I Have a Good Idea: Economic Sanctions!

As many of you are aware, leading Iranian government officials have opted to use their four-year break between vote-rigging efforts to attempt to develop nuclear "power plants of peace" which have absolutely nothing to do with a purely hypothetical desire to develop nuclear weapons (after all, why would a country with American troops occupying its eastern and western neighbors want nuclear weapons?). Recently, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has gone so far as to publicly call on Iran's nuclear agency to enrich Iran's uranium to "a high enough grade to piss off the West, but not high enough to break any international laws...yet" by year's end.

This is, of course, concerning to top American politicians, who believe that the time between elections is best spent calling each other "stupidhead." Hilary Clinton, along with her foreign policy assistant Barack Obama, have recently publicly called for stronger economic sanctions against bad guys in Iran and their families.

Apparently, the administration is hoping that just as tough economic sanctions convinced North Korea to leave the "Axis of Evil" and start acting more like the Carebear of the Far East, just as tough economic sanctions on Iraq convinced Saddam Hussein to mend his ways and avoid getting his country invaded, just as tough economic sanctions restored peace and prosperity to Zimbabwe after the worst of the Robert Mugabe years, and just as crippling sanctions forced Fidel Castro to acknowledge the inherent inferiority of communism and relinquish power long ago, sanctions will fix all our problems with Iran.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad agrees that tough sanctions are the safest course for Iranian stability. "People are getting tired of me here" he said in a recent open letter to Western diplomats, "I really need the West to take aggressive action so I have someone to blame all our problems on. Can I get some help here?"


Ahmadinejad: "Can't you see I'm hurting for a scapegoat?"


Clinton: "Hang in there, Mahmoud, help is on the way!"

The NoMass Party

For those of you who hate the news, this blog brings an important update: Republican Scott Brown recent(-ish)ly won a special election for the Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy's death. This was a huge setback for Democrats, many of whom are reported to have "cried like colicky babies" because the loss of this one seat robs their party of its sixty-seat Senate "supermajority."

This, as it turns out, is a big deal, because as a democracy, the United States' official position on minorities that constitute less than 40% of the elected population is "Sorry, suckas." Brown's victory has upset the balance of power by shifting Republicans from "suckas" to the strong minority block needed to keep a filibuster on the floor, thus bringing Democrats' plans to a halt (which is, quite frankly, where the party's plans spend most of their time anyway--but I digress).

People whose salaries are paid by the Democratic Party aren't the only ones upset by the victory, though.

"It's definitely time for a change" says Vermont resident Walt Thompson. "I'm worried about how our country will turn out if Massachusetts keeps wielding so much power--have you ever seen how Boston is run?"

Thompson is not alone in his concern. A recent survey indicates that 38% percent of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine residents are "seriously ticked" that their neighbor to the south has taken the limelight once again, and that an additional 17% are "moderately pissed off."


Channeling the rage: Emily Belanger

That's where activist Emily Belanger comes in. She's the brains behind the newly-minted NoMass Party, which she claims will be the first viable third party in America in over a century. "The problem with recent attempts to form third parties" says Belanger, "is that they all try so hard to have a national appeal. What good is that? Even if you get 5% of the vote nationwide, that's still zero seats."

Belanger's plan for the NoMass Party is to focus exclusively on five small, independent-minded New England States: New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Assuming roughly equal votes for Republicans and Democrats, the NoMass Party will need only 40% of votes in each voting district to secure the region's 10 Senate seats and 12 seats in the House of Representatives. This seems particularly possible, since the area already has a strong history of electing independents--according to Belanger, talks with Joe Lieberman (I, CN) and Bernie Sanders (I, VT) about joining the NoMass Party are already underway.


The NoMass Party's core electoral strategy focuses on five states.

Is Belanger's plan viable? We checked with Ramesh Chatterjee of Rajput University to find out. He supplied us with the following numerical breakdown of the possible road ahead for the NoMass Party:

7.7 million residents in the five target states
2.3 million likely voters in the 2010 elections in the target region
900,000 votes needed to secure the 40% which is likely to seal across-the-board victories
=0.3% of the U.S. population's support needed to win 10% of the Senate and 12 key House seats for NoMass.

What would the NoMass Party do with 10 Senate and 12 House seats?

