From the Scotsman: The fast-food chain, Burger King, is withdrawing its ice-cream cones after the lid of the dessert offended a Muslim. The man claimed the design resembled the Arabic inscription for Allah, and branded it sacrilegious, threatening a “jihad”. The chain is being forced to spend thousands of pounds redesigning the lid with backing from The Muslim Council of Britain. It apologised and said: “The design simply represents a

By all accounts, the Afghan elections went smoothly, with most emerging reports framing the proceedings positively (though the amount of coverage has been disappointing; foreign policy success stories, in our current media culture, are not near so interesting as the prospect of 10,000 bloated corpses floating along the swollen delta, particularly when those corpses can potentially be laid at the feet of a fascist, guitar-pickin’ Biblethumper lording over a racist

From the AP: President Bush’s push to give the military a bigger role in responding to major disasters like Hurricane Katrina could lead to a loosening of legal limits on the use of federal troops on U.S. soil. Pentagon officials are reviewing that possibility, and some in Congress agree it needs to be considered. Bush did not define the wider role he envisions for the military. But in his speech

Miserable donuts’ Major John is part of the LA cleanup efforts and has posted a bevy of photos:  water moccasins, displaced nautical transports, men in camouflage pants… Just keep scrolling.  And make sure to read the captions, as well.  I particularly liked this one: One thing sort of stood out today as I went into New Orleans. This is a picture of what is left over when the waters recede