would you Adam and Eve it?

Parents in Manchester have complained about naked swimming, claiming that it's unhygienic (though it's obvious that the complaint is really just motivated by prudery).

The naked swimming is taking place in a private, closed session in a public pool (so no-one actually sees the naked people in public). The group concerned book the swimming pool of an evening.

Parents have complained that their children subsequently have to swim in the same pool. Well, as various commenters on the story have pointed out, swimming trunks are not an impermeable membrane - people's naked tackle is touched by the communal water when they've got swimming trunks on as well. Besides, that's what chlorine is for.

It's just a small-minded response to the idea of nudity. Though I wonder if the fact that the naked swimming group also happens to consist of gay men might have something to do with it.

just plain thick

People like this should not be allowed to spout their nonsense in the public domain:

The new co-host of "The View," Sherri Shepherd, insisted Tuesday that Christianity was older than ancient Greece, and even Judaism.

Even Whoopi Goldberg didn't seem too sure whether there were any Christians around at the time of Epicurus (341-270 BCE), even though she was pretty sure there weren't. Hmm, you would have thought the popular usage "BC" would have been a big clue...

I would imagine that even creationists, who are total numbskulls, know that Judaism predated Christianity, because the Bible makes it clear that Judaism came first (unless the reader is severely intellectually challenged). It also mentions the other religions that were around at the time when Christianity started, and which fairly obviously predate it (e.g. in the Book of Acts when the silversmiths of Ephesus raise a clamour against Paul, saying "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians").

You would have thought that before somebody went on TV to talk about Epicurus (or any other topic), they would be required to get their facts straight. Not only does this woman think that there have always been Christians (what, even in prehistory?) but she also said earlier this year that she didn't know if the world was flat or round.

This would be funny if it wasn't deeply, deeply tragic that this kind of nudnik is actually allowed on TV, or indeed, allowed out on their own without supervision.

[Thanks to Caroline Tully for sending me this.]