Enough. These wimpy billboards have to stop. Look at the horrible billboards the Skepticon conference is putting up.
Kittens??!? It’s kittens everywhere. But you know the only use we have for kittens at an atheist con is as hors d’oeuvres.
So I quickly and roughly threw together the billboard I want to see.
Much better.
Heh, I had this image of Vampyroteuthis flaring and “WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW”
Atheists aren’t cute?
Glen Davidson
I like the kittens – KITTENS RULE!!!
Isn’t the Skepticon conference website skepticon.org?
PZ linked to this blog entry (circular reference, blah, blah) by mistake.
Oooooooh, tentacles. Shiny.
When are the atheists going to STOP EATING KITTENS!!!!11!!
So we’re supposed to be charmed by some first-world kittens when the money spent to feed and provide amusing, dangly-feathery toys for them could help many more starving, even endangered cats in Africa? Where is the rationality?
(OK, I’m over this morning now. Mostly)
Usernames are stupid
He is fast, our PZ.
doktorzoom
African wild cats don’y need no help from nobody.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_wildcat
I love the tongue-in-cheek snarkiness of these billboards although it may be too subtle for gawd-fearin’ christians…or maybe I’m reading too much into them. I read them as saying “Oh, our billboards saying atheists can be good without god or even just containing the word atheists were too offensive for you assholes…well, take offense at kittens, motherfuckers! Dare ya.”
Ahh Evil cephalopod blood gore ! oooh. Kitty. . .
I vote for the kitten one for the next billboard award.*
*(despite the fact that it needs more diversity)
obligatory
Oh those Skepticon promoters are shrewd. Using cuddly kittens to get PZ all worked up, and put their conference on his website.
WTF is a Ceiling Cat reference doing on an atheist billboard?
The cats are vandalizing the billboard so Christians won’t have to!
Kittens? Too strident.
chigau — Or any other small furry critter. What’s with all this bias for warm-blooded hairy things. Jeez.
In fact, scarier than you CAN imagine
They’re cute until they start tearing their way into your house. Hungry.
Next up: Fluffy clouds.
robro
When you take your fish out of their tank for a cuddle, it does not go well for the fish :(
I scanned around at some of the earlier posts about GAC and didn’t see this piece mentioned, so I’ll drop in here. And, yes, it includes PZ in the list of “heroes of atheism” speaking at the conference and giving it “frisson”…a new word to like.
Now then, PZ, as an official hero of atheism, you can eat your kitten and have it to, or feed it to your bet Vampyroteuthis (scary, yet so cuddly cute).
Pipenta:
Ceiling Cat is watching trolls hoggle.
That’s why you cuddle fish in their tank. You can take Apple snails, certain types of plecos and octopuses out of their tank for a cuddle.
On behalf of certain feral calico & tuxedo neighbors, I must protest skepticon’s blatant favoritism towards striped tabbies.
The saying is that organizing atheists is “like herding cats,” not “like devouring the young of cats.”
Ms Daisy:
Hoggle is a new one on me. And my googling skills, such as they are, aren’t helping me much. I’m finding the muppet character but no mention of the verb. Unless hoggling one’s troll is a euphemism for… oh. That IS what ceiling cat watches, isn’t it?
Pipenta: http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Memes#Hoggling
Not to mention the blatant ageism inherent in including only kittens.
None of those are technically ceiling cat, which is good, because when the believers had figured it out they would been offended. Would have defeated the purpose.
Still, I’d have preferred the pureness of the octopus.
Is The Pureness of the Octopus anything like The Elegance of the Hedgehog?
Kittens are cute? They’re just ruthless predators in training.
This from a card-carrying ailurophile.
I like to compare atheists to frogfish. Swim too close, and your certainty could be gobbled up in a few milliseconds.
cuddling snails, fish, octopods
uuuummmm
*whimper*
!!!GET OFF!!!
youtubelink
.
.
.
OK. you really had to be 14 to find this funny.
(I am impressed that it’s actually on yo*t*be.)
Now I’m confused; then what are the babies for?
Kittens for hors d’oevres, babies for mains. There’s more meat on a baby, duh!
Yeah! Right on! All those anglo-saxon kittehs! Not a black or asian face in the crowd! When will atheism get over its racism problem? Huh?!?
I don’t like cephalopods. They’re contemptible animals that muddy the water as a defense mechanism, just like Christians.
Admit the truth. Given the chance, kittens would eat babies with gusto.
I’m sure the babies would eat the kittens (if they could figure out where their hands are)
(baby hands not kitten hands)
(oh, you figured that out)
(my, aren’t you grand)
(you talkin’ ta me?)
(I don’t see anyone else here.)
{(wrong thread?)}
PZ, Above are the kittens. Below is the Friday cephalopod. No contest.
(I sometimes wonder what gruesome childhood experience tricked your brain into cephalopod bondage. . .)
