Muslim Long Sleeves and Sikh Bangles Allowed, Christian Crucifix Banned

Oh so similar in double standards to the older cases Christian Chastity Ring Banned, Hindu Tuberculosis Bull Allowed and BBC Execs: Okay to Throw Bible in Trash But Not Koran.

Via The Jawa Report, from Daily Mail UK:

Muslim nurses CAN cover up… but Christian colleagues can’t wear crucifixes

Muslim doctors and nurses are to be allowed to wear long sleeves for religious reasons – despite the risk of spreading deadly superbugs.

The Department of Health will allow female Muslim staff to opt out of a strict NHS dress code to cover their arms and protect their modesty.

But campaigners warn that the NHS is putting lives at risk because guidance that all staff should be ‘bare below the elbow’ was introduced after long sleeves were blamed for spreading MRSA.

The change has been brought in after some female Muslims objected to being forced to bare their arms on wards. The Department of Health has also relaxed its no jewellery rule to let Sikhs wear their Kara bangles as long as they can be pushed up to the elbow when dealing with patients.

The policy is in stark contrast to the treatment of nurse Shirley Chaplin who last week lost her discrimination battle against Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital Trust which claimed the cross she wore round her neck was a ‘hazard’ in case it scratched patients.

Last night she accused the NHS of ‘double standards.’ She added: ‘What can you say? It seems that life is stacked up against Christians these days.’

No kidding, Nurse Chaplin.

Got that? Potential health hazards by Muslims and Sikhs allowed, extremely improbable to cause any injury whatsoever item for Christian banned.

I say, equal standards for all – if you’re going to ban one religion’s symbols, ban them all! If you want to protect one religion’s feelings, protect them all!

The Star Opinion: Teachers’ Complaints Valid and Reasonable

From The Star Opinion 15 April 2010:

Wednesday April 14, 2010

Teachers’ complaints valid and reasonable

AS I have many teachers in my extended family, I feel the need to respond to the letter “Be sure you love teaching before joining the profession” (The Star, April 13) in order to clarify some misconceptions about the teaching profession.

Firstly, it is true that most teachers have lifelong job security. However, if you think teaching is so laidback and easy, you should try handling one of the more raucous classes for a week and see if it changes your perception.

The average fresh entry into the profession has to go through 30 to 40 years before reaching retirement. Many of these years will be spent struggling with students who have absolutely no desire to learn.

Secondly, I disagree with the view that most school teachers have plenty of free time. Don’t generalise from a few, highly visible examples who seem to be touting the latest health supplement at every opportunity.

It is true that most school sessions last only half the day. However, dedicated teachers have most of their non-teaching hours taken up by meetings, co-curricular duties, lesson preparations, endless marking of books and test papers, and various committee responsibilities. Wouldn’t any non-teacher protest if their non-office hours were intruded upon by such obligations?

If some teachers attend to family matters or hold tuition classes in between, it is through the sacrifice of their own personal time and energy. Again, would any of us in the private sector accept our bosses telling us how to spend our free time once we have clocked out?

Thirdly, the number of holidays that teachers get is often the envy of other sectors. However, this is somewhat offset when meetings are held in the middle of school holidays.

Teachers also have fewer days of personal leave to use for important events like weddings, and such leave is subject to potentially strict approval.

Finally and most importantly, many teachers do indeed love teaching. It is the whole reason they joined the profession in the first place. Again, don’t let a few opportunists who brag about their light schedules and plentiful holidays tarnish the entire profession.

Many teachers today feel that they are overburdened with paperwork and other compulsory tasks that interfere with their lesson preparations and actual teaching.

These teachers signed onto the job aspiring to teach and guide eager young students, but they didn’t realise that inputting of data, compiling of statistics and writing of progress reports would form the bulk of their work. And this is not even including the after-hours obligations I mentioned earlier.

So give teachers a break, including a little respect and sympathy. If some teachers ask that their working conditions be made a little less strenuous and distracting, it is a valid and reasonable request.

SCOTT THONG YU YUEN,

Ipoh.

Collateral Murder – The WikiLeaks Deception

From http://collateralmurder.wordpress.com:

Head to the link for partial transcripts and more links.

Via The Jawa Report.

