This news item didn’t make the first pages of main newspapers and could have passed unnoticed:

Iranian publishers are complaining that cost-saving plans to print Qurans in China are yielding embarrassing results: A slew of typos. The head of Iran’s Quran oversight office says some of the Chinese-printed versions of Islam’s holy book are littered with spelling errors.

It is only thanks to our Signals Department’s vigilance that the Elders received this news and acted quickly, intercepting a letter from above mentioned head of Iran’s Quran oversight office to the manager of the Chinese publishing house where the erroneous holy books were printed. Here are some excerpts.

From Mr Ahmad Haji-Sharif,
By the will of his majesty Imam Khamenei (PBUH)
Head of Iran’s Quran oversight office
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
To [omitted]

Subject: Quality issues with the first batch of the Holy Book of Quran

Dear Mr [omitted] PBUY,

It is with great sorrow and chagrin that I forced myself to write this letter. I have just returned from the office of his Islamic Highness the President of our glorious Republic Mahmoud the M Ahmadinejad, where, as you can imagine, I listened for a whole hour to His Highness’s severe displeasure with the fact that one and a half million of copies of the Holy Book were distributed already in our country. Suffice to say that one of the mildest sentences was “We’ll scatter these yellow Zionists to the four winds in the name of Allah!”.

In short, your decision not to wait for the official Farsi copy of Holy Quran and, instead, translate again the original Arabic edition into Farsi using, as you said, your “in-house experts”, was a grave mistake. Yes, I know that you have sufficient manpower to do it in 37 hours and that you put 48 of your experts on the translation task, however the results were horrendous, and I have teared most of my hair reading the resulting translation during the last night (the rest of it was teared out by our President (PBUH)). Follow several examples out of hundreds:

Sura XLI

2. A resolution from (God).
Moist, Vicious and Cool

Should be:

2. A revelation from (God).

Most Gracious, Most Merciful

6….
And what about those who
Share a joint while playing Go—

Should be:

6….

And woe to those who
Join gods with God,—

Sura XLIV

48. “Hot liquid hazard!
Approach not close!

Should be:

48. “Then pour over his head
The Penalty of Boiling Water

47….
Turn screw (7)
Using appliance (b2)
In watch direction
Till satisfying fully with

Should be:

47….

“Seize ye him

And drag him

Into the midst

Of the Blazing Fire!

Sura XLVII

20…
When the white sun had sunk in the Western Chasm
I hung up my chariot and rested my four horses.
Now, even the Maker of All
Could not bring the life back to my limbs.
Shape and substance day by day will vanish.
Hair and teeth will gradually fall away.

Should be:

20…

Therein, thou wilt see those

In whose hearts is a disease

Looking at thee with a look

Of one in swoon at

The approach of death.

But more fitting for them

Sura XLII.: Shura, or Consultation.

19. If you are industrious like a bee,
Strong as an ox,
Hardworking as a horse,
And get home tired as a dog,
Consult your vet – you may be an ass.

Should be:

19. Gracious is God

To His servants:

He gives Sustenance

To whom He pleases:

And He has Power

And can carry out

His Will.

My dear Mr [omitted], I hope that by now you have begun to understand the severity of the situation, and I haven’t even mentioned the worst offense: the pictures. Apparently one (or more) of your more zealous employees decided to decorate the Holy Book with pictures! Such a sacrilege and desecration of the sacred texts wasn’t yet heard about. What, for instance, has this picture to do with the Quran?

Dogs are considered unclean animals here, for crying out loud! Or this one:

I don’t see its point at all. Or that:

Do you really intend to sell us anti-bacterial swimming suits for men? I fail to understand… and what about all these abominable semi-naked and naked female pictures?

[at this point the letter is barely readable due to smudged ink and other substances that stuck to the paper, so only fragmentary bits have survived ]

… added and instruction booklet for bicycle repair at home? Why?…

… ophet Muhammad never said “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”, it is a clea…

… assure you that not only this is forbidden, but is defini… not a pictu… of ..rophet Mu…

…cannot tell you how serious the situation has become. Because of my decision to employ your publishing house in this project I am now put on notice, and if a remedy doesn’t….

