Reply #95: Well, that IS true (I didn't post that assertion, but I am butting in)

[MADem]

And even though I can't agree with the "preplanned Holocaust denial" to get us riled, way in advance of a trip to the UN he hadn't even scheduled at the time he made that offensive speech, cited elsewhere in the thread, it is true that he's getting good play from his peeps at home.

Here's a blog that is reflective of how some Persians are seeing it: http://benevis-dige.blogspot.com/

Even Radio Free Europe is grudgingly acknowledging that he's garnered some support as a result of this idiotic adventure (and of course they'd rather say otherwise): http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/09/5313B078-4467-4D74-B94F-59135A1FC549.html

The press in Iran is playing it up as well. It's bread and circuses, only there's no bread--just this huge nationalistic circus. Ahmadinejad sure needs a boost, what with the gas rationing, the inflation, the infrastructure crumbling and all the other problems Iran is seeing these days. Hell, there's a STRONG rumor going about that Khatami is thinking about giving it another go--who knows, maybe the Supreme Leader has asked him to step up to get rid of the Midget Mayor. That means we'll have two terms of (relative) normalcy, hopefully, if the guy stays well.

Of course, the censors are alreaady at work, trying to polish the Ahmadinejad turd. They've cut out that 'gay' exchange from the Persian official record--fast work, that!!! http://miamiherald.typepad.com/gaysouthflorida/2007/09/iranian-presi-1.html

The English version of the President's official website (www.president.ir) provides a full and complete transcript of his speech and the Question & Answer segment where he claimed that homosexuality does not exist in Iran. However, the Persian-language transcript has excised both the question about treatment of lesbians and gay men in Iran and President Ahmadinejad's soon to be legendary response.

The President's website purportedly provides the authoritative transcripts of his speeches and is relied upon by the news media in Iran. To date, not a single Persian-language media outlet in Iran - including Iran's official news agency, IRNA, and the semi-independent news agencies, ISNA, Mehrrnews and Farsnews, and the Wednesday morning newspapers - has reported on the President's comments.

After President Ahmadinejad's speech on Monday, the Professor John H. Coatsworth moderated a Question & Answer session. Among the questions was why Iran has executed citizens who are homosexuals, to which the President responded "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country. We don't have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it."

"The first reaction of many of us was to join in the astonished response to President Ahmadinejad's clearly outrageous view that no lesbian or gay people live in Iran," said Paula Ettelbrick, Executive Director of IGLHRC. "But the whitewashing of his comments from the eyes and ears of most Iranian citizens speaks to something more troubling. His denial attempts to simply erase from public view the lives of men and women who face regular abuse in his country. Perhaps he knows he could not credibly get away with such a denial among his own people."

IGLHRC has documented widespread and systemic violations of the rights of members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Iran. For more information about IGLHRC's work, visit: www.iglhrc.org.

The Midget Mayor wants to lower the voting age back down to fifteen, to get all those poor dumb teenagers who hang around the mosque to vote for him. I think it got raised in an effort to get that bastard gone, myself: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iUE11IIExDFn6Lv-BqeVIFw5v0xg