crazydictator.com
While surfing for material for yesterday's post, I came across a strange blog indeed: The official page of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Although M-Jad (as his hip-hop friends no doubt call him) doesn't blog as frequently as I do, he does have a country to run into the ground and half the world to freak out. What he does post is fascinating: replies to queries from his admirers all over the world, but especially Americans opposed to the Iraq war and the Bush Administration policies.There's even a feature by which readers can post comments, although judging by the near-uanimous praise in the comments, my guess is that if you were to post a critical comment it would either never appear or be removed post-haste. But maybe not.
For example, scattered among the glowing praise---e.g., "I support Iran nuclear program too. US is biggest danger for all Middle East;" "Keep it up Mr.President you are our hero;"---one finds a smattering of uncensored criticism---e.g., "Mr. President, use your brain and stop supporting terrorists and stop also the nuclear program. If you dont, your country will overcome the same as Germany in Hitlers time."---and even, oddly, criticism of the blog for censoring comments---e.g., "Its great to see the definition you have of a forum? Your censure is reviewing every message before posting it. Is that liberty of opinion?"
I didn't post a comment myself, even under a false name, out of fear that I or my IP address would end up on some scary list.By far the most astounding comment from a reader is the following: "Mr President - it will be great if you can tell the person whos maintaining this website not to use ASPx (Windows Technologies - American dictators) There are far better Open Source projects PHP etc." That's right, here we have someone who thinks it a good use of his time to read and comment on the blog of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and finding nothing objectionable in Iran's treatment of women, its Holocaust denial, its support for Hezbollah, or its nuclear program, complains about Microsoft!
For example, scattered among the glowing praise---e.g., "I support Iran nuclear program too. US is biggest danger for all Middle East;" "Keep it up Mr.President you are our hero;"---one finds a smattering of uncensored criticism---e.g., "Mr. President, use your brain and stop supporting terrorists and stop also the nuclear program. If you dont, your country will overcome the same as Germany in Hitlers time."---and even, oddly, criticism of the blog for censoring comments---e.g., "Its great to see the definition you have of a forum? Your censure is reviewing every message before posting it. Is that liberty of opinion?"
I didn't post a comment myself, even under a false name, out of fear that I or my IP address would end up on some scary list.By far the most astounding comment from a reader is the following: "Mr President - it will be great if you can tell the person whos maintaining this website not to use ASPx (Windows Technologies - American dictators) There are far better Open Source projects PHP etc." That's right, here we have someone who thinks it a good use of his time to read and comment on the blog of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and finding nothing objectionable in Iran's treatment of women, its Holocaust denial, its support for Hezbollah, or its nuclear program, complains about Microsoft!