It's indeed been a roller-coaster.
2/10 morning - He's going to step down.
2/10 evening - He's not stepping down.
2/11 morning - He's really stepping down.
Hopefully the rest of the ride will be less bumpy and more pleasant.
Hosni Mubarak finally steps down
71–80 of 135 posts
Re: Hosni Mubarak finally steps down
#72Watching Al Jazeera's live stream and they had one of their journalists on the phone from the square. She expressed excitement and delight that Mubarak was gone. The host guy back in the studio pointed out the journalist on the phone had been impartial up until now, and basically apologised for her expressing her opinion. I thought that was pretty classy.
> The host guy back in the studio pointed out the journalist on the phone had been impartial up until now, and basically apologised for her expressing her opinion. Really? I haven't been following the English Aljazeera, but the Arabic Al-Jazeera was not impartial at all throughout the revolution (which I don't mind).
It seems like the Arabic Al-Jazeera is more like the Fox News of the Arab world, while English Al-Jazeera is trying really hard to be more like BBC World.
Re: Hosni Mubarak finally steps down
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Enough users upvoted it to get it in spot #1 on the front page. The userbase thus finds it relevant to them.
No, it probably means the userbase has grown too much and HN needs a bit more policing in order to stay on topic.
From HN guidlines
If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)
Your account is 178days old.
Re: Hosni Mubarak finally steps down
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, does kidnapping innocent people off the streets, imprisoning them in dungeons and torturing them by wiring car batteries to their genitals count as "fundamental"? Or is that just one of those insignificant matters? What about stealing billions of dollars from your people? Is that a sign of enlightenment?
"We'll see what happens." The discussions I've seen about Egypt seem to assume that it can be governed like the countries we're familiar with. Most of the things that seem evil are in fact cock-ups or unfortunate necessities. We learned about this after ousting Saddam Hussein, and were forced into all sorts of brutalities that indeed would not work well in the US or Britain.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that when you wire up a car battery to someone's genitals, that IS evil. That's not an unfortunate necessity. And its not a screwup.
We learned about this after ousting Saddam Hussein, and were forced into all sorts of brutalities that indeed would not work well in the US or Britain.
What did History ever do to you that compelled you to slander and malign it so?
Re: Hosni Mubarak finally steps down
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Political activity != hacking. Nokia and Microsoft are tech companies.
I would point out technology and the Internet played an important if not vital role in the events of Egypt and Tunisia.
Technology and the Internet play a vital role in pretty much everything these days. What will HN cover next - a Tea Party rally, if it was announced on Twitter?
Re: Hosni Mubarak finally steps down
#76Another example of nonviolent action leading to real political change.
Now if the U.S. government gets on the ball, they will redirect some substantial portion of the Egyptian ~$2 billion military aid and announce we will help build science and technical schools, universities, and hospitals.
Thanks to those of you who have been hosting and continue to host Tor bridges in support of emerging democracies:
Re: Hosni Mubarak finally steps down
#77http://blogs.aljazeera.net/sites/default/files/imagecache/Fe... This is one of the better images I've seen showing the pure scale of the protests. In the US, we had our "million man march" which questionably had so many people. In Egypt, many millions have been involved over the course of far longer than one day. With relation to their total population, the size of the movement is pretty mind boggling.
The only time I've seen this many people gathered in one place in the US... is back when Chicago used to do a single, large fireworks display.
I don't know whether that's a good or bad thing.
Re: Hosni Mubarak finally steps down
#78Ok. We'll see what happens. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB02Ak01.html In the most fundamental matters, President and Mrs Mubarak are incomparably more enlightened than the Egyptian public.
This is my favorite description of enlightenment ever, taken from http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/002883.html
Here's a section from The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright, describing what Mubarak's security services did after Ayman al-Zawahiri attempted to assassinate Mubarak in 1995:
To deal with Zawahiri, Egyptian intelligence agents devised a fiendish plan. They lured a thirteen year-old boy named Ahmed into an apartment with the promise of juice and videos. Ahmed was the son of Mohammed Sharraf, a well-known Egyptian fundamentalist and a senior member of [Zawahiri's organization] al-Jihad. The boy was drugged and sodomized; when he awakened, he was confronted with photographs of the homosexual activity and threatened with the prospect of having them shown to his father. For the child, the consequences of such a disclosure were overwhelming. "It could even be that the father would kill him," a source close to Zawahiri admitted.
After this the Egyptian agents got the first boy to lure in a second, whom they also drugged and raped. Then they got the two to spy on Zawahiri in an attempt to kill him. Then Zawahiri caught the two boys spying. And then he had them both shot.
I guess enlightenment means raping children now. Are you enlightened too?
Re: Hosni Mubarak finally steps down
#79I'm very happy for Egyptian people. People of Egypt deserve a better leader, a better government. The guy who said 'I am ready to die' yesterday on CNN almost made me cry. Thats the spirit, and that spirit deserved a victory which they finally achieved. I hope the same happens for other nations that have been held under dictatorship for decades.
Don't be very enthusiastic, especially for Egypt. They have got a very sensible position. They are Israel neighbor, they have the Suez Canal, and also the most populated Arabic country (They can become a power). That is, I don't think that the U.S will give up that easily. Also keep in mind, that the Arab nations want to unite. If you give the people the power, you'll see tomorrow that most of the borders are removed…
If these people spend all this energy and all this time, all over the right to initiate a war they'll lose with huge casualties with Israel, and close the hugely profitable Suez channel to US ships, then I have neither sympathy or enthusiasm for them. They'll just be Iran #2. If they don't make trouble in those two areas, the US won't care a bit.
Re: Hosni Mubarak finally steps down
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You know this is pseudo-science garbage, right? You're not making any sense. > There is no reason to believe that Arabs have a particular "sense of unity and brotherhood". There's plenty, actually. Just walk around any street in any major Arab city/capital and ask the people: * Do you view Egyptians as your brothers * Do you view Palestinian as your brothers * Do you support the Palestinian cause * Do you support t…
You're not making any sense. Let me break it down for you: you made a claim about the sub-conscience of a group of hundreds of millions of people. You've supplied zero evidence. You've cited no scientific studies, nothing. There's plenty, actually. Just walk around any street in any major Arab city/capital and ask the people Let's assume everyone says yes...so what? What does that tell us about a sub-conscious sense…
It's not a scientific claim; it's impossible to provide a scientific evidence about any sociological claim.
However, I believe my claim is not without evidence; there's plenty of evidence for it. You just have to be a part of the culture.
You do have to interpret it charitably, though. If you interpret it as "Every single Arab person has this ideology", then of course it's a false claim.
It's not too different from the claim that "Egyptians are fed up with Mubarak". I can assure you there are Egyptians who were against this revolution. For that matter, normal, educated Egyptians; not police thugs or businessmen. Maybe 10 million people marched to the street, but Egypt has way more population than just 10 million.
Going by your logic, one would dismiss the claim that "Egyptians are fed up with Mubarak" as non-scientific.
(Edit: I said you're not making sense because it doesn't make sense to use the word "scientific" when talking about this issue).
If you reject my claim about the existence of an "Arab brotherhood" spirit, then you're making a much more substantial claim than I am: you're claiming Arabs don't care about each other.
Your claim is the one that lacks evidence.