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Let's Rename Swine Flu As "Colbert Flu"
Bruce Perens writes "The World Health Organization will no longer refer to Virus A(H1N1) as 'Swine Flu,' citing ethnic reactions to 'swine,' for example among middle-eastern cultures who feel that swine are unclean. Or, is it because meat packers are concerned that people might stop eating pork in fear of the virus? WHO suggests that the public select a new name for the virus. I suggest that we all start calling it The Colbert Flu, after the comedian and fake pundit who asked his audience to stuff a NASA poll so that a Space Station module would be named after him. What can we do to make the name stick?"
Call it the Colbert flu? I don't think so. Colbert was just being funny, which is his job. It's why people watch him, and why they'll go so far as to stuff a poll. Plus, it was good publicity for the space station, led to an astronaut on his show, and even the naming of some widget or other after him. Treadmill? Whatever.
Anyway, Colbert is generally a positive influence. His "fake punditry" is pungent social comment, with the intent of nudging the his audience to think about these issues. While being funny, which keeps them coming back. All in all, a good thing. So I don't think naming a killer flu after him is appropriate. Entirely the wrong set of connotations, you see.
Flus are annoying, they show up wether you want them to or not, right in the middle of something else you were doing. Vaguely similar to your suggestion we name a nasty flu after a cool guy showing up on slashdot.
So in honor of your annoying and inappropriate post, I'm simply going to counter-suggest that we name H1N1 after you instead: The "Perens Flu." Does that seem fair to you?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Who is Colbert? // not American // Swine Flu is worldwide.
Given the pandemic of meaning obscuring, "politically correct" names, I'm surprised that swine flu hasn't been renamed to "porcine repressing influenza" or some such.
Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
What can we do to make the name stick?
Duct Tape it to Colbert. That'll work.
Lets make it obvious where this came from, to give people a good idea not to go there!
It was good enough for the spanish flu, why must we be so damn politically correct.
Oh, and why the hell haven't we closed our borders? Horse out of the barn? That's insane! Even if that was a valid reason, we should still keep the borders closed to keep them from overloading our hospitals!
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
"Bacon Lung"
Much better name.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Let's call it "H1N1" flu. You know, like, what it is actually called BY SCIENCE!
crazy dynamite monkey
Characteristics of a flu...
given all these, the choice is obvious...
I hereby dub this latest flu the CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN FLU
Not be named after 'unclean' animals after all. I only get kosher diseases, thank you very much!
Are you a conservative by any chance?
it has a certain realism to it
His running joke is that he will sell out in nearly any way to get his name out there. He'd probably love the idea and go on his show next week and urge viewers to write to WHO to ask for the rename.
"Contrarily the lookaside buffer might not be the panacea... "
Have a worldwide online poll to name it, and allow write-in submissions...
To make it stick, you need an on-line naming contest or maybe put "Colbert Flu" on a wrist band and send it to Colbert.
Wilbur's flu Flu Z Montezuma's revenge Tequila flu Panic flu Non-Kosher/Non-Halal flu One flu over the cuckoo's nest
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Maybe I'm English and I just don't get him....
Maybe you're English? Shouldn't you be a little more certain of that kind of thing?
In any case, we Americans don't always get your humor. Does that mean it's not actually funny to you too?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
I understand that some cultures feel swine are unclean, however, most cultures (including my own) also feel that the flu is unclean... so what's the issue with referring to the animal believed to have been the one that passed the virus along to humans?
There is a real problem in Egypt, which is persecuting its Coptic Christians by slaughtering their pigs. A minority in Egypt are Christian, the word "Copt" refers to their Egyptian ethnicity.
Some of the Copts farm pork, which the majority of Egyptian Islamic citizens (and their powerful clerics) feel are unclean. The Copts feed the pigs by recycling garbage, compounding their unclean nature in the eyes of Islamics. So, the Egyptians are slaughtering the pigs in the fear that they are influenza vectors.
We don't actually know that the pig is a vector for the virus at all. Thus, the Egyptian slaughters are unwarranted. We do know that human-to-human contact is a problem this time. The pigs are where influenza genes are often mixed, because they are susceptible to avian, human, and swine viruses. There probably was one pig-to-human transmission at the beginning of this epidemic, but there isn't evidence of continuing transmission after that.
The Copts are persecuted like most religious minorities in religious states. You don't see many of them in government (and none in high positions) or education. They don't often get government permission to build churches, and in 2007 there were Islamic riots because the people around the Copts thought they wanted to build a church. They need government permission to perform religious services.
The bottom line here is that the Egyptians, by slaughtering the pigs, remove the livelyhood of the Copts. They aren't promising to restore that livelyhood.
Bruce Perens.
Not a story but a goof...
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
You can bet that Prescott Pharmaceuticals is working on a nostrum to exploit this latest panic. Includes such side effects as trotter lip, spleen bristles, and toe hams.
BTW.. I'm a Colbert too, you insensitive clods!
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
"I can't come in to work today. I have space herpes."
"Some guy on the subway gave me space herpes."
"CNN Reporting today that another 35 cases of space herpes have surfaced in New York."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Maybe I'm English and I just don't get him....
When will you know for sure whether you're English?
Seriously, you don't have to be English not to get him. This plain ol' American doesn't get him either -- and finds him irritating as hell too.
and create a WHO video clip featuring Dustin Hoffman who explains that nobody needs to be worried.
How about we stop giving stupid suggestions their own Slashdot articles?
I came here for a good argument
Meat packers aren't just concerned about it - it is in fact actually happening. Plenty of people genuinely (and jokingly) think that eating pork products is a way to get this disease.
