Reader Tips

Reader Tips 35 Comments

A lot of news coverage of the events in Egypt has – quite understandably – focused on the speculation and analysis that’s taking place in Washington, London and elsewhere. For a more visually immediate perspective, here’s some footage shot four days ago on the streets of Cairo by Sky News’ Duncan Sharp.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.

35 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. Swedish academic Hans Rosling, after plotting over 120,000 numbers, uses really cool animation to show changes in life expectancy and income in 200 Countries over 200 years.
    h/t Betsy’s Page

  3. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy confession: ‘I no longer feel left wing’.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8293545/Carla-Bruni-Sarkozy-confession-I-no-longer-feel-left-wing.html
    Bruni-Sarkozy let the world know about the “artistes” attitudes.
    For public consumption they are the most warm and fuzzy supporters of the working people, (not that the working people care or notice much).
    Among themselves they know who they are, “….she said her previous political persuasion was only due to her belonging to a “community of artists.” “We were bobo (bourgeois bohemians), we were left-wing….”
    Maybe the “bourgeois bohemians” should become common reference to the “artistes”, being rather accurate definition of that state of their existence.
    Not that there is anything wrong with that.

  4. Just another rant
    Why don’t we have a program like Top Gear in Canada? Is the CBC so tree hugger righteous
    that they can’t believe some people like cars
    and that breaking the speed limit is not a capital crime?
    O, yea they do, nevermind.
    end rant
    [d]

  5. Excerpt from Daniel Greenfield’s “Obama’s State of the Soviet Union” at RightSideNews:
    “The meat of (Obama’s State of the Union) address was stolen from Clinton’s 1992 campaign stump speeches on the economy. There is the same invocation of personal stories of unemployment combined with promises of replacing the old bad manufacturing jobs with free educations for everyone. But Clinton was better at pretending to be one of the boys, a working class man who only got out thanks to a good education. Obama’s people must have known that dog wouldn’t hunt.
    “As usual, the slogan du jour comes from the dictionary of the left. ‘Winning the future’ was a common slogan on the left. While it was belatedly used by Newt Gingrich, it was most commonly employed in the 20th century by Communists and the far left. Two time Lenin prize winner, Danilo Dolci used it as the theme of one of his addresses. Jesse Jackson made use of it during his presidential campaign. Max Lerner gave a number of talks on ‘Winning the Future’. Mandella threw it in there. Most notably it was used by Lenin, ‘Our hopes must be placed on the young. We must win the youth if we are to win the future.’
    “The thrust of Obama’s agenda follows Lenin’s. The old jobs are gone. We must prepare for the future by educating our youth. The sturm und drang of the “We Musts” quickly becomes an argument for pandering to the teacher’s unions. Only by empowering the teacher’s union will we be able to compete with China. But China isn’t strong because of its teachers, but because it has no independent unions, no minimum wage, no pollution laws and nothing to get in the way of the terrible machine of its industry. The People’s Republic of China is not beating us in science or math, but in manufacturing cheap products with an undervalued national currency.
    “Handing out free educations to beat China is like going to college to fight a bear. Not only will it not improve your bear fighting skills, it actually gives the bear the upper hand….”
    You can read the whole thing here.

  6. A Christian club full of non-Christians:
    “Turkey’s deputy prime minister complained Saturday that the European Union was becoming an inward-looking ‘Christian club,’ slamming a lack of progress in his country’s bid to join.
    “Speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos that included EU President Herman Van Rompuy, Ali Babacan said: ‘We always thought the EU is a big peace project … but then the enlargement process literally stalled.’
    “‘The open-door policy is no longer there,’ he added.
    “‘And one of the big themes about why Turkey cannot become a member of the European Union is because it is a Christian club. This is in our view very, very dangerous,’ he said.”

  7. Thanks for the link to Professor Rosling’s latest, EBD. We first saw him here at SDA back on 2007-08-03, -08-05, & -08-07, back before the days of SDA Late Nite Radio, when I first discovered his 2006 TED Talk. That’s when I created my Gapminder page at The Sagacious Iconoclast, with an example of how to run your own analyses at the Gapminder web site.

