We know that the Egyptian dictator has a macabre sense of humor:

I am fed up. After 62 years in public service, I have had enough. I want to go [but] if I resign today, there will be chaos … I don’t care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country.

But we also know that his people have laughed at him for a while. There’s a great piece by blogger Issandr El Amrani (The Arabist) in Foreign Policy magazine—on the jokes Egyptians tell about their dictator.

“What will the Egyptian people do without me?” His advisor tries to comfort him: “Mr. President, don’t worry about the Egyptians. They are a resilient people who could survive by eating stones!” Mubarak pauses to consider this and then tells the advisor to grant his son Alaa a monopoly on the trade in stones.

Another joke:

Hosni Mubarak, Barack Obama, and Vladimir Putin are at a meeting together when suddenly God appears before them.

“I have come to tell you that the end of the world will be in two days,” God says. “Tell your people.”

So each leader goes back to his capital and prepares a television address.

In Washington, Obama says, “My fellow Americans, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I can confirm that God exists. The bad news is that he told me the world would end in two days.”

In Moscow, Putin says, “People of Russia, I regret that I have to inform you of two pieces of bad news. First, God exists, which means everything our country has believed in for most of the last century was false. Second, the world is ending in two days.”

In Cairo, Mubarak says, “O Egyptians, I come to you today with two pieces of excellent news! First, God and I have just held an important summit. Second, he told me I would be your president until the end of time.”