I’m going to be going Galt again for the majority of the day. FAIL.
I was thinking this morning, though, that like many of you, the first thing I do every morning the past couple of day is check out all the outgoing tweets at Sullivan’s. Even though they are unsourced, I find them fascinating. The question I have, though, is how many of them are legitimate? We really have no real way of knowing, and we know that some of the stuff has been inaccurate, so I was thinking it would be a really interesting project after this is all over (and it will end, one day), for someone to go through and retroactively fact-check it all. I wonder how much is real, and how much is well-intentioned information that got amplified and overstated, and how much, if any, is deliberate propaganda in the style of the “pulling babies from incubators” claims from the run-up to the Gulf War. If I had to guess, I would wager the vast majority are as accurate as is possible, but may reflect a sort of blind man and the elephant bias, and there is very little in the way of deliberate propaganda. At any rate, let’s all hope for very little violence in the region.
Also, fed the dog, fed the cat, went to brush my teeth, finished and came into the bedroom and Tunch was in the crate eating the dog food, I yelled at him turned and went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee where I found Lily scarfing down the cat food. I understood when I got a dog that I was looking forward to carry around little lavender-scented bags of shit for the next dozen years, but I did not realize that I was going to lose complete and total control of my house.
RememberNovember
yeah I wonder about that as well. How much can social networking twitters obfuscate the truth and increase the factual dissonance with retweets and pass-alongs. HTere needs to be a Twitopedia or somesuch as a a go to site for fact checking.
Skepticat
You already had a cat. Why on earth would you think you had any control to begin with?
jrg
When I was a little kid, my mom caught me eating dog biscuits once. I’m pretty sure Tunch will survive.
…and as someone who adopted a full grown dog that was not potty trained at the time, I think you should consider yourself lucky. It could be a lot worse.
harlana pepper
aw, Lily’s poop smells like lavender?
Comrade Stuck
It’s the internets dude. We don’t need no stinkin’ facts.
Karen
My cat has her dining area on an unused part of the kitchen counter, for that very reason. The added incentive is that G.S.’s have the most sensitive gut in the canine world, almost anything they get, other than their dog food, makes them sick.
Move Tunch’s bowl up high. He can get it, while Lily can’t. She doesn’t need the nutrients in the cat food that he does.
Atlliberal
When I adopted Lucky, we already had two cats. I had to buy a piece of furniture to feed them on, because even the Kitchen table wasn’t safe. Lucky would just pull up a chair and dig in! (she only weighed 12 pounds at the time, I had no idea she could move the chairs)
Tom
I went to Sullivan’s page to read the tweats once on Saturday. I quickly decided it was best just to wait reputable newsorgs to weigh in with reports. It’s not like I couldn’t wait 2 hours to hear the news from Iran.
cleek
one of our cats always eats in the same spot, every day. the other cat chooses where she eats; when i start filling their bowls, she’ll pick a spot and wait for me to bring her the food. she won’t come to it.
i’m her slave.
horatius
Der Tunchmeister has taken control of der house. Muahahahahah. I pity thee Sir Cole!!
Rey
Tunch knows what the deal is, he was just checking to make sure this new damn dog was not getting any special treats. Ha!
Dave Ruddell
The first time I read this, I thought Tunch was going to the kitchen for a cup of coffee (yeah, I know fast read fail). For some reason, that did not strike me as odd.
MMM
Lilly might be a dog, but there is no doubt that you have become an old cat lady (with no disrespect meant for old cat ladies)
The Grand Panjandrum
Jesus. Can you keep your posts to less than 140 characters. I’m getting bored, man
Punchy
If actually true…..we REALLY need to find you a girlfriend FAST.
Keith G
Keep Tunch away from Lily’s food. Dog food can be really bad for kitties. I’m talking about medium and long term nutritional issues.
Rook
You’ve had a cat all this time and, until today, still believed you had control? Damn, that rabid conservatism hasn’t completely cleared from your system, has it.
