Peace Activists My Ass

By civax

Riddle: 6 ships sail to Gaza. On entering territorial waters they’re stopped by Israeli Navy ships. 5 ships are mounted by soldiers quietly and with passive resistance. All the activists on those ships are well and everything is fine. 1 ship mounted by soldiers and has 7 soldiers wounded, some hard, 9 passengers dead and 20 passengers wounded.

What is the difference between the 5 ships and that 1 single ship? Maybe cause what happened on the other ships was passive resistance, on on the one ship, well, this happened:

Still look like peaceful activists? Sweet, caring people only worried about the situation in Gaza?

The soldiers were attacked by sticks, iron bars and chairs. Very clear in the film. At the beginning they’ve tried to defend themselves with the PAINTBALL GUNS they were given as a non-lethal weapon. Only after soldiers were badly wounded, thrown off the ship to a lower deck and apparently were SHOT at (2 of the soldiers suffer guns wounds) that the commander gave an order to use live ammo from the handguns they had as emergency.

So, Peace Activists my ass.

Friday afternoon relaxetion

By civax

Just having lunch on a nice Friday afternoon with my good friends Renard, Orit and Tal.

Actually, this post is more about showing off the new WordPress app for the Android phones then anything else…

US Simulation: Israeli Attack on Iran

By civax

A very interesting read is the Brookings Institute’s A Crisis Simulation of an Israeli Strike on the Iranian Nuclear Program. You can also read a summery posted on the New York Times.

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Elvis Pennetuzzo – Cross Sofa

By civax

I really like furniture that you can change or modify to your needs, and this sofa from Elvis Pennetuzzo fits completely into this definition. Have a look. (via Definitive Touch)

More Pictures:

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A good laugher (girl laughs on comedy barn video)

By civax

Ok, I sure you’ve already watched the Dad on Comedy Barn video on YouTube. One person made the whole show unforgettable and completely hilarious because the sound of his laughter.

I watched it again yesterday cause I was recovering from a throat infection and remembered laughing is good for the immune system. Today I showed it to a friend and suddenly found another video on YouTube, of a girl watching the Comedy Barn vid the first time.

She’s laughs really hard, but the thing is – she has a weird laughter as well! I was again almost at the floor, laughing from her laughing on the old guy’s laughter in the original video!! (that’s quite a sentence!) At the end of the video she says “His is worst than mine! Finally someone!”.

It was so funny that I’m bringing the videos here, just in case I’ll  even need a good laugh again…
Videos followed: Read more »

Mobile Twitter Clients

By civax

I switch phones every now and then, as part of my job. I don’t always do it of good will, but cause I use a company’s device and the QA needs it every now and then.

The devices I use the most for the past couple of months are the Android G1, and an iPod Touch. Being a person that needs to be connected to twitter often, I’ve installed and tried quite a few twitter clients for these phones.

For the Android:

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Cafe&Leche – Cool Sofa

By civax

Ok, I’m a pretty picky dude when it comes to furniture. So picky that I didn’t furnish my living room since I went into my apartment 2 years ago. It’s either too fancy, or too heavy, or too usable, or too ugly (2, 3), or too white. Or, when it’s not one of those – it’s too damn expensive.

I’ve been looking around on the web for quite a while looking for a good sofa, and I must admit that in that respect I hardly find something I like. Since i don’t like the Antic / Fancy look and I don’t have a baseball-sized living room most ‘designer’ sofas are out of the question.

But I think I just did find one I like:

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Twitter Updates for 2009-06-20

By civax

• RT Houses in alleys opening doors to injured protesters, one source reporting hallway is full of beaten ppl, many crying…#IranElection #
• RT from Iran There's heavy clash in Khosh street in Azadi,Police trying to scatter people by nightstick and spray. #iranelection #
• RT from Iran: Confirmed: Police have closed off Tehran University #iranelection #
• RT Bomb reports originated from Fars and Press TV – well known official (Iranian government funded) mouth pieces – no wonder #iranelection #
• RT From BBC Iran: VIDEO – street fighting in Tehran, cars on fire, gun shot at ppl from roofs http://alturl.com/wpng #iranElection #

Twitter for Iran

By civax

This is just amazing. Twitter had a necessary maintenance scheduled for this evening, when they had to take the service down for a few hours. However, since twitter is one of the only channels of communication between Iran and the outside world, people had started tweeting, asking Twitter to wait with the maintenance.

Surprisingly enough – Twitter had heard and agreed!

Down Time Rescheduled

A critical network upgrade must be performed to ensure continued operation of Twitter. In coordination with Twitter, our network host had planned this upgrade for tonight. However, our network partners at NTT America recognize the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran. Tonight’s planned maintenance has been rescheduled to tomorrow between 2-3p PST (1:30a in Iran).

Our partners are taking a huge risk not just for Twitter but also the other services they support worldwide—we commend them for being flexible in what is essentially an inflexible situation. We chose NTT America Enterprise Hosting Services early last year specifically because of their impeccable history of reliability and global perspective. Today’s decision and actions continue to prove why NTT America is such a powerful partner for Twitter.

