I'm afraid I have very little analytical to say at the moment, besides "HOLY SHIT".

And Robert Fisk is in his element.

In all honest-to-goodness seriousness, right arm raised in oath, the expression "HOLY SH*T" was going to be the original caption.

Yay! I was getting worried about y'all. So the big question in Egypt right now is: what will the army do, right?

If I may be so bold to say that 'Aqoul is reacting as timely to the events as Ben Ali and Mubarak have been... ;)

^^ Under control, we've appointed a new Aqoul cabinet.

Lounsbury has been bugging me to reconnect the backend for weeks.

Can't believe people are still milling about here. Hello again, my apologies.

Well, to quote Monty Python,

something's actually happening, Redge!

Catching up on AJ while I rebuild the Aqoul platform. What's this about a new vice president...

Ugh...looting at the museums...

This is easy.

The tipping point was reached last night. I knew it was all over when I saw the first picture of an APC with a dozen cheering civilians on top.

The army will not oppose. Mubarak will leave Egypt by Monday -- mid-week at the latest -- and his new VP will take over. Unrest will continue -- is there an arabic version of "Won't Get Fooled Again"? -- and within a month, Mohamed ElBaradei will be appointed interim president until new elections can be held. After that it gets a little cloudy.

One slightly more provocative scenario that ends up in the same place is the protestors getting organized enough on Sunday to take over some radio and TV stations and just declaring the revolution. I also anticipate that ElBaradei will be "freed" from house arrest by a large, yet well-behaved, mob tomorrow morning. You can bet that frantic discussions along these lines are taking place this very minute.

hat tip to msk:

Sudan next? - demos scheduled for Sunday in Khartoum.

No, not Sudan. They have tried and were dispersed already. Not much response from the street. The country is breaking up completely, North vs. South as everyone knows, but Darfur and Kasala seem to be next targets - and still, the government is still there unbothered.

Glad to see everyone's back and still here. I checked in a couple of days ago to see what the inside scoop might be, but didn't see anything.
American reaction is covered by "Cliche concern A" above, apparently. El Baradei more or less told Obama to just shut up, which was pretty hilarious.

Hooray! I was here a few days ago and feared it was a graveyard. Glad to see everyone is back and well.

Yeah, I had been trying to get back in since late December. I was in Tunisia for the couple weeks of fun.

I suppose that the turmoil this creates in MENA markets is making your professional life a little crazy, L.?

One more thought - unless it's too daringly progressive - how about an Aqoul twitter feed? It could probably be set up as an automatic RSS of new articles from the main and sub-blogs on here.

NOT a Facebook page though - that would be an excruciation too far...

I reserved twitter.com/aqoul already, just not activated yet.

ok - it's activated with main headlines. Sub-blogs later.

Excellent work!

One more suggestion, maybe posting a good thread to http://www.reddit.com every so often. I'm finding that site a great substitute for forums like SDMB, though I've also signed up to the Giraffe place mentioned.

Via Blood and treasure:

Soccer Fans Emerge as Driver in Egyptian Protest