Buried deep within a fascinating New York Times Magazine profile of the French spy novelist Girard De Villiers comes the fascinating tidbit that many at the CIA think Iran - and not Muammar Qaddafi, as the official story goes - was behind the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people.

On Monday, Iran announced the country had sent a monkey into space. Because such a move would never have anything to do with warfare, officials swore the launch was another step toward Tehran's totally innocent dreams of a manned space flight.

Iran today claimed it took an important step toward manned space flight by successfully sending a monkey on a sub-orbital flight, and returning him safely to the ground.

The Heritage Foundation has released its annual list of the world's freest economies and, wouldn't you know it, the Asia-Pacific region is number one. Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand are all on top while the world's largest economy, America's, barely cracks the top ten.

Nearly six years after the disappearance in Iran of private investigator Robert Levinson, and two years after his family received an anonymous email confirming that the former FBI agent was still alive, five photographs taken by Levinson's captors have been released. "I am here in Guantanamo," reads a sign Levinson is holding in one photo. "Do you know where it is?"

The Associated Press has obtained an "EXCLUSIVE" document purporting to prove that Iran is working to build a nuclear weapon with "more than triple the explosive force of the World War II bomb that destroyed Hiroshima." Behold! The Chart of Doom!

Sound the war bells, grab your gear, and prepare to man the bombers, fellow Americans: the dirty nation of IRAN has wiped its shit-stained bootheel upon our national sovereignty, in the following manner: they shot at one of our spy drones. We say it was outside of Iranian territory; they dispute that. Either way, the strong, muscular foreign policy view of this must be: Hey, That Was Ours, And We Must Escalate Into All Out War, Or We Might Look Weak. From The Guardian:

Doesn't it seem like the U.S. and Iran have been trying to "talk" forever? Remember way back, like, right after the 2008 election when they would slink off and have these intense, very secret conversations and we were all like oh, those two crazy kids will work it out! And we would sort of just avert our eyes and talk about whatever because it was just awkward how much they were fighting in public.

Argo is Sesame Street for grownups. It's a history lesson that goes down like candy, a recreation of a little-known component of the Iran hostage crisis rendered into a breathless two-hour thriller. It's brilliant and clear, intense and hysterical and its moments of profundity are there for the consuming, should you be interested in that sort of thing. It also offers more of a visceral thrill than anything else I've seen this year or during most years. It's diabolical infotainment.

A cleric in Iran went crying to the country's state-run Mehr News Agency after a run-in with a woman who responded to his repeated requests to cover up by kicking the crap out of him.

"MUSLIM RAGE," screams Newsweek's new cover story about last week's violent anti-American protests. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the well-known anti-Islam activist, is here to tell "us" (The_West) how to "end it." And it's true, isn't it? All Muslims are constantly raging about everything. So to pay tribute to Ali's article — which describes the protesters as "the mainstream of contemporary Islam" — and the subtle, smart cover that accompanies it, we've collected 13 striking, powerful images of MUSLIM RAGE.

It's been a while since a militant Muslim leader called for the death of Salman Rushdie — too long if you ask Ayatollah Hassan Sanei.

Here's the headline splash — as of publishing time, still up — on Fox Sports' Olympic Wrestling page. That's Hamid Soryan, who won a gold medal for Iran in Greco-Roman wrestling. Baghdad is the capital of Iraq. Next time they might want to consult a map.

Hey look, Iran's Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has joined Instagram. His feed is a quirky mix of blue-hued clouds above Supreme Leader HQ and selfies of him trying on different flowy robes late at night while "Jamin to Fiona Apple."

Finnish computer security researcher Mikko Hypponen seemed a bit overwhelmed when we reached him on his cell phone at London's Heathrow airport this morning.

Heavy metal has been weaponzied. At least that's the claim by a computer security researcher who says an Iranian nuclear scientist emailed him to say he and his fellow scientists were under attack by involuntary blasts of AC/DC, sparked by computer malware.

The Foreign Ministry of Iran threatened to pursue legal action against Google Thursday over an issue it has regarding Google Maps.

On tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart took a look at the increasingly pointed war rhetoric coming from Israel, Iran and the United States. It seems the case that since all three are in the midst of election cylces, no one is going to be turned the noise down any time soon.

A great speech, but one wonders what Jafar Panahi is up to right now.

Ooh boy. Here's a quote that speaks volumes, from Reuters' article about Iran's morality police "cracking down" on the sale of Barbie dolls, which is forbidden. Stores have been instructed to sell Iran's specially-designed, ultra-demure Sara and Dara dolls instead, to the disgust of the superficial girl tykes of Tehran: