Sightings of the Egyptian Deep State | Middle East Research and Information Project

tags: egypt politics scaf military intelligence government

• Apart from gross incompetence, the army’s actions have another explanation: reassertion of a “deep state” that was badly bruised during the January uprising and took some time to regain its footing. While the army may be the bedrock of the post-1952 Egyptian state, the country’s array of security agencies crosses the boundaries between civilian and military. The Ministry of Interior’s agencies were particularly battered by the uprising and the fall of the ex-minister, Habib al-‘Adli, who had amassed unmatched clout in his long years on the job. It is not clear who controls the Ministry today, but it is almost certain that the police veteran in charge when the wintertime clashes broke out, Mansour al-‘Isawi, was not master of his own house.
• he inner mechanisms of the SCAF’s decision-making, its dependence on intelligence agencies that have their own agenda and the likelihood that the generals are not all on the same wavelength must be factored in.

FreeMaspero -

tags: freemaspero maspero egypt revolution protests activism labour

Mass Incarceration and Criminal Justice in America : The New Yorker

tags: unitedstates prison social society culture race government governmentality socialscience crime law justice

• time becomes in every sense this thing you serve.
• In other words, there’s the scientific taste for reducing men to numbers and the slave owners’ urge to reduce blacks to brutes
• The trouble with the Bill of Rights, he argues, is that it emphasizes process and procedure rather than principles
• The obsession with due process and the cult of brutal prisons, the argument goes, share an essential impersonality. The more professionalized and procedural a system is, the more insulated we become from its real effects on real people.
• For Stuntz, justice ought to be just the vibe of the thing—not one procedural error caught or one fact worked around
• “American prisons trace their lineage not only back to Pennsylvania penitentiaries but to Texas slave plantations.”
• Northern impersonality and Southern revenge converge on a common American theme: a growing number of American prisons are now contracted out as for-profit businesses to for-profit companies
• It’s hard to imagine any greater disconnect between public good and private profit: the interest of private prisons lies not in the obvious social good of having the minimum necessary number of inmates but in having as many as possible, housed as cheaply as possible.
• Yet a spectre haunts all these accounts, North and South, whether process gone mad or penal colony writ large. It is that the epidemic of imprisonment seems to track the dramatic decline in crime over the same period
• In social science, a cause sought is usually a muddle found; in life as we experience it, a crisis resolved is causality established. If a pill cures a headache, we do not ask too often if the headache might have gone away by itself.
• Instead, small acts of social engineering, designed simply to stop crimes from happening, helped stop crime.
• In truth, criminal activity seems like most other human choices—a question of contingent occasions and opportunity. Crime is not the consequence of a set number of criminals; criminals are the consequence of a set number of opportunities to commit crimes.
• It seems that one man in every thousand once in a while does a truly bad thing. All other things being equal, the point of a justice system should be to identify that thousandth guy, find a way to keep him from harming other people, and give everyone else a break.
• The truth is, a series of small actions and events ended up eliminating a problem that seemed to hang over everything. There was no miracle cure, just the intercession of a thousand smaller sanities.
• At every moment, the injustice seems inseparable from the community’s life, and in every case the arguments for keeping the system in place were that you would have to revolutionize the entire social order to change it—which then became the argument for revolutionizing the entire social order. In every case, humanity and common sense made the insoluble problem just get up and go away.

Commentary: Egypt’s NGO Suspicions | The National Interest

tags: egypt unitedstates politics NGO aid humanrights democracy corrupt

On the US-Egypt NGO debacle – Blog – The Arabist

tags: egypt unitedstates politics NGO aid humanrights democracy corrupt

‫عد و شوف غلطات الجيش‬‎ – YouTube

chant on the military violations. 

tags: jan25 maspero protest activism egypt revolution mosireen military noscaf fuckscaf

‫عد و شوف غلطات الجيش‬‎ – YouTube

chant on the military violations. 

