The Internet in Brief: 8/03/09, Oh God She’s Blogging About Iran Again

• In case any of you thought even for a moment that I’d lost my huge boner for Iran, here’s more Iran news! Apparently Shane Bauer, a UC Berkeley alum, has been detained in Iran, along with his SF journalist girlfriend and some other dude. Bauer graduated only two years ago (class of ’07), having apparently double majored in Arabic and PACS. He graduated with honors, but the NYT doesn’t say in which. I’m going to guess PACS. I don’t mean to malign that particular department, but seriously. Frankly, I’m more impressed to see an Arabic-speaking white American who isn’t gay. That is quite an achievement.

Bauer is, according to his website, a “documentary photographer and journalist whose work focuses on the effects of social, economic, and political realities on the lives people around the world.” His site is actually incredibly cool, I really recommend you spend some time looking through it.

One might question the wisdom of Americans deciding to go hang out in Iran at the present moment (ESPECIALLY WITH PERSIANKIWI DOWN!), but apparently they didn’t just decide to go hang out in Iran, they lost their way while hiking in Iraq.

Well. Hiking in Iraq, huh? I’m sorry, I’m going to continue to question their judgment.

In any case, best wishes to Bauer and Shourd– I hope they can soon return to their respective homes in Emeryville and Oakland.

• While I’m fairly optimistic for Bauer and Shourd, jailed Iranian dissenters are getting their “fair” trial, and shit is sad.

Kids are getting tortured in jail; it’s not particularly hip for college bloggers to blog on torture unless they’re mentioning John Yoo, but here’s a quote from Mousavi anyways:

“The teeth of the torturers and confession-extorters have reached to the bones of the people,” he said.

“Witnessing such trumped-up trials, the only judgment that the conscience of humanity can make is the moral collapse and discredit of its directors.”

Apparently Mousavi, Khatami, and Rezai (all presidential candidates) are p. much united in their disgust for the trials.

Last Thursday marked the 40 day anniversary of Neda’s death (important, because Iranians mourn for exactly that period of time). It’s said that the prior Revolution proceeded in 40 day steps– it’s too early to tell, but I don’t know if there will even be a second 40 day step. There’s not much news from Iran, thanks to the internet clampdown, so I’m guess I’m just going to STFU at this point. :(

• Not even libertarians like Bill O’Reilly. But then again, libertarians don’t like anyone.

• The O’Reilly / Olbermann war is over?

• And while we’re on the topic of unlikable pundits:

Internet in Brief / IRL News: 7/07/09

As David might have mentioned, I’ve been somewhat busy doing non-blog things… like writing a final exam, and then fleeing Berkeley to get really high and watch Shaft (2000), starring Samuel L. Jackson.

While everyone else up here in Tahoe is having a great time doling out their hard-earned money to Blizzard Entertainment, this hard-working blogger is going to throw a cursory glance around the internet and copy/paste some links your way! Because we at the Sqlog are dedicated journalists. Also, really good at instance groups.

• Berkeley feeling scarier of late? You’re not going crazy– it’s apparently ranked 43rd most dangerous city in the nation. Though I have a feeling that moving to Northside would pretty much solve everything.

• Berkeley Rep director headed for Broadway! I do not particularly care for musicals!

• More Amtrak casualties in the Bay!

• Thousands of Germans play at being Native American; Germans are fucking weird. (from MarginalRevolution)

• Dan Froomkin, who got dropped from the increasingly shitty WaPo, has been hired by HuffPo. My own feelings for HuffPo can be summed up with a sneer and a fart in the general direction of the internet, but yay for HuffPo and yay for Froomkin. Just don’t make him write any stories about Michelle Obama’s wardrobe. Please. Also, Palin is a weirdo. (both from the Daily Dish)

• Highest grossing movies, adjusted for inflation. (from Matt Yglesias)

• In case you weren’t already sick of hearing me squee over Iran, here’s the full collection of clips of Jason Jones in Iran. Although that link isn’t working for me at the moment (srsly wtf), this one still is, and is the funniest anyways.

