Moorhead Kennedy, one of the 52 Americans held hostage in Iran 444 days in 1979 - 1980, had this to say about America speaking out about Iran’s 2009 Election:

Q: Do you think it is prudent for this White House to take the standoffish approach that it has for fear of potentially getting drawn into [the conflict over Iran's election]?

A: It’s not the fear of being drawn into a conflict. It’s expressing our respect for a sovereign state that we do not interfere in the internal affairs of another country. And I think part of the Iranian deep, deep resentment of the United States is that we have never treated them with proper respect. And, of course, that’s been furthered by some of the episodes in our relationship. Not only the famous CIA coup, but the fact that we…helped Saddam Hussein when he attacked Iran in 1980 and did not prevent him in any way from using chemical warfare against Iran. There are a great many resentments there. So if we have to hold back from interfering in any country, it should be Iran.

Iran: An Inconvenient History

Many Americans seem to forget, or don’t even know (perhaps because CNN doesn’t post timelines that go back longer than thirty years), that in 1953 the USA overthrew Iran’s democracy and replaced it with a puppet dictator in order to keep control of their oil. So, Americans should understand when citizens of Iran who DO know their history think we’re full of baloney when we speak of spreading democracy and promoting freedom.

Moussavi: An Inconvenient Challenger

Another thing I’ve noticed is that most Americans who have jumped on the bandwagon of Moussavi know very little about him. When the facts are on full display (as they often aren’t in the corporate main stream media) one wonders if Moussavi isn’t just as bad for the West as Ahmadinejad. Here are a few words about Moussavi, the guy we want so much to lead Iran:

Though the 67-year-old former prime minister is credited for successfully navigating the Iranian economy as prime minister during the Iran-Iraq war, he also was a hard-liner whom the Economist described as a “firm radical.”

He, like most Iranians in power, does not believe in the existence of Israel. He defended the taking of the American hostages in 1979. He was part of a regime that regularly executed dissidents. And as late as April, he opposed suspending the country’s nuclear-enrichment program but said it would not be diverted to weapons use.

A Closer Look at the Mirror

As with most things in life, the 2009 Iranian Election is a great opportunity to look at our own country. In particular, it’s a great opportunity for Americans to see their own country from an outside perspective because the 2009 Iranian Election has many similarities with a couple of recent American Elections.

Just like most of the world clamors for Moussavi to be elected, in 2000 most of the world (including the majority of voters in the US) clamored for Gore to be the next president, but he wasn’t elected.

And, just as many people believe the Iranian election was rigged, many believed — and we now know — that the US 2004 election was rigged.

The unelected members of Iran’s Guardian Council have the power to decide if Iran’s votes get recounted, just like the unelected conservative-leaning Supreme Court decided in Bush v. Gore that Americans could not count all the votes in the 2000 US election.

Even though most of the world wants Moussavi elected, to our astonishment and disbelief, most of the poor and rural Iranian population want Ahmadinejad to be reelected. This is what America looked like to the rest of the world when most of the poor and rural Americans still wanted George W. Bush to be their leader in 2004, even as he talked like a TV cowboy and rode his stick horse off the edge of a cliff.

So, to paraphrase a very wise philosopher, let’s pick the log out of our own eye and not cast the first stone.

Iran has never jumped into the middle of our election process — and they’ve yet to overthrow one of our presidents — so we should take a back seat, stop pointing self-righteous fingers, and despite the bluster of the main stream idiots, we shouldn’t get involved.

Remember when you went to college and saw all those interesting classes you wanted to take but you only had so many elective spots open, and taking the tests and paying the tuition sort of took the fun out of the ones you did take?

Ever wish you could just drop in on a class at Yale and sit in the back row, maybe even in your pajamas, and get lost in a great lecture? For free?

Turns out there are more than 8,000 online college courses at the very best universities — courses with handpicked, really fun-to-listen-to professors. And you can attend, any time of day or night, sitting on your own couch.

Some folks are paying $5,000 to take some of these classes, so it’s a pretty good deal…

Link: Six Tips for Taking College Courses Free of Charge.

Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth is interviewed respectfully for seven minutes on KMPH FOX 26, Fresno.

Video Link: Richard Gage on KMPH Fox 26 in Fresno, CA.

Transcript courtesy of Sheila Casey:

Female Anchor: He’s an architect experienced in steel structures. Now Richard Gage is touring the country with a controversial message about September 11.

Male Anchor: Richard Gage is here to show us why he’s calling for a more thorough investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings. Thank you so much for joining us.

Gage: You’re very welcome, it’s great to be here.

