Tin Foil Chapeau Alert: The NY Times regales us with the story of Thierry Meyssan's book "L'Effroyable Imposture," or "The Horrifying Fraud" which challenges the entire official version of the Sept. 11 attacks.

He claims the Pentagon was not hit by a plane, but by a guided missile fired on orders of far right-wingers inside the United States government. Further, he says, the planes that struck the World Trade Center were not flown by associates of Osama bin Laden, but were programmed by the same government people to fly into the twin towers.

What really interests him, though, is what he sees as the conspiracy behind these actions. He contends that it was organized by right-wing elements inside the government who were planning a coup unless President Bush agreed to increase military spending and go to war against Afghanistan and Iraq to promote the conspirators' oil interests.

To achieve their goals, the theory goes, they blamed Osama bin Laden for Sept. 11 and later broadened their targets to include the "axis of evil," centered on Iraq.

The 235-page book has been universally ridiculed by the French news media, while its arguments have been dismantled point by point in "L'Effroyable Mensonge," or "The Horrifying Lie," a new book by two French journalists.

A Pentagon spokesman said, "There was no official reaction because we figured it was so stupid."

Yet in the past three months, Mr. Meyssan's book has sold more than 200,000 copies in France, placing it at the top of best-seller lists for several weeks. Foreign rights have also been sold in 16 countries (a Spanish version is already on sale), and Mr. Meyssan traveled to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates in April to present his arguments at a local university.

I must not have been paying attention. Have IQ's dropped sharply recently?

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:09 PM -

 
More Bunkum From Buncombe. Andrew Buncombe emits a high pitched bleat in the Independent with sad news of the dreadful crushing of dissent amongst editorial cartoonists in the USA. His poster boy is the hapless

Mike Marland, who had drawn a cartoon for the Concord Patriot newspaper illustrating what he considered Mr Bush's attack on the social security system by showing the president flying a plane marked "Bush budget" into the twin towers marked "Social" and "Security".

If Mr. Buncombe's IQ pushes above room temperature, it will hopefully occur to him that Mr. Marland's problems (he got criticized and the newspaper apologized - woohoo!) had very little to do with dissent and quite a bit to do with cluelessness. Also, if Buncombe seriously believes that dissent amongst editorial cartoonists has been crushed in the USA, I wish he would explain the odious Ted Rall.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:10 PM -

 
The New Client Class. Chicago has become the latest to join the parade of local governments approving the use of identification cards issued by the Mexican consulate for their "undocumented immigrants". "The cards allow bearers to open bank accounts, borrow library books and use other services."

The key thing about illegal immigration is that certain groups in the United States have a vested interest in a new client class. Since it's getting increasingly difficult to work up enthusiasm for those remaining citizens who are perpetually on welfare, they are doing their best to import some new recruits.

All the usual liberal suspects are involved and the worst of the crop of inner city politicians. The sooner the undocumented get citizenship amnesty and start voting, the better for these types. And some are voting already courtesy of Bubba's "motor voter" law.

Labor unions seem to be split, with some trying to protect the jobs of their citizen members and other relishing the opportunity to make up for declining membership with a whole new group of dues payers.

Even some of the largest US banks are involved. They see nice profits in catering to the illegal immigrant population. Er, excuse me, the "unbanked".

In the meantime, the benighted US taxpayer is supporting these "undocumented" and mostly untaxed immigrants in a variety of ways. And it isn't library books.

A modest proposal: why not haul in any business or local government administrator who directs that these counsular ID's be accepted and hit them with Federal charges of criminal conspiracy to aid and abet illegal immigration?

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:40 PM -

 
You aren't from around here? The Charlotte Observer reports that: Ending three days of deliberations, a federal jury in Charlotte on Friday convicted two Lebanese brothers of conspiring to aid Middle Eastern terrorists. Apparently, Mohamad Hammoud was a Hezbollah buttboy, and when he arrived in the USA he got his brother Chawki into an cigarette smuggling scheme in which at least some of the profits went to Hezbollah. Some of the more dramatic evidence:

• Investigators found anti-American and anti-Israel videos in Mohamad Hammoud's east Charlotte home. One shows a burning car with a crowd chanting "Death to America. Death to Israel."

