Hosni Mubarak stepped down as Egypt's president on Friday, handing over to the army and ending three decades of autocratic rule, bowing to escalating pressure from the military and protesters demanding that he go.
Vice President Omar Suleiman said a military council would run the affairs of the Arab world's most populous nation. A free and fair presidential election has been promised for September.
A speaker made the announcement in Cairo's Tahrir Square where hundreds of thousands broke down in tears, celebrated and hugged each other chanting: "The people have brought down the regime." Others shouted: "Allahu Akbar (God is great).
The 82-year-old Mubarak's downfall after 18 days of unprecedented mass protests was a momentous victory for people power and was sure to rock autocrats throughout the Arab world and beyond.
Egypt's powerful military gave guarantees earlier on Friday that promised democratic reforms would be carried out but angry protesters intensified an uprising against Mubarak, marching on the presidential palace and the state television tower.
It was an effort by the army to defuse the revolt but, in disregarding protesters' key demand for Mubarak's ouster now, it failed to calm the turmoil that has disrupted the economy and rattled the entire Middle East.
The military's intervention was not enough.
The tumult over Mubarak's refusal to resign had tested the loyalties of the armed forces, which had to choose whether to protect their supreme commander or ditch him....
The army statement noted that Mubarak had handed powers to govern the country of 80 million people to his deputy the previous day -- perhaps signaling that this should satisfy demonstrators, reformists and opposition figures.
"This is not our demand," one protester said, after relaying the contents of the army statement to the crowd in Cairo's central Tahrir Square. "We have one demand, that Mubarak step down." He has said he will stay until September elections.
The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist opposition group, urged protesters to keep up mass nationwide street protests, describing Mubarak's concessions as a trick to stay in power.
Now what?
The Obama-backed Muslim Brotherhood is not even remotely a democratic and secular organisation, despite what James Clapper, US head of intelligence, thinks. I fear this is Iran all over again.
From former US ambassador John Bolton:
Precisely. Clapper must be dreadfully out of his depth if he thinks that an organisation with the word "Muslim" in it and whose mandate is jihad is "secular" and is somehow fit to fill the void Mubarak now leaves.
Further:
Again, correct.
The leader of the free world cannot back- either through ignorance or personal belief- such an organisation. His initial support and his failure to speak out against what is obviously a dangerous concern in the Middle East should strike anyone as a blow, not a boon, to democratic interests.
Now, for Charles Krauthammer to weigh in:
The Brotherhood may today be so relatively strong in Egypt, for example, that a seat at the table is inevitable. But under no circumstances should a presidential spokesman say, as did Robert Gibbs, that the new order “has to include a whole host of important non-secular actors.” Why gratuitously legitimize Islamists? Instead, Americans should be urgently supporting secular democratic parties in Egypt and elsewhere with training, resources and diplomacy.
Yes- why legitimise Islamists?
Proof that Liberals do not belong in the Canadian political scene ever:
Some news out of Ottawa: On Wednesday, our capital saw the worst anthem-related disaster since at least err … well, OK, since Sunday. But this is still pretty bad. A group of Liberal MPs, having apparently all been on a field trip or something last year when we had this same stupid argument, are out to make our anthem better. And they don’t mean punching it up with a good bassline and moving it up tempo better. They mean making it “gender neutral, secular, [and] bilingual.”
The revamped anthem (find the lyrics below) sounds more or less like the one everyone is familiar with, and seems to be the brainchild of MP Carolyn Bennett. She was somehow able to corral some other MPs into standing up and singing the new anthem. They seem to have invested so much time and energy in eliminating any possible source of offence that they skimped on the singing practice. Some of them look about ready to faint from embarrassment. And so they ought to, not because the singing is bad (not only because it’s bad), but because the idea is ridiculous, has already been soundly rejected and Bennett’s explanation for why this is even necessary is far, far from convincing.
Only the Liberals (possibly the NDP) would try to ruin a perfectly good anthem so as "not to offend anyone". Well, I'm offended.
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| Liberals- stand on guard for THIS! |
Further proof of Liberal idiocy:
Cultural mosaics create ghettos; melting pots create diverse communities.
