I just had to add this one. In Meghalaya, India, students taking instruction in cursive writing found an interesting illustration in their textbooks.
Christians in the area (this is a region of India with a Christian majority) are very upset and have banned the books and are considering legal action. The Archbishop of Shillong has protested.
We are deeply hurt by the insensitivity of the publisher. How can one show such total disrespect for a religion?
Wait a minute…the Archbishop of Shillong? I’m not going to take this seriously until Cardinal Wangadoodle and the Reverend Mother Punitang weigh in!
Of course, the answer to his question is…easily. Lightly. With joy in one’s heart.
He also has no grounds for complaint. That guy with long red hair and a beard looks more like my oldest son than some Semitic rabbi from Palestine, and I’m the one who should be irate that he’s being portrayed with a cigarette and a can of beer. Smoking is bad for you, and beer in cans is simply evil.
Don’t you recall the late archbishop of Manilla? Cardinal Sin.
He looks like Mr. Aquaria, except for the smoking and beer.
I’m always laughing about the resemblance between my husband and the white man’s Jesus.
An appropriate name on so many levels.
I generally don’t disagree with you PZ but I think you are making an argument from ignorance on the canned beer thing. “Old Chub” is a damn fine brew.
Smoking is bad for Jesus? He can’t just heal himself?
Hey, PZ, you only say that after drinking the draft Guinness in Ireland, eh.
You know that cancers are your own cells gone renegade. Could Jesus heal a Holy Tumor made of the same substance as God, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? I think not.
@4: agreed. While I agree with PZ that draft beer is generally preferable, the offerings of both Oskar Blues and Butternuts belie PZ’s statement.
I’m going to have to second the Oskar Blues canned beer recommendation. All of their offers that I’ve had are fantastic.
I suspect that this is the same image that got a newspaper in Malaysia in trouble a while back:
Here’s a link to the old story. No picture of the “offensive image”, but it sounds like the same one.
I could have sworn that that image was on the first page of a Google Image search for the word “Jesus” – I remember seeing it there when I was looking for a picture for some reason.
I would assume that the lax copyright laws in India have bitten the publisher on the rump. Someone just looked for a picture of Jesus, grabbed the first one that was a decent size, and stuck it in the page without seeing the beer can or the cigarette. That’s what apparently happened in Malaysia, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the story here too.
That’s one a them funny cigarettes; you can tell by the halo.
I find it especially amusing that you compare the image of Jesus to the visage of your oldest son. Coming from you, that’s, like, blasphemy squared.
“Wait a minute…the Archbishop of Shillong? I’m not going to take this seriously until Cardinal Wangadoodle and the Reverend Mother Punitang weigh in!”
Haha, foreign names are so funny!
Grow up.
mmm, sacred fart beer.
I think we need to distinguish between beer in cans and beer from cans. Beer should only be drunk from a glass vessel, so it’s OK to drink from a bottle but otherwise it should be decanted into a suitable, well… glass.
Could Jesus heal a Holy Tumor made of the same substance as God, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? – PZ
Hang on, PZ – I think you may have come up with the answer to a theological conundrum! The “Son” is supposed to be “begotten of the Father” – yet there is no Mrs. God in the story, and male parthenogenesis is impossible. But Jesus as a Holy Tumor makes complete sense. Now, we just need to work the Holy Ghost in somewhere.
If I was Jesus and saw the evil people were doing in my name, be glad you’re only seeing me with a cigarette and a beer to stave off the depression.
Well, if you’re willing to consider parthenogenesis, perhaps the next step must be that the Holy Tumor released spores, a.k.a. Holy Ghost? This explains reproductive behavior at the meme level, too.
Wow, Could Jeebus create a tumor so big that even he, HIMSELF, couldn’t heal it?
“… Archbishop of Shillong? I’m not going to take this seriously until Cardinal Wangadoodle and the Reverend Mother Punitang…”
Making fun of how people’s names sound in another language? A language you don’t speak?
This has some bearing on the truth of religion… how? C’mon, this kind of ignorant yuck-yuck degrades your message a lot. Use your pulpit more responsibly, all right?
There was a Mrs God, (Asherah is one name), at one time, but she got eliminated because she wasn’t good for misogyny.
So that Yahweh fellah must’ve been diddling himself, or else doing it with the angels. So therefore Jebus was a bastard. Or, if Mary was a minor god, it’s all legit, providing she married Yahweh. But we’re told that she was married to Joseph, so that sounds bigamous.
