Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees an item on the news wire about Egyptian bloggers and how they are spearheading the dissenters against Hosni Mubarak.

As many others have said, and perhaps we’ve said here, blogging, the internet, and the spread of access to information has a remarkably transformative affect on societies around the world. The roughly 300 or so bloggers in Egypt are not much of an “opposition” at this point. Even the article says that the blogs are only read among the elites. (One imagines internet access in many places of Egypt is a problem…) But from these small beginnings come the serious alternatives to oppressive regimes.

From the 1950s to the 1980s the dissenters in the Eastern Bloc were writers of underground newspapers and broadsheets. They were to poets who gave clandestine readings. They were the quiet voices. But they spoke nonetheless. By the time the 1990s came around those dissenters became politicians, prime ministers, and presidents.

It is a hopeful sign, these bloggers in Egypt. One can only hope that the government doesn’t block the internet sites or otherwise move to crack down on the authors.

Carry on.