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Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Djibouti, Yemen, Bahrain, Iran – have we missed many?
Please read our mockoposts since 31 January 2011 and check our predictions out, as they slowly but surely come true, leading towards the Third World War and the New World Order.
As expected by many (and predicted by Mockoblog two weeks ago), Hosni Mubarak abdicated. Protesters are celebrating what they consider to be a victory over a regime which for too many of them coincides to all they can remember – a lifetime.
Scenes of jubilation in Cairo, Alexandria and other major Egyptian cities and throughout the Arab World have the unrestrained joy and the party-like atmosphere resembling a football victory. But who exactly won exactly what? The protesters definitely believe they won the battle against Mubarak, yet they have no idea what’s going to happen next or, indeed, if they won or the regime chose to dispose of the 82 year old president like a trapped lizard which breaks its own tail in order to survive.
The situation in Egypt is still very volatile and nothing really has improved in terms of filling in the political gap. There seems to be no clear direction, no solid leadership in the street opposition, no positive unity (after the negative message of ‘down with the regime’), no credible alternative to the military power.
The matrix of the Egyptian society after decades of iron fist government is polarized. Most Western commentators fear the dichotomy between Islam and Coptic Christianity, yet the main divide will be between the poor masses and the collaborators of the Mubarak regime. And this is a very intricate social pattern, scaled down to the very single family. There is no corruption without corrupt people and no torture without victims. It is likely that the class that used to have the power will struggle to hold onto it while the pro-democratic protesters will have to protest again. As long as the military holds the power, there will be some balance in the status quo but this is unlikely to last. As the opposition will get better organized, so will the Mubarak’s ‘old boys’ – it will be just much easier for them, as they still hold the connections, the resources and the knowledge.
After a series of slight mistakes and embarrassing miscalculations, the White House finally got it right when Mr. Obama said that this was ‘not the end of Egypt’s transition’ but ‘the beginning.’ The beginning of what? This is neither a walk in the park for Egypt’s impoverished majority, nor the cup of tea for other authoritarian Arab regimes, nor much good news for Israel and its allies. A single spark could ignite the Middle East and the situation in Egypt, be it just economic, not even social, political and religious, is a bonfire. Civil War is still in the cards and it may even be of a kind yet unknown to humanity, a pan-national Arab civil war which, if not managed in the region, could easily turn into World War III, perhaps the precursor of the New World Order.
(Disclaimer: Whatever comes as unsolicited email is unsolicited email. I may adapt, enhance or delete most of it but these changes will only relate to the fundamental meaning and the channel of transmission. The rest stays as it is.)
The Swine Flue has arrived in my little town in the middle of winter, which is really good timing.
Now look, no kidding! If it’s a pandemic, when would you rather have it? In summer, when you are on holiday catching the big fish, when you have to mow the lawn or when you are already pissed off because you have to go to work when everybody else is on vacation? I’ll have it in winter any day, thank you very much! Give me more bugs now, maybe I get some sick leave, maybe I still pretend I want to go to work and I don’t understand while are all avoiding me. Winter is the time when you’re best to stay inside anyway, so it’s the right season for home quarantine.
For the moment this is a rather mild disease anyway. The vast majority of us get well in no time, with almost no side effects. Look at me! I’m already cured and I never felt better:
I have to admit that the World Health Organisation has a point: we should not call it Swine Flu. It’s actually Human and the pigs are the victims of our aggression. Who would you blame in this incident of inter-species contamination? Is it the pig who is confined to its pen and has no choice but to communicate in its normal and friendly way? Or is it the human, conqueror of Troy, Mount Everest, the South Pole, the Outer Space and Destroyer of the Moa bird, of the Bengal Tiger (almost), not to mention other species I don’t really know but of which there were many, perhaps including the dinosaurs who managed to survive the first alien spacecraft departure? Take a moment and look intently at this snapshot of what we call humanity but Al Gore is right to call Global Warming:
What really puzzles me is what the trained eye can see in the right lower corner!
Casually wearing a sandal (just to remind everyone of the Roman military might and international ambition), guess who is actually supervising, if not encouraging this “accidental contact”!
Do you need a clue? I’ll give you two:
a) it starts with PHARMA___ and ends in ___CEUTICAL;
b) sorry, you don’t really need the second word because you may place it first.
Hello again!
Can we put this in very fine print? Like: terms and conditions? So glad to see you again, especially knowing that YOU in fact don’t exist, ‘cause nobody’s actually reading this blog.
