At last, we have the perfect symbol for America under Bush. Nothing testifies to your pride in a country that is impossible to satirized anymore than fake plastic testicles painted in camouflage colors with a yellow “support the troops” ribbon that you can hang on your gas-guzzling SUV.
I swear, if I ever saw one of these on the freeway, it would be a traffic hazard because I’d be laughing and crying too hard to maintain proper control of my vehicle.
(via Jeffrey Rowland)
thank you
thank you
As we’ve seen from a number of Republican members of Congress, wingers sure do seem to have a lot of sexual identity issues.
Thank you; you have restored my faith in my sanity. I followed a truck wearing that thing for almost 15 miles in heavy traffic the other day. Spent the whole time trying to figure out what the fuck?! Another thing Dubya has to answer for…
“We’ve Respectfully placed the Yellow Ribbon designating Support the Troops on our Exclusive 8″ Customized Desert Scheme Camo Nutz.”
I wonder if they said that with a strait face? What part of hanging Nutz from your trailer hitch can in anyway ever be considered respectful.
I notice that they also sell fake plastic bovine testicles with a “controversial and decadent” lipstick stain and with a handicapped “wheelchair” symbol (“OH MY GOD! Is NOTHING sacred!” [sic]).
How long will it take before they sell them with a Jesus fish on them?
This is a joke site, right? Please tell me it’s a joke. Or April 1st has arrived early this year – yes, that must be it, since this CANNOT possibly be true. Please?
I thought everyone would like this
http://www.salon.com/comics/boll/2008/01/31/boll/
Are they bruised? I imagine that’s what they’d look like after you’ve been kicked in the balls.
Notice these nutz are $38 while your standard nutz are only $20.
That’s because patriotism is a sacrifice.
Interesting, in that one of my state legislators (Virginia) wants deez nutz banned. Maryland went through a similar embarassing episode about a year ago with these things. Apparently that’s the most important issue these days.
Sorry Ray M, I can testic… err, testify that its a real site selling a real product.
Oh, the people who were early adopters and bought the plain pink girly nutz are going to be soooo jealous of these.
The perfect gift for the insecure man who wishes his balls could be painted and ready to attack in the desert.
The standard version has been around at least a year now. They are distressingly common around here, although I do know at least one feminist who has them on her truck … as a warning (or maybe a trophy, hard to tell).
Drunkensci,
Why is it that Hillary Clinton appears to have taken over the Salon.com site? I can’t log in at all, and everything redirects me to her homepage. Grr.
Is this why Hummer owners get inguinal hernias?
Not fair. You’ve linked to something that my agency’s filter’s won’t let me see. (Your organization’s Internet use policy restricts access to this web page at this time.
Reason: The Websense category “Tasteless” is filtered.) That generally means it’s gotta be good.
What… the…?!?
I’m no longer willing to try and understand the inner-workings of the pseudo-patriot/Gomer mind. It’s a very strange place.
It’s only natural they’d hang nuts on an SUV. After all, there’s a dick driving every one of ’em…
I want to order a set of these but I can’t figure out if they come in pairs.
And now, for you pussies driving Priuses, Vulvaz(tm)!
Can I get that with a large order of Freedom Fries? Thank Gawd that Old Europe has not yet figured out that American power lies in a plastic scrotum.
I’m confused…The site says that they have 30 units in stock, but do these come with the balls, or are they extra?
Theres a “vas deferens” between being loyal to one’s constitution and being a nutcase patriot
I approve of this product. When you see testicles hanging from a vehicle, you know instantly that the owner is an imbecile. Think of it as a time-saving device.
This is exactly the reason my Jetta has a “Draft SUV Drivers First” sticker. I mean it is only fair and we get rid of a whole sub-set of mindless pions. One of them win win siteations.
Yeah, and if you draft an SUV in your Jetta, you’ll also save a lot of gas. Just keep one foot on the brake, okay?
I’ve seen them, …on a SUV as well, and this was in a blue state…
These are indeed real. Here in Georgia they’re all over the place – that is, on big pickup trucks. Haven’t seen any on SVUs – probably because it’s soccer moms who drive those (which makes me wonder when the analogue for the sac is coming…. and what it would look like?).
