The Scathing Atheist - 545: Sound of Barbenheimer Freedom Edition

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

On this week’s episode: The sound of freedom is apparently just lying ... We learn that it's only okay to become death when you're fully clothed ... And we care about Barbie more than child sex traf...ficking, like the future atheists want. --- To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist To buy our book, click here: https://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-Crisis-Religion-Ruined-Pandemic/dp/B08L2HSVS8/ If you see a news story you think we might be interested in, you can send it here: scathingnews@gmail.com To check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticrat To check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-movies To check out our half-sister show, Citation Needed, click here: http://citationpod.com/ To check out our sister show’s sister show, D and D minus, click here: https://danddminus.libsyn.com/ To hear more from our intrepid audio engineer Morgan Clarke, click here: https://www.morganclarkemusic.com/ --- Headlines: Sound of Freedom producer says the movie security team rescued 200 trafficked kids irl: https://www.christianpost.com/news/sound-of-freedom-producer-says-200-kids-rescued-during-filming.html Trump hosts screening party at Bedminster: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/20/donald-trump-sounds-of-freedom-screening-golf-course-qanon Bigots have a series of freakouts about Barbie movie: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/republicans-throwing-temper-tantrums-over-barbie_n_64bd7fbce4b093f07cb51775 Hindus are mad that Oppenheimer says words from their book while naked: https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/media/india-oppenheimer-backlash-hindu-right-intl-hnk/index.html New Information Platform Seeks to Create Family Friendly Digital Town Square: https://www.theepochtimes.com/tech/new-social-media-platform-seeks-to-create-family-friendly-digital-town-square-4631773

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Warning, this episode contains so much profanity, we even started swearing in British, like a bunch of wankers, bellends, and knopsacks. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by MySheetsRock and by the new presentation software for American history teachers in Florida. White PowerPoint. White PowerPoint. Lots of good people on both slides. And now, The scathing atheist.
Starting point is 00:00:26 Well, hello there. It's Thursday. It's July 27th. And it's Cross Atlantic Communication Day. Right, or as Marsh would call it, the new world. No, no, it's a fad I'm telling you, it'll never catch on, never catch on. I'm Michael Marshall. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright.
Starting point is 00:01:15 And from John Travolta's New Jersey, Kim Cattrall's Liverpool, and Iggy Pop's Ann Arbor, this is The Scathing Atheist. Oh, this week's episode, the sound of freedom is apparently just lying. 9,000 school kids will be sent to Coventry by the Christians. And we care about Barbie more than child sex trafficking, like the future atheists want. But first, the Eliatride. so we got a letter from a christian in our p.o box this week like a handwritten one with a pencil which i'll admit isn't a terribly common occurrence don't get me wrong we get all kinds of cool stuff from listeners.
Starting point is 00:02:05 Folks send us books they wrote, gifts, the stuff they made while they listened to our show. But Christians, they usually stick to email. Anyway, my letter writer told us that he had listened to the show. No, he had not. And that he considered us to be honest and open to debate. See, told you he hadn't listened to the show. And if we could answer one simple question, we could prove to him that evolution was real. Now, I hate to disappoint you, but no, we couldn't. His so-called question was just the usual Christian misunderstanding of evolution wrapped in a barely discernible question mark. But it did make me think of a Facebook post that gets shared from time to time in atheist and science groups. You've probably seen it. It's from
Starting point is 00:02:52 a group called Christians Against Science, which is kind of worthy of a diatribe all on its own. And the post reads, quote, The Earth is 4,000 years old. Change my mind. And the first comment on that post replies, the half-life of uranium-238 is 4.5 billion years. It decays into radium-226, which in turn decays into radon-222. Radon-222 becomes polonium-210, which finally decays into a stable, nuclide lead. The existence of lead as an element disproves the 4,000-year-old myth. And look, for the sake of the pedants and the chemists in our audience, I'll point out that that's actually not exactly true scientifically. Like, not all lead comes from uranium-238.
Starting point is 00:03:43 I mean, it does, but it's not in that order. Specifics are boring. But the point, generally speaking, stands. Anyone can buy themselves a bit of polonium-210 and 280 days later, give or take a couple days, thank you, pettance, they end up with right? They can monitor it. They can test it. Hell, they can watch it happen under an atomic microscope. It's boring, but the point is they could. And this is true all the way up the chain of radiological decay, right? There are no missing links, no need for meta-analysis or an advanced understanding of mathematics. It is actually, observably there.
Starting point is 00:04:31 And look, I bring this up not because I think if I pointed this out to the author of that letter, he would throw his hands in the air and start fucking his fishing buddies like he's always dreamed of. But as atheists, we're often told by theists that the path to non-belief is down the road of just a few cleverly answered apologetics. But that isn't true, right? The existence of lead is just another piece of evidence that wherever that mystical intellectual place they keep telling us we can get them to is we're here. We're surrounded by it, right? And I'm not an idiot, right? If filling in the God of the gaps worked, we'd have done away with religion right about when nobody sailed off the edge of the earth. But it is worth remembering that evidence for the non-existence of God isn't just in clever places theists demand we put it. It's everywhere.
Starting point is 00:05:28 Morally, philosophically, logically, wherever you turn with enough inquiry, you will find evidence of the failure of the God hypothesis. And too often we, as atheists, waste our time pretending otherwise because theists tell us to. Look, I stopped believing in God because Carl Sagan reminded me that this planet had thousands of confident religions, right? That was it. That was the crack in the dam. And honestly, the rest was just paperwork, right? And I'm lucky in a thousand ways that I got to deconvert the way I did, right? I didn't risk my family or community to do it. I actually found a community that not only welcomed me, but gave me a platform. And now that platform has grown to the point that Christians who haven't listened to my podcast send me letters telling me that I could change their mind with one simple trick.
Starting point is 00:06:22 And look, I'm not going to write that Christian back. I know the only reason that he wrote me a handwritten letter was so that I would take the time to write him back. But if I did, it only seems fair to tell him that the answers he seeks are right there at the tip of his pencil.
Starting point is 00:06:38 They're talking about you, Jesus. I interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines tonight are the Vodka and Kahlua to my cream, Michael Marshall and Eli Bosnick gentlemen. Are you ready to Caucasian? I guess. I mean,
Starting point is 00:06:53 it's a podcast where we laugh at our own jokes. Heath. We've already hit Caucasian. Yeah. And I'm from the North of England. I haven't seen the sun in 16 years and my spice rack consists of nothing but salt. So yeah, I'm ready to call it.
Starting point is 00:07:05 Yeah. All right. Got it. We're all set. Perfect. The white Russian. And speaking of white guys, let's segue to Sheetz. They're going to love this.
Starting point is 00:07:14 For a quick word from our sponsor, My Sheetz Rock, a very diverse and woke company, I'm sure. They just came back, Keith. They just came back. Their second spot back. All right. You guys ready for the My Sheetz Rock ad? came back, Keith. They just came back. It's their second spot back. Alright, you guys ready for the My Sheets Rock ad? Oh, absolutely. Oh, no.
