News You Can't Use: Saudi Arabia Renews Fatwa Against Pokémon Franchise

What is that wacky Generation Nothing up to this time? More staring into phones, I bet! Well, yes, but believe it or not this pathology has metastasized into some even more incredible. Namely blundering around the so-called "real world" in search of various poorly draw "monsters" that are then captured and forced into a life of gladiatorial slavery not unlike what was depicted in "Spartacus" just with more neck-beards and early onset obesity. So now we have millennials literally blundering off cliffs lemming style while a formerly apathetic older generation must now get all "Get off of my lawn!" on the youthful walking dead. Not a very good state of affairs. Fortunately clerics in Saudi Barbaria have taken a break from attacking the basic laws of motion to condemn this fresh evil from the Western (and Eastern!) infidel.

Catch Squirtle at your own risk — at least in Saudi Arabia.

On tonight's episode Squirtle is beheaded for apostasy...

The kingdom renewed its 2001 fatwa against the cute cartoon creatures on Wednesday, saying the viral cellphone game Pokémon Go is a form of gambling, and therefore forbidden under Islamic law.

You are in fact wagering your personal well-being (there was a Charizard in front of that moving car!) and remaining dignity, in addition to gambling that Friend Google won't do any funny business with the massive amounts of data mined by this horse hockey, so it turns out The Kingdom is right. As always.

The edict renews a 2001 decree by the General Secretariat of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, issued when the game was still played with cards and on video game consoles.

God has not changed His mind, it would appear.

Sheikh Saleh Al-Fozan, a member of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, said that the mobile version of the Japanese scavenger hunt-style game is the same as the card version — and does not get a pass.

After much prayer, fasting, meditation, level grinding, silent reflection, player vs. player matches to raise my rank and win badges and self-flagellation I have arrived at this divinely ordained conclusion. Just like the card game, although with more bricks to the face from criminal element and oblivious trespassing.

Pokémon Go is not officially available in Saudi Arabia, but many in the country are believed to have figured out how to download the app, according to reports.

Can't wait to blunder out into this completely inhospitable desert because I think there might be Japanese cartoons hiding in the dunes.

This is the best image on the entire internet for a variety of reasons.

Three Saudi men in their mid-20s were recently arrested while playing Pokémon Go at an airport in the kingdom, a Saudi online newspaper reported. 

Get ready for some of that hand removal, bros.

The men were using their smartphone cameras to illegally take pictures in the restricted area of the King Abdullah airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia, according to the report.

Once again a Theocratic nightmare state dominated by a handful of fossil fuel plutocrats and governed by superstition and terror has shown us the way.

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Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.