Jack Napier posted:

How does "Slow Smoked Pulled Pork Barbecue Recipe by the BBQ Pit Boys" get to be featured with that video?

Belgurdo posted:

All of this is so sudden...why all of these protests and uprisings now and not 10, 20, 50 years ago? What has changed over there?

Boner Slam posted:

seriously, just a few weeks back one goon said something like "demonstrations have never done anything". Whoops.

Nessus posted:

Perhaps God got fed up with our learned helplessness and decided to show us what for while also helping his Muslim children out.

Gravitom posted:

Well I meant compared to people tweeting about their neighborhoods being bombed and mercenaries on the streets, a news report that people are chanting outside my cushy Midtown Manhattan apartment doesn't seem as epic

quote:

Recently, several thousands of Iraqis sporadically took to the streets in several provinces across the country protesting unemployment and a sharp rise in the prices of food staples, as well as demanding better public services.

Iraq has been slow in improving services almost eight years after the U.S.-led invasion.

Iraqi groups on the social networking website Facebook are calling for a coordinated protest on February 25, asking Iraqis to hold what they named "Revolution of Iraqi Rage" In Baghdad's al- Tahrir (Liberation) Square, which located just across the Tigris River near the Green Zone that houses the Iraqi government's offices and the U.S. embassy.

quote:

Seattle tour company offers trip to the "New Egypt"
While most travel companies are scrambling to cancel or postpone tours to the Middle East, a Seattle tour operator is organizing a late-March trip to what she calls the "New Egypt."

By Carol Pucci
Seattle Times travel writer

While most travel companies are scrambling to cancel or postpone tours to the Middle East, a Seattle tour operator is organizing a late-March trip to what she calls the "New Egypt."

Stops will include protest sites in Cairo and Alexandria, and meetings with people who were at Tahrir Square during the days leading up to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.

Rita Zawaideh, owner of Caravan-Serai Tours, a company specializing in Mideast travel, is organizing the 11-day trip, March 26-April 5.

quote:

Sentiment slips on oil
Thursday, 24 February 2011 10:15am
Months of anxiety over rising inflation, speculation over near-term hikes in interest rates (in the developed economies) and/or actual hikes in interest rates (in emerging markets), lingering doubts over the US recovery, policy mistake and then a hard landing in China, competitive devaluation, trade war, debts, deficits and downgrades, etc. all proved futile in getting financial market sentiment down.

And the bursts of nerve attacks along the way proved few, short and shallow. Nothing seemed able shake market confidence. Until Libya's 42-year ruling strongman -- Moammar Qaddafi - or is it Gaddafi? Kadhafi? Gadhafi? Qadhafi? - entered stage left and began bombing the bejeesus out of the Libyans.

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King Qadaffi's, or whatever his correct name is - a butcher by any other name is still a… -- murderous defense of his throne has sent oil prices spiralling upwards. He will not go peacefully like his counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt.

And oil as we know it ladies and gents is the lifeblood of all economies the price of which has topped US$100 a barrel last night.

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And this is all because of worries that the political unrest would spread far and wide across the Middle East and Africa. Libya, in itself, accounts for only 2 per cent of global daily oil production and is the world's 15th largest exporter of the commodity. But there are similar uprisings now taking place in Yemen, Morocco, Iran, Algeria, Jordan and Djibouti - did I miss anyone?

And so the D-word has come back in fashion. We're all doomed! That's if you believe the sensationalist stories. The Age for instance has a story headlined, "Middle East turmoil could push petrol to $1.50" - that's in A dollars not US ones, but who cares they're at parity now - and Bloomberg prints, "Oil prices may surge to $220 a barrel if political unrest in North Africa halts exports from Libya and Algeria, Nomura Holdings Inc. said."

My, oh my! Goodbye global economic recovery! Goodbye bull run! Welcome back pain! In economic parlance we call this stagflation (baby bear PIMCO's El-Arian may be right after all).

