Saturday, 27 June 2009
WTF 4 - Drunk animals in Africa
(Thanx Reinhard!)
A Statement by a group of Iranian bloggers
۲) ما قانون شکنی‌های پیش‌آمده در انتخابات ریاست جمهوری و وقایع غم‌انگیز پس از آن را آفتی بزرگ بر جمهوریت نظام می‌دانیم و با توجه به شواهد و دلایل متعددی که برخی از نامزدهای محترم و دیگران ارائه داده‌اند، تخلف‌های عمده و بی‌سابقه‌ی انتخاباتی را محرز دانسته، خواستار ابطال نتایج و برگزاری‌ی مجدد انتخابات هستیم.
۳) حرکت‌هایی چون اخراج خبرنگاران خارجی و دستگیری روزنامه‌نگاران داخلی، سانسور اخبار و وارونه جلوه دادن آن‌ها، قطع شبکه‌ی پیام کوتاه و فیلترینگ شدید اینترنت نمی‌تواند صدای مردم ایران را خاموش کند که تاریکی و خفقان ابدی نخواهد بود. ما حکومت ایران را به شفافیت و تعامل دوستانه با مردم آن سرزمین دعوت کرده، امید داریم در آینده شکاف عظیم بین مردم و حکومت کم‌تر شود.
پنجم تیرماه ۱۳۸۸ خورشیدی
بخشی از جامعه‌ی بزرگ وبلاگ‌نویسان ایرانی
Statement by a group of Iranian bloggers about the Presidential elections and the subsequent events
1) We, a group of Iranian bloggers, strongly condemn the violent and repressive confrontation of Iranian government against Iranian people's legitimate and peaceful demonstrations and ask government officials to comply with Article 27 of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Constitution which emphasizes "Public gatherings and marches may be freely held, provided arms are not carried and that they are not detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam."
2) We consider the violations in the presidential elections, and their sad consequences a big blow to the democratic principles of the Islamic Republic regime, and observing the mounting evidence of fraud presented by the candidates and others, we believe that election fraud is obvious and we ask for a new election.
3) Actions such as deporting foreign reporters, arresting local journalists, censorship of the news and misrepresenting the facts, cutting off the SMS network and filtering of the internet cannot silence the voices of Iranian people as no darkness and suffocation can go on forever. We invite the Iranian government to honest and friendly interaction with its people and we hope to witness the narrowing of the huge gap between people and the government.
A part of the large community of Iranian bloggers
Stoned wallabies make crop circles
Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine.
She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops.
Australia supplies about 50% of the world's legally-grown opium used to make morphine and other painkillers.
 |  We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles. Then they crash  Lara Giddings, government official |
"The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," Lara Giddings told the hearing.
"Then they crash," she added. "We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high."
Rick Rockliff, a spokesman for poppy producer Tasmanian Alkaloids, said the wallaby incursions were not very common, but other animals had also been spotted in the poppy fields acting unusually.
"There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles," he added.
Retired Tasmanian poppy farmer Lyndley Chopping also said he had seen strange behaviour from wallabies in his fields.
"They would just come and eat some poppies and they would go away," he told ABC News.
"They'd come back again and they would do their circle work in the paddock."
Some people believe the mysterious circles that appear in fields in a number of countries are created by aliens. Others put them down to a human hoax.
@BBC
I have seen a stoned wallaby but I don't know about them making crop circles. The one I saw was slurring his words and asking me for a dollar as he was trying to get the boat to see his brother in New Zealand - he looked in no mood to be formulating a series of complex agricultural design patterns. I could be wrong - they might have masterminded the twin tower attacks, who really knows?
Dijon, Hobart, Tasmania
This has to be the funniest headline of the year so far. Trippy Skippy.
Arcadian, Oxford
(Thanx SirMick)
Friday, 26 June 2009
More...
But the visitors come nonetheless to pay their respects to Agha-Soltan, who was fatally shot by an unknown assailant during the protests Saturday over Iran's disputed presidential election. Her dying moments were captured in a video that made its way onto the Internet and the international airwaves.
"I read the news on the Web, and I saw the picture of the grave," said one man, hovering near the burial site. "I figured out the location of the grave and came.
"We are here for Neda and our deceased relatives too," he said. "We are here to utter our respect for them."
The man said that he too was in the street that day.
Another man who came to pay tribute said he found it amazing that the government was fighting against ordinary people.
"Not even the politicians, or some students, but normal people in the streets," he said in disgust.
"All of us are in danger, like Neda," said a third man at the grave site.
"Now the military has taken the power and prevents us from paying our respects. It's not a big request! We want respect to Neda."
@LATimes
Authorities Rule Iran Election ‘Healthy’
"We naturally express our most serious concern about the use of force and the death of civilians," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying on the sidelines of a meeting of Group of Eight foreign ministers in Italy.
"We count on all questions which have arisen in the context of the elections being resolved in accordance with democratic procedures," Lavrov said.
Russia and China earlier this month congratulated Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his controversial re-election as he attended a summit in Russia.
Group of Eight powers deplored the post-election violence in Iran on Friday and called on Tehran to resolve the crisis soon through democratic dialogue.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Conor Sweeney; editing by Robert Woodward)
Security was tight around the bare grave of Neda Agha-Soltan on Thursday. Militiamen and police stood nearby, witnesses said, and it was difficult for visitors to hold a conversation within sight and hearing of the glaring officers.
But the visitors come nonetheless to pay their respects to Agha-Soltan, who was fatally shot by an unknown assailant during the protests Saturday over Iran’s disputed presidential election.@LATIMES
Is the dream already over?
'S - p - i - damn'!
In the latest sign that the regime is not bending, Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, a senior cleric, said during nationally broadcast Muslim sermon on Friday that the government should punish "leaders of the riots, who were supported by Israel and the U.S., strongly and with cruelty."
In his sermon at Tehran University, Khatami also accused foreign journalists of false reporting on post-election Iran.
He alleged that an icon of the protests, Neda Agha Soltan, was killed by protesters, not Iranian security forces quelling unrest. "Forces of the government do not shoot at a lady standing in a side street," he said of Soltan, who was shot to death a week ago.
