From 1730 today until 1830 tomorrow, I will be off-line. There will be no new posts during this time, nor will I be checking email. Go for a walk. Have coffee with a friend. Read a book.. Appreciate all that is your family.

MYANMAR/BURMA — For the United States, with its relatively small population of only a couple hundred million, explosive economic growth while sucking on the world’s petroleum teat was no great accomplishment, specially considering that it had substantial petroleum deposits of its own. For China, however, rich in dirty coal, but a pauper when it comes to petroleum, the same growth curve with more than a billion citizens is nearly impossible.

China needs petroleum and it will get it.

From The Irrawaddy:

Burma’s state-run media announced on Thursday that large natural gas deposits have been found in central Burma in a block being developed by a Sino-Burmese joint venture, in the biggest onshore discovery since the country opened its energy sector to foreign investment in 1988.

The New Light of Myanmar reported that recent test runs of oil wells in Pahtolon, in Magwe Division’s Gangaw Township, has rich oil and gas deposits. The wells are operated by the state-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise and SIPC Myanmar Petroleum Ltd, owned by Sinopec International Petroleum, the international trading arm of Chinese energy giant Sinopec Corp.

The Burmese Ministry of Energy and SIPC signed a production-sharing contract in September 2004. The discovered deposit contains an estimated 909 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 7.16 million barrels of condensate in Block D, The New Light of Myanmar reported.

All state-run newspapers ran reports of the newly discovered oil and gas deposits on their front pages, highlighting the significance of this major find for Burma’s military rulers.

When you’re China, however, 909 billion cubic feet of natural gas doesn’t go far.

China needs more, much, much more.

Do what you can to make this a good morning, Myanmar.

From my dad, of course…

Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right, and the other is a husband.

What do you workout to?

MYANMAR/BURMA — I really wish that George Orwell had lived to see where the country he wrote about in Burmese Days has gone.

From The Irrawaddy:

Burma’s military regime is preparing to intercept more than 3,000 GSM and CDMA phones belonging to politicians, businessmen, social activists, artists and media personnel, according to an official from the state-run Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications.

The official, who is involved in the implementation process, told The Irrawaddy that Military Affairs Security, the regime’s intelligence agency, arranged the phone interception plan and will implement it with technical assistance from MPT. A team consisting of more than 20 MAS members and an MPT engineer will be responsible for maintaining constant surveillance of the designated cell phones, but an operation base has not yet been chosen, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Apart from executive members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, the list of those whose calls will be listened in on reportedly includes some independent candidates and leaders from political parties that were newly formed to contest last year’s election in November.

Others on the list include some of the junta’s leading business cronies, such as Tay Za, Zaw Zaw, Htun Myint Naing, Chit Khaing and Nay Aung, along with more than 60 other businessmen, including MPs-elect Khin Shwe, Htay Myit, Win Myint and Ko Ko Gyi, all of whom contested the election as members of the regime’s proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party.

Social activists and artists are also targeted, according to the official. HIV/AIDS activist Phyu Phyu Thin, writer Than Myint Aung and actor Kyaw Thu and his wife are reportedly on the list under the category of “social activists,” while movie directors Maung Myo Min, Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi and Cho Too Zaw and singers Anaga, Yan Yan Chan and Kyar Pauk, along with some other hip hop performers, are placed under the “artists” category.

This is how you ensure full employment when you’re a military dictatorship.

Do what you can to make this a good morning, Myanmar.

0701: Shamash Says: The Phoenix Rises

Via Mano Singham…

I became a journalist instead. Did I make a mistake?

From my dad, of course…

One day a man came home and was greeted by his wife dressed in a very sexy nightie.

“Tie me up,” she purred, “and you can do anything you want.”

So he tied her up and went golfing.

What do you work out to?

MYANMAR/BURMA — The post-election military campaigns continue as Myanmar’s army assaults and is assaulted in ethnic regions of the nation.

In the most recent engagement, the Arakan Liberation Army ambushed a Myanmarese infantry column, killing four soldiers.

From the Democratic Voice of Burma:

Fighting between the army’s Light Infantry Battalion 55 and the Arakan Liberation Army (ALA), which operates in the region, lasted around one hour, according to Khine Thukha, joint secretary of the group’s political wing, the Arakan Liberation Party.

The column had been patrolling in Latpanwa, an area close to Paletwa on the Bangladeshi-Burma border, on 3 January when fighting broke out.

“It was an intense fight that lasted for about one hour,” Khine Thukha said. “Four enemy soldiers were killed and two were injured, while their outpost also took heavy damage.” He added that one ALA solider was killed.

The attack was launched “to signal that we have to continue our fight for independence and to stress that the ALA will be stepping up its military action in 2011,” he continued.

Is unification possible? Is unification desirable? Is unification the right solution?

Do what you can to make this a good morning, Myanmar.

1143: The masochistic relationship of religious people with god — Warning, the illustration I link to in this comment is disturbing.

Ralph sent me the above illustration and in the interest of fostering conversation, I’m posting it. Having said that, I have my own 2-cents to add.

Military humor is, by any standard, dark stuff.

The world is a very different place when you heave out each morning knowing that, for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with you, today could be your last day and the end could be really, really nasty.

When I was in the Navy, I served in a division that was directly responsible for the care and feeding of more than a dozen tactical nuclear weapons. Among ourselves we used phrases like “nuke’m ’till they glow” and “Made in America, Tested in Japan.”

At one point we joked about having the latter put on our division t-shirts with a mushroom cloud in the middle. (We settled for crossed cannons and the motto: “Gunner’s Mates Have Longer Barrels.”

A shipmate of mine has joined nearly 20,000 others in liking the Support Captain Owen Honors – USS Enterprise page on Facebook. I’m still thinking about it.

I’ve looked online to find the uncensored videos but the best I can do is the 12-minute version released by the Virginian-Pilot. If anyone has a link to the original videos, I’d really appreciate the opportunity to view them for myself. This is the Interwebs, after all.

Clearly, Captain Honors, as XO of the USS Enterprise, had the full support of the Navy when he made the videos. If he didn’t, his Commanding Officer would have “nipped them in the bud.” Why is his career over now? Because every nation has two Navies: the navy that sails and fights and the navy that politics and socializes. Sadly, the former is always subservient to the latter.

The second these videos left the Enterprise, the politics and society trumped sailing and fighting.

This is the nature of any military where, rightly so, civilians are in the ultimate command of our fighting forces.

Should Capt. Honors have been smarter? Yes.

It still saddens me to see a sailor forced ashore in this manner.

It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap. On The Writing On The Wal — the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar — Jonathan Rees and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.

SUPPLIERS QUESTION WALMART’S VISION… More than 69 of the 139 (out of some 60,000) Walmart suppliers disagreed with the statement: Walmart’s senior leadership is aligned behind a strategic vision that is consistently communicated and well understood by the supplier community. Keep reading…

FROM MAIN STREET TO WAL STREET… I’ve written before about how Walmart wants to make use of the vacant space within its over-built stores and so seeks out those who can run health clinics and other businesses, in essence creating rudimentary Wal Streets within its stores. Keep reading…

WALMART, NETFLIX, MORE CLASS ACTION FUN…! The downside of having more customers than Jesus is that you also have the potential to have more people pissed at you than the pope. And in America, where we still have the rule of law, that means that all those people can get together and sue the pants off you. Keep reading…

IF YOU’RE NOT GROWING, YOU’RE DYING… Leave it to a fashion reporter for New York Magazine to nail why Walmart is frantic to invade urban markets: the company has run out of places to open stores in the United States that are not urban, it must invade or stagnate and perish. Keep reading…

WALMART FACILITATES A MINOR’S BEATDOWN… What kind of adult beats on a child while the child is restrained in handcuffs? What kind of adults puts the child in handcuffs and then allows another adult to beat on that child without coming to the child’s defense? A Walmart security employee. Keep reading…

GREEN IS STILL A WORTHLESS WORD… Companies around the globe have rushed in recent years to slap a Green label on their products, their processes, their businesses. The term has no meaning because Green means whatever I, or anyone else, want it to mean. Until someone calls you out. Keep reading…

From my dad, of course…

An elderly couple, who were both widowed, had been going out with each other for a long time. Urged on by their friends, they decided it was finally time to get married.

Before the wedding, they went out to dinner and had a long conversation regarding how their marriage might work. They discussed finances, living arrangements and so on.

Finally, the old gentleman decided it was time to broach the subject of their physical relationship.

“How do you feel about sex?” he asked, rather trustingly.

“Well,” she said, responding very carefully, “I’d have to say, I would like it infrequently.”

The old gentleman sat quietly for a moment, then, looking over his glasses, he casually asked, “Is that one word or two words?”

MYANMAR/BURMA — There are meddlers and then there are meddlers. I’m a meddler of the first type, someone who has stuck his nose into the business of the People of Myanmar and made small efforts to tell them how to run their country. Meddlers of the second type also stick their noses in the business of the People of Myanmar, but there there is a major difference. Meddlers like me have no financial stake and the military dictators of Myanmar cannot benefit from my meddling. Meddlers of the second type have pockets bulging in cash.

From the Democratic Voice of Burma:

Burma on Tuesday urged its people to be on guard for efforts by “aggressive countries” to win political control of the nation, in a message to mark the 63rd anniversary of its independence.

“It is not strange certain covetous, aggressive countries are anxious to gain political control over a geographically strategic country like Myanmar [Burma],” junta chief Senior General Than Shwe said in a statement read on his behalf.

“I would like to urge the entire people to guard the nation with political awareness against any forms of disruptions in order that the mother country’s independence and sovereignty will never be under alien influence.”

Not to worry President Hu Jintao. He doesn’t mean you. You are a meddler of the second type.

Do what you can to make this a good morning, Myanmar.

Now, if we could add machine gun towers…