This is Hemet and Jessica.

And you're listening to the Friendly Atheist Podcast.

Please go to patreon.com slash friendly atheist podcast to support this show, get your ad-free and bonus episodes.

And if you haven't heard about it enough yet, we are about to hit our 600th episode.

And we're going to have a celebration in the western suburbs of Chicago on September 13th.

That's a Saturday. It's coming up soon. Everyone's invited. There are details in the show notes.

It is at a place called Solem Oath Brewery. And we're also celebrating in addition to episode 600.

Jess, what else are we celebrating? Oh, yeah. It's also my 40th

birthday on October 1st and my husband's in my 10th year anniversary on September 19th. And so it's

going to be an unusual blend of like, my IRL friends and like, oh, that's a mistake. All y'all. So, I don't know, everybody's been very cool like, like, all y'all.

So I don't know.

Everybody's been very cool.

Like every person I've met has been. When different friend groups collide, you have made a terrible error.

It really, there's something so like out of body of watching like two people talk that who should simply should not meet.

Right. Like that's not okay. So come meet should simply should not meet. Right.

Like that's, that's not okay. So come meet Jessica's IRL friends. Yeah, and my dog and my husband and, you know, I think my folks are going to be there. My niece and nephew and brother and sister-in-law. It is going to be fun. We will see you there in a week and a half-ish. Yeah. Oh, and there's a food truck,

and there's, like, a bunch of non-alcoholic stuff.

Pets are invited.

Pets are invited. Cats are invited. To rain or shine, we're going to be outside, hopefully, but if we, if there's rains, there's. Or not. Well, there's, like, a big fucking brewery we can go into. Exactly. So. Hope to see you there. Yeah, I'm really excited to see everybody. All right. Let's start with this story involving. I figured I'd get this out of the way first because it's your favorite state and your favorite person. Oh, Oklahoma. So when your- Gregorian chant now. When your state is at the bottom of all the national education rankings, you would

think if you're in charge of education, your job would be to figure out how to attract better teachers,

provide more funding to public schools, and make sure your curriculum is solid so that the kids

who are in school can achieve success if they choose to go to college. Or sabotage Mississippi

...