Problem is, I would love to travel to Iran as quickly as possible if this is a revolution.

But one of my passports has Israeli stamps and the other has Iraqi stamps. Hard to tell which would be worse.

 

This morning my favourite German news site changed the headline re Iran from "President Reelected" to "The Dictator Imprisons Opposition Leaders".

 

I am getting emails from Iranian Kurds. I don't know what is fact and what is fiction.

According to Michael Totten, the riots are continuing in Iran.

There is a Youtube channel with videos of riots all over the country.

The BBC's headline: Crowds join Ahmadinejad victory rally (The BBC's policy is only to use local journalists. This means the BBC will always report from the point of view of the government in a totalitarian regime. This happened in Gaza and now in Iran.)

Opposition leaders have called upon the people in Tehran to shout "Allahu Akbar" from the rooftops during the night. They are doing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WU-cxEEJ-E

In the videos I can hear what I want to make out as "marg [something] [sounds like 'dictator']". "Marg" means death in Farsi (and Kurdish, hence the name of the Kurdish militia in Iraq "Peshmerga" = "Face death"). "Dictator" could be a modern loan from Latin, like in English.

It seems like the mainstream media are trying to wait this out after reporting Ahmadinejads victory as legitimate too quickly.

 

Real results allegedly from sources in the Iranian ministry of the interior:

49,322,412 voters

42,026,078 voted (this is the 85% who voted)

138,716 invalid votes

Mousavi (the main "reformist"): 19,075,623 votes

Karoubi (another reformist): 13,387,104 votes

Ahmadinejad (ape): 5,698,417 votes

Rezaii (former terrorist): 3,754,218 votes

I have no idea where exactly those numbers come from and how true they are.

 

"Real" results according to Iranian regime:

Ahmadinejad: 24,527,516

Mousavi: 13,216,411

Rezaii: 678,240

Karoubi: 333,635

(Wikipedia)

I have also heard that people working in the interior ministry had said that in some cases they hadn't even started counting votes when the final result was officially announced.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJGrMhsmI5M

I think I should mention that several blogs are now implying that the email with the allegedly true results has been sent to them specifically. In fact it was sent to at least one German-language Kurdish mailing list. I eventually received it from Kurdish-German political allies. It was public knowledge well before blogs posted the numbers.

(I have no idea why I receive those mails. I think it has to do with my name being known in some Kurdish circles because of my visit to Iraqi Kurdistan last year. Before I went I spent several months researching Kurdish culture in preparation for the trip.)

 

Blogging the revolt:

http://niacblog.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/election-unrest-day-two/

Iranian protesters call on western media to stop legitimising the elections:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/sos-from-tehran.html

Seems like the BBC and other western media had hoped that they could ignore the revolts. And then the real news broke all over the blogs and the media are trying to catch up.

 

Supposedly, the initial results that the MOI announced were based only on the first 500,000 ballots received, and that set the rest of Friday’s events in motion.  According to this site, the real results were:

• Mousavi – 21.3 million (57.2%)
• Ahmadinejad – 10.5 million (28%)
• Rezai – 2.7 million (7.2%)
• Karroubi – 2.2 million (6%)

Obviously, this should be taken with a huge grain of salt.  But Mowj is the unofficial website for the Mousavi campaign, so we wanted to present it here for you to interpret yourself.

(From http://niacblog.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/election-unrest-day-two/)

Note that these numbers are similar to the numbers I quoted before:

Mousavi (the main "reformist"): 19,075,623 votes

Karoubi (another reformist): 13,387,104 votes

Ahmadinejad (ape): 5,698,417 votes

Rezaii (former terrorist): 3,754,218 votes

Perhaps this constitutes a series of calculations before all votes have been counted?

 

To be honest with you, I would be surprised if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got relected and when they said he did I was shocked by it.  Because I have friends that live there and they say people are sick of the Iranian political regimes.

Especially college students and people in their mid twenties are just sick and tired of how Iran is.

If you do go to Iran let me know. I would love to go.  I also have the stamp of that country that Ahmadinejad speaks of so often.

I'm looking at a job in Saudi its through a company located here in the States.  I hope and pray that I'll get it.  I forgot to mention in my coverletter that I have worked with Arabs before :-/ So I'm thinking of maybe resubmitting everything and saying that I have that experience in that.

Yes, that's what I have heard.

ANYWAY... it is refreshing to learn that the "death to the Jews" crowd in Iran is smaller than the "death to the dictator crowd".

It would make the world a much better place instantly if a new Iranian regime would re-open diplomatic relations with Israel and encourage trade and tourism between the two countries.

After all, Israel and Iran had been allies ever since 550 BCE, an alliance that only ended when the terrorists took over in Iran 30 years ago.




If this is a revolution, I will go as soon as it's official. My problem is that I have stamps of both of Iran's favourite enemy countries, in two separate passports.




Wow. I hope you know what you are doing. Saudi-Arabia is not a nice place to work or live. I have heard horror stories from doctors that came back to Europe after working in the country for a year or two. Apparently it's like Iran without the women's rights and like the Soviet Union without the tolerance for dissent.

I myself considered trying to find a job in Iraq. But my current situation here is much better (and I don't have to worry about finding it).

Wasn't Iran like the 4th or 5th country to recognize Israel becoming a nation?

 

I'll keep that in mind.  I know that Saudi is pretty hardcore.  Essentially, if I get it the company owns several houses and I'll just live there at one of the houses.  I won't have the housing experience.

I haven't been offered the position nor am I sure if I would go.  Its always nice to have the option of going and experiencing the world.

Iran was the _second_ country to recognise Israel after the US (even though Iran had voted against the partitioning plan).

 

From what I hear, experiencing Saudi-Arabia is like experiencing an anti-world.

 

Reuters still refer to Mousavi as a "defeated presidential candidate":

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSEVA14340720090615?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Fact is, we don't know whether the elections were legitimate or fraudulent. But Reuters have chosen sides and decided whom they will believe.

This entire thing seems to have caught the western media by surprise. Who would have thought that a dishonest regime made up of homophobic and misogynist religious fundamentalists might commit fraud?