Another Iranian Nuclear Scientist Blown Up Before He Can Blow Up The World

HT Marathon Pundit, who shares this news from Yid The Lid. (Now that's a blogger-name, ya'll...)

Earlier today, two guys on a motorcycle attached magnetic bombs on the car of an Iranian scientist who just so happened to be the deputy director at Natanz enrichment facility killing him and wounding two others, the Fars news agency reported.

The magnetic bomb which was planted by an unknown motorcyclist under the car of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan Behdast, a professor at Tehran's technical university, also wounded two other Iranian nationals in Seyed Khandan neighborhood in Northern Tehran.

Ahmadi Roshan, 32, was a graduate of oil industry university and a deputy director of Natanz uranium enrichment facility for commercial affairs.

 Coincidentally the killing of Roshan was similar to previous assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists (amazing how that happens), and it happened almost two years to the day after a another Iranian nuclear scientist participated in an explosive finale. 

On January 12, 2010, nuclear scientist Masoud Ali Mohammadi, a senior physics professor. He was killed when a bomb-rigged motorcycle exploded near his car as he was about to leave for work. In November 2010 it was two for one day in Iran,  a pair of back-to-back bomb attacks killed one nuclear scientist and wounded another. Both scientists were involved in Iran's "peaceful" nuclear program.

An just six months ago, a motorcycle-riding gunmen killed Darioush Rezaeinejad, a scientist involved in developing high-voltage switches, a key component in setting off the explosions needed to trigger a nuclear warhead.

Vice-Chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Mohammad Kosari blamed the usual suspects the US and Israel, saying said, "In this case the footprints of the Zionists and the world arrogance are seen too."

The Chair of Vice Mr. Kosari is being a bit too rash. Since the Iranian government claims to be developing their nuclear technology for peaceful use, the CIA and Mossad agents should be very aware of their intentions and would never assassinate a scientist who is developing a way to generate clean energy.

No, this must all be a horrible coincidence....hey accidents do happen and the Iranian scientists should be more careful.

Personally, OS concludes that Iranian physicists must have some sort of innate allergy to motorcycles.


Either that, or we can attribute the phenomenon to Global Warming.

Or blame it on those Tea Party fanatics.

Or George Bush.


Given the horrific evil that is a daily phenomenon of life in Iran, and the refusal of the Obama (Could we please have our drone back?) Administration to back the efforts of the Iranian street protesters and dissidents, we should rest easy knowing the US had no role in this removal of intellectual assets from a regime who vows to develop nukes and use them on us.

If You Run Unopposed, And Still Only Get 82% Of The Votes...You Might Be Up To Yer Hips In Trouble

Really, ya'll.

Amid the hoopla of Mr. Romney's monumental 39% of the New Hampshire GOP primary, it is quietly noted that TheWinnerOfTheNobelPeacePrize, TheOne, Himself, the Duffer-in-Chief managed to draw his own crowd to the Democrat primary, 18% of whom trudged to the polls to vote against the incumbent.

It would be interesting, would it not, for the traditional Democrat voters of South Carolina, Florida, and the Super Tuesday states (and there are a lot of those voters out there) to register their disaffection with TheBelovedLeader in their primaries by writing in a candidate of their choice from their party.

Yesterday's event will be dismissed by TheGreatAndGood, attributed to New Hampshire cussedness. But what if 20% or more of the Dems in each state going forward decided to make a statement in their primaries?

Just sayin...it could make life interesting...

The SEC Attempts To Paper Over Its 'Rakoff Problem': Rolling Out The Big Guns--Press Releases!!

OS spent Saturday late morning doing the weekly grocery-pharmacy-dry cleaner-liquor store shopping run with the sainted Mrs. OS. Jet lag began to catch up to him, rather delayed after attendance at a fabulous Westminster Choir College concert last night. More about that another time, if the spirit moves. However, if any of OS's readership are in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, eastern Tennessee, or West Virginia these next few days, it's worth the drive to hear these young people--a completely inspirational evening of music.

In the parking lot, the humorous moment of the morning: A car, owned by a Tea Party member, with the window display announcing 'You can't cure stupid, but you can vote it out of office.'

It did provide a grin, and food for thought as OS shopped for groceries.

At the next election, this country desperately needs to elect grown-ups, people who will demand (and make happen) certain basic truths take hold, such as Judge Rakoff is insisting upon: Banks who defraud investors, customers and the country at large, walking away with $700 million, cannot be asked to settle for pennies on the dollar with no admission of wrongdoing. The defrauded never are compensated, and the truth is never known. The government becomes complicit with the criminals, and essentially charges 'protection tax' to keep the whole corrupt game in play. It's a recipe for tragedy, sooner or later.


Mish, Heaven bless 'im, continues to track the Rakoff v. Citigroup and it ally, the SEC, who has decided to issue press releases to douse the fires of public disdain.

He points out that the last person prosecuted and jailed for securities fraud by the SEC was (drumroll please...) Martha Stewart.

Really.

While essentially ignoring billions of dollars in repeated fraud allegations against Citigroup, the SEC brought full weight down on Martha Stewart over (drum roll please) ... $45,673.

Martha Stewart went to prison and was fined $30,000. Since then, no one has gone to prison or even been criminally indicted in $trillions of dollars of fraud in the global financial crisis. And unless someone does admit criminal action, the SEC reserves the right to do more whitewashing without seeking admission of guilt.

OS continues to follow and harp on this and the MF Global scandal, because they strike at the heart of this country's ability to function. If the Martha Stewarts and those more humble go to jail, and firms like Citigroup and individuals like Corzine go free after surrendering their pocket change, we will one day reach a tipping point, where the citizenry decides to either simply sit on its hands and refuse to participate in a fixed game--which may already be occurring--or it (more ominously) blows up, or some combination of the two in sequence.

Neither option is desirable, each leads to poverty, despair, decline. It is not the kind of world we wish for our children and theirs. Unlike some more nihilistic souls, OS spends his energies begging that these things not happen.

One thing that struck OS on his vacation in England was that much of the peaceful and prosperous way of life he witnessed there, and enjoys here, is due to a robust system of banking. Currency gets exchanged, card transactions complete within seconds, goods get imported and exported and onto the shelves while fresh, and at reasonable cost. Cash and credit, borrowed and paid back, lubricates the intricate machine. If the banking system is crippled, everyone loses, the farmer, the merchant, the employer, the employee, the school, the church, the charity, on it goes. It's happening already, in ways great and small.

The Citigroups and the Corzines, the SEC, the Fed, and all the lawyers and politicians will end up blowing the system to bits. It will never operate perfectly, but it doesn't need to in order to work wonderfully well. It needs to operate in a culture that assumes honest dealing underpins the system.

You can't cure stupid, and you can't rid the world of all the Corzines--but you can vote for grown-ups, and insist they insist on governance where virtue is rewarded and crime punished. 

It's not that much to ask of them. If they do that one thing, a lot of the other problems will sort themselves.