George Bush - Some good news

When a pair of black leather oxfords hurled at President George W. Bush in Baghdad produced a gasp heard around the world, a Turkish cobbler had a different reaction: They were his shoes.

"We have been producing that specific style, which I personally designed, for 10 years, so I couldn't have missed it, no way," said Ramazan Baydan in Istanbul. "As a shoemaker, you understand."

A new run of 15,000 pairs, destined for Iraq, went into production Thursday, he said. A British distributor has asked to become the Baydan Shoe Co.'s European sales representative, with a first order of 95,000 pairs, and a U.S. company has placed an order for 18,000 pairs. Four distributors are competing to represent the company in Iraq, where Baydan sold 19,000 pairs of this model for about $40 each last year.

Read the rest of this article at The International Herald Tribune. (It must be true.)

This Ramazan guy has an eye for ballistics. Based on his stunning recognition of his brand of shoes by their trajectory alone I think we should get him to take another look at the JFK tapes and consider making him an honourary UN weapons inspector.

And just in case you missed it.