Myanmar's Lady remains imprisoned but in body only. Tomorrow she turns 60 years old.

Sacrificing Herself for Her Cause

Key Facts, Findings and Cases from Every Day Fears: A Survey of Violent Hate Crimes in Europe and North America

Ireland, Germany, Greece, and the Netherlands are among the countries that have no laws that provide tougher penalties for violent crimes motivated by racism or other bias.

I thought Germany for sure would be sensitive to racism. As for Greece, human rights groups say we have one of the worst records in the European Union for racism against ethnic minorities.

Christopher Hitchens, the lifetime-dedicated-leftist of The Nation says he was 'hysterically' welcomed in Iraq as a true liberator.

Appeared on Peter Robinson's the Uncommon Knowledge program on occasion of his new book - Love, Poverty and War - you can read a transcript of their conversation here. (also audio and video of it)

It's official now. The Pentagon is putting the heat on high on Israel.

There is a crisis between the members of Iran's interior ministry (who are responsible for reporting the elections' results) and the guardian council (who is responsible for ruling the country as they see fit) on how they would report the final numbers of voters in yesterday's election.

While the official agencies' report talks about a 'massive turn-out', some members of interior ministry claim that guardian council is using the public TV and radio stations to give a 'false impression' on the number of the votes and put the interior ministry on a difficult position to confirm it.

According to the deal, the guardian council will raise the number of voters spread across all the candidates.

For example, they'll add 1 million to a candidate with 2 million votes and 500000 to a candidate with 1 million votes, hoping to save the regime from humiliations and the impact of general boycott.

This will probably fire up the next round of protests and demonstrations across Iran.

Interior ministry is looking for a way to come out of this crisis.

Also, a member of Iran's intelligence ministry is threatening the press not to report anything about massive fraud otherwise they will be closed down mercilessly.

Going through the first reported results, what is very interesting is that there is not even 1 white or invalid ballot in Tehran!

Mehdi Karoubi (the mullah who promised 70$ a month for every Iranian) is threatening the world: If I don't be reported as the second running man after Rafsanjani for the next round, I go public and will tell the 'truth' to the people!

It seems that Ahmadi-Nejad - the hard-line mayor of Tehran who once said "We did not have a revolution in order to have democracy" - is going to be reported as the second candidate for the next round. Rumors indicate that Ayatollah Khamanei prefers him to be president because they can control him better, rather than pragmatic Rafsanjani with his own gang who is more difficult to control.

Ayatollah Khamanei is looking for an easier way to rule the country in his own and Ahmadi-Nejad as a pupet hard-line president seems the best choice.

Mostafa Moin, former minister of education and the only reformist candidate is getting out of the picture. He also accuses both interior ministry and the guardian council of manipulating the results in favor of Ahmadi-Nejad and Karoubi!

In Tabriz, the eligable people to vote was first reported as 1 million and 125 thousends and 394 just days before the election, but after the citizens' boycott yesterday, they changed the stats to 1 million and 90 thousends people eligable to vote, claiming a 51% turn-out!

Officially, there are more than 6 million 'representives' of guardian council scattered across the country to 'supervise' the elections. They work apart from the interior ministery and are only responsible to Ayatollah Khamanei.

That would probably explain why there is no shortage of votes and voters on the eyes of Ayatollahs BBC and Reuters.

The titles like "Iranians flock to vote" was spreading around the world yesterday as CNN, BBC, AP and Reuters were under the trick of mullahs and their propaganda machine.

But collecting people from the abandoned Iranian villages, putting them on a mini-bus, promising them a free lunch and some cash, then bringing them to the city and lining them up infront of the foreigner journalists in Tehran is an easy task for mullahs.

It should be somewhere reported that the streets of Tehran yesterday were much much less busy than a normal day and that was probably the symbolic signs that Iranians are boycotting the election.

There was also some pathetic news that because President Bush sent a message in solidarity with Iranian people and their boycott of this sham election, Iranians went to vote massively! Keep ignoring everything.

Last Update: Rafsanjani and Ahmadi-Nejad were selected for next friday show.

Post-Last Updates:
mdinaz points us to this report from Iran Focus: Boycott Hits Iranian elections.

Fay points us to this great article in frontpagemag by Christopher Hitchens: Mind Over Mullahs. We have another article about him later on.

-evariste, can you help me make a cake?
-I gotta go to work zorkie, sorry.
-Do you know how to make a cake?
-No, do you?
-No...
-Can you look in the cookbook?
-You mean like learn from scratch?
-Yeah, read the directions! I gotta go, my to do list is overflowing!
-But ev...Hello? Hello? Hmph.

So... I need a pan. Where are the pans...Oh, look at these fancy little glasses! They must be for liqueur or someth-oops! Oh shit! Aww...What am I gonna tell Sine? Unless...I don't tell her! How is she gonna know it was me anyway...Lots of people visit the diner...What is that thingie over there...Huh...I don't know what this is, I'm putting it back. Pans! Why are they so flat? Huh...What else should I get out...Sugar...Where is the sugar...Man, is Sine organised or what, no wonder I can't find anything...look at this - the soup is alphabetized! Who alphabetizes soup?! Is this sugar? Dare I try it? What if it's arsenic? I better not try it. So what am I gonna do about the sugar then? What else do I need? Two eggs. I can do eggs! I know Sine has eggs, she's a chef, what chef doesn't have eggs...Brown?! Brown eggs?! Eeeww! I'm not gonna put brown eggs in a nice cake! I'm throwing out the eggs, they're gross. I bet they have poop on them, too. Man, am I glad I'm checking this diner! But now I have no eggs! And where are the measuring cups? What is this? Huh...Tools...How weird...What else do I need? Flour... flour...flourflourflour...where are you flour? What is this? Sugar? Flour? Arsenic? Who knows! This is very discouraging...Do we have any olives? Nope. Of course not, that would mean we'd actually have food in the diner instead of the fancy little these and those...

This is impossible to do! I am outraged at the lack of facilities in this diner! Hello? evariste?
-Hey, what's up?
-Can you pick up a cake on your way home?
-What hap-
-evariste, please don't oppress me, I've had a rough day!
-Chocolate or vanilla?
-Hmm...Something fruity...