Wonders never cease...

It has taken a long time but someone has finally blamed Al-queda for the violent uprisings in Libya. The Libyan "Leader" himself says it is Al-queda who is causing all the trouble. Normally it is the US and possibly Israel who get blamed for these types of problems. If you can overlook the small fact that the Libyan leader is currently killing all the protesters he can find you can almost give him an attaboy.

The thing that has bothered me most about our "War on Terror" is the total lack of people who are willing to place any blame on Al-queda itself and instead save all their vitriol for the people trying to fight Al-queda. I don't subscribe to the Bush policy of "You are either with us or against us" argument but it would be nice for those who are busy criticizing the US leaders and policies to at least make an token attempt to put some of the responsibility on the terrorists whose actions have created the need for the current US policies.

In the past it was advertised that there would be no negotiating with terrorists because it validates the terrorists violence and if you start negotiating that will only legitimize and increase the chance of creating more terrorist actions in the future. This policy is similiar to the way law enforcement agencies do not pay ransoms to kidnappers because if they did the kidnappers would continue their actions to enhance thier revenue stream. (In certain cases ransom has been paid either by the family or other 3rd parties so the law enforcers can at least claim they did not violate their official policy.)  The problem today with terrorism is that from the very begining their have been a substantial amount of people who justify the terrorists actions by placing blame on the US or other international governments that have taken up arms.

On 9/11 the towers were still smoking when people started validating the terrorist actions by blaming US policy. As long as this type of behavior continues terrorism will continue. If the international community could form an united front against terrorism the problem could be dealt with. Instead countries have quietly mouthed standard condemnations and then used the terrorist actions to challenge US policy instead of condeming the terrorists actions. Those who abhore violence and warfare the most are the ones who are strengthing the terrorists hand by only critizing those who are actually fighting the terrorists. It is realpolitic gone amok and assures that the violence will continue into the future.

If the international community could have agreed unanimously that Sadam Hussien needed to be removed there would never have been a reason to invade Iraq a second time. There were countries who approved the UN declarations but when they were violated they did not have the will to enforce their own resolutions. By being unwilling to enforce their resolutions they make all of their resolutions worthless and we might as well as disband the UN or at least move it somewhere beside New York.Those people calling the the Iraq war "illegal" are idiots. Iraq signed a surrender after the first war and did not meet the terms of that surrender. That fact alone makes the war more than "legal". By not enforcing the surrender terms what use are they in the first place? The countries who fought hardest against the  war were also the ones that gave Sadaam some hope that he could continue his actions without any fear or consequences. I think what upset people most was the fact that Bush had the will to basically tell the UN to get bent and proceeded with his actions. Bush did the one thing that all of the political leaders in the world hate to do and that is he made a firm and unequivical decision based on what he thought was right instead of being overly concerned with the political hystaria that followed. His decision, like any decision, could be right or it could be wrong but he still had the guts to make it. There were also those countries who were busy taking kickbacks on the Iraqi oil program that was originally designed to funnel money to the Iraqi civilians. And those countries working on oil contracts with the Iraqi government certainly did not want a war to interfere with their operations. It has always annoyed me when people claim the US was in the war for oil when in fact the US does not import any oil from Iraq and there are no US corporations that were awarded oil contracts in Iraq either before or after the war. All of those contracts went to European countries.

The same thing is happening today in Iran. The sanctions against Iran are causing internal problems and might acheive their intended results but there are some countries who violate the sanctions and provide Iran with those items and services being denied in the sanctions. Just a small group of dissenting countries are enough to convince the Iranian leaders that the UN sanctions can not hurt them and they can continue their current policies regardless. All the authoritive leaders who are currently trashing international norms using violence or warfare only need a small sliver of hope that not everyone is against them and this hope will empower them until the very end.   

Unless Earth gets invaded by aliens I seriously doubt that the international community would ever see a reason to truely work together to solve some of our problems.

What is this Freedom Everyone Is Shouting About?

