From Cairo to Istanbul

THURSDAY UPDATE: John and Jeffery are in Istanbul now, taking advantage of the local beer, and the layers of a city going back to Byzantium:
So we have fled the country temporarily. We are currently refugees in Istanbul (not Constantinople) which offers all of the typical trappings of a refugee environment: stunning views, great food, a local beer, Ottoman history everywhere. The usual.
For the time being we are safe and sound. Depending on how the situation in Cairo progresses this week, we will either return to Egypt next week or set up camp in an undisclosed location until further notice (not the United States). The American University in Cairo plans to reopen next week and begin a new session the week after.
More at John's blog here.
***
I tried reaching John Martin's blog from Egypt, and sure enough, it's blocked, but if you type/paste 72.14.204.99 in your browser's address window, it will take you to a Google page that can circumvents the Egyptian block, and from there you can reach John's blog-- You Can't Make Mistakes If You Don't Know What You're Doing-- though comments are disabled. Anyway, forwarded from the suburbs of Cairo, dated January 26:

Situation update for those concerned about our safety

.... There were widespread protest demonstrations in Cairo yesterday and in about 10 other cities as well. They have continued tonight, but on a smaller scale. There was a good deal of violence at one point late in the evening yesterday when the police finally decided to clear out the occupied areas. Tear-gas, water cannons and rubber bullets were all used. There were no live rounds fired. There have been several deaths and in Cairo about 250 people were injured and are now hospitalized. This could well be the beginning of something huge here, not unlike what happened in Tunisia. There are reports of rumors coming in that the son of the President (and his perceived successor) has left the country and is presently in London. It is rumored that the First Lady has also left. These reports have been vehemently denied by the American Embassy and should probably be considered unlikely to have actually occurred.
It will be interesting to watch how the situation progresses, but it will be unlikely to cause any problems for us. This seems so far to be a primarily secular popular revolt instead of one lead by the Muslim Brotherhood or other politico-religious groups. It is unclear where exactly the organization is coming from though. The protesters are regular, working-class people seeking governmental reform and measures to relieve the grinding poverty that Egypt is experiencing.
Social media sites and some news sites are being blocked variously throughout the country. Twitter confirmed earlier that they were in fact blocked yesterday. People are using external proxies in order to circumvent the internet blockades and communicate with each other. This will likely lead to stronger measures undertaken to control the flow of information both to news outlets and to those involved in the demonstrations. There are rumors that mobile phone service is being cut off for known activists. There were reports last evening that mobile services were cut off in Tahrir Square in central Cairo.
We are quite safe at present in Maadi (a southern suburb/district of Cairo). The part of the city we live in is far from the action, and the likelihood of anything happening in this particular suburb/district is low considering that it is inhabited primarily by wealthier folks and expatriates. Regardless, we’re keeping our eyes and ears open and making only leaving the house when absolutely necessary. Some of our more foolhardy friends are headed downtown regularly to scope out what is happening. They are brave, but perhaps a little foolish. It is understandable though. This is an exciting time here.
I am paying pretty close attention to what is happening and I will keep all of you informed in the case that the situation changes, possibly necessitating our evacuation. In that extremely unlikely scenario, our plan is to catch whatever flight is available to somewhere in Europe and then regroup and figure out what to do next. We will be extremely grateful to our friends in the EU if they will be willing to take in refugees at such a time as it becomes a necessity....

Remember What Groucho Said About Military Intelligence?

