Yeah you heard it right. Gmail got blocked in Iran (do I really need to make it clear by whom and why?!) in an attempt to force Iranian users to register for a governmental mail instead of their secure Gmail one. And it's not that much easy to register for this governmental mail either as you MUST fill in a form with all your details including name, address, ID card(s) numbers and so on and so forth in a case if you sent a blabla email (which is obviously monitored by [...]), then you could be easily traced and arrested. Then only God can help you if he could after all :-(

is the other website getting blocked in Iran in recent weeks.

@#$%^&

Today, 22 June 2009 / 1 Tir 1388, Megaupload.com got blocked in Iran too



So what's next???
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Although it is still in its alpha stage and is not perfect yet, it is indeed a Wowing news to see Google -forbidding Iranians to access some of its certain pages or downloading its products like Google Chrome and toolbar due to sanctions- is finally adding Persian to its translation tool too


more reading:
Google Translates Persian

Today is exactly one week from the Election Day when Iranians rushed to cast their votes in a hope of some changes and a better future but the outcome result was so shockingly surprising that resulted in some peaceful where-is-my-vote protest. But it was turned into a sad scene of violent bloodshed when savage hardliners attacked the defenseless protesters with knives, clubs, chains, pepper sprays and guns and started slaughtering people on the street, in the campus and even in their own houses.

Now after one week, the SMS system is still down and GPRS network has joined it too. Internet services were almost cut down too in the first 4-5 days after the election results came out. Lots and lots of news sites and social networks are blocked during the past few days including YouTube, twitter, facebook, friendfeed and flickr. Even it was impossible to access email services for the past 2 days (I still have problem accessing my GMail and sometimes just manage to load it in its basic mode only). Yahoo messenger is the all time favorite messenger in Iran (I'm not into instant messaging though and have no idea how it works!) and people using it have reported that it's also gone dead as its ports are blocked by the ICT.

OK, I've talked too much. Since the "Big Brother" is watching us restlessly, I hope that I survive long enough to at least see the next morning!

and that's when the stone-minded authorities of Iran suddenly decide to have the whole blogger images BLOCKED just because of one pic not being favored by them!!!

and below is the very ugly page you see when you click on an uploaded-to-blogger image like this one:



@#$%^&*

Edit: it is finally solved.

This is Vanak st, usually a crowded one in weekdays but quite peaceful in this lazy Friday afternoon (I took this photo using my mom's camera, a Sony DSC-W150.) ^-^

I took this photo last year of an apricot tree in our complex yard. It was really beautiful and eye catching with all those pink blossoms. But the people planting it seemingly didn't care for its beauty but only its fruit! It didn't bring any fruit at all and so was condemned to have all its branches cut off! This year it's standing there with only one extending-to-the right branch and no blossoms at all and I dare say it's no longer a beautiful tree but a sad one to look at, or at least I feel that way :(

Wow! It's been quite a looooong time since my last post in here! Gosh, the time really hurries by!

And Happy Belated Norooz (meaning new day and is the Persian New Year starting from the very first day of the Spring) to all you people. Hope you had a great holiday and 13bedar too :))

I'm not sure when my next post would be but I am still alive and this blog isn't orphaned yet!!

Iranian artists have created the world's largest sand carpet from the colorful sand found on the country's southern island of Hormuz.



Some 25 visual artists used 70 types of colorful sand to create the 'Persian Gulf' sand carpet, which is on display from Dec. 9 to 17, 2008.



The 12000-square-meter carpet which is unique in magnitude, pattern and color is named after the beautiful "Persian Gulf". The other World's large sand carpet was a 900-square-meter one created on the Canary Islands in the North Atlantic Ocean.









Beautiful.

Images courtesy of Fars News Agency and ISNA.
News source: Payvad


from the trees


to the street

Holy Sh*t! What a crime is done in the name of God >:-(

The news is that an old big tree in Northern Iran (Guilan) was simply cut down by the order of the Men of God (ayatollahs) for just being considered by some ordinary people as a holy one!!!! 40 more other old trees are also in the row of being cut down for the above mentioned stupid reason >:-(

Cutting down a tree in itself is just like doing a crime, a murder, let alone it being an ancient one. But who cares, when the only thing that doesn't matter in this Islamic country is the saving of anything ancient :-(

Update:

Los Angeles Times Blog has more of the story which you can also digg here. .

Petition:
امضا کنید : محکومیت قطع درختان کهنسال به بهانه ی مبارزه با خرافه پرستی
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Clerics say Female Flag-bearer at Olympics "Constitutes an Obstacle for the Appearance of Imam Mahdi and disgraces Islam"

Tehran, 8 August (AKI) - Iranian religious figures have criticised that Olympic female rower Homa Hosseini was chosen as the flag bearer of Iran, calling the move a 'heresy'.

