Israellycool

I definitely have more important things on my mind at the moment, but I note with interest the primative midget’s arrival in the US and speech at Columbia University.

From what I am reading, he received a hostile reception from Columbia President Lee Bollinger - the man who allowed this vermin the forum to spew forth his bile in the first place. Unfortunately, it seems like he has received a very different kind of reception from the audience.

Iran’s controversial president received a rough reception from Columbia University’s president today but got a rousing round of applause from the audience when he chided school officials for their “unfriendly treatment.”

“In a university environment we must allow people to make up their own mind,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, speaking in Farsi while a translator relayed his comments. The audience clapped loudly.

Ahmadinejad took the stage after Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, took him to task for Iran’s record on human rights, its nuclear program, its alleged arming of Iraqi militias and its treatment of Iranian-American scholars. Bollinger also demanded to know why Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust and why he has vowed to “wipe Israel off the map.”

“You exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,” Bollinger declared.

“Frankly, and in all candor, Mr. President, I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions,” Bollinger said.

Taking the stage, Ahmadinejad said he was taken aback that the Columbia president would attack his speech before he had even delivered it.

“In many parts of his speech there were many insults and claims that were incorrect,” Ahmadinejad said.

If this is the future of America, then G-d help you.

Update: Charles received this mail from a Columbia student who attended the speech:

I was in the audience today, and it is completely unfair to characterize the students in the audience as all having clapped for him. [Actually, I didn’t do that. – ed.] We didn’t. The applause you heard was from about 20-30 students (in the back, nearest to the cameras) out of an audience of over 600. Rest assured that 99.9% of Columbia students are absolutely disgusted by this thug, and we’re glad he made himself look even more insane. It’s important for people to understand how truly nuts he is.

More (rotten) apples not falling far from the tree.

Two children of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara are visiting Iran and are due to meet with top officials, the student ISNA news agency reported.

Aleida, 47, and her brother, Camilo, 45, are to meet with Culture Minister Mohammad Hossein Safar Harandi, as well as with a deputy minister of foreign affairs and several lawmakers, the agency said.

The two children of the Argentine-born hero of the Cuban revolution started their trip by visiting the shrine of Iran’s late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini just outside Tehran, AFP noted.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has moved to expand ties with the leftist governments that have won power in Latin America in recent years, finding common ground in a mutual distrust of the United States.

Go-lly, Elder Jimmy Carter really puts the ass into asinine.*

Here are Carter’s latest mouth farts:

Former President Jimmy Carter said that he does not think Iran poses an immediate threat to Israel, despite claims by Iranian officials that they have drawn up bombing plans if the Jewish state should attack.

Speaking on Wednesday at Emory University, Carter said Israel’s superior military power and distance from Iran likely are enough to discourage an actual attack.

“Iran is quite distant from Israel,” Said Carter, 83. “I think it would be almost inconceivable that Iran would commit suicide by launching one or two missiles of any kind against the nation of Israel.”

Yes, it is unprecedented that any group of people would launch a suicide mission to take out as many Jews as possible.

Eediot.

Has Carter ever been right about anything? Also, what makes him an expert on understanding Iran’s intentions? The only reason I could think of is that he is a peanut farmer, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a nut, and looks like a monkey.

Hardly a reason to take his opinion seriously.

* Yes, I know it’s one ’s’ too much, but Carter is one ’s’ short (so to speak). So it all balances out in the end.

Here’s more on the Israeli-Iranian cooperation in Thailand, which I posted about yesterday.

Officials from Israel and Iran put aside political animosity Tuesday to work together in using Israeli forensics expertise to identify their dead from the crash of a jetliner on this Thai resort island.

A Thai aviation official, meanwhile, revealed that half of the Phuket airport’s wind-shear warning devices were not working at the time of Sunday’s crash. He said the outage could have contributed to the disaster.

Six Israelis and 18 Iranians were among the 89 people killed when the One-Two-Go Airlines jet crashed and burned while trying to land in heavy rain and wind carrying 130 passengers and crew.

It was not clear whether Larisa Fayad, a theatre worker from Vancouver, is among the dead. Her father, Foued Fayad, told The Canadian Press on Monday that his daughter was on the flight and was not among the confirmed survivors.

Another Canadian, Mildred Furlong, of Prince George, B.C., was among those who escaped the fiery wreckage after the crash.

Relations are minimal and tense between the Jewish state and the Islamic Republic, whose president once denied the Holocaust, but diplomats from both countries shrugged off any suggestion the antagonism would hinder efforts to help grieving families.

“It’s human nature to help in solving this problem as soon as possible,” Safdar Shafiee from the Iranian Embassy in Bangkok said after shaking hands with Yaki Oved, head representative of Israeli police in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

“In situations like this you forget the division,” Oved said. “The main thing is to help. You don’t think about the politics.”

Shafiee said 15 of the dead Iranians had been identified, but fingerprints or DNA samples to be sent from relatives in Iran would be needed to try to identify the remaining three.

“He told our delegation how they were worried about their missing. I told him we can help him,” Oved said, referring to an Israeli forensics team that came to Thailand.

The team, from an emergency rescue service, has long experience in dealing with victims of traumatic injuries from the decades of Arab-Israeli conflict. It will try to match bodies with dental records, fingerprints, DNA and distinguishing features described by relatives.

“We always are willing to help people in need, and it includes, I guess, the Iranians also,” said Lior Weintraub, spokesman for the Israeli government delegation in Phuket.

Shafiee, the Iranian official, said it was natural for people to work together after a humanitarian disaster. “I think there is no difference between the humans. All of them are humans and every nation can give any help that they can,” he said.

Gorilla Boy’s latest:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sought to justify his confidence the United States will not attack Tehran, saying the proof comes from his mathematical skills as an engineer and faith in God, the press reported on Monday.

Ahmadinejad told academics in a speech that elements inside Iran were pressing for compromise in the nuclear standoff with the West over fears the United States could launch a military strike.

“In some discussions I told them ‘I am an engineer and I am examining the issue. They do not dare wage war against us and I base this on a double proof’,” he said in the speech on Sunday, reported by the reformist Etemad Melli and Kargozaran newspapers.

“I tell them: ‘I am an engineer and I am a master in calculation and tabulation.

“I draw up tables. For hours, I write out different hypotheses. I reject, I reason. I reason with planning and I make a conclusion. They cannot make problems for Iran.’”

Ahmadinejad has long expressed pride in his academic prowess. He holds a PhD on transport engineering and planning from Tehran’s Science and Technology University and is the author several of scientific papers.

The deeply religious president said his second reason was: “I believe in what God says.”

“God says that those who walk in the path of righteousness will be victorious. What reason can you have for believing God will not keep this promise.”

I just made a calculation of my own. The result was that Ahmadinejad is still a moron, albeit a dangerous one.

The Memri Blog reports:

Iranian Security Source: Tunnel Leading To British Embassy Discovered In Tehran

An Iranian security source has stated that a large tunnel leading from a city street to the British Embassy has been discovered in Tehran.

He said that the tunnel was used for the passage of spies and prostitutes.

Source: Raja News, Iran, August 8, 2007

Meanwhile, Hugh Grant was reportedly overhead saying “Underground tunnel? Why didn’t I think of that?”

Police in Iran are reported to have taken 14 squirrels into custody - because they are suspected of spying.

 

Britain’s latest secret weapon? The rodents were found near the Iranian border allegedly equipped with eavesdropping devices.

 

The reports have come from the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

 

When asked about the confiscation of the spy squirrels, the national police chief said: “I have heard about it, but I do not have precise information.”

 

The IRNA said that the squirrels were kitted out by foreign intelligence services - but they were captured two weeks ago by police officers.

 

A Foreign Office source told Sky News: “The story is nuts.”

Only a week ago, the Iranians referred to Right-wing Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman as a “racist and war-mongering official”, and “the hardliner politician” appointed “to confront Iran’s nuclear program.”

Today they are referring to him as a “good Muslim.”

Now that’s versatility.

Is Avigdor Lieberman a “good Muslim”? An Iranian newspaper apparently thought so when they accidentally used a picture of the Israeli minister of strategic affairs to illustrate an article about Iranians being mistreated in the United States.

The article accused the US of discriminating against Iranians living in its territory, citing the example of an Iranian man who was fired from his American job due to his religious beliefs, according to the website Assar-Iran.

Lieberman’s trim beard is what apparently made an impression on the editors of Iranian weekly Ya-Lasrat when they decided to use his photograph in the article “Religious beliefs behind unjust dismissal of another Iranian in the US”.

The editors had no idea the picture they selected was none other than Israel’s vice prime minister, minister of strategic affairs, and head of the Israel Our Home party.

What’s the bet someone finds the editor’s head detached from his body some time over the next few days?

Sometimes kissing the tush of a meglomaniacal tyrant will get you a movie about said meglomaniacal tyrant. Other times, it will only get you chapped lips.

Just ask Oliver Stone.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has rejected a proposal by controversial American movie director Oliver Stone to make a film about him because Stone is part the “Great Satan” cultural establishment.

“I sent a negative answer by Ahmadinejad to Oliver Stone,” the media adviser to the president was quoted as saying.

“It is right that this person is considered part of the opposition in the US, but opposition in the US is a part of the Great Satan.”

Stone’s publicist in New York said the Oscar-winning director had not been formally notified by Iran that his proposal to make a documentary about Ahmadinejad had been turned down. But in a statement, Stone said he wished the Iranian people well.

“I have been called a lot of things, but never a Great Satan,” Stone said in the statement. “I wish the Iranian people well, and only hope their experience with an inept, rigid ideologue president goes better than ours.”

As does their experience with inept, morally bankrupt film directors.

Corrupters of the world, beware! The Iranians are going to wipe you off the map.

Iran’s parliament on Wednesday voted in favor of a bill that could lead to the death penalty for persons convicted of working in the production of pornographic movies.

With a 148-5 vote in favor and four abstentions, lawmakers present at the Wednesday session of the 290-seat parliament approved that “producers of pornographic works and main elements in their production are considered corrupter of the world and could be sentenced to punishment as corrupter of the world.”

The term, “corrupter of the world” is taken from the Quran, the Muslims’ holy book, and ranks among the highest on the scale of an individual’s criminal offenses. Under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, it carries a death penalty.

The “main elements” referred to in the draft include producers, directors, cameramen and actors involved in making a pornographic video.

The bill also envisages convictions ranging from one year imprisonment to a death sentence for the main distributors of the movies and also producers of Web sites in which the pornographic works appear.

Besides videos, the bill covers all electronic visual material, such as DVDs and CDs. Other material, such as porn magazines and books, are already banned under Iranian law.

To become law, the bill requires an approval by the Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog in Iran.

It is widely believed that the drafting of the bill came about as a reaction to a scandal last year, when a private videotape, apparently belonging to Iranian actress Zahra Amir Ebrahimi and allegedly showing her having intercourse with a man, became available across Iran.

The videotape was leaked to the Internet and released on a black market DVD, becoming a full-blown Iranian sex tape scandal. Ebrahimi later came under an official investigation, which is still ongoing. She faces fines, whip lashing or worse for her violation of Iran’s morality laws.

The unnamed man on the tape, who is suspected of releasing it, reportedly fled to Armenia but was subsequently returned to Iran and charged with breach of public morality laws. He remains in jail.

In an exclusive interview with the British newspaper The Guardian early this year, Ebrahimi denied she was the woman in the film and dismissed it as a fake, made by a vengeful former fiance bent on destroying her career.

In recent years, private videotapes have increasingly been leaked to the public in Iran, riling the government and many in this conservative Islamic country, where open talk of sex is banned and considered taboo.

However, pornographic material is easily accessible through foreign satellite television channels in Iran. Bootleg videotapes and CDs are also available on the black market on many street corners.

I wonder if they’ll be celebrating the inevitable demise of such depraved behavior in the Islamic Republic over a cup of urine or - better yet - breast milk straight from the source.

From the country that brought us “Let’s wipe Israel off the map” comes “Let’s get married and divorced real quickly so I can have as much nookie as possible.”

Iran’s hard-line interior minister is encouraging temporary marriages as a way to avoid extramarital sex, a stance many in this conservative country fear would instead encourage prostitution.

A temporary marriage, or “sigheh,” refers to a Shiite Muslim tradition under which a man and a woman sign a contract that allows them to be “married” for any length of time, even a few hours. An exchange of money, as a sort of dowry, is often involved.

Although the practice exists, it’s not very common in Iran, a Shiite majority nation where many consider it a license for prostitution. Others, however, have advocated institutionalizing the tradition, saying it would help fight “illicit” sex in a country where sexual relations outside marriage are banned under Islamic law.

“Temporary marriage is God’s rule. We must aggressively encourage that,” state-run television quoted Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi as saying.

The minister, who made his comments Thursday, was the first Iranian official to support the disputed practice in more than a decade. Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani raised the issue in the early 1990s but was opposed by the country’s hard-line clerics.

“We have to find a solution to meet the sexual desire of the youth who have no possibility of marriage,” Pourmohammadi was quoted as saying by local newspapers.

Half of Iran’s population of 70 million is under 30. Taxi driver Reza Sarabi, 23, expressed the frustration of many young Iranian men who can’t afford to buy a house and get married.

“I have no money to set up a matrimonial life. I don’t want prostitutes. What should I do with my sexual needs?” he said.

The “sigheh” is banned in Sunni Islam, but similar practices can be found in Sunni countries. One such practice is the “urfi” marriage, an unofficial arrangement that is often kept secret. Although an urfi marriage involves signing a document in front of witnesses, the marriage can be broken by destroying the paper.

In Iran, temporary marriage has been reported as a way some widows and poor women help support themselves. But critics of the practice believe such arrangements only exacerbate the country’s prostitution problem and undermine Iran’s values.

“It will damage the foundation of the family,” said lawyer Nemat Ahmadi, who argues it gives wealthy men religious cover to have affairs. “This will only promote prostitution.”

Prostitution was banned in Iran after the 1979 Islamic revolution but has increased in recent years. There are no official statistics available in Iran on the number of prostitutes, but unofficial figures published by some media outlets put the number at several hundred thousand.