Before those stories, here is live video of the second night of gigantic demonstrations. Again, this is massive. The crowds are now shooting off fireworks.

Via Hot Air, ten ministers have resigned. Al Aribya doesn't include the "?." They report it as a fact. But I don't know Al Aribya from Al Bundy so I'm putting the question mark on it.

Previously, five ministers were reported to be considering resignation.

Given the helicopters signalling support of the protesters, it seems kind of believable, though.

Yesterday, Egyptian military helicopters flew over the crowd while flying Egyptian flags from their bellies (video). The crowd seemed to take this as a show of support -- I'm not sure if you can take it any other way. As in Turkey, the display of the national flag is intended as a repudiation of the ruling regime and its Islamist/caliphate pretensions.

I suppose the flags could mean something neutral like "We're all Egyptians, let's not do anything rash," but it seems to me they're more saying "We hear you and we're taking care of this shortly."

This ship is sinking.

More good video from the enormous protests -- again, they're sort of cute about refusing to say which day this is from. I guess it's from Sunday night.

I saw a tweet from a BBC reporter s
Lots of pictures here.

But that's a feature, not a bug, isn't it?

Update: I wasn't certain if the helicopter flyover took place yesterday or today; weft-cut loop informs me it was yesterday.

Posted by: Ace at 11:00 AM | Comments (234)
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11 out of 48, that is.

Before “sequestration” took effect, the Obama administration issued specific — and alarming — predictions about what it would bring. There would be one-hour waits at airport security. Four-hour waits at border crossings. Prison guards would be furloughed for 12 days. FBI agents, up to 14.

At the Pentagon, the military health program would be unable to pay its bills for service members. The mayhem would extend even into the pantries of the neediest Americans: Around the country, 600,000 low-income women and children would be denied federal food aid.

But none of those things happened.

That digests this WaPo piece.

One point the WaPo article makes repeatedly is that in many cases the cuts didn't hurt at all because the spending was completely unnecessary in the first place. For example, the Justice Department "cut" the costs of imprisoning a bunch of people who didn't even exist.

The Obama Administration's laughable claim that there was no fat in the Washington budget to trim was exposed as just as laughable as you imagined.

Now, they'll claim the same thing next time (and there's a next time coming in October). But they lied once. Furthermore, there seems little harm in demanding that agencies clean up their financial acts and cut trivial programs.

Posted by: Ace at 08:18 AM | Comments (162)
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But, on the plus side, they also included this picture with the ultimatum.

Dog: Please don't touch me
Stalker Bear, The Bear Who Loves Too Much (TM):
You will be a part of me,
one way or the other

So there's that. It's an adorabletimatum.

At Gateway Pundit (the site linked), there's video of that Apache being lit up by dozens and dozens of laser lights. It's pretty neat.

Picture via Cute n Funny.

More: The White House is “the main supporter of the Brotherhood,” [a young protester] said. “If it wasn’t for the American support this president would have fallen months ago.”

Why?

Before... Previously, the Tamarod movement announced Morsi had one day to step down. I imagine they'll observe the military's ultimatum deadline, though.

Posted by: Ace at 07:30 AM | Comments (230)
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I mentioned reports of this yesterday. It's been confirmed. The video at the BBC is worth watching.

Tamarod [a key opposition group whose name means "rebel"] issued a statement saying the protesters would give Mr Morsi until 17:00 (15:00 GMT) on Tuesday to leave power and allow state institutions to prepare for early presidential elections.

Otherwise, people would begin a campaign of "complete civil disobedience", the group warned.

It urged "state institutions including the army, the police and the judiciary, to clearly side with the popular will as represented by the crowds".

The group also rejected offers of dialogue from the president.

"There is no way to accept any half measures," it said. "There is no alternative other than the peaceful end of power of the Muslim Brotherhood and its representative, Mohammed Morsi."

On Saturday, Tamarod said it had collected more than 22 million signatures - more than a quarter of Egypt's population - in support.

Meanwhile, Tamarod partly blame Obama for this, for good reason.

Anne Patterson is the US ambassador to Egypt.

An Egyptian opposition group accused the US of "being partner to a conspiracy to keep President Mohamed Morsi in power."

Obama addressed the situation in Egypt on Saturday explaining "The United States supported democracy in Egypt. ItÂ’s been challenging given there has not been a tradition of democracy in Egypt." he said. "Our most immediate concerns have to do with our embassies and consulates."

...

The opposition is furious. "America and the Brotherhood have united to bring down the Egyptian people," said Hassan Shahin, a member of the Tamarod, or "rebel," movement.

Posted by: Ace at 06:35 AM | Comments (285)
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Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:22 AM | Comments (245)
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Happy July.

More on the enormous protests in Egypt. "At one point, army helicopters flew over Tahrir Square and dropped Egyptian flags, to cheers from the anti-Morsi crowd."

Ecuador's president Rafael Correa sours on Snowden. "He said the Ecuadorean consul in London committed 'a serious error' by not consulting officials in Ecuador's capital when the consul issued a letter of safe passage for Snowden. He said the consul would be punished, although he didn't specify how."

19 firefighters are dead in the Yarnell Hill wildfire. The fire started Friday after a lighting strike. Liberals, naturally, are already blaming global warming.

Ed Driscoll at PJMedia has an interesting column and book review about Hollywood's "New Abnormal."

And finally, following up on the Libertarian Purity Test that we talked about on Friday, Ben Domenech compiled the tweets on it and posted an interesting graphic. That's the range for his mostly right-leaning Twitter followers. I'd be interested to know if the Left has similar variation.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (389)
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