The Scathing Atheist - 671: Lasso of Truthiness Edition

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

In this week’s episode, Christians demand NO shoving in line to the ovens, a Republican theocrat tries to confuse the globalists by starting a public JEWISH school, and “How Bullshit Is It?” will get meta.---To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheistTo 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: [e-mail] check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticratTo check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-moviesTo 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/---Headlines:Christians pissed about protest outside ICE-pastor’s church: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/the-anti-ice-protest-at-a-minnesotaGreg Locke used a real shooting to sell a fake Christian persecution story about himself: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/greg-locke-used-a-real-shooting-toScott Adams’ deathbed conversion to Christianity shouldn’t be taken seriously: https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/scott-adams-deathbed-conversion-toCandace Owens pushes theory Charlie Kirk was 'time traveller' who went to 'X-Men school': https://www.wonkette.com/p/candace-owens-charlie-kirk-was-aTulsa’s Jewish community pushes back on Oklahoma Jewish charter school proposal: https://forward.com/fast-forward/797823/tulsas-jewish-community-pushes-back-on-oklahoma-jewish-charter-school-proposal/

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Warning, the following podcast may be unsuitable for prudish motherfuckers. This week's episode of The Skating Atheist is brought to you by the fact that the nukes haven't started falling yet. At the time of this recording anyway. And now, the Skathing Atheist. Hi, this is Glenn from Johannesburg in South Africa, and I have two things I'd like to say. Firstly, the majority of us do believe that Elon Musk is a giant wanker or what we would call a puss. secondly, and I can confirm that I have not been paid by Russia to say this,

we did indeed evolve for filthy monkey men and women. Thursday. It's January 22nd. And it's Answer Your Cats Questions Day. That is a nice button, more correct. No illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heathenright.

And from Cornelius Vanderbilt's New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia. This is the scathing atheist. Of this week's episode, Christians demand no shoving in the line to the ovens. Oh, Jesus. A Republican theocrat tries to confuse the globalists by starting a public Jewish school in Oklahoma. And how bullshit is it will get meta.

But first, the diatribe. So our esteemed president, leader of our country, controller of our nukes, did a press conference on the one-year anniversary of our second descent into national madness, and it was insane even by his standards. He went out there with a list of 365 accomplishments he'd made over the year, like, for example, actual, quote, stripped notorious crackhead and grifter Hunter Biden of his taxpayer-funded Secret Service detail, end quote. He eventually got so bored with it, he threw it to the ground, he lost a fight with a paperclip,

he rambled about how his mom told him he could have been a professional baseball player, and he said shit like, quote, we're going to have so much rare earth. It's actually not that rare. There's a lot of earth around, I can tell you, end quote. He did that for almost two fucking hours, and then he went to Switzerland to represent us there while threatening to start World War III

over not getting a Nobel Peace Prize. And you may ask yourself, how do fuck did we get to the point where 35% or whatever of the country can look at this blathering sack of id and not realize how fucking stupid he is. You might, in fact, ask yourself every goddamn night over and over again into an increasingly echoy bottle of gin.

Well, as a two-decade member of the niche movement that set out to protect the very concept of reason, I feel like I can give you a fucking hint. And look, I get that pretty much everybody on the left wants to hold up whatever issue they've been advocating for over the years and say, see, this is what led us to Trump. And most of them are right to varying degrees, but I challenge you to name anything other than continuing to cuddle racism that has acted as a more direct cause of this idiocy than our collective abandonment of reality. And the obvious culprit here is religion, and not just because this is an atheist show,

right? It's Christians that directly gave us Trump. And he got there by catering to Christians specifically both times. And of all the reality examples, and of all the reality examples, that our society doles out, none of them are as broad as the ones that we give to religion. It'd be hard to make up a lie sillier than Noah's Ark, and yet we let them get away with believing that to at least an amusement park sustaining degree, right? But religion isn't alone here.

Walking to any pharmacy in this country and you're going to find fake medicine sitting right alongside the real shit. It won't even have a, this is pretend medicine label on it unless you know what to look for. And if you can't find enough of that fake medicine, it's a real medicine. medicine store. Don't worry, we have whole stores dedicated to useless vitamins and mineral supplements that overly like one out every quarter million people who buys them actually has any fucking need for. And for years, whenever we stood up for reason, we were knocked back down not just by Christians and homeopaths and bigfoot hunters, but by polite society.

We were, after all, sucking all the fun out of lying to people about what does and doesn't treat cancer. But we persisted, despite being constantly told that the very concept of truth and knowledge wasn't something worth fighting for, that in fact it was something petty to fight for. We persisted. We built our organizations and we had our conferences and we started our YouTube channels and our podcasts and we were slowly vindicated

as the fringe conspiracy theories we were warning about slowly morphed into the fucking national policies. But upon seeing that all the shit we were warning about actually happened, did the people then turn to us with apologies in hand, ready to set aside their earlier misguided, a dismissal and take some fucking notes on the importance of reason? No, they just started ignoring us from a different direction. Instead of dismissing the issue because the outcomes we were worried about would never

come to pass, we were dismissed because those same outcomes did come to pass. Nowadays, it goes something like this. It goes like, how could you be focused on something like tax dollars going to religious schools and how unconvincing Ross doubt its apologetics book is when we've got a fascist army invading our cities? for it will wind 10 years and I'd get something along the lines of how can you guys be focused on that stuff?

It's not like it's going to lead to a fascist army invading our fucking cities. The problem at its heart is that we abandoned our commitment to real knowledge. The gatekeepers, yes, they had a lot to answer for. But as soon as we got rid of them, we started flooding the zone with bullshit and very few people seem to recognize

that losing truth itself was going to be a serious problem. But look, if you could sit one of Trump's idiot voters down and make them understand what's actually going on, spin-free, they would turn on him. Right? Nobody's actually in favor of what he's doing.

