Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri Blasts Election Results

Wow, now this is some seriously strong words from one of their highest ranking clerics.

"No one in their right mind can believe" the official results from Friday's contest, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri said of the landslide victory claimed by Ahmadinejad. Montazeri accused the regime of handling Mousavi's charges of fraud and the massive protests of his backers "in the worst way possible."

"A government not respecting people's vote has no religious or political legitimacy," he declared in comments on his official Web site. "I ask the police and army personals (personnel) not to 'sell their religion,' and beware that receiving orders will not excuse them before God."

Too bad they can't they get this guy in charge instead of Ayatollah Khamenei. He seems like a fairly reasonable person at least from these remarks. Maybe his faction will dominate the Guardian Council in the near future and the pragmatists rather then the hardliners will rule in Iran. Now that would be a development that would be great for the Iranian people and the world as a whole.

Come to think of it this Ayatollah Montazeri has the possibility to make himself into a great man of history like Cyrus the Great or Darius if he can change Iran from an anti-Israel, atomic pariah, that blows their cash on terrorist adventures, into the Mighty Persian Lion.

Imagine the power of a country with 1/3rd of the worlds oil and 75% of their populace under 30. They have a potential to be the so-called Lion of the Middle East if they use that capital wisely. Their oil wealth can easily fund the best universities in the world with the best faculty and make it free for all Iranians. The idea of Tehran University and MIT or Harvard mentioned in the same sentence might actually be possible if these pragmatists gain the upper hand.

More Democrats Blame Jews for The Financial Meltdown?

Now this should make Jewish Americans kind of wary of wholeheartedly supporting Democrats in the future.

But what the Stanford and Columbia academics find “somewhat surprising” is the partisan breakdown among the American public: “Democrats were especially prone to blaming Jews: while 32 percent of Democrats accorded at least moderate blame, only 18.4 percent of Republicans did so (a statistically significant difference).” Why is this surprising? Because of “the presumed higher degree of racial tolerance among liberals and the fact that Jews are a central part of the Democratic Party’s electoral coalition.”

I wonder why so many Dems are blaming Jews like this? It might be from the poisoned well of victimhood that many on the left drink from. You can't blame the poor homebuyer who signed these interest only, jumbo, balloon payment loans for a McMansion they couldn't afford. Instead it is far easier to blame some shady Jewish Banking Cartel for duping these poor innocents to the tune of big profits.

It is much like the Truthers blame the Bush administration for pulling off the most complicated and difficult conspiracies of all time on 9/11 instead of simply blaming 19 terrorists and their Al-Quida masters. They just can't fathom how some basic Muslim nutjobs from the Middle East can pull off such a terrible attack on our nation.

The financial crisis has all sorts of moving parts and may have been 30-some years in the making just like the buildup to 9/11 had been festering since the 1980s. Instead of the complicated analysis that is really needed to tell the culprits from the scapegoats the Left falls back to the quickie culprits of Bush and the Jewish Bankers.

How do you Help the Iranian Protestors on Twitter?

Well it seems pretty easy for the most part. I have no idea why the Mullahs would even try to block this is a big waste of time. It must be like trying the catch water with a net. I did #4 already everyone should stand for these Iranian protesters:

The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through Twitter.

1. Do NOT publicise proxy IP's over twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hashtag. Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will block it in Iran. If you are creating new proxies for the Iranian bloggers, DM them to @stopAhmadi or @iran09 and they will distributed them discretely to bloggers in Iran.

2. Hashtags, the only two legitimate hashtags being used by bloggers in Iran are #iranelection and #gr88, other hashtag ideas run the risk of diluting the conversation.

3. Keep you bull$hit filter up! Security forces are now setting up twitter accounts to spread disinformation by posing as Iranian protesters. Please don't retweet impetuosly, try to confirm information with reliable sources before retweeting. The legitimate sources are not hard to find and follow.

4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become 'Iranians' it becomes much harder to find them.

5. Don't blow their cover! If you discover a genuine source, please don't publicise their name or location on a website. These bloggers are in REAL danger. Spread the word discretely through your own networks but don't signpost them to the security forces. People are dying there, for real, please keep that in mind...

