Aright, alright, the ONT was a bit weak on teh funneh last night so I'm bringin' a bit more tonight. If you think it still sucks, well it's obvious you haven't had enough to drink yet so go get a cold one and dive right on in to tonight's ONT!

So to begin tonight's ONT, we'll do a little math. How did I not see this before?

No, it's not racist. It's just math. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:40 PM | Comments (847)
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Just cause it's Saturday night.

Game time is less than 24 hours or a week even, from now. Remember when they played in January? Good times, good times.

Green Bay and Pittsburgh (two of the most insignificant places on the planet), both their teams are in Dallas gettin ready for tomorrow. Where it's not 12 degrees, where there ain't 3 feet of snow on the roads. Where airports work.

I think Vegas says Packers by 2.5. Over/under 45.

My call is GB by 7 and over/under 54. You've seen my football prowess, bet accordingly.

Also, God I'm so stupid. Well, ok, pre-pre-trash talkin Saturday night and Pro-Bowl haiku contest.

Snowflake on a winter pond

Jeff Fisher, I'm tired,
all good things come to an end
this is the end my friend

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:31 PM | Comments (121)
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The government has embraced an arrogant ideology. They claim to know the key to prosperity. It's analogous to communism. They thought the same thing. The clever ones - themselves - would run everything. That's the analogy. The key to prosperity is to let things run themselves. We'll liberalize everything, let everyone look after himself, let business, not the state, run the economy. The state should have no views, no policies of its own. Just open it all up, step back, let it go and you'll see how well everything will work if we just leave things alone. - Havel

[ArthurK]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:59 PM | Comments (203)
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Egypt updates:

--Mubarak named his intelligence chief and close confidant Omar Suleiman vice president.

Mubarak was widely seen as grooming his son Gamal to succeed him, possibly even as soon as in presidential elections planned for later this year. However, there was significant public opposition to the hereditary succession.

Suleiman has been in charge of some of Egypt's most sensitive foreign policy issues, including the Palestinian-Israeli peace process and inter-Palestinian divisions.

His appointment as vice president answers one of the most intriguing and most enduring political questions in Egypt: who would succeed the 82-year-old Mubarak?

--Mubarak's sons just landed in London, according to Allahpundit: "Hosni Mubarak's two sons Alaa and Gamal have arrived in London." Also, Mubarak's wife has left for london.

--Kirsten Powers tweets that Suleiman is a good choice: "Our egyptian uncle in Cairo says Omar Suleiman is well respected and would be a good president. Says his appt to VP is good for Egypt."

Update:

--Looters broke into the Egytian Museum, destroying mummies.

The museum in central Cairo, which has the world's biggest collection of Pharaonic antiquities, is adjacent to the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party that protesters had earlier set ablaze. Flames were seen still pouring out of the party headquarters early Saturday.

"I felt deeply sorry today when I came this morning to the Egyptian Museum and found that some had tried to raid the museum by force last night," Zahi Hawass, chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said Saturday.

"Egyptian citizens tried to prevent them and were joined by the tourism police, but some (looters) managed to enter from above and they destroyed two of the mummies," he said.

--Yahoo reports that the Egyptian army stormed the museum:

The Egyptian army secured Cairo's famed antiquities museum early Saturday, protecting thousands of priceless artifacts, including the gold mask of King Tutankhamun, from looters.

The greatest threat to the Egyptian Museum, which draws millions of tourists a year, first appeared to come from the fire engulfing the ruling party headquarters next door on Friday night, set ablaze by anti-government protesters.

Then dozens of would-be thieves started entering the grounds surrounding the museum, climbing over the metal fence or jumping inside from trees lining the sidewalk outside.

Well, Mubarak did something right.

Update:

--Protestors helped protect the museum:

One man pleaded with people outside the museum's gates on Tahrir Square not to loot the building, shouting at the crowd: "We are not like Baghdad." After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, thieves carted off thousands of artifacts from the National Museum in Baghdad — only a fraction of which have been recovered.

Suddenly other young men — some armed with truncheons taken from the police — formed a human chain outside the main entrance in an attempt to protect the collection inside.

