Egyptian police fire tear gas at demonstrators, who initially gathered in support of Tunis then turned against Mubarak.

State of the Union speech: 

from 9 to 10:15 PM Eastern Standard Time

 

Tuesday 1015P (720P Pacific Time): Mary Kissel WSJ editorial, and Aaron Task, Yahoo Finance, in re: SOTU

Tuesday 1035P (735P Pacific Time): Dan Henninger, WSJ, in re: SOTU

Tuesday 1050P (750P Pacific Time): Thaddeus McCotter (MI-11) and Devin Nunes (CA-21), in re: SOTU

 Chinese-occupied Mongolia: solar panel on yurt ("grr"in Mongolian)

Tuesday 1105P (805P Pacific Time): Ben Zimmer, NYT, in re: language within SOTU.  "Post-partisan, conciliatory; above the fray; togetherness." "Winning the future" - a book published by Newt Gingrich in the 1990s; Archibald MacLeish: "We who win this war will win the future."

Tuesday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):  Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re: how China heard SOTU. White House staffer's disingenuous claim that it wasn't an insult for the buffoon Lang Lang to have played "My Homeland," which fetes the death of Americans in Korea.  POTUS referred to solar panels without mentioning that China has sewn up the manufacture by using predatory trade practices. POTUS condemned tyrants, specifically in Tunisia, and neglected to speak of China, a country run by a thug elite, the Central Committee, that steals everything that can be siphoned off from the economy, greatly to the detriment of the Chinese people; or of Egypt, whose Army's chief of staff is even today in Washington reassuring POTUS that he'll keep the troops loyal to the very old and ill Hosni Mubarak.  Human rights?  Unhh . . .  POTUS spoke of the South Korea free trade deal, but not a syllable on trade questions in China. Nothing on Tibet, Uyghurs, Chinese-occupied Mongolia, or the very current disaster in Lebanon.

Tuesday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re:  the 374th-richest man in the world is Lebanon's new prime minister, picked by Hezbollah in part to acquire telephone technology (how he made his money, along with some questionable activities) but primarily in order to boot out Saad Haririr from the prime ministership and refuse to accept the Hariri investigation's report, which shows that Hezbollah and Syria murdered Rafiq Hariri on 14 February 2005.  In Egypt: demos in multiple cities, hundreds of thousands; began as support for event in Tunis; swiftly became anti-Mubarak - and not the Egyptian Brotherhood, but many young people who were inspired by Tunis. Watch Jordan, Algeria, others.  Ramallah: the Palestinian Authority is now shaky because of the al Jazeera WikiLeaks: waved pix of Abbas, burnt pix of hte emir of Qatar, who authorized publication of the leaks.  Thought it was he deed of Mahmoud Dahlan, who was purged from the PA some weeks ago, but turns out could be others.  Also embarrassing to Netanyahu. Widespread damage, which is being fed on by Hamas.   More executions in Iran, where two more dissidents were hanged today. No reference to the fact that Russia collaborates with Iran in matters, nary a word like "nuke."  In the City of David, below the Temple Mont, up to a parking lt and underneath the wall of the Old City of Jerusalem, a water tunnel, that goes all the way to the Western Wall: exposed today by archaeologists, 2,000 years later. The state of the union is strong; Beirut, Cairo, and Tunis are burning.

Tuesday 1150P (850P Pacific Time):  Bob Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: SOTU Sputnik moment.  NASA tries ot become commercial (cash prizes to anyone who takes pix of nanosail-D.  Kennedy Center in Florida (once Cape Canaveral) put out SPACE FOR RENT signs today. 

 

Tuesday/Wed 1205A (905 Pacific Time):   Mark Schroeder, Stratfor, in re: Côte d'Ivoire. ECOWAS trying to be intermediary between the truculent Gbagbo and the electoral winner, Uattara.  The Obama administration has given the impression of supporting Uattara.  The AU president (also Malawian president) met with both camps: "We need to have an African resolution." Uattara called for a voluntary cessation of export of cocoa beans.

Tuesday/Wed  1220A (920 Pacific Time):  John Loftus, America's Nazi Secrets, in re: the Palestine Papers (al Jazeera's School of WikiLeaks)

Tuesday/Wed  1235A (935P Pacific Time): Aaron Klein, The Manchurian President and WABC radio,  in re:  Cairo; secret meeting between Abbas and the UN. US sent messages saying it wouldn't oppose other countries unilaterally recognizing Palestine as a sovereign nation.

Tuesday/Wed  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt: Ann Marlowe, FDD, in re: Instead of promoting stability, Karzai has been creating chaos so he can solidify his rule (he becomes the problem in order to become the solution).  He backed down on his earlier decision not to seat Parliament because of European pressure. The US was not much active; it was the UN and the Europeans. Possible that Mr. Karzai will bribe and threaten MPs once the Parliament is seated. He will likely use the threat of judicial oversight to intimidate MPs who oppose him: "I'll tell the judge to look at your election file" might work.

Chinese industry breaking WTO regulations. Probably not one of the manufacturers of solar panels that are being illegally subsidized by Chinese government funds, which has successfully put US factories out of business.

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