"We'd be the most powerful party in the country" says Belanger, with an offhanded sort of confidence. "Republicans and Democrats are famously unable to agree on anything. We'd be the dealmakers, offering our deciding votes for one party on one issue then the other on another in exchange for their support on some of our core issues. We won't pick favorites. In each case, the party willing to offer our constituents the greatest concessions will win."

All this sounds great for the party's planned 900,000 supporters in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island--but what about the rest of the country? "Losers can't be choosers" says Belanger, "but I think they'll be better off after NoMass moves the center of political power back out of Massachusetts."

"After all," she adds, "have you seen how they run things in Boston?"

A Jewish Conspiracy to Fuel This Blog

The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper with a commitment to truth that rivals this blog's, recently published an article suggesting that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's parents may have had a Jewish last name before moving to Tehran.

I tend to take any such explosive rumors with a coarse grain of salt. I wasn't ready to believe this one until I did some research on Mahmoud's facebook page.

I thought I'd start with the "We're Related" application. His parents and grandparents weren't there, of course (probably because facebook is godless and doesn't believe ancestors matter)--but something telling was.

Yes, Mahmoud's relatives included three descendants of Mayer Rothschild (a Jew famous for establishing the 18th century's most formidable carrier pigeon network), a great-grandson of spectacle fashionista Leon Trotsky, and an elderly nephew of cigar aficionado Bugsy Siegel.


Even in the most degrading anti-communist
propaganda posters, Trotsky's glasses themselves
manage to look cool. That's what I call style.

Does this mean Mahomud does, in fact, have Jewish roots as the Daily Telegraph's report suggests?

In a word: yes. In two words: of course.

Does that, in turn, mean that in addition to Capitalism, Communism, Comic Books, Christianity, Las Vegas, the Media (through Zach Efron), this blog, and numerous other international conspiracies, Jews are secretly responsible for contemporary Holocaust denial?

I read the news today oh boy

If by "today" you mean "last week" then yes, I read the news. A few highlights:

The Necktie: An Energy Vampire


Sheik Hasina has no patience
for impracticality

Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangaldesh, is fed up with men wasting all the electricity. She recently ordered all government employess to stop wearing ties and suit jackets and to leave their shirts untucked in an effort to decrease cooling costs in government buildings. Analysts are hoping that private sector businesses will follow the government's examples and that a "Just Say No to Ties" program will help ease Bangladesh's energy shortage woes.

The Jolly Green Giants, a U.S. environmentalist advocacy group, is pushing for similiar measures in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and throughout the southern states. If we don't act sooner, spokesperson Bruce Banner warns, the day may come when video game time is "rationed like sugar during World War Two. Which would you rather give up--a tie now or your Wii time later?"

A White Flag in Academia

When Larry Sanger proposed the idea of incorporating a wiki element as a feeder into the academically-oriented (now defunct) Nupedia project, objections were so strong that the project had to be split off under a separate domain name lest it taint the Nupedia project by association. Academics and educators have remained predominantly critical of the project in the intervening years, even as the number of wikipedia articles and readers has multiplied into the millions and wikipedia has risen to the top of Google's search results on most subjects.


Dr. Chatterjee wants to end the war between
traditional academics and Web 2.0 models
for sharing knowledge. Sheikh Hasina thinks
he should take off his tie & jacket first.

Ramesh Chatterjee, President of Rajput University, is looking to change that. He recently approved a change in campus policy that requires professors to spend at least one hour per week editing wikipedia. "We've been warning students against this long enough" he said in his subsequent message to the faculty. "The idea of a hypertext-based universal encyclopedia is so powerful, they will continue to turn to it first for information. It's time we did our part to ensure that the formal and informal students of the world get the best possible information at the place of their choice." Academic Vice President Sayed Multan added "If enough institutions follow our lead, significant portions of wikipedia will become de facto peer-reviewed. We can also increase the number of references to premier journals and research in our respective fields, showing their role in the formation of human knowledge."

The change is not without critics, however. In addition to classical concerns about the value of creating a strong dividing line between academic and popular knowledge, some have expressed concerns about the future repurcussions of institutions paying employees to edit the open encyclopedia. "Any institution paying employees to edit the world's most popular reference work is effectively buying influence" says democracy advocate Tom Lin. "Are we really comforable with putting our view of the world up for sale?"

Mahmoud's Facebook--some updates

I've been so busy mourning Gidget, I haven't gotten around to updating anyone on the situation in Iran. Apologies to my faithful readers, although I'm sure that those of you who remember the glory days of that plagiarized, stereotype-pandering icon will understand (for those of you who don't click on links, the icon I'm describing is the Taco Bell Chihuahua, not the President of Iran. Confusing; I know. Bear with me.)

