... in Egypt:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-egypt-youth-20110128,0,7095266.story

Quote :

" Young Egyptians mount unusual challenge to Mubarak A Facebook-fueled youth movement has called for more protest, challenging a government that says it won't tolerate it. Security forces have blocked activists' Twitter accounts but not their anger."

This is very cool stuff (except for the dying of course).

This could easily turn really badly for Egypt, but I'm hoping it works out well for them.

1/28/2011 12:09:13 AM

I'm guessing it'll turn out about the same as the 2009-2010 protests in Iran

1/28/2011 12:21:22 AM

I don't think so.

Egypt, as far as I know, doesn't have the weird religious shadow government that actually runs things.

That's what's holding back Iran.

1/28/2011 12:21:54 AM

I'm sure blood will be shed. The Egyptian government is already shutting down communications as much as it can to keep coverage of the killing to a minimum.

1/28/2011 12:24:01 AM

The outcome looks bleak either way.

Either Mubarak suppresses this dissent through the usual means, which means shit for normal Egyptians, or Mubarak gets ousted and the Islamist groups he's been keeping at bay suddenly find themselves influential in Egyptian government, which is bad for us (and probably for normal Egyptians as well).

The natural tendency is to think of events like this as being democratically motivated, but the same assholes who were bad enough to make us play nice with Mubarak are happy to see a chance at his overthrow.

And that's all to say nothing of what happens if a new government comes in that doesn't feel obliged to play nice with Israel, in which case we have the potential for a nasty all-out war on top of everything else!

[Edited on January 28, 2011 at 2:42 AM. Reason : ]

1/28/2011 2:41:39 AM

In the event of a regime change,

Best case scenario: Mohamed ElBaradei or Ayman Nour takes over.

Worst case scenario: the Muslim Brotherhood takes over.

The Muslim Brotherhood has not been involved in these protests so far, but they are throwing their weight into them starting tomorrow. Tomorrow should be the biggest day of protests yet; I'm guessing we will see a lot of fireworks.

1/28/2011 3:01:04 AM

Quote :

"Worst case scenario: the Muslim Brotherhood takes over."

Which is why the US had really better get behind these protests. The last thing anyone needs is another band of ayatollahs seizing indefinite power under the guise of "guarding" the country from Western usurpers.

1/28/2011 10:17:05 AM

1/28/2011 10:41:27 AM

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blog-post/2011/01/egyptian_protests_in_egypt.html#vodaphone

Quote :

"11:29 a.m. EST Phone service shut down Reuters is reporting that British telecommunications company Vodafone said Egyptian authorities "had instructed all mobile operators to suspend services" in parts of Egypt. Vodafone says it will comply with the request."

1/28/2011 12:12:10 PM

these are pretty awesome

http://www.businessinsider.com/egypt-activist-plan-2011-1#-5

[Edited on January 28, 2011 at 1:01 PM. Reason : it seems like this may have been a long time coming]

1/28/2011 1:00:41 PM

anybody have a good link to how this whole situation has evolved?

1/28/2011 1:02:08 PM

I've been looking every now and then at:

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/01/whats-happening-egypt-explained

It doesn't get really detailed on the back story though, lots of updates though

1/28/2011 1:18:39 PM

that was helpful, thanks.

i've got the live blogging updates from the washingtonpost going.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blog-post/2011/01/egyptian_protests_in_egypt.html?hpid=topnews

1/28/2011 1:21:56 PM

moron sucks balls at making threads. This is the first time I clicked on the thread because of the title.

Ok, got that? Not interested in The Audacity of Hope. Am interested in current events in Egypt.

I hereby declare this thread illegitimate.

[Edited on January 28, 2011 at 1:25 PM. Reason : ]

1/28/2011 1:24:45 PM

title change? i bet qtmnken could make that happen

1/28/2011 1:26:14 PM

but tdub is not a police state!

