as seen on the internets

is there any control at all over who gets to speak for the conservatives in this country ?

























I think it is who ever is holding The Conch.

Update

The novelist Paulo Coelho has just posted on his blog that the doctor who tried to save Neda Agha Soltan is his best friend, “who showed me [Iran's] beautiful culture when I visited Teheran in 2000, who fought a war in the name of the Islamic Republic (against Iraq), who took care of wounded soldiers in the frontline, who always stood by real human values”.

Drawn from this profile and from correspondents:

On Saturday, a woman was watching demonstrations on Karegar Avenue in Tehran when she was shot in the chest by a paramilitary Basiji. A 40-second video captured the killing; within hours, “Neda” became an icon — witting or unwitting — for the political movement in Iran.

Yesterday, the person behind the image emerged. She was Neda Agha Soltan, a philosophy student who was standing beside her professor (initial sources said her father).

Neda Agha Soltan was buried on Sunday. Her memorial service was scheduled for late afternoon in a mosque but was cancelled on orders from Iranian authorities.

Neda, "The voice"

A gruesomely captivating video of a young woman — laid out on a Tehran street after apparently being shot, blood pouring from her mouth and then across her face — swept Twitter, Facebook and other websites this weekend. The woman rapidly became a symbol of Iran's escalating crisis, from a political confrontation to far more ominous physical clashes. Some sites refer to her as "Neda," Farsi for the voice or the call. Tributes that incorporate startlingly upclose footage of her dying have started to spring up on YouTube.

An email explaining the incident:

"At 19:05 June 20th Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st. A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart.

I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim's chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes. The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St.

The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me. Please let the world know."

Neda Agha Soltan was born 1982 , She was studying Philosophy in university

Neda's death may have changed everything. For the cycles of mourning in Shiite Islam actually provide a schedule for political combat — a way to generate or revive momentum. Shiite Muslims mourn their dead on the third, seventh and 40th days after a death, and these commemorations are a pivotal part of Iran's rich history. During the revolution, the pattern of confrontations between the shah's security forces and the revolutionaries often played out in 40-day cycles. (See pictures of terror in the streets of Tehran.)

The first clashes in January 1978 produced two deaths that were then commemorated on the 40th day in mass gatherings, which in turn produced new confrontations with security forces — and new deaths. Those deaths then generated another 40-day period of mourning, new clashes, and further deaths. The cycle continued throughout most of the year until the shah's ouster in January 1979.

The same cycle has already become an undercurrent in Iran's current crisis. The largest demonstration, on Thursday of last week, was called by opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi to commemorate the deaths of protesters three days after they were killed.

Shiite mourning is not simply a time to react with sadness. Particularly in times of conflict, it is also an opportunity for renewal. The commemorations for "Neda" and the others killed this weekend are still to come. And the 40th day events are usually the largest and most important.

"Neda" is already being hailed as a martyr, a second important concept in Shiism. With the reported deaths of 19 people Saturday, martyrdom also provides a potent force that could further deepen public anger at Iran's regime. (See the Top Ten Players in Iran's Power Struggle.)

The belief in martyrdom is central to modern politics as well as Shiite tradition dating back centuries in Iran. It too helped propel the 1979 revolution. It sustained Iran during the eight-year war with Iraq, when over 120,000 Iranians died in the bloodiest modern Middle East conflict. Most major Iranian cities have a Martyrs' Museum or a Martyrs' cemetery.

The first Shiite martyr was Hussein, the prophet Mohammed's grandson. He believed it was better to die fighting injustice than to live with injustice under what he believed was illegitimate rule.

In the seventh century, Hussein and a band of fewer than 100 people, including women and children, took on the mighty Umayyad dynasty in Karbala, an ancient city in Mesopotamia now in modern-day Iraq. They knew they would be massacred.

Fourteen centuries later, Hussein's tomb in Karbala is one of the two holiest Shiite shrines — and millions of Iranians still make pilgrimages there every year. Just as Christians reenact Jesus' procession bearing the cross past the fourteen stops to Calvary before his crucifixion, so too do Shiites every year reenact Hussein's martyrdom in an Islamic passion play during the holy period of Ashura.

Because of Hussein, revolt against tyranny became part of Shiite tradition. Indeed, protest and martyrdom are widely considered duties to God. And nowhere is the practice more honored than in Iran, the world's largest Shiite country.

The revolutionaries exploited the deep passion about martyrdom as well as the timetable of Shiite mourning in whipping up greater opposition to Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. With the deaths of "Neda" and others, they may now find the same phenomena used against them.

Still a "House of War"

In a historic vote, only 30 of 256 Democrats stood against $100 billion for more war.


Urging their colleagues to oppose funding the war and the International Monetary Fund, Dennis Kucinich and California's Bob Filner sent a Dear Colleague letter, which stated:
"The IMF has a long history of placing economic conditions on countries receiving loans that have actually damaged, rather than stimulated, those economies, and its policies have not changed enough to warrant support." They charged that the IMF funding "would be used to bail out private European banks with U.S. taxpayer money." In addition to the military and IMF funding, the bill also provides $10.4 billion for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and $7.7 billion for "Pandemic Flu Response."

