The shore near Giant's Causeway in Country Antrim in Ireland. From National Geographic.
It should be noted that the situation in Egypt has become very fluid and chaotic in the last twelve hours.
Egyptian Soldiers Show Solidarity with Protesters as Mubarak Appoints VP from the Washington Post
"In Tahrir Square, the central plaza that has been the focus of anti-Mubarak sentiment, protestors and soldiers worked together to beat back two Interior Ministry vehicles that attempted to enter the site. A tank commander then scaled his vehicle and announced to the crowd that the Interior Ministry, which operates the nation's police force, had deployed thousands of armed men who were bent on sowing chaos in Egypt. The army, he said, "would stand with the people.""
Mubarak: the Exit Strategy from Al-Bab: An Open Door to the Arab World
"It seems to me, based on statements so far, that the US is focusing more on the post-Mubarak situation than on trying to save him. It is trying to engineer (and manipulate) a smooth transfer of power."
Watching a New Beginning in Egypt from the Washington Post
"For much of Friday afternoon, this city teetered between hope and fear."
Egypt's Day of Anger (Khari Abaza) from the National Interest
"Unless the Mubarak regime collaborates peacefully with the protestors, certain chaos lies ahead."
Egypt Protests: America's Secret Backing for Rebel Leaders Behind Uprising from the Daily Telegraph [of the UK]
"The American government secretly backed leading figures behind the Egyptian uprising who have been planning “regime change” for the past three years, The Daily Telegraph has learned."
Sources in Egypt and West: US Secretly Backed Protest from the DEBKA File [of Israel in English]
"Persistent claims were heard Saturday, Jan. 29 in various Egyptian and informed western circles that the popular uprising against president Hosni Mubarak, still going strong on its fifth day, was secretly prepared three years ago in Washington during the Bush administration."
Inside the White House's Egypt Scramble (John Berry) from the Daily Beast
"As protests erupted in Egypt, Washington struggled desperately to find the right response to the crisis. John Barry reports on the administration’s decision-making."
Egyptians Defiant as Military Does Little to Quash Protests from the New York Times
"As street battles between protesters and the security police flared for a fifth day, Mr. Mubarak named a new government filled with military figures, signaling the pivotal role the military might play in shaping the outcome of the unrest. … at least some troops seemed to be sympathizing with the protesters."
First-Hand-Account: Egypt: Death Throes of a Dictatorship (Robert Fisk) from the Independent [of the UK]
"Our writer joins protesters atop a Cairo tank as the army shows signs of backing the people against Mubarak's regime."
A telling little note from another quarter:
China Micro-Blogging Sites Censor 'Egypt' from Discovery News
"The word "Egypt" was censored Saturday by several micro-blogging sites in China, where the ruling Communist Party is wary of issues of political reform, demands for democracy and disturbances to public order, including overseas."
Thousands in Algeria Protest March: Organizers from Agence France-Presse via Raw Story
"More than 10,000 protesters marched against authorities in Algeria's northeastern city of Bejaia on Saturday, organisers said, in the country's latest rally inspired by neighbouring Tunisia."
The New Obama Narrative (George Lakoff) from the Huffinton Post
"For the first two years of his administration, President Obama had no overriding narrative, no frame to define his policymaking, no way to make sense of what he was trying to do. As of his 2011 State of the Union Address, he has one: Competitiveness. The competitiveness narrative is intended to serve a number of purposes at once:"
Wikileaks Unplugged (Doyle McManus) from the Los Angeles Times
"The era of WikiLeaks appears over, the group is in disarray even as the U.S. takes measures to prevent future leaks and news organizations move to cut out the middleman."
While I think McManus is premature given that Wikileaks has released only a very tiny percentage of the documents load they have, I think events are clearly going in the direction he describes.
Now THIS is interesting!:
Republicans Embrace Obama Rail Initiative from The Hill
Key Republicans are embracing a major spending initiative outlined in President Obama's State of the Union address. Two top members of the House Transportation Committee said they will push the president's initiative seeking to give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail over the course of the next 25 years."
If true, what a LAUGH to those GOP governors who contemptuously kicked the high-speed rail money allotted to them back to the fed several months ago. I'm sure they did so thinking they were lining up with the GOP leaders in DC. Oops!! Prediction: some of these dopes will come hat-in-hand to Obama to get that money back. Hope he tells them where they can go!!
Serious in Singapore (Thomas Friedman) from the New York Times
"This was just an average public school, but the principal had made her own connections between “what world am I living in,” “where is my country trying to go in that world” and, therefore, “what should I teach in fifth-grade science.” I was struck because that kind of linkage is so often missing in U.S. politics today. Republicans favor deep cuts in government spending, while so far exempting Medicare, Social Security and the defense budget. Not only is that not realistic, but it basically says that our nation’s priorities should be to fund retirement homes for older people rather than better schools for younger people and that we should build new schools in Afghanistan before Alabama."
Contemporary Student Life (JohnTierny) at the Atlantic
"It may be that, like me, you don't quite know what to make of articles that have appeared recently about the state of contemporary secondary and post-secondary education. But maybe you can! If so, help me sort through it. I've spent my entire professional life as a teacher -- for over twenty years at the college level, and for the last nine years at a high school. Despite all that, I still don't know what to make of all this."
A related discussion:
Film Focuses on Stressed-out Students from the Boston Globe
"High-stakes milieu worries parents."
The Tea Party Wags the Dog (Frank Rich) from the New York Times
"The Republicans, who sold themselves as the uncompromising champions of Tea Party-fueled fiscal austerity, have discovered that most Americans prefer compromise to confrontation... Obama’s post-New Year’s surge past a 50 percent approval rating — well ahead of both Reagan’s and Bill Clinton’s comeback trajectories after their respective midterm shellackings — may have only just begun. There was no drama to Obama’s address — just a unifying theme, at long last, as he reasserted the role of government in rebooting and rebuilding the country for a new century and putting Americans back to work. The president wisely left any theatrics to his adversaries, and, as always, they were happy to oblige."
Palin Kills It in Gun Country (Andrew Romano) from the Daily Beast
"Dube seemed to see contemporary culture as an existential threat of sorts—a hostile force. "Do me a favor and take a young person hunting this fall," he said in closing. "If you don't have one at home, borrow one. No one's teaching them what hunting means to us anymore.""
The descriptions of attendees are far more interesting than what Palin said. Craziness.
Glenn Beck vs. the Rabbis (Dana Milbank) from the Washington Post
"With political speech coming under new scrutiny, how much longer can Beck's brutal routine continue at Fox News? The latest omen of Beck's end times came on Thursday -- Holocaust
Remembrance Day -- when 400 rabbis representing all four branches of American Judaism took out an ad demanding that Beck be sanctioned for "monstrous" and "beyond repugnant" use of "anti-Semitic imagery" in going after Holocaust survivor George Soros."
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