Obamacare Draws Boos from Doctors

It seems that doctors might not be as onboard with Obamacare as he might think.

The boos erupted when Obama told the doctors in Chicago he wouldn't try to help them win their top legislative priority — limits on jury damages in medical malpractice cases.

But what could they expect? If Obama announced support for malpractice limits, that would set trial lawyers and unions — major supporters of Democratic candidates — on the attack. Not to mention consumer groups.

Every other group in the health care debate has a wish list and a top priority. Insurers don't want competition from the government. Employers don't want to be told they have to offer medical coverage to their workers. Hospitals want to stave off Medicare cuts. Drug companies want to charge what the market will bear.

Yup one thing about healthcare is that you have to throw one powerful group or another under the bus in order for Obamacare to succeed. We either cut doctors pay, add millions in new costs to small businesses, reduce some hospitals financial viability, or cut off the innovation coming from our drug sector.

Plus we might still have to pay $1.5 trillion extra over the next 10 years in order to get these 46 million people insured. Actually if we didn't blow $700 billion on that worthless stimulus bill we would be most of the way to the goal. Well, the battle will be epic but I would be willing to bet the result will be luke-warm and half-assed like the stimulus bill.

Also what the hell is the big rush to get this thing done by August? With Iran and North Korea getting huge on the world stage we should put this off until next year. I think the idea of a democratic Iran and a North Korea free of nukes is much more important then messing around with something that can easily wait until the economy is getting better.

Supreme Leader of Iran Calls for Unity after Staging Rally

Well, don't rig the elections and people might actually unify behind you Mullahs.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Iranians to unite behind the cleric-led ruling system despite the rival demonstrations and street clashes, state television reported, and he said representatives of all four candidates should be present for any limited recount of disputed ballots.

What they need to do is just rule from behind the throne a little more effectively. In other words if you rig an election make it look like you didn't rig the election. So fake counting and having the reform candidate losing his home town just doesn't wash in the Internet age. People aren't idiots anymore and they are armed with Twitter and cellphone cameras now.

So in other words you have to actually go through the motions to buffalo people. That means fake counting the votes will take even more time then it did in the past. That means the reform candidate needs to win the cities and lose the rest of the country.

Hell, you can even have a disputed election that has a bunch of recounts with the Guardian Council finally finding for Ahmadinejoke in order to "preserve the stability of the Islamic Republic." It is a little like when Bush ran against Gore but with fewer hanging chads. Although the idea of a Mullah with his black turban peering over his glasses through a ballot would be deja vu all over again.

Obama States the Obvious on North Korea

Some strong words issued by Obama regarding North Korea.

President Barack Obama said Tuesday that a nuclear-armed North Korea poses a "grave threat" to the world, and he vowed to end a cycle of allowing Pyongyang to create crises and then be rewarded with incentives to back down.

"This is a pattern they've come to expect," Obama said. "We are going to break that pattern."

What is the plan anyway? Just jawbone until North Korea nukes Tokyo then condemn it in the strongest possible terms? I think Obama needs to say an attack by North Korea on any ally in the area will be met with the destruction of the North Korean regime. I other words bang the table and rattle the saber a little to show your allies you mean business.

HuffPo Liveblogs the Iranian Uprising

I rarely agree with very much on HuffPo but this stolen Iranian Election is a true bipartisan issue and they should be lauded for their coverage. Instipudit has also made their banner green. This might be the last, best hope for a peaceful Iran without the bomb. I understand Obama moving slowly so the protesters won't be massacred and painted as "tools of the Hated Americans" but the American people at large should be 100% behind these protesters. (Man that alot of people)

Obama's Silence on Irans Stolen Election: Smart Geopolitics?

I have to think that Obama keeping silent on Iran's stolen election has to serve some purpose other then a "distraction" from the "bigger issue" of health care reform.

The administration hasn't quite caught up to this reality, offering weak statements about "irregularities" in the voting but no real sign that it will stand up and support the Iranian kids who are pleading for help as they're beaten in the streets. I suspect it will soon.