tags: jan25 maspero protest activism egypt revolution mosireen military noscaf fuckscaf

Egypt gets dumped by its Washington lobbyists | The Cable

while i am happy to see the US withdraw its imperial bribe, it should be noted how transparently ridiculous and hypocritical it is to do so because a handful of NGOs got raided and not because of the mass violations of human rights and international law. fuck politicians. 

tags: egypt unitedstates aid scaf military NGO humanrights politics violence

EnvironmentVariables – Community Ubuntu Documentation

tags: linux ubuntu howto guide software program

Egypt gets dumped by its Washington lobbyists | The Cable

while i am happy to see the US withdraw its imperial bribe, it should be noted how transparently ridiculous and hypocritical it is to do so because a handful of NGOs got raided and not because of the mass violations of human rights and international law. fuck politicians. 

tags: egypt unitedstates aid scaf military NGO humanrights politics violence

• The trio came under fire last week for circulating talking points defending Egypt’s Dec. 29 raid of several NGOs working to train political parties in Egypt, including three organizations partially funded by the U.S. government
• For years, these firms have been defending the Egyptian military’s $1.3 billion annual aid package on Capitol Hill and lobbying for non-military aid to go through the government, and not directly to independent organizations
• the Senate aide said. “Three weeks ago no one in Congress thought there was a chance in hell that aid to the Egyptian military could ever come under serious threat. It is now an increasingly and shockingly real prospect.”
• Many in Washington believe that the SCAF is being heavily influenced on this issue by one civilian Egyptian official, Fayza Abul-Naga, the minister of international cooperation and a holdover from the Mubarak era. In a speech this week, she disavowed the SCAF’s previous promises to return the NGOs’ raided possessions and cease harassing them as she lashed out at the American NGO groups.

اللهم طولك يا روح.. عائشة عبد الهادي تطالب بمستحقاتها المتأخرة من إيرادات صندوق الطوارئ! | الدستور

tags: egypt labor bullshit corruption government revolution counterrevolution ndp a7a

• .حيث اشارت الدعوى الى أن قرار رئيس مجلس الوزراء السابق أحمد نظيف والخاص بمنح اعضاء مجلس ادارة الصندوق حصة بلغت حصة من عوائد استثمار الصندوق بنسبة تقدر 2,5 بالمئة
• المبلغ التي تطالبت به عائشة عبد الهادي يقدر 200 الف جنية وهو جزء خاص بمستحقاتها والتي لم تصرف لها عن عام 2010
• صندوق الطوارئ هو أحد أهم الصناديق التي انشأت بالقرار الجمهوري لصالح العمال

  الذين يتعرضون لحالات الفصل او الازمات،مثل حالات لاغلاق المصانع او المنشأه والتي بها اكثر من ثلاثون عامل بعد تقديم ما يؤكد أنه هناك الازمات الاقتصادية.  

‫كاذبون – Kazeboon – Revolution Records‬‎ – YouTube

tags: revolution youtube music hiphop arabic kazeboon military noscaf scaf jan25 jan25two

‫كاذبون – Kazeboon – Revolution Records‬‎ – YouTube

tags: revolution youtube music hiphop arabic kazeboon military noscaf scaf jan25 jan25two

NASA GISS: Research News: NASA Finds 2011 Ninth Warmest Year on Record

tags: environment climate climatechange ghg energy science

• The average temperature around the globe in 2011 was 0.92°F (0.51°C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline.
• The first 11 years of the 21st century experienced notably higher temperatures compared to the middle and late 20th century, Hansen said. The only year from the 20th century in the top 10 warmest years on record is 1998.

