Free Lantern

Olympics values

Ali — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:37:43 +0000

Beating peaceful protestors does not uphold the Olympics values
Amnesty International (UK) has launched the second video of “Human Rights For China” campaign. They’ve used the viral launch to highlight the case of Huang Qi, a 45 years old cyber-dissident who runs the www.64tianwang.com website and has been detained since 10 June. Huang Qi was having dinner at a local restaurant in Chengdu with two volunteers from his organisation, the Tianwang Human Rights Centre, when several men – believed to be plainclothes police - forced them into a vehicle and took them away. Since then no-one’s been able to see him or speak to him: which means he’s at real risk of torture.

Also see:
The first video
Human rights for China
New viral calls for online action as Amnesty demands release of cyber-dissident who helped victims
Beijing’s Alternative Logo

Using Ahmadinejad to win votes!

Ali — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:27:34 +0000

It is interesting how McCain is trying to use Ahmadinejad’s unpopularity to win votes for him!

With a picture of Ahmadinejad and Obama the add says:

Is it OK to Unconditionally meet with Anti-American foreign leaders?
Select a leader with good judgment…

well then from his point of view a good judgment in this case is to sing “Lets Bomb Iran!”

Unmasking McCain*

Ali — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:26:00 +0000

Now that Hillary Clinton is out of the race Obama supporters are worried that some female supporters of Hillary will vote for McCain, so they are trying to show McCain’s views on some issues like Birth control and pro-choice. (*my title is from The Huffington Post)
Thanks to Arash.

World’s environment day

Ali — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:05:15 +0000

Yesterday was world’s environment day. I thought I’ll share some links for this day:

BBC has made a new webpage called “BLOOM=smart choices for the carbon conscience” for those who want to do their bit for the environment. It gives you practical suggestions to reduce CO2 emission, along with the costs and other information. I’m sure you can find a lot of helpful information in there. (thanks to Marco for sending me the link!)

I wrote a relatively long post in my Persian blog about Freiburg as part of Green movement between Persian bloggers. Freiburg is the Ecological and Solar capital of Germany. I thought here I can share one video and a few links for those who are interested:

An interview about Freiburg history and how it became the Eco-friendly city
More videos
Solar region of Freiburg

Germany vs Poland

Ali — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:58:33 +0000

As all of you know the European Championship is starting in a few days and Germany’s first game is with Poland. This is a funny advertisement for this match and it is about German and Polish football fans, and how they behave!

P.S. If you’re wondering where are the Polish fans in this video I add that they are riding the car!

Amnesty International Report

Ali — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:33:17 +0000

Amnesty International today challenged world leaders to apologise for six decades of human rights failure and to re-commit themselves to deliver concrete improvements. …
Some of the most striking images of 2007 were of monks in Burma, lawyers in Pakistan, and women activists in Iran.

See Amnesty International’s report.

Related:
Every Human has Rights

Conservation International

Ali — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:41:53 +0000

I wrote about this in my Persian blog but I wanted to share it here too. Harrison Ford is not just appearing on the new Indiana Jones adds these days, he appears also on the Conservation International ads like the one bellow which he loses an acre of the forest on his chest to show how much it hurts.

To see the other adds see the rest of this post

Thanks To Osocio.

Beer is bad for scientists!

Ali — Thu, 22 May 2008 21:40:04 +0000

In the recent volume of Lab times I read about the (bad) effect of beer on number of publications by scientists! (You can read the online version here Page 14). Well, honestly sometimes if there was no hope of one (or a few) cold beer after work scientific work could’ve been much more difficult don’t you agree? So Cheers! ;))

Original article

New York Times article discussing this

P.S. The picture is the German Hefe Weizen (wheat beer) which is my favorite “publication reducing” agent.

Kathy Reichs

Ali — Tue, 20 May 2008 07:43:28 +0000

I finished reading two novels from Kathy Reichs (Fatal Voyage and Monday Mourning), they are both great reads. So I thought I’ll write a few sentences about Kathy Reichs. As all the other novels that I’ve read from her is featuring Dr. Temperance Brennan (Tempe) who is a forensic anthropologist.
What I like most about Kathy’s novels is the exact and realistic description of how Tempe is getting to the conclusions from experiments mostly on bones. The reason behind this precision is of course the fact that she has a PhD in forensic anthropology and has worked both as an academic and as a part of an investigation teams. These descriptions are written good enough for everyone to understand without sacrificing the scientific base. Recently they started making a new TV series called Bones based on Kathy Reichs books and featuring Tempe Brennan, I have not watched any of it yet but I hope that in the series they don’t destroy her work!

If you haven’t read anything from Kathy Reichs yet, I totally recommend her books and as I don’t have any favorite between those 5 that I’ve read, I recommend them all! ;))

For more information see these links:

Kathy Reichs in Wikipedia
Official Home Page of Kathy Reichs
Kathy Reichs books on Amazon:Amazon.com; Amazon.Ca ; Amazon.de ; Amazon.co.UK

Burma Choice aid

Ali — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:02:10 +0000

RickB has provided a list of agencies that provide aid for the Cyclon-ravaged nation. If you want to help you can choose one of the agencies to donate money to help the victims. Unfortunately the slow processing of visas is restricting the aid agencies to help. The UN has urged Burma to waive visa restrictions that it says are slowing efforts to bring in relief experts and supplies to help an estimated one million people affected by Cyclone Nargis.