It seems that you can't turn the TV on or surf the net without seeing people running around screaming "We want Freedom!".  Are they currently locked in a cage? And if they are in cage who is responsible for putting them there in the first place? Is it the governments they have slavishly acquiesced to for over 60+ years? Or maybe it's  the US who has locked them down? After all when anything bad.happens it's always been safe to blame the US because the likely hood of getting your teeth smashed in is considerably less when bad mouthing someone like the US. It's definitely less risky than bad mouthing Iran. And speaking of Iran they seem to be in an awkward position at the moment. While the countries around them are having some political problems Iran has been busy arresting and killing anyone who might try to implement similar political changes in Iran. Of course they still have the old time tested strategy of blaming the US and Israel for all the trouble but that strategy is getting pretty thin.

Personally I think the responsible party for all of this unrest is the people themselves. The danger they face to today for fighting their governments is no more than it was 60+ years ago. So the question is why they let the situation continue for so long because of their inaction. Maybe they should have directed some of their passion into creating a better government and society for themselves instead of spending all their energy on their weekly "Death To America" rallies.

I hope it all works out for the people looking to change their government but I am very pessimistic about any real change happening. Until those fighting to remove their existing governments decide what they are going to replace it with the question will remain unanswered.

Conflicting Arguments...

It seems that the citizen uprisings in Egypt and the middle-east is causing a great amount of contradicting statements. About the only thing everyone agrees on is that the US is somehow responsible for all the trouble. The people supporting this opinion seem to have no problem with contradicting statements they utter.

The US is blamed with keeping Mubarak in power in Egypt which is nonsense. The US interaction with the Mubarak government was first and foremost meant to help support US policies in the region. There is not a single country in the world that does not seek the same types of relationships to support their own policies. The weaker countries protect themselves by playing the major powers off one another.  (ie. If the US won't agree to X then we can always ask the Soviet Union to give us X.) And this is exactly what Egypt and a great deal of other countries have done over the years. Egypt was a Soviet client state before the US really came onto the scene. As a matter of fact the Egyptians and other Arab countries were all armed with Soviet weapon systems.  The people laying all the blame on the US for "allowing Mubarak" to rule for so long completely contradicts the very same groups position on regime change. When the US went into Iraq and forced a regime change the world howled at the US interference but today the same group is complaining that the US didn't do the same thing in Egypt! So which is it? Regime change or non-intervention? This is a perfect example of damned if you do damned if you don't and frankly I am starting to get annoyed and depressed that people don't recognize this pattern. 

The party responsible for keeping Mubarak in power is the Egyptians themselves. Why didn't they stage these protests 25 years ago, 10 years ago or 5 Years ago if things were so bad? It's much easier to blame someone else instead of recognizing your own culpability in the type of world you end up living in and today the US is every ones patsy in this blame game.

I hope the situation in Egypt stabilizes and the people get what they want but I fear that they will get something different but I seriously doubt it will end up be any different than Mubarak's government. For now the military has taken control but it remains to be seen if they will be willing to step down in the near future. Mubarak operated his country for 30 years under a constant state of emergency which allowed him to basically do whatever he wanted to do in the cause of national security.  What's keeping the military from doing the same thing?

The Most Dangerous Right...

The right of "Freedom of Speech" that our constitution provides for is both one of the most necessary and one of the most dangerous "rights" in the book. The positive side is obvious in the extreme but the dangerous side is sometimes hard to define. The most recognized argument defining the limits on the freedom of speech is the ever popular example of  "You cannot yell Fire in a crowded theater!" I guess this example is suppose to point out that freedom of speech does not cover inciting dangerous or potentially dangerous actions. Personally I think that using this example is a gross misrepresentation of the 1st Amendment. The speech being protected today is doing nothing but creating dangerous situations that far surpass yelling fire in a theater.  The 1st Amendment is constantly used as a defense against anybody who speaks out against the content of someone else's speech.  The 1st Amendment is suppose to empower the citizenry to criticise the government without any fear of repercussions.  Repercussions such as preventing the citizenry to freely communicating with one another or subjecting citizens to arrest for speaking out. As an example just look at the recent Egyptian revolution. The government did their best to shutdown Internet access and quite a few people were jailed,beaten, and killed for speaking out. However no matter how necessary,beneficial, and powerful the 1st Amendment is it is also one of the main causes of the conflicts surrounding us today. The reason for this that it seems no one is ever willing to take responsibility for the actions caused by their statements. We are being constantly inundated with ridiculous propaganda, outright lies, and all types of manipulative information. It is getting so bad that I am honestly starting to wonder how long our civilization will last under this onslaught of "Free Speech". People have used the 1st Amendment to re-write history, incite violence, and purposely manipulate others.   If we could only devise a way to ensure that those using the freedom of speech have an IQ above room tempature.

