Hello and welcome to the political war finish, a home for plucky misfits and problem solvers.

I'm your host Andrew Heaton, and today we're going to talk about communism and Cambodia

and some astonishing atrocities committed in the name of building utopia

in which humans are mere speed bumps to overcome in order to get to that splendid paradise.

So I need to throw out a warning. There's no real way to talk about the

Camar Rouge without getting into some really grisly stuff, dark stuff. So this is

a PG-13 history episode. A lot of history, interesting history, but also bad stuff.

So if you're a bus driver for a toddler company transporting toddlers to the toddler factory.

I don't know how children were.

I wouldn't let those toddlers listen to this episode unless they're particularly

haggard worldly toddlers with eye patches and cigarettes and what

not. Okay? Great. I know all of the comedians in Cambodia, both of them.

Because three years ago I performed stand-up comedy in Southeast Asia, including a performance in

Penh, the capital. At the the time I was theorizing that maybe I'd be funnier in an Asian context than an American one, but... Nope, turns out I'm only moderately funny everywhere, although to my credit.

Mathematically, I did increase the gross national comedian amount in Cambodia by 50%

while I was there, which I imagine hurt their credit rating.

So I told some jokes, then poked around the country to do some sightseeing and write a travelogue

in case Rick Steeves ever goes to prison and somebody has to take up the slack.

There are a lot of wonderful things to see in Cambodia.

We're going to talk about some of them on today's program.

But the most visually arresting thing there, the thing that stays with me and frankly haunts me is a big

me. The killing fields. It's one of those places that's oversaturated with history, but you wouldn't know it unless somebody pointed it out to you,

...