Penn & Teller: Bull! 2x2

1. I'm Pam.

2. This is my partner, teller.

3. Today we're talking about safety.

4. We're Americans.

5. Give us liberty or give us death.

6. We are not afraid of anything.

7. Well, not that, except for bacteria.

8. Mad cows, terrorists, electromagnetic fields, terrorists, toilet seats,

9. TV brain cancer, terrorists, DDT,

10. sex people with guns and terrorists.

11. Oh. Bullshit.

12. Ha ha ha ha!

13. Hey, guys.

14. Do you.

15. Americans are obsessed with safety.

16. That's why we spend billions every year on products that claim to make us safer.

17. Antibacterial soaps and cleansers.

18. SPF 50 sunscreen. Car alarms.

19. Burglar alarms. Fences. Gates.

20. Cement barriers.

21. Mace. Tear gas. Stun guns.

22. Tasers. Pepper spray.

23. Handguns. Shotguns.

24. Automatic weapons. Gas masks.

25. Christ, we go on forever.

26. And why do we buy all this crap?

27. Because nobody wants to get sick, beaten up, robbed, mugged, stabbed or shot.

28. The truth is, in 2004, crime, disease

29. and all types of violence are down.

30. Not up.

31. And you're a lot safer and healthier today than you would have been 50 years ago.

32. Violent crime is the lowest it has been since 1973,

33. and property crime is down 50% in the last ten years.

34. But that's not the message we're getting.

35. My number one fear is

36. an attack on a nuclear power plant.

37. Biological or a chemical attack?

38. A dirty bomb,

39. crop duster.

40. Some kind of lethal agent?

41. Anthrax.

42. A combination of tacks all at the same time.

43. This is Paul West.

44. He's a clockmaker,

45. and he listens to what his government and his media are telling him.

46. So naturally, he's terrified.

47. I've had a tremendous amount of anxiety ever since nine over 11.

48. I have lost a considerable amount of sleep.

49. Paul feels the danger is close and he's doing something about it.

50. I'm trying to guarantee myself protection from,

51. radioactive or biological or chemical.

52. Attack.

53. Paul is wrapped his entire house in black plastic.

54. 30500ft² for just $200.

55. The question is, and why is Paul doing this?

56. The question is, why are the rest of us not?

57. If the

58. terrorist threat is as real as Tom Ridge on TV makes it seem,

59. why shouldn't every house of the USA be wrapped in a garbage bag?

60. It's often said that people are irrational about their fears.

61. I'm David Ropeik of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.

62. But it's entirely rational to want to get your butt to tomorrow to survive.

63. And when you don't have all the facts and come on,

64. none of us have all the facts, right?

65. And you have these ancient instincts that we all share.

66. You're going to use whatever you can to survive.

67. So why are we so scared?

68. Biologically, we're wired to be more afraid than to be reasoning animals.

69. When you try and figure out what's risky in the world,

70. think about

71. whether you're actually exposed or not, whether there's a boogeyman out there,

72. but whether you're going to be exposed to it.

73. Since 9/11, a

74. whole industry has sprung up catering to and exploiting our fear of the terrorist

75. boogeyman inside of this new York City office building

76. is the showroom of safer American.

77. With a massive website and customers all over the world.

78. This company's the Walmart of the apocalypse.

79. I am Sarah Hori, co-founder of Safer America.

80. Well, we offer a very wide variety of products

81. such as high rise parachutes, emergency kits, survival

82. kits, flashlights, the crank radios, all these emergency items.

83. Here, Cyril demonstrates one of the best selling items the high rise parachute.

84. You have that handle that you attach anywhere

85. they go.

86. Oh. That doesn't work here.

87. Okay. Almost anywhere.

88. but at least these parachutes are priced to sell, right?

89. This one is, ten, 99.

90. 11 bucks.

91. Your kid would only have to skip lunch for a week.

92. $1,099.

93. $1,099.

94. The kid will start anything cheaper?

95. This is only 720.

96. with this one,

97. they, They say that you might.

98. It will save your life, but you might end up with a broken leg.

99. The reason that a lot of safety products

100. come into being is that we want to survive.

