Catching Up

Have been under the weather the past day or two and posting has been non-existent as a result. As always, things keep happening, though. A few quick thoughts:

• Senator Al Franken it is. God help us. The proper course for conservatives? Don't get mad, get results. Job one: find a good candidate to run against Sec. of State Mark Ritchie and retire his corrupt butt ASAP. Job two: find and amplify every outrage that Mr. Franken commits in the next 5 1/2 years. There will be many, because the dude can't help himself. 57% of Minnesotans did not support this guy -- that is worth remembering. If you were among that 57%, it's crucial that you remain vigilant.
• The silver lining of the Franken debacle? Now the Democrats have no excuses. They own the government. It's all theirs. And don't think that some people haven't noticed. Go ahead, guys -- march right into that bayonet.
• The situation in Honduras merits more comment than I'm able to give it at the moment. But for now, let's say this: if you find yourself on the same side of the argument as Daniel Ortega and Hugo Chavez, it's time to check your premises. Here's a good place to start.
• The Supreme Court decision in the Ricci case also deserves more comment than I'm able to give it at the moment. My suspicion is (a) because the case was decided on a very specific point of law, there's less there than meets the eye and (b) that while it really doesn't tell you that much about Sonia Sotomayor's jurisprudence, it does tell you something about her work ethic. A one-paragraph summary judgment on such an important issue didn't do the issue, well, justice.

Radio Free Dilettante — End of June Edition

About as random as you can get!

Last Five:
Alright, Okay, You Win, Peggy Lee
Having a Party, Sam Cooke
I Thank You, Sam & Dave
Virginia Plain, Roxy Music
Love Rollercoaster, Ohio Players

Next Five:
Chicago, Graham Nash
Angel, Aretha Franklin
Four Sticks, Led Zeppelin
Read About Love, Richard Thompson
Big Gun, AC/DC

In case you weren't sure

Warren Buffett got a lot of attention in the last election cycle because he supported Barack Obama. Here's what he said about the amazingly dumb "cap and trade" legislation that narrowly passed the House on Friday:

WARREN BUFFETT, CEO, BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY: I think if you get into the way it was written, it's a huge tax and there's no sense calling it anything else. I mean, it is a tax. So it -- and it's a fairly regressive tax.

And if you remember, Barack Obama said this, also documented at the link:

OBAMA: I can make a firm pledge: Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase, not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.

Change you can believe in.

My Little Town

I made a quick trip back to my hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin over the weekend. The occasion was my nephew's baptism.

Typically, it's not a quick trip from my current home in the suburbs of the Twin Cities to Appleton, Wisconsin. According to Yahoo Maps, it is 296.8 miles from my house to St. John's Church in Little Chute, Wisconsin, the neighboring town where the baptism actually took place. It used to be a pretty tough trip, because for many years there wasn't an adequate east-west highway going across the northern half of the state of Wisconsin. For reasons that I've never really been able to determine, when the interstate highway system was developed, the Fox River Valley was not part of the system. And to this day, Appleton, which had an official population of over 72,000 people in the 2000 census, is still not served by an interstate highway. Green Bay, which lies 30 miles to Appleton's northeast, got an interstate in the 1970s, but otherwise the most significant infrastructure change in the last 50 years hasn't touched Appleton at all.

Despite this, Appleton and the other towns along the Fox River have largely thrived over the years. Appleton is a very prosperous town with a manufacturing base largely built on paper mills. Even though we seen the heralding of an increasingly paperless society over the past 20-30 years, there's still a lot of paper around and that is not going to change.

The city continues to reinvent itself. The main drag in town, College Avenue, was once the center of commerce in town. When I left for college in the early 80s, you could find four department stores downtown -- Sears, J.C. Penney, Gimbel's and Prange's. Prange's was a big store for a small town, with 6 floors of shopping and a bargain basement. There were also dozens of clothing stores, jewelers and other shops along the street. About 25 years ago, a huge regional mall was built on the outskirts of town. Now, all the department stores are long gone from downtown and while there are a few merchants with storefronts on the streets, College Avenue is no longer a retail destination. The mall won that battle, but downtown Appleton has now become very different place, with a performing arts center, hotels and an array of nightspots that draw visitors from all over the state of Wisconsin.

