The Scathing Atheist - 665: Serious Vulgarities Only Edition

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Now with 33% more vulgarity! --- In this week’s episode, running our hospitals through a group of bigot virgins will yield less than stellar results, Quebec does obnoxious honky stuff in both their ...French accent and their politics, and Lydia and Thomas Smith will be here to hook us up with some West Coast vulgarity. --- 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/ Report instances of harassment or abuse connected to this show to the Creator Accountability Network here: https://creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org/ --- Guest Links: Hear more from Thomas and Lydia on Where There’s Woke and Gavel Gavel If you wanna check out Kranot’s stuff (as mentioned in the Farnsworth Quote, here are a couple links he sent me (some of the stuff is NSFW) https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:xfbrxb7ssemijmxadqfkqidd/post/3m5cxpij5js2g Learn more about BAHACon here: https://bahacon.com/ --- Headlines: US Catholic Bishops codify rules against gender affirming surgery:  https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/us-catholic-bishops-double-down-on Vatican warns against the rising danger of polyamory: https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/25/world/vatican-warning-rise-polyamory-monogamy-intl She turned in a bible sermon instead of an essay and failed; now conservatives say she’s the victim: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/she-turned-in-a-bible-sermon-instead Pastor fixes spirits by farting on your face: https://boingboing.net/2025/11/27/farting-pastor-fixes-spirits-by-breaking-wind.html?fk_bb https://www.timesnownews.com/the-buzz/article/south-african-pastor-farts-on-peoples-faces-to-heal-them/739636 New secularism bill to ban prayer in schools, restrict offering of religion-based meals: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-21-expansion-quebec-9.6990951

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Warning, the following podcast contains the fuck out of some profanity. This week's episode of The Skathing Atheist is brought to you by BetterHelp, Aura Frames, and by the upcoming sequel where everyone's favorite rascally golden retriever gets ordained, Prayer Bud. Prayer Bud! At least you only have to worry about him humping your kids' legs. And now, the Scathing Atheist. Hello, I'm Cranotch creator of the horror setting The Beast.
Starting point is 00:00:28 and in the beast the abrahamic god may be real and be the one who made humans to torture for fun but we all know that in reality we all evolved from filthy monkey men and women It's Thursday. It's December 4th. And it's extraordinary work team recognition day. Sorry, mediocre work teams. You'll have to wait for your own day. Right?
Starting point is 00:01:14 I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heathenright. And from Mikey, Cheryl's, New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Wake Cross, Georgia. This is the scathing atheist. Oh, this week's episode. Running our hospitals through a group of bigot
Starting point is 00:01:28 versions will yield less than stellar results. Quebec does obnoxious honky stuff in both their French accent and their politics. And Lydia and Thomas Smith will be here to hook us up with some of that West Coast Bulgarian. But first, the diatriat. I counted the gods again last week. It's still zero. Now, I will admit I tend to be. really bad at finding shit.
Starting point is 00:02:00 Sometimes, like sometimes I'll tell my wife that we're out of butter and then she'll come over to the fridge and she'll move two things and boom, there's the butter. Even though I could have sworn, I just looked there. So I guess it's possible that there's one god hiding deep behind the mayonnaise in the doggie box from the Korean barbecue the other night, but I'm pretty sure there isn't. Anyway, I will double check with Lucinda over the weekend and I'll report back to you if she finds anything. And on that note, I guess we can cue the music and wrap up this week's episode,
Starting point is 00:02:28 Huh? No? Does that be a fucking idiotic waste of your fucking time if I literally just showed up once a week to remind you how many gods there aren't? Well, do me a favor and tell that to the jackasses that email me about two or three times a month to complain that we're supposed to be doing a podcast
Starting point is 00:02:46 about atheism, not fucking politics. Of all the goddamn times in history to try to make that stupid ass point. Now, to be fair, you could do a show about atheism that doesn't touch on politics and it could even be a good show. You could focus entirely on apologetics, for example, or on people's personal paths out of religion.
Starting point is 00:03:05 You could interview random atheists about their deconversion or maybe talk to grief counselors about the best coping strategy for religious trauma. And those shows are out there if you'd like to listen to them. But if you're going to do what we do, that is focus on atheist show on current events, trying to remain apolitical would be a dereliction of duty. Hell, I would argue that if you have any kind of public platform,
Starting point is 00:03:27 form at all that could be denouncing the Trump administration and isn't, it's a downright moral failing. But at the same time, if you have an atheist show that tries to stand in the middle between Democrats and fucking theocracy, you're no less political than a show that takes aside. Your politics are just worse. And of course, in my experience, if you scratch the surface of these, you guys shouldn't be so political emailish, you're going to find some form of bigotry. Nine times out of ten, the real issues they want to be an atheist and transphobic or sexist or homophobes or whatever. And they sure love it if we would tell them how stupid Christianity is without also insisting that everybody is inherently deserving of basic human dignity,
Starting point is 00:04:05 regardless of their innate characteristics. But to be fair to the emailers, that's not universally true. Sometimes their issues are economic or something, right? Like our opinions on this show are decidedly in the camp of democratic socialists, and that's not derived from atheism, right? You could argue that it's derived from humanism or even rationalism, but it's not an atheist belief. And You can definitely be an atheist and harbor a belief in fucking unfettered capitalism or whatever. This is just one example. There are certainly others. And yes, I guess we could narrow our focus refrained from talking about those topics and try to focus entirely through the lens of that one single shared belief at the heart of the show.
Starting point is 00:04:43 But that's not actually what these people want. If you take out the opinion portion of the show, it turns into something unrecognizable. So what they want, when you drill right down to it with them, is for us to take out the opinion parts that they disagree with. they want us to stop concluding differently than them they don't want us to stop being political they want us to stop doing it in a way that challenges them but look i have no interest in doing an apolitical show if i wanted people to not know my opinion i wouldn't need a podcast i was doing fine with that before and i'll freely admit that much of the time my opinion turns out to be wrong i'm not immune to that so you know if what you want is to challenge me back have at it i've got
Starting point is 00:05:25 email and all kinds of shit set up specifically for that. Hell, arguing with listeners online is how I met our favorite listener, April Puff, and now we're practically besties. But asking me to be apolitical is a slightly less direct way of asking me to shut the fuck up. And my answer to that will pretty much always be no, or fuck you, or both. They're talking about your Jesus. May interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin.
Starting point is 00:05:51 Joining me for headlines tonight are the holly and jolly of this Christmas season. Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick fellas. Are you ready to have a cup of cheer? The cheer neat, please. Okay, well, now I'm picturing decking the halls with Heath, which is either, you know, really grotesque or he's just kind of standing around nursing an eggnog. And I'm not sure which I like more. I'm not sure which I like more.
Starting point is 00:06:12 Maybe just the brandy. And before we go any further, we need to take the shit out of everybody who helped make Bulgaria for charity such a huge success this year. The timing genuinely could not have been worse with the government's shutdown and the interruption of snap benefits coming at exactly the time that we started, the fundraiser. But despite the headwinds, you guys showed the fuck up and made it yet another six-figure fundraising hall. Granted, Cecil had to put in like $540 of his own money at the last minute to get us over the hump. But our grand total this year was $100,000.50. And that's a lot of
Starting point is 00:06:46 fucking money. So thank you all so goddamn much for all the help that you heaped on recovering from religion and rest easier knowing that you help to make the world a better place. Okay, but if anyone sees Daryl taking Arby's up on the offer of 5 for 555, let us know right away. Yeah, we need to know because he's not doing that now.
Starting point is 00:07:06 Yeah, and while we set up a hotline for that, we're going to pause for a word from this week's first sponsor, BetterHelp. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. And then on Sundays, I wake up and I step on my porch and I yell, what's going on? Oh, like the song? What song?
Starting point is 00:07:23 Hey, guys. What you have up to? We're on Blunts. Oh, I was just telling Heath about all my new good habits. Already? That's a little early to start that stuff, isn't it? Not for me. I'm starting now.
Starting point is 00:07:32 Well, if you're thinking of taking better care of yourself, you should try therapy with BetterHelp. What's BetterHelp? BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences, and Better Helps 12-plus years of experience and industry-leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right on the first try. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist any time from their
Starting point is 00:07:54 tailor recommendations. So no awkward therapist breakups? No awkward therapist breakups. This December started a new tradition by taking care of you. Our listeners get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash scathing. That's better h-elp.com slash scathing. All right, Noah. Looks like if I'm going to get knocked down, I'm going to get back up again.
Starting point is 00:08:15 A lot of song lyrics, man. What song? I feel like you know. Come on. I don't know. And now back to the headlines. In our lead story tonight, the law of commensurate hyperbole and conservative politics states that the less valid their argument, the more grandiose the stakes.
