Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the Iranian soccer team:

“You could be the great surprise of this World Cup and bring our country back to its glory as did our young scientists who with their efforts and knowledge have reached top levels in nuclear technology and opened the doors of the atomic club to the Islamic Republic.”

The technology was purchased and already invented decades before Iranian scientists figured out how to read the instructions handed over by A.Q. Khan.  That doesn’t say too much about the Iranian soccer team.

Elmar Brok, a German member of the European Parliament from the conservative Christian Democratic Union party, visited the Guantanamo Bay Detention facility and later sat down with Der Spiegel.

Brok: The most striking thing is that a new prison is being built for $34 million and no one is thinking about closing anything down. By the way, the new prison meets the US’s highest medical and hygienic standards — but it doesn’t have a single window. Not a single window! And when you consider that detainees have no prospect of being released or even of a proper trial, what you have, of course, is mental pressure — almost a kind of mental torture.

Why should it be closed down? Just because some nations and the UN human rights board who has yet to scold Iran, China, North Korea, Nigeria, etc. want it closed doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. If the facility closed, where would those detained go? So how exactly is that striking that it won’t be closed?

Why thank you Mr. Brok. The United States is guilty of mental torture with respects to people picked up on the battlefields of Afghanistan. Mental torture for not having windows as opposed to, say, plasma televisions with DirectTV, strippers a personal chef, etc. What part of the word ‘detainees’ do some people not get?

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan apparently did not receive a warm greeting at UN Headquarters in New York yesterday. Annan said the UN “needs to be fully refurbished from top to bottom” by way of a “a thorough strategic refit.”  Strangely this is exactly what U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton argued when he was called by opponents to his nomination as being hostile towards the United Nations.  Is Annan now hostile to the UN too?

Anyhow, when Annan suggested his “management reform” plan to UN staffers, he was booed and asked if UN jobs would be farmed out to Kinkos.  “What is Kinko?” responded Annan.  It’s a place where you can outsource credibility and just make sh*& up.  Ask Dan Rather or Mary Mapes. One staffer even said “nobody believes you” when Annan was introducing reform.

Sister Toldjah linked with Boos for Kofi...
A Blog For All linked with Kofi Annan's Bubble...
Mensa Barbie Welcomes You linked with UN: Shaking Things Up...

Oh, this political progress in Iraq.

“Until now he has said ‘No’ to many things because there was nothing right in the government,” said Mohamed Faeq, [Adnan al Duleimi’s] spokesman. “But now we will try to stop the fighting and create a dialogue between the resistance and the American occupation. We want to stop the bloodshed, defend the rights of the Sunnis and get our place back in government.” (source)

Duleimi is noted for having called for a rejection of the Iraqi elections last January and another rejection on the Iraqi constitution. He has strived at creating an equal footing for Sunnis in Iraq, clearly a notable and worthwhile goal, yet before now he has asked Sunnis not to go to the ballot box showing the understanding of what Democracy is to many Iraqis has, until now hopefully, remained behind closed doors.

Another Sunni cleric who urged worshippers to vote and spoke out against terrorism and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has left a democratic legacy in Fallujah a mere 12 days after his death. Another Sunni in Fallujah says he will not be silenced in this election like the previous election where Sunnis were urged not to vote and where the voting turnout was lowest in terms of population percentage.

“We will not allow an Iranian-style country to be built over our backs. Our voices and votes were lost when we boycotted the elections,” said a 30-year-old man who gave his name only as Mustafa. “We are going to take our rightful number of seats in the assembly and the government. We refuse to remain shadows in our own country.”

Even a member of a Sunni insurgent group is considering participating in the political process arguing that not voting would be declaring war “against our own people.” That’s what Democracy is and it is more solidly in Iraq now than ever before, yet some want to say there’s no hope.

Just more evidence that 50 Cent may be a closet conservative:

50 thinks the president is “incredible … a gangsta.” “I wanna meet George Bush, just shake his hand and tell him how much of me I see in him,” 50 told GQ. If the rapper’s felony conviction didn’t prevent him from voting, 50 said he would have voted for Bush.

Recall that 50 Cent defended President Bush regarding the Katrina response.

What is 50’s next goal? He wants to “market a condom.” Well, maybe he isn’t a social conservative…

And a new verb is formed:

“I won’t stand for the Swift-boating of Jack Murtha,” said Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004. Mr. Kerry, who is also a Vietnam veteran, was dogged during the campaign by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that challenged his war record. (source)

Swift-boating (v.): expose the truth behind a cascade of lies told in order to build one’s character up; not boating slow, not fast but swift-boating.

In the case of Murtha, no one is attacking him or his record. No one.

You can’t make this stuff up, basically that is.

Separately, Clinton administration secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright delivered a report to top Democratic congressional leaders calling for a 50 percent increase in federal spending on homeland security, the creation of a domestic intelligence agency, and a Cabinet-level ranking for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“We are all looking at the Iraq issue, how to make America safe and not leave the situation in complete chaos,” Albright added, echoing many of Kerry’s themes. “The Democrats are basically supportive of the troops.”

I’m basically supportive of Hillary Clinton too. Heh.

Hat tip: LGF

What would a week be without a Hugo Chavez dumbass quote of the day? The answer: a sad week without comic relief.

For that reason, below is the man himself, Hugo Chavez.

“We are sure that it will be very difficult for the United States to attack Venezuela,” Chavez said. He said his country has eight oil refineries and 14,000 gasoline stations in the United States.

“If the United States tried to attack Venezuela by a direct invasion, forget the oil,” he said during a two-hour news conference beamed live to Venezuela. “Everyday we send 1.5 million barrels to the United States.”

[snip]

“That’s why Pat Robertson, the spiritual adviser of Mr. Bush, is calling for my assassination. That would be much cheaper than an invasion,” Chavez said. (source)

Spiritual advisor? Quick, someone send Chavez a red nose and big shoes. He’s turning into a vocal Kim Jong Il.

Rudy Giuliani -

“Do I plan to return to politics? In the back of my mind, I’d like to do that,” he said before a United Way benefit in Austin. “But I learned after September 11 and having prostate cancer, you don’t plan the future with that type of specificity. I may return to politics, or I may someday be manager of the Yankees.”

It would hardly shock me if Joe Torre was outsted from the Yankees bench, but I doubt Steinbrenner would pick Giuliani to coach the team. That said, it seems very likely he will run in 2008 for President. He would be a candidate which I already have a strong liking for and it would certainly increase in time after he started politicking.

Via Ace

From Congressman Ed Royce:

“This is a war on many fronts, ranging from Africa with its vast ungoverned areas to Western Europe with its disaffected Muslim youth. There is an informational technology front, where the enemy has excelled, rallying troops and winning converts.” He quoted a sub-committee witness to claim that there now existed a “virtual caliphate” in cyberspace, pointing out that “in the battle of ideas, unfortunately, we’re not even in the arena. We are going to need all tools at work, including a much-improved public diplomacy product”.

Further Royce said Al Qaida is an ideology and not an organization. Sadly though, it’s both at this point in time, but the ideology of Al Qaida will live much longer than the organization which is why the free nations of the world need to come up with a sound strategy to defeat the ideology and the organization.