Starting point is 00:07:31 I'm afraid I've got to sit this one out. What? Why not? My Sheets Rock are amazing. No, no, I know, but, you know, the British, we don't believe in sheets. You don't? What? No, no, we don't. We just, we've got the family quilt. You know, my family took ours off Mrs. Quilcham when she died and we just pass it down. Right.
Starting point is 00:07:48 Okay. Well, MySheetsRock created the regulator sheets, which are designed specifically to keep hot sleepers cool and cold sleepers comfortable. They regulate temperature, wick moisture, stay breathable, and are so soft you'll sleep comfortably every night. That's because these sheets are made from best-in-class bamboo rayon, the holy grail of sheeting. This miracle material transfers body heat two times more effectively than regular sheets and reduces humidity by 50%, so you can experience your best night's sleep yet. Ah, I see. Yeah, the family quilt, it's mostly like potato sack, kind of Hessian. Although, I do think there's some wedding dress in there somewhere as well. That's right, Keith.
Starting point is 00:08:25 My Sheets Rock sent us a set to try, and they quickly became my favorite sheets. In fact, since then, Anna and I have bought two more sets. Oh, we had a set of quilts for the twin beds before the war and before the pox. But then, of course, we had to boil them for soup. Don't believe me? Their five-star customer reviews speak for themselves. Plus, they offer a 90-day risk-free trial and free shipping and returns. Check out MySheetsRock at MySheetsRock.com slash scathing
Starting point is 00:08:51 and enter our code scathing for 10% off and free shipping. That's MySheetsRock.com slash scathing, code scathing. MySheetsRock, not whatever thing Marsh is describing. Thank you. Those sheets are the best thing we ate all year. Okay, now that I believe. Sure. And we're back in our lead story tonight.
Starting point is 00:09:15 I'm going to miss you, my sheets rock. In our lead story tonight. How do you fuck up being against child sex trafficking? It's so easy to get that right. But as you already know, if you're a long-time listener, every headline we do
Starting point is 00:09:31 can start with the Christian right ruins everything. And I guess if you're a new listener, that might sound hyperbolic, but they managed to fuck up
Starting point is 00:09:40 being anti-child sex trafficking. They did that badly somehow. And the latest example is the QAnon stoking Christian movie, Sound of Freedom, that hit theaters this month. And while it's technically not official QAnon material, it sits upon a throne of lies inside a castle of lies held up by an intricate system of trusses that are in fact liars who lie. The main plot of the movie is made up. It's supposed to be based on a true story,
Starting point is 00:10:11 but that part's made up. The group the movie is based on is highly questionable. There's a very silly conspiracy theory surrounding the movie tickets, and the producers are claiming the movie also happened in real life while they were shooting the movie all such very obvious lying throughout yeah this is less of a walks like a duck quacks like a duck situation and more of a the director has given several direct interviews in which he proclaims to be a duck situation. Right, yeah. Seven interviews that were explicitly about why he explicitly has a cocked, grouchy penis and why he's slathered in hoisin sauce. Yeah, absolutely.
Starting point is 00:10:50 Yeah, exactly. Absolutely correct. So the movie is loosely based on the story of Tim Ballard, a former Homeland Security agent who founded a vigilante strike force team called Operation Underground Railroad, or OUR. The group claims they go around the world rescuing victims of child sex trafficking.
Starting point is 00:11:13 Ballard is also a devout Mormon and a devout QAnon lunatic, not surprisingly. And Jim Caviezel, who plays Ballard in the movie, is also a QAnon lunatic. So they made the plot as close as they could to, you know, rescuing kids from a pizza dungeon right before Hillary murder-eat-fucks-them in some order. But they didn't want to be directly QAnon the movie quite so obviously, so they move it from Washington, D.C. to Columbia, district of, it's very subtle. And yes, spoiler, they win because fucking Jesus or something. And yes, it is very much on the docket for God awful movies.
Starting point is 00:11:53 Oh, yeah, it is. We had a lot of folks wondering why we didn't do this one while it was in theaters. And people, sometimes a movie just needs to be a live show. Stay tuned, everyone. Stay tuned. So, so much looking forward to that. So the vigilante strike force team is, first of all,
Starting point is 00:12:11 very possibly not that at all. And very possibly making this problem worse to whatever extent they actually do any of the things they say they do. For example, they've been criticized for broadcasting the victims
Starting point is 00:12:24 of human trafficking without regard for those people's privacy. Jeez. Seems like you can just do your raid without the bonus content for your fucking vlog, but apparently not. Yep. Also, despite what OUR claims, a bunch of their so-called operatives are not people with experience in the military or law enforcement or special ops or any of that stuff. According to Vice News, a bunch of them are just real estate bros doing like dive rolls for the camera
Starting point is 00:12:52 for absolutely no reason because they get excited about that. Vice also found out that during a failed mission in Haiti, Ballard was certain the team was going to find a missing kid because Ballard got a tip from a psychic in Utah. Her name is Janet, by the way. These people are the fucking worst. They also they take credit for literally anything.
Starting point is 00:13:15 Like they took credit for one rescue operation because they supplied some of the money that bought some of the trained police dogs that worked on some of the mission. And therefore, this was an all you on some of the mission. And therefore, this was an all you are collaboration with the police. Nonsense. Also, Ballard stood in Congress telling about how all you are rescued a victim called Liliana, even though she actually had already rescued herself years before she ever met all you are. He still took credit for that. She rescued herself. She got herself out of the situation. Right. And keep in mind that this group's own story is that they roll heavily armed into sovereign nations to pursue extrajudicial justice. Which, even if they did do those things, and to be clear, they do not, that is called an invasion. They are doing hobby invasions of other countries.
Starting point is 00:14:04 Badly and maybe lying about a bunch of them. Yes. And while we're evaluating the truth of Tim Ballard and his team, it's worth mentioning that he did an interview with Jordan Peterson last week. So already not great for truth value stuff. And during that appearance, Ballard claimed that his team just recently raided a so-called baby factory somewhere in West Africa where kids were sold for satanic ritual abuse and organ harvesting. Because, you know, the organs of kids have the best adrenochrome for Illuminati getting high at parties. That's a real QAnon thing that they believe. That guy rolls into sovereign nations with a machine gun, people. With a machine gun.
Starting point is 00:14:50 Yikes. And, you know, it's a bit rich for a Mormon guy to criticize anyone for being a baby factory. That's the first thing I'm going to say here. Very good point. But also purely from an organ harvesting perspective, using babies, it just makes so little sense. Thank you. harvesting perspective, using babies, it just makes so little sense. It's like when restaurants serve you baby carrots, like, okay, they're sweeter, but you need way more of them to fill you up. Just wait until it's a full carrot. Yeah. It's like the veal of the Illuminati
Starting point is 00:15:14 hormone Coke party thing. Exactly. Yeah. Weird. And speaking of insane liars, Tim Ballard actually advised Donald Trump on the issue of ridiculous QAnon stuff in 2019 while Trump was in office. And of course, Trump was claiming the advisory position was all about child sex trafficking and nothing else. But there's a zero percent chance of having a single conversation with Tim Ballard that doesn't end with a Jewish lizard alien at the top of a Rico chart with yarn and pushpins everywhere. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:47 Well, that relationship with Trump is apparently still going. And the 37 times indicted felon, Donald Trump, hosted a screening of Sound of Freedom last week at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club. Minster, New Jersey Golf Club. The liar-themed guest list included Carrie Lake, Jack Posobiec, and Steve Bannon. This all happened, by the way, 30 miles from Eli's house. Yes, it did. Okay, why does everything bad always happen
Starting point is 00:16:18 about half an hour or so away from Eli's house? We had this screening. We had the crypto scammer. We've got the Supreme Court judge who lives worryingly close to you. But Eli, we did warn you not to buy a property on a hell mouth. That was advice we did try to give.
