Bin Laden Tells US To Convert

08 Sep 2007 09:15 by Ira Estate

US officials today who wished to remain anonymous confirmed that they believe the speaker on a newly-released al Qaeda video was indeed Osama bin Laden.

In the video, which was released to the web near the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America, bin Laden urges America to convert to the metric system in order to prevent more trauma and bloodshed in the world.

Transcripts of the video, aired on al-Jazeera TV and obtained by several media organisations in the US, indicate that the speaker made no direct calls for attacks on America for the first time, but he did hint at boycotting the lucrative exports market.

Instead, he goads the American people for holding onto a measurement system at odds with the rest of the planet.

"Do you know who is still using the Imperial unit? I ask you! Do you know? I did a search on Wikipedia and it turns out it's you, Myanmar, and Liberia. Myanmar and Liberia? Seriously, what?

"While it's nice that you could visit Myanmar and Liberia and not be confused by a system that doesn't rely on multiplying everything by fourteens, sixteens, and Allah knows what else in order to calculate anything I sincerely doubt you even know where Liberia or Myanmar are.

"Metric, you infidel swine! Come on! Everyone else is doing it!"

As well as promoting the sensible decimal-based metric system of weights and lengths bin Laden spends over ten minutes advocating metric time and dates but admits at the conclusion he would be hard-pressed to give up his Rolex.

The transcript also makes reference to the fact that bin Laden has tried to amend his Wikipedia entry to indicate he is actually 2.4 metres in height but someone keeps editing it back and when he finds out who it's Jihad time.