• FBI wiretaps captured Mohamad Hammoud talking on the telephone with Sheik Abbas Harake, Hezbollah's military commander in Beirut.

• Federal investigators found a letter in Mohamad Hammoud's home urging him to donate money to the resistance in Lebanon and suggesting that he had raised money in the past for Hezbollah's military operations.

• Prosecutors showed jurors a photo of Mohamad Hammoud as a teen-ager at a Hezbollah Center in Lebanon. He was holding an AK-47.

And just for Mary Robinson, they were also charged and apparently convicted of immigration violations involving phony visas and sham marriages, but none of the US media cared to share those details.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:36 AM -

 
Dog bites man! "All of a sudden everybody on death row is going to become retarded," said Mississippi Assistant Attorney General Marvin "Sonny" White, in an AP report on the consequences of the Supreme Court decision banning executions of the retarded. Prosecutors across the country are bracing for an expected flood of appeals from inmates on death row. The Supremes left it up to the states to define "mental retardation".

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 2:20 AM -

 
Pond Scum: Professional whiner Mary Robinson has her knickers in a twist. (That's not new of course, since she mostly always has her knickers in a twist.)

The top United Nations human rights official today called on European countries, meeting in Spain to discuss illegal immigration issues, to guarantee that asylum seekers and other migrants were portrayed fairly and without stereotypes.

In a message to the meeting of the European Council in Seville, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, said countries should ensure that accurate information regarding migrants and migration issues was made available, including on the positive contribution that migrants make to the host society.

Mrs. Robinson also said that at last year’s World Conference against Racism, countries agreed that stereotyping in all its forms, in particular the promotion of false images of migrants by States and the media should be avoided, spokesman Jose Luis Diaz told a press briefing in Geneva.

Don't worry about the USA, Mary! Here you can't even get the media to call an illegal alien an illegal alien. If we're lucky, we may find out in a footnote that one of our foreign guests is "undocumented".

In related news, KOVR 13 reports that

Authorities in San Joaquin County have confiscated $1.8-million worth of marijuana after finding a man growing the plants inside a valley state park. The man says he was growing pot to help support his family in Mexico.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 12:57 AM -

 
You can't make this stuff up. The United Nations, bereft of both ideas and dignity, has enlisted "celebrity ambassadors" and "messengers of peace" as is reported in WSJ.com's Opinion Journal. Some low lights:

Take actress Angelina Jolie, whose duties, like those of most goodwill ambassadors, consist mostly of touring some U.N. project while the TV cameras are on. An official U.N. press release describes the "Tomb Raider" star as having "said that despite the fact that she had not learned much in school about what was going on in the world, she had always thought the United Nations was a good institution." So much for the age of cynicism.

Singer Harry Belafonte, now serving in Unicef's ranks, thanked the U.N. for not allowing the world to be turned into a "great carbon mass" and spoke darkly of "immoral" forces "who would oppose us in what we do." In case that wasn't clear, Mr. Belafonte lamented how the "most powerful nation in the world" had yet to ratify the U.N.'s convention on children's rights.

Mr. Belafonte appears to be supported by an Irish politician named Mary Banotti, a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Population Fund. She complained that her agency was under attack from a "bizarre international coalition" headed by (of course!) the Bush administration. Mercifully no one pressed Ms. Banotti to describe the coalition of goodwill ambassadors of which she is a part, a collection that includes a Jordanian princess, three former Miss Universes, an ex-Spice Girl, American actors and actresses, an Indian tennis star and Mr. Armani.

I'm thinking of establishing a BIC (Bizarre International Coalition) outpost here at the store. We'll all wear feed caps and talk about fishing. 'Course we mostly do that anyhow.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 12:09 AM -

 
Pond Scum: Cherie Blair the suicide bomber from the Sun.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:02 AM -

 
Danger! Senators at work. In the NY Post, Brian Riedl and Ronald Utt reveal the sorry story of what our Senators have done to the emergency funding bill for the war on terror. You'll be happy to know that fighting terrorists includes:

"... $700,000 for a "biomass" (human waste) project at Mississippi State University.

