by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, July 8, 2002 12:54 P.M. EDT

Our Friends the Saudis
A Filipino man who spent seven months in a Saudi prison for practicing Christianity says Saudi officials allowed al Qaeda inmates to hold a lavish celebration after the Sept. 11 attack on America. Dennis Moreno la Calle talked with Fox News Channel's Tony Snow on Friday:

Moreno la Calle: From the solitary confinement, I stayed there for 13 days. And then they transferred me to the cell where we were separated as Christians from the others. And I was with seven other men, which I don't know. But they said, "Oh, you are Filipino." And one guy was Filipino. He was very nice. He said, "I went to the Philippines. I met with . . . the leader of the MNLF, [Moro] National Liberation Front." And he said, "I met with the Abu Sayyaf group." . . .

And then this September 11 happened. They heard the news. And they were all shouting. And I said, "What happened? What happened?" They said, "Oh, somebody went through the building." We didn't have any TV that time.

The following day, we had a feast. People were just happy because there was good food in the prison.

And then after a week, I think about two weeks, somebody else came. And they were hugging each other as if they were crying, and they were telling stories. And I said, "Who is he?" The guy just said, "Oh, it means it's an officer." I said, "Of whom?" I thought the officer of a government, but he said of bin Laden.

Snow: OK, very briefly then, the Saudi government in its own way threw a feast in the prison after September 11?

Moreno la Calle: It's the warden. And the sergeants allowed the foods to be brought in that so we may have a feast. I didn't know. I'm really sorry that I partook in it.

Our Friends the Moroccans
"Moroccan authorities released the five Saudis arrested last month on charges of suspected terrorist links for lack of evidence," the Arab News reports. The English-language Saudi paper cites Al-Watan, an Arabic daily. (The Arab world has several Al-Watans; presumably the reference here is to the Saudi one.) We weren't able to confirm the report in any Western source.

The Terrorist and the Tourist
Nation of Islam chief Louis Farrakhan is in Iraq to show solidarity with Saddam Hussein. "The Muslim American people are praying to the almighty God to grant victory to Iraq," Saddam's Iraqi News Agency quotes Farrakhan as saying, according to a United Press International report.

Listen, Louis, poor Saddam needs all the help he can get. Don't you think you could stay in Iraq and stand by Saddam's side when the U.S. inevitably invades?

There's a lot of globetrotting going on these days. Jimmy Carter is in South America, and the headline on an Associated Press dispatch reads: "Carter Asked to Stay in Venezuela." We'd like to add our voice to that chorus.

Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reports Ralph Nader is in Cuba, where he plans two meetings with dictator Fidel Castro. Nader "said the two nations should . . . launch a dialogue on the meaning of democracy." Perhaps Nader is sore because, as a third-party presidential candidate, he finished some 45 percentage points behind the second-place candidate. Cuban democracy is much fairer. There, third-party candidates routinely do as well as second-party candidates do.

Afghan Assassination
Abdul Qadir, one of Afghanistan's five vice presidents, fell on Saturday to an assassin's bullet. A onetime al Qaeda ally who later joined the Northern Alliance, Qadir had been governor of Nangahar province. It's not yet clear who was behind the murder; the Washington Post reports: "Some observers said Qadir was probably targeted because of a complex struggle for political influence in Nangahar. After the Taliban was defeated, he fought for power with two rival militia groups in the province and angered wealthy opium poppy farmers by supporting a government program to eradicate the heroin-producing crop."

You Say Potato, I Say Qatada, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
Remember Abu Qatada, the terrorist welfare queen who reportedly disappeared when British police went looking for him? Time magazine reports he's actually on the British dole:

Senior European intelligence officials tell Time that Abu Qatada is tucked away in a safe house in the north of England, where he and his family are being lodged, fed and clothed by British intelligence services. "The deal is that Abu Qatada is deprived of contact with extremists in London and Europe but can't be arrested or expelled because no one officially knows where he is," says the source, whose claims were corroborated by French authorities. "The British win because the last thing they want is a hot potato they can't extradite for fear of al-Qaeda reprisals but whose presence contradicts London's support of the war on terror."

Would 2,000 Dead Israelis Do the Trick?
Reuters reports on the funeral of Jehad al-A'marin, a leader of Yasser Arafat's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades who died Thursday when his car exploded. Palestinians claim Israel killed A'marin; Israel isn't saying. Reuters quotes one al-Aqsa member: "It is a great loss. One thousand dead Israelis will not compensate us."

Israelis Need Not Apply
Some European academics, outraged that Jews would defend themselves against terrorism, have been calling for a boycott of their Israeli counterparts, but Mona Baker of Britain's University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology is actually doing something about it. She fired a pair of Israeli scholars from the academic journals she owns simply because they are Israelis.

"I deplore the Israeli state," she tells London's Telegraph. "Israel has gone beyond just war crimes. It is horrific what is going on there. Many of us would like to talk about it as some kind of Holocaust which the world will eventually wake up to, much too late, of course, as they did with the last one."