Root of Insanity...

I think I have finally run across one of the most despicable websites on the Internet. Never before have I seen a collection of seemingly educated people living in alternate universe totally separated from reality. The site  http://www.veteranstoday.com  has a benign sounding name but the site is an example of one of the main sources of societal deconstruction using fabricated facts, unfounded innuendo, and unfettered BS. Everything from Holocaust denial to advocating the complete and total destruction of the United States and it's people. The commentary on this sight is so preposterous that I thought it was a parody site until I looked at it a little closer. This is the last time I will ever mention this site.

The Truth and Nothing But the Truth... Part2

Trying to compare current events against similiar events in the past can lead to some serious misunderstandings and any actions based on these understandings can lead to even more trouble. There are some popular comparisons that people like to use when debating the current state of international relations. The problem with some of these comparisons is that the events in the past have been painted with broad brush strokes and erroneous assumptions not based on fact have become "common knowledge". The problem with comparing current events against those in the past is that the severe lack of context often results in false or misleading comparsions. Here is an example that I think shows the problem of evaluating history without putting the events into there proper context:

1.  I believe there is a popular misconception that prior to WW2 the US was an isolationist country. The facts at the time really do not support that assessment, at least not using today's definition. The US was very much engaged with most of the international community in the pursuit of better trade relations and more influence.  Looking back at that time period requires you to first understand and accept the fact that at the time the US was NOT a world leader in anything and you need to use that context when evaluating the facts. Our military was anemic at best, the nation was suffering through the Great Depression, the gap between rich and poor was more pronounced than today, and the nation as a whole was not that mature when compared against the European countries at that time. The US international footprint was relatively small at the time but not because of choice but because the US was really just getting started as a nation. 
2. The US resistance to entering WW2 was mostly the result of it's prior involvement in WW1. The average US citizens had seen no benefits from it's WW1 involvement. According to the average citizens the only people who gained anything from WW1 was the US munition companies. (some things never change).  The only thing the average folks did see was the dead and injured who returned from the war without anything to show for the effort. Also in the late 1800's and early 1900's the US was still a country of immigrants. The majority of immigrants came to the US with nothing but the clothes on their backs to escape the European madhouse and really saw no real reason they should care about what was happening in the countries they left behind.
3. Today FDR is remembered as one the greatest US Presidents ever. However, at the time of his first and second terms he performed actions that skirted legality by a wide margin and displayed a gigantic helping of chutzpa when taking those actions he deemed necessary. He was also a member of the wealthy"elitist" class and made a fortune working on Wall Street before becoming president. Very similiar to the backgrounds of more recent presidents.  He worked behind the scenes and against the very clear wishes of Congress (both parties) and the countries citizens to aid Churchill in their war with Germany. His lend lease program combined with his decision to expand the shipping security zone to protect convoys to England clearly violated the Neutrality Act Congress had passed but he did it anyway. Anyone with half a brain at the time could see he was counting on using a German attack on an American ship to give him an excuse to join the war. He was very nearly was brought up on impeachment charges because of these actions and he was accused of getting the US involved in an "illegal war".  He also "broke the law" when he ordered wire taps on suspected spies after Congress had specifically passed a law preventing this very action but FDR argued the law didn't apply to issues related to national security and ordered it anyway. Actually he didn't really even argue he just wrote a directive and gave it to the Secretary of State to enforce. Is any of this starting to sound familiar? FDR barely won a second term. His opponent at the time was a guy named Wilkey who ran on a strict and very popular no war platform. The acrimony and hostility between the political parties were just as bad if not worse than they are today and the campaign was brutal. The vote was close but FDR won and afterwards he appointed Wilkey, one of his greatest critics, to the position of VP and sent him to Europe to meet with Churchill and to look at the war situation first hand. When Wilkey returned to the US he changed his opposition to the war and started supporting FDR policies. Only a blind and deaf person could have witnessed the carnage in Europe at the time and still argue against getting involved.