    Since those days Dr. Rosling has gone on to become a well received speaker on these matters; he has just the stylistic skills that unfortunately some otherwise excellent thinkers lack. Physics professor Dr. Walter Lewin is a bit like Rosling too. Anyway, I mention all this to set up the context to remind everyone that the Gapminder web site remains up and running: there you can explore up to four dimensional relationships between various global population metrics. It’s excellent.

  8. The technology is amazing aside from the story. Did you all notice the incredible detail in this video taken with a digital Canon SLR normally associated with still photography. The wood fibers on the staffs/clubs are clearly visible, stitching on clothing in many scenes, stubble on beards.
    Amazing!!

  9. Writing in the WSJ, Paul Kengor looks back at the eye-rolling, condescending reaction of American MSM journalists to Ronald Reagan’s realistic assessment of the Soviets, as when he was speaking with ABC’s Sam Donaldson and “calmly explained that the Soviet leadership had ‘openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.'”
    On another occasion “Reagan (explained) that the Soviets considered their relativistic behavior ‘moral, not immoral.’ This was something that the United States needed to ‘keep . . . in mind’ when doing ‘business’ with Moscow. The assembled Washington press corps responded with what National Security Adviser Richard V. Allen described as ‘an audible gasp.’
    “Reagan’s rejoinder was deemed a crass outrage. The journalistic elite sniffed, Who is this Neanderthal? A Washington Post editorial lamented the ‘indiscriminate quality of some of the things being said….”
    The whole thing here.

  10. http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/libyas-gadhafi-threatened-to-nationalize-petro-canadas-operations-wikileaks-114979969.html
    OTTAWA – A newly leaked U.S. diplomatic note says Libya threatened to nationalize Petro-Canada’s operations in the North African country over a spat with the Conservative government.
    It’s the latest revelation in a bizarre international saga that first grabbed headlines two years ago.
    Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi cancelled a late September 2009 stopover in Newfoundland after Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon promised a tongue-lashing for the hero’s welcome Libya extended to a man convicted in the Lockerbie bombing.

  13. Watching Egypt Burn: An Israeli Perspective
    by Benjamin Kerstein
    Like the rest of the world, Israel doesn’t know what to think about the revolution in Egypt. We aren’t even sure if it really is a revolution. We certainly don’t know if it’s good or bad. And we have absolutely no idea what the eventual outcome will be. Unlike the rest of the world, what is happening now in Egypt has immediate and potentially disastrous consequences for the Jewish state.
    http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/watching-egypt-burn-an-israeli-perspective/

  14. LEDA, after years of just using a pocket digital camera I’m strongly thinking of buying this camera later this year. A big investment, yes, but with all the photos I take, I think a good one. Anyhow, one of the things people are raving about it is the video quality.

  16. from the previous night’s tips:
    “Ignore the whole thing. beagle, you’ve got to stop reading Margaret Atwood.
    Posted by: Black Mamba at January 31, 2011 10:43 PM ”
    uhuh.
    typical rightist response; flippancy but no answer.
    the last time I had anything to do with atwood was watching the movie ‘a handmaid’s tale’.

  18. “typical rightist response; flippancy but no answer”
    Beagle, you think that “rightists” are bad at learning?
    I assure you that you are mistaken.
    We are good at learning.
    We learned such responses from people like you.
    Anyway, it seems that watching the movie is enough for you. No need to read, eh.

  19. Anyway, it seems that watching the movie is enough for you. No need to read, eh.
    Posted by: ella at February 1, 2011 1:12 AM”
    more sarcasm but no answer, plus you admit both main halves of the political spectrum engage in name calling.
    we’re making progress.

