Let's Talk to Iran

I stole this from James Taranto, and it's worth stealing. Gives you some idea of how fucked up so many American's minds are, especially the "Educators":

Next week Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's Holocaust-denying president, who has said that "Israel must be wiped off the map," will be in New York for the U.N. General Assembly session. As the titular leader of a U.N. member state, Ahmadinejad is entitled to visit the city for this reason. But he is not entitled to something else he received, namely an appearance to speak at Columbia University, where he will be introduced by none other than Lee Bollinger, Columbia's president.

Yesterday Bollinger put out a statement defending his decision to authorize the event, and it was filled with high-minded rhetoric:

"Columbia, as a community dedicated to learning and scholarship, is committed to confronting ideas--to understand the world as it is and as it might be. To fulfill this mission we must respect and defend the rights of our schools, our deans and our faculty to create programming for academic purposes. Necessarily, on occasion this will bring us into contact with beliefs many, most or even all of us will find offensive and even odious. We trust our community, including our students, to be fully capable of dealing with these occasions, through the powers of dialogue and reason."

But there is one little problem here. As Bill Kristol points out:

"As Columbia welcomes Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia students who want to serve their country cannot enroll in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at Columbia. Columbia students who want to enroll in ROTC must travel to other universities to fulfill their obligations. ROTC has been banned from the Columbia campus since 1969. In 2003, a majority of polled Columbia students supported reinstating ROTC on campus. But in 2005, when the Columbia faculty senate debated the issue, President Bollinger joined the opponents in defeating the effort to invite ROTC back on campus."

The original decision to kick ROTC off campus was the product of 1960s anti-Americanism, but the ostensible reason the policy continues is objection to the law, signed by President Clinton, that prohibits open homosexuals from serving in the military. Apparently some ideas are so odious that they are unworthy of answering "through the powers of dialogue and reason."
So, what is Ahmadinejad's regime's policy on homosexuals in the military? We don't know, but according to Human Rights Watch, Iran is not a terribly friendly place for gay civilians:
On Sunday, November 13, the semi-official Tehran daily Kayhan reported that the Iranian government publicly hung [sic] two men, Mokhtar N. (24 years old) and Ali A. (25 years old), in the Shahid Bahonar Square of the northern town of Gorgan.

The government reportedly executed the two men for the crime of "lavat." Iran's shari'a-based penal code defines lavat as penetrative and non-penetrative sexual acts between men. Iranian law punishes all penetrative sexual acts between adult men with the death penalty. Non-penetrative sexual acts between men are punished with lashes until the fourth offense, when they are punished with death. Sexual acts between women, which are defined differently, are punished with lashes until the fourth offense, when they are also punished with death.
If the U.S. military executed homosexuals instead of merely discharging them, perhaps Bollinger would welcome ROTC back to Columbia.

Hillaryous

Black dude Walter E. Williams points out the absurdity (and racism, frankly) of the way Hillary Clinton attempts to connect with blacks by taking on a "black" manner of speaking:

“’I don’t feel no ways tired. I come too far from where I started from. Nobody told me that the road would be easy. I don’t believe He brought me this far,’ drawled presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton, mimicking black voice to a black audience, at the First Baptist Church of Selma, Alabama. I’m wondering if Mrs. Clinton visits an Indian reservation she might cozy up to them saying, ‘How! Me not tired. Me come heap long way. Road mighty rough. Sky Spirit no bring me this far.’ Or, seeking the Asian vote she might say, ‘I no wray tired. Come too far I started flum. Road berry clooked. Number one Dragon King take me far’.” —Walter Williams


Brilliant man, Mr. Williams is. Of course, she wasn't really being a racist and looking down her nose at black people. She thinks everyone is inferior to her.

I Wonder...

First, a great quote that I just read, then I ramble:

“At the birth of our nation our uniquely American society had a very clear grasp of the concept of good and evil, of bad and good, of what was right and what was wrong. Individuals and organizations who transgressed the boundaries of the evil, the bad or the wrong were expected to pay a price for their misdeeds. Today, through the employment of the perverted and contorted logic of moral relativism anything can be rationalized and anyone—even if they are the purveyors of evil—can be a victim. All that our ‘enlightened’ society expects from those who commit even the most monstrous of societal transgressions is ‘an apology.’ The sad part about this reality is that because our society has become morally relativistic there is no threshold for how sincere that apology has to be.” —Frank Salvato

Now, ain't that the truth? If the Michael Vick imbroglio has reinforced anything in my mind, it's that a whole hell of a lot of people have fucked up belief systems. Vick being a prime example. I will refrain from condemning (note - I couldn't help it, I do so later) him or going on about what I think of his actions. You can read that anywhere and frankly I was a bit sick of hearing about it on day two or so. Yeah, it was a huge sports as well as a news story. But I quickly grew tired of the whole thing on sports radio. I do sports for entertainment, not hard news.

Don't take this wrong. What the Vick deal showed me yet again is that there are a lot of people that care more about animals than people. How many times in the last ten years have you seen sympathetic news coverage of some convicted murderer? You can literally brutally slaughter innocent people, spend time in prison, say the right things, and after the passage of time people will line up to defend you. Tookie Wilson, anyone? Karla Faye Tucker comes to mind. Here is her story. As her date with the needle approached, there were dozens and dozens of syrupy news stories making her out to be a victim. You know the template: She had a rough childhood, was abused, did drugs, hung out with a rough crowd, and later repented and became a born-again Christian. Hey, all of the above applies to me as well. I never took a pick axe to anyone. So many people wanted her spared for a variety of reasons. Have you seen a similar onslaught in defense of Michael Vick? I mean, a couple of athletes stuck their feet in their mouths, but there has not been this big outcry for forgiveness for him.



Hey, let's have some perspective here. He killed dogs, not people. The same type of person that was calling for KFT's pardon is probably the person that is calling for Vick's execution.



Oh, and spare the hate mail. I have a point and it is not that Vick should be forgiven. Personally, I am really hoping that the Judge drops the hammer. I hope the bastard loses his wealth and has to get a job. I'd like to see his sorry ass in the Arena League and maybe even Arena 2 where they make a few hundred a week. I want to see him brought down as much as anyone, I know his type, he's a despicable human being. Clear?



I wonder if, as time passes, Michael Vick will have a similar response from the public? You know, the coddling from the press, the leniency advocacy groups. He already did the apology and religion thing. Whoopi Goldberg (side note - Is that the best piece Ted Danson could score? Good Lord. He was a star! She must have some killer pussy or something.) showed her ass on national TV when she basically threw the entire South under the bus, saying something about dog fighting being "cultural" to the South. So, basically you have to understand where he came from, these backwards assed people down there... but that's a different subject.



Synopsis to this point: A lot of people have fucked up belief systems and rationalize their contradictions in a lot of ways. They make excuses for people that have done evil things to other people and freak out when someone does evil things to animals. (We will see if the same happens to Vick over time.)



So now we are at the reason I started this post to begin with.



A lot of political types have used the strategy of attacking the war in Iraq by saying it distracted us from getting Bin Laden. These people, Democrats, have been saying this for years. Fair enough question, whether it is true or not.



I cannot tell you haow many times I have read things from some rank and file type person where they are parroting, almost word for word, what some "leader" has said. Left or right politically. Internet posts, letters to the editor, whatever. Sheeple.



So many people have a visceral, irrational hatred of George W. Bush that they will use any argument to try and defeat him in some way. One of the things that has come up is the death penalty, especially in Texas. Savage, we are. And that just points to how inhuman Bush is! SEE!!!



I wonder.



What would those people suggest we do with Osama Bin Laden should we capture him?