Better Late. . . and No Presents!

The Senate passed Thursday a resolution apologizing for slavery and segregation. It acknowledges "the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow laws." The resolution also makes clear it cannot be used to support reparations for slavery.

link: National Public Radio

Right Question, Wrong Answer

Thousands of people are being stopped and searched by the police under their counter- terrorism powers – simply to provide a racial balance in official statistics, the government's official anti-terror law watchdog has revealed.

Lord Carlile said in his annual report that he had "ample anecdotal evidence" of it happening, adding that such a practice was "totally wrong" and constituted an invasion of civil liberties.

"I can well understand the concerns of the police that they should be free from allegations of prejudice," he said. "But it is not a good use of precious resources if they waste them on self-evidently unmerited searches."

link: The Guardian

Blogger Stats

Every minute of every day, 270,000 words are written on Blogger

Millions of people worldwide use Blogger to publish to their blog each week

Almost two thirds of Blogger's traffic comes from outside North America (What's the #2 country after the U.S.? Brazil, followed by Turkey, Spain, Canada, and the U.K.)

The most popular sport for our bloggers? Soccer (that's football to the rest of the world), more than four times larger than the #2 sport, baseball.

link: Google

Rural Iran: Not A Monolith?

Is it possible that rural Iran, where less than 35 percent of the country’s population lives, provided Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the 63 percent of the vote he claims to have won? That would contradict my own research in Iran’s villages over the past 30 years.

Take Bagh-e Iman, a village of 850 households in the Zagros Mountains near the southwestern city of Shiraz. According to longtime friends who live there, the village is seething with outrage because at least two-thirds of all people over 18 years of age believe that the presidential election was stolen by Ahmadinejad.

When news spread on June 13 that Ahmadinejad had won more than 60 percent of the vote cast the day before, the residents were in shock. The week before had witnessed the most intense campaigning in the village’s history, and it became evident that support for Mir Hussein Moussavi was overwhelming.

link: The New York Times

Whither Microsoft? or, Yoo, Hoo, Bill, the Whole World's Watching

For the first time in history, ordinary citizens have taken it upon themselves to report news instantaneously, spreading information to all the corners of the world online via Twitter. Though internet connectivity in Iran has been somewhat spotty, Iranians have been able to chat with the outside world to give an accurate account of the events on the ground.

This firsthand perspective is even more important given the crackdown on foreign journalists, many of whom have had their equipment confiscated and even a few of whom have been detained by the authorities.

So I am struck by the tragic irony, then, of a story we reported on recently here at niacINsight, about how Microsoft has blocked its instant messaging service in Iran, citing its interpretation of US sanctions laws. The US Treasury has made it clear that transfers of informational materials areallowed:

The receipt or transmission of postal, telegraphic, telephonic or other personal communications, which does not involve the transfer of anything of value, between the United States and Iran is authorized

We’ve spoken to OFAC, who said that Microsoft did this without any prompting from them, and that they are discussing the matter with Microsoft officials. (We’re also reaching out to them as well).

At a time like this, it sure would be nice to be able to have as much access as possible to the Iranians on the ground, letting them tell the world what is actually going on. It’s a shame that they have to fight against their own government’s repression and censorship and at the same time struggle with America’s attempt to isolate the Iranian regime at the expense of its people.

link: niac blog

Aung San Suu Kyi in 1972

An almost 40-year-old photograph of Aung San Suu Kyi has emerged at a fundraising event in London this week, peeling back the decades to a relatively uncomplicated time in her life, long before her years of dissent and house arrest in Rangoon.

The picture, issued in July 1972, was provided by her brother-in-law Anthony Aris to help raise money for Prospect Burma, which provides financial help for Burmese students to study abroad.

link: The Guardian

A Book for the Age of Information

Created in the late 1970s, the book’s blurb on the cover flap talks about Codex Seraphinianus being a book for the “age of information” where coding and de-coding messages is increasingly important in genetics, computer science and literary criticism. “The Codex presents the creative vision of this time…” goes on the blurb. If Serafini was so influenced by “information” in the 1970s to create this maverick art book, then what must he make of today’s information age featuring Facebook, Twitter, blogs and Google? Countless websites and blogs can be found pondering the meaning of Codex Seraphinianus or simply admiring a truly original piece of art/fantasy/imagination – call it what you will.

The cover alone is worth studying. The 1991 Abbeville edition features a couple having sex and being transformed into a crocodile. Shakespeare described sex as the “beast with two backs” but Serafini is operating on a different level to the Bard. The 1993 edition uses a different image for its cover – a man in very unpractical headwear appears to be riding a llama, which has an impressive set of antlers. They are both staring into a mirror outside a stone building that appears to be offering some sort of brightly colored food. Both covers are strange but the crocodile sex is more disturbing.

link: Codex Seraphinianus - See the World's Strangest Book on AbeBooks

Blame Venezuela

In the past few days I have received questions from several people asking about the rumors that Hugo Chavez is sending some of his thugs to "help out" Ahmadinejad. This rumor has also been mentioned in a couple of Spanish-language cable TV shows, particularly in view of the frequent direct flights between Caracas and Tehran.

I have not been able to find any actual evidence to confirm these rumors. The ties between Iran and Venezuela are many, and strong as ever. However, evidence of Chavez's backers in Iran is yet to be found.

link: RealClearWorld - The Compass Blog