  23. PET Cemetery Report.
    Our options:
    1. Recall PET.
    2. Recall Citoyen Kyoto Dionky.
    3. Recall Jeancula Chretien.
    4. “Ignatieff could cast himself as Captain Canada — as a fellow named Pierre E. Trudeau once did.”
    YesYesYes.
    …-
    “Policies failing Liberals”
    “Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has been all but written off.”
    http://www.ottawasun.com/comment/columnists/michael_dentandt/2011/01/31/17106471.html
    http://www.bluelikeyou.com/2011/01/31/your-morning-election-speculation-update/#comment-60281

  24. we’re making progress.
    Posted by: beagle at February 1, 2011 1:16 AM
    Well you might think you are, but until you realise that there is almost no difference between the Master you propose for us and Kate’s you doom the rest of us who want no masters to endless rounds of supercilious hair-splitting

  25. @12:59 – beagle, “The Handmaid’s Tale” was the Atwood book I was referring to. What response is possible but flippancy? The link you provided at 9:42PM on last night’s Readers Tips thread was about that Indonesian pop star whose been sentenced to jail for making a s*x tape. I’m pretty sure you were trying to imply that we anti-Islamic hypocritical right-wing Christianist Zionist running-dog paper-tiger puritan types would just love to do the same – to Kim Kardashian or somebody. But that’s really stupid, it’s so stupid that Atwood wrote a whole stupid novel about it, and so my response was flippant.

  26. The headlines on the Egyptian situation are dominated by the feel good mantra of democracy willing out over totalarianism. What I don’t see is the solution for the + 70% unemployment which is the real nub of the unrest. No idea of what the breakdown of government vs private employment. It is hughly weighted to the public sector.
    As you look around the Mediterranian; Spain, Italy, Greece, all of North Africa, the Balkins are all basket cases. Turkey and Israel are the only two who represent any form of success. Economic growth and stability are the only yardstick for long term success and I don’t see that happening.

  27. I’ve been enjoying Al Jazeera’s coverage of these events; thanks for the referral Kate! But their claim of—first one million then two now back to—one million people at today’s protest is bogus. At least two of the commentators had to correct themselves on this point to keep the inflated figure narrative intact. It looks like a well-attended Stones concert (minus the groupies, of course.)

  28. Listen to this Michael Graham interview of the ME’s BEST analyst Caroline Glick in Jerusalem, who explains exactly what’s goining on in Egypt.
    Hint: it has nothing to do with Democracy. She refers to the Cluelessness in Washtington but also explains that Bush was wrong too: Democracy doesn mean elections.
    She pointedly refers to the mainstream idiocy that the Muslim Brotherhood is “moderate”; that it had ever renounced violence. She also refers to the Pew Poll in which the vast majority of Egyptians express a desire for Sharia law complete with stonings, amputations, and mass jew-killing.

  33. Link posted by ken (Kulak) @ 3:48 pm.
    You’ve got to be taught
    To hate CO2,
    Like Natgas and coal
    And plastic bags too,
    From first kindergarten
    Right into the U
    You’ve got to be carefully taught.
    You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
    Of the benefits western technology made,
    And to hate your own culture or you won’t make the grade,
    You’ve got to be carefully taught.
    You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
    Before you are six or seven or eight,
    To hate all the things that good lefties hate,
    You’ve got to be carefully taught
    With apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein
    http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/Sandwich+gets+excluded+from+class+contest/4199546/story.html#ixzz1CkAMpjNH

  34. Dennis Prager on political correctness:
    “If you love liberty, you must target the Left and put its totalitarian tendencies in your crosshairs. We must shoot down political correctness and wage a crusade for truth and liberty. All those ladies and gentlemen who cherish personal and societal freedom must fight like great Indian chiefs, braving secondhand smoke if need be, in affirming a masculinity that has been under relentless attack. And yes, we must even endure the taunts of our foes and, at the appropriate time of the year, wish fellow Americans a ‘Merry Christmas.’” (BTW, Dennis Prager is Jewish.)
    The rest is @
    http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/258466/crusade-liberty-dennis-prager?page=2

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