Octopus Overlords

Mr. Sparkle wrote: Uhm, you started it?

Pass me a link like that with no commentary and you will get the same response every time.

I know you like to think you are a walking Kōan, but I'd prefer being treated as a peer and not an errant disciple.

Tareeq wrote:But then we've run this grist through our mill, haven't we?

Tareeq wrote:

Mr. Sparkle wrote: Uhm, you started it?

Pass me a link like that with no commentary and you will get the same response every time.

The link was the commentary. This is the 90s baby, so I assumed you'd understand.

I know you like to think you are a walking Kōan, but I'd prefer being treated as a peer and not an errant disciple.

But then we've run this grist through our mill, haven't we?

Peacedog wrote:IDK Sparkle, you appear to have started it.

Tareeq wrote:Ironrod is evidently of the opinion that we aren't doing enough, but what more can we do?

Mr. Sparkle wrote:Nobody knows what they want... because it's not on the table. And it won't be, because just as Ironrod said... nobody cares.

Mr. Sparkle wrote:Regardless... I am perfectly willing to finish it now. If Tareeq didn't mean to be dismissive and demeaning with the one line link post, then I apologize for overreacting.

Mr. Sparkle wrote: If Tareeq didn't mean to be dismissive and demeaning with the one line link post, then I apologize for overreacting.

Tareeq wrote:

Mr. Sparkle wrote:Regardless... I am perfectly willing to finish it now. If Tareeq didn't mean to be dismissive and demeaning with the one line link post, then I apologize for overreacting.

Sensitive snowflake.

Mr. Fed wrote:he, she, or Grund ... his, her, or Grund's

Mr. Fed wrote:

Mr. Sparkle wrote: If Tareeq didn't mean to be dismissive and demeaning with the one line link post, then I apologize for overreacting.

Is being dismissive and/or demeaning a general intent crime or specific intent crime? In other words, do you simply have to intend to utter the words that are dismissive and demeaning, or do you have to intend that the words be dismissing and demeaning?

Of course, some words would be sufficient proof of both to a reasonable fact-finder. If Mr. Sparkle insults Mad Hatter and then in his next post complains about someone insulting him, and I post "Whiny bitch says what?", the words themselves are probably sufficient to make a case for specific intent to demean and dismiss. But in other cases, it may not be so clear. And how about mental state defenses? May the speaker make a showing that he, she, or Grund is incapable of regulating his, her, or Grund's tone?

SuperHiro wrote:Well, not whiny anyway.

Cesare wrote:

Tareeq wrote:Ironrod is evidently of the opinion that we aren't doing enough, but what more can we do?

Mr. Sparkle wrote:Nobody knows what they want... because it's not on the table. And it won't be, because just as Ironrod said... nobody cares.

..it's sorta obvious that the point of the original post was to make a not-so-subtle accusation of hypocrisy, not a call to action, as some people on both sides of this argument have made it out to be.


See what you started FeRod?

China issued an evenhanded plea for calm in Myanmar on Thursday after refusing to condemn the military-run government, while Southeast Asian nations expressed "revulsion" at the violent repression of the demonstrations.

The United States said it was imposing economic sanctions against 14 top officials in the military junta.

(...)

China has come under increasing pressure to use its regional influence to urge Myanmar's ruling junta to show restraint in dealing with the protests.

On Wednesday, China refused to condemn Myanmar and ruled out imposing sanctions, but for the first time agreed to a Security Council statement expressing concern at the violent crackdown and urging the country's military rulers to allow in a U.N. envoy.

The U.N. special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, headed for Myanmar at Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's request to try to promote a political solution and reconciliation efforts. U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Ban had been told by Win that Gambari "will be welcomed by the Myanmar government."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in Beijing that "China hopes that all parties in Myanmar exercise restraint and properly handle the current issue so as to ensure the situation there does not escalate and get complicated."

The crackdown puts China in a bind. Its communist government has developed close diplomatic ties with junta leaders and is a major investor in Myanmar. But with the Beijing Olympics less than a year away, China is eager to fend off criticism that it shelters unpopular or abusive regimes.

Reports from exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply "disappeared" as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians.

Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells.

There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.

Others who had failed to escape disguised as civilians were locked in their bloodstained temples.