The Telegraph adds that Baker "conceded . . . that the pair would not have been sacked had they lived in Britain and severed their ties with Israeli institutions."

From al Qaeda to LAX?
Did Hesham Mohammed Hadayet, the Egyptian terrorist who murdered two Jews at Los Angeles International Airport's El Al Counter on July 4, have al Qaeda ties? Ha'aretz picks up a report in the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat that, as the Israeli paper puts it, "authorities were checking whether Hadayet had met with Ayman Al-Zawahiri in 1995 and again in 1998." Zawahiri, of course, is now one of Osama bin Laden's top deputies. He visited California in 1998.

It remains unclear if Hadayet was a freelance fanatic or part of an organized terror network, but the FBI is beginning to look like the Reuterville PD, so intent is it on refusing to characterize Hadayet's murder spree as terrorism. Not that the bureau's detective work has been wholly inadequate. As the Associated Press notes, it took only a day for agents to figure out, as FBI spokesman Richard Garcia said, that "it appears he went there with the intention of killing."

And how's this for a fatuous quote? Brian Jenkins of the Santa Monica-based Rand Corp. tells the Los Angeles Times: "For the Israelis to immediately see this as an act of terrorism is understandable. . . . If you have a war mentality, then all acts are seen as part of the war." Has word not yet reached the Left Coast that America also is at war?

Another L.A. Times report begins by drawing a moral equivalence between Hadayet and his victims: "Once again, violence broke out this week between an Arab and Israelis--this time at Los Angeles International Airport."

Let's Celebrate Diversity

"Like all Californians, I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn of today's shooting at Los Angeles International Airport. That it happened on the day on which we honor what America stands for--liberty, security and diversity--makes this particularly more tragic."--Gov. Gray Davis, July 4

"Mr. Hadayet gained permanent status about a year later when his wife, Hala, was granted permanent residency through the Department of State's Diversity Lottery Program."--New York Times, July 7

Go to Hell, Osama
"Osama Bin Laden has been depicted in a Romanian church fresco--riding a plane to Hell," the BBC reports. The artist, Ion Badila, was at work on the painting for the Defense Ministry's Orthodox chapel in Timisoara last September. "I was working on the images for 'Descent into Hell', when I saw the terrorist attacks on the America, and people were saying it was the apocalypse and Hell on earth," the newspaper Evenimentul Zilei quotes him as saying. We suspect he really got the idea from the Onion.

A Religion of Peace
"Pakistani police Sunday arrested an Islamic cleric for inciting worshippers at his mosque to kill a U.S.-born Pakistani who tried to stop an anti-U.S. speech," United Press International reports form Pakistan:

Faraz Jawed, 30, a U.S.-born engineer, escaped last Friday's attack. . . . Jawed had visited the local mosque for Friday prayers and reportedly objected to the cleric's speech, which was critical of the United States and the Pakistani government's support of its war on terrorism. Reports said Jawed asked the cleric to stick to Islamic teachings. The cleric reportedly told worshippers to kill Jawed. "He is also an American and an enemy of the Muslims," he is reported to have said.

Dancing in the Dark
An Iranian "court" has sentenced Mohammad Khordadian to 10 years in prison for the "crime" of giving dance lessons--in America! The Associated Press reports the "court" suspended the prison term, but banned Khordian "from leaving Iran for 10 years, giving dance classes for life and attending public celebrations or wedding ceremonies of people who are not close relatives for three years." Khordian lives in Los Angeles but was picked up by Iran's lunatic Islamic regime while visiting in May.

He Prides Himself on His Humility, Too
The Arab News has removed John Pilger's byline from an article that described the Australian anti-American polemicist as a "prominent," "award-winning journalist." The byline now reads "By a Staff Writer." We noted the piece Friday.

Eat, Drink and Be Merry
If you're feeling down in the dumps, here's some news to cheer you up: "Earth 'Will Expire by 2050,' " according to a headline in Britain's Guardian, reporting on a new World Wildlife Fund report. Your problems are pretty insignificant when you consider that we'll all be dead in 48 years.

Now, you're probably thinking: Isn't this report just another bit of environmental alarmism? Well, that it may be. But wouldn't you rather be safe than sorry? After all, we might all be dead in 2050. So carpe diem! Let's all endeavor to have as much fun as possible in the little time we have left. Our resources are limited, so we ought to make full use of them while we still have the chance.

Zero-Tolerance Watch
Over the holiday we caught an old episode of "Saturday Night Live"--an online episode guide says it aired Dec 13, 1975--in which the late, great Gilda Radner anticipated by a quarter century the rise of zero-tolerance lunacy. She appeared on the "Weekend Update" segment with Chevy Chase:

Chase: "Weekend Update" recognizes its obligation to present responsible opposing viewpoints to our editorials. Here to reply to a recent editorial is Miss Emily Litella.