Public health officials have to live in the real world, where irrational behavior, fear, hysteria, and misinformation are enemies as big as disease itself. If referring to it as "H1N1 Influenza" rather than "Swine Flu" gets people to smarten up about it, and has the benefit of reducing damage to the meat industry, then so be it.
How about editing the Wiki page to call it the Colbert flu. And while we're at it let's say the flu is a direct result of saving all the elephants.
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
Colbert is an example of cultural humor. The Colbert character is a parody of American right-wing demagogues.
Unless you are familiar with those demagogues, you'll not understand the comedy.
It's like slashdot humor. Unless you're familiar with the memes, the subject matter, and the jokes that have come before, 3/4 of the jokes just won't be funny to you.
That's the problem with humor... little of it is universal (not even poop jokes are universal, as some cultures don't have the same hang-ups about doody that we do). Slapstick is probably the only truly universal humor.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Or P.I.G. Flu
- suggested by CBC radio's "The Current" program this morning.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
A book, you should read it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If we're going to do euphemisms, let's show the WHO what we think and call it the WHO Flu.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
I'm sorry but "Colbert" and "Comedian" only belong in the sentence if the words between them are "is not a ". Maybe I'm English and I just don't get him....
I think you have to suffer through large exposure of American news before Colbert's humor would make any sense.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
And just say we did.
I submit to you, the Colbert Flu;
Contagious Olfactory Limiting Breathable Express Retrovirus Transmission Flu
It came from Swine.
Also, the Spanish Flu did not originate in Spain, it originated in the far east.
"Oh, and why the hell haven't we closed our borders? Horse out of the barn? "
No, it would be pointless at this time. 3 weeks ago it would ahve made sense.
"we should still keep the borders closed to keep them from overloading our hospitals!"
ah, you're a bigot. No wonder there was no thought put into your post. It's just an excuse for your hate.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm telling you Bacon Fever!!!
oogly boogly!
It's like slashdot humor. Unless you're familiar with the memes, the subject matter, and the jokes that have come before, 3/4 of the jokes just won't be funny to you.
I am familiar with the memes, the subject matter, and the jokes that have come before, and 4/4 of them still aren't funny.
Use the masses to do your bidding! Start tagging things on twitter as both #colbertflu and #swineflu (with requests to retweet, of course). It won't take long before someone thinks it's amusing enough to copy. It's better than all of the "@noonecaresaboutme OMG, I'm soooo going to miss bacon!!! #swineflu" tweets that are clogging my series of tubes...
Wilbur's flu
Flu Z
Montezuma's revenge
Tequila flu
Panic flu
Non-Kosher/Non-Halal flu
One flu over the cuckoo's nest
(just flat out ignore my poorly formatted list above. Sorry)
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Who is going to not call it swine flu after all the hubbub?
But if we want to put Colbert's name on anything how about on a swine?
BTW does anyone know if Colbert has the flu? Like they say "that truck has your name on it", I don't think he wants his name on the flu. But if he has the flu, anyone who wants to snuggle with him can call it the Colbert flu.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
> ethnic reactions to 'swine,' for example among middle-eastern cultures who feel
Actually, they do not "feel" this at all, it has been force-hammered into their heads from early childhood, when they minds could not defend themselves, because several hundreds of years ago, their self-appointed religious founders had no refrigerators (but forgot to leave a "or any later version" in their GPLs.. err... holy scriptures).
So basically a secular, neutral, international health organisationen now forces a disease renaming onto the whole planet because a few backwards theocracies, who happen to have stuck themselves into a religion without a feasible upgrade path (hehehehehe), threaten to let their people die en masse in order to avoid pronouncing the word "swine" loudly. (I'm writing this, but still cant grasp that they rally mean this seriously. Jeez.)
How about Pussification Flu? Anyone who is offended by that name, well, they probably deserve to be.
In other words, get a fucking grip. It's the flu. Get over it already. A pig by any other name.
Oh, and just another small observation for those who are still offended by the "dirty" reference, any animal that still stands on four legs and eats slop with its mouth because it happens to lack opposable thumbs, logical thinking and an IQ under 50 is very well likely to be DIRTY.. For further reference on this fact, please refer to the guide of Common Sense under the No Shit, Sherlock section.
Or maybe "Feedlot flu"
because you aren't very funny at all.
The 'Colbert Nation' is a bit bigger than the 'Perens Nation' so I think that you are going to be rather unsuccessful in your venture.
I'm sorry but "Colbert" and "Comedian" only belong in the sentence if the words between them are "is not a ". Maybe I'm English and I just don't get him....
That's OK, mate. We don't get the whole cross-dressing thing here.
Cheers.
PCFlu - Politically Correct Flu
WWF - World Wide Flu
WTF - World Terrorizing Flu
No person, country, or industry deserves to be saddled with the name of a deadly infectious disease that happens by random evolutionary chance.
We have a similar problem with random tropical storms that can eventually turn deadly, and we have in place standard, non-offensive naming system. It uses an annual system with alpha-ordered names.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone_naming
Given the ever-growing global population and the *inevitable* concomitant increase in pandemic diseases, we will eventually need to come up with preemptive arbitrary unoffensive names like we do for storms.
Get the WHO or some robust international group to make a set of arbitrary, alpha-ordered, gender-unbiased names, and any time one reaches pandemic stage 4 (or some stage of early but serious global problem), assign the next name.
Like:
Arthur Flu
Betty Stomach Bug
Carl Flu
Denise Spotty Fever
Eric Virus
Florence Worms
etc ...