There, troops abandoned religious beliefs, propped their rifles against statues of Buddha and began cooking meals on stoves set up in shrines.

In stark contrast, the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay - centres of the attempted saffron revolution last week - were virtually deserted.

YellowKing wrote: Some might call it Christian for you to donate all your worldly possessions to the poor and spend the rest of your life living as a pauper and sharing the word of Christ. That doesn't make it a realistic option.

Mr. Sparkle wrote:Seen on Andrew Sullivan's blog:

"Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand."

Reports from exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply "disappeared" as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians.

Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells.

There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.

Others who had failed to escape disguised as civilians were locked in their bloodstained temples.

There, troops abandoned religious beliefs, propped their rifles against statues of Buddha and began cooking meals on stoves set up in shrines.

In stark contrast, the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay - centres of the attempted saffron revolution last week - were virtually deserted.

Oh well, the Swedish ambassador says it's over, and I'm sure those monks will be just fine.

The Preacher wrote:

Mr. Sparkle wrote:Seen on Andrew Sullivan's blog:

"Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand."

Reports from exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply "disappeared" as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians.

Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells.

There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.

Others who had failed to escape disguised as civilians were locked in their bloodstained temples.

There, troops abandoned religious beliefs, propped their rifles against statues of Buddha and began cooking meals on stoves set up in shrines.

In stark contrast, the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay - centres of the attempted saffron revolution last week - were virtually deserted.

Oh well, the Swedish ambassador says it's over, and I'm sure those monks will be just fine.

I'm sure the UN will step up any day now. Just like they always never do.

even if the NLD does win 44 seats, it won’t be able to make much practical, legislative difference in a chamber of 650-odd parliamentarians still heavily dominated by the USDP.

Myanmar's government and eight armed ethnic groups signed a ceasefire agreement on Thursday, the culmination of more than two years of negotiations aimed at bringing an end to the majority of the country's long-running conflicts.

The deal fell short of its nationwide billing, with seven of the 15 armed groups invited declining to sign due to disagreements over who the process should include and ongoing distrust of Myanmar's semi-civilian government and its still-powerful military.
...
Among those that signed was the Karen National Union (KNU), Myanmar's oldest armed group. The KNU has fought one of the world's longest running conflicts with the Myanmar military spanning nearly 70 years.
...
The United Wa State Army, believed to be the largest and best equipped of the country's armed ethnic groups, has remained largely on the sidelines of the peace process since its beginning and did not sign.

Also missing is the Kachin Independence Organization, which controls vast areas of Kachin State, in Myanmar's northeast.

The group's armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army, has clashed regularly with the Myanmar military since 2011, when a 17-year ceasefire between the two broke down.

An official from the government-linked Myanmar Peace Center told Reuters that the two groups, which operate on the Myanmar-China border, had come under pressure from China not to sign. China has denied these allegations.
...
All of the groups signing were removed this week by the government from its list of Unlawful Associations.

The colonial-era law was used to prosecute people who had contact with the groups. The removals could be a crucial step to the groups joining the political mainstream.

The UN has accused security forces in Myanmar of committing serious human rights abuses, including gang-rape, savage beatings and child killing.

It made the allegations in a damning report compiled after interviews with more than 200 Rohingya refugees who fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh.

One mother recounted how her five-year-old daughter was murdered while trying to protect her from rape.

She said a man "took out a long knife and killed her by slitting her throat".

In another case, an eight-month-old baby was reportedly killed while five security officers gang-raped his mother.

An estimated 65,000 members of the Muslim minority community have fled to Bangladesh since violence broke out in Myanmar - also known as Burma - last October.

Nearly half of those interviewed by the UN said a family member had been killed. Of 101 women interviewed, 52 said they had been raped or experienced sexual violence from the security forces.

Many told investigators that members of the army or police had burned hundreds of Rohingya homes, schools, markets, shops, and mosques.

Numerous testimonies "confirmed that the army deliberately set fire to houses with families inside, and in other cases pushed Rohingyas into already burning houses", the report states.

Many victims said they were taunted as they were being beaten or raped, with the perpetrators telling them: "What can your Allah do for you? See what we can do?"

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein said: "The cruelty to which these Rohingya children have been subjected is unbearable - what kind of hatred could make a man stab a baby crying out for his mother's milk?