Animated jpg showing clearly the middle man holding and swinging an RPG launcher that is nearly as tall as his shoulder-level, via Gateway Pundit:

As an aid, here’s my own screencap of that animation:

The Jawa Report‘s screencap, with RPG illustration for comparison:

Remember… The Bush-ordered invasion of Iraq saved 750,000 Iraqi civilian lives.

Noah and the Ark – Malaysia Edition

Saved from the Net for posterity.

————————-

Noah and The Ark – A Modern Version.

In the year 2008, the Lord came unto Noah, who was now living in Malaysia, and lamented, “Once again, the earth has become wicked and over-populated, and I shall see all it ending before me in a flash.”

“So, Noah, build another Ark, and save 2 of every living thing, along with a few good human beings.”

The Lord gave Noah the blueprints, saying, “You have 6 months to build the Ark, before I start the unending rains for 40 days and 40 nights.”

Six months later, the Lord looked down, and saw Noah weeping in his yard, but without any Ark.

“Noah!”, the Lord called out, I am about to start the unending rains! Where is the Ark?”

“Forgive me, Lord,” begged Noah, “but things have since changed.”

“Firstly, I must have a Bumiputra partner, who is linked to UMNO, then I need to obtain a building permit from DBKL, and I also have to pay under counter money to obtain the building permit.”

“Then, I had to argue with the BOMBA inspector, on the requirement for a sprinkler system.”

“Meanwhile, my neighbours had complained to The Malay Mail newspaper about the height of the Ark that I was planning to build, and the next day it made the headlines, claiming that I had violated the neighborhood building by-laws, where height of my Ark would be exceeding the permitted height limitations, linked to the relative height of the mosque.”

“I had to appeal to the magistrate, before building of the Ark was approved.”

“The Opposition took advantage of the situation, and yelled that I was a government crony, besides doing some rather nasty things to my face on the Internet.”

“I do not know how the Opposition had superimposed my face on a naked body, along with some other naked MPs, and portrayed it on the YouTube. Oh, Lord, you are the all knowing, and I surely did not take the photos of the naked MPs.”

“Then, yet another stop work order was issued, even before I had started work on the Ark. Further, the Badan Cegah Rasuah had arrested me for phonography.”

“Thus I had to consult a lawyer, who looked like Ambitah Bachan, talked like him, acted like him, but was is not him, since he claimed that he knew the Chief Justice, the Prime Minister and the Apa…Nama…Lagi, and hence he could clear my name, but I would in return have to buy all of them first-class air-tickets to Australia.”

“After my name was cleared, I had to once again go to the DBKL Appeal Board, for a decision to allow me to build the Ark.”

“Then the government, even after having approved the plans to build the Ark, stated that I should only use SIRIM approved materials, which I should also only buy from their own list of CLASS F contractors, which are 15 times much more expensive than those bought from the China-man hardware shop.”

“TNB and JPJ subsequently demanded that a bond be posted for the future costs of having to move any power lines and other overhead obstructions, to clear the passage way for the Ark ‘s movement to the sea. Although I told them that the sea would, in fact, be coming to us, but they would hear nothing of it.”

“Getting the wood for the Ark was another problem to be overcome, as SUKHAM and JABATAN HUTAN NEGARA emphasized that there was a ban on the logging of local trees, in order to save the Orang Utans.”

“I tried to convince SUKHAM and JABATAN HUTAN NEGARA that all I needed was only wood for the Ark, which would still save the Orang Hutans – but they categorically said no go and no way.”

“When I started to gather the animals for the Ark, JAKIM and an Animal Rights Group sued me.”

“According to JAKIM, I cannot put the chickens and the pigs next to each other in the Ark, as it WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED TO BE HALAL, while the Animal Rights Group insisted that I was confining wild animals against their own will in the Ark.” “They also argued that the accommodations in the Ark were too restrictive, and so it was cruel and inhumane to put so many animals in such a confined space.”

“Following that, JABATAN KERJA RAYA AND JABATAN KAJIAN DAN GALIAN had ruled I could not build the Ark until they had conducted an Environmental Impact Assessment on the proposed flood.”

“I am also still trying to resolve a complaint lodged with the Human Rights Commission, on how many Bumiputra contractors I am supposed to hire for my Ark building crew.”

