Open Thread for Night Owls & Early Birds

Political blogging in Egypt has its limits. Government responses apparently don't. At the Christian Science Monitor, Liam Stack wrote on Monday:

^{Politics on Facebook brings trouble for young Egyptian}

When Egypt’s secular opposition groups called for a nationwide strike to support disgruntled factory workers last April, Ahmed Maher wanted to help. So he did what many middle-class 20-somethings here do: He logged onto Facebook.

Two weeks before the strike, he and a friend, Esraa Abdel Fattah, started a group on the popular social-networking site to support the walkout and invited friends to join. But soon they realized they had much more than just a new Facebook group on their hands. ...

By the day of the strike, more than 60,000 Egyptians had joined the group, and Maher went into hiding rather than face the possible wrath of the country’s feared State Security Investigations (SSI) unit. ...

Even though the second nationwide strike never got off the ground, Maher was arrested in early May, just two days after he had returned home, by four carloads of plainclothes police.

In an interview last week, Maher says he was shackled, blindfolded, and stripped. He says the police dragged him across the floor and beat him for almost 12 hours. They demanded to know the password to his Facebook account and asked for information about the 60,000 people in the group, then threatened to rape him if he would not comply, he says.

"Maher’s treatment is part of a pattern of abuse and extralegal intimidation by state officials," says Joe Stork, Middle East deputy director at Human Rights Watch. "Egypt needs to put an end to the lawlessness of its law enforcement officers."

From Agence France Presse June 1:

A blogger released after weeks behind bars over deadly protests at Egypt's biggest textile plant for higher pay and controls on prices, said Monday he and his fellow detainees suffered weeks of "torture".

"We were subjected to electric shocks, to beatings and there was no food and or drink for the first few days," blogger Karim el-Beheiri told AFP a day after his release. "We went through weeks of torture and humiliation."

Beheiri, Tarek Amin and Kamal al-Fayoumy, three worker activists, were arrested on April 6 at the Misr Spinning and Weaving company in the Nile Delta industrial city of Mahalla after riots which left three people dead and hundreds detained.

An interior ministry official confirmed the three had been released but denied they had been mistreated.

"These are false accusations," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "Everything took place within a framework of human rights."

Amira al Hussaini at Global Voices wrote on May 16:

Egyptian bloggers, cyberactivists and activists on the ground continue to pay the price for speaking up against the rising cost of living and calling for higher wages and a better life. What started as a call for a strike on April 6, quickly spiralled out of control, with a face off between rioters, protesters and the police. Here's an account of what has happened and is still happening to some of the activists who have used the worldwide web to spread news of what is happening at home.

During the unrest, on April 6 and 7, Egyptian bloggers worked round the clock telling the world about the workers' revolt that shook their country, as thousands rioted at a textile mill in Al Mahalla. They were also among the first casualties of the unrest, which left some killed, scores injured and an undetermined number of activists, organisers and mere spectators behind bars. Their coverage came in the form of blog posts, YouTube videos, Twitter feeds, Flickr shots, Facebook messages and all other online tools they could get their hands on.

The saga seems to continue, as some activists are still detained, six weeks after their arrest, prompting calls from their colleagues for their immediate release. Others, allegedly harassed, physically abused and later released by the police, continue to use online tools to tell the world their story.

The Overnight News Digest has been posted.

Open Thread and Diary Rescue

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are Louisiana1976, Yashua, jennyjem, grog, dadanation, and joyful with  vcmvo2 as editor.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference ~ Robert Frost -- from the poem -- Two Roads Diverged in A Wood ~

• anth continues this informative series on Solar Power in Musings on Solar Power & the Future ( pt. 2 ) (vcmvo2), while NNadir argues that solar energy is not the solution it's cracked up to be. (Louisiana1976). So which is it? You decide!
• Deoliver47 pays tribute to those who have lived and died while riding the storm out in Huracan - return of the Gods. (jennyjem)
• faithfull writes the first installment in the new series on mountaintop mining removal in Appalachia. This series is a reminder of what's being lost in Mountain Monday. What is a Mountain Monday? (vcmvo2)
• bklynarch brings the news that deforestation may be easier to fight than we thought in Rainforest Destruction - Greater and More Concentrated. (jennyjem)

