NIAC captions:
Immediately after the elections, demonstrators were chanting, “Armed forces, support us!” in hopes of creating unity between themselves and the armed forces. As a result of the violence between demonstrators and armed forces, the chants have changed to, “Courageous Iranians, support us!”
The Dish has compiled many more clips from today; view them all here. And another clip of solidarity after the jump:
Fresh report from the AP:
In some places, police struck hard. Security forces chased after protesters, beating them with clubs on Valiasr Street, Tehran's biggest north-south avenue, witnesses said.
Women in headscarves and young men dashed away, rubbing their eyes as police fired tear gas, in footage aired on state-run Press TV. In a photo from Thursday's events in Tehran obtained by The Associated Press outside Iran, a woman with her black headscarf looped over her face raised a fist in front of a garbage bin that had been set on fire.
(More photo details here)
Rasmussen (whose data need to be taken with a pinch of Rovian salt):
Sargent sits slack-jawed. I don't. This is Rove's base. With any luck, as it gets more and more defined by Limbaugh and Palin and Steele and Beck and Hannity, it will ensure that the inheritors of George Wallace end up with his share of the vote.
"In 1754, Lt. Col. George Washington quit the Virginia militia, an obscure fact that now seems a bit more interesting in the wake of Gov. Sarah Palin's resignation in Alaska," – Paul Whitfield, Investor's Business Daily.
A reader writes:
Your reader comparing Beloit and San Antonio is leaving one major component out of the comparison: military spending. San Antonio is home to four large bases (Brooks, Sam Houston, Lackland, and Randolph) while Beloit has… a National Guard armory.
Another writes
Texas years ago enacted strict laws governing exotic and aggressive mortgages (e.g. no IO loans, no 10% down, maybe no liar loans either). As a result, there was no housing-price boom and subsequent bust in Texas. If it were simply the immigrant reason assumed by your reader, California would hardly be bankrupt.
Another:
I, too, am a college student from Texas who attends school out of state, and I can corroborate your reader's story. I go to school in Los Angeles, where the recession seems to be absolutely crippling the city. Traffic has almost disappeared and a ton of homes near USC are in foreclosure. Right before heading home for the summer, I drove by a line that stretched for a block and a half. Those people were waiting for hours outside to interview for a single job at a restaurant as a waiter.
By contrast, I came home this summer to San Angelo, TX, where nobody acts like a recession is happening. Construction on new houses is still ongoing at roughly the same pace it has been for the past 5 years. In fact, all of West Texas has been left relatively untouched by the recession. Lubbock, for example, has 2% unemployment. Even Houston, Dallas, and Austin haven't been hit nearly as hard as the rest of the nation.
My theory is that the Texas economy – primarily based on energy and agriculture – is fundamentally different than other states. Thus, the economy in the Lone Star State is, at its core, mainly responsive to rainfall and commodity prices.
The latest from Lady GaGa's spokesperson.
A reader writes:
The ombudsman explains: when other countries do it, it's torture; when the US does it, because we're not doing it for political repression, it isn't torture. Even if the techniques are identical. This is the policy of the entire MSM. Again: it isn't journalism. It's government propaganda. And they revel in it.
The New York Times has not responded in any way to my own exhaustive exposure of their identical double-standard. For the NYT, the two countries that cannot be accused of torture are Israel and the US. Surprise! Check out the post if you missed it. It goes back decades to reveal how the NYT stopped using the word "torture" for "torture" in their reporting as soon as Israel started doing it and the Bush administration later adopted the same techniques – hooding, forced nudity, hypothermia, stress positions, dietary manipulation, etc.
The latest details from the LA Times:
The Basiji militiamen could be seen fanning out throughout side streets to block demonstrators trying to flee. Armored police vans to haul away protesters could be seen parked along the roadways.
But as the militiamen tried to drag away demonstrators, one witness said, protesters joined together to overpower them and rescue their comrades. The witness also said he saw some women with their headscarves pulled off being forced into police vans. Another woman taking pictures with her cellphone camera was dragged away.
The Guardian has more.
The Dish 