and they go to work, but their money makes the money. That's where the real money comes from. The real money doesn't come from a paycheck every two weeks by some dude. The real money comes from

look how much fucking money my money made. Look at that money go. It's doing crazy money things. It's buying and selling stocks and futures and companies and turning these things around. That's where real money comes from. And those things aren't taxed the same way, right? Because our tax system in America doesn't make any sense. Nobody understands it. Nobody understands it. Nobody understands it completely, at least. Well, one of the things, okay, he says in his article, he says, last year, my federal tax bill, the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me on my behalf, was $6,938,744. He says, that sounds like a lot. He's like, but what I paid was 17% of my taxable income.

So how much did he make last year? So we're going to take 7,000, right? Okay, let me just do this multiplication here. So the guy made $41 million last year on his behalf, right? And he paid $6 million in taxes. Now, that would be a big deal if, like, let's say that was this guy's entire amount of money, right? Like, let's say that all he had in the world was $41 million. And they took six, you know, almost $7 million from him.

They took almost $7 million from the guy, and all he had was $40 million. That's a, that's a lot of money, but the guy's not worth this 50 fucking billion dollars, billion dollars. Do you know how much taxes that is? Do you know how much, do you know how much he notices that Tom? I did a, I did a little quick calculation. That's less than 1%, less than 1%, less than one-tenth of 1% actually of his entire net worth. So he doesn't even notice it. It's like when you and I, you know, maybe buy a CD or download a song off fucking iTunes. Right. It's an inconsequential expense.

Tiny amount of money to this guy. It's so fucking tiny. He doesn't even know. He could give everybody he saw for an entire day, how much he paid in taxes, each one of them. And he wouldn't notice it. That's how much, that's how little money this is to this guy. It's such a tiny inconsequential sum to him. And he recognizes that shit. He's like, it's a fucking very little money. It doesn't, it's not a lot of money that I'm giving away.

I had to give away my last year. I was like something like 25% of my salary went to check, went to fucking 25 to 30% of my salary went to fucking taxes last year. I'm paying that much of taxes. And this guy's, this guy's getting away with that. Well, and he says that, you know, talking to the other 20 people in his office, their tax burdens range from 33 to 41 percent and average 36 percent. So he's paying less than half on average of what the other people in his same office pay. You know, so and he doesn't need the money. You know, there's no point when you're worth 50

billion dollars. There's not a point where you look around and say, oh, things are a little tight. Things I've got to tighten the waist belt. I can only afford Guatemala. You know, like at this point, $50 billion, he's willing to be taxed. That's the other thing is the super rich are willing to be taxed. There's a lot of super rich that are willing to be taxed. And think about it this way, Tom. Let's presume last year we go to this year. Let's say they doubled his taxes. He's paying $14 million off $50 million or $40 million.

He's still inconsequential. he's paying still inconsequential inconsequential still completely inconsequential even if they taxed all that money let's say they taxed it all he still wouldn't even notice right right yeah if if he never drew another check it would be just fucking fine you know him, him and fucking Missouri would be fine. Right. Right. You know, but but that's the thing is that the wealthier you are, the you know, the less taxes you're going to pay. You know, there's so many deductions. There's so many loopholes. There's so many different different taxation methods. And I'm not a proponent of the fair tax. I don't know if you are, but I'm not a proponent of a flat tax. I shouldn't say fair tax. I don't

think they're fair. I'm not a proponent of flat taxes where everybody pays the same amount. I think they're regressive. I don't think it's right for people who- I spend way more of my income every year than those people spend their income. So they're paying exponentially less than I am. And people who are of lesser means than myself don't need to be taxed at the same rate that I get taxed at. Right. I'm OK. I make an OK living and I'm fine with paying the tax rate that I'm paying.

I'm OK with it. I don't begrudge – I really genuinely don't. I don't begrudge paying my taxes at all. I don't, I don't mind a bit. I don't mind paying my property taxes. Don't get me wrong. I don't want them to go up. I'm not looking forward to increases. I'm not like, man, I hope this fucking tax all my money. Like I do need enough to live on and have a reason to continue to work. But it's insane that here you've got, you know, one of or maybe the wealthiest person in the world, or if not, one of the wealthiest people in the world, the self-styled mega rich, saying, tax me higher.

