As you see, it's eggs. With Disney characters stamped on the shells. Possibly selling at a markup. Is this some kind of tie-in to a movie, or further proof of the evils of agribusiness and the coming apocalypse? And while marketers obviously want to trick kids into believing that the plain old eggs are going to come out magically Mickey-shaped, we want to know: 1. Do the eggs come with the mold? 2. How much does said mold cost? 3. Does egg actually seep out from under edges of said mold, rendering shape unrecognizable, as has been the case in all our experiments with whimsical egg-shapery? The only way I can see this strangely low-fi "new product" swaying any egg-hater is if you give them something shell-on, ie hard-boiled or soft-cooked. Even then, any kid is quickly going to get wise to the fact that it's just a plain old egg, but a prancing Donald Duck might buy you a reluctant bite or two.

Sheikh Mohammed Al-Munajid told Saudi Arabia's Al-Majd Television that his beef with Mickey is that he is a mouse, a creature that Islam sees as "repulsive and corrupting."

Al-Munajid explained that Islamic law refers to the mouse as "little corrupter" and a creature that is "steered by Satan," and grants permission to all Muslims to "kill [mice] in all cases."

Therefore, according to Islamic law, insisted the sheikh, "Mickey Mouse should be killed."

The fatwa has since proven deeply divisive to Palestineans, who only last year were treated by Hamas to a powerful "Martyred Mickey" episode of the popular children's show Pioneers of Tomorrow — a crisis of allegorical politics that now stands to shatter the rodent relations so painstakingly advanced over the years. We pray for a swift, peaceful accord; it would be a shame to see Sarah Palin's foreign-policy skills wasted on such a trifle somewhere down the line.

• Muslims: We must kill Mickey Mouse [Israel Today via THR Esq]

It was on the title card at the beginning of a "Steamboat Willie" cartoon that had just been re-released on a 1993 LaserDisc honoring Mickey's 65th birthday. It said in full:

"Disney Cartoons
Present
A Mickey Mouse
Sound Cartoon
Steamboat Willie
A Walt Disney Comic
by Ub Iwerks
Recorded by Cinephone Powers System
Copyright MCMXXIX."

For Brown, it was as if the glass slipper fit him perfectly. The key was location of the word "copyright" in relation to the name "Walt Disney." There were two other names listed in between — Cinephone and Disney's top studio artist, Ub Iwerks. Arguably, any one of the three could have claimed ownership, thereby nullifying anyone's claim under arcane rules of the Copyright Act of 1909.

Disney's lawyers dismiss the claim as "frivolous," though there's good reason to believe Brown might be on to something, so long as he continues to plead his case in public and isn't soon discovered at the bottom of It's a Small World asphyxiated with Pluto's collar. The very thought of a world in which there is free Mickey for all—fine, not the familiar Sorcerer's Apprentice-looking Mickey, but the far more rodent-like version steering the tugboat—fills us with hope. We pray Disney relents and frees the famous critter from his glue-trap-like copyright constraints, allowing him to stand alongside Uncle Sam, Lady Liberty, and that sailor on the Cracker Jack boxes as a universally recognized symbol of American can-do spirit—his smiling face adorning everything from Bangkok sex emporiums to Al Qaeda bowling team T-shirts.

• Disney's rights to young Mickey Mouse may be wrong [LAT]