Footage From Egypt

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Lawrence Person

A few relevant embeddable videos I’ve found:

Not terribly graphic, but it does show someone getting shot (and probably killed):

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Egypt’s Tipping Point?

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Lawrence Person

Latest update from The live BBC feed:

1724: BBC Arabic correspondent Khaled Ezzelarab in Cairo reports: “Despite the curfew, demonstrators are surrounding the building of Egyptian radio and TV and trying to break into it. The building is guarded by armed forces, and the demonstrators are cheering for the army, while the latter is not getting into confrontations with the people.””

The vast majority of modern revolutions are not won by beating the government’s armies in the field, they’re won when the army no longer has the heart to fire on the people. If Mubarak still has the army on his side, he’ll survive the unrest. However, if he doesn’t, as the report above indicates, then it’s all over. The instant a dictator loses the army, he loses power. That’s why the Communist Chinese are still in power and Nicolae Ceausescu died of acute lead poisoning.

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Keeping Up With Protests In Egypt

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Lawrence Person

Protests spread across Egypt, the Internet is cut off, the military is mobilizing, and Nobel Peace prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei under house arrest.

Some sources for live updates:

  • NRO’s updates.
  • Here’s a constantly updated BBC news page.
  • The Beeb’s updated compilation of eyewitness accounts.
  • Live blogging from the Christian Science Monitor.

    • Some people have been linking to Al Jazeera for live footage, but that requires installing RealPlayer, and there are some things I just won’t do…

    Is this revolution a good or bad thing for Egypt? Depends on who comes out on top. Hosni Mubarak probably isn’t on the list of the ten most brutal and corrupt world leaders, but he probably does make the top twenty. Replacing him with a real Democratic government would be great. Replacing him with the Muslim Brotherhood would be like replace the Shah with Ayatollah Khomeini, only possibly a lot worse.

    Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

    There Is No Internet, Only Zuul

    Posted on January 27, 2011 by Lawrence Person

    In Egypt, at least.

    That’s probably a really, really bad sign…

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    This Week in Jihad for January 27, 2011

    Posted on January 27, 2011 by Lawrence Person

    The big Jihad news this week, of course, was the Moscow bombing. But that was hardly the only thing of note:

  • The Moscow bombers were evidently trained in Pakistan. “An al-Qaeda linked website said that the group Islamic Caucasus Emirate, led by the rebe Doku Umarov, was poised to claim it had staged the attack. It said that Russia’s harsh military measures against independence activists in the Caucasus had provoked the attack. It said: ‘You disbelievers are the firewood of Hell. You will enter it.'” (I’m guessing “rebe” is short for “rebel,” though I have not heretofore heard it used.)
  • Short, interesting analysis of successes and failures of Russia’s own war on terrorism.

    Dokka Umerov has repeatedly made it very clear that he wants nothing to do with al Qaeda, or bin Laden.

    The latter point reveals the following about the global War on Terror. First, the US and British efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq have succeeded in destroying al Qaeda’s reputation amongst Islamist organizations. If an Islamist cause as major as the Caucasus Emirate wants to stay clean of al Qaeda, it means that al Qaeda equals trouble. Al Qaeda involvement means interference from the world’s great powers.

    Second, Russia’s situation reveals that the US and British efforts have failed to do significant damage to the ideology of Islamism. If a nationalist movement turns itself into a movement with Islamist objectives in order to make itself stronger, then it proves that the ideals to which al Qaeda subscribes have not been significantly damaged.

