12 September, 2007

Chai-Paani For God

WTF report of the month:

Nepal’s state-run airline has confirmed that it sacrificed two goats to appease a Hindu god, following technical problems with one of its aircraft.

Nepal Airlines said the animals were slaughtered in front of the plane - a Boeing 757 - at Kathmandu airport.

[...] “The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights,” senior airline official Raju KC was quoted as saying by Reuters.

This convinces me that India is right in having an all-powerful state and a large bureaucracy—after all, God Herself is clearly a bureaucrat. Why else would She need bribes like this?

(Link via separate emails from Sanjeev Naik, Manish Manke, Silk-list and Raoul Jetley.)

PS: Another report informs us that the photographer who took pictures “was detained for hours for taking photographs in a restricted area.” God was presumably too busy feasting on the goats to punish the photographer Herself.