bit o' politics

Yesterday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said some things that got some people pretty riled up. This being the internet and all, I'm not going to post much on it, other than to point out that, as someone else noticed, the second bit he said (not the denial bit, which is awful if the translation is correct; the location question bit) has been posed by many a history professor in this country. If you missed it, here is one of many articles on it.

But one thing I found quite interesting and which news reports aren't really saying...Ahmadinejad made the comments at a summit of Muslim nations yesterday in Mecca; today, in Mecca, "Leaders of 57 Muslim countries have ended their summit with a warning that the Islamic world is in crisis because of the threat posed by terrorism." (source) So, this Iranian "hardliner" was part of a conference which urged, "decisive action to fight 'deviant ideas'" and "called for changes in national laws to criminalise financing and incitement of terrorism."

You can bet that won't be mentioned in the spin when Israel invades Iran to keep them from becoming a nuclear nation. Like Israel. And, yeah, the US will back Israel. Of course.

Back when I was a freshman in international relations (with a Jewish professor, no less), pointing out this sort of stuff would have been considered a rational examination of current events. In the post-9/11 climate, more and more media sources are labeling this kind of thing "anti-Semitic". In a NPR story a few months ago, a guest was talking about a "new brand of leftist anti-Semitism", which amounted to any criticism of Israeli policy. Nothing like throwing a label of prejudice at someone to stifle free speech.

Rant over.

On a slightly related note, anyone know how to do footnotes in Blogger?

Hope that all of you aren't as cold as we are right now! Tristan was shaking as he ate his yogurt this morning, despite wearing fleece pants, a turtleneck, a fleece vest, a hat, and the thermostat's promise that the house is at 80 degrees.