This Land Is Mine from Nina Paley on Vimeo.

By Nina Paley who has more info on who the different characters are. And if you haven't seen it yet, watch her Sita Sing The Blues.

[h/t: Moon of Alabama]

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gilliard in a speech yesterday taking on the leader of the opposition in parliament after he raises naughty text messages sent by one of her cabinet's ministers. Really great, brutal speech.

This is the same woman next to which Mohammed Morsi readusted his, erm, package a couple of weeks ago — sparking a wave of jokes in Egypt.

Maybe that incident riled her up? 

Via Andrew Sullivan.

This always astounds me when I'm in the countryside — the simply horrendous condition of the canals in a country where government long meant, essentially, the maintenance and upkeeping of irrigation canals. I don't think there's a better illustration of the extent to which Egypt has been badly run for decades.

I am kicking myself for not watching and publicizing this video, showing Egyptian presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq being interviewed on a prominent talk show, before. He's either stoned, drunk, or on some very powerful medication. Quite apart from slouching and slurring, the answer he gives to the question about what he has to tell the Egyptian people (1:50) is utterly surreal. 

The odd thing is that at other times Shafiq appears fine in the few other TV interviews he's given.