There are plenty of terrible racists that are fine with it in principle. But in terms of the moronic, inept, world war courting, murderous stupidity, nobody can simultaneously understand and support that. Right. I mean, there are some opportunist in his close orbit that are willing to abide it to get all the devious shit that they're after. But the overwhelming majority of his supporters are simply too divorced from reality to see the reality of it.

The very mechanisms by which we test reality have been so thoroughly undermined that there isn't even a common language for us to approach it with anymore. That's what skepticism has been fighting for this whole time. And the hole in the dam still needs to be repaired no matter how much water's already gotten through. The little fights still matter.

The daily grind that people like American atheists and the Freedom for Religion Foundation are doing still matters. And sure, it might be a general, generational task to rebuild our cultural trust in science and rationality, but that's all the more reason to dedicate ourselves now to every step. They're talking about your Jesus. They interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin.

Joining me for headlines tonight are the Elysium and Asphodel to buy Tartarus Heath Enright and Eli Bosnick. Fellas, are you ready to give it an underworld? I'm sorry, so bad. So fucking bad. I'm a deuce my best. That's at least as good as much. Maybe sticks with the character-based stuff.

Yours was Greek, it was Greek, but it was an underworld. In our lead story tonight, Trump's efforts to provoke a George Floyd-sized protest in Minneapolis to distract from the Epstein files are really hitting a wall. Over the last couple of months, he sent over 3,000 ice agents into the city. That would be one ice agent for every 142 residents. Robust. Cool. Good ratio. Yeah. Well, another way to look at it. The faculty. It would be five vice agents to every police officer.

Or how about one for every 26 estimated undocumented immigrants in the fucking state? Oh, it's like a seminar ratio. Like an expert tutorial. Yeah. And, you know, they've tried everything. They've tried dragging random American citizens into the freezing cold in their underwear for no fucking reason. They tried to gas in a car full of kids spraying chemical weapons. on peaceful protesters, even straight up murdering a lady on camera. Several cameras.

And while they've managed to provoke a fuckload of protests, they haven't managed to get the footage of fire and African Americans that they were hoping for, which is why they're now settling for being outraged that a few peaceful protesters went to a church to denounce its ICE agent pastor. Okay, to be fair to them, if they don't freak out when we use a loud voice in a quiet building,

we're going to start doing stuff to them that they deserve. Okay. I liked your idea with the Shepherds Pie. Me too. Me too. Yeah. I don't know if you guys like musicals. From the thing before it.

So yeah, so here's the whole protest. A couple dozen people enter this church and chant ICE out and justice for Renee Good for about 20 minutes. They explained to the parishioners that their pastor leads the local Ice Field Office and wrote a disgusting legal filing defending some of ICE's most despicable. tactics, and then they left of their own accord. They didn't have to be dragged out by the police or anything like that. They didn't flip over any money changers tables or anything like that.

They just chaded some variation of stop supporting state-sponsored terrorism for an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond without the commercials, and then they left. And so obviously, this is being investigated by the goddamn Department of Justice, and no lesser than the attorney general is personally vowing. revenge. Okay, well, guys, I just heard on CBS that everyone in the room got internal bleeding for that. They all had it. Some loud yelling. Okay. I feel like this pastor is just mad because lots of people at the church were just, you know, bored as fuck because they were a church and enjoyed the anything else that happened for like 20 minutes. And he could sort of tell. That was worth paying

attention to. Hirked up. Now, okay, so to be clear, these protesters probably broke some kind of law here, but not the one that Bondi is accusing them of breaking, which is a law against blocking the entrance to public buildings and was originally passed to keep her side from treating abortion clinic entryways like the line of fucking scrimmage. These people never blocked any entrances. And what they did do is something that conservatives do

to LGBTQ affirming churches all the fucking time without any involvement from federal law enforcement. But according to a person who should have been disbarred for her efforts to sue Trump into the presidency in 2020 and is therefore now the assistant deterrence. Attorney General Harmeet Dillon, the protesters, quote, desecrated a house of worship. What?

Adding, quote, a house of worship is not a public forum for your protest. It is a speech protected from exactly such acts by federal, criminal, and civil laws. And multi-exclamation mark tweet. Okay. Well, then everybody, welcome to podcast church, the church that is a podcast. I'm about to describe Hermit Dillon's house to you now. It's my religion. Get a paper and pen.

Right next to our other church, our lady of face punching that we established a while. So this whole thing, it tells you everything you need to know about Christianity. They claim to have a magical source of morality.

And they also have weird extra power in this country, and they haven't done shit to get rid of Donald Trump. Like maybe a few liberal churches here and there being part of the resistance, but most of these people voted for Trump thrice. And in terms of the protest, if people go into any building and protest ice right now,

and that building doesn't join in gleefully in the Christy Nomes a Cunt song, that's a bad building. We shouldn't have that building. Anything short of that and also telling Harmeet Dillon that protest was very much invited after the fact means your morality thing is a giant lie. Your liars. Sure the fuck does. So, yeah. So interrupting a church service is clearly beyond the pale, apparently, unless it's, of course, ice agents doing it to harass brown people, in which case it's the fucking government's policy.

And I just want to echo my friend Hemet met on this one because a lot of people are like already lining up to decry this tactic and chastised the group that organized it. And I appreciate that they're lining up. I had that in mind as well. Keep it neat. But so they're saying that this, you know, plays right into the hands of the persecution starved right wingers

who are going to use this to bolster the narrative that we're actually just coming for their Jesus. as their Christianity that we're really mad about. And that is true, right? Like Dylan is already going on right-wing podcasts and calling the protesters godless, even though at least one of them was a fucking ordained minister. But here's the thing.

There isn't a goddamn fucking thing we can do that will not be twisted into their persecution narrative anyway. They accuse us from coming for their Jesus when we drink coffee from plain red cups. You know, I'm all from making the complacent jackasses that would sit there and be told about morality by a fucking ice agent as,

as uncomfortable as we can make them. Yeah. And by the way, Minnesota angry guy is my fucking favorite. Best angry guy. I got work tomorrow. We all got fucking work tomorrow. What the fuck is this? He's awesome.