Face
/double-takes, checks region on map, shakes head at reality of situation
The Other Steve
I mounted a one foot wide shelf about two feet off the ground… that is where our cats eat. dog can’t get to it!
Was this under 140 characters? sorry
Brick Oven Bill
Modeling in fluid dynamics is dimensionless. A given ratio of quantities in a small model can accurately be extrapolated to predict the behavior of very large objects, such as a jumbo-jet.
In like manner, one can extrapolate his own life experiences to gain a clearer view of future geopolitical events.
Take, for instance, my feeding of the backyard squirrels. They come up to the back door and I feed them crackers. I do this because I enjoy the company of my squirrels, but also, in the instance that the grocery store closes, so I can harvest them with my 22 caliber rifle, and feed them to my loved ones as some form of soup.
We can now extrapolate this experience to the relationship between Russia, which maintains a fleet of operational SU-37s, and Iran, which I think keeps an old 737 flying with some help.
Iran Courts Russia for Oil.
The Grand Panjandrum
Looks like Ahmadwhatsthealphabet has a new statement for the Iranian people.
Doctor Science
No tweet-skimming for me, man. I don’t have that many neurons to lose.
I did not realize that I was going to lose complete and total control of my house.
*points and laughs and laughs and laughs*
Violet
Really? That’s kind of funny. Perhaps it’s a good thing to remember, should you ever get married and/or have children (that live with you). If and when those things happen, you’ll look back fondly on these halcyon days when you just had a cat and dog as the time when you had complete control over your house.
I don’t know how accurate the twitter feeds are about this Iran situation, but they are fascinating. In aggregate, I suspect they’re reasonably accurate. You can sense shifts in moods in the live feeds and then eventually the facts on the ground back them up. When you look back, even just in the course of this week, it seems that the feeds have captured the main events.
Bill E Pilgrim
It’s nice of John Cole to give the blog a random word generator posing as a troll, it gives the thread something to play with.
Notorious P.A.T.
Tunch: “She started it!”
Lily: “Nuh-uh! He eated my food so I had to eat his!”
Tunch: “Liar!”
Lily: “No, you!”
harlana pepper
@Bill E Pilgrim: So *that’s* what it is! Thank you. It all makes (non)sense, now.
gex
Ah yes. You will be defending the cat bowl and the cat box from now on. It’s okay for Tunch to eat Lily’s food (nutrition-wise) but it is not good for Lily to eat Tunch’s food. Cat food has a much higher protein content than dog food.
We moved our cat bowls up off the ground when Casey moved in.
Edit: Ah, I see upthread someone says dog food is bad for cats. I guess I’d always assumed they’d go back to cat food if they weren’t getting what they need from dog food. So I guess the point is follow the labels.
davey
@16 came to say the same thing. Dogs can eat cat food, but cats really shouldn’t eat dog food.
Deborah
I check Sully’s regularly for the bits in black from more checked news, and usually skip the green. Matter of taste.
I do think the newness/unreliability is overblown–it’s similar to a telephone. People are sending out a gazillion messages, of which a lot are legitimate, some are deliberate falsehood-mongering, some accidental rumor-spreading. What’s different is the ability to rapidly get those to a lot of people, rather than just, for example, your brother in Canada, who called two people, who called two people.
I have to give Sully mad props here–the green decor is a bit much, but the blogs were on this while a lot of the media was havin’ their weekend, and the next week NPR and the BBC were still talking about the “winner” and “loser” of the election without quote marks, as though there were no call to question those results. Very disappointing for anyone who had been tracking 538’s go at the numbers.
I agree that should you ever raise children you will look back on this as the time you were in control. And my son still eats an occasional dog biscuit, though now with the intent of freaking out his older sister.
Third Eye Open
@Brick Oven Bill:
Perhaps we can invade and occupy OPEC. Free markets are on the march!
food for thought: Should we be pushing Iran to develop more nuclear reactors so as to avoid the unholy marriage of the two countries? If not, where do you propose they get their energy from?
J.
Now you know what being married with kids is like. (See also Violet #23.)
Btw, for those of you who have yet to see/hear it, here’s a link to the new JibJab clip, “He’s Barack Obama.”
gex
Lying just like Jesus would want them to.
Yeah, even the ACLU supports them on Free Speech grounds. But, dammit, don’t these people have to live with themselves? They really don’t give one god damn about freedom or democracy. They will destroy the process just to get what they want.
maya
Wait’ll Lily gets into the cat litter box. Tootsie Rolls! Yum-yum.
Poopyman
Too many folks have already commented on the household control thing, so I don’t need to. (But really, WTF?)
Most everything coming out of Iran is pure raw data, so I might as well take the analysis and meta-analysis with the same grain of salt I’d take the tweets. It saves a lot of time that way.
And I really wish Fareed Zacharia hadn’t shoved that video of Neda in my face with so little warning. I wasn’t ready for that.
Anyway, John, looks like the guys at Americablog have thrown down the gauntlet.
slightly_peeved
Bzzt. wrong. Air behaves very differently at the scale of bee as it does for a plane. In fact, bees swim through the air more than they fly through it.
anonevent
@Brick Oven Bill:
And why do you think that modeling in fluid dynamics is dimensionless?
-ELIZA
Librarian
I love what Sullivan is doing, but his starry-eyed idealism about the opposition is starting to drive me crazy. As with other causes he’s taken up, all skepticism goes out the window, and the conflict is portrayed as a struggle of black vs, white, good vs. evil, with no grays in between. He just seems sometimes so naive and gullible.
Surly Duff
Since everyone has been piling on Pam Anderson lately, I would like to say that I am less disgusted by her hidden fake breasts than I am by Newt Gingrich’s openly brazen display of his floppy, natural jowls. Can’t we get a change in adverstisements?
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@maya:
We recently had to take in our son’s dog, and this dog is a bonehead from hell. Until he came along, I was unaware of this particular behavior. Our dog, a 120 lb. Lab/Newfy mix of regal bearing, would never stoop to such a thing.
Tim C.
In our family we refer to it as Kitty-Roca
JK
I’m looking forward to the moment when protesters stop chanting God is Great and start chanting God is Dead.
harlana pepper
@Tim C.: omg, almost choked on my tofu! this makes me so glad i don’t have a dog.
KCinDC
Can someone explain to me what universe Andy McCarthy is writing from? There’s apparently a very different person named Obama there:
Is there any part of the right wing that hasn’t descended into something indistinguishable from the average spoof here?
Brick Oven Bill
Moody Diagram.
They have been chanting ‘God Is Great’ in Iran for one thousand, three hundred, and sixty-five years JK.
Women have been voting in the US for eighty-nine years, and the budget is not looking that good.
Joey Maloney a/k/a The Bard Of Balloon Juice
You, too, can enjoy the deliciousness of the catbox! I made one of these once for a 10-year-old girl’s birthday party. The squealing and fleeing was delightsome to behold.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Joey Maloney a/k/a The Bard Of Balloon Juice: You richly deserve the psychiatric bills that you’ll someday be presented with!
passerby
@Surly Duff:
Since Firefox became unsustainable on my PC (crashes on opening) I switched over to Google Chrome. It’s fine and I like it but a major drawback is there’s no “NoScript” type of add-on for it.
So now I’ve joined the crowd and am subjected to Pam’s water balloons every time I come here and/or refresh the page. Worse, I don’t quite understand the photo–her chest seems off center, is that a photoshopped image?–and find myself staring at it so as to make sense of it.
I got so sick of looking at it that I made a point of not looking. I think my training is paying off. Today I find it easier to ignore…well, not ignore but at least easier to not look at.
But add my voice to the lamenting chorus of “Somebody Make That Thing Go Away”.
Dave Trowbridge
According to this story, and follow-ups, there’s evidence that many of the Twitters are part of an Israeli effort to muck up the election.