But this Yahweh fellah is omnipotent & omniscient, so he makes the rules, & don’t you question them!
We know that Yahweh was married to Asherah. What’s to say the two of them didn’t have little Holy Ghost at one time or other.
Incidentally, I’ve just come up with a possible explanation as to why Yahweh and Asherah broke up. Asherah found out that Ol’ Yahweh was screwing around with Mary and she saw the heavenly divorce lawyer right away. She probably took Yahweh for everything, including his powers, which is why he can’t do miracles any more. Jesus and the Spook, being sort of junior gods and deriving most of their power from Daddy, now can’t do much more than manifest themselves in dog’s asses.
It’s all beginning to make sense now, especially after a couple of scotches.
Making fun of the name of a region? Come on, that’s irrelevant and not even funny!
Being the object of our mocking is the only useful thing religion does. If you don’t like it, go away.
I don’t get it. It’s a real place.
davecortesi #21 and leonidasconstantinides #24…
This:
Likewise, the Archbishop of Shillong would have no trouble mocking Hinduism or Buddhism or any religion other than Chritianity.
shows how Jesse was a good ole boy.
can o beer in one hand, marlboro in the other.
It’s Buddy Jesus!
— Slaughter
#27 SC OM February 21, 2010 3:38 PM
The point being made was that he didn’t appear to be making fun of the religion, but of Shillong.
My favourite place name in the world has got to be Nome, Alaska. Apparently it got its name in the 1850s, when an officer on a British ship noted the existence of a prominent but unnamed point of land on the Alaskan coast. He scribbled “Name?” next to the point on a manuscript map. At the Admiralty in London, a cartographer misread the scribble, and wrote down the feature’s name as “Cape Nome”.*
The town of Westward Ho! in Cornwall also has a fairly silly name, and is (to the best of my knowledge) the only place name in the English-speaking world which contains an exclamation mark.
(*Source: The QI Book of General Ignorance (2006), with foreword by Stephen Fry.)
At last, the first time in years that I’ve had a genuine context for my Smoking Jesus joke! It’s a stupid joke, but it does have Jesus and a cigarette in it:
As I said, a stupid joke. But on the other hand, I remember it.
Hey, beer in cans isn’t inherently evil. Oscar Blues makes tons of craft beer in cans. And just off the top of my head, I know Brooklyn & Avery are canning now.
The mohammedans produce no images of allah or mohammed, so they can’t feature. A picture of a bull with a cigarette and beer just won’t be believable, and jesus was apparently the next choice. That one of ganesh is believable though. I wonder if there’s one of shiva drinking and smoking while cooking on a barbecue and serving at the same time. All those extra arms are useful.
I don’t think the picture of ganesh is particularly blasphemous. My mother always offers a bit of any new recipe she tries to ganesh (by spilling a little on the ground). This includes pork and beef, I think a lot of other people do the same.
And there is at least one siva temple that i know of where toddy is an offering.
What’s so funny about a region? Shillong sounds a lot like Schlong. It’s as funny as Fuck, Austria (?) and Hell, Norway and Bong Bong, Australia. Laughing at foreign names with unfortunate connotations in another language is not so terribly dreadful, as long as you’re prepared to take it in return.
@ Nerd of Redhead and Legion
Guys, relax, take a deep breath, and learn to read properly and slowly. Is that how you read messages? In a rush, skimming over them, reading REGION as RELIGION, only to give a rude reply ?
I have no problem with taking the mickey out of religion, but also feel the need to call out irreligious people that make asses of themselves.
And if you don’t like it, you can go away.
Living in India, I used to enjoy smoking Ganesh brand bidis. Imagine Jesus brand cigarettes!
I think the place you’re thinking of is Fucking, Austria.
And in addition to Hell, Norway, there’s also a village of Hell in the Cayman Islands, with a post office that is, apparently, a major tourist attraction.
:-)
Are you drinking with me, Jesus?
#5 – “Smoking is bad for Jesus? He can’t just heal himself?”
No need, it’s holy smokes.
My favorite brand of ciggies: Holy Smokes.
‘The Archbishop of Shillong’ is funny said out loud in the USA. It’s funny in a Beavisy, Brownian kind of way, but hey.
Is it insensitive to snicker at an unfortunate dirty translingual homonym?