Who's spending proportionally more of their income per year? When you are rich, you spend much less of your income because you're using your money to make more money. So you're not, there's no need to spend all your money. And so you're spending so much less of your money just to even to live fucking ultra extravagantly. You're spending less money than I would spend because my paychecks go to, you know,

paying my mortgage, paying my car, paying my, you know, paying my mortgage, paying my car, paying my, you know, paying my, my certain bills that I, I think need, I need, or that make my life comfortable. I don't have a fucking fuck ton of money at the end of the month left over. I, I have a certain amount of money that I pay all my stuff with. And I have a little bit of money left over at the end of the month. That's what I have. He has, you know, there's no way this guy could even spend, how do you spend $6 million a year? And that's just what he's getting taxed, right?

How do you spend $6 million a year? The other $35 million that's take home. Unless you're fucking taking your private jet downtown every morning. Even then, $35 million, can you imagine? You know, and the thing is, it's not like he made $35 million once. He makes it every year. He's worth $50 billion. It's not like he's made $35 million and he's got to buy a house with it and a car with it.

Don't get me wrong. You'd still be fine. Yeah. But he's got all that shit. Yeah. Right? At this point, you've got all your stuff. Yeah.

There's nothing left for you to buy. If it was a thing that you wanted, your fucking Amazon cart doesn't have shit in it. You know what I mean? No want list. There's no want list there. Add this to fucking Kmart's layaway. You know what I mean? That shit doesn't exist.

This is another story or story idea that was suggested to us by one of our listeners. And the idea is that we take a look at Conservapedia. Conservapedia is they build themselves as like an alternative to Wikipedia because Wikipedia, of course, is a liberal bias. Liberal bias on Wikipedia. Never mind that it's just edited by peers. Only liberals have the Internet, Tom. It's true. Until now. Thankfully, they have their ownopedia.

That's just awesome. So they have Conservopedia, which they said is the, they bill themselves as the trustworthy encyclopedia. So since this is the trustworthy encyclopedia, we decided to take a look at it and, you know, maybe we can learn a thing or two. Sure, sure. You went and did a random search. I love that your random search showed up with false Messiah. That could not be better for this show. It really is. It really couldn't. Admittedly, like two or three random searches

just came up with like one word things, but this was like the third thing that came through. That's phenomenal. So false Messiah, this is a very short, I've noticed Conservapedia has a lot of short articles. Yeah, they do. I don't want to say they don't go in depth. Yeah, I don't want to say that that is a measure of their intelligence either.

I don't want to say that. I mean, I'll imply that shit all day, but I don't want to say that outright. Yeah, I'd write it on like a billboard, for example. I would do that. So false messiah, it says, is a term from the Bible describing a person who either unintendedly, which is spelled wrong, intendedly is what they wrote. It's unintendedly. That's – no, it's not – Unintendedly.

No, I think you're wrong. You're presuming it's unintendedly. But it's not. It's unintendedly. Oh, phenomenal. Yeah, that's – Who either unintendedly, so they did not intend to Ted. Ted.

Right. Or unintendedly, so they did not intend to Ted. Or willfully pretends to be the real Messiah. Or behaves in a manner which would suggest to many that he is the Messiah. I like the he. Often ending in disaster. That's a long sort of awkward sentence. Would you agree? That is a terribly written sentence. There's nothing.

Yeah, that's awkward. Although the title is religious in origin, it has been given to many secular leaders past and present. Among them, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Kim Jong Il, and most recently, Barack Obama. And it's got a big picture of Barack Obama. What I like about that is, you know, he got Barack Obama. And then they're like, oh, but by the way, other false messiahs have been around. So he's a false messiah. So first off, you're saying he's a false messiah.

Messiah. I don't even know. Who the fuck thinks Barack Obama is a messiah? But those other three. I mean you really wanted to find the most evil motherfuckers you could find to put in there with Barack Obama. You know, the best part is like Kim Jong- Il shouldn't even be on that list, right? It should be Kim Il Sung, who's president for life, even though he's dead of North Korea. Like he's he's actually a false messiah.

