Top 10 Things You Didn't Know About Iran

Juan Cole busts up the myths the West has with Iran. Here's example #2:

"Belief: Iran is a militarized society bristling with dangerous weapons and a growing threat to world peace.

Reality: Iran's military budget is a little over $6 billion annually. Sweden, Singapore and Greece all have larger military budgets. Moreover, Iran is a country of 70 million, so that its per capita spending on defense is tiny compared to these others, since they are much smaller countries with regard to population. Iran spends less per capita on its military than any other country in the Persian Gulf region with the exception of the United Arab Emirates."

As per Republican policy, you always build the threat, real or imagined, to the point where you use it to push your own agenda. Scare Americans so they feel you have to "save" them.

Leo Strauss, father of the Neo-con movement would be proud. He thought, "A political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat . . . . Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured".

I wonder what the equivalent would be for Israel, which the US partly pays for.

Source: Juan Cole

Obama's Dimplomacy vs Bush's Sabre Rattling

It's nice when your President is a diplomat with a cool hand, rather than some goof with a cowboy fetish. Take dealing with Iran for instance, via McClatchy:

"Iran also pledged that within weeks it would allow the inspection of a previously covert uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom, and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, announced that he'd head to Tehran to work out the details."

and this massive change:

"Iran agreed in principle Thursday to ship most of its current stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be refined for exclusively peaceful uses, in what Western diplomats called a significant, but interim, measure to ease concerns over its nuclear program."

So to put this in context, a real President versus a God-Squad huckster:

"Obama WH already got more from one buffet lunch with Iran than Bush WH did in 8 years of saber-rattling." - Steve Hynd.

This is pretty big news. I wonder if the failed neo-cons and racialist GOP base will obsess on Chicago not getting the 2016 Olympics?

Source: Salon

Rep. Alan Grayson Has A Set

A Democrat with balls. Take heed.

Florida Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson yesterday said (with charts!) on the House floor that, "The Republican's healthcare plan for America is -- Don't get sick.... If you do get sick..., die quickly."

Republicans demanded an apology.

Here is his apology, "but not to Republicans for his remarks last night. Instead, he apologized for those who died because they didn't have health insurance."



Source: http://www.realitychex.com/

Kaiser Foundation: Health Care Reform Support Rising

The Kaiser Foundation finds that support for health care reform is rebounding.

Also interesting is that the September rebound included both an increase in support and a drop in opposition

Source: Ezra Klein

Whoopi: "It was not rape-rape"

Ummm, Whoopi you better shut up now. Polanski did rape someone. Either you have a zero tolerance or you are saying some rape is justified. So he had great lawyers, he is still a rapist.

"We're a different kind of society. We see things differently. The world sees 13 year olds and 14 year olds in the rest of Europe... not everybody agrees with the way we see things. [...] Would I want my 14 year old having sex with somebody? Not necessarily..." - Whoopi Goldberg, using cultural relativism to defend the drugging and sodomizing of a 13-year-old girl.

You also defended Michael Vick as "just being Southern" for his dog fighting atrocities and subsequent gambling felonies.



Source: NewsBusters

Is Facebook White And Myspace Black?

Is it just one fad taking over the next fad or is there a underlying racial division? Is asking a researcher at Microsoft the best person to ask?

"MySpace is no longer cool. As a matter of fact, its number of users is now one-half the size of rival Facebook. Is this because MySpace is too black for the rest of America? Teenage Internet users may hold the answer. High-schoolers report their use of the social-networking giants along racial lines—MySpace is seen as “black,” while Facebook is “white.” And even within the networks, black kids befriend other black kids, Latinos mix with Latinos, and the self-segregation often practiced in real life is rampant online. Danah Boyd, a social media researcher at Microsoft and a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, compares this dash from MySpace to Facebook to “white flight” from inner cities."

I see it as a reflection of how people use social networking. Friendster was the first big site, but Myspace quickly took it over. When people first started using these sites, they were more anonymous. Myspace was that prefect mixture of fantasy, personalization, music promotion and exhibition. The users became more comfortable with sharing their information and their pictures and the site blew up in size. Celebrities were made. But with all good things, they become too popular for some, abused, manipulated and users probably became frustrated with the amount of spam-type bulletins and cheesy, blinking HTML comments. [Not to mention the feeling of rejection when you only have 50 friends, you have zero imagination and your page looks lame.]

Along comes the design-free, template-driven, music-free, boring "this is really who I am" Facebook, a hybrid of LinkedIn and an online stalker, and boring people now have a way of lazily stalking their boring friends. They no longer have to even call or e-mail, they can just follow their feed. Link your Twitter? Stale. This also caters to the stalking nature of parents who want to monitor everything their kids do. It's the passive-aggressive social media of the spoon-fed and mundane.

I don't see this as a black/white thing, more a boring news feed [Facebook] versus a "pimp my world", over-the-top site filled to the brim with scantily clad women and wannabe DJs/producers/promoters [Myspace]. Oh wait, did I just kill my point? Viva myspace!

Bonus: Myspace is offering free email now. "Yourscreenname"@myspace.com

h/t Andrew Sullivan.

Source: The Root

Palin's "Going Rogue" Excerpts

EXCLUSIVE! Bob Cesca has an "excerpt" from Sarah Palin's forthcoming Magnum Opus, Going Rogue. Probably not far from the truth.

EXCERPTED FROM CHAPTER FOURTEEN – WHO’S THAT A’KNOCKIN’?

"It was clear to me from the start that Jesus wanted me for the position of that Vice President position, the Vice Presidency, as they say, also. So when I got that call from Old Johnny asking me should I like that Position Flexible – that the Founders, they are so wise and constitutionally, were so wise assigning duties, as the Founders – I heard Jesus whisper in my ear, “This is you’re calling, Sarah Palin! Position Flexible, Sarah! Go!” So that was darn sweet of Him, I thought. Also.

And I accepted right away, on the spot, except for the time I gathered all my girls together but not my son God only knows where he was, also, and made them vote whether mommy should listen to Jesus for the nominating and they said “Let's do this, mom!” except of course also they didn’t know until the day we all flew to Ohio. Or maybe it was Michigan. So they voted, of course, because I needed my girls to tell me it was okay this Vice Presidency nominatings, also, but I can’t remember them actually knowing about it until after I accepted, so the voting may have been about if we should have had the KFC or the Taco Bell to celebrate that night, also. I think we had Taco Bell."

Unemployed, failed politicians make the best writers. Maybe she has the "Should Obama Be Killed Poll" on the back cover.

Source: http://www.bobcesca.com/