We have decided to end the letter at this point, since the rest, full of further complaints, entreaties and even some thinly veiled threats is of no special interest to the public.

Regarding this story, we can only guess that the recent dust-up in China-Iran relations is related to the Quran fiasco. Well, Allah willing, the next version of the Holy Book will be more satisfactory with the client…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Crisis in Shushan
The United States is intervening diplomatically to forestall a rapidly developing crisis in the Persian Empire. Sources close to the government of King Achashveirosh have leaked information that the kingdom has sanctioned the extermination of all Jews under his rule. The edict originated with Haman, the king’s closest adviser, and was approved by Achashveirosh a number of months ago.

Aware of this decree, the Jews of the empire, led by Mordechai are seeking to forestall this fate. Prayer gatherings are common and prominent Jews have been seeking out government officials to try and persuade the king to rescind the decree.

Outgoing State Department spokesman, P. J. Crowley emphasized that the United States sought a peaceful resolution to the crisis and that the administration hoped that both sides could compromise.

Reached at his office, son and spokesman of Haman, Aspata declared, “The Agagite family seeks to fulfill its legitimate national aspirations.” When Mordechai was reached by this paper he expressed his hopes that matters could be resolved peacefully but that time was running out.

President Obama, concerned that Mordechai’s statement could be construed as a threat, warned the Jewish leader that “… there were no military solutions for this crisis” and asked that Mordechai “… refrain from any more provocative actions, such as refusing to bow down to Haman.”

Unclear in all the turmoil in Persia, is the role of Queen Esther. Palace watchers have long suspected that she was allied with Mordechai as she regularly exchanged messages with him. However recently she took the risky step of appearing unannounced before the King and inviting Achashveirosh to join her for dinner along with Haman. It is expected that Esther’s role in this unfolding drama will become clearer this evening as she is once again set to dine with Achashveirosh and Haman.

HAPPY PURIM

Of course, the dreary conservatives who always like things just as they are would vastly prefer to call a terrorist “terrorist”, a bomb “bomb”, a wife-beater “wife-beater”. They just don’t get it.

I, on the other hand, fell in love with the new idea immediately and have been vigorously applying it in my personal life. Here are some results I am happy to share with you.

1. Spouse. Definitely Islamic – pure as snow and so good I may even splurge on a burqa as a sign of my appreciation.
2. Children. Mostly Islamic, but sometimes showing signs of anti-Islamic behavior (like asking for money, refusing to behave, etc.)
3. Male cat. Definitely anti-Islamic, esp. when stealing food, breaking things and pissing in randomly chosen corners.
4. Female cat. Generally Islamic, excluding the tendency to cry out loudly at nighttime.
5. The Japanese car. Superbly Islamic.
6. The French car. Violently anti-Islamic and may have to be beheaded. Publicly.
7. Friend #1. Mostly Islamic but doesn’t hold his drink. Er… anyway…
8. Friend #2. Generally Islamic, but doesn’t return books. May have to chop off his hand.

Etc. You got the principle now, unless you are thick as… Don’t you see how amazingly simple life became? And how orderly and easy to understand the world really is?

If not, you are anti-Islamic and have to be dealt with. Watch out.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

If the complainant is white, Israeli, American, or Jewish (and particularly those four and male), I’m going to ignore him.

If the complainant is Muslim Arab, I’m going to issue a resolution demanding that the offender cease and desist immediately, and follow that up with more resolutions condemning the attackers for Islamophobia.

If the complainant is Muslim non-Arab, same as above, unless the complainant and the attacker are both Muslim. In that case, I will do nothing and say nothing.

If the complainant is a woman, I’m going to organize a worldwide Women’s Day of Solitude and solicit other women bloggers to put up a post protesting the lack of respect for women bloggers in my comments, and in the comments of weblogs the world over.

If the complainant is from certain parts of Africa and female, she will be propositioned for sexual favors by the people who police the comments here, and in some cases, forced into having sex and keeping quiet about it. If the woman is underage, well, you know the drill there, too.

If the complainant is from Darfur, I’m going to determine that there was not an attack taking place and ignore him completely.

If the attacker is from a South American country that is ruled by a dictator but had, in any part of its past, suffered from American imperialism, I’m going to ignore the attack.

If the attacker and attacked are both South or Latin American, I’m going to ignore the attack.

If the attacker is North Korean, I’m going to recommend that we find five other bloggers and discuss the attack for several years, then try to get the attacker to promise to give up attacking, and of course, ignore the attacker when this does not happen.

If the attacker is particularly vile, I’m going to refer it to the Yourish.com Commission on Human Rights in Comments, where we will then condemn my Israeli commenters while ignoring the vile attackers of other origins. Omri Ceren will probably come in for a special lashing; he’s Israeli, he lives in America, and he’s a Zionist.

If one of my commenters makes signs like s/he’s going nuclear, I’m going to issue a warning. Then I’ll wait a few months to see if that commenter is still ready to go nuclear, and issue another toothless warning. I will have my Comments Inspectors keeping an eye on that commenter, that is, with the commenter’s permission, and if the commenter refuses, I will think for several months about issuing yet another warning. After several years, I will attempt sanctions against that commenter, but if my fellow bloggers refuse to go along, then I will simply wait and see if that commenter is really going to go nuclear, while allowing the head of my Comments Inspectors to say that the commenter is not going to go nuclear, and probably will never go nuclear, and anyway, the commenter should be allowed peaceful nuclear power in the comments, and there’s no way to prevent it in any case. The Russian and Chinese Blogger Commission will threaten to veto sanctions, and there we’ll be stuck for some time.

And last, but not least: I will allow my commenters to talk all over everyone else’s comments without obeying the rules, and without paying any penalties, since they have diplomatic immunity.

Happy UN Day, and thanks for the idea, Alex Bensky.

“How to Take a Life.”

And here comes another wannabe Mel, creating another brouhaha around an opus that, frankly, I am not going to hold my breath for:

Cannes is smacking its lips in anticipation of filmmaker and provocateur Michael Moore’s latest jeremiad against the US administration, which receives its premiere at the film festival today. Sicko, a documentary tackling the state of American healthcare, focuses on the pharmaceutical giants, and particularly on health insurers.

That Cannes is smacking its lips goes without saying. Anything showing US in a bad light will have the Cannes public in throes of a multiple orgasm. And of course, who else but the esteemed expert in weaving half-truths into another provocation that will appeal to the right kind of public?

The Gibson prepared by the fatso and his producer this time is definitely a new one:

Now, according to movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein Company is behind the film, the US government is attempting to impound the negative.

And what, pray, would be the reason for such an extraordinary move by the ‘US government’?

In March, Moore travelled to the Caribbean island with a group of emergency workers from New York’s Ground Zero to see whether they would receive better care under the Castro regime than they had under George Bush. He had applied for permission to travel in October 2006 and received no reply.

In a letter dated May 2, the treasury department notified Moore that it was investigating him for unlicensed travel to Cuba, or, as the missive put it, engaging in “travel-related transactions involving Cuba.”

Do you see in the above any reference to the movie? Is it the movie that has broken the law or its “creator”? Why in the whole blue world should the treasury decide to impound the movie, instead of bringing a forklift to transport Mr Moore somewhere for investigation?

And, as it is widely known, quite a few Americans travel to Cuba for this or another reason, sometimes just out of being ornery, and I do not remember seeing American jails overflowing with the inmates who has stepped over this particular line.

Anyways, if the whole story does not smell fishy to you, it may have something to do with an olfactory impediment. Otherwise, it is a lame Gibson, if you ask me. And the best proof is:

Weinstein appeared to be enjoying the brouhaha that the film is stirring up before it has even screened. “I’ve already told the Treasury that they are saving me money on advertising.”

