Taco Bell Outdid Itself This Time..

I find their commercials to be baseline Godawful, but this new one featuring some singing douchebag in a faux supper club setting effects me at some crazy visceral level insipid commercials rarely achieve. Ads don't normally get under my skin, but this one makes me want to commit random acts of fast food related violence.. If I hadn't stopped eating Taco Bell years ago, I certainly would now..

Funny I'd take a stand regarding the commercial, but the whole 36% "beef" as beef wouldn't have been the final straw. Wow. Behold the power of advertising..

Icelandic volcano 'set to erupt'

First there was Eyjafjallajökull, now let's meet Bárdarbunga. Excerpts:

Scientists in Iceland are warning that another volcano looks set to erupt and threatening to spew-out a pall of dust that would dwarf last year's event.

Geologists detected the high risk of a new eruption after evaluating an increased swarm of earthquakes around the island's second largest volcano.

Pall Einarsson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, says the area around Bárdarbunga is showing signs of increased activity, which provides "good reason to worry".
And:
The last recorded eruption of Bárdarbunga was in 1910, although volcanologists believe its last major eruption occurred in 1477 when it produced a large ash and pumice fallout. It also produced the largest known lava flow during the past 10,000 years on earth.

It is the second largest volcano on Iceland and is directly above the mantle plume of molten rock.

By comparison, Bárdarbunga dwarves the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which shutdown most of Europe's airspace last year after its ash cloud drifted across the continent's skies.

Nothing happening with Katla, Iceland's most dangerous volcano, but this increased seismic activity is troubling..

Not Only Does Ron Paul Have A Bigger Set Than Any Other Politician, So Do His Supporters..

‘War criminal!’: Ron Paul backers crash Cheney-Rumsfeld reunion Friggin' awesome(!) excerpts:
Supporters of libertarian Republican Ron Paul shouted down(!!-me) former Vice President Dick Cheney at a conservative conference Thursday, in a sign of a growing foreign policy rift on the American right.

Cheney had appeared on the first day of the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference to introduce Donald Rumsfeld, the former Bush-era defense secretary who was scheduled to receive this year's "Defender of the Constitution Award."

That didn't sit well with "Team Paul," supporters of Rep. Ron Paul who have long called for an end to the US's foreign wars.

"Where's bin Laden?" one heckler shouted as Cheney stood at the podium to introduce Rumsfeld.

"War criminal!" another shouted out, prompting a heated reaction from the crowd. (Ya think?)

The specter of a Republican vice president being called a "war criminal" at a conservative conference was so unexpected that it prompted TalkingPointsMemo's Evan McMorris-Santoro to describe it as "what a Cheney-Rumsfeld hug at the Netroots Nation convention might look like."
..
Rumsfeld's "Defender of the Constitution" award has been ridiculed by liberal anti-war activists and libertarians alike, who argue that Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials were among the most dismissive of constitutional rights.

Because Libertarian/Conservatives said it, I'm sure the other Conservatives didn't try to beat them up. The essence of a collective "pants-shitting moment," to be sure.. And you thought the last two political cycles were hot..
Paul/Kucinich '12!

Egypt Update: February 10, 2011

The People aren't intimidated: The Protests are getting larger..

The demonstrators are pissed about Mubarak and family's 70 billion dollar fortune and workers country wide are going Norma Rae in response, and the Really Poor started burning stuff. Excerpts:

Strikes erupted in a breadth of sectors _ among railway and bus workers, state electricity staff and service technicians at the Suez Canal, in factories manufacturing textiles, steel and beverages and at least one hospital.

In one of the flashpoints of unrest Wednesday, some 8,000 protesters, mainly farmers, set barricades of flaming palm trees in the southern province of Assiut. They blocked the main highway and railway to Cairo to complain of bread shortages. They then drove off the governor by pelting his van with stones.

Hundreds of slum dwellers in the Suez Canal city of Port Said set fire to part of the governor's headquarters in anger over lack of housing.
..

Egyptians have been infuriated by newspaper reports that the Mubarak family has amassed billions, and perhaps tens of billions of dollars in wealth while, according to the World Bank, about 40 percent of the country's 80 million people live below or near the poverty line of $2 a day. The family's true net worth is not known.

