Slashdot Mirror
Iran's President Launches Blog
02bunced writes "The BBC is reporting that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has started his own blog, the launch of which was announced on Iranian State TV. This is perhaps slightly ironic, given that the Iranian Government actively censors blogs on the Internet."
When clicking through to the address referenced by the BBC story ( www.ahmadinejad.ir ) , and then clicking "English" (at the bottom left of the page) it takes you to http://www.ahmadinejad.ir/index.aspx , which does not contain the blog and reads like a big advertisement for the "National Integrated Services Network". I wonder if they will survive a slashdotting.
Leaders have always tried to simulatenously exploit and control the power of whatever media was current at the time. Does anyone doubt that the skald who came up with the original version of Beowulf was paid off to chant about the virtues of the king -- and knew exactly what would happen if he didn't? Through the age of pamphlet, newspaper, radio, and TV, nothing changed; I don't see why we should be terribly surprised now that it's ON THE INTERNET (tm).
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Let's see. A tyranny that restricts others' use of communication media while at the same time fully exploiting it's potential for propoganda purposes. That is unusual.
I've read some of his stuff, and he actually seems very intelligent and capable of logical reasoning. You just, well, kinda have to get past his hatred of Jews, refusal to recognize Israel, fascist ideology, Holocaust denial, and slavish adherence to a pretty obviously false religion. (I think most of those are just to maintain his support from Iranians.)
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Well, his opinion of American imperialism is reasoned, factual, and well-stated (remember the letter he wrote a few months ago?), as is his observation of the irony of Christians (purportedly) taking very un-Christian actions.
His response to American imperialism is a little less calm, but I suspect it is definitely reasoned pretty thoroughly.
Of course, it's quite possible to come to a logically correct conclusion that is still false, if one's precepts are false.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
There are almost no Holocaust deniers who say that "there was no Holocaust" - instead their standard operating procedure is to claim the numbers were exaggerated, say the deaths were an unintentional or inevitable part of the wider war, and to claim there is uncertainty about the history without making the slightest attempt to read the extensive literature (which must amount to literally millions of pages). Those who take this approach *are* denying the reality of the Holocaust, as it is generally understood, whether they admit it or not. Ahmadinejad's rhetoric - his use of the word "myth", his attempts to setup a Holocaust Conference, fits right in with the likes of David Irving, and it is not at all unfair to say that he is a Holocaust denier.
"'Imam [Khomeini] said: 'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.' This sentence is very wise. The issue of Palestine is not an issue on which we can compromise.
"'Is it possible that an [Islamic] front allows another front [i.e. country] to arise in its [own] heart? This means defeat, and he who accepts the existence of this regime [i.e. Israel] in fact signs the defeat of the Islamic world.
"'In his battle against the World of Arrogance, our dear Imam [Khomeini] set the regime occupying Qods [Jerusalem] as the target of his fight.
"'I do not doubt that the new wave which has begun in our dear Palestine and which today we are also witnessing in the Islamic world is a wave of morality which has spread all over the Islamic world. Very soon, this stain of disgrace [i.e. Israel] will be purged from the center of the Islamic world - and this is attainable.
The phrase "purged from the center of the Islamic world" is pretty damn close to "wiped off the map".
So much for your apology for genocide.
Well, lets just take a look at what Americans did when we were going to invade Iraq:
p g- protest-3.jpgg rab.jpg. brumm.com/antiwar/feb16/images/032-DefeatEvilProWa r2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.brumm.com/antiwar/feb1 6/032.html&h=480&w=640&sz=103&hl=en&start=6&tbnid= Z_lFLjYPEHUHrM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq %3D%2522pro-war%2522%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3 D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG- protest-1.jpgr c_5620802281138515300128.jpgc ontent/sitebuilderpictures/wegavepeace.jpg
http://www.basetree.com/thumbs/theprinceofbombs.j
http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/d30-30/free-republic
http://truthout.org/imgs.art_01/3.probush.082705.
http://www.beyondsatire.us/files/Pro-war.jpg
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www
http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/d30-30/free-republic
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-08/28/xins
http://home.earthlink.net/~bobbyfoto1/sitebuilder
Of course, that's not nearly as bad as what you see in Israel. There was the October 2000 riots which involved thousands of Jews chanting "Death to Arabs" while they ransacked arab property, for example. Oy, I could go on for hours about the sort of stuff you get in Israel. Tons of speeches by all sorts of politicians and army leaders referring to them as vermin, worms, cockroaches, a disease, etc. Sh'a Tova even carried a comic strip for children which said "Yes, a good Arab is a dead Arab." Here's a nice article, although it's only a start.