Indeed. Now to this new troublesome child by the trailblazer of the “new age of documentary”.

To say that American health care system is perfect and does not have its woes would be stupid. Anyone who has experienced the insurance companies’ tender care knows what it is all about. But what is the alternative touted by Moore? Even Charlotte Higgins, the author of the article, seems to have been taken aback by the idiocy of that:

The health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, may be surprised by Moore’s ringing – if strictly speaking, factually inaccurate – endorsement for the NHS. “The poorest Brit is healthier and lives longer than the wealthiest American,” he said.

Strictly speaking, indeed. Strictly speaking is not the term one would use in relation to the Moore’s “documentaries”, that’s true. But this overwhelming comparison to the British NHS, hilarious as it might be, is just an appetizer. You see, it is the shining example of Cuban health care system that Moore had in mind embarking on this new venture.

The three sources: Wiki, CANF (the Cuban American source) and its opposite – the Cuba Solidarity site – will give you a general picture of goings-on in Cuban health care system, try to reach your own judgment. But the result is not pretty, and to expect that an already indoctrinated person will come back, after his charges receive a preferential treatment in one of the Cuban clinics for the privileged, to present an objective picture, would be a bit too much…

And let us not forget for a second the inimitable style of Mr Moore:

Of his journalistic style, he said: “It’s the op-ed page. You don’t say that’s not journalism. I present my opinion, my take on things, based on indisputable facts. They could be wrong. I think they’re right.”

If a person challenging the fatso’s bluff were looking for a better way to demolish him, I doubt that this person could have found a better way than just quoting the above confession. Indeed, “indisputable facts that could be wrong” summarizes the whole body of work by Moore better than anything else ever said or written.

However, let’s not forget the author of the article, Charlotte Higgins. In her haste to publish she, how to say it gently, was a bit too free with her facts:

The rightwing backlash has spawned a number of documentaries questioning his methods, including Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk’s Manufacturing Dissent.

Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk would be mightily surprised reading this, Ms Higgins. In their worst dreams they did not see being classified as a rightwingers.

Melnyk and Caine have stated that when they first sought to make a film about Moore, they held great admiration for what he had done for the documentary genre and set out to make a biography of him. During the course of their research, however, they became disenchanted with Moore’s tactics.

See, Ms Higgings – you really don’t want to follow in Moore’s steps, publishing “indisputable facts that could be wrong”. Or do you?

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Former US President Jimmy Carter once complained there were “too many Jews” on the government’s Holocaust Memorial Council, Monroe Freedman, the council’s former executive director, told WND in an exclusive interview.

Former US president also rejected Christian historian because name sounds ‘too Jewish’…

Which immediately reminded me a joke told during the same period (1980 or a bit earlier) about Carter’s kissing buddy – Leonid Brezhnev of the late USSR.

Some time before the 1980 Olympic games Brezhnev (B) calls one of his flunkies (F).

B: Listen, F – these forinners will swarm our capital soon, and we have to show them that our minorities are being well taken care of.

F: Minorities? We don’t have no minorities in Moscow, comrade Brezhnev! Only good loyal Soviet citizens.

B: Oh, come on, you know whom I mean, these troublemakers…

F: Oh, you mean Jooz?

B: Right, F. Quick thinking.

F: So, comrade Brezhnev, should I remove them… for a while, that is?

B: No, you dummy, just the opposite. I want you to create 20, no, make it 30, synagogues, with all that Jooish stuff and attending worshippers. All that is needed to show the tourists that Jooz are free to pray to their hearts’ content. You have a month to report back to me.

In a month:

F: Comrade Brezhnev, I have a report to make. Your order was implemented, but there was a snag…

B: What, didn’ t you locate enough buildings?

F: No, buildings are fine, some closed churches were reopened and cleaned up a bit.

B: So what – a problem with the congregation?

