When we hammer down the brewskies, God has an infinite number of  ways in which to punish us. He can curse us with a  two-day head throbber. He can cast upon us the bed spins. Or He might give us particularly bad eye sight at closing time at the bars.  But in the Muslim world, the Big Guy is really tough on the boozers: He has them thrown in jail and beaten  with a cane.

Such was the punishment of  Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a Muslim woman who was caught holding a Pabst Blue Ribbon in a Kuala Lumpur  bar.  Someone forgot to tell the beer-bonging Kartika that Muslim  women are forbidden to drink. Her punishment for her indiscretion: six lashes with a rattan cane and a fine of 5,000 ringgit ($1,400).  Considering that floggings are usually reserved for rapists and murderers, we can only assume that she had a whole lot of “dead soldiers” clanking around her feet when the authorities arrived.

Hey, we are not here to judge religions. You need only look at the puffy-faced, gravel-throated ,vodka-chugging Russian women to see how a law forbidding a lady to sip the devil juice might make sense. But still, getting beaten with a cane? That does seem a little harsh. And considering that not many women wander into bars in the Muslim world, don’t you think the guys around the pool table would do anything to encourage them to stay?

Sucks to be trolling for the ladies in Malaysia.