Right. Like he built himself as a basically as a god. And he was named president for life of the country even though he's fucking dead but the article is so it's a two sentence article it's got one misspelling and at least one factual error well then they said they're secular leaders you notice how they put that in there right given to many secular leaders right and then they put benito mussolini adolf hitler so they're saying secular is bad too, right? I mean, you're saying right there, you're going out of your way to say secular is bad. I hate to break it to you, but Adolf Hitler was in cahoots with the Pope, fuckwit.

This is, uh, Conservapedia is a bastion of insanity. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they pro-America or anti-America. You also found an article. This is a blog by somebody who spent two years in the Tea Party. I didn't poke around too much on this site, but I did read the article, and it seems like this person sort of joined the Tea Party or started going to meetings. I'm not sure if you join or sign up, but because of some genuine interest in the Tea Party, I don't think they went in looking for snark. If I went to a Tea Party meeting, I would not be going in thinking like, wow, a tea party.

They seem like a rational group. Like that's not that. But this person seems to have gone to some meetings thinking like, well, okay, you know, let's see what this is all about. And there's a really just mean, I mean, and not mean in the sense of like, I am being vindictive, but like,

Hey, here's what this is. Movement is really all about mean article. Um, tea party is, is all about one thing. And it's, it's all about, um, trying to force religious values into politics under the guise of economic anger. Yep. That's what the Tea Party is all about. And this article makes that abundantly clear. I think that they, when they first started out, there was that, you know, idea, you know, you say economic anger, what it came out as is taxed enough already, right?

That's what they first came out as. But when it first, when people first started doing these tea party rallies, Tom, we talked about this on Everyone's a Critic. It was just this sort of crazy group of people that glued a bunch of shit together. They're just like fucking Barack Obama. What you talking about, Willis? Like, you know, or, you know, I mean, really, like they just had some crazy shit that they would just like they they wanted to they were at times racist.

At other times, they were just, you know, completely insulting. They were anti-gay. They were anti-anti-liberal, anti, you know, anti basically, you know, thoughtful. And there just was a ton of shit that they would put up there in their signs that were just so different from everybody else. Nobody, there wasn't like one sort of, you know, here's a Tea Party sign. Hey, we've been taxed enough already. Ka-tunk.

And there's your Tea Party sign. No, there's just a million different signs. And some of them did have to do with economic anger. But most of them were just fucking crazy, either racist or like ultra religious. And those people were the ones I think that won out. Well, yeah, because, you know, here's the thing. They have a base, right? They've been around for a long time.

The crazy religious nutters have been controlling the Republican Party for an unfortunate period of time. And they know how to do this. They know how this game is played. And this is just a way for the Tea Party was just a way to assemble a group of people and make something seem like it's an authentic grassroots movement, when in fact, it was never anything more than this sort of bizarre attempt to continue to insert religion into politics. And by insert, I mean fucking force feed, constantly force feed. And all you have to do to know that is true is just take a look at the people who've emerged from the Tea Party. First of all, they all ran on a Republican ticket.

There was no Tea Party ticket. Right, right. You know, so to suggest that they were sort of like a legitimate third party movement, like that's a liar's statement. You know, they didn't run on the, not one of them ran on the Democratic ticket. Not one of them did, right? They all ran on the Republican ticket because they're just Republicans. You know, and look at the people that they've put out there. They've put out these crazy religious nuts. You know, the the poster people for the Tea Party, Sarah Palin.

Can you be a. I mean, well, Michelle Bachman, I guess you can be. Yes, you can. Yeah, we've proven you can be this. I have to say I genuinely am surprised. I thought Sarah Palin would have been the height of crazy in politics. Like, obviously, there's a lot of crazy in politics, but I thought she'd be the height of, you know, this is about as far as you can get and be this crazy. I'm really surprised by some of the people who are in the Republican field this year and how incredibly crazier they seem. Like when you're looking at Sarah Palin sort of fondly, like, oh. You're wistfully thinking of those days and like, man, Palin, didn't we? We had some good times, didn't we? We were right.

We had some good times. Remember that summer? It was just you and I. Oh, Palin, man. God, I miss you, you know? She seems... Balanced. Like, yeah, it almost feels like innocent.

You know, like, oh, here's this, just this delightful dummy and ha ha ha ha. Isn't it funny that she's not that bright? And she was. No, no, no. We had to play mean tricks and it was just – but man, the crazies now. The crazies now. Michelle Bachman? Yeah.

