Soda_Jerk Re- Copyright

Soda_Jerk's site is here.

Google: Censorship Requests "Alarming"

Per HuffPo:

Google has received more than 1,000 requests from authorities to take down content from its search results or YouTube video in the last six months of 2011, the company said on Monday, denouncing what it said was an alarming trend.

* * * * *
Many of those requests targeted political speech, keeping up a trend Google said it has noticed since it started releasing its Transparency Report in 2010.

"It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect — Western democracies not typically associated with censorship," said Chou.

In the second half of last year, Google complied with around 65 percent of court orders and 47 percent of informal requests to remove content, it said.

(Emphasis supplied; more at the link.) It's even more alarming that it's reached the point that even Google finds it alarming.

Just wow.

Corporate Media's Campaign Coverage ATM

From an interview of Bob Mcchesney, Prof. of Communications at U. of Illinois, at the Real News Network, by Paul Jay:

JAY: So your piece to a large extent is about political advertising, partly as it has been affected by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which allows practically unlimited corporate spending on television advertising, and . . . . you got this crazy system whereby the entities that benefit most from this money in politics are the . . . mass major news organizations that get all this and billions of dollars of paid advertising, and then they report in what their – supposed to be their journalism on – mostly on poll results, poll results affected by TV buys which they're benefiting from. . . .

MCCHESNEY: . . . . You know, most democracies in the world have nothing like the United States in terms of this huge amount of money that gets spent by television ads, most of which are attacking the other candidates, not promoting your own candidate. And the reason for that is that it's driven in the United States by commercial broadcasters, the commercial television stations. And really we're talking about less than a dozen companies that own the vast majority of the stations that participate in selling TV ads. They are making a killing from this cash-drenched system. Literally between 18 and 25 percent of all the revenues of a commercial TV station this year will come from selling TV political candidate ads. And, you know, this is a profit center for them that's beyond belief. . . .

So you have – the commercial broadcasters are to campaign finance reform what the National Rifle Association is to bans on assault weapons. They are the number-one lobby to promote massive amounts of money in politics, because our electoral system in America has basically converted into a system where billionaires and corporations give tons of money to politicians, who then give most of that to commercial media to buy inane ads. And that's really what we have for our system. And the beneficiaries immediately of this are the commercial broadcasters [crosstalk]

* * * * *
It is – you know, and I think the point that's got to be understood by your viewers is that the companies that get these monopoly broadcast licenses – you have television stations or radio stations, cable systems – they get these monopoly privileges at no charge from the government in exchange for doing something in the public interest. In every major definition that's ever been given of what the public interest requirements ought to be of commercial broadcasters, number one on the list is always that they should do outstanding campaign coverage above and beyond what they would do if they were just out to make money, that basically that's where they put all their emphasis, to draw people into public life as voters, as citizens, to understand the candidates and the issues. And what we've seen is just the opposite. In the last 20 years, as the percentage of revenues going to commercial broadcast stations has gone from around 2 percent 20 years ago on average to 20 percent on average today, if not more. We've seen the amount of journalism covering campaigns on commercial television plummet. Lots of races get no coverage anymore. It's not any better, really, in newspapers. And what coverage that does remain is appalling. . . . It's like going over polls. It's sort of like reviewing whether an advertising attack ad is successful at manipulating people, not, you know, discussing how inane it is in the first place.

(Emphasis supplied.) More at the link above. (Infographic from the U. of Minnesota via The Angry Bureaucrat; click on the image for a larger version.)

That's a lot of cash going into a "hopelessly unproductive works."

Rebecca Mackinnon: Consent of the Networked

If you don't read her book, at least watch this:

(Another irresistible re-blog from Boing Boing).

The Eurozone Crisis

. . . is not about market "discipline," according to Dean Baker:

The people who gave us the eurozone crisis are working around the clock to redefine it in order to profit politically. Their editorials – run as news stories in media outlets everywhere – claim that the euro crisis is a story of profligate governments being reined in by the bond market. This is what is known in economics as a "lie". The eurozone crisis is most definitely not a story of countries with out of control spending getting their comeuppance in the bond market. Prior to the economic collapse in 2008, the only country that had a serious deficit problem was Greece. In the other countries now having trouble financing their debt, the debt to GDP ratio was stable or falling prior; Spain and Ireland were actually running budget surpluses and had debt to GDP ratios that were among the lowest in the OECD. . . . The crisis changed everything. It threw the whole continent into severe recession. This had the effect of causing deficits to explode, since tax revenues plummet when the economy contracts and payments for unemployment benefits and other transfer programmes soar. . . .