This should be Mockoblog Mockolog # whatever, but I won’t call a number because it’s mainly on one topic.
I disappeared for a few days trying to make sense of my new phone. This is like starting to look after a new born baby. With a wee difference: the mum’s at the pub, you’re not the father, the lights are off and the baby smiles like Sigourney Weaver’s lost alien first born.
It took me one day to get all the accessories I (thought I) needed, one day to download software and most of the next day to find and remove the software I didn’t need or it was not working or it was working when I didn’t want it to or it was simply just costing me money while it was sitting there and doing nothing.
Then I attempted to open the instructions, but I only got as far as page 49 out of 221. You see, it gets very personal around page 50 and I don’t feel yet prepared for it. General stuff, yes, no problems! Well, I mean why not give it a go?!
The first pages are just easy stuff: warnings not to drop the handset in boiling water and reassurance that if you do so and then attempt to pull it out with your bare hands, the manufacturer won’t pay your hospital’s bill + loud sound settings may damage my hearing aid (I had to go and get one to comply with this eventuality, as I’d never thought I really needed one before) + some parts of the phone may actually be internal and/or external antennae, thus I should not be surprised if I get too good reception or/and some devices around may start tweeting while the phone is in use (I had to subscribe to the Twitter website to comply with this one).
Another feature that I found considerably improved from my previous cellphone was the video calling. My ex-phone, four years old and not a smartphone, had videocalling as well. The problem was nobody else among my three relatives and considerably fewer friends did or wanted to use it with me. Now all this has changed and it took a dramatically positive turn when I bought my new phone: I gave the other one away and I can video call it as much as I want. At the other end, one of my close relatives (aren’t they all so close?) has two choices: to answer or not to answer. Let’s say it’s an answer! Then there are two more possibilities: the remote phone is set to receive video calls or it is not set to. In the latter case the call doesn’t proceed as a normal voice call, no, I just get hung up. But let’s say the right setting is on and I can video call! Then we need to find something important to show, not only to say. The video conversation goes like this:
“Hi, is that you?” (of course, I can see him)
“Can you see me?” (see above)
“Errr… so you are OK, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” (obviously)
“Errr, OK, show me something.” (embarrassed smile)
“OK, let me switch to the other camera to show you around.” (this is when I do something wrong and I loose contact, $2.50 later)
*
In fact this conversation should have been:
“Alpha Tango Charlie, do you copy? Over!”
(static)
“Alpha Tango Charlie, this is Alpha Lima Zulu! Do you read me? Over!”
“Alpha Lima Zulu, this is Alpha Tango Charlie! I can copy you! Loud and clear! Your little friend in Phuket sends smiles all over my phone. (brief switch to a secure channel) She misses you. Over!”
“Can you switch to visuals? Over!”
“Affirmative! Switching to visuals! Over!”
“Roger!”
“I’ve got visuals now! Alpha Lima Zulu, what’s that thing behind you??? Over!”
“It’s the – errr – roger me Alpha Tango Charlie?”
“Positive! What’s it doing? Switch to the main cam! Alpha Lima Zulu! Main cam! Roger?”
“Main cam online! Start rolling! Over!”
“Roger that! Rolling on HD visuals and sensors. What’s that thing? Over!”
“I’ve got company. Must cruise in two! What do Intelligence say? Over?”
(encryption gap)
“Alpha Lima Zulu! Intelligence reckon it’s just a launch pad. A dummy one. Over.”
“You gettin’ the frickin’ time delay link? Is it looped? Can you copy visuals? Rocket launch! Rolling? M.F.G. Burn! Burn!”
“Alpha Lima Zulu! Intelligence reckon this pad’s been used before. Got CONF from SATS. It’s Kim Jong Il’s son nomination. Fireworks and stuff, I guess. Roger that? Young chap Jong Un. Roger that? – Lost visuals. Alpha Lima Zulu! Do you read me? Alpha Tango Charlie calling Alpha Lima Zulu! Do you read me?”
(white noise)
“What the – – – Intelligence, we just lost Numero Uno in the bloody filed! Over! F for F….ing Over!”
” Roger that. Not to worry, New Numero Uno!The French just lost a plane full of people. Intelligence over and out!”
*
This is what I call a video conversation. Even without video. And on Government’s money.
Yet video calling is not the best feature of my phone. Do you think GPS and GPS/satellite navigation is? I’ll tell you next time. Now I have to change some user profiles to better personalize myself.