101. So anything that says buy this and you'll be safer,

102. which is attractive to you, to me, to anybody.

103. This is the only suit in the world

104. that without lead, that will protect you against radiation.

105. These products are a good example of how we reach for things

106. that can solve our safety concerns without having the full range of information.

107. This is an item.

108. This is an item that is portable.

109. and you can have in your pocket or in your purse.

110. That sounds handy in the event of an anthrax attack.

111. It's pretty quick and easy to put this critical safety product on a loved one.

112. I. Personally, when I take the subway,

113. I always have an escape code with me beside it.

114. And you put this in your mouth.

115. On it.

116. And running in the other direction.

117. That's a good idea to.

118. To be fair, the poor bastard was nervous on TV.

119. But, you know, you might be nervous during an anthrax attack.

120. Two if you knew about it.

121. The human ass is dirty and sexy, but.

122. But dirty too. And and sexy.

123. But. But dirty. We all know that, right?

124. What could be more dangerous than going into a public restroom

125. and putting your naked ass on a seat where strangers naked ass is gone before?

126. Fortunately, in the 1920s, a Seattle dentist patented

127. the perfect medical solution a paper toilet seat cover.

128. He's a genius.

129. Yup. You can find this device.

130. More public bathrooms in George Michael.

131. These goddamn things are everywhere.

132. But do we really need them?

133. We did a full scale bullshit investigation to find out.

134. First, here's a toilet in our Los Angeles production office.

135. Holy shit.

136. Nothing can protect you from that nightmare.

137. And that's not what the toilet seat cover was invented for, anyway.

138. But here are three other public toilets.

139. This one's in a midtown Manhattan office building.

140. Here's one on an East Coast commuter train.

141. And here's one on the 27th floor of a famous New York City skyscraper.

142. Surprising, They all look pretty clean.

143. And yet you'd still use a toilet seat cover to protect you

144. from the millions of germs that are in your juicy ass.

145. Why do people think there's a risk of getting infection

146. from sitting on a toilet seat?

147. It's a myth.

148. My name is Larry Scola,

149. and I am chief of the Acute Communicable Disease Control program.

150. Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

151. Hold on, doc, let us do the investigating.

152. We swabbed our toilet seat and brought the sample to Edward

153. Hotchkiss, our family doctor.

154. Whose time we wasted on a busy day dealing with sick people.

155. He didn't even need to look at our swab.

156. Urine has no bacteria, no viruses.

157. It's a sterile solution.

158. You get smelly and wet if you touch urine, but you don't get sick.

159. So the toilet seat is not the problem.

160. It's the fear of the previous ass that's out there.

161. But just how dirty is the human ass?

162. We asked three people to help us with a totally unscientific study.

163. Tracy, a suburban mom.

164. Judd, a bartender.

165. And Josh, a writer.

166. I don't think toilet seat covers have shown to me scientifically

167. that they do anything for us.

168. Doc, you're going to spoil our ending.

169. Let us do the goddamn test.

170. Okay, so here's what we did.

171. We took three subjects to a real medical clinic for a test.

172. Would involve some nudity.

173. Oh, and in the interest of science, we brought along a control subject.

174. This is Paige, a model.

175. We met at a car show.

176. Okay, now that we know you're not changing

177. the channel, let's switch gears a bit and take a look what we're told.

178. So one of the biggest dangers out there are electromagnetic fields.

179. And then I swear to be right back to the nudity.

180. I put this on over 15.

181. My gas right here.

182. So I suggest you don't stand in front of your microwave

183. watching your stuff cook because the fields are cooking.

184. You too.

185. I'm Doctor Sam. Malcolm.

186. I'm a chronic disease epidemiologist.

187. Doctor Bill has made a career out of studying

188. the effects of electromagnetic fields for the Department of Health

189. in Washington state.

190. He's got a beta, and he isn't afraid to use it on anything like this lamp's.

191. When I turn it on.

192. It jumps up to 4 or 5.

193. This kitchen light, it's high.

194. This microwave.

195. 13. Fuck. 13.

196. That's a lot, isn't it?

197. So when do you get a magnetic field?

198. Now, magnetic fields are only generated when,

199. when current passes through wires.

