A non-cubs related post...

Since the Cubs off-season has been essentially a non-event, and since this team needed to make significant improvements in order to return to possible playoff contention, there's not much to talk about for the realistic Cubs fan.

Therefore, this page has recently been limited to discussion of Big Ten basketball (memo to Rich McBride - please try to at least make a token effort to box someone out, especially in the last 10 seconds at home when the game is on the line) and the Cardinals (although this is a Cubs blog, we have one contributor who is a Cardinals fan. However, if my suspicions about the upcoming year are correct, we may need to refer to this site as a Cardinals blog with 4 relatively silent Cubs contributors).

In any event, since this is my blog, I reserve the right to talk about whatever I want, just as the reader reserves the right to ignore this space (and if our statistics are any indication this latter right has been exercised far more often than the former).

So with that in mind, I came across the following commentary in the Washington Times. Here's an excerpt (you'll want to read the entire article):

President [of Iran] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Shi'ite creed has convinced him lesser mortals can not only influence but hasten the awaited return of the 12th Imam, known as the Mahdi. Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect holds this will be Muhammad ibn Hasan, the righteous descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the 9th century, at age 5. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war, bloodshed and pestilence. After this cataclysmic confrontation between the forces of good and evil, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.

"The ultimate promise of all Divine religions," says Ahmadinejad, "will be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being [the 12th Imam], who is heir to all prophets. He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace. Oh mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one." He reckons the return of the Imam, AWOL for 11 centuries, is only two years away.

Mr. Ahmadinejad is close to the messianic Hojjatieh Society, which is governed by the conviction the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by "the creation of chaos on Earth." He has fired Iran's most experienced diplomats and scores of other officials, presumably those who don't share his belief in apocalyptic conflagration.

Does anyone think allowing this guy to obtain a nuclear weapon is a good idea?

Folks this guy is trouble with a capital T - to put it mildly and colloquially.

Sanctions aren't going to work, and a diplomatic solution may well prove impossible in light of Ahmadinejad's core apocalyptic beliefs. Nor can Israel or the West rely on a Mutually Assured Destruction deterrent - a worldwide conflagration is fully what Ahmadinejad and his colleagues appear to be prophetically looking forward to.

We'd better figure out pretty quick how to effectively deal with this substantial problem before the world quite literally finds itself on a one-way trip to hell in a hand basket.