| 2012 Debate - Politics |
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Let it at least be truths that separate us and not lies
-
One example of our current challenge in American Politics.
Rachel Maddow Nails "The Closed Circuit of The Conservative Right"
By Colin Andrews
Posted November 6, 2010
My family and friends are not alone in trying desperately to identify what it is that causes some
of us to view the world around us so differently from others. In circumstances where you would think
we would all agree, we don't, and not just a little but a lot. Things like caring for our sick and elderly or
our planet, for our country or our jobs.
The political scene is a true mystery to me, only in recent years have I noticed such a strange and
extreme disparity like on how we cant even agree on the so called evidence to take our country once
again to war or even how to provide health care for the sick and needy or indeed support our President
who was elected by the people to serve us all during extreme times. I am not going to chance any talk of
race at this point but in my opinion its in this equation and shamefully so.
I have been asking questions and politely pursuing why this gap of perception has become so very
noticeable in the last 5-8 years or so. I had never seen before so many occasions when intelligent
people armed with the same so called facts would so strongly reason them differently. It has become
more like a DNA wiring than an intellectual exchange - Why, whats going on? Each side feeling: "How
can I talk to these people"?.
It was not until I watched this excellent piece from Rachel Maddow that I saw indeed she had nailed the
reason. Its because agenda's are being supported by self spun trash and massaged into facts within
the media system and re-circulated as facts for real. But behind this we truly have two different groups
of people. The division of the groups feed in different ways on the spin and lies, the fabrications from
both Republican and Democratic ends of American politics - This is today's example from the
perspective of one TV journalists, Ratchel Maddow, if anyone out there would like to present the same
reasoning and facts from the Republican camp I will happily post it.
What is important here is that this country, in fact the world, is in a very deep and serious hole and only
when we have truth on which to reason our political discussion can we move forward with any level of
confidence to resolve our numerous problems.
This belief by politicians that they need to be seen to oppose and disagree with the other
guy to be doing their job, is Stone-age thinking. In this over populated and delusional but
complex world, time is running out fast and so we MUST demand truth and compromise on
ALL fronts and dammed soon. Think about our children, our planet and get involved.
TRY and turn off any particular political bend as you watch this because for me Rachel Maddow has
nailed our most immediate problem. HERE
http://climateprogress.org/2010/11/05/rachel-maddow-on-right-wing-media/
Colin Andrews - Posted November 6, 2010
(Thanks to David Haith for drawing this to my attention)
-
One example of our current challenge in American Politics.
Rachel Maddow Nails "The Closed Circuit of The Conservative Right"
By Colin Andrews
Posted November 6, 2010
My family and friends are not alone in trying desperately to identify what it is that causes some
of us to view the world around us so differently from others. In circumstances where you would think
we would all agree, we don't, and not just a little but a lot. Things like caring for our sick and elderly or
our planet, for our country or our jobs.
The political scene is a true mystery to me, only in recent years have I noticed such a strange and
extreme disparity like on how we cant even agree on the so called evidence to take our country once
again to war or even how to provide health care for the sick and needy or indeed support our President
who was elected by the people to serve us all during extreme times. I am not going to chance any talk of
race at this point but in my opinion its in this equation and shamefully so.
I have been asking questions and politely pursuing why this gap of perception has become so very
noticeable in the last 5-8 years or so. I had never seen before so many occasions when intelligent
people armed with the same so called facts would so strongly reason them differently. It has become
more like a DNA wiring than an intellectual exchange - Why, whats going on? Each side feeling: "How
can I talk to these people"?.
It was not until I watched this excellent piece from Rachel Maddow that I saw indeed she had nailed the
reason. Its because agenda's are being supported by self spun trash and massaged into facts within
the media system and re-circulated as facts for real. But behind this we truly have two different groups
of people. The division of the groups feed in different ways on the spin and lies, the fabrications from
both Republican and Democratic ends of American politics - This is today's example from the
perspective of one TV journalists, Ratchel Maddow, if anyone out there would like to present the same
reasoning and facts from the Republican camp I will happily post it.