I talked to a friend of mine who is a foreign affairs analysts specializing in that region, and he points out that Israel has two reasons to do this:
1) To keep the Iranians off balance, and
2) To keep Obama off balance (the Cairo speech really scared the hardliners there).
If it’s true, they’re succeeding in both.
Basically, this is just another “color” revolution, only we’re not the primary push behind this time, as in the Ukraine and Georgia.
And, speaking of color revolutions, have you noticed any coverage of the ongoing demonstrations in Tblisi? 10,000 people every day, and 50,000 frequently. Given the population of Georgia, that’s equivalent to 500,000 people massing in D.C. every day and 3,000,000 from time to time. But, of course, they’re demonstrating against a “good guy,” right? So we can ignore them.
The really despicable thing about this sort of thing is the cynical manipulation of people’s authentic yearning for a better life in the service of an agenda which has anything but their good as its aim.
Dupe
I didn’t see it in the thread so time for the requisite Ghost Busters quote:
“Cats and dogs living together; mass hysteria!”
harlana pepper
why the fuck are some people complaining about Pam Anderson’s fake tits when I have to look at Ann Coulter’s horrific, anorexic Alienesque visage? at least it’s for a good cause (pls, no PETA screeds, I know they do some crazy things but the raising awareness part is a good thing as opposed to soul-sucking dragonbreath)
gnomedad
@slightly_peeved:
I have to defend BoB here; he made no such claim. In fluid dynamics, you use appropriate dimensionless ratios (in this case, the Reynolds number) to construct appropriate scale models. I’m not sure what the Reynolds number of the Iranian situation is, however.
The Saff
Heh heh.
Sounds like our house. We keep the cat food on the kitchen table and keep the dog food bowl empty until feeding time.
My sister the vet said to keep the cats from eating the dog food in part because cats need taurine and dog food doesn’t have any.
Edit: and we’re lucky the Wheaten terror isn’t interested in buried treasure in the litterboxes.
Brick Oven Bill
I have read the McCarthy piece KCinDC and will explain it to you. A powerful central government is required to equalize outcomes of individuals. This is due to human biodiversity, and the resultant differences in the faculties and enthusiasms of men. A powerful central government always appeals to those who would run it. Islam in and of itself is an all-powerful government. The internal fights we are witnessing in Iran is over who gets to exercise the power.
Part of me is convinced that the leadership of the European Union wants Europe to go Islamic to increase their control. There is still a lot of aristocracy in Europe. The white power groups in America have largely ignored the Islamic Belief System to date, but I put the odds at one chance in four that they will eventually convert to some modified form of Islam, where you can study the Liberal Arts, drink alcohol, dance, and define the Infidel.
Free societies grant very little power to leadership. This is why President Obama sees the Constitution as ‘fundamentally flawed’. He wants to exercise more power, in a manner similar to what McCarthy describes in his article, and Obama senior describes in ‘Problems with Our Socialism’.
gnomedad
@Brick Oven Bill:
On the other hand, fuck you.
Poopyman
Passerby:
I hear ya. Every time I get a glimpse of Pammy’s appendage I fear it’ll all end with a massive explosion. And I used the singular “appendage” because it looks like it’s sticking out of the middle of her chest.
How do we get Blogads to stop the PETA ads?
And harlana, I don’t get AC on my screen, so you must have done something terribly, terribly wrong to deserve that.
passerby
@harlana pepper:
I had no idea that it was for a good cause. All that goes through my mind when I see the ad is “ugh, look away”. Not very effective way to get a message across, well, for me anyway.
matoko_chan
Truther Alert!
On this Patterico thread the rightwing fundies are saying that Neda Solanti’s death was a setup photo-op.
wow…just wow.
Little Dreamer
@cleek:
No you’re not a slave, if you were, you could just let her go a day without and leave the food where she can find it and make her come to the food.
You ALLOW yourself to be used like that (and you probably love it too).
JenJen
@Maya: That’s the first thing I thought of! Cole, just be glad she’s not a puppy, because pulling poop out of the litter box to either play with (seriously) or eat (seriously) is one of those charming puppy behaviors one never gets quite used to.
