Lives in a Shoe

Iran Accuses West of Using Lizards for Nuclear Spying

Adviser to Khamenei says aid collectors for Palestinians sought to deploy reptiles whose skin 'attracted atomic waves'.

Gay Air France Stewards Understandably Reluctant to Fly to Iran

By V the K, writing at the always-excellent gaypatriot.net:

None of the corporations (PayPal, Pepsi, and so on) raising a stink about North Carolina’s bathroom law have any reservations about doing business in countries like Saudi Arabia where homosexuality is severely punished as a matter of law. But a few Air France flight attendants aren’t happy about doing business with Obama’s best friends, the Iranians.

A steward from Air France has launched an online appeal against gay cabin members having to travel to Iran. It’s titled: “Gay stewards from Air France don’t want to fly to the death penalty in Iran”.

The letter points out that homosexuality in Iran is illegal and comes with a penalty of 74 lashes for a minor, while adults can be given the death penalty.

Death penalty for homosexuality? No big deal. Now, if they were denied wedding cake or forced to use the bathroom that corresponded to their physiology, that would be the worst injustice and suffering ever inflicted on any people anywhere at any time in history.

 

Air France Crew Refuse to Cover Up on Flights to Tehran

Union leaders and management for the flight company are meeting Monday about objections to a memo telling female attendants [and pilots] they must wear the pants version of their uniform, rather than the skirt option, on the flights to Tehran, as well as a “loose-fitting jacket and headscarf” before exiting their planes, the AP reports.

Air France said it already required staff to wear abayas over their bodies during stops in Saudi Arabia, and the new regulations were not out of the ordinary.

Not out of the ordinary, maybe, but unreasonable just the same.  French airline, French culture.  If it's Iran Air the mullahs can order women around, but it would be nice to see the French continue to push back. 

Ask Yourself Why...

...many of us who voted R for years are so disappointed we are now enthusiastic
about Trump (although I carry a small forlorn hope for Cruz in the deep of my heart).  I like it that Trump has our interests first, that he loves this country for real.  His lack of explicitly political experience is not a bug but a feature here.  Overall his experience in running businesses, including the failures, gives him the life experience most politicians lack.  I like it that he doesn't rely on a finger-in-the-wind opinion but just says it -- without teleprompter.  I have been learning about his tax plan and like that a lot.  Today I read that Iran will build a statue of our captured sailors and it makes me ill.  Do I believe a president Trump would bend over to be disrespected like that?  Nope. A strong man at the helm will be a refreshing change. 

In the NY Post, Why I support Trump — and resent the elites trying to destroy him:

I don’t expect you to agree with me or start backing Trump. I would, however, encourage you to at least think about what I and others have said and to understand that the people backing Trump are not nihilists or uneducated hillbillies looking for a job. Some of us are pretty serious people and once considered ourselves conservatives. Even if you still hate Trump, you owe it to conservatism to ask yourself how exactly conservatism managed to alienate so many of its supporters such that they are now willing to vote for someone you loathe as much as Trump.

John Kluge is an attorney living in Washington. He served in the US Army for nine years, including two deployments in Iraq and Kuwait.

Breakfast -- No Mimosas

Wow.  The Frenchies rear back and say Non.

Lunch between the French and Iranian leaders is CANCELLED after President Hollande refused to take wine off the menu for his meeting with Muslim counterpart Rouhani

Iran's President Rouhani was due to dine with President Francois Hollande But France refused to take wine off the menu and suggested a breakfast instead

There are fears it could spark a diplomatic row between the two countries  Protesters want Hollande to take Rouhani to task on human rights abuses

 

Iran: American Sailors Started Crying After Arrest

Article from Free Beacon. Iran having a great time mocking the US.

Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the IRGC, which is responsible for boarding the U.S. ships and arresting the sailors, claimed in recent remarks, the “American sailors started crying after arrest, but the kindness of our Guard made them feel calm.”

Hossein went on to brag that the incident provides definitive evidence of the Iranian military’s supremacy in the region.

“Since the end of the Second World War, no country has been able to arrest American military personnel,” the commander said

 

Trump: Our Country Needs My Anger

Mark Steyn:

...they seem to have accepted the British spin that there's been no breach of the Geneva Convention because the Marines and sailors weren't official prisoners of war, just freelance kidnap victims you can have what sport you wish with.

 This is marginally less insane than the Biden-Kerry line that illegally seizing foreign sailors, forcing them to their knees and to submit to the dress codes of someone else's religion, using them for propaganda videos and making them issue public apologies testifies to how the new Iranian-American friendship is just peachy and going gangbusters.

In fact, the Iranians are doing exactly what they've always done. They got their nuclear deal, and it's business as usual. The only difference is that, a decade ago, they did it to America's allies but they never quite dared to do it to America itself.

Trump Is angry?  Yeah he is.  And we should be angry too.

IRAN WARNS US OF WAR – Missiles Are Locked on US Aircraft Carrier USS Truman

Playing Obama and Kerry for fools. And we are about to deliver them $150 billion of our money as a thanks for signing that paper.

...Shook Her Hand -- Which is Illegal in Iran.""

"Female cartoonist could have 12 year prison term extended for shaking her lawyer's hand."

 

"Charges of an 'illegitimate sexual relationship short of adultery' have been brought against [Atena] Farghadani and her lawyer Mohammad Moghimi amid allegations he visited her in jail and shook her hand - which is illegal in Iran."

Mother Knows Best About Foreign Relations

Assad Will Likely Outlast Obama in Power

Why?  Cannot offend Iran with deal pending. The horrific results of Obama’s failure in Syria.

One little boy in a red T-shirt, lying face down, drowned, on a Turkish beach, is a tragedy. More than 200,000 dead in Syria, 4 million fleeing refugees and 7.6 million displaced from their homes are statistics. But they represent a collective failure of massive proportions.

For four years, the Obama administration has engaged in what Frederic Hof, former special adviser for transition in Syria, calls a “pantomime of outrage.” Four years of strongly worded protests, and urgent meetings and calls for negotiation — the whole drama a sickening substitute for useful action. People talking and talking to drown out the voice of their own conscience. And blaming. In 2013, President Obama lectured the U.N. Security Council for having “demonstrated no inclination to act at all.” Psychological projection on a global stage. . . .

This was not some humanitarian problem distant from the center of U.S. interests. It was a crisis at the heart of the Middle East that produced a vacuum of sovereignty that has attracted and empowered some of the worst people in the world. Inaction was a conscious, determined choice on the part of the Obama White House. 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and CIA Director David Petraeus advocated arming favorable proxies. Sunni friends and allies in the region asked, then begged, for U.S. leadership. All were overruled or ignored.

In the process, Syria has become the graveyard of U.S. credibility.

,,,

At some point, being “modest” becomes the same thing as being inured to atrocities. President Bashar al-Assad’s helicopters continue to drop “barrel bombs” filled with shrapnel and chlorine. In recent attacks on the town of Marea, Islamic State forces have used skin-blistering mustard gas and deployed, over a few days, perhaps 50 suicide bombers. We have seen starvation sieges, and kidnappings, and beheadings, and more than 10,000 dead children.