Presidents on parade

Snappy comebacks:

The German foreign minister, Guido Westerweile, said that President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus was "Europe's last dictator." Lukashenko said, "It's better to be a dictator than gay." But how can he be sure?

But it's best to be the Prez.

From The Australian. Photo by AP.

Man up, Vova! Moscow doesn't believe in tears! (Not my line, alas, but too good to pass up. Apparently state TV actually broadcast the gorgeous old Brezhnev-era movie on election [jump]
day, so it was on people's minds...) This is the former Once and Future, now Current, President of the Russian Federation outside the Kremlin after the results were announced. I think he's trying to decide whether he's really Boris Godunov or Sally Field (They like me! They really like me!).

And speaking of elections
they had some in Iran, didn't they? Reuters reports

Clerical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has tightened his grip on Iran's faction-ridden politics after loyalists won over 75 percent of seats in parliamentary elections at the expense of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a near-complete count showed.

The widespread defeat of Ahmadinejad supporters - including his sister, Parvin Ahmadinejad - is expected to reduce the president to a lame duck after he sowed divisions by challenging the utmost authority of Khamenei in the governing hierarchy.

The candidates you like were under house arrest, so it's not to get too excited. And we don't know if Ahmejinedad was too wacky for the ayatollahs or not wacky enough, though I think betting is on the former, which is something like good news if true. 

From the Class of 1952 Reunion website.

Meanwhile, back in Ohio,
the little northwestern town of Uniopolis seems fated to die; Governor John Kasich has shrunk it past the point where you could drown it in the bathtub and let it wash right down the drain; a report in the Los Angeles Times says it

has already laid off its part-time police officer and decided not to replace its maintenance worker, who recently retired. To save cash, Mayor William Rolston will propose Monday that the town turn off the street lights, and that Uniopolis disincorporate after more than a century in existence.

"We've decided that with the budget cuts, we just can't do it anymore," said Rolston, the mayor of 19 years, speaking from the town's one-room municipal building, its wallpaper covered with heart-shaped American flags.

When Kasich said he was going to balance the state budget without raising taxes, they thought it sounded like a good thing. They voted for him over Governor Ted Strickland by a margin of more than 2 to 1.