Perhaps that question is best directed to my Malaysian colleague (to the extent that she publishes in journals I follow) Dr. Shit Fun Chew.
On the other hand, these kids have survived.
BS
“And in addition to Hell, Norway, there’s also a village of Hell in the Cayman”
Just a few weeks back I was watching Top Gear on BBC American and they were racing the Royal Mail to a house in the Orkney islands of Scotland, trying to arrive at a point before a letter they mailed did. In one scene they showed a road sign with their destination straight ahead and the town (I’m assuming) of Twatt to the left. I’d have been tempted to turn left. After some research on the inter-tubes I have since discovered that Scotland has two Twatts.
Mea culpa – I meant BBC America.
I can’t believe the number of beer-in-cans apologists who have come out to troll this thread with their anecdotes and their “personal experience”! Have they no shame?
If they had shame they wouldn’t drink canned beer.
I’m holding PZ responsible for my ruined keyboard, ‘cuz he made coffee come out my nose!
One place I’ve always wanted to visit is Dorking, in Surrey, England.
Walton @ 33
If you like that, you may also enjoy Ubet, Montana.
Ah. OK. Hadn’t caught that.
What the hell’s wrong with Hell, Michigan? The MI Atheists like to hold events there, just for headlines such as “Atheists go to Hell,” etc.
The new Tobacco Prohibition
I would like to take the time to tell the entire community about a falsehood so big that everyone who believes in freedom should be appauled.
This falsehood is so big it resonates from historical fact forward to this day. This falsehood is so big billions of dollars have been spent to make it believable to those of us who dont take the time to look up the facts.
We all remember reading about alcohol prohibition,but did you know there was also tobacco prohibition going on before alcohol became such a target of the last nanny staters.
Our great grandparents lived thru prohibition and the great depression,they also lived thru tobacco prohibition.
Heres a time line starting in 1900,dont be surprised to see the same thing playing out today nearly 100 years later.
1901: REGULATION: Strong anti-cigarette activity in 43 of the 45 states. “Only Wyoming and Louisiana had paid no attention to the cigarette controversy, while the other forty-three states either already had anti-cigarette laws on the books or were considering new or tougher anti-cigarette laws, or were the scenes of heavy anti- cigarette activity” (Dillow, 1981:10).
1904: New York: A judge sends a woman is sent to jail for 30 days for smoking in front of her children.
1904: New York City. A woman is arrested for smoking a cigarette in an automobile. “You can’t do that on Fifth Avenue,” the arresting officer says.
1907: Business owners are refusing to hire smokers. On August 8, the New York Times writes: “Business … is doing what all the anti-cigarette specialists could not do.”
1917: SMOKEFREE: Tobacco control laws have fallen, including smoking bans in numerous cities, and the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Idaho and Tennessee.
1930: hitler institutes laws against smoking.This one you can google.
Now onto the falsehood……
We have been told for years by smoke free advocates that second hand smoke is the cause of everything from johnnys ear ache to cousin ED’S lung cancer. But wheres the proof!!!
Remember they claim 50,000 deaths a year yet,there are no bodys not even mass graves of the dead to second hand smoke.We await the names of these victims.
A simple stroll down historys road say 10 years or so and we start to get at the truth……
A federal Judge by the name of osteen got a case dropped in his lap in North Carolina,the case was that of EPA’S study on second hand smoke/environmental tobacco smoke.The judge an anti-tobbaco judge by reputation spent 4 years going thru the study and interviewing scientists at EPA and came to the conclusion :
JUNK SCIENCE
”EPA’s 1992 conclusions are not supported by reliable scientific evidence. The report has been largely discredited and, in 1998, was legally vacated by a federal judge.Before its 1992 report, EPA had always used epidemiology’s gold standard CI of 95 percent to measure statistical significance. But because the U.S. studies chosen[cherry picked] for the report were not statistically significant within a 95 percent CI, for the first time in its history EPA changed the rules and used a 90 percent CI, which doubled the chance of being wrong.
This allowed it to report a statistically significant 19 percent increase [a 1.19rr] of lung cancer cases in the nonsmoking spouses of smokers over those cases found in nonsmoking spouses of nonsmokers. Even though the RR was only 1.19–an amount far short of what is normally required to demonstrate correlation or causality–the agency concluded this was proof SHS increased the risk of U.S. nonsmokers developing lung cancer by 19 percent.”
