They had threatened to do it and they did! Malaysia got a court ruling to justify its ban on the use of the word Allah to describe God by the Christian minority. After the 2009 ban, the Herald Catholic newspaper went to court to protest of constitutional rights infringement. One of its points was that the word Allah was common in Malay language Bibles as it is part of the local traditions. The Court found that it was not really part of global Christianity though. The Herald is going to appeal.
The sad part is both the ban and the contesting of it heightened inter-religious tensions and prompted attacks on churches. It would have been simpler to leave things alone. Fueling or provoking dissensions in your people by unnecessary moves is certainly not good governance.
The lighter side goes two ways. First, all this reminds me of political correctness in the West and the extra-complications in expression it brought along. I wonder how a person would now go along exchanging on religion in this situation? I guess one would have to check context first?
– “So, in considering the word of G.. HUH? Wait! What religion do you practice?”
or “Yesterday, as I got out of the Church having asked God to help the poor people afflicted by the recent typhoon, I met my friend Akmal who had just asked Allah for the same thing.” ???
Driiiing! Click! recorded voice : “Good eternity! You have just reached Paradise. Our offices are now closed but if you can leave a message after the tone. If you want to reach Allah, please press one. If you want to reach God, please press two. If you want to reach YHVW, please press three ………”
The atheists must be rolling on the floor laughing at how complicated the connexion to the Supreme Being is?
And the best proof of how ridiculous this all is goes thus : in between the ban and the ruling that confirmed it, in 2011, the government released 35 thousand Bibles that had been impounded for containing Allah instead of God.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12756038
Now that the court just ruled in its favor, can we expect the Police to start hunting down the people to whom those were distributed?
OH! Come on?
I am a lifelong biker, very anti-cars and all that but still … come on?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-24518094
There is no good justification for riding on a highway with your bike. It is against the law but it is also as dangerous. True, highways often take more direct routes to their destinations than smaller roads. The most important factor in traffic after bad behaviour is relative speeds of the vehicles. If one goes twice as fast as the other, it becomes quite difficult to weigh in or judge proper interactions. And cars go faster on highways than roads, see? Heck, even slow motorists are not allowed to use them in many places for that very reason! Help your fellow cyclists mate, behave yourself.
In India, a pilgrimage saw a stampede on a bridge that led to a Hindu temple, some being crushed and the rest jumping off to drown in the river below. 115 deaths and rising? Nonetheless …
“A day after the tragedy, it was business as usual at the temple. …singing, chanting and… The bridge, where the stampede took place, was crowded with devotees. Many said they felt sad but they had to complete their pilgrimage regardless of the tragedy.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24516291
Come on, good pilgrims? Let me guess what you were chanting : Faster closer to you my G.. OH! sorry, please insert the name of the concerned deity yourselves so that I offend no one and contravene to no law?
3 American professors were awarded the Economics Nobel Prize today! I’m sure their work is important and am not qualified to judge it but huh …
“Mr. Shiller was honored for … showing that prices deviate from rationality.”
and
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24517595
“Robert Shiller, from Yale University, was included for his 1980s discovery that stock prices fluctuate much more than corporate dividends.”
OH! Come on! So prices make no sense and corporations make money despite market scares? I think many people down to grammar school kids could have shared that Prize … too bad they didn’t publish their opinions on the matter? 😎
As long as we are talking economy, this is from another BBC piece on the possible US debt default :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24453400
“At its most basic level, a default is when a person or an entity cannot repay a debt on time. For instance, when a person can’t make a payment on a mortgage or a car loan.”
Interesting is it not? For if that is what could happen in 4 days if the debt ceiling is not raised, it is also exactly what will happen from today onward to all the Federal government employees now on furlough as their bi-weekly pay checks don’t come in as the shutdown enters its third week? So that they won’t all be able to pay their rent or mortgage, or car payments, etc despite the promise of retroactive pay when it ends? Especially since if they have any money saved, the bright ones should keep it for food as the end doesn’t seem all that near? And of course will face penalties and problems for it for which they won’t be reimbursed making their finances shakier hence? ( The same things that face the government itself? )
To which you may add this : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24515290
as Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, warns all on the Possible repercussions of a default? And since my readers likely caught in our other news that China already warned the US not to do so and so did most of the markets starting with Wall Street.
it sort of goes to show that the only people that have no clue about economics in this world are the libertarian tea-bagging fringe of the Republicans? Despite its ongoing SuperPAC funds then, poor GOP?
The again both sides are culprits in the slow pace of negotiations as their new idea is to wait for the market to drop and by how much so they know what amount of leverage they have over each other?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-leaders-begin-to-negotiate-as-other-efforts-to-end-impasse-crumble/2013/10/13/498f4202-341a-11e3-8a0e-4e2cf80831fc_story.html
OH! Come (mor)on(s)?
That sounds like the old joke of the guy falling from the skyscraper and muttering – So far so good, as he passes each floor except that these guys actually expect hitting the bottom to be the best part???
Honestly, sometimes the real word makes you want to watch Reality TV … precisely because it is NOT real?
Tay.
Definitive Lapse of Reason 
Hey gang at BRS! TY and have a great serving day? Tay.