2200 GMT: To close the day, a video — courtesy of The Flying Carpet Institute — of a workers’ demonstration in Arak on Wednesday:
2155 GMT: The Amir Kabir student website, a valuable source of information throughout the post-election crisis, has been attacked by the Iranian Cyber Army.
2135 GMT: Brother, Where Art Thou (cont.)? Davoud Ahmadinejad, the brother of the President, has declared that he is ready to prove that the beliefs of Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, clash with Islam. Once again, the attack appears in Khabar Online, the publication close to Ali Larijani.
2125 GMT: Journalists and press managers have requested the freedom of Ali Ashraf Fathi, clergyman and writer of the Tourjaan weblog (named after the location where Fathi’s father was killed during the Iran-Iraq War), who was arrested last week during the “40th Day” memorial for Grand Ayatollah Montazeri.
2110 GMT: Crackdown and Blackout. So the regime’s strategy of breaking up any mass movement on 22 Bahman continues. Iranian activists and websites such as Reporters and Humanrights Activists in Iran continue to document arrests, and there is even a claim that three members of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters — Mehrdad Rahimi, Saeed Haeri, and Shiva Nazar-Ahari — have been charged with “mohareb” (war against God).
Reports continue to circulate that Internet service has slowed significantly and even been halted in parts of Iran. Official explanations have included disruptions because of the loss of a major cable and “developments and expansions in the Tehran-Mashad corridor”.
I was struck by this piece by Matt Taibbi on AlterNet as soon as I reached its conclusion. Possibly that because of its contrast to much of the “mainstream” reaction to President Obama’s national security approach, highlighted in his 21 May speech, which has been insipid or even craven, reducing the issues to a valiant centrist higher ground against both Cheney-ist forces on the “right” and deluded liberals — see, for example, the shallow warbling of the Washington Post’s David Broder about Obama as Commander-in-Chief facing down the “sustained outcry from the left”.
Taibbi’s polemic is blunt and undiplomatic, and it should be considered in the context of comments from our own readers such as, “Obama is now responsible for 300 million lives. That’s a heavy burden, and one can forgive him for struggling a bit in transitioning from opposition to governance.” Still Taibbi’s plain talks brings out my concern, “It was absolutely imperative, from a public relations standpoint if nothing else, that Obama immediately repudiate these practices, design some kind of due process to deal with the already incarcerated prisoners, and show the world that what happened during the Bush years was an insane aberration.”
No More Compromise — Obama Must Wholly Reject Bush’s Dictator Policies
The recent haggling over Guantanamo Bay is such classic Democratic Party politics, it almost makes you want to laugh. Almost, except that it’s, you know, revolting. Eight years of Clintonian squirming was bad enough, but now we have Barack Obama, smoking Habeas Corpus and not inhaling it. Read the rest of this entry »
In the run-up to the 44th President of the USA, there was a good deal of black comedy in the desperation of some to prevent the 43rd from taking his place in oblivion. From Karl Rove, who may just have been trying to sweep up around his own place in our memories, to Charles Krauthammer, who helped sell the notion of the “unipolar moment” that assisted the Bush Administration in its failed ambitions, to Andrew Roberts, who clung to dreams of American Empire, to Bruce Anderson, who bellowed, “History Will Vindicate Bush”, to former Dubya speechwriters, the chant went up: One Day You’ll Be Grateful for All He Did.
So, in that spirit, we’re pleased to re-print, from AlterNet, Bernie Horn’s Top10 Reasons to Remember Dubya.
So Long Worst President Ever; 10 Reasons History Will Hang You
Brad Reed’s piece, reprinted from AlterNet, is an unashamedly partisan, angry, and at times darkly comic review of the last eight years. It’s also an ideal conversation-starter for readers to chip in, either with low-lights that Reed underrated or that occurred after he wrote this in July (say Bush’s “the economy is strong” statement in October).
All in all, then, an excellent good-bye gift for our 43rd President
The 10 Most Awesomely Bad Moments of the Bush Presidency
In a lot of ways, choosing the Bush administration’s 10 greatest moments — disastrous failures, all — is about as pointless as picking out your 10 least favorite hemorrhoids: There are entirely too many of them, and taken together they all add up to a throbbing mass of pain. But unfortunately, history demands that we at least make the effort so that future generations will understand why we perform voodoo rituals cursing Bush’s memory before we go to bed every night.
I was struck by 
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