News What Exactly Is Happening In the Arab/Persian World?

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Protests in Egypt have escalated into violence, with reports of protesters being beaten and arrested, including journalists. The unrest is characterized as significant but not an outright uprising, contrasting with the recent events in Tunisia. Rumors suggest that President Mubarak's family may have fled the country, raising concerns about potential instability. As protests continue, there are fears that the situation could worsen, particularly with a planned massive demonstration. The emergence of a leaderless youth movement is seen as a critical factor in challenging Mubarak's long-standing regime.
  • #691


Latest news: There are (big?) demonstrations in Tehran (Iran) in support of the Egypt revolution.
 
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  • #692


WhoWee, the Egyptian name for the plain clothes police really translates as "thug". It was discussed by a CNN news reporter in a news broadcast.
 
  • #693


Thanks Evo.
 
  • #694


Evo said:
WhoWee, the Egyptian name for the plain clothes police really translates as "thug". It was discussed by a CNN news reporter in a news broadcast.

Ok - no problem - but please read post 681 - I'm just trying to make sure we use the word consistently in our discussion - nothing else.
 
  • #695


DevilsAvocado said:
As a foreigner it’s risky to have any opinion on U.S. 'internal affairs', but... Obama can hardly be regarded a 'hero' on Wall Street, can he? He’s the man behind the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_reform" ...

I’m pretty sure that the analysts on Wall Street had a good knowledge on "who’s who"...

My guess is that they knew that what the alternative meant – i.e. one heartbeat from this:

34rars4.jpg

Squint-eyed?

And this forecast was not prosperous for the economy...

Wow... I wish she'd fire that thing, because the way she's holding it she'd have been lucky to walk away with a separated shoulder. Yes... I wish that kind of self-inflicted harm on idiots of her brand.

I'd just add... is anyone else DEEPLY turned-off by the "looking down the barrel" angle? I for one, NEVER like to be looking down the barrel of a gun, and it's part of my "gun safety" self enough to make me cringe at photos like this.

Evo: Yup, occasionally I actually know what I'm talking about. :wink:

WhoWee: They're organized, but not unionized. At this point the flat-out Thugs are mostly in hiding it seems... for obvious reasons. The lower ranks of the uniformed police service aren't as loathed, but they're on strike! Ach, mein noggin!
 
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  • #696
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  • #697


nismaratwork said:
DA: I hear you buddy, and it's ugly... the acts of people who are more afraid than they are wise or patriotic. We have to remember that bad as that is, chaos for 80 million IS worse. Some balance needs to be struck, even in a "civilized" nation when dealing with that very small percentage of the population that is bright, motivated, and is truly dangerous.

True. This 'delicate situation' has to be handled very carefully...

I don’t believe in "genetically" bad or good people. Sure, in any crowd there’s always one or two psychopaths – but people in general are often "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment" ". If possible, maybe the wisest thing to do is to identify the psychopaths and the 'worst' thug leadership – and remove them from service.

But this is a risky business; they are numerous, and 'equipped' to create a 'great mess' if things go wrong...
 
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  • #698


WhoWee said:
Ok - I'll bite - are you in agreement with Nismar's definition and saying 325,000 "thugs" are going to be fired and put into the street?

Isn't that a larger number than the actual protestors? Do you think a new group of 325,000 people moving to the streets might be a problem?

See previous post.
 
  • #699


nismaratwork said:
Wow... I wish she'd fire that thing, because the way she's holding it she'd have been lucky to walk away with a separated shoulder. Yes... I wish that kind of self-inflicted harm on idiots of her brand.

haha haha
 
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  • #700


DevilsAvocado said:
True. This 'delicate situation' has to be handled very carefully...

I don’t believe in "genetically" bad or good people. Sure, in any crowd there’s always one or two psychopaths – but people in general are often "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment" ". If possible, maybe the wisest thing to do is to identify the psychopaths and the 'worst' thug leadership – and remove them from service.

But this is a risky business; they are numerous, and 'equipped' to create a 'great mess' if things go wrong...

True, and often it's the psychopaths who can pass, and the victims of circumstance who aren't clever or hiding. I think that's why the best thing is just to rely on existing norms: basic psychological screening, and then training. As you say however, we really don't know what the internal "thug" structure is... and boy we do NOT want them seeing no way out. This has to be done quickly, with a maximum transparancy and skill, but also very tightly controlled or we risk serious blowback (see bin Laden!).
 
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  • #702


regarding thugs, from a prior article i https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3127825&postcount=502" to:

http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/516/why-mubarak-is-out
But police stations gained relative autonomy during the past decades. In certain police stations this autonomy took the form of the adoption of a militant ideology or moral mission; or some Vice Police stations have taken up drug running; or some ran protection rackets that squeezed local small businesses. The political dependability of the police, from a bottom-up perspective, is not high. Police grew to be quite self-interested and entrepreneurial on a station-by-station level. In the 1980s, the police faced the growth of “gangs,” referred to in Egyptian Arabic as baltagiya. These street organizations had asserted self-rule over Cairo’s many informal settlements and slums. Foreigners and the Egyptian bourgeoisie assumed the baltagiya to be Islamists but they were mostly utterly unideological. In the early 1990s the Interior Ministry decided “if you can’t beat them, hire them.” So the Interior Ministry and the Central Security Services started outsourcing coercion to these baltagiya, paying them well and training them to use sexualized brutality (from groping to rape) in order to punish and deter female protesters and male detainees, alike. During this period the Interior Ministry also turned the State Security Investigations (SSI) (mabahith amn al-dawla) into a monstrous threat, detaining and torturing masses of domestic political dissidents.
 
