Beware the Ides of Qods...

Or at least that's what Iranian flack Gholam-Hossein Elham said during a comment about Sec of State Rice visiting "occupied Palestine".

Zionist regime's allies to receive response on World Qods Day

Is it just me, or does this sound like a thinly veiled threat to you, too?

Referring to the approaching World Qods Day, the spokesman stressed, "Supporters of the Zionist regime will definitely receive the final response for their support on that day."

About World Qods Day:

Qods Day is held each year on the last Friday of Muslims fasting month of Ramadan after it was nominated by the late Founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, as a day to voice the protest of the Islamic Ummah against the Zionists. The day falls on October 12 this year.

I guess it's not to be confused with International Qods Day which will be held on October 5th according to the Coordination Council of the Islamic Propagation Organization (IPO)... (Yikes! The Coordination Council of the Islamic Propagation Organization??? Now there's theocracy run amok for ya!) Their statement goes on to advise that:

The International Qods Day is observed in all Islamic nations to demonstrate the support of Muslims worldwide for the Palestinian people suffering from occupation and hardship.

Millions of people take to streets on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan calling for an end to occupation of Palestinian territories.

Mahmoud supports the Fair Tax

Call for Fair Taxation.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday called for fair taxation system to encourage timely payment.“One of the factors which motivate timely tax payment is levying taxes on a fair basis. Tax payers should be encouraged to contribute to estimating taxes and making payments voluntarily,“ said Ahmadinejad in an address to a group of tax collectors, IRNA reported.

President Ahmadinejad also called on respective officials to build the culture of voluntary tax payment among citizens.He regretted that there is a popular misconception that oil revenues are infinite and the country’s oil earnings far outweigh national expenditure. “Everyone should know that oil revenues will come to an end one day and if we spend oil earnings today, they will not be sufficient for paying all our expenses,“ he said.

Calls on media to grease the skids and tell the citizenry to get ready to bend over:

Ahmadinejad further said that media play a significant role in preparing the people to pay taxes and the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting should include more programs on taxation.

When Harry met Sally...

Do you think he has a Napoleon Complex by now?

Ahmadinejad to visit Syria Thursday.





Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to pay a day-long visit to Syria on Thursday to congratulate President Bashar al-Assad on the beginning of his second seven-year term in office as Syria's president.



President al-Assad is officially to swear in for his second term in office on Tuesday.

In Iran: There ain't no cure for the Summertime Blues

Equal opportunity oppressors - now they're going after the dudes.

Police to start crackdown on young boys.

With summer time heath (sic) reaching new peaks, the commander of Tehran Police announced new crackdowns, this time targeting mostly young boys wearing “perverted western dress and hairs cut according to “pervert western models”.

From the first of Mordad (the Iranian month starting on July 23) police numbers will double to confront immoral behaviour", Tehran police chief stated, quoted by the media.

Boys with shorts panties, dresses having “pervert western marks and hairs cut using western pervert styles would be arrested, taken to special police detention centres where they would have to give the name of the hair dresser who has cut their heirs (sic)using “pervert western patterns” before asking their parents to come for taking them away, the Commander said, quoted by “Aftab” news website.

If the boy has a “perverted western hair dress, the parents have to take him to a hair dresser to arrange his hairs “normal looking”. If he is wearing “perverted western dress”, like short pants, or dresses having “western pervert marks”, the parents have to bring with them “normal clothing” to be changed at the detention centre before taking their progenitor away.

Hoo-boy. There's more about the 'monkerat'(morality po-lice)at the link.

And not so fast there, Missy. We aren't forgetting about you! Government to put more pressure on women's covering. And it's like something out of a spooky science fiction movie.

During an ongoing exhibit titled “My Land’s Women,” deputy governor of Tehran announced, “200 new chador designs, 50 superior hejab designs and 60 new dress designs, which have all been approved by university professors, will be unveiled for female participants at the exhibit.”

Iranian Jews will not trade their identity for money

I readily admit my cluelessness about this situation but it sure caught my eye.