And yet, The Regime refuses to budge.. That will only work against them, later..

The Obama administration's response sucks, as it seems to be returning to how the U.S. normally deals with the fall of a dictatorship: Replace it with another. No Change, there.. Really disappointing excerpts:

After a good start, the Obama administration's response to the democratic revolution in Egypt has begun to exude the odor of betrayal. Now distancing itself from the essential demand of the protesters that the dictator must go, the administration has fallen back on the sordid option of backing a new and improved dictatorship. Predictably, it is one guided by a local strongman long entrusted by the CIA, Vice President Omar Suleiman, described by U.S. officials in the WikiLeaks cables as a "Mubarak consigliere." The script is out of an all-too-familiar playbook: Pick this longtime chief of Egyptian intelligence who has consistently done our bidding in matters of torture and retrofit him as a modern democratic leader. But this time the Egyptian street will not meekly go along.

Anyone else perplexed that the new hero of Egypt is a Google executive?



Not too much follow up on this one, but I'm guessing it has something to do with Egypt or the Middle East..

Mass Animal Deaths Continue. The Government Can't Be Poisioning Them All, Can They?

The cavalcade of whimsy continues, as about a million jellyfish and hundreds of thousands of fish all over the world all decided to go off-planet this week. Clustered as a two month event from mid-December to mid-February(or the three weeks from New Year's Day until January 21), millions of birds and fish died under a variety of circumstances, some mysterious or controversial. While some observers/ blogger/ scientifical types continue to state(quite correctly) that mass animal deaths aren't uncommon, a cursory Bing search of "mass animal deaths biggest" turned up no Master List of this type of phenomena within the parameters of "biggest" for any kind of comparison.

A list, though, of Creepiest Casualties of mass animal deaths show only one event to be bigger in scope: The comet or asteroid impact on earth 65 million years ago. Granted, this isn't enough to make a solid assertion about the severity of these death clusters as a warning to some future apocalypse(again, based on Internet information availability..), but it also makes these recent events harder to dismiss. While there surely have been bigger specific-event animal die-offs in the past, this cluster-event continues to grow. Due to global conditions facilitating more of these events(extemes in cold and heat, along with the Gulf oil spill and Corexit poisoning, seems likely to continue. Again, die offs occur; but the scope of these combined events are disturbing when viewed as a whole.

Theories? Good post here detailing some possibilities, but it omits one of the strongest contenders, at least for the southern U.S. events: Corexit. I'm curious as to whether any alternative news organizations are tracking these events for a comprehensive piece detailing events, locations, connections, and possibilities that can fit all these disparate puzzle pieces into perspective. I'm leaning towards geomagnetic distortion/ pole shift, New Madrid activity, and Corexit, with the answer somehow involving them all, but in what ratio, and including other factors, I have no idea. This doesn't seem to be going away..

WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices

Oh Snap! And just like that, the Peak Oil debate comes roaring back to life.. Excerpts:

The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show.

The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom's crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%.
..
According to the cables, which date between 2007-09, Husseini said Saudi Arabia might reach an output of 12m barrels a day in 10 years but before then – possibly as early as 2012 – global oil production would have hit its highest point. This crunch point is known as "peak oil".

Thanks to WikiLeaks, Peak Oil visibility should skyrocket within the next month or so, lead first by the "I told you so" crowd.. And this time, they're not going to let the issue drop.

A Rather Unexpected M-Class Flare Just Popped Off..

From Solar Cycle 24 Excerpts:

02/09/2011 by Kevin VE3EN at 02:30Comment on Message Board
Solar Update - Solar activity has increased within the past 24 hours with C-Class flares and an M1.9 Solar Flare around growing Sunspot 1153. Unfortunately this region has picked the wrong time to get active. It will soon rotate onto the western limb and out of direct earth view. (This is unclear, as it would be good news if this active region rotated away from us, so I'm guessing "out of" should be "into." I'm also assuming the M-Class flare didn't effect us, as no mention was made to that effect.)

Several new sunspot groups have formed on the visible solar disk and were numbered 1154, 1155, 1156 and 1157. These regions are not yet capable of producing strong solar flares, but that could change.