So here we find that second hand smoke was made a political scapegoat by EPA.Lets not forget how EPA has reworked the global warming studys just this last summer. Where its top scientists paper was rebuked because it didnt carry the EPA’S stand that global warming was real.
The political shenanigans surrounding SHS/ETS go deep not only with the government and its health agencies but also to the big pharmaceutical companies and non-profit orginizations aka ACS,ALA,AHA and a meriad of others. All lobbying for smoking bans and their weapon of choise Propaganda paid for by big pharma and tax dollars. Studys made to order that second hand smoke is deadly. Take a memory note here too,over 250 studys on shs/ets have found it safe.
Yet a simple look at the chemistry shows us that its:
The Chemistry of Secondary Smoke About 94% of secondary smoke is composed of water vapor and ordinary air with a slight excess of carbon dioxide. Another 3 % is carbon monoxide. The last 3 % contains the rest of the 4,000 or so chemicals supposedly to be found in smoke… but found, obviously, in very small quantities if at all.This is because most of the assumed chemicals have never actually been found in secondhand smoke. (1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80). Most of these chemicals can only be found in quantities measured in nanograms, picograms and femtograms. Many cannot even be detected in these amounts: their presence is simply theorized rather than measured.
Now, how odd that when we search the smoke free activists sites not one of them mentions that water vapor and air are the main components of second hand smoke. Is this just a fluke or an outright omission to further their political healthscare against the general public.
The last informative tid bit I have for you is what does OSHA have to say about all this secondhand smoke stuff.
Here is where it gets interesting,it seems John Banzhaf, founder and president of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) decided to sue OSHA to make a rule on shs/ets not that OSHA didnt want to play ball with him,its just that the scientific facts didnt back up a rule to start with.
Now for a rule to happen Osha has to send out for comments for a period of time and boy did the comments fly in, over 40,000 of them….Osha has whats called PEL’S and limits for an 8 hour period of exposure to chemicals in indoor environments…[epa is in charge of outdoor air]
This is where second hand smoke really becomes a joke,remember its nearly 94% water vapor and air…..now lets get to the facts of toxicology and dose makes the poison:
According to independent Public and Health Policy Research group, Littlewood & Fennel of Austin, Tx, on the subject of secondhand smoke……..
They did the figures for what it takes to meet all of OSHA’S minimum PEL’S on shs/ets…….Did it ever set the debate on fire.
They concluded that:
All this is in a small sealed room 9×20 and must occur in ONE HOUR.
For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes
“For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes
“Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.
Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up.
“For Hydroquinone, “only” 1250 cigarettes
For arsenic 2 million 500,000 smokers at one time
The same number of cigarettes required for the other so called chemicals in shs/ets will have the same outcomes.
So,OSHA finally makes a statement on shs/ets :
Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)…It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded.” -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec’y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997
WHAT! DILUTED BELOW PERMISSABLE LEVELS
By the way ASH dropped their lawsuit because OSHA was going to make a rule and that rule would have been weak and been the law of the land,meaning no smoking bans would ever have been enacted anywhere,simply because an open window or a ventilation system would have covered the rule.
Let me also tell you that the relative risk for shs/ets by the SG report of 2006 was a 1.19 ”EPA study is whats used to call it a carcinogen”……milks is a 2.43 and that glass of chlorinated water your about to drink is a 1.25 yet these things aren’t determined to be a carcinogen….The gold standard in epidemiology is a 3.0….Now had the SURGEON GENERAL included 2 other shs/ets studys the relative risk for disease from shs/ets would have been nearer a.60-.70 meaning it would have a protective effect against ever getting disease.
But,what each of us has is years and years of exposure and the knowledge that our kids all grew up around shs and generations of others,yet we are here alive not dead from a lousy 30 minute exposure to shs as stanton glantz tries to claim…..thats another story and its just as crazy as all the rest of smokefree’s claim about shs/ets.
Oh! have you heard the one about ”laugh” thirdhand smoke or third hand drinking.
Like I said their claims border beyond that of any reasonable persons commomsence.
The next time you see a healthscare claim
consider the source.Especially if it comes from a government or non profit agency!
disclaimer; I am a victim of the smoking bans like tens of millions of smokers and non-smokers who liked to hang with their friends in a public accommodation. We have in effect lost our freedom of association because of the bans.
Property owners have lost their right to their property rights by these laws based upon psuedo-science and propaganda.I dont work for any tobacco company nor do I get anything but the satisfaction that I can make the smoke free activists cringe when the truth gets out.