In any case, here are some highlights from


'S



July 17: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad elevates Rahim Mashaie to the office of 1st Vice President (Iran has 12 VPs) on the same day that he confirms him in the "We're Related!" application.

July 18: Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i writes on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's wall at 8 am Tehran time: "What makes him think he can get away with putting his pansy-in-law a heartbeat from the Presidency?" Indeed. Why would someone who had sloppily inflated his election numbers feel bold and empowered after key establishment figures declared the election "the cleanest in Iran's history"? I wonder...
The Supreme leader writes back on Mohseni-Eje'i's wall: "Consider the problems solved" and gives Mahmoud Ahmadinejad written notice that he should fire Rahim Mashaie. About an hour later, I notice that Mahmoud's gchat status has been changed to "Aretha Franklin--Respect" Coincidence?


"You cut me deep--I thought you trusted me."

July 22: Mahmoud tags all of his friends in a note: "1,000 reasons why I like Rahim Mashaei" Mohseni-Eje'i unfriends both of them.

July 23: Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei pokes Mahmoud, but no one on facebook knows what a poke even means.

July 24: Rahim Mashaie decides to comply with the Supreme Leader's order and simply resign. Mahmoud's status: "is pissed."

July 26: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fires Intelligence Minister Mohseni-Eje'i. Mahmoud Status update: "Take That, Suckas!" Mohseni-Eje'i's friend Saffar Harandi subsequently unfriends Ahmadinejad and resigns as Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance before he can be formally sacked. Mahmoud starts counting ministers--if he gets above 50% turnover he automatically needs a vote of confidence in Parliament by Iranian law (and quite frankly, he's tired of stuffing ballot boxes).


Saffar Harandi is now looking for a job, which is hard
when your old boss has tanked the whole economy

July 31: Mahmoud invites members of the group Iranian Politicians to the event "My Inauguration: August 5th, Baby!"


"A banner? 'Congrats on the Landslide' or something?
I dunno...do banners make me look old? Be honest."

August 2: Status: "Mahmoud is tired of people who won't even bother to confirm on important event invitations. Sheesh!"

August 3: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ali Khamenei's relationship status changes to "It's Complicated"

August 5: From the album "Inauguration PAR-tay!":


Someone give this man a hug, preferably before he develops nuclear weapons.

Waste Not, Get Bribed

You've heard the scary facts:
-the peoples of the industrialized world are making a collective mad dash toward peak oil, the point at which world oil production begins to decrease due to scarcity even as demand rises.
-the gasoline wasted on a single trip to Walmart with one of today's inefficient cars could be used in sixty years to operate a hyper-efficient, lightweight tractor enough to feed a family of four for a month. Since you've already used that gasoline, though, your grandchildren will probably just starve.
-for every pound of coal burned in a power plant to heat and cool the oversized houses we've been building in undesirably hot locations, four additional pounds need to be burned to generate electricity that will simply be lost as heat of the power lines on their way to their destination.
-by 2050, Frosty and his fellow snowmen will be hunted nigh unto extinction for their eyes, as American bison once were for their tongues.


A snowman gives up running (ca. 2046)

Odds are, though, that you, like most people, don't respond well to scary facts.

That's why the government has decided to bribe you instead (an interesting reversal from a longstanding tradition of government bribes going the other direction). They are now offering a complicated diagram which suggests that you could qualify for up to $4,500 toward a new car if its fuel efficiency is at least ten miles per gallon better than an old one you agreed to have smelted on the spot.

Where does the government get the money for this program? you may ask. The answer is outlined in another complicated diagram I've lost the link for. Basically, the idea is that poor Chinese factory workers invest the majority of their savings in U.S. treasury bills in the hopes of keeping the U.S. economy healthy as a market for cheap, tainted toys. The U.S. spends a portion of this money hiring bureaucrats to misfile T-bill purchaser information to prevent a future default on debts and then spends the remainder stimulating pieces of the economy, after careful consideration, more or less at random.

In my view, the "Cash for Clunkers" bill has largely vindicated random government action. Probably entirely by accident, the bill has includes far-sighted elements where energy is concerned, and has the shorter term side effect of getting some government money back to recently-obtained government automotive businesses.

The only thing I could hope for at this point is that the government followers up the "Cash for Clunkers" legislation in twenty years or so with an even more visionary "Huts for Houses" bill that enables people to trade away their McMansions for hovels and firewood.

