Harry's Place

If you want to get an idea of how the Iranian regime is trying to win the battle of public opinion against the pro-democracy protestors, watch these clips of detainees being “interviewed” by state media.

Note how– by extraordinary coincidence– the woman and one man each claim they were inspired to demonstrate by both the BBC [...]

Nine local employees of the British embassy in Tehran were arrested in the turmoil after the Iranian election.
This can and probably should be read as a rude reminder of 1979, just one step short of the diplomatic worst.

Seven of the employees have now been released and apparently another will be soon, but there has been [...]

The great graphic novelist and filmmaker Marjane (“Persepolis”) Satrapi, who has lived outside Iran for more than 10 years, writes in The New York Times about how the events of the past several weeks have given her hope that not only will she someday die in her homeland, but live there too.
Death, torture and prison [...]

Bernie Ecclestone is in the news today:
Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One chief, said yesterday that he preferred totalitarian regimes to democracies and praised Adolf Hitler for his ability to “get things done”.
In an outspoken interview with The Times, the 78-year-old billionaire chastised contemporary politicians for their weakness and extolled the virtues of strong leadership.
Mr Ecclestone [...]

This is a guest post from Marko of Greater Surbiton. It also appears on his blog.

I recently criticised Harry’s Place over its comments moderation policy. The occasion was a post by David T of Harry’s Place, defending the latter from an attack on it by Lindsey German of ‘Stop the War Coalition’. German described Harry’s Place as [...]

The FT reports:
Police are investigating a global arms ring supplying white supremacist groups who are becoming a serious terrorist threat to Britain, a senior officer revealed on Thursday.
“There is a growing right-wing threat, not just Al-Qaeda,” Sir Norman Bettison, chief constable of West Yorkshire police, told a security conference in London, stressing that Islamist terror [...]