He's the best. He's the common man we need. And in lock stock and two smoking barrels news. That's Lock with any. Greg Locke. And it's about guns too. So nailed it with the barrels. Greg Locke is back in the headlines.

and he's having a really tough time. So his feet have been slowly rotting and falling off like a late season crab apple tree thanks to his 28 creams and 20 sugar packets from Duncan every day. And then he had to deal with a violent attack. It all started back in 2024 when someone fired gunshots into his house. Eli has an alibi. Yeah, I was recording. Of course, that gunshot incident, it was a reaction to his Christian right sermons when one of the many rabid leftists of Mount Joliet Tennessee in their Antifa chapter decided to send him a message.

Or, or he was lying the whole time. The gunshots were completely unrelated to Greg personally. He knew that the whole time and he still used the incident to stoke fear in his congregation. and, of course, raise a bunch of money. It's one of the other. It's one of those two things. I mean, I'm ready to place my bed, but no, spoilers. Okay, so sorry, given the volume of noise complaints,

he drums up in that town, I would give an honest 50-50 that any gunshot in that town is aimed at Greg Locke. So I'm going to withhold judgment. I'll wait to hear more. All right. Well, a big thanks to Hemet Meta for covering the story on the friendly atheist blog.

He did some great work with it. So the incident with the gunshots led to the arrest of a local 20-year-old named Tyler. Poole. And last week, Poole's criminal case got wrapped up, he got convicted, and we got some details about the case. For example, the assistant DA on the case, Tammy Mead, explained that the incident had absolutely nothing to do with Greg Locke's preaching. And because Greg is a lunatic, Mead also added, she had to add, law enforcement officers found no evidence that Poole ever intended to stop, Locke's preaching. No evidence. He cared about Locke's sermons, tweets,

or the controversial stands Locke took on Trump, the 2020 election, LGBTQ people, Jews, COVID-19, or other issues. But, okay, here's the thing. It did actually relate to Greg Locke, like technically. Tyler Poole was in a fight with somebody named Caden McGee. And that led to the gunshots. And Caden McGee is Greg Locke's stepson who lived at the house at the time. Okay, honestly, if someone named him.

Caden McGee was fucking my daughter. I'd also hope that people were trying to murder me. I'd wear that green stuff that bikers wear. I'd do laps around my front yard. I get it. So, Eli, when you hear stepson and immediately think that's the guy that fucks my daughter. Of course. That's because you've

been watching too much porn. Yeah, man. Nope, that's how it works. Caden's mom was fucking Greg. Google it. Whatever. Oh, he was fucking Caden's mom too. Yeah, you got it. Or close enough. Tyler, you're going to move past it. You dig it down.

Okay. So let's assume Caden kept his mouth shut and never mentioned anything about his connection to the shooter. And now let's stop doing that. Why would we do that? Why would we do that?

Exactly. And we got extra confirmation of that lie thanks to a news site called the Roy's report. And just for context, their tagline is reporting the truth, restoring the church.

So we're not talking about like a liberal, Rag here. They spoke with Locke's former head of security, John Guffey, who arrived at the house shortly after the gunshots. So not great at his job then, right? Not amazing.

According to Guffy, quote, this had nothing to do with Greg Locke or the church and it had everything to do with Greg's stepson. Greg knows it was Caden and it had to do with Caden, but he's also like, hey, we can use this to our advantage. We were standing out in the driveway and Greg's wife, Taisha, comes out of the house.

And she says, now that I think about it, I think it was a hit on Greg, end quote. Goffey also added that she said, we're going to let people believe it was an attack against Greg, exact words. We should do the crime of fraud right now. Fraud? The crime you say? I'm interested, Taisha McGee.

The real human being named Tisha McGee. So, okay, so I feel like he's leaving. out the part where she strongly suggested shooting him in the shoulder or the leg for barisimilitude. That's fair, yeah. Babe, you gotta stop suggesting that. This one makes more sense than normal.

You gotta stop. So, Hemet went back and looked at Greg's sermons following the gunshots and found that Greg technically, technically never said this was an attempted murder of me for being a Christian. But all the wording in those sermons was clearly meant to lead people on and let them believe it was an attack on him.

So Hemet emailed Greg for a response to the latest news. And because Greg's an idiot, he wrote back, here's what Greg chose to say instead of nothing. This is one of those, what I should have said was nothing. What I did say was, quote, The Ross Report is the Jaris Springer of internet reporting. It was my family and our home, so it had everything to do with me. I've never claimed.

It was over my preaching. I said and still say When you're making the devil angry, he fights you. Kids could have died. So the Y means absolutely nothing to me. Caden! Cated McGee. No.

It only means something to critics and liars. You were fucking my daughter. Looking for 15 minutes of fame. People use tragedy to fabricate a narrative that makes them seem credible. Do they? The Lord will reward them according to their words. end quote.

So, yes, yes, you did lie about it? Yep. Greg, that was you that did the fabricating thing, Greg. That was what I said. That's why I haven't emailed you. Yep. And in pointy-haired Boscal's Wager News. Jesus Christ, dude.

So stretchy. For those of you who don't have a weird job that means you actively follow the lives of bigots and assholes, you might be unaware that Scott Adams was dying. For that matter, you're probably also unaware that the Dilbert guy dedicated the end of his life to being a bigot.

Oh, okay. It's the Dilbert guy. Yeah, he did. And now he's dead. But more importantly, for Christians, right before he died, he became a Christian. Kind of. So we're going to talk about it. Okay, just going to predict it. Now,

he was lying, and even if he was telling the truth, it makes religion look dumber. Yeah. I'm thinking that's what's going to Right, yeah. And just in case you're squeamish about making fun of dead people even when they're assholes, I should point out that he tried to treat his prostate cancer with Ivermectin. So I feel like he had it coming. I feel like...

