As reported in the San Jose Mercury News, the US Board on Geographic Names has unanimously rejected a religious-grounds plea to change the name of Mount Diablo, highest peak in the San Francisco Bay Area. The complainant's suggested replacement name? Mount Yahweh.

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I'm so glad they're keeping the old name. It's like that town that says "heaven-o" instead of "hello"--it shows no understanding of why things are the way they are.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

The board's October 2005 Docket (PDF) for the meeting is a quasi-fun read.

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Now if we can just start officially calling it Denali, instead of the arrogant and arbitrary Mt. McKinley. Personally, that's always bugged me.
Most americans don't even know the real reason it was named McKinley.

Nice article refuting the oft-proclaimed "2nd only to Mt. Kilimanjaro's viewshed area" from Diablo's 3,849' summit.

Well that's a relief. The park system I volunteer with has one park called Penitentiary Glen (no, there never was a prison there) and another called Hell Hollow. I would hate it if we had to start having politically correct names.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

An interesting read there! I notice in there that there is a proposal to change "Squaw Creek" to "Council Spring Creek". Pardon my ignorance because I'm Australian and don't have a big knowledge of Native American terms - but is the word "squaw" derogatory because it's a rude word or is it derogatrory because it is Indian? For instance, would I be equally offending Germans if I named a body of water "Lake Fräulein"?

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The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

Yes, it is derogotoy. It's actually an Anglo-Saxon term put on indian women. Or at least that's what my half Cherokee squaw, um wife says.

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I'm not a scientist, but I play one on the internet.
http://www.rrac.org

I've met your half Cherokee squaw, I mean wife.