Silence of the Media while the uprising continues

By civax

It’s amazing how small amount of attention the traditional media is giving to this story in Iran. For far less than that the world media been plastering Israel for days. I understand reporting from Iran is problematic, but hey, that’s where the news are, so it’s your job to be there!

I really hope the Iranians won’t fail here. From Israel perspective maybe Ahmadinejad is better than Mousavi, since both will continue towards nuclear power and both are against Israel – only Ahmadinejad is blunt about it, which is good for us. Still, I cannon but support the young people in Iran who have been living under strict regime which had just completely destroyed any false feeling of justice and freedom.

I can’t do much to help them (and I’m sure they wouldn’t want me to, being from ‘The Small Satan’), but I can try a little to rise awareness and keep them in the headlines.

#CNNfail is not only CNN. I’d say all western governments so far had been proven very impotent. The only excuse is if they actually do try to do some secret operations to help the protesters.

What’s going on in Iran right now is HOPE, where none was before. It’s not much but it’s there and we have a responsibility to keep it alive. There are things beyond the Israeli-Arab conflict, and they include justice. If the ‘official world’ doesn’t pick that up, then we bloggers/twitters/real people of the world must do it.

Andrew Sullivan reports from twitter with many unofficial news and defenitly the place to visit for up to date news, Nico Pitney has a live blogging on the events, an interesting piece by Gary entitled Iran’s political coup is well worth reading.

Leave more links in the comments for places which update regularly. And again, best place at all time is #iranelection.

Ho dear..

By civax

From twitter:

RT @jimsciuttoabc #iranelection Ahmadinejad supporters in main square, we’ve seen Mousavi supporters on the way.

Just found this list of good twitters to follow from Tehran:

Been following these people all day:

[...took this off to not let Iranian Intelligence track these twitter users down...]

Tehran riots – Videos

By civax

I’m posting here some videos uploaded to YouTube from phones and other places in Iran. If you know of any other, please leave a link in the comments.

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More pictures from Iran

By civax

The situation in Iran isn’t good at all. In an effort to control the riots, the regime as placed all opposition leaders to Ahmadinejad in house arrest, the universities were filled with policemen and major activists in the reformists groups were arrested.

If you’re interested, you can read Mousavi’s letter in English, you can read an overview of the demonstrations on Global Voices Online. You can also check out Gary’s Choices which writes about the issue.

The twittersphere is also actively discussing how the traditional media fails to pick u on the Iranian story at all. Rinat states that #CNNfail is one of the more popular tags on twitter.

Check out Andrew Sullivan that has a post showing how the reports on the votes for Ahmadinejad through out the elections day present a linear graph…

I’ve found this Amir Sadeghi’s blog – Tehran Live – which has amazing pictures from yesterday’s riots.

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Serious Riots in Iran, 3 dead

By civax

Wow. I didn’t anticipate that. The Iranians took it seriously this time, there are widespread violent riots, cars smashed, fire started in garbage bins and other places. The media notes it’s the worst violence since the Islamic Revolution, which means it’s SERIOUSLY big.

Supporters of Mousavi are enraged by the blunt faking of the elections but the theocratic regime and people of Ahmadinejad.

So far Mousavi seems to take this rage to the street and doesn’t go down without fighting. He accused the religious leadership they are doing nothing when the people expect them to react (like the people don’t know they’re the ones behind this). This can turn real ugly real fast.

All I can say is that I admire the Iranian people that in spite of the police state they are living in, they have the courage to stand out and fight. Respect.

Update, Midnight
If there was a tiny bit of impression that Iran isn’t a dictatorship after fixing the elections, it has now gone completely. In an effort to contain the rage of the young, the theocratic regime has taken some radical steps – The cellular networks were shut down in most of the country, text messages and been completely halted, heavy censorship on the internet was issued, blocking Facebook, Twitter, sites of international news agencies and opposition parties in Iran, including the sites of Mousavi and the other 2 candidates for presidency. The country was always a dictatorship of the Mullas, but today it exposed her true face bluntly, without even a small mask. That regime must be topple.

Notes:
If you want to follow on this, try twitter search tags #iranelection and #mousavi. (thanks Lisa!) I personally prefer to work with Seesmic Desktop or Tweetdeck, both free.

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Iran: Violent Demonstrations in Tehran over final election results

By civax

Couldn’t stay with Interior design posts for too long before posting political issues, now could I?

I’ve watched the election in Iran with a bit of interest, though not too much. I figured Ahmadinejad is going to win, and besides, who cares who the president is when the real decisions are always made by the non-elected theocrats, anyway?

Well, seems the Iranian people care. The Israeli, US and European media is reporting big demonstration in Tehran after Mousavi, Ahmadinejad’s rival, claimed his loss is a result of a big-scale, state-sponsored forgery.

The reports are of the possibly the biggest demonstrations in the past decade, violent clashes with the riot police are also reported. The government apparently also stopped all cellphone’s text messaging services in the country in an attempt to prevent people from organizing.

Here is a video which seems to be taken in Tehran today, showing the demonstrations:

More videos:

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