Starting point is 00:16:33 It doesn't matter how good the prices are. You just don't do it. Get it on the bounce of that hell mouth probably. Exactly. I caught my house on the bounce. So here's the latest lie from the Sound of Freedom people. During a recent interview,
Starting point is 00:16:49 the producer of the movie told a story about how Jim Caviezel's wife was responsible for saving a bunch of kids from real-life human traffickers in Cartagena, Colombia. Her name is Carrie.
Starting point is 00:17:01 By the way, Carrie Caviezel. She doesn't get named for the entire article in the Christian Post, so we're going to give her a way, Carrie Caviezel. She doesn't get named for the entire article in the Christian Post. So we're going to give her a name. Carrie Caviezel, The Wish-Granting Weasel is the name of my new children's book, by the way, if anyone is interested. Excellent. Yeah, her name is Carrie Caviezel. So it all started when Jim wanted to shoot this movie in Columbia.
Starting point is 00:17:20 But Carrie had seen Narcos on Netflix and she was scared and didn't want Jim to go. But then Tim Ballard said he knew 30 ex-Navy SEALs who could run security and Carrie's fear was allayed at that point. Right. Because she's a gullible moron. Right. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Then one day during the movie shoot, a bunch of those ex-Navy SEALs were gone from the set all of a sudden. And it turns out they were saving kids from human trafficking exactly like in the movie, but in real life. So cool. Well, yeah, apparently that's the story. The Navy SEALs were just walking around Cartagena that day and somebody was like, kids but like i'm assuming in spanish and the seals were like no way this is so cool this is perfect for promoting the movie say yes say yes
Starting point is 00:18:10 and we'll do something and they busted the trafficking ring in the story saving more than 200 kids right and and he's not being vague by the way that's what the fucking article yeah it says more than 200 more than two. You round about 200 child sex trafficking victims. I feel like you do a head count when you're fucking saving child sex trafficking. Ah, fucking ballpark, whatever. Yeah, I mean, bear in mind, he is a Mormon. They stopped counting child sex trafficking victims
Starting point is 00:18:36 at 13, you know, otherwise known as a Duggars Dozen. Oh, yikes. Okay. That seemed like a very obvious lie, that whole story. So I did a quick Google, assuming that kind of thing might pop up in the news somewhere if it actually happened, right? I found the Christian Post article that I was already looking at. I found an article from the journalism team at movieguide.com with a link to their source.
Starting point is 00:19:03 Their source was the article at the Christian Post. And I found another article in the National Catholic Register with no sources listed. And I found a self-proclaimed Christian journalist on Twitter who just repeated the story with no sources.
Starting point is 00:19:19 What's so amazing about this lie is that it's very obvious that, like, they all went out for beers or they had fucking water slide tickets on the day and they were like oh shit Carrie Caviezel the wish granting weasel is going to be so mad at us what is she like so she won't be mad at us child
Starting point is 00:19:33 sex travel yeah we'll just say that even though that's what the movies yeah it'll be like a super cool coincidence and it worked on Carrie Caviezel so they were like this is great let's repeat this for adults so it's either that or there genuinely was a child sex trafficking ring that they stumbled. So they were like, this is great. Let's repeat this for adults. So it's either that or there genuinely was a child sex trafficking ring
Starting point is 00:19:48 that they stumbled on while they were there. Like their fucking murder she wrote and everywhere they go, they just happen to stumble onto the one thing that they do.
Starting point is 00:19:56 It could be that either. Okay. Well, they should shoot a movie like half hour from Eli's house just based on like the stats we have. All right. Well, that brings us
Starting point is 00:20:03 to my favorite part. And that would be when idiots have a meltdown because they don't know how anything works. just based on like the stats we have. All right, well, that brings us to my favorite part. And that would be when idiots have a meltdown because they don't know how anything works. So the movie is doing way too well in theaters with over $100 million in box office already. Not happy about that. But a bunch of that money came from a promotion by Angel Studios called Pay It Forward Ticket Sales.
Starting point is 00:20:23 They allowed people to buy extra tickets for someone who might not be able to afford it. They allowed people to buy extra tickets for someone who might not be able to afford it, and then people could theoretically claim the free seat at a future showing. This led to a bunch of sales for empty seats. And we know that because QAnon lunatics are idiots and had a giant freakout when they saw empty theaters, but they couldn't buy seats on their ticket app. So, we got a long series of QAnon detectives putting up their shocking expose
Starting point is 00:20:49 video about the Illuminati pedophile cartel trying to sabotage this extremely important movie. Right. By buying tickets for it. It's the perfect crime. Yeah. It's either that or all those empty seats and empty theaters where moviegoers who got abducted and sex trafficked.
Starting point is 00:21:06 Oh my God, this is bigger than we thought. No, I knew it. They thought AMC was in on it too. They thought AMC was like, fuck it. They thought AMC took the movie and put it in their theaters and then fucked with a few of the theaters by like messing with the AC or something. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:23 Next up in headlines. Sometimes you eat the Barbie. Sometimes, well, the AC or something. Yeah. Next up in headlines. Sometimes you eat the Barbie. Sometimes, well, the Barbie eats you. And sometimes you have a public image based on your powerful, resilient manliness that you think you have. And then you get triggered by the independent spirit of a doll in a movie. And you end up losing a fight that your opponent doesn't even know about. in a movie and you end up losing a fight that your opponent doesn't even know about. And that all happens for the whole world to see on the internet because you're an idiot who put it there on purpose. Well, that stuff happened to several Christian right lunatics and also a
Starting point is 00:21:57 Jewish right lunatic, thanks to the highly successful release of the Barbie movie in theaters last week. It's weird that I constantly find myself saying, eh, I guess I'm not really looking forward to the culture, but the backlash is going to be amazing. Oh, man. All right. So the freak out roster includes Charlie Kirk, Ted Cruz and Ben Shapiro. So let's start with the most important thing, making fun of their physical appearances because they're bad. They're bad looking people that are bad. I mean, Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro both look like Pinocchios
Starting point is 00:22:32 that didn't quite make it to real boy status. And Ted Cruz looks like a Jepetophile. So I can see why this movie about dolls really hits so hard for them. Jepetophile. Jepetophile is fantastic. And he does. The thing is,
Starting point is 00:22:45 Ted Cruz, he's got a beard now. And you know that joke about some people with beards that they look the same if you rotate their heads 180
Starting point is 00:22:50 degrees? Well, somehow for Ted Cruz, it also works if you only rotate him 90 degrees or like any other number of degrees.
Starting point is 00:22:58 Yeah, exactly. Perfect 360 degree rotational symmetry. It's like a Wolverine at hospice. It's just not exactly. Escherian.
