MUBARAK: The LUNATIC prefers the country to burn down to stepping down.

As Egyptians 
endure a night of uncertainty, 

defending their own homes in the absence of a functioning police force, 

bloggers and journalists continue to speculate that sowing chaos 

might be part of 

the regime's strategy for hanging on to power.

 

A blogger ( writes as Sandmonkey) wrote : "Dear Mubarak, collect your thugs, it's not working. You're sacrificing them. We're protecting the streets....Nasr City now safe and calm, Heliopolis on the way thanks to people taking control of street protection....Women carry sticks and join volunteer protection committees on the streets of Heliopolis. People saluting army. It's great....People in neighborhoods wearing white bands to identify each other.Great moment for Egypt, people completely governing themselves.". And he signed off with this observation:: "5 years ago my beliefs made me a minority opposition, today I am the people."

Speaking on CNN minutes ago, Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian blogger and journalist appealed to the media to not fall for what she described as a Mubarak regime plot to make the protests in Egypt seem like dangerous anarchy. "I urge you to use the words 'revolt' and 'uprising' and 'revolution' and not 'chaos' and not 'unrest, we are talking about a historic moment," she said.

Moments later, as Ms. Eltahawy suggested that looting and damage to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo shown on Egyptian television was the work of "the police and the thugs of Hosni Mubarak,". She added, "Egyptians want to fix Egypt, they don't want to destroy Egypt."

A cross-section of Cairo residents formed 

a human chain on Saturday to help guard Egyptian antiquities 

at a national museum.

Ms. Eltahawy told CNN: "The Mubarak regime has never cared about the museum. If the Mubarak regime cared about the museum it would take care of the pricelss items there. They don't care about it. They care about the pyramids because they took the money from toursm and put it into their own pockets."
 

CNN's Cairo correspondent Ben Wedeman echoed the reports of Cairo residents banding together to provide their own security, writing on Twitter: Neighborhood protection groups wearing white arm bands in Cairo. People getting organized to end chaos and looting.  My wonderful wife has handed out baseball bats, clubs, kitchen knives and tea to neighborhood patrol. Almost every Egyptian I've spoken with, plus myself, is hoarse. Too much teargas, smoke from burning buildings, shouting and talking.

Crowd drags two looters to Army soldiers at State TV, after beating the ... out of them, looters I mean. It's blessedly quiet in central Cairo at 12:45 a.m. Army in control of Egyptian Museum. No repeat of Baghdad, please.

Cairo residents helped soldiers guard the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo on Saturday, following reports on Egyptian television that looters had broken in the night before and damaged two mummies there.

The museum in central Cairo, which has the world's biggest collection of Pharaonic antiquities, is adjacent to the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party that protesters had earlier set ablaze. Flames were seen still pouring out of the party headquarters early Saturday. "I felt deeply sorry today when I came this morning to the Egyptian Museum and found that some had tried to raid the museum by force last night," Zahi Hawass, chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said Saturday. "Egyptian citizens tried to prevent them and were joined by the tourism police, but some (looters) managed to enter from above and they destroyed two of the mummies," he said. He added looters had also ransacked the ticket office.

The two-story museum, built in 1902, houses tens of thousands of objects in its galleries and storerooms, including most of the King Tutankhamen collection.

Writing on Twitter from New York, Eltahawy, an Egyptian blogger and journalist, commented: Once more: Mubarak regime thugs are looting and causing mayhem. Egyptian revolutionaries want to fix their country, not destroy it. Egyptians love our antiquities and we want them back from Europe - Nefertiti bust. We treasure them, not destroy them. Mubarak regime neglected the Egyptian Museum. He's been responsible. His regime left it under dust and mess. While we do indeed love our antiquities, the priority goes to the living. Focus on Egyptian lives.

CNN just reported from a Cairo neighborhood where looters on motorcycles, armed with swords, have been faced down by neighborhood patrols formed by residents in the sudden absence of police on the streets.

The Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas, now back online, reported the rumor that some of the looters in Cairo are members of the hated mukhabarat or secret police. Mr. Abbas also reports, "cell phones are all working fine now but SMS is still blocked."

Every street has men armed with sticks and knives to protect their shops and homes. They told us to stay out of poorer neighborhoods because security is very bad, lots of looting. Egyptians keep telling us they want to determine their own future, not one imposed by other countries, very much like Tunisia.

 Long live, Egypt