What is important here is that this country, in fact the world, is in a very deep and serious hole and only
when we have truth on which to reason our political discussion can we move forward with any level of
confidence to resolve our numerous problems.
This belief by politicians that they need to be seen to oppose and disagree with the other
guy to be doing their job, is Stone-age thinking. In this over populated and delusional but
complex world, time is running out fast and so we MUST demand truth and compromise on
ALL fronts and dammed soon. Think about our children, our planet and get involved.
TRY and turn off any particular political bend as you watch this because for me Rachel Maddow has
nailed our most immediate problem. HERE
http://climateprogress.org/2010/11/05/rachel-maddow-on-right-wing-media/
Colin Andrews - Posted November 6, 2010
(Thanks to David Haith for drawing this to my attention)
| Ratchel Maddow |
| We have to highlight and confront all of those that are prepared to construct lies to fulfil an agenda. This is our chance for transition and a time for truth. Today's example of what is wrong: |
Sean Hannity
Rus Limbaugh
Glenn Beck
Bill O Reilly
The Complete Idiots Guide to 2012 by
Dr. Synthia Andrews and Colin Andrews.
Dr. Synthia Andrews and Colin Andrews.
| The 2012 Transition Debate HERE |
| On President Obama's visit to India: Hannity: Cost $200 Million per day. 3,000 People going with him. Hiring the whole Tag Mahal hotel. ------------------- Limbaugh: $200 Million per day. 500 rooms in Taj Mahal hotel. 40 Aircraft -------------------- Beck: $2 Billion. 34 Warships. -------------------- Bachman (below) $200 Million per day. 2,000 people going with him. 870 rooms in the Taj Mahal hotel. |
================================
| Egypt In Crisis – From Alexandria to Cairo, Riots and Smoke Fill The Streets. Mubarak names deputy as thousands defy curfew By Edmund Blair and Dina Zayed Edmund Blair And Dina Zayed - January 29, 2011 CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt's street protesters pushed President Hosni Mubarak into naming a deputy on Saturday for the first time in his 30 years in power, but many went on defying a curfew, urging the army to join them in forcing Mubarak to quit. |
| Photo caption: Reuters – Egyptian soldiers sit on top of an armoured vehicle in Cairo January 29, 2011.REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic |
Flames from the tax authority headquarters lit central Cairo after the building was set ablaze. Police
again opened fire. The German, French and British leaders appealed jointly to Mubarak to stop
violence against civilians and hold free elections -- a move that would surely bring his military-backed
rule to an end.
In naming intelligence chief Omar Suleiman vice-president, many saw Mubarak edging toward an
eventual, army-approved handover of power. The 82-year-old former general has long kept his 80
million people guessing over succession plans that had, until this week, seemed to focus on grooming
his own son.
The elevation of Suleiman, a key player in relations with Egypt's key aid backer the United States, and
the appointment of another military man, Ahmed Shafiq, as prime minister, pleased some Egyptians
worried about a descent into chaos and looting.
According to a Reuters tally, at least 74 people have been killed during the week. Medical sources
said at least 1,030 people were injured in Cairo.
U.S. President Barack Obama met Vice President Joe Biden and national security adviser Tom
Donilon to discuss unrest in the Arab power that is a linchpin of U.S. Middle East strategy. State
Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the Egyptian government "can't reshuffle the deck and then
stand pat."
Demonstrators continued to flock after dark to the squares of Cairo and other cities, ignoring a
curfew. They went largely unmolested by troops on foot and in tanks.
"He is just like Mubarak, there is no change," one protester said of Suleiman outside the Interior
Ministry, where thousands were protesting. The last vice-president was Mubarak himself, before he
succeeded the assassinated Anwar Sadat in 1981.
Later, police opened fire on a crowd hundreds strong at the ministry. A Reuters reporter saw one
protester fall wounded.
"This is the Arab world's Berlin moment," said Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics.
"The authoritarian wall has fallen, and that's regardless of whether Mubarak survives.
"The barrier of fear has been removed. It is really the beginning of the end of the status quo in the
region."
The prospect of even greater upheaval across the Middle East -- regardless of whether it is the crowd
or their rulers who get the upper hand -- is prompting some investors to see risks for oil supplies that
could in turn hamper global economic growth.
