The wire services are carrying a report today about the Iranian heavy water facility. In the body of several of these the following is embedded.
According to the facility's director, Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh, who also heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, it will produce 80 tonnes of heavy water a year that will be used to treat AIDS and cancer, and for other medicine and agricultural purposes.
Now while heavy water treatment has been known for a long time to be an extremely effective, but also lethal, form of chemo, it boggles what is left of the mind to think that it could also be used to restore a decaying immune system.
Just like "an idiot who has found one word to express everything", an appeal to the AIDS god can succor all souls, infidel and true believer alike.
Hank, this idea is so ridiculous that it probably will be used. I can see our pharma companies scratching their heads and wondering why they didn't think of it first. Let's nuke the unproven virus!
Posted by: noreen martin | August 26, 2006 at 01:43 PM
And these guys do not like to be called arabs.
How's that for chutzbah?!
Posted by: George | August 26, 2006 at 02:39 PM
This subject on Iran looks like a cosmic alignment of the insane. That would be 2Tim3, one of Shakespeare’s brilliant verses, partially stolen from Constantine after Good John scribbled code on Nero. This was not properly represented in the “Life of Brian”.
Posted by: Doug | August 26, 2006 at 06:46 PM
The hits just keep coming. How about this headline of today for yet another instance of the denialist virus infecting everything?
"Iraqi PM denies civil war threat
Reuters - 46 minutes ago
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A spate of car bombings across Iraq killed at least 33 people on Sunday, but Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki insisted violence was on the decrease and that the country would "never be in a civil war."
Bush denies that the invasion was a mistake.
The Iranians that they want a bomb.
The AIDS witch doctors that AZT is pure poison.
The HIV pseudo-scientists that the virus is a genetic pussycat.
The AIDS church that anyone who disagrees with any of the doctrine deserves the right to be heard.
Etc.
Whadda woild!
Posted by: George | August 27, 2006 at 02:22 PM
More Iraqis died every day when Saddam was in charge than are dying now. So I guess Saddam ruled over a non-stop "civil war" even worse than what's there now huh?
Whadda world indeed.
Posted by: Dean Esmay | August 29, 2006 at 01:06 AM
Oh and of course you've got the independent numbers to back up that statement about Iraqi deaths haven't you Dean dear?
Not that it really matters obviously, in view of the grand historical experiment in 'democratization' that's being played out right in front of our eyes.
I mean what's the price of freedom and democracy anyway? And yet those ungrateful bastards aren't strewing flowers and singing songs to our troops. Makes one wonder if they're really worth it. . .
Posted by: lise | August 29, 2006 at 06:04 AM
Yes, Lise dear, I do in fact have numbers to back up my claims. Totally independent numbers, backed up by the Brookings Institute, hardly a neocon haven. A well respected left-wing (i.e. "liberal" in the current American lexicon) think tank, they'll give you the full truth:
Fact is that more Iraqi civilians died every day under Saddam than died under the American so-called "occupation." Fact.
Fact is that for the first time in more than half a century, everyday Iraqis actually got to VOTE for their current government, which was more than they were ever given under Saddam.
Fact is that today everyday Iraqis are given more freedom of speech, more freedom of religion, more freedom of assembly, and more freedom to object to their government than they were ever given under Saddam.
Fact is that life by any measurable level--average income, average availability of electricity, food, water, shelter, or basic freedom than was ever given under Saddam.
Fact is, my dear Lise (or should your name be "lies?") the average Iraqi is better off today than she or he was EVER given under Saddam--unless, maybe, you were one of Saddam's privileged protected class people. Which would have made you not much different from a White South African in 1980.
So yes, my dear, I am PROUD that I voted for George Bush, PROUD that I am an American, and PROUD that I helped the Iraqi people take ten steps more toward freedom than they EVER had under Saddam's despotic fascist regime.
Please feel free to quote me, my dear. Or to quote any of my Iraqi friends.
Posted by: Dean Esmay | August 31, 2006 at 12:39 AM
Oh and by the way, let me add?
Even if you look today at the number of Iraqis who die today under the American so-called "occupation" (which intelligent, thinking people call properly "liberationi"):
The only Iraqi civilians who die today as a result of the so-called "occupation" (more properly called "liberation") die at the hand of vile terrorist, women-oppressing, minority-oppressing TERRORISTS who hate democracy, hate the liberation of women, hate the liberation of minorities, who blow up little children and women and minorities, all in the name of their supposed "nationalism" which is nothing but a hateful fight against freedom.
I'm glad I'm on freedom's side. I wish you were too.
Posted by: Dean Esmay | August 31, 2006 at 12:42 AM
Oh and one more thing for poor under-informed Lise, and her friends like Harvey:
A friend of mine recently forwarded to me an article from a group that called itself "the committee to protect Iraqi journalists." And they were complaining that the government was abusing Iraqi journalists and giving them grief for some of the things they published.
