Iran’s digging a mighty deep hole for itself. Given the time and inclination, old men in dresses will think themselves into a clusterfuck every time. Just like old men who don’t wear dresses, come to think about it.

Roger Cohen, Reza Pahlavi, and everything from Juan Cole.

Pahlavi is a Pahlavi, and I’m sure his tears were as real as his father’s legendary compassion as demonstrated by the Savak. It’s really up to Khamenei, and how many of his people he’s willing to slaughter to keep Iran’s theocracy in place.

-

Obama’s holding a press conference in a few moments.

-

Gaming the ABC healthcare special.

-

More on Goldman Sachs and the need for killing the rich before they kill all of us.

-

Another thing Obama hasn’t done yet is to tell the DEA to back the fuck off terminally ill patients. Eliminate all restrictions on painkillers so long as they’re prescribed by real doctors, and put the pill pushers in prison if you can build the case.

-

Freedom March for the Wrongfully Convicted.

More of them than we realize. Far more.

-

The Strib recycles some WaPost garbage about the Post Office. Privatizing is the worst possible solution.

I say eliminate all junk mail subsidies and subsidize if necessary to keep ‘em going, and to keep ‘em going with full benefits and real wages.

The Post Office is a nightmare of “tiered” employees. The older the employee, the better they get paid and the better the benefits. This is horseshit. If we can’t pay a decent wage to mail sorters, clerks and carriers, we don’t deserve mail.

The Post Office has problems? Blame the militaristic hiearchy. The USPS is run like the Army, and they could do better than that if they gave top managers early retirement and brought in independent experts (from private industry!) to figure out which employees really “get” what’s wrong.

All the answers are there, sitting in the heads of their sharper employees. Sadly, like private industry of late, the USPS has a promotion system designed to weed out the competent and replace them with paper shufflers adept at avoiding tough decisions.

-

Ed McMahon, R.I.P.

Hey, I grew up watching the guy. However much crap he sold in his declining years, he was a great second banana.