Rick Perry? They're going to be the Tea Party darlings this time around. They're going to be the Tea Party darlings this time around. The Tea Party, what the real values of the Tea Party I think are and we'll see later on, Ron Paul I think should be sort of – because what the Tea Party says to me when they first started was they were libertarians, right? And I think a lot of people mistook them for libertarians. They're like, oh, well, they're taxed enough already. They don't want any taxes. They don't want any new shit. These are the libertarians. They're like, oh, well, you know, they're taxed enough already. They don't want any taxes. They don't want any new shit.

They don't, you know, these are the libertarians of the world. But what really happened was, is that they were the Christian right, like the crazy farther Christian right than just the regular conservatives out there. And Ron Paul initially probably was a, you know, pretty big choice for the Tea Party. But now that the Christian right is in there, and don't get me wrong, Ron Paul's a religious guy. Ron Paul said some crazy shit that makes me think, I don't know that I'd want to fucking him being lead in anything because he's kind of crazy. But he's certainly less crazy than a lot of the people on that ticket, a lot of the people in these debates. And I wonder where Ron Paul's going to be sitting with the Tea Party

in a couple months. I wonder how they're going to be treating him because by your stated values, you should be loving this guy. Right. But the thing is that he's too libertarian for them. Right. I mean, he's he's the essence of of of real although he is religious. He's the essence of real small government Republicanism. And that's not what the Republican Party is all about anymore. And that's not what the Tea Party is all about. So he's going to get kicked to the curb. The real darlings are going to be the Bachmans, the Perrys, the Palins.

But I'm even seeing Palin. She's kind of getting shuffled off to the side. Yeah, sure. Lord, the day is at hand. We are in the last days. You are Jehovah God. off to the side. Lord, the day is at hand. We are in the last days. You are Jehovah God. You sent me another article from the Daily Beast,

which talks about Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry, and that they have ties to a fundamentalist movement known as Dominionism, which says Christians should rule the world. And when you first read that, it's like, wow, that seems like some conspiracy crazy stuff. But I'll tell you what, you can't sound crazier than the people these people follow. Right. You look at the, and it's not like they follow a pastor or some evangelical leader or just some character, cult leader type character who's got a smattering of followers and then will fade off into the night. We're talking about many, many leaders that all sound crazy, sound super, super crazy.

And they have churches that number in the thousands and thousands. Rick Perry had that prayer meeting at a stadium. Yeah. Really? This is a guy that we're potentially considering to have run the country? This is a guy who prays for rain. That's not good news. Well, there's a couple of things I want to talk about here.

First, with this – what is it called? Dominionism? Dominionism, yeah. With this dominionism stuff, this isn't a surprising thing. And I don't think it's a big conspiracy thing either because it makes sense, right? Ask a Muslim who they think is probably the most qualified to rule the world. Ask a Christian who they think – these are all people who think they're the chosen people. They already think that they're the people who are chosen by a magical man in the sky to rule the world already.

So this doesn't make – this is not a shock. This is what these people really think. So I'm not surprised in the least that somebody thinks this, that somebody would go through the trouble to be like, oh, well, I want the Christians to rule the world. Ask some Christians sometime what they think about this stuff. And they'll tell you straight away that they think a Christian is the most – the person who's most qualified to rule the world. Watch Jesus Camp. This Rick Perry thing, he gets these people together into this big fucking room and you start looking at all those guests that he invited to that fucking prayer circle thing and they're all fucking crazy people. Like they're not just,

they're not just, you know, I go to church on Sunday. I happen to be a Christian. Yeah. I believe in God. And, you know, I think that, you know, the Bible still has some things that it has to say this, you know, those are people I fucking you and I, Tom, we know we can deal with those people. They're perfectly fine. You know, Hey, if that's what you believe, that's what you believe. That's great. But these are people that think the reason why, you know, hey, if that's what you believe, that's what you believe, that's great. But these are people that think the reason why, you know, Katrina happened is because, you know, they have Mardi Gras on there. That's why Katrina happened is because Mardi Gras exists or a gay pride thing exists. Rick Perry at one point says, and I'm going to quote from him, he says, I'm all too

aware of government limitations when it comes to fixing, and he says fixing things that are spiritual in nature. That's where prayer comes in, and we need it now more than ever. With the economy in trouble, communities in crisis, and people adrift in a sea of moral relativism, we need God's help. Motherfucker, they fucking hired you down there to be an executor of the fucking state. They said, hey, you know what we need? We need a boss of Texas. And that means that when the fucking economy's in trouble, you don't fucking turn to your imaginary fucking friend for help. Okay? I don't even care if your friend was real. You shouldn't be turning to your real friends for help. You should be figuring that shit out on your own because they hired you to do that fucking job.