Just look at Canada to see what the cultural mosaic envisioned as Utopian by Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau and you will see a disaster....
Why should anyone be allowed into Canada who has no facility in either of our official languages, or any commitment to learn and be tested, and who believe it is acceptable to disrupt this country with the radical ideologies and distasteful mindset of the countries they fled?
The left will argue various ethnic festivals across Canada are somehow proof of multi-racial peace and harmony.
But when those festivals end, so does that Kumbaya moment.
The social interaction halts, and the ghetto returns to its cocoon.
That's the reality of multiculturalism. It's segregation not assimilation.
And it's why our immigration rules must change.
Precisely. Trudeau's multiculturalism created an illusion of security and peaceful co-existence. There was never any unity, nor a genuine desire to befriend newcomers. It has marginalised those who should be brought into the fold and divided Canadian society along fractured cultural, social and linguistic lines.
What is wrong with being Canadian?
What a failure Trudeau-style multiculturalism is.
Don't just take my word for it:
French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared Thursday that multiculturalism had failed, joining a growing number of world leaders or former leaders who have condemned it.
“My answer is clearly yes, it is a failure,” he said in a television interview when asked about the policy which advocates that host societies welcome and foster distinct cultural and religious immigrant groups.
“Of course we must all respect differences, but we do not want ... a society where communities coexist side by side. If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France...”
The fuzzy feelings are over.
Now, just because, La Marseillaise (which I'm sure offends the Liberals for being exclusively Frenchy).
Children are better off with their parents. Yes, we know:
A study published in October 2010 by the Montreal-based think-tank CIRANO has found that in the province with the most extensive child-care subsidies in the country — Quebec — the emphasis on daycare has actually led to worse learning outcomes:
“More pre-school children are in non-parental child care at a younger age and the intensity of child care has increased over the years … The evidence presented shows that the policy has not enhanced school readiness or child early literacy skills in general, with negative significant effects on the [picture and vocabulary test] scores of children aged five and possibly negative for children of age four.’’
The study also found that daycare is not the optimal environment for very young children. It appears that children under the age of one, in particular, may benefit from being at home with a parent more than by “interacting” with educators or peers.
At the same time, as a society, we have to acknowledge that there are reasons why 69% of mothers with children under two are in the labour force. One parent’s income often is not enough to support a family. Mothers fear becoming unemployable if they are out of the labour force for too long, or don’t want to lose their skills. Others enjoy their career and want to combine work with kids. Some are single parents, who have no choice but to work.
But for all these groups, there are other ways to address their concerns rather than by expanding the daycare industry. Research by the Vanier Institute on the Family, corroborated by work done at the Institute for Marriage and Family, reveals that institutional daycare ranks last on the list of parents’ preferred child- care options. Care by a parent or relative ranks first. So why not empower parents to make that choice?
One cannot call politicians clowns and then expect them to do a better job raising their constituents' children than the parents themselves.
Sometimes they come out at night and now they will come out in the day.
Way to play favourites, House of Commons.
Because he's Mark Steyn and he's unbelievably right:
A government back alley, licensed and supposedly regulated, is worse than the old kind, because it implies the approval of the state, and of society. That's what Gosnell thought he had, when he murdered those babies and mutilated those teenage girls. That's what Planned Parenthood think they have, when they facilitate the sexual exploitation of Third World children. And, given the silence of the PC media, maybe they're right. Aside from the intrinsic evil of not only Gosnell but a state that knowingly colludes with him, these "little" abortion stories reveal an almost totalitarian mindset in the "pro-choice" movement's determination to brook no intrusion of reality upon the official myths. You may be one of those wealthy suburban "feminists" or "new men" indifferent to the fate of eight-pound "blobs of tissue" or 14-year old "women", but the gulf between propaganda and truth, between the fatuous feelgood bumper stickers and the rusty crochet hooks, is profound - and, in a world where statists and social engineers serve as ruthless enforcers for the prevailing ideology, its deep moral corruption will eventually swallow you, too. America should be at the very minimum deeply disquieted by these revelations. That it is not - that it is dismissed as a "little thing" - is even more disquieting.
Read the whole thing.
And now, sharks eating.
Because it's cool.
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