#27;
All righty then, I gues I have the testicular fortitude to say it…..drum roll…Those were blue balls then?
There is a bill in Virginia to try and ban them. http://obscurestore.typepad.com/obscure_store_and_reading/2008/01/virginia-lawmak.html
I really wish I could say I hadn’t seen those here in California. I mean, I REALLY wish I could say that.
Listen to these crooked shitstains’ sales pitch:
It says precisely: “No matter how many units of this stupid item we sell, we’re only donating $10 to support the troops.”
Nowhere does it say that $10.00 of you purchase price will be donated. Somebody contact their State Attorney General.
#8:
Nah, it’s because freedom isn’t free.
Couldn’t see that one coming, could you?
P.Z. sometimes claims that Canadians want to be just like Americans.
But this is where we draw the line.
Fentwin at #23
for the win!
Interesting that the people who these nads are marketed toward are most likely the same people who wish to put a pair of shorts on the statue of David or who lost their minds over Janet’s wardrobe malfunction.
You should see the videos at the site on how to install your purchases. Another video about “Stick magnetic ribbons on your SUV” by the Asylum Street Spankers. It probably has been posted at sometime in the past.
Maybe it’s just me, but wouldn’t a horse’s ass be a more apt motif?
Do they have one for the ladies?
And I thought those Garfields were dopey…
they’re all fucking nuts.
“Interesting that the people who these nads are marketed toward are most likely the same people who wish to put a pair of shorts on the statue of David or who lost their minds over Janet’s wardrobe malfunction.”
Exactly. Try selling a product like this that is of a pair of boobs, or, more recently, gasp, a naked butt!
Bob: Hey Jim, cool plastic testicles on yer truck!
Jim: Yep! Got me them camo ones! Whoo-boy!
[week passes]
Bob: Hey Jim! [beams with pride] Now check out MY truck!
[Jim looks. Bob has affixed similar plastic testicles but
also a large, erect, lifelike plastic penis as well]
Jim: [stares in stony disapproval]
Roger that, #32 January 24, 2008
1. Search Engine of Today
Dear Jesse
Language is the instrument for the conveyance of meaning; and your correspondent Charles from Montreal could not possibly be more wrong. He complains against prescriptivism in language, since adherence to the rules of grammar can be used to sift among the poorly and better educated, young and old, immigrant and native speaker, and so on, as if this sifting were a bad thing. He calls for more bad grammar. Yikes! He plainly doesn’t know what he is talking about when he asserts that language has no need for rules.
A language is like a game, in that one has to know the rules in order to play it. An item shaped like a the chess piece “the Knight” is not a knight when used outside the game of chess. Indeed it is nothing at all other than what the current game says it is, since it is the rules of the game that determine just what a Knight is: in the language of chess, it is that piece that can leap over others in an L-shaped move consisting of two squares in a rectilinear (not oblique) direction plus one square at right angles from the second of the two squares. If you don’t know that rule that governs its movement, you do not know at all what the Knight is, and you do not know how to speak chess. Moreover, you cannot just make up your own rules in the chess equivalent of a language, since no-one would know what you meant. Rules are entirely constitutive, with vocabulary, of the capacity of a language to convey meaning.
Some languages are rich in vocabulary but thin with rules, while others have a sparser vocabulary but a richer set of rules. English and French are among the former, while Russian and Icelandic exemplify the latter. I was studying philosophy of language with a man who happened to be Iceland’s Master of Chess and once had dinner with him and his wife. I asked about the level of difficulty of leaning Icelandic; they looked at each other, then at me, and said it was so difficult that even among the most learned there are frequent discussions as to the correct way to express an idea. As in Russian, it appears that much of the difficulty arises from the need to use different inflections and suffixes depending on context and who is speaking to whom. But of course: if you can’t play the language game properly, it’s because you are correctly assessed as a foreigner, or too young, too stupid, or too lazy to learn to use the language correctly. When done impeccably, the conveyance of meaning is utterly seamless and transparent behind the meaning conveyed, so that errors in vocabulary or grammar (or spelling) do not arise to interfere with the conveyance. A native speaker of a language does not have to translate its everyday usage to himself, except when an unknown word or an error appears. If Charles of Montreal doesn’t care to observe the prescribed rules of any language in which he wants to be understood, then I am not prepared to waste my time listening to him!