I've been to a number of towns in the Midwest that are pretty depressing places. Rockford, Illinois is a very sad town, as is South Bend, Indiana, to say nothing of Beloit, Wisconsin, where I went to college. There's a sense that time has passed these places by and that they aren't coming back. Appleton isn't like that. You can see that Appleton is alive and thriving. It's a happy thing.

Radio Free Dilettante - Stolen from Stinger Edition -- UPDATE - NOW WITH ANSWERS!

UPDATE: My alert readership got most of these right. The answers are now included, in case you happen to be interested.

I warned Stinger that I was going to do this, so we could call it "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," but the truth is, I'm stealing the idea from him. That's because it's a really cool idea.

Here's what Stinger came up with: instead of doing a "Last Five/Next Five" playlist of songs, he instead posted a lyric from each song and invited his readers to guess which song it is. And now I'm going to do the same.

So following are 10 lyrics, from 10 songs, that came up in a row on iTunes this morning. And as is often the case with iTunes, they suggest a bit of a story.

Your task: identify the song from the lyric (and the artist) and post the answer in the comments section. While you could certainly get all the answers from Google, what fun is that? See what you can come up with. I'm willing to wager that if we leave this open for a day or two, the Mr. Dilettante audience can come up with all 10 songs. As it happens, none of these are horribly obscure, but there are a few testers. So let's see how you do. By the way, in most cases the line quoted is the first line of the song, if that makes it any easier:

1. "There's a man who leads a life of danger."
Answer: Secret Agent Man, Johnny Rivers

2. "A man decides after seventy years that what he goes there for, is to unlock the door." Answer: Crazy, Seal

3. "But the town has no need to be nervous." Answer: Tombstone Blues, Bob Dylan

4. "We get it almost every night." Answer: Dancing in the Moonlight, King Harvest

5. "Stay with me, my love I hope you'll always be." Answer: Follow You, Follow Me, Genesis

6. "Sweet, wonderful you. You make me happy with the things you do." Answer: You Make Loving Fun, Fleetwood Mac

7. "You've got style, that's what all the girls say." Answer: Dress You Up, Madonna

8. "Mother doesn't go out any more. Just sits at home and rolls her spastic eyes." Answer: Sunday Papers, Joe Jackson

9. "I hear the click clack of your feet on the stairs." Answer: Stray Cat Blues, Rolling Stones

10. "Out of the tree of life I just picked a plum." Answer: The Best is Yet to Come, Frank Sinatra

Have at it, y'all. And be sure to visit Stinger, who still has one of his lyrics out there.

More Change You Can Believe In

I am enjoying the Friday evening document dumps. In case you missed it:

According to the Post report, the 44th president is now starting to think that closure of the internationally-reviled Guantanamo Bay detention facility, which Obama announced with so much fanfare on his first day in office last winter, may be impossible to actually accomplish before the one-year deadline he set for himself before actually planning where else to put these prisoners.

In other words, fanfare aside, status quo ante. Democrat or Republican, same deal. Ex-Vice President Dick Cheney will be so pleased that the Obama-Biden folks finally accepted his advice to protect national security.

Read the whole thing -- Andrew Malcolm of the L.A. Times knows how to lay down the snark.

Wanna Be Startin' Something

I don't have any great insights to offer on the passing of Michael Jackson. He was a very complicated figure and a challenge to wrap your mind around, because he was a tremendously talented entertainer with almost unfathomable demons.

But what I choose to remember today is how great a performer he could be. And in lieu of a Guilty Pleasures, let me offer some of his best performances. If you have others you like better, post your suggestions in the comments. Not too put too fine a point on it, but it's one hell of a body of work. Rest in peace.

I Want You Back

I'll Be There

Dancing Machine

Don't Stop Til You Get Enough

Rock With You

She's Out of My Life

Billie Jean (at Motown 25)

Wanna Be Starting Something

Beat It

Random Things We've Learned Today

Every day provides possibilities for new insights. So what have we learned today?

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford apparently forgot who Wilbur Mills was. Now his career is floating face down in the Rio de la Plata. Better to know this about Gov. Sanford now, before he ran for President. At a minimum, I don't think it's too much to expect a governor to be able to govern his zipper. I don't know if Sanford's Argentine mistress was as, shall we say, flamboyant as Fanne Foxe (pictured here), but I'm guessing we'll find out soon enough. Good riddance.

