Idea Portal

I'm so excited!

At last some one is calling for constitution revision in Iran. I always thought that there is something very special with Mohsen Sazgara.
he was recently in Islamic republic jails.
wish that people will understand the importance of this movement, and support it.

Udate This is the official site.

Persian Gulf

The Google Bomb has exploded!
a movement among persian speaking bloggers has resulted in this page to be the first result in the search on google for "arabian gulf".

The first reason of national geographic was that people who search for the phrase should be informed, well now seems they are well informed :)

Orkut with Firefox

Well, well. I'm sure that there are many out there who use Mozilla Firefox now. to tell the truth, since I have switched to firefox, I no more use IE. Except for the case of Orkut!!

Surprisingly Orkut.com does not work on my firefox browser, while at the same time, IE shows the pages! It would be a really dirty thing to do, If Microsoft .net which orkut is relying on has killed the firefox browser manually. I wonder if anyone else knows the reason.

Update Yahoo launch does not also work on Firefox. bad for them!

aven't switched to Firefox but as far as I know Behrang has no problem browsing Orkut with it, I'll let you know about the details...
Posted by: Babak at November 24, 2004 03:18 AM

Me also have no problem with Firefox on Orkut! :-) It really rocks!
Te only feature I've really missed from Opera is to keep and resume my sessions the next time I launch it... Otherwise it's just cool and I'm already in love with :D
Posted by: Armond Avanes at November 28, 2004 04:05 AM

i think the problem with orkut is solved. It works sometime. i said "sometimes" same as before.
Isn't the problem with launch.yahoo because of pop-up blocking of FireFox?
Some online digital radios have problems with FireFox too. Also some picture sharing sites that install plug-ins for IE or Netscape.
Posted by: idin at November 30, 2004 05:18 AM

Yet another conspiracy theory

well, it is very common among Iranians to blame everything, even sometimes good things, on someone who is controlling everything behind the scene! usually in International matters it goes back to British policy makers, and there are many conspiracy theories, which as a matter of fact some are not just imaginary. Maybe this tradition has it's roots in some incidents that actually involved some sort of conspiracy in the past.

Anyways, recently a huge discussion is going on between Iranians not just on the Internet but even in Iranian daily newspapers, and even the government is involved, about the use of "Persian Gulf". National geographic has recently decided that on their maps they should also include another name where they refer to Persian Gulf.

I don't want to discuss the two sides of debate, though definitely I'm on the PERSIAN GULF side. but there are two things, which seem important to me.

First; Let's assume you have a pen and you call it "my pen", and I would rather like to call your pen, "eraser", now if someone would really want to know if you have a pen or eraser, what he could do is to for example search the Internet and see if you really have a pen or eraser. since you have your homepage and have written in it that "I have a pen" he would be assured that you have a pen. now assume that I raise a debate by telling everyone that you hate erasers. many news agencies will start writing that I claim that you hate erasers and you don't keep your eraser well!! so thanks to discussions and news sites, next time one would want to see if you really have a pen or eraser, he will not end up just in your homepage. but in many other sites that in fact call your pen an eraser! so you could say after a while people would be divided into those who think your pen is a pen an those who think otherwise.

Second; The old Arab-Persian wounds won't heal even without someone putting more salt on it. what would be the primer benefit of making sure that Iran does not have any support in the region, even from the Arab states, isolating it before a severe action? maybe at least this could also serve as test for approximating the level of nationalism among people both in Iran and in Arab states. but after all do you think that National Geographic will risk it's reputation to be a part of conspiracy!? and By the way do you think that it is really a big harm for their reputation?

Kurds under oppression in Iran

You can easily find more than ten top film festivals around the world from Italy to Chicago by simply Googling "Turtles can fly".

After "Time for drunken horses" and "Marooned in Iraq", It's the next long movie by Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi. All three movies happen in Kurdistan, which is biggest nation without a country. stories are all either in Iraqi Kurdistan or Kurdistan of Iran. Although the movie has been screened in many European country's and in many theatres, but in Iran they have even stopped it form being shown in just 3 theatres that used to show it.