Sorry to take so long to express all of this, but it frequently is the case that brevity of explanation is not possible in response to stupidity or ignorance.
Doug Rozell, Beachville, Ontario — 519-423-6159
PS: I did my MA thesis in philosophy of evolutionary biology. Island populations are really instructive of the workings of natural selection to evolve novel species. Icelandic is an island language. In an island culture with little contact with others beyond the waves, it is natural that in that isolation speakers of the language would quite literally play with it (beyond puns and riddles found in the linguistic play of any culture), and invent more and more complex rules to flesh out the need to convey meaning when the vocabulary is unenriched with contact from the outside. At the same time, the differential ability to master the rules would become a social marker of intelligence, itself prized for survival reasons.
Exactly. Try selling a product like this that is of a pair of boobs, or, more recently, gasp, a naked butt!
Please don’t.
P.Z. sometimes claims that Canadians want to be just like Americans.
But this is where we draw the line.
Just when I think I’ve seen it all.
I’ll have to take your word for it that people actually buy these and …er…display them…and not as a joke.
Well, now we really know what every republican wishes they had.
It is now official.
America has jumped the shark.
Just to get some thoughts:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1999/PSCF6-99Morton.html
Junior high school humor. And now the slow kids are adult.
I see they also offer testicle keychains and even trophies. And straight men would want anatomically correct male genitalia toys why? Hmmm…more repressed Republicans…
At least now we can instantly identify those who need to purchase their balls.
Pinko liberal nancy-boys! You can have my patriotic camo nutz when you pry them from my cold, dead hands!!!!!
Although I can’t help but laugh at the idea of soldiers from all across the nation coming home to countless yellow ribbons stenciled onto bull-sized plastic testicles swinging from the undercarriages of SUVs.
Aargh. Please append these comments to #44.
I’m not sure about first statement, as I don’t recall having observed PZ say anything about us Canadians but in tone rather admniring of Canada and (some) Canadians, even when being persnickety.
I do suspect that the statement is true of the American mind set generally; it’s part of their cultural air, mindspace, whatchamacallit, as also typically found, when found, among the most wealthy. It is true there are a lot of us Canadians who really are envious of the States; fortunately, Yankee-lovers are largely concentrated in Alberta.
But there is a substantial cultural minority, such as this site’s denizens and host, who have the benefit of being experts in their research subject matter. They are devoted to the defence of rationality, based upon two philosophical assumptions in metaphysics and epistemology.
The metaphysical commitment is to the natural world as being all that exists of which we can have ken. Alternative states of the universe may very well exist, but without there being a possibility of intelligent sentient contact with even one of them, their putative existence is *utterly irrelevant* to humanity.
It is perhaps perversely apt of us Canadians that we are the home of a complete counter-example: the SNO, Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, engaging in the detection of the solar neutrino stream, local concentrations of energy so small they pass without notice through ordinary mass, like rocks and people. The detection medium is thus a large vat of used heavy water (on loan from a provincially-owned power reactor) suspended a mile deep in a modified nickel mining face in the pre-cambrian shield in Canada. As this is the oldest rock of the planet, it is the location on earth that is least radioactive, and thus the ideal location to detect neutrinos, if possible at all.
The epistemological commitment is to a refined pragmatism. Knowledge claims must, as merely one among many necessary conditions, entail perceptions and percepta, or commonly inferable such as the wind. And typically that ends up in measuring the phenomenon as one way of describing it. As Bertrand Russell opined, in physics, “matter” is whatever it is that “satisfies the equations”.
It’s comforting to observe intelligence amid a sea of stupidity.
