Episode 153 – The One Where We Offer Advice You Shouldn’t Take!

Now, grab a beer and help us test the god hypothesis — because, while **Kalfu**, the Haitian god of curses, bad luck and misfortune, hasn’t struck us down yet, we are trying his patience!

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Standard Chapters
  • 0:00:30 - Intro
  • 0:03:17 - This Week's Beer - Moutain Livin' Pale Ale
  • 0:10:31 - Round Table
  • 0:15:21 - HL1 - The Cake Is a Lie
  • 0:20:17 - HL2 - Russiant Green Is People
  • 0:26:29 - HL3 - Smells Like Basic Booze
  • 0:32:10 - TGIF... The 13th!
  • 0:49:39 - Next Week's Beer - Feisty Blonde Honey Vanilla Blonde
  • 0:50:59 - Faith In Humanity Restored
  • 0:53:42 - Outro - Thanks 4 Listening!
  • 0:54:28 - Outtakes
In This Week’s Show Episode 153, we’re battening down the hatches, boarding up the windows, and hiding under our beds because it’s Friday the 13th! Now, grab a beer and help us test the god hypothesis — because, while Kalfu, the Haitian god of curses, bad luck and misfortune, hasn’t struck us down yet, we are trying his patience! Shea’s Life Lesson
This week I learned that if you suspect a gas leak at home, locate it by striking a match in each room until a loud explosion reveals the source of the escaping gas. Jenn’s Actual Lesson
Did you know that the fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia? According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, fear of Friday the 13th affects between 17 and 21 million Americans. But before we get to all that, let’s have a beer! Also, really, don’t look that one up!

This Week’s Beer

Mountain Livin’ Pale Ale - Crazy Mountain Brewing Company Thanks RW
  • BA Link: http://bit.ly/2yeBfsa
  • BA Rating: 24.5%
  • Untappd: 3.36 / 5
  • ABV: 5.7%
  • Style: American Pale Ale
  • Aaron: 2
  • Jenn: 5
  • Shea: 4
  • Steve: 7

This Week’s Show

Round Table Discussion Patreon New Patron, Jason (Moorhens). Perfect timing for Friday the 13th. iTunes My 2 favorite things Atheism and Beer!
By: CaptainFresh2008
These guys have managed to bring together beer and atheism in a single podcast without going over the top in either subject. I’m getting tired of the "ranting" Atheist podcasts and these guys have the right balance - well done!Captain Fresh (Melbourne, Oz)
Socials
Thanks again for continuing to ‘like’ our FB page! Now it’s time to switch to the reviewing if you’ve done the FBing. Show Biz
Jenn is mad at Steve’s plagiarism ;) Don’t forget that as the Holiday season, from spooky to jolly, approaches we’ve got an Amazon affiliate link! Click that link to get to Amazon and everyone’s favorite big box site will give us a small commission for sending you. You won’t pay an extra penny, but we’ll get a few bucks! Everyone wins!