I think we already knew this, but John Kerry is one of the worst joke-tellers on the planet. And he's a nasty piece of work, too. Try this one-liner from Sen. Shecky, discussing l'affaire Sanford:

“Too bad,’’ Kerry said, “if a governor had to go missing it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin.’’

The Democratic-centric crowd laughed.

Comedy gold, no? For a guy who is supposedly more nuanced than his opponent in 2004, this guy seems to be lacking a little bit of what's the word, discretion? Common sense? Je ne sais quoi? But the good news is that this probably gets ol' Dave Letterman off the hook.

What is worse? Inviting a bunch of thugs to a barbecue, or rescinding the invitation even though the thugs planned to blow you off anyway? Well, perhaps President Obama can invite a different thug to dinner. Well, maybe we should wait for independent confirmation on that last link, considering it's from Al Jazeera. Oh, wait: here it is. Maybe Chavez can put in a good word with the mullahs on Obama's behalf.

(h/t: Allahpundit)

Every One's a Wiener

UPDATE: We serve hot dogs, the Basiji serve blood sausage. Enough with the charade, m'kay?

I thought this was silly before, but now it seems, well, bizarre:

The United States said Monday its invitations were still standing for Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at US embassies despite the crackdown on opposition supporters.

President Barack Obama's administration said earlier this month it would invite Iran to US embassy barbecues for the national holiday for the first time since the two nations severed relations following the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"There's no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

Or perhaps no thought at all. Not to put too fine a point on it, but why the hell would you want to invite a bunch of thugs over to your barbecue? If you need a reminder of who these people are and what they represent, check out this link and keep scrolling.

Sarkozy and the Burqa

This is interesting:

President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed Parliament on Monday, laying out a vision of France that included a withering critique of burqas as an unacceptable symbol of
“enslavement.”

Speaking at the Palace of Versailles, Mr. Sarkozy confronted one of the most hotly debated social issues in France, saying there was no room in the republic for burqas, the garments that some Muslim women wear to cloak their bodies and faces.

“The issue of the burqa is not a religious issue. It is a question of freedom and of women’s dignity,” Mr. Sarkozy said. “The burqa is not a religious sign. It is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission, of women.”

That, you might say, is a bold statement. Dude must want a fatwa or something.

One of the more important differences between the United States and France is the the French have no trouble being categorical in their views, and this is an example of that. While you'll often hear jokes about the French being "cheese eating surrender monkeys" or somesuch, the idea of France and what it means to be French is something they take very seriously.

Europe generally, and France in particular, have much to worry about concerning the spread of fundamentalist Islam. Mark Steyn has written quite a lot on this subject. Much of the reason is that the French colonial empire extended well into the Muslim world and now former French subjects from the Maghreb are coming to France. The burqa is indeed symbolic of a type of Islam that is as certain of its worldview as the French are of theirs. Those who have battled the French in the sometimes horrifying banlieue areas around Paris and other large French cities are quite often the same people who would, if given the opportunity, impose the burqa.

We don't have the issue here, at least yet. The issue is larger than the burqa, though. And Sarkozy knows this.

The world was watching

This is part three of a series. Parts one and two are linked.

30 years ago today it was an outwardly quiet day on the streets of Guatemala City. I had gone into the city for my morning class at the Instituto Guatemalteco Americano and had come back to my Guatemalan family's house for a typical lunch -- frijoles negros (served at every meal, even breakfast), fish and fruit. The conversation at the table, which was often muted at best, was almost funereal. I didn't understand everything they were saying, but I sensed something bad had happened in Nicaragua. It had.

The word had already reached Guatemala that a Nicaraguan soldier had stopped an ABC News reporter, Jim Stewart, at a checkpoint and killed him. Here is how Time magazine described the scene:

Arriving at a national guard outpost in northeast Managua, the heart of the fighting last week in strife-racked Nicaragua, ABC Correspondent Bill Stewart sensed it would be safer to approach on foot. Though his van was emblazoned with FOREIGN PRESS signs, he did not want to do anything that might spook the government troops. In one hand Stewart carried his government-issue press pass; in the other, he held a white flag. His interpreter walked several yards ahead, explaining that they meant no harm.