Harleyrider1978
@ #14 essentialsaltes, #21 davecortesi, #24 & #39 leonidasconstantinides
I assume you are grown persons. Are you really afraid of a tiny name-tease?
Don’t be so uptight and defensive about such trivialities! I say this as someone who grew up in three different countries, with both my first and last names being repeatedly mocked by my peers!!
The real humor here is in the juxtaposition of a pompous and airy title with a naughty-sounding word. A nasty old man that scares children with eternal torture and believes that the universe itself cares about him personally is brought down to his place among us mortals when a gigantic schlong is attached to him.
The punch isn’t at the foreigners with their scato- and urological roots, but at those who takes themselves too seriously.
Come on, Cardinal Dildow? Mullah Ahn al-Secks? Bigus Dickus?
I love the humor, PZ! [Despite the fact that beer is also bad for you, and its effect on the mind is reminiscent of religion ;-) ]
@#56 spamzilla
You are off topic, your rant is boring, and you are promoting both deadly poison and rubbish science. The dangers of second-hand smoke are a bygone conclusion – Penn & Teller famously accepted that they had been wrong about it. The news today is study after study supporting the damage to health from third-hand smoke.
See Lancet data for any year: tobacco kills millions in the world annually. And it stinks. Go smoke in private.
Your statement is even more disgusting (and suspect) because it is made during a major case against the tobacco industry in US courts, where it might finally be forced to pay for its lies and racketeering.
Nah, that’s not beer in a can. Its either Coke (Catholic) or Pepsi (Protestant).
http://www.heartland.org/full/27004/Media_Advisory_ThirdHand_Smoke_Risk_Claims_Challenged.html
http://www.examiner.com/x-31244-Louisville-Public-Policy-Examiner~y2010m2d10-BS-Alert–The-thirdhand-smoke-hoax?#comments
http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2010/02/thirdhand-smoke-scam.html
you were saying……..
smoking over the last 60 years smoking has more than halved (UK 1948 66% of the population, 2009 22.5%) but asthma has risen by 300% (again in the UK). So smoking is not the primary cause of asthma and atopy, I assume the doctor’s cars and industrial pollution. The inconvenient truth is that the only studies of children of smokers suggest it is PROTECTIVE in contracting atopy in the first place. The New Zealand study says by a staggering factor of 82%.
“Participants with atopic parents were also less likely to have positive SPTs between ages 13 and 32 years if they smoked themselves (OR=0.18), and this reduction in risk remained significant after adjusting for confounders.
The authors write: “We found that children who were exposed to parental smoking and those who took up cigarette smoking themselves had a lower incidence of atopy to a range of common inhaled allergens.
“These associations were found only in those with a parental history of asthma or hay fever.”
They conclude: Our findings suggest that preventing allergic sensitization is not one of them.”
http://www.medwire-news.md/…/…gic_sensitization_.html
This is a Swedish study.
“Children of mothers who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day tended to have lower odds for suffering from allergic rhino-conjunctivitis, allergic asthma, atopic eczema and food allergy, compared to children of mothers who had never smoked (ORs 0.6-0.7)
CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates an association between current exposure to tobacco smoke and a low risk for atopic disorders in smokers themselves and a similar tendency in their children.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubm…pubmed/ 11422156
Wednesday, March 12, 2008 British Medical Journal & WHO conclude secondhand smoke “health hazard” claims are greatly exaggerated The BMJ published report at:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057
concludes that “The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer are considerably weaker than generally believed.” What makes this study so significant is that it took place over a 39 year period, and studied the results of non-smokers who lived with smokers…..
meaning these non-smokers were exposed to secondhand smoke up to 24 hours per day; 365 days per year for 39 years. And there was still no relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. In light of the damage to business, jobs, and the economy from smoking bans the BMJ report should be revisited by lawmakers as a reference tool and justification to repeal the now unnecessary and very damaging smoking ban laws. Also significant is the World Health Organization (WHO) study:
Passive smoking doesn’t cause cancer-official By Victoria Macdonald, Health Correspondent ” The results are consistent with their being no additional risk for a person living or working with a smoker and could be consistent with passive smoke having a protective effect against lung cancer. The summary, seen by The Telegraph, also states: ‘There was no association between lung cancer risk and ETS exposure during childhood.’ ” And if lawmakers need additional real world data to further highlight the need to eliminate these onerous and arbitrary laws, air quality testing by Johns Hopkins University proves that secondhand smoke is up to 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations.
http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2010/02/thirdhand-smoke-scam.html
http://www.examiner.com/x-31244-Louisville-Public-Policy-Examiner~y2010m2d10-BS-Alert–The-thirdhand-smoke-hoax?#comments
thirdhand smoke is a lie too,just like second hand smoke…….