... $2 million to store the Smithsonian's collection of worms and other organisms in an alcohol solution

... $750,000 for the Smart Start Child Care Center and Expertise School in Las Vegas.

... $34 million to the United Nations population fund

... $412,000 to the Fish and Wildlife Service's National Conservation Training Center

... $765,000 to the Clark R. Bavin National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory in Oregon

... $11 million to assist the New England fishing industry

... $2.5 million to map coral reefs off Hawaii

... $1 million to convert subsidized housing to student housing in Baltimore

... $3 million to drill five wells in Santa Fe, N.M.

... requiring the Agriculture Department to fully fund a "Dog Dealers Task Force" to report violations in puppy breeding and sustaining research on tracheal mites and honeybees

... $2 million for more research on mad-cow disease

... $3 million for cattle-genome sequencing

... $50 million to renovate the National Animal Disease Laboratory in Ames, Iowa

... $19 million for animal health surveillance

... $21.6 million for pest detection"

... and more

But don't worry, they weren't complete spendthrifts. The esteemed solons did pinch a few pennies by cutting "$12.5 million for a foreign-terrorist-tracking task force and $3.6 million to beef up the U.S. Capitol Police".

If this is what they do when they show up for work, maybe they should go back to making waitress sandwiches at D.C. restaurants.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:24 AM -

 
Bogon Shield: All you need to know about the "Gun Show Loophole" courtesy of FlashBunny.org.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:02 PM -

 
More on the ICC. Jed Babbin, a former deputy undersecretary of defense, has a thoughtful piece on the International Criminal Court (sic) in the Washington Times. His point is that we should not be pushing for immunity for US peacekeepers because it legitimizes the court. I would prefer to use the refusal to grant immunity to keep the USA out of UN peacekeeping boondoggles. But we agree on the main point:

The ICC will be a playground for Third-Worlders that want to interfere with our war on terror. There will be indictments against American troops and maybe even some elected officials that we will refuse to honor. The European Union will rail at us for not handing over our people, and the outcry against us will make the bin Ladens of the world laugh. None of that will matter. America is now in the role of Rudyard Kipling's "Tommy," the Redcoat everyman soldier of simpler times. "And it's 'Tommy this' and 'Tommy that' and 'chuck him out, the brute.' But it's 'savior of the country' when the guns begin to shoot." Don't waste time on the ICC, Mr. President. Stick to business. The guns have begun to shoot.

By the way, my repeated references to "International Criminal Court (sic)" refer to the fact that it is NOT international and NOT a court. It is, however, criminal.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 12:13 PM -

 
Euroweenies: Colum Lynch reports in the Washington Post that European Countries Cut Deal to Protect Afghan Peacekeepers. My, my! Don't that beat all? The Euros who have been ragging on the Bush administration for misgivings about the International Criminal Court (sic), have quietly done a deal in Afghanistan giving all their peacekeepers immunity from the court's authority. But somehow it's different when the USA wants a similar deal for its UN peacekeepers?

Instead of chopping logic with these loons, why don't we do the obvious: not participate in any UN peacekeeping activities? In the few situations where an intervention is in the national interest of the USA, the UN adds nothing but distraction and leads to aberrations like leaving Saddam Hussein in power after the Gulf War. Of course, while we are at it, we could cut straight to the heart of the matter and withdraw from the United Nations completely. A collection of ego-driven bureaucrats propped up by third world dictators isn't exactly good company. As for the Euros, back to your comic books.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:38 AM -

 
Pond Scum: Gary Winnick and Global Crossing get a body cavity search in Julie Creswell's Fortune article: The Emperor of Greed. One of the reasons for recessions is to squeeze out the sins of excess that Global Crossing epitomizes. And it is quite clear that Winnick had a lot of help on Wall Street and at the big banks. Winnick is out of jail and his pockets are full for the moment. We'll see how long that lasts.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:43 PM -

 
Got a light? The civil servants are starting forest fires again. This time in Alaska where state biologists scared off a cow moose with a firecracker and also started a 92.000 acre fire.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:33 PM -

 
Follow-ups: The Instapundit caught Debbie Schlussel's NY Post column on the Caribou coffee flap that sums things up very well.

