Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm Bale of Jesse Thorn. This week, Paul

and Order. Martha brings the case against her boyfriend Chase. She says Chase is set

on taking their cats outside on leashes, but she thinks they should stay indoors. Chase

says the cats have expressed interest in the outdoors and would benefit from a safe and

supervised adventure. Who's right? Who's wrong? Only one man can decide. Please

rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents the obscure cultural reference.

Throw a stick and the survival dog wheezes and pants and stumbles to bring it to you. Do

the same before a cat and he will eye you with coolly polite and somewhat bored amusement.

And just as inferior people prefer the inferior animal, which scampers excitedly because

someone else wants something, so do superior people respect the superior animal, which

lives its own life and knows that the where-ile stick-throwings of alien bipeds are none

of its business and beneath its notice. Bale of Jesse Thorn, please swear them in.

Please rise and raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth, so help you God or whatever? I do. Do you swear to abide

by Judge John Hodgman's ruling despite the fact that as a cat owner, his brain is infected

with a dangerous virus that leads him to take unreasonable risks like a mouse that doesn't

care about cats eating it? I do. Very well, Judge Hodgman. Martha and Chase, you may be

seated. Jesse, I thought we were going to keep my toxoplasmosis out of this. Your toxoplasmosis

is central to your ability to decide this case. I'm not even sure you shouldn't have

recused yourself because of your almost certain toxoplasmosis. I do not deserve discrimination

as a toxoplasmotic American. That's exactly the kind of imotorant thing that a person

infected with toxoplasmosis, which is a thing that's inside of cats' leavings that

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