200. I do a show just last season about people that want you to wear magnetic fields

201. to help you heal. Jesus, the Jew.

202. What the hell is going on?

203. I think we're going to have a hell of an epidemic of brain cancers.

204. People who use cell phones a lot.

205. Brain cancer.

206. We use our cell phones a lot. Fuck.

207. Our cell phones are basically microwave emitters.

208. The real hazardous because it's right against your head.

209. When you use your cell phone, you've got an antenna, which is the active part.

210. The transmitting part.

211. Putting microwaves into your brain.

212. Why is that bad?

213. Since microwaves cook food faster, they might make you think faster.

214. There has never been any credible research linking

215. cell phone use to any sort of health effect in humans.

216. That's Steve Milloy.

217. He's a scholar at the Cato Institute,

218. and he's got a cool website called Junk science.com.

219. If there were some health problems associated with cell phone use,

220. we surely would have seen them by now. And we haven't.

221. There have been,

222. you know, tens of millions of dollars of research have gone into cell phones.

223. More than $100 million.

224. And there have been no health effects linked with cell phone use.

225. Okay, but that's just one guy from some wonky think tank in Washington.

226. What we need is a real cancer specialist,

227. like a guy from the American Cancer Society.

228. I'm Doctor Michael Toon.

229. I direct epidemiologic research for the American Cancer Society in Atlanta.

230. Yeah. Like him?

231. Well, there's no proven connection between cell phones and brain cancer

232. or other cancers.

233. And this is one of the top cancer guys talking.

234. Look, he's right next to the sign.

235. You really wouldn't expect cell phones to cause cancer.

236. They don't emit ionizing radiation that damages DNA.

237. For all the science geeks, our college dude is going to give us

238. the actual scientific reason cell phones don't cause cancer.

239. The waves that come out of this device are too fat.

240. They're literally too big

241. to hit an atom.

242. Break off an electron.

243. Make that atom go searching for another atom

244. so it can add its electron to be balanced again and rip apart DNA and cause cancer.

245. See? The waves are too big.

246. They're just too big.

247. What about all those other magnetic fields?

248. Like power lines?

249. They still cause cancer, right?

250. Well, there've been lots of studies of power lines

251. and a whole spectrum of cancers, which have been largely negative.

252. Again, you can never 100% prove no risk.

253. But what you can say is that

254. if there is any risk, it's an extraordinarily small risk.

255. And then there's this guy.

256. He's the inventor of a wildly popular safety product

257. and sells hundreds of thousands of them at 40 bucks a pop.

258. For some, orders are small.

259. They may only be 100,

260. or they could be individuals from people buying on the internet.

261. In other cases, we're shipping a large order of several thousand.

262. And what is this miracle of space age?

263. Modern science?

264. I'm Shelly Kellner, and I created the wave shield.

265. Oh, good, a wave shield.

266. And what's protecting us from tsunamis?

267. Heat, headache, fatigue, tingling.

268. Memory loss.

269. Memory loss.

270. Wait, are we still worrying about magnetic fields.

271. When you put the phone up against your head, you don't even know it's there.

272. But we're blocking the radiation that's coming through those holes.

273. Oh, it's a little piece of metal that goes over that ear piece of your cell phone.

274. 40 bucks.

275. Let me just have a guy tell us cell phones don't give you cancer.

276. First thing I tell people is there is no proof cell phones cause cancer or tumors.

277. Great.

278. He's going to announce on our show

279. that he's closing his place down and sending back all the money.

280. Now, the jury's still out on the long term effects of cell phone years.

281. Meanwhile, we have a proven

282. and tested product that reduces the potential health risk.

283. Why take a chance?

284. Proven.

285. Attested to suck 40 bucks right out of your wallet.

286. But wait.

287. Maybe he's done some breakthrough research for the American Cancer Society.

288. Just hasn't heard about yet.

289. My background is advertising and marketing.

290. I'm a, x ad agency person.

291. Jonas Salk was an ad agency guy, wasn't he?

292. The marketplace is going to take advantage of the fact that we're afraid,

293. and look for ways to sell us products

294. that at least make us feel safer.