4. I just recently saw an interesting show that included some of our recent presidents offering their assessment's on FDR's presidency. They all agreed that he was an exceptional President. Presidents Carter, Clinton, and Bush 1 all agreed that sometimes the President needs to go beyond what is technically legal when it comes to protecting the countries security interests. All pretty much agreed that strict adherence to the Constitution and rule of law should not be a national death pact. I was surprised at Carter's stance on this issue.
5. At the time there were many picketing anti-war activists. They would have made today's anti-war crowd look pathetic and un-organized in comparison. Of course these anti-war activist looked like a bunch of idiots after the US citizens learned of the atrocities taking place in Europe. It took a while for word of the atrocities to become disseminated to the public at large because of the primitive communication systems of the day. They didn't have Facebook or Twitter at the time.
6. The people during this time period faced war and atrocity up close once the war was joined. The US was spared any damage to the countries infrastructure and cities but everyone did experience having to send loved ones off to war and never see them alive again. There was rationing, long work hours, and a great deal of uncertainty about how things were really progressing in the war. Today we know 5 seconds after a soilder stubs his toe on the other side of the world but back then it could take months to get any reliable information on the on-going battles. The citizens of this time knew the meaning of sacrifice and I sometimes think our current generation would be a big dissappointment to the people from that era. It won't be long to the last of this generation is gone and I sincerly hope that their sacrifices will not be forgotten because they really did change the world. The current generations contributions so far have been the iPod,SmartPhones, deadlier weapon systems, political correctness, and the Internet so we can complain about everything in real time.
7. After the war the US military and political establishment policies were a direct result of the experiences people faced in the war. The people making the policies at the time had been actual witnesses to undescribable horror and were determined to avoid that again at all cost. This raised the level of paranoia directed at the Soviet Union and served as the basis of US foreign and military policy from back then up to today. When evaluating US policies today you need to understand how it evolved. Policy for any large country is complex and once it gets going it's hard to change course. I think things have been changing but it won't happen overnight. It will take years before we see any results of changes being pushed and implemented today.
8. The US did not save the world single handed in WW2 but it helped. If FDR had not made the choices he did the US would have still entered the war at a later date but the cost in materials and lives would have been much greater. Germany, Japan, and Russia were the epitome of evil at the time and FDR was one of the first to recognize that fact and did everything he could to counter it. 50 years from now I wonder how people will look back at our current leaders and judge their actions. I would not be surprised that history ends up being kind to George Bush for his contributions in challeging the status quo of the middle eastern countries. WIthout the US's stirring up trouble in the Middle East would the citizens of the middle east be revolting against their governments today? US involvement in the region has shown the spotlight on the lives of the people in the region. Sure it's created a lot of animosity towards the US but if any country can absorb that animosity it is the US. The US is both stable and militarily secure so why not provide the focal point of peoples fear and anger if they us that fear and anger to change their lives for the better.

The Truth and Nothing But the Truth...

