?The gulf you are looking for does not exist. Try Persian Gulf.?

That is what you see if you Google ?Arabian Gulf? and click on ?I?m feeling lucky?. It is a successful implementation of what is known as a Google bomb, planted by thousands of internet users last week. It is as much a testimony to the staggering display of unity as it is to the power of the blogs.

It all started when the National Geographic decided to include the term Arabian Gulf, as an alternative to Persian Gulf in its latest edition of the world atlas. It also renamed the Iranian territories of Lavan and Kish islands, using foreign Arabic names, and undermined Iranian sovereignty over three other Iranian Islands that have been claimed by the U.A.E. That sparked a spontaneous flow of outrage in Iran and also among the Iranians living abroad, from North America, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East, all the way to Japan and China.

The issue of naming this particular body of water has long been a sensitive subject between Iranians and Arabs. Historically, this body of water has been called Persian Gulf by almost all ancient languages. It was consistently labeled as the Persian Gulf even on maps drawn by prominent Arab geographers. However, since the 1960?s and with the rise of Arab nationalism, pan-Arabists led by late Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and followed by the deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein have tried to re-categorize it as the Arabian Gulf. Since then this term has become popular in Arab countries, and it is increasingly being used by the western media outlets as well, which Iranians believe is largely due to Arab countries? financial influence.

As a result of the National Geographic incident, Iranians came together last week in various forms ? most prominently in cyber space ? to protest against the issue. While Iran banned National Geographic reporters and sales of the magazine, several petitions were also passed around the internet, gathering more than 42 thousand signatures as of the time of writing this article.

But the most striking display of protest was through the implementation of the Google bomb. A Google bomb is an attempt to influence the ranking of a given site in results returned by Google, which can be achieved if a large number of webpages link to a specific site all with the same keyword. It has been used before in a number of occasions, most notably with the search query ?miserable failure?, which returns a biography of the US president George Bush as its first result.

Several days after the incident, I pitched out the idea of using a Google bomb to voice our objection on my blog (www.legofish.com). I set up a simple page, similar to the Internet Explorer?s ?page not found? error page which humorously stated that ? No body of water by the name of Arabian Gulf exists?. I asked other bloggers to link to that page and before I knew it, hundreds of bloggers from all over the world and different backgrounds were in on it. It quickly developed into a massive movement and within three days of my original post the page reached number one in Google?s search results for ?Arabian Gulf?.

More than anything, it has proved the astonishing power of bloggers. While the Iraninian government has increasingly limited reformist newspapers, the Internet has become a powerful means of communication. As a result, the number of Iranian bloggers has risen astronomically over the past few years, so much so that in a recent ranking of all internet blogs categorized by language, Persian (a.k.a. Farsi) was ranked third.

Eventhough some attempts have recently been made by the Iranian authorities to limit this virtual freedom as well, such as filtering nonconformist websites , the Internet still remains the number one outlet for free expression in Iran. And this latest movement is a perfect indication of that.

I've come a long way form being the biggest anti-TV advocate for over a year to catching myself watching parts of the Bachelor *hangs head in deep shame*.

I just wanted to say the only person who would turn down a pair of babylons as good as these would be a guy with a name as stupid as Byron!!

In slightly more important news, our google bomb is still working =D

Alright everyone, now it's time to let the world know about our google bomb. Ali has compiled a list of ways to contact some major news organizations. We've also scribbled a little letter that you can copy/paste and send them, but feel free to write your own. It'll only take a few minutes but the outcome is invaluable, so do it.

