i feel stupid, and contagious

Trying to discuss the health care bill on Twitter, 140 characters at a time, with folks who don't appear to even know what's in the bill, is generally not advisable. It only leads to headdesking.

That is all.

When it comes to reporting on the situation in Iran, cable news fails on an epic scale. It's not all mainstream media; PBS and NPR are doing really good work and there are journalists there now risking their lives to report on this. But when cable news is bothering to report on this at all, they (and many politicians) are making it about the US and our interests and where we might be of influence over there, which is so unbelievably NOT what this is about. This is about the people of Iran determining their own future.

Anyway. I'm not going to remark too much on it because I don't want to put my foot in my mouth about anything; I think it's more important to listen and watch. But I thought I'd share some links as I've had my eye on this all weekend:

Iran's Stolen Election - some context for the situation, with analysis.

Andrew Sullivan's blog - he's been speaking a lot of truth and reposting a lot of videos from the protests, and sharing links from all over the blogosphere, which is mostly where the bulk of news can be found.

Pictures from Iran. And also here, via Time.

Twitters I've been watching. Many of the people tweeting from there are my age and younger. Just college students.

@Stop Ahmadi

@Change_For_Iran

@IranRiggedElect

@TehranBureau

@IranElection09

@persiankiwi

Twitter has been invaluable btw, since SMS, internet service, and general cell phone service have been blocked inside Iran. I've even heard that Twitter's being monitored by the government to block the proxy IP addresses that many were posting there over the weekend for Iranians to use. If you want to help and know how, you can set up proxy servers and direct message the IP addresses to @persiankiwi or @StopAhmadi -- but DON'T tweet them publicly or they'll just be jammed.

In many respects, Twitter is all they've got.

And this is what it's good for, the next time anyone asks.

Also: well done, tptb at Twitter, for rescheduling the planned downtime so that people inside Iran can continue to communicate with the outside world and with each other.

Tomorrow, LJ goes away. From about 11am Eastern to, um ... not sure for how long. Four hours, at least. And they'll phase it in, when it comes back, so that not everything will be available right away.

I won't whine and wish that the LJ folks could just come in the middle of the night to do their thing. That would be immature. >_>

So. Fun times. XD Anyhow, I'll probably be Twittering more than usual, so feel free to join me over there, and InsaneJournal should be quite busy, so I'll be poking around there as well.

♥

• 10:16 I should have been keeping these records organized all year long, so I shouldn't be whining about drowning in them now. *headdesk* #

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• 17:26 playing The Oregon Trail. having a moment of second-grade nostalgia. #

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• 11:21 I'm published! woot! www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119052925/abstract #
• 12:13 @inell Hee. Its just a tiny technical brief but whee, anyway :D *HUGS* #
• 12:15 nom nom, new Mexican place for lunch. *munches chips and guac* #
• 13:13 Hillbama rpf. O_o Y'know, I suspected as much when I saw the link. 's my own fault for clicking. *scrubs brain* #

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• 21:42 writing drabbles. yes, actually writing something not RP-like. O_o #

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• 08:46 Locked my keys in my car this morning. It was still running. Yeah. #
• 13:18 I am so sleepy. Not good when I have lots of admin stuff to do and brainstorming and oh yes, PCRs to set up. *yawn* #
• 18:20 Ugh, worst traffic ever coming home. And I had to leave work late. #

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