“Further, JABATAN IMMIGRASI and RELA are checking on the status of most of the people who want to work on building the Ark.”

“The trade unions are contending that I cannot be utilizing my sons to build the Ark, insisting that I must only be hiring trade union workers with Ark-building experience.”

“As I started to CLEAR THE AREA TO BUILD THE ARK, 6 gangsters came and demanded for protection money. And they also said they will be controlling the area for the selling of drugs and prostitutes to my workers.”

“When I complained to the POLIS, the next day, the IGP of POLIS sent an ASP, who came in full uniform, and who unfortunately also happened to be one of the six gangsters, who were demanding for protection money, and thereby doubled my protection fee.”

“Then, there was a by-election, and I was forced to become an UMNO member to obtain the approval of my permits, and was also coaxed to pay a donation to the Barisan National candidate, in the so-called spirit of MUHIBBAH. Otherwise, the candidate would make my life very difficult when I did not so, as I was now considered being already his member.”

“Every Department that I turned to was asking me what they call “Kopi Wang”.

“And I calculated that if I had to pay all the so-called “Kopi Wang”, the cost of my building the Ark would be al least 20 times higher than anticipated. Hence, I refused to pay them the so-called “Kopi Wang”, as I am always faithful to you, Oh Lord.”

“Some top-level politicians were disappointed with me for not providing donations, and they called me a “Murtad”. And when I told them that my name is “Noah” and not “Murtad”, they got angry, and threatened that they had connections.”

“Coincidentally, I found myself to be a suspect for the murder of a Mongolian lady, because the place where she was murdered happened to be on the land where I was planning to build the Ark. Thus I was arrested and imprisoned.”

“To make matters worse, JABATAN HASIL seized all my assets, claiming that I was attempting to leave the country illegally with endangered species of plants and animals. I have just been released from ISA detention.”

“So, please forgive me, my Lord, but it would take at least 10 years for me to finish building the Ark.”

Suddenly, the skies cleared, the sun began to shine, and a rainbow stretched across the sky.

Noah looked up in wonder and asked the Lord, “You mean you are not going to destroy the world?”

“No,” whispered the Lord to Noah, “The Malaysian Government has already beaten me to it!”

Is Such a Person Saved?

That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. – Romans 10:9

A topic for discussion.

For most cases, it is fairly straightforward matter with near unanimous agreement on whether or not a particular self-professed Christian is ‘saved’ – that is, will be allowed into heaven upon death.

For instance, it is usually agreed that someone who accepts Jesus but then lives a life of wilfull sin is not saved – as explained on several parables by Jesus, Paul in Romans 6, and in Hebrews 10:26-29. (Whether he was ever actually saved or not is a matter of debate: My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all[a]; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. – John 10:29).

But what about the following, more nuanced cases such as the following?

1. Just before the fall - Let’s say Bob committed his life to Christ but eventually ends up living a life of wilfull sin at age 50. What if he died just before making the conscious decision to choose sin? (For a more direct take on it, take that old story about the two prisoners who are tortured unless they deny Christ. One night, the first man says he cannot take it anymore – he will deny Christ the next morning. The second prisoner contemplates killing the first to save the first man’s soul, but realizes that it would be wrong to do so. Mercifully, by morning the torturers find that the first prisoner had died on his own in the night. Is the first prisoner thus still saved, having died just before being able to deny Christ? Or is he condemned, as he had already surrendered in his heart?)

2. Just before the rebound - Similar to the above, but instead Joe was saved but then wilfully choose a life of sin, but would repent of his ways at age 60 and be a saint until his natural death. What if he dies at age 59 and 11 months?

3. Partial biography - Alice has believed in Jesus as her Lord and Saviour since age 17. But for her whole life, she never realizes that Jesus is not just a human considered the Son of God, but also God Himself. Is she condemned for her incomplete knowledge which causes her to have a wrong idea of who Jesus is?

4. Wrong biography - Similar to case 3, Frank believes in Jesus is God, the Son of God, Lord and Saviour – but thinks Jesus was a gay man. Is Frank saved? (Also try switching around what Frank thinks – that Jesus was a black man, or a white man, or a woman, or didn’t actually die on the cross, or an angel.)

