***UPDATE*** - I found out how she came to be in Pakistan.... To meet her online boyfriend Junaid! SCROLL for details

Why is it that everytime our state makes the news, it's for something embarrasing? First it was Howard Dean's civil unions. Then it was the Dean Scream, and the insanity that continues to come out of his mouth as DNC chairman. Oh, and let's not forget Congressman, and current Senate candidate, Bernie Sanders who is the only self proclaimed socialist in Washington! Sanders is an Independent, but clearly only because the Democrats aren't far enough to the left for him. Now we make the news for having some nutty "peace activist" woman who's been chillin' out in Pakistan, disrupting a flight..... and peeing on the floor.

Not only am I crazy, Tom Harkin. But I've been to Pakistan, I want to talk to Air Marshalls to show them my bag, I want to talk to the captain, and then I'm going back to the cabin to pee on the floor! YAAARGH!

A few AP excerpts on this nut:

A woman on a trans-Atlantic flight diverted to Boston for security concerns passed several notes to crew members, urinated on the cabin floor and made comments the crew believed were references to al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks, according to an affidavit filed Thursday.

Catherine C. Mayo, 59, of Braintree, Vt., appeared in federal court Thursday on a charge of interfering with a flight crew on United 923 as it flew from London to Washington, D.C., Wednesday.

Now, I call her "crazy" and a "nut", but not in the sense that her defense is arguing, as if she wasn't conscious of what she was doing. Everyone is trying to treat this as some claustrophobic woman who freaked, and now that more details are out, she's the victim of mental problems.

Mayo's son, Josh, 31, described his mother as a peace activist and said she had been in Pakistan since March. She traveled there often since making a pen pal prior to Sept. 11, 2001, he said. The pen pal hasn't been allowed to visit the U.S., he added.

"Peace activist"? Now we're getting to the source of her insanity.

"I guess she just had a bit of a bad time on the plane, and everybody's a little paranoid," the son said.

Look Josh, I feel bad and embarassed for you about this, but let's not be ridiculous here. "A bit of a bad time"? And then playing her as the victim because she was tackled, cuffed, and is now being charged with a crime, and saying it's because everybody's "a little paranoid". Let's take a deeper look at her actions and see whether paranoia or decisive and necessary action under the circumstances. Keep in mind that Mayo was on a UK to US flight, a week after a HUGE terror plot was broken up in the UK, in which a number of planes on this flight path would have been blown up.

Mayo's passport indicates she left Pakistan and entered the United Kingdom on Tuesday, according to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent Daniel Choldin filed in U.S. District Court in Boston.

In the affidavit, Choldin says flight attendants noticed Mayo about 90 minutes into the flight because she was pushing against the aircraft bulkhead. When the attendant told her to return to her seat, Mayo said she wanted to speak to an air marshal and made statements about knowing that people wanted to see what was in her bag.

FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz confirmed Thursday that authorities found a screwdriver and an unspecified number of cigarette lighters in her bag, items that are banned under new security regulations. Marcinkiewicz also confirmed that matches were found in Mayo's bag.

She also had a bottle of water, which did not appear to be supplied by the flight crew. It wasn't clear how the items made it through airport security, which has been significantly tightened since the terror plot arrests.

Later during the flight, according to the affidavit, Mayo asked a flight attendant: "Is this a training flight for United Flight 93?" The flight attendant didn't know if she made a mistake because the flight was actually Flight 923, or if she was referring to Flight 93, the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11.

She was "biting her fingers, rubbing her feet and in a constant state of movement. She appeared very agitated," the affidavit said.

She also wrote in a note and said to flight attendants that she had been in a country illegally, and later said she had photographs of Pakistan.

"She stated that the photographs would be awful, and she indicated that they related to the people that she had been with in the mountains of Pakistan," the affidavit said.

Flight attendants summoned the captain, who spoke to Mayo. During the conversation, she made reference to there being "six steps to building some unspecified thing."

"She made reference to being with people associated with two words. She stated that she could not say what the two words were because the last time that she had said the two words she had been kicked off of a flight in the United Arab Emirates," according to the affidavit.

The captain and purser both believed that she was referring to al- Qaida, Choldin wrote.

About 35 minutes later, when she tried to go to the bathroom, the flight attendants directed her to a different lavatory. Instead, she pulled down her pants and urinated on the floor, Choldin wrote in the affidavit, which was based on his interviews and those of other federal officials.

At that point, the captain ordered her restrained. Two male passengers helped a flight attendant tackle Mayo and restrain her in plastic cuffs.

Now Mother Mayo faces jail time and hefty fines:

The count against Mayo carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.

But the way things have gone lately, I have a feeling she'll get off with a slap on the wrist, maintain victim status, do the media circuit, write a book, and do the media circuit again.

Read the rest here...

Anway, do I think this woman is a terrorist? No. Do I think she deserves to have the book thrown at her? Given all that we know right now, yes. There is no excuse for her behavior. There's also no excuse for her getting on the plane with that stuff. And while I don't think she was a terrorist, why do you bring a screwdriver on a plane? Who travels with a screwdriver?

Back to her "peace activism"... She seems to be a nutty far left journalist qualified to work for Hezbollywood. Allah found an idiotic hard hitting piece she wrote about 60s peace folksongs that apparently Bush has banned:

I hope that when I wear out this Cat Stevens album it won’t be too difficult to get another one. The folksongs of the 1960s will never be written again because of President George Bush. He has hampered the liberties of my country in the name of September 11. Songs now can only talk of patriotism, they cannot mention peace.

Sweetheart, I think you've been drinking Allah-Aid in Pakistan for too long... Other than country music, have you heard ANYTHING out of the entertainment industry in the past few years that wasn't rabidly anti-Bush and anti-Iraq war? Hollywood and the music industry hate this President like no one has ever been hated before. The lack of "peace" songs is due to the musicians are a bunch of uniformed hateful dolts and they couldn't care less about peace. They care about making asses out of themselves by not having a clue what they're talking about, yet getting more vicious every day.

For those of you who would like to read more of Mayo's works, I found this, this, and this. Only worth a read if you are trying to find out just how much of a far lefty this lady is.

More at the Jawa Report via Vinnie, More at Jawa via The All-Seeing Pirate Ragnar, and Michelle Malkin.

Others:
KURU Lounge, Strategic Outlook Institute, Alarming News, Suitably Flip, Riehl World View, The Dread Pundit

***UPDATE***
I just found a piece Mayo wrote for a Vermont paper in 2002, The Herald based in Randolph, while in Pakistan (meaning this trip she's returning from now wasn't her first). It explains how she went there chasing her online boyfriend Junaid, and how there is a "humorous" equality between men and women there. Humorous? That's a new one. A few important excerpts:

I have come here by a long strange road. I met Junaid, a Pakistani man, on line before September 11. He is talking about marriage, so I need to get to know him better before I bring him into the US on a fiancé visa. He was refused a visitor visa to the US, so I have come here.

Al-Harmony.com?

I have already lived through Ramadan, and Eid. I know a lot about his culture, for sure! But now I need to get to know the man. Instant Messenger works well for awhile, but we got to know each other so well that we were arguing all the time.

We are still arguing. I have the entire staff of the hotel helping me out with this. My phone calls to Junaid have to go through the front desk. When he comes to the hotel, the receptionist calls my room and announces, "Mr. Junaid is here." I have to give my permission before he is sent down the hall. Every day, when I need to talk to someone, I tell the front desk what Junaid and I are arguing about. They give me good advice.

Now here comes the punchline, remember it's humorous according to Mayo...

There is a general rule about the relationship between men and women here. The man is supposed to tell the woman what to do. The woman is supposed to say that she is trying very hard to do what he says, but she is always making mistakes.

There is real equality between the sexes here. Equality, with a sense of humor.

Hahaha, oh man! That is funny Cathy, I'll give ya that. I mean what isn't funny about oppression! Classic, some of the funniest stuff I've ever heard. Tell me the one about the honor killings again!

After this aging hippy pointlessly rambles more about her experience, she ends with:

He passed the test.

Just another normal "boy meets girl" story.

Read the rest here...