In Iran not only Kurdistan is kept far behind national advancements by keeping away big industries to be shaped in it, and not only there are strict racist and discriminating regulations in action to prevent a Kurd to become a high level manager or to have a political position in the government but, It looks like the government is even not happy with the movie industry to become a primary industry in Kurdistan. Although I'm not sure if benefits of kurdistan is more or not at all, but even screening the realities of the area might not be enjoyable for some people.

Dogma makes people so stupid and blind, that they even don't know how to protect the sovereignty of their nation. Do they think that by barring the developement and opperssing a nation they can continue rulling them?

Viva Mexico!

Well what do you think this is?

It's a big Ad for Mexico with live elements! :) right in the middle of Montreal downtown. A big car is just parked in Saint Catherine, with three girls and a boy as if on the beach, sitting on white sands brought here from Mexico, reading their magazines and posing to people outside who are wearing jackets and over-coats to protect them from the Montreal cold wind. (-4 today)

How does it feel down there? :) well I think the ad would be really impressive in a month!

haha, good idea, gool maaling people ;-)
Posted by: Ali at November 15, 2004 12:29 PM

The most Unrealistic, Harmful

Arafat is gone, Sad for many Palestinians but true.

Yet what is important now, is what would happen after.
Whatever the Palestinian nation decides, Islamic Republic of Iran's reaction contained the most stupid, unrealistic, unjustifiable, and yet the most harmful comments for the Palestinians.

In the letter published by the Iran's government, after expressing sorrow for his death, Abu ammar's name is listed among Sheikh Yassin, Fathi Shaghaghi, Rentisi and others who were all leaders of Palestinian groups who did not support Arafat's ideas, but on the other hand were supported by Tehran.
Later in the letter, the government encourages Palestinian people to fight, until all the Palestinian lands have been freed, and until a Palestinian government can choose "Beytul moghaddas" as its capital. Goals obviously not supported by the late Arafat, in which definitely no peace is ever achievable.

I'm curious now that there are streets and places in Tehran named after people like Shaghaghi, will the government name some place after Yasser Arafat, who was defenitely an icon and leader of the Palestinian nation?

IUST

Never in the past had I hated Khatami and his cabinet this much, as today.
After some Basij students had taken the dean of the University of Science and Technology hostage and they had taken off his clothes and beaten him inside the university (this is the first time that the dean is being chosen by the professors rather than being appointed by the ministry), the professors refused to go to the classes and cancelled all classes in the university.
First the idiot who is the science and technology minister asked the professors to inaugurate the classes, saying that the cancellation is not a good idea for the regime!!!
And now, Khatami is saying the same thing. Khatami is well over limit on his credit, it's already too late to fix anything and I'm sure the future generation in Iran will judge this betrayal and misconduct.

I wouldn't blame him. What will 'HE' gain by encouraging lecturers and students to boycott the classes? Reminds me of John Kerry's presidential speeches "when we go to war, we should have a plan to win the peace and deal with the consequences".

You might say it would increase the pressure on the government If Khatami supports the boycott. But what after that? Do you expect other universities to follow that stance? I'm not sure if they would. It may lead the country into some kind of chaos. If well organised, it could lead to a reform, otherwise it will just make the government more agressive and repressive.
Posted by: Al at November 8, 2004 05:35 PM

let me adress the same thing "when we go to war, we should have a plan to win the peace and deal with the consequences".

Khatami should be blamed for having no plans at all!!!

as a president he is just wasting the second 4 years just to hold the title of a president. The exact syndrome that has lead the country in to this mess is the fear of getting into trouble!

everyone, even non-conservatives are playing according to the rules of conservatives! and exactly that's the very same reason why Kerry couldn't win. I think both reformists in Iran and democratic party in US have to learn to be original, and express their beleifs as they really are, not as they think would be better!
Posted by: Shauheen at November 11, 2004 01:57 PM

Condolences!

Stupidity is contagious! Alas Idiots are more than what you think there are!