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Earthly Strip Society

[887] Of Earthly Strip: Selective reasoning

The followers of the religion of love and the religion of peace duking them out.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

And we liberals watching on the sidewalk, noting every bit of irony in the episode.

Categories
Humor

[878] Of Hell, Michigan

Contrary to popular belief, there are only 266 people in Hell. According to Wikipedia:

The first holds that a pair of German travelers stepped out of a stagecoach one sunny afternoon in the 1830s, and one said to the other, “So schön und hell!” – roughly translated as, “So beautiful and bright!” Their comments were overheard by some locals and the name stuck.

The second holds that after Michigan gained statehood, George Reeves was asked what he thought the town he helped settle should be called, and replied, “I don’t care, you can name it Hell for all I care.” The name became official on October 13, 1841.

I didn’t I came this close to Hell when I was in Michigan but I’m sure many conservatives are disappointed that there are only a little over 200 people in Hell.

Categories
Humor Society

[859] Of how to spot a religious conservative?

Sometimes, religious conservatives, regardless of beliefs, share common traits. Here are few commonalities among conservatives . The list is by no mean exhaustive nor it is exclusively attributed to religious conservatives. Nor a person has to have these attributes to be a religious conservative. It’s just a guideline. However, if a person shares more than a few attributes stated below, chances are, the person is a religious conservative. Enjoy:

  1. They’re the chosen people. They’re the best of all human beings, regardless of moral. Sometimes, in their bedrooms, you’ll find stickers “IM DA BEST” all over. Signed by their gods of course. Well, yeah… they fake the signatures.
  2. They self-appoint themselves as god’s or gods’ (for simplicity’s sake, gods’) representatives on Earth. Therefore, they expect others to look upon them highly. Pay them. Even feed them. Everything.
  3. They believe that they’ve a monopoly on truth. They believe that since the gods are the ultimate truth and that they’re gods’ representatives, whatever they say or do is the truth. So, this give them the exclusive rights to design laws or fatwas at their wimps.
  4. The incapable-of-mistakesism disease. Otherwise known as I’m-always-rightism. This is directly because they think that they’re the self-appointed guardians of their religions; gods’ representative on Earth. In their opinion, any mistake by them will reflect on their gods and so, they solve this dilemma by insisting that they’re mistake-free. Even if they’re driving and take the wrong turn, they’ll always be right, even if they’re lost.This disease is also a widespread problem in the male population all over the world. Possible source for such correlation is probably due to the fact that religions have always been dominated by men.
  5. Any criticism against them is considering criticism against god or gods. This is probably because they keep quoting their holy books. After some time unfortunately for all of us, they’re confused about when they’re speaking for themselves or when they’re quoting their gods. This intolerance of criticism is the reason why certain conservatives apparently have inability to listen to reasons.And remember when there were criticism against novel SHIT back in the late 1990s in Malaysia? Because the author was associated with PAS (a religious conservative political party in Malaysia), the head of PAS tried to justify the author’s usage of obscene words by saying even god mencarut (expresses obscene words).
  6. Intolerant of difference in opinion. If there’s difference in opinion, they’ll kill you. When they say 1 + 1 = 3, you don’t want to argue with them. Reconsult number 3, 4 and 5.
  7. Watch out for those that keep talking and talking and talking without listening. Sometimes, it helps to check if they’re running on Energizer. More importantly, avoid a female conservative at all cost!Who are these conservatives? Why, preachers of course!
  8. They have short fuse. In other word, emotional and any prolonged heated argument will degrade to uncivilized discussion. Watch out for mud balls. DUCK!
  9. They have no respect of other religion. To the conservatives, those of different beliefs are second-rated people. For instance, these conservatives’ rights and privileges must rule supreme over any other individual rights, even if those rights and privileges infringes on others’ rights. If you want a match of the century, wait until conservatives starting to turn on themselves. It happened before; Catholics-Protestants, Sunni-Shiite. Jedi-Sith.
  10. Polemicists. For some reasons, they like to look for petty argument. It could be a bright sunny day with blue sky but you could depend on a conservative to ruin it. In fact, if you want to ruin other person’s fine day, hire a conservative and send the conservative to that person.
  11. They practice double standards and selective reasoning. For instance, murder of any kind is wrong but for them, murder of Muslims is wrong but murder of Jews is okay. Murder of “kafir” are okay.Then, they talk of freedom but readily prevent others from practicing freedom. Freedom is only acceptable when such freedom suits their purpose. It’s like having a selfish girlfriend; she can do whatever she likes but you can’t do whatever she likes. You don’t want to get into marriage with that girlfriend of yours.
  12. Their love of double standards make them easy targets for students of logic or those that are familiar with rules of logic. When the conservatives are caught with their back against the wall, they’ll switch the subject. This is where personal attack could also occur. Sometimes, they run away, hiding inside a small box slightly smaller than their world, which unsurprisingly is another box. If somebody pokes their box, they’ll hide into yet another box and they have endless supply of boxes.
  13. They’re the moral police. They’ll dictate your moral because their moral is superior to ours. You can’t do this and that but they can sodomize some kids entrusted to them or ask a female that was caught by moral police to do a blowjob for him!
  14. They have the weirdest sense of humor. When they call for the killing of all non-believers, they call it a “satire”. They will later be surprised if the public gets angry. Or when a person dies, they will make a joke out of it.