These sunspot seem to have caught everyone off guard. It's development was sudden, and very quickly, an M-Class flare was produced. There are four active regions that are in the early stages of development, and rotating toward us(If I'm interpreting correctly..), so we could get some interesting solar activity activity coming up..

Egypt Today, February 8, 2011

Egypt Talks Start on Sidelining Mubarak With Protest in Day 12
Bad sign: U.S. supports gradual reform in Egypt
Egypt's new cabinet meets as protests continue
Greater impacts: Mideast change: The scenarios is less about Egypt and more about Israel.
Change "partly" to "mostly," and you're on-track.. Egypt's unrest tied partly to high food prices
Hezbollah leader says Egypt protests will transform Mideast by pulling nation away from Israel

Curious As To How Birds Might Behave In A 2012/ Armageddon Situation? Well Wonder No More!

Something's got these birds Freaked Out.. Notice the hysteria and confusion among the birds, but no aggression within the flock towards each other. This isn't some kind of avian war, it's an event, however small the duration. I can't remember ever seeing birds behave in this manner. It'll be interesting to determine if this was isolated, or part of a cluster of similar events.
Possible causes:
Mass poisoning.
Unusual ambient/environmental noise.
Electrical/radio frequency disturbances.
Magnetic/Solar frequency disturbances.
Low frequency earth/crustal disturbances.
Antichrist lives in Melbourne apartment complex.

Other.

Disturbing.

Another Example Of How We Don't Understand What's Destroying Us..

Two Views on The Bernank Gonzalo Lira points out the different reporting of Fed Chief Bernanke's speech last week. The American version of what happened is quite a bit different than, well, everyone else's..

..The American media is focusing on an obvious political nonstarter: The idea that the budget ceiling will not be raised.
..
The foreign media, on the other hand, is focusing on something that really matters: How the U.S. is exporting inflation, especially food price inflation, which is leading to social unrest.
..
Compare:
The New York Times reports in the lead of its story,

The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, warned Congressional
Republicans on Thursday not to “play around with” a coming vote to raise the government’s legal borrowing limit or use it as a bargaining chip for spending cuts.
..
Contrast those lead paragraphs with these from the UK’s Telegraph (not
exactly a bastion of Lefty thinking):Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has dismissed the idea that the central bank’s policies are to blame for the rise in global food prices to a record high that helped trigger political unrest in Egypt.

..
The Times and the rest of the American mainstream media is focused on a non-issue—while the rest of the world is focusing on something that matters: Food price rises, and the perception that America is exporting inflation.

The American financial media’s thing about the Federal government debt ceiling is sort of silly—everyone knows that the debt ceiling will be raised.

But food price inflation is real. The riots in Egypt are real—and they have nothing to do with “Muslim extremists”, or even Mubarak’s dictatorship: They’re about food prices, plain and simple, which have been steadily rising ever since the Federal Reserve’s loose money policies and various versions of QE have driven commodity prices to the moon.

Lira's right: Theatrics aside, the debt ceiling will be raised. Journalistically; not a big deal at all. Rising food costs triggering global, social unrest.. Of course that's the bigger story. And the bigger question? Why is there such a disconnect between American media's coverage/perspective and the World's? Yes, it was rhetorical.

Egypt: Pipelines Are Poppin'

Egypt Pipeline Explosion Cuts Gas Supply To Israel Excerpts:

An explosion today on the Arab Gas Pipeline forced Egypt to shut off natural gas supplies to Israel and Jordan. There were conflicting reports out of Egypt as to the cause of the explosion, with the state-run Middle East News Agency saying the work was done by “subversive elements.” Oil Minister Samah Fahmy reportedly said it could take up to two weeks to repair the damage.

The pipeline is the third most strategically important piece of energy infrastructure in Egypt after the Suez Canal and the Sumed Pipeline. But it is the most important one to Israel, delivering 40% of Israeli natural gas supplies. The Israeli government said this afternoon that it did not expect any interruption of electricity supplies as the country has gas in storage and can also switch to other fuels like oil and diesel. Israel started receiving gas from the pipeline in 2008.

Assuming for a moment that this was not an accident, it represents a serious escalation of the crisis in Egypt.

As to the nature of the explosion, MSNBC plays up the terrorism angle, while Investors Business Daily plays it down. For clarity's sake, the fire/explosion happened at a facility that ultimately connects with pipelines heading both to Jordan and Israel. Reports are still conflicted as to whether the physical pipeline to Jordan was damaged, but Israel's pipeline was not.