More immediately, Egypt's vital tourist industry is taking a knock. In prosperous parts of Cairo,
vigilantes guarded homes, shops and hotels from looters. Thieves at the Egyptian Museum damaged
two mummies from the time of the pharaohs.
STATUS QUO
Of Suleiman, Cairo University politics professor Hassan Nafaa said: "This is a step in the right
direction, but I am afraid it is a late step." A senior figure in the military class that has run Egypt for six
decades, Suleiman might, Nafaa said, be able to engineer a handover that would satisfy protesters.
Jon Alterman at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies saw Suleiman as part of
the status quo: "The appointment of Omar Suleiman is intended to send a message that if Hosni
Mubarak leaves, the regime remains in place ... It is not intended to mollify. It is intended to show
resolve."
Many saw Mubarak's concessions -- new faces and a promise of reform, as demanded on the streets
and from Washington -- as an echo of those made two weeks ago by Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben
Ali. A day later, Ben Ali fled the country, deserted by an army which preferred to back less hated
figures in his cabinet.
Tunisians' Internet-fed uprising over economic hardship and political oppression has inspired growing
masses of unemployed youth across the Arab world, leaving autocratic leaders worried.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent two hours on Saturday discussing Egypt. Washington has
already hinted it could cut aid if violence continues.
Another big donor, Germany, warned Mubarak that European states would hold back cash if his
forces crushed the protests.
With the French and British leaders, Chancellor Angela Merkel said: "We call on President Mubarak to
renounce any violence again unarmed civilians."
ISLAMISTS
Mubarak, like other Arab leaders, has long portrayed himself as a bulwark against the West's Islamist
enemies. But Egypt's banned opposition movement the Muslim Brotherhood has been only one
element in the week's events. It lays claim to moderation.
"A new era of freedom and democracy is dawning in the Middle East," Kamel El-Helbawy, an influential
cleric from the Brotherhood said from exile in London. "Islamists would not be able to rule Egypt alone.
We should and would cooperate.
A Brotherhood lawyer in Egypt told Reuters that Mubarak's hesitation to meet protesters' demands
had increased their appetite for change. Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maksoud said Mubarak should step
down -- but that an interim government was needed to preserve order for some months until free
elections. [nLDE70S0K8]
Until this week, officials had suggested Mubarak would run again in an election planned for
September, which he would be guaranteed to win. If not him, many Egyptians believed, his son,
Gamal, 47, could be lined up to run. This now seems impossible.
Suleiman, 74, has long been central in key policy areas, including the Palestinian-Israeli peace
process, an issue vital to Egypt's relationship with key aid donor the United States.
On the Corniche promenade alongside the River Nile in Cairo, people stayed out after the curfew
deadline, standing by tanks and chatting with soldiers who took no action to disperse them.
At one point, dozens of people approached a military cordon carrying a sign reading "Army and
People Together." Soldiers pulled back and let the group through: "There is a curfew," one lieutenant
said. "But the army isn't going to shoot anyone."
THE ARMY'S MOMENT
While the police are generally feared as an instrument of repression, the army is seen as a national
institution.
Rosemary Hollis, at London's City University, said the army had to decide whether it stood with
Mubarak or the people: "It's one of those moments where as with the fall of communism in Eastern
Europe they can come down to individual lieutenants and soldiers to decide whether they fire on the
crowd or not."
In Alexandria, police used teargas and live ammunition against demonstrators earlier on Saturday.
Protests continued in the port city after curfew, witnesses said.
So far, the protest movement seems to have no clear leader or organization. Prominent activist
Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Laureate for his work with the U.N. nuclear agency, returned to
Egypt from Europe to join the protests. But many Egyptians feel he has not spent enough time in the
country.
Banks will be shut on Sunday as "a precaution," Central Bank Governor Hisham Ramez told Reuters.
The stock market, whose benchmark index tumbled 16 percent in two days, will also be closed on
Sunday. The Egyptian pound fell to six-year lows.
