State of the Revolution II: Revolution Harder

Good morning, my little sunspots! It's Friday! That makes it Pray-Then-Protest day in the Middle East--and I've got a couple hours in Toronto to burn, so let's catch up, shall we?

Yemen: after a few weeks of fairly regular protests, current president Ali Abdullah Saleh offered a unity government with the Joint Meeting Parties and the rest of the opposition (who? These guys). To which they said "HA." and promptly kept protesting. Today, the opposition groups counter-offered with an exit strategy. To which the protesters said "HA." and promptly demanded he leave now. Understandable, considering the reports of military firing on protesters in the North. Despots of the Middle East, please stop killing people and just talk already.

One cannot simply rock out of Mordor.

Libya: In Libyan diplomatic (wow, oxymoron) news, a mediator between Gaddafi and the rest of the universe has come to the table in the form of everyone's favourite guitarron-playing Venezuelan egoist, Hugo Chavez! It's completely unclear what sort of mediation could possibly make anything the crazypants dictator is doing even remotely okay, but Gaddafi's apparently cool with it. The rest of the world is mostly ignoring the proposal, looking instead at all the bombing and terrible atrocities happening all over the country. Huh. Go figure. Meanwhile, people in Libya are getting scared to protest--surprise--and there are rumours that the Crazypants Militia is preventing people from leaving via Tunisia. They're also killing their own. Graphic, brutal, and really, really making me want to radicalize, march over there, and do something foolish to that asshole in the mumu.

Tunisia: is busily announcing a new government. This is cool, but significantly less cool once you remember that they've had three interim governments since the revolution. Apparently it's still quite unstable. Understandable.

Bahrain: 's Shiite groups say they're ready to negotiate, so that's what's going down.

Take two! Rolling...

Egypt: Remember them? They recently ousted the prime minister that Mubarak appointed, slowly whittling down the old regime piece by piece. Next target: dissolving the entire National Democratic Party and the State Security Agency.

Wisconsin: Okay, not technically in the Middle East. Mid-West, maybe. Still--did you know they've been protesting in the state building in support of their unions' bargaining rights for like, over a week?? It's been intense! Bring it home, Dairyland!