Maybe he has a Ph.D. in philosophy, and that’s why he’s driving a bus?

Mr Ron Heather, Unprofessional Bus Driver and Pompous Faith-Head, has decided to become briefly famous for his stupidity by refusing to do his job and drive a bus with advertising on it.

Mr Heather told BBC Radio Solent: “I was just about to board and there it was staring me in the face, my first reaction was shock horror.

“I felt that I could not drive that bus, I told my managers and they said they haven’t got another one and I thought I better go home, so I did.

“I think it was the starkness of this advert which implied there was no God.”

Apparently, passing an intelligence test is not required to qualify for a job driving a bus, since a sign that says, “There probably is no god” does do a little more than merely imply — it’s a simple declarative sentence. I think he’s also a little confused if he thinks his role as the guy with the steering wheel and brakes is to provide intellectual heft to the plethora of adverts sprinkled over his bus.

Although…when the Pope gets me fired and excommunicated, if he spares me house arrest, I think I ought to get a nice relaxing job driving a bus. I’d go in in the morning, look over the signage, and announce, “Shock horror, I don’t like that brand of shampoo. I think I better go home for a nice lie down.” “Shock horror, Victoria’s Secret? I really need a lie down.” “Shock horror, BILL O’REILLY? Boss, I need the week off. With a bonus for trauma.”

I think I could be the most sensitive and delicate bus driver ever, if I tried.

Sins so heinous that only the Pope can grant absolution

Details of some high-level Catholic tribunal and how it handles the most grievous sins have been revealed. In a very strange overview, we learn that murder and genocide, while truly horrible crimes, can be handled by lower members of the hierarchy. There are a few that only this tribunal and the Pope are qualified to cope with. They are briefly listed: trying to assassinate the Pope, a priest spilling the beans about what is said in the confessional, priests having sex, and abortionists becoming priest. But there is one other crime, which the article dwells on:

Defiling the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the body and blood of Christ, is also considered a sin of extreme gravity and one which is on the increase, the high-ranking members of the tribunal said.

Cardinal Stafford said there had been a rise in incidents in which people would receive Communion and then spit it out or otherwise desecrate it, sometimes in Satanic rituals.

In July last year an American academic, to make a point about freedom of thought and religion, drove a nail through a Communion wafer and then threw it in a rubbish bin.

Paul Myers, from the University of Minnesota, said later: “I pierced it with a rusty nail. Then I simply threw it in the trash. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your Lord.”

Such sins, which can only be dealt with by the Pope, acting through the tribunal, bring automatic excommunication from the Church. If the Pope decides to grant absolution, the excommunication is lifted.

But how can I be excommunicated from a church to which I’ve never belonged?

And aren’t their priorities a little screwed up that they consider genocide a lesser offense?

Pough sent along an illustration that I must use.

i-b6b48576f529085c9bbc58fac51b1fa7-Put-down-the-cracker.jpeg

Close your eyes if you’re in South Carolina!

South Carolina has made it illegal to transmit “material containing words, language, or actions of a profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature”.

Well, darn. Dang it all to heck.

Actually, it looks like it doesn’t take effect until approved by the governor, so we have a little grace period. After that, though…they’re going to have to sweep up everyone on the internet and imprison us for 5 years.

I don’t respond well to threats

I just got a long, whiny, self-serving email from a Mr John Buford, in which he claims that I was in error for banning him, because he once took a 4-credit course in anthropology, and his comments about race are therefore credible.

You may recall Mr Buford by his pseudonym, “hahajohnnyb”. He’s a racist moron.

I won’t bother with posting the whole of his letter, which is mostly a lot of chest-thumping about how smart he is, but I will share with you his closing threat.

It is your blog, and you certainly have the right to ban whomever you choose, and I shall respect your ban, but I intend to post a link to your site on Stormfront, which gets 10s of thousands of hits a day and has 100s of thousands of members, so you will get to hear from an ever increasing number of racial realists. I shall not stop only at your site, but will also have my people inflitrate the entire Dawkins Network with realism about race. Maybe, we will be able to open the minds of a few of your co-religionists or maybe we will make the Dawkins movement look like a bunch of Nazis, either way. You lose.

Woo-hoo! More traffic! Maybe I’ll be able to cover my daughter’s tuition payments this term, after all!

More likely, a few thugs and rednecks will straggle over and leave a few illiterate comments, but be prepared. I’ll also be ready. One of the nice things about our recent software update is one-click comment deletion.

I get email

The other day, I pointed out that tasteless web design is a hallmark of crazy web sites, and used this Overcompensating comic to illustrate it…and you all scurried over to Timecube to see one of the best examples on the web.

I got this email today.

Dear Mr. Meyers,

Putting aside any offensive criticism of our website on your web page at http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/contact.php, we found many of the comments extremely humorous, even though at our expense.

We comment on your page at http://lfnexus.com/scumbagwebsites.htm.

Thank you for the good laugh!

Oh, yes, you can share this email with anyone you wish!

PS: There is method in our madness.

Cordially,

Dr. Michael Bisconti
President
The L. F. Nexus

They got the url of my “offensive criticism” wrong: it’s at an article called “How can you tell when you’re a kook?” I think he shows all the signs.

Here’s what’s really funny. I originally laughed at a whole series of insane arguments he made against evolution, homosexuality, and women, and look at what he considers the most offensive thing I said, that warrants rating me as a “medium scumbag”:

This website incorrectly reported that we believe that Gay “activity” can be sinless. However, this was due to an editorial problem on one of our web pages, which has since been corrected.

I guess my sin was that I accurately reported on a comment that was less than damning of homosexuality.

But now, you must see this: their updated website. Behold, and tremble in fear. This is getting up there pretty darned near Time Cube territory. It may get even better, since up near the top they prominently mention that they have a new site under construction by WebPsyops, Inc.. Yeah, that’s who we all ought to turn to for our professional web design.