A couple of days ago, I came across an odd story in Agence France Press, wherein I learned that Iran's fanatical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- increasingly known by his derogatory nickname "the chimpanzee" -- is calling for 5 million people to move out of Tehran.  Why?  Because, he said, "Iran's capital sits on several fault lines and is threatened by earthquakes." With five million fewer people, Tehran would be "more manageable in case of an incident."

Ahmadinejad said that, while he couldn't order anyone to move (although that's precisely what he's doing to the Ahwazi Arabs down in Khuzestan), the government was prepared to be very generous to anyone who chose to live in the countryside:  free land, "substantial subsidies," and cheap loans.

What's going on?  At first, I thought it was a scheme to make it easier for the regime to control the capital, and to deprive the Green Movement of millions of supporters in the ongoing struggle against the Islamic tyranny.  And maybe that's what it's all about.  But there's another possibility, suggested by the remarkable statement of the #2 at Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.   The headline screamed it all:  "Iran to Join Nuclear Club." The happy event is supposed to take place within a month.

The reporters at the official Fars Agency were so excited that they made a mess of his name at their second opportunity.

No country would even think about attacking Iran after Iran's membership in the club," Deputy Head of AEOI for Research Behzad Soltani said on Tuesday.

Behzadi, who is also Secretary of the AEOI's Scientific Cooperation Council, further pointed to the construction of 360 MW nuclear power plant and a 40 MW research reactor in Iran's central city of Arak, and added that the projects are complete by 70%.

What if Mr. Soltani is saying that there's going to be a nuclear test within a month?  This might explain Ahmadinejad's sudden concern about earthquakes shaking Tehran.  And then I got an email from an Iranian nuclear physicist working in the West, which said, in part:

During last few weeks Iranian officials claimed a possibility of big earthquake in Tehran. Ahmadinezhad, Governer of Tehran, and several other officials repeated this earthquake is serious and it will be happened in next one month...

Deputy of iranian Atomic Energy yesterday in Kashan University claimed that in one month Iran will be 9th country in nuclear club and after the test the possibility of attack to Iran by any country will be zero.

Today Alzahra University in Tehran was evacuated and in next couple of days the regime has plan to evacuate very sensitive places in Tehran.

Alzahra, by the way, is an all-female university, where Green Leader Mir Hossein Mousavi's wife was chancellor from 1998 to 2006.  Why would the infamously misogynist regime decide to evacuate it?  Because they want to save young women from quakes caused by a nuclear test?  Or because they fear it's a center of the revolution?  Or because they think there are too many women getting college degrees?

I report, you decide.  But all that talk about earthquakes is sure interesting.  And if the mullahs are really going to "join the nuclear club in a month," it's not a long wait.