I had not heard that angle before. That is a pretty unfortunate circumstance and I can see why they would have a vested interest in clearing the swine's good name. I thought that the issue was just among non pork-eating people who were just sick of hearing the name.
It's not the lack of an upgrade path, but no end-of-life date.
Bruce Perens.
It probably means he's American.
Many of us Americans aren't really sure of our heritage. Maybe I'm English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, German, Austrian, Polish, Blackfoot, and God knows what else, I'm beginning to think my ancestors would mount a gorilla if it wouldn't tear their arms off.
a penguin. So it should really be called penguin flew. Since nobody actually eats penguins, this name should satisfy all parties.
Rob Enderle's excellent new book: Everything I needed to know about Computer Science I learned in Marketing School
I'm sorry but "Colbert" and "Comedian" only belong in the sentence if the words between them are "is not a ". Maybe I'm English and I just don't get him....
He's certainly not a classic comedian. As others have pointed out, his entire persona is done in satire, and it's blindly-patriotic, high consuming America that he's satirising.
That's not to say his bit is funny; that's obviously left to opinion. I've come across plenty of disagreement in the USA regarding the quality of his show. All the same, it is possible that something is lost in cultural translation.
In any case, we Americans don't always get your humor. Does that mean it's not actually funny to you too?
I think the same goes in this direction; whatever British humour isn't widely popular here might well have mixed reviews in the UK. All the same, what's not to get about a man in women's clothing? ;)
A lot of it is just wit and quips though. And for his "The Word", he usually gives the context that the on screen text is riffing off of, so it isn't that hard to connect the dots.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The virus has genetic characteristics of avian flu and swine flu.
The obvious way to distinguish this one is to call it the Flying Pig Flu.
Late-night comics and morning zoo types will flog it for all it's worth, so it will overtake the current moniker.
And the zealots will have to try to kill all the flying pigs.
Sorry, Stephen.
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
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They forced him to produce a body... that doesn't mean anything. Hans was a nerd and the jury doesn't like that so they locked him up. Simple as that.
Plus, are you going to be the one who will explain to all the crying little kids in English speaking world that their mommy and daddy are just fine, that they don't have the "Perens flu" and that they are not going to die?
Does THAT seem fair to YOU?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I kept telling people that's what it was, but no one would believe me...
We pander too much to the politically correct...
Lets look at the last pandemics...
Asiatic (Russian) Flu 1889
Spanish Flu 1918
Asian Flu 1957
Hong Kong Flu 1968
The precident has already been created in using the name of the first case/s to name the flu pandemic virus.
No one should be able to object to the name Mexican Flu 2009.
While I don't think that naming the flu after Colbert is even a remotely good idea, I do agree that the name is incredibly misleading.
The "Swine flu" is names so because it contains components common to flu viruses found in pigs, but pigs and humans have always been able to pass certain strains of flu viruses back and forth. Pigs could just as easily think of this strain as the "Human flu" if they had the mental faculties to know and care. The problem isn't that the pigs have the flu, or that they are spreading it to humans, but that humans are spreading the flu to each other. Where ever the flu originated, it's spreading from human-to-human and that makes it a human flu in my mind. An unusually virulent and obviously scary flu, but still the flu
1. By continuing to refer to the virus as the swine flu, we are scaring people away from pork despite the lack of a single case of this flu in pigs north of the US/Mexico border.
2. Even if US pigs got this flu, it wouldn't matter because the flu is a respiratory infection and no one I know eats pig lung.
3. And even if pig lung were a delicacy somwhere, the flu is not very stable at high temperatures so appropriate cooking times would kill it.
4. just to entertain the truley rediculous, even if people were eating pig lung from infected pigs and not cooking it thoroughly, the mortality rate is still incredibly low in the US where, despite it's obvious problems, the health care system is far better than that available to most Mexicans.
The WHO, CDC, and others should be doing what they can to prevent the spread of this supprisingly virulent strain of the flu. We all should be careful to prevent spreading the flu (regardless of strain). However, we shouldn't be scaring the crap out of the un/under-educated at home and throughout the world just to sell newspapers and ad space on our websites.
Hell, the Egyptian government has decided to kill every single pig in the country to battle the spread of a flu that has only been found in pigs in one country, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Now, I've heard some rumors that this is more of an attempt to take a cheap shot at one of the few religious groups in Egypt that do eat pork while they have a sudo-legitimate exucse, but still. Over-reaction without a doubt.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
This might sound like flamebait but it is an honest question...So what if in English it's the Swine flu? "Swine" probably isn't even a word in these cultures that are reacting to the use of the word. And isn't it their problem if they have literally translated it into their language. Why don't they come up with their own name for the flu and use that? It's not as if they don't have their own words for everything else. The WHO and their own local media could then use the appropriate word for the appropriate culture when discussing the flu with people from that culture.
See Trichinosis fact sheet and the Wikipedia article. Yes, it's really sad that poor people feed garbage (and feces of other animals) to the animals that they are rearing to produce meat for human consumption. But they do it because they're poor, unlike meat-packers in the U.S. who didn't have that excuse. I suspect that social equality where they live would lead to a halt to this practice.
Bruce Perens.
Life becomes interesting when you meet some somebody a party who thinks he is serious and worse, agree with him! I mean, after all, clearly it is true that all textbooks are nothing but a way for socialists to push their liberal agenda. You laugh, this guy says "right on!" wants to give me a hi-five! Good times!
Further more, I suggest we submit that for further discussion in an article of its own.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I prefer the name Pandemic Influenza Germ...although people will undoubtedly shorten that to an acronym of some sort.
