Mahmoud Salem on Recent Egyptian Events

The frequently provocative and acerbic blogger who blogs as Rantings of a Sandmonkey, but who no longer has to blog anonymously,  has a lengthy, sort of portmanteau post up which he calls "Bits and Pieces," and which deals with a wide range of issues preoccupying Egypt in recent weeks, from the SCAF to the Islamist Friday to the Mubarak trial.to the future course of the revolution, to demonstrating during Ramadan. It's wide-ranging and worth reading, whether you share his particular views or not.

Read it all, but I think his take on the Mubarak trial is probably pretty close to the mark::

Did you watch the Mubarak trial? Didn’t you like how they added the Mubarak Case and the MOI case together for the first day, so you can see all the people you despise in one Holding Cell? Yeah, that wasn’t done to psychologically manipulate you at all.

Also, please watch it every day. It will only take 3 years, and if Mubarak isn’t dead by then, he will face house-arrest until he dies and will never see the inside of a jail cell. His sons, on the other hand, will get 3-5 years sentences topsand then leave the country to retire in Switzerland or something. Habib Aladly will be executed, of course.

Personally, after the first day, I am done with it. What will happen next will be a legal fiasco and a political circus. Not interested in either.

(Habib al-Adly is the former and much-hated Minister of the Interior.)