Al Jazeera retracts it's earlier report of more than 2 million in Tahrir square:
Number of protesters in Cairo's Tahrir square revised to more than a million people. Thousands more are taking to the streets throughout Egypt, including in Alexandria and Suez.
Back from Tahrir. Crowd perhaps 200,000 … just calling the crowd estimate as I see it. Feel free to refer to multiple sources. The point is: This is bigger than anything before.
Mackey is trying to get a more accurate number and notes that while "there seems to be little doubt that Tuesday's protests have been the biggest so far, estimates of crowd sizes have varied wildly":
Organizers called for a million Egyptians to demonstrate on Tuesday and Reuters reports that they may have succeeded. A short time ago, Reuters reported: "at least one million" protesters rallied across Egypt, including "more than 200,000 people in Cairo." The news agency added that "crowds also demonstrated in Alexandria, Suez and in the Nile Delta."
(Photo: Protestors gather in Tahrir Square on February 1, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt. By Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
At night in Tahrir Square, the central plaza which demonstrators have been occupying for several days, Cairenes pool together money to buy food and drink, offer each other blankets, and pass round working phones in an attempt to circumvent the government’s communications blockade. …
By tonight the Arab World’s most populous nation could have a new leader at the helm. But even if it doesn’t something fundamental and strong has been unearthed from Egyptian society this week – and regardless of political machinations at the top, few on the ground are likely to forget it.
Observers say that Elbaradei's political performance in recent weeks, while generating widespread attention from international media who have followed his tweets and interviews in prominent Western publications, did little to secure a grass roots following, though his standing was boosted when the regime briefly placed him under house arrest last week. "There was not a lot of excitement when he showed up," says Michael Wahid Hanna, an expert on Egypt at the Century Foundation. "He's not a populist leader; he's not charismatic — he's stiff out there."
Max Fisher is once again live-blogging the day's events:
Information out of Alexandria, where thousands of protesters rallied today along the Mediterranean coast, is so far sparse. Al Jazeera English reports that, as night falls, protesters are beginning to march into the city center — something that Cairo's much larger gathering has not done. There are fragmentary but difficult to confirm reports of 100 or more civilians killed in a police crack down. Sky News reports that, unlike in Cairo, the army is largely absent from Alexandria's streets. This would certainly add a degree of instability to the situation there.
The latest from Harriet Sherwood, who's tweeting from Alexandria:
Now on a bridge over the street. I can see for the first time today. This is absolutely huge
Above is a Glenn Beck clip that Michael Moynihan calls "the dumbest thing ever broadcast on (non-cable access) television." If you've never tuned into Beck's show, it's worth watching, because you might be under the misimpression that he's just a Bill O'Reilly-style blowhard, or that he just regurgitates GOP talking points like Sean Hannity.
Only after grasping his singular madness can you comprehend why the most vexing passage from his monologue is this:
I'm not going to give you the two minute sound-byte. I'm not going to treat you like you're a moron. I'm going to treat you like you really do want to understand what's going on in the world. We'll piece this thing together. It's going to take a few days. But I invite you to DVR this show every night. Don't miss an episode. Tell your friends, "Don't miss an episode." This is important stuff.
As I've said before, lots of Glenn Beck listeners aren't in on the joke. Unlike Roger Ailes, Jonah Goldberg, and every staffer at the Heritage Foundation happy hour, they don't realize that the Fox News Channel puts this man on the air fully understanding that large parts of his program are uninformed nonsense mixed with brazen bullshit. When a Fox News host tells these viewers, "I'm not going to treat you like you're a moron," playing on their insecurity about other media outlets talking down to or lying to them, they take it at face value. What sort of callous, immoral person allows these viewers to be played for fools?
Conjure in your mind a retired grandfather. He served in World War II, voted twice for Ronald Reagan, and supports the Tea Party. Awhile back, he started watching Glenn Beck – was it because that young man from National Review mentioned he would be on the program, or did he want to see Sarah Palin be interviewed? In any case, a lot of conservatives he trusted seemed happy to go on the show and never gave any indication that it wasn't a perfectly legitimate news program. Besides, Fox News generally seemed to share his ideological convictions. He even watched an interview with Roger Ailes once. The guy seemed reasonable enough. Certainly not the sort of person who would knowingly air the ravings of a known charlatan night after night.
Back when this man ran his own small business, he once caught an employee lying to a customer in a way that improved the bottom line. He fired him immediately. It seemed as if it was obviously the right thing to do. So it never even crosses his mind that a whole news network cheered by lots of people he trusts would profit by feeding the most blinkered kind of obviously wrong information to millions of people.
