We Interrupt Silly Talk About SOTU Seating and Dueling Responses for Breaking World-Historical Developments

Puts the U.S. in an awkward position what with the billions of dollars we’ve poured into propping up Mubarak for the last 30 years.

When I saw this story this morning, on my first coffee, I was wondering what the over/under would be on an incident at the pyramids in the course of the SOTU.
@SanFranLefty: Largest recipient of US foreign aid.

@SanFranLefty: @Nabisco: But if Egypt falls, where will we send our extraordinarily renditioned?

@nojo: Guantanamo is still open “in spirit”.

I always wondered what exactly the Bushies *thought* would happen in their “Western-style democracy is breaking out like zits on a teenage boy” scenario came to pass, given that many of our regional allies are currently quasi-autocratic and that religion is a major unifying force in the “street” of a lot of those countries. It’s sort of a consequence of how democracy works – not everybody’s version is going to turn out the same way…

Looks like the subsidized bread isn’t doing it anymore …

@al2o3cr: I read a paper yesterday that said the problem with this “flowering of democracy” theory in the Mahgreb is the gap that exists between the amount of openness the rulers will ever allow and the expectations of the typical citizen. The changes required to close that are so many that it can only happen through a Romanian type revolt.

In other words, expect more unrest, not less. I wasn’t surprised to wake up to this morning to the reports of protests in Egypt.

@Nabisco: They are really taking that Jay Cutler shit seriously.

Man, student demonstrations were strong in Cairo when I was there in 2001. I’m only shocked that it took this long.

I’m also wigged off my gourd on goof balls. Anything and everything I say should be interpreted with that information in mind. KTHXBAI

Oh, and had I NOT wasted YEARS and oh, ≈$100K on book learnin’, I could be sonographing in Oz. As it stands, I have no marketable skillz down under.

The pyramids are better guarded than Tahrir Square.

@JNOV: “I have no marketable skillz down under.”

Bow chicka bow bow. And it ain’t even Friday night Stinque After Darque!

Speaking of down under, I’m hoping to open a taco truck in Wellington or Melbourne. How are your skillet and bus driving skills?

@SanFranLefty: I met the lady who imported the first bagel machine in NZ at a groceria in Wellington. Come to think of it, I met the son of the guy who imported the first cappuccino machines to Australia – in Melbourne. . . Australasian Foodie Pioneers I Have Known.

@FlyingChainSaw: I’m hoping to open the Wellington branch of the Curry Up Now truck that parks a block from my office. Either that, or a Tex-Mex/barbecue place.

I’ve already done some unscientific research with locals and expats on the South Island and they are jonesing for salsa and barbecue in Hokitika.

@JNOV: If I correctly understand your post, you’ve relapsed. To which or what, I don’t know. Me too. In my case, to alcohol. I am drinking what is labelled “Very Dry Sherry,” in the vain hope it will be less debilitating than Jim Beam, a bourbon I love (to which I am addicted, as I hasten to add, I am, to all forms of alcohol). I extend my sympathies and caution you and me against self-loathing. May we both have a less-than-awful reentry. Learning takes time.

I’ve forgotten the original impulse for my commenting, but I suppose it had to do with the surge of affection that usually accompanies it. Wait, no, it hasn’t. I began the evening rereading Alan Furst’s Dark Star for something like the 17th time. I love his novels of the years preceding and during World World Two. The dilemmas each of his heroes and heroines faces are at least as difficult as those I suppose which occur when Every Single Fucking Day a soldier finds him or herself in mortal danger and moral dilemma. No, wait, the extremity of the stakes both obscures and illuminates where someone is, not usefully. When you’re not in mortal combat, when you can’t even comprehend how mad things may be, it’s far too easy to misunderstand the subtlety that you need. A dim dimulacrum of life with overwhelmed parents in an insane situation, which I fear is exactly where we are. God help us, every one.

@lynnlightfoot: Oh, Lynn! Yeah. My excuse today (technically yesterday) was that I needed a good night’s sleep. I’ve been off the Xanax for a couple of months (Huzzah!), but Klonopin is a merely one minor step down. I was dreaming dreams of the sated until Biter Cat decided it was time to eat or get scratched or hugged or something. I tell myself he’s just doing some sort of viability test on me.

You, my dear, will make it. I will, too. Let’s be gentle to ourselves today.

<3
JNOV

@SanFranLefty: I was wondering who’d pick up on that. :-)

K. Will commit BiterCatticide if he keeps me from watching the rest of The Civil War. ‘Night again, I hope.

@SanFranLefty: Oh, cripes the west coast. Yeah, lady, I got to tell you it really rains down there. Like just on and on until everyone smells like wet animals. I ended up getting rained on in a tent in the Paparoa National Park for like 6 days or something. I finally gave up and ended up trying to hitch hike to Greymouth (no one wants to pick up people who’ve been rained on for a week – because they smell like wet animals) and ended up taking a bunk in a Quonset hut at a trailer park someplace outside of Greymouth. Everyone in that part of the South Island seemed to have had the same idea at the same time. The hut stank lively I can tell you with tents and clothes hanging everywhere and the odd rank aroma of singed wet clothes being held over the wood stove in the middle of the hut. You might consider sunnier climes in NZ. Did you get a chance to visit the Bay of Islands?

@JNOV: Last I checked, the Aussies were looking for accountants and upholsterers.

@SanFranLefty: Oh, my skillet and bus driving skillz are great! Well, I need to mess around with the bus before I take it on the road, but yeah. ALLONS!

@FlyingChainSaw: I checked the immigration site a few days ago. They need lots of medical folks. Mebbe I’ll see if I can renew my licenses…