Tea baggers jump the crazy shark

We like taking the piss out of tea baggers. Why? It is literally the easiest thing in the world to do. Well, maybe beating an infant or kicking a three legged dog is easier, but where do you get the smug sense of self satisfaction in doing that? But it is true we do like to mock their ignorance, misspelled signs, bizarre conspiracy theories, low grade racism, lack of understanding of their own issues, and fevered insanity because, well, they're just resetting the bat on unintentional comedy each time out.

But today we must pause to note the time, date, and place where the Tea Party movement jumped the crazy shark so hard that we even have to step back a bit to make sure this just isn't some well executed satire or parody. Which, if you read this site, know that we are unable to execute or identify. Let us count the horrors.

Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) added, referring to President Obama: "If his wife says Kenya is his homeland, why don't we just send him back?"

Thanks Tom, for restraining yourself from screaming out the 'N" word. It must have been very hard. Still, "Send him back to Africa" is a nicely racist sentiment which ought to make people seriously consider the Tea Party's thoughts on tax law.

Pastor Stan Craig, of the Choice Hills Baptist Church, was particularly angry about the state of Washington, saying he "was trained to defend the liberties of this nation." He declared that he was prepared to "suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do."

Exploit religion for personal financial gain? Demonize minorities and gays in order to gain political power? Oh, you were talking about the gun part. Yeah, kill those duly elected members of Congress! Spoken like a true man of God. march on Washington, kill the interlopers, overthrow the government. Like it says in the Bible and Constitution.

Dan Gonzales, who Chairs the Constitution Party in Florida, asserted that "this is the end of America right here," and if the Tea Partiers "don't get to work we're going to be fighting in the streets."

Who knew that tepid health reform and the prospects of tepid financial reform and a tepid climate bill was all it took to end America? Still nice of him to warn that if they didn't act soon they'd be fighting it out in the street. That is unless they took the advice of several of the speakers of the day and got their guns, organized into militias and went to go fight it out on the streets. There's a subtle difference there I don't think many of you are getting.

At least Gonzales also added a crazy conspiracy about the Republicans, who he believes are all owned by the Rockefellers. Maybe I'm just longing for a more innocent time, but when was it that the Jews stopped secretly running everything? I didn't hear about this changeover form the Jews (in their secret underground bunker in Zurich) to the Rockefellers, who I'm not even sure own a bunker, let alone one 3 miles under a major banking hub.

But perhaps the best was from William Gheen of the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC who in between praising Barney Frank (GAY!) for being open (GAY!) and brave (IN A GAY WAY!) about who he is (GAY!) and letting people know where he stands (WITH MEN, BECAUSE HE'S GAY!), let loose on Lindsay Graham.

I'm a tolerant person. I don't care about your private life, Lindsey, but as our U.S. Senator I need to figure out why you're trying to sell out your own countrymen, and I need to make sure you being gay isn't it.

He's tolerant, he just wants to make sure that secret gayness isn't the reason that America is about to explode. Look, Lindsay Graham might me collaborating in the destruction of America and it might be secret gayness and gay brain parasites that are making him do so. It's an honest concern. He just needs to be sure.

Again, go to Talking Points Memo for the full rundown with video. Merely reading quotes about Pastor led armies overthrowing government, thinly veiled spear-chucker jokes, and the serious concerns over the damage Lindsay Graham's covert homosexuality is doing to the country, doesn't do them justice. This was the Coachella of teabag crazy, it's just a shame Bachmann and Palin couldn't be there to push it to a Woodstock level teabag event.

Revolution!

Health care has passed and conservative pundits aren't taking it well. Ok, they weren't exactly taking the run-up to health care reform passing well. Ok, they didn't exactly take the election of Barack Obama well. Ok, they didn't exactly take the eight years of the George W. Bush Presidency well. But on this, they're really not taking it well.

Of course the man taking it the least well is Glenn Beck. We all knew that one was coming. But even I'm a little surprised at how poorly our little aardvark loving aficionado is taking this. Right now he's huddled in a nuclear fallout shelter slamming GI Joes together, making "PEW PEW PEW" sounds with his mouth as he careens a jet fighter through the air, and is ranting about WAR and BATTLE and FIGHTING and THIS ISN'T OVER and YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE! So much so that Media Matters couldn't contain it in one post.