295. And that's really my focus.

296. There is no proof.

297. My job and focus is to reduce the potential health risk.

298. Potential risk.

299. Got to avoid risk.

300. So my set up man is a Great Dane,

301. But I'm not sure about that stake.

302. I mean, haven't you heard of Mad Cow?

303. We'll get to that in a second.

304. But first of all, that, that butter, In the U.S.,

305. 700,000 people a year die of heart disease.

306. Now, I know you don't have a history of heart disease in your family.

307. I know that you work out, but do you really want to risk it?

308. Heart disease.

309. Now, about 6000 people a year are killed by fires.

310. Now, I know that's not smoking in bed, but it's still fire.

311. Another 20,000 people a year are killed.

312. Murdered?

313. Most by someone they know.

314. Someone they know. Well?

315. Very well.

316. See you a little later.

317. Okay.

318. You're better off without her.

319. She was just about to snap.

320. I could tell anybody.

321. She didn't snap.

322. You still get flu or pneumonia?

323. That kills one another 62 grand a year.

324. Okay, let's talk about your steak.

325. You know, since 1996, 139 people in the world

326. have died of an odd variation of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

327. When cows get it, it's called mad cow.

328. You know, as far as we know, the disease doesn't cross species barriers.

329. Cows can't even catch it from other cows.

330. And there's no evidence at all, none that humans can get it from eating mad

331. cow beef.

332. Not for the last eight years, a total of 139 people have died

333. of a variant of this terrible disease, and we don't know why.

334. Yeah, it's very likely that many of those people weren't

335. eating beef at all, but that's 139 out of 6 billion people in the world.

336. That means your chance of getting mad cow disease are about 139.

337. In 6 billion.

338. You're going to

339. chance it, With a name like Mad Cow.

340. Ha! turning into a cow would be bad enough. But.

341. But a mad cow.

342. And scientists don't know everything.

343. I mean, there might be some as yet undiscovered risk.

344. Is it really worth it?

345. And this new beef disease might have a scary and a little bit funny common name.

346. The TV. Meat Puppets.

347. Love to say lots of PR money

348. from Peta that could be behind it and you get scared to death.

349. Dot seems a lot of people in this country are getting scared to death.

350. Drive carefully teller.

351. You know, in the U.S.

352. alone, 150 people a. Day.

353. Die in car collisions. Okay.

354. Okay.

355. 139 and 6 billion is fine.

356. Odds.

357. Worrying about things that are unlikely is, is a waste of precious life.

358. Mad cow is total bullshit.

359. Cow shit. 139 and 6 billion.

360. You never even got to meet someone who had a friend.

361. Who had a friend who had mad cow.

362. Our friend Paul Provenza says the world is not made of nerf.

363. The sharp edges.

364. You will get cut, but not too deep if you're careful.

365. Not too careful. Just careful enough.

366. To wash your hands.

367. It's okay.

368. And now, back to our unscientific test and the truth behind toilet seat covers.

369. I don't worry about toilet seats.

370. I'm not worried about the toilet seat that's going to,

371. you know, cause me to get, an infectious disease that will kill me.

372. Doc, you're ruining it for us.

373. We're pretending to be real scientists.

374. Man, she almost blew it.

375. So are guinea pigs.

376. Have stripped down to their undies and put on flimsy paper robes.

377. Because for our hygiene test,

378. we're going to test for germs on their face, hands and ass. Why?

379. To find out just how dirty our butts really are.

380. First our doctor.

381. Swab the hands of Judd, Tracy, Josh and Paige.

382. Then she swabbed their faces.

383. Just going to be along your nose. Okay.

384. Then it was on to their butts.

385. Bend over. Okay.

386. We could have gone just for the fleshy part

387. that actually touches the toilet seat, but we said, fuck it.

388. Let's go one inch from the crack where it's Filth City.

389. Thanks very much.

390. Hey, it's car model girl time.

391. 00000.

392. And we would check that ass with our tongues.

393. But we have to put her in a movie for that.

394. Okay.

395. And the next one is going to be from your scrotal area.

396. Are you serious? Indeed we are.

397. Just go ahead and pull them down.

398. Okay. Ready?

399. Tasteful motherfuckers. Ain't we?

400. Have a nice day.

401. Bacteria and viruses and fungal elements

402. like to live in a warm and wet area.