I prepare the dogs’ and cat’s meals in the same place, and the kitteh practically grabs dog kibble out of air while I’m pouring it into bowls. If I put a piece or two of dog food in his bowl, he pushes around it and leaves it. He loves dog food, but only when he captures it himself!
Animals is weird. :-)
R-Jud
We went into Birmingham yesterday to visit the museum and were surprised to discover Nadav Kander’s really excellent photos of Obama administration staffers that ran in the NY Times Magazine this past January. Most of the prints were life-size, so it made examining the photos even more rewarding.
However, I made the mistake of looking directly into Joe Biden’s teeth. I had to lie in a darkened room until my vision recovered.
Morrigan21
They’ve got nothin’ else but their wingnuttery, man. Desperate people for their desperate end times.
Morrigan21
They’ve got nothin’ else but their wingnuttery, man. Desperate people for their desperate end times.
Little Dreamer
@Brick Oven Bill:
I think you’ll find a very large number of entries in the government checkbook over the last eighty-nine years were for military toys for the men, not cosmetics for the ladies.
You’re an idiot.
Little Dreamer
@matoko_chan:
Well, I read it. Unbelievable that people would create that kind of controversy, but… I can’t explain the crazy behavior of wingnuts.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
Cat poop, fluid dynamics, Iranian martyrs, and Pam Anderson…. all in one thread. This really is the best blog.
Poopyman
Monty @ 65:
Be thankful the cat poop and fluid dynamics threads haven’t merged.
Yet.
John Cole
Does every thread have to descend into an unending whinge about ads. For christ’s sake, I thought it would end with PJ Media’s demise at the end of March.
Fine. I won’t accept any more PETA ads. Not sure why I have to be out 300 bucks a month to make you all happy, but if it will shut you all up, I will do it.
Comrade Stuck
Now for some BREAKING NEWS
Twitter will hold a news conference at 4:30 revolution time, telling the nation that all Tweets are real, after offering scientific evidence proving that truth is relative.
Back to your regularly scheduled blogging.
passerby
@John Cole:
Would that be necessary John? Can you move the ad to a place of less prominence, say, down below the fold where it won’t be the first thing slapping you in the face when your page comes up?
$300 is a nice chunk and I can endure. As I said, my training to not look is working for me.
Little Dreamer
@John Cole:
John, I don’t mind PETA ads, but that particular ad is ugly, scary, not work safe, and has absolutely nothing to do with the content.
I want to see you get your revenue. Perhaps you could tell them the ad is tasteless and you’ll consider continuing if they clean up their ad campaign?
And, if they don’t get it, just say “by the way, what exactly IS that thing next to Pam’s right leg?”
John Cole
It is the positioning that makes it worth the money.
Not that it matters. I will get rid of the ad and you all will start complaining about some random google ad that has something that offends someone. I’ll have the same problem and make less money. Woo for hobbies.
Tattoosydney
@John Cole:
Awwwww. I’ve grown rather fond of Pammy and her prosthetic vagina-arm.
Poopyman
If PETA gets enough feedback about their damned offensive ads, maybe their ads will stop being so damned offensive, and you can take them again.
Meanwhile Juicers, there’s still a Paypal link up there, if you want to put your money where your PETA-fueled whinging is. (This includes me, fer shur.)
Comrade Stuck
@John Cole:
No need for that. Just dispense some regular spankings and keep the ads and money.
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
No, don’t do that. I am no fan of the PETA ad, but even I have gotten tired of the continued litany of complaints. Do people not remember how they complained with equal vehemence about Michelle Malkin, etc.?
You’re entitled to recompense for all the resources you expend keeping this blog going.
Plus, nothing you do will shut up the Balloon Juice commentariat anyway. They–we–will find something else to complain about. [*cough* WordPress block quotes *cough*]
Tattoosydney
@John Cole:
Maybe the people who hate Pam could take up a collection and pay you $300 a month to show a picture of a puppy in the top spot?