Starting point is 00:23:05 Yeah, and Ben Shapiro, he looks like one of those inflatable man dolls you can get. But instead of being made for a bachelorette party, he was made for a funeral party. And then Charlie Kirk
Starting point is 00:23:15 is the same thing, but was made for a Nazi party. For a Nazi party. There you go. Charlie Kirk looks like the archenemy of a serial mascot, right? Like he just ate
Starting point is 00:23:24 like some Keebler elves that he hunted in a hedge maze or something. I don't know. He's really happy about it. He's terrifying. So for anyone who's not familiar, Charlie Kirk is the founder of Turning Point USA, a Christian right propaganda mill that travels the country going to schools to infect children with those ideas. These are the groomers we need to
Starting point is 00:23:45 worry about right there. Turning point USA. And naturally, Kirk is a bigot who called for a boycott of Barbie because the movie is, quote, trans propaganda that is in this hyper feminine, ultra pink. Don't say propaganda again. Propaganda thing. But it's really been taken over by the trans mafia, end quote. To be clear, because that attempted word talking was fucking insane, the trans propaganda from the trans mafia
Starting point is 00:24:15 was a reference to one of the characters in the movie being played by Hari Neff, who happens to be trans. That's it. Right, which is amazing because it puts the right in this amazing catch-22 because who happens to be trans. That's it. Right. Which is amazing because it puts the right in this amazing Catch-22
Starting point is 00:24:27 because they have to be like stupid women in their empowerment. Except for that lady who isn't a lady. She's just empowering them. Okay. Fuck, they're serpentining on me. They're serpentining.
Starting point is 00:24:43 And I'm sorry, what is the trans mafia? Is it like La Cosa Nostra slash Nostril? Or I guess La Cosa Laurel? Maybe? I mean, that's Italian pronoun humor. It's niche, but I'm doing it. Well done. There's a vocab student out there loving that
Starting point is 00:24:59 one, Marge. Bravo, brava. Yeah, so next up, we have Ted Cruz. Is he a fragile Christian man who's afraid of a doll? No, of course not. He has a very serious geopolitical motivation for not liking the movie. It's not about
Starting point is 00:25:15 feminism being scary. It's about maritime oil contracts and a cartography dispute between Vietnam and China. Apparently, that's really why he's complaining about the movie. Apparently, the movie shows a map for like two seconds that shows a dashed line indicating sort of ownership of part of the South China Sea by China. But that line is disputed by Vietnam.
Starting point is 00:25:40 So according to Ted Cruz, the movie is, quote, Chinese communist propaganda. But according to the production company, quote, it it's a childlike crayon drawing. What the fuck are you talking about? And approximate quote, the first part, exact quote. OK, but that's amazing because it means Ted Cruz turned to his office of what I can only imagine are deeply suicidal interns and was like, I need a takedown of the Barbie movie because we're in hell and I'm the devil. But I need it to be one that people will take seriously, y'all. OK, none of this surface level stuff. And the thing is, first of all, the point isn't even stupid. It's just
Starting point is 00:26:19 completely wrong because the map that they're talking about, I put a picture in the show notes here. It's got Asia rotated to 90 degrees. So that dotted line isn't separating China and Vietnam. It's separating parts of the Arctic Ocean, right? That's the top of Asia there. They're so stupid. I hadn't seen this yet. This is perfect. They're so dumb. Wow. The same map has got England as being bigger than all of Europe. So it also must be British propaganda, apparently. Also, it entirely omits the Middle East and it includes
Starting point is 00:26:47 a giant turtle occupying East Mongolia. So I can't wait to see who else Ted Cruz will pretend to side with there. It's like an anti-woke like double Mercator projection map,
Starting point is 00:26:58 like extra anti-woke. So we also got a freak out from Ginger Gates, by the way, who intentionally got married to Matt Gates. That's who that is. She's a grown-up, but I just thought I should add that she's a grown-up. She actually is.
Starting point is 00:27:14 Okay. I'm so glad you clarified that because I just assumed that Matt Gates had like a series of wives that he'd named after each of the Spice Girls, presumably just as a roundabout way of justifying the Baby Spice one. There it is.
Starting point is 00:27:25 Yup. He's the worst. So apparently Ginger Gates had a problem with the depiction of Ken in the movie, specifically his hormone levels. She found him to have, quote, disappointingly low T,
Starting point is 00:27:41 not enough testosterone in his character arc. She had a line for how much it would be and she was disappointed by it. She also added, quote, the 2023 Barbie movie unfortunately neglects to address any notion of faith or
Starting point is 00:27:56 family and tries to normalize the idea that men and women can't collaborate positively. Yuck. End quote. I'm sorry, lady. The only way Ryan motherfucking Gosling is lower T than her husband is if T stands for touching kids.
Starting point is 00:28:14 Okay? There it is. Yeah, come on. Ryan, you didn't like Ryan Gosling? Oh, you don't find Ryan Gosling desirable? You didn't find him to be an attractive man
Starting point is 00:28:22 in that movie? Okay. Okay. All right. Alright, well that brings us, of course, to Benny Shaps. He released a 43 minute angry snit video
Starting point is 00:28:34 about how much he hated Barbie, which he saw approximately three years after being told by his wife that a wet vagina is a disease and proudly believing her and making a video about it. That's the timeline in his life. In the Barbie video, he spent most of the time complaining about the political message of wokeness that was way too heavy handed for him. And then in his video, he lit a Barbie doll on fire during his even handed nuanced video about the political
Starting point is 00:29:02 message he wanted to put out. Watch it. Watch it. It's anti-Semitic propaganda. Watching him. I'll say it right now. I don't care. COVID didn't attack Benny Shapps somehow. I don't know how, but COVID didn't go after him.
Starting point is 00:29:16 That's what RFK Jr. said. And in Heimer news, if he's going to do a story about Barbie, it's only fitting I do a story about oppenheimer because well done you know for some reason culture has decided to pair an important and groundbreaking film about an american figurehead nay the very soul of the american question itself with christopher nolan's oppenheimer but don't worry this week people are offended by oppenheimer for a much dumber reason than I am. Namely, Hindus are offended because a character in the movie quotes the Bhagavad Gita during a sex scene. Okay, whereas you're just annoyed that they cast Cillian Murphy as the Jewish guy when you were right there.