Who knows? We might just need it.

Get to Know Your Hamedan politics

Reading the news today, it appears that I was correct in my Thursday night prediction that Michael Jackson's death would remove post-election tensions in Iran from the world's attention. I'm not the only one with this theory, of course: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's favorite song on facebook has been "Thriller" since Friday, and he just posted some photos of himself practicing his moonwalk (yes, I'm facebook friends with an international pariah. Honestly, folks, it's just facebook, it's not like it matters.)

Now that no one cares, however, I'd like to take some time to educate the youth of our country, or at least readers of this blog under the age of 80, about just what happened in Iran:

1) In 2005, Ahmadinejad won Iran's "better beard" contest with whopping 62% of the vote over Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, later cleverly revealing it to actually be a Presidential Election. No one questioned the election's outcome because, as should be clear from the pictures below, Rafsanjani probably only got a few sympathy votes.

That Mahmoud has not been on the cover of GQ is hard evidence of a Western conspiracy.


Rafsanjani wishing he looked 32% of the way to cool.

2) During four years as president, Ahmadinejad won international fame for his dashing good looks and offensive comments, both key components of his reelection strategy, but managed to tank the Iranian economy so badly people had to stand in line for gas longer than it would take them to dig in their own backyards for oil if the government allowed it. A vocal minority of Iranians were very upset.
In a more troubling development for his campaign, an exiled dissident released the following defamatory statement:

"If you squint a little, he looks kinda like President Bush in this pic."

3) In 2009, Mir Hussein Mousavi made it through the Guardian Council candidate-vetting process to run against Ahmadinejad.

The Ahmadinejad campaign determined to take Mousavi seriously as a threat because unlike Rafsanjani, he actually had a beard.

4) Though poised to win the election fairly, the Ahmadinejad campaign appears to have elected to follow in the footsteps of the campaigns of other dashing political leaders like John F. Kennedy and finesse the totals a little...Kennedy, though, was smart enough to have dead people vote for him in Chicago, a party bastion where being considered dead has never been a bar to voting, rather than say, Utah, where a son voting for a Democratic candidate may be considered dead to his parents and friends.
Ahmadinejad's fixers were sloppier. The moral of this story, actually, is that election-riggers really ought to outsource to more experienced Western countries when it counts.

5) On election night, vote totals were released as polls closed. Poll workers who claimed to just be "really fast counters" felt hurt by subsequent accusations that counting millions of ballots should take at least a few hours. "Tricky Dick" Ahmadinejad was promptly announced the winner with 63% of the vote...distributed evenly across Iran's 30 provinces. The number of votes he received in the reform-oriented province of Hamedan, for example, was four times higher than in 2005, something akin to anti-Semitic American politician Pat Buchanan taking four times more votes in Jewish-retiree-heavy Palm Beach County than the rest of Florida in a purely hypothetical 2000 contest in our very own United States. In other, more conservative areas, his performance did not improve, probably as a result of poor design in the autofill program used to create the election re--er, I mean, probably because of complex political things we just don't understand.

6) Mousavi supporters questioned election results and were told by Iran's Supreme Leader, "I have an unworthy life, a defective body and little honour, which was given to me by you. I will put all of these on the palm of my hand and spend them on the path of the revolution and Islam." This comment, while doing little to explain irregularities in places like Hamedan, did inspire thousands of revolutionary guards to beat and occasionally shoot anyone wearing the protesters' green, including several members of Iran's minority leprechaun community.

7) The BBC tried to take over Iran.

8) President Ahmadinejad stepped up to the challenge by having more Iranians beaten.

9) Michael Jackson died.

10) The world mourned.

So, in conclusion, everything important is pretty much over and pretty much has been since 1982.

It still probably isn't a good idea to buy Ayatollah Khamenei a pet monkey, though.

Monkey Business

Kudos to Zambian president Rupiah Banda, who reacted well when a monkey decided to "spend a penny" on his jacket during a recent speech on the economy. The BBC described the monkey as "cheeky."

Apparently, in addition to teaching their children to floss, monkeys have developed an interest in political speeches. Or perhaps multiple forms of political protest, as suggested by the behavior of an incarcerated chimp in Sweden.

All of which leads me to a single conclusion: it is definitely not time for anyone to give pet monkeys as gifts to Ayatollah Khamenei, who has been having a hard time lately.