SPDRs and Jack Russells

I have no idea what Jack Russells have to do with SPDRs, but it's a great commercial!

Chaos in Teheran

Pretty amazing footage from the BBC, here.

What is going to happen? While part of me wishes for chaos and collapse, this will likely not solve anything. The Obama Administration's job of dealing with Iran just got immensely more difficult.

I guess no matter how a people pat themselves on the back for their successful demonstration of democratic institutions, the specter of fraud and vote manipulation will always rear its head. Consider Florida 2000.

More footage from the AP:

Another view, reported in the NY Times News Blog holds that Moussavi's lead or strength in the polls was all an exercise in Western wishful thinking, that his support was principally among a narrow educated elite who tended to be much more approachable by Western media. Makes some considerable sense to me. This is another case in which we really need more "humint" when it comes to the Middle East, or anywhere else that American culture does not hold sway.

Or another explanation: "The regime use democratic tools (elections) as a means to show off its legitimacy. It does not believe at all to democracy. It says democracy is a Western and not Islamic value and in fact it fight all western values."

I find this all very hard to watch. I am a sentimental old democrat, I guess.