Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
--C.S. Lewis--

Monday, October 5, 2009

Funny, But Not Ha-Ha Funny

Anti-semite and all-around nutter Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be Jewish. Then again maybe not. The author of the first article is asserting that President Squinty's original last name, Sabourjian, is the Iranian equivalent of a name like Goldberg. The second article argues that it bears little relation to his ethnicity, and actually derives from his father's profession. On top of that, his mother is a direct descendant of the prophet, and therefore an unlikely candidate to be marrying a Jewish man.

It looks like the theory probably isn't true, but there's one point I'd like to see addressed further. The first author says that, "The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran's Ministry of the Interior." I have no idea exactly what that means, but the author asserts it as if it is an uncontested fact. Oh well, even if it is true, it really only matters to armchair psychologists. I'm not sure the Jews of Israel really care if the guy who wants to "wipe them off the map" is himself Jewish or not.