a thread about the civil unrest in egypt (& elsewhere in 'the region' if necessary)

otm

"a discussion as to what the legitimate claims being made are, if they are,"

Assuming he's not just a ventriloquist dummy here, this is why I bailed on the Good Ship Hope when this fucker got picked for veep.

ugh can't somebody muzzle biden right now

speaking of looting:

http://i.min.us/idYYpM.jpg

idk looting's not really been the exclusive preoccupation of the media has it?

also it's public property, the shit people are upset about

xp

I'm primarily bitching about the TV coverage I caught intermittently over the last couple days from CNN and Fox

its sort of touching, even if mubarak does step down and free elections are held etc inevitably old habits/power structures reassert themselves and progress is incremental at best, in some ways this protest is as good as it gets

The blog world hasn't yet conceived of a way to cover inchoate, volatile events like this without looking like jackasses. CNN and FOX News just want continuous shots of brown-skinned sandaled sand people walking off with mummies and DVD players.

clearly not following the old journalistic axiom:

man looting a mummy and dvd player, not news

mummy looting a dvd player, news!

lol

American press is always so preoccupied with looting, it's really pathetic. no time for context or in-depth analysis OMG PRIVATE PROPERTY BEING THREATENED!

(^^^ bitterness about the retarded level of coverage from CNN this weekend)

this is why this article was so obnoxious.

I'd be pretty pissed if some plebe stole my mummy and DVD player.

What are you saying the blog world should be doing (or is there no possible way to suggest context is needed without coming across in a way that you think looks bad)?

I think Biden has been quiet since those stupid comments last week that keep getting linked to and discussed! 3 days is good for him.

my guess is the administration is either not really unified in opinion on what should happen here, more (more likely) is saying a range of things at once in order to see what sticks, and to look like they were 'ready for' whatever happens next since nobody really knows.

also joe biden just says stuff, which is what everyone claims to want from politicians, in practice tho

well he's right about it not being like eastern europe

no--much hotter in egypt for example

better to be preoccupied with looting than

This is how the main stories from Britain's best-selling dailies begin. Keen-eyed media studies graduates may detect a pattern:

The Daily Mail (average daily circulation last month 2,030,968): "British tourists..."

The Sun (average circulation 2,717,013): "Thirty thousand Brits..."

The Daily Mirror (average circulation 1,133,440): "Britons were urged to flee..."

The Daily Express (average circulation 623,689): "Up to 30,000 Britons..."

It is not just the opening lines. The Daily Mail's 28 paragraph story devotes 18 paragraphs to the "terrifying ordeal" endured by British tourists (not one of whom has been harmed to date), including the "mayhem" some had witnessed at Cairo airport, and an interview with a man whose flight was delayed for seven hours.

what sort of crazy person would leave the country under those circumstances, youre witnessing history people!

official announcement from the Army that they will not fire on protestors

...?

the worst thing in the daily mail was a column by christopher hitchens' mirror-universe brother peter clicking his tongue at clueless western liberals "supporting" the protests and saying that the best advice for dealing with "nasty arab regimes" was to be found in hilaire belloc's line about "always keep ahold of nurse for fear of finding something worse"

that was pretty bad

that seems to be the meme emerging on the gutter right -- obama is giving egypt away to the muslim brotherhood to destroy israel, or something

wait til they get around to canal-closure speculation

is this must-get-home-at-all costs mentality solely a British thing? An acquaintance once spent just shy of two grand flying home early from holiday in Jamaica because there was a hurricane coming.

xp -- yeah the line they've been using is YOU GUYS WERE EXCITED ABOUT THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION TOO which a) probably isn't really true and b) assumes there are no important differences to be considered between various upset masses of brown people

http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0111/Egypt_experts_head_to_WH_powwow.html

not a great bunch of people on first glace

The White House and their efforts to be bipartisan--they saw Abrams piece in the Sunday W. Post...

The Brit newspapers have their approach and some former Bush administration neo-con hacks (E. Abrams and M. Thiessen in the W. Post) keep repeating their own party line re how W should get credit, while others just want to blame Obama for any problems created by a lack of "stability"

It was a good, serious meeting, an attendee said afterwards.

good to know it didn't degenerate into the ribald japery that so frequently characterizes these white house "meetings"

got Egypt competing hard with Fernando Torres & Andy Carroll on my Sky 'breaking news' ticker atm

that seems to be the meme emerging on the gutter right -- obama is giving egypt away to the muslim brotherhood to destroy israel, or something

Someone on Andrew Breithard's blog posited as much.

"Heavy Fog in channel; Continent cut off" is not a new sentiment in our papers.

Egypt crisis: Beleaguered Mubarak reshuffles cabinet

The army said in a statement carried on Egyptian media: "To the great people of Egypt, your armed forces, acknowledging the legitimate rights of the people... have not and will not use force against the Egyptian people."

Basically this leaves Mubarak to try every single cabinet option until he finally realises that he has to leave.

g/o, exits mubarak

^not breaking new btw, just commenting on the armys statement

what sort of crazy person would leave the country under those circumstances, youre witnessing history people!

not sure if you're being serious. i was there this time last year and part of me thinks it would be awesome to have witnessed this shit firsthand - and i know there's another part of me that would want out asahp! i mean - if anything did happen to you there, as a tourist, you'd feel pretty dumb for having intentionally stayed behind. and i can only image the hell my parents would be going through knowing i was there and had no way of easily getting in touch with me.

footage on the bbc just now of vigilantes patrolling street corners brandishing cricket bats - where'd'you get hold of a cricket bat in Cairo?!

is cricket not popular there

Egypt not really known for it in my experience

British colonial legacy is pretty nuts

I was there during the caricatures protests and even saw a march in Tahrir Square - I'm not sure I'd want to be there right now.

you guys are all total wimps and afraid of momentouness, id totally be out there fist pumping away man, dodging tear gas canisters from my hotel balcony

Soccer clubs central to ending Egypt's 'Dictatorship of Fear'

guess this is why they canceled the game with usa usa usa

i'm just jealous of the reporters. i wanna be sprinting through the streets in a hawaiian shirt and a flak jacket. xp

The last ISP still running (Noor) has gone offline, so Egypt basically has no internet any more, unless people can dial international numbers w/modems. (I think a French ISP offered free access to anyone calling from Egypt).

Egypt basically has no internet any more

Doesn't that mean the economy is fucked? I thought they said the stock exchange needed something on the day or everything would seize up.

'British colonial legacy is pretty nuts' - a person living in north america, writing in english

on his cricket bat

jolly good

Media Matters notes a hilarious study in contrasting headlines at FOX Nation:

http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/images/item/foxnation-20110131-palin1.jpg

http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/images/item/foxnationpalin2.jpg

ElBaradei's sudden emergence as a national consensus figure has caught many international observers by surprise. It has also prompted American policy makers to go silent, fearing that any public U.S. support for ElBaradei or any other potential Egyptian leader could undermine prospects for unifying the country.

"They are really, really trying hard not to personalize and not to focus on individuals," said Marc Lynch, an associate professor at George Washington University and Foreign Policy blogger who was briefed today by White House officials on the administration's Egypt policy. "They are bending over backwards not to be seen as appointing the next president of Egypt." But ElBaradei, he notes, is "extremely well placed to reassure all constituencies which need reassuring that he is not likely to stick around for ever and be the next Mubarak."

http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/31/el_baradeis_personal_revolution_from_multilateral_bureaucrat_to_populist_patriot

So, Jordan's King Abdullah has just sacked his entire govt in wake of protests. What next?