Starting point is 00:08:34 Right. So like if they actually have a point, they'll just state the real stakes. For example, send out too many stimulus checks and it could increase inflation. But when they have a stupid point, they raise the stakes to ridiculous levels to try to distract from that. Like protect that endangered owl and the entire. industry of logging will be at risk. And when they have no point whatsoever, the stakes suddenly become downright mythical, like legalizing same-sex marriage will destroy the family. And given that
Starting point is 00:09:04 rule, you can often reverse engineer how little of a point they have by how big the stakes they apply to it are. So with that in mind, I want to remind everybody that according to the official policy of the Catholic Church, trans people's existence threatens to, quote, annihilate the concept of nature, end quote. And then you're left with just nature and no concept, which then becomes the concept. Right. And we're back.
Starting point is 00:09:35 Okay, that was none. I don't know why I talk. I say stupid stuff. I'm the Catholic. Every time I see a trans person, I forget what trees are and I can only hold one. It gets very confusing. Now, so, okay, so that part's not new.
Starting point is 00:09:46 They've actually been saying that shit since 2019. But the reason that I bring it up now is because that sentiment, just popped up again, this time in the official U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Rulebook for Catholic hospitals in the U.S. So back in 2018, they released the current version of this manual, and there was no mention of gender affirming care whatsoever. And gender affirming care, that's been around since at least the 1930s. So I'm pretty sure they were aware of it in 2018, but last month they updated said rulebook to explicitly bar all their hospitals from performing any form of gender-affirming care at all.
Starting point is 00:10:20 And this is probably a good time to remind you that about one in seven beds in U.S. hospitals is in a Catholic hospital. Right. Which feels a little like we occasionally have to remind folks that half of America's bridges are made of puppy bones or something, right? It's a real damp-er at parties. And by the way, if you want a sense of the fucking knots that they had to tie themselves into to make this shit sound ethical, let me quote from one of the two new anti-transverse
Starting point is 00:10:47 rules they added. Quote, since creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift. Okay, go fuck yourself. Right, right. They wanted to say a priori, but they didn't really know how to fit it into that. Yeah, right, right. We have a duty to protect our humanity, which means, first of all, accepting and respecting it as it was created. In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore, but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in form or function, end quote.
Starting point is 00:11:29 So, you know, no Lasic surgery, no cochlear implants for you. God put that cleft in that palate for a reason, damn it. Yeah. No, I'm sure they're done with boot jobs forever. Oh, absolutely. Oh, wait, no, sorry. They're literally just talking about gender affirming surgery. Well, they do throw, quote, some forms of genetic end.
Starting point is 00:11:47 engineering, end quote, under the bus is like a, as a smokescreen, but they spend another rule and a half explaining that, no, no, they really mean trans people. And chemo is murdering God's tumors and fucking electric cars are suffocating God's trees of carbon dioxide. This is a holocaust. That's how they, yeah. Yeah, that's how they kill nature. Now, of course, none of this comes as a surprise. The majority of Catholic hospitals already didn't do any form of gender affirming care anyway. And a couple years ago, they foreshadowed the shit with a non-binding memo that said gender-affirming care failed to, quote, respect the fundamental order of the human person as an intrinsic unity of body and soul, end
Starting point is 00:12:28 quote. So it's not like we didn't see this coming, but the predictability of bigotry doesn't make its effects any less harmful. The USCB just codified a rule forbidding an entire form of health care that can be proven to be life-saving. And even if you can't be bothered to give a shit about trans people. You should still be scared shitless about letting elderly virgins whose entire job is gullibility decide which kinds of life-saving medical treatment you can and
Starting point is 00:12:56 can't get. Nah, no, they're going to stop at the Quakers this time. The Quakers are the ones doing the genetic engineer. And in dog monogamy fantastic. We're going to get there. It's going to make sense. It's going to be awesome. So if I'm
Starting point is 00:13:15 setting aside my natural skepticism about the international pedophile cartel with a giant vault of Nazi gold, that would be a crazy thing to do. I'm not doing it. This is the same thing to set aside. Why would I set that aside? So, okay, keeping it in front of it is our job. With that firmly set in the middle, as the context for everything about the Catholic Church, I will say that I did enjoy hearing some criticism of Donald Trump and ICE from Pope Leo
Starting point is 00:13:44 the 14th, aka Pope Bobby Bears. Oh, can we at least go with Bobby Bulls because of all the bull? Bobby Bulls. Oh, yeah, the PayPal. Yeah, you're perfect. So, yeah, fascist thugs from ICE were literally repelling down from helicopters in Bobby's hometown of Chicago and the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion people stepped it up with a very strong cut it out, you guys.
Starting point is 00:14:09 But sadly, that powerful humanitarian campaign had to be cut short. when the Pope's attention was needed elsewhere to address a much more serious threat to humanity. Polycules. Oh. So we got an official document from the Vatican about the global scourge of polyamory last week. Okay, who let the Pope visit
Starting point is 00:14:34 either a board game cafe or a circus school? Guys, there are some things he doesn't need to know about, okay? But he's got a point, though, there are some serious problems with polyamory. for example, how you can't move on to the next fucking episode until everybody's there. Huge pain in the house. Just catch a plate of Todd. Fuck, rest of us don't work nights, Todd.
Starting point is 00:14:53 Thank you. That's got to be exhausting. I hate Todd. Todd's the worst part of every pollicule. He's not even good at circus, idiot. Honestly, it only became a polycule because we wanted to cheat on Todd. And not enough people say it, but everyone knows it.
Starting point is 00:15:07 He knows what he did. Okay, and a big thanks to Stormy D for sending a link to Skating News at gmail.com. dog monogamy that was actually really good shit. I was trying to do something, but I was like, I'm going to do popen relationships, but dogmen it was still, Stormy had me beat. So Stormy gets
Starting point is 00:15:26 one of those deep squinty nods of admiration and respect. I'm doing it right now. Like the end of a Cohen Brothers movie? Yes, exactly. Okay, so here's what I'm pretty sure happened with the Pope. Somebody told, you know, like a bishop
Starting point is 00:15:42 or a cardinal about the concept of a Holycule during the conversation about their nephew at Vassar or circus college or whatever, and that Bishop or Cardinal panicked and told Pope Bobby, who then put together an emergency panel to investigate this crazy new phenomenon. And they drafted, this is real, a 40-page document about it. It's called One Flesh in Praise of Monogamy. I love the idea that they think there's a lady sitting out there who's like, You know, I wasn't so sure about being locked in sexual slavery for the rest of my life. But then I read a novella by the Catholic Church, and now I'm locked in. I'm all, I'm good to go.
Starting point is 00:16:25 Well, I feel like you need 40 pages so you can have room to bury the fact that as great as monogamy is, none of the guys write in the fucking document are doing it, right? So this type of document from the Vatican, it's called a doctrinal note. And this one reads kind of like David Attenborough describing a species. sees he's never seen before. Here's the exact words. Quote, various public forms of non-monogamous unions, sometimes called polyamory,
Starting point is 00:16:54 are growing in the West, capitalized. Polygamy, adultery, or polyamory are based on the illusion that the intensity of the relationship can be found in a succession of faces. It's not the faces, man.
Starting point is 00:17:10 It's not just the faces. It's not just the faces. Yeah. He continues. Our age, in fact, is experiencing various drifts with regard to love, an increase in divorces, the fragility of unions, the trivialization of adultery, and the promotion of polyamorne. Whatever Cynthia Arrivo and Ariana Grande are doing in those interviews. Yeah, I've got to say, rates of divorce in the West peaked in the 80s, rates of infidelity
Starting point is 00:17:41 peaked in the 90s. Also, did he just say one of the dangers of. Polyamory is the increase in polyamory? He did. It's again, they're defying gravity. It's against nature. So from there, they kept writing for like 39 and a half pages of just complete nonsense. It's like a dozen boomers writing a group essay about how to change the advanced settings on a phone with like the developer options.
Starting point is 00:18:06 I'll skip ahead to the part where they tried to smooth it over at the end by being, you know, woke in their heads at the end. They'd like everybody to know that the fat new Catholic church, P.H.A.T. of the 21st century is all about sex being enjoyable for cishead monogamous Catholics in missionary position only without birth control. Or in the tantalizing words of their fuck pamphlet, the unitive purpose of sexuality is not limited to ensuring procreation. So you're welcome. Oh, wow. Language. Okay. So their conclusion is, okay, fine. You know what? You can enjoy sex compromise. Yes, it really is. Exactly what happened. Yes, it is. So, yeah, that's what Pope Bobby's been working on. Busy, important guy. It's been scolding the fascists in the White House that one time lightly. Also, though, it's a Jubilee year. So that's fucking Jubilee stuff.
Starting point is 00:19:09 Sure. And, and I wasn't finished. He explained how human society is going to crumble to the ground because of daisy chains and cuddle puddles in polygules. Somebody had to say it. Doing the Lord's work over there, Bobby, great work. And in School Days News, one of the more interesting parts of our job over the last 10 years has been watching the most moronic claims of Christian persecution become national policy. It's kind of like if over the last decade, a sizable percentage of our army had been pulled into the hunt for Bigfoot. Well, this week we caught a whiff of the atheist anti-Christian Sasquatch once again when a Christian college student got an F on her paper because of her Christian beliefs.
Starting point is 00:19:53 I don't believe her. I don't think that's why she got enough. There you go, dismissing her claims just because of her Christian beliefs. Exactly, yeah. You are correct, but still. Yeah. So, first off, big thanks to Kathleen for sending us this story to Skathing News at gmail.com. Kathleen, for sending us atheist news to scathing news at gmail.com,
Starting point is 00:20:13 you get the greatest gift of all, the laughter of a child. You won't know when, Kathleen. You won't know how. But it's coming. It's coming. It'll be from your closet in the middle of the night after you watched a horror movie, Kathleen. I'm sorry to spoil the surprise, but snuck into her house for no reason. Crazy.
Starting point is 00:20:32 Right. So this comes to us from the University of Oklahoma, where the hot air apparently comes sweeping down the plane. Musical. Topica. Oklahoma. I wrote that and I hated myself so much for writing it. Do you want to do it with the fringe on top? The surrey with the fringe on top?
Starting point is 00:20:50 Maybe you can work that in? No, no, no. I think it's... To the rest of the stuff you're going to say? I think it's perfectly the worst joke I've ever written. Neld it. It's as irrelevant as it is not funny. All right.
Starting point is 00:21:01 But Samantha Full Necky decided to answer her psychology essay. That's her name. Your name's Full Necky? Her name's Full Necky. Necky. And so she has decided to be offended for a living. Can I say, I fucking get it, girl. If you need to stop
Starting point is 00:21:17 all jokes in their tracks. I've been called literally full necky before. It's not my name, but I've been called that. Yeah, exactly. Anyways, she decided to answer her psychology essay assignment about the outgrouping of queer people by out grouping queer people. Yep.
Starting point is 00:21:33 And look, you can read like the paper she was responding to and her exact assignment in the link of the show notes. But needless say it wasn't so what do you reckon about these queers but that didn't stop samantha from weighing in with all the acumen of your uncle's last facebook comment before you block him that's what the assignment was in her heart for sure yeah right here's a quote from her essay quote the article discussed peers using teasing as a way to enforce gender norms i do not necessarily see this as a problem. God made male and female and made us differently from each other on purpose. And for a
Starting point is 00:22:11 purpose, God is very intentional with what he makes. And I believe trying to change that would only do more harm, end quote. Hey, God made you stupid. And that's okay, Samantha. That's okay. Staying at the university, it's just doing more harm, though. School is hard. And it's not for everyone. God made you a certain way. Just go with it. But you're probably wondering yourselves, okay, but all Are queer kids who get bullied demonic? Don't worry, Fulmecki has our answer. Quote, I do not think men and women are pressured to be more masculine or feminine. Keep in mind, she literally just read an scientific study that shows that they do.
Starting point is 00:22:50 She didn't read shit. I strongly disagree with the idea from the article that encouraging acceptance of diverse gender expressions could improve students' confidence. Society pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone should, be whatever they want to be is demonic and severely harms American youth. Wow. I do not want kids to be teased or bullied in school.
Starting point is 00:23:15 Don't say however. However pushing the lie that everyone has their own truth and everyone can do whatever they want and be whoever they want is not biblical
Starting point is 00:23:30 whatsoever. Hey, hey, Samantha. Full necky. Bring it in. Take a knee. I love, personally, truly love a good argument against everyone getting their own truth because that's fucking dumb. But then you landed on, therefore be a bigot. It's really hard to lose me during a rant against postmodern therapy speak fucking nonsense. And you lost me because you went to be a bigot at the end. And it's especially undercut when you close off with a reference to the Bible, i.e. the own personal truth you seem to think that you're entitled to.
Starting point is 00:24:09 Yeah, that's right there. So, as you might have guessed, she got a, sir, this is a Wendy's on her paper with the graduate student who graded her writing, quote, please note that I am not deducting points because you have certain beliefs. But instead, I'm deducting points for you posting a reaction paper that does not answer the questions for this assignment, contradicts itself, heavily. uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class and is at times offensive, adding, additionally, to call an entire group of people demonic is highly offensive,
Starting point is 00:24:46 especially a minorized population. You are entitled to your own beliefs, but this isn't a vague narrative of society pushes lies. But instead, the result of countless years developing psychological and scientific evidence for these claims, and directly interacting with the communities involved. You may personally disagree with this, but that doesn't change the fact that every major psychological, medical, pediatric, and psychiatric association in the United States acknowledges that biologically and psychologically,
Starting point is 00:25:21 sex and gender is neither binary nor fixed, end quote. So I'm not giving you an F because you're wrong, but you are wrong. I'm giving you an F on everything but the fucking punctuation and even that's not an A. Okay, it sounds like Samantha got bullied in hopes of changing her opinion just like she supports in her essay with free speech, just like she supports in her essay.
Starting point is 00:25:46 So, story over? Yeah, right? No, I wish. So, yeah, as you can tell, that's pretty clearly Christian persecution, which is why Sam decided to email Republican Governor Kevin Stitt, the university president,
Starting point is 00:25:59 the dean of her college, several reporters, mostly right-wing assholes, and the anti-teachers union group now headed up by former state superintendent of public instruction, Ryan Walters. I heard he fucked a pile of flour at work. That's why he doesn't have that other job anymore.
Starting point is 00:26:16 That was a Jackie Cheon movie. I need more ninjas. I need the ninjas to come prove. Well, unfortunately, we live in the now time. So a bunch of Christian assholes, including Oklahoma State Senators and Turning Points USA, converged on Samantha's claim, and on her instructor who happens to be trans,
Starting point is 00:26:33 piling on the university president her instruction and anyone involved with claims of oppression and horrific abuse. And as you might imagine from a state that exists because we didn't want Kansas to get too big, the university has temporarily folded to their harassment, placing the instructor on leave for the rest of the year. Yeah, tough way to make the point, but hey, if the goal was to teach the students
Starting point is 00:26:55 about the marginalization of LGBTQ voices... Yeah. Now, I want to be clear, we've seen stories like this before, right? The university is waiting for the Christian outrage to die out, and then they'll put the teacher back in their position, but their cowardice is meaningful. And the idea that Samantha and students like her are going to attempt to bully their way into a degree
Starting point is 00:27:16 using the dregs of the internet is a problem for literally anybody who cares about knowing things. So, you know, pretty much everyone but full-necky. But it does make me wonder, won't there be more students like Samantha in the future? I wonder what that would be like. All right, everyone, now if you'll all bring your blue books to the front of the class, one by one, you can leave after you've dropped it off. Here you go, Professor.
Starting point is 00:27:45 This is your final? Yep, yep, I'm all. This is a picture of Christ on the cross. Oh, yeah, it's my firmly held beliefs. Right, cool. It's just this has nothing to do with the assignment. I'm sorry, Professor, but I have to disagree. I think the Lord Jesus Christ and him dying for us on the cross
Starting point is 00:28:10 has everything to do with this final and our final judgment before the Lord. Sorry, you're pausing for like applause? Kind of thought everyone would stand up and cheer. Okay, I might be standing on my own, but after I've reached out to the governor, the president, that guy who got caught watching porn in his office, I know this nation will have my back. It was a Jackie Gian movie.
Starting point is 00:28:37 Okay, you know what? Sorry, is everyone turning in their religious beliefs and then threatening to sick the worst people in the world on us if we addressed that they didn't do the work? I certainly, yeah. I mean, why wouldn't be? Okay, cool. You can all go.
Starting point is 00:28:51 You all get A's and you can all be you forever because this is how it is now. Oh, well, that's great. Nice, okay. I'm going to go get to lunch. Uh, I actually still wrote the paper. Booneerd. Fine.
Starting point is 00:29:02 I'm, I'm going to. And with that terrifying glimpse into the future still echoing in your ears, we're going to pause for a quick word from our other sponsor this week, ORAFrames. Okay, what if the mug says, this mug is for you, my mom, the mom of Heath? Yeah, dude, you're not getting it. Hey, guys, what you're doing? Well, I'm trying to help Heath do some last minute Christmas shopping, but he's not really grasping personalized.
Starting point is 00:29:30 How could her name not be personalized? It's very personalized. Heath, when someone says they want something personalized, they mean they want something meaningful, something about your relationship, like an aura frame. What's an aura frame? ORA frames are digital picture frames
Starting point is 00:29:46 that hold unlimited pictures and videos. Just download the ORA app and connect to Wi-Fi. I don't know, Eli. My family's not exactly app-friendly. Hey, that's okay. You can set up an aura frame for a loved one while it's still in the box. All they've got to do is plug it in
Starting point is 00:29:59 and start admiring photos of their grandbabies. Now that's personal. It sure is. And for a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visitingoraframes.com to get $35 off
Starting point is 00:30:09 or as best-selling Carver Matt Frames, named number one by wirecutter by using promo code scaling at checkout. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com promo code scaling. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast. So order yours now
Starting point is 00:30:24 to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show. by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. All right. Thanks, Eli. Now, do they make an oar frame with my mom's name on it? I mean, you can set the welcome message. Nice. With her name. Yeah, okay.
Starting point is 00:30:41 Mom. Next up in headlines in Life imitates Fart News. Or does it? Maybe Fart Imitates Life. All right, buckle up. We're about to get philosophical. because we have a story about farts. We're going deep. And a big thanks to Dan for being the first of many to send us a apparently viral link
Starting point is 00:31:07 to scathing news at gmail.com. Dan gets the pride of intellectual curiosity. And that intellectual exploration begins with a Christian pastor who does spiritual healing of his congregants by literally farting on their faces. Yeah, to be clear, if Christianity had started with farting on people, people's faces, this cracker is the body and blood of our savior would be making it
Starting point is 00:31:32 weirder. So I get it. I do get it. You know, look, we can fight back against encroaching theocracy and all, but I'm glad we haven't lost track of the reason why we're here in the first place, Heath. That's good stuff. Bork jokes. And away we go. My epistemological journey begins with the headline, farting pastor fixes spirits by breaking wind. That's from the journalism team over at Boingboing.net. It's only the best sources for our listeners.
Starting point is 00:32:01 I love that they couldn't get the dot. Now, I wonder what Boingboing.com is. Okay, so that's where I learned about a pastor named Christ Penelope of the seven-fold Holy Spirit ministries. And yes, he farts on faces during
Starting point is 00:32:18 Sunday services. According to Pastor Christ, it has to be right on the face because the healing power enters through the nostrils. I mean, we were more curious about where it was exiting, my man. Right, because I want to know how the power of Christ got up there in the first place. Right. Like, God had it, like, sitting on a pedestal, and then Penelope comes in and he actually sits on the pedestal.
Starting point is 00:32:43 And God's like, well, now it's going to be awkward. Fuck. Yeah, just logistically. God, I hope boingboing.net doesn't find out about this. So, of course, this. practice of face farting led to some questions, including a number of Christian leaders who had very serious concerns about the lack of biblical grounding for the farting spell. But the pastor had answers for his critics. Here's what he said during an interview. Quote, it started with Master
Starting point is 00:33:12 Jesus when he stepped on Peter. It is the demonstration of God's power. Just like God made Adam go into a deep sleep. It is a similar thing. Is it? God did anything with the body of Adam while he was on the ground in deep sleep. He was not feeling anything. The Bible doesn't say anything about Adam saying, God, you're hurting me. End quote. Sorry, his argument is, you're telling me God was sitting there looking at God's lifeless, completely still body, and he didn't do any fart stuff to it. Come on. All right, credit where credit is due. I had not thought about it like that. Well, there you go. Pastor Christ also added
Starting point is 00:33:56 I don't fart on people I heal people and I think he's lying first of all it's both at best but I don't think it's at best I think some guy named definitely not Christ decided to call himself Christ
Starting point is 00:34:13 and managed to become a pastor or it's actually his real name it doesn't matter either way just like a typical cult leader he started testing the loyalty of the flock with insane pranks. And at some point, he got drunk or stone probably, and he farted. And he laughed at that.
Starting point is 00:34:29 He realized that farting is, in fact, pretty much the funniest thing. So he decided to do fart healing. And then he made up some bullshit about how it connects to the Bible, which is possible with literally anything. You can connect it to some Bible thing. But now he's stuck doing the fart healing, right? Like, imagine the amount of brand that this bit requires him to consume. Right?
Starting point is 00:34:50 Also, like, do different farts heal different ailments? How hard is it to fart correctly on a command? Right, like a squeaker for tinnitus, a fizzler for congestion, an SBD for heart disease? Because it's the silent killer. Right. It's thematic. Sure. So, one other detail about the timeline here.
Starting point is 00:35:09 So the article at boingboing.com. Was from Thanksgiving Day. But the original story about Pastor Christ and his face farting spirit cleanse comes from at least four years ago. I found an article from 2021 with the same photo of this guy sitting right on somebody's face and he's holding a wireless mic, apparently mid-sermon at his church. And that leads to the last part of my theory on how this story gets to us here today on this very serious podcast about science and philosophy. I explained it as the algorithm sharded. And much like a religious leader, just making shit up, the algorithm pulled something
Starting point is 00:35:49 out of its ass from a long time ago, and it spread through the room of the internet while we all scrolled on our phones trying to avoid interacting with our family in person on Thanksgiving because that's fucking exhausting. And of course, farts are funny. Or maybe we just need a reminder that this guy exists every four years. Like, you know how rich white people think about elections every four years? That's what it is. Just one of the many ways that American elections are like having aerosolized shit explode into your face. Yeah, exactly. And finally tonight, in Quebec, get it again, news. As we all do our best to survive the theocratic hellscape that has become American politics,
Starting point is 00:36:29 one can't help but wish for a pendulum swing in the other direction. A world we're in a few years, thanks to a backlash, we're in charge, and we're making all the rules. Now, of course, that concept is sort of a backlash doesn't really make sense. When liberals are in power, we do things that benefit everyone. and we feed hungry children and we empower the poor, just enough so that they can afford to vote us out of office again. It's kind of our thing. But if what you were imagining instead was a sort of anti-religious revenge fantasy,
Starting point is 00:37:03 then you might enjoy the Frenchier parts of Canada, which this week introduced a bill to ban prayer in schools and restrict the offering of religious-based meals. Okay, okay. I know I'm supposed to be against that but I'm not sure why you get me there right? No there is at least something
Starting point is 00:37:23 to be said for no longer protecting intentional wrongness It's tricky. It's tricky. All right. So first off big thanks to Logan for sending us this story to scathing news at gmail.com. Logan for sending us atheist news to scathing news at gmail.com. When we become the tyrannical atheist leaders
Starting point is 00:37:40 of J.D. Vance's nightmares, you get to do his Christmas nutcheck. Keep it festive, but don't milk the buildup. Scathing News at gmail. I will be milking the buildup. Okay. When it comes to things involving J.D. Bance's nuts, I will not be doing any milking. There you have it. The full spectrum of our show. Right. So first off, I want to spoil this story a little at the outset and point out that this bill actually has nothing to do with secularism. Like the other bills we've seen before it, this bill is actually just an anti-Muslim bias in the name of secularism.
Starting point is 00:38:14 Bill 21, which these laws are based on, was passed by the Quebec government back in 2019 and prohibited certain public employees from wearing religious symbols while at work. And while, like me, you might be inclined to agree that Kathy's cross necklace is stupid, this was much more about preventing people who wear yarmacas and hijabs from being able to work for the government. And when you make a law that prevents minority religions from being able to get or do a job, doesn't really turn out well for that minority. But the law didn't do that. Everyone could do their job without a magic hat.
Starting point is 00:38:49 They just can. But it does sound like bigots are in charge. So I guess I'm sympathetic to the magic hats because of that. I feel it. I feel you, baby. I'm stepping towards it. But here's the, yeah, unlike the overwhelming majority of Christians, I get pissed when my worldview is used as a smokescreen for bigotry.
Starting point is 00:39:06 So, yeah. Right, exactly. So this new bill would expand those restrictions even further and includes a ban on prayer rooms and universities, restricts the offering of religion-based meals, and expands the requirement to have faces uncovered throughout the public and subsidized daycare system, all of which do not promote secularism
Starting point is 00:39:26 nearly as much as they oppress religious people. So even though things like prayer rooms and magic food and face coverings are stupid, the way to show people that is to give them the freedom to make that decision on their own. Oh, yeah, libertarian freedom to be. stupid, and that, you know, that leads to pluralism. Okay, yeah, you got me on board.
Starting point is 00:39:46 Thank you. Anti-bigotry. Yeah, it's so weird, though, that their list doesn't contain anything that would affect Christians, though. Look, technically, you know, everybody has to eat the same amount of pork is equal, but it only matters to folks that don't eat fucking pork. So, yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:39:59 So we're going to see how this law goes. I'll admit I was skeptical on our very program of Bill 21 back in 2019, and that wound up being passed. So you never know. But what's important is this? even if the bad guys are temporarily on our side, it's important that we not empower them because what they're going to do with that power next
Starting point is 00:40:19 is never worth the victories they grant us right now. Yeah. And while we wonder where the Christian leaders were when it came time to say that kind of shit to their folks, we're going to wrap up the headlines for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Good money. And when we come back, Morgan gets to edit five tracks at a time.
Starting point is 00:40:36 Lucky you. As much as this show is bursting with fucks, you know some shit's going down when we have to like start roping in guest Bulgarians, but you guys crushed it so goddamn much with vulgarity for charity last month that we found ourselves in exactly that position. So without further ado, we're excited to welcome in
Starting point is 00:41:02 two of our favorite guest roasters, Thomas and Lydia Smith of Wetherswoke, serious inquiries only, opening arguments, Gabble, Gabble, and probably three or four more since the holiday break. Lydia, Thomas. Oh, welcome back. Hello. Thanks for having us.