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  • #703


Thanks Proton Soup.
 
  • #704


nismaratwork said:
Wow... I wish she'd fire that thing, because the way she's holding it she'd have been lucky to walk away with a separated shoulder.

It appears the way she's holding it is the result of her she's examining the optics, and not because she's actually lining up for a shot. It's exactly the way I'd hold an M-16/M-4/AR-15 if I were examining its optics.
 
  • #705


mugaliens said:
It appears the way she's holding it is the result of her she's examining the optics, and not because she's actually lining up for a shot. It's exactly the way I'd hold an M-16/M-4/AR-15 if I were examining its optics.

Really? Look at her finger... I don't examine optics with a finger on the trigger, I do in the guard positon at least. This is paired with an observation of her shooting stance in other pics, and her "Alaska" show.

Anyway, if that's what she's doing, fantatistic, although I'm not sure what she expects to glean with 0 experience in using an assault rifle at serious range. Then again, I did say that I hoped she SHOT the gun in that position, not that she did.
 
  • #708


What is the situation in Iran? Or does that need it's own thread?
 
  • #709


Lacy33 said:
What is the situation in Iran? Or does that need it's own thread?

I think mugaliens summed it up pretty well... basically some Iranians thought that their leadership would hesitate to kill them... which they most certainly did not.
 
  • #710


nismaratwork said:
Hmmm... looks like Iran isn't taking any chances...

Same thugs, except the camels...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR45k5eMJ1E http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hossein_Noori_Hamedani" looks like a real light-bulb:
"Crazy ideas such as secularism, liberalism, and humanism are part of our enemies' plans to sow disunity."​
 
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  • #711


DevilsAvocado said:
Same thugs, except the camels...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR45k5eMJ1E


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hossein_Noori_Hamedani" looks like a real light-bulb:
"Crazy ideas such as secularism, liberalism, and humanism are part of our enemies' plans to sow disunity."​

Always the same thugs, but these... have a much broader license. Iranian leadership is also clearly willing to disappear anyone to maintain power. Another joy of Iran is that the "the army and the people are [NOT] 'one hand'"... the army of Iran would do what its leaders tell them.

In addition, you won't have the Arab outrage for their fairly well loathed Persian neighbours, as they see it.

edit: Yeah, Hamedani sounds pretty out-there... or he sounds like a self-styled modern "Libertarian". I find that quite disturbing.
 
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  • #712


nismaratwork said:
Always the same thugs, but these... have a much broader license.

Indeed true... I feel very sorry for the opposition in Iran...
 
  • #713


DevilsAvocado said:
Indeed true... I feel very sorry for the opposition in Iran...

Oh definitely... it must be maddening to see others gaining what you see as freedom, but your own government crushes you.
 
  • #714


Yes infuriating...
 
  • #715


mugaliens said:
It appears the way she's holding it is the result of her she's examining the optics, and not because she's actually lining up for a shot. It's exactly the way I'd hold an M-16/M-4/AR-15 if I were examining its optics.

Interesting indeed... examining the optics from above, with a finger on the trigger?? I guess this is the trick she performs when spotting Russia from her porch...

(I sure hope this is not the way you handle an M-16 onboard a nuke B-52...
 
  • #716


DevilsAvocado said:
Interesting indeed... examining the optics from above, with a finger on the trigger?? I guess this is the trick she performs when spotting Russia from her porch...

(I sure hope this is not the way you handle an M-16 onboard a nuke B-52... )

Well... actually... the finger on the trigger is nutsy in my view, but she could be checking the AR coating or settings... or she could be looking as though she is. Either way, I'm not impressed even if the gun is 'safe'... bad form.
 
  • #718


nismaratwork said:
...but she could be checking the AR coating or settings...

Darned... think you’re on to something! This Maverick is of course checking (by mental calculation!) if the aperture and focal length will bring the collimated rays to focus on an angle of view and optical power enough – to spot Putin in Moscow!

If you look closer she has focus on the lens cap...

I’m pretty sure that Mrs. Palin first guess on "AR coating" would be American Red Coat:

[PLAIN]http://images.translucence.multiply.com/image/1/photos/upload/300x300/SP8qmgoKCp0AAGCwfkI1/palin-redcoat-297.jpg?et=PypAsh8sbN9ngn%2CLOIhDxw&nmid=0
 
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  • #719


rootX said:
Iran is handling it quite well.

Indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AqB_RlWe-s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqOMKL1FHoI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E94-1R3OvM
 
  • #720


OmCheeto said:
I believe there are still people trying to make the poor people feel sorry for the rich people. And they are succeeding.
Who? Who are these people I keep hearing about that are trying to make people "feel sorry" for rich people, or that do feel sorry for them? Any names or links?

Or is it a manifestation of a gross misunderstanding of why many of us oppose wealth confiscation from the private sector?
 

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