Life imitates satire in Iran (repost)

This just in from The Onion:

TEHRAN—As the […] election approaches, hard-line conservative religious radicals and fundamentalist Islamic extremists are stepping up their disparate campaigns. "It’s up to the people: Does the future of Iran lie in the hands of the far-right extremists or the far-far-right radicals?" said Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the hard-line Guardian Council that recently banned thousands of moderate candidates from the election. "Will the old-school clerics win, or is the country ready for a new stripe of fundamentalists who will take authoritarianism in an entirely different direction?" Jannati urged all of Iran’s citizens to get out and make their votes count.

Actually, the dispatch is a few years old, but it feels like it was written yesterday now that we have this Ahmadinejad bozo at the helm.

While I’m sharing gems from The Onion, did you hear the report about Jesus Christ converting to Islam? 

Some highlights:

As part of His conversion, Christ said He has taken a new name, Isa Ibn Maryam al-Salaam Christ Shabazz. […]

"People of all nations, in the past, you have heard Me say that whosoever shall believe in Me shall not die, but have eternal life," Christ said. "But now, I say unto you, forget I ever said that." […]

Millions more, however, have decried the recalcitrant Christ’s apostasy, breaking ties with Him and calling His conversion "a heathen act" of "utmost blasphemy before Himself."[…]

In perhaps the oddest development, the Jews For Jesus organization announced Monday that it has split into three separate groups: Jews Still For Jesus, Jews For Allah, and Jews For Just Being Jews Again.

This has to be the biggest news since that Nigerian farmer dug up a yam in the shape of Surah al-Fatihah.

In Ahl Kitab news, there’s that hit TV gameshow in Russia, "Who wants to eat a meal?"  (Ouch!)

Boy, this bit almost made me wet my chair:

Russian citizens are already well acquainted with the show’s format: Every night at 8, cameras circle a sumptuous banquet table as announcer Leonid Pustovoitenko asks the studio audience, "Who… wants… to eat a meal?" Bayonet-wielding members of the Russian army then move in to protect the table from rioting audience members, who often storm the set with crude handmade weapons in a desperate attempt to seize a beet.

Ah, what would life be without humor and satire?