Who Is Hassan Rouhani?

A fascinating article, thanks to BCF.

On Hassan Rouhani's US trip: Christiane Amanpour out, Ayatollah Khamenai in. And no afterglow...

What was shaping up to become a love story of the century, ends with a squeak, if the same CNN that invested so much in raising the expectations, is to be believed:

But Khamenei felt uncomfortable with aspects of the trip, he said in a speech at a graduation ceremony for army officers in Tehran.

"Some of the things that took place during the trip to New York were not quite desirable," the official Fars News Agency quoted him. They were "inappropriate," Iran's English language broadcaster Press TV reported him saying.

Oh well, maybe the next round of "engagement", relentlessly pursued by the current administration, will be more successful. Of course the gentle chiding Rouhani got from his boss is less surprising than CNN's reference to Press TV - the most anti-Western, antisemitic, conspiracy-mongering and hate-exuding outfit east of the Red Sea. Mind-boggling really how low the high and mighty can fall.

Nevertheless, it might be interesting to know what are these "things that took place and were not quite desirable/inappropriate"? But I guess, Mr Rouhani will be told about them in detail next time he is called for a chat with the chief. And then told again...

One thing, however, we can guess about Ayatollah's own trip, to that graduation ceremony he gave a speech at: something was seriously wrong there:

Wasn't the fish off, General?

And, speaking about speeches and things going wrong: that was a wondrous editorial NYT fired off at Bibi recently, after his speech in UN. One generally expects an editorial, especially from so august a leader of progressive journalism and all that is dear to us, to take a stance and to be firm on it (while, of course, being gentle at the same time, as is fitting the progressive and aug...). Instead, the piece is full of incomprehensible bumbling and mumbling:

• OPENING: During an aggressive speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel used sarcasm and combative words... Bad, bad Bibi.
• BUT: Mr. Netanyahu has legitimate reasons to be wary of any Iranian overtures, as do the United States and... Does he now? Thanks so much.
• ON THE OTHER HAND: But it could be disastrous if Mr. Netanyahu and his supporters in Congress were so blinded by distrust of Iran that they exaggerate the threat... What threat?
• YET: Even so, Iran hid its nuclear program from United Nations inspectors for nearly 20 years, and the country is enriching uranium to a level that would make it possible to produce bomb-grade nuclear material... Oh, that one...
• AND EVEN: These facts make it hard not to view the upcoming American-brokered negotiations skeptically.... are you with me so far? Because I am losing it (the thread, I mean).
• STILL: But Mr. Netanyahu has hinted so often of taking military action to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon that he seems eager for a fight. Oh, so he is a bad Bibi again? Oh is he? Oy vey.

I quit at this point, being unable to cut through this thick and gooey mush that is supposed to be an editorial. What about you?

iPhone or iSwim? iOS7 as an answer to waterproofing your iPhone

I hope you are not one of the unfortunate victims of this brilliant practical joke:

A hoax advert shared on social networking sites has tricked iPhone users into thinking the latest software upgrade had also made their phones waterproof.

The hoax claimed that iOS 7 included a "smart-switch" that automatically protected the iPhone's "delicate circuitry ... it will shut off the phone's power supply and corresponding components to prevent any damage".

Fooled by the fake advert, which included the statement "waterproofing covered by Apple's warranty policy", some users reportedly upgraded their iPhones with iOS 7 and dunked them in water to test the new feature – only to discover they had just destroyed their expensive smartphones.

Because if you are, you might have as well used the appliance pictured above for the first swimming test.

Sorry for being so jubilant on your account, dear iUsers. After all, if you have submerged your iPhone, as prescribed by that hoax, you have only displayed your faith in the high and mighty manufacturer of your phone. And some other qualities I prefer not to dwell upon...

Of course it was a hoax, because iOS is, like, totally unable to do the waterproofing. This is why we, Android users, are waiting for Android 4.5 that really does resolve the issue. You will eat your hearts out!

One other thing: that fairly innocent practical joke seems to have especially incensed the Kiwis. Techday, a New Zealand publication, published an extremely angry report, titled OK whoever said iOS 7 is waterproof GO **** YOURSELF. Apparently percentage of iPhone owners that followed the recommendation of that hoax ad was especially high there. Well, NZ is so far away from everywhere, it takes them some time to get the joke...

P.S. I especially liked the response of one Kiwi to that article:

With iOS7 you don't need to make your device waterproof, because it lets you walk on water - true fact.

Indeed.

The Council Has Spoken!