"I'm standing here to defend and to protect our national treasure," said one of the men, Farid Saad, a 40-year-old engineer.

Another man, 26-year-old Ahmed Ibrahim, said it was important to guard the museum because it "has 5,000 years of our history. If they steal it, we'll never find it again."

Damn right. Next to lives, it's the most valuable thing in Egypt. It's an incredible place. What a nice story. Thanks to some troll in comments.

Update:

--Live streaming video from Al Jazeera in English. They showed some of the damage to the museum. The rioters got some of the priceless stuff, looks like. Thanks to Liberty Chick.

Update:

--Pictures of some of the damage to the museum. Here is one of them:

There are many more at the link, most better than this. You can see that the cases aren't really designed to keep people out. Thanks again to Liberty Chick.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 07:15 AM | Comments (803)
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In the Army, we used to call this sort of thing a "cluster fork".

...When Phillips arrived last year, DCF moved him into a Rodeway Inn on Southwest 14th Street near Jackson Memorial Hospital, Castaneda said Thursday, paying for the room with money passed from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to the Florida DCF through the U.S. branch of the International Social Service...

...Completely unaware of any of this, federal marshals were looking for Phillips on the arrest warrant for failing to appear in court in 1979. The day he skipped town, Phillips was accused of conspiring with a trail-blazing drug smuggling operation to flood South Florida with tons of marijuana and cocaine...

...Phillips fled Miami in 1979 to avoid prosecution on federal racketeering, drug possession and other crimes. He was convicted in absentia in 1980, and, so far as the federal government is concerned has been a fugitive ever since...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 05:16 AM | Comments (121)
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Evening Moron Nation! CDR M checking in for duty. Crazy day with all that is happening in Egypt this fine Friday. I couldn't help but think of this quote today after seeing how the Obama Administration has responded so far (and not just to this incident either).

Admiral Josh Painter: "This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it."

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:55 PM | Comments (647)
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I don't know... I am trying to resist the blame-it-on-PC thing which is popping into my head but I'm a little skeptical that this guy was sent to Iraq just because they were short on intelligence officers.

Pfc. Bradley Manning's direct supervisor warned that Manning had thrown chairs at colleagues and shouted at higher ranking soldiers in the year he was stationed at Fort Drum, N.Y., and advised that Manning shouldn't be sent to Iraq, where his job would entail accessing classified documents through the Defense Department's computer system.

But superior officers decided to ignore the advice because the unit was short of intelligence analysts and needed Manning's skills, two military officials familiar with the investigation told McClatchy.

I can see situations in which a non-head-case throws a chair or shouts in a non-head-case way (everyone gets pissed). But based on the fact that this little prick is a born head-case, I have to think these instances were the head-case hissy-fit/inappropriate rage type of act-ups.

Posted by: Ace at 03:20 PM | Comments (180)
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Calling for restraint by the government, and for the government to stop blocking the internet. But also calling for restraint by the protesters.

Really it's a lot of nothing. Now he's talking about how prescient he was in saying Egypt needs reform, something that everyone says.

He Can't Help Himself: Grabs credit again by noting that when he gave his gassy speech in Cairo, he said that governments can only maintain legitimacy if they secure the consent of the governed. Duh.

But the thing is, he's kind of saying "I told you so," as if it was particularly astute or brave to note this idea.

And on top of that, it's a big F*** You to Mubarak -- haha, you should have listened to me -- which is pretty troubling given that Mubarak is still in office.

That said, as I think Obama is a coward, I imagine he wouldn't try to link himself to that unless his spy analysts told him that it's 90% likely Mubarak will be deposed.

Posted by: Ace at 02:36 PM | Comments (267)
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Correction: I wrote "Obama claims credit." I thought he had put out the story that he secretly backed the uprising. Not so, it appears -- that is the claim made by WikiLeaks, releasing another diploamtic cable which they claim indicates this.

So this wasn't Obama's doing. He wasn't trying to "take credit," as I said, because he didn't have anything to do with the release of this claim.

Of course, on CNN, Wolf Blitzer is suggesting Obama's gassy Cairo speech is the reason for all this.

Uh-huh.