(Additional reporting by Dina Zayed, Marwa Awad, Shaimaa Fayed, Sherine El Madany, Yasmine
Saleh, Alison Williams and Samia Nakhoul in Cairo, Alexander Dziadosz in Suez, Arshad Mohammed
in Washington and Peter Apps, Angus MacSwan and William Maclean in London; Writing by Alastair
Macdonald; Editing by Ralph Boulton)
-------------------
Egypt shutdown worst in Internet history: experts
by Katia Dolmadjian Katia Dolmadjian – Sat Jan 29, 12:05 pm ET
PARIS (AFP) – The scale of Egypt's crackdown on the Internet and mobile phones amid deadly
protests against the rule of President Hosni Mubarak is unprecedented in the history of the web,
experts said.
US President Barack Obama, social networking sites and rights groups around the world all
condemned the moves by Egyptian authorities to stop activists using cellphones and cyber
technology to organise rallies.
"It's a first in the history of the Internet," Rik Ferguson, an expert for Trend Micro, the world's third
biggest computer security firm, told AFP.
Julien Coulon, co-founder of Cedexis, a French Internet performance monitoring and traffic
management system, added: "In 24 hours we have lost 97 percent of Egyptian Internet traffic.
According to Renesys, a US Internet monitoring company, Egypt's four main Internet service providers
cut off international access to their customers in a near simultaneous move at 2234 GMT on
Thursday.
Around 23 million Egyptians have either regular or occasional access to the Internet, according to
official figures, more than a quarter of the population.
"In an action unprecedented in Internet history, the Egyptian government appears to have ordered
service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet," James Cowie of Renesys
said in a blog post.
Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt and Etisalat Misr were all off air but Cowie said one
exception was the Noor Group, which still has 83 live routes to its Egyptian customers.
He said it was not clear why the Noor Group was apparently unaffected "but we observe that the
Egyptian Stock Exchange (www.egyptse.com) is still alive at a Noor address."
Mobile telephone networks were also severely disrupted in the country on Friday. Phone signals were
patchy and text messages inoperative.
British-based Vodafone said all mobile operators in Egypt had been "instructed" Friday to suspend
services in some areas amid spiralling unrest, adding that under Egyptian law it was "obliged" to
comply with the order.
Egyptian operator ECMS, linked to France's Telecom-Orange, said the authorities had ordered them
to shut them off late Thursday.
"We had no warning, it was quite sudden," a spokesman for Telecom-Orange told AFP in France.
The shutdown in Egypt is the most comprehensive official electronic blackout of its kind, experts said.
Links to the web were were cut for only a few days during a wave of protests against Myanmar's ruling
military junta in 2007, while demonstrations against the re-election of Iranian president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad in 2009 specifically targeted Twitter and Facebook.
Egypt -- like Tunisia where mass popular unrest drove out Zine El Abidine Ben Ali earlier this month --
is on a list of 13 countries classed as "enemies of the Internet" by media rights group Reporters
Without Borders (RSF).
"So far there has been no systematic filtering by Egyptian authorities -- they have completely
controlled the whole Internet," said Soazig Dollet, the Middle East and North Africa specialist for RSF.
Condemnation of Egypt's Internet crackdown has been widespread.
Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Cairo to restore the Internet and social
networking sites.
Facebook, the world's largest social network with nearly 600 million members, and Twitter also
weighed in.
"Although the turmoil in Egypt is a matter for the Egyptian people and their government to resolve,
limiting Internet access for millions of people is a matter of concern for the global community," said
Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesman.
Twitter, which has more than 175 million registered users, said of efforts to block the service in Egypt:
"We believe that the open exchange of info & views benefits societies & helps govts better connect w/
their people."
US digital rights groups also criticized the Egyptian government.
"This action is inconsistent with all international human rights norms, and is unprecedented in Internet
history," said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology in the United
States.
Source.
again opened fire. The German, French and British leaders appealed jointly to Mubarak to stop
violence against civilians and hold free elections -- a move that would surely bring his military-backed
rule to an end.
In naming intelligence chief Omar Suleiman vice-president, many saw Mubarak edging toward an
eventual, army-approved handover of power. The 82-year-old former general has long kept his 80
million people guessing over succession plans that had, until this week, seemed to focus on grooming
his own son.