5. Spoof biography – Donna similarly believes in Jesus as the Son of God and her Lord and Saviour. However (just to take it to absurd levels), she also genuinely thinks Jesus was a 40-foot radioactive Buddhist monk. Is she saved despite her bizarre understanding of who Jesus was? (Compare this to those who claim to follow Jesus, but simultaneously believe that He is just one of many ways to salvation.)

6. Seconds before death – First, read this Chic Tract. At the time of his death, Benny the soldier probably has even less real understanding of Jesus than in case 3 – is he saved?

7. Seconds after death - Similar to case 6, but this time the soldier dies just before he accepts Jesus – say, a car bomb hit him while he was talking with the new chaplain for the first time. Is he saved?

8. Death before spoof - Take case 6 again. Compare with case 5. If Donna hears about Jesus and believes in Him, and then dies before learning any of the other nonsense she would otherwise end up believing, is she saved?

Halolz: Tetris Hell

From Halolz:

Lol! Follow link for a flash game with nice physics too!

See other tetris and puzzle lols at VG Cats: Finish Your Meds and Dueling Analogs: Tetris Love.

Top Editor of Renowned Tensions-Rouser Utusan Malaysia Accuses Malaysiakini of Causing All Problems

From Susan Loone, with image by Wits0:

Malaysiakini article here.

Yeah, I’m totally sure it was Malaysiakini which fantasized about murdering a politician.

And slandered Indians with the worst negative stereotypes.

And libeled a political party as grossly disrespecting Islam.

And landed someone in ISA detention over totally unsubstantiated hearsay.

Yup… Totally Malaysiakini doing those dastardly deeds!

Who are the ones spreading hate, Hishamuddin? Those online, or those in print?

Meme Rollercoaster

Via Ace of Spades:

Lol!

My Simple, Clear Cut, Objective Definition of Terrorism

Terrorism

- noun

Intentionally targeting civilians, or intentionally causing civilians to be targeted, with violence and threats instead of military targets.

The advantages of my definition:

1) Fits the common understanding of the word’s meaning.

2) Differentiates between collateral damage/casualties in an attack on a valid military target, and purposely targeting civilians.

3) Includes the use of human shields – the onus falls on those who hide behind civilians, not on those who accidentally hit the civilians while targeting the terrorist.

4) Can be applied to any side in a conflict (e.g. government or insurgent) as it does not take political factors into account, only means and methods.

5) Further to all of the above, accusations of terror acts can be objectively investigated (instead of the current practise of smearing your adversary as ‘terrorist’ as a first resort).

It is the difference between you visiting the bank and tragically getting killed in the crossfire of a police/robber-gang shootout, and the police and robbers intentionally aiming for you first and only continuing with their firefight once they’re sure you are dead.

Some might argue that using this definition automatically qualifies many ‘insurgents’ in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel/Palestine while exempting the US, international and Israeli troops who fight them.

Discuss.

Mario Text Adventure (Gamebook Nostalgia Style)

Via Ace of Spades HQ, at IGN here.

A sample:

Level_Begin_

It is a bright and sunny afternoon; the sky is vibrant blue with only a single cloud floating above. The ground is suspiciously flat. A green mountain looms in the distance. A pleasant tune plays in the background. One thing’s for sure: it is a beautiful day for a stroll.

Look / Look at Self / Jump / Walk Forward / Walk Backward / Wait

(Chose Look at Self)

You are a dapper plumber of Italian descent. You dress in a typical blue collar wardrobe: rugged red denim overalls cover your classic shirt with a color that matches your hair. On top of your head is a well-fitted painter’s cap that’s firmly in place. A thick mustache adorns your face.

(Chose Walk Backward)

You find your progress stopped by some impenetrable force. Clearly you cannot go that way.

(Chose Wait)

The happy background music that fills the world suddenly picks up pace, alerting you of unseen danger. Up above, you notice a countdown clock that ticks at an alarming rate. 100 ticks becomes 90… 80… 70… The music continues to play at that fast rate.

So old-school gamebook scene description!

Fun to experiment with the choices for a while, especially if you know your classic Super Mario Bros on the NES/Famicom.

See also The Gamebook Metaphor – God’s Omniscience and Human Free Will for a related post, as well as links to html based Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf online gamebooks.