Month: February 2011

by Chris Bodenner

Someone finally made a supercut of clips from the single-serving site "Dancing Alone To Pony". One grind to rule them all (and momentarily NSFW):

(Hat tip: Matt Stopera)

by Zoe Pollock

Ken Layne salutes the end of Mark Bittman's Minimalist column:

The best thing about Mark Bittman, to us, is how he validated our particular lifelong half-assed “well that looks pretty good enough” cooking habits. Because we were right, all along! There is no single recipe for anything, and people who obsess over measuring and “having all the ingredients” and everything are, basically, insane people. That is not how you cook to eat, which is the point of cooking: to make a meal you are going to eat, at that point in time.

I couldn't agree more; in honor, here are his 25 favorite recipes.

by Chris Bodenner

It's nearly 11pm in Cairo. Watch live scenes from Tahrir Square here. ABC's Lara Setrakian tweets:

This is a clear and brutal siege on what had been a peaceful protest. Sirens in the background, helicopters overhead. More gunfire, and watching streams of men trying to break up the human chain protecting Tahrir Square from one direction. People linking arms, in rows 3-4 thick, have secured all but one of the entrances to Tahrir Square. They're getting charged by thugs. Women and children are still in the center of Tahrir Square. More gunshots. We are watching petrol bombs thrown from a building above, onto the crowd below.

Al Jazeera's Evan Hill more recently tweets:

Tahrir protesters open the barricade, allow men with metal shields to advance on pro-Mubarak crowd. The Tahrir protesters are trying to slowly advance their shield wall, and a new battle has opened. Stone and molotov throwing. This is medieval. The pro-Mubarak crowd has mounted several charges against the advancing Tahrirites, but they never get w/in 75 ft.

Protesters at museum now look like they outnumber the Mubarak supporters. They have formed a staggered wall of angled metal shields. … The Mubarak crowd at the Egyptian museum is melting away. Tahrir protesters are beating on their metal barricades in unison, in celebration. … Jaw-dropping: the Tahrir protesters have broken out completely and rushed the Mubarak crowd.

Scott Lucas writes:

Al Jazeera now estimates, from medical sources, that more than 750 have been injured in Tahrir Square today.

Two Swedish journalists from the paper Aftonbladet were attacked by a crowd and then held for several hours by the military today. Egyptian journalist Jano Charbel was beaten by State Security Police. Al-Arabiya TV correspondent Ahmed Abdullah (see 1810 GMT) has been found. He was severely beaten and is now in hospital.

Mostafa El Fekki from the ruling NDP tells Al Jazeera Arabic:

I can confirm that NDP businessmen were behind the Meydan Tahrir [Tahrir Square] mercenaries. The NDP businessmen sent the mercenaries to Tahrir as a favour for Mubarak. I am an NDP member but I disagree with some policies. What happened today is simply too much.

The Guardian team blogs:

We received a very interesting email from a Brit living in Cairo, who does not want to be named:

I received a txt message from "Egypt Lovers" telling me to go to Tahrir Square and show my support for the regime! The message was translated for me by a friend and I understand it has been sent to everyone. How did the pro-Mubarak supporters do that? How did they get everyones phone numbers? Perhaps because "Egyt Lovers" are actually the interior ministry…?

… The newly appointed vice president Omar Suleiman has just urged the protesters to go home, offering them the prospect of dialogue. That is very unlikely to have any impact, judging by the determination the protesters have shown today in the face of violent attack.

Robert Mackey writes:

Ben Wedeman, a CNN correspondent based in Cairo, just reported that several of the regime supporters he spoke with on Wednesday said that they worked for government-owned companies. He said that foreign correspondents in Egypt, where protests are normally banned unless they support the government, have long joked that Egypt seems to have a "Ministry of Spontaneous Demonstrations." …

At a White House press briefing on Egypt, a reporter just asked if President Barack Obama's statement on Tuesday night, that "an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful and it must begin now," meant that he would be satisfied with Hosni Mubarak remaining in power until September. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded, "now started yesterday."

