And there you have it.

I was just kidding .... DUH

If you were an American and your name happened to be Mohammed Al-Madadi, you would get all that fancy dancy screening they have invented to keep us safe. You would undoubtedly be red flagged and goosed up the ass for your troubles of being so unfortunately dubbed with an obvious terrorist-inclined moniker.

BUT ... if that is your name and you go and have a quick smoke in the airplane bathroom (seriously?) and then come out and joke that you were going to set your shoe on fire ... well, of course you are going to jail. Right? You would if you were an American, you can bet your shoe burning ass on that one. (Not sure why I am loving the word ass this morning! Probably because this stuff is so dumb ass it makes me think ass.) Ass. Ass. Ass.

Ahhhhh, but if you are a DIPLOMAT. Nothing happens. Squat. You get sent home. And that's it. He knew better. Doesn't matter. Why is someone so moronic even a diplomat? Perhaps we need to start examining our freeeee to do whatever they want diplomats as potential terrorists. Certainly since every American getting on a plane is one, why not them?

Mohammad Al-Madadi is a diplomat from Qatar (pronounced gutter), and he has what is essentially a get out of jail free card in the form of diplomatic immunity. And while such immunity can be waived by a diplomat's home government (something that is rarely requested and even more rarely granted), that would not happen in this case because Qatar (pronounced gutter) is an OIL rich little country the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and also hosts the forward headquarters of the U.S. Central Command (which runs the war in both Afghanistan and Iraq.)

According to Qatar's (pronounced gutter) ambassador to the United States, "this diplomat was traveling to Denver on official embassy business on my instructions, and he was certainly not engaged in any threatening activity ... the facts will reveal that this was a mistake."

Who needs facts? What for? He's a free guy now. Despite the thousands upon thousands of dollars it cost this country to respond in an emergent manner to a potential terrorist threat on an airline, he will be on a plane today headed home. No biggy.

Now, as someone born into the land of the free and the home of the brave, I don't have access to such freedoms and forgiveness. Oh no sirree. I am treated like crap every time I fly -- I am forced to take off my shoes to prove that I am not trying to blow up a plane with them. (Clearly he was not asked to remove his shoes, because if he had, they would have known he couldn't be trying to set them on fire. Right? And how did HE get the lighter in? Thoughts?) It's all bullshit.

I would have been better off born in a gutter (Qatar). Now put that in your pipe and smoke it.

(If you dare.)