<$BlogRSDUrl$>

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Ayatollah for a Day 

If I were Ayatollah for a day, I would immediately:
  1. outlaw any amputation of thieves' hands in public places at least until after ten in the morning, if not eleven thirty -- it's so hard to sleep late with all the screaming.

  2. publicly revoke the Fatwa on Salman Rushdie, announcing that it was all a mistake and that peaceful Islam has no problem with the free expression of his ideas. And I'd invite him to Teheran to collect a big prize -- seriously! It would work. You've never heard of taqiya?

  3. clarify that laws allegedly penned by a previous ayatollah -- laws that, among other things, forbid one from consuming a goat after having had sex with it -- are obviously the forged products of a conspiracy to make Iranian Islamic leaders look insane and are therefore from now on null and void. Hey, shepherds have to eat too, and Islam is nothing if not merciful.

  4. declare it a religious duty for all religious Muslims to collect any and all radioactive materials they can get their hands on -- dental x-rays, airport security scanners, freshman physics lab samples, Kevin Federline rap CDs, whatever -- and undertake a new pilgrimmage to the holy city of Teheran, carrying these sacred materials concealed in hollow fake Korans -- and remember to howl if intolerant American security personnel try to search them just because their little boxes start clicking.

  5. send thank you notes, flowers, and a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne to ElBaradei and assorted international diplomats.

  6. advise Ahmadinejad to stop trying to straddle the fence with occasional near-sane remarks -- we want actual foam on his lips at all future press conferences.

  7. put in place an edict forbidding the use of any technology more recent than the 8th century, unless it is to be used for destroying post-8th century or non-Islamic pre-8th century cultures.

  8. issue a global fatwa against blogs -- those things are such a pain in the holy tuchus, and Khomeini never had to deal with such things.

  9. gather all of the military inventors and engineers responsible for our recent spate of superweapons -- weapons beyond even the capabilities of the Super-Sized Satan, like super speedy torpedoes, stupendously stealthy missiles and even a radar evading super-modern flying boat -- and send them abroad for further intensive and advanced study at the Wile E. Coyote School of Military Hardware and Foolproof Deadly Devices.

  10. in view of the drastic restructuring the world's military-industrial food chain is likely to undergo in the wake of massive Wile E. Coyote training of Iranian personnel, I would also liquidate all national assets and have our brokers move us fully into Acme Corporation stocks.

If you really, really liked this -- or even really, really hated it -- there's lots more:
ARCHIVES