• Instead of linking the last items, I’m going to embed them. Please. Watch them.

IRL News: 6/23/09

• The New York State Senate pulls an ASUC. The senate is currently deadlocked after two defections (and then a de-defection). Apparently the latest session involved the two parties “plotting” to get to the podium first so that they could hold the gavel. The Democrats won that round, because they snuck into the chamber from a back door and then locked it.

Then the Republicans came in through the normal door, and, having brought their own gavel, proceeded to ignore the Democrats and begin “passing bills”. The Democrats then started their own session and also began “passing bills”, despite neither side actually having a majority. The New York Times coverage is here; this reporter clearly finds the incident much less hilarious than the NPR reporter, thus confirming my impression of the NYT’s absolute humorlessness.

• Further notes on the decline of the Republican party: Mark Sanford goes missing for four days.

• This is more internet wank than real life news, but oh well: Will.i.am punches Perez Hilton in the face for calling him a fag; Will.i.am is now everyone’s hero.

The Internet in Brief / IRL News: 6/22/09

I have a ridic stomachache from combating various species of hangover all weekend, so I only have one real update, and you’ve probably seen this already. Possibly on the teevee, too!

• Iranian girl dies in a pool of her own blood; entire scene broadcast on YouTube. (Confirmed by Al Jazeera ? here.) Apparently this video was shown on CNN? Making up for #cnnfail with a graphic video of a 16 year old girl dying… fuck you, CNN, I’ve never despised you more. Not even when you ran that feature about Hispanic voters during the 2008 election, which you entitled BLACK VS. BROWN

• Twitter now rendered useless with white noise on #iranelection; mostly about “Neda,” the dead girl.

• First signs of nauseating Cafepress fetishization here.

• Good assessment of the situation by Laissez’s Fair here.

(The above two lines are why America shouldn’t intervene; Americans have an uncanny knack of fucking everything up.*)

(*Okay, my views are a little more complex than that but plz don’t expect me to expound them here; at least get me drunk first.)

I read somewhere that the IRGC (Revolutionary Guard Corps) has offered to recount 10% of the votes, but I am not bothering to link because that isn’t even news; that is just a fucking shitty thing to offer people.

The Internet in Brief: 6/19/09

• BREAKING NEWS: ANDREW SULLIVAN HAS TOTAL BREAKDOWN; suddenly believes he is 18 years old and Iranian. Earlier this week he changed his blog color scheme to green; little did we know it was but an early symptom of his now full-blown dementia. He deliriously posts:

Mock not. As the regime shut down other forms of communication, Twitter survived. [...]

That a new information technology could be improvised for this purpose so swiftly is a sign of the times. It reveals in Iran what the Obama campaign revealed in the United States. You cannot stop people any longer. You cannot control them any longer. They can bypass your established media; they can broadcast to one another; they can organize as never before.

The key force behind this is the next generation, the Millennials, who elected Obama in America and may oust Ahmadinejad in Iran. They want freedom; they are sick of lies; they enjoy life and know hope. [..]

This generation will not bypass existing institutions and methods: look at the record turnout in Iran and the massive mobilization of the young and minority vote in the US. But they will use technology to displace old modes and orders. Maybe this revolt will be crushed. But even if it is, the genie has escaped this Islamist bottle.

Maybe that’s what we’re hearing on the rooftops of Tehran: the sound of the next revolution.

Allah O Akbar!

• As it turns out, Twitter’s maintenance rescheduling was not prompted so much by Andrew Sullivan as it was by the US State Department. People seem pretty cool with this; I got mad because I am a big gay non-interventionist*. (*look, any form of US intervention w/ Iran is just going to evoke some bad memories.)

