Stay safe, Egyptfags!

Good advice to Egyptian protesters, copypasta'd from whyweprotest.net:

Never place the police in the position where they have no choice.
- If they are attacked, they will have no choice.
- If there is vandalism/looting, they will have no choice.
- If there is violence between factions in the crowd, they will have no choice.
- If they are allowed to choose, and they choose to attack, nothing has been lost.
- However, if they choose not to attack and to watch, then you have won.

Another post I like:
If you look at Arab history, there have been a number of bread infitadas since Egypt's in 1977 and since the 80s, there's been an unspoken "bread compact" between the dictators and the people, the elites keeping food prices reasonable via subsidies, especially bread, or face getting tossed. Egypt is the largest importer of wheat in the world and this year the climate scorched Russia's crop, flooded Australia's was somehow unkind to Canada's and the US has the world's only current wheat surplus, raising the bulk commodity price by 75%. Corn has gone up 50%. Added to this, Egypt's crops fried this summer (as desertification continues) and they lost as much as 60% of their crops to the heat.

While our Arab and African peeps are starving, the biggest food conglomerates, ADM and Cargill, are reporting record profits. They control vast amounts of grain and are profiteering like nobody's business. I haven't searched wikileaks for ADM or Cargill memos, but I would assume they would read much like the Shell in Nigeria cables. There is enough food in the world, but we are in a serious food crisis because of distribution and pricing and corruption. Those pendejos are getting rich while people starve.

Not to say that if Mubarak had given the masses loaves and fishes he'd necessarily still have a shot at being President a week from now, but his chances would have been greatly increased.
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Posted Jan 12th 2011 1:30PM by Connie Madon
Filed under: Commodities, Agriculture

When you think commodities, you think Cargill. Cargill is the largest U.S. private company. It is one of the world's largest commodity processors and traders. Cargill plays both the cash and futures sides of the markets. It buys cash crops from farmers and processes them, and at the same time hedge and trades commodity futures. Being able to operate in both cash and futures markets places them number one. Competitors include Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Bunge (BG.)

The large harvests and strong export markets worked in Cargill's favor. It tripled its profits to $1.49 billion in the quarter ended November 30, from $489 million a year ago, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Cargill bought a majority stake in Mosaic (MOS) the fertilizer company, which added to its profits. Excluding Mosaic, Cargill earned $832 million, up from $422 million. In addition Cargill has units in financial services and steel making.

Worldwide food demand is growing. Look for grain prices to remain high this year. That being the case, these stocks should also do well. Archer Daniels Midland is trading at $32.57, up 36 cents. Bunge is trading at $67.5325, up .9525 and Mosaic is trading at $77.87, up $1.73.