Fossil fuel subsidies and global warming: We could cut the climate change problem in half simply by abolishing inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. – Slate Magazine

tags: energy energy-policy environment subsidies climatechange oil coal renewable poverty development politics economy economics

• Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency is telling you exactly that. In data released this month as part of the IEA’s latest World Energy Outlook report, he shows that in 2010 the world spent $409 billion on subsidizing the production and consumption of fossil fuels, dwarfing the word’s $66 billion or so of subsidies for renewable energy
• 
  • I dont know about that. In an economy based on energy, there is a justice, empowerment, positive discrimination aspect to things. While it makes no sense to subsidize energy for steel or cement, it DOES make sense to subsidize heating and cooking fuel. or fuel used in (private/informal) public transport. The vast majority of such subsidy is of the nonsensical crony capitalist sort. But to say none make sense, is to fall into a typical hole of the privileged arm-chair intellectual. 
• In no case do these subsidies make sense.
• f roughly half of what needs to be done can be achieved simply by eliminating economic distortions—economic distortions that would be unwise even if there were no concern about pollution—then the whole framework of a trade-off between prosperity and sustainability is largely misguided.
• At the end of the day, pure laissez faire can never meet the world’s environmental challenges. If you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you need to cap them and then you need to reduce the cap. But a surprisingly large step toward that target can occur by simply allowing the market to do its work by removing the subsidies that encourage lavish and inefficient consumption of fossil fuels.

Farmers in limbo after stalled promises of loan forgiveness | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today’s News from Egypt

tags: egypt debt agriculture government policy

Bill Gates pushes ‘green revolution’ for small farms in developing world – The Washington Post

tags: BillGates development agriculture research aid poverty rural

Campaign slams IMF for ‘illegitimate’ negotiations with Egypt

• The Popular Campaign to Drop Egypt’s Debt held a conference Saturday to demand that the government leave the decision to accept the loan up to the incoming parliament
• “The IMF was involved over the past two decades in drawing and implementing the economic and financial policies of Egypt, which led to low living standards, high poverty rates, and deterioration of public services and human resources and human development,” Amr Adly, a political economist and a founding member of the campaign, said in a statement.
• Labeling the loan as “odious,” the group stressed that “the current government does not represent the Egyptian people … and the donors realize that the current government is not a legitimate one.”

Nature lovers plan celebratory march for protected areas and ecotourism on 25 January | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today’s News from Egypt

tags: egypt politics jan25 jan25two protest activism revolution environment conservation

‫حصرياً : مشاهد جديدة تدين قتلة الثوار في محمد محمود‬‎ – YouTube

tags: egypt police military violence mohamedmahmoud nov19 nov20 kazeboon noscaf scaf

الديب يفجر مفاجأته: مبارك لايزال رئيس البلاد.. وتأجيل المحاكمة يوماً | المصري اليوم، أخبار اليوم من مصر

tags: egypt politics mubarak law bullshit counterrevolution revolution jan25 corruption courts

• وأضاف الديب: «بناء عليه فإن إجراءات المحاكمة كلها باطلة، حيث إن محاكمة رئيس الجمهورية تكون أمام محكمة خاصة نص عليها دستور 1971، مكونة من 12 عضوا، بينهم 6 من أعضاء مجلس الشعب، و6 من أقدم المستشارين بمحكمتي الاستئناف والنقض، وتنعقد جلساتها في دار القضاء العالي، ويباشر الاتهام أمام المحكمة النائب العام، وإن محاكم الجنايات غير مختصة ولائيا بمحاكمة رئيس الجمهورية»
• وبرر «الديب» قوله بأن «مبارك» «تم انتخابه فى عام 2005 رئيسا للجمهورية لمدة 6 سنوات، وهذه المدة انتهت فى 18 سبتمبر من العام الماضي، وطبقا للمادة 78 من الدستور فهو لايزال رئيسا للجمهورية، لأنها تنص على أنه إذا انتهت مدة رئيس الجمهورية دون اختيار الرئيس الجديد استمر الرئيس السابق فى مباشرة مهامه، وحتى اليوم لم ينتخب رئيس للجمهورية»

