In the wake of Friday’s Iranian Presidential election, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (hater of neckties and basic logic) claimed victory, reports of voter fraud are thick in the air and protests which broke out over the weekend have reportedly turned lethal. Follow inside for news resources.

I’m not uploading it here because it is quite wide and best seen in its natural environment, but the BBC has an excellent flow chart and accompanying information detailing how Iran is ruled. The chart is in honor of today’s elections and shows which positions are elected and unelected and who, like the Guardian Council, bridge the gap.

One of the stronger arguments against the existence of a loving God is that Bill Kristol still has a job at the Washington Post. However, in light of his recent column on Obama not wanting to nuke the scary Iranian boogeyman right this exact minute, one can perhaps be forgiven for taking Kristol’s continued employment as strong evidence of a vengeful, wrathful God instead.

Read forth and ye shall prosper. Today’s roundup includes Obama’s potential letter to Iran, California courts ruling against lesbian students kicked out of school, the nations that may be facing the same economic fate as Iceland, Senators asking for contractor accountability in the deaths of soldiers and a great documentary on the U.S. health care (made by Brits).

The “naive beginner” in international relations may have proven himself more clever than others thought, as Iran is now backing off of their own “open to negotiations without preconditions” stance. Via WaPo:
“People who put on a mask of friendship, but with the objective of betrayal, and who enter from the angle of negotiations without preconditions, are more dangerous,” Hossein Taeb, deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Wednesday, according to the semiofficial Mehr News Agency.
Taeb isn’t off the reservation on this, as the WaPo article makes clear; this is …

What do the nations of Russia, Iran and Qatar have in common? One more thing than they did before, apparently. Via The Guardian:
Western concerns about global energy markets hit new heights last night when Russia, Iran and Qatar said they were forming an Opec-style gas cartel.
The move by the three countries, which control 60% of the world’s gas reserves, was met with immediate opposition from the European commission, which fears the group could drive up prices.
So what, you ask? True, the USA doesn’t import natural gas from any of these …