Dear Malaysia: Are you retarded?

Below is an excerpt from an article that ran on Reuters yesterday. This is fucking asinine:

BANGI, Malaysia (Reuters) - As Malaysia prepares to pick its first astronaut, the country's space agency is hunting for solutions to the problems it expects devout Muslims to face while in orbit, such as in which direction to pray.

One of the five pillars of Islam requires the faithful to pray five times a day, and to face Mecca, the birthplace of Islam, while doing so. Astronauts aboard spaceships could have difficulty meeting these requirements.

"Among the astronaut's needs, if he is a Muslim, are guidelines on performing prayers in space, and other aspects of life according to Islamic principles," Malaysian government official Mohd Ruddin Abdul Ghani told a two-day meeting of scientists and religious experts to thrash out solutions.

What the fuck? Please tell me you're kidding. Please just tell me that there aren't people on this planet that are that fucking stupid. God I don't even know where to start with this one.

Listen closely. If being in outer space throws the logistics of your religious practices into a tailspin then maybe, just maybe, you should reevaluate your beliefs. I'm not kidding. This whole "which-direction-to-pray-at-what-time-holy-shit-I'm-confused- because-I'm-in-space" thing is ridiculous. Not only do I think it's retarded for this to be a problem in the first place, I think it's retarded to not immediately see the solution to the problem. Here it is: Face down when you pray. Towards Earth. That's good enough, right? I mean, surely that counts as "facing Mecca". What else can you do? Oh, and just to be on the safe side, pray five times in a row just to make absolutely certain you meet your daily quota. Then you don't have to worry about it for a while. Or hey, keep a stopwatch nearby. Stopwatches work just fine in space. You could even throw in some extra prayers in between mouthfuls of dried ice cream for added insurance. There. Problem solved.

From what I know about Malaysia, which admittedly is not much, they provide cheap labor and manufacturing--like factories and workers and really fun shit like that. So apparently the head honcho over there in Malaysia, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is trying to pull Malaysia out of this pigeonhole and expand their technological industries. I think that's great. Good job Malaysia. But why the fuck are they sending someone into space? For what? There's absolutely nothing for Malaysia to accomplish in space. Really, think about it. This idiot Prime Minister may as well just masturbate in public. I'm far from an economist but I have a novel idea. Train some doctors. Put some resources into growth industries. What the hell are you going to do in space?

"Wow guys, it's really true... I'm totally floating!"

Yeah, great. Good work shitnuts.