Under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the Democratic-controlled Congress has been a house of war. Unfortunately, it is not a house where the war is one of noble Democrats fighting for peace, freedom and democracy against the evil, belligerent Republicans as they advocate and implement policies of preemptive war, torture and the violation of civil liberties. Instead, it is a house void of substantive opposition to the ever-expanding war begun under Bush and escalating under Obama.

Tuesday's vote was another one of those moments in Congress where heroes are made, like the day when Sen. Russ Feingold stood alone as the sole Senator to vote against the USA Patriot Act. To paraphrase Bush, it was one of those days when we truly discover who is for war and who is against it.

Below are the Democrats who stood against Obama's expanding war the day their votes mattered (See where your Representative stood here):

Tammy Baldwin, Michael Capuano, John Conyers, Lloyd Doggett, Donna Edwards, Keith Ellison, Sam Farr, Bob Filner, Alan Grayson, Raul Grijalva, Michael Honda, Marcy Kaptur, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren, Eric Massa, Jim McGovern, Michael Michaud, Donald Payne, Chellie Pingree, Jared Polis, Jose Serrano, Carol Shea-Porter, Jackie Speier, John Tierney, Nikki Tsongas, Maxine Waters, Diane Watson, Peter Welch, and Lynn Woolsey.

"New York Democrat Anthony Weiner, who voted against the war funding in May—when it didn’t matter—only to vote Tuesday with the pro-war Dems, sounded like an imbecile when he made this statement after the vote: “We are in the process of wrapping up the wars. The president needed our support.”

What planet is Weiner living on? “Wrapping up the wars?” Last time I checked, there are 21,000 more US troops heading to Afghanistan alongside a surge in contractors there, including a 29% increase in armed contractors. Does Weiner think the $106 billion in war funding he voted for is going to pay for one way tickets home for the troops? What he voted for was certainly not the “Demolition of the 80 Football-field-size US Embassy in Baghdad Act of 2009.” To cap off this idiocy, Weiner basically admitted he is a fraud when he said the bill he voted in favor of “still sucks.”" - Sean McBride

Respect

“I use this chance to honor the emotions of the nation of Iran and remind them that Iran, this sacred being, belongs to them and not to the fraudulent.” ~ Mir Hossein Mousavi

I think the people of Iran could teach us

a thing or two about courage...

Y'all must be very proud

State GOP staffer sends racist image of Obama.

Over the weekend, a GOP official in South Carolina TREY WALKER, an advisor to S.C. Attorney General HENRY McMASTER, posted an innocuous Facebook update about this morning’s escape of a Western Lowlands Gorilla from Columbia’s Riverbanks Zoo.

Walker’s update, however was followed by a highly-questionable comment from longtime SCGOP activist and former State Senate candidate, RUSTY DePASS.

“I’m sure it’s just one of Michelle’s ancestors — probably harmless,” RUSTY DePASS wrote.

(this moron suddenly believes in evolution?!)

Now, in a second instance of Republicans playing the race card against the Obamas, Wonkette notes that a racist e-mail was sent out by a legislative staffer for Tennessee GOP state senator Diane Black.

The staffer, SHERRI GOFORTH, e-mailed this composite picture of the country’s 44 presidents, which represents President Obama with only a set of eyes:

"Nashville Is Talking" asked SHERRI GOFORTH about the e-mail:

When I asked her if she understood the controversial nature of the photo, SHERRI GOFORTH would only say she, SHERRI GOFORTH, felt very bad about accidentally sending it to the wrong list. When I gave her a second chance to address the controversial nature of the email, she again repeated that she, SHERRI GOFORTH, only felt bad about sending it to the wrong list of people.

“I went on the wrong email and I inadvertently hit the wrong button,” SHERRI GOFORTH told NIT.

“I’m very sick about it, and it’s one of those things I can’t change or take back.”

very sick, indeed.

Update: Sherri Goforth won't be fired.

Consider who she works for.

They love Jesus, but they've tried to kill prenatal care, women's health clinics, and pre-kindergarten funding. They've attempted to reject federal stimulus money for the unemployed.

But they have tried to put a gun in every bar, park and playground.

Jesus would have liked that.

Is it any wonder she believes what she does? To fire her would only pick off a middle-aged lady. It does nothing to heal the greater wound, which is composed by the creeps, racists, half-wits and professional victims who make up the Tennessee legislature.

They're the real affront here,

the wound that will become terminal if left unchecked.

Any "change" yet??

FireDogLake founder Jane Hamsher is doing heroic work to persuade 39 progressive Democrats to oppose the $106 billion Supplemental for the wars in Iraq and Af-Pak and to bailout European banks through the IMF.
She has 32 votes so we only need 7 more!

So if your Representative is on this list,

please help Jane by calling your Rep to urge a NO vote.