Contagions, Real & Imagined

The French, they are a funny race, parlez vou (via Newsmax Insider):

France is willing to help Venezuela develop a civilian [heh] nuclear energy program, the two countries’ foreign ministers announced.

Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro told reporters in Paris on Thursday that humanity’s future depended, in part, on nuclear energy, The Guardian in Britain reported.

France’s Bernard Kouchner also said France would like to use Venezuela — a staunch critic of the U.S. — as a go-between with Iran in discussions about its nuclear program, but Iran had so far proved unreceptive.

Venezuela is a major petroleum exporter, while France is home to nuclear giant Areva and is a leading exporter of nuclear technology.

So let's tally this up: Bill Clinton helped North Korea go nuclear in the '90s, the Russians are helping Iran go nuclear now, and the supposedly "pro-American" French government of Nicholas Sarkozy wants to help Hugo Chavez go nuclear tomorrow?  Is anybody on this planet even paying external lip service to the concept of nuclear non-proliferation any more?

Speaking of Iran, here's more "rhetoric of peace and friendship" from the man all-but-President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama just can't wait to break bread with:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has launched new verbal attacks against Israel, saying Zionist leaders are “germs of corruption” who will be wiped “off the face of the earth.”

Ahmadinejad’s recent comments on the Iranian News Channel were translated and released by the Middle East Media Research Institute on Thursday.

"The Zionists are crooks,” the Iranian leader declared.

“A small handful of Zionists, with a very intricate organization, have taken over the power centers of the world. According to our estimates, the main cadre of the Zionists consists of 2,000 individuals at most, and they have another 8,000 activists. In addition, they have several informants, who spy and provide them with intelligence information.”

This “cadre” controls the world’s financial centers and news and propaganda agencies, and spreads “propaganda as if they were the entire world, as if all the peoples supported them, and as if they were the majority ruling the world,” Ahmadinejad asserted.

"That is a great lie — just like their Jewishness is a great lie. They have no religion whatsoever. They are a handful of lying, power-greedy people who have no religion, who only want to take over all the peoples and countries, and to trample the rights of the peoples . . . 

"A Zionist organization with 2,000 [members] and with 7,000 or 8,000 activists has brought the world to a state of confusion. Let me tell them that if they themselves do not wrap up Zionism, the strong arm of the peoples will wipe these germs of corruption off the face of Earth."

Ahmadinejad also claimed that that Zionists “kidnap oppressed, destitute, ignorant people from other countries, and bring them to the occupied lands to serve as human shields."

I guess that "strong arm" will now include the newest member of the Axis of Evil to our south, where, if memory serves, we have no defenses against incoming missiles, nuclear-tipped or otherwise.

"Merci bo coup," indeed.