The Malcontent

No Pink Triangles?

While the American Left nitters and natters about how our nation is on the road to fascism and President Bush is merely a reincarnation of Hitler, Iran and its maniacal leader are simply going ahead and doing it:

Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear a yellow, red or blue strip of cloth, respectively, on the front of their clothes

Though my initial impulse is to scream about the discrimination of it all (as there will be no special minority laws crafted without the gays, damnit! See: California schools), I realized, oh yeah, they just hang us over there.

So really, if our typically quiet gay rights groups could lobby for an Iranian pink triangle, it would actually be a step up for those beleaguered folks.

h/t Chad

Update: The National Post apologizes and retracts its original story. So, Iran only wants to exterminate the Jews and hang homosexuals as a matter of course. Nothing at all like Nazi Germany. Very much my grievous error for implying otherwise. Tch.

Can We Question Their Patriotism Now?

Witness how the howling mad moonbats are reveling (link is to anti-AMERICAblog's comments) in a wholly unscientific Web poll showing a significant majority — 64 percent at this writing — answering in the affirmative to the following:

Do you agree with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's severe criticism of U.S President George W. Bush?

This is Hugo Chavez, people.  Not Hugo Boss or Hugo Weaving or even the late Victor Hugo.

Hugo Chavez, who hates not just George Bush but this country.

Hugo Chavez, best buddy and protege of the most retrograde and despicable dictator in the Western Hemisphere.

Hugo Chavez, who might just make the current price of gas look like a Costco-style bargain.

Hugo Chavez, who apparently wants to sell our own warplanes to the most fanatical regimes on Earth, regimes that constantly threaten their neighbors with complete annihilation and lie about their production of nuclear weaponry.

So are you one of those 64 percent?  If so, then congratulations: You have crossed the line from run-of-the-mill, blinkered Bush-hatred to borderline treason.

Sometimes the enemy of your enemy should just be ... your enemy.

Wiretapped? Here's a Quarter to Call Someone Who Cares

Bill Maher began a new season of his HBO show "Real Time" on Friday.

His cast of characters included Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), Fred Barnes, former Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor, comedian Eddie Griffin, and everybody's favorite crazy aunt in the attic, Helen Thomas.

The interaction among the panel was mostly lame, although I did prick up my ears when Helen essentially said it was fruitless to try to deny nuclear weapons to Iran, and Griffin furthermore argued that to do so would be racist.  (I know, it doesn't really compute with me either.)

But I thought Maher was at his best when he counseled Americans to simmer down a little about who might or might not be wiretapping them.  Most of us, it seems, are lucky if we're interesting enough that anyone wants to pay attention.

[Watch video – 3:32, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 3:32, WMV format, low bandwidth]

One More Parting Shot

OK, I couldn't resist this item from today's Hotline (sub. only):

To find out what spell check does to "Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki," click here.

In case it is corrected by the time you click, I have saved it for posterity:

The Ignorance of the Blade

Catholicism                                                    Islam

Washington Blade Names Pope Anti-Gay Person of the Year

You know what? This doesn't even need commentary. The stupidity speaks for itself.

Give Or Take Six Million

Whether or not holding lengthy philosophical discussions with a garbage can is "a charming idiosyncracy" or "the thirtieth sign my mother is losing it" is a matter for debate. The Holocaust? Not so much:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust is a matter for academic discussion and the West should be more tolerant of his views, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

Sure, we could dismiss this government as batshit, but that wouldn't be very tolerant of us, would it? No, I think we should give this "due consideration" and "measured study." We, as Westerners, have probably unfairly alienated the Iranian administration through our insensitive under-appreciation of the cultural values and social mores of the Persian, Islamic demographic. As a tolerant people, we ought to give them a fair hearing.

Just kidding. I simply find it amusing the Iranian government has learned the language of left-wing, pomo, multiculturalist nonsense . . .which means Noam Chomsky is no doubt scrambling to give them a hearty endorsement as we speak.

Wouldn't be the first time.

h/t Karol

More Iran Executions

The Religion of Peace strikes again:

Two men have been hanged in a public square in northern Iran after being found guilty of homosexuality a semi-official newspaper reported on Sunday.

The daily newspaper Kayhan said that the execution was carried out in the northern city of Gorgan. The paper reported the men had been found guilty under Islamic law of lavat, or homosexual sex.