This situation, while inconvenient for the Israelis(due to their rather large energy reserves), is devastating to the Jordanians, as they have no reserves, and import most of their energy solely from Egypt. Cause? To be determined, although my suspicious mind questions the perfect timing of this "accidental explosion." Which brings us to the focal question in this event's aftermath: Was this terrorism or something else?

This Week In Crazyass UFO Sightings..

What's that behind the ISS? The weirdness begins at :50 seconds, subsides, picks up again at 12:20, but the main event starts after 22:35. You tell me what that is..

I found the video at above top secret.

So that's one, and then we have some related sightings, which are, evidently, direct messages from God for believers in the two most spiritual places on the planet, Jerusalem and Salt Lake City. Big stink about the whole thing thread here, and some mainstream coverage here.

Couple that with the freaktastic and oh-so-biblical ghost horse of the apocalypse in Tahrihr Square, and you've got yourself a busy paranormal news week! Things is gettin' strange, y'all..

Egypt: Telecoms Are Tattling..

Vodafone: Egypt forced us to send text messages Excerpts:

Egyptian authorities forced Vodafone to broadcast pro-government text messages during the protests that have rocked the country, the U.K.-based mobile company said Thursday.

Micro-blogging site Twitter has been buzzing with screen grabs from Vodafone's Egyptian customers showing text messages sent over the course of the demonstrations against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-old regime.

A text message received Sunday by an Associated Press reporter in Egypt appealed to the country's "honest and loyal men to confront the traitors and criminals and protect our people and honor." Another urged Egyptians to attend a pro-Mubarak rally in Cairo on Wednesday. The first was marked as coming from "Vodafone." The other was signed: "Egypt Lovers."
And:
The company also said its competitors — including Egypt's Mobinil and the United Arab Emirates' Etisalat — were doing the same. Etisalat, known formally as Emirates Telecommunications Corp., declined comment.

Vodafone said the texts had been sent "since the start of the protests," which kicked off more than a week ago. Vodafone did not immediately return an e-mail asking why the company waited nearly 10 days to complain publicly. Its statement was released only after repeated inquiries by the AP.

The U.S. is dancing as fast as it can, at the moment, and it seems clear that Mubarak will either go quickly, or hunker down and go violently. Everything about Egypt is politically grey: Mubarak is an American ally, but a non-democratic authoritarian. The protesters might be pro-democratic or (booga booga) Muslim Brotherhood, so we aren't sure who to root for: The dictator, or the potential terrorists?

This isn't too much of an exaggeration, is it, considering America's complete loss of nuanced thought.. It will be interesting, if not maddening, I'm sure, to see how both the situation evolves, and how American and Western discourse evolves in their reaction to said events.

At this point in time, every day feels a little more fluid than the last.

They Were Dying En Masse, Then They Weren't

It's strange the mass animal die-offs gained visibility New Year's Eve and stopped three weeks later. Natural News tracks the timeline from December 13th to January 11th, but essentially dropped to zero visibility after 10, 000 cattle died and the government's "admission" to poisoning birds in South Dakota. But that's one event, and doesn't factor in the autopsy of the birds in Beebe, or the variety of other animal death events. The high weirdness here is the die offs have stopped, or at least stopped being written about. That's Bing. This is the google search page. Both subjects: mass animal deaths January 20 to February 4. Or did they just stop?
Also losing visibility was anything related to electromagnetic disturbances or any mention of a pole shift, in the MSM, but not on the 'net, of course.
Again; Maybe they're related, and when one stopped, so did the other.
Maybe. At the moment, anything seems possible.

Mubarak Behaved Exactly True To Form..

State-sponsored thuggery, anyone? Violent clashes as Egypt rebels. Excerpts:

Supporters of President Hosni Mubarak opened fire on protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Thursday, killing four people and wounding 13, witnesses and television said.

It was the biggest spike in violence since protesters angered by oppression and hardship launched an unprecedented challenge to Mubarak’s 30-year-rule 10 days ago. Many accused the government of backing the pro-Mubarak supporters. (CNN reporters and Senior US Officials (see below) are saying as much, so "many" is probably an understatement..)
..
Al Arabiya television quoted a doctor at the scene as saying four people had been killed and 13 were wounded in the overnight violence in Tahrir Square which began around 4 am (0200 GMT) on Thursday, and which was shown live on television.


..with many saying they would not call off their protests until the 82-year-old president quit, Mubarak backers, throwing petrol bombs, wielding sticks and charging on camels and horses, attacked protesters in Tahrir Square on Wednesday.

As terrifying and horrible as this was to experience, the protesters knew it was coming. After all, they're dealing with supporters of a brutal, authoritarian regime, familiar and comfortable with threats, intimidation, torture, and killing. How else would Mubarak's supporters react?
..
Anti-Mubarak demonstrators said the attackers were police in plainclothes. The Interior Ministry denied the accusation, and the government rejected international calls to end violence and begin the transfer of power.
..
In pointed comments, a senior US official said on Wednesday it was clear that “somebody loyal to Mubarak has unleashed these guys to try to intimidate the protesters”.


So the vandalism and looting at the museum might, MIGHT not have been anti-Mubarak protesters? This is again, true to form. Mubarak's supporters share much of their leader's mental inflexibility when dealing with dissent and opposition: Beat their asses back into submission by any means possible. This process is going to get ugly, but this is also a numbers game(not to be flip towards the protesters).

Mubarak had to massively rig the last election in order to win. Much more people oppose than support him. The more violent and outrageous Mubarak's supporters behave, the more horrified their neutral(as of yet) countrymen and women become. This violence will ultimately tip the populace against sustaining the regime, simply because the people won't voluntarily expose their neck to Mubarak's boot. When faced with two futures, ultimately the Egyptians will choose a chance(as no future is written in stone) at a free-er, more peaceful future, as opposed to the choice of returning to the repressive past, and now, the vividly violent present and future.

Hosni Mubarak will see to it they do.

When I Said "Don't Give Her Sugar; She'll Start Flying Around," I Wasn't Being Facetious..

Alien Child Flying In Russia? Strange [Video] This could easily be a hoax. Or not. It might be exactly as it looks and plays out. Or not.

There's some movement at the bottom center of the screen right before the girl drops. In the first filtered view, it looks like a body moving and pulling. I vote hoax, but I want to be wrong. I'm ready for a world where we're all flying.

Egypt: Are They Saying "Boo!," Or "Boo-urns?"

Boo-urns, of course. Longer, different reaction video here. Mubarak says he'll leave at the end of his term Excerpts:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak bent to a week of deadly anti-government unrest, announcing in a nationwide speech that he would not seek re-election this year but that he intended to stay in power "for the remaining months" of his fifth term.

Mubarak's late-night address, hours after more than 200,000 protesters had streamed into Cairo's central Tahrir Square, marked a dramatic bid to maneuver through a nationwide revolt, growing international pressure and an economy that has slid into turmoil.

The decision may ease a bit of the fury against him,(It won't. Me)but it is not likely to stop the widespread calls for him to step aside immediately. A wave of anger swept the square just after the speech. Protesters who remained there shouted: "Leave! Leave!"

Humor nugget amongst the seriousness..

"We don't want money or wealth; just respect us as human beings," said Khalid Abdul Rahman, 25, who earns a meager living offering private English lessons. "We have just one word: Get out. Get out."

Two thoughts regarding the mentality of the people involved..

Stated within the parameters of a relationship analogy, The People have reached the "Just get out" phase of this very public national break up. Possibly, had Mubarak reacted differently at the very beginning, this path might have been a little more pleasant.. Maybe. Just like the ending of a dysfunctional and/or abusive relationship, the repressed anger of humiliations and hurting from long ago manifest with a shocking, unexpected ferocity.

The People aren't quite there yet, but "Just get out" is close. "I don't fuckin' care anymore, just get out.." And after 30 years, they're mad. Even if Mubarak scores some military hat trick causing them to turn on the protesters and temporarily puts them down, it's now just a matter of time. These people are unified, and they're all saying "Just get out," and they're not falling for "You'll die without me, baby" anymore(or "If you leave; I'll kill you." at the abusive end of such an analogy.).. (Example video here. Note; Mubarak is Ike, and Egypt is Tina..)

Also, Hosni Mubarak is an old man. For the last 30 years of his life, in his own personal universe and the nation of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak has enjoyed absolute power. Hosni Mubarak called all the shots. Hosni Mubarak had no serious organized opposition. Hosni Mubarak probably became complacent, thinking his situation would never change. Over the last 30 years, Hosni Mubarak has become extremely mentally inflexible.

Hosni Mubarak has done well establishing the Egyptian status quo. These protests have thrown him, as his stasis is disturbed. This uprising is his first widespread domestic conflict.

Hosni Mubarak has never had to think: 1. Out of the box. 2. Like a poor person. 3. Of poor people at all. He simply has no understanding as to how to respond! So he'll cling to his absolute-ness until it's too late.

The inertia has changed. The People are finding their voice and footing, while Hosni Mubarak is losing his. Barring a massive, brutal reaction, the regime of Hosni Mubarak is on life support, at best. And here comes day nine..

This Situation In Queensland Is About To Get Way Worse..

AUSTRALIA: YASI! CYCLONE:CAT/5 KILLER STORM! WATCHOUT!! This is a CNN Ireport, so it's not technical, but she's right: It's coming..

Mass evacuations are underway in Queensland in anticipation of what forecasters expect will be the largest cyclone ever to hit the continent. Yasi has intensified rapidly and currently has winds gusting up to 295 kilometers per hour (183 mph). It is expected to maintain that intensity-equivalent to a Category Five hurricane until landfall in northeastern Queensland (early morning Feb. 2 in the United States).

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-034

Strong cyclone bears down on north Australia coast Excerpts:

Tens of thousands of Australians stocked up on food and hunkered in sturdy shelters Wednesday as a monster cyclone approached the northeast coast with furious winds, rains and surging seas on a scale unseen there in generations.

Gusts up to 186 mph (300 kph) were expected when Cyclone Yasi strikes the coast late Wednesday after whipping across Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The storm front is more than 310 miles (500 kilometers) wide and Yasi is so strong, it could reach far inland before it significantly loses power.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said the last cyclone of such strength to cross Queensland was in 1918.
..
Forecasters said up to three feet (one meter) of rain could fall on some coastal communities.

And the one upside..

Building codes that have been strengthened since Cyclone Tracy devastated the city of Darwin in 1974 have left the region generally well-prepared.

Landfall is within the day. News video here.. To the people in Yasi's path: I hope for safe passage for them, from now, until the aftermath of whatever Yasi brings..

Egypt: Meanwhile, Not In Cairo..

Egypt: Unrest Spreads to Sinai Excerpts:

A Bedouin youth casually spreads out a piece of cloth before a police headquarters in Sheikh Zwayyed town in Sinai, the vast desert area to the east of Cairo across the Suez. "I will leave when Mubarak leaves," he says.

He joins hundreds of others. They have broken through into the police station already, and are now camping there to demand a change in government. Most youth are Bedouin, originally a nomadic tribe in the desert, who’ve been fighting for their rights for years. Over the last few days they feel they’re winning.

The police are rapidly leaving their posts, but some still appear in uniform. One uniformed policeman stands quietly to a side. He is in danger, he seems no danger to others at all. What would he do if attacked? "Just take my uniform off and join the protest," he tells IPS. "Or maybe just go over to the Palestinian side."
..
New groups have taken charge, and it’s hard to say who these are. Several check-posts have been set up all the way between Cairo and Sinai. "Who are you," says a man at one of these checkpoints. This IPS correspondent offers him his Palestinian passport. He glances at it, upside down, and pockets it. After some time he gives it back.

State security in plain clothes, riot police, secret police, the army, Bedouin youth, protesters who had come from Cairo to spread the word – no one seems to know who the people at these check-points are.
And:
The area appears to have drawn many powerful and armed groups that have converged to free their associates and relatives from the prisons. They look determined to succeed. Some of the men carry heavy weapons.

The groups mingle freely with local Bedouin youth. The deprivation across this area is greater than Cairo has ever known. And the anger seems greater too.

With the anger, Bedouin youth now present a face of triumph. "It is a revolution," one says simply.

