There were no elections in Iran last Friday (3/14), whatever you may have heard. The "turnout" was shockingly low, even by past standards, as is demonstrated by the obvious panic in Tehran, where the mullahs kept the polls open an extra five hours. This was not, as they said, to make sure the patriotic citizens of the capital could drop their ballots in the box, but because they had to bus the reluctant faithful and the subservient government employees to the election offices, so as to be able to claim a large, voluntary participation. Even so, the official figure of 60 percent has no relationship to the actual event, in which perhaps 10 or 15 percent actually "voted." The fraud was so obvious that even the European Union denounced the "elections" as neither free nor fair, despite their wish to pass off the Islamic Republic (as former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and current McCain-campaign advisor once famously put it) as "a democracy."

Nearly 4,000 American service members and about 100,000 Iraqis (most of them in the suicide bombings for which al Qaeda has become infamous) have been killed since March 19, 2003.  Has it been worth it? Iraqis apparently think so.  Last week ABC and the BBC released results of a poll conducted in Iraq last month.  In it 55 percent of Iraqis said their lives were going well, up from 39 percent last August.  Forty nine percent of Iraqis think the U.S. invasion was justified, up from 37 percent in August.  The Iraqis have been freed from an oppressive tyrant, and are the recipients of billions of dollars of economic aid.  But has it been worth it for us? The Bush administration had both short and long term strategic goals for invading Iraq; some publicly stated, some not.  All are on the verge of being met.

This week's HFR is way, way more than half-full - it's overflowing.  The delicious destruction of a Democrat fascist is so orgasmic it can't be confined to an HFR blurb, but deserved its own article:  The Real Spitzer Scandal. The Hillary-Obambi Destruction Derby keeps getting better.  But as we enjoy Obambi having to fire his Israel-hating/Palestinian terrorist-loving advisor Samantha Power for calling Hillary a "monster" (you mean she isn't?  who knew?), and the PIAPS having to fire her advisor Geraldine Ferraro for pointing out that people pay attention to Obambi only because he's black (when everyone knows he's only half-black) - let's focus on the real cause of the mud fight: There's no substantive difference between these two moonbats in terms of political principles or ideology or Big Brother/Big Government programs they both advocate.  Thus the only way to create a difference between them is through personal invective, attack, insult, and smear. So far, even though Her Thighness had to grovel yesterday (3/13) to blacks in apology for Ms. Ferraro's telling the truth, Obambi has definitely been more damaged in the fight so far than she.

The Not Ready for Prime Time Players are hilarious on Saturday Night Live, but not so funny in a presidential campaign, as Sen. Barack Obama has learned to his sorrow. Sen. Obama has the thinnest resume of any major presidential candidate in modern times.  He has not bolstered it with his selection of key advisors, most of whom share his inexperience on the national scene. That inexperience has bitten the Obama campaign hard recently.  The gaffes and exposures of four of his main advisors in just the last few days have people asking: How can the freshman Illinois senator be any more ready for prime time than his clearly not-ready advisors?

There is still time to avoid a recession - a recession being technically defined as two quarters of negative economic growth.   What needs to be done, and can be done in the next 60 days, follows. First, it is important to realize the present economic slowdown was caused by a series of mistakes by the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the administration, and Congress. Many of our government policymakers and politicians still insist it was the other guy's fault and pretend that taking money from one group of taxpayers and giving it to another (a k a, a "stimulus package") will somehow miraculously revive the economy. The administration is guilty of having both proposed and acquiesced to spending that resulted in more costs than benefits to the economy, which has slowed growth. Even though those in the administration cannot suddenly reverse much of the wasteful spending on their own, they can do several things by presidential directive - Executive Orders issued by President Bush -- to make things better immediately.