The Stupidity of Attempted Secrecy

My laptop is being fixed and my wife is on the computer upstairs, so that means I am posting from my phone and won't have links. Anyway, I'm reading the Sunday NYT, and there is this article called "Iranian Reformists Accuse Authorities of Secret Burials" which is about the difference in claimed death toll of the Iran riots between the gov't and the reformers. The last paragraph struck me:

Iran has closed the country to foreign reporters...making it difficult to corroborate the reports from...official government news services.

Idiots! This basically means we have to trust whatever crazy rumors we hear on Twitter. By barring foreign journalists, they have inadvertantly given the opposition free reign to say whatever they want.

If I Were A Theocratic Dictator(TM), I would welcome foreign journalists, and then put on a show for them. Sure, some unfavorable info could leak out. But at least then I could put some spin on it.

The Iranian gov't is equl parts evil and dumb.