July 2009 – Page 11

Violence Escalating

Details are surfacing from the Iranian twitterverse:

Independent reports of increasing clashes. Fires on many streets.

Extremely heavy clashes towards Mosalla.

Heavy clashes at Takht Tavos St. police shooting tear gas

Tear gas fired at Mofateh / Vali-Asr intersection.

No Mobile Network at Central Tehran, Almost all part of Cent. involving in Heavy Clashes, fire, tear gas and gunshoot.

Confirmed: Vali Asr from Vali Asr Square to Vanak Square is jampacked and smokefilled.

People shout, “Don't panic, don't panic, we're all together!”

… Mourners started chanting "Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein" & forces started beating them.

Mousavi not allowed to read the Quran on the martyrs' graves.

Khatami: Any violence on anyone must be dealt with. Even a drop of blood shed can be a disaster.

Montazeri: “They won't let them [people] shed tears for their loved ones. We have become worse than Shah.”

Source: filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mahnaz Mohammadi were arrested today. Mahnaz is a wonderful, passionate, independent woman

ppl chant in BeheshtZahra: "WE R all 1 voice, WE R NEDA, WE R SOHRAB"

“Police, Police, Support Us!”

The LA Times has some great reporting from today’s protests:

According to one witness, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal, Mousavi stepped out of his car only to be surrounded by police, who forced him back into his vehicle and out of the cemetery. At first, mourners were confronted by security forces, who struck some with batons and made arrests in an attempt to bar them from gathering at Tehran’s Behesht Zahra cemetery, the country’s largest. […]

The witness said protesters identified and violently confronted several plainclothes Basiji militiamen. “Police, police, support us,” the crowd chanted. “God is great!” But as people poured out of the nearby subway station and taxis along the highway, security forces retreated. One witness said police released detainees and began cooperating with the mourners, directing them to Section 257 of the cemetery, where Agha-Soltan and others were buried.

This is not over.

“We Are All Broken”

Neda's mother speaks with the BBC:

I went to visit the mothers of Sohrab Arabi and Ashkan Sohrab… they were two teenagers who were killed. And then both the mothers also came to my house too. […] Emotionally we are all broken. What can we say to each other? Our loved ones were too young to die… what can three mothers in the same situation say to each other? All we can do is just sit there and cry.

All presidential candidates promise more than they can possibly deliver. This sets them up for failure. But because the Obama cult has stoked expectations among its devotees to such unprecedented heights, he is especially likely to disappoint. [Gene Healy] predicts that he will end up as a failed president, and “possibly the least popular of the modern era”. It is up to Mr Obama to prove him wrong.

“Neda Isn’t Dead, The Regime Is!”

ABC's Jim Sciutto has some great tweet coverage:

Large crowds expctd as Mousavi, Karoubi, & spprtrs march to Neda's grave this pm, the 40th day since her killing

Crowds chanting 'death to the dictator', others saying 'Neda isn't dead, the regime is'

Neda's mother pressured not to attend: 'for reasons I can't say, I cannot attend the ceremony of my own daughter'

Karoubi has joined protesters at the cemetery.

Listen to protest live via cell on persian radio. An incredible window on the scene: http://www.epersianradio.com/

Protests Reignite

A reliable twitterer tweets:

Clashes in Behesht Zahara, Karoubi entred.

Clashes at Ferdosi Sq. (not Conf), Army Helicopters flying over Central City.

R Police Returned Mousavi from Behesht Zahra, no news from Karoubi, more ppl are trying to enter where Neda is buried.

Protesters gatherd in Seyde Khandan, Hafte Tir , Vanak and Vali Asr Cr.

+10,000 gatherd in Behesht Zahara under heavy sec cont more ppl re expecting join for Memorial of 20 June Uprising victims

Reuters repo rts the basic narrative:

Iranian police arrested mourners who gathered at a Tehran cemetery to commemorate victims of the unrest that followed the country's disputed June presidential election, witnesses said. "Hundreds have gathered around Neda Agha-Soltan's grave to mourn her death and other victims' death … police arrested some of them … dozens of riot police also arrived and are trying to disperse the crowd," a witness told Reuters.

Iranian police forced opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi to leave [the cemetery]."Police forced Mousavi to return to his car and leave the cemetery. Police are also warning mourners to leave the place or face the consequences," a witness told Reuters.

The Tide Is In

Conor Clarke interviews Kenneth Arrow about global warming:

[T]he affect of the seashore is going to be major. If you have large portions of the Arctic ice disappear, the rise in sea level will be in meters and yards. If it takes place gradually we can move back and there is no tragedy. If it rises more quickly then I think there is a real possibility of bad consequences. And while the United States, I guess it is true, will not be losing half of the world's agriculture, you have to realize that if it's happening here it's happening elsewhere. Food is going to become more valuable around the globe. Food will become scarcer. It's not going to be 3% of the American economy anymore. If we replaced food with imports, the imports won't come easily or cheaply. The price of goods will shoot up if there is additional scarcity. So the cost could be a much bigger number than [climate change experts] Mendelson and Nordhaus find.

Ambassadorships For Sale

Rahm Emanuel's shenanigans are getting worse than Karl Rove's:

A prominent example is Louis Susman, named as Obama’s ambassador to the Court of St. James. Susman was John Kerry’s campaign fundraising chair in 2004, heading an effort that yielded $247 million for Democratic coffers; he was among the earliest fundraisers for Obama, and his zeal continued after the election, when he pulled together $300,000 for the inaugural festivities. (Susman thus dwarfs the fundraising power of Bush’s ambassador in London, California auto dealer Robert Tuttle, who raised a measly $100,000 for the 2004 campaign and $100,000 for the inauguration.) When queried on Susman’s qualifications for the post, a White House spokesman quipped that “he speaks the local language.”

Sex In The Military

A little known fact is that adultery is still illegal in the military. So should Gov. Mark Sanford, as a captain in the Air Force Reserve, face charges for his extramarital affair? Evan McMorris-Santoro looks at the evidence and finds:

Since his jaunts to Argentina (the ones that we know of) didn’t come when he was on one of his active duty tours with the Air Force, the consensual sex between two adults that occurred wasn’t among the many types the military still considers illegal.

One of those "many types," of course, is gay sex – a crime that results in immediate discharge. But what about adultery?

[C]ourts martial on adultery charges alone are almost unheard of; the charge is usually added atop a list of other crimes, like failing to obey orders, lying to a superior, or sexual misconduct.

In fact, George Bush – a Christian who fired more than 5,000 soldiers simply because they were gay – made it even easier for straight soldiers to get away with adultery:

In April 2002, President Bush further discouraged adultery prosecutions by issuing an executive order that clarified the circumstances that might necessitate legal action. Although the order maintained that "adultery is clearly unacceptable conduct," it also listed a variety of factors that commanders should take into consideration before proceeding with a court martial. These include the accused's rank, the impact of the affair on the involved parties' job performance, and whether any of the hanky-panky took place while the accused was on the clock.

Savers Marry Spenders?

Reuters reports on a study:

"Surveys of married adults suggest that opposites attract when it comes to emotional reactions toward spending," Wharton's Scott Rick and Deborah Small and Northwestern's Eli Finkel said in the paper. They found that people who generally spend less than they would ideally like to spend, and those who spend more than they would like to tend to marry each other.

(Hat tip: Clusterstock)

Month: July 2009