In This Week’s Show, episode 195, we hook our used honey-condoms up to Shea’s wireless nipples and electro-shock his racing allergies away.

Now, grab a beer and help us test the god hypothesis — because, while Typhoid-Jenn hasn’t struck us down yet, we are trying her immune system!

Shea’s Life Lesson

This week I learned that you can distinguish an alligator and a crocodile by paying attention to weather the animal sees you later or in a while.

Nebraska Brendon’s Actual Lesson

Being professionally bendie will help you cum on command, just engage your mulabandha, because nothing helps you get laid like a lil’ extra mula.

But before we get to all that, let’s have a beer!

This Week’s Beer

Aprikat | Alley Kat Brewing Company Alberta, CA

Dod Snow

BA Link: http://bit.ly/2LFLihn

BA Rating: 3.34/5

Style: Fruit / Vegetable Beer

ABV: 4.5%

Aaron: 8

NB: 7

Shea: 8

Steve: 8

This Week’s Show

Round Table Discussion

Still the Best

July 23, 2018 by David the Oxford

Thanks for still being my favorite podcast. Beer and laughs. A combo that can’t be beat. So if you like both you have found the perfect podcast

No new patrons, get on it!

It was Shea’s birthday so don’t forget to give us an iTunes review and let him know he’s your spirit animal!

We’ve got Nebraska Brendon on the show because Jenn is dying. Please send facebook likes to help out with that one. Because sharing us on the socials will lift all of our spirits… and Jenn’s white-cell count.

Hotshots

Aaron

A California Church Plans to Open Its Own Brewery, Serving Beer During Services

http://bit.ly/2n5MbC7

From listener Marce – Yes. That is a Greater Purpose…

The Greater Purpose Community Church — where everyone knows your name and they’re always glad you came — was looking for a temporary building (not sure why) but they took up in a food lounge that had beer taps already installed. “There’s nothing in the bible that says you can’t drink alcohol in a responsible manner,” [Pastor Chris] VanHall said, and with that, beer during sermons was ok’ed, and I gotta say, if I have to go, a pint sure would help the medicine go down…

Best of all the new churches beer profits will be donated somewhere in the 30-60% range depending on costs to local charities run outside the church. Which is pretty cool all things considered.

Aaron

CDC Reminds America To Stop Reusing Condoms – http://bit.ly/2LPYbX9

Via Ask Men the CDC would like to remind penny-pinching guys out there that of all the things to save a buck on, condoms are not it! Simply put, condoms are single use and trying to reuse them makes you dumb and gross. Unless you’re a marooned on Lian Yu and your only access to contraception is the Texas-sized mass of plastic trash floating in the ocean… and frankly, even then… condoms are meant to be tossed after the first — and only — use! Seriously, of all the things the CDC has to worry about these days, from vaccine preventable outbreaks to the looming threat atomically-mutated super spiders, reminding people not to try to reuse a love-glove is an embarrassing testament to our society. If you’re really having a hard time wrapping your sausage visit cdc.gov, your local Planned Parenthood (while locations last), condomfinder.org, or a WyoAIDS social event, at which condoms are distributed freely and often with lollipops!

Aaron

Fort Collins woman donates amputated leg to search and rescue: ‘Take my leg, I’m done with it. – http://bit.ly/2LLQt08

In simi-local news, Fort Collins Co.’s rescue dogs are getting a leg up on the competition. Literally. A literal human leg.

After having a leg amputated in June of 2017, Tracy DH had the usual symptoms, phantom pain in her “toes”, difficulty walking, urges to give bits of herself away… Ok, maybe I made those last two up. Having broken her Talus, which has shit for blood supply, the majority of her lower leg eventually needed to be removed. Instead of going the easy route and having a hospital remove and discard the leg, she caught up with a K9 specialist online and opted to have the leg removed and donated to local search and rescue for dog training.

Aaron

That’s now how networks work…

A Palo Alto couple was awakened in the middle of the night by a masked intruder looking to score some sweet, sweet free wifi. Apparently too busy to just go to a fucking McDonald’s he broke into his near-neighbor’s house to rob them of their wifi password. He didn’t get it. What he did get was pushed out of the house by it’s 60 year old occupant who immediately called the police. On his way out the door he did manage to actually burgle something – the homeowner’s bike, which he tried to get away on. Also bikes don’t outrun cars so the 17-year-old minor will be going to jail where, I’m pretty sure, there is not free wifi.