CNN: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/tips/
AFP: http://www.afp.com/english/afp/?cat=contact
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/2804227.stm
Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/-helpSection.jhtml?p=contactUs (use contact editor)
Google News: news-feedback@google.com , source-suggestions@google.com
DW: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/contact/0,1412,266,00.html (scroll down and pick 'DW-Wold English for Dep.)
Wired.com:http://www.wired.com/news/feedback/mail/1,2330,5,00.html (check 'story pitch')
Washington Post: Here
NY Times: letters@nytimes.com
Guardian: editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk
Radio Farda: http://www.radiofarda.org/default.aspx#commentbox
IRNA: comment@irna.com
ISNA: http://www.isna.ir/news/khabar.asp
Webnevesht: http://webnevesht.com/contactform.asp
Emrooz: emrouznews@yahoo.com
Baztab: http://www.baztab.com/contact.php
Shargh: info@sharghnewspaper.com

Dear Sir/Madam;

I am writing to inform you about what I believe is an extremely newsworthy item.

Through the collaborative effort of thousands of Iranian bloggers, a google bomb has been successfully implemented to voice concerns over the growing use of the wrong term of 'Arabian Gulf' instead of the Persian Gulf in media.

If you search in google.com for the query 'Arabian Gulf', you will see that the first result is a page that we have set up to voice our protest against the use of this term.

What sparked this massive movement was National Geographic's decision in including the term 'Arabian Gulf' in their latest edition of the world Atlas as an alternative to Persian Gulf.

This caused a spontaneous protest which led to several online petitions and also successful implementation of the google bomb.

To view the petition with 31965 signatures so far, visit:
http://www.petitiononline.com/persian/petition.html

To see where the idea of the google bomb started, and also to read more about its concepts, look here:
http://legofish.com/weblog/000777.html

Thank you for your attention,

Sincerely

If you're Persian, you've probably heard about the fiasco over the name of Persian Gulf in the most recent edition of the National Geographic Atlas.

They have decided to put the bogus name of Arabian Gulf on the map as well. This has outrage the Iranian community and caused a massive movement on different fronts to counter the issue.

First, there is the NIAC initiative. They have created a handy form where by filling a couple of boxes and clicking a single button you can send an [editable] email (or a regular mail if you wish) to various people in the National Geographic society and voice your concern. I urge you do do this if you haven't already done so.

Then, there is this petition against the issue which you can sign.

My suggestion is to also use google bombing to make a statement and voice our objection. It is really simple, and it can easily work if everyone does it. Google bombing, in short, is using a large number of links to a specific website to bring up that site's ranking in google. So everytime someone searches for a particular phrase, the first result they get is that specific page.

I have set up this mock page for this purpose. Inside that page, I have also linked to the Persian Gulf Task Force website (persiangulfonline.org) which have been defending the Persian Gulf hertiage for ages, but for some reason have seemingly abandoned the site and have remained quiet regarding this latest issue.

I believe the page I have set up deals a more powerful blow. So, if you want to join the movement, here is what you do:

link to the page http://legofish.com/arabian_gulf.htm

using the phrase arabian gulf. it is important that you ONLY use the term arabian gulf for this purpose and nothing else. We have to have a very large number of links for this to work, so please do your part.

Let the bombing begin:

arabian gulf arabian gulf arabian gulf

Update: well boys and girls, thanks to your efforts and the efforts of hundreds of bloggers, our google bomb is working. A few hours ago our page was ranked first in Canada, and slowly it spread throughout google data centers in USA and across the world. I've had people from different countries keeping me updated about the progress, even from China (which in the last update we were still second in the ranking).

Anyway, everyone who participated deserves a pat on the back, but remember it is not over yet. You have to keep searching for 'arabian gulf' in google and clicking on our page, to insure it'll remain on top. Also, the bomb is still rather unstable, and there is a chance it might go down in the rankings in the upcomming days, we need a few more crawls to get a stable result, which might take a few weeks. But for now, you can indulge in the bomb. :D

I used to live in the UAE, as many of you know. I was fortunate enough to have been there just prior to the insane boom that the UAE has experienced. Having lived there for around 8 years meant that I was able to witness this crazy progress and the process of modernization, the transformation from a plain, dull, dusty desert city into an out-of-this-world cosmopolis, which is not something most people get a chance to witness in their lifetime, so I'm grateful for it.