If I were to come into work and I were to say, hey, you know what? I need to do some web code today. I better call my fucking unemployed friend to come over and help me do this web code. I wouldn't have a fucking job. Your friend would. Yeah. So fucking don't call God when your communities are in crisis. Fucking figure out what's wrong with your communities because it's your job, dude.

It's a get out of responsibility free card, right? I mean, it's he's saying like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Everybody just settle down now. It's not up to me as the governor of the state of Texas to fix the economy of Texas. Everybody knows that God controls the economy. Really? Is he Keynesian? I mean, what's this?

Like, what? Fuck that noise. That's ridiculous. Nonsense. God and Milton Friedman are like fucking this, you know? Fucking break. In the name of Jesus, we speak that. Speak that. You know, Rachel Maddow has a like 14 or 15 minute segment where she kind of calls out how crazy Rick Perry's supporters are. in front of hundreds of people in all seriousness that um japan's economy never recovered

because the prime minister i think he said of japan had sex with a sun goddess yeah really really fucking said that shit you know um other people who claim that you know oprah's like i don't know what they were calling her like the the whore of Babylon or a harlot or something. Like, I mean, crazy stuff. Totally lunatic shit. Let me read directly from this. This is a guy named John Benefiel. And he says, you know, there's a statue in New York Harbor called the Statue of Liberty.

You know where we got that from? French Freemasons? Listen, folks. this is an idol, a demonic idol right there in the middle of New York Harbor. How do you believe that for real? I have no idea. I have no idea. How about that Jacobs woman?

The Blackbirds fell to the ground in Beebe, Arkansas. Well, the governor of Arkansas's name is Beebe, And also there was something out of Arkansas called Don't Ask, Don't Tell by a former governor. And this was proposed by Bill Clinton. And so could there be a connection? It could be because we've said it's okay for people who commit these kind of acts to be recognized, you know, in our military for the first time in our history. There is a potential that there is something that actually happened in the land where 100,000 drumfish died and also where these birds just fell out of the air. The problem is, you know, it's not just

a matter of, you know, well, we'll just, you know, got to live and let live. So Rick Perry's got some, you know, he's a religious fella. These are the people that these kind of crazy religious nuts are listening to. Right, right. Right? So Rick Perry is basically saying like, hey, hey, hey, it's not up to me to fix the economy. I'm going to turn to God. And when I think God, you know who I think?

I think my pastor. Let me give my pastor a call. Hey, pastor, can you take a break for a moment from suggesting that Japan's problems are because of sex with sun goddesses and that Oprah is a harlot and that the Statue of Liberty is a demonic fucking statue and that the birds that fell out of the sky are because of Don't Ask, Don't Tell? Because I've got some real problems up my sleeves. Because I've got some real problems up my sleeves. Really? That's not a person you want to hire for a job. I wouldn't let that guy work at fucking Tasty Freeze. I'd be afraid to eat whatever he fucking served me. But, you know, one of the things that I don't understand with this stuff, right?

They talk about specifically this one guy who's talking about Japan. Like that's the one that I don't understand because he keeps talking about like the sun goddess. And I'm like, wait, hold on now. Hold on. Don't you just believe in like one God? Don't you have like a monotheistic religion? I mean, monotheistic sort of precludes other gods and or goddesses. I mean, I don't really know.

I mean, I know quite a bit about Christianity. I grew up a Christian and I don't remember a sun goddess at all. Well, yeah, but it's the conflation of whatever fits, right? Whatever gets people worked up because people aren't going to think. These people – it's clear that – and I'm not saying this just to be mean. But it is to be mean. Don't get them wrong. Yeah.

No, being mean is a wondrous side effect but it's evident right yeah that there's not an encouragement for people to consider right it's they're not being encouraged to stop and and and think about these things for for even a moment because that's not what that's not what religion does. And I'm not saying it just to bag on religion. I'm just trying to be real honest. You can say something crazy that contradicts the fundamental nature of monotheism because the people who are sitting in those rows aren't sitting in those rows, aren't sitting in those pews, aren't waving their hands in the air hoping to have the rational side

of their selves appealed to. That's not even part of this game. I firmly believe that. You cannot sit in a church and say, I'm here to just really have a thoughtful moment. It doesn't fucking work. So you can say it's a sun goddess, right? You can be like, yeah, it's a sun goddess. Woo-hoo.

Had sex with a sun goddess. Sun goddess came down and fucked. Japan. The entirety of Japan. No, no, Tom. It was the entirety of Japan. I've seen that Japanime. Tell you what, man.

Burn your tongue. That's a. It's like you think eating like a pizza hot your tongue. That's a... Fuck. It's like you think eating like a pizza hot out of the oven is a bad call. Jesus. Oh, man. It's terrible. As best as condom.

Lambskin. It smells like urine. You got some Ziki sauce on there? I need it. I need it badly. Make sure it's cold. It's like a kebab in there. She had a yeast infection.

She was baking bread in there. Don't worry, baby. It plumps you in your pockets. Don't worry, baby. It plumps you in your pockets. Sex with a son. It's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard. Oh, man. Somebody said that shit out loud.

And not privately. Not like, you know, ranting in a fucking padded cell. Somebody said that in front of a lot of people. They probably make more money than I do. Oh, that's the saddest thing I've heard today. Oh my God. Oh.

It's so so funny. Oh, man. So we got a couple of emails, Tom. The first was from Kobe and Kobe sent us a message. First off, Kobe, I've got to hand it to you. The advice animal you leave at the bottom. He leaves us a picture. We're going to post it on our site, but I'm going to hand it to you. The advice animal you leave at the bottom, he leaves us a picture. We're going to post it on our site,

but I'm going to describe it. It's a picture of God's face, at least what, you know, like what the Renaissance painters thought God looked like. Right. So it's a picture of sort of God's head on a, on a piece,

on a square. And it says on it, create entire universe out of nothing. Need Adam's rib to create one more thing. It's fucking great. It's very funny. But what Kobe says, he says he ran into our podcast by mistake after searching reading material on cognitive dissonance. And this happens a lot, by the way, Tom.

It does. What a fortuitous name we picked. It's a pretty good name. I mean, because a lot of people, a lot of by the way, Tom. It does. What a fortuitous name we picked. It's a pretty good name. I mean, because a lot of people, a lot of smart people find us by mistake. And he says, I want to read directly. He says, I got to admit, at first, you presented the appearance of just cursing, crazy-ass rambling people compared to the more serene, popular skeptic podcasts like Point of Inquiry and Skeptic's Guide to the Galaxy. It's actually to the universe, isn't it? Yeah.

I think it is. It's the universe. You're constraining Skeptic's Guide here, Kobe. It's actually the universe. It's not just the galaxy. But you're right. When Tom and I first started this venture a long, long time ago and we decided to add to our old podcast some skeptical stuff, both of us decided a long time ago. We were just like, we are not going to be as smart as these guys ever.

And the people that run Point of Inquiry and the people that run Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, those are smart fucking people. They are people that they know their stuff. They understand the science behind stuff. And they have great opinions and they're intelligent. We are not those fucking people at all. Uh, we just try to be funny. That's really all we're doing.

And we try to make sure that people understand that there's a lot of rage that has built up, uh, in the skeptic community by people that went for, when people do stupid shit and there's nobody that really rages about it. I, I, I,

I actually think you know i i was refreshed uh when perry was still alive on skeptics guide to the universe um when he would be uh when he would actually be you know a little enraged about shit uh it seems like there's a lot of people that just like they even had i think on skeptics out of the universe and they have like they interviewed like some person who thought they talked to ghosts or were a psychic or some shit. And I'm just like, I would never talk to that person. There's no way to do it politely and I value my time. And I just mean that.