PEGGY: What we're about to see is British comedy. You may not understand all of it at first, because it's more sophisticated than what we're used to.
BOBBY: That man is wearing a dress.
PEGGY: Exactly.
lets call it, transitory chilled fever syndrome (TCFSS) or 'tranfer' for short. As in renaming Global Warming to 'climate change', made it go away .. :)
...that this is an April Fools Day post?
Veritas patesco per quaestio questio. Truth is revealed through questions.
The moderators this morning don't appear to be it-getters...
There are lots of H1N1 strains, including those involved in the regular seasonal flu among humans. I've seen people get it in their heads that this is not a new flu virus, because "H1N1" has been around for a while already.
Get off my news site. This is not news. I don't want your opinion. You could have stated that there is just a name search. Also, get off my lawn.
The most probable cause of the spread is Air Travel
Nah, parodying the zealotry of the right wing is funny in any western culture--English included! I lived there, and they do it just as well as Colbert (remember the funny puppets from the 80s of Reagan, Thatcher, et. al.?)
Some stuff isn't funny if you don't get the culture, like "Little Britain" (until you live there for a couple years), but some stuff is pretty funny, even without understanding of the culture, like "Top Gear", or "The Office" (UK version).
Then there's lowest-common-denominator, stupid humor that isn't funny in any culture, like "Mr. Bean".
It's awfully confusing if everyone is using different names for the same thing. Direct translations, when translated back will (hopefully) give you back the correct name in your own language. It would be less than ideal to run some foreign language text through a computer translator (which might not be aware of the non-literal correlation), and have it give you a name which you have no idea means the same thing as Swine Flu.
So in honor of your annoying and inappropriate post, I'm simply going to counter-suggest that we name H1N1 after you instead: The "Perens Flu." Does that seem fair to you?
I think the "Hiney Flu" is more appropriate.
The real issue is that "Swine Flu" could describe any number of flu epidemics over the course of human history. It's not a specific term.
"Mexican Swine Flu" would be better, if you were really wedded to the pig part.
I think the real issue with this one, is that it leapt into the public consciousness before the powers that be had gotten around to giving it an "official" name, and now the one we have isn't really satisfying for anyone.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Edgar Hernandez is the 5 year old boy who is the earliest confirmed victim of the flu.
Let's not name a possible pandemic after some local celebrity of yours. It was funny (to you) when it was some NASA space station, but really, nobody knows (nor cares) who Colbert is ouside of US and Canada.
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Give Bruce a break, after all, they already named a disease in his honor, Brucellosis!
Hey Bruce, got milk?
Personally, I thought Colburn's stunt was a poor joke that made fun of a bad decision on how to drum up public interest in something that nearly happened unnoticed. NASA shouldn't have resorted to an open ballot democracy; some other pranksters could have called it the " capsule" or "'s folly". Colbert one-ups them with a lower blow, and NASA eventually decides the decision was a bad one, undoing any semblance of true public choice.
When something is messed up and you exploit it, your victory is also a messed up one.
TWITTER FLU?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Its one thing to have a bridge or piece of orbiting space crap named after you... this not such a good idea.
I know the swine flu seems to be overblown and sensationalized by the media etc.. right now, but who knows perhaps it mutates and kills off half the population by some trick of fate.
Now you have the worst thing in the world named after you. On top of that I imagine that due to the catastrophic implications, history could become somewhat jumbled in the years following.
Now you go down in history as the cause of the worst thing in the world with connotations as to your parentage and hygiene, and you name becomes worse than Hitler's!
Ewwww! I got the Colbert Flu!
The CDC has stated that they believe this virus is being trasmitted from person to person the same way other influenza viruses spread - airborne aerosols created when infected people cough & sneeze.
It may seem to have a relatively low mortality rate, but that doesn't have any bearing on whether or not the virus is airborne.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we already name newly-emergent virus strains from the city or country in which they were first identified? (hence Ebola Reston, etc.)
So Mexican Flu is not only accurate (that's where it first appeared, even if not strictly accurate as to its exact origin), it's also in keeping with past practices.
And I do agree that we should start calling it something else -- even though it probably is too late. Seems like every day they're devoting time on the news to debunking rumors about getting this from pork or from visiting a farm or whatever. Time that'd be better spent on substantive matters, like how virulent is this thing, really, or what Brittney Spears thinks of it.
That's not to say his bit is funny; that's obviously left to opinion.
Bah, not this stupid argument again. It is funny. It's only not funny if you are an uptight conservative who thinks he is serious. It becomes even less funny once said uptight conservative figures out he is joking, at which point it becomes really funny to everyone else around uptight conservative.
The response I've heard most from my 100% lefty friends when criticising his show is that it starts to feel like his persona boils down to only one joke, show after show. Whether or not one believes that, I think there's definitely room to disagree on his comedic merits, as there is with every comedian.
I think that were I in a conservative area I'd be more inclined to have the experience / perspective you describe. As I don't have any conservative friends, I can't accept that Colbert is universally loved among everyone but conservatives.
The Colbert = Sneeze
Flu = Sneeze
==>
The Colbert Flu = The Sneeze Sneeze
Cut "Flu", The Colbert is enough.
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He seems to be a big part of it already... why not name it after him?
It's a known fact that Bruce Parens is a ham. He's obviously just trying to deflect the blame elsewhere.
"Stay away from him children, he's been Slashdotted"
I like microcars
> now the one we have isn't really satisfying for anyone.
What isn't satisfying is the monty-pythonian reasoning behind the renaming (the officials didnt come up first with a name) and the fact that its an respectable and serious scientific organisation that simply plays along ald lets dumb theocracies put pressure on worldwide policies.