• Meanwhile, the Clog finally posts about Iran & Twitter, almost a full week after the story blows up. Understandable, because neither Twitter nor Iran are really all that relevant to a blog about the University of California, Berkeley. *smokes cigarette, poops on a Persian student*

• The gay and retarded WaPo (complicit in #cnnfail) gets gayer and retardeder. If Wonkette hadn’t posted that, I would have literally never found out. I haven’t read the Post in about a year; it pisses me off that much. In other news, I’m pretty sure that I’m going to get shot by an indignant gay one of these days, for being a careless, insensitive dick (a reverse Harvey Milk, if you will). And I will completely deserve it.

• A couple minutes of hilarious ownage to be found here. Am I a bad person for taking delight in the verbal abuse of an entitled, incoherent yuppie?  No, I’m a bad person because I question whether torture is inherently bad.

• While we’re on the subject of angry rants, here is an amazing podcast. Listen to at least a minute– you will be hooked. It’s no Ainsley Hayes moment, it’s really just a guy regurgitating internet talking points in the most unlikely voice ever, but you know, I will do anything to get a post to somehow tie-in to The West Wing.

The Internet in Brief: 6/16/09, why am i blogging instead of writing on transcendental idealism

• Twitter: Not so fucking inane? Seriously, though– based on this weekend and the (lack of) mainstream media coverage of the election fraud in Iran (countdown to getting our blog blocked in Iran begins now, though I am pretty sure no one would notice if our blog got blocked in the state of California), I would have to say that Twitter wins. Not to mention, while CNN demonstrated a disturbing silence on this major historical event (#cnnfail lolz), Twitter went as far as to reschedule a serious site update just so Iranian dissenters could continue twittering.  Wonkette weighs in. They are absolutely right that Twitter is still completely stupid, but I registered for Twitter anyways and also set up my phone so I can tweet by text. New theory: vote was rigged by Twitter, to get closet political romantics like me to sign up for Twitter.

• Speaking of Wonkette, congratulations! Our favorite sharp-tongued, borderline silly political blog just got archived by the Library of Congress. Wonkette writes:

When scholars of the future — otherwise known as “Roombas” — look back at our chaotic and moronic first decade of the 21st Century, they will have nothing but faded printouts of vulgar old web pages for source material. “Why were there so many pictures of Truck Nutz and watermelon gardens around the Executive Mansion?”, the Roombas will ask each other, in robotic voices.

When I read this, I got an image of Tracy Jordan shouting: “It’s farting! It’s farting!”

I suppose that in the context of such times (Jon Stewart destroys a CNN show, Wonkette is part of the Library of Congress, Twitter is journalism) it is a safe bet to say that the Heuristic Squelch is on its way to a bright future. A potent combination of our shortest, most common demoninator top ten (specially designed for those fans who find some of our other lists too long to read*) and a Photoshop of a dog farting will replace Chancellor Birgeneau. And that will be the end of ChanceB’s LEFT WING TYRANNY over the University of California, Berkeley.

*an actual criticism

• Swiss Miss: fantastic design blog.

• The Daily Clog bitterly reports the existence of another Berkeley-specific blog. Luckily this one is pretty much completely written from a townie’s perspective. Wait, non-students live here? Who aren’t hobos? Or grad students? Do you see what I did there. Grad students don’t count. Kekeke.

• You know how RevengeCrabs was the frattiest thing ever? MsTaken is the bitchiest post-sorority career woman thing ever. The difference? RevengeCrabs was so funny that I couldn’t tell if it was a troll or not. But MsTaken just looks like something marketed towards stuck up women who can’t (or won’t?) tell men to get lost. “But Sarah,” you might say, “what about that guy who tried to number you during distro like a month ago? You couldn’t bring yourself to tell him to get lost, you just stonewalled him over your number for like five minutes. Plus you are just jealous because you never get hit on since you got your hair cut cuz now you look like a boy. HAHA.” Okay, yeah, but my point is: why should you put a dude down for trying to number-close you? There’s no need to act super bitchy (puke in mouth ew you’re so gross men roll eyes). If he’s that huge of a sleazebag, then just tell him to fuck off. Why the fuck do you need a fake engagement ring that you can hide inside of a keychain? Also, my hair is totally not that short. Fuckers.

