Austria has a reasonable requirement that driving license photos show the person’s face without cluttering adornment — which seems fair enough, given that it will be used as ID. Unfortunately, they have an exemption for “confessional reasons”, whatever that means, which is apparently that having a superstition allows you to wear whatever the heck you want in your ID photo.

So Niko Alm tested that by donning special headgear — a colander — and insisting that it was a symbol of his religion, Pastafarianism. They conceded it, and now he’s driving around with a wacky photo on his license.

The only thing that wasn’t fairly done here is that the authorities required that he submit to a psychological evaluation to determine if he was sane enough to drive. Do they do that to every person who insists on wearing a yamulke or turban or hijab or pope hat or squid on their head? I think they should.

Well, except for the squid. That’s perfectly normal.