Inshellah

Alright, alright. I've been ignoring the steady drizzle of complaints and queries about the staleness of Commoner Sense of late, but then Tom Pain gets an email from his mom asking whether it's her computer's fault that she keeps getting the same old May 17 post and nothing new. Time to get back to work. (Heh.)

There's not much more pathetic than a self-proclaimed writer trying to explain away a dry spell. But I'm hard to embarrass, so here goes. Tom Pain's mild-mannered alter ego has been working on his novel. In between trips to the beach and watching the Vatican beat Eurabia at soccer. Oh, wait, that's wrong ... I shouldn't put it that way. It's not soccer, it's "futbol." (Incidentally, the French are bravely suing in court to have the final game replayed, claiming that none of the referees or linesmen actually saw Zidane's shameful attack, and therefore it never technically happened. What national pride the French will feel, no doubt, if they manage to negate Italy's win on those grounds.)

Plus, I honestly haven't felt as much need to run around the freeway like Miles Bennell at the end (beginning?) of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, shouting, "They're here! They're here! You're next!" The Islamists have been busy enough and loud enough lately that we Cassandras can afford to sit back and watch for a while, in my opinion. Tennis-shorts-wearers shot in Baghdad, World Cup fans shot in Somalia, young women who refuse to be treated as chattel stabbed to death by their families in Britain, Buddhist schoolteachers beaten to death in Thailand, and of course the usual bombings of mosques, marketplaces, and commuter trains. I can't really outdo the Islamist PR machine when it is so determined to speak for itself.

And then there's the Middle East descending ever deeper into a state of Dar al Harb as secularists, tyrants, and Zionists desperately try to check the tide of Islamist expansionism. That also speaks for itself.

Of course it's all Bush's fault. I'm never voting for that guy again.

So anyway, here's a tidbit from the lighter side of the Commoner Sense menu: A chicken in Kazakhstan is the proud mother of an egg that says "Allah" on it! Brilliant. Buy your plane tickets now, because tourism is about to skyrocket there. Of course, last year in England, Muslims discovered a fast-food ice-cream dessert that supposedly had the word "Allah" on the lid, but they weren't so happy about that. In any event, the egg is a keeper.

"Our mosque confirmed that it says 'Allah' in Arabic," Bites Amantayeva, a farmer from the village of Stepnoi in eastern Kazakhstan, told state news agency Kazinform.

"We'll keep this egg and we don't think it'll go bad."

Well ... good luck with that!

Perhaps they should put it up on the shelf between the "Allah Fish" and the "Holy Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich."

Or maybe they should hatch it. The Twelfth Imam might be inside.

(Yes, I know. Kazakhs are Sunnis, not Shia ... It's a joke, so don't bother emailing me. And no, Mom, it wasn't your computer's fault.)