Starting point is 00:41:17 Oh, it's great to have you. Now, before we get to the mean shit, let's talk about the green shit, because a lot of fantastic folks gave us money and asked nothing in return, starting with Keith, Celia, Gail, Dietrich, Jeff, and Rick, who we are thinking most thankily. And a big thanks to Carol, Loka, Peter, Bruce, twice, and Matt and Laura. And by the way, Matt worked for the Federal Reserve, which is not a Ponzi scheme. I spoke to him about it. It's not. And a tremendous humongous thanks to Beda and Rob, who donated $2,500 and asked nothing in return. Beta and Rob, to you, we say, pick a hole.
Starting point is 00:41:57 Hey, dude, making it. Why do you have to pitch? You can just do whatever they want. You can also pick a bend, a crook, or a fold. You're making it weird. So, okay, but before we stop thanking people with nothing tonight, Thomas, We have our first guest roaster request for a thank you. What?
Starting point is 00:42:13 Drew Hickox would like a thank you by name from you. Is it a sex thing? Maybe. But will we still do it? Abs of fucking looting that there's, I don't, is there a bucket of slime that's going to fall on the answer? Yeah. Somehow this is an Eli Frank.
Starting point is 00:42:30 He definitely feels like I'm setting up for you. Just say it. Donated money for this, I will say. Thank you to Drew Hickox. Ah, this line. Godfrey. Suddenly, I own all of dear old death. Drew Hickok's, thank you.
Starting point is 00:42:49 Drew. Heath, kind of gross. Just stop stealing Thomas's sex thing. It can be both. All right. Trump being a bonus. It could be fuck. Yep, no, they can't.
Starting point is 00:42:58 Fuck it up. All right, let's kick things off with a roast from Eli. Eli. Belalz would like you to roast Paul Zooliner. Zooliner, yeah. Yeah, okay. So look, I have never seen a. man look more self-aware of what he has become in his own author
Starting point is 00:43:12 photo. A still from Donnie Darko could never capture the self-hatred and philosophical isolation that Paul is delivering on the back of his own he looks like the post three ghosts of Christmas
Starting point is 00:43:28 trans writes Richard Dawkins came back to the present to stop Richard Dawkins. It's insane. Oh man, you've got to make that movie. All right. And Heath, Damon would like a roast of work. Yeah, okay. I don't, I don't even understand the assignment.
Starting point is 00:43:46 Like, if I don't spend my lifeblood hours grinding out nickels to spend on the products of delightful corporations that fund the passive income of millionaires and billionaires, what the fuck am I doing here? Like, what's my value? What would you say I do here? Like, I'm going to go, I'm going to go paint an art picture. I'm going to go, like, spend quality time with others, like, have the love. of my family and friends.
Starting point is 00:44:10 Like, I'm going to read a word book with my reading eyes and talk about it with other people. What the fuck are you talking about, Damon? Get your head out of your ass, you communist. All right. No, I've got one for you here. Rob would like a roast of his cousin, Sarah. Yeah, so specifically, he directed me to a response. She left on his, how the fuck could a moral person vote for Trump Facebook post after the election?
Starting point is 00:44:35 And her response was basically a wall of text tirade about how, you know, She didn't have time to leave a wall of text tirade on his Facebook post. But once it was done insisting, we couldn't see if it stood really still. She went on to this list Trump's virtues that age super well, right? Like stuff like how honest he was about his intentions on the campaign trail, how few wars he would start and how much better inflation was about to get. But the biggest lie in the whole post was about how Rob should just get over it and accept the results of the damn election,
Starting point is 00:45:07 just like Trump supporters did when Biden won in 2020. All right, so Lydia, very excited to deliver you this one. Michael would like you to roast Bill Maher. Yeah, this almost ended our marriage because I am the one who roast Bill Maher and our family. That's every marriage has, you know, like who roast Bill Maher. Right.
Starting point is 00:45:29 Who's on spiders who roasts Bill Maher. Yeah, who's big spoon, his little spoon, he roast Bill Maher. Listen, I recognize that. I offered you the opportunity. Opportunity. Yeah. And so the counselor helped us through it. And what we're going to do is I'm going to roast Bill Maher by being his audience while Lydia does her roast.
Starting point is 00:45:46 So I'll be the paid. So what Bill Maher does if you're not familiar is he's not funny. So he pays people to like laugh in his audience. And so I'll be playing that role. Okay. Go ahead. Bill Maher is a smug almost 70 year old man. Guys, he's freaking old.
Starting point is 00:46:02 That acts like he's a teenage boy still who can't get late. So he's trying increasingly more ridiculous. things to be noticed by girls. Thank you so much, audience. And it keeps not working. As someone who used to be a teenage girl, by the way, I am more turned on by a baked potato than whatever schick Billmore attempts
Starting point is 00:46:19 every single week on a stupid show. It's a weird example. Bake potatoes are awesome. And I'm vegetarian, so I can't even put bacon or anything fun on that big potato. I would still rather have sex with that baked potato. It's still better than boring, basic, Biotch Billmar.
Starting point is 00:46:37 God, it's so funny. Listen to our show this week, actually, and you can hear us make fun of this audience. We're literally a guy just does that in the background after every joke. Because no one left. Yeah. Cool. All right, Thomas, will you thank Drew Hickok by name one more time?
Starting point is 00:46:58 All right. Well, this is definitely a sex thing. Okay, at this point it is. But also, yes, thank you, Drew Hickok. Okay. But Jeffrey would also like you to roast people. who don't believe that white privilege exists. That's fun.
Starting point is 00:47:12 That's fun. White privilege doesn't exist. We elected white privilege our fucking president. White privilege exists so hard that incompetent virgins came and ransacked our entire government because one time a white person had to watch an HR video on not using racial slurs in the office. Yep. White people are so entitled that they saw the MLK quote about the moral arc of the universe bending toward justice and they called the manager to have it straightened.
Starting point is 00:47:37 Iron that shit out. All right. So Heath, this next one's for you. You know you weren't going to make it through an entire vulgarity for charity without roasting a dog or two. So why don't we start with Bruiser? Yeah, here's the thing. I think Bruiser might be addicted to drugs.
Starting point is 00:47:52 Like human drugs. So we got some photos of Bruiser. And it felt like one of those crazy nights I had in my 20s. Right? And I'm looking through the pictures in my phone the next day. And like you could see the moment you took the serious drugs from what. one picture. It's just, it's Bruiser doing like normal stuff, smiling with his tongue out, they're out in the woods. He's looking out into the distance, all pensive. But then,
Starting point is 00:48:16 out of nowhere, there's a picture of him, and he's got this insane fuck stare straight into the camera, and he's chewing on a giant pacifier. Like, he just snorted a soup ladle of Molly. It's crazy. Yep. He sure did. Like, you remember the hangover, Ed Helms just holding his own tooth with pliers? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was like, that picture for a dog. Yeah, but less balanced. All right. Well, Noah, apparently, I'm assigning roast now. Chris would like you to roast the Greater Orlando Airport Authority. Yeah, so when I saw that, I assumed Chris wanted me to roast the fact that it's the ninth busiest
Starting point is 00:48:55 airport in America for which they have as many as four TSA agents on staff at a time. Or maybe the fact that everybody who works there wears a tag that says, hi, how may you go fuck yourself? or maybe the fact that the entire airport is laid out like a goddamn Zelda dungeon. But no, apparently they've made it worse since the last time I was there because they decided to replace their antebellum people mover with higher volume ones that can accommodate more than 16 people in their luggage at a time. And that's great. But they decided to start that shit at the height of the holiday season, which is fucking nuts.
Starting point is 00:49:27 Cool. Yeah. Apparently they're shutting down one tram at a time. And in the meantime, they're forcing passengers onto a bus that'll take them to a tram, that'll that'll take them to the terminal, that'll take them to the plane, like they're in a holiday romp with John fucking candy. And don't worry,
Starting point is 00:49:43 they expect to have this all sorted out by 2027. Oh, boy. 2027, that's the optimistic estimate. And knowing Orlando, like I do, I'm going to give it a 50-50 chance by the time that they're done, the tram is going to go to a fucking toll booth. Noah, if you donate under the name of Chris,
Starting point is 00:50:00 you have to tell us. That is nowhere near my least favorite airport. All right, Lydia, I've got one for you that I think you're going to enjoy here. Anthony would like a roast of calls to lower the temperature from the side that says their opposition is made up of murderers, groomers, and communists. Okay, yeah, good one. The temperature is already pretty, like, moderate, I would say. I don't think we need to lower the temperature. And listen, I think having one-on-one conversations with folks that think like this could actually maybe make a difference.
Starting point is 00:50:33 I don't know. But when we're talking in general, look in the mirror, my guy. I'm a stats girl. I have a feeling if I sat here and pulled all the numbers of folks that have harmed other people, which is what we're getting out when you accuse the left of being full of murderers and groomers, right? It might not look so great for you. I mean, Roy Moore. Can we talk about Roy Moore?