Aaron

Let’s have a good snicker…

No, not because Steve is hangry and Godzillaing all over the studio. Because we’re adults and we can laugh at adult things, just like just like actual elected officials who actually laughed in the middle of actual proceedings because of the actual names of actual places. So Ghana’s parliament has been review… whatever, it doesn’t matter, something about not having power, anyway, as part of the process they were listing off places, and among the places where:

Etwe nim Nyansa – Vagina is wise

Kote ye Aboa – Penis is fool

Shua ye Morbor – T7b esticle are sad

Which makes ya wonder, who the hell settled these villages and why did they name the locations after themselves?

Aaron

It’s time for Shea to race cars!

In the “Blind Man Car Rally” each team of driver and navigator is given a ‘braille’ map and a set of directions to drive … at high speeds. The rules are simple and kinda weird. If you arrive at a checkpoint late you lose points… of course. Apparently misunderstanding how races work, arriving early also loses you points. The venue is the Blind People’s Association India. So, yeah. Apparently you won’t be driving blind, but the blind will definitely be leading the race…

Aaron

Well, that’s one way to Dexter things up…

So there’s a German serial killer. He’s murdered six people. Five female hitchhikers on purpose, and one serial killer by accident. Egidius Schiffer, 62, was getting freaky-deaky in his cell in Bochum Prison in North Rhine-Westphalia. It seems that he removed the power cord from his bedside lamp and, from spokesperson Candida Tunkel, he wound the cables around his niples and penis, then plugged it in.

He immediately died of heart and cock failure… ok, heart failure anyway. It seems that part of his kink was a bit sado, and being locked up gave him the jollies… which he tried to jump start, but in the end… of his dick… jump-killed himself. Good riddance.

This Week’s Stories

A Quizy Second Half

We’re going to take an online quiz together for fun and probably not profit…

http://bit.ly/2LODYBe

Patreon Content

Honey Don’ts

Honey For Allergies?

http://bit.ly/2LTt0tr

http://bit.ly/2LQeWl2

So this weekend was the Yeti’s birthday and while enjoying some schnitzel – as he is want to do – the topic of allergies came up. As some of you can probably hear I’ve been less affected this summer but still carry a slightly nasally tone. One could be forgiven for recommending any number of possible solutions to seasonal allergies. After all, most people want to help… or at least not hear about it… or actually it. And so, most of the table agreed that eating local honey was a good way to expose oneself to local pollens and thereby slowly reduce its effects on your body. Basically, it’s immunotherapy, the same idea behind allergy shots.

Two things:

I want all the fucking points for reading all these articles despite every-fucking-one’s apparent need to include images of bees, and, It’s also bullshit.

“It’s a big misconception that insect-borne pollen from flowers has something to do with allergies,” allergist Neeta Ogden, MD says. “It doesn’t.”

First and foremost are the simple but overlooked issues with honey-based treatments like “is the honey actually local?” and even if so, “does it have pollen from plants that I’m allergic to?” In both cases the answer is almost certainly “no.”

For the local bit. One can of course find a local apiarist for honey, which is a good idea both for preserving bee populations and supporting local business, but a bee can travel miles in search of pollen. Easily leaving the local flower beds you’re allergic to behind. Add to that the fact that the hives probably aren’t in your back yard and you’re likely to get honey from an entirely different – if local by car – area.

To the specific allergen concerns, again, you’re unlikely to find helpful pollen in honey as most outdoor allergies come from weeds, trees, and grasses, whereas bees do most of their shopping in pretty flowers.

But hey, let’s not take my word for it…

In a University of Connecticut Health Center did a study published in 2002 in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (a group who, apparently, are allergic to Oxford commas). The study followed 36 people (not 64 as reported elsewhere, or “dozens” as usually stated, paper link in show notes) in 3 randomized groups receiving a tbsp of daily local honey, generic commercial honey, or the control group which got honey flavored corn syrup.

From the study itself: Neither honey group experienced relief from their symptoms in excess of that seen in the placebo group.

And, I would like to take a moment to say that this is not evidence of the placebo effect as none of the participants saw a decrease in allergy symptoms.

Dr. Stanley Fineman, president-elect of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, said he has seen a growing number of patients ask about local honey. “Seasonal are usually triggered by windborne pollens, not by pollens spread by insects,” he said. So it’s unlikely that honey “collected from plants that do not cause allergy symptoms would provide any therapeutic benefit.”