Whats next then? Obligatory renaming AIDS in "gay flu"?
The reason for that is that there are more gene akin to what is found in influenza infecting swine than avian or human influenza. But as other pointed out we can simply name it mexican flu, like spanish flu etc...
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Is modding this funny libelous or just insensitive?
Always back up, never back down. ---- Think you're cool 'cos your uid is prime? Take mine, modulo the one digit integers
do not post dumb things here anymore thanks.
That way, society will collapse due to the depredations of the Golden Palace Flu.
Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and "we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu,"
Yay, diplomacy!
I'm not sure who you're being bitter toward, but I don't think they're around here. Or anywhere. What the hell are you talking about?
I must admit I don't see the appeal of Colbert. I guess it's a bit like the English obsession with Cross Dressing.
"Heehee look! It's a man... but..heehee... he's wearing a dress... heeheehee...snort"
"Heehee look! He's a liberal... but he's talking like Rush Limbaugh...heehee..grunt"
There's something wrong with the world when you can make several seasons of a comedy show from the above scenarios.
Disclaimer:
I'm from Ireland where a large section of the population still think a redneck farmer type with a thick accent is the funniest thing ever.
OisÃn
Mexican Flu. out of his country.
Well, in that case, the problem seems to be you. Have you considered that possibly you are just a humorless twit?
More likely, the memes you cherish just aren't that funny.
Oh look, another In Soviet Russia joke. More hot grits. Another set of Profit!!! steps. Hey, there's that same Beowulf cluster joke again.
You're right, the problem is that the humor is all too rich for us.
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Yeah, "Swine flu" becomes "Colbert Flu"! That would be totally awesome. Then when our children and grandparents start dying from complications arising from the disease, we'll say they've been "truthified"! Hilarious!
But why stop there? Let's rename "Darfur Genocide" to "Obama's Birth Certificate". Owned! That's so funny. How about "death by lethal injection" to "The Laura Maddox Show". Wouldn't that be so cool, guys? Guys? Where are you going?
sounds like a fitting name that Muslims are sure to enjoy.
Well of course there will always be the opposite of "too dumb to get it" guy. You described it yourself...the far left who are so damned snooty, they think Colbert is beneath them. They are equally annoying as "too dumb" guy, but they do not elicit as funny of a reaction!
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The Cute Kitty Flu.
So we won't kill the poor little bugs.
Viruses have rights and feelings too!
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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This pig/bird/human virus is said to be fairly mild
There is nothing mild about Manbirdpig.
Pigs are now called h1n1s. Charlotte is in the process of editing her web.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Mussolini
*headsmack*
RTFM - Really Terrible Flu... Maybe
The absurdness of this response is mind-boggling.
Really.
I stoop to meme jokes sometimes, but it's the non-meme jokes that I like best.
Even the non-meme jokes required cultural awareness, which was the point of my OP in this thread.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
a cute nickname for H1N1, its called 'swine flu.'
hundreds of marketing professionals for big news agencies worked long into the night to find an appropriate nickname for it that would inspire both panic, and they wont stand for any other clever names that could imply the scare is manufactured to push more pills, cremes, and drugs in general onto the viewing public.
the fact is that our fast-food society is so nutritionally bankrupt they can barely fight off the common cold without a pharmacy of prescription drugs. stop smoking, drink less, exercise more, stop asking your doctor if TV commercial drugs are right for you.
heart disease and cancer have been, and continue to kill us faster than the flu...apparently dick pills and piggyflu have more marketability though
Good people go to bed earlier.
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I'm Czechrishscotgerlishdian. Czech, Irish, Scottish, German, English, and American Indian. Plus some other stuff I'm sure, but that's all the stuff that's > 1/16.
SIG FAULT: Post index out of bounds.
Actually, they do not "feel" this at all, it has been force-hammered into their heads from early childhood, when they minds could not defend themselves,
As opposed to having it hammered into their heads that something which is religious is necessarily backwards and wrong? I find it interesting that one who condemns religions for their backwardness is himself so intolerant of the beliefs of others.
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
If the technical name is A(H1N1), running it through a reverse-1337 filter yeilds Achini. I say we call it the Achini Flu.
What? Why are you looking at me like that?
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
The origins of this flu are with CAFO's in mexico where smithfield raises some of their pigs.
Given the dirty implications of a deadly infectious disease sprouting from a facility located south of the border in deliberate attempts to flout FDA and ethical labor standards, it's understandable the pork lobby (e.g. smithfield) would want the politicians no longer referring to this as the swine flu.
Of course, everyone with a brain will still call it swine flu.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
H P Lovecraft RIP
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The most likely explanation is that the memes and "jokes" aren't actually funny in the comic sense, they just trigger that "us-against-them" reaction so common in cliques. In-jokes are rarely truly funny, they just tickle some shared experience.
The test of a joke actually being funny comes when you can get someone to laugh at it without a half hour of showing them why it makes you laugh. Slashdot meme humor fails that test badly.
What would likely happen if this gained any momentum at all is Cobert would mock the campaign on his show and instead request the Cobert nation to all start calling it the Perens flu, after which they would promptly outnumber anyone on Slashdot or the news media, and that would end up being the name that would stick.
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To have your name one something that will kill 30,000+ people this year when you're not a medical researcher or doctor, doesn't sound very nice to me.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
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People are sensitive about disease and associations. Here in the united states, people are really touchy about sexual diseases (sex is unclean?)
Think about it... How many people have told you about their cancer? And how many about having herpes?
If you look at it as an issue with mental association, you can see why having 'the dirty pig disease' might be a problem in Muslim countries.
