Blogs of more value than mine

I usually skip over most of the forwards or back-and-forth bickering that occurs on our school listserv. I just happened to read one yesterday because it was before my morning coffee and I clicked on it without thinking. Either way, I thought it was pretty interesting, and a good sign. I'll just copy the main body of the e-mail here since I have nothing of value to add to it, except that this could be an interesting tie-in to last week's Economist article about home-grown revolutions:



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Iranian blogs debate nuclear row
Blogs are relatively unregulated compared to other media in Iran.
Iranian bloggers are commenting extensively on the nuclear row between
Iran and the West.
A significant number of bloggers seem to blame President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad in particular for the crisis and suggest that he has taken
Iran to the brink of war.
The sports lovers are worried that the Iranian team may be expelled
from the World Cup because of the nuclear issue and Mr Ahmadinejad's
comments on Israel and the Holocaust.
There are expressions of confidence about support for Iran in the
Islamic world and suggestions that Iranian politicians are playing a
sophisticated game.

...
'Deflecting public opinion' - Daftar-e bi Mokhatab (Notebook without a
Reader), 17 January
"Mr Ahmadinejad didn't mention in any of his campaign slogans that, if
he became president, he intended to remove Israel from the map...
"I also don't recall him promising that he'd take the nuclear file to
the point of having international sanctions imposed on the country,
having the file referred to the Security Council, sacrificing the
country's economic interests and war...
"What has brought the government to this point today is that it's
realised that it's not capable of fulfilling even 55% of its campaign
slogans... so it wants to deflect domestic public opinion by creating
constant international crises in order to pretend that it's foreigners
who are preventing the government from fulfilling its promises."
(http://hanif.ir/)

...
'Count yourself lucky' - Khatt-e Qermez (Red Line), 24 January
"Today, my American professor told me: You Iranians should count
yourselves lucky that we attacked Iraq, because if we hadn't attacked
them, we'd have attacked you by now!"
(http://vahid.blogspot.com/)

...
'Congratulations Mr President!' - After Rain, 16 January
"Greetings Mr President [Ahmadinejad]! I wanted to congratulate you.
God willing, you're on a roll, taking our dear country towards ruin...
I won't allow the flames of war, ruin, famine and wretchedness to be
lit in my country. I don't want to be shamed any further before the
world. I don't want war! I don't want nuclear energy. This oil is more
than enough for me."
(http://after-rain.persianblog.com/)

===