For the man who has everything.

(Not work safe)

Would you believe that the Ayatollah Khomeini encouraged a man to undergo a sex change operation and that the Iranian government paid for it?

According to the New York Times, that's precisely what happened.

Then there's this:

Dr. Bahram Mir-djalali, one of Tehran's few sex-reassignment surgeons, said one of his patients had been a member of the Revolutionary Guards who served five years in the war with Iraq. His operation was paid for by a Muslim cleric he had worked for as a secretary. After the surgery, the man-turned-woman divorced, and then married the cleric.

A surprising article that's worth reading.

UPDATE: In other Iran news, that country has informed British and the French negotiators that it will not renounce its "right" to enrich uranium and that it has resumed building nuclear centrifuges, which are used for such enrichment.

Meanwhile Bush's Iran policy is indecipherable and Kerry's is indefensible.

I was for the Buckeyes, before I was against them.

(Via Country Store)

Pieter at Peaktalk picks up on the Kerry Marine photo-op flap and points to this interesting comment from a serviceman:

[B]y openly declaring who we’re for and against, we’re possibly introducing doubt into the citzenry’s mind about our loyalties. The people of this country expect us to serve the Constitutional government, and by extension all of them, with all the dedication we can muster, no matter who is in charge. That’s why we have rules that say you can’t attend a political rally in uniform, that you can’t publicly campaign for candidates, and that you can’t run for Congress. That’s why it’s imperative that we not allow ourselves to be used as a politician’s or pundit’s prop to advance their own agenda, whether you agree with that particular agenda or not. We have to maintain the image of neutrality.

To my thinking, as a former Marine officer, the Marines in question were wrong to express their personal, pro-Bush, political preference to journalists. But Kerry was even more wrong in attempting to exploit their presence for a self-serving photo-opportunity. He never should have put them in that position, and so there is a certain poetic justice in the fact that it bit him on the ass.

There is nothing wrong with candidates for office seeking to associate themselves with the military as an institution. I see nothing objectionable, for example, with Kerry's recent campaign appearance in Norfolk with a navy warship in the background. Individual servicemen should be strictly off limits, however. Otherwise they may find themselves with an unhappy choice between expressing their personal political preferences, on the one hand, or being co-opted to advance the cause of a candidate whom they don't support, on the other.

And this is not, for a change, intended as a criticism of Kerry. No doubt there are also examples of Bush crossing the line in question.

And no, you really don't need to share them with me.

Reader Traveller asks:

"If you were President, what would be first on your agenda? Let's play a little fun and pretend time.."

Here goes. The agenda for the first day of a Conrad administration:

Item 1. Take out Iranian nuclear sites.

Item 2. Ditto North Korea.

Item 3. Call Sharon, inquire 'why the fuck Arafat still alive?'.

Item 4. Lunch.

Item 5. Invest entire personal net worth in deep out of the money S&P; call options.

Item 6. Declare capital gains tax rate of 0%.

Item 7. Sell said call options in ensuing rally.

Item 8. Order Air Force One for get-acquainted outing with comely young female interns.

Item 9. Pardon self.

Item 10. Resign.

The Standard reports on a local tyke bitten by a piranha:

Two piranhas, the much-feared attackers famous for forming packs to polish off entire cows in minutes that stumble unsuspecting into Amazonian rivers, were found to have been let loose in the fountain of a Kowloon public housing estate.

Maybe in fecking old Trazan movies they do. In real life, piranhas eat fish and insects as well as the occassional bird, small mammal and housing estate resident. Even were they inclined towards beef, there are notably few cows wandering around the Amazon rain forest.

When I want this kind of inanity, I'll look to the South China Morning Post thank you.

If you send me US$100,000, I too promise to piss off for the next four weeks.

Why I am so much smarter than you.

Even a dead cat bounces.

UPDATE: I don't throw gopher balls, the sonofabitch dropped it.

How could I resist this combination of sophomoric sexual innuendo, government incompetence and third-world corruption, from the BBC:

Condoms oil wheels of industry

The weavers of the holy city, home to the world-famous Banarasi saris, have made the contraceptives a vital part of garment production.

The weaver rubs the condom on the loom's shuttle, which is softened by the lubricant thus making the process faster.

Which sounds pretty much like what last night's Indonesian girl was doing.

At first, weavers stocked up on condoms from the family planning department under a government scheme to provide them free of cost.

Some weavers even registered with fake identities to get their hands on the precious prophylactics.