So it's a coffee war: Starbucks, headed by a man who condemns terrorism and decries anti-Semitism, versus its nearest rival, Caribou, owned by a company whose investments are cleared by a cleric who cheers terrorism.

In these parts, you can get coffee here at the store and Thelma's Country Kitchen, so we don't get to play in the coffee wars, but when we play, we play to win. So I have to point out that the First Islamic Bank owns some other US companies:

WaterMark Paddlesports, Inc.
"WaterMark is a holding company for two of the leading kayak manufacturers in the US: Perception, Inc. and Dagger, Inc. Perception, Inc. is the largest manufacturer of kayaks in the US with revenue of approximately $20 million, which represents approximately 10% of the US paddle sports market (kayaks, canoes, paddles and other accessories)."

DVT Corporation
"DVT is the price/performance leader in the machine vision systems industry. Machine vision systems are used to inspect products and control machines such as robots and packaging machinery. DVT develops, manufactures and markets inspection devices for many of the world’s most prominent manufacturers including General Motors, Ford, Nissan, Allied Signal and 3-M; technology companies such as IBM and Motorola; as well as consumer products companies such as SmithKline Beecham, Procter & Gamble, Nabisco, Kraft Foods and H.J. Heinz."

B.R. Lee Industries
"Lee Industries, operating under the “LeeBoy” brand name, is the leading manufacturer of commercial paving equipment in North America."

Transportation Safety Technologies, Inc.
"TST is a manufacturer of specialty electrical components and safety products for the automotive, truck and emergency vehicles industries in the United States. One of TST’s most promising products is the patented SCAN™ obstacle detection system ("ODS")."

Cirrus Industries, Inc.
"Cirrus is the third largest manufacturer of single-engine, piston-powered, general aviation aircraft in the world."

Medifax EDI
"Medifax EDI is a leading provider of information processing services to the health care industry in the United States, processing over 140 million transactions per year for more than 120,000 customers."

And then there's their Real Estate Investments and their Asset Management of "Islamically acceptable assets". What's good for Caribou should be good for all.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:29 AM -

 
J'accuse! Dennis Pluchinsky, a senior intelligence analyst with the Diplomatic Security Service, writes in a Washington Post article: "I accuse the media in the United States of treason." He makes a compelling case that the US media is doing all the homework a terrorist organization would need.

As a terrorism analyst, I am both appalled and confused by many of the post-9/11 articles published at home and abroad, in newspapers, news magazines and academic journals, as well as on the Internet.

Many of these articles have clearly identified for terrorist groups the country's vulnerabilities -- including our food supply, electrical grids, chemical plants, trucking industry, ports, borders, airports, special events and cruise ships. Some of these articles have been lengthy and have provided tactical details useful to terrorist groups. No terrorist group that I am aware of has the time and manpower to conduct this type of extensive research on a multitude of potential targets. Our news media, and certain think tankers and academicians, have done and continue to do the target vulnerability research for them.

Imagine that you are a supporter or sympathizer of a terrorist group and you have been tasked to identify and collect tactical information on potential U.S. targets. Consider some of the following headlines that have appeared since 9/11: "Private Plane Charters: One Way Around Air Security," "Suicidal Nuclear Threat Is Seen At Weapons Plants," "Priority Required for Protecting Utilities," "NRC Warns of Missing Radioactive Materials," "Freight Transport: Safe from Terror?" "Chemical Plants Are Feared As Targets," "America's Roads May Be Just As Vulnerable As Its Skies," "Study Assesses Risk of Attack on Chemical Plants," "Terror Risk Cited for Cargo Carried on Passenger Jets: 2 Reports List Security Gaps," and "Truck Terrorism Possible, U.S. Says: Investigation Finds Lack of Licensing Safeguards."

