Supporters had been due to turn out en masse in Tehran on Monday afternoon, despite government warnings to stay off the streets. But this morning, a statement on Mr Mousavi's campaign website announced that the demonstration had been postponed - although it said Mr Mousavi would go to the site to ensure any supporters who showed up remained calm. Mr Mousavi's wife and co-campaigner, Zahra Ranavard, was reported as warning that riot squads would be equipped with live ammunition, raising the prospect of serious bloodshed. Iran's Interior Ministry said Mr Mousavi would be responsible for any consequences if he went ahead with the protest. Mr Mousavi's cancellation of the protest came as sporadic disturbances continued around the Iranian capital, and reports circulated of leaked interior ministry statistics showing him as the clear victor in last Friday's polls. The statistics, circulated on Iranian blogs and websites, claimed Mr Mousavi had won 19.1 million votes while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won only 5.7 million. The two other candidates, reformist Mehdi Karoubi and hardliner Mohsen Rezai, won 13.4 million and 3.7 million respectively. The authenticity of the leaked figures could not be confirmed.

The Obama Administration's economic house of cards is trembling and on the verge of collapse. This is not a surprise to those who paid attention to the sloppy workmanship that went into it. Nonetheless, the American people fell in love and bought the house sight unseen. Now, however, it has become apparent that it is a disappointment. Rather than purchasing a structure based upon sound design and construction, Americans got one that was thrown together without any regard to safety, detail, or craftsmanship. In spite of all this, President Obama told us we needed the house immediately and that there was no time to inspect its construction or verify that the foundation was sound or that its electrical and plumbing systems were in good working order. Instead, he insisted we had to move in immediately or dire consequences would follow. Five months later, it is clear that our house is falling apart. Obama and his administration, however, are going to great lengths to convince the American people that the problems with his economic house of cards are just cosmetic and easily remedied with a new coat of paint and a few extra nails. But the shoddy construction and design flaws have become obvious to everyone who is paying attention. Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan is failing. The bill the president said would stimulate economic growth is actually decelerating the economy because there very little stimulus in the stimulus bill. Instead, the majority of the spending in the bill is directed toward accountability, education, aid to state and local governments, health care, energy programs, and food banks and other community organizations. As a result, 1.6 million jobs have been lost since president Obama's stimulus bill passed. Oddly, though, he keeps repeating the claim that he "saved or created" 150,000 jobs, a number that is unconfirmed and unconfirmable because the US Department of Labor does not keep records of "saved" jobs. So where is Obama getting this number? Jared Bernstein, economic advisor to Vice President Biden, said he the figure was an estimate based upon what jobs would have been lost if the bill was not passed. In other words, the number was made up out of whole cloth. The lack of factual support, however, does not stop the president from continuing to repeat his claim. In fact, he is doubling down and saying he will "ramp up" the stimulus so as to save another 600,000 jobs this summer. Again, these numbers will be impossible to confirm. The president told the American people that his stimulus bill would hold the unemployment rate at 8 percent. Without the bill, he said the unemployment rate would top out at 9 percent. Today our unemployment rate is at 9.4 percent, which is a significantly steeper rate than originally projected. Many economists and analysts are now predicting it will hit double digits by the end of the year. Mr. Bernstein is trying to shift the blame for the 9.4 percent unemployment rate on former president Bush, saying the unexpectedly high rate is due to the economic figures from last year's 4th quarter. As the saying goes, only a poor carpenter blames his tools.

Andrew Sullivan writes: "The last time a news event gave me chills like this was the Soviet coup. It ended the regime." Yes, it did. You know what this reminds me (Totten) of? The convulsion that shook Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, Iraq.

The notion of an "Obama effect" sweeping the Middle East appeared to collide with the realities of the Islamic Republic of Iran Saturday, as the country's confrontational, anti-American president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, celebrated a landslide victory in Friday's election amid wide doubts about the honesty of the official vote count

The problem with claiming credit for events in other countries is that when things go poorly people will interpret it as a personal rebuke. You can't have it both ways. And the problem with pretending that theocratic thugs are conducting a "real" elections is that when they prove to be not so "real" you look foolish for having cheered from the sidelines. Perhaps a less egocentric foreign policy is in order.

If this is Tiananmen II, and the regime crushes it, there will be no easy approach to regime change. And there will be no pretending any longer that Iran's regime isn't a unified, hardline, irridentist, and enormously dangerous one.

Now a senior US official has told the BBC it was a deliberate decision not to consult London on the resettlement, after other countries came under pressure from China not to accept the Uighurs. In a highly unusual move, a senior US official said Washington opted to keep details of the deal from London until the last minute to enable Britain to deny all knowledge of the deal and thus avoid China's anger, says the BBC's Washington correspondent Kim Ghattas.

Currently the United States leads the world in treating breast cancer. Women with breast cancer have a 14 percent higher survival rate in the United States than in Europe. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Breast cancer mortality is also 9 percent higher in Canada than in the US. Less than 25 percent of U.S. women die from breast cancer. In Britain, it's 46 percent; France, 35 percent; Germany, 31 percent; Canada, 28 percent; Australia, 28 percent, and New Zealand, 46 percent. The European Network of Cancer Registries reported:

Breast cancer is also the most common cancer in females in Europe. It is estimated that in the year 2000 there were 350,000 new breast cancer cases in Europe, while the number of deaths from breast cancer was estimated at 130,000. Breast cancer is responsible for 26.5 percent of all new cancer cases among women in Europe, and 17.5 percent of cancer deaths.

In Britain, where they enjoy socialized medicine, breast cancer rates have soared by more than 80 percent in the past 30 years under their system. A big reason for this is early diagnosis. Nine of 10 middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to less than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent). Women who develop breast cancer in Europe are four times more likely to be diagnosed when the tumor has spread and survival is less likely than are women in the US. The BBC reported that US women were more likely to survive breast cancer than their European counterparts because they are diagnosed earlier, research finds. The five year survival rate in the US was 89 percent compared to 79 percent in Europe. One reason was that 41 percent of the US cases were diagnosed at an early stage, compared to just 29 percent in Europe and this greatly improved the survival rate.

...a rapid contraction of the monetary base as I propose would cause a contraction in bank lending, or at best limited expansion. This is exactly what happened in 2000 and 2001 when the Fed contracted the monetary base the last time. The economy quickly dipped into recession. While the short-term pain of a deepened recession is quite sharp, the long-term consequences of double-digit inflation are devastating. For Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke it's a Hobson's choice. For me the issue is how to protect assets for my grandchildren.

Most voters (53%) believe increases in government spending hurt the economy, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. ...Voters are much more supportive of cuts in government spending as opposed to increases. Almost half of voters (46%) think decreases in government spending help the economy, while 27% say they hurt it.

Forty-five percent (45%) of Americans say the rest of the new government spending authorized in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan should now be canceled. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 36% disagree and 20% are not sure.