Monday, September 24, 2007

Ecce Ahmadinejad

NYT reports that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University today.
 
I know exactly how this happened.  Columbia President Lee Bollinger had to weigh the pros and cons...
Cons:  Ahmadinejad's country has recently imprisoned and tortured Americans; has likely armed Shia militias in Iraq with armor-piercing bombs; Admadinejad denies that the Holocaust happened; he wants to destroy the state of Israel; Iran is developing nuclear weapons; and giving Ahmadinejad even a hostile reception at a prestigious American university appears to legitimize his wicked nonsense.
Pros: Bollinger vs. World Famous Villain will be TELEVISED.  The Fight's in Morningside Heights.  One ticket buys the whole seat ... BUT YOU'LL ONLY NEED THE EDGE!!!
Cons never had a chance.
 
Ahmadinejad got to complaint that Bollinger wasn't a very hospitable host.  If he'd really wanted to warm up the crowd he should've said, "I just flew in from Tehran.  Boy are my arms tired!"
Anyway. 
 
As the NYT noted, a flier at the event read: "Bollinger, too bad Bin Laden is not available. You could have presented him with some tough questions too."
In-deed.
 
Oh! Oh!  And he said there are no gays in Iran!! 
I had a friend in college who was born in Iran (although he was ethnically Armenian) and told us a fantastic story about his grandmother.  The grandmother told her grandsons (all then living in Los Angeles) that there were no gays in Armenia.
They said to her, "Oh, come on, grandma.  Of course there are gays in Armenia."
But she was adamant.  She said, "No!  There was one gay in Armenia once.  His name was [Armenian name I can't recall].  But they killed him!"
I think what I like about the story is that she claimed to know the name of the one guy who'd been gay and Armenian.  But died.  Presumably, leaving no offspring.
 
Ahmadinejad, you should totally have adapted that story for your speech!  Maybe next time, when you speak at NYU?

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Germany: 1 Terrorists: 0

The Associated Press reports that German police arrested three guys who were planning to use 1,500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide to make explosives (sounds like a lot of TATP) for blowing up Americans there.
At the risk of offending the various terrorist sleeper cells, these guys generally don't seem very competent.