By far the thing that most made me go "Hm!" in today's paper was the fact that the U.S. has "quietly" bombed the hell out of the Iranian opposition group based in Iraq. Today's Papers quotes The Wall Street Journal (sorry, not available for free) quoting unnamed U.S. officials saying this was indeed part of a "private U.S. assurance conveyed to Iranian officials before the start of hostilities that the group would be targeted by British and American forces if Iran stayed out of the fight." But who cares what they say, when Iranian Girl comments.

I think this was probably a good thing, on the whole. I like Iran even though it's run by evil people. I don't understand why Powell can go to Syria and "have very candid and straightforward discussions" with Bashar Assad about, oh, being a terrorist state and what-not, and not extend the same courtesy to Iran -- which is at least a quasi-democracy and where rapprochement would do a lot more to further the reform effort.

That reminds me. The first news item I remember from the television was the Iranian hostage crisis. I don't remember them being captured, but I remember them being there, and I sure as hell remember when they came out. Part of the problem, I guess, is that a lot of people older than I am are still pretty sore about that.