That's not even what the liars say. I know. That's not even the right lie. Just raw dogging your own bullshit. Right. So first off, big thanks to everyone who sent us this story to Scathing News at gmail.com, but especially to Sarah, who sent us her very first piece of atheist news to scathing news at gmail.com under the title

Deadbert. I don't know. I don't do puns. Don't worry, Sarah. Me neither. And they still keep me around for some reason. Scatling news is gmail.com. Oh, love me some self-deprecating confidence. It defines my generation, Sarah. Exactly. Right. So for those of you unaware,

yes, Scott Adams did spend his life as an atheist, but it appears that how many gods there are and the tiresome nature of memos are the only things Adams managed to be write about. But here's the thing. When you dedicate the latter half of your career to being a bigot, your audience very quickly becomes largely composed of hardcore Christians. A coincidence,

I'm sure. And so pretty much the second Adams announced he was dying of prostate cancer that he refused to treat with proper medicine, his audience started bugging him to convert. Okay. So I'm sure some of those people actually believe they might save this guy from a lake of fire. But first of all, that's bad. That means your thing is bad and stupid. Also, imagine you hear someone you know is dying and you bother them with like a chore to do with a reading list. Yeah, right. You're terrible.

Exactly. So just before he died, apparently Adams begrudgingly, painfully accepted Jesus, mumble, mumble, proving once again that there is no fate I would sentence a right-wing grift or two that they don't eventually. impose on themselves. Sorry, you mumble, mumbled. Was there like an obvious lie in there? Was there a lie? So here's what Adams had to say during his coffee with Scott Adams' live stream a couple

weeks ago, quote, So you're going to hear for the first time today that it is my plan to convert. So I still have time, but my understanding is you're never too late. And on top of that, any skepticism I have about reality would certainly be instantly answered if I wake up at heaven. I do believe that the dominant Christian theory is that I would wake up in heaven if I have a good life. I don't necessarily have to, you know, state something in advance. Not at all the dominant theory, dude.

That's not having a good life isn't even encouraged. No, Jesus is super clear about it. It's a schism about good life being good. Yeah. He continues, and so to my Christian friends, yes, it's coming. So you don't need to talk me into it. I am now convinced that the risk reward is completely smart. If it turns out that there's nothing there, I've lost nothing, but I've respected your

wishes and I like doing that. If it turns out there is something there and the Christian model is the closest to it, I win. So with your permission, I promise you that I will convert. But I probably won't spend much time in that phase. So don't expect it to happen today. Okay. But our argument made, argument accepted. end of real conversion.

Oh, my God, you people are obnoxious. I'm really hoping for inbox zero before I die. Maybe fucking stop. Maybe stop. Okay, so the Christians are imagining God. Greetings Scott at the pearly gates going like, you got one over on us this time, you atheists. You like meaning God was playing beat that with Heath?

Yeah, exactly. I think I could win. But don't worry, we actually got the conversion itself as well. and if anything, it's even more resentful. In Adam's final letter, posted to Twitter, he wrote, quote, next, many of my Christian friends have asked me to find Jesus before I go. I'm not a believer, but I have to admit the risk-reward calculation for doing so looks attractive. He's using the same script.

So here I go. I accept Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, and I look forward to spending an attorney with him. The part about me not being a believer should be quickly resolved if I wake up in heaven. I won't need any more convincing than that, and I hope that. I'm still qualified for entry. Real quote of his death notes. Adding quote, your move, Jesus.

Now, you might be thinking that Adams Heath playing board gamesian conversion would cause Christians to be a little less enthusiastic in their victory dance. And you would be incorrect. Sorry, just writing up a conversion tweet draft that Anne can send, like,

whenever. Pretty much can't lose. I'm all said. Okay, can't lose. Full eyes, full heart. Both the National Catholic Register and focus on the family's daily citizen ran articles to the effect of Touchdown Christianity. So, gurg your loins for Uncle Frank

to whip out this one at Thanksgiving. Yeah, yeah. So we here at the scathing atheists, we've always been curious about, you know, how the results of Pascal's wager turn out. So for the very first time, we are pleased to kick things over to our very own hellbound correspondent,

Carl the Pug of Pegacorn. Carl, take it away. Thanks, Noah. Reporting to you live from Muslim Hell, where I'm joined by the recently departed, Scott Adam. Scott, thanks so much for taking the time. Anything for a reprieve for my eternal suffering, Carl. So, Della, Scott, how are you finding Muslim hell?

Well, it's very unpleasant, Carl. Way more hot soup than I thought there would be. Of course, of course. Now, were you aware that Islam was the world's second most popular religion And before you accepted Pascal's wager for Christianity? Yeah, no, I was. I was, but I thought, no way God is muslin, right? I mean, muzzler.

I know. Surprising. Anyway, I see you joined by one of your personal torture demons. Hi, uh, Ralphsore. Ralphsor. Excellent. Nice to meet you. Tell us, do you do anything special when you get a guy like Scott down here?

Anything, anything special? Not really, just kind of the usual. Though I do occasionally say, like, And this hot soup could have been an email, right? Really great. That's great stuff. We junk around. Anyway, Scott, any advice for our atheist listeners considering taking Pascal's wager as a sort of safety net?

Yeah. All religions make conflicting afterlife claims. And even if they didn't, an all-knowing God would know that you were just cheating and it wouldn't count. Indeed he would, Scott. Indeed he would. All right. I'll let you get back to your soup and we'll kick things back over to Noah, Heath. And love.

Next up in headlines in phase three profit news, we have a story about underwear, the CIA, time travel, the Mandela effect, the multiverse theory, the X-Men, Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens. Oh, there it is. Who the fuck is Candace Owens? Great question. She's a liar who makes a bunch of money doing conservative hot takes and insane conspiracy theories on her podcast. She's also part of the ridiculous. feud between the talking heads of the Republican Party right now that's been tearing them apart

in the wake of Charlie Kirk's death. The GOP is faced with a tricky question. Should they embrace neo-Nazis like Nick Fuentes or should they embrace neo-Nazis like Nick Fuentes, but not really say it out loud so much. And they just can't decide. Neither can't Candice. But here's what she is confident about. Charlie Kirk got murdered by the CIA with the help of the Macron family and Mossad. She is very confident. According to her latest version of the theory, Charlie Kirk was an ex-man with time-traveling powers. He was so fucking good at time traveling that he messed up the CIA's future seeing machine that they have. So he just, you know, had to get whacked. Hey, whatever friend of Candice's from college, keeps texting her.