The elevation of Suleiman, a key player in relations with Egypt's key aid backer the United States, and
the appointment of another military man, Ahmed Shafiq, as prime minister, pleased some Egyptians
worried about a descent into chaos and looting.
According to a Reuters tally, at least 74 people have been killed during the week. Medical sources
said at least 1,030 people were injured in Cairo.
U.S. President Barack Obama met Vice President Joe Biden and national security adviser Tom
Donilon to discuss unrest in the Arab power that is a linchpin of U.S. Middle East strategy. State
Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the Egyptian government "can't reshuffle the deck and then
stand pat."
Demonstrators continued to flock after dark to the squares of Cairo and other cities, ignoring a
curfew. They went largely unmolested by troops on foot and in tanks.
"He is just like Mubarak, there is no change," one protester said of Suleiman outside the Interior
Ministry, where thousands were protesting. The last vice-president was Mubarak himself, before he
succeeded the assassinated Anwar Sadat in 1981.
Later, police opened fire on a crowd hundreds strong at the ministry. A Reuters reporter saw one
protester fall wounded.
"This is the Arab world's Berlin moment," said Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics.
"The authoritarian wall has fallen, and that's regardless of whether Mubarak survives.
"The barrier of fear has been removed. It is really the beginning of the end of the status quo in the
region."
The prospect of even greater upheaval across the Middle East -- regardless of whether it is the crowd
or their rulers who get the upper hand -- is prompting some investors to see risks for oil supplies that
could in turn hamper global economic growth.
More immediately, Egypt's vital tourist industry is taking a knock. In prosperous parts of Cairo,
vigilantes guarded homes, shops and hotels from looters. Thieves at the Egyptian Museum damaged
two mummies from the time of the pharaohs.
STATUS QUO
Of Suleiman, Cairo University politics professor Hassan Nafaa said: "This is a step in the right
direction, but I am afraid it is a late step." A senior figure in the military class that has run Egypt for six
decades, Suleiman might, Nafaa said, be able to engineer a handover that would satisfy protesters.
Jon Alterman at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies saw Suleiman as part of
the status quo: "The appointment of Omar Suleiman is intended to send a message that if Hosni
Mubarak leaves, the regime remains in place ... It is not intended to mollify. It is intended to show
resolve."
Many saw Mubarak's concessions -- new faces and a promise of reform, as demanded on the streets
and from Washington -- as an echo of those made two weeks ago by Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben
Ali. A day later, Ben Ali fled the country, deserted by an army which preferred to back less hated
figures in his cabinet.
Tunisians' Internet-fed uprising over economic hardship and political oppression has inspired growing
masses of unemployed youth across the Arab world, leaving autocratic leaders worried.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent two hours on Saturday discussing Egypt. Washington has
already hinted it could cut aid if violence continues.
Another big donor, Germany, warned Mubarak that European states would hold back cash if his
forces crushed the protests.
With the French and British leaders, Chancellor Angela Merkel said: "We call on President Mubarak to
renounce any violence again unarmed civilians."
ISLAMISTS
Mubarak, like other Arab leaders, has long portrayed himself as a bulwark against the West's Islamist
enemies. But Egypt's banned opposition movement the Muslim Brotherhood has been only one
element in the week's events. It lays claim to moderation.
"A new era of freedom and democracy is dawning in the Middle East," Kamel El-Helbawy, an influential
cleric from the Brotherhood said from exile in London. "Islamists would not be able to rule Egypt alone.
We should and would cooperate.
A Brotherhood lawyer in Egypt told Reuters that Mubarak's hesitation to meet protesters' demands
had increased their appetite for change. Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maksoud said Mubarak should step
down -- but that an interim government was needed to preserve order for some months until free
elections. [nLDE70S0K8]
Until this week, officials had suggested Mubarak would run again in an election planned for
September, which he would be guaranteed to win. If not him, many Egyptians believed, his son,
Gamal, 47, could be lined up to run. This now seems impossible.
