The Pirate Bay sold for $6.7M US, goes legit.

This is a big surprise to me.

The Pirate Bay, the worlds largest BitTorrent tracker and a top 100 website, is in the process of selling itself to a software company. Maybe the constant legal battles have caused the founders to throw in the towel, or maybe it is the fact that they will end up going to jail shortly due to a major legal loss, but this sale comes as a major surprise.

One thing The Pirate Bay has consistently preached was independence. With the purchase by Global Gaming Factory X, and the implementation of a “new business model”, it seems that all The Pirate Bay once stood for is long since gone. Before you know it, The Pirate Bay will be synonymous with Napster as they fade into Internet history.

Remember that North Korean Ship the U.S. was tracking?

Sometime within the last two weeks the U.S. started tracking a North Korean ship suspected of carry weapons banned by the U.N. anti-proliferation resolution. I feel this was a sign to North Korea that the U.S. wasn’t going to sit around as they continued to flaunt laws in the face of the U.N, as well as a test to see just how committed China was to dealing with North Korea.

Well, the Kang Nam – the ship the U.S. was tracking – has turned around, leaving the world questioning where is the ship going and what is the next step in the game of Maritime chess.  The shit has been at sea for nearly two weeks at this point, eventually it will need to refuel.  When that time comes where will it find safe harbor and will the U.S. find a way to board it at that time?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says political overthrow has failed

Since the massive and bloody riots at Baharestan Square, very little news has come out of Iran regarding the uprising.  From what I can tell – reading the Twitter, Facebook and blog posts of those in in Iran – the revolution has all but come to an end.

Today Mahmood Ahmadinejad stated the overthrow driven by “political enemies of Iran” has failed:

“The enemies were not able to reach their objectives for the soft overthrow of the system,” he said, according to the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency, or ILNA. “The enemy is pursuing the objective of undermining the nation’s capabilities after the 85% turnout at the polls.”

And so, life goes on… sad from my perspective. Not because of a specific outcome but because the people of Iran have, apparently, been robbed of their ability to determine their future.

With the world now watching, the news is full of information on the events of Iran. Here are a number of new bits to fill you in:

The Mood In Tehran

Mohammad Sagha, a Chicago blogger, is in Tehran visiting his family for the summer, he has some interesting reports about what is going on that the Western press is not showing. Here is a great comment that, I think, shows something about the mentality of Iranians within the country:

This morning’s Tehran Times, an english publication inside Iran, had this following headline: “Candidates and followers are different from rioters: Larijani.” Larijani is the current speaker of Iran’s parliament, or Majles. This isn’t the first time a high official has made such a statement, but I think it is extremely important to reiterate; it shows that people look at opposition inside Iran as legitimate as long as they aren’t violent and there are powerful elements inside Iran which are serious about compromise and recognizing dissent.

In the end, if the government starts the violence, how should the opposition react? Kind of a catch 22.

Nico Pitney, of the Huffington Post, has a GREAT live blogging archive of events.

The BBC asks… where did all the votes come from?

Another good article by the BBC that breaks down the three potential areas where the “extra” votes could have come from, assuming they are legit votes.

1) Voter turn out

Result – reported turnout figures are problematic.

2) So where did the new votes come from?

Result – in order to get to the total declared of 765,000 votes from the provinces 44% of former reformist voters would have had to have voted for President Ahmadinejad. Unlikely according to the report.

3) Do rural voters support Ahmadinejad?

Result – his increase in support for Ahmadinejad amongst rural and ethnic minority voters is out of step with previous trends, extremely large in scale, and central to the question of how the credibility of Ahmadinejad’s victory has been perceived within Iran.

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, said….

“Germany stands on the side of those people in Iran who want to exercise their right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. I strongly urge the Iranian leaders

• to allow peaceful demonstrations;
  
• not to use force against demonstrators;
  
• to release political prisoners;
  
• to allow free reporting by the media; and
  
• to recount the votes cast in the presidential election.

What is true for the rest of the world is also true for the Iran: general human and civil rights must be fully respected!”

Seems to be a lot more than what President Obama is willing to say.

China wants Ahmadinejad election recognized

China is throwing thoughts about the Iranian election into the mix:

Last Thursday, an editorial in the state-owned English-language China Daily called on the international community “to leave Irans internal problems to the Iranian people and accept their verdict.

“Attempts to push the so-called color revolution toward chaos will prove very dangerous,” the editorial continued. Opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi “refuses to accept defeat. Win and loss are two sides of an election coin. Some candidates are less inclined to accept defeat.”

