I have the right to beat people up if I want to

Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres, you know, the “dove,” warned Iran, “They want to wipe out Israel... Now when it comes to destruction, Iran too can be destroyed.” He says that Iran’s defiance of the international community was making a “mockery” of the world (other planets are laughing at us behind our back – I’m looking at you, Venus!) and that the UN’s credibility is on the line if it fails to make Iran obey UN resolutions...

The president of Iran sent the US an 18-page letter, which is said to be about philosophy and history and, oh yeah, nukes. The mind boggles: 18 pages. Condi immediately dismisses it: “Absence of communication isn’t really the problem here. We and the international community have been very clear with the Iranians what they need to do.” That’s Condi’s idea of communication: her telling someone what they “need to do.”

That’s in an AP interview that seems, even on the AP site, to exist only in excerpt form, which is frustrating. What was the actual question here?:

On whether the United States should have foreseen that problems would follow installation of a former Shiite militia leader as head of the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which has been accused of hosting Shiite death squads that target Sunnis:

“There was nothing to suggest that this was going to be a problem. But it turned out to be a problem.”

And last week, at something called the Espacio USA Conference, Condi said, “We want, too, also to recognize that there are still too many marginalized people in this hemisphere,” but didn’t say how many was the right number of marginalized people. She continued, “There have been times in the United States of America when populations were marginalized.” 1776 to present. “I come myself from a community and a population that was long marginalized.” It’s true: the gap-toothed were not allowed to own property until 1961, to vote until 1973, or to hold office until 1989.

According to a member of the Afghan parliament, “I have the right to beat people up if I want to.” That was during a little fracas in the parliament today, in which woman MP Malalai Joya was physically attacked when she dared to say that some mujahidin had done bad things in Afghanistan. Read about it in The Times, which, however, says that “Even women MPs joined in.” From what I read elsewhere, it was especially some of the women MPs.