Beck: "The war is just beginning."
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Beck suggests that progressives support "armed insurrection."
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"Why would the president take up immigration right away, after he's just punched you in the face with health care?"
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"You'd pick up a gun? Have you ever thought of that?" He then pointed to several pictures, including images of Obama and Pelosi, and stated: "These people have. Because possibly, maybe the question should be asked, maybe they're tired of evolution, and maybe they are waiting for revolution." Beck also said: "Haven't we just been spanked? Hasn't most of the country -- doesn't most of the country feel like they've been spanked over health care? You bet. I do, you do. A lot of people do."
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"You can try to put the lid on this group of people, but you will never silence us. You will never -- you can shoot me in the head, you can shoot the next guy in the head, but there will be 10 others that line up."

Yes, we've all been spanked. Erotically spanked by health care. But enough of that, THIS IS WAR! REVOLUTION IS AT HAND! PICK UP A GUN! THEY'RE COMING TO KILL ME!

Yes, Obama has sent out hit squads to silence Glenn Beck. Even as we speak these elite SEAL teams are traipsing through the forests of Glenn's mind, unlatching the aardvark pen, busting through his windows, climbing up his pant leg with his grandma with a knife in their teeth, bursting out of his box of Golden Grahams, and hiding everywhere... waiting to get him. Don't you get it? Don't you see?



MOSES! JEWS! COMMANDMENTS! The second American revolution is at hand!

I feel for Glenn I really do. Ok, I don't. I hope this ends with him lighting himself on fire at Teabagstock '11. But, I guess I just didn't foresee how poorly he was going to take this "slightly cheaper/better health care for the peasants" thing. This has just been what he's been up to over the past few days. Who knows what chalkboard diagrams, battle movements, and calls for armed insurrection he's drawing up in his basement, tears staining the plans as he cries "I didn't want to have to do this to you America, I LOVE YOU!"?

Glenn, just breathe into a paper bag, stop making batches of hard tack, and cancel the fife and drum lessons. It'll be all right. Well, at least until Sebelius and the HHS release the nanites that read thoughts and kill based on the degree of right wing rhetoric rattling around your frontal cortex. Then you're fucked. But there's nothing you can do about it. It's nanotechnology. That's why Obama chose it to kill the elderly and everyone who has ever uttered a thought in opposition to him. Didn't you read this health bill? This is all useless gesturing. You're dead already. Use what time you have left.

Revolution!

Out of all the elected Tea Party cranks, one of my favorites has to be Iowa's Steve King. He hasn't met a Democratic idea he can't shriek about hysterically and in his spare time he talks extensively about how he sympathizes with terrorists who commit terrorist acts on American soil. Good man, lofty man.

Events like yesterday's final Tea Party rally against the socialist health care bill is an event tailor made for a man like King. Dozens of people waving signs about communism and socialism without understanding what either is can have their fears stoked by a man who doesn't understand the terms either, and as a bonus doesn't understand recent world history and trivializes rule under fascist regimes. It's a fetid petri dish of blinkered stupidity. Which is of course why King used the platform to argue for a new American Revolution.

Speaking to the Huffington Post shortly after his speech, King declared that a peaceful uprising, a la the successful overthrowing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on the streets of Prague in 1989 "would be fine with me."

"Fill this city up, fill this city, jam this place full so that they can't get in, they can't get out and they will have to capitulate to the will of the American people," he said.

"So this is just like Prague under communist rule?" the Huffington Post asked.

"Oh yeah, it is very, very close," King replied. "It is the nationalization of our liberty and the federal government taking our liberty over. So there are a lot of similarities there."

Yeah, the federal government is taking our liberty over.

So if we have any Czech readers, first I'd like to say thanks for Jaromir Jagr, we appreciated him. Secondly, yes he is trying to compare the passage of a health reform bill that would give us health care coverage that isn't as good as theirs or their neighbors to a 1968 Soviet invasion, "Normalization" policies, the arrests of hundreds of thousands of dissidents over the years, the forced emigration of nearly half a million people out of the country, and living under decades of Communist rule. If your country ever deigned to find out who a low level idiot like Steve King was, I'm sure your papers today would feature headlines like "American half-wit trivializes our entire history".

But yes the time for revolution is at hand. No longer must the people suffer the indignities on having the government try to make health care better, more accessable, and more affordable for them. No longer will the people have to stand for our elected leaders trying to make it so that insurance comapnies can't fuck them over as hard as they used to. No longer will the jackbooted armies of communism march through our streets chanting "Would you like marginally better health care?" No longer will our people have to suffer under an attempt to pass legislation that is morally, ethically, spiritually, factually, and historically indistinguishable from post-WWII Soviet communist rule in Eastern Europe. Overthrow the government! Steve King is the new Vaclav Havel.

I'll see you in the streets.