From Mehr News: Iranian Jews will not trade their identity for money

The Society of Iranian Jews issued a statement on Tuesday dismissing reports that Iranian Jews have been offered money to immigrate to Israel. The statement said Iranian Jews would not “exchange their Iranian identity for any sum of money.”

“The Iranian Jews are the oldest Iranians, and if a group has embarked on immigration, it is not an issue separate from other normal migrations by other Iranians,” it added.

The statement, which was signed by MP Morris Mo’tamed, who represents the Jewish community in the Majlis, and Dr. Siamak Sedq, the chairman of the Tehran Jewish Association, said Iranian Jews love their Iranian culture and identity and “threats and immature political enticements” cannot create a crack in their Iranian identity.

The statement followed a report in some newspapers on Monday saying Israel is trying to lure Iranian Jews to Israel by offering individuals a payment of $10,000.

The Jewish news outlet TJA recently ran a report on its website claiming that Israel has allocated $1 million to encourage Iranian Jews to immigrate to Israel.TJA said the fund was amassed by Jews of Iranian descent living in Israel. To entice Iranian Jews, Israel has increased the payment from $5000 to $10,000, TJA reported.

However, TJA has acknowledged that Iran’s over 20,000 Jews have shrugged off the offer.

Third US aircraft carrier heads for the Gulf

Anchors Aweigh! And Grand Ayatollah? "Regular deployments of the strike groupd to the Middle East are not designed to provoke any of the Gulf countries..." Although it would be nice if it did...Bring it, Mahmoud so we can counter your assertive, disruptive and coercive behavior.

Another US Navy aircraft carrier is heading towards the Middle East, boosting the number of the giant warships in the region to three, the navy said in a statement on Tuesday. The nuclear-powered USS Enterprise and its strike group will join the USS John C. Stennis and USS Nimitz in the navy's Fifth Fleet area of operation, which includes Gulf waters off Iran.

"The Enterprise is heading to Fifth Fleet waters and is not replacing any other ships in the area," a US Navy spokesperson told AFP without elaborating. The US Navy has significantly beefed up its presence in the region recently amid growing concerns in the West that Iran is secretly developing a nuclear weapons programme -- an accusation Tehran strongly denies.

The Enterprise "provides navy power to counter the assertive, disruptive and coercive behaviour of some countries, as well as support (to) our soldiers and marines in Iraq and Afghanistan," Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgrifff said in the statement. "Regular deployments of the strike groups to the Middle East are not designed to provoke any of the Gulf countries," it added.

Grand Ayatollah: Wah! UK provoked us with that Rushdie business

Sky News:

Britain has provoked al Qaeda into a possible terror attack by knighting Salman Rushdie, one of Iran's top religious leaders has exclusively told Sky News. The terror group has warned there will be a retaliatory strike against the UK following the novelist's honour. In response, Iran's Grand Ayatollah Saanei has told Sky News:

"When your Queen awards Salman Rushdie and turns him into a knight, what do you expect? This is a blasphemy. This is an insult to all the prophets of the world. Apart from the fact that this issue insults all the religions of the world, the terrorists can use this as a pretext and do something against Britain. This act of the Queen was a very, very vast action against Islam."



There's video of this joker at the link. As I was watching it all I could think about was hitting him right in the old mufti with a cream pie. How's that for provocation, possums?

Iran: Electricity Rationing up next?

According to Rooz, the bearded, short one in the Members Only jacket is calling for it.

A week after launching his gasoline rationing scheme, which led to violence across the country, president Ahmadinejad announced his desire to replicate to replicate the idea for electricity as well. Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of Shahid Reyis Ali Delvari dam in Bushehr province, he referred to gasoline rationing and announced, “This type of conservation could also be applied to electricity consumption.”

They're producing record amounts - but...

The president of the Islamic Republic spoke of the need to conserve electricity at a time when just last week the minister of power boasted a record amount of electricity produced in the country last year. “If no unexpected problem occurs and power consumption does not radically change during peak hours, we shall not have the expected power breaks,” he said.

