Hot Air

 

We are all well aware of the fact that using wrong data would lead us to wrong conclusions.  Yet we still expect a RIGHT ending by bombarding each other with hot air.  I am particularly disappointed with respected educated people who have lost their sense of reality only to make a point on nonsense. 

 

A good friend of mine first claimed there was widespread fraud in recent presidential election in Iran.  He stated there were 4,700 precincts in Iran with a total of 47 million eligible voters.  He then reasoned it was impossible to take 100 thousand votes in every precinct!  Well, he was wrong on all fronts:

 

1.       The official figure for the number of precincts is 40,979 not 4700.  See the link below.

2.       Using his figures, to have 100,000 votes per precinct, you must have 470 million (4,700 X 100,000) eligible voters out of a total population of 70 million!!!

3.       The official figure for the actual number of votes is 27,883,008.  It gives you an average of only 680 votes per precinct (27,883,008 / 40,979).

4.       Obviously there is a huge gap between 680 and 100,000, but somehow he expected me to believe him against the very reasonable official figures!!!

 

I thought it was simply hot air on his part, but I was wrong too!  I heard it over and over from so many other people.  You guessed it right.  The vicious cycle started by one of the infamous media who claim to fight for a democratic government in Iran!  That is still ok only if there were a correction made on the same talk show and/or a great majority of the audience expressed their outrage one way or the other.  I am aware of none. 

 

That is indeed disappointing because intelligent criticism is lost, or obfuscated at best.  In such an environment, there is little room left to criticize unelected officials for having the final words on the eligibility of candidates or to debate the issue of age for eligibility to vote.  The question is rather a simple one.  Is the media to search for accurate data to help you make informed decision or it is to invent data for fooling you?  I am afraid we are leaning on the latter at an alarming rate.

 

Here is the link to the official data source: http://www.moi.ir/ghavanin/branch.htm, but you are not supposed to rely on the work of thousands of civil service workers, who happen to be your fellow citizens, because they work for the Islamic Republic of Iran!  Instead take the word of some idiots who don’t even do a simple math to make their data look believable! 

 

Maybe it is irrelevant after all.  They keep telling us to replace this government with a so called democratic one.  Exactly like what they did a quarter of a century ago.  What follows, as it was in 1979, is a massive purge in civil service of anyone who has worked for the old regime just for the sake of being exclusive!!!  A new “Pak-sazi” is in order.  Not for the people, but rather for a new breed of power hungers, to say the least.

                                                                   

Peace

Mohamad Purqurian

July 4, 2005