I have respect for my time. So why would I do that? That's not a thing to do. But we are different. I know we're different. And we're different from those people. We're certainly not as smart, but I think in a lot of ways we bring something different

than they do. We're not the same. We're not less. We're just different. We are better. Better. Just better. You started drinking early tonight, Tom. You started drinking very early.

You know, it's great to get this message, though. It makes me feel good that somebody's listening to it and they like it. Please, what we'd really love to get is more of these messages. It makes us feel good about sort of the product that we're putting out there. And I would encourage everyone to rate us on iTunes, please. I know that we've had 26 ratings for the past several weeks. It would be great if you could just take a couple minutes and write a quick review on iTunes. Leave us five stars or we'll mock you mercilessly.

Just leave us whatever you guys think we're worth. Five stars is probably what we're worth. That's exactly what we're worth. If they had six, six would be what we were worth. But just leave something because it's good to have those ratings. And it makes other people see it and be like, oh, hey, this must be a good show. We also got an email from someone by the name of Carrie. And Carrie sent an email and said that she's a social psychologist and she said that initially she was

a little turned off on the topic of cognitive dissonance because that was, I think, it sounds like it was her dissertation topic, which probably would turn me off on it too. But she says that she eventually became a fan of the show and she lists her sister-in-laws

as sort of pointing her to this show. But one of the things she says is it's refreshing to hear cynical, sarcastic atheists, all good things in my book, who clearly are caring individuals with a strong moral code. This comes across clearly in your rants. Too often people think atheism equals a lack of compassion or morals, and it's nice to see an example that refutes this. And I think that's a great thing to say about us. I think we do have a pretty strong moral code goingutes this. And I think that's a great thing to say about us. I think we do have a pretty strong moral code going into this. Tom and I both have a sense of, I think, a pretty strong sense of right and wrong that is not steeped in religion. And you can have that without

religion. And I'll say too, from a slightly different perspective is it's become evident to me that you can raise children without a religious upbringing and still have a strong – there is absolutely no correlation there. And I think that's something that's important for people to understand. I think a lot of people don't, genuinely don't get that, which truly baffles me. But it's absolutely true. And we appreciate you noticing that, you know, as we're stealing your wallet. Yeah. You know, keep your back turned.

We'll just pay no attention. Nothing to see here. We got a message from John. If you call us at our, we have a voicemail that you can leave a message at. If you call us at 740-743-6828, that's 740-74-DOUBT, you can leave a message for us. And if you leave a message, we'll play it if it's not too long. And John left us a message, so we want to play that message right now. Hey, Cecil and Tom, it's not too long. And John left us a message, so we want to play that message right now. Hey, Cecil and Tom, it's John.

Just wanted to let you know I love the show. I normally listen to each episode two or three times. My problem is by the time I get the chance to share info on the topics you cover, I forget a lot of it. So I figured you could use some extra work and might consider posting your show notes on the topics he covered as text. I know you said you do that for your job, so maybe that would be easy for you. I'd like to share them with my family because, unfortunately, some of them like Palin and Bachman,

and when I tell them about things, they don't really believe what I'm saying. So I'd like to give them some information and maybe wake them up on things. Thanks a lot. Keep up the good work. Later. He said, I'd like to give you some extra work. John, I want to explain something to you. Tom does nothing, okay?

Tom does fucking zero for this podcast. I'm considering downgrading that too. What are you going to do? How the fuck could you do that? I already called the show in, you know, so I'm not sure. You're just going to log in one day and it's going to be like a totally different person, like a substitute Tom. What you're going to do is you're going to be downstairs playing video games. You're going to put your son there and he's going to be talking.

Four-year-old. He'd make as much sense as the sun goddess person. Admittedly. But no, it's a difficult thing for me to write detailed notes. I normally just write very quick notes. So I don't have detailed notes. I apologize. But, you know, if a listener wanted to, you could go through and take the notes that I list and put them in the comments section and just write notes underneath.

That'd be fine. And if somebody did that or sent them to me, I would post them on the blog. No problem. So if somebody sent me show notes that were more detailed than the ones I put up every episode, I'd put them up as a blog post, give you credit for it. I don't think I'm going to do it. No offense, John, but it's just something I, you know, I, I already do two podcasts, mix them. And my show notes are very, very lame. I recognize that, but I just, I just can't put that much effort into it. And I'm busy riding coattails. You see, I've got a problem that, you know, I don't want to set a precedent. It's hard for you to type on those coattails. Cause you don't know where I'm going to go next. I just don't want any responsibility. That's the, I can turn at any moment and you'd hit Z instead of X.