  • UK man arrested “on suspicion of using racially aggravated threatening words or behaviour,” i.e., burning a Koran.
  • Pro-Jihadist forces organizing in North Africa. Wait, did I say “North Africa”? I meant “Norway.”
  • JihadWatch (from whom I regularly steal a very significant fraction of the stories listed in these weekly Jihad roundups) interview Robert Reilly, author of The Closing of the Muslim Mind.
  • Hezbollah moves closer to control of the Lebanese government.
  • Lots more on that subject from the invaluable Michael Totten (just keep scrolling).
  • UK Jihadists evidently don’t like being filmed.
  • Australian artist receives death threats from left-wingers and islamists for anti-burqua mural. Once again we see the alliance of the left and radical Islam.
  • Danish Judge to Kurt Westergaard: Don’t you dare call the man who tried to kill you with an axe a terrorist.
  • U.S. border authorities arrest Jihadi Muslim cleric who was deported from Canada to Tunisia three years ago when he tried to sneak into California inside the trunk of a BMW.
  • Jihadists kill four in attack on army base in Thailand.
  • Also in Thailand, nine Buddhist wild pig hunters were killed by a roadside bomb. In other news, there are Buddhist pig hunters.
  • Jihadists also killed six in Nigeria. With machetes.
  • Wyoming joins Oklahoma in proposing law outlawing Sharia.
  • A similar law has been proposed in South Carolina.
  • New Imam of Ground Zero Mosque says that all apostates from Islam should be jailed. This is a great improvement from the standard clerical opinion that they should be killed…
  • He also says that most gays were abused as children. Strangely enough, some people have a problem with this.
  • All you Islamophobes who say Mohammed was a pedophile are way off base. Sure, Mohammed married a 6 year old, but all Islamic experts agree that he refrained from having sex with her until she reached the ripe old age of 9.
  • Islamic man in Buffalo texts his wife that he can’t live without her. Twenty minutes later he beheaded her.
  • Batman to get Muslim sidekick. Presumably one that doesn’t murder Muslim girls for daring to date non-Muslim men…
  • Muslim Minneapolis police officer arrested for assaulting his wife.
  • Bin Laden threatens France. Insert your own joke here.
    • Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

    Texas 2012 Senate Race Updates for January 26, 2011

    Posted on January 26, 2011 by Lawrence Person

    A few Texas 2012 Senate Race updates:

  • Evan Van Ness of Rick Perry vs. The World says that people shouldn’t hand the race to David Dewhurst just yet.
  • The Texas Tribune will be interviewing Michael Williams from 7:30–9 AM on Thursday, January 27 at The Austin Club at 110 E. Ninth Street. I won’t be able to make it, but interested readers should go to that page to RSVP. The page also says that people should RSVP by “Thursday, Jan 27, 2011 – 1 p.m.,” which suggests that certain of their readers are in possession of a 1.21 gigawatt 1981 DeLorean…
  • Elizabeth Ames Jones “kicked off” her campaign in Dallas yesterday, despite having announced she was running (and raising money) back in 2009, as noted yesterday. For some reason she’s scrubbed a previous fundraising press release off her website, but since Google still has the cache, here it is for posterity:

    Press Releases
    Elizabeth Ames Jones Reports $563,000 Raised Since Announcing For The U.S Senate

    AUSTIN, TX – Elizabeth Ames Jones’ U.S. Senate campaign today announced fundraising numbers for the 2nd Quarter of 2009. The report filed with the FEC shows that $356,000 was raised between April 1st and June 30th. The campaign has raised more than $563,000 since Commissioner Jones filed to run for the U.S. Senate and the campaign has $443,000 on hand at the close of the quarter.

    “We are very pleased with the 2nd Quarter filing. We not only met, but exceeded our goals and have demonstrated growing support from around Texas. This is further proof that Texans know Elizabeth Ames Jones has the steady leadership needed to be their next U.S. Senator. Her conservative message is clearly resonating with people and this is just the beginning,” stated Alicia Collins, Campaign Manager.

    Last month the Jones campaign announced that Governor and Mrs. William P. Clements will serve as the Honorary Chairmen for Commissioner Jones’ U.S. Senate campaign and Secretary and Mrs. Robert Mosbacher will serve as Honorary Chairman of the Campaign Finance Committee.

    Texas Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones, 52, was elected to the Texas Legislature in a landslide upset victory in 2000. In 2005, she was appointed by Governor Rick Perry to a vacancy on the Texas Railroad Commission and was overwhelmingly elected to serve a six-year term in 2006. Her energy commentaries have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and other major newspapers. Jones is a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.

