"Ahmadinejad: Iran already a nuclear state..."

"... but has no intention of launching attack on Israel."

The reason for saying that is incompletely aligned with its being true.

ADDED: There are 2 statements, and the reason for saying either one of them is incompletely aligned with its being true. One or both could be true. One or both could be false. Let's call "Iran already a nuclear state" statement A, and "Iran has no intention of launching attack on Israel" statement B:

Which is most likely?
	Both A and B are true.
	Both A and B are false.
	A is false but B is true.
	A is true but B is false.
pollcode.com free polls

Ahmadinejad's underlings in Manhattan go shopping at Payless, Costco, Walgreens and Duane Reade.

They love America... in the form of discount stores:

The two-term president was criticized at home for bringing an estimated 140 people along for his final UN speech as Iran’s leader.

“Many . . . have only traveled there for a picnic,” sniped Mansour Haghighatpour, deputy head of the parliamentary committee on national security.

The delegation insider disagreed, saying the guests wanted no part of jewelry stores, boutiques or high-end retailers — like the plush Lord & Taylor directly across Fifth Ave. from the Payless.

Instead, they preferred any drugstore where they could stock up on over-the-counter medication....

The cut-rate shopping sprees come despite an assortment of landmarks within walking distance of the hotel: Central Park, Rockefeller Center and Carnegie Hall... [But] the Iranian visitors did make sightseeing trips to one unlikely destination: The Statue of Liberty.

Unlikely? Really? Stores with shelves and shelves of cheap shoes and cheap Tylenol are a big thrill. Maybe not for you, but if it is for them, that says something about the liberty we take for granted.

"Freedoms must not interfere with the freedoms of others," said Ahmadinejad.

"If someone insults, what would you do? ... Is insulting other people not a form of crime?"

In other words, it's irrelevant that the U.S. government didn't make the "Innocence of Muslims" video. In this frame of thinking, the government should be protecting people from infringement of their freedom not to be insulted.

Ahmadinejad also talked about Salman Rushdie: "Where is he now?... Is he in the United States? If he is, you shouldn't broadcast that for his own safety."

(Most of the linked article is about Ahmadinejad's opinion of Israel — it doesn't belong in the Middle East and will be removed.)

(By the way, in my home town, a man was arrested for what the news report characterizes as insulting journalists. If insulting people is going to be a crime, you'd think the least sympathetic victims would be journalists.)

Hardline clerics in Iran criticize Ahmadinejad for promoting "Islamic and beautiful" clothes for women.

The government's fashion show did not deviate from the requirement that women cover their hair and bodies in public. The dispute is more about things like leaving coats unbuttoned and wearing boots.

Followed by television cameras, a team of judges — mostly men — circled the halls, grading the coats on their functionality, design and “Islamic-ness.”...

According to the linked WaPo article, Ahmadinejad is posing as "a champion of civil rights" to win votes for his supporters in the March parliamentary elections.

[W]ith young adults making up the majority of the population — nearly 70 percent of Iran’s more than 72 million people are younger than 35 — religious conservatives have been waging an uphill battle to prevent young urban women from dressing the way they want, even within the framework of the laws that mandate coats and scarves....

On any given day, women in the streets of Tehran can be seen wearing combinations of wide-open coats, heavy makeup and towering platinum blond hairdos held in place by large hair clips and minimally covered by brightly colored scarves. Technically, they are not violating the dress code, but they can still be arrested.

Unfortunately there are no photos of Tehran street fashion at the link, only of the government's more moderate fashion show. Maybe WaPo doesn't want to get these young people in trouble. You can Google "street fashion Tehran" or something like that to try to get to some pictures.

It's fascinating the extremes that one resorts to when stuck with some specific rules. Where the rules give some room individual expression, you go all out. So, of course, heavy makeup and hair teased high for under-scarf impact. Find a picture that shows one of these young people and show it to someone who doesn't know what restrictions that person is dealing with. See what they say, then tell them what they are looking at. Watch them go from derision to respect in an instant. As I say, it's fascinating.

My links on "heavy makeup" go to the website of a photographer who writes: "I now live in iran which has become way more exciting to me than New York [because] of all the diverse art and the energy of its youth."

Now, I feel like I'm almost unwittingly making an argument in favor of limitations! But no, I'm for freedom. In an environment of American freedom, you'll have a hard time coming up with something truly original and expressive. Heavy makeup and teased hair... it's not daring and transgressive. What is? Perhaps, ironically, modesty... or modesty with irony. I'll let you know when I find pictures on the internet of that. Googling things like "modest dress in america" only takes me into the realm of religion. Which is ironic, but not the kind of irony I'm looking for.

