Iran Moves To End "Facebook Revolution" 838
We've had a few readers send in updates on the chaotic post-election situation in Iran. Twitter is providing better coverage than CNN at the moment. There are both tech and humanitarian angles to the story, as the two samples below illustrate. First, Hugh Pickens writes with a report from The Times (UK) that "the Iranian government is mounting a campaign to disrupt independent media organizations and Web sites that air doubts about the validity of the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the nation's president. Reports from Tehran say that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter were taken down after Mr Ahmadinejad claimed victory. SMS text messaging, a preferred medium of communication for young Iranians, has also been disabled. 'The blocking of access to foreign news media has been stepped up, according to Reporters Without Borders. 'The Internet is now very slow, like the mobile phone network. YouTube and Facebook are hard to access and pro-reform sites... are completely inaccessible.'" And reader momen abdullah sends in one of the more disturbing Ask Slashdots you are likely to see. "People, we need your urgent help in Iran. We are under attack by the government. They stole the election. And now are arresting everybody. They also filtered every sensitive Web page. But our problem is that they also block the SMS network and are scrambling satellite TVs. Please, can you help us to set up some sort of network using our home wireless access points? Can anybody show us a link on how to install small TV/radio stations? Any suggestion for setting up a network? Please tell us what to do or we are going to die in the a nuclear war between Iran and US." Update: 06/14 18:32 GMT by KD : Jim Cowie contributes a blog post from Renesys taking a closer look at the state of Iranian Internet transit, as seen in the aggregated global routing tables, and concluding that the story may not be as clear-cut as has been reported.
Hmm, tough choice (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmm, tough choice (Score:5, Funny)
I'm trying to imagine the look on the mods faces who modded you insightful rather than funny.
Send David Lettermen to Iran (Score:0, Funny)
We should send David Lettermen to Iran. If sending him there, does not resolve the world's problems with Iran, it will resolve the US problem of David Lettermen.
Iran election: "Mission accomplished" (Score:2, Funny)
Mr Ahmadinejad credits his win to democratic methods perfected by George W. Bush. "We fully understand the international community's desires to see that Iran's democracy transparently works to the highest standards found in other nations. Mr Bush's work has been exemplary."
The "hanging chad" technique has been particularly effective. "Rounding up opposition voters, politicians and journalists named Chad and hanging them. In those cases where the opposition insurgent was not named Chad, we of course took care to change their names to Chad posthumously. Democratic procedures must not only be observed, they must be seen to be observed."
"I stand one hundred per cent behind my brother Mahmoud," said Supreme Leader Ali Khameini Rove of the Project for a New Iranian Century. "Occasionally with his mouth moving in time with the movements of my hand. Clever, isn't it?"
Mr Ahmadinejad has been condemned by some as a "lunatic redneck" and "a gibbering madman perilously close to the nuclear button." "These charges are most unfair. When I declaimed the necessity of obliterating and deleting the unnameable Zionist entity with cleansing atomic fire, it was implicit in these statements that we would need to reach a resolution to undertake such action through proper procedures of international diplomacy. Mr Bush's excellent work in decapitating Saddam Hussein's odious regime shows the way forward in this regard."
"We stand in solidarity with the Iranian people," said President-in-Exile Al Gore from his cave high in the mountains of Afghanistan. "For my own part, I will never give up the fight to take back America and Iran from the Republican counterrevolutionaries and will not rest until all Americans and Iranians breathe the free air of socialism ... what? Democrats elected? Huh, next you'll try telling me the President's black. You can't fool me! Back where you came from!"
Re:The Ugly Side of Truth (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't know you could win an argument by appending a "Period." after your thesis.
Re:Hmm, tough choice (Score:2, Funny)
That explains a lot, but it's stupid. I'm maxed out on karma. So are you and the person you are replying to. Karma isn't really hard to get.
It's just embarrassing to get an insightful mod when you try to make a joke. You feel like you're on Youtube or something.
Re:The Ugly Side of Truth (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't know you could win an argument by appending a "Period." after your thesis.
Actually the correct steps are:
* Present your thesis.
* Exclaim PERIOD!
* Clamp your hands to your ears and run away shouting "lalalalalalala cant hear you!", before any counter-argument can be made.
And there you go, argument won.
Re:The Ugly Side of Truth (Score:3, Funny)
"I'm tired of tolerance. "Lawful good" alignment is suicide for the rest of the world."
Mmm, chaotic evil. The breakfast of superpowers.
Winning argument. [was: Re:The Ugly Side...] (Score:2, Funny)
Win an "argument?" Sorry. This is abuse...
Re:The Ugly Side of Truth (Score:3, Funny)
In the absence of an external interfering force (e. g., the army of the Soviet Union), the fate of a nation is determined by its people. Period. I didn't know you could win an argument by appending a "Period." after your thesis.
What you really mean is you mean is:
tl;dr
Acorn (Score:1, Funny)
I see that Acorn has set up offices in Iran.
Re:Vietnamese Agent Orange vs. Iranian Despot (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Vietnamese Agent Orange vs. Iranian Despot (Score:3, Funny)
Hello, I'm extrasolar and I don't know much about the subject of this conversation, but I'll take a look anyway and see what I can make of it.
Reporter, I strongly suggest you learn A LOT more about history. If you want to talk about the difference of cultures, you need to actually learn about them.
Wow, that sounds like a reasonable appeal. You get the moral high ground for making such a statement. Because the more we learn about the respective cultures we can make a more comprehensive and subtle evaluation of each and be better prepared to make decisions about foreign policy.
For starters, you need to learn that Americans have the most violent culture of any first world country.
Wait, what? This doesn't sound subtle at all. Where *did* this guy learn his "history" complete with a top ten list of most violent countries? He loses the moral high ground and sounds as wacky as the fellow he's replying to.
Oh, and I'm American.
That explains it.
(Hey, I see Americans all the time. I even live there.)