Monkeyshines: Ahmadinejad in Space? (Open Thread)

© Miri WTPOTUS February 04, 2013

News from or about Iran caught my eye today.  First, Iranian President Ahmadinejad, unafraid of martyrdom, has proclaimed:

I am ready to be the first human to be sent to space by Iranian scientists.

I’d like to see him get his wish.

BANG, ZOOM! Straight to the Moon!

You may recall that the Iranians claimed recently to have sent a monkey into space and recovered it unharmed.  Whoops!  No surprise.  It was alleged to be a hoax, but now they claim they just made a “mistake” with the photos: [emphasis added]

Last week, Iran’s state news agency broadcast images of a monkey astronaut they claimed was sent up to suborbital flight, more than 70 miles above Earth’s surface. But shortly after Iran announced the mission, several observers pointed out that photos released of a monkey being prepped for launch did not match the monkey that was presented later, post-flight, in a custom tuxedo. The preflight monkey had light-colored fur and a red mole over its right eye, while the monkey in the tuxedo was dark-colored and unblemished.

On Saturday, Iranian space official Mohammad Ebrahimi told the Associated Press that the light-furred monkey shown in the still photos was one of the alternate monkeys, not the one that went up in the capsule.

They put the monkey in a custom-made tuxedo!  This would be funny if it didn’t serve to hide their probable ulterior motive: to develop space weapons.  EMP, anyone? Meanwhile, Obama dithers.

But if talks with Iran seem a long shot to produce peace, the Obama administration appears to be less worried about war than it did just a few months ago. Current and former senior administration officials privately say the threshold for military action is high. Foreign diplomats in Washington say that after three years of tough talk the administration is showing a softer face ahead of the talks. They read the appointment of John Kerry as Secretary of State and the nomination of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, both of whom were critical of the war in Iraq, as signs the administration is not in a hurry to go to war again in the region. On Feb. 2 at the same Munich conference [Iran’s foreign minister Ali Akhbar] Salehi spoke at, vice president Joe Biden said the U.S. would consider one-on-one talks with Iran, last offered in 2009 but then abandoned in the face of Iranian intransigence.

Next up:  Malcolm X’s grandson was arrested by the FBI, on his way to Iran:

Malcolm X’s grandson and Muslim civil activist, Malcolm Lateef Shabazz has reportedly been arrested by FBI agents, according to reports from PressTV.

Prior to the arrest, the grandson to the civil rights icon was en route to Tehran, Iran for the third annual Hollywoodism International Conference held on Sunday (February 3^rd).  The FBI has refused to release information regarding Shabazz’s current whereabouts and the cause for the apparent arrest. The Hollywoodism International Conference hosts filmmakers, activists and scholars from across the globe to discuss issues facing world cinema and it being used as a vehicle for nationalistic propaganda.

Are they for it or agin it?  Using cinema for nationalistic propaganda, I mean.

The story goes on to speak about a battle between the Shabazz family and the Lifetime network, which produced a new movie about Betty Shabazz and Coretta Scott King:

A major point of contention for the Shabazz family was the dramatization of Betty Shabazz’s death which resulted from a fire set by her grandson, Malcom [sic] Lateef Shabazz. The movie depicted Malcolm X’s dying wife as using her last moments of life to speak to Coretta Scott King, even though the Shabazz families claims she was unable to speak after suffering third-degree burns.

There’s video at the link of Malcolm Lateef Shabazz “explaining” his grandmother’s death. (He seems to be the same Shabazz who was arrested recently on his way to Iran.)

Malcolm Lateef Shabazz got eighteen months detention for manslaughter and arson.  Eighteen months in juvie for setting a fire that killed his grandmother, when he was twelve.  It almost sounds as if he blames society for his disaffection, imho.   It was traumatic for him to lose his grandmother, he says.  (Do you see any family resemblance?)

PressTV provides this gem (and another photo of Shabazz) concerning the Hollywoodism conference:

Mike Gravel, a former US Senator who attended the conference, condemned Hollywood’s role in imposing imperialistic views on the people of the world.

“Hollywood is just a tool of the American government and European governments to pursue their imperialistic views whether it is in economy…culture…or religion,” Gravel stated.

It’s a blessing that he’s a “former” senator, imho.  With senators like this, who needs I’m-a-nutjob? I don’t have to tell you that Gravel was a Democrat, do I?  (He’s now a Libertarian, or so they say.)  He even ran for president in 2008.

Finally, it seems that the Iranian regime isn’t very fond of Ben Affleck’s movie ARGO.  That’s a shame because the Iranian people seem to like it:

In response to the liberal Hollywood interpretation of the real-life 444-day siege by Iranian students of the US Embassy in Tehran and how the CIA extracted six diplomats at the height of the crisis, Iran banned the Oscar-nominated film.

Not only does Iran not want the film to be screened in the country, but in response they’re also filming their own movie version of the historical events titled “The General Staff.”

But Iranians apparently don’t want the new version, they want Affleck’s.

According to a Wall Street Journal article titled “Iran’s Latest Hit: Bootleg ‘Argo’ DVDs,” underground DVD sellers say it’s “their best seller in years” with an estimated “several hundred thousand copies” sold.

The DVDS, obtained by sellers with national distribution networks, only recently became available on bootleg discs with Persian subtitles.

At a recent screening of “Argo” at Sharif University, Iran’s top engineering school, one 28-year-old film student who declined to give his name said the DVD sales mean more than just entertainment: “People are indirectly saying to the government that they are tired of this hostile behavior and it’s time for us to be friends with the world and the US again.”

Turns out the Iranians are against propaganda in movies, but only if it’s somebody else’s propaganda, not their own.

The third edition of the International Conference of Hollywoodism is also being held on the sidelines of the [Fajr International Film Festival].

Many Iranian and foreign cineastes and film experts have been invited to the conference, which will be held from February 2 to 7.

One of the main goals of this conference is to probe the philosophy of the anti-Iranian and anti-Islamic movies that are produced by Hollywood, they said in a press release.

The cinema of the Non-Aligned Movement member countries is scheduled to be reviewed during the 31st Fajr International Film Festival.

A collection of movies by filmmakers from NAM member states will be screened in a special section.

Sixty-one films from 26 countries including Algeria, Azerbaijan, Chile, Indonesia, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Nepal, Vietnam, Malaysia and Kenya have been submitted to the festival.

The festival also plans to hold a meeting to discuss the establishment of a NAM filmmakers’ union.

So Hollywoodism apparently means anti-Muslim, anti-Iranian propaganda coming from Hollywood, in their opinion.  That must be an opinion with which Malcolm Lateef Shabazz and Mike Gravel agree.  Are they on board with Sharia-ism, I wonder?

Another thing I wonder about:  Why exactly was Malcolm Lateef Shabazz arrested?  Is somebody afraid of what he might say to enquiring minds over there?

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New Open Thread.      h/t to Gateway Pundit

U.S. Army photo from Wikimedia.