Male Anchor: Well first of all give us a little bit more about your background.

Gage: I’m an architect of twenty years, a member of the American Institute of Architects, and have been studying steel frame fire proof buildings for about that long.

Female Anchor: We ask that for clarification because as we get into this we want people to make sure that you’re not just somebody with a wacky idea, you come with some science to you. What is the official reason for the collapse of the World Trade Center towers?

Gage: Well we’re told that the planes hit the buildings, and there was an explosion and a fire, and about a hour and a half later, in the case of the north tower, the buildings collapsed due to structural weakening, due to the fires. The problem is that we don’t have large gradual deformations associated with collapses. And fires in high rises have never brought down a steel frame high rise building at all, ever. And what we have, unfortunately, is the evidence in the twin towers and the third skyscraper to collapse that day, which most people don’t know anything about it. We have the evidence of the ten key features of controlled demolition. In the case of building seven, it collapses straight down into its own footprint, at free fall speed, in the first hundred feet. It’s dropping, as you can see symmetrically, smoothly, at free fall speed, in the first hundred feet. Two and a half seconds. This is uncanny, there’s forty thousand tons of structural steel designed to resist this collapse.

Female Anchor: So, what, a forty-seven story building?

Gage: Yeah, it’s called Building Seven, a football field away from the Twin Towers.

Female Anchor: Okay, so what we’re showing is left, what happened in fact, and right is controlled, where you are using or the people who made this happen, used demolition, explosive devices.

Gage: Indeed, this a direct comparison. You can see that indeed, almost freefall speed, freefall acceleration, through forty thousand tons of structural steel. That is uncanny. So we have 700 architects and engineers demanding a new investigation as a result of this evidence and the evidence in the World Trade Center that is very explosive. Almost every architect and engineer we’ve showed this information to, agrees with us that these are controlled demolitions. If we can get them to look at the information, because obviously the implications of a controlled demolition are…dark for our country. Because that means somebody besides Al Qaeda was involved. Because these have to be easily, three of the most highly secure buildings, outside of the Pentagon.

Male Anchor: Now if that was a controlled demolition, would there not be any evidence at the ground level of explosives within the debris that’s left?

Gage: Indeed. And what we find down there is pools of molten iron. Several tons.

Male Anchor: What is that doing there?

Gage: Exactly, what is it doing there? The first responders see it, the structural engineers see it, it’s documented by FEMA. The melting of steel. Normal office fires is what’s supposed to have brought these buildings down. Along with jet plane impacts. Jet fuel and office fires don’t produce molten iron or molten steel. It doesn’t begin to melt until three thousand degrees. But what we have is, the fires only produce maybe fourteen, sixteen hundred degrees. So what produced all that molten iron? Well, it has in it the chemical evidence of a special incendiary, which is thermite, a high tech incendiary used to cut through steel like a hot knife through butter.

Female Anchor: You found that?

Gage: Indeed, in all the dust throughout lower Manhattan, we have a four to six inch thick layer of this dust, and throughout it we have evidence of tiny spheres, billions of them, several tons of previously molten iron. Well how does that happen? If you have molten iron…the by-product of thermite is molten iron and it’s dispersed through out all this dust.

Male Anchor: You were allowed to go in and get samples and examine it?

Gage: Oh, there’s plenty of dust. A lot of people have this dust, and four of these samples have been sent to physicist Steven Jones, formerly of Brigham Young University. And they find in it, not only these spheres, which others have found too, USGS, RJ Lee, doing toxicology studies. These spheres have iron, aluminum, fluorine, manganese, very unusual elements associated only with thermite. And there are small chips of unignited thermite as well. This is very high-tech thermite, nano-thermite, it’s not found in a cave in Afghanistan, it’s produced in very sophisticated defense department contracting laboratories.

Female Anchor: Okay, well, we have an enemy here, the finger has been pointed to, this was the work of Al Qaeda, this was the work of Osama bin Laden, at least to get the planes all going into the buildings and into the field in Pennsylvania and into the Pentagon. Is there no way that they then could still be the enemy that placed those in the buildings first, and then did the incendiary device via a plane second?

Gage: What you have to ask is who had access to the buildings? Did Al Qaeda have access to these highly secure buildings? Probably not. Did they have access to sophisticated nano-thermite, where the particles are one thousand times smaller than a human hair? Probably not. Somebody else has to be investigated. That’s why we have 700 architects and engineers demanding a real investigation. We don’t have the whole theory as to how this happened, who did it, why. We just lay out the facts, like we did last night in the Veterans Memorial Auditorium, and we demand a real investigation, and they’ll find out who, why, how, et cetera.