Starting point is 00:30:03 Although, that said, of course they cast the Irish guy as the bomb maker. It makes sense. It's typecasting if you think about it. Now I'm just picturing myself playing Oppenheimer. It's just an hour longer because I've got to stop and pant at the top of all those stairs in New Mexico. Okay, so first off,
Starting point is 00:30:18 big thanks to Andy for sending us this story with the subject line Offendenheimer to scathingnews at gmail.com. I had a good laugh there. Pence of the none of them Mike variety are headed your way. Anyway, if you haven't seen the movie yet, they absolutely love the now I am become death quote that Oppenheimer is so famous for. They say it roughly 900 times in the film, as if they were hoping it would get Samuel L. Jackson on board for the project. Now, to be fair to the film, Oppenheimer was a polyglot,
Starting point is 00:30:51 and one of the languages he spoke and read was Sanskrit. But apparently, nobody's ever discussed their holy book with their privates exposed, because people are losing their minds over the fact that again one of the scenes in the movie oppenheimer says the now i am become death quote like in between bone sessions apparently listen people are doing that with atlas shrugged with their genitals thank you yes exactly so the hindu nationalist baharita janata party called the film a, quote, disturbing attack on Hinduism and accused it of being, quote, part of a larger conspiracy
Starting point is 00:31:29 by anti-Hindu forces, end quote. What? Well, you know, it's a compliment to Killian that he was part of a large conspiracy because some people can only muster a small, you know, a petite perfidy at best. Sure. Also, I feel like Hinduism
Starting point is 00:31:44 is just trying to get attention like a little brother here. You know what I mean? Like, Islam and Judaism have the big rivalry, and then Hinduism tries to jump in. They're like, we didn't like... Shut the fuck up! Shut up! Nobody cares. You have way more people than Judaism. Doesn't matter. Shut up. Yeah. I'm going to go ahead
Starting point is 00:31:59 and say middle child for sure. Yeah, middle child. Middle child. Yeah, absolutely. But that's not all. India's information commissioner, Uday Murakar, called the scene a, quote, direct assault on the religious beliefs of a billion tolerant Hindus, liking it to, quote, waging a war on the Hindu community. And he added, we believe that if you remove this scene and do the necessary changes to win the hearts of Hindus, it will go a long way to establish your credentials as a sensitized human being and gift you the friendship of billions of nice people. End quote.
Starting point is 00:32:35 Yeah, but who wants the friendship of billions of people? I can't even reliably remember the birthdays of the dozen or so people that I actually like. I don't want a billion friends. Yeah. Okay. Maybe Killian can do some naked Bible reading to make the Christian people mad too. Like, I hope this becomes a thing where you just like do a very solemn, naked quoting of things that you hate. And that becomes like the way to go after stuff.
Starting point is 00:32:56 Certainly an audio book I would pay for. So I obviously don't need to tell our audience that this is extremely silly. And I'm relieved to say that except for those billion super nice people, nobody seems to be taking this complaint seriously. But Uday, if you're listening, and we know you are, he's a huge fan of the show. Maybe stop being offended by the words from your own holy books,
Starting point is 00:33:19 proximity to a penis, and you could establish your credentials as a sensible human and i don't know win the friendship of killian murphy i don't know what i'm doing here and finally this week in fun gone to a better place news when the anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists when they got kicked off youtube it was inevitable that they were going to seek sanctuary in the shadier corners of the internet like when you lift a log and then you watch all the wood lice scurry around to find It was inevitable that they were going to seek sanctuary in the shadier corners of the internet. Like when you lift a log and then you watch all the woodlice scurry around to find new pockets of darkness. And if you really want to see the really hardcore anti-vax idiocy these days, and you don't have a Spotify account or access to Joe Rogan, you've got to look to these alternative video platforms, places like Rumble or BitChute or Odyssey.com.
Starting point is 00:34:04 video platforms, places like Rumble or BitChute or Odyssey.com. Yeah, like Telegram. Good for spreading a pandemic or buying drugs and getting caught by Eli right away. Being like, why are you on Telegram? Are you buying drugs? That's true. Yep. No, it's look, I'm just saying there's only one reason anyone's on Snapchat and that's to cheat on their spouse.
Starting point is 00:34:20 And there's only one reason to be on Telegram and it's because you're buying drugs. Okay. We all know it. You're not there for the content fun fact i only heard of odyssey.com that last time because i accidentally stumbled upon the badly shot and even worsely titled video saving scotland against vaccine genocide crash the farmer party which documents the time at a q a that a dozen anti-vaxxers decided to gate crash my talk for the Glasgow skeptics. Only for them to be completely let down by the fact that I didn't sacrifice
Starting point is 00:34:53 any babies live on stage or anything like that. Yeah. Yeah. That's sad for them. I feel like you need to have like a realistic baby prop behind the podium just in case this ever happens again. Just carry it with me at whole time. You might get side tackled, but totally worth it.
Starting point is 00:35:08 That's such a good video at that point. Highly recommend our audience. Link in the show notes. Highly recommend you watching that video. And I also recommend that those people establish a fucking dress code. It looks like the unhoused are holding a rally about not enough people being
Starting point is 00:35:24 willing to buy big issue. What the fuck? Come on. Still, the thing is, if you glance at the white nationalist tinged recommendations on any of those platforms, it's pretty clear that these aren't places for the faint of heart, which is why I was so pleased to receive, posted through the door of the house in which I live, a flyer for for a quote, all new video platform promising positive entertainment that's free from violent, erotic, criminal or harmful content
Starting point is 00:35:53 and beneficial to people of all ages. They're flyering for a website, flyering for a website. So clearly what had happened is my local conspiracy theorist was going door to door, spreading the good word about this new platform, which is called Ganjing World. So obviously I thought, I've got to check this place out. Looking at it, I can see what makes Ganjing World so popular. It's got a very YouTube feel to it. It's got a huge amount of content, just like YouTube. In fact, a lot like YouTube, because Ganjing World
Starting point is 00:36:25 seems to just lift thousands of videos from YouTube wholesale at a time and then republish them to their own platform, which is why almost every video you come across on there has a big, splashy YouTube thumbnail, but like three views maximum. It's also why you'll see channels drop 20 videos on the same day and then nothing for nine months. And then another 20 appear because they're just going through and batch uploading them. Yeah, that sounds about right. So I checked it out for myself, Marsh. First three videos for me.
Starting point is 00:36:55 Disney loses billions by going woke. And then the truth about waterproof stickers. Everything you need to know. OK. And then OMG new New Evidence on Bidens. So good start. Good start. All right.
Starting point is 00:37:11 I don't know what this says, but mine were way more targeted. They were Girl Gives Cupcakes to Garbage Man, but six months later, he returns with a surprise. What? Did you watch that? What's the surprise? I did not watch that. Nice try, Hong Kong. Eight minimalist habits for a clutter-free home.
Starting point is 00:37:29 Fair criticism. Yeah, good. And how to believe in yourself, even if no one else does. All right. That one was your own video that you were doing for Danjing World? For me. There's also something else curious about this platform. If you're on the homepage, I don't know if you guys noticed it. If you hit refresh, you get a whole new set of recommended videos.
Starting point is 00:37:50 But there's one video that doesn't change. It's always in the same place every single time you refresh. And it's a video message from Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong. And that's because this new, clean, family-friendly video sharing platform is owned by the Falun Gong cult, the anti-vaccine and anti-evolution cult behind the far-right publication, the Epoch Times.