• Wait a second, did I ever address what was going on in Iran? In case anyone does not know and actually cares, I’d recommend trawling through the million-something posts on the Daily Dish that were put up over the weekend. If you can’t bother with that, here is a well-written, intelligent two-page assessment of the situation in Iran. And if you still can’t be bothered with that, here’s my gung-ho explanation:

1) the election was obviously rigged, see the Daily Dish or the Asia Times article if you want arguments, if I make this explanation any longer you stupid fucks won’t want to read it

2) people began protesting

3) police begin beating them

4) people keep protesting. Protests, chants, etc. are organized via twitter. Police brutality is captured via camera phone and uploaded onto youtube. (All these you can find via the Daily Dish.) Guys begin throwing rocks at the police. The police begin doing these motorcycle runs where a guy in the bitch seat swings a club as they drive through a crowd.

5) the police (? unsure at this point; it seems that it’s now the Basij militia? Or right-wing hardliners? There are also rumors that the government is importing Arabs who will be more brutal with the citizenry) raid university dorms. Students are killed. Professors resign en masse.

6) the police (?) prevent the wounded protestors from entering hospitals. People die.

The role of the internet throughout this whole deal has been absolutely fascinating. There’s the Twitter aspect, yes, and the accompanying Facebook bullshit and YouTube uploads… also the quality blogging that has emerged out of this, in contrast to the total failure of the mainstream media… but what I find really interesting are the DOS attacks. They were first orchestrated by the government (presumably) against pro-opposition sites. Several tweets called for “hackers” to go after government sites, which went down from DOS attacks, which then led to all of Iranian cyberspace suffering. I’m not sure how this works, but I suppose I could say (in layman’s terms) that some of the internet tubes kind of broke and now we have to get an internet plumber.

In any case, I didn’t put this under IRL News because I feel like the IRL News (CNN, NY Times, WashPo) has failed to properly report this. Obviously this whole shit happened IRL, otherwise it would be fucking stupid and I would have never been swayed into signing up for Twitter. It’s not quite the internet supplementing reality (like campaign websites during the election season), neither is it the internet co-opting reality (like blog wank), nor is the internet by itself, producing despisable 4chanesque circlejerking. I’m not sure what this is, but whatever it is, it’s not quite IRL News.

But what does this have to do with UC Berkeley or comedy anyways? Absolutely nothing, but I am a big romantic baby who can’t get enough of this story. These last couple of days I was so sure they would fail, but it’s looking more and more like they will succeed– hence me being able to bring myself to post at all. (Tomorrow I am wearing some green to class in solidarity with the Iranian students. :3 )

[Before some hypothetical reader complains about my double standard when it comes to foreign policy unrelated to UC Berkeley, I want to point out that instead of suing people or taking up valuable (?) Senate time, I am being an internet shut-in who probably won't even get asked about the green thing because no one in real life talks to me. In any case, my view on the US's role in this matter is pretty much the same as Obama's-- this whole spiel has everything to do with Iran, and nothing to do with the US. The US should not intervene, and that's not just because it's what Ron Paul would do. The US shouldn't have any fucking say in the matter because it's not their goddamn democratic process. (I really don't want to see Chancellor Birgeneau sending a University-wide e-mail about this either.) But as a college student, I have a great deal of empathy for my counterparts in Iran. I think they are doing the right thing.]

[In case any of you are also feeling like big gay bourgeois college-educated humanist babbies about this, there are a couple things you can do.]