Male Anchor: Now let me ask you, I’m person X, I want to place something in one of those buildings. Where would I carry it, how big would it be? Is it that visible that I would be spotted by security? Can I place it in one of my tooth fillings?

Gage: We’re talking about several tons of nano-thermite and ordinary thermite. One would have to have access through security. So the security company involved for the World Trade Center should be thoroughly investigated. It turns out to be Securi-com, Stratesec, somebody should look and see who’s on the board of those companies. Some very interestings individuals turn out to be. In addition, one would have to have the cover, of say, an elevator modernization, which was in fact going on nine months prior to 9/11, so that there were workers throughout the World Trade Center, that had access to the hoistway that was immediately adjacent to the core columns and beams in the building.

Female Anchor: You’re not trying to freak out the country, but you can’t help but feel a little freaked out by this.

Gage: Yeah, you’re getting it.

Female Anchor: And of course this is something we want to talk to you about a whole lot more, and we’re out of time. We do have a great deal of information on our website, kmph.com. Thank you very much for your time today. You’re opening up a lot to think about.

Thanks to Xman and Michael Fury for the link.

An anonymous friend — I’ll call her Sasha — whose job environment is in the midst of a right-winger hotbed, emailed to ask:

What do you think this means?
“As we wait for the tax zombie apocalypse…”

Dear Sasha:
First, I think the “tax zombie apocalypse” phrase you overheard refers to an event that would exhibit most of the traits of a generic zombie apocalypse. That event would entail a widespread rise of zombies who engage in a general assault on civilization.

With the adjective “tax” prepended by a right-winger, I’d modify that description as follows: ironically, the zombies would be any persons who do not listen to Rush Limbaugh (I say ironically, because 99.9% of the global population consider Rush Limbaugh fans to be the real zombie threat.) I’m also guessing the adjective “tax” implies that the apocalyptic fall of civilization would occur because President Obama is raising our taxes higher and higher.

Right-Wingers Don’t Like Mirrors

Of course, President Obama is NOT raising our taxes, but lowering them for 95% of Americans. But fascist right-wing Republicans have never let facts interfere with their paranoid delusions. They prefer to cling to erroneous beliefs in the face of evidence to the contrary, such as their belief that BushCo had to invade Iraq so that Saddam (who had nothing to do with al Qaeda) wouldn’t cropdust U.S. cities with anthrax.

In addition, the phrase “tax zombie appocalypse” is most likely to be used by racist hypocrites to distract themselves from the self-realization that they are, indeed, prejudiced intolerant phonies.

But that’s just my opinion :-)

Thanks for the question, Sasha, and let’s see if the fascist right-wingers who suddenly like to criticize their president while the country is still at war can follow the advice they touted under the BushCo regime: If you don’t like America, go find another country to live in! :-)

BREAKING NEWS!!! LIVE NOW…

Health officials in Harrisonburg, Virginia are reporting a new and unprecedented outbreak of varicella zoster virus.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), varicella zoster is a disfiguring, highly contagious pathogen. The virus historically attacks young healthy children.

White House: Virus Unstoppable

An anonymous White House staffer admitted early Friday that the number of cases in Harrisonburg is jumping, but cautioned that there is no need to panic. “We do expect additional cases to emerge. There’s really no stopping it unless everybody holds their breath for a month.”

The varicella zoster virus occurs in gorillas and chimpanzees. “This particular outbreak, however, is exhibiting sustained human to human transmission.”

An anonymous person who answered the phone at Atlanta’s Center for Disease Control (CDC) said: “Varicella zoster is often referred to as ‘chicken pox’ but the virus is not transmitted by chickens, nor by eating chickens. Egypt should not kill and burn all their chickens.” Still, the CDC discourages eating raw chicken meat. “You pluck it, and you should cook it, just to be safe.”

Virus May Have Originated in Mexico

Local Harrisonburg residents speculate that the outbreak of varicella roster originated in Mexico. “The first two children to get sick ate at Taco Bell last week.”

WHO officials could not confirm the Mexican link: “We have no evidence to support that theory. The virus may have very well entered the country transmitted by illegal Mexican aliens. If that turns out to be the case, shutting down the border would have prevented this outbreak.”

Obama Administration Blamed

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Friday morning that the Obama administration “should have already moved swiftly to close our Mexican border.”

Cheney said he believes leaving the border wide open has made Americans less safe. “Make no mistake, every American will get this pox. Obama’s decision is, quite literally, a pox on America.”

The former VP also claimed that “technically, Obama was born in Mexico,” and that “we know Iran has already put a man on the moon.”