Turn to the Left: a Bloggerama

by Damozel | Demosthenes at Shadow of the Hegemon has published the letter of Grand Ayatollah Husein Ali Montazeri calling on the Iranian government to respect all views and to restore the people's confidence, and warning the instruments of oppression that "receiving orders will not excuse them before God."  Good commentary as well. 

Quiddity "agrees" with Jonah Goldberg:  Obama should do something about Iran.  But what?  "Let's start with bombing Tehran. That'll send the mullahs a message that can't be ignored and will no doubt lead to a satisfactory resolution of the issue."  At Alas, a Blog, Jeff Fecke explains exactly why meddling won't work.  Among other things, "Mousavi is not a liberal reformist who wants warm ties with America."

Manifesto Joe at Beggars Can be Choosers thinks the Iranians are showing real balls -- unlike certain Americans who had a presidential election stolen from them.

Nate Silver thinks those expecting Ensign to resign shouldn't hold their breath.  Were there any who really expected it?  Susan Nunes at Random Thoughts from Reno:  "He will not resign." Nope; not going to happen.

Greenboy at Needlenose:  " If conservatives aren’t racists, why do they keep sending around these ‘humorous’ emails?"

Susie Madrak points out that we were all outraged when Bush denied the media access to logs of White House visitors.  Is it okay when Obama does it?

Heebie-Jeebie at Unfogged comments on a particularly creepy story of how far some anti-choicers are willing to go to prove a point.

[T]his fruitcake made up that she was pregnant, then made up that the fetus was terminally ill, and then made up that she was going to carry it to term anyway. No pretend late-term abortions for this anti-choicer. And she blogged it as she made it up. And became something of an internet darling to pro-lifers, who prayed and prayed for a made up miracle.

And as if touched by some made up God, the pretend baby lived for a few miraculous hours before pretending to die. Unfortunately, right after her death, she was photographed with her nutty mother, and when the photo was posted to the blog, a few of the readers recognized the poor dead pretend baby as being one of these glassy-eyed creepy crawlers. All was exposed, and everybody had a hearty laugh and went home for supper.

The Expat Egghead on an apparently increasing tendency of Iraqis to Say It with Bombs even in the social sphere rather than, say, a singing telegram or a specialty card:  

Rejected suitors are planting IEDs outside the home of the female -- mainly to scare. To quote one detective "I don't know how to make a bomb from a soda can, lemonade bottle, petrol and an old phone but these guys do."