(Photo: Anti-government protestors get caught by a petrol bomb thrown by pro President Mubarak supporters near Tahrir Square on February 2, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt. Yesterday President Hosni Mubarak announced that he would not run for another term in office, but would stay in power until elections later this year. Thousands of supporters of Egypt's longtime president and opponents of the regime clashed in Tahrir Square, throwing rocks and fighting with improvised weapons. By Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

by Patrick Appel

A blogger at Sarthanapalos provides a guide. Among the suggestions:

“If they get Democracy they will elect extremists”.  Imagine if the world said that about America.  The Tea Party threatens world stability, as did the Bush administration.  How would you like if others used that as a threat to support an autocrat who made all opposing parties illegal?  In truth, US politics threaten world stability more than Egypt does.  Second, the implication is that democracy is not to be trusted in the hands of “certain” nations, people and religions is offensive, racist and ignorant.  You do not claim to value human rights, democracy and freedom and then you make exclusions based on race, nationality and religion.  Don’t say this shit.

by Patrick Appel

A powerful video of man standing up for his mothers:

Maggie Koerth-Baker sets the scene:

This week, the Iowa legislature took a step toward amending their state's constitution so that it specifically bans marriage between two men or two women. Zach Wahls—a 19-year-old Iowa college student and the son of two mothers—is one of the many Iowans who thinks it's wrong to grant special privileges to some families, and deny them to others, based solely on sexual orientation. 

by Patrick Appel

Shadi Hamid explains them:

Two models of democratic change are emerging. One is the Tunisia-Egypt-Yemen model of overturning the regime. This would seem to apply in republics, where protesters have one simple, overarching demand – that the president give up power. The person of the president, because of his dominating, partisan role, provides a rallying point for protesters. This is conducive to opposition unity. They disagree on a lot, but last they can agree on the most important thing.

The other model of change focuses around constitutional reform in the Arab monarchies.

In countries like Jordan and Morocco, there are reasonably free elections. But elections have limited relevance because it’s the king who has final decision-making authority. The problem here is not necessarily the king himself but the institution of the monarchy and its disproportionate power. The solution, then, is constitutional reform that shifts power away from the king toward an elected parliament and an independent judiciary. This is what opposition groups are calling for in Jordan.

While different, both models are about altering political structures rather than gradual, slow reform.

by Patrick Appel

Graeme Wood reports on the battle in Tahrir Square:

The last time I saw a massive protest in Tahrir Square was in 2003, during protests of the Iraq War. During those protests, the police encircled the protesters and let them scream for a couple days. Late at night, I stood among the police, asking them about their hometowns in Upper Egypt. Then, around midnight, they were called to attention, told to harden their lines, and finally to march toward the remaining protesters, letting none escape. Truncheons came down, and within a few minutes they had rounded everyone up into paddy wagons, and the square resumed its light evening traffic. I stood almost alone by the Mogamma, only because I was standing five feet outside the police ring rather than five feet inside it.

I assume the same will happen tonight, except instead of the police, the pro-Mubarak crowds will surge and then meet in the middle. I doubt the police or army would be willing, but the mobs certainly are — and they will not have so light a touch with their weapons. Mubarak has the initiative, and appears inclined to use it.

(Photo: An Egyptian anti-regime protester, wounded during clashes with government supporters, gestures as he is taken into a makeshift clinic at the Ibad al-Rahman mosque near the flashpoint Tahrir square in Cairo on February 2, 2011. By Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images)

by Patrick Appel

National Journal has created an interactive map with basic info on the countries experiencing unrest and their neighbors.

by Conor Friedersdorf

In the final quarter of 2010 "there were 18.4 million vacant homes in the U.S.," Diana Olick reports:

Eleven percent of the houses in America are empty. This as builders start to get more bullish, and renting apartments becomes ever more popular. Vacancies in the apartment sector have been falling steadily and dramatically, why? Because we're still recovering emotionally from the toll of the housing crash.

I don't know whether that number is a surprise to folks who watch these things closely, but it's staggering to me. All those homes sitting empty. That can't be economically efficient, can it? I'd be interested to better understand what's going on.

Alexandria, Egypt, 8 am