In The News: Thanks this morning to ChrisM, my MP3Angel, for supplying the news and commentary audio files. Egypt comes unglued with open rebellion on the streets of Suez and Cairo where demonstrators have been targeting the police in mass street demonstrations. There has been a battle in Cairo for who controls a strategic bridge allowing the authorities to move their forces and equipment. The rest of the country is also experiencing turmoil.
[Say Buh-Bye Mubarak: "A protester kisses a police officer during a demonstration in Cairo January 28, 2011"] Mohamed ElBaradei, the former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the UN who attempted to prevent the Iraq war and is perhaps the only person who could be considered the "opposition" in Egypt returned from 'exile' to Egypt yesterday and was placed under house arrest. Now it's reported he has been moved into government custody. That is sure to create even more violence in the streets of Egypt. He is the 'choice' of the Egyptian middle-class, as yet un-involved in the protests in any large number. You realize this all started because a guy in Tunisia with a Graduate degree who couldn't find work started peddling fruit on the street and was told he couldn't. He immolated himself... causing a revolt and now-accomplished government overthrow... and it's spreading to the rest of North Africa and the Middle East. From Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP):

The January 14 departure of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was a long overdue demonstration of the possibility of genuine democratization in the Arab world. It remains to be seen, however, to what degree the toppling of Ben Ali will transform Tunisia into a representative democracy whose citizens enjoy greater economic opportunities. Amy Aisen Kallander assesses some of the obstacles to change in "Tunisia's Post-Ben Ali Challenge: A Primer," now available in _{[Middle East Report Online]}

The Shiite funeral that was bombed in Iraq the other day killing 30 has raised the death toll for the week to approximately 200 killed and 800 wounded. Expect the illegitimate Iraqi government to ask the US to stay after the end-of-year 2011 deadline... Expect the US government to say "Yes". Speaking of our near-forgotten war on Iraq, Steven Lee Myers (New York Times) pens his retirement column and says of president Obama's State of the Union address:

The war in Iraq occupied no more space in President Obama’s State of the Union address than it has in his administration’s foreign policy: not exactly a footnote, but no longer the contentious, consuming, convulsive center of all attention. Iraq came up only briefly in the 46th minute of a speech that lasted just over an hour, but his five sentences and 72 words amounted to a declaration of victory, if a subdued one.

“Look to Iraq,” he said, using the experience here under his presidency as an example of the restoration of American standing in the world, “where nearly 100,000 of our brave men and women have left with their heads held high.”

Nearly 50,000 troops remain... _{[Read his analysis and Q&A with readers here]}

Loyalty is not their strong suit... The Senate Tea Party Caucus was called yesterday and out of 63 who might be considered "Teabaggers" only three showed up. Speaking of the "TeaTards"... In their greed they even spite themselves. From Mark Ames @ The EXiled "Mankind's Only Alternative":

Class War For Idiots / January 22, 2011 We, The Spiteful By Mark Ames [...]Here we are, in 2011—and although 2004 seems like a different world from today, separated by more events than we can make sense of, the left still hasn’t come around to answering that big Kansas mystery about Americans’ farcical voting habits. So the left was left baffled once again when, in 2009, millions of Americans volunteered as foot-soldiers to fight for a second-rate TV personality named Rick Santelli and his rich speculator friends at the Chicago Exchange, who called for a revolution to protect their money from “losers” because Santelli and his speculator buddies didn’t want to “subsidize losers’ mortgages.” Next thing you know, these same losers took to the streets to defend the semi-celebrity Santelli, his rich speculator pals, and the Koch brothers from… losers. That is, they revolted against themselves. • • • And they weren’t just revolting against their own rational economic self-interest—they also rebelled against their health and longevity, storming town hall meetings with guns threatening any lawmaker who dared offer them cheaper, better health care of the sort enjoyed in every other First World country, where people live longer healthier lives than we do, at half the cost. Fueled by spite, these protesters proved to the world that Americans would rather die in misery and bankruptcy than live longer healthier lives. Thanks to them, Obama, who was never thrilled about offering us cheaper health care in the first place, made sure that whatever happened, we’d get the very worst health care reform possible, one that left everyone bitter except the health care plutocrats.[...] _{[More @ The EXiled]}

In OTHER News:

""During his year at Fort Drum, N.Y., Manning had "thrown chairs at colleagues and shouted at higher ranking soldiers,"

New information reveals that Bradley Manning may have been picked to be the flogging boy over the Wikileak of Iraq information because he already thought the people he worked with/for were murderous cretins, before he was shipped to Iraq. -30-
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