Any more?

Oh yeah. Probably intolerant of jokes too. They like to make jokes on other people but can’t accept jokes on themselves. They’ll burn the whole city to the ground just to prove that they can’t accept joke. Or they just sue you.

Categories
Earthly Strip Economics Environment Liberty

[852] Of Earthly Strip: Shoot and Sue

The word “shoot” is the new no-no in Malaysia !

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

I want to shoot Guna too! Let’s all shoot Guna! You shoot me, I shoot you and everybody shoots everybody! Shoot, shoot, shoot! Bang!

Sorry Jeff, you’re a bad influence. I’m going to shoot you too! Bang!

See P Gunasegaram says his life is threatened and other related posts at Screenshots for a clearer view.

But be advised, put your hands on your guns. You’ll never know who’s going to shoot you.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

p/s – on TV3’s Buletin 1:30 just now, as crude as it may sound, I think Chua Soi Lek implied that Sarawakians are filthy and are unable to maintain cleanliness, in reference to the spread of the hand, foot and mouth. Sounds like foot-in-mouth disease, to me. Look out for Buletin Utama because TV3 is totally gonna replay that!

But Sarawakians, are you just gonna take that?

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

pp/s – from time to time, WorldChanging blogs on great stuff. An article on traffic congestion tax trial in Stockholm is one of them.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

ppp/s – re: Chua Soi Lek and HFMD, at Bernama:

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 5 (Bernama) — The increasing number of Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD) cases in Sarawak is attributed to parents’ perception that it was not a life-threatening disease, and thus they had not taken the disease seriously.

Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said: “But even so, there are already 10 deaths recorded to date and 13,000 children have been infected since the endemic started (in May last year).”

The spread of the disease was generally associated with the cleanliness level practised at home and in kindergartens, which he claimed had not reached a satisfactory level, the health minister told reporters after the MCA’s Nine Point Party Platform Seminar at Wisma MCA here, Saturday.

I wish I had the audio and visual recording of his words. It sounded more sensational than this report by Bernama.

Categories
Humor Photography Travels

[837] Of majestic Wat Pho, Bangkok

A week ago, I was in Bangkok and I’m missing it greatly . The last time I felt like this was when I had to leave the Sierra Nevada behind for Los Angeles and eventually Ann Arbor. Minus a dose of “I’m famish”, definitely.

While Bangkok is dirty and congested, the city impressed me greatly. The city is blessed with eye-pleasing structures unique to this part of the world. Not to forget, walking angels too!

If I were a god and Bangkok was built to please me, I’d be a satisfied supreme being. I’d live in Bangkok and leave heaven behind in shamble.

One of the places that I’m so much in love with is Wat Pho. I love it so much because I had never seen anything like it with my naked eyes. Its halls, its stupas, its doors, its floor and ceiling, everything – I’m lost for words to describe it. A picture worth a thousand word and so, I’ll stop writing and show you Thai’s gift to the world instead:

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

That’s one of the main spires at Wat Pho. Works on Wat Pho itself was initiated by Rama III over 200 years ago, in 1788. The complex itself is huge and I wish I had spent more than a day there. I wanted to scrutinize every little bit of it but alas, time was of an essence; an unfortunately rare commodity. This is a map of the whole complex:

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

Since it’s a working Buddhist temple, there are lots of statues all over the complex. There’s a huge reclining Buddha there but I didn’t take a peek at it. Instead, I saw this:

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

Majestic, isn’t it?

I’m sure some intolerent conservative Muslims would disagree. I’ve no doubt that some far rightists here in Malaysia would like to torn it down to pieces and sell them as scrap metals. Barbarians know nothing of art; they value art pieces like monkeys value flowers. Still, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

p/s – Viacom to buy The Onion:

It almost sounds like one of The Onion’s made-up news items: Variety is reporting — without even mentioning sources, much less identifying them — that Viacom may acquire The Onion, the satirical newspaper and Web site whose headlines made “Area Man” into a minor celebrity. Other sources, including the Huffington Post, Paidcontent.org and Gawker, have also reported on a potential Viacom-Onion connection, even as they played up the speculative nature of the story.

Ha ha ha…?