I watched the whole thing – he makes a good presentation.

I was young when the ayatollahs took Iran from the Shah. He was a sick man, and he ruled through the secret police – Savak, I think they were called, though I don’t recall what the word meant or the letters stood for. I’ve been surprised that his son, Reza Pahlavi (the second, or junior, or whatever way they have of telling father from son when they share the same name in Iran) has managed to become a contender for the throne. The Savak dudes were pretty rough, and there’s a long association between the Savak and the Pahlavi family. The other contender is Maryam Rajavi and the People’s Mujahedin. Since neither Reza nor Maryam is an ayatollah or a mullah, I figure that so long as the Islamic Republic fails, the successor should be an improvement. Rajavi’s past 70, and was one of the student leaders who worked to remove the shah.

I’m thinking that Pahlavi might be the better of the two – but either way, we would be looking at an Iran that would probably step out of being the world’s largest financier of terror operations. Definitely a chance for a better world.

It’s interesting to note that two-thirds of Iran’s mosques are empty after 47 years as an Islamic Republic, and how many have been torched in the past month or so. It looks to me as if an educated population becomes more secular after they have lived under a theocracy.

So hopefully the mullahs will go down, and some more moderate muslim rulers will step on stage. The mullahs have pretty well bankrupt and dewatered the country, so whoever takes over is going to have his or her hands full fixing the country.

And, from Hey Jackass – Chicago Killings

Water reaches its maximum density at 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Then it sinks, displacing less dense water that then moves to the surface. Out in the middle, Dickey Lake is about 70 feet deep (74′ at the deepest point). My shallow pond quickly cools to 39.2 degrees F throughout, then further cooling at the surface makes the water less dense, so the surface water stays in place and ice forms quickly across the pond.

The same process exists in Dickey Lake – but the greater depth and volume of water challenges a warm winter to chill the entire lake to 39.2F. The water escalator continues to move the dense water toward the bottom, releasing warmer water for the surface – while ground temperature doesn’t warm the water significantly in the summer, it does provide a small amount of warming in the winter, but not important.

The ice across Dickey Lake, and which day the lake freezes is basically controlled by the simple fact that water reaches its maximum density at 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit. As the ice melts in the spring, that heavier, warmer water sinks away from it.

I’ve watched Iran since I first read the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam – though Omar’s lines stressed Nishapur and not Tehran. I watched those 444 days of the embassy takeover – an event that left Jimmy Carter tarnished and ended with Reagan’s inauguration. I listened to people who explained the long shot nature of sending Navy helicopters across the desert for a hostage rescue.

I’ve dealt with a few radical Islamists disrupting classes – and many more decent Muslims. Because of the balance of people, I’m hoping that the ordinary Iranian in the street somehow overcomes the ayatollahs. Yet bare hands against machineguns seems like trying to overwhelm radical Islam with bodies – and it reads like they may do it.

Airpower and cruise missiles seem like a poor choice of weaponry to support street demonstrations – asking Donald Trump for help is good, but he doesn’t have the tools where they are needed.

Yet I remember reading of Terence MacSwiney – Lord Mayor of Cork, arrested for sedition in 1920. Sinn Fein all the way.

My hope is that he is still correct.

You probably don’t recall Robert Treat Payne, but most of us have seen his name, high among the signatures on the Declaration of Independence. So far as I can find out, he was the only man who signed the Declaration who had been to Greenland. I suspect that one out of fifty-six stood as the highest proportion of American legislators who had been to Greenland for some time.

Robert Treat Payne – entered Harvard at age 14, graduated in 1749, just as his father went broke. He spent a year working as a teacher, and by 1750 went to sea – where he reached Greenland, Europe and the southern colonies. He decided a sailor’s life was not for him, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1757. I cannot connect Payne with any efforts to bring Greenland into the United States – though I can show a convoluted connection with an attempt to claim Tasmania for France. (The connection is there, but no argument that convinces me Payne was involved in the untimely attempt) In 1770, he was one of the prosecutors in the Boston Massacre case.

If you look at Paine’s biography, it seems obvious that he favored independence for the United States . . . and equally obvious that he didn’t want to return to the sea or to Greenland.