Mahfooz Alam, convener of the Bunkar Bachao Aandolan (or Save the Weavers Movement), says officials got wise to the scam, and corruption set in.

Corruption? In India? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

There are around 150,000 to 200,000 hand and power looms in Varanasi alone and . . . and every loom has a daily consumption of three or four condoms.

You've gotta hand it to those looms. . . .

The Beeb then offers a list of unconventional uses to which a condom can be put, including this:

Condoms can be mixed with tar and concrete to give a smooth finish to roads.

Which gives an entirely new meaning to the expression 'when the rubber meets the road'.

(From It Comes in Pints, via reader Sean)

"One of the strangest delusions of the Western mind is to the effect that a philosophy of profound wisdom is on tap in the East. I have read a great many expositions of it, some by native sages and the rest by Western enthusiasts, but I have found nothing in it save nonsense. It is, fundamentally, a moony transcendentalism almost as absurd as that of Emerson, Alcott and company. It bears no sort of relation to the known facts, and is full of assumptions and hypotheses that every intelligent man must laugh at. In its practical effects it seems to be as lacking in sense and as inimical to human dignity as Methodism, or even Mormonism."

H.L. Mencken

Indonesia's Legal Aid Institute for Health is suing Newmont mining company for Rp5 trillion (US$546.5 million) for allegedly dumping mercury waste in Buyat Bay in North Sulawesi.

Except Newmont doesn't use mecury in its mining operations. That element is used by thousands of illegal miners in the province who are infringing upon Newmont's mineral rights.

The Institute said it would be filing a second lawsuit, also seeking Rp5 trillion in damages, against Health Minister Achmad Sujudi for allegedly failing to respond appropriately to an outbreak of Minamata disease (caused by excessive exposure to mercury) in the province.

Except that there hasn't actually been any outbreak of Minamata disease in North Sulawesi.

Meanwhile, President Megawati Sukarnoputri has appointed nine judges to the country's newly formed anti-corruption court. Of the nine, one formerly headed a company accused of illegally overcharging schoolchildren for text books, and two have amassed considerable unexplained wealth despite modest civil service salaries.

Tom is having performance problems.

Eugene Volokh asks the question:

What happens if the Inauguration gets bombed? Say Kerry is elected, but on Jan. 20, the Inauguration gets bombed, and Kerry and Edwards are both killed.

Do. Not. Make. Cheap. Tasteless. Joke. Dammit!

That's an easy one. Michael Moore releases a documentary revealing how George Bush and Haliburton did it.

I feel like I'm back in law school again. Next question Professor.

I gotta call the Marmot and get him to ship me some of this:

If dissolved in water and applied to the face, Sexty Essence gives one a glossy complexion. But somehow it was discovered that when the same preparation is inserted directly into the vagina, it gives a somewhat different result: it causes the organ to contract, providing a tight grip on any penis that might happen to be lurking in the vicinity.

And, if anyone has any contacts in Pyongyang. . . .

The Standard reports that Beijing is abandoning its lap-dog front men, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, and throwing its weight behind the Liberal Party (defenders of the divine right to rule of the idiot first sons of property speculators) led by the reptilian James Tien. Indeed, mainland mandarins are reported to be actively discouraging other pro-Beijing candidates from competing for Legco seats sought by Liberals.

How brilliantly Machiavellian. What better evidence that the people of Hong Kong truly are unfit for Democratic government than the sight of them freely electing the odious Liberals.

And speaking of idiot first sons:

Tien, with his current popularity and Beijing's blessing, is said to be looking even further ahead to the chief executive race in 2007 should he succeed in moulding the Liberals into a potent political force.

A commenter asked me yesterday what would constitute a "clear enough signal that it was time to clear out of Hong Kong."

The elevation of James Tien to Chief Executive would do nicely.

John Kerry at the US Democratic convention:

"I will wage this war with the lessons I learned in war."

I somehow doubt that al Qaeda will be content to inflict three minor flesh-wounds and then let us all go home in four months.

Cheap shot, I know. But after Sharpton, I don't give a shit.

Marina:

NOTE: I used to live within a few hundred meters of where this photo was taken, not that anyone eyeing this shot is likely to be looking for my house.

Al Sharpton spoke at the Democratic Convention last night and "delegates went wild with sustained applause."

What a despicable performance . . . by the Democratic Party.

Imagine had David Duke run for the Republican presidential nomination, come in last in a crowded field, then been rewarded with a Convention speaking spot, greeted with "wild applause" by the assembled delegates and called the "moral compass" of the Party by the nominee.