According to the article, over 4,000 homosexuals have been executed in Iran since the revolution of 1979. Hopefully, gay rights groups will be more forceful than they have been in condemning this behavior.

Several European countries halted extraditions of Iranian gays back to country following the executions. But, both the US and Britain have been silent on the issue.

Working to change this policy would be an excellent start.

If Jean Valjean Were an 8-Year-Old Iranian ...

... then being pursued by Javert would be the least of his worries:

Look at what happens to real-life bread thieves under an Islamofascist regime (but only if you can stomach images of the extreme torture of a young child).

I can't vouch for the authenticity of those pictures, but the look on that child's face would be hard to fake.  And it certainly sounds consistent with that nation's previous barbarism.

So would it be impolitic to believe that this one act alone merits regime change?  [HT: Sullivan]

UPDATE: Robbie points out more of what "infidel" children can expect in Muslim states.

Gay Bits

More love for the gays in Hillsborough County, Florida.  Gay Orbit has the scoop.

The New Republic adds fuel to the fire over the gay establishment's silence on Iran.  [HT: BfT]

Put away the body glitter and chaps: Singapore bans gay parades.  Singaporean criminal justice, however, is still very gay.  [HT: Andy]

And finally, Bradford "goes down":

Gays and Iran: Speaking Out

Surprise, surprise.  The Iranian embassy in London wouldn't accept a petition denouncing its government's brutal treatment and executions of young gay men.

Gay Patriot and Outrage are staying abreast of this stomach-churning and heart-rending story.  Where are the Robertsons and the Dobsons to decry Islamofascism now?

UPDATE: Robbie rightly points out that I should have noted the staff fallout at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission over this issue.

Gays and Iran

Kudos to Doug Ireland for doggedly following the persecution of gays in Iran.  But is he really deserving of such special credit, as Andrew Sullivan suggests?  (Gay Patriot's attention to this issue, for instance, is also worthy of mention.)

Has "liberalism" been brought so low that the idea of a liberal shining a light on Islamofascist brutality – even when gays are involved – is now suddenly alien?

Or is it really just that anything which redounds to the benefit of George Bush's gimlet-eyed view of evil must be avoided?

Dem Tunes Likely To Change on Iran

Word that President Bush continues to keep "all options on the table" to deal with Iran's growing nuclear threat is sure to widen into the next great schism in Democratic foreign policy (such as it is).  The far left is reacting predictably, i.e., averse to any military conflict even when confronted with nuke-wielding terrorist lunatics.  (It should also be noted that this is news not because it iterates any change in policy, but because the calendar magnifies the importance of any utterance during August.)

Some highly visited blogs simultaneously downplay Iran's obvious march to nuclear weaponry but bafflingly (if rightly) reach new heights of moral dudgeon when two teenagers are hanged for being gay.

While that is chicken-dove stance of the loony left, it should not be forgotten that more mainstream Democrats and their allies were critical of Bush last year for dealing with Iraq before Iran:

Sen. Barack Obama: "[T]he big question is going to be, if Iran is resistant to these pressures [to stop its nuclear program], including economic sanctions, which I hope will be imposed if they do not cooperate, at what point ... if any, are we going to take military action?"

Senator John Kerry: The Bush Administration has not "been tough on the [Iran] issue … which is the issue of nuclear weaponry, and again just like I said with North Korea, you have to keep your eye on the target."

Howard Dean: ""The United States has to ... take a much harder line on Iran and Saudi Arabia because they're funding terrorism."

Richard Clarke: "If you take the case of Iran, its nuclear program is far more advanced than Iraq's was.  There would have been far more grounds to invade there (Iran)."

The Washington Post (even more recently): "[T]here is no excuse for Europe and the United States not to act in tandem; neither should they take any option off the table. It is no longer possible to consider the Iranian nuclear threat as anything but deadly serious." (Sound familiar?)

So it is easy to predict that the Scoop Jacksons of the modern Democratic Party, who periodically emerge from their slumber for moments of lucidity, will be hustled right back into their witness-protection programs once there is a chance of any substantive action against Iran.  As soon as anything happens that might redound to the benefit of George Bush (to say nothing of freedom), the voices of strength and centrism within the party will be overwhelmed by the neo-isolationists of the left.

By the way, does anyone else find it odd that the far left bases their predictions of where the "next" Bush war will occur on who has the most oil?  If Iraq were (as they postulate endlessly) really all about oil, then how come it now costs $66 a barrel?