Drugs Index | Fouda Pharmacy

searechable index of medicines in egypt by active ingredient and price

tags: egypt medicince drugs reference resource database

‫الجيش المصري يستطيع اسقاط دولة اسرائيل في 3 ساعات‬‎ – YouTube

tags: egypt military israel funny lol

Land Carvings Attest to Amazon’s Lost World – NYTimes.com

tags: amazon history colonialism indigenous

• The deforestation that has stripped the Amazon since the 1970s has also exposed a long-hidden secret lurking underneath thick rain forest: flawlessly designed geometric shapes spanning hundreds of yards in diameter.
• For some scholars of human history in Amazonia, the geoglyphs in the Brazilian state of Acre and other archaeological sites suggest that the forests of the western Amazon, previously considered uninhabitable for sophisticated societies partly because of the quality of their soils, may not have been as “Edenic” as some environmentalists contend.
• Still, the geoglyphs, located at a crossroads between Andean and Amazonian cultures, remain an enigma.

Egyptian citizen journalism ‘Mosireen’ tops YouTube – Media – Egypt – Ahram Online

tags: mosireen movie video egypt activism discourse kazeboon youtube

A year later Egypt activists seek more revolution – NZ Herald

tags: Egypt activism military politics jan25 revolution counterrevolution video discourse tahrir media independent

The New Student Activism – NYTimes.com

tags: occupy occupywallstreet ows university youth activism protests student

• Mirroring the broader movement, students have taken aim at widening income disparities and the cozy symbiosis between Washington and Wall Street. But the college occupiers have also embraced a panoply of causes, localizing and personalizing their protests in a way that has lent an immediacy and urgency to their outcries.
• Ms. Ward said communitywide Occupy meetings were being held indoors, and expects the core people to remain involved for the long haul. But she also expects attendance to wane. “We have a generation that believes instant gratification is the only form of gratification,” Ms. Ward said. “This is something that’s going to take a long time.”

انتخابات مجلس الثورة 2012

tags: egypt politics parliament elections graphic

Decade of discontent: The road to Egypt’s revolution – Politics – Egypt – Ahram Online

crappy article about the history leading up to Jan25

tags: egypt jan25 history activism protests intifada politics kifaya labour judges

PIPA/SOPA Victory – End to Damn the Torpedoes – What Happens Now UPDATED | Public Knowledge

tags: media copyright unitedstates SOPA public knowledge intellectual-property activism politics humanrights

A Jewish American high school student wins MLK Jr. writing award for this brave essay: | Norman G. Finkelstein

tags: unitedstates israel jew zionism MLK humanrights race racism

• I can obviously never know what it must have been like to be an African-American in the 1950s. I do feel, however, as though I know exactly what it must have been like to be white during that time, to live under an aura of moral invincibility, to hold unchallengeable beliefs, and to contrive illusions of superiority to avoid having to face simple everyday truths. That illusion was nice while it lasted, but I decided to pass it up. I have never been happier.

Florida Republicans Introduce Bill That Would Keep Privatization A Secret From The People | Addicting Info

tags: florida republicans privatization government corporate neoliberal

• Florida Republicans
• ey have introduced SB 2036 and SB 2038 to do just that. The measures would allow the state government to privatize prisons in secret and would also allow the government to secretly outsource the work of other state agencies
• The measures also give agencies the option of not reporting the privatization of a program until after it has already been done.

Anonymous goes nuclear; everybody loses? | Molly Rants – CNET News

tags: SOPA congress politics internet ICT law unitedstates corporate

Who in Congress Supports SOPA and PIPA/PROTECT-IP? | SOPA Opera | ProPublica

tags: SOPA congress politics internet ICT law unitedstates coporate

In Detroit, a Fresh Wave of Hope – NYTimes.com

tags: detroit unitedstates development industry

New IMF loan would be ‘odious’ and illegitimate, says Egypt debt amnesty group – Economy – Business – Ahram Online

tags: egypt imf debt economy activism

The Bark Side: 2012 Volkswagen Game Day Commercial Teaser – YouTube

tags: starwars movies youtube funny dogs video ScienceFiction

Carter: Tantawi in denial over “girl in the blue bra” – Blog – The Arabist

tags: egypt. military scaf noscaf violence JimmyCarter politics bullshit

• The generals either lied to their teeth, or more probably and more worryingly, actually believe the crap they spew. The real question is, who is feeding them that line?

