The stage is being set in Egypt

While Mr. President is watching events (not history) unfold, the way a Bills fan watches the SuperBowl every year, the stage is being set in Egypt for a bloody confrontation.

I am afraid we are indeed watching Tienanmen Square II.

With today's speech, Mubarak has told everyone that as far as he is concerned, everyone at Tahrir Square needs to pack up and go home, like, yesterday. Their voices have been heard, Mubarak is not going to run for office again, neither will his son, so what more do you want?

Pack up and go home. An orderly transition is under way!

The Egyptian army's response is not comforting either.

The military earlier announced on state television it supports the legitimate demands of the people. A spokesman said the council was exploring what measures could be made to "safeguard" the nation and its people.

The key phrase there is legitimate demands.

At the appropriate time, people still occupying the square will be told that whatever their legitimate demands were, those demands have been heard. Whatever they still keep demanding, therefore, by simple logic, must be illegitimate.

Whoever is still left in the square will be removed by force.

And, make no mistake, there will be people studying every bit of footage of the people in the square to determine the organizers, the leaders of the protest. The ones they can identify will disappear.

In the mean time, Mr. President and his administration will keep talking in conflicting and ignorant terms, because they will be terrified of losing Egypt to Jihadi's.

Why Malawi is a backward, underdeveloped country

While looking for news on the Egypt situation, I stumbled upon this gem:

Malawi's government has warned anyone who displays the country's old national flag will face arrest and prosecution.

…

The new flag features a full sun instead of the old flag's rising sun, to reflect Malawi's change from a developing to a developed nation.

Because it is run by a government whose members think changing a flag can change facts:

The government has failed to address barriers to investment such as unreliable power, water shortages, poor telecommunications infrastructure, and the high costs of services.

Good to see that Malawi remains a shining example of what decades of IMF & World Bank support can achieve: People living on seventy-seven cents a day.

Aaahhh! Wolfowitz!

What is Mubarek doing?

He pulled out the police and the soldiers, and is sending thugs in civilian clothes to spark mass clashes and killing.

This way, he thinks, no one will be able to convict him on what happens next, because they will have happened in a civil unrest context, rather than government forces killing protesters.

He will wait until there are significant casualties, and then ask whatever armed (police or military) he can move to suppress the riots.

He seems to have decided that letting the peaceful demonstrations continue is more harmful to him than suppressing them in a bloody way. He thinks he is indispensable to the U.S., and that the U.S. President would come to his side after mumbling a few objections. In that, he may be right. After all, Mr. President did promise Arab rulers that his administration equates respect for the peoples of those countries with respect for their rulers.

In fact, if that were not the intention of Mr. President, he seems to have failed to signal his true intentions.

Besides, with the constant erosion of U.S. credibility since 2005 around the world due to the work of many Democrats including Mr. President, it is doubtful if any rulers, or for that matter, any protesters, would have taken him seriously.

Arab rulers knew that President Bush had no qualms about tracking a fallen despot to the hole he was hiding in and turn him to his people to be hanged unceremoniously. Does anyone think Mr. President has the ability to back his words with actions?

Of course, I might be wrong about everything.