19 August 2003

False pretexts

[source, source]
In 1981, Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr, the first president of the Islamic Republic [of Iran], announced that "scientific research had shown that women's hair emitted rays that drove men insane." To protect the public, the new Islamist regime passed a law in 1982 making the hijab mandatory for females aged above six, regardless of religious faith.
Clearly they were *actually* concerned about my satellites which were still in the prototype stage back in ’82.
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Taking a financial Ba’ath

[source, source]
BARRING a last-minute miracle, the pan-Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party, one of Jordan's oldest political organizations, is expected to file for bankruptcy within the next few weeks. The party's headquarters in Amman is a scene of daily demonstrations by creditors waving unpaid bills. […] Two prominent Lebanese pan-Arabists have fled to France to avoid paying the mobs they hired for pro-Saddam demonstrations in Beirut last winter. And other pro-Saddam Ba'athists are facing unpaid bills for anti-war demonstrations they organized in Morocco, Algeria and Egypt. At the time, those efforts were seen in the West as a sign that the "Arab street" was about to explode against the U.S.-led coalition. […] Ba'athists are not the only political and financial orphans left by Saddam. The Iraqi dictator financed hundreds of journalists, and supposedly independent politicians in virtually all Arab countries. Documents seized from the Iraqi Cultural Office in London include lists that read like a who's who of pan-Arab intellectual elite. […] Documents now being studied by the Iraqi research group also reveal that Saddam had a network of support in several European countries, notably Britain, France and Austria. At least three French political parties received financial contributions from Saddam between 1975 and 1990. Several prominent French politicians, including former Cabinet ministers, received money from Saddam. Several British politicians, including at least one member of parliament, were among the recipients of Saddam's largesse.
The fabled Arab street turns out to consist of rent-a-mobs and the Arab intellectual elite greedy syncophants of the Ba'ath.
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UN-friendly

[source, source] bq. BAGHDAD, Iraq - A car bomb ripped through the hotel housing the U.N. headquarters on Tuesday, killing at least two people and wounding dozens, including the chief U.N. official in Iraq, who was trapped in the rubble. As has been pointed out, there's far too many suspects to make a good guess about who did it.
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Sweden admits it's not worth conquering

[source, source]
Sweden's armed forces will operate only during office hours for the rest of the year to cut costs, military headquarters said. […] The center-left Social Democratic government has told the military to cut spending by 450 million kronor ($54.89 million) this year as part of an overall effort to keep the budget from falling into deficit. […] A parliamentary defense commission said in a recent report that the likelihood of Sweden facing a military threat in the foreseeable future was very small.
I can see that. If you popped in early Saturday and spent the weekend conquering the country, you'd wake up on Monday and have ... Sweden. Wouldn't you rather have a hangover?
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