But back in the day, were things were still simple, and AbuDhabi only had one TV channel, I had a chance to be on TV. I used to study piano with Mr. Wei, probably the best piano teacher in town (to whom I owe any musical sense I have). One day he told me a friend of his who works at the TV wants one of his students to be on her show and play a few pieces, and he wanted me to do it.

So I agreed, and after practicing a couple of pieces for a couple of weeks, I was off to the TV studio with my mom. It was pretty exciting, being in the TV studio and all. I met the hostess of the show, and she gave me the few questions that she was going to ask, so I would prepare my answers. There was only one problem, the show was LIVE! So there was no room for screwing up, otherwise I'd have been embarassed in front of everyone I knew (again, back then there was only one TV station).

So anyway, as I'm preparing backstage, the show gets under way. I was the second guest (btw I was probably 15 or 16 back then). The first guest, interestingly, is this Arab cleric, an Islamic sheikh, and this is during Ramadan.

So they go on and on speaking in Arabic, and I had no idea what they were talking about. They also received calls from people on air. Now mind you, I had told all my friends to stay tuned that evening. But the guy just kept on talking.

Now this Islamic cleric, let's just say he's not the biggest fan of music. And apparently he doesn't hide his feelings in the interview either. So it would have been a little ironic if I had gone on stage right after him playing my jolly tunes, or at least that was what the hostess thought, so the show ended without me ever doing my thing.

Of course she felt really bad about it and apologized a million times and said she's going to have me on another show the same week.

She called me a gazillion times after that and wanted me back on her show but I kept refusing, making it clear I was pissed about the other incident. To be honest a part of me was relieved for not having to go on live TV.

So, that was my first (non)appearance on national TV!

For those interested, Jesse Cook is playing at the Revival tonight in Toronto. You can get your tickets from a ticketmaster pick up location. Doors open at 8.

I'm looking forward to hearing his music in - what I think is - a smaller cosier venue than last year (which was at UofT's Con. Hall).

So I'm TAing my lab. There are two sections in adjacent rooms. I usually hop into the other room from time to time, just cuz i get bored, and i want to know what the other TAs are up to.

So since last week I have been TAing a new section as well, and I don't know the TAs in this section that well, but I've seen them a lot of times in exam invigilations and markings, so I know all their faces.

So I go to the other room, and there's this Iranian guy, one of the TAs. Pretty old, probably doing his pHD, but he's really old, and loud. So he looks at me and he's like getting busy eh? I say yeah. He's like, yeah just wait til you get to third year !!!!!

I'm like "dude" and I hold up my student list, and he's like oh you're a TA ! I thought you're an undergrad !

Idiot. He probably reads my blog too. ... Idiot.

So professor Pendry was giving a talk today. This guy's one of the biggest names in electromagnetics specially in the field of Metamaterials (which is a hot topic in our group as well). He's from the Imperial College of London.

Besides the talk being really interesting, the only other reason I'm writing this is becuz like 5 minutes ago I had a visitor from the Imperial College of London, which is a weird coincidence.

So the US presidential elections have some ranting about how there is something wrong with the system and maybe democracy isn't all that great, specially when you've got a lot of not-so-bright population.

I think there is another very important election that is going to make that argument stronger. If elections go ahead in Iraq, and if all the groups are allowed to participate, I think there's a very good chance that the religious Shi'ite would take power and you'll have another Iranian style government in Iraq, except this time it is legitimate and it's elected by "people"'s vote.

All of this is fine, I think, if the only consequences were for the people who have the right to vote. But when a nation's action has bearing on others, then isn't there something wrong with the whole process?

If what Dubya does, directly or indirectly affects me, why should'nt I get a chance to vote? So ... yeah ... chew on that while you check out the upcoming Iranian women's conference in Toronto.

In a city lit by fireflies, Pif-Paf is outlawed.