One of the soldiers raised his rifle, and Stewart dropped to his knees. The guardsman motioned to him to lie down and kicked him sharply in the side. Then the soldier stepped back a few paces and calmly took aim, and shot the correspondent behind the right ear, killing him. Out of sight near by, Interpreter Juan Francisco Espinoza was also murdered. The grisly episode was filmed from the back of the van by ABC Soundman Jim Cefalo and Cameraman Jack Clark, who were not molested.

That evening, Stewart's assassination flickered across millions of U.S. television screens, shocking viewers and touching off a series of official condemnations in Washington.

As we watched the evening news on Canal 3, I saw the footage myself. I knew it was happening hundreds of miles away, but I also knew that my parents would be terrified by what they saw. I asked the father if I could make a call home to tell my parents I was all right. He thought that would be okay, but suggested that I wait until after dinner, which would be served in a half-hour. Five minutes later, the phone rang.

It was my mother. She had seen the film. Everyone had seen the film. Although Bill Stewart worked for ABC, all the networks had the footage and Uncle Walter Cronkite had told her all about it. I assured her that I was safe, hundreds of miles away from the fighting, and that the Sandinistas weren't in Guatemala City. I wasn't convinced that she was convinced I was safe, but she knew that I would be home in a month.

The next day, as the father drove me back to the IGA for more lessons, I noticed that there were a lot of soldiers on the Avenida de la Reforma. Dozens, in fact, all heavily armed. The father explained to me that the presence of soliders on the streets meant that we were safe. This time, I tried very hard to be convinced.

It's On

The moment of truth seems to have arrived in Iran. I don't know what will happen, but as always, Yeats is on the case:

To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

The surnames are different today and I hope the result is different. But the sentiment still seems right to me.

The Wearing of the Green

Green seems to be the color the Iranian opposition has adopted. In solidarity, Mr. Dilettante will be wearing green as well.

That is all.

The Penny in the Well

This is the 1,500th post on Mr. Dilettante.

I started this blog during my lunch hour on December 13, 2005, mostly as a lark. It's turned into something else over time -- sometimes it's been a bit of an albatross. But now, 3 1/2 years on, Mr. Dilettante is still here.

I wrote something in that very first post that still rings true to me:

Blogging is like dropping a penny in a well; you listen for a splash and sometimes you don't hear one. But we'll do what we can to give you a worthwhile splash or two.

We'll keep dropping pennies in the well here and once in a while, we'll make a splash. Thank you for your support of this feature.

Shoreview Red Update 061809

Heartbreak in Arden Hills -- the mighty Red fall behind to Shoreview Royal 12-5 in last inning, then stage a furious rally, only to fall short 12-11 this evening at Cummings Park.

Ben went 1-3 with a walk, driving in a run and scoring another. The loss brings the Red's overall record to 4-7. As always, you've found the place for the best coverage of in-house 13-year-old baseball, especially in northern Ramsey County.

Watching the Watchers

I've been following the curious case of Gerald Walpin, who was serving as an Inspector General for the AmeriCorps program until he was unceremoniously fired by the Obama administration. Walpin had been investigating how some of the money was being spent and began looking into the actions of Kevin Johnson, a former NBA player who is now the mayor of Sacramento. Johnson is a longtime friend and supporter of the President and there are reports that he was using AmeriCorps funds for personal use. Byron York of the Washington Examiner has been reporting extensively on the case and his latest dispatch is here.

At first glance, it appears that something is fishy about the chain of events. What's especially troubling is that once the decision was made to fire Walpin, members of the administration portrayed the 77-year old Walpin as somehow lacking in mental capacity following a May 20 meeting. Walpin isn't letting that portrayal go unanswered:

"It appears to suggest that I was removed because I was disabled -- based on one occasion out of hundreds," he said, adding that the administration is grasping at "non-existent straws" to explain its actions.

"I would never say President Obama doesn't have the capacity to continue to serve because of his (statement) that there are 56 states," Walpin said, adding that the same holds for Vice President Biden and his "many express confusions that have been highlighted by the media." Obama mistakenly said once on the campaign trail that he had traveled to 57 states.

