Maiselog

Highlights from Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia University. Draw your own conclusions.

During a question-and-answer session, Mr. Ahmadinejad appeared tense and unsmiling, in contrast to more relaxed interviews and appearances earlier in the day. In response to one audience question, Mr. Ahmadinejad denied he was questioning the existence of the Holocaust: "Granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people?"

But then he said he was defending the rights of European scholars, an apparent reference to a small number who have been prosecuted under national laws for denying or minimizing the Holocaust. "There's nothing known as absolute," he said.

He reiterated his desire to visit Ground Zero to express sympathy with the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, but then appeared to question whether al Qaeda was responsible. "Why did this happen? What caused it? What conditions led to it?" he said. "Who truly was involved? Who was really involved and put it all together?"

Asked about executions of homosexuals in Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad said the judiciary system executed violent criminals and high-level drug dealers, comparing them to microbes eliminated through medical treatment. Pressed specifically about punishment of homosexuals, he said: "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country."

With the audience laughing derisively, he continued: "In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this."

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Thanks to the online Wall Street Journal I was able to get access to the transcript of this panel very quickly after it was done. There is no comparison in the resources and functionality that WSJ Online brings to the news industry. WSJ Online offers a very resourceful video center that has a great user-interface. With the evolution of Web 2.0, Dow Jows is making big strides to keep up.

"The most highly-respected newspaper in the country."

"...Islamo-Fascism does not define people. Islamo-Fascism shares ideology. You either share that ideology or you reject that ideology. If you reject that ideology, covering for them, complaining about use of that term to describe people who use Islam as a way to, you know, to rally people, to help take on Western world is not in your interest. Your interest is being precise and saying, you know, who you are and who they are and differentiating. And they don't differentiate, and when they don't differentiate, it leads to the belief that many Americans have is, you know, they're all in this together. They may not be violent but you know what? They protect their own before they're willing to be differentiating between their own. And that's a problem. And you point it out very, very well."

--- straight from the Ass' mouth (Ricky) ---

There has been a huge effort to protest this movement on Facebook. Penn State even has its own group that is against the movement. This just goes to show how useful Facebook can been to rally and organize people.