Signs your religion might suck (or totally rule!)

Disclaimer: ALL religions suck - some just more than others. (& you thought Christ's melt-in-your-mouth, blood-&-body-snacks were strange)

Shiite Holy day of Ashura, Honoring the martyrdom of Hussein, the 3rd Immam & rightful successor to Muhammad (according to the Shi'a muslims, & dividing line between Shi'a & Sunni)

I must say, pretty cool if your into the whole "spiritually sanctioned S&M", but don't let us stop you - reality TV isn't even this good (yet)

Note: the AP & others included a bunch of mamby-pamby captions (yawn) - so I've taken some artistic license with mine. Look for some choice shots near the bottom.

Recipe for Ashurafest (AKA "Ashurapalooza"):

Step 1: Sharpen-up some 4 inch blades Step 2: Hang blades from cat-o-nine-tails chain whip. (Chris, you need to produce some of these in your weapon forge) Steps 3-138: Flog yourself with knife chain whips
(repeat as necessary) "Hey, keep-up with the rest of us, Fridge!" Blade envy. But we've got the biggest blades of them all!
I did this once, but it was more of a Chris Benoit head-butt onto a Ukulele
Oh wow, Im having so much fun! You wanna lose some weight real quick? How about 6 pints? Awwwww, aren't they adorable? Fun for the whole fam! And now for the punchlines: "Yeah mom, can I call you back in a sec... I need to go flagellate again" "I'm sorry ma'am - no nail-clippers allowed...
Only knife-whips & scimitars beyond this point" "Damnit, I knew I should've bought the 1280x1024 mpx screen"

And now, the big show-stopper (drumroll please): Guess who's taking over the ship when we leave Iraq?
What could possibly go wrong!?

PS, Is this blog going to start riots?