One of pet peeves is watching as others succumb to propaganda and bad information without question. People tend to only embrace facts that support their opinions and pre-conceived notions.  The Internet is full of bad information being advertised as the truth and it keeps getting harder to recognise the truth.
Before the Internet if you wanted to study a subject in any detail you would have relied on books. Books that provided factual information were fact checked and references included. To get a book published required the publisher to commit resources to verify the content. A publisher could not afford to publish books with mistakes and still expect to generate revenu from the book sales. Of course mistakes have made it past the fact checkers and if that occurred the publisher could issue a retraction like the Newspapers often do when they get the various verifiable facts wrong.  Today anyone can publish anything on the Internet without performing any fact checking. Once the information is in cyber-space people can use the incorrect data to formulate their opinions. In many online forums there will be someone who posts something that is not true (either by accident or on purpose) and there will be many who respond to this information as though it was the truth.  By the time you get to the end of the discussion thread the fallacy will have been reinforced. In the more biased hardcore political forums if anyone tries to interject a correction that varies with the stated information they are often out numbered by those who believe they know the truth. This is what usually starts the flame war where facts tend to be ignored just to win the ongoing debate at all costs. The drive to "win" often overshadows the facts causing conflicts.


Truth is not a right-wrong binary construct. The determine the whole truth you must consider the context in which the information is being proferred. Context can include things such as location and time. People who study history and offer up their opinions on a past event can look at the facts but totally misunderstand the truth because of their viewpoint. We live our lives in the "now". We look at the world events using our lifetime experiences as the basis of our cognitive processes when trying to understand the facts. This can be obvious or subliminal in nature but it is an important factor in how we understand the world around us. Lacking context when trying to determine the truth provides the means in which understanding can be manipulated and twisted. In today's world we are surrounded by information that has been manipulated in such a fashion and if you do not make a sincere effort to see your way around this manipulation you will never really know the real truth.

Neverending Madness...

Well things are moving along quite nicely in Egypt today. The citizenry are at each others throats and the Internet was just turned back on so everybody can see what a bloody nut house this revolution has created. About the only thing the pro and anti government activists agree on is that the US is responsible for creating this situation. It's becoming quite comforting to know that everyone always remembers the good ole US whenever they need a reason to devolve into mindless rabble. And you just know every other country in the world is loving it. All the other countries with diplomatic and business relations in Egypt get a free pass from any criticisms about their involvement with the government.  You would think that the US is the only country that has diplomatic relations with Egypt.

Countries work to create diplomatic relationships with as many countries as possible to try and create a climate of cooperation that can benefit both countries in the relationship. Even countries at each others throat work to maintain diplomatic contacts with their adversaries. The US and Soviet Union were combatants in the global political theater over the past 45 years and even at the worst of times the President and Premier as well as the lower level diplomats had instant access to one another via the "red phone".  It seemed that when it came to nuclear weapons both sides were able to drop the diplomatic pretense and talk directly to the person in charge at anytime a potential nuclear situation came up. I still think it is amazing that neither the US or the Soviet Union ever used their nuclear arsenals. It's comforting to know that no matter how corrupt or incompetent the governments may have been there was at least some sanity and commonsense applied when it came to the use of nuclear weapons. I think the world dodged a bullet in the early 50's when the US did not deploy nuclear weapons during the Korean war. Except for the bombs dropped on Japan it was probably the only time the US could have gotten away with using nuclear weapons again without the fear of a nuclear reprisal. The Soviet Union was not a major player in the Korean conflict and they were the only ones who might have been able to deploy nuclear weapons at the time and China did not have that capability. 

Diplomatic relationships are vital in the world. That's why the recent Wiki-leaked diplomatic cables could cause problems between countries. Nothing secret or surprising has surfaced in the released cables but there have been frank assessments of individuals and countries that were embarrassing and really didn't need exposing. That's also why a countries embassy grounds are considered a sovereign part of the country the embassy is representing. The host countries are responsible for providing security and services to all of the embassies in their country with the expectation that the same consideration will be applied towards their own embassies. So that being said the US and Egyptian diplomatic relations were centered around issues that both the US and Egypt thought important. The US wanted to reduce the possibility of war with Israel and wanted stability around the Suez Canal shipment routes, and they wanted someone who they could rely on in that geographical region. The Egyptians were also trying to reduce the chances of continued hostilities with Israel having lost the last 3 times they attacked Israel and they wanted special consideration from the US regarding access to trade advantages and technology. Egypt use to be a Soviet client state and relied on Soviet weapon systems that ultimately came up short against the newer Israeli and US weapons systems and Egypt wanted to upgrade.  