Council Winners

• *First place with 4 2/3 votes! Joshuapundit –Peace In Our Time
• Second place *t* with 2  votes – The Right Planet -  ANNA — Syria from the Russian Perspective  
• Second place *t* with 2 votes – Liberty’s Spirit – Who Elected these Egomaniacs as Jewish-American “Leaders”?
• Third place  with 1 vote – The Razor – Republican Rebels
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Nice Deb – Why Was An Al Qaeda Commander Photographed Inside a USAID Tent? (Video)
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Simply Jews – Christiane Amanpour and Hassan Rouhani: almost there, only to get a slap on the face  
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room – Envisioning a Cruz Coalition >
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey  – Hey, when will ABC do a hidden camera show on something like this?
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Bookworm Room -  Thoughts on a mouse’s death
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Remapped
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – VA Right! – Government Sends 800,000 Unnecessary (Nonessential) Workers Home. Obama Goes to Maximize Pain
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Political Comentator – Malpractice Analogies: If Barack Obama was a..

Non-Council Winners

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Reid: ‘Why Would We Want To’ Help One Kid With Cancer? And we vote for them...

Watch the clip, read the transcript and weep. These are your (and our) solons. All and one fit to be drowned in a toilet bowl. And this is a totally bipartisan opinion, I declare.

FEMEN response to Sheikh Salah al-Luhaydan's fatwa against women's driving

Remember that highly original medical opinion by the Saudi Sheik:

A sheikh has warned Saudi women - who are currently not allowed to drive in the country - that getting behind the wheel could damage their ovaries and pelvis. Sheik Salah al-Luhaydan also claimed children of women drivers are born with 'disorders of varying degrees'. He told Saudi news website sabq.org: '[Driving] could have a reverse physiological impact. 'Physiological science and functional medicine studied this side [and found] that it automatically affects ovaries and rolls up the pelvis. This is why we find for women who continuously drive cars their children are born with clinical disorders of varying degrees.'

In search of a fitting response I have, of course, gone directly to the FEMEN site, and here it is:

"Dissemination of idiotic theories under the guise of female healthcare increases the risk of male impotence and withering of the right testicle", competently declares the female movement FEMEN in response to the Saudi "cleric" opining that driving is dangerous for female ovaries. Carriers of such cavemen's opinions should be placed in a burrow somewhere in the desert*.

Roads belong to women!

The quoted declaration is illustrated by a series of pictures, highly recommended. Here is a nice one**:

The demo happened near Saudi embassy in Kiev (Ukraine).

(*) I would say that the learned sheik is at least close to such a burrow, but who knows...

(**) In my opinion, but I wouldn't force it on you. So peruse the other pictures for your fave.

Are you feeling seek or just lost in Farsi translation?

If there were an international competition for the title of toughest language to translate, Farsi by now would have won hands down. Only Juan Cole, the renown expert in politically correct translation from Farsi is able to cope with that task. Here is a sample that proves that Iranians themselves are experiencing a considerable difficulty: a snapshot from FARS News on-line page:

Mr Cole, please?

Bob Mugabe, Mossad, Nikuv, Forward and its lame anti-Zionist paskudnyaks

I would start this post with a few disclaimers. First of all, re Mr Mugabe. This bloody dictator gets the same amount of sympathy on this blog as any other of his ilk - or any other of his friends, dead or living. Like Hugo Chaves, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il etc. By and large, any citizen, company or country entering commercial or other deals with the said Bob M., is adding an indelible and smelly stain to his/her/its reputation.

On the other hand, the mere idea of Mugabe as a sympathizer of Israel is so mind-bogglingly stupid that a brief glance at these two articles would reassure even the most bent mind of an average Israel-hater. Yes, dear, Bob M. is with you. Like for ever and ever.

On yet the other hand (three hands already, but that is enough for now), credit where credit is due. The so called Jewish Daily, Forward, doesn't require additional stains on its reputation as a staunch "critic" of the Zionist Entity. Publishing anti-Israeli material is a matter of routine for this media outlet, and not being too choosy in what they publish, the quality of the material is sometimes outstandingly atrocious. As in the story about NIP - Nikuv International Projects Ltd, penned by one Dave Goldiner and titled Robert Mugabe's Made-in-Israel 'Landslide'.

To summarize the article briefly: Bob Mugabe won the elections handily, rigging them from A to Z. Since Zimbabwe's ruling class used Israeli (and "shadowy" - read "Mossad") company to provide various election services - from preparation of voters' rolls to computing the results, and moreover, its CEO and second in command jetted to Zambia for a 90 minute pow-wow with Bob, it means that NIP (aka Mossad) rigged election in favor of Mugabe. Case closed.

I will not bother with both presumption of innocence and total lack of any tangible proof in Dave Goldiner's article. First - because I don't like NIP very much, for reasons specified in the beginning of the article. Second - because for anti-Israeli cohorts, lack of proof has never been a sufficient show-stopper, sorry to say. So I have to choose another angle. Thankfully, my personal experience in development and use of computer software for data processing (I hope 35 or so years will be considered sufficient), does equip me with enough computer savvy to interpret the story.