In both inner city and rural schools, there are always failing students who plan on escaping as soon as possible to embark on criminal careers. (In the inner city, where minors were used to run crack cocaine, they often flashed more money from their pockets than I had). Here's a practical question: why would someone who can't make it through an American high school, the Barney the Dinosaur of learning, think they have any talent as a criminal mastermind? Rural Michigan saves on 4th of July fireworks by watching the meth labs blow up-- why would someone who failed high school chemistry try manufacturing pharmaceuticals? More in sorrow than in anger, my advice to the amoral is practical, not judgmental: "I might not object to you being a criminal if you weren't so bad at it."
And why did a Utah National Guard officer, Captain Jeffrey Porter of the 142nd Military Intelligence Battalion (sic) think he could join the whisper campaign against Barack Obama without getting caught?
The Army Times and Snopes (Hidey, Flem!) have exposed the fraud, and The Salt Lake Tribune has a follow-up on the apparent source of the spam.
Americans who vote on the basis of viral emails deserve whatever government they get, but sadly the rest of us are tied to these morons. In a better world, you'd expect the McCain campaign to renounce these dirty tricks, but McCain himself has already gone over the line of verbal shame with "Apparently Senator Obama, who does not understand what’s happening in Iraq or fails to acknowledge the success in Iraq, would rather lose a war than lose a campaign”-- not once, but three times in one day.
There is nothing in John McCain's record-- despite protestations about "honor"-- to suggest that McCain will grow a conscience. He could still win this thing.

Hordes of Ravening Scandanavians to Invade U.S.

I don't know if this was an "aw, shi--" moment for our corporate masters and their fools, or just another one of those exercises where we project the ramifications of a war with the Principality of Liechtenstein, but four years ago a report slipped out of the Pentagon on the military implications of catastrophic global warming , with Northern Europe turning to Siberia by 2020.

This is good news for the few surviving Neanderthals waiting for the next Ice Age, with their better adaptation to the cold, but bad news for homo habilis in Scandanavia and Britain. Those scrambling to hold civilization together with Scotch tape and baling wire are in for a hell of a time. Vulcanologists wait with tightened spinchters, because one big volcanic ash cloud would be enough to tip us over into night, with nothing much we could do about that. Hello, 6th century! "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life.... Once again, warfare would define human life."

Four years later, and the UN conference on global warming in Bali wants the Pentagon to participate. Love it or hate it, the Pentagon is going to be like the Catholic Church was in the Dark Ages-- the biggest organization of Earth, and the only one with resources and the infrastructure to rescuers, resources and hardware where they're needed in a hurry.



We in the wealthier north can probably dig in, hunker down-- or if you're a Texan, just feel entitled to take what you want-- -- but the Southern Hemisphere, with the wealthy coastal cities like Shanghai and Sidney under water, worsening typhoons and wildfires, massive dislocations of population, will be in a "root, hog, or die" situation.

JAMES MADISON SAY SIGNIFYING MONKEY IS GONNA GET YOUR MOMMA

The science that inspired my Twilight Tales story "Signifying Monkey" [warning: graphic violence and sexual language*] is in the news again with a story about robots controlled by human thoughts and another hopeful story about applications for amputees. And again, I call for a memorial to be built to the experimental subjects, animal and human (remember the yellow fever volunteers, and Dr. Erlich's assistant?) that have given up their agony in the service of humanity. Kalamazoo is a pharmecutical town and I'd like to see a gentle tribute here in Bronson Park, along with our memory of the GAR, Lincoln's visit and the Boxer Rebellion.


I wish humans were benevolent enough to Use This Power Only For Good, but then I know that the military began this line of thought in order to create robotic soldiers. We 're not the only ones; Israel is working on a nanotech "hornet" like the hunter-seeker in DUNE, and Lord knows what the Chinese will get up to.

Reginald Hudlin, in his fine revival of the Black Panther, posits a US fighting force that uses dead soldiers as cybernetically controlled fighting zombies, and I suppose that would be next. Horribly, the thing that makes this a "comic book" idea isn't the outre science: in the real world, most militaries still find it cheaper to use up live meat than to spend all that money on hardware to reanimate the dead.

"If men were angels," James Madison says, "no government would be necessary." My students hear that phrase constantly as an explanation for the Constitution and my sad-but-true refutation of the anarchist dream. Now it seems we need to leash engineers and physicians who use their dark art to hurt rather than heal.



* Five bucks says that warning inspires someone to read the story for the sole purpose of being offended.