Of course, there is a difference between the naming of sexual diseases and Pig Flu... Sexual deseases are considered shameful for their nature. Pig Flu might be considered shameful because of an association with it's name.
If you rename AIDS to SDIAs, it'll still be considered shameful to have. If you rename 'Pig Flu' to H1N1, it'll probably make a lot of people more comfortable.
Alright, Muslim Flu it is, then. Is that clean enough for everybody?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I see I was correct. There are a lot of humorless twits on slashdot. Now, you may not be humorless, and you may not be a twit, but I think you're way off base, for the following reasons:
1. You chose to lump all humor in with meme humor. If you look at the majority of +5, Funny posts on slashdot, you'll see that fewer than half are meme-related. Yes, there are a lot of meme-joke attempts, but most of those are either un-moderated, or down-moderated. That's the beauty of a moderated system. If you choose to browse at a threshold lower than 3, that's your choice -- but don't bitch when you see a lot of lame joke attempts.
2. It was a poor choice for me to use memes as the first in an incomplete list of things contributing to understanding of cultural humor on slashdot, BUT the other factors are also important. Relating to memes and jkoes that have come before: One of the great things about some of the humor on slashdot is the repartee -- the metajokes that play on memes or previous jokes. Failing to appreciate those jokes, is in my opinion, a sign of humorlessness (or of inability to understand them, which is even worse). Those are the rich jokes that exist on slashdot but nowhere else, IMO.
3. You still miss the point of the entire thread, which is that cultural awareness is important in undertanding humor. Even the non-meme humor requires cultural understanding.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I'm from the UK and find Colbert hilarious. He's right up there with Bremner during the Major years as far as I'm concerned. You do need to be familiar with current events in the USA to get most of the stuff he's talking about though.
Nick
Whats next then? Obligatory renaming AIDS in "gay flu"?
That... is both offensive and hilarious!
I'm starting to wish I hadn't posted in this topic and used my points to correct the abuse in this thread.
I don't think anyone in this thread (bar an AC or two) is trolling or trying to incite a flame-war, people are just strongly expressing their views on humour which is, of course, a matter of personal taste.
Nick
A big part of the fun is the manner in which he lays it down though, sometimes his monologues are poetry.
Are you a fan of political satire in general? I'm not aware of anyone doing satire in the USA quite like Colbert, I've said it elsewhere today but I think he's as good as Rory Bremner during the Major year,s which were his prime - not necessarily because his work has declined in quality but because John Major had one of the most mediocre governments this country has ever seen.
Admittedly the Colbert persona is a little restrictive but I think he's generally insightful and funny.
Nick
I disagree. That's the test of a joke being more universally funny, which is not the same as testing whether a joke is actually funny.
Consider the following jokes:
The second joke is a play on the first joke, and will not make any sense to someone not familiar with the first joke. That does not mean it isn't funny. (It isn't very funny for toher reasons, but I picked that example for space considerations).
This class of humor is called banter, and it is used extensively on slashdot.
The Superiority Theory of humor has its place, but I hope you are not advocating the Strong Superiority theory... very few students of humor philosophy would consider that to hold water. Personally, I find the Incongruity Theory to be more generally applicable. In-jokes tend to have a strong superiority component to them, but the basis of the joke still tends to depend on incongruity. Within a given group of people, there is true humor to be found among the in-jokes when there are modifications, particularly applications of incongruity.
In essence, all written humor is comprised of in-jokes due to dependence on cultural knowledge; this does not make those jokes dependent on perceived superiority of the joker and the audience, thouhgh that may be a component.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
This flu is actually two parts swine flu, one part bird flu...
So that would make it flying pig flu?
Who would want the naming rights to a potentially deadly virus? Any company! Say Coca-Cola buys the rights; history records that the Pepsi-flu killed billions!
So, hold a raffle (randomization to potentially big pockets from dominating thus becoming bigger). Coke spends $1B, Pepsico spends $1B, USA Fed spends $3T, Jason Fox spends $1, and there's still a chance that it could be named "Eileen Jacobson."
In honor of Al Gore, it should be called ManBirdPig Flu.
Is there a linked article I'm missing that explains the reason for naming it the Colbert Flu? I can't tell if the intent is to mock Colbert, annoy him, or honor him. Or was "Colbert" just the first thing that came to mind?
I missed the memo, when did /. become digg/reddit?
Or is it just that /. has become the new, oldmedia?
"oohhh... I didn't know Schopenhauer was a philosopher!"
So, it's offending people who think swine are unclean to use the word swine (remember, it's unclean) to refer to an unpleasant disease?? How bizarre! I'd think referring to an unpleasant disease with an unpleasant term would be perfectly okay.
Perhaps if we called it the "fluffy bunny flu", noone would be offended?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
A(H1N1) is a hybrid of swine and avian flu.
The only conclusion can be: Pigs are flying.
Have gnu, will travel.
Political Correctness hits the naming of the flu. This is what happens when stupidity is coddled. It starts with warning labels. Then those plastic covers on AC outlets. Nature has no way to naturally select out idiots. They grow up and work in the public sector like politics, the U.N., or the WHO.
I guess the WHO just doesn't have enough to do. They're probably just bored. You know, maybe this is just a sign that we should give them something to do. But what? I hear they're into medicine, do you think we should maybe have them work on reducing/preventing some disease instead of coming up with new politically correct names for diseases? I know it's a bit out there...
Well, some people just can't tolerate intolerance.
What the Flu??
My sig has been answered.