So, in a nutshell the pollen that bees go after is of a different variety and indeed physically larger (so as to stick to bug legs) than the pollen that invades your sinuses and causes allergies so eating it won’t help. That said, there are plenty of studies supporting the idea that subjecting oneself to small amounts of grass – if ones allergies are grass based – can have mild benefits but should be done only under direction of a doctor because as misstep in dosage can cause everything from an annoyingly runny nose to death. “Your immune system is exquisitely sensitive, so a low dose of something you’re allergic to may be enough to cause a problem, but not enough to desensitize,” says Andrew Murphy, who is also a member of the board of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.

As a side note, the studies that support this grass-only conclusion all specifically tested some form of once-daily grass allergen tablet against cases of seasonal allergic rhinoconjunctivitis.

In 2013, a study published in Annals of Saudi Medicine, another peer-reviewed journal, concluded that “honey ingestion at a high dose” improved the symptoms of hay fever in 40 patients at 1 gram per kilogram of body weight per day; which is ~3 – 4 tbps for the average host. Which is a pretty official sounding result. That said it didn’t take long, indeed less than a year, for that study to be ripped to shreds in a grad paper from Pacific University, link in the show notes. To summarize, the study was sadly small and we don’t know how many of the 40 participants actually finished the study, not double blinded, and generally kind of shit. Women were disproportionately in the placebo group (11 of 13). It should be noted that there are several problems identified in the 2002 study as well, though they aren’t as completely ridiculous.

http://bit.ly/2M09LhQ

So, despite what reputable sources like bee-pollen-buzz.com, wikiHow, and Goop say, there’s no evidence that honey helps with allergies. In fact, there’s evidence that it wouldn’t, even on paper. Further, because most sites recommend raw honey, there is ample evidence to suggest that ingesting large amounts of raw honey could be bad for you. Sugar aside raw honey has no shortage of bee-parts, mold spores, and bacteria any one of which could trigger all manner of terrible in your body.

So it’s probably best to stick with over-the-counter antihistamines like Claritin or Allegra. Or more moderate solutions like intranasal corticosteroids like Nasonex. Because histamines aren’t necessarily pollen, so antihistamines makes a bit more sense than pollen originating bee barf.

While we’re on the subject, let’s tackle a few general allergy myths.

Everyone has allergies. False, it’s about 20% of the population.

You can develop or ‘find’ allergies as an adult that didn’t affect you as a kid.

Moving will help. False, ragweed in New England is the same as ragweed in Texas for example. Sorry, but unless you’re moving to antarctica, you’re probably going to encounter grass…

Take allergy medication only when feeling terrible. False. This is generally good advise for any prescribed medication: don’t stop taking it if you ‘feel’ like you don’t need it. Allergies are an inflammatory response, so when you feel well you aren’t having it, but a preventative measure like Nasonex won’t work after the fact.

Allergy shots are like vaccines and therefore dangerous. False. They’re not. Not even close. Also vaccines are safe. wtf.

Next Week’s Beer

Oval Beach Blonde Ale | Saugatuck Brewing Company, Michigan

Steve E.

BA Link:

BA Rating: 3.43/5

Style: American Blonde Ale

ABV: 5.0%

Faith In Humanity Restored

If Mom and Dad Won’t Attend Your Gay Wedding, This Woman Will Take Their Place – http://bit.ly/2n9bseK

Sara Cunningham, an Oklahoma mother and ordained minister, has offered to be a “Stand-in” mom if your judgy, homophobic parents won’t be at your rainbowlific wedding.

“I thought, If my son is going to hell for being gay I’m gonna fight for him like my hair is on fire,” she said. “Since then I’ve gotten educated and no longer believe that — so now I’ve [been] fighting for him and the LGBTQ community like my hair is on fire because I’ve seen the power of what fear and ignorance can do.”

Sharing a post on her facebook page, mid “Free Mom Hugs 2018 tour” Sara posted “PSA. If you need a mom to attend your same sex wedding because your biological mom won’t. Call me. I’m there. I’ll be your biggest fan. I’ll even bring the bubbles.” The post has since gone viral and has inspired other Mom’s the nation (perhaps world) over to do the same — including a few local-ish to Wrathful Studios in Colorado.

Shocked by the popularity of her post Sara said “People need hope — I sure do — and we need to be that for each other in any way, shape, or form. Hope never disappoints.”

So here’s to Sara, the minister who met people, overcame her preconceived notions, began officiating same-sex weddings, and is now leading the push to give people hugs and familial support – regardless of your relations!

Here here!

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