F: No, that was easy – all highly trained and loyal KGB people, not a hitch on this front…

B: Now come on, what is the deal, man?

F: It is the rabbis, sir…

B: Wazzat – aren’t they Soviet people? Aren’t they loyal? Aren’t they communists, for Lenin’s sake?

F: Well, comrade Brezhnev, they are all Soviet citizens, loyal to the hilt and, of course, communists…

BUT THEY ARE ALL JEWS!!!

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

The Saudi Gazette reported that a Saudi man who demanded SR100,000 from his daughter in return for allowing her to marry has been disallowed custody rights by the General Shariah Court, according to the Al-Madina newspaper.

The daughter, 35, who sued her father in court, said he had been turning away all the men who proposed to her until she came up with SR100,000.

Her father listed for the court all the funds he had spent on raising her, and stressed that he simply did not want any relationship with his daughter or to see her after she pays him the stated amount and would relinquish custody of her.

His daughter made it clear to the court she didn’t possess that amount of money.

The salient point: The woman is 35 years old. She cannot marry because her father never gave her permission. This is the Saudi version of Sharia law.

In his verdict, the judge mentioned the father had no right to ask for the money he spent on his daughter because it was his obligation as a guardian, as decreed in the Koran.

The judge will appoint her brother as guardian.

Now she is 35 years old and has a brother as a guardian. Wow, what progress! Maybe by the time her daughter’s 35, she’ll be able to drive in Saudi Arabia.

Naaaaah.

The gist of the diabolical enterprise is found in the paragraph:

Besides this military and political invasion, the zionists are also launch a public and social invasion. They already involved in educational and humanitarian activities over the Afghan people. They have not only hired the politicians and warlords by money, but also try to hire the people by aid and assistance.

But the details are no less enthralling. Please do not laugh when reading the quotes: it should be clear to all that B.Ali is a valiant fighter against all forms of education, and it shows.

American Jewish World Service (AJWS) is helping the educational program in Herat and Parwan province. AJWS supports two organizations Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) and Afghan Women’s Resource Center (AWRC). They work for girl and woman education and empower women. AJWS supports AWRC in empowering Afghan women through providing literacy courses and health education to 100 women and girls living in Khwaja Khel village, Parwan province.

That’s really vile, I tell you: education, women and empowerment combined are a sure recipe for trouble, as any self-respecting Muslim male knows only too well… And of course, B.Ali is well aware of it:

But we are everybody know, zionists are not good-wisher of the Muslims. They interfere in the Muslims by getting the chance of poverty and illiteracy.

But they will not hoodwink B.Ali, no, sir:

So it is out of question to oppose female education by any Muslim. We only oppose the Zionist invasion: either on male, or on female; either on adult, or on child. We only oppose the anti-Islamic education and brain-wash project of our enemy. It is our duty to protect our men and women, youths and children from being hijacked by satanic circle. We must save our integrity of family and society.

It goes without saying then, that if you are a good Muslim and have detected a sign of Zionist invasion on a male or female; either on adult, or on child – you should immediately call for the nearest Muslim Purity Vigilante Squad. Visual aids for identification of such invasion will be provided.

And the source our friend B.Ali uses for this fiery sermon gives more on the Zionist plot:

We do not blame all Women organizations. But those organizations, who oppose Islam, recognize Islam as against women rights, encourage women to sexual perversity, create difference and violence between men and women; are undoubtedly represent the Jews. It is mentionable that, Jewish’s support to the women organizations are not for helping the women, it is only for encouraging women against Islam and break our family by creating violence between men and women. … So, the enemies of Islam, either Jew, or Communist, who want to take our women to give any kind of training or education, either want to encourage them against family, society and religion, or want to enjoy them sexually.

See now? It’s all crystal clear. I only wish some good Muslim would interfere in B.Ali about his English. I am still trying to get the meaning of this:

They use the strategy of Ferawoon, who killed the men, and alive the women.

How does one alive the women and is it good for one’s skin?

Cross-posted on SimplyJews