That Iran stuff is still happening

As you may be aware, protests have sprung up again in Iran with government backed violence, political assassinations, arrests, and threats of more government backed violence occurring on a daily basis. Actually, if you watch TV news you aren't aware.

I know what you're saying, "This shit is still going on? But my Twitter location is still listed as Tehran, I don't understand why that didn't work." I know, I don't understand either. Perhaps Khamenei and Ahmadinejad just don't understand just how forcefully people meant it when they clicked on Settings and scrolled all the way down to Location. But not to worry, our political establishment, when it isn't calling for the carpet bombing of these protesters, is fully in support of these protests with all the might that cheap, cheap words can provide. President Barry explains:

The United States joins with the international community in strongly condemning the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens, which has apparently resulted in tensions, injuries and even death.
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Along with all free nations, the United States stands with those who seek their universal rights. We call upon the Iranian government to abide by the international obligations that it has to respect the rights of its own people. We call for the immediate release of all who have been unjustly detained within Iran. We will continue to bear witness to the extraordinary events that are taking place there. And I am confident that history will be on the side of those who seek justice.

So you see Iranian protesters, you have history and the rightness of your beliefs on your side. I really hope that's enough to withstand a basij guard and police force that is firing automatic weapons at you, because that's all we are going to provide right now; moral support from a distance.

Actually we do have one more thing to offer you: sanctions! Now I know what you Iranian protesters might be saying to yourselves, "How will sanctions that will almost invariably negatively affect the very people who are protesting, do additional harm to the freedom movement, while almost certainly not moving the Iranian government closer to any of your goals, actually help?" I don't know. But it will make us look tough and like we're taking substantive action, so shut up.

Fuck it, you know what I'm going to do for you? I'm going to Twitter, clicking Settings, scrolling down to Location and putting in Tehran... in all caps. Maybe I'll add a few exclamation points. We'll see if I can't get this government toppled by mid-January at the latest.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.18

Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again
The Independent recounts an epic story of several British Islamist jihadists who were trained in Afghanistan to fight against the West, but have since had a change of heart and are now trying to speak out about why they believed what they believed and have begun outreach work with other Islamic youth. That all sounds like a misprint. If we've learned anything over the past few days, its that once someone has come into contact with Islam, we must not allow them to come within contact of our judicial and legal system and preferably not even our soil. Shunning them plus a few bombing runs on their own country is the only way to beat back this menace.

In House, Many Spoke With One Voice: Lobbyists’
What? You mean to tell me that intellectual titans and honest brokers like Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri and the "You Lie" jackass are having their health care speeches and public statements crafted by lobbyists opposed to health care reform? And that they aren't the only ones? It's almost as if they aren't concerned with the plight of Americans without health care and are instead only looking out for corporations and their donations. The international community still has the nerve to say we're only 19th in corruption? I just hope the lobbyists write them some extra good "freedom is dead" material for when health care reform does pass.

Cost of happiness discovered by Australian economist
Yes, a man has spent the time calculating the monetary equivalent of various milestones in life and the effect of money on happiness. For instance: a marriage makes a woman feel as if she has gained the equivalent of £8, 726.25, while it makes a man feel like he has gained the equivalent of £17, 675.68. Dr. Sean and I have conducted our own study in conjunction with the These Bastards Institute of Scientific Discovery and we have found that the cost of happiness is equal to that of the cost of the cheapest alcohol with the highest percentage of alcohol by volume and the cheapest hooker within walking distance. Take that, Australia.

Celebrating Revolution With Roots in a Rumor
A story that recounts the events that sparked the Czech revolution, and how it turns out that some of those events that inspired a nation to march and overthrow it's communist overlords was based on a lie. That's all well and good and even a little funny, but don't you think the honest thing to do would be to turn the country back over to the Politburo with a written apology? To continue on as is just strikes me as dishonest.

Civilian Supercomputer Shatters Nuke Simulator’s Speed Record
For the first time ever a civilian supercomputer, the Jaguar, is the fastest supercomputer in the world. It's speed is 1.759 petaflops or 1,759 trillion calculations per second. What is a petaflop? Well, it's sort of like a gigabyte, but it's bigger and likes to touch children in their bathing suit areas. As this computer is 69% faster than the previous record holder and twice as fast as the 3rd fastest supercomputer, it is now the frontrunner to lead the machine intelligence against its human oppressors that house it in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Forget Skynet, Jaguar is our new master.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.09

Iranian student dares to criticise Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to his face
An Iranian student totally clowned an Ayatollah the other day, taking an opportunity he was given to ask Khamenei a question and turning into a 20 minute diatribe about all that stuff Khamenei has done. Of course the Ayatollah responded to this by saying "Nuh-uh" and leaving, making sure to give a press release saying they totally allowed him to ask that question because of freedom and stuff. Meanwhile, the student, Mahmoud Vahidnia, gets to dodge literal and figurative bullets because he chose to do it in such a public, televised place. Well done, sir. It's going to be such a shame when we find out you committed suicide by beating yourself to death with multiple police batons.