This is another case of extrapolating to high heavens - like Dow 30,000 or gold 3,000. Surely oil demand would plunge even before it hits US$220 a barrel, bringing it back into equilibrium with supply.

And as far as supply goes, there's enough in reserves even if Qaddafi turns Libya into rubbles. Similarly, while the King of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - the world's biggest oil producer - and that of Kuwait's - another major oil producer - maybe losing sleep over the unfolding MidEast saga, they're subjects are less restive.

The powers that be in both Saudi and Kuwait have fortified their defences through offense.

Only yesterday, Saudi King Abduallah announced increased social spending worth more than US$11 billion. This includes higher disbursements for social welfare (including a 15 percent cost of living allowance for government workers), jobs creation, housing and education. Now why would anyone want to protest against these?

Kuwait is also giving its citizens free food ration for 13 months and a one-time payment of US$3,560. Again, now why would anyone want to protest against these? Reports show that Syria and Sudan are also engaging in the same political stimulus.

Certainly the situation in Libya is dire and the threat of a domino effect is real, oil prices could spike even higher but US$220 a barrel? Oh pah-lease!

Benjamin Ong

quote:

Uprising in Libya: Tremble, tyrants!
Written by Alan Woods
Wednesday, 23 February 2011


Power is rapidly slipping out of the hands of Muammar Gaddafi, as anti-government protests continue to sweep the African nation despite a brutal and bloody crackdown. As city after city falls to the anti-Gaddafi forces his only base is now Tripoli. The East is in the control of the insurgents and most of the West has fallen into the hands of the rebels, including cities very close to the capital.


23 February, Benghazi. Photo: EndTyranny01
Just over a week ago the people first rose up in revolt in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city. Since then the rebellion has spread to other cities with lightning speed despite all the brutal attempts by security forces to quell the unrest.

The number of victims is unknown, but it is certainly in the hundreds and Franco Frattini, the Italian foreign minister, said there were "credible' reports that at least 1,000 had died in the clampdown. One French doctor estimated that there were 2,000 dead in Benghazi alone. But neither bullets nor bombs have stopped the movement, which is now sweeping the whole country from east to west.

Gaddafi vowed to crush the uprising irrespective of the cost in human lives. On Tuesday night he delivered an incoherent speech on television, declaring he would die a martyr in Libya, and threatening to purge opponents "house by house" and "inch by inch". He blamed the uprising in the country on "Islamists", and warned that an "Islamic emirate" has already been set up in Bayda and Derna, where he threatened the use of extreme force.

Having lost control of Benghazi, Gaddafi ordered three naval ships to attack it. Reports indicate the naval crew was torn about what to do. This behaviour is a ready-made recipe for pushing more and more sections of the military to abandon the Leader and side with the revolutionary people. This is already happening.

quote:

But even as pro-Ghadafi gunmen - a mob of police, army and African mercenaries, roamed the capital and turned it into a virtual ghost town - the firebrand leader was hit with a string of further defections, with his own daughter reportedly attempting to escape to nearby Malta on board a passenger flight only for the plane to be refused permission to land.

Ayesha Ghadafi was one of thousands attempting to flee the bloodshed, with boats, ferries, warships and charter planes mobilised to cope with what Italy's foreign minister Franco Frattini described as an exodus of "biblical proportions."

quote:

Aisha Gaddafi's Plane Denied Landing in Malta
February 23, 2011 5:46 PM
By Emily Jacobson

Aisha Gaddafi, the daughter of Muammar Gaddafi, was a passenger on a Libyan plane that was denied permission to land in Malta on Wednesday.

The plane, carrying 14 passengers including Gaddafi, headed back to Libya after circling for 20 minutes trying to reverse the decision. Maltese soldiers were seen entering the airport when the aircraft approached.