China Daily pointed to a pre-election poll that showed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ahead by a 2 to 1 margin.

You think Tiananmen Square may be haunting some members of the Chinese government? Maybe it’s the fact that if a revolution could break out in Iran, it could also happen in China. Oh, and the “pre-election poll” the China Daily pointed to is very, very suspect. According to the BB,C 1,731 people contacted and well over half either refused to participate (42.2%) or did not indicate a preferred candidate (15.6%).

UPDATE #1: The IBTimes is reporting Revolutionary Guards commander defies Khamenei’s orders to use force on protestors

General Ali Fazli, who was recently appointed as a commander of the Revolutionary Guards in the province of Tehran, is reported to have been arrested after he refused to carry out orders from the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to use force on people protesting the controversial re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

If recent events are any indication of what may happen to Ali Fazli, you know it won’t be good.

UPDATE #2 0n 6/24/09: Iranian footballers who wore green armbands to support protesters forced to retire

Four footballers who wore green armbands in solidarity with Iranian protesters have been forced to retire from the national team.

Their gesture in a recent World Cup match in Seoul attracted worldwide attention last week.

But the authorities have now taken revenge revenge by imposing life bans on Ali Karimi, 31, Mehdi Mahdavikia, 32, Hosein Ka’abi, 24 and Vahid Hashemian, 32. According to the paper, they have been ‘retired’ from the sport.

You may not be seeing the news of the recent Iranian election on stations such as CNN, Fox News or MSNBC.  If you have, however, chances are its coverage about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being declared winner.  What the public is not really seeing is the anger, the demonstrations and violence over the elections due to claims of a manipulated election.

Hossein Mousavi, the opposition to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has released a letter addressed to the Iranian people.  Here is the full English text of his letter (via tehranbureau.com)

In the Name of God

Honorable people of Iran

The reported results of the 10th Iranians residential Election are appalling. The people who witnessed the mixture of votes in long lineups know who they have voted for and observe the wizardry of I.R.I.B (State run TV and Radio) and election officials. Now more than ever before they want to know how and by which officials this game plan has been designed. I object fully to the current procedures and obvious and abundant deviations from law on the day of election and alert people to not surrender to this dangerous plot. Dishonesty and corruption of officials as we have seen will only result in weakening the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran and empowers lies and dictatorships.

I am obliged, due to my religious and national duties, to expose this dangerous plot and to explain its devastating effects on the future of Iran. I am concerned that the continuation of the current situation will transform all key members of this regime into fabulists in confrontation with the nation and seriously jeopardize them in this world and the next.

I advise all officials to halt this agenda at once before it is too late, return to the rule of law and protect the nation’s vote and know that deviation from law renders them illegitimate. They are aware better than anyone else that this country has been through a grand Islamic revolution and the least message of this revolution is that our nation is alert and will oppose anyone who aims to seize the power against the law.

I use this chance to honor the emotions of the nation of Iran and remind them that Iran, this sacred being, belongs to them and not to the fraudulent. It is you who should stay alert. The traitors to the nation’s vote have no fear if this house of Persians burns in flames. We will continue with our green wave of rationality that is inspired by our religious learnings and our love for prophet Mohammad and will confront the rampage of lies that has appeared and marked the image of our nation. However we will not allow our movement to become blind one.

I thank every citizen who took part in spreading this green message by becoming a campaigner and all official and self organized campaigns, I insist that their presence is essential until we achieve results deserving of our country.

[ verse from in Quran: Why not trust in God, who has shown us our ways. We are patient in face of what disturbs us. Our resilience is in god. ]

Mir Hossein Mousavi

Oh, and guess what?  Housavi is reportedly under house arrest for his post-election letter.

Talking things one step further, it appears communications have been cut in Tehran:

The main mobile telephone network in Iran was cut in the capital Tehran Saturday evening while popular Internet websites Facebook and YouTube also appeared to be blocked, correspondents said.

The communication cuts came after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a landslide re-election victory, sparking rioting in the streets by opposition supporters who claimed the result had been rigged.

The mobile phone network stopped working at 10:00 pm (1730 GMT), just before Ahmadinejad went on television to declare the election a “great victory” and even as baton-wielding police were clashing with protestors in the streets of Tehran, according to witnesses.

Was the election rigged?  There is no way for us to ever truly know. There is, however, very little doubt that something major is potentially underway in the country of Iran. If a false election did take place, will the population stand up en masse? I hope so.