Radner: I'm here tonight to speak out against busting schoolchildren. Busting schoolchildren is a terrible, terrible thing. I hear this is going on all over the country. Mean policemen arrest little children and put them in jail in the wrong neighborhoods so they can't even play with their little friends. Imagine--busting schoolchildren! . . .

Chase: Miss Litella, excuse me. Miss Litella? I'm sorry. The editorial was on busing schoolchildren--busing. Busing, not busting.

Radner: Oh. I'm sorry. Never mind.

In Missouri, the Columbia Daily Tribune reports, mean policemen are busting schoolchildren for smoking: "A 12-year-old girl and eight teenagers were in a Boone County courtroom this week, charged with possessing tobacco, a criminal infraction under a less than year-old Missouri law. Unlike juveniles charged in most other types of non-traffic offenses, the youths appeared in open court, in the same courtroom as adult offenders."

To be sure, 12-year-olds shouldn't smoke. But isn't there something cracked about trying someone as an adult for doing something that would be perfectly legal if only she were an adult?

Also in Missouri, Springfield's KSPR-TV reports that a second-grader at Century Elementary School in Nixa was suspended for bringing a toy gun to class. This wasn't a hysterical enough overreaction for some parents, who "pulled their kids out of the school in response to the decision. They say zero tolerance should mean total expulsion."

You Don't Say--I
"Bond Between Child and Parents Runs Deep, Effects Are Lasting"--headline, Associated Press, July 6

You Don't Say--II
"Study Finds College Boozing Hard on Neighbors"--headline, Boston Globe, July 3

You Don't Say--III
"Lawmakers Likely to Use Issues for Fodder in Autumn Elections"--subheadline, Denver Post, July 8

Say What?
The number of new AIDS cases in America is rising, CNN claims, citing Ronald Valdiserri of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Of the estimated 1 million Americans with HIV/AIDS, about half are not receiving medical care, often because they don't know they're infected, Valdiserri said."

If they don't know they're infected, how does Valdiserri know?

Government Pork
America is really fat. How fat are we? We're so fat, we have smaller fat countries in orbit around us! Ooh are we ever fat! When we throw our weight around, we throw our weight around!

But seriously. The New York Times magazine reports that "we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic that started around the early 1980's":

According to Katherine Flegal, an epidemiologist at the National Center for Health Statistics, the percentage of obese Americans stayed relatively constant through the 1960's and 1970's at 13 percent to 14 percent and then shot up by 8 percentage points in the 1980's. By the end of that decade, nearly one in four Americans was obese.

How did this happen during a time when Americans were increasingly health- and fitness-conscious? There's increasing evidence that Americans were following a false theory: that a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet was the key to weight loss:

The scientific evidence supporting this theory remained stubbornly ambiguous. The case was eventually settled not by new science but by politics. It began in January 1977, when a Senate committee led by George McGovern published its "Dietary Goals for the United States," advising that Americans significantly curb their fat intake to abate an epidemic of "killer diseases" supposedly sweeping the country. It peaked in late 1984, when the National Institutes of Health officially recommended that all Americans over the age of 2 eat less fat. By that time, fat had become "this greasy killer" in the memorable words of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and the model American breakfast of eggs and bacon was well on its way to becoming a bowl of Special K with low-fat milk, a glass of orange juice and toast, hold the butter--a dubious feast of refined carbohydrates.

Reinforcing the Times' message is this sage advice from Ranchers.net: "Vegetarians don't live longer, they just look older."

Sex in the Senate?
"Sarah Jessica Parker, the star of the television hit Sex and the City, is to hang up her trademark Manolo high-heels and embrace a career on the political stage by running for the US Senate," the Scotsman newspaper reports. The paper quotes Parker, a Democrat: "I'd like to represent either California or New York. I see it as the only effective way to change things. I work hard for charitable and political organisations because I think it's really important to try to leave the world a better place than you found it."

This sounds awfully implausible. New York and California each have two Democratic senators, none of whom have announced plans to retire. It seems likely that Scotsman correspondent Edward Black doesn't know what he's talking about, especially since he also says Arnold Schwarzenegger "is expected to stand for governor of California after filming Terminator 3 at the end of the year." That's even less likely than a Parker candidacy, given that the end of the year is after the election!

Bringing Up Taxes
The Greater Shepparton Council in the Australian state of Victoria is planning to levy a "vandalism and vomit tax." The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reports that hotels that stay open after 3 a.m. would pay the tax, designed to offset the cost of cleaning up streets soiled by late-night revelers. Everyone knows there's no such thing as a free lunch, but apparently down under you can't even lose your lunch without the taxman taking a cut.

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Even the U.N. says the Arab world needs more freedom.
• Brendan Miniter: Every day in every way, I hate Osama more.
• Vermont Royster: Don't underestimate the enemy. Don't underestimate us either.