Hany Farid, Dartmouth Scientist, Says Controversial Oswald Rifle Photo Real
As if the past few days weren't weird enough, how does this strike you: that Oswald photo of him with the rifle that everyone says is fake...is real. So says an expert. Hmmm, so maybe Oswald did do it. It's all well and good, with so many conspiracies about things that are going on now and think it's time we put to bed some of the old classics. Unless Glenn Beck comes up with a way that Oswald shooting Kennedy ties into Barack Obama becoming President, perhaps through ACORN or Oswald himself planting fake birth announcements in Honolulu papers to legitimize our Kenyan sleeper agent President, then I think we might have to move on.

Gadgets and Ideas to Revolutionize Healthcare
Wired Science gives us a look and the TEDMED conference and some of the revolutionary ideas and gadgets that were shown, including wireless medical monitors, the chemical compound resveratol, and tissue engineering, that some see as the future of health care. Sadly no one at the conference had invented the one device that would revolutionize health care the most: a robotic whirling dervish or chainsaws, weedwhackers, and blowtorches that would be used against our elected betters in an attempt to make them pass single payer health care. Though one scientists from MIT did unveil a prototype device that would administer a 50,000 volt shock to Joe Lieberman's anus any time he got a "notion" about getting himself on the TV more.

A media orgy of rumors, speculation and falsehoods
Salon's Glenn Greenwald chronicles the latest failure of the TV media to provide accurate, relevant, and informed coverage on a breaking story, this time the Ft. Hood shootings. From numerous mistakes involving the number of shooters, to the fate of the shooter(s), to the background of Hasan, to the weapons used, to all sorts of other unverified miscellaneous claims, anyone actually watching the coverage would have struggled to even understand anything other than the fact that a shooting happened. Greenwald goes on to discuss how damaging this kind of thing is in creating false zombie narratives and dimwitted conventional wisdom that shpes public perceptions. But hey, who cares if it's all misinformation, it made for some damn fine TV. And isn't that the whole point of TV news?

Exclusive: I Was Kidnapped by the CIA
With the recent in absentia conviction of CIA agents in Italy for their rendition and torture program, perhaps it's best to actually take a closer look at what it was they were accused of. Mother Jones was prescient enough to have a full account of the case of the man, Abu Omar, that the CIA agents were convicted of rendering and torturing for their March/April 2008 issue. Congratulations America, this was done in your name! I hope you like it.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.26

Women pay up to 50% more for health insurance premiums
Now that we've inexorably moved one step closer to our new health care utopia with cotton candy insurance that lets us see marmalade doctors, a new study is released showing you the best way to cut your health insurance costs: not be born a woman. Some call it sex discrimination, I'm just glad to note that neither Sean nor I was born with this debilitating pre-existing condition, what with it's assorted lady parts, emotions, and hairless faces. I'm just glad that I can't catch whatever it is they have because...well...let's just say that its because I've quarantined myself off from them and that definitely not the other way around, no matter what Pittsburgh area women tell you.

For Walker, financial fouls mount
For anyone looking to glimpse into the lifestyles of rich athletes and their almost immediate bankruptcies the second they stop playing, take a look a former Celtics power forward Antoine Walker who, at 33, has squandered over $110 million in career earnings. This is why sports fans don't have to worry about player strikes anymore. One would last a month before half the players were out of money.

The New Color Line
I'm about to blow you mind: whites and blacks not only have differing views about things, but those views extend to health care as well! 40% of whites support health care reform compared to 75% of nonwhites, while 38% of whites believe the Obama agenda will decrease their opportunities and 60% of nonwhites believe his agenda will increase their opportunities. So wait, large percentages of those teabaggers were scared that the black man was coming to take their shit? I guess that's something you only could have understood with a poll, or if, you know, you read their placards.

Campaign Report on Human Rights in Iran since 12 June 2009
The International Campaign for Human Rights did an analysis of the situation in Iran and it turns out things aren't so great. Their conclusion? Iran is accelerating its slide into a dictatorship. Excuse me, that must have been a misprint. It probably meant to say further accelerating it's slide into and even more oppressive dictatorship than already exists. That must be it. Still, it surprises me. I mean we all changed our Twitter icons green and made our Facebook location Tehran. Wasn't that supposed to solve everything?