This (national) event is still in escalation. The media has concentrated on Cairo and Alexandria, leaving outlying areas out of their coverage, unfactored into the national sentiment. This conflict has developed and bloomed in less than ten days, with no sign of conclusion. Of course, that could change abruptly, but events could continue to play out for weeks, possibly months. Cairo is the visual, but smaller but no less fervent protests are happening elsewhere, too..

The March has already started. Whatever happens, tonight will look much different than last night..

Egypt: Is The Worm Indeed Turning?

Egypt set for mass protest as army rules out force Good news. Will that promise hold? Excerpts:

Egypt's army gave a powerful boost to the country's opposition last night by announcing that it would not use force to silence "legitimate" demands for democratic reforms in the Arab world's largest nation.

On the eve of a million-strong protest planned for today and amid multiplying signs that the US is moving steadily closer to ditching its long-standing ally, Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, now has few options left.
..
The military's statement, reported by the state-run Mena news agency, said: "The presence of the army in the streets is for your sake and to ensure your safety and wellbeing. The armed forces will not resort to use of force against our great people." It referred to the "legitimate demands of honourable citizens".

It was not clear whether the pledge not to use force was intended to draw the sting from protests or signal a weakening of support for the president, who relies heavily on the armed forces as the guarantor of the regime and its stability.
..
Obama met Middle East experts yesterday as his administration tried to find a path to a post-Mubarak era that continues to serve its interests, including ensuring that Egypt maintains its 30-year peace treaty with Israel. US hopes are solidifying around the reformist Mohamed ElBaradei, despite his difficult relationship with the US after he undermined Washington's claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when he was head of the IAEA, and his criticism of Obama's failure to ask Mubarak to resign.
It's got to be eating the West's(and Israel's) lunch that, despite their earlier hesitations into denunciations, this uprising is still happening.

Tony Blair, envoy for the Middle East Quartet, stopped short of calling for Mubarak to step down: "Change will happen," he said. "You can't put the genie back in the bottle now." William Hague, the foreign secretary, said after meeting EU colleagues: "We are setting down what should happen [in Egypt] in terms of values, process and institutions, but not trying to dictate precise timetable of elections."

Analysts believe that a likely outcome of the crisis is that Mubarak will eventually be persuaded to stand down by his closest advisers, including the army top brass and Suleiman. The US has close links to the Egyptian military.

Google(!) and Twitter(ugh--!!)come down on the side of the people!

Egyptians gather for mass march to oust Mubarak Here's the most interesting portion, as it seems to represent a policy/momentum/perceptual shift:

The military, which has run Egypt since it toppled the monarchy in 1952, will be the key player in deciding who replaces him and some expect it to retain significant power while introducing enough reforms to defuse the protests.

"At this point Suleiman represents the army, not Mubarak,"said Fawaz Gerges at the London School of Economics.

Not all the army, though. Maybe the factions tied to Mubarak, but not all the Military. The Army is made up of poor Egyptians--the people. The new Vice President, Omar Suleiman, likes discipline. You think these people don't know that?

Our beloved Revolutionary Sweethearts: The Bangles

Egyptian Police Redeploying

Big and bad news. Excerpts:

Egypt’s internal security forces are reportedly redeploying across the country Jan. 30 after abandoning the streets the previous day in a demonstration, showing what chaos would ensue should they be undermined by the military. As the protests show early signs of dwindling, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Interior Minister Habib al-Adly, who have negotiated a stay in power so far, are likely betting that the protesters, who thus far have been unable to coalesce into a unified group, will clear the streets under pressure. However, serious potential for clashes remain, especially considering hostilities between the army and the police and between the police and protesters. The coming hours will thus tell whether Mubarak’s bet on the opposition was a wise one.
And:
The decision to redeploy the internal security forces follows a major confrontation that has played out behind the scenes between the Interior Ministry and the military. The animosity between Egypt’s police and soldiers was amplified Jan. 28 when demonstrators overwhelmed the CSF and plainclothes police and the army stepped in to attempt to restore order.

