The Little Revolution That Could.

Check out the face of a proud Ahmadinejad supporter.

There had been seven days of rallies and protests since Ayatollah Khamenei's last public appearance. To say everyone was anxiously awaiting Khamenei's speech today would be a huge understatement.

The ayatollah's speech could have taken one of two paths. Either acknowledge the protestors concerns of a rigged election and try and calm them down or, stand behind Ahmadinejad and amp up the tension with some good ole rhetoric. Khamenei chose the latter.

Instead of wavering in his praise for Ahmadinejad, the "Supreme Leader" condemed the protests (and the West) and denied any voter fraud.. It's feared that tomorrow will see the bloody crackdown that many people have been waiting for this whole time. Or maybe they won't.

Either way, tomorrow will be a day that isn't soon forgotten.



A Poem for the Rooftops of Iran

Big Developments:

-The crowds on Monday were the largest since the '79 Revolution.

-A ban was put out on all protests, but on Wednesday the demonstrations were estimated to be over 500,000 people. In response, 15 protestors were killed by the security forces.

-Mousavi called for Thursday to be a day of mourning to remember the fallen protestors. An estimated 1,000,000 Iranians came out.

-A centrist Iranian newspaper reports 30 Iranian towns with more votes than voters registered. Some as many as 40% more.

-Top religious leader Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri has called on police & soldiers to disobey orders to act against the protestors.

-The US House of Representatives has passed a resolution condemning the Iranian gov't and showing support for the protestors. Vote passed 405-1. Only person who didn't vote yes? Ron Paul. Doesn't seem to make much sense but his reasoning is rock solid.

General Shady Stuff:

-A secret letter between the Iranian Minister of the Interior & the Ayatollah Khamenei, . The letter was written the day after the elections and appears to show the true results of the election, with Mousavi winning and Ahmadinejad coming in third.

-On June 7, an open letter was written by members of Iran's Interior Ministry (which suprervises the elections) and addressed to top Iranian religious & political leaders. The letter detailed a plot that alleged religious leaders were prepared to allow voter fraud to keep Ahmadinejad in office.

-Iranian gov't has been publishing Photoshopped images of a pro-Ahmadinejad rally.

-A Canadian journalist, one of the few foreign journalists still in Tehran, was picked up by police. Roughed up. And lived to write about it.

-Iranian gov't has started tracking Twiiter accounts. All Twitters are urged to change your "Location" on your Twitter account to "Tehran" to confuse the Iranian gov't.

Some context:

You've gotta watch these clips.

I've been a big fan of Reza Aslan for a while now. No matter what the current crisis is in the Middle East, Aslan is always there waiting to help us figure it out. He not only manages to make really complex situations easier to digest but has an way of discussing these issues that highlights the positive aspects and leaves you with a seed of hope.

Rachel Maddow had Aslan as her guest on Wednesday night. His predictions for the significance of the day of mourning were so spot-on, Maddow had him back on Thursday's show. You won't hear commentary this insightful anywhere else.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

And again on Thursday:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

More Info:

Best sources of info around: Guardian UK live-blog and Huffington Post live-blog

Both have teams of people working around the clock to make sure the Iranians are being heard.

Images of Democracy in Action

Despite a ban on protests, hundreds of thousands of Mousavi supporters came out on Monday, June 15, 2009, in support of their defeated presidential candidate. (BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images)




Iranian student protesting outside of Iranian embassy in Rome. (Reuters)




Mousvia supporters on Saturday. (AP)







More to come...

You say you want a revolution.

Rapid fire post.

The legitimacy of the Iranian presidential elections have come into question. With an average age of 26, Iran seemed poised to make a swing to the left and vote the polarizing Ahmadinejad out of office.

After extending polling hours three seperate times on June 12 because of an estimated 80% voter turnout, the Iranian gov't declared Ahmadinejad the winner after only one hour into the tedious task of counting the paper ballots. Sounds a little shady to me.

Opposition canadite Mousavi's supporters seem to agree. After hearing about the election "results" they took to the streets.

In order to suppress the backlash, the Iranian gov't has cut off Mousavi supporter groups' websites, all of Facebook, and all text messaging services in the Persian country. In addition to that, they've severely limited the ability to make international calls in an attempt to slow down the international press.

Buuutttttt....they for got about Twitter. Lots of great raw info coming out through the social media site. Damn it's great to live in the 21st century!

Current list of Iranians who are Twittering.


BBC video of protesters running off secret police so BBC can film.

Time.com: Was Ahmadinejad's Win Rigged?

Time.com: Photos from Tehran

Video of Iranian protesters burning an Iranian cop's bike then saving the same cop from being mauled by the rest of the protesters.

Will post updates when I can.

*sing-song* It's my burfday! It's MY burfday! It's MY BURFDAY!!

June 11 is definitely one of my favorite days of the year. I don't know why.

The sun just seems a little sunnier today. The internet is moving just a little quicker. The high fructose corn syrup tastes a little sweeter.

Could be the best day of the year. Could just be me.

To celebrate, I've found one of my favorite Youtube clips to spread a little June 11th joy.

Hope this does the trick.

That's, like...deep, man.

Whether you're talking the war on terror, gay marriage, evolution in the classroom, or even global warming; the underlying theme that is framing these debates is religion. More specifically: the infallibility of religion.

So, it was a breath of fresh air when I stumbled across this great article on Time Magazine's website called "Einstein & Faith."

Einstein described himself as "religious" but never admitted to following the Christian or Jewish faiths, exclusively. When asked what he meant by calling himself religious, Einstein replied with one of the best quotes I've read in a long time:

"The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."

Click here to read the full article. It'll give you a new perspective on what it means to be religious.

These are a few of my favorite things...

A person I consider a mentor once told me, "People always say they hate advertising. But what they really mean is: they hate BAD advertising."

This is a picture of Ecuadorian team Barcelona Sporting Club's stadium Estadio Monumental Isidro Romero Carbo.

With a little black paint and some manual labor, Sony grabbed themselves 180,000 eyes staring at their logo for 2+ hrs. In the ad world, that's damn near priceless.

Modern day soccer is so dominated by advertising (ever heard of Red Bull New York?), it's easy to become jaded. So, it's nice to see an original idea.

I think the reason I love this so much is because it manages to be subtle, while it's punching you in the face. Like your girlfriend telling you a story about how she broke her new pumps today, while going through your wallet.