Good thing Ms. Daisy had the link, because ever since Google re-magicked their algorithms (e.g., Frothy is no longer #1), Urban Dictionary’s entry on Hoggle has moved off the first page of results.
Oh hai. I saw my squid signal.
So atheists eat pussy at the conventions? Interesting….
And that was the last thing Bovarchist ever posted on pharyngula.
Ceiling kittens are watching you blasphemate.
I don’t quite understand why they had to say “Kittens are cute.” Everyone knows that, and it clutters up the board. Is there some deep metaphorical purpose I wot not? Do they mean to imply that just as everyone knows kittens are cute they also know there is no god? Or are they just being silly?
I don’t know… That period after Kittens are cute looks a bit confrontational.
Hors d’oeurves? Goddammit, I am so tired of these false stereotypes being perpetuated against atheists!
BABIES are for eating. KITTENS are for skeet shooting. Are we clear now?
Kittens are also for this:
http://www.drunkduck.com/Cwens_Quest/5136400/
Kittens are too much trouble to prepare for eating. Skinning them is a pain but necessary. A nice spit-roasted baby is much simpler to cook and the skin is a delicacy.
I reckon the squid one should be put on a billboard, just to see if it gets banned. Bet it doesn’t.
Marella – it is something of an in joke. The most recent big billboard battle involved one that simply said “atheists”, as a test to see if the most simple statement, with no message at all, would still make Christians claim offense.
It did.
So now, how cute and cuddly can we get and be called offensive? Here’s a test.
I predict it will, because some Christian will claim that we’re trying to lure unsuspecting children in by showing them cute kitten pictures, in much the same way the creepy van guy offers free ice cream. I might even bet money on it.
carlie, you’d have to lay some mighty long odds to get a bet here.
I quite like the idea of a ‘scary atheists’ theme for billboards; I (perhaps over-optimistically) think most people would get the sarcasm. Or maybe some billboards with killer anti-evolution arguments like “If we came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” or “Tide goes in, tide goes out, never a miscommunication.”
Kittens are delicious, and kitten poker is fun, but PZ, you’re not trying to make cephalopods scary, are you?
Sometimes you think you have seen it all and while there are way more horrendous issues current or posted, the lackadaisical approach certainly puts your view-points and worldly-view into context. Even if I was one of yours, I would be embarrassed to read most of the above postings.
You all must be pretty proud that an incoherent idjit does not get your so-called wonderful sense of humour.
Kittens and babies …………………………………….
Eish!
No. No pride involved. No surprise involved, either.
This is the problem with in-jokes. We make them and then people who aren’t familiar with the sayings and attitudes of the clique are confused.
If I was you I would be embarrassed to read any of your incoherent postings. Inside jokes above, mocking the attitude of folks like you. You don’t understand humor either.
Beatrice:
Thread over.
Yip, yip, yip I do not catch tne inside joke and I do not have your sense of humour.
No surprise there either.
What? No graphics designer?
Isn’t that what you usually complain about in these billboards?
Even the batrachian Kephalopodophile PZ Myers trembles at the idea of Mother Hittons Littul Kittons
dexitroboper,
Since PZ has no intention of visiting Old North Australia, he’s not concerned with Mother Hitton or her Littul Kittons. Besides, PZ would qualify as a Lord of the Instrumentality and therefore could travel wherever he wanted to.
Indeed not. That’s the first thing that gets destroyed by the god-virus. Followed by taste.
No, indeed not.
——————————
As for the billboards, I find the one with the kittens much scarier.
Something that cute certainly has an ulterior motive.
daniel:
Idea! Stop complaining and get your own fucking blog! There are several services out there that will even provide you one for free! *gasp!* You could even link to it through your sign in to get page hits, instead of your (totally nonprivate, I might add) facebook profile!
Jesus Christ, it’s not rocket surgery.
@Dr Audley
That he links to a non-private facebook profile should tell you a bit about his skillz in that area.
Apparently he has no idea that employers and insurance companies will often look on facebook for info.
FIFY.
Kemist:
True that.
Ah well, I’ve seen our Danny boy around before and I already knew that he wasn’t the swiftest cookie in the jar.
Personally, I prefer the kittens…
But maybe there’s a way to compromise? What about a kitty-cephalopod hybrid? Shall we call it an octo-puss?
Bwahaha! Octo-puss!
How about cat-tlefish?
Jebo Bra/Sis
When you go out of your way to find a weakness [IF} and avoid, gather your wagons and warawarawara……Nothing to hide. Seriously says a lot for you.
A J-J-Joke is possibly funny the first time, the reptition is sick. So feel proud, pick on DH, DH666, Daniel, etc to justify your crudeness. AND NO, you cannot label this as an out-dated view-point or whichever way you want to dodge.
danielhaven:
Could you please repeat your comment coherently?
danielhaven: ?????
boadinum: Haha! That just makes me think of cows though.
