This is a great find! And it really makes sense, especially since the political leadership in Iran is currently fractured. There's a huge power struggle between Ahmadinejad and Khameni, and in one of the Persian language newspapers that I was reading the other day, it said that they were even arguing over things such as women covering their hair. Ahmadinejad wants to relax the laws to allow women to show more hair, and Khameni and his backers wanted punishment for women who showed more hair.

Anyway, my story was a bit off-topic, but I think you bring up a great point that there hasn't been an "okay guys, we're going for the bomb" type decision because of the leaders butting heads.

There was a pretty good op-ed yesterday in the Washington Post that talked about this. Shortly after the revolution, most of the scientific institutions in Iran were either shut down or held back during the 1980s, but then started to make a resurgence in the 1990s, which is why it is taking so long for Iran to get anywhere.

Anyway, the whole op-ed focuses on Iran being one of the few countries to not have much external help in their nuclear program. Now, this is just an opinion piece, so I'm not claiming it as being a source of ultimate truth, but I felt the author raised some interesting points.

That does not invalidate your point, however, and you are right, it's still taking Iran decades, and every year we hear that they are "2-3 years" away from the bomb without seeing much success. I personally don't believe that Iran would be crazy enough to use a nuclear bomb, and think that they want to join in on the nuclear club as protection. The current Iranian leadership is power-hungry and greedy, and will do anything to stay in power. That doesn't mean that I would be thrilled that they would have it, since it'll do nothing but create more turmoil in that region.

Well said! And if those are truly the two only possible outcomes, I hope for the former. At least then, the young people of Iran can take control of their own destiny after having learned the harsh lessons of living under both a monarchy and then a theocracy.

The tradeoff was that Iran learned very quickly how to recover from such a set-back, was able to become operational and self-sufficient very quickly, and has now implemented additional security mechanisms in their operations to try to avoid something like this in the future. This only made them stronger and more self-reliant. Whoops.

Having said that, I still despise the Iranian leadership.

Imagine the chaos with a spork.

Either that or the front page of the Time Cube site.

Can I live in this black & white world that you live in, where every person beaten, tasered, or shot is a hardcore criminal that deserved it? I understand that you're biased, as your daughter and son-in-law are both police officers, but there are many documented cases out there of police using tasers against people when it is absolutely unnecessary and even more dangerous.

The problem is that police officers are now using tasers beyond situations when their lives are in danger. They are using it to shock people into compliance for not following verbal orders. They're using it in cases when they would never even think about using their gun. If your daughter and her husband are two of the few police officers using tasers ONLY when the situation calls for it, then I am happy that they volunteered to be police officers. The force needs more people like them.

But there is a reason why the Federal Court in California limits police use of Tasers.

I wonder if quantum entanglement could allow for information to be exchanged between branches. Or is that like setting a local variable in one block, and trying to reference it when it's out of scope? Interesting to think about. I would think that the possibility existing of pasts being altered means that it has already happened. How strange would that be, if our direct memories are continuously being altered.

Well put.

I'd like to also point out that even if there was such a thing as karma applying to your next life, what good would it do? If you have no idea why you're being punished, it doesn't actually make things just or right. In fact, the person with the bad luck would gain sympathy as other observers would see that they're having a lot of bad things happen to them for what appears to be no reason.

It's true! Wedding photo attached. :-)