• colonelgreen looks at two contemporary Senators and their journey on race in Jesse and Robert: Two Roads Diverged in the Senate. (grog)
• JackieandFritz memorializes a little-known activist for civil rights in Sixty Years Ago Today. (jennyjem)

• Stranded Wind fills us in on yet another potential financial meltdown as Indymac Bancorp trading halted (mortgage disaster). (joyful)
• KlausFraktal describes the insidious ability of the traditional media to buy into right-wing swiftboating in Media Doubles Down on Iraq "Flip-Flop" Smear. (vcmvo2)

• In an aptly titled diary, Muzikal203 asks the penultimate question: What is "winning" John McCain? (vcmvo2)
• Jeff Huber writes an incisive diary on Secretary Gates's misuse and abuse of the CIA, and what that will cost future generations in Spy vs. Congress. (vcmvo2)

• In A lucky day [updated w/ pic], Carnacki reports that he has officially gone to the dogs! (vcmvo2)
• In Lives Changed: 2 Stories from Kenya, carolh11 looks at how "social entrepreneurism" and the ripple effect it has on lives in developing countries. (grog)

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this Open Thread.

::

Fantasyland

Kathryn Jean Lopez:

re: Civics   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
A totally crazy Saturday-morning thought: Wouldn't George W. Bush make an awesome high-school government teacher? Wouldn't it be something if his post-presidential life would up being that kind of post-service service? How's that for a model? Who needs Harvard visiting chairs and high-end lectures? How about Crawford High? (Or wherever?) Reach out and touch the young before they are jaded, or break them of the cynicism pop culture and possibly their parents have passed down to them. Whatever you think of President Bush, he's a likable guy in love with his country with some history and experience to share.

Like I said, crazy. Saturday. Have a good one.

Oh my god that's so cute. Don't you just want to pinch K-Lo's cheeks?

She thinks that Bush gives a damn about children! Such idealism, untainted by the stench of the thousands of kids Bush has sent to an early grave in the Iraqi meatgrinder.

She thinks Bush knows a damn thing about the Constitution! Such innocence, as she's blissfully unaware of what Bush has done to our cherished founding document the past eight years. (The White House shredder has gotten a heavy workout.)

She thinks Bush could break children from cynicism and keep them from getting jaded, even as those kids' parents struggle to economically survive in Bush's America.

I must admit I fell in love with K-Lo's special brand of wingnuttery in 2006, when she insisted on election day that Santorum was going to win his Senate race against Bob Casey. (Casey would win 59-41, or by a massive 3-2 margin). Such uninformed hope and certainty in the face of all evidence (and reality!) was the perfect encapsulation of the conservative mindset. If she just _willed_ it, and said "Santorum is a good closer" enough times, then by golly, he would close good! We saw it again with her crush on Mitt Romney. And we've just seen it with George Bush.

And despite being so consistently wrong, she's a trooper, and continues to spew her crazy talk for all to see.

Yeah, it's all lunacy, but give her props for recognizing it for what it is. Lunacy. Beyond being highly entertaining, it's quite endearing.

My 2 year old already knows his
shapes, colors, numbers and letters. What else could W teach him?

Doesn't He Mean a Schedule for Defeat?

Some politicians never seem to learn that a timetable equals marking a date for "defeat and retreat." It would be as good as throwing up a white flag, tucking our tail between our legs, turning over Iraq to the militants, and telling al Qaeda to just come and get it.  Who, knowing it would spell doom for the government of Iraq, would suggest such a thing?

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki raised the prospect on Monday of setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops as part of negotiations over a new security agreement with Washington.

Oh.

With the UN mandate that sanctions the US presence in Iraq running out at the end of this year, negotiations for a "status of forces" agreement have been underway for some time.  John McCain and Bush officials have been looking at this as a chance to secure the next hundred years of US troops in Iraq.  The Iraqis seem to see it another way.

"Today, we are looking at the necessity of terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty," Maliki told Arab ambassadors in blunt remarks during an official visit to Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.