He goes on to cite a variety of historical evidence that terrorists can and do use the media (and now the Internet) to compile target and operational information and learn about the mistakes of their comrades. That is, if the press persists in reveling in details which lead to little value for the public, but a great deal of value for an enemy.

During World War II, there was a security slogan that went: "Loose lips sinks ships." Maybe the current security slogan should be: "Prolific pens propagate terrorist plots." The president and Congress should pass laws temporarily restricting the media from publishing any security information that can be used by our enemies.This was necessary during World War II, it is necessary now. These restrictions were backed by the American public during World War II, and I believe the public would support them now.

As for "treason," well, maybe that accusation against the media is not justified. Webster's dictionary defines treason as violation of allegiance toward one's country and lists one of its characteristics as "consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies." I know the media have not consciously and purposely aided al Qaeda. Therefore, J'accuse the media of lacking common sense. As a concerned terrorism analyst, I say the following to the media: You are making the jobs of terrorism analysts, intelligence officers and law enforcement officials very difficult. Help us, don't hinder us from defeating our enemies.

I think he's right.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:06 PM -

 
Pond Scum: Thomas Edsall turns in sleazy Terry McAuliffe in an article in the Washington Post. It seems that after piously championing the Campaign Finance Reform (CFR) bill for the "little people", he has the Democratic National Committee lawyers out trying to gut it in court. This has left all the dogooder groups like Common Cause with their panties in a wad and Democrats like Sen. Russell Feingold and Rep. Martin Meehan are complaining too.

In case you Washington folks didn't notice, Terry is a political fundraiser. Raising money is what he does. It's all he does.

Well, just about all, because ole Terry also got rich while being a political fundraiser. Seems like an unusual career path, right? Being a political fundraiser doesn't sound like a high paying job. In fact, candidates usually try to get people who are already rich to raise money. Well, I guess when you're up there in Washington associating with the bigs, all sorts of business opportunities come your way. Like his pal Gary Winnick giving Terry a sweetheart deal that allowed him to turn $100,000 into $18 million in Global Crossing stock before it hit the rocks. Sure, Terry, we believe you.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:22 PM -

 
Just give me a cup of joe. "Activists" in Berkeley, California (natch) are calling for only "politically correct coffee" to be sold inside the city limits. They have filed an initiative for the November election that mandates that all coffee brewed for sale be made only from "organic, shade-grown or Fair Trade certified beans." Dang, they must have good magnifying glasses to be able to read the tiny labels on each bean!

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:48 PM -

 
South of the Border. Mexican soccer fans apparently had unresolved issues after their team's loss to the USA in the World Cup competition. In Juarez they attacked cars with US license plates, most of whose occupants were Hispanic according to an article in the El Paso Times. But life imitated satire when "An El Paso Times photographer was roughed up by several people wearing oversized sombreros and carrying Mexican flags."

Also noteworthy was this AP report that described the crowd in a Mexico City bar watching the game.

Mexicans continue to scoff at the state of soccer knowledge among U.S. sports fans, whose nonchalance toward the game makes defeats even more bitter.
...

Relatively calm amid the uproar was a group in Mexican jerseys that claimed to be from Canada.

Asked why a Canadian would have a southern U.S. accent, Michelle Tate, 27, admitted she was from Memphis, Tenn.

"We went out and bought Mexican jerseys and Mexican T-shirts as camouflage," said Chris Calott, 41, an architecture professor from the University of New Mexico.

While Calott said he was a soccer fan, none of his five companions had ever watched a complete game before, let alone a match of the World Cup, which is held every four years.

"I wouldn't be watching if I weren't here," Tate admitted. "I didn't even know that the World Cup was every three years."