End State: Is California finished?
Yes. Now break it up and sell it to the Chinese. Otherwise they might take us all down with them in their swirling vortex of initiative stupidity and referendum backed budget destroying insanity. Oh sure, we'll miss the entertainment industry, celebrity murder trials, and probably a third and fourth thing. But this is triage man, cut off the diseased leg so the rest of the body can survive! I'm just saying: nukes in the San Andreas fault to break California off from the mainland. It was in the Superman movie being attempted by a super genius, it has to be valid.

This'll learn 'em

The United States has standards, people. If you rig an election (in a way we don't want) and then brutally suppress the uprising, well, you'll just get a few cryptic statements about legitimacy followed by a few timid remarks about how you're treating all the people you're arresting under false pretenses. But build a reactor? Strike that. Find out that the US has known about the reactor you built for a good long time but that they didn't know that you knew that they knew? That's a paddlin'.

The Obama administration is scrambling to assemble a package of harsher economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program that could include a cutoff of investments to the country’s oil-and-gas industry and restrictions on many more Iranian banks than those currently blacklisted, senior administration officials said Sunday.

The administration also is seeking to build a broader coalition of partners for sanctions so that it may still be able to act against Iran even if China and Russia were to veto harsher measures proposed in the United Nations Security Council.

This combined with all those sanctions the world enacting for stealing an election and killing, beating, and arresting anyone who thought that maybe votes should be counted, really ought to put a serious damper on Iranian plans. Oh, they didn't get sanctioned for that coup/suppression thing? My bad. Well, at least these new theoretical sanctions that won't get past the UN Security Council, really ought to make Ahmadinejad's non-Jew rhetoric a lot more interesting.

But let that be a lesson to future Ahmadinejads. You say "democracy shemocracy" and we will stifle a yawn with the full brunt of America's might. But you find out we've been reading your diary, perhaps even writing "I know you're reading this America" into its pages, then we will try to place sanctions that will affect everyone but the leadership of the country. Why not? Those people have had a rough few months, they'll barely notice the extra hardship. If they didn't want it, they shouldn't have not elected Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.

Oh yeah, this is still happening

I don't want to alarm you, but you remember that whole Iranian Revolution thing? Brace yourselves for disappointment. Despite the fact we might have rotated green into our wardrobes a little more frequently, made our Twitter icons green, put our Twitter and Facebook locations as "Tehran", and actually paid attention until a pop star we hadn't thought about in a decade died, the revolution was not only not won by the revolutionaries, but it's still going on right now. Still! How many more green t-shirts does a guy have to buy?

Iran's opposition Green movement put on a powerful show of strength today against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the hardline president repeated his notorious claim that the Nazi Holocaust was a "lie" designed to justify the existence of Israel.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in central Tehran to shout "death to the dictator" despite a heavy security presence and official warnings to the opposition not to hijack the Quds (Jerusalem) Day rally, the regime's annual display of solidarity with the Palestinians.

Ahmadinejad supporters mounted counter-demonstrations, leading to repeated scuffles between the two sides, news agencies reported.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims he won June's election, was forced to abandon plans to take part after his car was attacked. Former president Mohammad Khatami, another leading reformist, was also said to have been assaulted by hardliners before being rescued by riot police.

That must have been a hell of a show, "death to the dictator" chants competing with "death to Israel" chants. It is nice to see that stealing an election, staging mock trials of supporters, and torturing and killing protesters hasn't dulled any of the sharp edges off of Ahmadinejad. He's still willing to go out there blame Zionists for all the wars, claim the Holocaust never happened, urge the Revolutionary Guard to beat anyone wearing green, and war monger with Israel all before he goes to address the UN General Assembly about Iran's nuclear ambitions. What a freedom suppressing scamp.

Fuck it, it's time to get serious now. I think it's clear that we failed to give the Iranian people enough moral support last time. I'm thinking we need to find an even better shade of green to change our Twitter and Facebook icons to. Pantone power, bitches! We change our Twitter location to "Tehran....you election stealing motherfuckers." We resist the urge to let our focus waver from blog updates, no matter how many celebrities die. Don't go looking to see if Dirty Dancing is available for rent on Netflix. Stay committed to the cause, Swayze would have wanted it that way. Once Ahmadinejad sees this and is subjected to the full brunt of a million snarky tweets and sarcastic live-blogs of his UN speech, he'll certainly think twice about rigging another election. I feel good about this. This is going to work so much better than last time. I'll see you on the Sherwin-Williams color fields of battle. I'm feeling 6734 Espalier or 6465 Shamrock.