It would be a very difficult thing. Thank you for the message, everyone. And please send emails and comment on our blog, comment on Facebook, and rate us in different places. Tell all the people about this show that you wouldn't mind losing as a friend. We'd love to increase the audience. Right now we're reaching about 500 people every time, and we'd like to reach more. So if you could just tell one person, it would help us spread the word.

So we hope that you'd do that. You know, you could also buy a lot of merchandise. I'm just saying. We currently have, if you're interested, on the left side of our page, we have a cafe press store with cognitive dissonance wear. So if you would like to take a look at some T-shirts and some pajamas, and I think there's a fucking bib in there for a baby, like a fucking lapel sticker. I don't even know what you would do with most of these things. I don't know why. They're useless.

They're useless junk. So if you want to buy some useless junk, why don't you buy it here? I think we get some proceeds, although I can't be sure. I'm not sure. You probably have to have more than one purchase ever. Yeah, more than one purchase. To get a thing from that.

If you would like a shirt, though, that's a great place to get it. So after you've picked up your shirt so people can stop and stare and ooh and ah at the camaraderie that you will all share as fans of the show. And they'll be like, I don't think you're using cognitive dissonance right. You see what the term actually refers to. Yeah, fucking thanks. I got that. Thanks, man.

We appreciate it. We just wanted to rope in social psychologists. What the fuck? There's such a large demographic. We're like, what demographic should we appeal to? It's the most unqualified demographic for us to reach to. Oh, man, it's awesome. We have no basis whatsoever talking to these people.

No, no, none at all. They should be... Are you kidding me? I can't believe my voice can even be heard by them. I know, it's awesome. I would assume it would skate under the radar so low as to be beneath their notice. It's like a dog whistle. I just can't even hear it.

It's like covering their ears like aware they're vaguely uncomfortable. Like, what the fuck? God, it's like the brown note, you know? That's what this podcast is. It's one long brown note. That's what this podcast is. It's one long brown note. So if you want to pay money for the brown note instead of getting it free, the many, many ways we offer this show free, you can go.

If you've got an Android phone, you can download our app. The app's two bucks. We couldn't make it free because we couldn't make the app. So we had to pay somebody to make the app. That means it's two bucks. That means the developer gets a buck. We get a buck. If we get enough bucks, I'll get a better microphone.

So if everyone who listens to our podcast bought the app, Tom would have a better microphone. Yeah, if I then threw in a couple hundred more bucks. Or if you don't have an Android phone but you know somebody who does, tell them about the podcast. But first tell them about the app. Yeah, I made my wife download the app. How is it? Is it okay? Yeah, it's actually a really good app.

I had an Android phone. I had to trade it in for a BlackBerry. It just wasn't right for work. As apps go, I think it's actually a really well-designed little app. It does exactly what it's supposed to do. It's pretty smooth. The interface looks good. It's a nice app.

Check it out. I mean, if you've got an Android phone, you've got nothing better to do. Yeah, really. There's nothing to do on this thing. You're like a huge dork who plays with a cell phone all the time. So take out your cell phone while you're sitting on the crapper, download Cognitive Dissonance, and give me a buck. Damn it.

Give me a dollar right now. On that note, we're going to wrap it up this time, and we're going to leave you, as always, with the skeptic's creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. shit. Couched in scientician double bubble toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative acupunctuating pressurized stereogram pyramidal free

energy healing, water downward spiral brain dead pan sales pitch, late night info docutainment. Leo Pisces, cancer cures, detox reflex, foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, Crystal balls.

Bigfoot. Yeti. Aliens. Churches. Mosques and synagogues. Temples. Dragons. Giant worms.

Atlantis. Dolphins. Truthers. Birthers. Witches. Wizards. Vaccine nuts. Shaman healers.

Evangelists. Conspiracy. Double speak stigmata. Nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this.

Thank you for listening to Cognitive Dissonance. If you want to reach us by phone, you can call us at 740-743-6828. That's 740-74-DOUBT. Long distance rates apply. Send us an email at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at disissonance underscore pod. you