Fearing that he and his forces were being sidelined, al-Adly was rumored to have ordered the police forces to stay home and leave it to the army to deal with the crisis. Meanwhile, multiple STRATFOR sources reported that many of the plainclothes policemen were involved in a number of the jailbreaks, robberies of major banks, and the spread of attacks and break-ins into high-class neighborhoods that occurred Jan. 29. In addition to allowing the police to blow off steam, the implicit message that the Interior Ministry was sending to the army through these actions was that the cost of undermining the internal security forces was a complete breakdown of law and order in the country that would in turn break the regime.
And:
Within the next few hours, police and military officials are expected to redeploy in large numbers across major cities, with the CSF taking the first line of defense. Tensions are still running high between the internal security forces and the military, which could lead to serious clashes between the army and police on the streets. The size and scope of the protests appear to be dwindling into the low thousands, though there is still potential for the demonstrations to swell again after protesters rest themselves and wake up to the same government they have been trying to remove. Moreover, as the events of Jan. 28 and 29 illustrated, protesters are far more likely to clash with the CSF than with the military.

Two powerful and concise posts from the amazing Xymphora regarding the crisis: The one sentence post "Looting," and the perfectly laid out, this-is-most-likely-Mubarak's-plan "Schemes of the Pharaoh." Here's a taste..

You withdraw the police, and use the undercover police to loot and pillage ("2 looters were just caught in Muharram Beyh neighborhood of Alexandria who had police ID cards and were members of undercover plainclothes force."), empty prisons, and play up the dangers on local television, thus frightening the middle classes. You even attack strong symbols of the country in looting the Egyptian Museum ('a high-ranking member of the ruling National Democratic Party was involved in the attack on the museum'). The message is that the strong hand of the 'father' is needed to preserve order. As bad as things are, they could be worse.

Mubarak's regime still has home court advantage. Will the people continue on, or will Mubarak's strategies wear them down, and ultimately prevail? Do the people need to agree about anything else, at the moment, other than the removal of Mubarak, his administration, and his spheres of influence?

The Tipping Point Has Passed: Sweeping Change is at Hand

From Activist Post Excerpts:
When so many diverse forces converge and conflict, a tipping point of global awareness to the human condition is reached. The momentum must spill over into a time of sweeping change.
..
Our age is one of extremes: one can see this in our entertainment, our politics, our solutions to the spectrum of problems we face . . . and even our physical climate. This would indicate that it is a time for choosing sides -- anathema as it is for those who are inclusive by nature. It is a challenging time for those of us who would like to see all sides of every issue, liberally interpreting the dialogue in a collective mantra for the human race. Such a being is branded with any one of the scarlet letters assigned to the prevailing political parties of our modern world. For those of us who would like to preserve a once-great nation, a political dogma, a religious instruction, or a fixed set of guiding principles, we find ourselves on a runaway train of manipulated change, environmental change, and technological change. From either left-right spectrum, the stage upon which we have been told we can act is a moving one. So, from where exactly can we act our part?
And:
We are in this struggle due to the profound nature of our ability to discern the stimuli of our environment. We are not animals, and we are not (yet) robots. Some of us are; others wish to be; most are not even close. No other being, so far as we can tell, has been able to harness their abilities and flaws to produce such world-encompassing results. Perhaps this is what is worth saving, and why our destructive capacities haven't yet overwhelmed us. Perhaps this is why global "elites" who feel that their breeding and master planning are the symphony of humankind haven't yet hit the correct note. Amid the vast attempts at government-run oppression, there has never been a more empowering time for the individual. Across the globe, the average person has far more access to information and creative technology than at any time in human history. This is a genie that cannot be put back into the bottle, save a physically catastrophic event that forces humanity back into the dark ages. The human intellect is expanding and evolving in a way that is rendering divide-and-conquer strategies much less effective.
And:
Free humanity finds itself at center stage between the left-right forces of radicalism, as it seeks to find a point of stability and growth. It is further proof that the essence of what humanity is has expanded its importance. So, choose your bible; choose your party; or choose none of it. One way or another massive change is coming. Where do you wish to stand?

The key to the Age of Aquarius is discernment. Information is literally flowing all around us, and it is up to us to use all of our critical facilities to determine our own truths. So many easily-made mistakes just ahead, and such a narrowing path to Awakening. It is becoming clear that at this axis point in "time," our collective consciousness could just as easily explode as our physical bodies could.

We will all have to choose..

Evolve or Devolve?
Nirvana, or Gehenna?
Star Trek, or Mad Max?

There is no guarantee.
What.. Will happen.. Next?