ShahLatif

oh my..I didn't know anyone knew this 'secret' before. the fact that they DID change their surname was a part of his pre-election profile 4 years ago, in case you were learning to read back then.. nothing secretive about it! so..doesn't the latter reason sound more likely, considering HE CANNOT GET RID OF HIS EXTENDED FAMILY if he wants to hide his jewish past!!!! so he earned a Phd cuz his dad changed his last name? or was the family's social mobility primarily due to some HARD WORK? ..anyway, you carefully avoided answering my question: how can anyone not identify his extended family, which as per your theory is jewish?

Thanks for demonstrating to the world what an Idiot you are to believe this garbage. Iran is NOT a western country where someone can just make up his ancestry. A simple fact-check involves sending someone to your native town to speak with your (extended) family. If you are a convert, does it imply that your 2nd, 3rd, 4th cousins also converted with you? do you think he eliminated all the evidence of conversion? - except for the document he's holding up (apparently oblivious that he will be photographed during a photo-op!!!). This story is a clear proof that the US/UK media is just as bad as it was in 2002 when they served as the government's propaganda ministry.

^ I hate when he's called 'our Ayatullah' in the US. There's a tacit understanding in the US that as long as Ayat Sistani is not openly hostile to the occupation, it can continue.

you mean the dead on either side? cuz I think that is the point being made lately.

Christopher Hitchens, the pseudo liberal who cheer leaded this war is was heard salivating on the prospects of Iraq being able to pay for her own reconstruction last week on msnbc. He was saying 'may be Wolfowitz was right after all'. Obama is often heard howling about the 79 billion surplus for Iraq, and how US taxpayers money should be spent in the US, and not abroad. Both these voices paint a bleak picture: G W and his dad destroyed Iraq, and now Iraqis will foot the bill of this 'reconstruction'. Smart people, not PUPPET (shia) leaders knew it all along - the US is interested in maintaining their *military* occupation, on which they have spent $700 billion already. And there are shameless spineless leaders who want to perpetuate this status quo.

^if economic security is gone, so is every other form of security.

so if tomorrow the US bribes Iraqi lawmakers into acceptance, it will become OK? secondly, isn't this assembly near its end? Shouldn't such matters be left to an assembly with a fresh mandate? or better yet, a referendum?

why? why not use common sense and judgment to see if it makes sense? As a US tax payer, I find this agreement between iraqi 'prime minister' and G W's pentagon to be outrageous in every respect. Totally un-representative of the peoples' will on either side. The American people are being ripped off by their military establishment to fund this totally needless occupation, when their own infrastructure is unraveling.

there's a simple litmus test here : remove the promises of prosperity from the equation and see if the people are still interested in emigrating. this was the idea of the original posting.

This makes your head spin. One wonders, why is there even a need to invoke a 'law' when doing such things? why not just keep the money and tell others to shove their whining up their ...? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7662027.stm Prime Minister Gordon Brown has condemned Iceland's handling of the collapse of its banks and its failure to guarantee British savers' deposits. He said its action were "effectively illegal" and "completely unacceptable". The UK government has frozen all UK-held assets of the Icelandic bank Landsbanki after it collapsed. Iceland's prime minister Geir Haarde said it was "not very pleasant" to learn that anti-terror laws were being used to deal with the company. Landsbanki, one of many banks hit heavily by the global credit crunch, was taken over by the Icelandic government and declared insolvent on Tuesday. The 300,000 UK customers of its subsidiary IceSave were unable to access their accounts.

as usual, you forgot to read my original posting: Muslims are a PART of the 3rd world, well most of them, and they behave like typical 3rd world people. muslims come to America for the same reasons that mexicans do. I can't make generalizations based on the actions of a 'few'. Sure, there are a 'few' westerners who move to 3rd world countries for economic reasons as well (since they have an inherent advantage over the locals) - but I can't apply their behavior to all westerners.. when the mexicans wake up from their drunken stupor, they will kick out the US sponsored rulers and install in their countries people like Chavez who can at-least guarantee a safety net for the have-nots (people, not bankers). one can hope the same should apply to muslim lands also. the era of US sponsored stooges is hopefully coming to an end.

so you deny the relevance of sunna?

^agreed! This war on terror became a farce the moment G dubya decided to invade Iraq. Anyone who joined this war from that point onwards was a stupid tool.

whatever happened, Zardari couldn't garner much sympathy from average Pakistanis, just like mushy couldn't muster much after those 'attempts' on his life. Zardari tried to paint it as a national tragedy, when it was clear that the common pakistanis feel rather detached from those elite hangouts like Marriot islamabad. He also tried to play victim, making the demonstrably false claim he was invited at an Iftar dinner held at the hotel.