Austrian Can Wear Pasta Strainer in License Photo

Hopefully his car never breaks down in a thunderstorm. An Austrian atheist has won the right to don a pasta strainer on his head in his driver's license photo, reports the BBC. Austrians are permitted to wear headgear in official photographs only for religious reasons, and Niko Alm claims the sieve is a symbol of his religion—pastafarianism.

Alm claims to be a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster—a joke "religion" that began in the US in response to pressure on schools to teach intelligent design. (Mediaite has more background on it, and how the joke took off worldwide.) It took three years for Alm's license to be approved, pending the results of a medical interview stating he was "mentally fit" to drive. Click to see a photo of the unusual license. (More Pastafarianism stories.)