Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Saudi kook police

From Khelil:  ""Agents of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (CPVPV), she said, were causing an unpleasant scene. The government-salaried vigilantes, a bearded auxiliary police force familiarly known to Saudis as the Hayaa, had marched officiously into an educational exhibit featuring plaster models of dinosaurs, turned off the lights and ordered everyone out, frightening children and alarming their parents. [...]

But most of the messages singled out the religious police for ridicule. "They worried that people would find the dinosaurs more highly evolved than themselves," explained one. "It’s the Hayaa that should be stuffed and mounted so future generations can learn about extinct animals," quipped another. This message adopted a more pedantic tone: "Dinosaurs are a paleontological life form from an ancient geological era, and our clerics are a paleontological life form from an ancient social era." "Hello? Stone Age? We have some of your people; can you please come and collect them?" pleaded one tweep. Another wrote: "If the dinosaurs were still alive they’d be saying, thank God for extinction.""