Even more paranoid than the parents of a peanut-allergic child, we have the Religion of Peace(tm). In the past we've seen them refuse inoculations against diseases like measles and polio because they feared it was a Zionist conspiracy to give their children AIDS. Now the Muslim cab drivers of New York City are refusing to have GPS devices installed in their cars, because the Infidel (that's us) will use it to spy on them!

The global-positioning systems being installed in all 13,000 cabs will be used to target and spy on Muslims, according to pro-strike literature being distributed by members of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, the group behind the two-day walkout.

"This is where deep racial, ethnic and religious prejudices and biases come into play," one flier reads. "DNA samples are obtained, scrutinized and archived. Personal and family histories are scoured for evidence of ethnic and religious fervor. Clearly, surveillance technology can be a death sentence once you are in its crosshairs."

Taxi and Limousine Commission officials say the city has no such sinister motives. The GPS will be used to automate the paper trip sheets each driver has to keep, and will transmit only the start and end location of each fare, officials said.

The new technology system, which will also allow for credit-card payments, was approved in 2004 as part of the same deal that gave drivers a 26 percent fare hike.

So they were happy to take the fare hike, but don't want to uphold their end of the bargain. Yup, sounds like one of the tenets of Islam to me.

Classic from the comments:

I mean, if NYC is only doing this to monitor the Muslim drivers, they should only require GPS in the Muslim-driven cabs, and the Muslim drivers should have to pay for the GPS and installation. Plus, they should be made to have some kind of amusing haircut.

Oh yeah, also, NYC should charge Muslims double for their drivers' licenses, and when they pay for their licenses the DMV guy should grab them by the beard and slap their faces three times. And any cab company that hires Muslim drivers should pay a surcharge for each one, which surcharge would be remitted to the Christian Children's Fund.

And while we're at it, cabs driven by Muslims should all have pink hexagrams on their hoods and fly big green flags with Porky Pig's face on them from their antenas to ID them as Muslims, so that we could avoid them. And in a taxi line, Christian drivers go the the front.

Furthermore, the name of Mohammed should be on all the floor mats of NYC cabs. And all cabs driven by Muslims should be required to make liquor deliveries for people who can't drive because their licenses were suspended for DUI. And Muslim drivers should be forced to charge half-fare for people taking their dogs to be groomed.

And Armenians ride for free.

Labels: GPS, Islam, NYC, Taxi