FIREBLIND.COM

According to this link, Muslim astronauts have received guidance on how to best be Muslim in space. One of the problems they face is how to pray while facing Mecca, something they’re supposed to do here on earth.

It seems to me that praying while facing Mecca would be incredibly easy in orbit: you simply pray “down”. It’s not like the earth is behind you and you don’t know it.

Me, floating in space: Hmmm…I wonder where the earth went. Last time I checked I was orbiting it.

Earth, sneaking up on me: BOO!!!!!

Me: Zoiks!

I’ve always thought the proscription to pray towards Mecca was rather silly. In what possible way could Allah care which direction you’re facing? After all, it’s not like he’s hanging out in the Ka’bah, sucking some kind of power out of all the prayers flowing in his direction. Or, maybe he is and I’m a jackass making fun of Allah and his house box. Either way, I win, since my place has more square footage and I’m not even a son of god, let alone a god.

I wonder if this means Islam won’t be around for future space exploration. If we’re 40 bajillion miles away, do you just float in the direction of earth and hope that your prayer beam shoots all over Allah’s face and not the face of some other planet’s deity? Or, do you realize how silly it is and forget it altogether?

Or, how about the habit of fasting between sunrise and sunset during Ramadan? Once you hit orbit, sunrise and sunset don’t exist. If you move into another solar system, do you switch suns, or do you keep your Swatch Watch set to earth time? (editor’s note: Oh man, do I wish I still had my green Swatch Watch.)

Once we move away from our little planet, all the stupid minor struggles and inane requirements that make up religion become completely irrelevant.

I had a funny ending, but I got tired and forgot it. Oh well. Such is the life of a sexy pirate. Sometimes the grog and women get to you. That, and reading Goofus and Gallant in my back issues of Highlights magazine.

Tomorrow there’s supposed to be another funtastic illegal immigrant protest. Both sides are spewing major rhetoric in the buildup. I heard one soundbite in which a young female decries being treated as “second-class”, while I’ve heard others containing white men more or less declaring that the illegals “took our jobs”.

On the one hand, not being a citizen is the very definition of being second class. The majority of rights, benefits, and privileges to to those who are citizens. The second level of the same goes to those who immigrate legally, with the least amount of privilege going to those who immigrate illegally. That’s just the way it works; I don’t make the rules, I just report them in a funky, radical kind of way.

Anyways, I’d like to make two points that I’ve probably already made elsewhere. But, since Jessica Simpson likes to hear me talk, I’ll say them again.

Point the first: the above cited female is somewhat justified in her criticism of the treament of illegals, especially in SoCal where I’m from. Sure, a LOT of illegals engage in crime and depend heavily on government programs (i.e. “taxes”) to get by. But, a significantly larger number work their bloody brown asses off to make the Californian economy go ’round. And by and large, most of our illegals are decent people. As much as we depend on many of them, it sucks that they get crapped on by so many people. If we really do need their labor and their buying habits to keep the economy churning, be fair and let more get in here legally.

Point the second: the above notwithstanding, illegal immigrants have caused a significant amount of harm to many parts of the country. Their population centers tend to be high density, high crime, high poverty, high tax infusion areas (public services). All that combines to make life worse for everyone that is here legally and who pay their fair share of taxes, including other Mexican and Central American immigrants. Heck, even the “decent’ illegals need to be able to work, and they often do that by stealing social security numbers, which screws the innocent person on the other end.

(Before DP [whom I admire more than almost anyone] can say it’s the victim’s fault for not checking their credit report often enough, let me say this: stating that identity theft is the victim’s fault is like saying a diner’s at fault for not jumping fast enough when Oldie McRetard drives through the window of a Burger King.)

In short, it pisses me off that everyone stacks up on one side of the issue and is dishonest about the totality of it all. Grow up, jerkwads.

On a different note, I didn’t realize until recently that I felt this way, but I might agree that it’s time to stop granting citizenship to any kid squeezed out of a vagina onto American soil. I’m not sure where that law came from, but it doesn’t make much sense in our modern state of 300 million people. If nothing else, it really screws up our ability to have a proper debate on immigration; after all, when was the last time you tried to sort out the legality of an illegal married couple and their eleventy legal kids?

In conclusion, build a wall, stop creating anchor babies, and stop crapping on good, hardworking immigrants simply because they’re here illegally. Have a real debate on the real issues for once. Oh, and in double conclusion: buy me a bag of pretzels. But not the peanut butter kind. Those suck.