Iran's President Makes Threat if IAEA Rules Against its Nuclear Program

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

What Have You Done for Me Lately?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he'll consider dropping out of the International Atomic Energy Agency if the nuclear watchdog cracks down on the country's uranium enrichment program. In a rare news conference, the Iranian leader asked, "What has more than 30 years of membership in the agency given us?" Adding, "If we see that they are violating our rights, or they don't want to accept our rights, well, we will reconsider."

Ahmadinejad told reporters he doesn't expect the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions to force Iran to give up its nuclear program, saying, "Those two or three countries who harshly oppose us are wise enough not to commit such a big mistake."

Fuzzy Math

The New York Times took the administration to task in two front-page articles last week for failing to adequately provide for victims of Hurricane Katrina. But it turns out the paper should have checked its facts.

On Thursday, the Times claimed that Texas had received just $22 million in federal aid to cover the costs of housing Katrina evacuees. In fact, the state has received $222 million. And in Friday's report criticizing a program to help Katrina victims rebuild their homes, the Times reported that the agency has loaned only $336 million to victims when the actual number is $842 million.

The Times has now issued corrections for both stories.

Warming Warning

Global warming alarmists point to last year's brutal hurricane season — along with this year's violent tornados — as evidence that climate change is beginning to have an impact. But even one of global warming's principal advocates says the rhetoric has gone too far.

Cybercast News reports that NASA scientist James Hansen, who has warned that the earth is headed for a climate catastrophe unless it curbs its greenhouse gas emissions, says, "We are still at a point where the natural fluctuations of climate are still large," adding, "we don't want the public to hang their hat on a recent story, recent hurricanes for example, because those will fluctuate from year to year."

Ethnic Gang Murder

Nearly 80,000 demonstrators flooded the streets in Belgium on Sunday in a silent march to commemorate a murdered teenager who was killed for refusing to give up his digital music player to two North African gang members.

The march was called by a Moroccan-born parliament member, who said the murder "stinks of racism" by increasingly violent North African street gangs — which he said, "go after victims who look like infidels."

But you wouldn't know the killing had any racial overtones from reading the AP's report on the march, which never once mentions the ethnicity of the killers. The BBC also left that detail out of its television report.

— FOX News' Aaron Bruns contributed to this report.