Suleiman, 74, has long been central in key policy areas, including the Palestinian-Israeli peace
process, an issue vital to Egypt's relationship with key aid donor the United States.
On the Corniche promenade alongside the River Nile in Cairo, people stayed out after the curfew
deadline, standing by tanks and chatting with soldiers who took no action to disperse them.
At one point, dozens of people approached a military cordon carrying a sign reading "Army and
People Together." Soldiers pulled back and let the group through: "There is a curfew," one lieutenant
said. "But the army isn't going to shoot anyone."
THE ARMY'S MOMENT
While the police are generally feared as an instrument of repression, the army is seen as a national
institution.
Rosemary Hollis, at London's City University, said the army had to decide whether it stood with
Mubarak or the people: "It's one of those moments where as with the fall of communism in Eastern
Europe they can come down to individual lieutenants and soldiers to decide whether they fire on the
crowd or not."
In Alexandria, police used teargas and live ammunition against demonstrators earlier on Saturday.
Protests continued in the port city after curfew, witnesses said.
So far, the protest movement seems to have no clear leader or organization. Prominent activist
Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Laureate for his work with the U.N. nuclear agency, returned to
Egypt from Europe to join the protests. But many Egyptians feel he has not spent enough time in the
country.
Banks will be shut on Sunday as "a precaution," Central Bank Governor Hisham Ramez told Reuters.
The stock market, whose benchmark index tumbled 16 percent in two days, will also be closed on
Sunday. The Egyptian pound fell to six-year lows.
(Additional reporting by Dina Zayed, Marwa Awad, Shaimaa Fayed, Sherine El Madany, Yasmine
Saleh, Alison Williams and Samia Nakhoul in Cairo, Alexander Dziadosz in Suez, Arshad Mohammed
in Washington and Peter Apps, Angus MacSwan and William Maclean in London; Writing by Alastair
Macdonald; Editing by Ralph Boulton)
-------------------
Egypt shutdown worst in Internet history: experts
by Katia Dolmadjian Katia Dolmadjian – Sat Jan 29, 12:05 pm ET
PARIS (AFP) – The scale of Egypt's crackdown on the Internet and mobile phones amid deadly
protests against the rule of President Hosni Mubarak is unprecedented in the history of the web,
experts said.
US President Barack Obama, social networking sites and rights groups around the world all
condemned the moves by Egyptian authorities to stop activists using cellphones and cyber
technology to organise rallies.
"It's a first in the history of the Internet," Rik Ferguson, an expert for Trend Micro, the world's third
biggest computer security firm, told AFP.
Julien Coulon, co-founder of Cedexis, a French Internet performance monitoring and traffic
management system, added: "In 24 hours we have lost 97 percent of Egyptian Internet traffic.
According to Renesys, a US Internet monitoring company, Egypt's four main Internet service providers
cut off international access to their customers in a near simultaneous move at 2234 GMT on
Thursday.
Around 23 million Egyptians have either regular or occasional access to the Internet, according to
official figures, more than a quarter of the population.
"In an action unprecedented in Internet history, the Egyptian government appears to have ordered
service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet," James Cowie of Renesys
said in a blog post.
Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt and Etisalat Misr were all off air but Cowie said one
exception was the Noor Group, which still has 83 live routes to its Egyptian customers.
He said it was not clear why the Noor Group was apparently unaffected "but we observe that the
Egyptian Stock Exchange (www.egyptse.com) is still alive at a Noor address."
Mobile telephone networks were also severely disrupted in the country on Friday. Phone signals were
patchy and text messages inoperative.
British-based Vodafone said all mobile operators in Egypt had been "instructed" Friday to suspend
services in some areas amid spiralling unrest, adding that under Egyptian law it was "obliged" to
comply with the order.
Egyptian operator ECMS, linked to France's Telecom-Orange, said the authorities had ordered them
to shut them off late Thursday.
"We had no warning, it was quite sudden," a spokesman for Telecom-Orange told AFP in France.
The shutdown in Egypt is the most comprehensive official electronic blackout of its kind, experts said.
Links to the web were were cut for only a few days during a wave of protests against Myanmar's ruling
military junta in 2007, while demonstrations against the re-election of Iranian president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad in 2009 specifically targeted Twitter and Facebook.