————————————————————————-

• Okay, so I wrote most of this post SEVERAL hours ago, figuring that it would be the first morning post the next day… only, the internet never sleeps, and by now it is clear that we are SUPER late on the Iran train. Not that we were ever on the ball with anything other than postmodernist exegeses of pedal pushing porn. But for once I care, and the Web is already delivering hilarious things like THE JEWS ARE BEHIND THE TWITTER . I’m fucking serious. The proof? A JPost article that appeared Sunday, June 14th, mentioning several prolific Twitterers (who had signed up just the day before) by name.

On the other hand, Andrew Sullivan wrote on Saturday (about five billion posts before Sunday, because he is a fucking MACHINE): The Revolution Will Be Twittered. Why? Because the government is interfering with pretty much every other form of communication. Huh… maybe that’s those Twitter accounts were registered only three days ago?

My favorite part of this analysis?

IranElection09
800 followers. 9 friends.
196 tweets in 3 days. none before that.
185 in English. 11 in Farsi (Arabic appearing letters. Not sure if it’s Farsi)
Time: bulk between 2:00pm and 6:00pm eastern. Also 1:00am.
Top 5 words: iranelection, rt, mousavi, tehran, march
Most retweets: @IranRiggedElect @StopAhmadi

“Arabic appearing letters”. YAY, awesome analysis on Iranian twitters!!!!

Okay, so: JPost (the staff of which almost assuredly doesn’t speak Farsi) picks out five Tweeters, who all sign up for Twitter in a timeframe when lots of people are buzzing for communication but have no outlet but Twitter, who are suspiciously very prolific and also suspiciously active in getting followers (man, how can a Tweeter do BOTH? that’s so weird), and also suspiciously tweet in a language that JPost can speak? Never mind that Change_for_Iran just posted in Farsi 22 minutes ago, or that pretty much all of these Tweeters have been constantly referring to (via @) all-Farsi Twitters, especially translating them into English?

There is no fucking explanation. It’s gotta be the fucking Jews, man.

But it’s not about that maaaaaaaaaan:

Disclaimer: Before I get attacked as being an Anti-Semite,you should know that I am half Jewish. Alternatively, I hope that people do not misinterpret this as some “JEWISH” conspiracy. It isn’t. These are the workings of the extreme right wing of Israeli politics. They have their own Bush’s and Cheney’s there too.

“Oh, I have nothing against the Jews. Just Israel!”

GG, “chartingstocks”. GG.

-

P.S.~ speaking of “que bono” [sic], I highly doubt the Israeli right wing would profit from Iran gaining a regime more friendly towards the US. Why would you want to lose a justification for having nuclear weapons / general aggression? Why would you want an Islamic nation cozying up to the States?

Also, it’s Twitter. Twitter is fucking dumb. No one fucking expected Twitter to do shit, especially not the Iranian students who keep twittering about how they used to only use their accounts to follow tech blogs, LET ALONE Mossad. That is why this is a story: inherently stupid medium pulls through, does good deed.

The Internet in Brief + IRL News: 6/09/09

• Good news! You know how your mental and physical health has been completely compromised by the past couple of years? Well, it wasn’t in vain– the degree does matter, despite the doomsaying. (link originally found through Daily Dish).

College graduates have definitely been hurt by the current recession. Thousands find themselves out of work, and many of those newly unemployed will struggle to find a job that paid as well as their last one. Still, on a relative basis, a college education has never been more valuable.

The pay gap between college graduates and everyone else, for instance, reached a record high last year. Four-year-college graduates made 54 percent more, on average, than people who attended college but did not graduate. Fifty-four percent!

If you’re a college student trying to decide whether to get your degree, I would urge you to remember that number — rather than anecdotes about unemployed college graduates.

• CNN foreign correspondent Michael Ware viciously pwns some fat neocon turd while Campbell Brown desperately tries to ruin our fun.

• Old, but I just saw this: the entirety of Robocop in a ten minute rap.