This is the Internet.
http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/hungryman/18.html
Close enough? :)
@59
I think it is beer. It looks one hell of a lot like a 32 ounce can of Tecate.
Man, it’s hard to wrap your head around that kind of crazy
My God fearing Catholic Mother always called this image Looks like Jesus Christ smoking a cigarette! well ya, sorta.
Smoke ’em if you got ’em!
@#56:
You’re some kind of damnfool libertarian,aren’t you?
Does #56 count as a starfart? Or was there not enough cussing?
Reminds me of a story a Turkish friend of mine told me. She said that AmWay didn’t have very much success in Turkey because the word “am” (pronounced like “um”) means “cunt.”
She also fell into a fit of giggles whenever someone said “um.” She spent a lot of time laughing…
@Walton, #33
Westward Ho! is in Devon, not Cornwall.
I find the whole laughing-at-funny-sounding-names rather beneath the usual tone of this blog, to be honest.
Hello. Here is a thought experiment I just performed about religion. Please tell me what you think.
http://circleh.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/judgement-day/
@Harleyrider19978 #56: The biggest stunt pulled by the tobacco companies was hiding the fact that the vast majority of lung cancer is caused by tobacco smoke. Lung cancer was pretty rare until smoking became so popular. Even today the tobacco industry shows its might – although the tame “smoking can kill” and “smoking can cause blah blah” labels are mandatory on cigarrette packaging, you don’t see more honest labels like “smoking is responsible for 98% of cases of lung cancer”.
Speaking of funny sounding foreign names:
Letter from Sir Archibald Clerk Kerr to Lord Reginald Pembroke about a new Turkish Colleague.
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/10/we-all-feel-like-that-now-and-then.html
PZ….you’ve got a friend in Beer…Arrogant Bastard Beer, that is. All other beer sects are false drinkings. ;-D
Banning a book makes it world famous. The best way to publicize and sell lots of books is to have it banned.
The hell with funny sounding foreign names! How about Toad Suck, Arkansas?
The world’s silliest place names.
@steronieth, et al
Your concern is noted.
# 56:
Your right to be “appauled” has been revoked until you learn to spell it correctly. Rants of a starfart quality are better when they don’t involve bad spelling, dude.
Hey, leave me out of this. For the record, I find making fun of foreign names a bit juvenile myself, unless they’re really asking for it, like Dildo, Newfoundland or Calgary, Alberta.
In this case though, it’s not just laughing-at-funny-sounding names it’s laughing-at-a-name-that-adds-a-bit-of-unintentional-irony-to-the-situation. There is a difference, however slight, between “Hur-hur, there’s a place in Thailand called Phuket” and laughing because one of the people quoted in an article about the Pope’s position on condoms and birth control is the Archbishop of Phuket. (And yes, I know the name isn’t really pronounced that way.)
You are free of course, to think PZ’s joke–yes, he does make ’em quite regularly–falls flat. He’s a funny guy, but even the best of us throw out a few groaners now and then. Order another drink and hope the next New Atheist comic opens with something better than “And what’s the deal with communion wafers?”
From this smoker who also works in public health and understands more than ‘simple chemistry’, you can take your ‘victimhood’ (“Oh, no! I’m no longer able to smoke every damn place I please, the horror!”) and shove it up your ass, Harleyrider1978.
There are so many egregious examples of real suspension of civil liberties and democracy going on in the US and Canada and this is your cause? It’s a fucking travesty because you and the rest of your dumbfuck pals can no longer stick up the local Krispy Kreme? You selfish, ignorant shithead.
It’s below freezing for the majority of the year (and really, fucking, seriously below zero for a non-insignificant part of the year) where I live, and my friends and I still manage to find the balls to step outside for a puff.
You’re probably one of those fucking assholes who replaced the factory pipes on your bike with aftermarket ones just so you can be sure to ruin the day of everyone except the other loud fucks you’re riding with, aren’t you?