Starting point is 00:38:13 Yeah, they also have the Shen Yun dance crew. That's them, right? Yeah, that dance crew. They do like anti-evolution, anti-gay, anti-atheist dance performances with those themes of bigotry
Starting point is 00:38:26 somehow in the dancing. And that leader guy, Lee Hang-ji, he says he can levitate and walk through walls. Yes, he does. Maybe we'll get a video of that on his world. Can I say, can I say,
Starting point is 00:38:40 for a cult diversified portfolio, they got dance through. It's true. In fact, the Epoch Times actually published an article back in 2022 announcing the launch of Ganjing World, praising it as the family friendly digital town square. is run by a cult who believe that homosexuality is a deviancy that they say is as bad as organized crime and that races should be kept segregated in order to get into their own separate
Starting point is 00:39:10 but equal heavens. I can't say which particular town square they're trying to emulate, but I can tell you it's definitely not one from this century. Well, I mean, neither is America though. We're not from this century either, so plenty of town squares around here like the one
Starting point is 00:39:25 you just described right he's gonna try that in a small town am i right huh jason aldean reference the race yep topical nicely done nice all right well that is gonna do it for the headlines marsh eli thanks as always marsh you want to do jumanji j Jumanji. When we come back, Marsh is going to fraud whisper another liar. So I was watching something on YouTube the other day, and the next video in the queue was James Heidrich and James Randi. So, of course, I watched it. If you haven't seen this before, it's delightful. James Heidrich is a professional fraud who claims to have telekinetic powers,
Starting point is 00:40:05 and he's dressed like a pilgrim ninja for some reason, showing off his ability to turn a page in a book without touching it. Spoiler, he blows on it and it moves because of the air. And then James Randi comes out and pours some foam pellets near the book and offers $10,000 if Heydrich can do it again. And Heydrich really tries for a second to do it again with like magic, I guess, in his head. It's the fucking best. Of course, he doesn't do it. Well, if you want that sort of thing in
Starting point is 00:40:35 podcast form, the answer is be reasonable with Michael Marshall. And we're also lucky enough to get the occasional special report like that from Marsh right here on Scathing in a segment we call Who's Woo? So, Marsh, what kind of fraud are you going to be wrangling today? Well, in previous editions of Who's Woo, I've sort of largely focused on people whose claim to expertise has been completely illegitimate right across the board. You know, we've talked about characters from such useless areas as wellness influencers, free speech grifters, faith healers, and doctors of osteopathy. You know, I've said it before, I'll say it again, your medical degree
Starting point is 00:41:15 shouldn't include the name of a form of quackery if you want to be taken seriously. Right. Or we start doing this with all the technical professions, right? I'm a licensed electrician and a 9-11 truther. I'm a Christian person with a job. Right, exactly. Still, while all of those assholes have been worthy inclusions in the Who's Who Hall of Fim, we could say at least in what we might call their defense, at least they were making the most of what little they had. They had no credibility to begin with,
Starting point is 00:41:45 so they had none to lose. But the same cannot be said for today's entry to Who's Who, because today I want to tell you about Dr. Asim Malhotra. So Asim Malhotra was born in New Delhi, India in 1977, but he moved to the UK before his first birthday. And it was when his father got a job at a hospital here in my home city of Liverpool. His dad would go on to be the vice president of the British Medical Association. And he received an honor from the queen for his longstanding service to the NHS. And his mom actually worked her whole career as a GP for the NHS. So it's kind of little surprise that Malhotra followed in their footsteps and qualified, in his case, as a consultant cardiologist.
Starting point is 00:42:26 You know, so far, so good. Okay. I mean, look, I'm not here to shit on dad or any other professional's record, but if dad started in 1977 and was there for a while, I can think of one fairly large blot on his resume. Okay, I'm just saying.
Starting point is 00:42:41 I think the CIA did that only here in the US, Eli, right? Didn't they? Oh, okay. No, they got them. So British doctors, it was cool. So in fact, Malhotra, he was a rising star in his early career. In 2013, he was named one of the 50 top medical pioneers from ethnic minority backgrounds
Starting point is 00:42:58 for his campaigns against junk food and high sugar diets. He became the science director of an anti-sugar charity, and he was named by the Evening Standard as one of the 10 brightest stars working in science and tech. So, you know, so far, so very good. Sorry, Marsh, I know this isn't really the point, but I feel like you just told me that awards for medical practice have a whites and colored league in Britain.
Starting point is 00:43:20 Is that? Well, okay, his anti-sugar campaign was separate but equal. I get it. I get it. I get it, right? But actually, through all of this and through his rising star and his sudden rush to fame, people should maybe have looked a little closer at all of his pioneering media advocacy and his high profile campaigning because there was some signs that something was amiss. For example, in 2017, he appeared all across the media promoting his book,
Starting point is 00:43:45 The Pioppi Diet, which told people to take four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil every day and to avoid all carbohydrates and anything flour-based. This is the Pioppi Diet. It was named after a village in southern Italy, which was said to be the birthplace of the Mediterranean diet. But even if the Mediterranean diet. But, you know, even if the Mediterranean diet was actually as good for you as Quack's claim, it bore very little resemblance
Starting point is 00:44:10 to what Malhotra was promoting. Because Italy, it's fair to say, is not a country that eschews flour or carbs. Yeah. His version takes the food pyramid of the Mediterranean diet and yanks out a giant block
Starting point is 00:44:23 from the bottom like he's trying to lose it Jenga. And then apparently he pours olive oil into that hole. Like, I love the sound of that last thing I said, but it's not stable just, you know, in terms of a structure. Yeah, you've got the olive oil, you've got no bread to dip in it.
Starting point is 00:44:37 This is very, very simple. Exactly, yeah. So in fact, the actual dietary experts at the British Dietetic Association, they read his book and they concluded, quote, that the authors may be the only people in the history of the planet who've been to Italy and come back with a diet named after an Italian village that excludes pasta, rice and bread, but includes coconuts.
Starting point is 00:45:00 Okay. I mean, he could grip it by the husk, right? The BDA also pointed out that the book encourages people to starve themselves for 24 hours at a time every week. And they named Malhotra's diet as, quote, one of the five worst celeb diets of 2018. So, you know, it just sort of seems like Malhotra just can't help but appear on lists. Okay, so the celebrity diets get to be of any race. Interesting. The UK integrated their worst of lists, but not the best of?
Starting point is 00:45:32 I'm trying to figure out what direction the bigotry is going here, Mark. Exactly. Thank you, Heath. We're going to crack this one. I'm glad you guys are focusing on the important stuff here. Malhotra's diet, to be honest, it didn't end with the POP diet. So in 2019, he wrote in the Independent newspaper about the death of his mother,
Starting point is 00:45:47 claiming that her premature and painful death at the age of 68 was due to her strict adherence to a vegetarian diet, which he claims is dangerously lacking in nutrients and protein. Thank you. I'm wasting away over here. I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. Was she getting enough nectar? Because that's a bottom pyramid staple, I think, right? You need it.
Starting point is 00:46:08 You need it. And then we can come to Malhotra's views on cholesterol. So generally speaking, too much saturated fats in your diet are considered to be bad for your heart. Unless you are Dr. Asim Malhotra, a qualified cardiologist who stands pretty much alone in his field in claiming that large quantities of saturated fats are actually the key to a healthy diet. What? Malhotra is known to take his coffee with a tablespoon of butter and coconut oil. Okay. The bullet coffee thing. Is that one of
Starting point is 00:46:37 those? Yeah. It's a marginally worse crime against coffee than Eli's Starbucks order. Okay. Well, let's just say any Starbucks order that doesn't start with, you're going to want to take your 15 after you write this down is better than mine, Marsh, right? It's a low bar. Wait, so you're saying coffee full of butter, the bullet coffee thing, it doesn't like remind your body about fat conceptually so it can burn other fat?