"I call on the international community, with all its strength, to join me in urging the leadership in Myanmar to bring such military operations to an end."

The country's government and its de-factor leader Aung San Suu Kyi have previously dismissed claims of rights abuses and insisted that the security forces follow the rule of law.

However, Ms Suu Kyi's spokesman told the BBC that the latest allegations were extremely serious. The spokesman said officials would look into them immediately.

Donald Trump and Aung San Suu Kyi have more in common than you might think.

The leaders of the United States and Myanmar are both aged the wrong side of 70, both have much-discussed hair and share a strong dislike of journalists.

Mr Trump's turbulent relationship with the media is covered extensively. Ms Suu Kyi's may come as a surprise.

"The Lady", as she's known here, became famous in the 1990s as an icon of human rights and democracy. While under military-enforced house arrest in Rangoon, reporters took great risks to speak to her, to hear her courageous story of resistance.

Now Ms Suu Kyi is in power, things are rather different.

She has created a powerful role for herself called State Counsellor to fulfil a promise of being "above the President". In practice that seems to also mean "above" public scrutiny.

Ms Suu Kyi now never gives interviews to the Burmese press and carefully hand picks her encounters with international media. There is no regular questioning from MPs in parliament and there has not been a proper press conference since just before the election 14 months ago.

Then there is the propaganda, which is eerily reminiscent of the dark Burmese days of censorship and military rule.

Survivors said they saw government soldiers stabbing babies, cutting off boys’ heads, gang-raping girls, shooting 40-millimeter grenades into houses, burning entire families to death, rounding up dozens of unarmed male villagers and summarily executing them.

Much of the violence was flamboyantly brutal, intimate and personal — the kind that is detonated by a long, bitter history of ethnic hatred.

Some influential Buddhist monks said the Rohingya were the reincarnation of snakes and insects and should be exterminated, like vermin.

The list of honors and awards Nobel laureate and Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi has had revoked because of her handling of the plight of Rohingya Muslims in her country continues to grow.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., rescinded its prestigious Elie Wiesel Award from Suu Kyi for failing to speak out against ongoing persecution of the minority group.

In a letter to Suu Kyi revoking the prize, the museum said that as the Myanmar military's violence against the Rohingya unfolded over the past two years, it had hoped she would condemn those actions and express solidarity with the Rohingya.

But that has not been the case, the letter says, as Suu Kyi has "refused to cooperate with United Nations investigators, promulgated hateful rhetoric against the Rohingya community, and denied access to and cracked down on journalists trying to uncover the scope of the crimes in Rakhine State."

The International Criminal Court said on Thursday it had approved a prosecution request to investigate crimes against humanity against Myanmar’s Rohingya minority who were systematically driven across the border to Bangladesh.

More than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to neighboring Bangladesh since a 2017 crackdown by Myanmar’s military, which U.N. investigators say was carried out with “genocidal intent”. Buddhist majority Myanmar denies accusations of genocide.

The charge of genocide, while within the jurisdiction of the court, will not be investigated by the ICC, a treaty-based body that is not supported by Myanmar.

In a statement, the ICC said prosecutors were granted permission to examine acts that could qualify as widespread or systematic crimes against the Rohingya, including deportation, a crime against humanity, and persecution on grounds of ethnicity and/or religion.

The ICC is now the second international court to look into alleged atrocities against the Rohingya, after Gambia on Monday filed a claim with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Myanmar for carrying out an alleged genocide against the Muslim minority. The ICJ is the United Nations’ top court for disputes between states.

At the ICC, which is the world’s only permanent war crimes court, judges said that while Myanmar is not a member the ICC has jurisdiction to examine alleged crimes that partially took place across the border in Bangladesh, which is a member.

Myanmar's military has seized power after detaining Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratically elected leaders.

Troops are patrolling streets in major cities and communications are limited. The top army commander is now in charge and a one-year state of emergency has been declared, army TV announced.

The move follows a landslide win by Ms Suu Kyi's party in an election the army claims was marred by fraud.

She urged her supporters to "not accept this" and "protest against the coup".

In a letter written in preparation for her impending detention, she said the military's actions would put the country back under a dictatorship.

Tao wrote:we suck as a race.