Well, this is worse.

Unlike the Reverend Al, Duke -- loathsome as he is -- never incited murder against "white interlopers"; never fabricated charges of rape mutilation and abduction, that he knew were false, against a prosecuting attorney; never committed persistent perjury in a judicial proceeding; never deliberately obstructed an investigation in order to prolong a hoax for his own aggrandizement; never shared stages with and defended the outrageously anti-Semitic Khalid Abdul Muhammad; never participated in publicly disclosing the name of an innocent (and unlike Tawana Brawley, real) rape victim and labelled her a "whore"; never incited further violence by blacks against Jews -- among other things blaming Jews to the oppression of blacks under South African apartheid -- in the wake of the murder of rabbinical student Yankel Rosenbaum by a black Crown Heights mob; and never set fire to his own offices (twice) to avoid producing financial disclosures to election officials.

Okay, to be perfectly fair about that last bit, I can't actually prove that, when Sharpton's offices caught fire immediately before the start of both his US Senate and presidential campaigns (destroying financial records each time), that it was anything other than a very fortunate coincidence for the man who once claimed, under oath, that he didn't actually own anything at all, not even the clothes on his back but rather only had "access" to them).

By providing this nauseating, race-hustling fraudster with a platform, much less cheering and applauding him, out of fear of offending black voters, the Democratic Party has besmirched itself in a way that I will not soon forget.

The next time a Democrat complains abut the GOP's "southern strategy," the Republicans have a simple response: "blow it out your ass, you fucking hypocrite."

Tomorrow's Girl Friday features our third volunteer (following in the footsteps of Singaporian Isabella and Indonesian Chera): Chinese/Filipina/American Marina, about whom I have a very long story . . . that I'm not going to tell you.

New York Times columnist Barbara Ehrenreich claims that Presidential nominees John Kerry and John Edwards may be too "butch" to be elected.

I guess that rules out a Hillary Clinton candidacy then.

And speaking of Bill's women. . . .

(All links shamelessly stolen from Country Store)

An apologist for the Philippine's retreat from Iraq at the behest of terrorists accuses the Australian Foreign Minister of cowardice (background here).

Beams and motes, pots and kettles, houses made of glass. . . .

But then, what can one expect of someone who believes that the Philippines should renounce its foreign debt because Philippine government officials spent the money unwisely, it is burdensome to repay and because some of the proceeds were used to buy foreign products. Imagine if we could apply this principle to our own personal finances:

Dear Visa Card:

The burden of making the monthly payments on my outstanding account balance has become extremely burdensome and interferes with my desired standard of living. I realize that you allowed me to use the card to make purchases on the understanding that I would repay the principal along with interest. I believe, however, that this promise is rendered inoperative by the fact that the payments are expensive and because Visa is an American based company and some of the charges were incurred to purchase American products. In addition, many of the remaining charges were incurred in the course of boozing and whoring and it was extremely irresponsible of you to advance me money for such purposes.

Finally, my various accountants and investment advisors have tragically embezzled much of my assets and invested the rest in a heretofore unprofitable fur-bearing-trout farming venture. While it is true that I personally hired and employed the advisors in question, I was convinced when I did so that their backgrounds as B-movie actors, quiz-show hosts, TV weathermen, convicted felons, etc. made them ideally suited to manage my portfolio. As it turns out, their actual performance was a disappointment for which Visa should accept its fair share of responsibility.

In light of the foregoing, please reset my Visa Card account balance at zero. Your prompt attention to this matter will be appreciated and will enable me to continue to use your card for future purchases and engage in further robust deficit spending, some of which will involve American products, thereby benefitting you.

Sincerely,

Conrad Gweilo

cc: Kofi Annan

I await their favorable reponse.

The North Korean government today accused South Korea of committing a "terrorist crime" against the North and vowed vengeance.

"South Korea will be held responsible for the aftermath of the operation and all forces that cooperated with it will pay a high price. South Korea's cooperation with the United States' designed to overturn our system of socialism by damaging our republic's international reputation and trying to accomplish regime change is a criminal act of anti-nationalism and will never be forgiven. This is the greatest act of hostility intended to crumble our system."

Gee, what did the South do to inspire such ire from their neighbors? Did they:

(A) Assassinate seventeen North Korean government officials with a remote control bomb?

(B) Blow up a North Korean airliner killing all 115 passengers aboard?

(C) Kidnap a prominent North Korean film director and his actress wife?

(D) Attempt to assassinate the North Korean president, killing his wife instead?