Starting point is 00:47:01 Because I was promised it was that. It was like, you know, giving a shirt sniff to a bloodhound when there's a jailbreak, but with like fat in my body. That's what somebody told me, right? Before they told me the Fed is a Ponzi scheme. You're calling Tim Ferriss a liar, Marshall? Are you calling Tim Ferriss a liar?
Starting point is 00:47:18 Okay, no, I heard it. I heard it. So in 2017, Malhotra wrote in the British Journal of Sports Medicine that saturated fat doesn't clog the arteries even at all, not remotely, which prompted a searing rebuke from Public Health England, the government body tasked with reducing health inequality. article in the Times calling Public Health England a front group for the processed food industry in a response that would just epitomize his way of dealing with any legitimate criticism. Yeah. And also severely confused the definition of what people were talking about when they said big Twinkie. So, you know, it was bad all around.
Starting point is 00:47:59 Wait, what are people talking about when they say big Twinkie? Don't move. What's happening? Marsh, don't move. You have to tell me. Is it a sex thing? I feel like it's a sex thing. It's always a sex thing.
Starting point is 00:48:10 I never know the sex things. So through all of this, through all of this, Malhotra was building a brand and he was building a media resume. Even though he was a consultant cardiologist at his own private clinic, Malhotra became the go-to voice for essentially any newspaper article or TV slot that was looking to promote the latest fad dietary claim and looking for a veneer of credibility with which to sell it. His website described him, quote, as one of the most influential and effective campaigning doctors in the world on issues that affect obesity, heart disease, and population health. And that he's not
Starting point is 00:48:46 just a cardiologist, but a man who wants to change the world one meal at a time by not just rocking the system, but by rebuilding it. One easy payment of $9.99 at a time, right? Okay, my website says a lot of things about me. Also, if you're planning to change the world one anything at a time, that's dumb. And you're lying. Absolutely lying. Yeah, it's not how anything would work. Exactly. It's like thus far, Malhotra's had the air of man with an overinflated sense of his own
Starting point is 00:49:16 importance. And at this point, he's now hurtling towards an event that would come to define the direction of his career, as it did for so many egocentric health contrarians, COVID-19. Because by August 2020, not that far into the pandemic, he'd actually rushed out a book called the 21-Day Immunity Plan, which claimed that anyone could protect themselves from COVID by optimizing their metabolism through Malhotra's specific fad diet. And look, it's true that some of the
Starting point is 00:49:46 factors that put people at risk of a severe complication from COVID, things like diabetes or heart disease, they can be helped by a good diet. But it's obviously complete bullshit to then claim that diet alone is sufficient to protect you from COVID. It's bad enough for anybody to be making that claim. but it's particularly galling to see that claim coming from a media darling consultant cardiologist. Right. Claiming that a diet could keep you safe from COVID is like saying the problem with Heath's 93 Ford hatchback is that he's not putting premium gas in it. It's a 2005. I've been putting a tablespoon of crude oil with the gas because it reminds the engine about the origin. Obviously, yeah. The paleo fuel diet. So, of course, there is a highly effective
Starting point is 00:50:34 and completely safe way to protect, or pretty much completely safe way to protect yourself from catching COVID. You get vaccinated. So what did the good doctor make of the vaccine? Well, you might be surprised to hear that he was actually in favor of the vaccine when it was released in november 2020 he said that vaccines are the safest of all drugs and then you won't be surprised to hear that he quickly changed his mind and he started to become one of the most visible and influential anti-vaxxers in the entirety of the uk there it is and i feel like he's not going to spread the pandemic one person at a time. It's going to be more people at a time when he does bad shit, right? Yeah. So in September 2022, he published a paper titled Curing the Pandemic of Misinformation on COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines Through Real Evidence-Based Medicine, which he said had implications
Starting point is 00:51:22 for every human being on the planet and was perhaps the most important work of his career so far. Okay. If you have to say real in your title of a science thing, I don't like it already. I feel like that's bad. It's not ideal. And given that much of his career so far had been to tell people that statins don't work and that Italians don't eat pasta,
Starting point is 00:51:42 it's probably not saying much to say that this is the highlight of his career. Sure. Yeah. And as someone who's much to say that this is the highlight of his career. Sure. Yeah. And as someone who's been to a lot of one-man shows, I can assure you that this is my most important work so far. Always a bad sign. Always bad.
Starting point is 00:51:56 Oh, hello. You smoking a cigarette? Yeah. Smoking a cigarette. Cool. Tell us about cardiology now. So this paper was very quickly picked up by all the most obvious vaccine deniers
Starting point is 00:52:06 and COVID minimizers around. And the video that he released to announce the publishing of the paper got more than a million views within a few days. Because, you know, how legitimate can a scientific paper be if it doesn't come with its own unboxing video like this? Yeah, well, I liked the whispered ASMR version better myself,
Starting point is 00:52:24 but I like that he's diversifying. Okay, well, I liked the whispered ASMR version better myself, but I like that he's diversifying. Okay, Marsh, question. Did that make him the best anti-vaxxer of color in the UK or the worst doctor in like the open flight of the people? This is a great question. What's the award scenario there? How did it affect his ranking of the races? Yeah, it's an open question.
Starting point is 00:52:42 The figures are still being worked out. Yeah, the stats will be worked out in payroll. Yeah, it's an open question. The figures are still being worked out. Yeah, the stats will be worked out in payroll. Okay, it's tricky. So in this video, he proudly proclaimed that his paper had survived a rigorous and long peer-reviewed process, which is a kind of weird thing
Starting point is 00:52:54 to boast about, given that is the baseline for all scientific papers. Yeah, my podcast was just accepted by iTunes. Maybe you've heard of it. But the thing is, this paper... It's in New York. This paper is not actually a study or an experiment
Starting point is 00:53:08 or even a meta-analysis. It's a narrative review. You know, it has no method section describing how they conducted the review. It's got no outline of how or why Malhotra went about the review either. It essentially is as rigorous as stuff I could find that agrees with me.
Starting point is 00:53:24 That's kind of the rigor that's in this paper. And in this paper, he claims to reluctantly demonstrate that mRNA vaccines carry a risk of heart complications that are being knowingly underreported. Reluctantly. You know, the heart complications they don't want you to know about. Yeah. Which is weird because everybody's dumb uncle who eventually died of COVID
Starting point is 00:53:44 was very versed in those risks, right? Really. Yeah. Also, good rule of thumb. If you claim to have data that demonstrates with a flowery adverb, like reluctantly demonstrate, no, you don't. And it's the opposite of whatever you just
Starting point is 00:54:00 said. It pains me to have to say this, but... Yeah, exactly. Especially if it reluctantly demonstrates the thing you were looking to try and demonstrate. Yeah, exactly. Still, it is a paper about the COVID-19 vaccine that is published in a peer-reviewed journal, specifically the Journal of Insulin Resistance. That feels unrelated. And to be clear, scientific journals don't usually have titles designed to like throw you off the scent. They tend to be pretty root one. So normally in the Journal of Insulin Resistance, you'd expect to find studies about insulin resistance,
Starting point is 00:54:29 not about COVID-19 vaccine. So it's objectively weird to find a COVID-19 anti-vax paper in there. They reluctantly did that way off topic. Yeah, and that is exactly the kind of oddity you might want to take up with the editor of the Journal of Insulin Resistance, a cardiologist by the name of Asim Malhotri. Come on. Maybe you've heard of him.