• NPR finally finds out what all those young peoples are up to

• An awesome process (??? does this count as process ???) story from the NY Times here. Some great quotes:

As I listened to Biden talk about his Senate career, nearly uninterrupted, for half an hour, I was reminded that leaving any job after 36 years presents, psychologically, a difficult adjustment; at times, the vice president sounded a little like the high-school football star who has received his diploma but can’t help hanging around practice anyway, throwing imaginary passes on the sideline. Biden described for me working out at the Senate gym as vice president and stopping into the Senate dining room alone for a bowl of soup. He was amazed, he said, when his former colleagues lined up to say hello.

More Biden hilariousness:

Having served under seven commanders in chief during his time in the Senate, Biden understands as well as anyone the pervasive fear in Congress that presidents are out only for themselves. “I’ve had presidents who say to me, ‘Hey, Joe, get out on that limb for me,’ ” Biden told me. At this, he rose from his chair and began acting out the metaphor, half-crouching as he glanced at the limb behind him. “And I’m out there. I’m out on that limb. And then you hear this shew shew shew” — he nicely approximated the noise of a saw rasping back and forth — “and you look back, and the limb’s being sawed off.

“I’ve been there with these other presidents,” he said, returning to his seat. “I’ve been there when they said later, ‘Well, you know, things change.’ ” He leaned forward and touched my knee, in a way that I imagined he might while making the very same case to one of his former colleagues. “Not this guy,” Biden said, pointing toward the Oval Office. “And they know that not over my dead body would it be that way with me.”

And also:

OBAMA’S AGGRESSIVE COURTSHIP of Congress is plotted and directed by Emanuel, who despite his legendary personality flaws — his penchant for profane mockery is now so well documented that you sometimes have the sense he’s cursing at you so as not to disappoint — is freakishly well suited to the job.

In short, the vice president is a dork, and the White House Chief of Staff is a caricature of himself.

• The New York Times has a hard time with meta!

• American Journalists captured in North Korea; sentenced to prison camps– these two are basically destined to go through Cheneyesque torture. I wish this were a bigger deal: I have a sneaking suspicion that if these were white girls, it would be a bigger deal.

The Internet in Brief: 6/08/09

• Woooooooooooooooooooooo

• Lots of great reading material here at xpostfactoid, and I’m not just saying that because xpostfactoid seems to love Obama almost as much as I do. If we were characters in The West Wing, I would be Toby and he would be Josh. He’s Josh because he left the White House to run Santos’s campaign, and ergo loves Bartlett less than I do. (That plot twist with Toby in Season 7 never happened).

• In case my last post wasn’t sad enough already, The Daily Dish has an incredible collection of anonymous, personal posts on abortion here (although I’ve noticed that quite a few posts from the series are missing from this round up). The series gets scooped here, where Kate Dailey points out how the very Catholic Sullivan goes from “I still cannot in good conscience support these abortions” to “I have to say I am beginning to believe that these abortions, given their excruciating moral and personal choices, may be the most defensible in context of all abortions” within a matter of days. I have to say, a few days on the Daily Dish equates to about a month of absolutely readable content on any other blog. Here are a few more posts I liked. This one was the one that sent me bawling.

• Wonkette makes a breakthrough discovery.

• Bruno. will. be. ausgezeichnet.

• In other news, today is my birthday :3. Thanks to all y’all who read the Sqlog, even the ones who come here looking for “kkids fucking” or “cartoon skunk farts”.

IRL News: 6/03/09

Osama Administration Publicly Disassociates Itself With Barack Obama

Internet in Brief: 5/17/09, I am too hungover to write a longer post

• The Heuristic Squelch throws an awesome party! Hooray! There is no link for this, because it happened in real life and not the internet.

• YouTube destroys Guatemala. No, seriously, guys. The attorney general turned up dead last week, and his family passed this video around at the funeral. It is now on YouTube. It’s 18 minutes long; the basic gist is: “If you are watching this tape, I am dead, and the president of Guatemala killed me.” Here’s the video in question; an English transcription is available on this page, just search for “Danila” and it’ll pop up in the comments section.

• Penis penis penis

• I wonder if Beetle reads AnonCon. He should.