Good morning, here's some crazy people

I'm not sure what's my favorite, Uncle Sam being menaced by the hawk of perversion and the condor of lust, the "autograph my cross" man, Jezebel kid, or the sheer amount of signs that threaten armed revolution. They need to hold one of these a week.

Remember Iran?

With Michael Jackson sufficiently dead, his family's memorial tribute singles, and petty squabbling over the corpse not nearly interesting enough, it's time to reluctantly turn America's eye back to Iran, which is still having a little disagreement about the meaning of the words "democratic", "elected", and "Supreme Leader". It seems the people still want to be free and be partially ruled by the man they voted for, while the Ayatollah still would prefer his word to be law and that his security forces continue to Whack-a-Mole any protester who pops his head up. He's still pretty serious about it.

Iran's supreme leader told politicians Monday not to disturb the country's security in a strong warning to the opposition to back down after one of its top figures called for a referendum on the government.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed "Iran's elite" and warned them to be cautious in the positions they take on the turmoil that has shaken the country since the disputed presidential election on June 12.

He said that hurting Iran's security was "the biggest vice," adding that "anybody who drives the society toward insecurity and disorder is a hated person in the view of the Iranian nation, whoever he is."

Remember "brazenly rigging an election": not hurting Iran's security. Saying "maybe we should let the guy the people voted for run things": hurting Iran's security. It's so nice being the conduit for God's word. Maybe I just don't understand Him or the way He communicates through His vessels, but why is the first thing God seems to tell all His earthy dictators to do is "be a total hypocrite" followed by "grasp onto power as hard as humanly possible"? You think God would have learned that's not a great plan by now.

Still, it seems Mousavi and his fellow reformist supporters didn't get Khamenei's oh so subtle message, as they were out begging to be imprisoned demanding a referendum and the release of detained protesters. I'm sure demanding stuff will really make a difference. We saw how things went when Mousavi politely asked for these things, I'm sure the new forceful tone will convince the Supreme Leader that absolute power isn't as great as he thinks it is.

As an addendum, if you're interested in a more in depth look at how things in Iran got to where they were, the BBC is starting a 3-part series called Iran and the West: From Khomeni to Ahmedinejad, the first part of which is up now. Spoiler alert: it doesn't have a feel good beginning or ending. The middle is kind of a downer too.

Damn you, The West

It's not a good day to be a meddling power with megalomaniacal desires and Bond villan type machinations on the Middle East. Our fiendish Western plots are being figured out left and right. First was today's plane crash in Iran, which killed 168. I'm sure in the coming days we'll find that not only was this orchestrated by Barack Hussein Obama, whilst sitting in his ovaled office stroking a white cat, but that it was done in conjunction with Hossein Mousavi in an attempt to de-legitimize the rightfully "elected" "government" of Iran. Then there's Israel, which has taken a new, heinous step in its war against the Palestinians: boner gum.

Hamas suspects that Israeli intelligence services are supplying its Gaza Strip stronghold with chewing gum that boosts the sex drive in order to "corrupt the young," an official has said.
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The story came to light after a Palestinian man filed a complaint that his daughter had experienced "dubious side effects" after chewing the offending gum, Israeli media reported.

The Israeli military declined to comment officially on the allegations, which one military source termed "absurd."

Oh you would deny this, Israel! But your secret Spanish Fly Bubblelicious and Rhino Horn Fruit Stripe gum has been discovered! Hamas was too polite to overtly say what these "dubious side effects" were, but we know: exposed wrists and ankles, signifying the extreme excesses of Western harlotry and whoreishness. We know what's next: the dancing to the rock'n'roll music. They're on to you, The West. No more plane crashes, no more BBC led revolutions, and cease with the boner gum and any other arousing chocolates or lascivious sodas you try to unleash on unsuspecting populaces. This will not stand.

Picture of the day

Via Animal New York comes this example of a time where maybe Google should have built a couple of better filters into its ad program. Sure the AP video in question is ostensibly about Iran, women, and using the internet for communication, but you weren't supposed to jumble them all up together into a plea for horny guys with an oppression fetish. Sure I've heard of targeted marketing, but I didn't think "men who watch AP news footage of revolutions and are single" was a key demo. Still at least the rioting scenes didn't cause ads for surplus rubble or discounted Korans to come up. Better luck next time.

Now they're getting cocky

I don't think the election thieving leaders are feeling too threatened by the protests and clashes going on in their streets. I mean they must either be completely oblivious or confident of the outcome. Otherwise they wouldn't have the time to send out sarcastically critical press releases and waste the Italian Ambassador's time by calling him to a meeting to discuss the freedom smashing going on at the G8. I think Ahmadinejad is just jealous that that Iran wasn't even invited to G20 meetings. He really wanted to see Pittsburgh.