...

More: Consistent with my last update directly below -- the military has taken control of "Liberation Square" in Cairo, driving protesters to side-streets. So the military remains on Mubarak's side.

General Impression: The protestors are being allowed to run wild but that might not be a sign they're going to prevail; Mubarak might be calculating they will burn themselves out so long as he does not create a bunch of martyrs.

Based on the most recent information, all of the speculation from past information is canceled out; at the moment, Mubarak is going to try to stay, and there's no very strong reason to imagine he can't.

Except for the Obama Administration's hedging, of course. Israel issued a statement which also hedged, stating they believe that Mubarak will continue, but also that they must "look to the future," wink-wink.

Asks Government To Step Down, But He's Not Stepping Down: This is nothing; this is Mubarak scrambling to stay in power. He leads the government in a fake-parliamentary-type system where his government reports to him and serves at his pleasure; so he's only firing his top minions.

The idea he's hoping people buy into is that the whole problem is that government, not him. But, um, he's been the guy presiding over 32 years of failure, not them.

Anyway, important and interesting, but says nothing about the Out or Not question. Except that it tells you this is serious, but then, we already knew that.

Mubarak Speaks? I think this is Mubarak speaking currently, but I'm not sure. If that is live, it's just him stating he'll finally do something about the economy and corruption and repression. Because, I guess, he didn't know these things were problems until Monday.

Note: While this is running live, it might be taped. It's still possible he's fled the country, but if that's the case, I don't get the point of broadcasting this. Or who would pull the switch for him.

Thanks to Tami.

Also, a spokesman for Mubarak says the situation is in the "safe hands" of Mubarak.

...

Mubarak Out? I am sure he's out, because if Obama's unending spin cycle is is putting out the message of You're welcome, that must mean they know it's over.

Remember, he's a coward; he leads from the rear.

Question: If Obama's people were really supporting this, why couldn't they have done the same in Iran?

Update: Commenters are saying this looks like the end, as they are speculating (with some good reason) that those planes carry the departing Mubarak family, and the major announcement will be a recognition of this.

Could be nothing, could be something.

Iran next? Can I dare to dream?

Update: Well, now I think Mubarak may really be out. If he's negotiating for a "transitional government," that means he's actually close to getting booted and trying to negotiate for something a little better. But that means the revolutionaries can just say "The hell with this; we can just take it all."

It's all if -- Arabic media is claiming this, and they're every bit as credible as the American media, if you know what I mean.

It occurred to me that Iran might not be delighting in this, as Allah speculated -- there is nothing scarier to a dictator than seeing another dictator fall, is there? And there is this weird out-of-the-blue thing happening in the Muslim world... if Egypt falls, why would Iranian progressives not be emboldened?

Gibbs: "We've reached a point where the grievances of the people have to be addressed in reforms, have to be, must."

Allah's digest is very complete.

A couple of key take-aways:

* Cops, and the military, may flip, and then it's over, of course.

* Even if Mubarak stays on, his son will not inherit power in all likelihood.

* Uh, the Muslim Brotherhood is the most organized of competitors for power.

* There are even some small protests breaking out in Jordan.

* El Baradei may be an attractive compromise successor to Mubarak, acceptable to both the more secular and more Islamist parts of the public. He's under house arrest, then.

By the Way: Some people are upset that Obama isn't more forward-leaning on this.

A similar criticism was made with Iran, but in that case, it was an easy call (which Obama botched): The government of Iran is anti-American and terrorist.

In Egypt, we have a moral reason to support Mubarak's overthrow, but a self-interested reason to be cautious: We don't want the Muslim Brotherhood in charge of the country.

In this case, I think the normal sort of cautious wait-and-see realpolitik impulse is right.

Either Mubarak will get ousted or not. I don't see how we can strongly influence that, and I'm not even certain where our rooting interest lay.*

* Long-term I'm sure that it's better for Arab and Muslim countries to start becoming democratic. Short- and mid-term it just might be the opposite.

Posted by: Ace at 12:31 PM | Comments (745)
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Thanks to laceyunderalls.

Posted by: Ace at 12:17 PM | Comments (32)
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