Let's call it the Porcine-Avian-American flu. Whoa! Did anyone else just see that pig fly?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Seriously? Lets stuff a poll and be internet superheroes? ...Yeah....Perens Flu indeed....
> As opposed to having it hammered into their heads that something which is religious is
> necessarily backwards and wrong?
Did neither say nor mean that.
> I find it interesting that one who condemns religions for their backwardness is himself so
> intolerant of the beliefs of others.
Well, there always is a common-sense-threshold above which you cant take a belief serious any more. Having to change the name of an disease because it has the name of an ordinary animal in it which you're not allowed to pronounce just crosses this threshold for me.
Apart from that, there is no actual "belief" at all that a pig is bad in any certain way. People are usually just blindly unquestioningly obedient towards whatever their holy scriptures or holy führers tell them. They call it a belief but it isnt one. At least my arab friends never were able to tell me whats so wrong with pigs in islam and judaism. The only explanation they could come up with (one is a physicist, one a physician, so scientifically well educated people) was that its something their religion says and the only reason they would obey it is because not obeying small unimportant orders like the swine ban would weaken the religious jurisdiction at whole. Yawn. (So i think their so called "beliefs" are silly, but i dont tell them that in the face because i like them though and know that they dont _really_ believe that but are just loyal to their religious families, social circle and so on.)
Maybe we try calling it, wishfully, The Flu to End All Flus? Fluzilla? Dead Human Flu? More Living Than Dead Flu? Best. Flu. Ever.?
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Really? I could have sworn I meant absurdness, which is a synonym for absurdity, you pedantic twat. Next time I need to know what word I'm thinking of though, I'll be sure to ask you.
Please, then, define what exactly the transmission method is for influenza? Is the medical term a "snot virus"? a "lung-butter virus"? When the virus is transmitted through an airborne aerosol (as influenza is), it is entirely appropriate to call that method of transmission "airborne."
But please, feel free to point out examples of viruses which are airborne and which are not introduced into the body via a liquid or fine particulate aerosol. I'm sure with your advanced knowledge of virology and medicine, you'll have no trouble providing an example of such an airborne virus that just floats around "naked" in the air, waiting for unsuspecting prey.
In Soviet Russia: 1) Build a beowulf cluster of hot grits. ....
N) Profit!
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In The Netherlands, it's officially called "Mexican Flu / Mexicaanse Griep". The meat industry indeed made an official statement that eating pig's meat is still safe, and the government backed that statement by finding a new name.
A serious intellectual treaties on comedic philosophy? Now *that's* funny!
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Frankly, I'm inclined to believe that when the CDC says that there is "some evidence" of airborne transmission, they actually know what the term means, and are using it in accordance with their own definition.
Really? Care to provide the name of the medical text or peer-reviewed medical journal that you pulled those from?
Because - not that I'm calling you ignorant, you understand - it really looks to me like those are pulled verbatim from the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page on "Transmission (medicine)". Furthermore, it looks as if the first paragraph on wikipedia is all you really bothered to read to educate yourself on this topic.
I provided a definition from the CDC of airborne transmission, so hopefully you can understand that. Droplet contact is generally held to be short distance direct transmission (generally over less than 1 meter - "I sneeze, you get wet"), or indirect transmission if the droplets land on a surface that you then come in contact with. Droplets also tend not to be of a size suitable for aerosolation, and so settle to a surface rapidly after they are expelled. Droplet contact IS a method in which influenza may spread, but it is not the ONLY method by which it may spread.
Pro tip: When you're in a hole, best thing to do is stop digging.
Well, it seems to be happening with me a lot lately, to varying degrees for various reasons. See this comment.
I think there are a lot of humor-impaired people on slashdot, and like most nerd issues, the best way to help them overcome it is to help them figure out how humor works.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
This is only going to encourage him. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets behind such an initiative himself just 'for the lulz' as Anonymous would put it. Man, I will laugh so hard... XD
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Grizzly Bear Flu!
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
In any case, if only pigs caught it would we really have so much hysteria?
We should immediately show our sensitivity to these issues, and also a love of the short stories of Saki, by renaming it the unswine flu.
Squirrel!
Being from Ireland, you may not be familiar with American cable news channels. Count yourself lucky.
Weird Al Yankovic parodies popular music, but "Taco Grande" isn't particularly funny today. At the time, it was comedic genius; a much-needed relief from radio stations that were playing "Rico Suave" several times a day. If you never heard the original, though, "Taco Grande" must stand alone, and although you might appreciate the general silliness (in the same way you might appreciate Yankovic's "Hardware Store"), it's not really funny by itself.
When Colbert stands alone, he's somewhat amusing, but to appreciate his genius, you must immerse yourself in the source material. Watch Bill O'Reilly insist that his own warped views are unbiased and therefore inherently correct; watch him act like a pompous buffoon when someone dares introduce real facts into a discussion. Listen to John Gibson sign off with "and that's my word." Watch CNN and MSNBC. Watch the crap that American cable news networks are churning out every day, and THEN flip over to The Colbert Report. You'll understand a lot better.
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$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I'd be happy to support a memorial statue of Colbert, if only he'd do his part...
Nah, parodying the zealotry of the right wing is funny in any western culture--English included! I lived there, and they do it just as well as Colbert (remember the funny puppets from the 80s of Reagan, Thatcher, et. al.?)
It's important to note that Colbert is parodying both the style and the message. Making fun of the right wing is great, if you happen to lean left, but making fun of shameless bias, arguing without facts, and ridiculous claims of impartiality while acting like a pompous buffoon is also important.