1/28/2011 1:28:06 PM

That activist pamphlet is awesome.

1/28/2011 1:36:51 PM

H. Clinton speaking on the issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNax39FPJBc

It's kind of an insidious balance of forces. I feel like it's tempered to not piss off either side very much. A change in leadership apparently has a significant chance to bode ill for US foreign policy.

this posted link

Quote :

"http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/01/whats-happening-egypt-explained"

was very helpful to start understanding. In particular:

Quote :

"Why are Egyptians unhappy? They have basically no more freedom than Tunisians. Egypt is ranked 138th of 167 countries on The Economist's Democracy index, a widely accepted measure of political freedom. That ranking puts Egypt just seven spots ahead of Tunisia. And Egyptians are significantly poorer than their cousins to the west. How did this all start? This particular round of protests started with the protests in Tunisia. But like their Tunisian counterparts, Egyptian protesters have pointed to a specific incident as inspiration for the unrest. Many have cited the June 2010 beating death of Khaled Said (warning: graphic photos), allegedly at the hands of police, as motivation for their rage. But it's also clear that the issues here are larger. Why is this more complicated for the US than Tunisia was? The Tunisian regime was a key ally for the US in the fight against Al Qaeda. But the US government's ties to Tunisia's Ben Ali pale in comparison to American ties to Egypt. Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution, a centrist think tank, explains: "

There we go.

1/28/2011 1:46:07 PM

Anyone want to speculate on what kind of domino effect this could continue to have....?

Both in the region and around the world? I'm thinking OPEC, world economic markets, etc...

1/28/2011 2:00:41 PM

It's complicated, regarding markets it's not easy to say this has a positive or negative effect on anything. If I wanted to be optimistic, well... this could mean people in the region take control of the governing of their nation, which would actually put them on the path to development. It's easy to look at history and say this is a product of the circumstances created by technology encompassing cell phones, the internet, etc. The big picture could be an ultimate economic rise of a region. that would be VERY optimistic.

OPEC lost its pricing power in 2005 or so. The price of oil is now controlled by market forces. Historically, Standard oil, then RTC, then OPEC controlled the global price of oil. This is done by spare capacity. But as wells deplete, you loose the ability to flex this power. Basically all wells are Earth are going into depletion, already there, or use new modern techniques for recovery that don't follow the same patterns as what was used in the past and require large capital investments that impair the case for keeping any spare capacity. Basically I'm saying that oil spare capacity is a fossil - such a thing doesn't exist as a strategically deployable resource. This is why OPEC doesn't matter in that way any more. They can raise prices but can't lower them. Likewise, political shifts in the world offer little prospect of increasing oil production, but do risk loosing some. Either scenario is unlikely and demand is a much more major player.

1/28/2011 2:21:09 PM

The NYSE is already having a minor fit of pants-shitting over this. Nobody wants to hold onto any remotely risky stock over the weekend when this thing has the potential to get bigger.

1/28/2011 3:06:38 PM

Suez Canal still too valuable, and the Egyptians still torture too many folks on our behalf - this will be tricky

1/28/2011 3:22:23 PM

lol, 2% for the DOW is nothing. Plus, you don't know what the market is saying. If it goes down 2% from morning to 1pm, that is a revision in price during that time, in other words, new information. If something for the afternoon could have been reasonably predicted in the morning, it would have already been priced in.

That is why the market has dropped directly after many passings of pro-market legislation. Usually, they already had a run up before the vote as the likelihood of different outcomes solidify. When it actually passes no new information is introduced and it moves completely on a trading dynamics basis, often this means that traders are trying to exit their position after predicting correctly and thereby pushing the price down - even though this is the exact opposite of what should happen due to the event.

1/28/2011 3:23:43 PM

Maybe we should lock this now that there is an appropriately named thread gaining steam.

[Edited on January 28, 2011 at 4:32 PM. Reason : Appropriated. No idea.]

1/28/2011 4:22:22 PM