Nate Silver chimes in on the Iranian elections, sort of.

[homasse]

Statistical Report Purporting to Show Rigged Iranian Election Is FlawedLike most Americans, there are few things I would like to see more than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's hateful President, to be voted out of office. Elections in thuggish, authoritarian states like Iran need be treated with the utmost skepticism and scrutiny. I can't say I have any

Comments

Ha.

[screamingintune]

Dear CNN, Please check Twitter for news about Iran.

CNN anchor and mega-Tweeter Rick Sanchez defensively Tweeted hours ago that he covered Iran throughout the afternoon on TV, so perhaps it's just the CNN.com web team that's incurring the wrath of news consumers.

Rick Sanchez will not let his honor as the CNN Twitter king be defiled! -_-

Barack Obama has a good excuse for not engaging substantially with the protests in the streets - if he condemns the incumbent's claim of victory then negotiations around nuclear weapons will be much more difficult. What's CNN's excuse?

Good question. Though it seems they're giving it more coverage this morning, they're hardly treating it like the massive news story it is. I mean, as much as I love to hear Kathleen Sebelius talk sexy health care reform to me, pretty much all of the substantial news from Iran this last couple of days has come off the internet.

And traditional journalists hem and haw that the internet is stealing their business. How about earning your business, eh?

Re: Ha.

[cindel]

LOL! They're talking about the media coverage now and mentioned Rick Sanchez...

Re: Ha.

[screamingintune]

Rick Sanchez is such a cheesy douche. -_- He has his moments, but mostly I just want to scream, STOP IT WITH THE CHEESY ANCHOR VOICE WE ALL KNOW THAT NO ONE TALKS LIKE THAT AND ENOUGH WITH THE TWITTER ALREADY

Re: Ha.

[leprofessional]

Again, this may be on the verge of conspiracy theories-- but they are realllllyyyyy holding back in the US... they could've hyped this up and made good money off it (come on its Iran... so much fear-mongering potential). But they're not doing any of that holographic shit, which reaaaaallly makes me think there is some serious government <-> media interaction going on here.

wut the fucking fuck?

[poetic_daze]

crazy math is crazy... o_O

Re: wut the fucking fuck?

[poetic_daze]

text says
total votes: 30 506 422
TEHRAN 09:47

[photo of Ahmadinejad] 64.78%
19761433

[photo of Mousavi] 33.26%
9841056

[photo of Rezai] 2.08%
633048

[photo of Karoubi] 0.89%
270885

bottom screenshot:

total votes 34377493
TEHRAN 13:53

[photo of Ahmadinejad] 63.36%
21781391

[photo of Mousavi] 34.06%
11709391

[photo of Rezai] 1.71%
587913

[photo of karoubi] 0.87%
298798

Yeah your % of the vote can go down... but how do you lose actual VOTES??

Re: wut the fucking fuck?

[leprofessional]

bb, speaking of disappearing votes, Reza'i got like 3 something percent of the vote...

in his own TOWN.

Biggest lulz in fraud history. These people may be cunning but they are really really stupid. Which is scary, because stupid people do stupid and potentially very damaging things.

[mercaque]

HuffPo's liveblog has received a report that:

9:42 AM ET -- More elite opposition to election results? An emailer, Laleh, writes in with some information from a friend in Tehran. We don't have confirmation on either of these points, but have heard them several times now, so am forwarding on.

1) Grand Ayatollah Yousof Sanei, a major Iran scholar, has apparently declared the elections "haram" -- unlawful.

2) The restrictions on foreign reporters are growing more strict. Laleh relays this from his friend: "The foreign reporters, who most of them are staying at the Esteghlal Hotel, have been forbidden to leave the hotel. A contact who was at the hotel last night witnessed security forces keeping reporters from leaving the hotel and witnessing scenes of unrest nearby on Vali-Asr avenue."