Headlines

HL1 - The Cake Is a Lie - http://bit.ly/2yfhFMA Finally, we can sleep in peace knowing we’re not living in the Matrix!
  • Scientists have discovered that it’s impossible to model the physics of our universe on even the biggest computer. -- What that means is that we’re probably not living in a computer simulation.
  • Theoretical physicists Zohar Ringel and Dmitry Kovrizhin (Two very smart dudes who we have the utmost respect for! But don’t lie, you chuckled ;) ) from the University of Oxford and the Hebrew University in Israel applied Monte Carlo simulations (computations used to generate probabilities) to quantum objects moving through various dimensions and found that classical systems cannot create the mathematics necessary to describe quantum systems. They showed this by proving that classical physics can’t erase the sign problem, a particular quirk of quantum Monte Carlo simulations of gravitational anomalies (like warped spacetime, except in this case the researchers used an analogue from condensed matter physics).
HL2 - Russiant Green Is People http://wapo.st/2yeSklT
  • Investigators believe that a Russian couple knocked their victims out with sedatives, then skinned them alive. Afterward, police say, they ate parts of their victims, froze the remains or packed them in jars filled with saline solution.
  • At times, the couple tried to turn soldiers at the military academy where they worked into unwitting cannibals, slipping “canned human meat” into their food.
  • City police have arrested the couple — Natalia Baksheeva and her husband, 35-year-old Dmitry Baksheev — who authorities say may be responsible for the deaths or disappearances of as many as 30 people in the city of 750,000 in the southwestern tip of Russia, about five hours from Sochi. So far, Baksheev has been charged with one count of murder, and the investigation is ongoing. -- If all the killings are confirmed, the couple would rank among the country's worst serial killers.
  • The investigation started Sept. 11, according to the Moscow Times, when crews repairing a road found a discarded cellphone. It still worked, so they swiped through the photos.
  • What they found made them dash to a police station. On the phone were “photos of a man with different parts of a dismembered human body in his mouth,”
HL3 - Smells Like Basic Booze - http://bit.ly/2y7nrAy
  • A Baltimore high school was evacuated and five people were taken to a hospital on Thursday in a hazmat scare that turned out to be a pumpkin spice air freshener.
  • The Cristo Rey Jesuit High School wrote on its website that a “strange odor” was detected on the third floor at 2:30 p.m.
  • “It was a smell that they certainly weren’t used to,” Bill Heiser, the school’s president, told the Baltimore Sun. “It appeared to be getting stronger.”
  • The school was evacuated, with emergency medical teams treating some people on the scene as the Baltimore City Fire Department’s hazmat unit investigated the odor.
  • “Five members of our community were transported to area hospitals as a precautionary measure,” the school said.
  • The odor was traced to a plug-in aerosol air freshener with a pumpkin spice scent.
  • “It’s better safe than sorry,” Baltimore fire spokesman Roman Clark told the newspaper.

