February 2011
“FLASH: Google says has launched service for people in Egypt to send Twitter...”
– @Reuters (via brooklynmutt)
Well played, Google.
January 2011
Kings County Distillery Tour
aneclairtoremember:
On Saturday afternoon, I went with George and some friends on a tour of the Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn. It is the first distillery to come to New York since prohibition. They make whiskey, bourbon and moonshine at their tiny warehouse office in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It’s like a bunch of post-college grads who got together, did some science experiments in...
Did Mubarek help cause 9/11?
In “The Looming Tower,” his history of Al Qaeda, Lawrence Wright raises the possibility that “America’s tragedy on September 11 was born in the prisons of Egypt.” By visiting imprisonment, torture and exile upon Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak foreclosed any possibility of an Islamic revolution in his own country. But he also helped radicalize and internationalize his country’s Islamists,...
One of the kids on our NJ Transit bus going...
The rest of the kids are squealing with delight. So cute.
Note to David Gregory
If you want to seem hip to the internet phenomenon, don’t keep showing a giant screen of TweetDeck and say things like, “Look at that, it’s moving so fast.”
When will the traditional news outlets learn to simply recognize the power of the internet without trying to co-opt it in awkward ways? They have strengths and resources that the networked grassroots world...
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We're watching the scene where Julianne Moore...
Her hand doesn’t get anywhere near Madonna’s face, which is odd because the scene where she fingers herself seems very real.
Also, her face goes one direction in the first camera shot, and the other way in the next one.
Look at my life, look at my choices.
Watching: Body of Evidence
Jeff bribed me with a cocktail and a painkiller.
It’s so, so terrible. Even the opening credits are bad. I love that Madonna always gets typecast as basically herself - a rich, spoiled sexpot - and she still feels stilted and corny.
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Wolf Blitzer might be the worst softball-lobbing...
CNN just reported that Nile TV says 1,000...
An entire nation stood up over the past few days...
If that isn’t fucking democracy, I don’t know what is.
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Go watch this Presets video. →
One of the YouTube comments reads, “I don’t care if it’s gay. It’s badass.”
So true.
if you know anyone in egypt.
carpe-cerevisi:
If you know anyone in Egypt, please pass this on to them. To bypass government blocking of websites, use numerical IP addresses: Twitter ”128.242.240.52” Fb ”69.63.189.34” Google ”172.14.204.99”. A French ISP offers free dial up internet access ~ +33 1 72 89 01 50 Login password: toto. Please pass this on and share.
I do not know anyone in Egypt, or any adorable Egyptian...
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Fuck you too, Wyoming
Google Analytics says that in the previous month, I have had visits from 49 of the 50 states. Hello, America!
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The "Cairo 52"
The cost of being gay in Egypt by Mukul Devichand for World Voices Norway, 17 December 2001
Early evening in downtown Cairo, Egypt. I meet two young men in one of the hundreds of coffee shops, replete with mirror tiles and sisha pipes, that litter the streets. They are energetic and expressive, but — despite the noisy clink-clink of tea glasses around us — they speak in fearful, hushed...
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The Sunni revolution?
Egypt’s “going Islamic” would have far more profound and far-reaching consequences — in the Arab Middle East, of course, but also in the larger Islamist world — because the Iranian revolution was a Shi’ite revolution. The Shi’ites are a minority sect of Islam — most Muslims are Sunnis, and Egypt is very representative of Sunni Islam. It is not only...
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Layers of intrigue
11:06 a.m. EST / 6:06 p.m. Cairo Who is Lieutenant General Omar Suleiman, whom Mubarak just appointed as the first Egyptian vice president since 1981? Suleiman’s appointment makes him the likely successor to Mubarak, ruling out long-presumed Gamal Mubarak, the president’s son. Issandr Amrani profiled Suleiman in 2009 for Foreign Policy, concluding, “neither Gamal Mubarak nor...
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inothernews:
“For the first time in a generation, it is not religion, nor the adventures of a single leader, nor wars with Israel that have energized the region. Across Egypt and the Middle East, a somewhat nostalgic notion of a common Arab identity, intersecting with a visceral sense of what amounts to a decent life, is driving protests that have bound the region in a sense of a shared destiny....
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Most Honest Blog Post Ever →
WELL PLAYED, KRUGMAN.
souplines:
“I drink too much. The last time I gave a urine sample it had an olive in it.”
- Rodney Dangerfield
Yes.
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“It’s crucial to understand that the United States is not the key driver of...”
– Marc Lynch
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(Must be logged into Facebook to view the page.)
(Must be logged into Facebook to view the page.)
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New vice president announced, [being sworn in now]... →
vruz:
Wikipedia has been amazingly speedy to update:
Lieutenant General Omar Suleiman (Arabic: عمر سليمان) (born July 2, 1936) is the current Vice-President of Egypt, and was formally a Minister without portfolio and director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate (EGID), the national intelligence agency of Egypt. He has been in office since 1993. In his role as director of EGID,...
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WHEN DO I GET TO KISS AN EGYPTIAN POLICE OFFICER?
WHEN DO I GET TO KISS AN EGYPTIAN POLICE OFFICER?
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NY TIMES: "In another sign that the (Egyptian)... →
The military always holds all the cards. Which can cut both ways.
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Life on the Nile?
The risks of the status quo are always safer and more appealling than the uncertainties of the new, the unfamiliar and the unpredictable. So it wasn’t a great surprise to discover Vice-President Joe Biden saying last night that, all things considered, he wouldn’t refer to Hosni Mubarak “as a dictator” or outgoing White House press secretary Robert Gibbs insisting that...
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seaofgreen:
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places - and there...
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If the Egyptians end up with a new government...
I have questions about this!
What if it’s an Islamist government? Was that part of the neo-con vision?
What if it’s less friendly to the US? Mubarak is one of our most reliable Arab allies.
How likely is it that a completely stable, new government will take shape out of this? I would say that it’s still a long shot.
How does Bush get to take credit for Egypt? Wouldn’t...
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kattykay:
“We certainly didn’t anticipate that the material we published about the corruption in the leadership of Tunisia would fuel what has turned into quiet a revolution.”
— BBC News - NY Times’ Bill Keller on Wikileaks consequences in Tunisia
Yes, who could have foreseen that instead of two massive wars, all the region really needed was a little transparency.
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ElBaradei Now Under House Arrest
Egyptian security officials say Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei is under house arrest, the AP reported. Police stationed outside his suburban Cairo home told him he cannot leave the house after he joined tens of thousands of protesters in the capital Friday.
Earlier, police used water cannons against Mr. ElBaradei and his supporters as they joined the latest wave of protests after...