I think he is trying to triangulate this so that the Mullahs can't relegate the protesters to "puppets of the Decadent West" status. So they are keeping their mouths shut on who won the election and the glaring issue that the election was almost unequivocally stolen.

What the Obama people really need to do is condemn in the strongest possible terms the crackdown and violence on behalf of the Iranian government toward the protesters. Then say that any massacres of the people will be treated as genocide and brought to the World Court.

Letterman Really Apologizes This Time

Now we have a true mea culpa and not that half-assed one we had before.

It was "a coarse joke," "a bad joke," Letterman told viewers. "But I never thought it was (about) anybody other than the older daughter, and before the show, I checked to make sure, in fact, that she is of legal age, 18."

"The joke, really, in and of itself, can't be defended," he declared.

Actually before the show he should have checked to make sure what daughter was at the game instead of checking if she was a minor or not. The messed up part is that all he had to do is put Bristol's first name in the joke and there would not be so much outcry. It would have been mean spirited, crass, and tasteless but it wouldn't have been directed at a 14 year old girl. Letterman then, to his credit, goes on to say what he should have said in the first place:

"I feel that I need to do the right thing here and apologize for having told that joke," he said. "It's not your fault that it was misunderstood, it's my fault that it was misunderstood."

He apologized to both daughters, "and also to the Governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke," he said as the studio audience applauded. "I'm sorry about it, and I'll try to do better in the future."

That last line should be something that all comedians should think about. It is okay to go after Governor Palin and Barack Obama or any other public figure but minor children should be the true no-go area. In other words no jokes about Willow Palin and thus no jokes about Malia and Sasha as well. If there is doubt then use just use a different joke. It is just that simple.

GOP Level Attack Against Obamacare: It's Rationing by Another Name

That seems like the major charge leveled against it and it will be hard for the Obama people to deny.

Kyl and McConnell introduced a bill today that would bar the federal government from using "comparative effectiveness research" — which, Kyl charged in a news conference timed to coincide with Obama’s AMA speech in Chicago, would lead to rationing of care.

Kyl said that the research would result in the delaying of health care treatment to a patient based on cost, which he believes would weaken the quality of care.

“I don’t want America to begin rationing care to their citizens in the way these other countries do,” Kyl said.

If every American has to wait 6 months to a year to get certain expensive forms of care or be put on a waiting list to take a certain medicine then Obamacare won't fly.

However this will be the perfect way for health insurance companies to compete with the federal government. Give a 1 month guarantee where a patient will not have to wait for more then 1 month for any procedure at all. You will have to pay a higher premium for this service but it can be put onto your insurance ala carte.

That way if you have the money you get the procedure in 1 month or less but if you have to rely on the government you have to wait until they approve it. These sort of value added services is what these insurers will have to use in order to compete. The government will always beat them on price so they will have to beat them on quality of service. Knowing how the government works the private option will always be better if you can afford it.

First Person to Die from the Iranian Freedom Protests

It seems that the "Green Revolution" in Iran may have just got its first martyr.

An Associated Press photographer saw one person fatally shot and at least two others who appeared to be seriously wounded.

The United States was "deeply troubled" by reports of violence and arrests in Iran, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said, but he added that the U.S. knows too little about the conduct of the election to say for sure whether there was fraud.

The worst part about this vote rigging is that Ahmadinejoke won by some asinine landslide. If you want to rig the vote and make it look decent you would just allow Ahmadinejoke to win by a comfortable margin or even just squeak by. That way he can say that the people have spoken and he can pay lip-service to reforms and take the same hard-line stance.

Now these events at Tehran University has to be some weird Deja Vu for the people involved in the original Islamic takeover of Iran exactly 30 years ago. This is one of the places where the Shah shot some demonstrators and helped trigger some of the revolution.

Overnight, police and hard-line militia stormed Tehran University, ransacking dormitories and arresting dozens of students. The university was the site of serious clashes against student-led protests in 1999 and is one of the nerve centers of the pro-reform movement.

The gathering at the university started with students chanting "Death to the dictator." But it quickly erupted into clashes as students threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at police, who fired tear gas and plastic bullets, a 25-year-old student who witnessed the fighting told the AP. He would only give one name, Akbar, out of fear for his safety.