* * * * *
People should recognize this process for what it is: class war. The wealthy are using their control of the ECB to dismantle welfare state protections that enjoy enormous public support. This applies not only to government programs like public pensions and healthcare, but also to labour market regulations that protect workers against dismissal without cause. And of course, the longstanding foes of Social Security and Medicare in the US are anxious to twist the facts to use the eurozone crisis to help their class war agenda here. The claim that the countries in Europe are just coming to grips with the reality of modern financial markets is covering up for the class war being waged on workers across the globe. The assertion that this crisis is about market discipline should not appear in a serious newspaper, except on the right side of the opinion page.

More at Al Jazeera. (Dean Baker was among the first observers to identify a US housing bubble in 2002. He was a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and worked as a consultant for the World Bank and the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress, and authored weekly commentaries for the NYT and WaPo.)

UPDATE: Other recent headlines of economic interest:

The Four Companies that Control the 147 Companies that Own Everything (re- the 147 cos., see here).

Iceland is Our Modern Utopia (rejecting a bailout for their banks, the citizens of Iceland took control of their now-resurgent economy).

Germany Builds 2X the Cars & Pays Workers 2X the Wages

Evidence of Market Manipulation in the Financial Crisis

Is Bank of America Holding the US Hostage? (referring to the fact that BoA just moved its derivatives business into its FDIC (i.e. taxpayer) -insured depositary).

Too Big to Stop: Why Big Banks Keep Getting Away with Breaking the Law (the industry has captured the regulators, so the fines are too small to deter).

Wikileaks-esque Sites

As of today, LeakDirect lists 23 of them (with links).

Somebody had to be first.

The "Nobody Heard What You Said" Story

By Jay Rosen at PRESSthink:

In 1984, Stahl had produced an extended report for CBS trying to document the contradictions between what Reagan said and what he did. It showed him speaking at the Special Olympics and at a nursing home, and reported that Reagan had cut funding to children with disabilities and opposed funding for public health. I’ll let [Bob] Somerby tell the rest:

Dick Darman clued in Lesley Stahl—it’s all about the pictures. During the 1984 presidential campaign, Stahl aired a lengthy report on the CBS Evening News; it was broadly critical of President Reagan. In her recent book, Reporting Live, Stahl described her thoughts as the piece went to air:

STAHL (page 210): I knew the piece would have an impact, if only because it was so long: five minutes and 40 seconds, practically a documentary in Evening News terms. I worried that my sources at the White House would be angry enough to freeze me out.

But that isn’t what happened, she says. When the piece aired, Darman called from the White House. “Way to go, kiddo,” he said to Stahl. “What a great piece. We loved it.” Stahl replied, “Didn’t you hear what I said [in the broadcast]?” Darman’s answer has been frequently quoted:

STAHL: [Darman replied,] “Nobody heard what you said.”

Did I hear him right? “Come again?”

“You guys in Televisionland haven’t figured it out, have you? When the pictures are powerful and emotional, they override if not completely drown out the sound. I mean it, Lesley. Nobody heard you.”

Stahl’s critical report about President Reagan had been accompanied by generally upbeat visuals. According to Darman’s theory, the pictures registered more with viewers than anything Stahl had said.

(Much more at the link.)

Gene Youngblood Re- the New Art of Video

Long but worth it; via Phil Morton; shot at SAIC; sorry I have no further background; but I found Youngblood's discussion brilliant and prescient of later developments in contemporary art in general, as well as in video.



(UPDATED to add:) Partial transcription below by Shane Mecklenburger (the segments are not necessarily in the order spoken in the video; emphasis supplied):

‎" ... expanding the domain of your possible descriptions. The more your domain of possible descriptions is expanded, the less one description can control your behavior; the less you will believe any particular description about reality."

"Alienation is about not being able to see your meanings and values reflected in the world in which you live. So there's always this distance between you and everybody else and the world and you're kind of disjointed. And ok, you can live with that, but ... once in a while you have a non-alienated experience where you're just high and you just become one with something else, like you see a work of art or you meet a person and there's no distance, and that's 'you.' I see myself in you, I see myself in this: No more alienation. I maintain, which is not very profound because every other anthropologist and sociologist does, that alienation is an intrinsic product of modern industrial society, necessarily so, because it's all about centralized mass production and mass distribution, which necessarily must ignore individual values and preferences. How to solve that? It seems to me that you've got to have some filtering device between you as the 'receiver' and the source as the sender ... the complex things it allows you to do is realize your own personal identity through a medium that is basically intended to wipe out your identity."



