First.  A story was printed in the Tehran Times yesterday saying the Assembly of Experts had expressed "strong support" for Khameni's statements the other day.  There are reasons to doubt its veracity, according to some Iranian citizens:

I just wanted to point out that the letter of support written by assembly of experts in support of Khamenei's sermon is only signed by the deputy leader of the assembly, who is a former head of the judiciary and a staunch supporter of ahmadinejad, as well as a rival of Rafsanjani for the assembly's leadership election. He is the only one signing the letter and the government sponsored news media are reporting it as a letter from the full assembly.

Once again thanks for the great job in reporting the events. Just a comment about your 7:33pm item about the Assembly of Experts. The statement is not by the Assembly of Experts, but by Mohammad Yazdi, the head of the "Dabirkhane" of the Assembly of Experts. His statement doesn't carry much weight and definitely not a blow to the freedom movement. After all, there are certainly many Khamene'i loyalists in the Assembly of Experts and such comments could be expected from these cowards.

Iran's Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Ali Larijani suggests that some of the members in the Guardian Council have sided with a certain candidate in the June 12 presidential election.

Speaking live on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) Channel 2 on Saturday, the speaker said that "a majority of people are of the opinion that the actual election results are different than what was officially announced."

"The opinion of this majority should be respected and a line should be drawn between them and rioters and miscreants," he was quoted as saying by Khabaronline -- a website affiliated with him.

Q: What do you think of western civilization? Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

From the Guardian's liveblog:

The man who leaked the real election results from the Interior Ministry - the ones showing Ahmadinejad coming third - was killed in a suspicious car accident, according to unconfirmed reports, writes Saeed Kamali Dehghan in Tehran.

Mohammad Asgari, who was responsible for the security of the IT network in Iran's interior ministry, was killed yesterday in Tehran.

Asgari had reportedly leaked results that showed the elections were rigged by government use of new software to alter the votes from the provinces.

Asgari was said to have leaked information that showed Mousavi had won almost 19 million votes, and should therefore be president.

We will try to get more details later.

Q: What do you think of western civilization? Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

Can anyone sensibly doubt that, but for Barack Obama's outreach to Muslim countries in general and to Iran in particular, events we have been watching in Iran would not have happened at all? If Bush or some Bush-clone like McCain had been president, making threatening noises about attacking Iran or letting Israel attack Iran, would Iranian nationalists have risked defying their government (by voting for opposition candidates or taking to Teheran's streets when their candidate didn't win), potentially exposing their country to foreign military intervention? If George W. Bush had been president while street scenes like ones we have been watching on television were taking place, can there be any doubt he would be beating his chest, congratulating himself and his hard-line policies for destabilising one of America's most prominent enemies?

Yet not only can Republicans not bring themselves to stand behind Obama even when his policies have unquestionably borne fruit, first in Lebanon and then Iran, they have become incapable of non-partisan response. They scream that Obama has been "weak". They wail about Obama's "apology" tours and his Cairo speech. They "blame" him for something they wish they could have achieved but couldn't. They demand that Obama act like Bush would have acted, threatening another war in another distant country with even more people than Iraq or Afghanistan, even though most experts think all such statements would have accomplished would have been to unite Iranians against Western nations. They beat their chests demanding stronger reaction by Obama even though in their hearts many of them know full well that any appearance of American interference might potentially weaken protesters' position.

Right-wing haters should be ashamed of themselves. They demonise someone who has done everything right even as they barked their insistence that he was selling America out. Obama has run American foreign policy with such finesse that, mere months into his presidency, Pakistan now plans to invade South Waziristan with its own troops after seven years of effectively protecting Taliban insurgents. Iranians now call their own hated clerics "Taliban" as if that very term has degenerated into cursing. American victory against religious nuts in Afghanistan/Pakistan has become thinkable, Iraqis have been declaring victory against their own nut-job insurgents. Al-Qaida operatives have been reduced to making futile calls for Muslims to ignore Obama's extended hand of friendship. Some sell-out. Some "weakness". Yet they cheered until they were hoarse at Bush policies that consistently failed for seven years, and none dare call it ignorance.