Starting point is 00:50:53 Roy Moore. You guys, just can we reminisce on that fucking guy? He's insane and a pedophile. Matt Gates. Can we talk about Matt Gates? Oh, my God. And I don't even know. that we could get a coherent definition from the right
Starting point is 00:51:07 about what communist means based on how they've described Zoron Mamdani at Turning Point USA rallies. He's a communist, he's a socialist. They can't make up their mind at all. I don't think they actually know what that word means. Also, as the sole woman on this episode right now, I'd like to point out that 99% of the time,
Starting point is 00:51:24 it's just dudes that are the problem. Yeah. Girl power. Thank you so much. Fair, fair. Matt Gates called to ask when Phoebe's birthday was the other day. Oh, my God. I was very hysterical. Do you think he's just going to get her a present?
Starting point is 00:51:37 Yeah, probably. Probably. All right, Eli, this next one is for you. Reed would like you to roast Tom and Thomas for, quote, ragging unfairly on Eli for having the most reasonable position on the prenuptial agreement episode on Dear Old Dads. Thank you, Reed. Now, listen, do I remember what I said or what my opinion was the time?
Starting point is 00:52:01 No. But what Reed is ever. emphasizing here is that I am the heart and soul of the podcast. I'm the voice of reason and Tom and Thomas are my confusingly named detractors. I am Christ on the cross and you are the Roman guards stabbing me in the side with your spears of taking a turn to talk sometimes. Also,
Starting point is 00:52:22 on that subject, you'll both 100% kill yourselves if you get divorced. So I think prenuptial agreements don't really apply to you. It should have just been a solo episode. All right. You can just a will, I guess. Yes, thank you. And Thomas, as much as I wish there was somebody that had, you know, that wanted you to roast Eli in response to that, unfortunately, I didn't have that, but Emmy would like a roast of gerrymandering in North Carolina. Well, sorry, no can do.
Starting point is 00:52:52 I've got no notes on that. I can roast the Supreme Court for ruling that, quote, claims of excessive partisanship and redistricting present political questions not suitable for resolution in federal courts. In other words, if you don't like not having a vote, that just vote to fix it. Yep. I can roast Texas Republicans for being so fucking incompetent that they gerrymandered in the one remaining way that isn't allowed by our fucking Supreme Court. And then you know what happened?
Starting point is 00:53:18 Call back to my earlier roast. Supreme Court Justice White Privilege Alito said, yeah, but still. And then just decided they get to do it. And I can roast Democrats for not realizing we've been playing code names with Heath this entire fucking time and we're still trying to play by the rules. Well, meanwhile, Heath has written the word on his eyelids while he gives the clue. And we're just like, but we should just play by the rule. Oh, we lost.
Starting point is 00:53:41 Yet again. We lost again. Where does it say anything about eyelids? We lost again to the party of Heath. So, yeah, I don't, I honestly, I have no roast. Just the roast are for us. All right. Fucking start gerrymandering everywhere until they realize it's not fair.
Starting point is 00:53:56 And then maybe we'll pass a whole thing that says, don't be fucking Heath. All right. Hey, good job in California on property. 50. Fuck it. I'm sorry for bringing you into this roast. We're going to play the game. All right, Heath, it's time to get some behind-the-scenes drama for the listeners here.
Starting point is 00:54:12 Kenneth hasn't requested a roast, but he knows where the conversation will go. He would like an update on the points game that you guys play during the ads. Thank you. How dare you, Kenneth? Thank you. It's about time. This was brought to light. Eli, please don't interrupt.
Starting point is 00:54:26 Following the clone accords of 2024, in which it was legally decided that, that all points won by underground mindless clone heaths that certain members of the company had been growing for the sole purpose of extracting points. Four. By your wife. It was ruled by your wife. It's still legal.
Starting point is 00:54:44 It's still legal. After that point, team Heath took a decisive lead. But then, against all judgment, I fell back 200 points after wagering those points to the old ash remissal during the wild hunt. Although that is a bet that should have never been ratified. Your wife did that one, too. Your wife did that too.
Starting point is 00:55:04 We don't agree on anything. It's crazy. So that said, the raw points score as adjudicated by BetMGM, the official bookkeeping partner of Puzzling and Thunderstorm LLC. I told you guys we're not going to fucking pay for that. It was the only way. It was the only way. Don't be ridiculous.
Starting point is 00:55:21 No, it has to be official. As adjudicated, officially, the score stands at Heath 155, Eli, 133 face. That's true. He gerrymandered his way out of that one. Hey, big shout out, by the way, to the listener who has to remain anonymous, who I literally just messaged on Facebook and was like, you keep track of our show. Where's the point game at?
Starting point is 00:55:43 And he was like, oh, I actually keep track of that. And I was like, yeah, you do. All right, Noah, got one for you here. Harper would like you to roast his nearly blind and very rotund dog, Bella. Oh, Bella's the great. Bella's the kind of fat where the head is just like a face at the end of the belly, right? The neck is a long-gone vestigial memory that you can only discern
Starting point is 00:56:07 by examining her DNA or something like that. Like if she wants to look to the left, she has to move her butt to the right to compensate, right? But she's losing her eyesight, so that'll be less of a problem as she needs to look left less often. Now, that will mean that she won't be able to appreciate the plating of the garbage
Starting point is 00:56:24 that she's scarfing down quick before somebody can turn the trash can right side up again. But it will make her better at running into the trash cans in the first place. So it's a little wins, some, lose some kind of thing. Exactly. All right. So, Lydia, this next one feels perfect for you. Laurent donated $300 for us to roast Elf on the shelf. Oh, that's $300 well spent. Let me give this to you. Elf on the shelf is a corporate ploy to continue to directly shame moms for never doing enough, even at the time of the year
Starting point is 00:56:54 when, for the most part, any holiday magic and memories are the result of unpaid labor from only moms. They also do this indirect. by exploiting women competing against other women, you know, especially with social media. Don't even get me started. Pinterest, Instagram, everywhere. It's calculated, too, because when you make women, the makers of Christmas magic, feel bad, they'll spend more money to try to make up for it. And this little creepy elf doll will pose however you want and do whatever you deem necessary,
Starting point is 00:57:20 right, to make that happen. You stick his head in the toilet. Hilarious. Put him stuck in the freezer. So funny. Kids will love that. Poop out the chocolate for those thumbprint cookies. Everything's good.
Starting point is 00:57:30 And you're going to feel better. So spend the money, moms. Also, wait, I thought we were backing off of Santa seeing everything you do because it's creepy, right? Like, we totally wrote out that song because we're like, he sees you when you're sleeping. Ugh, hate that. But now, to get around that, he just sends in his employees. Right. So typical CEO behavior.
Starting point is 00:57:47 And the fact that the elves aren't pushing back means that they're just brown-nosing anti-union snitches. So stop buying them. Fucking scabs. Also, I need to disclose that I looked up images of elf on the shelf to refresh my memory because I will never do this. I've never done it. I will never do it ever in my life because I already shamed myself enough as a mom. So he's just, you know, not in my brain. I don't need him. But if you look at him, it looks like he farted and is just waiting for the smell to make its way over to you. He's like side eyeing, like waiting for you to sniff it. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:58:20 But however, one little shout out, I won't hear any slander about his makeup. It's really good. He uses a great mascara, leans into blush, which is brave and powerful. He has a youthful glow. We're all seeking it to be honest, but that's all the nice things I can go die. Otherwise, he can go die. That's incredible. I want to hijack your guys' show to just help women in the quest for equal rights. Women need to take a lesson from Eli's impression of me. And once in a while, just be like, hey, that's fucking stupid.
Starting point is 00:58:51 I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. So, okay, you know what's really fucking said? Because we had a fucking snoop on the stoop, and I, Lucinda loved it. And then... That's fine. He took his MAGA turn and shit and became a piece of shit.
Starting point is 00:59:05 Oh, yeah. I forgot to get that weird moment. Fucking sucks. Okay, Thomas, this victory lap is for you. Aaron would like a roast of Winsome Earl Sears. Really? You want me to roast a 61-year-old black woman, veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. That's cool.
Starting point is 00:59:21 So are you trying to have me canceled? Is that what we're doing here? Or murdered. Look, I'm not super religious. I hope that's okay with everybody here. but when a campaign bus with a huge picture of your face spontaneously burst into flames days
Starting point is 00:59:36 before the election, maybe you're on the wrong side. It's possible you're on the wrong side of politics. All right, so Eli, Glenn would like a roast of her former son-in-law Trey. Gwen, I want a roast Trey for you.
Starting point is 00:59:52 I really do. Because, yes, he looks like a white guy in black face in a in-living color sketch that doesn't hold up to the ravages of time. Trey looks like if putting spinning rims on a visa gift card was a guy. And Gwen's description tells us that that is who Trey is, deeply as a human being. But Gwen, I need to call you to Task as well. Because the moment this man stepped into your house, Gwen, you knew you needed to poison him.