AFED

tags: environment green uae energy economy development sustainability policy

The Amazing Discussion That Led to the Wikipedia Blackout – Megan Garber – Technology – The Atlantic

tags: wiki internet intellectual-property unitedstates politics law media SOPA

Sleepless Nights in Paris’ Red Light District – LightBox

tags: photo photography paris prostitution art pics

‫بلدنا: لا تراجع عن إقامة محطة الضبعة النووية‬‎ – YouTube

gov’t insists it will go ahead. 
ahaly want their land back

tags: egypt nuclear energy land politics energy-policy policy electricity

Urban planner David Sims explodes myths on Cairo’s dysfunction | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today’s News from Egypt

tags: egypt cairo urban development design transport housing slums elite

• Despite our griping, Sims argues that Cairo actually functions quite well. Like any massive urban center, the city has problems, but they are far less debilitating than those of other equivalent global metropolises.
• The irony of Cairo is that its relative functionality is not the result of enlightened government intervention. In fact, for the past half century, the most heavily-inhabited parts of Cairo — as opposed to the virtually empty desert developments — have developed almost entirely independent of government plans. Sims describes this as “order without design.”
• he 11 million inhabitants of Cairo’s ‘ashwa’it have benefitted from virtually no government investments, whereas the 800,000 largely elite suburban inhabitants out in the desert have seen countless millions poured into their communities.
• t a time like this, the city can turn away from the discredited state-led social engineering that promoted the failed desert cities, and instead embrace a people-oriented approach that invests in real, inhabited communities.
• a people-oriented approach needs to improve the existing reality, rather than impose impractical imaginary solutions.

Bedouin leaders threaten armed rebellion against Egyptian government – CNN.com

tags: egypt politics bedouin sinai government military justice weapons security

Syria: beyond the wall of fear, a state in slow-motion collapse | World news | The Guardian

tags: syria basharalAssad government violence revolution protests politics economy military

Andrew Sullivan: How Obama’s Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics – The Daily Beast

tags: obama politics unitedstates international economy health government law

• What liberals have never understood about Obama is that he practices a show-don’t-tell, long-game form of domestic politics.
• I realized that to understand Obama, you have to take the long view. Because he does.
• “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,” George Orwell once wrote. What I see in front of my nose is a president whose character, record, and promise remain as grotesquely underappreciated now as they were absurdly hyped in 2008.

EWEA Blog » Inaccurate report disregards facts of wind energy

tags: energy electricity wind sustainability emissions GHG pollution alternative renewable

Egypt demands environmental human rights | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today’s News from Egypt

tags: egypt environment activism politics protests humanrights

• what is needed now, according to Mohamed Nagi, executive director of the Habi Center for Environmental Rights, is to take things to the next level by passing  binding legislation regarding environmental human rights.

   

  “As we discuss rewriting our constitution,” Nagi says, “we need to make sure there are articles in the new constitution clearly stipulating the need to guarantee and protect environmental rights.” This, he adds, is essential for enforcing Egypt’s environmental laws, which have not been properly implemented, and also strengthen the role of civil society on the ground.

The ‘new look’ of Cairo train station | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today’s News from Egypt

tags: egypt development architecture urban design history transport

• As a result, the original neo-Mamluk style has effectively been replaced with a style that is ostensibly pharaonic but which actually seems closer to that of Las Vegas casinos or Abu Dhabi glass malls.

‫اغنية عسكر كاذبون .كلمات وأداء ياسر سالم‬‎ – YouTube

tags: egypt military music video youtube noscaf scaf jan25

Rally for the Future of Tech

tags: internet technology ict corporate censorship unitedstates congress law bullshit