Fire Letterman Protests Pick Up Speed

There is no way in hell CBS will fire him because he is so important to their Late Night wars but I think this movement may have some legs. Here is a link to their site.

Sponsored by New York State Assemblyman Brian Kolb, along with an attorney and radio host John Ziegler, the site also provides contacts - including major advertisers and CBS bigwigs - to whom people can complain about what many felt was a tasteless and potentially harmful quip by the late night talk leader.

The idea is to get people like Letterman to understand that hiding behind "it's just jokes" whenever they say something reprehensible is no defense.

Jazz Pharmaceuticals Releases Data on Fibromyalgia Drug

Here is a link to the data on drug and it looks like a winner.

At three months, 54.2% (p<0.001)>

That seems pretty significant and here are the other highlights of what sodium oxybate also does for the fibromyalgia patient.

-- Patients treated with sodium oxybate 4.5 g/night and 6g/night showed significant reductions in fatigue as early as Week 1 after dosing compared with placebo as measured by the Fatigue VAS (p<0.001). These differences were maintained throughout the 14 weeks of the study (p less than or equal to 0.009).

-- Patients taking sodium oxybate 4.5 g/night and 6g/night showed significant improvement in sleep patterns compared to placebo as measured by the Jenkins Sleep Scale (p<0.001).

-- Statistically significant improvements in mean scores on the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire, a measure of daily function, and on Patient Global Impression of Change were seen in patients receiving sodium oxybate compared to placebo.

-- Sodium oxybate was generally well tolerated, with the majority of adverse events reported being mild to moderate in nature. Adverse events were similar to those seen in previous sodium oxybate experience.

-- In this study, the most common adverse events, with incidence greater than or equal to 5% and at least twice the rate of placebo, were headache, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea, anxiety, and sinusitis.

Even the Press is Going After Letterman

Now this is one of those controversys that is actually crossing party lines when the liberal media takes Letterman to task.

I don't agree with many things that Sarah Palin says, but she has solid grounds to be furious at David Letterman. After Palin's recent trip to Yankee Stadium with 14-year-old daughter Willow, he joked about the girl having sex with Alex Rodriguez. Letterman now says he was talking about 18-year-old Bristol, who had a baby out of wedlock last year.

But Bristol wasn't on the trip. Confusing Bristol with Willow is about as understandable as confusing Bristol with one of her brothers--or confusing Letterman with Leno.

I wouldn't confuse Letterman with Leno because I actually think Leno is decently funny. Letterman is a mean-spirited far-left curmudgeon that was edgy once and funny long ago. Now maybe this controversy can force him to retire once and for all and have Craig Ferguson (who is actually insanely funny) take his place.

NOW Finally Speaks out Against Letterman

I think this may be the first time in a long time I have seen NOW speak out against one of their liberal brethren.

Comedians in search of a laugh should really know better than to snicker about men having sex with teenage girls (or young women) less than half their age.

The sexualization of girls and women in the media is reaching new lows these days — it is exploitative and has a negative effect on how all women and girls are perceived and how they view themselves. Letterman also joked about what he called Palin’s “slutty flight attendant look” — yet another example of how the media love to focus on a woman politician’s appearance, especially as it relates to her sexual appeal to men. Someone of Letterman’s stature, who appears on what used to be known as “the Tiffany Network” (CBS), should be above wallowing in the juvenile, sexist mud that other comedians and broadcasters seem to prefer.

I have to applaud NOW for actually taking a stand against this kind of behavior and hiding behind the "I was only joking" line. Rape is just not funny and Palin reacted as any mother should be protecting her daughters from a dirty old man.

The Recession is Great According to Forbes

Ah the "purifying fire" effect of the Recession.

Prices will tumble until goods find buyers, making it a very good time to go shopping. The recession's benefits also go beyond the purely tangible. Last week I met an artist, Kendrick Mar, who compared the downturn to a "purifying fire." We were talking about the end of high prices for bad work. But there's something else going on too: a burning away of dross in our personal and working lives.

