Dear friends,
While everyone is on holidays, a new blow to online free speech has taken place and I would like to share it with you and ask for help..
Last Friday, I was kicked out of my hosting company (Florida-based Hosting Matters), as a result of a legal notice sent by Mehdi Khalaji, an Iranian fellow at a neo-conservative think-tank (Washington Institute for the Near East Policy with Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and James Woolsey on its advisory board).
Mhedi Khalaji’s lawyer has sent a notice to my hosting company and also my domain registrar, Go Daddy, asking them to a) remove any ‘defamatory’ material about him, b) make me publish an apology, and c) pay $10,000 for the claimed damages
The lawyers claim are based on a mistranslation of a post I had written a few months ago about Khalaji and his support for a disgusting anti-Iranian campaign (http://www.afpc.org/IFI/iranfreedom.shtml) at another neo-conservative think-tank (American Foreign Policy Council) and his counsel to a think-tank with a clear agenda to overthrow the Iranian government by an economic warfare or a military attack.
The hosting company, clearly intimidated, asked me (documented below) to remove that specific post and also any material related to Mehdi Khalaji, since they didn’t have enough resources to figure if they were actually defamatory or not.
I removed the mentioned post, but resisted against such strange request to remove anything I had written, mentioning Mehdi Khalaji.
Then last Friday, I noticed that the hosting company had actually removed, from my web serve and even my blogging software’s database, any post where Mehdi Khalaji was named in English.
After threatening me not to disclose what the hosting company did, and after a few email exchanges, they terminated my account.
I have now migrated to a new hosting company, outside the United States, still struggling to get my numerous domain names, databases and online applications back and running.
This is a threat to all of us who write anything online these days. If someone could silence whatever he or she didn’t like, even before a court order and based on intimidating hosting and domain registrar companies and based on mistranslated material, we would all going to be in big trouble soon.
It’s all quite ironic that the way I am treated in the United States (by being kicked out of my servers) is worse than that in the Islamic Republic of Iran (by filtering my blog and forcing me to sign apology when I was last in Tehran). Ever more ironic is that a blog I was editing to cover internet censorship in Iran has also been shut down.
Please feel free to blog this and spread the word any way you can. I’ll keep you post about the new developments by email, and as well on my temporary blog on blogspot (http://hodertempblog.blogspot.com).
Here are the supporting documents:
1) The initial legal notice from Khalaji’s lawyer:
http://hoder.com/weblog/images/khalajithreat.pdf2) Email exchange with the hosting company led to termination of my accounts:
http://hodertemp.blogspot.com/2007/08/accounts-and-billing-hosting-matters.html3) My trouble with Islamic Republic of Iran’s authorities:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2006/03/70522Warm regards,
15th Sha’ban Mubarak
Greetings for the birthday of Imam Mahdi (AJ)
Looking forward to his Emersion after the Long Occultation, as the just leader of humanity.
A response to a Sunni brother
I read a post on a Sunni brother’s blog some time ago. The post’s name was: Why did I become a Sunni or Muslim.
I left him few comments but he hasn’t approved any of them so far, so I thought maybe I should put the responses in my blog:
Brother Abubakr Hashimy,
I wonder if Iranians are extremists, why are Islamic terrorism all coming out from the Sunni’s side? Why aren’t Sunnis united in any political or international matter? They only make deals with our enemies …
Why is it that it’s actually Shias who are really protecting Palestine and Lebanon, and the whole Islamic world?
How come is it that Iran defends itself from the whole world of enemies at the 8 year war all alone, having Sunni countries supporting America, Britain, Soviet Union and all other’s goals?
Why do you think that Iraqis are now doing better than Afghanis and others? What is the secret behind Iraq and Lebanon’s religious integration, even getting Christians along with them to fight with their common enemies? Remember Lebanon’s 33 days war. Have Ayatollah Ali Sistani and Sayyed Hassan Nasrollah in mind …
Don’t you see the power that true Shia beliefs has? Don’t you see how alive it is?