    ###
    Attachment
    Posted on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 by Project BIG fish

  • The Southern Political Report offers up a roundup of the race with mostly familiar names, but brings up one on the Democratic side I hadn’t heard before: State Rep. Rafael Anchia of Dallas. He seems to have a pretty typical Hispanic Democrat resume, with significant work on illegal alien issues. Oh, he also wants to tax your plastic bags. Can he be nominated? Well, it’s not like the rest of the Democrats are setting the field on fire, and, unlike John Sharp, he seems to be able to keep a website up and running…
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    Texas 2012 Senate Campaign Fundraising Reports

    Posted on January 25, 2011 by Lawrence Person

    Just as a modern army runs on gasoline, a modern political campaign runs on money. Several of the Senate candidates have been quite active in that regard, according to FEC documents for the 2009-2010 period:

  • Michael Williams has received a total of $743,458 in donations from 519 individuals. As noted previously, he also received significant support from the Senate Conservatives Fund, and was (if I’m scanning this correctly) the only non-2010 candidate to receive funding from them last year.
  • Roger Williams has received a whopping $1,643,928 in donations from 1335 individuals. Moreover, since Williams was the earliest candidate to announce, he raised $131,000 in the 2007-2008 election cycle, though $100,000 of that was a loan to himself, the rest from 18 individuals.
  • Elizabeth Ames Jones has raised $989,765 from 1051 individuals.
  • I don’t think State Senator Florence Shapiro has a high enough profile to win the Republican nomination, but that didn’t keep her from raising $525,285 for a Senate run. However, there seem to be almost as many refunds as donations listed in her filing, many for people who have multiple entries for the same amount on the same day. I can’t tell whether she refunded people because she decided not to run, or if it was just to offset a data glitch. (I sent off a question, but the address on her campaign website bounces.)
  • On the Democratic side, holy moly! John Sharp may have been invisible on the campaign trail, but he’s already got $3,994,490 in his war chest, having raised money from 722 individuals. However, over $3 million of that comes from a “Candidate Loan.” So Sharp hasn’t been lazy the last year, he’s been in “stealth mode.” But that still doesn’t explain why johnsharp.com redirects to Network Solutions…
  • Though he says he’s not running, Bill White has raised an even larger $6,015,014 for his Senate campaign from 4521 individuals. (As these are federal disclosure forms, my understanding is that none of White’s funding for his Governor’s race would be included here.) But it’s possible the bulk was raised before he switched to run for Governor.

    • I can’t find any Senate fundraising reports on any of the other likely serious candidates. (Democrat Chet Edwards shows up, but only for his unsuccessful attempt to hold onto his House seat.)

    Keep in mind that these are very early figures, only go through 9/30/10 for most candidates, and several potential candidates haven’t started raising funds yet. I have little doubt that, should David Dewhurst jump into the race as expected, he would easily be able to amass somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million by year’s end.

    We’re not even at the starting line yet, but contestants are already starting to mosey out to the track…

    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

    How Facebook Responded to Tunisian Hacks

    Posted on January 24, 2011 by Lawrence Person

    I still don’t feel like I have a good handle on the Tunisian Revolution yet. (Indeed, my fingers keep wanting to type “Tunesian,” which suggests a government based on iTunes…) Jihadi? Non-Jihadi? Both? (Probably the the last.) But the fact that the government-owned ISPs were running a massive “man in the middle” attack by capturing every password for Facebook (and what the Facebook team did about it, certainly suggests that the (semi-deposed) government were no angels. In fact, it brings back memories of East Germany, where Stasi monitoring stations were literally built right on top of telephone exchanges…

    (And speaking of the Stasi, if you haven’t done so already, you should see The Lives of Others, one of the greatest films of the last decade…)

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    Moscow Bombing News: Suicide Bomber “Man of Arab Appearance,” North Caucasus Angle?

    Posted on January 24, 2011 by Lawrence Person

    A lot more details here, including more aftermath footage, and the deeply unsurprising news that the bomber was a “man of Arab appearance.”

    Also this:

    Three men who have been living in the Russian capital for a certain period of time reportedly took part in organizing the blast, a source told Interfax news agency. He also noted that these three were believed to be Russian North Caucasus militants.

    The North Caucasus area is where Chechnya is located, where Russia is still occupying Georgian territory, where a dizzying array of post-Soviet Russian Republics (Adygea, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Dagestan) of differing ethnicities reside, and where jihadists have declared a Caucasus Emirate, claiming most of the land between the Caspian and the Black Sea.

    However, having news of North Caucasus involvement available so soon after the bombing seems quite strange. It could very well be Jihadest involvement, or it could be Vladamir Putin manufacturing a pretext for cracking down on the regions various separatist movements.

    (Hat tip: PowerLine.)

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    Footage from Moscow Bombing Aftermath

    Posted on January 24, 2011 by Lawrence Person

    Not particularly graphic, but lots of dead bodies:

    (Hat tip: NRO’s The Corner.)

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