Who you gonna believe? The minister? Or the black outs?

These words of the minister of the ninth Islamic government were made at a time when during the past recent weeks the country experienced extensive black outs, which experts have attributed to the run-down and limited capacity of the power grid, “parts of which are over 50 years old, requiring renovation.”

Especially when the minister appears to be talking out of both sides of his mouth...

The president’s comments gain weight when one notes that just last week the ministry of power called on the public to conserve on power consumption warning that if they did not, they would face power cuts.

Faster please, on the sanctions.

Iran-US Face-Off goes Sci-Fi: Spy Squirrels and Godly UFOs

No lie this is from Kamangir.

You can relax about that whole nuclear Iran thing, Rocket J Squirrel is on the job.

And the Mahdi? He is going be arriving in a UFO.

According to IRNA, the official Islamic Republic news agency, the national Police chief has implicitly verified the news about the confiscation of a number of squirrels, equipped with eavesdropping devices, on the Iranian borders. He has declined to give any more details, but, reportedly, when asked about the confiscation of 14 spy squirrels, he stated, “I have heard about it, but I do not have precise information”. IRNA adds, “These squirrels were equipped by foreign intelligence services, but were captured two weeks ago by the Police”.

2- The Iranian blogger Gameeron reports that he has heard on a state-run radio station that a cleric has been talking about the twelfth Imam, who is supposed to rise and make earth all Godly. He has reportedly mentioned, “It is not like Imam will use his sword to defeat the enemies. Have you not heard about the occasional news about the UFOs which are spotted in the sky? We know nothing about the passengers of those objects. Maybe, Imam will use UFOs to attack his enemies. Because, when the time comes, he will call you guys and will tell you, ‘You! Go and become the governor of London, You! Go and become the governor of Shicago. You! Go and become the governor of Berlin. You have to be ready for the time, when he calls on you to become the governor of Paris’”.

Unh-huh. The governor of Shicago.

Joe Lieberman calls Iran on the Persian carpet for their proxy wars

From the WSJ via Iran Focus. Yeah, what he said.


While some will no doubt claim that Iran is only attacking U.S. soldiers in Iraq because they are deployed there -- and that the solution, therefore, is to withdraw them -- Iran's parallel proxy attacks against moderate Palestinians, Afghans and Lebanese directly rebut such claims.


Iran is acting aggressively and consistently to undermine moderate regimes in the Middle East, establish itself as the dominant regional power and reshape the region in its own ideological image.


The involvement of Hezbollah in Iraq, just revealed by Gen. Bergner, illustrates precisely how interconnected are the different threats and challenges we face in the region.


The fanatical government of Iran is the common denominator that links them together.


No responsible leader in Washington desires conflict with Iran. But every leader has a responsibility to acknowledge the evidence that the U.S. military has now put before us: The Iranian government, by its actions, has all but declared war on us and our allies in the Middle East.


Gen Bergner's claims.
Iranian outrage and denial.

Iran: Ouch! Those sanctions do hurt!

Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Hameneh speaks out about the sanctions - don't look for him to be oil minister for long....

Iran admitted on Tuesday that international sanctions imposed over its controversial nuclear programme were harming its ability to invest in oil infrastructure, the backbone of its economy.

"The problems that they have made for banks have troubled financing of some projects," Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh told the official IRNA news agency. He said that the government was attempting to use its own resources, built up from windfall receipts resulting from the high world oil prices of recent years, to make up for the shortfalls in foreign investment.

Hamaneh's admission contrasted with comments by hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday in which he insisted that Iran was unfazed by the prospect of further sanctions. "They cannot hurt us, not that they don't want to but because they are incapable of doing do as they are in a difficult situation," he said.

In other Iranian oil related news:

Mortar aimed at gas station in Tehran fails.

80 arrested in fuel protests.

Hugo to the rescue. Venezuela to sell Iran some gas.

Khamenei speaks: Women - don't play with sharia law

you'll get lashed.

