But by all means take the other side because you don't like everyone who MIGHT be on Mubaraks (personally, I haven't decided; both sides look pretty ugly to me, but that's the Mid-East for you). Based on my admittedly limited understanding of the situation, a primary and long standing complaint against Mubarak is that when he privatized many formerly nationalized industries he favored and further enriched a wealthy aristocracy, the very people who were first against the wall in the Bolshevik Revolution to which I likened violent revolution for the sake of violence.

I'm not yet convinced this a simple matter of a popular democratic uprising on behalf of freedom. If it becomes a successful revolution, which seems quite possible, it's far more likely to produce an anti-Western militant theocracy with MORE nationalized industries than it is to create some sort of capitalist paradise. But, hey, small price to pay for disagreeing with a position I've not yet decided to take, right? Maybe if we slit each others throats over imagined differences bin Laden won't have to bother.