The correct answer is (E), none of the above. South Korea's heinous crime was to grant asylum to 450 Northern refugees, leaving Kim Jong Il and his cohorts a mere 22,697,103 subjects to starve, rape, murder and exploit.

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(Via Educated Guesswork)

The Philippines government is summoning Australia's ambassador in Manila to declare its outrage over Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's criticism that its payment of ransom and revision of policy in response to terrorist threats encourages more terrorist threats.

The expected dressing down by the Philippines government follows Spain's decision earlier this week to call in Australia's envoy in Madrid to officially complain about his remarks, which also criticised Spain.

The Philippines ambassador to Australia, Cristina Ortega, said her country was deeply hurt by the comments.

Overnight, activists in Manila tore and burned Australian flags.

The protesters held up placards that read "Mind your own beef", referring to Australia's lucrative beef exports to the Philippines.

Compare the Philippine's bluster to its ally with its fawning official response to Islamic kidnappers threatening it with murder:

"In the name of Allah, in response to your request the Philippines will withdraw its humanitarian forces as soon as possible. I hope the statement that I read will touch the heart of this group. We know that Islam is the religion of peace and mercy. I appeal to you and to your kind hearts as Muslims to please release Angelo de la Cruz so that he can return to his family and children."

If John Howard wants to improve relations with the Philippines, he needs to round up a few Filipinos and a guillotine.

Why John Edwards is an economic idiot.

Hong Kong's Operations Review Committee is currently conducting a second day of inquiry into the Independent Commission Against Corruption's ("ICAC") raid on the newsrooms of seven local newspapers and and the accompanying arrest and/or detention of journalists and lawyers. The ICAC was seeking to discover the source for a story, printed last week, revealing their detention of a witness against her will.

Jackboot tactics from the ICAC. There are people surprised by this? The ICAC is staffed by some of the most arrogant mediocraties it's been my misfortune ever to encounter. Towering ego combines with middling ability and nonexistant judgment so as to virtually ensure enforcement excesses.

Secretary for Justice Elsie Leung, the holder of a law degree from a prestigeous correspondence course, declared that Hong Kong law -- which permitted the raid of newsrooms, seizure of notes and files and arrest and interrogation of journalists -- adequately protected press freedom. She also praised the professionalism and judgment of ICAC investigators.

Despite Leung's assurances, one of my arrested colleagues, Andrew Lam, was crying like a bitch:

A lawyer at the centre of the controversial ICAC raids on newspaper offices fought back tears yesterday as he declared his innocence and accused the anti-corruption agency of targeting him in retaliation for previous clashes.

"I'm not crying yet, but this incident, to me, had a very big impact," an emotional Mr Lam said. "The 41 hours were unforgettable in my life. If I did anything wrong, I would accept [what happened]. But did I? Why did they arrest me? It's all because [of] some past episodes between me and the ICAC.

"The way they treated me, the way they conducted their inquiry on me, this is no more than a vendetta," he continued. "It's a retaliation against me, that's the way I feel, that's what it is."

Lam is a former ICAC officer himself, so there's a certain poetic, if not legal, justice in his fate, and I assume his clients are duly, ahem, impressed with this display of strength, dignity and control in the face of adversity.

Another arrested lawyer was more circumspect:

Barrister Kevin Egan also attended the press conference, but declined to sit on the stage and left half-way without answering questions from the press.

Happy hour Kevin?

Jonathan Watts suggests that the elderly SARS whistleblower and Tiananmen critic, Jiang Yanyong, may actually be a stalking horse for President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in their efforts to loosen former President Jiang Zemin's grip on power.

It's worth reading despite the labored professional wrestling analogy.

Senator Edward Kennedy at the US Democratic Convention:

We bear no ill will toward our opponents. In fact, we'd be happy to have them over for a polite little tea party. I know just the place: right down the road at Boston Harbor.

Okay Teddy, but you ain't driving.

UPDATE: And I just saw the tape of Jimmy Carter lecturing delegates regarding national security.

What's next? Queen Elizabeth on child rearing? Keith Richards on sobriety?

Hemlock on the recent incarceration of a local barrister:

[T]akings in the main bar of the Foreign Correspondents Club must have plummeted over the weekend when barrister Kevin Egan was arrested by the Independent Commission Against Corruption. . . . On the front page of the SCMP today, a photo of Egan, recounting his nightmarish 41 hours in ICAC custody, which he says he spent “sleeping and drinking water.” It is a wonder that he survived two such massive shocks to his metabolism.

Perfect.