Keith Olbermann, for example, is just as shamelessly biased, but he backs up his arguments with researched facts and doesn't claim to be "fair and balanced". The political message might be a good target for parody (criminal prosecutions for CIA operatives who were doing their jobs under the guidance and oversight of the US Department of Justice? Really?) and his over-the-top bias is hard to stomach even when you agree with him, but apart from that his style just doesn't warrant a parody.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Maybe I can explain.
You must remember, that Judaism is pretty old - it goes back for about 2500-3000 years.
The laws of this religion were made for one important goal: surviving of a large tribe of people in a particular piece of land.
Since the crowd is stupid and don't think long term, the only way to force them to respect survival laws is to make them believe they came from their god.
This special thing, that pigs should not be eat, is not about fridges but about food concurrency. Sheep, cows and goats feed grass. Pigs eat everything people eat so they are compete with people for food (there was not so much food waste back then). And that is a bad idea. In other places the situation was different, pigs could be fed with acorns, but there weren't that many oaks in ancient Israel (partially because many deserts, partially because of massive deforestation for ship building).
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Similar to Jewish Law, in Islam coming in physical contact with a pig or its biproducts renders one ritually unclean. If swine flu is 2 parts pig, does catching swine flu render believers ritually unclean?
Wikipedia says that one was an H3N2 flu...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Sorry, I just don't get that one. If you don't want to say "swine" because your culture thinks that pigs are icky, well, then go wash your hands with alcohol after you meet anybody who might have it, and be happy that you'll only get it from unclean foreign infidels and not from your neighbor's pig farm.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Sure, some may invite it more than others...
Back during the Bush\\\\Avian Flu PanicPandemic, some pundit who clearly must have had a liberal arts degree was being interviewed on the radio talking about "H S N I", and it took me a minute to realize that she didn't know it was "H 5 N 1"... I think it was probably the local leftwing radio station's call-in show, but it may have been the conservative station (National Public Radio :-) or right-wing wingnut radio.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
> but apart from that his style just doesn't warrant a parody.
SNL disagreed, even though they probably agreed with much that he says.
Clearly, they are better comedians than you.
would be equally appropriate. How can we get that name to stick?
How many popular entertainment programs have had their hosts give NASA the same kind of consistent support that Colbert has given it in the last few years?
I can't think of any, either. The MSM generally ignores NASA as it does Open Source.
In a time of economic disaster, NASA is especially vulnerable to budget cuts. IOW, NASA needs all the friends it can get. The 'stuff the ballot box to name the module' got massive hits to the NASA website. Hopefully, people saw things that make them like NASA better. The administrators at NASA who were actually offended by the public daring to have an opinion probably should have their asses canned and be replaced by people who remember who pays for NASA's programs.
Bruce, what have you ever done for NASA or advancing the cause of space exploration and industrialization that compares with the good and free publicity Colbert has given them?
I generally agree with you, but this is genuinely stupid and I certainly will not sign on to your crusade. You do NOT speak for me and you do NOT speak for the Open Source community.
Please tell us that you are doing this in the hope of getting free publicity from Colbert yourself. It might get you out of the sh*t you just stepped in... I can't be the only person here who is wondering if you've gone off the deep end.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Flus are annoying, they show up wether you want them to or not, right in the middle of something else you were doing.
I thought you were going to say "Telemarketer Flu"
...the company with a 100% success rate in stopping the spread of swine flu, by killing the patients who spread swine flu.
8==8 Bones 8==8
farm you refer to is a megafarm in Mexico owned by Smithfield Foods, a USA company, it is believed by many that the virus recombination occurred in one of their CAFO holding lagoons and departed it using houseflies as a vector.
Tech Public Policy stuff
... that is still comprehensible to people... like Flu2009/04
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
...citing ethnic reactions to 'swine,' for example among middle-eastern cultures who feel that swine are unclean...
Hey guys, if you haven't noticed yet, the flu isn't exactly clean. With all the vomiting, diarrhea, and possible death, giving it a clean and happy name would be like renaming arsenic to 'honey-nuggets'.
So if some people think it's a foul and unhealthy name, GOOD !!!!
Let's just call it Slashdot flu. Seems to fit.
My invisible friend can kick your invisible friend's arse.
Completely
Ordered
Levitating
Bug
Extremely
Resistent to
Treatment
I don't like "Completely Ordered", and I can't see what makes a good pig reference in C.O. Anyone able to improve this?
You've had 24 hour news channels talking about this for over a week. It's too late to rename it. Everyone is going to remember it as swine flu. End of story
Speaking of which, who keeps letting kdawson post this crap?
AIDS is both descriptive and catchy: why would anyone mess with that? If they did rename it "Gay Flu" then the problem would be that the name is hilariously incorrect, AIDS being neither a flu, nor restricted to homosexuals.
Swine flu isn't descriptive...Or rather, it is, but it's descriptive of an influenza strain that effects pigs(SIV), one that has been around for a long time. Using it to describe H1N1 variant A is stupid.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Furthermore, Rowan Atkinson is a brilliant comedian in his own right apart from Bean.
His HBO special's finale on the invisible drum set was nothing short of genius.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Yes, I would be fine telling my family I had "prostitute flu", if it was an air born flu. They might even laugh at it, asking me how I had received it. But, I don't expect they would even suggest I had had intercourse or phellatio with a pig if I would have received the "swine flu".
They would, however, not laugh at gonorrhea, syphilis or other STDs (for explicit details, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexually_transmitted_disease).
Porcine influenza? "Porcine" is such a cool word that people should use more often, and "flu" makes it seem less serious that it would appear to be (or at least, it makes regular flu seem more deadly than it actually is).
I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar...
-Lucy-