Episode 116 – The One Where Wyoming Otter Know Better

In this week’s show, episode 116, using their fabulous shoes with surgical precision, the gays finally clean up all that nasty legal paperwork from the otters of usual size.

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In This Week’s Show Using their fabulous shoes with surgical precision, the gays finally clean up all that nasty legal paperwork from the otters of usual size.
Now, grab a beer and help us test the god hypothesis — because, while Houyi (the Chinese god of archery) hasn’t struck us down yet, we are trying his patience!
Shea’s Life Lesson
You shouldn’t say to a woman in a pink knitted hats eraser head!
Jenn’s Actual Lesson
Did you know followers of Rastafarianism worship a Father and Savior duo like Christianity?
In this case, God is Jah, who became incarnate in Jesus (who was black); Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I was the messiah.
Jim “Good” Gay News
Jim HB2s all over you!
But before we get to all that, let’s have a beer!

This Week’s Beer

Ichabod - New Holland Brewing Donated by RW

This Week’s Show

Round Table Discussion
Patrons!
Holy crap did you all come through, we have THREE people to thank! Not only is this the 3rd straight episode with new patrons but it’s a hat trick of patrons! Really you’re all the best, especially:
  • Shane from Calgary loves Shea
  • Grant
  • Beth - Newest Beer Club Member!
Thank you for helping us eat in North Carolina! We’re given to understand that the local delicacies of road braised possum and gravy covered fried lard don’t come cheap - especially if you want a Mountain Dew… which we’re given to understand not ordering is tantamount to shitting on someone’s lawn…
iTunes Reviews 
Fuzzy Feelings
By: Cobbyh
Every time I listen to these wonderful people spout awesomeness from their food holes I am happy and have fuzzy feelings. You have improved my knowledge of beer, cattle, and other important things. Everytime I quote your podcast in public, I get slapped. I should really stop quoting Shea and start quoting Jenn. Anyways, you are the most best wonderfullest thing on the internet (I am practicing for Donald Dump speak) and I am proud to say that you are still the only podcast that I have given money to. Because you are the more betterest podcast, you could shoot a person on 5th ave and…. Thank you so much for taking the tiime to produce such wonderful content for my ear holes. This is truly an awesomely skeptical muscle flexing podcast. More graterest, better bestest! 
More iTunes reviews!
By: EricSinTX (United States)
Thank you for the laughs and brightening my day! I look forward to every episode!