Two Libyan Air Force Mirage F-1 jet fighters flew to Malta on Monday. The pilots sought political asylum, claiming they escaped after having been ordered to bomb protesters in Benghazi. The aircraft had air-to-ground rockets onboard.

International organizations report that 640 people have been killed and up to 4,000 wounded in clashes with government forces in Libya since protests against Gaddafi's regime began in mid-February.

quote:

Malta denied a report that Gaddafi's daughter, Aisha, was on board a Libyan plane refused permission to land on the island on Wednesday. But Menas, a respected London Middle East consultancy, said the leader's wife, daughter, daughters-in-law and grandchildren had left Libya for an unknown destination.

quote:

@RuwaydaMustafah
Ruwayda Mustafah
Aisha #Gaddafi denies that she tried to leave #Libya.

@RuwaydaMustafah
Ruwayda Mustafah
Aisha #Gaddafi says “All Libyans who know me, know that I’m a good-willed ambassador”. Wasn’t she on Saddam’s defence team? Good? hah #Libya

@RuwaydaMustafah
Ruwayda Mustafah
@TamerAbdulAziz @litfreak It was aired on Al Jazeera, she confirmed that she was in Libya and denied leaving to Malta.

@TamerAbdulAziz @litfreak She didn't have an umbrella.... lol

@RuwaydaMustafah
Ruwayda Mustafah
@sahoura @weddady His daughter doesn't have much credibility, she used to work for Saddam's defence team, nuff said.

GnatKingCoal posted:

^^^ You know the kids in school are gonna call her FACECOCK or FACEBOOT. ^^^


Trademarked by Dow Chemical.

The best home-substitute is Styrofoam[TM] (ANOTHER GREAT Dow Chemical Product!) dissolved in gasoline.

"Nice slick spreading agent, same great incendiary effect!"

Apology posted:

if Aisha crashed and burned in the desert, she'd probably have been better off, because her Dad is going to be so pissed...

Apology posted:

And reports that Aisha is furiously backpedalling:


Honestly, if Aisha crashed and burned in the desert, she'd probably have been better off, because her Dad is going to be so pissed...

Okay, now it's time for me to take a break and feed my fat 1st world face while the less fortunate folks in the Middle East and Africa starve again. Tonight I'm having a giant heap of brussels sprouts as the only course, so I'm sure that most of them would prefer to continue to starve rather than join me.

Apology posted:

Oil

GnatKingCoal posted:

Apology posted:

Don't count Iraq out of the protest business as of yet:


http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90854/7298026.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Count on someone in the US who worships the almighty dollar to immediately plan on a way to earn a fast buck on the blood of the Egyptian Martyrs:


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2014313402_webegypttour24.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Unfortunately, travelling to Egypt in spite of the recent unrest is probably the best thing an American could do to help restore the Egyptian economy. However, I think March 26 is an overly ambitious date and her itinerary and planned activities are a bit much. By all means, vacation in Egypt, but find your own protesters and heroes to talk to, and go to Tahrir and Alexandria on your own. gently caress Rita Zawaideh.

DevNull posted:

Travel

quote:

All of this is so sudden...why all of these protests and uprisings now and not 10, 20, 50 years ago? What has changed over there?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/tripoli-a-city-in-the-shadow-of-death-2223977.html posted:

Tripoli: a city in the shadow of death

Up to 15,000 men, women and children besieged Tripoli's international airport last night, shouting and screaming for seats on the few airliners still prepared to fly to Muammar Gaddafi's rump state, paying Libyan police bribe after bribe to reach the ticket desks in a rain-soaked mob of hungry, desperate families. Many were trampled as Libyan security men savagely beat those who pushed their way to the front.

Among them were Gaddafi's fellow Arabs, thousands of them Egyptians, some of whom had been living at the airport for two days without food or sanitation. The place stank of faeces and urine and fear. Yet a 45-minute visit into the city for a new airline ticket to another destination is the only chance to see Gaddafi's capital if you are a "dog" of the international press.