So it is distressing to keep hearing people denigrate the past US-Egyptian diplomatic relationship. The US is constantly being singled out as an interfering presence in other foreign governments but when the US refuses to interfere in the current Egyptian revolution they are accused of supporting a dictator. The US is accused of backing Mubarak over the past 30 years when in fact the US was only maintaining normal diplomatic relations and not trying to openly challenge the Egyptian leadership. If the US is going to be castigated on this so should every other country in world with diplomatic relationships with Egypt. Why is the US being singled out? Why has it taken the Egyptians 30 years to decide they want another leader and actually do something about it? 

I hope things work out for the Egyptians but in that region of the world they rarely do. The entire region is filled with people who have been spoon feed nothing but anti-American and anti-Israeli propaganda from early childhood and taught that all their problems have been caused by the US or Israel. Of course this conveniently lets their piss poor leaders as well as themselves off the hook of responsibility. And to think some of these people accuse Americans of blindly swallowing the government line. If they seriously want to change their society stop blaming others and get to work on your own problems. Until that happens I would not require but I would support a total break in the Egyptian-US relationship similar to the US break with Iran until the Egyption citizens publicly request diplomatic relations be resumed. Either way there will be no big loss on the US side of the equation.

Open to Interpretation...

Every day events happen all around us in every corner of the world and how we perceive the event can depend on where we happen to be standing at the time. But no matter where you are standing or what your individual perception happens to be the real truth of the event exists. In today's world it is becoming harder and harder to recognize the real truth of an event after being inundated with other peoples contradicting perceptions and opinions. A lot of people form their opinions on what others "say" about an event instead of examining the actual event itself. The advent of  instant and global communication capabilities has energized this behavior to the point of minimizing the actual facts of an event and turning the focus to what people think about the event and there is a world of difference between these 2 different viewpoints. The whole process has basically turned into an adversarial free for all amongst warring groups who each think their perception is correct. The truth of an event no longer matters as long as one group "wins" the debate usually by any means necessary. This has a tendency to skew the actual facts and twist the reality of what really happened in the first place. What's worse is this leads to a situation where future perceptions get built on top of fallacies instead of fact.

I like to think of it as aggregated facts. You aggregate to simplify future calculations or actions. An aggregate can serve as a break point that verifies all previous calculations are correct up to this point. However, if the aggregate is not accurate any future calculations or decisions built using that faulty aggregate end up being false.

One example would be the ongoing conflicts involving the US and Iran. Just about anytime this subject is addressed people start skipping back in history to see who wronged who first and it is inevitable that someone will mention the US removing the Iranian president in 1953 and because of this the US is always wrong in relation to Iran. They are in effect setting a break point at this event and using it to justify their later arguments and opinions. The problem with this assertion is that the people never investigate in depth what actually happened in 1953. They just automatically assume the US committed some grievous act and then they build their subsequent arguments using that assumption. I don't know all the facts of that particular situation but I have not been able to find anyone who really does. The facts I have found point to the British objecting to the Iranians nationalizing their oil industry. An industry that the British contributed substantially to building. This entire region was once under British control. The British went as far as setting up a naval blockade to prevent Iran from exporting or importing oil related cargo. It is then assumed that the CIA did "something" to make this problem magically disappear by removing Mossedegh. My question is what exactly did they do? Did they threaten to invade? Did they go around killing Mossegdegh's family and friends? Did they just payoff the entire upper hierarchy in the Iranian government at the time? Well whatever happened was ultimately enacted by the Iranians themselves. So who were the Iranians who benefited from this action and there had to be a hell of a lot of them to overtake the entire government without starting a nasty civil war. What sword of Damocles was the US holding above the Iranians to force this action? And why should this event have any meaningful impact on US-Iranian relations today? The Iranians are in the situation they are now because of their own actions and shortcomings. The same applies to the US and the problems we are facing as country. The progressive revolutionary leaders in 1979 are the ones responsible for the Islamic madhouse they created. They were more interested in sticking it to the US than they were about changing the way their country was run and that gave the hard line Islamic party all they time they needed to take control. And to top it off the most educated and successful Iranians, the ones who could have contributed much to Iranian society, left the country in droves before the militant islamists ruined the country. I don't really care what the US did or did not do in 1953 but the 1979 destruction of a country is all on the Iranians themselves and as soon as they are willing to admit that and stop their "Death to America" national holidays the sooner they can go about fixing their system. The same will apply to the Egyptians and any other repressed country who often use incomplete and misleading aggregated historical "facts" to explain why they are in their current situation and who is to blame.

