This is a rather strange story that reminded me a lot of high school and why I never want to go back there.

Iran has banned soccer players from sporting ponytails and sculpted beards as part of a campaign to prevent the spread of Western culture in the Islamic state, a soccer federation official said on Thursday.

The federation said those who defied the order ran the risk of being banned from the game.

[...]The ban does not apply to long hair.

“The Prophet Mohammad had long hair. We have no problem with it,” Majd said.

I hate to admit how long ago I was in high school. Let’s just say that the memory this brought back was circa late 60′s, and leave it at that. There were three high schools in my small town. They followed to varying degrees the ultra-conservative directives given by the unofficial town religion (that my family did not belong to). Unlike the Iranian officials, whether Mohammad, or Jesus for that matter, had long hair was irrelevant. No boy was going to graduate from high school if he looked like a hippy. There was at least one boy I knew who was forced to repeat his senior year because he refused to cut his hair. The fact that his grades were good meant nothing. Everything focused on whether his hair hit his collar or not.

Stupid.

But maybe we just need to wait another 30 or 40 years and the Iranian culture will begin to ease off a bit? Maybe if we passed out love beads and flowers to them? Sure. Why not?

Iranian soccer officials, I’m thinking, need to talk to our own Blazer’s officials regarding what happens when a team alienates its fan base:

A crowd of 110,000 watched a match between Iran and Germany in Tehran earlier this month. Iranian women were not allowed to see the match after the football federation upheld a ban on them entering stadiums even though women are the Islamic country’s most passionate fans.

That doesn’t seem like an extremely intelligent move to me. But maybe that’s why I’m not in marketing.

Congratulations to the Fenway Faithful. Thanks to the magic of the lunar eclipse, the Curse of the Bambino is at last dead.

Well… maybe that’s not the reason. But it makes a good story.

ABC turns over to the CIA and FBI a videotape obtained in Pakistan that promises an attack on the US should Bush be reelected. But is the tape authentic and what is its real purpose?

The tape was obtained from a source in Pakistan over the weekend. It arrived in New York on Monday, where it was viewed by ABC network officials and then handed over to the CIA. The hour-long tape shows an English-speaking man who claims to be a US citizen and whose face is obscured. According to a source, the man says that the attack on the US will dwarf 9/11 and “the streets will run with blood.” The man accuses the US will bring this on itself by reelecting a President who attacks al Qaeda. The tape appears to have been made fairly recently because the man refers to semi-current events like the 9/11 Commission and the Massachusetts same-sex marriage legislation.

A US intelligence official is reported in a Reuters story as saying that the tape, which has not yet been authenticated, appears to be standard al Qaeda propaganda and that the intelligence community does not have any information that would link the tape to a specific threat.

ABC has stated that they will not release the tape unless it can be authenticated. Strangely enough, there was no mention of the tape during ABS’s nightly news report at 6:00 tonight.

But it is rather interesting timing for this tape to show up. It leads one to wonder what the intent was? Is this truly an al Qaeda training video? Or are there those in the current administration who believe that voters will either be (1) scared that there will be an attack and therefore vote for Bush or (2) be pissed that anyone else could tell an American how to vote and vote for Bush in defiance? Or is it just something to take the focus off of those missing explosives in Iraq?

I’m not much of a conpiracy buff, but… one wonders.

A friend sent me this annonymous example of Republican poetry.

Bush is my shepherd, I shall be in want.
He maketh me lie down on park benches,
He leadeth me beside the still factories.
He restoreth my doubts about the Republican Party.
He leadeth me into the paths of unemployment for his cronies’ sake.
Yea, though no weapons of mass destruction have been found, he maketh
me continue to fear Evil.
His tax cuts for the rich and his deficit spending discomfort me.
He anointeth me with never-ending debt:
Verily my days of savings and assets are kaput.
Surely poverty and hard living shall follow me all the days of his
administration,
And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.

Today on Good Morning America, Bush blamed a poorly made shirt on the jacket bulge noticed during the first debate. Quote Dubya:

I don’t know what that is. I mean, it is — I’m embarrassed to say it’s a poorly tailored shirt.

[...] I guess the assumption was that if I were straying off course they would … kind of like a hunting dog, they would punch a buzzer and I would jerk back into place. That’s just absurd.

No… I think the assumption is that someone was feeding him answers.

But what I’d really like to know is… where does Dubya buy his shirts? Good grief! It must be poorly made, and super-starched to boot, to make a box-shaped bulge under a tightly-stretched jacket. Can’t be very comfortable. One would think that the President of the United States could afford better shirts, eh?

DUIs for herbal-tea-drinking motorists

Kava is not considered a drug by federal health officials. The FDA lists it as an nutritional supplement that can be used to relieve anxiety. Having visited southern California a time or two, I can see why an anxiety-relieving herbal tea would be in demand among drivers.

Now California prosecutors are cracking on kava-drinking drivers. San Mateo prosecutors obtained their first successful conviction in June, and have file charges in three other cases out of about a dozen kava-drinking-drivers that have been pulled over.

San Mateo Deputy District Attorney Chris Feasel explains why:

Motorists under the influence of Kava had a “thousand-yard stare,” Feasel said. “They’re drooling on themselves sometimes, their motor function is so bad.” He said that police had pulled over kava-addled motorists who were swerving, veering into other lanes and drifting onto the road’s shoulder. “Kava basically has the opposite effect of alcohol,” Feasel said. “Kava affects your motor skills before it affects your mental abilities.”

[...]“We’re cracking down on DUI drivers,” Feasel said. “Whether it’s driving under the influence of kava, or a good merlot or Advil, you’re going to be prosecuted.”

So… if you’re a kava drinker, and have the habit of consuming 20 – 30 cups before getting behind the wheel, be warned!

Taiwanese parliament food-fight