ADDED: From Hijab style — I love this one. And then there's this.

AND: Those 2 links ended up taking you to the same place. This is the one I meant to say I loved. And this is the other one I meant to point out.

"The potential fall of Ahmadinejad is a story worthy of any Persian tale..."

"... a pageant of court favouritism, abrupt firings of otherwise loyal ministers, apparent challenges to the Islamic heritage of Iran, and an acute case of political hubris by the president himself, all overshadowed by the immense power of Ayatollah Khamenei who holds the near-divine role created by the Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini."

"No mention of Hillary's locks? You're slipping, Althouse!"

Says commenter E.M. Davis, who apparently thinks I do nothing but monitor and comment upon the internet all day long. But thanks for the tip, Eemie, old man. He links to a Daily Mail article titled "Oh Hillary, that hairstyle just doesn't cut it: Mrs Clinton prepares for huge UN meeting with lank locks."

The normally perfect bouffant was gone, to be replaced by what came to be known on Kate Moss at least as the Croydon Facelift.

Well, it's not "normally perfect" and the rest is British gibberish. Britterish.

Mrs Clinton's hair was scraped back and clipped on top of her head, but looked lank and in need of some love and understanding....

It's the clip that is objectionable. You only see it from the side. Maybe it was put in for a frontal photograph, but it looks way too casual (or even trashy) from the side — like showing up in curlers.

With minimal make-up, Mrs Clinton's 63 years came into sharp focus as she moved neatly from urging Pakistan to mend its reputation to an attempt to undermine Mr Ahmadinejad within his own country.

Now, there's a crazy sentence!

But, anyway. About the hair. We all know Hillary is growing her hair longer. Robin Givhan pointed that out a month ago:

Clinton's hair, now creeping toward below-the-shoulders territory, is practically radical for Washington's seasoned female power elite. Good for her....

Cultural pressure to submit to the scissors after a certain age seems rife with an unkind and unspoken subtext that because long locks are a sign of vibrancy and sexiness, it's a social contradiction to see such styles on women who have wrinkles and crow's-feet.

Another popular argument is that long hair drags down the face -- and a face that is showing the effects of gravity should steer clear of anything that might make it look even longer in the tooth.

Throw into the conversation the attitude that long locks are tools of flirtation. They are a handy excuse for a toss of the head; a strand might have to be girlishly flicked out of one's eyes or coyly tucked behind the ear. May a 60-year-old woman flirt?

I think we know what it's about: Sarah Palin. Suddenly, long hair has come to mean power, and there's no need to try to approximate the men anymore. Why ape the men when you can emulate The Divine Sarah?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is right about this.

On the one hand, it is absurd for a world leader to be attacking an octopus, but superstition is a sign of a deficient culture:

"Those who believe in this type of thing cannot be the leaders of the global nations that aspire, like Iran, to human perfection, basing themselves in the love of all sacred values."

I agree. Let us aspire to perfection, love sacred values, and turn away from superstition.

(Via First Things.)

Ahmadinejad is...

... Jewish!

"The engine of unbridled capitalism, with its unfair system of thought, has reached the end of the road and is unable to move."

"Selfishiness and insatiable greed have taken the place of such human concepts as love, sacrifice, dignity and justice. The belief in the one god has been replaced with self-belief."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the U.N. — as reported in the NYT.

Hey, I hope he really did say "selfishiness"? It's a cool coinage. Like there's something really suspicious about the selfishness of capitalism. And it stinks after 3 days.

AND: Elsewhere in today's U.N. speeches, Gaddafy said: "Perhaps tomorrow we will have a fish flu." Think about it.

"A government not respecting people's vote has no religious or political legitimacy."

Said Iran's senior cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri.

"No one in their right mind can believe" the official results from Friday's contest."... Montazeri accused the regime of handling Mousavi's charges of fraud and the massive protests of his backers "in the worst way possible."

..."I ask the police and army personals (personnel) not to 'sell their religion,' and beware that receiving orders will not excuse them before God."

"Hundreds of thousands of opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defied an Interior Ministry ban Monday and streamed into central Tehran..."

"... to cheer their pro-reform leader in his first public appearance since elections that he alleges were marred by fraud."