Brownian, OM @ 79:
When I’m out and about, I actually smoke less for that very reason. I am no fan of cold weather and living in ND, I try to stay out of it as much as possible. So, if I’m not home or near my vehicle, I’ll forgo having a smoke.
Let me just say that I am continually amazed out how awesome atheists are… that by comment #8, two people had already pointed out the excellent crafted-brewed brews in a can that are available.
I actually don’t care for Porkslap myself, but that’s just personal taste; many people whose taste in beer I respect love it.
Me too. The difference between ‘wanting’ and ‘needing’ a smoke becomes very apparent at -40.
I’ve gotten myself down to <= 2 a day, unless I’m out at the bar. Even there I smoke less than I used to; because one can’t just light up right there, we smokers schedule our smoke breaks in 20-30 min intervals. As much as I miss having a pint in one hand and a cig in the other, I’m happy to suffer a little inconvenience if it means non-smoking friends are more likely to come out and socialise now that they don’t have to restrict outings to the day before laundry day.
Shorter Harleyrider1978
Boo hooo
In Southern England is the town of Nether Wallop, approaching the area is a sign that simply says ‘The Wallops’ as there is Upper Wallop and others, but Nether Wallop is the funniest.
Fucking, Austria? Has it been twinned with Fucking Åmål?
My name is odd and ripe for mockery in Danish. I’ve learned to live with it.
Heh…
“Wank, a small village of just 28 houses (and three missing signs) near Nesselwang, in southern Bavaria, is no stranger to the depredations of British tourists who simply can’t keep their adolescent mits off its signs. In the last five years the village’s signs have been replaced no less than 27 times. In this latest incident, an entire coach load of puerile sign-fetishists from every corner of the UK, descended upon the village like a plague of locusts sweeping across the plains…..A spokestypeperson at the British consulate told us that the theft of street signs that are considered unusual or amusing by British collectors was ‘an increasingly serious international problem’ and that ‘the criminals involved in this activity will be severely dealt with.’ When pressed to reveal what action the British Goverment would take in this case, the spokestypeperson shouted: “I wish someone would name a town ‘arsehole’ so we can arrest all the fucking wankers in one go!”
‘Fucking’ is precisely where the British tea leaves who stripped Wank of its signs were headed before they had their collars felt by the local polizei. If the burghers of a sleepy German backwater thought they were getting a rough ride by having a name which sends legions of puerile English tourists into fits of uncontrollable mirth, the 3,250 inhabitants of Fucking, near Salzburg, in Austria are, not to beat about the bush—fucking mad. ”
Someone is going to have grab a sign from Shillong for PZ.
Googling “harleyrider1978” is… instructive. It appears to me that they spammed about smoking here because they literally have nothing else to talk about.
For bizarre English placenames, Somerset is king. My two favourites are Nempnett Thrubwell, which just sounds lovely, and Dead Woman’s Bottom.
Phuque. Brownian beat me to it. (Ahem.) Twice: both the mention of Dildo and the smoking flame.
::lights up another camel wide::
Outside of Kansas City, on the Kansas side (where I live) there is a small town called Loose Wad. That one always gives me a good chuckle. Not far from there is a town called Nowhere, which seems appropriate given that it’s in Kansas and all.
PZ, I agree with you that most of the time beer in cans is evil but Oskar Blues makes some decent canned beer (Dale’s Pale Ale and Ten Fidy are 2 great examples).
@92 …and at 4+ bucks a can it fucking well ought to be!
As a native Newf, I should point out that a Dildo is a baby whale.
*snicker*
I was telling my English husband about going camping when I was a kid, and he kept asking me to repeat myself as he didn’t believe I was really saying “Tickle Island.” My best friend lived on Random Island.
In England, my favourite was Six-Mile-Bottom.
I went to a wedding once in Dildo. I imagine the wedding night was a real laugh….
Floyds Knobs, Indiana in the USA gets a chuckle from me. :)
French Lick is also in Indiana. Let’s not forget Blue Ball, PA, which isn’t too far from Reamstown.
Certainly Jesus didn´t smoke cigarettes!
He was a man of taste!
But then perhaps a pipe?
I’ve been wondering what picture to use for the desktop of this computer since I started the job earlier this month. Now I have it. Thanks, Doc!
Some people seem overly touchy about the mirth we show over certain names. Best they not watch John Oliver’s tribute to Britain’s fallen soldiers here