WTF is danielhaven babbling about now? He can’t even use brackets [or parentheses, if you prefer (though I can’t imagine why you would {and why would he include curly brackets anyway?})] properly.
Bloody troll.
sc_74ea47150e85034bcc7422aafb1cd691,
I thought that cat-lefish sounded bovine, but you had already snapped up the best one. Octo-puss! I’m still giggling.
PZ’s Friday Cephalopod was a skeptical cuttlefish, so I guess that was my inspiration. I encourage everyone out there to submit their own feline-cephalopod hybrid names.
I’m not as offended by the kittens as I am that Skepticon is being billed as an ATHEIST convention! I mean, poor little Hal Bidlack is praobably weeping onto Jeff Wagg’s breast right now while Phil Plait is composing a new admonition against our “dickishness” for making a Christian JREF supporter cry.
Won’t someone please think of the skeptics!!!
Danielhaven being as incoherent as always, I see.
Thread won, I can go… oh, I’m already at home. I’ll go shopping. :-)
boadinum:
Haha, thanks! Maybe a cat-tlefish (cattle-fish?) could win over the hearts of all those devoted cow lovers, since there are so many.
The only other hybrid name I’ve got is squidy-cat….
Come on, Ogvorbis, you should know by now that the answer to that question is: “No”.
I like squidy-cat. Maybe we can send cattlefish to the Hindu-non-cow-eating religious people.
What about porcu-periwinkle? OK, I’ve stepped outside of the agreed-upon genera. My bad, but it’s still fun. It sound like croco-duck and other YEC batshittery.
But it won’t be. It’ll be something like:
But kittens and cats are natural born skeptics. They question everything. Haven’t you heard the saying, “Curiosity is what killed the cat?” A few skeptical cats questioned something and well… Luckily not all questioning and skeptical cats get killed for being curious, but many are skeptics. Wouldn’t you be if humans thought your species were once gods, when your species wasn’t? lol
mriana:
I think my cats missed that memo.
danielhaven
If we minced your last post, I think a martyr complex would drip out, but there’d be nothing recognizable after that.
You may now consider yourself picked on.
It’s my public service to the needy.
Obviously it’s a reference to kitten huffing.
Kitten thinks of nothing but murder all day.
How can you be sure people wont mistake us for Cthulhu worshipers? :D
Sastra
kitten thinks???
Off topic but I thought you’d all like a laugh on a Sunday morning. The following letter-to-the-editor was posted in Melbourne’s The Age newspaper today:
“ATHEISM is a contemporary selfish fad that will dissipate over time. In reality, the Catholic Church is the world’s greatest humanitarian organisation, performing unpaid charity work worth billions of dollars in global economic output.
DAVID THOMSON, St Kilda”
I was wondering if it’s only a coincidence that the Melbourne Comedy Festival ends today.
What do you mean, mistake?
PZ should totally fundraise to get a billboard like that put up. I would love to see how many christians go apeshit.
@daemonowner 91
To a degree, I’d expect not so much, because it agrees with them. I think it’s pushing the idea that we’re normal people that offends them.
I mean, they wen’t through all that effort to demonize us, and we’ re just going to come along and ruin all that? Bastards!
Fuck kittensWhat I really meant is that I don’t personally identify with kittens. But you may. It’s all cool.
Given that PZ lives and works in Minnesota, the culturally relevant view…
kittens = muskie bait
Formerly “sc_74ea47150e85034bcc7422aafb1cd691”, I decided to change my username. Don’t hate the name yet; my initials spell cat, which is partially why I chose it, and partially because I just really love the furballs. Sorry, PZ and all you cat haters.
I think I’ll start commenting on Pharyngula (hence the reason why I changed the name), instead of just lurking….so I guess this is sort of me introducing myself? Which I’m really bad at and it took me a really long time to deliberate on the decision whether to or not to officially do so…Here goes, to the people who come back to this thread: hi.
So even though it’s pretty dead in here….
boadinum:
Yess! Hindu’s would buy that shit, maybe. Either that or they’d be utterly offended by it, which by the looks of many pharyngulite’s comments over my time spent lurking, would be a success not a failure (?).
Does the squidy-cat sound like kitty-cat? That’s what I was going for. Porcu-periwinkle is awesome! I’m having trouble imagining it though. Spiky and shelled? ;)
chigau:
Kitty thinks of murdering my dwarf hamsters. All day.
C.A.T.:
C’mon over to the lounge and introduce thyself. With your new (and much easier) ‘nym.
But dexitroboper, some of us ARE kittons. We’ve been woken from our drugged slumbers (like certain tentacled beings) by the rantings of theocracy.
OMG those kittens.. Possibly the best atheism related billboard ever. Whoever did that can stay at my house whenever they want.
Seeing as it’s mating season for the Pacific Northwest tree octopus, I’d rather have the kittens. Because kittens are mating all over my lawn.
Hey you squids! Git offa mah lawn!!!