Osama Has a New Friend By Declan McCullagh

7:18 a.m. Oct. 10, 2001 PDT WASHINGTON -- Evil Bert, meet Evil Osama. Right now, the two appear to be inseparable -- at least on ubiquitous posters carried by pro-Taliban demonstrators.

Devotees of freak-humor websites will recall the infamous "Bert is Evil" page, a shrine to the gourd-like Sesame Street character, which offers compelling photographic evidence of the muppet consorting with Hitler, the KKK and, of course, Jerry Springer.

Now, in a move that defies all rules of logic, a doctored photo showing Bert with the world's most-wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, seems to have made its way into an anti-American Islamic protest in Bangladesh.

Reuters photographs of a rally this week organized by Jaamiat-e-Talabaye Arabia, a radical Islamic organization, show that protesters created a pro-bin Laden sign out of a collage of photos they apparently lifted from Internet sites.

But -- is it fate or coincidence? -- the sign featured a Bert muppet sitting on the left side of the man believed to be responsible for the bloodiest terrorist attack in U.S. history.

An editor at Reuters' photo desk in Washington confirmed that the maize-colored muppet did appear in the photograph. "It is in the original image, though I couldn't say how it got there. It wasn't hacked," the editor said.

One of the first sightings of the Osama-Bert poster was in a news photo on a Netherlands portal site. Enterprising Net-researchers soon reported it appeared in Sweden's leading tabloid, and also on Yahoo's news photos section.

The "Bert is Evil" webmaster replied by writing this on his website: "Yesterday a lot of you alerted me to a picture of a Taliban propaganda poster with Bert! Reality is imitating the Web! I am honestly freaked out! Holy shit!"

In an e-mail message to Wired News, webmaster Dino Ignacio said: "My theory is that the Taliban have Internet too. And I think Bert is universal enough to appeal to them, too."

A closer scrutiny of one of the photos reveals a second apparent faux pas on the part of the radical Islamic protesters: Another clip art photo of bin Laden used in the photograph seems to show him with a bottle of Jack Daniels.

It didn't take long for word to spread. A discussion on lindqvist.com is titled: "The mystery of the Bert-bin Laden connection evolves with more images coming in every day. Is this a big hoax? Has somebody got too much time? Or is somebody in Bangladesh trying to confuse the world?"

Bert is best known for his role on the long-lived Sesame Street children's show, where he lives with his housemate Ernie.

http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47450,00.html

-- Cave Man (caves@are.us), October 10, 2001

Answers

Bert and Ernie are decadent homosexuals. They are caricatures of Western "culture". The picture is a coded message to my sleeper-agents in Amerika-Gomorrah.

We will soon strike again. The toll will be in the millions. You will be on your kness begging for mercy from Allah the Beneficient. But there is no mercy for infidels.

-- (Osama@Kabul.cabana), October 10, 2001.

That is considered a threat. I shall report this to the FBI. Whoever you are you are in BIG TROUBLE.

-- Cave Man (cave@are.us), October 10, 2001.