This Week’s Stories

Jenn’s Story Since it’s October, already full of creepy fun, and an air date of Friday the 13th, I thought I’d tell you all a bit about the date that brought us everyone’s favorite hockey-mask accessorized horror icon. The exact origin of why Friday the 13th is considered the unluckiest day on the Gregorian calendar and Western superstition is not agreed upon. Its earliest origins seem to date back to the Middle Ages, when a superstition arose around the number of people present at the last supper and Jesus’ crucifixion said to have fallen on a Friday. Another popular theory suggests that the day has been associated with misfortune since 1307 when on a Friday the 13th, the French king gave the orders to arrest hundreds of Knights Templar. However, this is dubious history at best, and seems to be more of a Dan Brown-type ‘fact’. More...ah, reputable sources peg the start of the fear sometime in the later 19th or early 20th century. In fact, some historians believe that is all started with a mystery novel. In 1907 when Thomas Lawson published the novel, ‘Friday the 13th.’ Unfortunately, it’s setting is not an idyllic summer camp, because Jason in a turn of the century period piece would be amazing! Anyway, if you’re curious, it’s about a stockbroker who uses the fear of the titular date to create a financial panic. A few fun facts about the day:
  • In 1995 Finland has selected one Friday the 13th out of the year to be a National Day of Safety & Accident Awareness.
  • Alfred Hitchcock was born on Friday the 13th 1899.
  • In the script, Jason Voorhees was originally named ‘Josh’.
  • The famous 1972 Chilean plane crash that resulted in survivors being forced to eat other before 16 were rescued happened on Friday the 13th.
  • Tupac Shakur died on this day in 1996, 6 days after being shot multiple times in a drive-by.
  • In 1976, New Yorker Daz Baxter was apparently so afraid of Friday the 13th he decided the safest place to stay was his bed. Mr Baxter was killed when the floor of his apartment block collapsed that day.
  • In 1993 a British Medical Journal study claimed there was a “significant” increase in incidences on a Friday the 13, but the author of the study later confessed it was “a bit of fun” as traditional in the Christmas edition. (So fucking around in peer-reviewed journals has been around for awhile now.)
  • It’s estimated the world loses between $700 million and $800 million every Friday the 13th because of people's refusal to travel (mainly flying), purchase major items or conduct business.
  • March 1964: The “Good Friday” earthquake wasn’t actually so good. It remains the largest earthquake in North American history, killing 131 people near Prince William Sound.
  • And finally, I can’t have a list like this without a true crime tidbit! One of NYC’s most brutal and notorious murders took place on Friday, March 13, 1964. It became the textbook example of ‘the bystander effect’ when 28 yr old Kitty Genovese was attacked multiple times, sexually assaulted and murdered by Winston Moseley. This all took place outside of her apartment building with multiple (something close to 30) witnesses. The attacks (3 in total) spanned at least 30 minutes and resulted in at least 14 stab wounds before she finally died in a stairwell. The attacker was scared off twice by lights and shouts from neighbors, but no one came to aid Kitty so Moseley returned each time. Several residents said they “didn’t want to get involved”, and a scathing NY Times article caused outrage across the country. On a somewhat more positive note, recent investigations have shown the apathy of the neighbors was not nearly as pervasive as believed.
Patreon Story It’s too early for these damn costumes! A man dressed as a shark has been fined under new anti-burqa laws in Austria. The shark was advertising the opening of a new electronics store called McShark. The mascot was standing outside a new outlet of the McShark electronics store in Vienna when he was asked by police to remove his shark head. When he refused, he was issued with a fine, which can be up to €150 ($176). The new laws aimed at prohibiting people from covering their faces in public came into effect at the start of October. The rule came as part of legislation approved in May that also establishes mandatory integration courses and prompts asylum-seekers to do unpaid public work. "Today we were at the McShark store opening and our shark mascot received a fine from the Vienna police because of the new ban on face-coverings! Life is not easy!" "It would be a shame if there were no more mascots from now on," The laws were written in such a way to be religiously-neutral, but that has led to widespread confusion in the German-speaking nation. Vienna daily Der Standard reported that in one case a cyclist was stopped by police for covering her face with a scarf. … it also applies to soldiers on duty … so here’s to hope the new gas masks don’t need to cover any of that face… area… These People Suck! - http://bit.ly/2yhUmzU On February 6, Abigail Piland was born without any obvious problems. But when the midwife who helped deliver her checked back the next day, Abigail didn’t look healthy. Abigail appeared jaundiced, and the midwife advised [mother] Rachel Piland to take the child to a pediatrician or an emergency room, [Police Detective Peter] Scaccia said. “She told Piland the baby could suffer brain damage or die if not properly cared for. “Rachel declined to seek any medical treatment for Abigail, stating God makes no mistakes,” Scaccia said. “She indicated to the midwife that the baby was fine.” Days later, Abigail was dead. A medical examiner later attributed it to “unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia and kernicterus,” both jaundice-related problems that are treatable. Abigail never saw a doctor when blood was coming out of her mouth, she wasn’t eating, or her skin became further discolored. All because her parents put more trust in God than someone who could actually help. Rachel and her husband Joshua have now been charged with involuntary manslaughter. Both could spend the next 15 years in jail if convicted. And both deserve it. They let their child die because religious pride was more important to them than common sense. The only way these avoidable tragedies will stop is if the parents are handed the maximum sentence. Religious conviction should never be a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Next Week's Beer
Episode 154, airing Oct 20th! Feisty Blonde Honey Vanilla Blonde - HopFusion Ale Works
Thanks, Elizabet

Faith In Humanity Restored

10-Year-Old Violinist Raises Money for Hurricane-Affected Pets at Austin City Limits Festival http://bit.ly/2yfkH3p I did a quick Google but didn’t turn anything up... If anyone knows’s where one can donate to him online let the show know and we’ll share it!
  • Austin, Texas. As tens of thousands of people geared up for this year’s Austin City Limits festival, one kid, in particular, was more nervous than anyone else. Ten-year-old Jackson was due to play his favorite violin all weekend. But not just because he dreams of becoming a musical maestro. Oh no.
  • “I really love pets,” Jackson says, “and I really love animals, and I want to help them out. Now they don’t have their families anymore,” he went on. “And they need new families.”
  • Other kids were raised at the festival too. Like the pupils of Austin High School. The school rented out their parking lot for $40 space. A neat idea that bolstered the school’s music department nicely.
  • Renee has volunteered at the fundraising event every year that her son has attended the school. The money that is raised usually goes towards things like buying instruments, taking on consultants and paying for travel expenses.
  • “I think every year we raise between $9,000-$10,000,” she continued. “All of that goes straight to the band. Several organizations get to participate. So today is the band fundraiser, last night was theater and next Saturday will be for the football team.”

Bonus Cat Video