‎"process me."

"There are no grounds for a common ethics except for a desire to have one. A desire which springs up in all of us as a result of living in a world of strife, controversy, hatred, so forth ... if we do have [a common ethics] it must now simply constitute an arbitrary decision of how to live, then the question becomes 'how are we to make that decision?' My answer is, first of all through a decentralized, user-controlled communication network, through which people could dialogue and exchange their values ... and over a period of time, and only through a system in which the users control the dialogue ... there is also emerging a common ethic, because what happens is common ethics emerge out of a domain of common experience. To the extent that you and I have a similar history of interactions, we may have a similar history of desires ... Desire is an industrial product. You can only desire what you are given. You can only choose from the set of possible choices that's held before you. So as a result of habituation, of enforced habit, we have all come to have a desire for whatever's on TV... so we learn one thing: common desires come from common histories, so the question then becomes, how to generate a domain of common histories without it becoming imperialistic; without it subordinating everyone like we do now with the mass media, and saying 'there is only one set of experiences that you can have and this is it'? This will determine that we all have a common history and therefore common desires, but there's got to be another way. To me the way is a decentralized user-controlled feedback communication system ... and then organically what would emerge out of this process, organically and naturally from the long-term behavior of the people, an organic ethic which would not be imposed upon them by the structure of some imperial system, but which would be educed out of us by this very adaptive system, a system which adapts to each individual user's needs."

‎"am i positioned correctly in the video domain?"

[This is spoken by someone else, not Youngblood, and is not transcribed as precisely] "yes, i tune in on it as exemplified by CB Radio, which at any time is user-controlled and it is a constant, ongoing dialogue situation. Which politically can only be described as anarchy, because no one ... if someone tries to dominate ... everybody can flip and go to another channel and say 'fuck off' ... and so the whole thing has this kind of constantly moving, uncontrolled except by the moment of use of what is happening in the system right now ... I realized ... there were rules that were supposed to be followed, the FCC will get you, blah blah blah, and all of a sudden i found out that nobody was going by the rules that were advertised. Everyone is going by the rules as they are constantly changing all the time right now. And that the best organizational description that I could lay on it is that this is anarchy. And it's working. And I had always heard that anarchy is this terrible thing and it can't work."

Youngblood responds by saying, you can govern by either attenuation and absorption, attenuation meaning that government prohibits activities it can't handle, and absorption meaning that government adapts to allow activities as far as possible, regulating them so far as necessarily to be able to handle them. But this kind of adaptation is only possible through "these tools" – such as the processor being used to manipulate the video of this conversation.

WikiLeaks: Why It Matters. Why It Doesn't?

This video has been around for a few months and is long, but it's very good – I'm not aware of a better summation of many of the issues involved (I just went back to it as a source for an essay I'm working on). If you can't make it through the whole thing, my faves were the moderator, Paul Jay; Neville Roy Singham; and every bit of Daniel Ellsberg (including his comments near the end).



UPDATE 2011-03-07: Greg Mitchell celebrates his 100th day of blogging the WL story today with an article on his top Cablegate revelation picks; see also Kevin Gosztola's top 100 leaks in 100 tweets.

Solidarity

Politico reports:

MADISON, Wis. — Someone in Egypt has been paying attention to what’s happening in Madison and wanted to send a message of solidarity from across the globe — so they ordered pizza.

It might seem like a small gesture, but it’s overwhelming to the staff at Ian’s on State Street — a campus staple mere blocks from the Capitol — where in the last few days, they’ve fielded calls from concerned citizens of 12 countries, and 38 out of 50 states looking to donate money to provide free pizza to the Wisconsinites who have congregated here.

Happy V-Day!

Alan Dershowitz Advising Assange's UK Attorneys

. . . esp., re- First and Fourth Amendment issues; this is a good thing.

Mubarek Resigned.

I probably won't have time to invent this wheel myself, but I'd be v. interested in an informed comparison between the Egyptian revolution and the uprising in India led by Mahatma Ghandi.