There was little sign of opposition to the Great Leader. Squads of young men with Kalashnikov rifles stood on the side roads next to barricades of upturned chairs and wooden doors. But these were pro-Gaddafi vigilantes – a faint echo of the armed Egyptian "neighbourhood guard" I saw in Cairo a month ago – and had pinned photographs of their leader's infamous Green Book to their checkpoint signs.

There is little food in Tripoli, and over the city there fell a blanket of drab, sullen rain. It guttered onto an empty Green Square and down the Italianate streets of the old capital of Tripolitania. But there were no tanks, no armoured personnel carriers, no soldiers, not a fighter plane in the air; just a few police and elderly men and women walking the pavements – a numbed populous. Sadly for the West and for the people of the free city of Benghazi, Libya's capital appeared as quiet as any dictator would wish.

But this is an illusion. Petrol and food prices have trebled; entire towns outside Tripoli have been torn apart by fighting between pro- and anti-Gaddafi forces. In the suburbs of the city, especially in the Noufreen district, militias fought for 24 hours on Sunday with machine guns and pistols, a battle the Gadaffi forces won. In the end, the exodus of expatriates will do far more than street warfare to bring down the regime.

I was told that at least 30,000 Turks, who make up the bulk of the Libyan construction and engineering industry, have now fled the capital, along with tens of thousands of other foreign workers. On my own aircraft out of Tripoli, an evacuation flight to Europe, there were Polish, German, Japanese and Italian businessmen, all of whom told me they had closed down major companies in the past week. Worse still for Gaddafi, the oil, chemical and uranium fields of Libya lie to the south of "liberated" Benghazi. Gaddafi's hungry capital controls only water resources, so a temporary division of Libya, which may have entered Gaddafi's mind, would not be sustainable. Libyans and expatriates I spoke to yesterday said they thought he was clinically insane, but they expressed more anger at his son, Saif al-Islam. "We thought Saif was the new light, the 'liberal'", a Libyan businessman sad to me. "Now we realise he is crazier and more cruel than his father."

The panic that has now taken hold in what is left of Gaddafi's Libya was all too evident at the airport. In the crush of people fighting for tickets, one man, witnessed by an evacuated Tokyo car-dealer, was beaten so viciously on the head that "his face fell apart".

Talking to Libyans in Tripoli and expatriates at the airport, it is clear that neither tanks nor armour were used in the streets of Tripoli. Air attacks targeted Benghazi and other towns, but not the capital. Yet all spoke of a wave of looting and arson by Libyans who believed that with the fall of Benghazi, Gaddafi was finished and the country open to anarchy.

The centre of the city was largely closed up. All foreign offices have been shut including overseas airlines, and every bakery I saw was shuttered. Rumours abound that members of Gaddafi's family are trying to flee abroad. Although William Hague's ramblings about Gaddafi's flight to Venezuela have been disproved, I spoke to a number of Libyans who believed that Burkina Faso might be his only viable retreat. Two nights ago, a Libyan private jet approached Beirut airport with a request to land but was refused permission when the crew declined to identify their eight passengers. And last night, a Libyan Arab Airlines flight reported by Al Jazeera to be carrying Gaddafi's daughter, Aisha, was refused permission to land in Malta.

Gaddafi is blamed by Shia Muslims in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran for the murder of Imam Moussa Sadr, a supposedly charismatic divine who unwisely accepted an invitation to visit Gaddafi in 1978 and, after an apparent argument about money, was never seen again. Nor was a Lebanese journalist accompanying him on the trip.

While dark humour has never been a strong quality in Libyans, there was one moment at Tripoli airport yesterday which proved it does exist. An incoming passenger from a Libyan Arab Airlines flight at the front of an immigration queue bellowed out: "And long life to our great leader Muammar Gaddafi." Then he burst into laughter – and the immigration officers did the same.

