Jesus H. Christ on a surf­board. I don’t even know what to think of this. Appar­ently a 15-year old dude from Tor­rence, Calif., was arrested Dec. 29 at LAX after try­ing to board a Sin­ga­pore Air flight to Indone­sia. Why was he arrested? He had a doc­tored pass­port with the name “Cat Stevens” on it. Under ques­tion­ing, the teen admit­ted he wanted to join al Qa’ida because he heard the ter­ror net­work was pay­ing air­fare to Indone­sia and lodg­ing. His motive for join­ing? He was “sick of surf­ing Rat beach close­outs”, a ref­er­ence to his local surf spots less than stel­lar wave qual­ity.
Dude, you’re, like, totally stu­pid.
I’ve never heard of some­one — before now, any­way — who wanted to join al Qa’ida so he could surf. And if he already had a ticket, then how was al Qa’ida going to reim­burse him? What forms did Osama bin Ladin’s expense depart­ment need to com­pen­sate Dude for his out­lay? I mean, shit. This is just stupid.