Egypt -- like Tunisia where mass popular unrest drove out Zine El Abidine Ben Ali earlier this month --
is on a list of 13 countries classed as "enemies of the Internet" by media rights group Reporters
Without Borders (RSF).
"So far there has been no systematic filtering by Egyptian authorities -- they have completely
controlled the whole Internet," said Soazig Dollet, the Middle East and North Africa specialist for RSF.
Condemnation of Egypt's Internet crackdown has been widespread.
Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Cairo to restore the Internet and social
networking sites.
Facebook, the world's largest social network with nearly 600 million members, and Twitter also
weighed in.
"Although the turmoil in Egypt is a matter for the Egyptian people and their government to resolve,
limiting Internet access for millions of people is a matter of concern for the global community," said
Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesman.
Twitter, which has more than 175 million registered users, said of efforts to block the service in Egypt:
"We believe that the open exchange of info & views benefits societies & helps govts better connect w/
their people."
US digital rights groups also criticized the Egyptian government.
"This action is inconsistent with all international human rights norms, and is unprecedented in Internet
history," said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology in the United
States.
Source.
=========================================
| My 1991 Vision of Alexandria By Colin Andrews Posted Jan 29, 2011 I experienced a strange vision of the name Alexandria three time within 24 hours during 1991? Its documented several places and my family know all about it. Short version is that I was sat alone in an aircraft from London to New York and just after the pilot prepared us to fasten our seat belts in preparation for the descent into New York I suddenly saw the name ALEXANDRIA in bold type scrolling from right to left across my vision. Every few seconds it repeated and each time the last three letters (ria) shimmered as if it was in heat haze and faded out to be replaced by two new letters (er), making ALEXANDER - APPEARING TO DEFINE THIS WAS ALEXANDRIA IN EGYPT. I wondered what was happening to me. When I landed and eventually arrived in Connected and was greeted by Synthia, now my wife, it was the first thing I told her. The next morning Synthia was grabbing a coffee while I had a shower and in the shower it happened again and then later that day as we walked across the green in her town of Branford, it happened again. Ive been very alert and looking ever since for what it meant. I even spent time with the guys at The Monroe Institute about it but THIS I think is it. Many things are falling into place now, especially the 2012 studies, the crop circles and the Consciousness research. My gut tells me that THIS IS INDEED THE CROSS ROADS that Ive talked about at my presentations for nearly 30 years now. The Cross Roads I posted on my site two weeks ago - The purple Celtic Cross at the top of the New Postings page. It also happens to be the first symbol I saw as a crop circle that started this work for me in 1983. Could it be that what happens in the coming days in Alexandria will define once again a new and very different period for humanity? Time will tell as we inch now quickly towards 2012. Colin Andrews Jan 29, 2011 |
| Mike Ruppert - The Beginning Of Systemic Failure - Latest Update, 26th January 2011 |
| E-mail Received January 29, 2011 ALJAZEERA HAVE SHAPED EVENTS IN TUNISIA AND NOW EGYPT For continuous, commercial-free, live coverage click on http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/ Al Jazeera provides a perspective outside the mainstream American propaganda machine. The following article explains the role Al Jazeera in playing in the ongoing drama. The protests rocking the Arab world this week have one thread uniting them: Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite TV channel whose aggressive coverage has helped propel insurgent emotions from one capital ot the next. Al Jazeera has been hailed for helping enable the revolt in Tunisia with its galvanizing early report, even as Western-aligned political factions in Lebanon and the West Bank attacked and burned the channel's offices and vans this week, accusing it of incitement against them. In many way, is it Al Jazeera's moment - not only because of the role it has played but also because the channel has helped to shape a narrative of popular rage against oppressive U.S. - backed Arab governments (and against Israel) since its founding 15 years ago. The notion that there is a common struggle across thge Arab world is something Al Jazeera helped creat, "said Marc Lynch, a professor of Middle East Studies at Geaorge Washington University. "They did not cause these events, but it's almost impossible to imagine all this happening without Al Jazeera. |
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