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A Remarkable Thing In Egypt Revolution

    President Mubarak has announced that he will not seek another term as the President of Egypt. he still is appearing to stay put. Go to  Al Jazeera Live for reactions to his speech, which just ended.  He sounded just like an American Republican politician, talk a lot but say nothing.

   Update:  Al Jazeera has just reported that the military is trying to find a way for Mubarak to leave while saving face.  He is widely respected by the military as "one of their own" and they do not want him to be seen as being "thrown out".

 This is something that I haven’t thought about.

by Granny Doc     Tue Feb 01, 2011

For a week now, I have been puzzling over the various comments, and attempts to gin up hysteria, pervading the media coverage of the popular uprising in Cairo.  There was something askew, leaking through in such small doses, that I could not put into words what was bothering me.  Then, this morning, Chuck Todd said it,  "A peaceful movement without a leader."

Imagine the horror of that!!

It is possible for millions of people to gather and without some jacknape with an AK47 threatening them, they can police themselves.

The BBC and CNN have reported that groups are searching those who want to join the demonstration and, if they find weapons they turn that individual and their guns, over to the military.  If they are not armed, they shake their hands and escort them to the center of the square. 

People sharing their increasingly limited food stuffs, offering shelter and water, and standing guard over the sleeping protesters.  Singing.  Yelling.  Dancing.

And all without "official" sanction, "crowd control", or authoritarian strutting.  A world that doesn't NEED "leaders".

How that must terrify everyone who thinks they are in control of something or other!

After decades of a popular media producing films of crowds gone wild, women who scream, men who can't control their violent impulses, and the need for a "strong" leader to keep civilization on track, what must it do the subtext of every disaster, political, and religious themed attempt to cow the public into accepting an overlord?

We don't need no stinkin' badges!

Technorati Tags: Egypt,Protesters,Revolution,Leadership,Current Events

Meanwhile, Jordan Gets In On The Protest Fever And…

    ….it is being reported that  King Abdullah II has dismissed his  government due to the street protests which started on Tuesday over prices and reforms. They’ve protested in previous weeks but today the people took it up a notch.

Jordanians had been calling for the resignation of prime minister Samir Rifai who is blamed for a rise in fuel and food prices and slowed political reforms.
A Jordanian official said the monarch officially accepted the resignation of Rifai, a wealthy politician and former court adviser, and asked Marouf Bakhit to form a new cabinet.  

"[Bakhit] is a former general and briefly ambassador to Israel who has been prime minister before. He's someone who would be seen as a safe pair of hands," Rosemary Hollis, professor of Middle East policy studies at London's City University, said.      Al Jazeera

    Many of the people of Jordan are getting bolder after having watched the Egyptian citizens take on the establishment there with some pretty good results. Jordanians blame  free market corruption  for the sad state the poor in the country.

   Sort of like what has been going on in the United States with the middle class and the poor.

Technorati Tags: Jordan,Egypt,Middle East,Democracy,Protesters,Current Events

Health Care Reform

                      Original Article

Mitt: No apology for HIS individual health care mandate

by Jed Lewison Tue Feb 01, 2011

While all this focus on the constitutionality of the individual health care mandate might be an annoying political distraction for the White House, for Mitt Romney it's an absolute f^$#!ng disaster because now, every time the subject of health care reform comes up, the first thing Mitt has to do is explain why it was okay for him to sign the individual health care mandate into law, but it was really horrible for Barack Obama to do the same thing. Case in point:

Mitt Romney: No Apology for Individual Health Care Mandate

On the kick off to his "No Apology" book tour Mitt Romney is on message – refusing to apologize for the Massachusetts health care law that, like President Obama’s federal legislation, requires citizens to buy health insurance.

“I’m not apologizing for it, I’m indicating that we went in one direction and there are other possible directions. I’d like to see states pursue their own ideas, see which ideas work best,” Romney told me.

That stand seems to reject the advice of Karl Rove and others who say that Romney can’t get the GOP nomination in 2012 unless he finds a way to distance himself from "Romneycare", but Romney did concede that his Massachusetts plan is imperfect.

So, basically, Mitt's answer now boils down to this: my individual health care mandate was okay because I was a governor. Barack Obama's wasn't okay because he was president. In other words, it's a state's rights issue.

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney,Health Care,Individual Health Care Mandate,current events