First of all, some commonplace wisdom. Computerization of a process by itself doesn't change its nature or its inherent faults. "Computerizing a bordello will result in a computerized bordello", as one of my mentors used to say. If you add to that the good old "garbage in - garbage out" saying, which means in short that the results of a computing system process are as good as the data provided, this will be enough computer knowledge for now.

Nikuv** International Projects Ltd, according to its site (linked above), provides the following range of software/hardware services:

• Voter Registration.
• Provinces and Ward demarcation.
• Creation and printing of voters roll by polling stations.
• Generation of supplementary voters roll after update of inspection data.
• Issuance of Voters’ Cards.
• Nominations.
• Election Results.
• Election Central Information Center.

The team in place in Zimbabwe could assure that the tallying of the results was correct and, conceivably, could provide a fake tally, monkeying with the central computer. Which would be a completely stupid and suicidal (for the company) act, since it is the first place where people will look and any attempt to falsify results on that level will be easily detected.

However, no service provider could do anything with intentional tampering of the input: entering fake lists of voters, not entering potential voters of opposition, limiting access to polling stations to some slices of population, destroying (or ignoring) the ballots of opposition and myriad other ways of rigging an election, all of which are without doubt known to Mr Mugabe and his henchmen only too well.

A typical example of "blame the Jews" statement appears in another Forward article on the subject - repeating material from a local newspaper:

The paper said Nikuv was a key player in Mugabe’s successful plan to win reeelection by stuffing ballot boxes, creating thousands of phony voter IDs and even creating polling places known only to supporters of his ZANU-PF party.

Stuffing ballot boxes, creating thousands of phony IDs and creating secret polling places are exactly the kind of actions that no computer project company is able to perform. But people who use and feed the computers by fake information, connect the networks to the equipment provided by such company and monkey with the ballots are perfectly able to.

In short: Nikuv-NIP has been stained enough by being too greedy and ready to serve the dastardly regime. There is no need to invent additional blame and sinister motives. As for NIP getting ahead in this "operation", as the author predicted:

And that’s why Nikuv’s bosses will likely be flying back to Tel Aviv with a lucrative new contract in their pocket — signed, sealed and delivered.

Nice prediction, but no cigar:

An Israeli company accused of helping rig Robert Mugabe’s reelection as Zimbabwe president reportedly hastily shut down its office in the capital of Harare as controversy swirls around its role in the tainted poll.

Another argument I heard about this story is that it appears in many sources, so it must be true. Yes, it appears in many sources: repeated word for word in most cases, all of the accusations as unsupported as in the Forward articles linked at the beginning of this post. Does it strengthen the story? I doubt it, just the opposite: inability of these sources to add anything tangible and endless repeats only harm the "case".

Of course, the well known (in certain circles) Richard Silverstein, aka DoucheBlogger (TM Dave), had some piquant details to add to the same mix of confused non-proofs. Such as, for instance:

...my confidential Israeli source has confirmed that Nikuv is closely tied to Israel’s security interests. Not just that its personnel were former Mossad agents, but that the company continues to pursue the interests of the Mossad in its ventures and consulting work.

One needs to be familiar with the DoucheBlogger's style to know that whenever the "confidential Israeli source" comes up, it means that DoucheBlogger's feet have already left the ground... and what can one say about this pearl:

Nikuv deputy CEO, Amnon Peer’s Israeli passport–cloned or real?

While the picture presents a perfectly regular Israeli passport, one would ask for reasons of alleged cloning (without changing the name on the document)... oh well, there is no accounting for idiots.

And this is the way it rolls...

Afterword: Upon finishing the above, another curious link, about Mossad/Nikuv rigging the 2008 elections, came up. It has a smasher:

Next, opposition suspicions were heightened by the fact that the PDF conversion software also belonged to an Israeli IT company, Cogniview PL. Speaking in Harare on Thursday, Tendai Biti, Movement for Democratic Change’s secretary general, told journalists that Cogniview provided Mugabe with technical support to rig the elections.

Indeed. Convert your PDF to elect Mugabe. Unbelievable, but true...

(*) Paskudnyak. As you can see, it is hard to define, but it's definitely something smallish. Like a roach.
(**) Nikuv, in its first incarnation, started as a humble data entry company, quite active in providing data entry (typists in simple language) services to various private and public organizations during the mass computerization drive in the seventies. Its name - Nikuv (ניקוב) means "perforate", from the original punch cards. The company has gradually branched out into other lines of business, such as accounting and other financial software for businesses, election solutions for various political and governmental projects etc. Nikuv has done a few internal elections of different kinds in Israel. As far as I know, its situation now is not so good. "Shadowy"? Begging your pardon, but spare the violins, please.