"I'm going to treat you like you really do want to understand what's going on in the world," Beck tells this man. "We'll piece it together."
I appreciate that this is my hobbyhorse, and that others think that the faults of cable news networks are an unimportant matter. But the fact that Roger Ailes and his associates air this kind of nonsense –couched in these kinds of assurances! – is indefensible. It is hard to think of anyone who disrespects and takes advantage of conservatives more than they do. And although they make mounds of money, they ought to be objects of disgrace, akin to any other manipulative huckster who preys on the elderly.
["Black Swan," author Nassim] Taleb says the U.S. government made the same mistake with Mubarak that it has done with its large scale banks. It has funded him since the peace accord with Israel, so much so that he became too big to fail, and the only choice now left is to bail him out against the will of Egyptians themselves. This may buy some time, but similar to the massive exposure of a Lehman Brothers, Mubarak may very well turn out to be the next black swan.
The protest march in Alexandria has now exploded into a massive crowd. We stood here for ten minutes watching solid crowds stream by. And now a second large crowd has come down. Very impressive numbers! This is the front of the crowd. People shouting Freedom and We have had enough.
An important bit from an earlier dispatch:
Food and other prices have risen at least 20% in most shops since last week, and shortages are starting to show up. Bread, milk, cheese and other main foods are hard to find as shops can't replenish. Most ATMs are not functioning, so it is very difficult for people to find cash.Many shops and restaurants have stayed closed since last Friday out of security concerns. This is leading to increasing frustration as people want life to return to 'normal'.
Sonia Verma, of Canada's Globe and Mail, is still tweeting from Cario. Mackey groups her tweets into paragraphs:
Not a lot of women among the protesters today. Small pockets here and there, fewer than yesterday. In the heart of Tahrir no ability to SMS. Maybe a blackout zone. Protest messages written on prayer mats. Never seen that before.
They've given a three year old a megaphone. That would not work at my house! Burned out cars apparently make great crash pads for hardcore protesters who are somehow sleeping thru this. Amazed at the kids in this protest bringing water and food to the soldiers!
Motorcycles and taxis laden with bread and water given free passage to Tahrir.
[Muslim] Brotherhood not mixing at all with other demonstrators.
Harriet Sherwood of the Guardian is tweeting from Alexandria. She reports that protesters are on the move:
Just passed burnt out police station. 'All in Alexandria have been burned' a protester tells me. Ah, may have been wrong about protesters dissipating. Perhaps regrouping elsewhere. Marchers are heading for a mosque. One woman holding up shoe with Mubarak's photo stuck to sole.
(Photo: Thousands of Egyptians gather in Cairo's Tahrir Square heeding a call by the opposition for a 'march of a million' to mark a week of protests calling for the ouster of Hosni Mubarak's long term regime, on February 1, 2011. By Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images)
Steven Cook lists five things to know about the Egyptian army:
It is a tremendous relief that the military has declared that it will not fire on protestors, but also not unexpected. The Egyptian military is not the Syrian armed forces, which was willing to kill many thousands to save Hafiz al Assad in 1982. The officers have long regarded keeping Egypt’s streets quiet the “dirty work” of the Interior Ministry. Yet the declaration about restraint also has to do with internal military dynamics. There is a split in the armed forces between the senior command on the one hand and junior officers and recruits on the other who would refuse to fire on protestors. This has long been the Achilles heel of the Egyptian military. They senior people never know whether those people below them will follow orders. As a result, rather than risking breaking the army, the military will not use lethal force to put down the protests.
Ironically, by withdrawing from politics, the military now is in a position to usher in new political leadership.
However, doing so comes at personal financial risk. Senior military officers are believed to benefit handsomely from the revenues generated by military-owned corporations, private contracts with foreign companies, and post-retirement postings in the private and public sectors. General Ahmed Mohamed Shafik, former head of Civil Aviation and now Egypt's new Prime Minister, is the most prominent example. During my research in Cairo, foreign diplomats told me that Egyptian military officers regularly supplemented their incomes by receiving cash for routine military services, including Suez Canal passage. Some of those funds are believed to be held in Switzerland, where General Magdy Galal Sharawi, head of Egypt's Air Force from 2002-2008, currently serves as Ambassador. An accurate calculation of these activities is difficult to quantify, but they are systemic. We can assume that military officers are thinking about how the current crisis might affect their own livelihoods.
The Dish 