Pictures of a Revolution

"Egyptian anti-government protesters sleep [between] the tires of a military tank stationed on Tahrir (Liberation) Square, which for the past two weeks has been the center of a sit-in protest by thousands of Egyptians demanding the government step down from power. Protesters created a human shield and barricades to fend off pro-Mubarak supporters from getting into the square and to prevent the military from an overnight attack to clear the square from the protesters." Photo by Laura El-Tantawy; more at burn.

Statement from the protesters in Tahrir here.

Egypt: Who's Getting to Talk; Etc.

Suddenly it's all about the Muslim Brotherhood – today, even AlJazeera was pre-occupied with news re- discussions between the Muslim Brotherhood and Mubarak's recently-appointed V.P., Omar Suleiman.

Mubarak wants it to be about the Muslim Brotherhood, and the US wants it to be about the Muslim Brotherhood; because they can each use the Muslim Brotherhood to scare their respective citizens into thinking the uprising is Islamic. And the Muslim Brotherhood isn't going to walk away from a place at the table when offered.

But the Muslim Brotherhood had little to do with this uprising. They didn't start it, and there have never been any Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Tahrir. The protesters as a whole don't consider that the Muslim Brotherhood represents them or has anything to do with what they want. The Muslim Brotherhood doesn't represent anyone except its own members, who constitute a minority both within and outside the square.

The protesters have elected their own representatives. And they and Nobel laureate Mohamed Elbaradei, who joined the protesters in the square early on, have refused to enter talks with Egyptian authorities unless Mubarak's immediate departure is agreed to (see here).

Meanwhile, the military has been trying to crowd the protesters into a smaller area surrounded by barbed wire. Today, entry to Tahrir was limited to one, single-file checkppoint, and the line of protesters seeking to join those already in the square extended half-way across Kasr El Nile Bridge. No cameras were being allowed in, and journalists continued to be obstructed, harassed, and detained.

And from Press TV, "[t]he US is sending warships, including one with 800 troops, and other military assets to Egypt as the revolution in the North African country gains momentum. Officials in Washington have stated that the move is to be prepared in case of an evacuation of Americans from Egypt." More likely, the US wants everyone to know it's positioned to intervene if necessary.

And The Guardian has a good article on the economic context:

Under sweeping privatisation policies, [Mubarak and his "clique"] appropriated profitable public enterprises and vast areas of state-owned lands. A small group of businessmen seized public assets and acquired monopoly positions in strategic commodity markets such as iron and steel, cement and wood. While crony capitalism flourished, local industries that were once the backbone of the economy were left to decline. At the same time, private sector industries making environmentally hazardous products like ceramics, marble and fertilisers have expanded without effective regulation at a great cost to the health of the population.

A tiny economic elite controlling consumption-geared production and imports has accumulated great wealth. This elite includes representatives of foreign companies with exclusive import rights in electronics, electric cables and automobiles. It also includes real estate developers who created a construction boom in gated communities and resorts for the super-rich. Much of this development is on public land acquired at very low prices, with no proper tendering or bidding.

It is estimated that around a thousand families maintain control of vast areas of the economy. This business class sought to consolidate itself and protect its wealth through political office. The National Democratic party was their primary vehicle for doing so. This alliance of money and politics became flagrant in recent years when a number of businessmen became government ministers with portfolios that clearly overlapped with their private interests.

More at the link. The high-rank military are part of this elite – in fact, the military owns much of the non-military economy.

And here's audio re- the roles played to-date by Facebook and Twitter, among other things.

Protesters

Photo at right taken 3 hrs. ago by Mahmoud M. Khattab in Tahrir Square.

Egypt Remembers is a website commemorating those killed in the protests.

Per a recent tweet, journalists trying to enter Egypt via the Cairo airport are being turned back. This regime does not understand the fundamentals of civilized society, let alone human rights, sufficiently even to fake it for the brief period needed until the world's attention turns elsewhere. It cannot possibly be entrusted with a transition to democracy.

Under US Plan, Egyptian Protesters to Be Thrown Under the Bus?

UPDATE: The BBC is reporting, "US special envoy Frank Wisner has said that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak should remain in power to oversee a transition to democracy." As I've mentioned, this would give Mubarak eight more months in which to track down and eliminate those who have opposed him, destroy evidence, further enrich himself and his friends, and otherwise improve his own position.

(At right, the banner lists the protesters' demands.)

