Te Radar: Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition

There is a time when man's inhumanity to man becomes so extreme that it transcends tragedy and becomes farcical.

When told of the theological edict against their wares, those who sold ice and falafels in Baghdad responded in the most human of ways: they laughed.

After all, when judged next to other potentially un-Islamic practices the provision of ice and balls of chickpea paste seems a rather lowly transgression.

Nonetheless, they were told that as Muhammad had access to neither ice nor falafels these products were deemed by those who professed to know these things to be entirely un-Islamic.

These edicts were no doubt printed on photocopied flyers, and delivered, presumably by men in cars armed with firearms, and who co-ordinated themselves via mobile phones, just as Muhammad himself would have traditionally issued his decrees.

Unsurprisingly, the merchants stopped laughing when the executions of those who persisted began.

Of course, they were simply another group whose actions flouted the beliefs of the theologically pure, who had already started executing people - including the coach and two members of the Iraqi Tennis team and several teenagers - simply for wearing shorts.

Other fatal fashion faux pas in Iraq include growing goatee beards, wearing hair gel, and having T-shirts with English writing upon them.

If only they could do something about hacky-sack players.

It seems that people are not a lot better off indoors either.

A female Iraqi theologian currently counsels against a man looking at his wife's genitalia for fear his son will be born blind.

Nor, she instructs, should a man read the Koran during coitus, as it will cause both participants to be inflicted by hellfire forthwith.

Quite what this leaves the poor chap to stare at isn't answered.

Regrettably, it is all too easy to find religious kooks in any faith.

America's infamous Fred Phelps, minister of the Westboro Baptist Church, has continued to create an unholy ruckus by using the experience he garnered picketing the funerals of gays and those who died of Aids, to disrupt the services of slain American soldiers.

And the reason for this? According to Phelps' own website, it is because "they voluntarily joined a fag-infested army to fight for a fag-run country now utterly and finally forsaken by God".

Phelps and his acolytes picket the funerals armed with placards containing such pithy phrases as "Thank God for Dead Soldiers", and "Thank God for IED's" (improvised explosive devices, the leading cause of casualties in Iraq).

Partly as a result of Phelps' actions, a law was passed last week in the US entitled "The Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act", which prohibits any protests within 90m of a national cemetery while a burial is occurring.

Still, it isn't only gays and dead troops that Phelps abhors.

He also expresses total disdain for Scandinavians, Canadians and the victims of the Asian tsunami.

It's unfortunate that before inflicting their theology on others these servants of God don't test their faith the way a Kiev man did on Sunday.

He leapt into a cage of lions proclaiming "God will save me, if He exists".

A lioness killed him.