I'd rather be fishing.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:38 PM -

 
Hurts so good. Wired reports that a couple of wacky Germans have invented a game controller called the Painstation that allows you to inflict real pain on your opponents. Those fun-loving Teutons, always ready for a jape! Needless to say, Sony is threatening a lawsuit.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:15 PM -

 
Don't hold back, say what you feel! Tom Perry in the LA Times tells us about the water rights furor in California's Imperial Valley. For those of you unfamiliar with the West, water rights are everything. California has a particularly checkered history in that regard, since most of the SoCal population centers and many farms are located in the next best thing to a desert. In any case, the article was not bad, considering it appeared in the Slimes; but two items caught my eye.

First:

When U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) lectured the farmers of the Imperial Valley that they should let some of their fields go dry so their water can be sold to arid San Diego County, it was bound to be a controversial notion.

But when she warned bluntly that the federal government might just take their water without paying if farmers refuse to fallow, Imperial Irrigation District board member Bruce Kuhn could not restrain himself.

"I would expect nothing less from Feinstein, being the bureaucratic gasbag, pig-eyed sack of crap that she is," Kuhn was quoted as saying last month in a front-page story in the Imperial Valley Press. "They will not take the water without a long, protracted legal battle. She has got her head stuck in the sand."

I'd say that was a polite assessment of Feinstein. About the only good thing I can think of about her is that she is smarter than Barbara Boxer. But then so are most doorknobs.

The other item was:

Among their worries is that the cost of mending the sickly Salton Sea will be shifted by the federal government to the Imperial Valley. The water sale to San Diego could reduce agricultural runoff to the landlocked sea, thereby making it saltier and more contaminated. Some cost estimates of fixing the sea exceed $1 billion.

The Salton Sea is the world's longest lasting mud puddle, having been created by a flood in 1905 and sustained ever since by farm runoff and the sewers of Mexicali, Mexico. It has been adopted by the ecoweenies and there have been a whole host of plans to fix it up as a pristine and permanent feature of the landscape. The billion dollar mud puddle - yep, we can do it.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:52 PM -

 
Hi, welcome to Wally World! Everyone's buzzing about Wal-Mart offering Microtel PC's with Lindows OS. The usual Linux crowd apparently views this as some sort of breakthrough - "To think of the legions of rednecks who could now possibly be running Lindows instead of Windows...". My, my - these city boys shore do get hot and bothered over a lot of blather. I already know of a fair number of Linux machines in this neck of the woods - they are the preferred router for the home LANs connected to our local WiFi ISP. (The ISP's antenna is up top of Loretta's beauty parlor).

But the penguin humpers better take care. As NewsForge observes in their review, "To say that Lindows runs most Microsoft programs is a bit of a stretch." When the "legions of rednecks" find out that the thing is a powered doorstop when it comes to running most consumer software, it'll go right back to Wally World and Linux's name will be mud.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 3:22 PM -

 
Governor Moonbeam, is that you? George Will tells the tale of a changed Jerry Brown in Lefty Grown Up.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:45 PM -

 
Come out, come out, wherever you are! Alfred Lee at the Straits Times reports that

"British truck drivers returning from the European mainland are carrying guns illegally to protect themselves from violent attacks by asylum seekers hiding in their vehicles. ...

The trouble starts when the drivers search their lorries for asylum seekers before ferry crossings from France and Holland to Britain.

If British immigration officers find refugees on any vehicle reaching Dover, Folkestone or any other port, the driver can be fined £2,000 (S$5,284) for each person found.

Note to the governments concerned: you're idiots. Note to the drivers: get a group together and search all the trucks jointly.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:18 PM -

 
Hands Up Dutchboy! expatica.com reveals that

"The Dutch parliament was shocked by a US legislative proposal giving an official green light to a US invasion of the Netherlands should it be deemed necessary to free US citizens from the International Criminal Court in The Hague. A Volkskrant newspaper report said almost all Dutch political parties believed the US proposal undermined the authority of the court, which will officially become active from 1 July. ...

Despite their opposition though, the parliament did not consider it a serious scenario that the US would make use of the legislation and a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman also said it was unlikely that US warships would be positioned off the Scheveningen coast."