Yesterday I caught part of a radio program on NPR, "To the Point," featuring Robert Springborg, Prof. of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, and Samer Shehata, Prof. of Arab Politics, Georgetown U., among others. Here's a rough transcript of remarks starting about 9 min. in:

Springborg: US negotiations are on track; its intent is to retain the Egyptian military in power, without Mubarak; but Frank Wisner's probably done what he was assigned to do, i.e. to come to terms with the military, because our intent is to retain the military in power. It would have been far better to open discussion with the opposition so as to legitimate them, but no doubt Pres. Obama instructed Wisner NOT to do that, and so as time goes by the opposition will become not only marginalized but they'll fear for their lives because they're being left in the lurch.

Q: But what about the idea of a civilian democracy?

Springborg: We didn't entertain that. To entertain that, Wisner would have had to publicly embraced the opposition, but he didn't do that. Ambassador Margaret Scoby held little sessions with them on the side but those were meaningless. The military will of course have some kind of civilian face, and so we saw Amr Moussa show up in Tahrir Square, who now when he's asked come elections can say he was there; and he's someone the military can live with. And he's Sec. General of the Arab League, and he's known to be someone who's had a bit of a tiff with Mubarak; so he's the most acceptable face that the military's going to allow.

Q: How can the Egyptian government get away with killing of the opposition?

Springborg: Just yesterday, security forces rounded up members of the Center for Legal Rights, from their office right on Tahrir Square, right out in the open, and they haven't been seen since. Two hours ago we were told, Mohamed Rashid has been arrested, passport taken, assets seized – a prominent, independent thinker with real integrity, opposed to some of the things the military's done. And if they can do this to these people, they can do it to anyone, and they will.

Q: Why would the US want the military to remain in power?

Springborg: Because they've done our bidding. We do not trust the pro-democracy protesters. What we see is fascist behavior by the military. Yet we are making it possible. We pledged continuation of foreign assistance to the military. Our Vice President has been speaking directly to the military, etc.; our lines of communication are entirely with them.

Next, Prof. Shehata agrees and adds his own thoughts, well worth listening to. (As of last night, you could hear the program online at the link above.) Springborg went into more detail in an article just brought to my attention, in Foreign Policy.

What Springborg and Shehata said rings only too true, given the otherwise unaccountable failure of the military to protect the protesters from Mubarak's hired thugs, among other things.

Re- the relationship between the US and the Egyptian military, see The Guardian.

So it seems El Baradei et al. never had a chance . . . and the US should probably offer asylum to the protesters, or at least to their leaders . . . but we won't, because that would be inconsistent with our denial of the truth, that we threw them – and their aspirations for democracy – under the bus. Does the US imagine that oppressed peoples of the world won't notice?

Meanwhile, the US cables published by Wikileaks say, "Egypt's military is in decline"; "sole criteria for promotion is loyalty"; "fire officers it perceives as being 'too competent.'"

Note that the US government is, from an Assange-ist p.o.v., conspiring with the Egyptian military insofar as both authorities are saying one thing to their people and doing something else.

One more thing: this does not mean I think it's hopeless to continue to support efforts toward democracy. One must of course know what one's up against; I believe many of the protesters do.

Nothing is inevitable, except defeat for those who give up without a fight. – "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1961), script by Irwin Allen and Charles Bennett.

Protest in Egypt: Day 11

(The pic at right shows Christians forming a blockade to protect Muslims at prayer, as they have throughout the protest.)

A couple of thoughts/questions:

1. The Egyptian people's power lies in

a. preventing the economy from returning to normal WHILE

b. winning the p.r. war.

The people can't be sure of achieving their goal unless Mubarak is actually ousted a.s.a.p. And that won't happen unless they continue to do both of the above, because only the combination of both might motivate those with power within and outside Egypt to induce Mubarak to leave, who otherwise has everything to gain by simply waiting the protesters out.

2. Mubarak should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity – we've just watched while such crimes have been committed – but U.S. officials probably feel they must at least offer Mubarak a safe exit, partly because otherwise, the other dictators we've been propping up might decide we weren't a sufficiently reliable ally.

As one tweet put it, "Dear US government: We don't hate you because we hate your freedom; we hate you because you hate our freedom."

Meanwhile, The Nation has an excellent description of the pro-democracy organizers.