"To make a woman march with the flag of the Islamic Republic in Beijing, is pure heresy and shows total disobedience of the laws mandated by our spiritual guides," said Seyyed Ahmad Elmalhoda, leader of Friday prayers in Iran's holy city of Mashhad.

Hosseini, 19, grew up in Iran's Kermanshah province in western Iran, she is one of three Iranian female competitors at the Olympic Games and Iran's first ever female rower. The other two female competitors are Najmeh Abtin (archery) and Sara Khoshjamal (Tae Kwon Do).

"To make this woman march means to openly declare war to our religious values. Whoever is responsible for this unforgivable act, he should know that this gesture constitutes an obstacle for the 'appearance' of Mahdi," said Elmalhoda.

He was referring to the mainly Shi'a Islam belief that Imam Mohammed al-Mahdi (aka Imam Zaman) will appear to fight a final apocalyptic battle over the forces of evil.

Followers believe he was born in the year 868 and has been in hiding ever since awaiting a decision from god to reappear.

sources: [1], [2], [3]

I have a DSL 256K subscription and should really thank God that I was an old subscriber and managed to save my broadband connection as an ordinary Home user! You ask why, I tell you. Following a ridiculous sort of law established in 2006, it became all of a sudden totally forbidden for the home users to have internet speedier than 128K!!!! But wait a minute, you may also laugh your heads out more when you learn it's recently announced that a 56K internet connection is more than enough for Iranian users needs and this is out of mere generosity that they are also provided with a 128K connection!!!

OK, now you may say it's not that much bad after all but it is when you exclude some factors such as high prices and awful connection speed quality. I, as a 256K user, am experiencing a speed equal to that of a dial up! Only very early in the mornings and pretty late at nights, when the network traffic is not at its peak I can have an acceptable speed.

Also it seems that the recent non-stop power failures occurring day and night due to the electricity shortage is worsening the situation even more by burning out the ISP's delicate electronic devices.

Poof, just check my ping for yahoo.com today and see for yourself what quality services are delivered and you can do nothing about it but signing petitions to which no authority pays a single attention (like this one: High Speed Internet Connection Is One Of Requirmenet Of Iranian People ) :

Pinging yahoo.com [68.180.206.184] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=347ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=342ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=352ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=356ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=338ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=356ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=341ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=342ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=339ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=340ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=339ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=346ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=355ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=341ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=351ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=366ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=371ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=389ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=390ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=375ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=375ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=341ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=338ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=340ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=337ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=336ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=341ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=336ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=354ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=342ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=348ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=340ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=349ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=338ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=345ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=337ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=336ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=337ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=339ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=346ms TTL=51
Reply from 68.180.206.184: bytes=32 time=345ms TTL=51

Ping statistics for 68.180.206.184:
Packets: Sent = 55, Received = 41, Lost = 14 (25% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 336ms, Maximum = 390ms, Average = 348ms

On 12 Tir 1367 (3 July 1988), Iran Air flight 655 (IR655) was shot down enroute to Dubai over the Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf by the USS-Vincennes simply (as they reasoned) mistaking that Airbus A300B2-203 aircraft (reg# EP-IBU) as a hostile fighter, killing all 290 people onboard. This happened towards the end of Iran-Iraq war and sure these innocent people paid the price of that stupid 8 year war as it was finally ended on 27 Tir 1367 (18 July 1988), just 15 days after the shooting down of IR655.

20 years later on the 15th Environmental Art Festival held at the Persian Gulf and as a remembrance of the above mentioned tragic event, the Iranian environmental artists decided to both pay their tribute to the killed people and seek peace in the Persian Gulf region the artistic way. SO they chose a place on the southern coastline almost next to the spot where IR655 was shot down and crashed,

draw the outline of an aircraft on the sand, placed pebbles and stones on the drawn plane and created the flight number IR 655 next to it as well, poured good amount of the powdered red sands of Hormuz on it and then waited for the high tide.


Soon as the high water occurred, the waves began to wash the cost and therefore vanish the drawn aircraft. So what was the artistic point or rather use of taking all the trouble of creating such huge aircraft on the sands to have it destroyed by the forcing waves? Well, the answer lies in the red sands poured on the the stones. Every time a wave crashed against the coast, not only was it returned to the gulf with the pebbles but also with the powdered red sands as well turning the blue water of Persian Gulf bloody red reminding one of the tragic death of the passengers of the shot down Iran Air aircraft.

At the end, the only thing remained was IR 655 to indicated that its memory lasts forever.

Then the artists put messages about the incident and a poem on peace written in both Persian and English in the bottles which were collected from around the beach and throw them into the Persian Gulf. The chance is somebody somewhere would collect it, read it and think about the peace and a world with out war.