Well I guess there is one sure way to find out. On the other hand, if they dislike suspense, they could always kick out their disreputable guests. By the way, the court opens for business on July 1, 2002.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:45 PM -

 
Florida, Hillary, and Airports - PC humor from Fred Reed at the Patriotist:

The whole curious affair began when Fatima Ali Rezah, a citizen of Algeria, refused to unveil for a driver's license photo in Florida. The clerk, who didn't follow society carefully, thought she was joking. She wasn't. Her religion, she said, prohibited baring her face. The laws of the United States were irrelevant.

The clerk stared at her, puzzled. She was covered head to toe in black cloth and looked, he later told friends, like a large raisin. He was what is nowadays called a good ol' boy, meaning someone with a Southern accent and common sense - that is, starkly unqualified for diplomacy.

He refused her request. A photo was supposed to identify, he said. This one wouldn't. One black bag was like another. No, he said. And that was that. Or should have been.

With encouragement from the ACLU Fatima sued, and won on grounds of religions freedom. To insist on a photo would be discrimination, said the justices without noticeable rationality. DMV argued for separation of church and at least the state of Florida, but was told it applied only to conservative Christians.

Things snowballed. About seven thousand Mohammedans lived in Florida, most of them studying crop-dusting. Skeptics pointed out that they came from countries that didn't have crops. The Muslims said this was because their crops hadn't been dusted. The State Department accepted this explanation, saying it showed initiative and would result in self-sufficiency in vegetables in the Sahara.

More hilarity by following the link, including a Newsweek cover: 'Mass Murderers: Victims or Martyrs?'

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 6:23 PM -

 
Hole in one update: Updating yesterday's item on the the golf tournament prostitution bust, the Sacramento Bee reports that two golf course managers and four others were arrested.

Riverside County sheriff's deputies had the public golf course 40 miles east of Los Angeles under surveillance for about three weeks, said sheriff's spokeswoman Shelley Kennedy-Smith. On Friday afternoon, they moved in, detaining about 100 male golfers and several women.

Most of the golfers were released early Saturday following questioning.

"They're having a private golf tournament," McConnell said. "Illegal acts of sex for money were offered during the tournament."

On Friday, the club was reserved for a private tournament and several camping tents were pitched on the course. Investigators observed sex acts between golfers and women, McConnell said.

Elsewhere on the course golf was being played, Kennedy-Smith said.

"This is all a shock to me," said golf course owner, Henry C. "Chuck" Cox II. "I'm trying to figure it (the raid) out."

"Chuck" is apparently not a candidate for a job in the space program.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:37 AM -

 
Would you like a camel with your Caribou? I first saw the "Caribou Coffee owned by Isamic Bank" story on Fark which pointed out the snopes.com analysis of the email that is circulating. It then showed up in a number of venues including the thoughtful treatment by James Lileks in The Bleat.

I guess the company is feeling the heat. According to WCCO, "Although Caribou acknowledges that 87 percent of its parent company is owned by Middle Easterners, it denies the pro-Palestinian part of the rumor." Also as Lileks reports, they have started taking down web pages and informing people that the owning First Islamic Investment Bank does not permit linking to their web site without permission. (Extreme cluelessness alert!)

Gentlemen, if you're serious about keeping your investment intact, stop screwing around and get the Islamist nutcase, Shaykh al-Qaradawi, off your board. It's as simple as that.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 1:19 AM -

 
Dirty Apron: The New York Times is reporting that Democrats are postponing a Martha Stewart fund raising event due to "scheduling conflicts" and not recent questions about her financial dealings, according to the organizers. I guess the intended audience, "the political action committees of AOL Time Warner and the Magazine Publishers of America" will just have to get back to work shaping the national consciousness.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 1:07 AM -

 
Dog Bites Man: SFGate scribbler Mark Morford shares with us that after every anti-American screed he produces, he gets emails that call him a fag among other unkind things. Apparently the fag part inspires his muse and leads him to tut tut the current state of affairs in the USA. Would buttheaded whiner make you feel better Mark?

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 12:09 AM -