Current News Re- Egypt:

A few sources (in addition to others you may be following):

1. A more stable Al Jazeera live stream.
   
   
2. Al Jazeera live blog.
   
   
3. A thread aggregating posts and tweets from inside Egypt (this will probably be replaced by others on succeeding days, but if you're checking on a date after the date of this post, you can find links to new threads by looking near the bottom of the thread or searching DU for posts by the author of the original post that began this thread).

4. Another thread aggregating recent news (same caveat applies).
   

(Click on the images for larger versions.) Of great concern now is that, during the last day, there has been a concerted campaign of attacks on and arrests of journalists. The fear is that Egyptian authorities are planning something especially bloody that they don't want the world to see. Hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy protesters are expected to take to the streets for tomorrow's "March for Departure."

Meanwhile, the Deputy Director of the state-controlled Egyptian tv, Shahira Amin, has resigned: "I quit my job because I don't want to be part of the state propaganda regime, I am with the people. I feel liberated and relieved. I have quit my job and joined the people in Tahrir Square."

UPDATE: At least ten protesters are confirmed dead, over a thousand wounded, and per Amnesty International, some 1500 are being detained by Egyptian authorities. FURTHER UPDATE: As of Feb. 6, per Al Jazeera, Egyptian authorities report 11 protesters have been killed; the United Nations reports over 300 and estimates thousands injured.

I'm in awe of the pro-democracy Egyptians – their determination to demonstrate peacefully, their level-headedness and ingenuity, as well as their great courage. To the families of those killed, and to the many injured, and to all who persevere, I can't help recalling the speech Shakespeare wrote for his Henry V (Act IV, scene ii, Moby ed.):

What’s he that wishes so? [wishing they had more men from their homeland to help in their next battle, in which they'd be terribly outnumbered]
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are marked to die, we are enough
To do our country loss [i.e., if we’re to die, better that no more than we be lost]; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear [“yearns”: here, grieves];
Such outward things dwell not in my desires;
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz [cousin], wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns [gold coins] for convoy [transportation] put into his purse.
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian [i.e., St. Crispian’s Day; Crispian was an early Christian martyr].
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil [here, eve] feast [give a feast for] his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian’;
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages [exaggeration]
What feats he did that day; then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Getting creative re- Egypt.

After a week of peaceful demonstrations, undercover Egyptian police and pro-Mubarak forces (many if not most of whom are hired thugs) have begun throwing rocks and molotov cocktails.

The anti-Mubarak protesters vastly outnumber the pro-, but they were frisked before being allowed into the Square and are largely unarmed. Gunfire has also been heard. The military apparently allowed the openly armed, pro-Mubarak forces into the area and then watched and did nothing as the violence unfolded. Hundreds are injured and at least one person dead.

This should eliminate any doubt about Mubarak's priorities.

If Mubarak remains in power until the next round of elections in September, he'll have eight months in which to track down and eliminate those who have opposed him, further enrich himself and his friends, destroy evidence, and otherwise improve his own position. (UPDATE: Apparently the Egyptian government's surveillance capabilities have been enhanced by a monitoring tool sold by Narus, a US company. The tool, "deep packet inspection," can be used to read e-mails, tweets, etc., to discover which individuals are involved in activist efforts and to geo-locate them, among other capabilities. See also "Egyptian police use Facebook and Twitter to track down protesters' names before 'rounding them up.'")

Thinking about pressure that could be brought to bear . . . .

Mubarak's wife and sons are reportedly in London (see here and here).

Julian Assange is still under arrest in London, for the purpose of "questioning" re- previously dismissed allegations.

Are there no allegations of crimes by Mubarak's wife or sons? (UPDATE: of possible interest, "$60 Billion US Aid to Egypt=$60 Billion Current Net-Worth of Mubarak Family.")

Al Jazeera live stream here.

UPDATE: Anonymous, the same loosely organized collective that launched DDoS attacks against Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, and Bank of America in an online "sit-in" in support of Wikileaks, "gathered about 500 supporters in online forums and used software tools to bring down the sites of the Ministry of Information and President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, said Gregg Housh, a member of the group. The sites were unavailable Wednesday afternoon.

"The attacks, Mr. Housh said, are part of a wider campaign that Anonymous has mounted in support of the antigovernment protests that have roiled the Arab world. Last month, the group shut down the Web sites of the Tunisian government and stock exchange in support of the uprising that forced the country’s dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee." More at The NYT.