Whereas the protestors were merely defying Ahmadinnerjacket and his hired thugs, now they're facing off against the guys with the real juice in Iran.  The real question is, will this revolution succeed a la the Boris Yeltsin-led smackdown of the commies trying to hang onto their Soviet Union once the people's army refused to back the commies.  Or will it go the way of the Tienamen Square uprising with the government busting up all opposition and imposing its political iron fist even as it allowed nascent capitalists to blossom like a thousand flowers.

If the ayatollahs want to kick out all the jams, they might want to hire this Chinese hostage negotiationer to deal with the rabble.

Tending to final details.

A couple good ones from the Huffington Post liveblog I added:

3:20PM EST: Just got home...haven't read you're blog yet but if there's a lot of stories about violence I'm sure they're all true. I don't know where to start, I'd taken my camera but had the sence to take out the memory card this came in hany as I was serched twice (by Basij) before getting stuck in the middle of hell. If I'd been caught with pictures it would mean jail time and a possible a charge of spying (as I'm a Canadian citizen). Eventually I dropped of the camera at the house of a friend without being able to take any pictures as it would make me a definate target...The chants of death to Khamenei are true...I witnessed peoples fear of the Basij dissapear, an 80 year old chadori woman with rocks in her hands calling for the exacution of khamenei and all Basij...A group of Basij were surrounded and forced in to a building, the front was blocked with garbage and set on fire, They (basij) opened fire on the crowd with what I assume were blanks, the crowed disspersed for a moment the came back with a fury...thats when the molotov cocktails came out. When I moved on the building was on fire...an hour later when I passed by again there wasn't much of a building left. There was full blown war...there was a young man who had taken all of a basij's things including their teargas rifle. We were finnaly able to get out on the back of motorcycle...the ride home took 25 minutes,for 15 minutes of it we were passing intermitently though Basij and protesters fires placed to displace the teargas... might I add the 3 hours that we walked through fire we didn't see one shop or car that had been damaged by protesters...however I just recieved word for the one who was kind enough to keep my camera and other belongings that the Basij had gone into her street and destoryed cars...thats all I can get out for now hope some of it may be useful...I'm pissed I was unable to get pictures.

I could not get through. the guards were hitting people really hard to block their way. I got hit a few times, fortunately a few bruises but nothing major. they were hitting the women as hard if it didn't seem harder. they smashed all mobiles and then smack the mobile owners with batons. they also blocked all above ground routes out. the only way out was via the metro

Q: What do you think of western civilization? Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

The Iranian police commander, in green uniform, walked up Komak Hospital Alley with arms raised and his small unit at his side. "I swear to God," he shouted at the protesters facing him, "I have children, I have a wife, I don't want to beat people. Please go home."

A man at my side threw a rock at him. The commander, unflinching, continued to plead. There were chants of "Join us! Join us!" The unit retreated toward Revolution Street, where vast crowds eddied back and forth confronted by baton-wielding Basij militia and black-clad riot police officers on motorbikes.

Q: What do you think of western civilization? Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

Ayatollah Khamenei's speech condemning foreign interference in Iran's election focused on Britain rather than America. Has BBC's Farsi service really been that effective or has Khamenei been trying to avoid slamming any doors on negotiations with Obama?

For Westerners who think Ahmadinejad actually won, this Iranian student has some news for you.

Some of Iran's chief clerics, including Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ayatollah Mohammad Mousavi Khoiniha, Grand Ayatollah Abdolkarim Mousavi Ardabili, and Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri dispute Iran's election results and may be working quietly to overturn those results and/or encourage public demonstrations.

Current body count in the riots -- ten killed and five members of an opposition politician's family detained by police.  Only it wasn't that opposition politician; it was the daughter and a few assorted relatives of former Iranian president Rasfanjani.  I guess they'll wait to put the cuffs on Mousavi because if they put the arm on him now the current street riots would look like recess at daycare.

Tending to final details.

I am amazed to discover that the people of Iran care this much about democracy.  I had thought that they were perfectly happy to give up all their civil rights to a totalitarian theocracy.  Anyway, I can only wish the protesters success.  Perhaps a new day will dawn.

I have a big ol' clump of scar tissue where my heart should be.  That said, the video of that young woman dying made me sadder than I've been in a long time.

Minty fresh