Activists should not try to change Islamic laws relating to women's rights, Iran's supreme leader said on Wednesday, two days after one campaigner was reportedly sentenced to 34 months in jail and ten lashes.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also lambasted the West for using women as a tool to advertise products, make money and to satisfy "disorderly and unlawful sexual needs," state television said.

He was addressing a group of women, most dressed conservatively in head-to-toe black chadors, in Tehran ahead of Thursday's anniversary of the birth of Prophet Mohammad's daughter, Fatima, when Iran honors mothers and women.

The Islamic Republic rejects allegations it is discriminating against women, saying it follows sharia law.

(Sharia law = The official handbook of the 'He-man-woman-hater's-club also known as Islam'.)

More on Delaram Ali, the protestor who is going to feel Khamenei's lash.

The hijab is the 'flag of Islam", represents Muslim life, scorn of Western Civ

Iran: Majlis Speaker says Iran defies West on women rights

Oh God. Just read it all - it's making my head spin but this neatly sums up why the hijab should be banned IMO:

"... the hijab (Islamic dress) is the “flag of Islam” and represents “Muslim life” and any woman who wears hijab it means that she has scorned Western way of life."

Just more women's rights Iranian style.

What? Mahmoud's not ready for his close up?

From Kamangir:

Mehdi Kolhar, Ahmadinejad’s media adviser, said “Ahmadinejad rejected Oliver Stone’s request [to make a film about Ahmadinejad]”.

He said “I sent Dr Ahmadinejad’s rejection to Oliver Stone because even though he is in the opposition in the states, but even the opposition in the states is a part of the big satan”.

He added “We believe that the American movie-production system does not contain any element of culture or art and is only a tool”.

“I must add that Dr Ahmadinejad was personally against this”. He concluded, “However, it is very clear why Stone asked for doing the movie. He [Ahmadinejad] is an appealing figure in the world and the Americans always look for what can return their investment”.

Hey Hollywood! You're all capitalist tools... (h/t Gateway Pundit)

Ahmadinejokes and armed guards at gas stations

From the article: Iran curses Ahmadinejad over petrol rationing.
"On the orders of President Ahmadinejad, those who are short of petrol can have a ride on the 17 million donkeys who voted for him."

Get used to it Iranians: Tighter rationing controls on the way.


Smart Money: The Smart Card system used to monitor gas usage costs 70 million to install.

From the article: Iranian leaders defend fuel rationing. It will make them INVINCIBLE!

The government began fuel rationing Wednesday, driving angry Iranians to smash shop windows and set fire to more than a dozen gas stations in the capital Tehran and several other cities. With armed guards protecting gas stations, the country calmed down the next day, but Iranians have continued to criticize the new measure, prompting Saturday's defense.

Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that reduced reliance on imported gasoline would make the country less vulnerable to international pressure, at a time when Iran is at odds with the West over its nuclear program. "Enemies have confessed to this important reality that if fuel consumption is contained and reduced, Iran will become invincible,'' Ahmadinejad was quoted by the broadcast as saying.

And not only will they be INVINCIBLE - they will be GREEN.

And oh so courageous. Khamenei says: Gas rationing move "brave" (and if the Iranian people think the money saved on gasoline imports will be spent on improving their living conditions - well, that joke is on them...)

Khamenei suggested the money Iran could save through the scheme -- gasoline imports cost it $5 billion last year -- should be used to improve living conditions."If this huge amount decreases eventually, certainly it will be spent on issues related to people's lives, employment and building roads and schools," he said.

Speaking of the people, they are saying, “cannons, tanks, fire arms / Ahmadinejad must be dead.” Gasoline rationing causes chaos in Tehran.

From the dissident ranks: Petrol in the Flames of War.

...And so the “kind” administration in Iran is spending the wealth and resources of the people for an unequal war, while zooming its eye on the leadership of the Islamic world and the toppling of the “infidels”.

And that's no joke!

