The insanity of Romm and his likes becomes particularly flagrant if you realize that the food prices recently grew also (if not mostly) because of the world governments' misguided support for biofuels which was justified almost entirely by the global warming fear-mongering.
The Bangles - Walk Like An Egyptian: it was the main song used in our Rock'n'Roll training sessions I attended around 1988 (yes, during communism!): of course, my skills were incredibly hopeless. But I had never realized that the 1986 song was so relatively fresh at that time.
In the past days, the Western media have presented the demonstrators as saints but they didn't offer us any particular reason to think that their goals are noble and they should be supported in their battle against Hosni Mobarak.
Over the weekend and in the recent hours, my neutral attitude has largely transformed into a positive attitude to Mubarak. I don't claim that his regime is a textbook of democracy but do you know what? The idea that such nations may do well in a full-fledged democracy is just a politically correct myth.
Egypt - and also Tunisia, in fact - have been doing well as tourist destinations. The economy worked sensibly well and one could feel safe on the street. We've had all these stories in which Tunisian men were impressed by our knives but they couldn't have bought them because they would be severely punished if they possessed one.
This is an extreme attitude but I must say, it has worked.
For democracy to work well, one requires the typical citizens to display a certain level of education, intelligence, impartiality, calm rational reasoning, as well as asceticism. And my feeling is that the degree of democracy in Egypt was close to the right degree that similar nations may constructively swallow.
Hosni Mubarak of Egypt just won a lukewarm endorsement from TRF
The average national IQ of Egypt is 83, one standard deviation below the Western average. My guess is that Mubarak is above 100 and the bulk of the nation simply has to be directed by someone around this level for it to remain civilized.
I am also very uncertain, to put it euphemistically, about the specific goals of the opposition. A loud group is the Muslim Brotherhood - which is banned in Mubarak's Egypt. This movement wants to restore the caliphate - a pan-Islamic constitutional monarchy governed by a caliph. And you know what? I just don't want it. This needs to be said - regardless of the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood has officially renounced 9/11 and other bad things.
Hosni Mubarak is a top member of the National Democratic Party of Egypt. And although contemporary Egypt is not quite a paradise, you must admit that the name of this party sounds better than the Muslim Brotherhood. The National Democratic Party builds on the pharaohs' tradition of the Egyptian governance. And yes, this is the Egypt I have been taught to understand and this is the tradition I want them to continue.
A perverse superficial fad connected with the names of Allah, Mohammed, and others should have faded away already 1,400 years ago and I am afraid that the only thing that a replacement of Mubarak may create is another Islamic regime. This would be bad news for Egypt's ally Israel, this would be bad for the Middle East, and it would be bad for other civilized nations in the world, too.
Some of the demonstrators may be hungry today but hunger is not a noble value by itself. If Mubarak didn't manage to defend himself, the country would ultimately have to decide about the recipe to defeat hunger and I am afraid that by the popular vote, Allah would win as the popular solution.
There is one more potential loser whose fate in the case of Mubarak's loss worries me tremendously. Many people imagine that Egypt is an entirely Muslim country. But this is breathtakingly ignorant and arroant opinion. In fact, a sizable fraction - 10-20 percent - of Egypt's population are Christians known as Copts. They include Meriam George, the 2005 Pantene Miss Egypt on the picture, who was brought up in an orthodox Coptic family. I have problems to believe that groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood would respect basic human rights of the Copts.So go, Mubarak, go, and succeed.