I bet you can't say something even crazier this week. Please stop. Okay, you proved your point. Okay, it says a lot when we get this deep into a game of, is it mental illness or just modern day republicanism without a clear leader emerging, you know? It's never easy to tell. All right.

Also, by the way, that same group of spies is trying to murder Candace. She's quite confident. Obviously, yeah. She's not an Xavier Academy alum, but. But, you know, her too. She's also very important. So here's what we learned, and I put that in quotes from Candace last week.

The time-traveling espionage plot starts with Fruit of the Loom underwear. So take out the yarn and push pins if you want to try to follow along. No, I get it. The fucking cornucopia was fucking there. Okay. Yes, we're going to get to that.

And yes, it was. Yes, the fuck it was. So she's going to work her way around to the Mandela effect, in which people remember stuff wrong. That's it. That's the effect. You know, like there's this false memory with a lot of people that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 90s.

He did not. And instead of just like admitting they have bad memories sometimes, people claim there's a parallel universe and a glitch in the space time continuum. That's their explanation. Candace is one of those people. And she came in hot at the top of her show, saying, quote, I'd like to begin today's episode with a little bit of feedback

for the deep state, the deep globalized state. Shalom, Candace. All you guys had to do was keep the cornucopia in the logo. We may have even let you rule over us forever. It was all well and good until you guys tried to convince us that Fruit of the Loom never had a cornucopia, right?

There was one. We all know that. If you're watching this and you don't know that, I want nothing to do with you. You're in the wrong timeline. we are not in the same timeline, end quote. I agree with you there, C, Dodd. We are. Same.

I at least really want to agree with you. So just to review, we have Fruit of the Loom underwear and their cornucopia logo, but that was fucking up the plans for the deep state. So they erased the cornucopia and tried to gaslight the entire world in order to do something globalist, I guess. But thanks to brave journalists of the multiverse, like Anders Owens, the Deep State got caught and their nefarious underwear rebranding actually revealed an even deeper conspiracy. That would be Project Looking Glass, an operation by the CIA. It's not an operation by the CIA. It's an operation by the CIA in which they built a machine that could

see the multiverse timeline into the future using Ames. ancient Sumerian technology. Oh, it's those mirrors the Etruscans made. Etruscan civilization arose over a millennium after the Sumerians died out. You sound ridiculous. Idiot. Sounds silly. And here's the thing.

If you could see the future, you can change the future. So the CIA was doing that. But then in 2012, all the timelines converged. And the CIA couldn't see anything past that. So big problem. Yeah. It turns out that in every possible timeline, Barack Obama wins the second term. I know it's crazy.

That's just... Right. So the CIA had this really sweet machine, but now it doesn't work. Then they realized it might all be related to their academy for super intelligent kids with magical powers. They probably cultivated a kid that was so smart and powerful that it was fucking up the Sumerian future machine. So they went through their fine. and realized it had to be Charlie Kirk. It just had to be.

Oh, that's why his head was so much bigger than his face, guys. He was so smart. Yeah. To fit all the superintelligence. Smartness in there. Yeah. And that all tracks with the evidence that Candace collected. Here's her explanation, along with a moment of getting distracted

from her time-traveling friend who got murdered, and focusing on the concept of cats for a minute. Quote, It's an absolute fact that Charlie Kirk thought he was a time traveler. He told me he was a time traveler repeatedly. I showed you guys the text message exchange. I said to him in response that I didn't feel the same way and that I thought I was from another planet that I was an alien my entire life.

I just don't get it here. I think that's also why I like cats so much. I feel like they can relate to that. They don't want to be around us. They don't like us. Hey, Candice, do you have any other direct quotes from the DSM-5 personality index for psychosis? Do you like to announce on your show? Also, Candice, I hate to be the one to tell it to you, but you're just a terrible cat mom.

My cats want, they love me. They want to be around me. They come running to the door when I walk in it. You just suck so much that even your own cats hate you. Cats are like, this is a lot of, you know, bullshit in your business is a bad way to make money. You seem diagnostically perfect for Sucas. I'm going to step back. Well, as you all probably guessed, this all connects back to gifted and talented programs in school.

Huh. I'm listening. Charlie Kirk. As an alum. Charlie Kirk, because of his genius and maybe Eli also, like me, was in one of those programs as a kid. And that means the CIA was watching him and Eli. Oh, man. I feel bad for the CIA.

who had to watch me teach myself to juggle, which is what I did in gifted class. Well, apparently the entire gifted and talented thing was a front for a secret kid spying operation that let the CIA keep tabs on all those wicked smart kids with the powers. According to Candice, quote, Charlie may have been marked since he was a child. We've discussed these gifted and talented education programs

that they have in school. They decided they could send him to this X-Men school. that's the best way I can describe it. And he's been monitored since. His test scores, whatever the scores, every test they probably did on him, he was off the charts. And he wanted to make sure. Every test?

They wanted to make sure. Blood tests and shit. That he was being watched. Silly, Candace, the point of the gifted and talented program is so that you can blame your failures on burnout. All right. Obviously, while being ostracized by the rest of the school. Exactly.

And then you get into podcasting like Candace. And just in case you're still a little skeptical. I was in the kitchen. How dare you? Just in case you're still skeptical, Candice reminds us that when Charlie Kirk went jogging, the street lights would just go out. And sometimes they would explode from all the lightning bolts

of his time traveling genius power. No, that's just photons figure. And they owe us one, Candice. You don't want to look at that. Okay, so let's review. Here's the final pushpin. The CIA turned Charlie Kirk into an X-Man. He disrupted the sacred timeline and their Sumerian machine.

They lost control of him when he considered less support for BB Netanyahu, and they killed him. Also, beware, gifted, and talented programs. And also, there was two a cornucopia. There was. Yes, there was. There was. There was. And finally tonight, in school ties to theocracy news,

Brendan Fraser movie, Benham-Frasier movie, Benham being Jewish. That's very good. An attempt to fund Oklahoma's first government-funded Jewish charter school and finalized Theocracy as our national pastime came as a surprise to

all the Jews in Oklahoma this week. I bet. So we're going to talk about it. Hey, y'all didn't realize there were like others here. That's cool. So who's got the best brisket? Let's talk. Let's talk to David.

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. You are honorarily Jewish. Nice. Not the best couple of years to win this prize, Logan. But if you'd like to control the media, you can do so at scathing news at gmail.com. And you can play with one space laser for a little bit.

Oh, nice. Nice. Be smart, Logan. and used to get a lion on the savannah to play chase with you. Right. So for those of you wondering why someone planned such a lovely surprise gift of government money for Oklahoma's Jews, I'll remind you that this is all really about St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which was ruled unconstitutional by the Oklahoma Supreme Court and left unresolved in May of last year

after a four-four split at the U.S. Supreme Court. Since then, bigots have been desperately trying to offer the court. better test cases in the hopes of enshrining definitional theocracy into our country. And this time, they thought, hey, why not make it kosher? Okay, wait, does that mean that we get to suck all the blood out of Ryan Walters with salt crystals? Because, like, Theocratic Schools is a price I might be willing to pay for that. Interesting, interesting. Offer made, Ryan Walters.

Your move. We're going to circle back to that. I love that. Table it. So the school in question is National Ben Gamblea. Jewish charter school founded by former U.S. Representative Peter Deutsch, who, like so many Jews, moved to Florida and then immediately became a level of conservative that the Bible Belt could only pray for. In a joint statement released this week, senior figures from Tulsa Synagogues,

Jewish Day School, and community organizations said, quote, we are deeply concerned. I get to do the voice. You get to do the voice. We are deeply concerned that an external Jewish organization would pursue such initiative in Oklahoma without first engaging in meaningful consultation with the established Oklahoma Jewish community to bypass community consultation in favor of an externally driven initiative is a serious error." Which, for the record, can I just say, sounds a lot less like we don't want to violate the Constitution than I would like it to.

Yeah, it was more like, hey, hey, lots of guys in fucking ghost costumes still around Oklahoma be cool. That's the best case scenario. To me, it reads like, if you want to work here, you've got to come to the meetings and we want food. We want a nice spread at the meeting

and then we'll defy the Constitution. Now, of course, this wouldn't be a proper scathing atheist headline without some crazy, obvious lying. By the Christians. If you want lying by me, you got to go over to citation data. You can go a lot of places.

That's true. That's fair. So these Jewish groups point out that nobody ever talked to them. really gifted and talented. Oh, God damn. If my gifted and talented teacher hadn't killed herself, I would have such a proof, such a proof.

Anyways, these Jewish groups, they point out that nobody ever talked to them about this. And this is where Deutsche's lawyer had to say, quote, contrary to claims of no engagement, thank you. Contrary to claims of no engagement, Peter Deutsch consulted with local rabbis and parents during exploratory visits in 2023. Far from bypassing the community, Peter's proposal builds on those consultations to expand faith-based choices for families,

and we urge the board to assess it on its merits, end quote. But according to forward.com, where I read this story, when asked who specifically Deutsch consulted with and whether there has been any consultation since then, Deutsche's lawyer did not provide details. Instead, a firm spokesman accused local Jewish institutions of trying to block competition. fucking globalists.

Yeah. So just to be clear, they got asked about not consulting with the local Jewish community, and they responded with an anti-Semitic remark, basically. Now, that being said, I do enjoy when religions run up against the insane impasse of like, no, we're the real magic. No, we are the real magic. We're the real one. I love that they were like, you know, well, actually, some of our best friends are Jewish.

And then they couldn't name any of those best friends. Like, you got to love it when somebody gets called out on that one. Goldberg. Shit. Got me. So, yeah, looks like the Christians are giving this another world with Jews this time. And I'm guessing, like, all the other experiments Christians have done with Jews, it is not going to go well for us.

And might end up involving some war crimes. Yeah. He was technically an atheist. And with that reminder that might end up involving some war crimes is kind of just the vibe of 2026. We're going to wrap up the headlines. Eli, Heap, thanks as always. And when we come back, we'll address the smell. When I Googled why it is that we associate bullshit with lies more than, say, ape shit or chicken shit,

I couldn't find an immediate answer, though Google's AI did helpfully explain to me that the word is a contraction of the words bull and shit. Oh, no way. So, yeah, so AI might be coming for our jobs eventually, but it looks like for now we're going to still have to rely on Heath to answer important questions like, how bullshit is it? So tell us, Heath, what patty upholter do you have for us today? Today we're going to be talking about lie detector tests. Ooh, awesome. I beat one of those once.

Twice actually. Did you? Really? Twice? Yeah, no. I literally just pretended I wasn't lying. And that worked. Okay.

Yeah, you can get past it if you're willing to lie. That does track. Yeah. That's what we're going to learn. All right. So where does this story start? Well, as you could tell from the religious nature of ancient hominid cave art, we invented lying pretty early on. So it stands to reason that people have long had the goal of sussing out

which statements are true and which are lies. And given how obvious it is when some people are lying, it didn't seem like a huge stretch of the imagination to assume there were certain universal tells that could give a person away. All right. So what was the earliest attempt at a lie detector test then? The earliest version I can find comes from ancient India, where people suspected of lying were made to chew on grains of rice and then spit them out. If the grains were dry, the person was lying. Okay, that strikes me as inaccurate. Sure was. It's sure it was.

The idea, though, was that people who are lying produce less saliva. There was a similar practice in Arabia called Bissah, where they'd press a hot spoon to a suspect's tongue. The idea being that a tongue producing a truthful amount of saliva wouldn't blister. Oh, yeah. Well, I bet you find a lot of liars that way. And there's a lot of people who talk like this. Yeah, that too. Really? It's called bizarre. So not necessarily.

See, the whole concept of trial by ordeal was often just a way to get a confession. If you convince somebody that your lie detector works and that it's going to be extremely painful to go through the process, they're likely to just confess to their crime. In medieval Europe, the church has often had elaborate tricks to make it look like something was super hot or on fire or whatever. And if you make people go through this publicly, which they always did, it serves the double purpose of reinforcing people's belief that you're actually wielding magic. How else, but through God's intervention, could that lady hold a red hot chalice or stick her hand

in a boiling pot without getting hurt? Okay. But it seems like people might start to catch on to the fact that everybody turns out to be innocent on these things, right? Well, yeah. Sometimes they would just use real boiling water. and they were pretty sure somebody was full of shit. Oh.

And, of course, a lot of the guilty people would get as far as looking at the hot thing that they were supposed to like deep throat and just confess on the spot. Okay. So when does science get involved? We get the first hints of that in the late 1800s when a guy named George Sticker thought of measuring the skin's conductivity to determine if a person is being truthful. Okay. So does that work?

It does not. Okay. But it looks pretty high tech. And soon after that, another guy called Chisare Lombroso came up with a glove that would measure variations in blood flow as you interrogated suspect. So does that work? Also, no. But then a guy named Vittorio Benussi came up with a device that could measure variations in a person's breathing. And does that work?

Still, no. Still no. But then still another guy called William Moulton-Marsin. He thought, sure. none of these methods work, but if you combine together enough methods that don't work, surely you'll get one that does work. Wait, why does that name ring a bell? Yeah, he's the guy who created Wonder Woman.

I'm sorry, what? Yeah, the guy who created a superhero known for having a lasso that makes people tell the truth. He was the self-styled father of the polygraph. That can't possibly be true. I am not lying. But like for real, I'm not lying. And even less likely, the father of the polygraph was Polly. Oh, come on.

Polly, into bondage, invents ways for liars to get away with it. This is my guy and the guy, folks. Yeah. No, it's real. He lived with his wife and their life partner. And the major breakthrough that led to the invention of the polygraph was entirely his wife's idea. But he took all the credit and became the chief advocate for the device's use in criminal

investigations and courts. He even published a book about it in 1938 called The Lie Detector Test. Yeah, sounds like a real page turner. Believe it or not, it was very popular. The idea that science could detect lies sounded way less fantastical than a lot of the real stuff that science was learning or creating at the time. Sure. And the idea that we could overcome the problem of deception has obvious appeal.

Like, imagine if this was real and you could just have a portable lie detector test. Okay, I don't want no illusions to imagine that. So I take you that Marston's device was well received after the book then? Yeah, he became at least enough of a celebrity that he starred in a 1938 commercial for Gillette Razors, where he claimed that he'd used a polygraph to show that people who said other razors were better were lying. Hey, William, could they just be wrong? No, Nyes. Kill them all. Kill them. Pretty extreme.

very distinguished of the scientists. So, okay, so I know these things don't actually work, but what's the theory? How would, like, Marsden tell me they work? So the polygraph measures a number of different physical... measures a bunch of different physical properties. Like heart rate, respiration, the galvanic skin response, modern ones might measure voice stress, all the things that might act as an invisible tell that a person is lying. Okay, but do people have universally applicable invisible tells that they're lying?

No, they do not. Okay. And even polygraph defenders will admit that. So what they do is they start off by asking you a bunch of questions they already know the answers to, and they'll ask you to lie for some of those. Then they watch how all your stats jump and jostle when they know you're lying and look for patterns over the course of the interrogation. Ah, subjective pattern recognition. Cornerstone of all good observational science.

I got you. Yeah. Or as we call it, hope you don't have to pee hacking. Yeah. That's a pretty good nerd joke. Okay. So, of course, all they're really measuring is how nervous a person is. Some people get more nervous when they're lying, but some people don't. Some people just get nervous when you ask them about crimes.

Others get nervous when they think a machine might give a false positive that's going to make the police think they're a killer. And some people just lie so often that their body doesn't register anything in a measurable way. I can walk through wall. Ow. Okay. Noah, Keith Linen said I could walk through walls and I hurt myself. All right, so not a particularly high rate of accuracy then? I'm going to keep trying.

Okay. You'll hear polygraph advocates claim they're 80 to 90 percent accurate. But those people only say that because they know you can't actually check to see if they're lying. When the National Research Council looked into it, they found out that, quote, no evidence of effectiveness exists, end quote. The American Psychological Association also looked into it and concluded that, quote, most psychologists agree there is little evidence that polygraph tests can accurately detect lies. The Supreme Court, back when it was a bit more focused on true stuff,

found the same when they examined it in 1998. Wow. Well, I guess it's a good thing we figured all of that out before we started relying on it for important stuff like national security, huh? Well, the CIA started using polygraphs to screen potential in current employees in 1953. and continues doing that right now, despite the fact that infamous CIA Moles, Aldrich Ames, and Larry Wu Tai Chin, repeatedly passed polygraphs

while spying for Russia and China, respectively. Okay, let me just say, side note, Larry Wu Tai Chin is the greatest double bluff in spy history. Because you know, there was a day where someone walked into the director's office and was like, hey, I think Larry Wu Tai Chin is a spy, for China and they were like, come on, Alan. And he was like, no, I'm saying.

I know it's, I know it, it's not, it's a perfect crime. It's a different, he's, he wants you to say. All right. That I'm saying. So, so much like this line of jokes, I feel like this line of polygraphy is a terrible idea, right? Yeah.

