Freak Show

- I watched three news bulletins on Egyptian TV today and guess what the news was all about? Yes, the fucking constitutional changes. Everytime the "challenges of the future" were mentioned, the screen would show a close up shot of the President's son Gamal, hint hint hint.

- Al Azhar's Sheikh Tantawi said that not voting in Monday's referendum is a sin, yet after the Friday prayers in Al Azhar, dozens demonstrated and called for boycotting the referendum. I guess they're all going to hell.

- The constitutional changes aim at sidelining the Muslim Brothers to pave the way for Gamal to succeed his father and will give the authorities wide powers of arrest, surveillance and trial in special courts. Condi Rice has spoken against the ammendments. She said the United States had hoped that Egypt would be in the lead "as the Middle East moves towards greater openness and greater pluralism and greater democratisation". "It's disappointing that this has not happened," she added. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit hit back at Rice with an extremely idiotic statement, he said: "Only the Egyptian people have the right to say their views on that referendum. ... If you are not (Egyptian), then thank you very much. It's our own development, our own country." This is revolutionary, no one should comment on anything going on in another country. I thought that's what foreign ministers do normally. What an idiot.