Who’s really making trouble for USA, Israel, UK and their allies? Who? Saudi, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait, UAE?!! Which one of them really?
Beside all this, in this tough, sensitive and dangerous situation which the ISLAMIC world is placed, aren’t you helping Al-Qaeda by writing about Shias and Sunnis, that Shias know Sunnis as kafirs and stuff like that which are mostly incorrect and inaccurate. These are mistakes which Sunnis make pretty often these adays, unfortunately!
If we as Shias really know you as Sunnis as Kafirs; how come we pray at Jama’ah with you? I’m living outside of Iran, and am doing so. At the time when Sunni Maraje’ give fatwas to their followers to kill Shias, our (Shia) Maraje’ have given fatwas that praying behind a Sunni brother has the same Thawab as behind a Shia, if not more!
WAKE UP Brother!
وما يذكرون الا ان يشاء الله هو اهل التقوي واهل المغفره — سورة المدثر، آیة 56
But none will remember, unless Allah wills, he is the owner of fear, the owner of forgiveness — Chapter 74: Al-Muddaththir (The Cloaked one), Versus 56
و هيچ كس پند نمىگيرد مگر اينكه خدا بخواهد او اهل تقوا و اهل آمرزش است — سوره ی مدثر، آیه ی 56
Last but not least; the sentence mentioned by Shias in middle of Adhan about Imam Ali (AS) is not part of Adhan, as we shouldn’t say that with Niyyah of Adhan. May I remind you of the part that Sunni brothers say in the morning prayer’s adhan which is not part of Adhan itself and has the same issue: “Assalato Afzalo MenaNnowm”
Wa-Ssalaamo Alaa Ebaadellah-e-Ssaaleheen,
Sayyed Ali Sanaei
— … … … — … … … — … … … — … … … — … … … — … … … — … … … —
Shabaniyah Eid’s Mubarak
Greetings for the birthday of Imam Hossein (AS) as well as Imam Sajjad (AS) and Hazrat Abbas (AS).
Iran’s Shahab Missiles
After the Iranian revolution (1979), the Iran - Iraq war (1980) forced Iran to seriously develop its indigenous military forces. Especially that after the 1979 sanctions, USA double sanctioned Iran at 1984. Later on countries such as USSR, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Australia and others joint the scheme.
The 1980 Iran was not even able to fulfil its minimum need of simple bullets. After all, building on technology and experience obtained through the war, a full scale missile programme was developed to bring the country up to par, and ahead of its regional rivals. Nowadays Iran designs, manufactures and exports its own guns, missiles, tanks, armoured vehicles, radars, artilleries, helicopters, aircrafts, etc. Also interestingly having its self-designed world’s fastest under-water missile, the Hoot! A large number of Iran’s ballistic missiles and long-range artillery rocket systems currently possess the capability to deliver warheads with conventional high explosive, sub-munition, dispersion and etc. This development programme is still ambitiously continuing today. At 1997, I saw myself Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani stating on TV that “Iran has now the top 10 military forces in the world”.
In this article I’ll write the outcome of my researches on Iran’s Shahab family of missiles, which is all done based on my personal curiosity and interest.
