Italy: Alfano Decree Controversy -

:
Italian Bloggers are protesting their government's
proposed measure to establish the "right of reply"
to anyone who claims his reputation has been
damaged by something published on a Blog or website.

:: BBC ::

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Bookish: GONE INTO A NICHE (7#) -

You used to be somebody; right?

Michael Wolff writes about the new Celebrity Culture - it's all about the niche. Outside the niche one favors, no one recognizes celebrities from other niches anymore. [OTG]

# Scott Rosenberg debuts a book
about Blogging called Say Everything.

# Nancy Pearl points out some worthy Mystery Novels
you may have overlooked for summer reads at NPR.

# Graphic Mystery: Hannah Berry's Britten and Brülightly has received some high praise from various critics and readers - worth a shuftie.

# Dr Katherine Ramsland interviews
Dr Michael Stone, author of The Faces of Evil.

# Mansfield Frazier reacts to Chris Hedges' recent book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. [TDB]

# Jim Born, a Florida author and Blogger, worries
that readers are becoming an endangered species.

...

Iran: The Tango Terrorist (2#) -

Interpol has just re-issued an APB alert

in connection with Ahmad Vahidi whose name has
popped up in today's news as the Defense Minister
nominee of Iran proposed by Prez Ahmadinejad.

Vahidi is the subject of
an international arrest warrant for
Terrorism generated in Buenos Aires.

...

Neda Killer ID'd & more (3#) -

Iran's Green Velvet Plot -

The man who allegedly murdered Neda Soltan has been identified as a government-authorized Basiji vigilante named Abbas Kargar Javid.

# Evan Siegel has translated the text of the indictment used for the second group of defendants accused of participating in the Green Velvet Plot. I haven't had a chance to read much of it yet.

# Telecom official Daoud Zare’eyan says he's working on methods to combat the new anti-internet filtering technologies. Try a tinfoil helmet.

...

Iran: Plot Falling Apart -

Green Velvet Plot -

Rooz is reporting that during the third session of the protest proceedings, the prosecutor's pet plot began to look like Swiss cheese.

claimed that the defendant had confessed to destroying public property at one of the disturbances, but the detainee said, "I did not participate in these gatherings."

Much of this disarray appears to have been
caused by the use of forced confessions.

:: Rooz ::

...

UFOs: Rendlesham File Release (2#) -

:
Nick Pope, the UK's Fox Mulder, writes about . . .

the long-awaited release of MoD files concerning
an incident in the forest that people have been
talking about for years. More to come, no doubt.

::Pope:: - - also at ::CNN::

...

The Trouble This Time (8#) -

Iran's Green Velvet Plot -

Someone doesn't want people to read this:

The Monday edition of Karoubi's newspaper Etemad-e Melli has been spiked by order of Prosecutor Mortazavi's office. Tuesday's edition is only iffy at this point.

# Sprung: French teacher Clotilde Reiss has been released from Evin Prison on bail of $300,000. She is staying in the French Embassy in Tehran pending verdict.

Flashback: In the Summer of 2003, Zahra Kazemi, a 54-year-old Canadian photographer, was arrested for taking photos while she was visiting Iran; she was imprisoned in Evin Prison where she was severely beaten and died while still in custody. Cause of death: fractured skull as a result of being hit in the head. Her death is widely regarded as a state-sanctioned murder.

# Another batch of defendants
were put in the dock on Sunday.

"The detainees' confessions reveal that this plot had been planned years ago and the recent election was only an excuse to carry it out," it said, according to IRNA.

Once upon a time... in a far away land... a wizard put a magic spell on a couple of hundred activists in Iran...

# A Washington-based dissident,
Moshen Sazegara, supports and advises the protesters.

# "Along with common young and innocent protesters, the smartest and brightest technicians of the reform movement have been arrested... The Green movement is ours. It is not foreign and it is here to stay."

# :: Mordad 25 - #56 ::

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