A Foreign Ministry statement included Iran's "strong condemnation" of the "suppressive actions…which are clear breaches of civil freedoms and fundamentals of democracy."

The Foreign Ministry's Director for West European Relations 'condemned the use of violence by Italian police against protesters and opponents of the Group of Eight industrialized nations (G8) Summit in the city of L'Aquila, and demanded the compliance of the Italian government with its international obligations'.

Chief among the concerns of the Iranian Foreign Ministry was the use of too-bright flares by the police, one of the protesters being referred to as a "dirty hippie", and one report of the denting of a oversized papier-mâché head in the shape of Nicolas Sarkozy.

But you've got to appreciate the balls of Iran here. Do you think Iranian leaders were actually beating on a protester when they thought this press release up? Each raining baton blows down on some poor man when Khamenei says "Wouldn't it be hilarious if..." and then Ahmadinejad finishes with "...we blamed Italy for all the stuff we're doing!" Then they share a laugh and go revoke some more basic human rights. I blame Mousavi and the protesters. Sure they've dented the Guardian Council's sense of control, safety, legitimacy, and leadership, but what have they done to puncture their sense of humor and tactical sarcasm deployment? Nothing. I'm disappointed in you, Iranian Revolution.

The new golden age of supression

If you heard about it yesterday, China is having some sort of uprising/conflict somewhere over something and score of people are being wounded and injured. It's between Uighurs and the Han, over specifically what no one really knows, but broadly about ethnic and religious divides. And....that's about it. That's pretty much the extent of the knowledge of what's going on. Why is that? Because it's the new age of media and information suppression. Thought Iran tried some innovative ideas on squashing information? They were just field testing ideas China had perfected and Iran couldn't have even dreamed of China's strategies for spinning the West.

In the wake of Sunday’s deadly riots in its western region of Xinjiang, China’s central government took all the usual steps to enshrine its version of events as received wisdom: it crippled Internet service, blocked Twitter’s micro-blogs, purged search engines of unapproved references to the violence, saturated the Chinese media with the state-sanctioned story.

It also took one most unusual step: Hours after troops quelled the protests, in which 156 people were reported killed, the state invited foreign journalists on an official trip to Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital and the site of the unrest, “to know better about the riots.” Indeed, it set up a media center at a downtown hotel — with a hefty discount on rooms — to keep arriving reporters abreast of events.
...
As the Internet and other media raise new challenges to China’s version of the truth, China is finding new ways not just to suppress bad news at the source, but also to spin whatever unflattering tidbits escape its control.

Two reason for this. First, they get better blocking technology from the telcoms. Hey Iran, you get what you pay for. Second, they studied various color revolutions, including Iran's, and learned how to best shut down communication, internet, phones, TV, and social networking. Well goodie, at least someone benefited and learned from those revolutions. But what's really nice is to see those ideas applied and field tested so quickly. Iran isn't even done with it's uprising and China has already learned from the Guardian Council's Oppression Bloopers and Suppression Gaffes highlight reel. China actually learned the first lesson decades ago: don't allow elections.

What's really great about this is that it isn't some extra-special Chinese suppression technology. Or sure they sprung for some extra bells and whistles, but this basic package essentially exists in every country that has moved beyond carrier pigeon and pony based communications. So pay attention, you're seeing the new playbook being written on suppressing any level of uprising or revolution. Remember to thank your telcoms for making it it jut that easy.

Picture of the day

From the Big Picture blog comes more scenes from that whole revolution thing in Iran that is still evidently going on. Who can keep track with all the celebrities dying? I'm not certain but it seems like they're taking Michael Jackson's death pretty hard. It's OK Iran, his music will live on in our hearts forever.

This series does point out one of the better perks of being a Supreme Leader or Iran: a swank marble prayer pit. I mean other than the ultimate power, the ability to rig elections, the control over the media and security forces, and a yearly centerfold in Beard Aficionado Magazine, it's gotta be one of the better ones.

Misguided notion of the day

Sam Sedaei:

The Iranian Revolution Didn't Die with Michael Jackson

Well, not in Iran it didn't, but it did pretty much everywhere else he was popular. On TV, instead of coverage of Iranian riots and speeches the news now covers stories about the funeral, what will happen to his kids, Joe Jackson still being kind of a creep, and reshowing old, widely seen footage of MJ performances as "lost footage". In the papers, MJ has pushed Iran off the front pages. Even on websites like the Huffington Post Iran used to occupy the banner headline, now Nico Pitney's live-blogging sometimes isn't even on the front page.