ETA: To forestall the predictable complaints of doggocentrism – Maybe the people who hate Pam could take up a collection and pay you $300 a month to show alternating pictures of a puppy, a kitten and a “non-canine/feline pet animal to be determined” in the top spot?
Little Dreamer
@John Cole:
Don’t get rid of it, we’re all used to it now.
Don’t get huffy, just let them know that the ad is sort of nonsensical and tasteless and you would like to see better ads in the future.
Nellcote
speaking of ads…did that christian-filipina hookup ad that was up briefly have anything to do with Malkin or just a bizarre coincidence?
freelancer
Well as far as ads go, the main page is stripped of them, click on a post and they come back. But Left and Right sidebars have been scrubbed from the main page, this includes ads, but also email, blogroll, archives, etc. What’s up with that?
Elie
—
It will be interesting to see how the Iranian uprising will play out. The ante is definitely being upped now that the military is being used as a threat. I can see how the leaders of the opposition would hesitate to enlist their followers to certain death..
That said, as I was reminded yesterday during the Zakaria show, there is no timetable this has to follow and it might take a while for the opposition to figure out how to continue their resistance. The other danger of course is that the current regime will start taking prisoners pretty soon and break up the movement that way — massive waves of arrests and executions… but that approach is also risky for them. I imagine both sides are taking the measure of the situation and what is needed…
As for the implication that the Israelis are involved in the false tweeting, would not surprise me. There are probably other parties with an agenda as well pitching in making it a mess to try to understand. Revolutions are messy and information is pretty much difficult to obtain and interpret — kind of like the battlefield…
My heart goes out to the Iranians — both sides –. Much suffering ahead I fear…
harlana pepper
@passerby: Well, I have to agree you have a point there, but just so you all know, the Pam Anderson video is about how KFC’s chicken suppliers abuse chickens (boil them alive, etc). I boycotted KFC a few years ago about this. To be honest, I don’t know if they’ve changed their ways.
harlana pepper
@John Cole: Don’t do it. I occasionally bitch about MAnn being on here, but I hope you know I’m just snarkin’ — I know you gotta make some money here. :)
harlana pepper
Of course, the point being that curious folks will click on the ad and learn about KFC chicken supplier atrocities (but really, are any factory farms humane?), but apparently some people are offended. I know Pammy is slutty and stuff but at least she’s trying to raise awareness and eddy-cate peoples.
Bad Horse's Filly
@John Cole: I’m not sure what the problem is. John gets $300 a month. We get to complain. He gets to call us ungrateful fuckheads. Seems like a win-win.
demimondian
@Steeplejack: OK, OK. I’ll see what I can do about buying a freeking blog ad.
drillfork
Not a Sully reader, but perhaps those who are can enlighten me: How was he during the whole Iran-as-Axis-of-Evil-member thing? I’m guessing he was with the pretzel-choker-in-chief back then, but I’m honestly curious…
gex
@John Cole: Don’t do it John. You take them down, lose the $300 bucks, and they’ll/we’ll still find something to whine about. Might as well earn the revenue.
Surly Duff
@ Cole:
Shit, my fault. I opened a can of worms and not on purpose, I just wanted to indicate the inanity of complaining about ads which I saw way to often as opposed to the typical intersting comments and insert a joke about Newt. Instead, I started a shitstorm. As a result, I will graciously give some cash up and never again mention Pams boobs or Gingrich’s moobs. Please accept my formal and sincere apologies.
burnspbesq
Good heavens. McCarthy has outdone himself. Even Andrew calls this “seriously unhinged.” Yeah, there’s that dry English wit and talent for understatement again.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTM0NTQ2OTdlZTNjNTJjYjgxNzFkN2JkOGE3YTgxZjM=
Death By Mosquito Truck
Get ’em John. They are the reason we can’t have anything nice.
Paul L.
