Israel's justice system reflects America's. Christian Larry Franklin gets convicted while the Jews, as ever, skate for what was a joint venture. This is not an accident. It is systemic.

Russia and Iran both have ports on the Caspian Sea. Russia has land routes to Iran of a few hundred miles through either Azerbaijan or Turkestan. The Caspian Sea route is completely under Russian control and transshipments through either of the other two countries could probably be arranged.. It makes no sense that weapons would be sent thousands of miles through the Baltic to Algeria then onward to Iran, a route out of Russian control. The Arctic Sea scenario seems to be a fanciful excuse to trash Iran and spread discord between Russia and the US.

My memory of growing under the nuclear threat is a bit different. In the early 1950s some wire service ran a scare story about the top US sites that the Soviets would target. One of the highest was the GE River Works plant in West Lynn which manufactures jet engines. In the nearby school yards it became a point of pride as to how close you were to the plant. The closer you lived, the faster you would die, which showed just how important you were. Nine year old boys can be very cocky, which is as nature intends. It made us feel grown up like the WWII vets who sired us. 'Fraid a nuttin'. It seems silly now because it was silly. Now if we could just convince Washington to grow up.

Don't be a naif. The referendum was the violation of law, not the verbiage. The innocuous ballot question masked the true intent. The private election, [and what nation can allow that?], was designed to lay the groundwork for a constitutional convention before the general election. The result would be ovwerwhelming as only the left would bother to vote in the nongovernmental fraudulent plebiscite. The hue and cry would then arise to rewrite the constitution - now. And then, a la Chavez, a life long presidency would be installed after a similarly lopsided, rigged convention. A boycotted election would follow and Zelaya would be a de facto dictator. One doubts that even John Galt would endorse the concept of private elections by the self appointed. Zelaya deserved to be removed and was so legitimately.

Iran normally has cities with over votes. While this may seem odd to Americans it is not unreasonable. In the United States there are multiple positions on the ballot. Therefore it is important that a voter casts his ballot in the constituency of his residence. Iran in its presidential election has only one office up for decision. There is no electoral college requiring residency based voting. Therefore, a person votes where he is. If a city has a ring of suburbs, many workers will vote near their place of employment, resulting in an over vote in the core city and an under vote in the bedroom communities. Over votes stick out. Under votes do not. This is acceptable because they are not voting for a core city Congressman, State Senator or State Representative. Iran does not have America's elaborate system of absentee ballots because their electoral system does not require it. Such flexibility results in some numbers that seem odd when applied to the American model but which are reasonable given the Iranian model.

Why have not the two individuals, clearly known to the government, who attempted to tamper with a witness been charged and indentified?

A couple of caveats.

One, the statistical analysis is abuse. Simply put, there are not enough numbers and the sample of provinces may not be random. Mathematics may be an exact science but Numerology is pure hokum.

Two, apples and oranges. My understanding is that the province of Tehran voted differently than the city of Tehran. Note, New York state often votes the opposite of New York city.

Three, the problem of more votes than eligible voters is a devil in the details case. We do not know the minutia of Iranian election law. In the US there are frequently more voters registered than people due to laws about keeping people on the list. Same day voter registration renders just about all statistical analysis on those numbers absurd here. Further, because Iran does not have an electoral college system by province, voters can vote wherever they are. They do not have our elaborate absentee voter system. They do not need it. My understanding that they always have some jurisdictions with over votes. Think of it this way, if the US had a vote where you are system and an election was in July, Fire Island would return, legitimately, ten times the number of votes as it has residents.

Was the Iranian election honest? I do not know. My two dollar bet, however, would say it was fairer than a recent election in the state of Washington for governor, the results more ascertainable than an election for US Senator in Minnesota, and definitely more credible than any election in Chicago since forever.

$$$ talks, BS walks.

Pat is buying into the Western media's hype about the Iranian election. It may not be accurate which would make his advice as to caution even more sage. He also buys into the notion that Iran's younger voters are overwhelmingly pro-West. Having listened for decades to the media mantra about the youth of the 60's being wave of the future leftists, it would be well to remember that a majority of younger voters cast ballots for Richard Nixon in 1968. For the umpteenth time in a row the predicted upsurge of youthful American voters did not turn out in 2008. Just as the MSM gets it wrong (lies) about US politics, it may be they are spinning wishful tales about Iran. Whether Iran's election was honest or Chicago style, it is none of our business.

In 1936 on of America's greatest landslide elections was missed by the editors of Liberty Magazine who forecast a Landon win. They were honest men who based their prediction on a scientific poll. No one has ever questioned their sincerity. But they were dead wrong. They conducted the the survey by telephone and on election day tens of millions of citizens who did not have telephones voted.

All stories emanating from Iran emphasize the computer savvy of the Mousavi camp, their mastery of twitter and such in mobilizing support. The whole movement seems computer generated. Could it be that the millions of Iranians with computers were outvoted by the tens of millions without computers? Call it the Liberty Magazine effect.

The US Congress has appropriated hundreds of millions to finance the political destabilization of Iran. All they have to show for it so far is this Green Revolution in some upscale nieghborhoods of Tehran. Kermit Roosevelt would have gotten more bang for that number of bucks. He did 50 years ago for a lot less. But whatever the legitimacy of the election, and it may well have been fair, it is none of America;s business.