So while Jackson didn't die and take the Iranian Revolution with him, he did take most of the coverage of it with him.

House party

New news from Iran: Obama sez yay protesters, the Ayatollah still doesn't understand what's going on, torture, more protests/beatings/shootings, it's all the West's fault, and coerced "confessions".

Also, they've put Mousavi under house arrest so he can't try to hike the Appalachian Trail, can avoid the violence that the British media controls, won't be able to commit suicide before the Guardian Council orders his death to be made to look like a suicide, and can't do all that pesky marching and complaining about an oppressive theocracy stuff.

The Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi is under 24-hour guard by secret police and no longer able to speak freely to supporters, according to the film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

Mr Makhmalbaf, 52, an informal spokesman abroad for the protest in Iran, said that Mr Mousavi was not under arrest but "he has security agents, secret police with him all the time. He has to be careful what he says."
...
Mr Mousasvi's means of communication had been cut off, or confiscated, just after the disputed election, Mr Makhmalbaf said. He had therefore been asked informally to make sure that a true picture of what was happening in Iran reached the outside world.

Asked to explain where the protests might go from here, he said that Mr Mousavi had urged his supporters not to confront the regime directly but to "adopt the tactics of Gandhi, the tactics of non-violent protest and civil disobedience".

Gandhi, ouch. It's going to be really hard for the Iranian Guardian Council and security forces to demonize the tactics and persona of Gandhi, but I'm really interested to see their effort. Gandhi's whole salt march was so he could rub it in the eyes of British colonialists and ball it up into a rock like projectile, right?

So what's all this mean? It looks like this is going the bloody, violent distance. Ending in either tanks shooting at protesters and martial law or masses of people storming the palace and a nice spate of Hague trials. At least we're getting a full picture of what's going on. Oh, it's actually worse than what we're seeing? Goody.

Just so we're clear

Not only am I wearing a green shirt, but I have made my Twitter logo green, I have skimmed through Andrew Sullivan's constant protest updates a few times, contemplated changing the blog header to green before giving up immediately, I have typed #iran into Twitter at least twice, and said "Iran...ain't that some shit" to one other person.

So if this revolution fails it will not be my fault, it will be yours. What with your not wearing green "I love the Ayatollah but before that I loved the Shah" attitude. I have contributed mightily to this democratic effort and if it succeeds it will mainly be due to my efforts and the efforts of Americans like me......and also a couple of those Iranian people. So let us be clear: you and possibly millions of Iranians aren't pulling their revolutionary weight.

I made my Twitter icon green, people. GREEN! Plus I voted in a poll to ask Google to make their logo green. How much more can one man do?

Khamenei to Iran: "No please, overthrow me too."

Some of the more positive movements within the Guardian Council, from clerics offering support to questioning the election to even the somewhat dubious offer to officially look into vote rigging claims, seemed to take a step back when ex-ZZ Top bassist and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei decided that if the government gets toppled, he'd like to be under it when it falls.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a stern warning to opponents today to stay off the streets as he denied claims that last week's elections had been rigged.

In an uncompromising address at Friday prayers, Khamenei claimed that the high turnout at the elections showed how much the Iranian people supported the regime, and blamed western powers for interfering in Iranian politics, singling out the UK as the "most treacherous".

In a thinly veiled warning to the reformist presidential challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Khamenei said opposition leaders would be held responsible if they did not call for an end to the protests that have rocked Iran since last Friday's disputed election.

"Street challenge is not acceptable," he said. "This is challenging democracy after the elections."

Ouch. What kind of world do we live in when the Supreme Leader of Iran isn't singling the United States out as the "most treacherous" for meddling in Iranian affairs. That used to be our thing! The 1953 coup was our Sgt. Pepper. People listening live to the speech even chanted "Death to the UK!" What about us, Ali? What about the Jews? Don't either of us get any credit? I thought this was all about us! *sniff* I guess there's a new western Great Satan.

The big news out of the speech, other than Ali officially getting out the sensual oils and lube for Ahmadinejad, dismissing even the notion that vote rigging occurred, and fully supporting the election results, was that the government would do longer behanding out permits for protests and looked to have given police "the green light to security forces to violently handle protesters." I was under the impression that's what the security forces were already doing. They weren't?

I'm sure this will end well for you Ali and you will in no way regret rigging the election or loudly supporting it. Bitter old despots always win when pitted against millions of motivated and oppressed people. Enjoy your post-revolution public square meathooking.