Al Qaeda's Stand Up Act

The only thing worse than watching a stand up comedian bomb, apparently, is teaching a would-be bomber to be a comic. The Times of London reports on Al Queda prisoners in Britain--including Zia Ul Haq, who was convicted in a dirty bomb plot--who were getting stand up comedy lessons. Jack Straw, the Justice Minister, called the course "totally unacceptable... Prisons should be a place of punishment and reform." The course has run for decades, but the fact that it is being taught to convicts connected to terrorist plots has made it a political lighting rod. The comedy school has support from high profile British comedians like Felix Dexter, from the TV show Absolutely Fabulous. "The governor warned me that there were murderers and people with disturbed personalities in the audience," said Dexter of his October performance at Whitemoor Prison in Cambridgeshire. "That sounded like a typical Saturday night crowd." The story points out that similar courses are run in prisons across the nation.