The thing I am hoping for is this purifying fire destroys the notion of irrational excess that the media pushes on us. The idea that some 16 year old girl can spend $100K+ on a Sweet 16 party that is glamorized on MTV should be seen as aberrant. I hope Americans get to think about how much good that money can do for needy people instead of how it can be wasted on some bratty kid.

Iranian Election Breaking All Records

Well, hopefully all these people are coming out to vote for Mir Hossein Mousavi instead of Almadinajoke.

The fiery, monthlong campaign unleashed passions and tensions. The mass rallies, polished campaign slogans, savvy Internet outreach and televised debates more closely resembled Western elections than the scripted campaigns in most other Middle Eastern countries.

President Barack Obama said Iran's "robust debate" leading up to elections shows change is possible there, and it could boost U.S. efforts to engage Tehran's leadership.

I can see Obama sitting down with Mousavi and trying to do some kind of engagement type thing. Almadinajoke will just spout the same old anti-Israel rhetoric and deny the Holocaust. Plus getting the Iranian youth into the election for the first time might make for a historic change in Iran. That is if their guy wins of course.

Gen. McChrystal Might Be the Right Man for Afghanistan

He seems to understand what it means to build a counter-insurgency force from his time in Iraq.

When Gen. Stanley McChrystal told the Senate last week that troops in Afghanistan will have to make cultural sensitivities central to military operations, he didn't sound like a man who spent most of his career in the special-operations world training soldiers to kill enemies quickly and stealthily.

But in his first interview since being named commander in Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal said his front-row seat to the Iraq and Afghan wars has shifted his views.

Having watched the U.S. trying and failing to put down insurgencies in both countries through force, the former Green Beret said he believes that to win in Afghanistan, "you're going to have to convince people, not kill them."

I wonder if he will let his officers grow those big bushy Afghan beards which are supposed to be a sign of manhood in their culture. "Going native" in order to help the Afghans is a small price to pay to get that country under some kind of control. I am reading this book The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq and it tells exactly how a counter-insurgency is supposed to be done. I hope the lessons can carry over to Afghanistan.

The AP Calls Letterman Willow Palin Rape Jokes "Wisecracks"

Now this is even more dismissive then Yahoo calling the rape of a 14 year old girl "off-color." The AP actually referred to Letterman's despicable attack as "wisecracks."

David Letterman deftly played it both ways on Wednesday's "Late Show" as he apologized for wisecracks aimed earlier in the week at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and one of her teenage daughters -- even as he milked the situation for more laughs.

Yup the funny jokes about the rape of a minor child by A-Rod by a liberal TV personality are simply "wisecracks" to some morally bankrupt person at the AP. Even Lettermans so-called "apology" is a big joke.

Before he was done, he tried to boil down the situation into two key points, which he stated with playful precision:

"Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes.

"Did I suggest that it was OK for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex? No."

He also invited Palin to be a guest on his show, saying, "I think we could put these differences behind us." But the offer, extended to both Palin and her husband ("or leave Todd at home," Letterman suggested), was turned down on Thursday.

Yup some of that playful precision trying to run away from a "joke" about a 14 year old child being raped by a 33 year old member of the Yankees during the 7th inning stretch. I mean it is just "wisecracks" about rape from funnyman Letterman. The AP considers it no harm done. I really hope Todd Palin does come on Letterman walks out to the stage and gives him a right cross. I'm sure any father of a teen daughter in the US would do the same.

How to Contact Letterman's Sponsors

Here is a great post on how to get in touch with the sponsors of the Late Show with David Letterman. Plus it looks like the agitation is working because Embassy Suites Hotels has already pulled their sponsorship.

Embassy Suites pulled their ads! Score one for the good guys!

From: Dawn Ray [Dawn.Ray@hilton.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 2:00 PM
To: Chris Wysocki
Subject: Embassy Suites Sponsorship of the David Letterman Show

Thank you for your email. Embassy Suites is not a sponsor or advertiser of the David Letterman show. Several online ads appeared on a series of web sites, including cbs.com, among many others. These ads have since been taken down. The appearance of the ads on the CBS network web site does not suggest we condone or agree with Mr. Letterman's views or comments.

We sincerely appreciate your email.

Ms. Ray, we sincerely appreciate you and your company's response to this issue as well. Thank you.