Starting point is 01:00:22 You knew it. I know you knew it. And the fact that you didn't make like the mushroom lady, the second he first ate in your home, on you, Gwen. That's on you. And I hope you take future measures to correct your mistake. Well done, sir. All right. Now it's time for us to take care of five more of our top roasters of the fundraiser. These folks splashed down so much cast that they deserve a full court roasting. So everybody have at them. We're going to start with Beth, who donated $5,000 for a roast of Louisiana governor, Jeff Landry. Oh, Jeff Landry looks like he just smelled a fart and it is his favorite vintage.
Starting point is 01:00:59 from Elf on the shelf. Exactly. Now, let me say his very clearly photoshopped congressman portraits on Wikipedia, if anyone wants to look at it, most definitely added lip gloss after the fact. It's shiny.
Starting point is 01:01:13 It is so shiny. It's beyond moisturizing. And as of like yesterday, Jeff Landry is responsible for Trump announcing he's sending the National Guard to New Orleans ahead of Christmas, like during the Christmas holiday, when the city is on pace to actually have one of its safest years since the 70s,
Starting point is 01:01:29 Since the 70s, so fuck Jeff Landry. Yeah, yeah, this fucking sycophantic leech on Trump's taint was begging Trump. Could he please send the National Guard in to get rid of all the fucking queerness or jazz or whatever it is that they're after? And he looks like the host of a game show where you smell panties and try to guess which celebrity they were stolen from. Jesus Christ. You get it right, but he makes the answer in the form of a question. It's still worse. And you're like, fine, who is Galane Maxwell?
Starting point is 01:01:58 Well, this is a weird game. Why am I here? The game show's called Win-Lusor Drores. That fits because I was going to say he looks like someone had Super Dave Osborne's corpse dry, cleaned, and polished. I think that works. Well, I don't want to say Super Dave's in hell, but it, like, it fits with, like, being the boss in hell. Yeah, he's in hell, and he looks like that. All right.
Starting point is 01:02:22 And Chandra would like a roast of people who have gotten weirdly fascist in the past year because is they finally have a tiny bit of power, and apparently that's what we do now. And she gave us $2,000 whopping dollars for the privilege. Okay, I got to say, it's like the obnoxious kid in high school that had no friends, so all they could cling to and their desperation
Starting point is 01:02:40 of mattering at all to anybody, was to suck up to the principal and join, like, the tardy police and send to their classmates that were late for school. It's embarrassing, honestly. And obviously, anyone with power who gets fashy is dangerous, but they're also, and I think we need to focus on this, pathetic and weird.
Starting point is 01:02:56 And they still don't matter, and no one's going to go to their funeral. That is fun that that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently, Shandra had an, like, she'd been donating time to an organization for a decade and a half
Starting point is 01:03:07 before a change in leadership led to, like, a sort of Trumpian fascism and microcosm where they ran out everybody they considered impure because apparently basically my entire demographic cohort is exactly as bigoted as society will let him get away with it all fucking times. Jesus, how fucked up do you have to be to make old white men look,
Starting point is 01:03:27 worse. Yeah, it's tough. It's tricky. It's tricky. And look, I want to point out that the fact that you live in a microcosm of a second where this behavior is acceptable is deep in a riding proof that you did not read how this story ended for the last group of fascists. Like, I guess what I'm saying is sleep in jammies you don't mind being photographed. You know what I'm saying? Okay, I hate to fuck up your thing, but the last group of fascists, they have like all three branches of government. Well, their story's not over. We're in available. Thank you. Yeah, eventually they'll die of old age.
Starting point is 01:04:01 And no one will go to their funeral. Yes, thank you. All right. Strong Thurman. The planet will be on fire. So I can't tell exactly what kind of organization we're talking about here. But clearly some idiot at that organization bought a gavel as the chair of this little, you know, community group or whatever. And he got drunk with power because of his little gavel.
Starting point is 01:04:23 And he decided to like make that group great again with. The vibes of, I guess, a eugenics-themed HOA with, like, getting out of impurities. It's terrifying. You can just say HOA. But here's the thing that's happening when shitty people have to do a flex like this in some tiny little thing. It's like Lydia said, they have nothing in the rest of their life. They have no power, no respect, no love, nothing. I'm going to do the Tom thing because he's not here.
Starting point is 01:04:53 I'm going to get all Tom and dark. When they go home, they're completely. ignored by everyone. Their dog doesn't even make eye contact. These people are utterly bereft of any value in the universe. They're not even information. I'd say they're
Starting point is 01:05:08 noise, but that would mean somebody cared when a tree fell on their head in the forest and was listening. They're the empty set of all empty sets in the dark void of invisible brackets with the nothingness of nothingness inside. They're Mike Lindell's
Starting point is 01:05:25 packet data of people. I've been like a poetry slam, you know, snapping over here. Yeah, exactly. And I'm going to roast myself for Heath having unlocked my new kink, which is apparently Tom, but who's good at math. Carry me away, Tom, who's good at math. Come on. The empty set of all empty sets.
Starting point is 01:05:48 I know. I'm afraid of all computers. I absolutely love this one. Derek would like a roast of people who Purchase to Tesla after Elon Musk went crazy. So, purchase to Tesla? Yeah. Well, so after it became clear to the average standard bomb. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:06:07 Yeah. No, buying a Tesla post-Musk going crazy is like buying a Ford after you learn about his opinions on jazz music. It is, it's not a great look. Derek, first of all, let me thank you for sharing in your submission how to tell a pre-doge vehicle versus a post-Doge, you know, Model Y specifically. I'm going to make sure the audience hears this too. because it's important, okay?
Starting point is 01:06:27 The Model Y was updated in January 2025, and now the headlights and taillights are a bar. So like what you would see with the cyber truck. So with that knowledge in mind, everybody, audience, entire audience listening, I think we can officially tell you all, and this is me speaking on behalf of Puzzle and a thunderstorm, to go key those cars.
Starting point is 01:06:45 Yes. Like, you guys agree, I can speak on behalf of your... No, sure can't. Absolutely. No, he's so outvoted. He's usually two to one outvoted, but he's extra outvoted today. We're going to ramp up the keying thing in a second.
Starting point is 01:06:56 Go ahead. Yeah. What a weird loser segment of the population you have to be to drive electric but not actually give a shit about the environment of humans or democracy or decency. Also, Doge was a bumbling failure at so many steps along the way. And it's ending earlier than they initially planned. So if you're buying a Tesla now, I can also assume that you're also a failure that finishes early. Hard pass. I like the idea of them buying Teslas and being like, it's great except for the electric part. Trying to put gas in the trunk.
Starting point is 01:07:31 Just pouring it in. All I have to say to those folks is your self-driving mode works all the time and be sure to park it in the garage near the firework. Yes. Okay, there's a cyber truck owner who moved into my building over the summer.
Starting point is 01:07:48 Oh, no. He parks right fucking next to me. No. Yeah, I've been workshopping ideas for a few months now. I haven't done anything yet. Here's what I did, though. I looked up...
Starting point is 01:07:57 This guy looks out his window and sees each other staring at it. I'm writing notes on a legal pad all the time. Like a fucking wily coyote blueprint or something. And he's like, man, there's nothing more dangerous than a clearly single white man. Yeah. Holding up big, like, schematic blueprints. No, I really did look up the specs of the cyber truck. And I found out it has exterior cameras on the front back and both sides.
Starting point is 01:08:23 So I'm going to need to start by rappelling down. from above and taking over the cameras. I do have all the equipment ready for that. And then I want to set up an obstacle course that he has to get through before he can leave the basement. Okay. So you guys remember that insane demo that Elon made where he claims the truck is bulletproof against the 9mm gun?
Starting point is 01:08:43 Yes. And then he smashes the window with a big metal ball. Completely snashes. But it just cracks all over the place. Yeah, anyway, just completely unrelated to the gun thing I said. I'm going to rig up the garage like the assault from the American gladiators and it won't be tennis balls that are being shot at the cyber truck. Here's the other plan and this one's a little easier to pull off. I might be able to do this.
Starting point is 01:09:08 I want to hide like a hairdryer in my jacket somehow and I want to blow it on those side panels that are held together with blue. So it's just like and then I see him coming and I just walk away. And then he gets on the highway. His whole car is just flying off. And it just falls off. The whole thing just falls apart and it's just a frame. He's like Fred Flintstone.
Starting point is 01:09:28 Yeah. I have to imagine when you looked up the specs, did they say like, and this part will go, and this part will go, like I imagine the specs talking in that way. You could just pour gasoline into the back of this if you want. You're allowed to have to let you.