Watcher’s Council Nominations – Shut Down Edition

Council Submissions

• Liberty’s Spirit – Who Elected these Egomaniacs as Jewish-American “Leaders”?
• The Noisy Room – Envisioning a Cruz Coalition
• Simply Jews – Christiane Amanpour and Hassan Rouhani: almost there, only to get a slap on the face
• The Political Commentator – Malpractice Analogies: If Barack Obama was a…
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Remapped
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Hey, when will ABC do a hidden camera show on something like this?
• The Razor – Republican Rebels
• Bookworm Room – Thoughts on a mouse’s death
• The Glittering Eye -What’s Wrong With a Shutdown?
• VA Right! - Government Sends 800,000 Unnecessary (Nonessential) Workers Home. Obama Goes to Maximize Pain
• The Right Planet – ANNA — Syria from the Russian Perspective
• Joshuapundit-Peace In Our Time
• Nice Deb – Why Was An Al Qaeda Commander Photographed Inside a USAID Tent? (Video)
• The Mellow Jihadi – Walking Bloody Around the Navy Base
• Rhymes With Right – A Headline That Got My Hopes Up

Honorable Mentions

• Ask Marion – The Battle Between Good and Evil
• Right Reason – Why we should care about CAIR
• Aewl’s Abode – Thoughts On Ted Cruz
• The Pirate’s Cove – NC Gov. McCrory Cites Obama Showing ID To Vote

Non-Council Submissions

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What is common between these two?

First: the distinguished gentleman from Damascus, one Foreign Minister Walid Moallem:

There is no civil war in Syria, but it is a war against terror that recognizes no values, nor justice, nor equality, and disregards any rights or laws.

And second, Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, a professor at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago.

We must learn to recognize when an uptick in violence is really a sign of resurgence and when it is a sign of a rebel group on its heels, fighting for survival. Terrorist attacks by groups like Al-Shabaab that used to control large amounts of territory are an instance of the latter phenomenon.

What, indeed, could be common between a fatso puppet of a Syrian two-bit dictator/mass murderer and a respected professor from Chicago? Choose one or more of the fitting answers:

1. Love of fast cars
2. Passion for violin quartets by Tchaikovsky
3. Spewing bullshit via MSM
4. Mastery of ping pong
5. Appearing on CNN
6. Being smiled upon benevolently by Osama Bin Laden from his place in martyr's paradise

No prizes for winners.

Does your iPhone have a soul?

Apparently yes, but only after you have had it blessed, according to the accepted procedure:

The way it usually works in some places

How to tell that your dog was involved in a sex scandal

Update 1: hey, what do you know, there seems to be another one:

Update 2: nah, it's much more boring.

Another booming day in the news

The approach to this type of posts is not going to change soon, not that there is any need to, seeing as how nothing changes. So here you go: one news source, one day:

Witness to Pakistan blast: 'Women and children were burning'

At least 40 people were killed and about 100 were wounded after a bomb exploded at a bazaar in Peshawar on Sunday, officials at a Pakistani hospital said.

12 car bombs explode across Baghdad during rush hour; 33 killed

A dozen car bombs exploded across Baghdad during rush hour Monday morning, killing 33 people, police in Baghdad said.

Gunmen open fire on sleeping college students in Nigeria

Under the cover of darkness, gunmen approached a college dormitory in a rural Nigerian town and opened fire on students who were sleeping. At least 40 students died, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.

Yes - the guillotines are there! Tomorrow is the day.

This is rather an old post, but since it is going to come true tomorrow, as you should see immediately, a reminder will help you all to prepare. Watch the clip below and then proceed to details. Remember, you have been warned!




The Elders Signals dept. received an important and, frankly, disturbing letter from Pamela Rae Schuffert, a veteran independent journalist, whose desire for Truth and whose diligence have already exposed and (we hope) eliminated several conspiracies targeting the free world in general and American people in particular. Between these conspiracies:

1. NWO (New World Order)
2. American Concentration Camps (and influx of foreign troops to enforce NWO)
3. Underground bases setting up for Martial Law
4. US Military as Citizen's Worst Enemy
5. Space Metals in Our Children's Classroom Tables

Pamela's letter is published below in full, and we think it's vitally important for all to know the Truth (as opposite to the truth as disseminated by lying government SOBs). This post, however, is dedicated to clarification of a few crucial points in Pamela's letter. We, the Elders, have always maintained that when a part of the truth becomes known, it is vital to expose the whole truth to avoid FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, all of which are caused by misunderstanding and partial knowledge. So, we shall start with:

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