Ahmadinejad Can't Take A Joke

Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, recently took umbrage at jokes about him circulating on the cell phone text messaging circuit. As reported by the Guardian, Ahmadinejad had directed his minions to purge the SMS system in the country of such offensive material. More ominously, as the Guardian further notes:

The clampdown is in line with the authorities' uncompromising stance on the internet and bloggers. Wary of modern communications as a means of spreading political dissent, Iran is second only to China in the number of websites it filters - using technology made in America.

Large numbers of the nation's estimated 70,000 to 100,000 bloggers have faced harassment or imprisonment. The regime has acknowledged monitoring text message traffic.