403. I'm doctor Katrina miller.

404. And usually a toilet seat doesn't really stay wet or warm very long.

405. So it's an inhospitable environment for those kinds of things.

406. Bacteria, viruses, fungal elements.

407. And so basically they can't live there.

408. Enough with the interruptions.

409. After we swab the decks of our research monkeys, the swabs was delivered

410. to a comprehensive testing lab in L.A., where the germs were transferred

411. to a petri dish allowed to grow, then run through a battery of tests

412. and examined thoroughly by a fully qualified state licensed technician

413. who thought we were complete idiot.

414. But before we get the results, let's check back in with Cyril at Safer America.

415. We are such assholes.

416. Yep. We were obsessively about terrorism, cancer, and germs.

417. If you're making a list, the next thing on it should be school

418. violence.

419. With all the money being spent on security guards,

420. metal detectors, and cameras, it's now harder to get into class

421. than it is to get into the prom queen's pants.

422. And not because she's getting easier.

423. Yes, the events at Columbine were tragic,

424. and gun violence in school is intolerable.

425. But the truth about school violence is not what you'd expect.

426. After listening to the fear mongers on the news.

427. What's so ironic about this is that school violence

428. has been declining since 1990 pretty steadily.

429. Ben Weisner, American Civil Liberties Union, Los Angeles.

430. Statistically, kids are much safer at school than they are

431. pretty much anywhere else. Exactly.

432. According to the Justice Department, violent crime in schools

433. has dropped nearly 40% since 1992.

434. Horrible

435. anomalies make the news, but you're nearly four times more likely

436. to get hit by lightning than shot at a public school.

437. Today, our school policies are being driven by irrational fears.

438. Even worse are having a perverse effect.

439. When you suspend millions of children from public school every year.

440. You're making our society less safe, not safer.

441. And schools aren't just kicking out little hoodlums like us.

442. I think these schools are using zero zero tolerance policies

443. as an opportunity to get rid of the underachieving kids,

444. the kids who have discipline problems, to get them out of the school

445. and make it easier for everyone else to learn.

446. Okay, we expect this kind of talk from a guy of the ACLU,

447. but what's going on in public schools in the name of safety is, well,

448. it's bullshit.

449. Check this out.

450. Armed cops and their drug sniffing pig dogs stormed a high school

451. in North Carolina looking for weed, coke and crack.

452. Some of the officers had their weapons drawn at a low ready position,

453. which is not pointing at the faces or heads of students.

454. First, we're not going to make a comment about his haircut or accent.

455. My dad was in law enforcement.

456. What this bastard did isn't what real cops do.

457. But wait, what did he say?

458. Some of the officers had their weapons drawn at a low ready position.

459. Oh, ready, my aching ass.

460. Here you are, holding a gun at a kid's head.

461. We were wrong.

462. We aren't going to make a comment about his hair.

463. If it weren't for your stupid fucking lame ass haircut, we wouldn't

464. be able to tell it was your lame ass pointing a gun at an unarmed,

465. trusted fucking school because you require an American kid.

466. Anytime there's narcotics involved, anytime there's a

467. large sums of money involved, there's the very much the likelihood

468. that weapons, too, are involved.

469. This raid didn't turn up a single joint or a line of coke or a wad of cash

470. or a weapon. Fucking nothing.

471. Let's see what the principal had to say. What are we?

472. Porter questioned him about the way he treated the kids in his charge.

473. I don't think it was an overreaction on our part.

474. I'm sure it was an inconvenience.

475. To those individuals who were on that hallway, but I think there's.

476. A valuable experience there.

477. You want to know what valuable lesson these kids learned?

478. They learned what happens when these men get a little bit of power?

479. Sure, parents want schools to be safe,

480. but you're never going to be safe from the unforeseen nugget.

481. They've been around since before Jesse James and Billy the Kid.

482. So maybe schools should try keeping students safe from something

483. more predictable, like uniformed government needle dick employees

484. who throw children on the ground and point firearms at their head.