More from Robert Fisk

Yaos posted:

Here's a video from the 20th in Iran. It looks like a tiny protest, but they just keep coming. No blood or gore.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0c5_1298232736

I was thinking nothing was happening in Iran, but now I remember that when everybody was focusing on Egypt nothing was coming out of Libya until Egypt finished the revolt.

Xandu posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65-VzR3GZbo

I couldn't pick up all of it, but they're discussing a mercenary tank and showing off bottles of (supposedly) alcohol taken from the tank and showing off a uniform.

http://imgur.com/9b3SH

Robert Fisk posted:

Ham posted:

The stuff in Libya began on the 16th, Mubarak stepped down on the 11th.

quote:

Those uniform shoulder patches show the rank of a Corporal and a unit insignia that must belong to a tank or mechanized infantry brigade because there's a tank on it (durr).

Not A Bear posted:

Robert Fisk is amazing, how on earth is he still going after all these years? Such a big fan of all his writings, as bleak and depressing as they are. Hopefully he'll write another book about these revoloutions asap

Xandu posted:

Agreed, did you see his dispatch from Cairo about the street children? Absolutely amazing.

BIG HORNY COW posted:

those things in the middle are, I believe, canisters from smoke launcher

Not A Bear posted:

I didnt actually - definately going to go see if I can hunt this down. Thanks!

Yaos posted:

Ah, so probably not even close to done. If Iran manages to fall, and from what I've read Iran is making all the same mistakes the others have made, I have to wonder what will happen with any potential allies that are left over.

Yaos posted:

Here's a video from the 20th in Iran. It looks like a tiny protest, but they just keep coming. No blood or gore.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0c5_1298232736

Yaos posted:

Here's a video from the 20th in Iran. It looks like a tiny protest, but they just keep coming. No blood or gore.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0c5_1298232736

I was thinking nothing was happening in Iran, but now I remember that when everybody was focusing on Egypt nothing was coming out of Libya until Egypt finished the revolt.

Edit: Iraq appears to be revolting, but little information is out about it. In the only two video I could find on Liveleak, they are not making mention of the US and only the current government even though the US still occupies the country. We'll find out more on the day of Iraqi rage I suppose. It seems odd they are only protesting the government, but not the occupying force that installed it.

redscare posted:

I doubt anyone expected Libya to blow up - let alone to do so as fast as it did - however. I felt that if Libya did uprise, Gaddafi would do exactly what he did - go with the kill-everyone aproach - but apparently I over-estimated the loyalty of his forces and under-estimated the willingness of Libyans to martyr themselves for their cause.

Zappatista posted:

I wonder if Venezuela could see more political unrest. It's had strikes, clashes between pro/anti-Chavez supporters and a lot of turmoil this past decade. There has been unrest in Bolivia over high fuel/food prices, and from what I know the Chavez govt is subsidizing about 90 percent of fuel costs.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/02/23/yemen.protests/ posted:

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is calling for an end to the protests in that country and said he supports the creation of a national unity government to oversee upcoming parliamentary elections, the state-run news service Saba reported Wednesday.

According to the news service, Saleh made the statement during a meeting with an official with the non-profit National Democratic Institute. Saba reported that Saleh told the official, Leslie Campbell, the NDI's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, that demonstrations must stop to "prepare for a suitable atmosphere" for the elections.

Saleh also ordered security forces to prevent clashes between demonstrators both for and against
the government, and urged both sides to prevent "saboteurs" from entering their ranks, Saba reported.
Saleh also repeated his pledge not to run for re-election, Saba reported.

Anti-government demonstrators say that's not good enough. Undeterred by an attack on their sit-in a day earlier, anti-government protesters gathered at Sanaa University again on Wednesday to demand that Saleh step down.

"We are worried that it could happen again. But we have nothing to lose and it's for the sake of the country," said Yasser Hasani, a student.

At least two people were killed when government loyalists attacked and opened fire on sit-in participants Tuesday night, an opposition lawmaker said.
...