That's going to leave a mark. Meanwhile, the White House has some questions to answer from Sen. Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican who has long been a champion of inspectors general. York picks up the story:

At Wednesday's meeting, Sen. Grassley's staffers wanted to know more about the White House review. "Unfortunately," Grassley writes in a letter sent late Wednesday afternoon to White House counsel Gregory Craig, "Mr. Eisen refused to answer several direct questions posed to him about the representations made in his letter." Grassley says that since Eisen refused to answer the questions in person, Grassley would submit a dozen of them in writing. Here they are:

1) Did the [Corporation for National and Community Service] Board communicate its concerns about Mr. Walpin to the White House in writing?
2) Specifically, which CNCS Board members came forward with concerns about Mr. Walpin’s ability to serve as the Inspector General?
3) Was the communication about the Board’s concerns on or about May 20, 2009 the first instance of any communications with White House personnel regarding the possibility of removing Mr. Walpin?
4) Which witnesses were interviewed in the course of Mr. Eisen’s review?
5) How many witnesses were interviewed?
6) Were any employees of the Office of Inspector General, who may have had more frequent contact with Mr. Walpin than the Board members, interviewed?
7) Was Mr. Walpin asked directly during Mr. Eisen’s review about the events of May 20, 2009?
8) Was Mr. Walpin asked for his response to the allegations submitted to the Integrity Committee by Acting U.S. Attorney Lawrence Brown?
9) What efforts were made during Mr. Eisen’s review to obtain both sides of the story or to afford the Office of Inspector General an opportunity to be heard?
10) In addition to the claim that Mr. Walpin was “confused” and “disoriented,” the letter also says he exhibited “other behavior” that led to questions about his capacity. What other behavior was Mr. Eisen referencing?
11) If the initial and primary concern had to do with Mr. Walpin’s capacity to serve for potential health reasons, why was he only given one hour to decide whether to resign or be fired?
12) If Mr. Walpin’s telecommuting arrangements since the beginning of this year were a major concern, then why was Mr. Walpin not simply asked to stop telecommuting?

As York points out, Sen. Grassley is expecting the White House to provide a response in writing by Wednesday, June 24. It will be interesting to see if the White House complies. Eventually every administration finds that they want to get rid of some sort of meddlesome priest. To put it mildly, this sort of thing is not change we can believe in.

Shoreview Red Update 061709

Nice win for the mighty Red tonight, as they held off the Centennial Twins 10-5 at Cummings Park in Arden Hills. The Red broke out to an early lead and played very steady baseball throughout. The kids are playing very consistent ball right now and the results are quite encouraging.

Ben went 1-3 with a clean single and later scored a key run. The win brings the Red's overall record to 4-6. No resting on laurels, though -- they return to action tomorrow, looking to avenge an earlier heartbreaker against Shroreview Royal. Game time is 6:30 p.m., back at Cummings Park. And as always, if you want to know the very latest about 13-year old in-house baseball in the northern suburbs, you'll want to visit your best source, Mr. Dilettante.

The Internet is For-EVAH. . .

. . . And sometimes a guy who slings a bunch of bad juju deserves to get his nose rubbed in it.

Consider the case of the lovely and talented Matthew Yglesias, a fairly prominent lefty blogger and acknowledged member of the smart set who has been known to sling it pretty good. He made this charming comparison recently over at that bastion of bien pensant thinking, the American Prospect:

Ahmadinejad is in most ways a classic right-winger, a demagogic nationalist and cultural conservative. In a manner somewhat reminiscent of a Sarah Palin, however, he clothes this right-wing politics in a language of class resentment, painting his more pragmatic and reformist opponents as decadent elites out of touch with ordinary people.

Of course, Yglesias would admit that it's unfair to compare Palin to Ahmedinejad. After all, Ahmedinejad has some redeeming qualities:

Unlike the populists of the American right, however, [Ahmedinejad] merges this rhetoric with something resembling an actual populist economic agenda. The main element has been the use of oil revenue to expand the state sector of the economy in an attempt to distribute wealth more broadly throughout the country. This approach has gained Ahmadinejad a loyal following among the rural poor and public employees. . . .

