He Never Done Nothin' To No One...That Didn't Deserve It.

Ah, what to do about the utterly bats Iranian president and his bomb fantasies?

My first instinct would be to ignore the loon. The only country that Iran seems to be feuding with massively right now is the US, and the US can probably safely wait until this supposed bomb gets tested. Much less of a problem, truth be told, than the Pakistani and Indian versions, and probably the North Korean one.

But this is hardly responsible international arms control talk. How far is the completely nuts ex hostage-taking Iranian president from having an atomic bomb? We don't know. The CIA doesn't know. Anyone currently living in the US with the ability to speak Farsi is so pissed off with being strip-searched at airports they've given serious thought to moving to London.

So we get things like "we believe they might have x centrifuges, which multiplied by x scientists and ignoring all the screw-ups that might happen, means you should all be very afraid and vote Republican." Yes, it is a problem that the Iranians are more self-sufficient, a fair bit less ethnically divided, and seems to enjoy taunting the US.

But President Bush has now totally turned into the smarmy gym-owning character from Dodgeball, perhaps overly given to picturing himself on the back of a white horse, and suggesting to intimates "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy." Which is also a hideous over-reaction.

To get an idea of how long the Iranians are going to tolerate the demented ravings of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, you should refer to the timeline laid down by Bush and Berlusconi. Both of these leaders had about four, maybe five, years before their electors grew weary of their clowning around. There are exceptions of course to this rule - Marty Markowitz, for one, has shown impressive resilience for one so given to nonsensical utterances.

But we can basically assume that unless the Iranian president is able to fix the bits of Iran that oil money can't make better Mr. Ahmadinejad will be out on his ear sharpish, unstoppable uranium centrifuge skillz or no. For a look into the addled brain of the Iranian Prez we have only the words of Faith No More to guide us:

I'm a human bomb
I'll kill anyone
And so are you, So don't be coy
Cause you too can destroy me like a toy

Uncanny, I'll think you'll agree. That's from Mark Bowen, an early Faith No More song named after an early guitarist, who may have jammed with Courtney Love, and about which nothing else is known. But it's a powerful piece of pumped-up self-loathing, non? Originally from the (now rare) We Care A Lot mini-album. The version posted here has Mike Patton on vocals, rather than the album version's Chuck Mosely.

Faith No More - "Mark Bowen (Live In Munich)"
Buy the exact song on the German I'm Easy single from these fine merchants. Alles klar?