Let the shoes fly!

Via Sean’s link to Beautiful Atrocities, I learned that Muammar Gaddafi is not just in for it, he’s really really in for it:

This should do it: Imelda Marcos tells Gaddafi to behave.

That certainly should do it, and were I Gaddafi I would be absolutely terrified.

Throwing a temper is one thing, but consider for a moment the fact that in Arab culture, shoe throwing is the ultimate insult:

Throwing a shoe at someone is hardly a positive gesture anywhere, but in Arab and Islamic countries, footwear is viewed as ritually unclean: Even mentioning your shoes while insulting someone carries vile significance, the BBC reports.

Sheesh!

And if we consider that Imelda Marcos has the world’s largest (and deadliest) collection of shoes, her threat must be taken very seriously indeed.

I say, let her throw a shoe fit!

I can’t think of a better fate for a failed dictator who is also a failed drag queen.

Hey, if the shoe fits….

MORE: A look at the arsenal Gaddafi is facing:

He does not know who he’s messing with!

MORE: Just out of curiosity, can anyone tell me how to spell Kaddafi, Qaddafi, Gaddafi, Kadhafi, and Gadhafi?

Because of the lack of standardization of transliterating written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi’s name has been romanized in many different ways. Even though the Arabic spelling of a word does not change, the pronunciation may vary in different varieties of Arabic, which may cause a different romanization. In literary Arabic the name ???? ??????? can be pronounced /mu??am?aru lqað?ða?fi?/. [?] represents a voiced pharyngeal fricative (?). Geminated consonants can be simplified. In Libyan Arabic, /q/ (?) may be replaced with [?] or [k] (or even [?]); and /ð/ (?) (as “th” in “this”) may be replaced with [d] or [t]. Vowel [u] often alternates with [o] in pronunciation. Thus, /mu??am?ar alqað?ða?fi?/ is normally pronounced in Libyan Arabic [mu??æm??r? ?l?æd?dæ?fi]. The definite article al- (??) is often omitted.

“Muammar Gaddafi” is the spelling used by TIME magazine, BBC News, the majority of the British press and by the English service of Al-Jazeera.^[173] The Associated Press, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News use “Moammar Gadhafi”. The Library of Congress uses “Qaddafi, Muammar” as the primary name. The Edinburgh Middle East Report uses “Mu’ammar Qaddafi” and the U.S. Department of State uses “Mu’ammar Al-Qadhafi”, although the White House chooses to use “Muammar el-Qaddafi”.^[174] The Xinhua News Agency uses “Muammar Khaddafi” in its English reports.^[175] The New York Times uses “Muammar el-Qaddafi”. The Los Angeles Times uses “Moammar Kadafi”.^[176]

In 1986, Gaddafi reportedly responded to a Minnesota school’s letter in English using the spelling “Moammar El-Gadhafi”.^[177] The title of the homepage of algathafi.org reads “Welcome to the official site of Muammar Al Gathafi”.^[178]

There’s more, including a math model of the kaqadadafafafifi nonsense.

People whose names cannot be spelled deserve to be overthrown.

If, for no other reason, irreconcilable differences!

MORE: On a more serious note, Baby Trollblog offers a theory about the Kaddafi-Gaddafi name change:

Why all of a sudden is the media spelling Kadaffi’s name Gadaffi? Couldn’t have anything to do with an attempt to blind search engines to older, now-inoperative stories about him?

It certainly could. But then why wouldn’t they want people reading older stories about him?