My hand to God. Baby geese. Goslings. They were juggled.
why is it bad to say the initial numbers given right after ww-ii might have been exaggerated? The number of estimated deaths at Auschwitz, for example, has gone from millions to under one million in my lifetime. Millions of pages of textbooks from Jewish/Pro-Zionist educators, however well intentioned, might be a biased source. Yet sadly people who should be for honest historical truth turn into foaming rabid zealots if anyone wants to discuss or examine evidence. Revising or questioning an inaccurate historical account is neither anti-semitic nor an act or racial hatred, though of course there are those hate groups that engage in "revisionism" for the purposes of promoting anti-jew hate. But there are other folk like myself who are fascinated with history, and really want to know the numbers of Jews and other groups of people who were tortured, enslaved and mass-murdered by the Nazis and those who allied with them, and how many died in what manner. Making that subject taboo has exactly the opposite of the intended effect.
Wow. Now, while I would have to agree that killing large amounts of people based on their ethnicity is a Bad Thing(tm), how exactly does that entitle them to their own country? Furthermore, how does it make the survival of that ethnic group the responsibility of everyone in the world? How many ethnic groups have faded from history over time? What makes the Jews more special than those extinct ethnic groups? And what about the other groups that the Nazi's rounded up and killed en masse. Do the Gypsies and the homosexuals get their own homelands, too?
Additionally, "the only one they can use"? It was kind of in use before they came back. How was that area more appropriate (ignoring the geopolitical reasonings by the US and what not) for use than any other in terms of letting them set up a government and economy? For that matter, there's probably a lot of other more appropriate (and easier to survive in) places than where they are now. If they'd been given part of Brazil, you think they'd be having the problems they have now? Unlikely.
I'm not quite sure what the parent's point is with regard to the pictures of pro Iraq War demonstrators in the US. People (especially foreigners) seem to forget that the US is a country of 300,000,000 people. You can find people that support almost any cause imaginable. It is impossible to stereotype Americans into any one idealogy or groupthink. Yes, there were quite a few pro-war demonstrators, but I think it was very few. I know I saw FAR more anti-war protesters in and around Atlanta than I ever did pro-war protesters.
You link to 10 pictures and you think that this is somehow a reflective of 300,000,000 people. Whatever.
If you feel it is necessary and proper for us to be guiding the fates of other countries, I suppose.
The fact that they aren't extinct yet.
Israel would be extinct without our aid, obviously. This, however, does not mean the Jews would be extinct. You're committing the common error of equating Jews with Israel. This had not been the case for almost 2000 years until mid-last-century.
If the Gypsies had an original homeland, yes. But, different from Jews, their culture was never associated to any particular land. Homosexuals are not a nation. I'm not saying that any group of people have a right to their own land, only those groups which came to exist associated with a land, like Germans, Italians, Scots, Tibetans, Navajos, Kurds, Armenians, etc.
See above. By your logic we should be not only evacuating the US to allow the native american tribes to take back their ancestral homelands, but seeking out the proper persons who are the true heirs to Babylon.
So, if you are willing to roll back history cancelling the effect of foreign domination on that land, it should be given to the Ottoman Empire, which ceased to exist in the 1920s.
Not only that, but really if you want to go the whole way on that, the Caananites had it first, even by Jewish reckoning. I have no problem giving the land back to their descendants. Do you?
The same can be said of Palestinians.
Sure. Except that the Palestinians were there for the Jews' 2 millenia absence from the place.
Why do you assume Brazilians would be more willing to give up part of their territory than the Arabs? If that's a solution, then why doesn't Iran or Syria give part of their countries to the Palestinians?
Simply put, because there's more usable, unoccupied land in Brazil than in the middle east. But that wouldn't satisfy the people who believe, rather irrationally, that the Jews *need* a state (as if a concentrated effort by a organized nation state couldn't conquer them just as well all in one place as Nazi Germany did with them spread out across Europe), nor the American evangelicals who believe the return to existence of Israel is a sign of imminent messianic return.
Well, all Iran would need to do is drop leaflets over Israel advising the citizens of the bombing campaign and telling them to move out. That way they can be sure that only hostile military forces remain.
After all, that was what Israel found to be an acceptable solution when they tried to wipe Lebanon off the map.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic