Last Tuesday, a noisy crowd of several hundred people stood in the small main square of Pyin Oo Lwin, a popular Myanmar hill town, to hear a bespectacled monk make a startling suggestion.
The man who led the 2021 coup against the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, provoking a catastrophic civil war, has faced plenty of international censure, and is loathed by much of Myanmar’s population.
Following violent clashes between local Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas in Rakhine State in 2012, one militant monk, Wirathu, helped set up a movement known as Ma Ba Tha, or the Association for Protection of Race and Religion.
One prominent blogger recently called Min Aung Hlaing “incompetent”, saying that under him the country had experienced loss and shame of historic proportions, for which he should pay the price and step down.
The bloody two-year stalemate, between the well-equipped armed forces and the hundreds of volunteer groups which had risen up and joined the ethnic insurgents to fight the junta, appeared to have been broken.
Unable to secure the roads from ambush, the military is relying on its limited number of helicopters to re-supply surrounded bases, and on air strikes to defend them, causing extensive civilian casualties.
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The US financial regulator has confirmed a key security procedure on its X account had been suspended for six months when hackers made a fake post about Bitcoin in January.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) did not have multi-factor authentication (MFA) in place when hackers gained access to the account.
"Once access was re-established, MFA remained disabled until staff re-enabled it after the account was compromised on January 9.
Because MFA had been suspended on the account, the hacker was able to reset the password, log in and make a post.
It announced the SEC had approved so-called exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for Bitcoin, which shot up in value to $48,000 (£37,800) before the post was withdrawn.
It takes many forms, including having a dedicated app that gives you a pin code for a website, as well as sending a text message, though this is considered less secure.
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Unfortunately, always a risk in naval operations. I have a relative who used to do search-and-rescue with the Coast Guard, and the stories he tells about just how difficult it is to find a human being once they're in the drink is... harrowing.
My mind immediately goes to the idea that they’d have had some sort of high speed search and rescue nearby along with transponders and whatnot, which goes to show just how much more complicated it must be than movies and shit have made us believe.
I just want a little GPS thing with a balloon string. Once you get your head above water, pull the ripcord and a little radio just screams a pulse in the radio waves.
They gear these guys up with all the throwing knives but not a floatable transponder???
Two US Navy Seals who went missing during an operation to seize Iranian-made weapons - bound for Houthis in Yemen - are now presumed dead, the US military says.
“We mourn the loss of our two Naval Special Warfare warriors, and we will forever honour their sacrifice and example,” said the head of Central Command (Centcom), Gen Michael Erik Kurilla.
Navy Seals are members of a specialist maritime military force responsible for tasks including reconnaissance and carrying out covert operations.
Military officials told the Associated Press the first Seal was swept into heavy seas during the night mission as they were boarding an unflagged dhow - a traditional sailing ship - where the weapons were discovered.
The supply, sale and transfer of weapons to the Houthis is considered a violation of a 2015 United Nations Security Resolution, as well as international law.
Dozens of vessels have been targeted in the Houthi attacks, leading hundreds of cargo ships and tankers to be rerouted around the southern tip of Africa to avoid the strikes.
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“Would you rather have someone whose tongue is maybe a little wild, but has incredibly good policies that make your life better?” he asked the congregation. “Or someone who has a silver tongue and says all the right things and has terrible policies which ruin your life and those of your children and grandchildren?”
Partly out of confirmation bias as I’ve been saying this since before his victory in 2016 and highlighting it as the thing lefty/intellectual/“elites” don’t get about his appeal. Trump hits the “right” buttons while his wildness, lack of “refinement” and apparent sense-making are all features. So many want “change” … Trump is “change”, right from his personal nature and demeanour.
Another …
And he said that the decline in church attendance over time had meant that many of those who considered themselves religious were less influenced by spiritual leaders and more by right-wing media and politicians - Mr Trump foremost among them.
Oh … JFC!! I suppose this is a good predictor of how the west collapses. Deepening class separation across all spheres of civil life allowing chaotic manipulation by demagogues. Can’t help but think of the fall of the Roman Republic and Dune here. Also can’t help but think that the whole Hitchens/Dawkins anti-religion thing, which feels like it got a bit old for the mainstream, really has an essentially important fundamental point … as a whole type of institution and cultural phenomenon, it may simply not be worth it on the whole.
So many want “change” … Trump is “change”, right from his personal nature and demeanour.
Back in 2016 when Trump as sill “new” I fell very squarely into this. I was still too young to vote and had just started learning about politics. Looking at both major parties all I saw was people who didn’t care about normal people, politicians that seemed too involved in the political game to actually get anything done. I remember seeing Trump as a kinda of wild card that would hopefully stir things up enough to hopefully get something done. That someone removed from the traditional nepotism in politics could make real changes.
Unfortunately that’s not what happened, and not really how any of this works. It seems like his presidency just made new problems, and all the old ones still persist.
On the new and old problems front, in-line with the article … I wonder how many don’t see it that way. Getting the Supreme Court to take down abortion for instance seems like a big one for some conservatives , like maybe “best president in our life time” big. Not just because of the decision itself, but also knowing that the Court is now on “their side”.
Informally many people do speak in half sentences, zig zagging on tangents, especially schizophrenics. It takes a lot of energy to follow if you are not used to it and Republicans think we are the stupid ones for not being able to follow.
Try to follow his much derided nuclear uncle speech. It isn’t that hard when you give it a go.
Yea. And in a way, Trumps greatest political achievement may be that he proved or materialised the “elitism” facade around US Democracy and Government. While previously, to many, especially urban and higher/“educated” class types, it might have just been a Fox News culture war wedge, with Trump and how “no one” saw him coming or understood his appeal, the whole elitist facade and the safe bubble many had taken for granted was revealed.
To be fair, Bernie Sanders did see his appeal. He came from the same down-to-earth angle (even more so, not being a billionaire) and addressed many of the same issues except offering a genuine solution rather than a scam.
The Democratic party did not like that because they are part of the elite, playing good cop to GOP’s bad cop. USA is screwed until it eliminates its backward two-party system.
Oh for sure, and this was known at the time IIRC, when some polling it something revealed that “Bernie bros will vote for trump”. And, IIRC, the mainstream media response was that it made little sense.
The best description I’ve heard, is: “finally a politician who speaks his mind!”
What people don’t realize, is that Trump doesn’t really “speak his mind”, like a schizophrenic would. His longer rambling tirades are actually rehearsed, while the shorter ones he’s been practicing for decades since becoming a professional con man, to the point where they’ve become second nature.
It’s all a smoke screen, very effective at fooling those less experienced. He’s particularly talented at saying something, and the opposite, plus a tangent. Which is something an actual schizophrenic would never do, but a con man can use to first get people to only hear whatever each one prefers, then over time cherry pick those same words and spin them into any narrative that’s best for themselves.
Or in other words, but the same, don’t you love words:
The best and worst description I’ve heard, because hearing is important, is: finally, at the beginning of it all, when someone changes things, a politician like you and me, running the country like a business, who speaks his mind then shuts up, because respect is important, I respect that!
He started quite eloquent and on point, then went on adding trick upon trick. I don’t think he’s gone out of character for a long time, as demonstrated by the infamous “grab them by the p🙊” private-ish conversation.
As a better test of his abilities, I propose you pick any of his speeches and see how many rhetorical devices you can spot:
And now, an honest report on what god did. He looked down on his filthy sewage called "earth," and saw the slimeball that was trump leading the small-minded, the bigoted, the earnestly ignorant like a pied piper down a drain of utter filth and total corruption. And for this reason, he gave humans the incentive to start using nuclear bombs to wipe our filth off the face of the planet completely for eternity.
This seems consistent with what I learned in CCD and Catholic school in the 90s-00s. We were always told that sexual pleasure was increased in a marriage and a sign of god blessing the marriage, whereas sexual pleasure outside of a marriage was cheap and damaging.
Edit: side note, I didn’t think this fucked me up until I got married and realized I’d felt ashamed every other time I’d had sex. I never believed in god, and this is pretty obviously trying to steer behavior, so I thought I was unaffected, but it’s still a brain virus
It’s pretty common, but I’ve always been very sex positive, with zero shame about nudity or bodily functions. I don’t notice any shame since I got married ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Of course, I didn’t think there was any beforehand, so who knows
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