Politics and Culture

If President Obama is planning on entering negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program while also letting video footage of our new bunker-busting bombs seep onto youtube, he'd be doing a very smart thing. Heck, he should just go up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, open up his laptop, play it for him, and smile.

What would Iran do? If they're sane, they'd stop their program. If not, negotiations are a waste of time anyways.

What for? What's the world going to do?

Basij shots to death a young woman in Tehran's Saturday June 20th protests

At 19:05 June 20th
Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st.

A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij More.. member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim's chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes.
The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St.
The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me.
Please let the world know

1. Barbara Boxer's comments came at a good time, as my friends, reacting to Jonah Goldberg's piece in this month's National Review, said that Fascism is more a function of authoritarianism than the other stuff Goldberg mentions.

I replied that the left, being more into regulation, mandates, subsidies, and social conditioning are actually the more authoritarian group in the nation. And, then, to punctuate my case, along came Nancy Pelosi:

2. Boxer's combination of arrogance, stupidity, and mean-ness makes her rare amongst those elected to anything above Cheer squad leader. In fact, if she was pretty, she'd be Big Red from Bring It On.

Bring It On (Widescreen Collector's Edition)

3. In other audio, the general had referred to Senator David Vitter as "sir" right before Barbara Boxer.

4. Friends that have met Barbara Boxer tell me she's as dumb as rocks.

5. Jill Biden has a little "Dr. Evil" in her as well:

Dr. Jill Biden.

6. Education classes are the least "intellectual bang"-for-buck courses that anybody can take. In fact, when somebody tells me that they have an doctorate in education and take it seriously (instead of just for career advancement), I assume that they're full of bad ideas.

7. The government makes me feel like a fool again (the first time was aid for people who couldn't pay their mortgage) They want to give people who own less fuel-efficient cars (in reality, cars are all similarly "efficient." Some are just bigger or faster than others), "clunkers," money so that the government can junk them or turn them into modern art.

Last year, when gas prices were high, I sold my Isuzu Trooper to my sister for $500.00 and bought a more economical Ford Focus. In other words, I made a responsible decision, based on the circumstances. Well, you know that if there's one thing Obama and this government hates, it's a responsible person. If I would have kept the car, I would have had $4000.00 more dollars to spend on a car. My ecologically irresponsible sister makes out like a bandit. It's a transfer of wealth from me to my sister.

8. The giveaways will be good enough for 250,000 new cars. This place projects that Americans will buy 11.5 million cars in 2009. That's a whopping 2.1% increase in car sales. Wow!

There are over 250,000,000 cars in the U.S. I should be able to jog a lot easier knowing that .1% of that total pollute a tiny bit less and can go three more miles to the gallon. Talk about "feel-good" legislation!

9. I like this quote, from the New York Times, reporting on the Iran kerfuffle:

“Can’t the United Nations help us?” one woman asked me. I said I doubted that very much. “So,” she said, “we are on our own.”

Uhh, yeah.

9. Anyways, I don't think I'm supposed to worry about it. Que sera, sera, in Iran.

10. Why doesn't Obama do everything he can to make health insurance cheap, like tort reform, less mandates and regulation, and then, if people are still unhappy, try to unveil a government option?

11. The reason, of course, is that government health insurance, for liberals, is an a priori good. They wouldn't care if no new medicines or health discoveries were ever made again or if the United States collapsed from health care related debt or people died of the inevitable inefficiency: they want government health care, dammit!

12. In this, think of schools: Private schools are as good as the "public option," at half the price, but liberals would still never vote for vouchers, out of sheer principle.

13. Of course, the rich still send their kids to private school and they'll be the only ones with private health insurance, as well.

14. Sotomayor quit the Belizian club. Too bad that she had to. I think discrimination based on sex is legitimate for clubs. Sex is a real, non-superficial, difference. As real as IQ, at least, and we wouldn't kick anybody out for being in MENSA.

...would be finding ways to incorporate the mood of the Iranian people into any military action. Working with dissidents, etc.

If the demonstrators succeed, that would only leave North Korea of the original axis of evil. More regimes are evil of course, but these were/are the ones most likely to kill outside their borders. It would also be a big burden off of Obama, if I may inject some politics into this. Good for the protesters.

The Iranian judiciary's statement said that all 30 were convicted of various crimes, which included: murder, murder in commission of a crime, disturbing public safety and security, being a public nuisance while drunk and being involved in illegal relationships -- relationships between men and women who are not married to each other.

By those standards, the United States would have a population of 114. Los Angeles would look like ANWR.

Murderers and child rapists should be put to death. Everybody else should have lesser sentences. Doesn't Iran have community service?

From here.

A majority of likely voters – 52% – would support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, and 53% believe it is likely that the U.S. will be involved in a military strike against Iran before the next presidential election, a new Zogby America telephone poll shows.

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