Headlines

Degreased Souls’R’U
A New Pastor Feeds His Members With Vehicle Engine Cleaning Fluid - http://bit.ly/2j9WqG9
  • The Daveyton pastor, generally called Prophet Theo Bongani Maseko of the Breath of Christ Ministries, reportedly asked his congregants to drink a vehicle engine cleaning fluid to be saved and healed.
  • In an interview with news reporters last week, Maseko confirmed he had made his congregants drink the chemical in order to “demonstrate the power of God”
“When we pray over anything, its poison dies. So it can’t harm people. Nothing happened, no one has been to hospital,” he said as he further noted that those members who took the vehicle engine cleaning fluid had been “saved, healed and delivered”. He backed up his claims by citing Bible verses.  “Jesus spat on the ground and made mud. He took that mud and smeared it on the eyes of a blind man and, instantly, that blindness was healed. Mark 16 v 17-18 says ‘in My name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover’,” he quoted.
Jesus Took The Scantron
Cheating Principal Who Attributed Kids’ High Test Scores to Prayer Receives Harsh Punishment - http://bit.ly/2j9SWU3
  • Back in 2014, in Mississippi’s Clarksdale Municipal School District, teachers noticed that their students, whose standardized test scores were through the roof, weren’t performing like superstars in the classroom.
“The irregularities are very clear,” said Oakhurst teacher Alberto Aquino. “I am not saying there is cheating going on (at Heidelberg). I am saying that the scores are not matching up, and every teacher in this school knows it. Every teacher in this district knows it.”
  • Heidelberg Principal Lowanda Tyler-Jones denies any cheating occurred on the Mississippi Curriculum Test, called the MCT2
  • One former Heidelberg student told The Clarion-Ledger her English teacher, Frances Smith, had read the answers aloud to the class during testing last year.
  • “She would say, ‘C for cat. D for dog. B for ball. A for apple,’” the now sixth-grade Oakhurst student said, describing how Smith provided students the correct multiple-choice response to each question.
  • In December of 2015, that principal, Lowanda Tyler-Jones, was charged in connection with the cheating scandal.
  • [Tyler-Jones] told a state education official that a dramatic increase in test scores was due to prayer.
“She indicated to me during an interview that she anointed the desks, the pencils, the doorways and also the students’ heads with holy water,” said [Drane].
Breaking My Foot Off In Your AIDs
‘Aids-curing’ pastor claims he removed woman’s ‘vaginal warts’ with the power of his holy shoe - http://bit.ly/2ja56fJ
  • Bizarre footage shows Zendile Andries November passing his footwear to a woman in his congregation at Victorious Faith Ministries
  • But this South African pastor stepped things up a notch - by purporting to have cured a woman’s ‘vaginal warts’ with his shoe.
  • Bizarre footage shows Zendile Andries November asking a woman in his congregation about the ‘pimples’.
  • The Victorious Faith Ministries pastor - who also claims he can cure Aids with the power of prayer - then removes his shoe and hands to the woman, who places it between her thighs.
  • She then dramatically drops to the floor with the churchman’s footwear lodged between her legs.
  • After a visit to the bathroom, another woman announces that her friend’s condition has been miraculously cured - to cheers from the congregation at the Bloemfontein church.
“The woman came to me about pimples on her vagina. This made it impossible for her to sleep with her husband.  “Because the problem was on her private part I decided to use the shoe. I believe in miracles and God uses anything to heal.”
He claimed:
”I also cured a lot of people of HIV/Aids‚ immediately after praying for them I ask them to go to the nearest clinic and test. Most of them come back negative‚ and those that are positive I encourage them to have faith and continue to pray for them.  “I specialize in deliverance for those who are demon possessed‚ spiritual husbands and diseases.”

This Week’s Stories

Patreon’s Gross Story
Sorry, this is a rough one. But we found a few laughs… ~ A 
In case it wasn’t clear why we need quality, available and open women’s health… this happened…
Fake Abortion Doc Removed young Patients Intestines - http://bit.ly/2ja2sGK
  • Police have arrested an unlicensed doctor who disappeared after removing a teenager girl’s small intestines during a botched abortion.
  • The unnamed female physician posed as a professional but promised budget procedures which were all carried out in her own home in the city of Shenzhen, in South China’s Guangdong Province.
  • After being given “abortion medication”, the physician extracted the patient’s fetus with her forceps, but also accidentally pulled out her small intestines, which were then cut, leaving the woman in serious pain afterward.
  • After the procedure, the woman’s husband took her to the hospital where doctors told her she had had her small intestines removed, and that she would need a transplant.
  • Shenzhen City policeman Huang Jianwei, who helped arrest the suspect this week in Dazhou City, in south-western China’s Sichuan Province, said: “The suspect admitted to us that she had no medical qualifications. She had attended nursing school in the past, but didn’t graduate. All her knowledge was learned at a local clinic near her home.
“During the abortion [last year] in the suspect’s home, the patient was given medication and then the fetus and placenta were removed with a forceps. It is then that we believe her small intestines were also removed.”
Jenn Otter Known Better
Wolf-sized otters made for the cutest nightmares in China several million years ago.
The otter family has been noted in the fossil record for at least the last 18 millions years, but little is known because the record itself is poor. There have only been a few prehistoric species identified, mainly from small bits of bone that limit the information.
From Gizmodo:
“The recent discovery of a complete skull and mandible, along with the partial skeletons of three individuals, is offering an unprecedented glimpse into the evolution of these animals. The remains were discovered by American paleontologists who were working at the Shuitangba Site in northeastern Yunnan Province in southwest China, in what used to be an ancient lakebed.”
American scientist Dr. Denise Su, curator and head of paleobotany and paleoecology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History was co-author to the research that describes this new species.
From phys.org:
“The new species, Siamogale melilutra lived 6.24 million years ago in in the Yunnan Province in China. It weighed approximately 110 lbs and was roughly the size of a modern wolf. …What is unique about the new discovery is that researchers recovered a complete cranium, mandible, dentition and various skeletal elements—offering a wealth of insight into the taxonomy, evolutionary history and functional morphology of this new species.”
Interestingly, the jaws actually show features that are both common in otters AND badgers, which belong to the same family Mustelidae. This new species’ name of melilutra, combines the Latin names for badger (meles) and otter (lutra). So did we find a common ancestor?

#Don’tShitOnJim

Instant Update!
There are now (Thursday, January 26, 2017. 7:00 PM) reports coming in that the bill is dead! This is fantastic news indeed but if you were motivated to write someone because of it don’t worry, there’s plenty to do … read below…
Second Update…
Wyoming is introducing HB244, a super shitty bathroom bill… But that’s the last joke you’ll get on that topic because this is some extra transphobic billshit: Find out how you can help fight this bullshit bill at http://bit.ly/2j9Wwxj
Please write Wyoming’s Reps and Senators and - being super extra nice - tell them how fucked up this is and why it’s a terrible social, economic, and bigoted lump of frog turds!
Jim’s original post
If you want to share or comment (nicely!) find OC at http://bit.ly/2jWYcax
You may have heard about a bill introduced in the Wyoming Legislature, HB 135. They’re calling it the Government Nondiscrimination Act, and they’re saying that it’s about protecting the free exercise of religion. Even George Takei is talking about us here in the Equality State!
Make no mistake; I unequivocally support the First Amendment and the free exercise of religion. But that’s not what HB 135 is really about. The only thing it protects is the right to discriminate against GLBTQ people. This bill MUST be stopped. It would allow any individual, business, group/organization, or government entity to turn me away. Or my husband. Or our daughter. It would allow a doctor or a teacher to refuse us service, just because I don’t comply with THEIR religious beliefs.
It would have allowed the county clerks to deny us a marriage license, just like in Kentucky. It would have allowed the University to deny me insurance for my husband and daughter. It would have allowed the judge to refuse to hear our adoption petition. And HB 135 explicitly says there would be nothing we could do about it. That government officials don’t have to do their jobs if someone disagrees with their religion. That DMV clerks and public defenders can put their personal beliefs before the law.
I cannot underscore the many ways in which this will hurt me and my family. It will put my daughter, Nessa, at risk because her dads will not have the same legal rights as everyone else. In a very real and instantaneous manner, it would put every single GLBTQ person in Wyoming at risk for losing their jobs and housing, and make it legal to deny access to every service available. Food stamps, WIC, and Medicaid too.
But it also sets an incredibly dangerous precedent. Allowing businesses to decide what kinds of people they can discriminate against is a slippery slope we don’t want to go down. Who will be next? Will it become okay to refuse to serve people of color or people of a different faith? Our founding documents state that the government shall establish no religion, but HB 135 would do just that. If this is really about protecting the free exercise of religion, why does it focus on a single belief of SOME religions? Religious freedom is firmly enshrined in our existing laws, and that’s not going away anytime soon. If someone tries to take it away, I will be there fighting that discriminatory legislation too. So why is HB 135 needed now?
So what can you do? Wyoming residents need to speak up and get involved. Use your voice! Contact your state legislators; tell them that you’re opposed, and why. People don’t call their elected officials as often as you think, so each call represents dozens or even hundreds of voters. Tell them to vote no! Tell them that discrimination is simply bad for business. Tell them that North Carolina already did this, and they’ve lost over $600,000 in revenue because people recognized it as discrimination. Tourism is one of our primary industries in Wyoming, and we shouldn’t risk lost revenue at a time when our state budget is already in turmoil. If we want to compete, Wyoming must demonstrate a commitment to creating an open, healthy, and diverse workforce.
