Well, today, they were released after a $1 million ransom, uh, I mean, bail was paid.

Instead of being grateful to the State Department, one of these numbnuts had to slam this country by saying that he hoped their release from prison will also bring “freedom for political prisoners in America and Iran.”

Is it possible to send them back?

But not everyone listens to that advice.  Back in 2009, when I read about the three Americans who were arrested for hiking in Iran, I said to myself, “of all the places in the world, why would you hike any where near Iran.”  I just didn’t get it.  The gal was eventually released, the other two were convicted recently and sentenced to eight years, I guess, for spying.  Ahmadinejad just announced that the two will be released as a  “humanitarian gesture” – which really means, “I’m coming very soon to NY to participate in the U.N. General Assembly and I want to look like a really nice guy.”

As far as I’m concerned, if you choose to hike in areas you’re so unfamiliar with that you actually end up in Iran, or, as another example, you decide to murder someone in Italy as Amanda Knox, don’t expect the kind of treatment you’d get in this country.  If you choose to do stupid stuff overseas, be prepared to face the penalty.  I’m tired of reading reports when Americans are convicted of something in other countries and then have to listen to talking heads tell us how bad this one of that one’s judicial system is.  If you’re not ready to do the time, stay home.

As usual with death penalty cases, “new evidence” came to light, this time in a letter Shellenberger wrote in 2006, before he killed himself, in which he said it was all his idea.  Critics claimed Lewis’s I.Q. of 70 made her mentally retarded and executing her would be unconstitutional.

Governor Bob MacDonnell rejected her petition for clemency and she was executed by lethal injection.

Earlier in the week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad decided to embarrass the United States by bringing up Lewis’s imminent execution in his PBS interview by calling the U.S. hypocritical in its outcry against the impending death sentence of stoning meted out to Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani in his country.

Human Rights Watch says Ashtiani, 43 and a mother of two, was first convicted in May 2006 of having an “illicit relationship” with two men following the death of her husband and was sentenced by a court to 99 lashes. Later that year, she was also convicted of adultery and sentenced to be stoned, even though she retracted a confession which she claims was made under duress.  You think that would be the end of the story, but no.

Ashtiani’s case is incredibly convoluted, so much so, that, according to reports, she has now been convicted of manslaughter and murder.  According to the Los Angeles Times, that was “fresh news.”  I invite anyone to read about her story and figure it all out.

I limit my musings to political, social and cultural life in America but when I see Ahmadinejad coming to my country and hearing him criticize the best legal system in the world – our’s – I have to say something.  His comparison of the two cases is, to say the least, ridiculous.

On the one hand, Lewis confessed she conspired to murder two people and was convicted and given every opportunity for numerous appeals and petitions afforded by our legal system.  She was sentenced to a painless death by lethal injection.

On the other hand, Ashtiani was not afforded the benefits of such a legal system.  Initial reports say she was acquitted of any wrongdoing in her husband’s murder, yet, now, we have this new revelation that she was convicted of the husband’s murder.  Although the Iranian government has apparently suspended the stoning sentence, Ashtiani may still be executed by hanging.  The Iranian “legal system,” if you can call it that, sounds like a mockery of justice.

So, there he is, the President of Iran, with his “short man complex” asserting himself by scolding the U.S. for what he perceives is hypocrisy by comparing the two cases which bear no resemblance whatsoever.

This from the President of a country which has no freedom of speech and those that do speak out are considered agitators and sometimes subjected to torture, beating, arrest, and disappearance.  Can we forget the face of Neda Agha Soltan, who died last year after being shot by police during peaceful street demonstrations in Tehran?

This from a man who denies the Holocaust ever occurred and believes that Israel doesn’t have the right to exist and should be “wiped off the map” and, in my opinion, would easily push a button to eradicate Israel from the face of the earth if he could.

And let’s not forget this is the same pinhead who said, while speaking at Columbia University in 2007, and questioned about Iran’s treatment of homosexuals, “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country.”  Yet, in 2005, two gay teens were executed in Iran after being lashed 228 times.  After all, consensual gay sex in any form is punishable by death.  But, don’t fret, the culprits are given a choice of death:  being hanged, stoned, halved by a sword, or dropped from the highest perch.

And then, there’s his latest insane remark last week that the U.S. government may have been behind the 9/11 attacks prompting even President Obama to condemn such a hateful and inexcusable suggestion.

For years, our government has tried to negotiate with this country believing that sanity would prevail over hate.  After his recent comments, can the U.S. actually negotiate with the President of Iran and expect to deal with a rational, thinking person.  I don’t think so.

So, as far as I’m concerned, Mahmoud, before you start spewing your stupidity about my country, why don’t you take a good look at yours.

I just don’t get it, and if you do, God bless you.