The real culprits in creating chaos are those who call themselves Progressives. They are never without a complaint or criticism but usually come up short on any solutions to the problems they are bitching about. They blindly support anyone who believes as they do and anyone who will help them stick it to the "Man". From the French politico's in the 30's who practically guaranteed France would fall to Germany by interfering with military organization efforts to the knot headed college students in the 50's running around campus waving Mao's little red book around while Mao himself was in the middle of killing an estimated 30 Million people. And then you have all the knuckleheads running around with Che Guevara t-shirts spouting Marxist slogans and pimping for Castro and all of the revolutionary changes he enacted in the paradise known  as Cuba.

Stupidity of Today...

Another wonderful day in the information age. I have been scanning some of today's headlines and commentaries but had to stop before my head blew up and scattered parts of my brain around the office. The Egyptians are still going strong with their revolution and they are beginning to see some definite changes. The local stores have run out of food and fuel, the tourists have joined the mass exodus taking their money with them, there have been mass prison escapes, and vandalism and looting has made it's inevitable appearance. As far as I can tell the revolution is really making a difference. What will really kick things into high gear is if Mubarak says screw it and just walkouts. Who will be running things then? Maybe they can setup a Facebook page and advertise it using tweets to round up some volunteers.

Some other minor irritants:

• Some one commented that 4 out of the 9 US supreme court justices are not familiar with Facebook and Tweeting. First I am not sure how this person came up with the 4 out 9 stat because I can't find a poll anywhere. Second, the person postulates that because of this serious shortfall in knowledge these same justices could never understand what the "People" are really complaining about in the current revolutions taking place around the world. This statement was posted in a discussion about the Egyptian revolution. I failed to see the relevance myself.
• One of the really annoying things I can't stand is when people use the word  "Oligarchy" to describe anyone that happens not to be poor. In my book there is nothing wrong with wanting to succeed in life and being rewarded financially for it. That's why I tried to get decent grades in highschool and went to college and majored in a field that actually has some relevance outside of the classroom.
• Ran across some more Wikileak news today. This time it was about Chavez paying off the leader of Honduras with sweet oil contracts in return for removing FARC from the official terrorist organization. I believe the Honduran president was shown the door right after this happened. Of course the Venezulan government denied the implications contained in the leaked cables and suggested it was nothing but another "false flag" cooked up by the CIA. This renforces the pattern of claiming that only the leaks that look make the US bad are true and all the others are not true. I believe Iran approached the problem the same way.
• I am tired of seeing all of the comments littered around the internet discussions claiming that Americans are totally ignorant of the "Truth" because everyone only watches Fox News. The people spouting this nonsense seem to believe that they are somehow the only one's capable of searching the Internet or accessing a foreign news service and forming reasonable opinions on todays issues. On the subject of Fox News. In my entire life I have watched maybe 5 minutes of a Fox News show and that was when I was waiting in line at the Fed-ex office. However, With the amount of comments on the Net calling Fox News all kinds of unflatering names their ratings must be through the roof. Just look at any forum discussing US or World events and you will see numerous comments about Fox. My question is if Fox is suppose to be so bad who tuned into a Fox show lnong enough to make this determination? I bet 90% of the people complaining about Fox have never even watched it.