485. Fear is useful if it's fear of something that you can prevent,

486. but it's impossible to prevent the freak tragedy like Columbine,

487. because troubled kids will always find a way to break our hearts,

488. and Michael Moore will always find a way to cash in on it.

489. Okay, so we're all scared shitless

490. about terrorism, germs, cancer, and school violence.

491. No, we need someone to blame.

492. Everything that makes us more afraid

493. makes a journalist more excited.

494. Look, we know it's a cliché to blame the media, but in this case,

495. the empty fear is kind of their fault.

496. I'm Peter Hart and I'm a media analyst at Fair.

497. That's an organization that monitors fairness and accuracy in reporting.

498. Wait wait wait.

499. Failing the FAA. That's what it stands for.

500. The media need to secure an audience and the best way to do that.

501. Something the media have discovered is to focus on some of these stories

502. that are titillating, shocking, scandalous.

503. That sort of thing.

504. When this is what bombards you from TV, radio and newspapers.

505. It's hard not to feel scared.

506. The government and the media gain power and make money

507. when you're scared shitless.

508. Your mind may know that close ups of horror

509. are statistically insignificant, but you're only human and your gut tells you

510. these nightmares are as close as your television screen.

511. When the media go wall to wall with a story,

512. when they obsess over a story, whether it's crime, violent crime,

513. whether it's abduction, you get the sense that this is happening,

514. in such a profound way all across the country, all across

515. your community, that it really affects your sense of of reality.

516. We can't blame the media for everything.

517. I mean, what about 9/11?

518. That was as real as it fucking gets.

519. Aren't our fears of terrorism justified.

520. Terrorism on 901 became an attack on the homeland and anthrax, particularly after.

521. Right. Because everybody gets the mail.

522. Now, it could happen to me statistically.

523. Still probably a pretty low risk.

524. Probably about the same as it was on 991.

525. Oh, right.

526. But now can happen to me. The fear goes up.

527. All right.

528. Now the results of our ass hygiene test.

529. But first, a little background.

530. We tested for a variety of germs and bacteria.

531. And to quantify the amount,

532. the lab uses a scale where scant indicates almost no bacteria,

533. while overgrown indicates, well, an ass load on the hand swab.

534. Both Paige and Tracy had skin growth, while Josh and Judd had light.

535. That's weird.

536. A girl's hands are cleaner than the boys on their faces.

537. Tracy had skin grafts.

538. Our car model, Paige and Josh had light while Judd showed

539. signs of moderate bacteria, meaning it's okay to shake his head.

540. However, you might not want to lick his face in our ass

541. test where we would expect to find the most bacteria.

542. Is it any surprise to anyone, the lovely Paige had scant growth.

543. But you know who else had skin growth?

544. That's right.

545. Tracy, Judd and Josh.

546. People seem to think it's anything below your waist that's dirty.

547. Really?

548. It's your hands and your mouth of the dirtiest things, not your butt.

549. Exactly. That's what we were trying to say.

550. And we proved it.

551. But we're not done yet.

552. Remember, we also tested Judd's. Winona's.

553. Well, the doctor found scant evidence of any germs there, too.

554. Meaning in Judd's case, his ashleys are cleaner than his face.

555. But let's not forget the point of all this when you see a toilet like this

556. one. Feel free to park your ass and enjoy yourself without a

557. flimsy toilet seat. Cover.

558. However you slice it.

559. Asses are cleaner than hands,

560. so we have a new way of greeting people, sort of shaking hands.

561. Rub asses.

562. We're going to win Nobel Prize for this.

563. If you saw this show, try it to us when you see us on the street.

564. So now it's 30 minutes later.

565. What have we been trying to say?

566. Our perspective about life and our survival instincts

567. are all out of fucking whack.

568. The glass of

569. Jesus Christ.

570. The glass of life isn't half empty.

571. It's overflowing.

572. Take off your gas mask and breathe.

573. Relax.

574. We're all going to die.

575. Hey! Come on, we're going to dinner. Everybody, it's on me.

576. Come on. Hey, Tyler.

577. We're going to dinner.

578. We have dinner. Mom. Let's go.

579. Somebody's out. Come on.

580. Callie. Come on.

581. Kill the lights and come off.

582. Hey! Hey!

583. You know.