"I am the absolute winner of the election by a very large margin."

"It is our duty to defend people’s votes. There is no turning back."

Says Mir Hussein Moussavi, who — one hopes — has ousted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"Will Iran's 'Marriage Crisis' Bring Down Ahmadinejad?"

He's getting blamed for the inability of young adults to marry.

What Berlusconi and Ahmadinejad said about the Obama victory.

The L.A. Times reports:

Berlusconi, who has a history of controversial remarks, said the relative youth of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, 43, and Obama, 47, should make it easier for Moscow and Washington to work together.

Then, smiling, he said through an interpreter, "I told the president that [Obama] has everything needed in order to reach deals with him: He's young, handsome and even tanned."...

Berlusconi, 72, later defended the remark, calling it "a great compliment. . . . If they have the vice of not having a sense of humor, worse for them"....

Berlusconi said the remark was meant to be "cute" and he lashed out at those who disagreed, calling them "imbeciles, of which there are too many."

Berlusconi is getting a lot of criticism in Italy. He's embarrassing. In America, do we care about "tan" jokes? I note that the WaPo fashion columnist Robin Givhan wrote, about Michelle Obama: "[T]he implied message is unmistakable: I am neither subversive nor threatening. I am not some scary 'other.' I am Camelot with a tan." Givhan is herself African American, which gives her more leeway, and she's imagining someone else's implied statement.

Stepping back from the focus on calling a black person "tanned," we should see that Berlusconi was making a sexual joke. To say Obama can make deals because "He's young, handsome and even tanned" is to say that he can be seductive, and Berlusconi was picturing a "deal" between Obama and Medvedev. Medvedev, who was standing right there -- and not reacting -- looks like this:



So, you get the picture of what Berlusconi thinks is "cute." (How do you say "cute" in Italian?)

As for Ahmadinejad, who is decidedly not cute:

“I congratulate you for attracting the majority of votes in the election,” Mr. Ahmadinejad wrote in his message, an Iranian news agency, ISNA, reported. “As you know, opportunities that are bestowed upon humans are short lived,” he wrote, adding that he hoped Mr. Obama would make the most of the opportunity....

“People in the world expect war-oriented policies, occupation, bullying, deception and intimidation of nations and imposing discriminatory policies on them and international affairs, which have evoked hatred toward American leaders, to be replaced by ones advocating justice, respect for human rights, friendship and noninterference in other countries’ affairs"...

Short lived, eh?

ADDED: Italy is in a tizzy:

Many Italian newspapers gave the comment nearly as much front-page attention as Mr. Obama’s victory itself. The journalist Curzio Maltese wrote in the center-left La Repubblica that “bookmakers wouldn’t even take bets” on how long it would take for Mr. Berlusconi to let slip another of his famous gaffes. “Mr. Berlusconi never fails to live up to our worst expectations.”

Mr. Maltese added that just when Mr. Obama’s victory was “inspiring billions of people” to consider “democracy, the most extraordinary triumph of humanity after centuries of bloodshed and intolerance,” Mr. Berlusconi instead contributed “a miserable, vulgar and racist remark, for which he didn’t even have the courage to take responsibility or the dignity to apologize.”

A billionaire populist, Mr. Berlusconi excels at deflating such lofty talk. He said that his remark had been “a compliment” and that his critics lacked irony. “If you want to get a degree in idiocy, I won’t stop you,” La Repubblica quoted him as saying. “I say whatever I think.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can't take it anymore.

He's felled by "exhaustion."

What does it usually mean when we hear that someone is suffering from "exhaustion"?

ADDED: Here's an AskMetafilter thread that begins with the question "What does it mean to be 'hospitalized for exhaustion'? What do they do to you in the hospital, besides let you sleep?" Most of the commenters assume, as I would that it's a polite way of saying that the person is getting treatment for depression or a drug/alcohol problem. But a couple people write about personal experiences that make "exhaustion" sound like more than a code word.

I sort of love the results of this Larry King/Ahmadinejad "blingee" contest.

But if I look at it for more than a few seconds, I get nauseated and on the verge of a seizure, so I don't know what to think of this new form of visual humor. Seriously, now, just thinking of looking at that page again makes me ill.

I love funny things, but is it worth it?

"I wish the Iranian people well, and only hope their experience with an inept, rigid ideologue president goes better than ours."

