The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

Bottom Stories of the Day

  • “Di Masters Has NOT Resigned as a Selectmen”–headline, Ridgefield (Conn.) Press, Dec. 7
  • “Palo Alto School Calendar Stays Same in 2011-12”–headline, Palo Alto (Calif.) Online, Dec. 8
  • “China Launches Its Own Peace Prize”–headline, Daily Telegraph (London), Dec. 8
  • “Iran Talks End With Little Sign of Progress”–headline, Washington Post, Dec. 8
  • “Mideast Peace Effort in Crisis as US Freeze Bid Fails”–headline, Agence France-Presse, Dec. 7

Drinking and Driving While Muslim
“A University of Colorado student who started wearing hijab after converting to Islam is fighting the Boulder County Jail’s insistence that she remove her headscarf for a booking photo, saying that to do so would violate her religious beliefs,” FoxNews.com reports:

Maria Hardman, 19, of Boulder, reported to the jail Wednesday to do the paperwork for a two-day work crew sentence that was supposed to be served this weekend. But when a jail detention officer told her to remove her headscarf for her mug shot, she balked.

“It’s stated in the Koran in two or three places that believing women should wear the veil, except in the company of close family members,” she said.

Hardman said she spent three hours at the jail while her lawyer tried to convince officials to let her take the picture with her scarf. She eventually was allowed to leave the jail without taking a picture at all. She said she was told she would be found in contempt of court for being out of compliance with her sentence.

In a first-person “open letter” to the Colorado Daily, a student newspaper, Hardman writes: “As a Muslim-American woman, I feel let down by my country. . . . Islamophobia is alive and well in America.”

She also describes the offense that sparked the whole kerfuffle: [watch a video here]

For the record, I do not dispute that I operated my 49cc motorized scooter on the day of Aug. 1. I was at a party, where I was served alcohol without my knowledge. I admit that when I discovered I was being served alcohol, I made no attempt to curb my intake.

“I am neither a fundamentalist nor an extremist,” she adds. “I am not trying to bring Shariah to Colorado.” We’ll drink to that!

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”