The Iranian people, as opposed to the Iranian government are some of the most cosmopolitan, moderate, well-educated, and Pro-western people living in the Middle East. That the Iranian government does not match the Iranian people is largely OUR (by which I mean the US' fault)In the early 1950's Iran had a democratic government headed by Mohammad Mosaddegha western-educated (Paris, Switzerland) lawyer and university professor, who was bent on reforming his nation and bringing into the 21st century as a modern democracy after throwing off the autocratic rule of a British puppet-shah after WWII.. However he committed the unpardonable sin of wanting to reform the ridiculously unfair contracts the British oil company, Anglo-Iranian Oil, had literally forced the previous government to sign at gunpoint. Since Britain's post war recovery was relying on that cheap oil, Churchill convinced Truman to send in the CIA (In the form of Teddy Roosevelt's grandkid Kermit) to overthrow the professor, and re-install a barely literate Horse groomer who was technically next in line as the new Shah. With the US's open support the Shah ruled as a dictator for the next twenty years keeping the population in line with a brutal secret police unit. The SAVAK was particularly brutal in suppressing the Shi'ite clerics as they represented a potential rival power base to the Shah's rule. As a result the Shi'ite leaders radicalized and became militant, and thus formed the backbone of the revolution that ousted the Shah, which allowed them to seize power and install a theocracy (this sounding just a bit familiar? Like what's happening right now in Egypt?). So, subby be as annoyed at the Iranian government as you like, but don't close your eyes to the fact that it only exists because of the US playing "the game of thrones

Go fark yourself, Subby. Iranians are people.

That's not nice, subby. A majority of Iranians don't at all support the regime, and like many aspects of Western culture. It's not entirely their fault that their leadership sucks.

/More importantly, Persian women are hot.

Most Iranian people aren't bad.

If their leaders fell into a bottomless pit though...I'd be ok with that.

F*ck you, subby.

If subby were a televangelist he would have seen a spike in his donations. But because this is FARK... DIAF?

So, you mean no oil wells, pipelines, or storage facilities were damaged? Super! That way we'll have less to repair when we invade Iran. For oil. No, wait, democracy. No, wait, democracy and oil.

I don't really like religious fundamentalists either, but 1. not everyone in Iran is a fundamentalist and b. even if they were, it would be wrong to celebrate such a disaster happening to them.

mbillips: make me some tea: Cthulhu_is_my_homeboy: How bad is a 6.3 anyway? Isn't that like, 1000 times weaker than the one that hit Japan? We don't get quakes here, so I don't know these things...

For buildings built to modern earthquake-resistant architecture, a 6.3 generally would not be a huge concern. However, we're talking about Iran here...

A 6.3 demolished or critically damaged most of downtown Christchurch, NZ, in 2011; they've had to tear down a lot of modern architecture. It depends on how close to the buildings the earthquake occurs.

If this happened near an older Iranian city, the death toll could run into the tens of thousands, just from collapsed masonry.

Which brings us back to what a dick subby is.

It also depends on the type of fault triggered, the depth of it, and the makeup of the bedrock. If it's a deeper fault the shock is going to be more spread out, and therefore have less of an effect on surface structures. If it's a couple of kms down, it will likely cause a lot more damage to the epicenter and areas around it because the shock is more concentrated. The type of fault also comes into play, if it's a normal/reverse/thrust fault (one side pushing vertically against the other), the damage can be more acute than a lateral strike-slip (one side pushing horizontally against the other). Additionally, if the bedrock is more sandy, the effects will be more acute because the ground is more fluid and therefore will distort more readily than solid rock.



According to USGS, this one's 10km deep, which is pretty shallow considering.

And yes, subby is a dick.

t3knomanser: liam76: Fun fact, if you are using self selecting samples and only looking at raw numbers you can't really make a claim about a country being the "most" anything

I'm not making scientific claims, just observing general trends and making general statements. The fact that enough respondents came in from Iran, a nation that blocks huge swathes of the Internet, to even register demonstrates a higher-than-average interest in atheism.

Iran has a strong, but quiet, atheist population. They also have a great metal scene. And when you go to someone's house, you'll be hard pressed to leave without having a glass of wine.

And yes, popular sentiment is against the government, and why wouldn't it be? The nation is run by incompetent kleptocrats. While the older population still remembers the Iran/Iraq War and may hold some loyalty, it's the post-war Iranian baby-boomers who don't. And just like the American baby-boomers of a generation before, they're a large population discovering progressivism in their 20s. Ironically, these 20-somethings are the largest threat to the government, and they exist because the government actively encouraged their parents to produce large families to replace the generation lost in revolution and hideous war.

More fun facts from Iran:
At the 30-year memorial for Khomeni, they had to ship in mourners from the hinterlands and other countries to make the memorial look good. They couldn't find enough people in Iran willing to attend. Many of them didn't even speak Farsi.

A Persian tradition is to throw coins at a coffin as it passes. At Khomeni's original funeral, people weren't throwing coins- they loved him so much they were throwing bills. The bills were wrapped in dogshiat, but hey, bills!

There are also a fair Number of "Burners" or would-be Burners (folks who idenitfy with the kind of culture and shennanigans on display at Burning Man every year) in Iran, I know, because I know an insanely Brave Iranian American who threw a clandestine Regional burn in a village outside of Tehran (his relative was muckey-muck in the local religious police and deeply susceptible to being bribed to look elsewhere that night.  Some of the stories he told, including one of a famous Iranian actress who was risking Jail or a public whipping just to show up, much less dance,   really broke my heart.  It's sad to think of people with that much of a desire to be free , and so little hope of ever achieving it.

wxboy: According to CNN it is.

Also today is apparently National Nuclear Day in Iran.

Any guesses on who are they going to blame for this earthquake ?

1. Allah
2. The fact that Iran sits between the arabian tactonic plate and the eurasian plate
3. Jews

The fact that this headline got greened justifies some real soul-searching on this site. 

What an awful way to start a discussion about a disaster.

Comic Book Guy: I wonder if Bandar Bushehr is the same Bushehr that one of Iran's nuclear reactors is at.

According to CNN it is.

Also today is apparently National Nuclear Day in Iran.

Bitter headline? Yes - but we all know 'merikuh will get blamed & hate-protested for this earthquake in the Iranian streets.

Well, that's just rude.

In before Zionists Tectonic Weapon.