So do you think that's fair? Your mileage may vary. But it's not the first time that free-thinker Yglesias has sung the praises of the bearded fellow, as the ever-alert Jim Geraghty notices. Geraghty found this post from back in 2006 that looks, shall we say, a little silly now:

I keep talking about this with people in real life, but it deserves a blog mention as well -- Mahmoun Ahmadinejad has a pretty sweet hipster style. It all starts with a beard not unlike the one I and many of my twentysomething male friends sport. But it goes deeper. The man went without a tie to address the UN General Assembly. And I was in a bar where the TV was showing his interview with Anderson Cooper (it's DC, these things happen) and while there was no sound, he certainly looked witty and charming. There was also this clip of him walking down some hallway shooting the shit with Kofi Annan. It's like diplomacy! Bush should try it.

I mean, dude.

So I'm trying to picture hipster Ahmedinejad sitting around listening to his Death Cab for Bibi (er, I mean Cutie) records, maybe sipping on a fair trade coffee or somesuch. But I'm old, so I guess I can't figure it out. As the Spinners might say -- so much rhythm, grace and debonair for one man? Lord.

Now, I know that Sarah Palin is icky and all that. But seriously, dude, how much of a hipster do you have to be to admire Ahmedinejad more than Sarah Palin? Never mind, don't answer that. Just pray that you are never that hip.

Radio Free Dilettante 061609

Your assignment:

1) Tell me what iTunes is trying to tell us here
2) Figure out which of the following is one of Stinger's favorite bad songs

Last Five:
I'm Your Puppet, James & Bobby Purify
One Piece at a Time, Johnny Cash
Complete Control, the Clash
Burning Love, Elvis Presley
Wooden Ships, Crosby Stills & Nash

Next Five:
Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup, Nat King Cole
Big Balls, AC/DC
Chevy Van, Sammy Johns
Mississippi Kid, Lynyrd Skynryd
Sometimes I Don't Know What to Feel, Todd Rundgren

Ledeen on Iran

The one guy I know of who has really been following Iran all along is Michael Ledeen and his column for Pajamas Media has some very interesting thoughts. Read the whole thing, of course, but here are a few observations that strike me as correct.

What’s going to happen?, you ask. Nobody knows, even the major actors. The regime has the guns, and the opposition has the numbers. The question is whether the numbers can be successfully organized into a disciplined force that demands the downfall of the regime. Yes, I know that there have been calls for a new election, or a runoff between Mousavi and Ahmadinezhad. But I don’t think that’s very likely now. The tens of millions of Iranians whose pent-up rage has driven them to risk life and limb against their oppressors are not likely to settle for a mere change in personnel at this point. And the mullahs surely know that if they lose, many of them will face a very nasty and very brief future.

I agree with that. If the mullahs lose control, it's Ceaucescu time for them all. Here's something else that Ledeen says that is especially intriguing. Cherchez la femme:

Does Mousavi even want to change the system? I think he does, and in any event, I think that’s the wrong question. He is not a revolutionary leader, he is a leader who has been made into a revolutionary by a movement that grew up around him. The real revolutionary is his wife, Zahra Rahnavard. And the real question, the key question in all of this, is: why did Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei permit her to become such a charismatic figure? How could he have made such a colossal blunder? It should have been obvious that the very existence of such a woman threatened the dark heart of the Islamic Republic, based as it is on the disgusting misogyny of its founder, the Ayatollah Khomeini.

There have been numerous reports coming out of Iran that the muscle the mullahs have using are hired guns, especially members of Hezbollah. Ledeen:

The young Islamic revolutionaries of the late 1970s are now middle aged, and do not wish to slaughter their neighbors. That is why the mullahs have imported killers from abroad: the five thousand or so Hezbollahis who, according to Der Spiegel, have been brought in from Lebanon and Syria. Dissidents on Twitter report clashes with security forces who do not speak Farsi, and there are even some rumors suggesting that Chavez has sent some of his toughs from Venezuela. Who knows?

That might be the key. The Hezbollahi will fight like hell, because they rely on the patronage of the Iranian regime and if they lose that, they will be in a lot of trouble back in Lebanon and elsewhere. But I strongly doubt that the regime will continue to survive, fighting back a sea of millions, with only 5,000 trained killers. That is why time may be on the side of those desiring freedom from the tyranny that Khomeini and the rest of the mullahs imposed some 30 years ago.

One last thing: up to this point, President Obama's response has been pretty cautious and muted. He's come in for some criticism for that, but I'm not going to join in that criticism. We don't have a lot of levers in Iran right now. Sometimes playing it cool is the right approach. This might be one of those times.