Starting point is 01:09:45 I can't stop you. All right. How about one for Jessica, who would like a roast of people who expect free legal or medical advice from their lawyer, doctor, friends, or family members, or acquaintances or whatever. Yeah, obviously those folks are just, like, lazy cheap skates. At least have the decency to go to this person's place of business and ask those questions,
Starting point is 01:10:04 not over a slice of pumpkin pie, delicious at Thanksgiving. While 15 kids are running around the house screaming their heads off, someone's already passed out and snoring, the old people complaining about the way you did sweet potato casserole, isn't the way that they did sweet potato casserole? Can't we just enjoy the family dysfunction together instead of asking those questions? hold those thoughts, go to the person's office, ask those questions then across a desk like a normal person, and then complain about the bill that you will absolutely get because these people are professionals and advice is part of their product that they sell. That lets them have a place to live and food to eat,
Starting point is 01:10:39 so knock it off. Yeah, look, it is bad enough to ask people to play for exposure when they didn't take on postgraduate levels of debt to learn their fucking instruments. Okay. I felt guilty when I asked a pet groomer friend of mine for advice about combing the knots out of peekaboo's fur. Y'all are just lucky I'm not a fucking doctor. Because if I was a fucking doctor, my answer, no matter what you just asked me, would be yes, you definitely have cancer, right? No matter what you're asking about.
Starting point is 01:11:05 And, hey, that would be my same fucking answer if I was a lawyer, too. That's what WebMD does. Yeah, right. Just fish you out that same advice. Oh, now we figured it out. No, I'm so glad that Noah said that because that is exactly my proposal. I think if you ask someone for a free version of their job, they should be unbound by their moral obligations
Starting point is 01:11:24 when it comes to what they tell you. Oh, was it a bad angle? Drink a cup of paint thinner. You'd like me to look over your lease for free? The key is to trick him into signing a piece of paper while you're dressed as a cake delivery man. If you want it for free, you should get exactly what you paid for.
Starting point is 01:11:40 Yes. Yeah, kind of like when people complain about the ad they didn't like on the free podcast that they were listening to. And if you don't like the company in the ad, hey, good news. That company wasted money on the ad because you're not going to buy their thing. Like, I want every Republican candidate wasting their money talking to our audience in ads. If we could get that, that would be amazing. And when people ask me for advice about
Starting point is 01:12:05 starting a podcast, they don't usually, but if they do, I tell them they should definitely do that right now. Get into podcasting. Strike while the iron's hot. Ground floor. Seller's market on podcasts and you know don't get bogged down with bullshit like you know writing down your ideas ahead of time just free flow right off the dome in your metal box of a garage
Starting point is 01:12:27 for the sound call the show echo chamber it's kind of meta oh there you go that's what Joe Rogan does though yeah yeah he does really well and last but certainly not least Ryan would like a roast of private equity
Starting point is 01:12:43 okay wait I want to jump in here at the start and say that I'm too stupid to know what private equity is to make fun of it. So I Googled it. And then I still didn't know. So I chat GPTed it. And I'd like to say that I think using money to invest in, please stop making me do sexual role play as a centaur
Starting point is 01:13:04 is bad and I condemn it. All right. So Eli, I'll try to sum it up for you here. So you know how there are millions of great ideas for services and apps and products and shit that would be really useful and moderately profitable and everybody would really like it if those existed, but they don't have the potential for explosive growth
Starting point is 01:13:21 so nobody can have them. Yeah, that's because a bunch of fucking people who made billions investing in the easiest time to ever invest convinced themselves it was actually because of their fucking super genius and not the fucking revolutions and communication technology that did the trick. So basically, they were people who picked the correct lottery numbers once
Starting point is 01:13:39 and convinced themselves that that made them mathematicians. almost everybody who's successful on Wall Street what you said there again. I got to talk more about those people because I grew up in the capital of Silicon Valley folks, San Jose, Capital of Silicon Valley. If you didn't know, it was a trivia question last night that I got right, by the way,
Starting point is 01:13:55 at a bar I went to. She won't stop talking about it. I won't. I've had enough of tech pros and venture capital firms and the disgusting money that gets thrown around because of disrupting, I guess. I don't know. Yes.
Starting point is 01:14:09 I purposefully don't live there anymore, but every time I visit these people, think that they're hot shit, the best they can do guys, the best that these people can do with all of their money and all of their power and supposed brilliance that they've bestowed upon themselves is drive around in circles at Santana Row, which is like an open-air mall sort of shopping thing, revving their stupid car engine for someone to notice them, begging for someone to notice them. It's embarrassing. It's so embarrassing. And then what they do is then they get out of their car. They go to Happy Hour, and they spend $18 for a Paps blue ribbon.
Starting point is 01:14:47 That's what they've done to San Jose. By the way, that was just a recording of a car engine because they drive a Tesla. They have gas in the trunk, and then they play a revving sound. And you hear the sloshing also. That's amazing that the car revving's happening at a mall, and then they get like their bucket of hipster beers for a thing. It's the dumbest thing. Okay.
Starting point is 01:15:08 All right. So private equity. Here's the thing. So you know how the stock market, it's like a big, complicated casino game and it's... You know how the Federal Reserve is a Ponzi scene? But it's like, it's this complicated thing. And the game's clearly rigged for the rich and powerful. And those people are always running scams that we usually hear about later.
Starting point is 01:15:27 And then we have a giant financial crisis because of the scams sometimes. And everyone gets fucked. Yeah. And it seems like there's a smoke-filled room with billionaires, you know, swishing brandy in their wah-ha-ha-ha-snifters and making deals to themselves. to keep getting richer. Well, private equity thought that was a little too democratic. They just make enormous, like, billion-dollar secret deals that are not available to all the filthy, commoner, naifs trading at, you know, Wall Street firms on the New York Stock Exchange.
Starting point is 01:15:59 Private equity is the smoke-filled room behind the smoke-filled room of the stock market. So, yeah, fuck private equity. And also, fuck whoever snuck the word equity into the concept of stock. That's crazy. Right? What a load of shit. Oh, yeah. Maybe we can get the Trump administration to ban it just because it has that word in it.
Starting point is 01:16:18 Oh, there you go. Smart. Oh, my God. Diversify my portfolio. No fucking fake. Never. That was fucking equity. The real racism.
Starting point is 01:16:28 Cash, take your plane. Take the FBI's plane over there and shoot him from a rocket. All right. Well, Thomas, Lydia, thank you so much for helping us tell people to go fuck themselves. And if you'd like to hear more of Thomas and Lydia telling people to go fuck themselves and doing other stuff, be sure to check the show notes for a link to the 4% of all podcasts that are theirs. Before we start this cycle again, I want to let you know that I'm going to be speaking at Baja Khan in August of next year. That's August 21st through the 23rd in Point Edward, Ontario.
Starting point is 01:17:06 And there's a boat cruise and everything looks like a great time. Check the show notes for a link to learn more. Anyway, that's all the blast movie we've got for you tonight, but we'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, being to look up for a brand new episode of our sister's show the skepticrat debuting at 7 Eastern on Monday, and even newer episode of a sister-so's hot friend
Starting point is 01:17:21 got off a movie's debuting at 7 Eastern on Tuesday and even newer episode of our half-sherstitia's citation needed debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I'd have forgotten the lessons of Thanksgiving already if I neglected to thank Heath Enright for making so much frankincense. I need to thank Eli Bosnick for always bringing MIR than required. I need to thank Lucindilusions for being gold. I don't need wordplay for there, she's just gold.
Starting point is 01:17:40 I also want to thank Thomas and Lydia for one more time for making with the insults. Be sure to check the show notes for links to their stuff. I also want to thank Crenot for providing this week's Farnsworth, quote. He does lore cards on Deviant Art. No idea what that means, but you can't find links to it on the show notes. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's and last week's best people. Audrey, Daniel, Danny, Terry, Kathy, if I give you dollars, it's because you're the best. Justin, Terry, Catherine, the Mighty Adam, J. A.J. Akams, Raver, Mr. Hobita, and Stephen,
Starting point is 01:18:06 who are so cool, the whole temperature and their hemisphere is dropping. Except for the one dude was from New Zealand who's so hot that he counteracts his coolness. Together, these 18 amiable atheists aided our aims to alienate ancient Abrahamic ace hollery this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money to takes to do that, especially this time of year. But if you do, you can make a per episode donation to Patreon.com slash scathing atheists, whereby you want to really access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at scalingatheast.com. And if you'd like to help, but you're too busy commercializing the holidays in our ongoing effort to take the Christ out of Christmas,
Starting point is 01:18:38 good job. In the meantime, you can also help 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 Martin Clark, who also wrote all the music that was used in this episode, which was using permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threat, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at scalingadious.com. Love Chumbabwamba. Love them.
Starting point is 01:19:18 And Aura Frameshead. No, you do. I love that one song, and I can't name anything else they've ever done. There you can. I can name a variety of Chumba Wamba songs. Yeah, it's just a quick Google away. No, I know my heart.
Starting point is 01:19:33 Wow. Google is like, nope, I got nothing. It brings up, tub thumping and it's like, did you want something besides that? I don't think you did. This content is canned credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm at their hotline at 617-249-4-255
Starting point is 01:19:51 or on their website at creator-accountabilitynetwork.org. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2025, All Rights Reserved.

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