Yesterday, the AP reported that Ali Kordan – Iran’s new Interior Minister and Gulf Regional Coordinator of Fayyad‘s Anti-Spell Check Campaign (ASCC) – forged an honorary doctorate from Britain’s Oxford University to appear more qualified than he really is.
Oxford issued a statement Wednesday denying it ever awarded Ali Kordan an honorary doctorate of law, as he claimed to parliament before it approved his appointment to the post earlier this month.
Though Kordan released a copy of the degree (with an Oxford seal and everything), it was instantly recognized as a fake.
How? Well, he spelled a bunch of shit wrong…
[I]n the certificate, “entitled” is misspelled “intitled,” and it says Kordan was granted the degree “to be benefitted from its scientific privileges.”The clumsily worded document says Kordan “has shown a great effort in preparing educational materials and his research in the domain of comparative law,that has opened a new chapter,not only in our university,but, to our knowledge,in this country” — leaving out spaces after all but one of the commas. It was published in several Iranian papers this week.
Even worse, Oxford reps came out with a statement saying that he’s never been granted any kind of degree from their institution. In fact, the three signatures that appear on the forged degree don’t even belong to law professors!
Absurd, right? Well it gets even worse. Instead of apologizing to the Iranian people, the Interior Ministry decided to ban the news website where most of the criticisms of Kordan were being published.
Brace yourself. Here’s my favorite part of the story…
Ahmadinejad defended Kordan amid the debates, dismissing degrees in general as “torn paper” not necessary for serving the people.
Fayyad must be peeing his pants happy right now…
[Tarboush Tip: Not really sure. It was anonymously emailed to me.]
Related posts:
- Early Successes In Fayyad’s Anti-Spell Checking Campaign
- Check Which Best Describes You Ethnically: Confused X
- UC Irvine: The Toilet Bowl of Student Activism
- “We still have to check”
- Redneck Activism
You would think he’d at least run spell/grammar check before he submitted it to anyone. Or looked at an actual Oxford degree and copied it – there’s plenty of them circulating around on the internet.
Posted by ally | August 14, 2008, 1:25 pmSince no one else is posting on this, here are updates on two cases that caused debate on Kabob. Yes, boys and girls, we Jews don’t just kill people and bury them in the back yard. There’s a legal process. I know it’s an adjustment for you.
Settlers charged with assaulting Palestinian placed under house arrest
Some more details released on what happened in that field.
a group of Palestinian farmers arrived at a field located some 400 meters (about 1,300 feet) from the Asael outpost, home to settlers Lior Ben-David, Mordechai Azuriel and Eyal Rahamim. One of the Palestinians, Madahat Abu-Kirash, dropped a lit cigarette, igniting a fire; he then asked Rahamim for water to extinguish the blaze, at which point, according to the prosecution, the settlers accused him of deliberately starting the fire and began chasing him.
After catching up with the Palestinian, the settlers allegedly beat him with sticks, pulled off his shoes, tied his hands together and dragged him to an electrical post near their homes. The indictment said the Abu-Kirash lost consciousness, adding that when IDF soldiers arrived at the scene one of the settlers shoved a soldier who belongs to a minority group and insulted him.
The settlers were detained and later charged with kidnapping with intent to harm, assault, aggravated assault and assaulting a public official.
Military judge: Naalin arrest unfounded
Military court orders release of father of girl who documented IDF soldier firing rubber bullets at bound Palestinian in Naalin, accuses prosecution, police of being unprofessional.
Posted by Firouz | August 17, 2008, 6:34 pm