Starting point is 00:54:50 I see. So this is less my podcast made it onto iTunes and more my podcast made it onto my iPhone. I got it. Yeah. Still, the fact that he somehow managed to get a paper published in a journal he edits and got it past a peer review board that he sits on. That was plenty enough for the anti-vax crowd, especially with his large media profile and his emotive storytelling. So, for example, he appeared on Fox News to explain that his own father died as a result of the mRNA vaccine, which he claims caused a rapid acceleration of coronary artery disease in his father. which he claims caused a rapid acceleration of coronary artery disease in his father. Okay, it wasn't refusing to take statins on the advice of his son or like his Crisco latte every morning on the advice of his son. It's definitely the vaccine that did that with the coronary artery disease?
Starting point is 00:55:35 Yeah, exactly. And it's not even just on Fox News that he makes that claim. That claim about his dad dying as a result of the vaccine, that's in the paper that he published. He used the death of his own father as what he refers to as a result of the vaccine, that's in the paper that he published. He used the death of his own father as what he refers to as a case study in how evil the vaccine is. And then he had the balls to say in this study
Starting point is 00:55:53 that there was no conflict of interest anywhere in the paper. Yeah, I mean, even if his claim was true, and it's not, that would be like having Inigo Montoya fill out a quarterly review for the six-fingered man. Yeah, exactly. And when you think about it, Malhotra's had some pretty
Starting point is 00:56:09 rotten luck, right? Because his mom died as a result of the thing he was already making a name for himself writing about. And now his dad has died as a result of another thing he was getting loads of attention for campaigning about. That's terrible. Yeah, that is terrible. I sure hope his kids don't get famous
Starting point is 00:56:25 for writing about shitting yourself to death in public or something. These kids want to come on Citation Needed and talk about a tragedy. I don't know if we can figure something out.
Starting point is 00:56:36 And Malhotra, he just evidently thrives on the attention. Since publishing this paper, he's been interviewed by Joe Rogan, Russell Brand, Tucker Carlson,
Starting point is 00:56:44 Del Bigtree, Rob F. Kennedy Jr., Brett Weinstein, Neil Oliver, Steve Kirsch, basically every prominent anti-vaxxer around. In fact, I honestly think the only interview that he's ducked so far since publishing that paper is with me when I invite him to be reasonable.
Starting point is 00:57:00 Oh, but that list is something. I'm surprised it doesn't include like lemon juice and paper cuts and people who stand at the bottom of escalators. I'm so sad by how many I know from the list. Like, yeah, there's a few famous ones. I know the like obscure ones. I know I can picture Del Bigtree right now.
Starting point is 00:57:17 Yeah. Yeah. Fuck. So when NHS guidance was changed to recommend a wider use of statins in the UK, the BBC actually invited Dr. Asim Al-Hotran, consultant cardiologist, live on air to give his expert misguided response. And of course, he immediately pivoted the interview to sharing vaccine misinformation about how all the real stuff that's going on with people's hearts is to do with COVID and
Starting point is 00:57:41 the vaccine. It's all about the vaccine here, causing a wave of complaints to the BBC who should have known better than to invite an anti-vaxxer on air to talk about anything in the first place. Sure. Yeah, especially when your excuse is, yes, but we invited him on to be wrong about something else.
Starting point is 00:57:56 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we invited a literal dragon, but we said fire only during the killing that you would do. And then he did other homicidal. It's not, we said fire only during the killing that you would do, and then he did other homicidal shit. It's not, we said fire only. Yeah, that response, Eli, is literally the response the BBC
Starting point is 00:58:12 gave me when I complained about Malhotra, and I had to point out, you shouldn't have been on air about statins. He's wrong about statins, and any other cardiologist would tell you that. So you just don't want us to have any wrong people on our news program. Is that what you're saying? Exactly.
Starting point is 00:58:26 What can you be wrong about now? Nothing. What? This is crazy. You sound insane. But yeah, the BBC did invite him on because of Asim Al-Hotra's job title, because of his media profile,
Starting point is 00:58:37 and because his polished delivery makes him particularly persuasive, especially to people looking for a reason to be persuaded. You know, he gives them that permission structure and his influence reaches to some pretty worrying places so when the Tory MP Andrew Bridgen stood up in parliament in October 2022 and warned of a big scary study that proves vaccines are evil it was Malhotra who'd given him that study and all of his talking points and
Starting point is 00:59:01 continues to do so as Bridgen got further and further radicalized, he talked more and more about his ongoing conversations with cardiologist Dr. Asim Malhotra. And his Twitter feed has increasingly become like an Asim Malhotra fan cam. This is way more influence than any anti-vaxxer should have. And we shouldn't be able to have sitting politicians get red-pilled by charismatic, egotistical,
Starting point is 00:59:25 and completely wayward anti-medicine doctors. Yeah, this feels like someone said, I wish politicians would listen to scientists, but they were like holding a monkey's paw while they did it. Absolutely. And so for taking all the legitimacy of his actual medical title and training, and then using it to peddle vaccine denialism, self-enriching fad diet books, and self-aggrandizing crusades, all the while radicalizing the most paranoid in society and in parliament, Dr. Asim Ahotra is a more than worthy inclusion in Who's
Starting point is 00:59:59 Woo. All right, looking forward to the next one. Ooh, maybe Joe Rogan, maybe RFK Jr. That'd be cool. Well, you know, assuming COVID was not engineered to skip the Jewish people. We would probably tell about that. Maybe one of those two. Oh, you'll have to wait and see who it is. All right. And that's all the Blasphemy we've got for you tonight.
Starting point is 01:00:18 But we're back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Monday. An even newer episode of our sister of our sister show, The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Monday. An even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend, Godawful Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday. And an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed,
Starting point is 01:00:31 debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Big thanks to Marsh and Eli, and of course to all the new Patreon donors who will be personally complimented by Noah when he's back from vacation. And if you're feeling financially benevolent like those fine people, you can make a per-episode donation
Starting point is 01:00:42 at patreon.com slash scathingatheist, and I'll get you early access to an ad-free version of every episode. You can also make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scathingatheist.com. You can also help us out a ton by leaving us a five-star review, telling a friend about the show, and following us on social media. And speaking of social media, Tim Robertson handles that for us, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark,
Starting point is 01:00:58 who also wrote all the music used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at scathingatheist. Wow. Man, that's too bad. That's too bad. That's too bad, man. That's too bad. That's too bad. That's too bad, man. That's too bad. Wow.
Starting point is 01:01:30 Unfortunate. Well, thank you. You see, What the fuck are you doing right now? I'm doing a great fucking improv. You're going to love it. Anyways, to answer your question, Mark. Hold on.
Starting point is 01:01:50 Hold on. Just come in regular. Come in regular. Cary Caviezel. This is so weird. I mean, I can tell what you do, but it's in a big block of heat of his stories.
Starting point is 01:02:01 He could naturally be the one to question that. That's right.

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