Says Oliver Stone, after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declined to become the subject of a Stone documentary. Stone got the bad news: he "is considered part of the opposition in the U.S., but opposition in the U.S. is a part of the Great Satan.” Aw, poor Stone! How much do you have to hate the United States to get Ahmadinejad to like you? Much more than Stone thought, apparently.

ADDED: "[O]pposition in the U.S. is a part of the Great Satan.” A nice free speech point for Independence Day, no?

IN THE COMMENTS: Some good left-vs.-right back and forth. As expected, I'm questioned on the implication that Stone "hates" America. Best response, from Cedarford: "Ahmahinejad just gave a healthy reminder... that no matter how much the Left fights for terrorist's precious civil rights and seek[s] to undermine and demoralize the US military, at the end of the day, Lefties are part of the enemy."

MORE IN THE COMMENTS: Cyrus asks: "Are you suggesting that Oliver Stone hates the United States?"

I answer:

I think he hates what it is to some degree, but that in his own view, he probably feels he loves it more than people who merely love it as it is. My suggestion is mainly that it is not possible for him to hate it enough to win favor with Ahmadinejad. And it's pretty cool that Ahmadinejad's spokesman put it in a way that made clear what many or most Americans think: that the critics of America are an integral part of what America is.

Gorgeous scarves and shabby suits.

Naturally, Robin Givhan must do an essay on what Nancy Pelosi wore in Syria and what the Iranians made the British sailors wear, and just as naturally, I must blog about it:

[Each scarf she wore] was incorporated into the day's wardrobe. One hesitates to say that she accessorized her ensembles with the scarves because that makes it sound as though their significance can be equated with a pair of earrings or a strand of pearls. They were more meaningful than that. They allowed her to be respectful of the day's hosts while maintaining her own public identity. She looked like herself and she maintained control of the visual message.

There are few images more discomforting than public figures thrust into foreign cultures and required to wear the host's traditional attire. Almost without exception the visitors tend to look smaller and more vulnerable. They evoke the uneasiness of children who have been dressed by a parent, teacher, minister or other authority figure....

When the recently released British detainees were trotted in front of the media in Iran, the men were not in the uniform of their country, which would have been a reminder of their international stature, but rather in look-alike shabby suits and no ties. They were dressed in the image of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Western mufti was appropriated and served as a stand-in for an emasculating uniform, making the seamen appear small and uncertain. The lone woman looked like she had been overpowered by someone else's cultural traditions.

Pelosi, with her carefully coordinated scarves, respected her foreign surroundings without ceding any control.

It's an awkward comparison. Pelosi got to choose -- not only to go where she did, but also to comply with the clothing requirements with her own things. The British sailors were, obviously, far more constrained. Fawning over Pelosi is bad enough. Of course, this rich woman who has long had an interest in fashion picked really nice scarves when she had to wear a scarf. But dragging in the sailors to load more praise on Pelosi looks really.... shabby.

Freeing the hostages.

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he will pardon and set free 15 British sailors and marines being held in Iranian custody."

Observations on the Iranian elections.

The Iranian elections, from the official newspaper:

"The massive, wise, powerful and praise-worthy turn-out of the Iranian people in the elections on December 15 was a real test of the country's religious democracy and a manifestation of the greatness of Islamic Iran," [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei] said....

"[The high voter turn-out] sent a message to the world that Iranians have bonded with the Islamic system and are determined to fulfill its goals," he added....

"The tricks played by the ill-willed failed vis-a-vis the divine will and vigilance of the nation. Another golden page was added to the epic on the faithful and revolutionary people.["]

The NYT:

“[President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] has been trying to make himself indispensable by the grandiose issues, but his fate is much more tied to these bread and butter issues,” said Vali Nasr, the author of “The Shia Revival” and a professor of Middle Eastern politics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. “It’s not a fall for Ahmadinejad, but it’s clearly a stumble; there is no momentum coming out of his election in 2005.”...

Reformist politicians beat hard-liners in at least five important city councils, including Kerman, Sari, Zanjan, Ahvaz and Bandar Abbas.

“I think the first message of people’s vote on Friday was that people still favor reforms,” said Mohammad Atrainfar, a reformist politician. “The second message was that populist appeals have failed.”...

“The significance of this election is that we now have a complete new alignment — the reformists, the Rafsanjani camp and the conservative bazaar elements,” said Abbas Milani, chairman of Iranian studies at Stanford University. “That is a de facto coalition whose purpose is to stop Ahmadinejad from doing further damage, both domestically and internationally.”