Well, it gets worse. Oh, touch. Not Eli's thing. So in, in 1983. It did, though. Well, yeah, there was. There it was. In 1983, a CIA employee named Edward Lee Howard was going through his routine polygraph,

and, less to get flagged for dishonesty, he admitted to a few minor infractions in the past, like petty theft and drug use. The CIA then fired him for, like, stealing paper clips from the supply closet. And he got so pissed off about the injustice that he sold all his knowledge of CIA operations to the Soviet Union at that point. Amazing. Okay, so, but if it could be shown not to work, why would we? still use it? Oh, because we're stupid. We're stupid people. Here's the exact words from former

director of central intelligence, Richard Helms. Quote, we discovered there were some Eastern Europeans who could defeat the polygraph at any time. Americans are not very good at it, because we are raised to tell the truth. And when we lie, it's easy to tell we're lying. But we found a lot of Europeans and Asiatics can handle that polygraph without a blip. And you know they're lying and you have evidence they're lying. End quote. So there you have it. The very truth, justice and American wayness that's baked into our DNA makes some work against us specifically.

Weird. So weird that it would be that way. All right. So let's suppose that one of us finds themselves at the center of like a criminal investigation. We all know who you're talking. Yeah, one of us. It doesn't matter which one of us. but what should we say

if we're asked to take a polygraph? Okay, I'm not exactly qualified to answer that, but my instinct is to counteroffer instead of a polygraph like a Ouija board or a magic eight ball. Oh, there you go. Now, that being said, if you do find yourself in a position

where you have to take one, you might want to follow Aldrich Ames' advice. When he asked his KGB contacts how to handle the test, they told him to get a good night's sleep, stay calm and be as personable as possible. According to Ames, quote, there's no special magic.

Confidence is what does it. Confidence and a friendly relationship with the examiner, rapport, where you smile and make him think that you like him, end quote. Is that really all there is to it? That's what he said. Another method listed on Wikipedia involves trying to control your breathing

when you're lying and trying to be as nervous as possible when answering the control questions. normal truth. Thing of something that scares you could be enough to mess with the control. Okay. All right. So I think that most people are aware that polygraph results can't be used in courts and that cops

can't force you to take them. But where are polygraphs used? Well, first of all, I should point out that the overwhelming majority of the world's polygraph testing takes place in the U.S. Other countries use them too, but according to Wikipedia, about 80% of all polygraph tests are administered

here. And with the exception of football, nothing, I mean, Americans enjoy that much more than the rest of the world is a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So where are they used in America? Well, we've already talked about police departments, many of which, by the way,

have a full-time polygraphist on the payroll. We're paying for that. But these things are also used by employers. Pretty much any job that requires a high level of security clearance is going to come with one. And many will come with periodic polygraphs. Don't let me borrow a couple of your piss to put in the light of time. All right, so we continue to use them despite the fact that they don't work.

Not bad for everything. Well, they often work to the same degree that the fake boiling water or the red hot spoon worked. People who believe the test is going to root out their dishonesty often confess to whatever it was they were being accused of. But the price for that is a lot of false positives and a lot of existential threat level false negatives. Sure. All right. So what about future tech?

Like, is there anything on the horizon that looks like it could do the job? Well, okay, you never want to say this is a problem. Science just cannot ever solve because science is always way smarter than you. There's a ton of money being poured into lie detection. So maybe someday we'll come up with something. Some researchers think fMRI could be the key. And others think reaction time testing shows promise. But from everything I can find, the very concept that we all have measurable responses

to our own dishonesty is a flawed concept. People all lie differently, and they don't all lie differently than they tell the truth. So without some major scientific breakthrough, it's hard to see how we'd get something reliable for polygraphs in the future. All right. Well, I guess the only question left to ask is, How bullshit is it? I guess it would be ask Eli what clone Eli would say.

Hey. There you go. Which one was that? He can walk through. wall. All right. Well, with no way of knowing if Heath is telling the truth about that or not, I guess we have no choice but to wrap things up there.

But if there's one thing that 2025 taught us is that there's always more bullshit to come. Before we wrap things up tonight, I want to remind you to go ahead and make your Valentine's Day reservations now. You're still three weeks out. You can probably get something nice. Anyway, that's all the blast movie we've got for you tonight. We'll be back in 10,000, 22 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be a look up for a brand new episode of our D&D,

actual play podcast, D&D Minus, debuting at 7 Eastern tomorrow. A new episode of our Citrus Show, The Skeptychette, debuting at 7 Eastern on Monday, and an even newer episode of our Citadel's Hot Friend God Offen Movies, debuting at 7am Eastern on Tuesday. And somehow even newer episode of our half-sor-sacel's citation needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously, I need to thank Heath Enright for never rubbing in how much better he is at

puns than me. I need to thank Eli Bosnick for always making me feel a little bit better about how bad at puns I actually am. And I need to thank the lovely and talented, Lucin Delusions, who wanted to be here, but she got COVID because some of her redneck ass family of taking being careless about spreading COVID as a fucking cultural requirement. I also want to thank Glenn for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. And yeah, I appreciate it,

but we're going to need a lot more national apologies for Musk before all is forgiven. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best people, but I can't do it by name just yet. We're going to have to wait until next week for that because I'm still busy taking care of my wife today. But the upshot is that I'll have had a whole extra week to think about how best to compliment your junk. So it's going to be that much better. And if you'd like your junk to be compliment it alongside theirs. You can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash Scalingadethus, whereby you own early 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 scalingadad.com. And if you'd like to help, but not in a me having your hard-earned money at the end of it kind of way, you can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review, telling us on social media. And speaking of social media, Tim Robertson handles that for us, and our audio engineer is Morgan Clark, who also grew old the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments or death threats, you find on the contact email on the contact page at scalingadias.com. I switched it up. I said Eli Heath. I don't know why I put that now. I know. It's like you've been promoted, Eli. The curse has been activated.

Yeah. This content is scanned credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm to their hotline at 617-249-4-255 or on their website at creator accountability network.org. This podcast is a production of Puzzle and a Thundersstorm LLC and was created without the use of generative AI. Its contents may not be used for AI training. Copyright 2026. All rights reserved.