Mubarak Leaves

Mubarak Leaves Cairo as Military Asserts Control

The Egyptian military appeared to assert its leadership Friday amid growing indications that President Hosni Mubarak was yielding all power. A Western diplomat said that Mr. Mubarak had left the capital for the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik, about 250 miles from Cairo.

As protesters were swarming into the streets Friday morning for what was expected to be the biggest and most volatile demonstrations in the three-week revolt here, the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces issued a statement over state television and radio indicating that the military, not Mr. Mubarak, was in effective control of the country. It was unclear whether the military would take meaningful steps toward democracy or begin a military dictatorship.

Western diplomats said that officials of the Egyptian government were scrambling to assure that a muddled speech Mr. Mubarak made on Thursday night that enraged protesters had in fact signaled his irrevocable handover of presidential
authority.

Read More:

UPDATE: BREAKING: President Mubarak Resigns

3 Blasts on Oil Pipeline

Iran's semiofficial Mehr News Agency on Friday said simultaneous blasts have struck three pipelines near the city of Qom, cutting the flow of gas.

Mehr said the blasts, which occurred at 5:50 a.m. outside the town of Salafchegan, south of Teheran, were felt miles away.

Local official Majid Bojarzadeh said the blasts were not caused by technical failures, but did not elaborate if officials believed the explosions were acts of sabotage.

He said operations were under way to repair the pipelines and restore the gas flow.

Iran's oil and gas sector has been hit by an increasing number of attacks in recent months, but authorities have provided no explanations for the blasts.

Mehr did not say how much gas flows through the lines.

Huff Puff Exodus

The purchase of the Huffington Post by AOL left many of the progressive writers and readers that made the site into a powerhouse looking for a new home."Socialite Arianna Huffington built a blog-empire on the backs of thousands of citizen journalists," a post at Adbusters begins. "She exploited our idealism and let us labor under the illusion that the Huffington Post was different, independent and leftist. Now she’s cashed in and three thousand indie bloggers find themselves working for a megacorp."

They continue that the Huffington Post is not Arianna’s to sell. It is theirs: the lefty writers and readers, environmentalism activists and anti-corporate organizers who flooded the site with 25 million visits a month. So they’re going to take it back.

"We are the ones who built the Huffington Post. And now we will be the ones who will huff & puff it down," Adbusters concluded.

They claim they’ll stop going to her site. And stop blogging for her too. Then they shall birth an alternative to AOL’s HuffPo by using the #huffpuff hash tag and ironically tell the world about their NEW favorite counter-culture websites and indie blogs. Kind of a counter-to the counter-culture corporate left tilted AOL owned left tilted website?

Damn that must be exhausting.

Look, it's a crap site full of pseudoscience and a large percentage of horse droppings. She sold it because she can. It's got her name on it, and she's going to make a fortune. But it's also AOL - and they have the anti-Midas touch. Like the Moldy touch. It seems that just about every venture that AOL has tackled has been put into the history books as "the worst business decision in history." Time Warner? Sending out CD's every week to everyone on the planet? Not considering DSL or Cable Modems as a serious threat to their business plan?

Surly, the death of the Huff-Puff is a foregone conclusion - and losing their fan base will only slightly accelerate its demise.

Terror Threat 'Most Heightened' Since 9/11

So says Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

"The terrorist threat facing our country has evolved significantly in the last ten years -- and continues to evolve -- so that, in some ways, the threat facing us is at its most heightened state since those attacks, she said before the House Homeland Security Committee.

"Homeland Security Officials Call Homegrown Radicalism a Game Changer." Yeah, she's been pushing that one a lot lately. I'm never sure if she's just taking about people who disagree with her, or people who are of a different skin color than her? If you're either one, or both - don't piss off the Secretary.

Read more ....

And wait, I thought America was totally blindsided on September 11, and then was outraged and completely and totally over-reacted (ask Japan the Sioux how that worked out) to the terrorist attacks. Does she mean since after September 11th? So, shouldn't she just say since 9/12? Or am I reading too much between the lines - again?

On the bright side - Suspects identified in the Russian airport bombing.

The Future

So, er, we have that to look forward to.