Tell them that HB 135 takes away local control from cities and counties to govern themselves, as it would invalidate actual non-discrimination ordinances and prevent other cities from enacting them. Tell them that they’re sending a message that their GLBTQ neighbors and constituents are “less than,” and might lead to an increase in the suicide rate. Tell them that it would violate Article I, Section 3 of the Wyoming Constitution, which guarantees “Equal political rights.” Tell them that ignoring marriages recognized by other states would violate the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Please don’t just leave this to GLTBT folks; it’s pretty obvious that our leaders don’t think very highly of us, our rights, or our opinions. Write letters to the editor. If you’re straight and cisgender, your voice can speak even louder than mine, because you don’t have anything to gain or lose. If you can say “this law wouldn’t apply to me, but I still think it’s hateful and wrong,” tell people. Tell your friends and neighbors about HB 135, and encourage them to speak up too. It’s going to take people from both sides of the political aisle, and people of all walks of life to do what’s right. I’ve seen Wyoming Republicans join Democrats to prevent hate-filled, anti-GLBTQ bills in the past, and I know we can do it again now.
Talk about your values. If you’re a person of faith and think this is wrong, say so! Tell them everyone deserves to be treated fairly and equally under the laws of our state and in our community. Tell them we don’t turn our backs on family in Wyoming, and that no member of anyone’s family should have to face shame because of who they are or who they love. That our government should be looking out for ALL Wyoming residents, not just people who oppose same-sex marriage. Tell them that allowing GLBTQ people to live and work in Wyoming without fear of discrimination will not change how each religion defines what’s right or wrong. Remind them that opposing HB 135 will not change any religious beliefs or practices.
A friend of mine in California asked how they could help from afar. It’s true that calls or letters from outside the state might not mean as much to legislators, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have an impact. Maybe if they heard how HB 135 is being viewed by others around the country, it might serve as a wakeup call. Maybe it will help if they learn how many trips to Yellowstone or Cheyenne Frontier Days might be canceled in response. Do you have friends or relatives here in Wyoming? Tell them to get involved!
Also, don’t assume this can’t happen in your state. This is not the first time such a bill has been proposed, and more like it are going to be introduced in other states. It’s just as important for you to reach out to your friends, neighbors, and leaders to prevent it from spreading to your communities. We need to raise awareness. To educate people about the reality of discrimination. To change hearts and minds, in some cases. Your voice has power, and it matters.
Share your personal stories; it’s easier to ignore the discriminatory impact on “those people” than on someone you know and care about. Be vocal, but be polite. Name calling and yelling are easy to ignore, but it’s harder to discount calm, rational arguments that are respectful and well-reasoned. It’s important that we model civil dialogue and treat everyone with respect. I refuse to sink to their level, and I hope you will too. At the end of the day, this is about equality and respect. That’s why I hope that you respect me and my family enough to take action. To stand up for me the way I’ve been standing up for others for so many years now. To help ensure I have access to equality, and that my daughter will be protected. Even if we’re not part of “the right church.” It’s only fair…

Next Week’s Beer

Chasin’ Freshies 2016 - Centennial - Deschutes
Donated by RW

Faith In Humanity Restored

Supermarket Introduces “Relaxed Lane” for Special Needs Customers - http://bit.ly/2j9RnoS
  • One of the Tesco supermarket branches in Scotland has just launched a “relaxed lane” for vulnerable customers who would prefer to take their time at the till.
  • The store, located in Forres, Moray, hopes that the lane will make grocery shopping easier for guests with dementia, autism, Alzheimer’s, learning disabilities, or just a mother with several kids under her arm.
  • The project, developed with the assistance of Alzheimer Scotland, will hopefully encourage shoppers to comfortably move at their own pace without feeling rushed.
  • Though it is currently only a trial program, the lane – open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays – has already received an outpouring of approval and support.
“It was highlighted to me that people living with dementia can feel under pressure when they reach the checkout, and it struck me that this could be true for others as well,” the store’s Kerry Speed told BBC. “Early feedback from customers has been very positive. Although it’s a simple gesture, we hope this will make a difference.”

Bonus Cat Video

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