Mahmoud TV

Not only is Mahmoud ready for his close up on the big screen he's going to have his own TV station

Ahmadinejad's English Language TV ready to launch.

Monday July 2 is launch date. Their slogan?

All taquiyah. All the time.

Iran: Gas pains to continue despite protests and riots

The plan will cause no problems for the people...The rationing was something which had to be done and will eventually be to the benefit of all people and also reduce air pollution...we cannot spend major parts of our oil revenues for importing petrol..."

Iran will continue petrol rationing despite protests and riots throughout the country, Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said Friday.

'This decision has been approved by the parliament and therefore the government is determined to implement it,' the minister told Mehr news agency.

In the Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati called on the people to remain calm.

Since rationing took effect on Wednesday, the capital Tehran faced a visible decrease of traffic jams and also the air was much cleaner in the last 48 hours, realising at least two of the main aims of the rationing plan. (this smells like taquiyah to me-yah)

Hey, quit your bellyaching! You're going nuclear!

Oliver keen to make film on Ahmadinejad

From Mehr News. Oliver is keen to make film on Ahmadinejad

Oscar-winner Oliver Stone has sent a letter to the Iranian president’s office requesting permission to make a docudrama on President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, stated an Iranian producer who is regularly consulted by the president’s art and cultural advisors. The request was made three months ago by Stone, the famous U.S. filmmaker, who has directed numerous films with socio-political themes over the past few years,” Alireza Sajjadpur told the Persian service of the Iranian Students’ News Agency on Friday. I think it is a good proposal and I would like the request to be accepted,” he added.

Oliver Stone is among the film directors who have been against the warmongering policy of the U.S. He has made a film about Fidel Castro which has generally been well received and I found it interesting.” As far as I know, it takes time to receive a response to such a request and the president’s office is considering it.”

Ollie Riefenstahl.

More on the Iranian gas pains...

Iran Police on Patrol after Petrol Rationing Protests

Iranian police were on patrol in Tehran on Thursday on alert for any further violent protests over the introduction of petrol rationing in the world's fourth largest oil producer.

A dozen petrol stations were set ablaze in violence that erupted late Tuesday and angry motorists queued for hours throughout Wednesday to fill up their tanks after the government's sudden announcement. But on Thursday, state-run television said the streets were calm and no further trouble had been reported near petrol stations despite long lines of cars still waiting at the pumps.

"The situation in the city is calm and the police are patrolling the city's main roads and squares," Tehran metropolitan police spokesman Mahdi Ahmadi was quoted as saying by Iran's energy news agency Shana. "Thank God there was not any report of any kind of unlawful act in Tehran last (Wednesday) night."

More...

Meanwhile, behind closed doors: Majlis holds unofficial session behind closed doors

And Negative Stories about the rationing are banned. Oh, and the number of stations burned is now up to 19.

Iranian police chief: WTF are you doing?

Police Chief: Gasoline rationing implemented suddenly

Police Chief Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam complained on Wednesday gasoline rationing was implemented suddenly and without prior notice. Speaking on the sidelines of the Sixth International Police Safety and Security Equipment Exhibition (IPAS 2007), Ahmadi-Moqaddam noted that miscreants who attacked gas stations will be confronted, IRNA reported.

“The government was supposed to inform people at least 24 hours before enforcing the rationing scheme which, unfortunately, did not happen,“ he said. The police chief also told reporters that the police came to learn about gasoline rationing like other people through the media. “This is while we had a security plan ready before the implementation of gasoline rationing,“ he said.

Ahmadi-Moqaddam pointed out that the police personnel were called in for implementing security measures after the scheme was scheduled.

This is a good one - the attacks on gas stations and banks(!) didn't have anything to do with the rationing scheme. Yeah. Right.

Commenting on incidents that erupted after gasoline rationing went into effect, including the torching of gas stations and attacks on banks, Ahmadi-Moqaddam said these incidents did not have anything to do with the rationing scheme. “Most of these incidents happened in Tehran and 17 gas stations were set on fire, several cars were torched and some banks and commercial units were damaged,“ he said.