I read the other day that the yes campaign for the alternative vote in the upcoming referendum had falled behind the No campaign.

I am not sure which is better, but I have a few issues with the Alternative Vote (AV).

A Major one is that the voters of the least popular opponents will be "double counted" first.

An Example:

Party A: 40%
Party B: 30%
Party C: 20%
Fringe Party: 10%

Since neither party has reached the required vote, the BNP candiate will be knocked off the list and his voters second choices used. The voters who voted for the Fringe Party will in essence have two votes.

(in the above scenario, the voters for Party C will also have 2 votes as with the redistribution of the Fringe Party vote, it will still be unlikely for anyone to have reached 50%.)

A few thousand people can march through Tahrir square and it leads to the downfall of a regime.

Half a million march through London and the next day its business as usual.

Which seems more representative to you?

">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwtcHutaAKk]

(youtube)

(starts 3 and a half minutes in)

There was an arab leader facing insurrection from the people.

The people had suffered long enough - they were rising up and wanted change.

The leader, being a typical repressive arab leader used his armed forces to break the people's back. He used the armed forces and the air force to break the rebellion.

The world looked on in horror, and since the "free world" was already not a fan of the regime, it decided to take action. Afterall, something had to be done for the sake of the people.

Sanctions and no fly zones were the name of the game.

Now a question for you all: Am I talking about Libya in 2011, or Iraq in 1991?

There are two contrasting approaches to the protesters in Libya and Bahrain, especially after the toppling of the then president Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.

Many people have been killed in Libya. Pro-government news papers having warned protesters that protesting would be "suicide". There was no pretence that any protests would be harshly dealt with and there had been close to a hundred people killed on Friday in the second city of Benghazi.

How many times have you heard comments that suggest someone else is in charge of your destiny?

"America controls the media"
"they don't like us"
"The Israelis control everything"

or even comments such as "the kuffar media".

Add to that talk about freemasons, the illuminati and any other group which is supposed to either control the world or have grand plans to control the world.

I am sure you have all heard of something along those lines.

There is one thing all taht talk has in common - and its not that it is all true.

The thing in common is that it all makes us weak.

It takes the power of action out of our hands.

Instead of doing something to fix any problems, it allows us to throw up our hands as if things are not in our control.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Image taken from Wikimedia Commons where it was available in the public domain.

Well, not yet, but it is only a matter of time.

EDIT - You read it here first! - END EDIT

The army has been called into quell the protests and he was supposed to make a speech on Egyptian TV - a speech that has been postponed.

It seems that Mubarak's primary backer has pulled out - Brian Whittaker from The Guardian describes his view of the US position, which if true more or less means they no longer think Mubarak will be in power for long:

Today was a day of protest in Egypt (and other places most notably Lebanon) - something sparked off by the success of the protests in Tunisia.

From the pictures and videos I have seen they seem pretty crappy, but they are still the largest disturbance against the regime in like a generation. Some things start small I guess - let's see where this goes.

Back in the day people used to use words like "may you live in interesting times" as a curse but its good to see despotic dictators and leaders in the arab world quake in their boots.

There has been a leak tonight of around 1,600 documents from the Palestinian side covering their negotiations with Israel.

The documents show how the Palestinian negotiation were increasingly desperate team offered far more concessions than the public could or would accept, but even then, Israel was not ready for peace.