At any rate, I concur, “this is where we draw the line”, the moreso since tastelessness appears to be so foundational to the American charaacter; and so fearsome to the rest of reason around the planet. The line could have been drawn elsewhere, here for the record and to the notice of the Yankee greedheads, that our Canadian water is NOT for sale or diversion to the States.
I’m… utterly speechless.
And you say there are Americans who buy such things..? May I ask: Why?
the moreso since tastelessness appears to be so foundational to the American charaacter
Dude, we have poutine. ‘Nuff said.
Maybe it’s just me, but it kind of looks like someone took a realistic vibrator with attached testicles (I’ve seen pix of such) and is “back door” penetrating their SUV with it. Repressed republican closet case much?
Yea, I thought it was just me.
Cheers,
Ray
Hey, the first time my family saw one of those (driving upstate in New York) we almost had to pull the car over, we were laughing so hard. I think they’re one of the funnier products I’ve seen around.
Desert Camo trailer testicles look like a perfect satire of our current government’s stance to me.
Cammo, pink, blue, gold plated- has anyone else noted one common theme though? No hairy ones.
I guess there just isn’t a market for a big old hairy, turkey-neck-skinned scrotal sack hanging from the back of your car. If there is I could set up a rival company, perhaps,um.. Reality Scrotality, and sell more manly, mature appearing scrotal bags.
Urgh, on the website I note for an extra $5 you can get the “inventor” of these classic items to personally autograph the “NON VEINED SIDE”. A cold chill ran up my spine just typing that.
I’m not so sure that their product gives the impression they intend: free-floating testicles would seem to be less valuable to the owner than attached ones (I think my neutered dog would concur). Is castration as a symbol of America under Bush?
I don’t know who the offending “Charles from Montreal” is, but…
Sounds like armchair philology. And French “thin with rules”? Russian has a “sparse vocabulary”? WTF?
No, this is wrong. Icelandic has retained the inflections that have been lost from other Germanic languages, not invented them in situ.
Another sort of symbol for Bush and his religious supporters.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stardust1954/2232466581/
Every time I think bad taste can go no further…
I don’t need balls for the back of my RAV4 but I’d like a clit for the hood.
You know how sometimes people buy a flashy sports car, or a huge SUV, and people say they’re compensating for a small penis?
Isn’t that about the ONLY plausible explanation here?
Vic re #29,
Maybe a bright pink plastic replica of a cow’s udder with very red mammary glands?
Really, there are two kinds of people who’ll buy these things.
1) People who are fairly thick, and incredibly obsessed with manliness. Testosterone freaks. Their reasoning, such as it is, will run thusly: “My truck’s so manly it’s got BALLS!”
2) People who think it’s hilarious, and either don’t know or don’t care about taste or tackiness (or think that just makes them funnier).
I don’t own a pair of these (or a car), but honestly, I have to hold that the second set has a very valid point.
2) People who think it’s hilarious, and either don’t know or don’t care about taste or tackiness (or think that just makes them funnier).
Camp value. The ballz haz it.
Hey, don’t they have bras for the fronts of cars? How about a suitably sized set of breasts made of the same material as the nutz? Being a hetero male I personally would find that much more interesting than playing with or looking at a latex scrotum.
Cheers,
Ray
What if you go over a speed bump?
Ouch, painful.
Well, I guess anything goes now.
I’ve just seen the epitome of tacky. It doesn’t get any worse.
gallstones,you’re an optimist – you know that don’t you?
They’re for real all right; I’ve seen the “chrome” version three times by now here in Southeast Ohio.
Irony? Camp? Nah. These guys inevitably drive not a car – not an SUV – but a big butch pickup truck.
Which, comes to think of it, must be what fills in for the phallic signifier that’s so conspicuously absent. Or maybe it’s the driver who’s the dick?
Thank you; you have restored my faith in my sanity. I followed a truck wearing that thing for almost 15 miles in heavy traffic the other day.
Some one may have already said this (not reading all comments), but aren’t these supposed to be the people for “morality” and “decency”? I wonder if they’d think it so funny if I mounted a big rubber vagina to the back of my Oldsmobile.