:: Click on image to enlarge ::
To give a glimpse on all these missiles in a single look, I’ve made this following table:
| Shahab 1 | Shahab 2 | Shahab 3 | |
| Type | Tactical SRBM | Tactical SRBM | Strategic MRBM |
| Range (km) |
385 - 330 | 500 - 750 | 2,100 |
| Max speed (km/h) | Unknown | Unknown | 5,500 |
| Warheads (kg) | (1 x) 987 - 1,000 | (1 x) 750 - 989 | (1x) 990 |
| CEP (Circular Error Probable) | 450m | Unknown | 190 - 250m |
| Fuel | Liquid | Liquid | Liquid & Solid |
| Height (m) | 11.18 | 11.37 - 12.29 | 15.89 |
| Diameter (m) | 0.855 | 0.885 | 1.32 - 1.35 |
| Weight (kg) | 5,862 - 5,950 | 6,370 - 6,500 | 15,092 |
| Payload (kg) | 1,000 | 1,000 | 1,158 |
| In service year | 1987 | 1990 | 2003 |
| .. |
| Shahab 4 | Shahab 5 | Shahab 6 | |
| Type | Strategic ICBM | LRICBM | Unknown |
| Range (km) |
2,200-2,896 | 3,500 - 4,300 | 5,632 - 10,000 |
| Max speed (km/h) | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| Warheads (kg) | (1 x) 760 - 1,000 | (1 x) 750 - 1,000 | (1 x) 500 - 1,000 |
| CEP (Circular Error Probable) | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| Fuel | Liquid | Liquid | Liquid & Solid |
| Height (m) | 25 | 32 | 32- 35 |
| Diameter (m) | 0.88 - 1.3 | 1.32 - 1.35 | Unknown |
| Weight (kg) | 22,000 | 60,000 | Unknown |
| Payload (kg) | 1,000 | 1,000 | Unknown |
| In service Year | 2004 | 2005 | est. 2009 - 2011 |
(Most of this table’s data has been collected from Federation of American Scientists, GlobalSecurity and Wikipedia websites.)
In general the coverage range of Iranian potential ballistic missiles could be figured as follow:
In this between Shahab 4 programme is postponed or even shelved for the meantime. This missile was supposed to be Iran’s first missile to bring satellites into orbit In its place came the IRIS solid propellant missile. Iran has focused on its Shahab 3 and Shahab 6 at the moment. There are four Shahabs came out of Shahab 3, which are Shahab 3A, 3B, 3C and 3D. About Shahab 6; nothing further and accurate has spread out yet.
I will write further about Shahab 3 missiles next times.
Hossein Derakhshan’s letter: A threat to all of us
Last minutes in Tehran
I finally got my Australia visa granted, but with 2 - 3 weeks delay. At least it didn’t take 90 days!
It’s 3:21am and I’m in Imam Khomeini International Airport at the moment using their new free Internet kiosks. The airport has got much better comparing to 2 -3 months ago. The duty free shops are now open, few coffee shops, Boof, an most importantly Free wireless internet and internet kiosks. I tried to use the internet with my laptop, but it seems the WLAN is not compatible with Windows Vista.
Anyways, I’ll first fly to Dubai connecting to a 13:50 hour flight to Melbourne arriving on 12th August 5 in the morning.
The airport is announcing for Emirates EK976 passengers to Dubai …..
Previous related posts (10/07/07): 90 days required by australia embassy to issue a student visa for iranians
Life getting complicated
“Boeing 787 Dreamliner” Vs. “Airbus A380″
The Airbus vs Boeing competition has been interesting to watch in recent years. With the increasing number of world travellers, and limited airport capacity, there is a need for a very large carrier eg. 500+ seats. But the market can only support one such product. So Airbus stepped up with the A380 superjumbo, which in a typical three-class configuration supports 555 seats (and 853 in single cattle-class configuration). It’s a double-decker 4-engined 10 billion dollar bird.
Boeing went for a more modest successor to the illustrious 747-400, namely the 787 Dreamliner, to debut in 2010. It’s a 2-engined composite-framed liner seating 223, half that of the A380. So it’s gonna use more advanced materials, and wing design, but otherwise not be a radical departure from current models.
At the time, i thought Boeing had the right idea. I thought, I’d rather be a shareholder betting on Boeing, than Airbus. The young mechanical engineer in me thought it would be tremendously exciting to be involved in this ambitious A380 project, but the more experienced software engineer thought, oooo, dunno, a bit risky…
Anyways, now it seems that Airbus is having a hard time, with a two year delay, caused by wiring and weight issues because of its relatively oversized frame. FedEx and now UPS have cancelled their orders for cargo versions of the A380 superjumbo, and Airbus has announced 10,000 job cuts … !!
I wonder what, if any, are the lessons to be learnt from this, for software development projects?