I also got a letter from another friend who showed me complaints from a group of Iraqi women who were complaining about women's treatment under the new Iraqi regime.
My entire response to both was:
"Oh, they have a committee to protect Iraqi journalists now? They have a committee to protect Iraqi women now? How wonderful is that? Can you point to me any such groups who were allowed to exist under Saddam?"
No?
I didn't think so.
Game, point, & match.
You stupid fools who opposed the liberation of Iraq should be ashamed of yourselves.
Posted by: Dean Esmay | August 31, 2006 at 12:46 AM
Oh and just so you don't remember?
Under Saddam's regime, not only were women not given any rights, but Sadam's sons used to love to prowl through the streets of Baghdad. And if they saw a woman they found attractive, they'd point to her and their guards would go out and grab her, and then his sons would rape her and throw her onto the streets.
And if any women objected? Or hell, if any women objected to anything about Saddam's rule? Here's what Saddam's thugs would do:
They'd find that woman, and grab her, then rape her, and then kill her. Then they'd cut off her head, and go to her family and inform them that they had to display their daughter's severed head on their lawn for at least a week.
Your sister, your daughter, maybe even your mother: her head on your lawn for at least a week before the regime would finally let you take it down and bury it along with the rest of her body.
This crap happened EVERY WEEK in Saddam's Iraq.
Aren't you SOOO proud you opposed the Liberation of Iraq from Saddam? If you are, I know more than one Iraqi who would like to talk to you hear near Dearbon near where I live.
Posted by: Dean Esmay | August 31, 2006 at 12:53 AM
Mr. Esmay,
I think it might calm these hyper-reactive enthusiasms for your president's folly if you gathered some smooth white stones and distributed them to your various pockets. Then, sitting quietly in some secluded spot, preferably near a large body of water, begin to suck them turn and turn again until your restless mind attains a moment or two of peace.
Posted by: George | August 31, 2006 at 02:30 AM
Dear me Dean,
If you say you've got the independent numbers I believe you, you don't have to shout. Some men!
I give you the 'game point and match' (I always do the same with my husband when something exites him). The iraqis are so much better off now that we're there to make sure their democracy works the way proper democracies ought to work in oil rich countries - you know sort of like it works in Saudi Arabia, where women are really, really free thanks to all the business we do with them and the pally wally relationship between their rulers and ours.
And yes Dean, they're ALL terrorists and terrorist sympathizers over there, Shiites, Sunis, the lot. I think every Shiite and Suni in Iraq should be locked up in Abu Graib,. Every single one of them. I mean their religion tells them to kill infidels and each other, and if it doesn't tell them, they just do it anyway for the hell of it, right? Those freedom hating faceless monsters. That's why I wonder if they're really worth our efforts.
But even if the ignorant fools resist our enlightened democracy, I do think it's worth it, so you've got me all wrong Mr. Dean.
I don't want to have to fight all those vile terrorists on our own soil do you? So isn't it much better we go fight them over there - I mean not 'we' of course, but those brave young men and women, from lower income families that want to serve the country that's given them so many opportunities - that they go and fight terrorists where the locals don't matter so much? The Iraqis were oppresed anyway, so how can they complain if we use their country as permanent frontline in WWIII.
You know, come to think of it, that's a bit like the war on AIDS. We fight it in places like Africa and India, where people have no hope anyway, so we don't have to fight the microbe here where lives really start to count for something.
And the strategy's worked as well. We've really got all of those terrorists out of the wood work now, just as we've identified all those HIV+ Africans - and the good thing is that neither definition requires a test.
Who would have thought that in spite of all those thousands of (suspected) terrorists or HIV+ we've exterminated, there'd still be this many left. I praise the wisdom of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for starting this war now, before Al Qaeda gets a chance to breed like a virus in their ratty little spiderhole hideouts until they clean outnumber us.
Because in that case we'd just have to cut our losses and nuke the terrorists where they're found, namely Iran - apart from the ones that're in Iraq of course - and in Lebanon - and in North Korea - and... heck, maybe they already outnumber us! maybe I'm sitting next to one right now without knowing it. . . .! No I think I'm getting carried away, my husband doesn't fit the racial profile, and we've got no oil wells in our garden. That means our land is not likely to be declared 'eminent domain' anytime soon by the irresistible forces of freedom and democracy that's propelled progress in this great nation of ours ever since the very first democratically elected Indian put his very first thumb print on that very first land contract.
Posted by: Lise | August 31, 2006 at 05:57 AM
Right, what a success Iraq is. We really liberated those sane and orderly people from their oppressor.
USA, USA! Or mebbe those crazy desert fighters need a tough guy to stamp down on them hard so they know whose in charge?