WILL.I.AM can now be forgiven for the “Yes We Can” video
I hope this will not distract the leading spokesman for Gay Marriage from the cause.
asiangrrlMN
Leave Pammy aloooooone! Do what I do–don’t look. I have no idea what ads are on this site or any other (except, I do know Laura W.’s creative and sparkly ad is to the left of here) because I have a built-in filter that just blocks them out. In my brain, I mean. It comes from years of not watching commercials on the teevee machine.
John, very cute story about Tunch the Magnificent and Lily the Blossom eating each other’s food. You truly are a family now.
Brachiator
In a way, it doesn’t matter. The Twitter Revolution was absolutely great, the right thing at the right time. We have newspapers dying, pulling back their foreign bureaus, and when coverage still happens, it is hemmed in by government dictate and by the herd mentality of lazy reporters who try their best to cover the news from the nearest and coziest Westernized hotel bar.
While the protests were brewing, the official media — including some alternative media — were caught … flatfooted .. parsing the official government announcements about the authenticity of the election or asking “experts” sitting comfortably in Beltway and New York studios their opinion of the elections. Meanwhile, they missed and misinterpreted the storm brewing as the protesters gathered their strength.
The goddamn ghost of Edward R. Murrow is smiling down on the reporters who got as close as they could to the Iran story and helped to get it out.
What has been happening in Iran is no less revolutionary than those first, off-the-cuff, eyewitness reports in the 1930s. No one could have predicted their impact on radio and later TV journalism.
The challenge is for the media — however it reconstitutes itself — to find ways to get to the story when official channels are trying to kill it, and to pull the various bits together so that it provides an accurate reflection of events.
And keep in mind that no matter how unfiltered and even distorted the tweets and video feeds may have been, they were by any measure more accurate than the official Iranian news, which did not cover the protests or interview anyone who challenged the election results.
And one question which a couple of astute reporters have asked, is to what degree have the images and sounds from Iran found their way into the cities and villages of other Middle Eastern Countries?
These are days of miracles and wonder.
Librarian — I love what Sullivan is doing, but his starry-eyed idealism about the opposition is starting to drive me crazy. As with other causes he’s taken up, all skepticism goes out the window, and the conflict is portrayed as a struggle of black vs, white, good vs. evil, with no grays in between. He just seems sometimes so naive and gullible.
Good point. But the alternative tends towards a self-neutralizing cynicism or an odd defense of the authoritarian status quo in Iran.
Elie – My heart goes out to the Iranians—both sides—
Both sides?
I agree. Except to the degree that it appears to be not-worksafe, little Pammy is not much of a bother. And I appreciate the public service ad warning me that Ann Coulter has escaped from Arkham Asylum and is threatening the world again.
Stella G
Yeah, dogs LOVE cat food. It is really high in protein and fat and you should probably try to put Tunch’s food somewhere that Lily can’t reach, like on top of the washing machine or something. It’s the same reason that dogs LOVE to eat cat poop. It’s like ice cream flavored crack to them. Rich and fatty. Dogs are wonderful creatures but they are also really disgusting! I love my dog but, good lord, the things that she puts into her mouth?
Phil Gross
How could this be a surprise?
“Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!”
lexington1
I would have to agree with Cole on the tweets. My impression is that most of them are legit, but contain a lot of exaggerated gossip/rumors (like the ones early last week about whole Basij stations falling to protestors). Though really, we need to focus on the reason why we’re having to rely on anonymous people saying stuff on the internet in the first place-the Iranian government’s restrictions on journalists. Makes me think a lot of this is real and they’re trying desperately to cover it up. To quote one of the few smart things Dr. Phil ever said, “people who have nothing to hide hide nothing.”
My worry about these tweets, though, is that they’re going to be the undoing of this. When you announce your demonstration over the internet, of course the mullahs are going to read about it. These people need to quite using twitter and facebook, and smuggle in some copy machines. Then try to develop a good network of curriers. Or better yet, learn to spread stuff by word of mouth. When we Americans know about your protest before you do it, thats not a good thing.