And now there's Iraq lighting its fuse, and North Korea too, and we're stretched to the limit.
Good job, PNAC, you chose the right war!
Posted by: Tanner | August 31, 2006 at 06:25 AM
I meant "Iran lighting its fuse"
Posted by: Tanner | August 31, 2006 at 06:26 AM
That nice picture, you know the one right next to that of George Bush with the caption "BRING IT ON" on Dean's desk, of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein - I wonder what were the numbers, independent or otherwise, on rape and torture in Iraq at that point in time?
Posted by: McDonald | September 01, 2006 at 05:22 AM
The US invaded Iraq to get the WMDs before they got us.
When it turned out there were no WMDs there, the invasion became about the necessity for regime change to keep them from getting us in the future.
AIDS started as an invasion to save the US from the deadly sex virus. When it turned out there was no deadly sex virus loose in the US, it became about saving Africa from the deadly sex virus.
Did I make the point above that AIDS ALWAYS was politics and NEVER was science?
Posted by: George | September 05, 2006 at 02:49 PM
My favorite, "word up", "nothing".
According to my favorite hi-level gossip columnist, Maureen Dowd, (the only thing basically worth reading in the Times except checking the baseball or b-ball stats):
"When a reporter asked President Bush a couple of weeks ago what Iraq had to do with 9/11, he blurted out the truth: “Nothing.” But momentarily dismissing that fantasy isn’t about to dissuade him from others. “One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror,’’ President Bush told Katie Couric this week. I bet. Making up is hard to do."
The HIV/AIDS scientific pundits occasionally make the same slip of the truthful tongue when asked what HIV has to do with AIDS, but their political dopplegangers are always quick with the "I'll tell, you heart-to-heart" Katie comment.
Noreen,
Where you been? I miss you. You might like to check out the new "insurgent" action by Bialy/Brown at the AIDS Wiki that I believe I inspired when I wrote about how Hank needs a new button that says "My Mom is Positive and so am I, HIV is NOT the Cause of AIDS "in some other thread.
There is a rather tedious, if not idiotic discussion of it going on at NAR as well that you could perhaps elevate. Me, I don't comment over there, and not for any other reason than "I am monogamous", and Hank's is a source of catalytic inspiration for the Internet insurgency. Alors, je reste content.
Posted by: George | September 11, 2006 at 01:19 PM
George,
I don't think that particular angle is going to be very useful if we're looking to getting the "AIDS meme" out of our heads.
First, there's Africa, where plenty of what's called "AIDS" there is presumed to be from MTCT. Second, the most gravitating, frightening words in the "AIDS" lexicon are still front and center: AIDS, HIV, infection.
Posted by: Dan | September 11, 2006 at 01:53 PM
Dan,
Ther idea as I understand it of the Bialy/Brown initiative is to counteract the ignorance, not to give in to it as you suggest. I have no idea what an "AIDS meme" might be, but you seem to have swallowed at leastt some portion of the poison given what you just wrote.
Do you not understand that if a goodly number of black Americans who receive out of the blue death sentences are alerted to this possibility that something could change? And that even a few enlightened, positive pairs could bring down the house of cards?
I am an old man, but in my youth I was a street fighter. I commend Bialy and Brown for all thay they have done and do in the streets of cyberspace.
More benzene to their engines and wind to their sails, as my friend Ed Dorn liked to say.
Posted by: George | September 11, 2006 at 02:16 PM
Hi George, I'm still here, had to go out and do a little community work. Anyhoo, I will check it out. One thing is for sure, we dissidents, rethinkers or whatever we are labeled, aren't going away. We will keep on hammering away at this Berlin Wall of Aids nonsense till it crumbles on down!
Posted by: noreen martin | September 11, 2006 at 02:24 PM
Dan,
I see that Brown/Bialy have added a new paragraph at the bottom of their description.
I quote it here to save you the trouble of another look at this moment, although I do urge you strongly to go back and read the entire proposal from outside "the meme" rather than within it -- something that it is clear from all your other posts, you have no difficulty at all doing.
"We understand that the implications of this exercise may be confusing, and that someone given an arbitrary "death sentence" in the form of a positive antibody test, might very well not be in any proper mental state to evaluate it carefully, much less think about springing this news on mom. We therefore urge anyone who has questions about their own possible participation to contact the Wikimaster at the link above. All inquires will be kept in the strictest confidence, of course."
Posted by: George | September 11, 2006 at 02:32 PM
George,
I understand the Bialy/Brown proposal.
Sometimes I don't think anything can make a dent in something that so easily resists reason. More power to Bialy and Brown if they can make a dent, or more.
I should reconsider posting when I'm feeling tired and jaded by 20-some years of this madness.
Posted by: Dan | September 12, 2006 at 01:28 AM