I’m doing my best to stay on top of events in Myanmar/Burma and it’s not surprising that the best sources are not inside the United States. I’m reading The Independent, The Guardian, The BBC, Irrawaddy, New Mandala and the Asia Times. I’ll daily post a digest of headlines from stories I just couldn’t get to.

Today’s batch includes:

Burma’s ‘transformative moment’
US-Made Censorware Used To Oppress Burma
Top junta member becomes Burma PM
Australia places financial bans on Burma’s generals
China promises to support UN in Burma
Pressure on Burma
Burma brings forward UN envoy’s visit

And from the blogosphere:

Brown shouldn’t waste his breath on the UN over Burma
Burma Internet censorship – a report by the OpenNet initiative
Burma on 24.10. 2007 part 1
Canada’s role in dealing with Burma/Myanmar

I know something about Blackwater USA. This opinion is both intellectually driven as well as moderately emotional. You see, during my own yearlong tour in Iraq, the bad boys of Blackwater twice came closer to killing me than did any of the insurgents or Al Qaeda types. That sort of thing sticks with you. One story will suffice to make my point. Robert Bateman

Part of being a good citizen of the blogosphere is visiting, reading and, most importantly, taking the time to leave a comment on other’s blogs. It’s all about the conversation. In the interest of setting an example I’ve decided to link to those blog posts that have compelled me to leave a comment.

1942 Tell me why you”re so loyal to…
1645 Anti-stripper advocate won’t push law’s enforcement
1637 The Difference Between Jews

I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is A Campaign to Block Firefox Users?

A big scare like this is, to me, the only reasonable explanation of why Bush and his cadre of advisers have been so willing to push their response to the 9/11 attacks so far. Bush and his crew were – and remain – scared shitless. They are terrified that the next report won’t be a false alarm, and this fear informs every decision, every cost-benefit analysis they make.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe many of the steps taken by the Bush administration have been badly misguided, and are likely to harm US interests in the long run. If Allison’s anecdote is true, it doesn’t excuse the Bush administration’s many bad decisions and policies, but it does go a long way towards explaining them. Andrew Sullivan

Others simply died. Of how many places in the World can this be said? Are there too many to comprehend? Do our minds seize and go blank because no human can grasp the immensity of the horror? Rabbi Tarfon (in Pirke Avot 2:16) teaches: It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work; yet, you are not free to desist from it. Don”t turn away.

I’ve given Laura Bush here due for pushing her husband to act against the military government of Myanmar, but the news this morning causes me to believe that we are bearing witness to the power of the feminine, a revolution of women.

From Reuters:

Six female Nobel Peace laureates called on the world to keep up pressure on Myanmar’s military junta to restore liberty and democracy in the country.

The letter was signed by Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire. It said it was supported by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright.

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

Caller: “I deleted a file from my PC last week and I just realized that I need it. So, if I turn my system clock back two weeks will I get my file back again?”

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from A Room Of One’s Own by Virginia Wolf.

“What one means by integrity, in the case of the novelist, is the conviction that he gives one that this is the truth. Yes, one feels, I should never have thought that this could be so; I have never known people behaving like that. But you have convinced me that so it is, so it happens.” p. 72

Today, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about: In order to attain an appropriate balance among your long-range goals, you categorize them, making sure that all aspects of life are included. I suggest six categories: spiritual, professional, financial, social, intellectual/cultural and physical/recreational. p. 42

I’m doing my best to stay on top of events in Myanmar/Burma and it’s not surprising that the best sources are not inside the United States. I’m reading The Independent, The Guardian, The BBC, Irrawaddy, New Mandala and the Asia Times. I’ll daily post a digest of headlines from stories I just couldn’t get to.

Today’s batch includes:

China, Russia: No to Myanmar Sanctions
Uneasy Days for Monks in Myanmar
Myanmar to receive UN official
Myanmar refugees find freedom in Atlanta
US senators urge Manmohan to get tough on Myanmar
Myanmar on the
US Focuses on Myanmar Tycoon
Myanmar frees five more sentenced protesters
Chaos Could Come if Myanmar Junta Falls
US group asks ASEAN to take steps to resolve Myanmar crisis
State Terrorism, Agonies of Myanmar & Regional Stability (2-3)
…A modest waterway and a gaping divide
Myanmar activists launch day of demos
Academic Freedom: Exploring Alternatives in Myanmar’s Wild North
Trade unionists call for boycott against businesses…
South Africa: Myanmar Agrees to Visit by UN Expert
PM on Myanmar: India to play ‘positive” role
Congress panel approves Myanmar gem curbs
UN says Myanmar has agreed to earlier visit by UN envoy
Singapore PM dismisses need for Myanmar sanctions
Daw Aung Sun Suu Kyi: Myanmar”s Saviour?
India Promises to Help Reconciliation in Myanmar
Burma agrees to 2nd UN visit
Neighbors Fear Ethnic Conflict in Burma If Government Collapses
Burma minority ‘fleeing to India’
Congress eyes Chevron’s role in Burma
Burma junta seizes protestors’ relatives
University’s Burma link under attack
Hit The Junta Where It Hurts
Born in Burma, Bay Area software architect leading area protesters

And from the blogosphere:

Why Myanmar?
Myanmar: UN Envoy to Visit Earlier Than Planned
US diplomat calls on China, India to press Myanmar
Environmental group appeals to China to stop Myanmar dam project
Hit The Junta Where It Hurts
Stop the Bloodshed in Burma – Sign the Petition
Can Your Panties Help Save Burma?
A Keyhole into Burma – Burmese currency (I don’t give a FEC)
Junta allow UN special rapporteur into Burma

I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is IP Law and the Protection of Magicians’ Secrets: The View from France.

Others simply died. Of how many places in the World can this be said? Are there too many to comprehend? Do our minds seize and go blank because no human can grasp the immensity of the horror? Rabbi Tarfon (in Pirke Avot 2:16) teaches: It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work; yet, you are not free to desist from it. Don”t turn away.

The generals in Myanmar couldn’t pull of the repression of their people, probably couldn’t exist without the support of U.S. companies and programmers drawn to the dark side of squelching information transfers on the Internet. These Silicon Valley Siths enable oppressive government like the Junta in Yangon to restrict or cut-off communications with the outside world.

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Absence of federal regulation has allowed so-called censorware of at least four California companies to end up in the hands of foreign governments shown to block citizens’ access to political, religious, and other websites.

“Where the best and the brightest of Silicon Valley had been wiring the world, they are now, in these cases, doing the opposite,” says Ronald Deibert, an investigator for the OpenNet Initiative, a collaboration of Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge universities and the University of Toronto.

What might have begun as a way for concerned parents to monitor information access for their children has exploded into a tool for daddy dictators to keep their citizen children in the dark.

ONI testing in 2005 indicated that Burma censored the Internet using software made by Fortinet, a Sunnyvale, Calif., company. The firm, says ONI, responded by saying it doesn’t sell software directly to end-users. ONI challenges Fortinet’s claim, pointing to a 2004 article, reachable online, by the official New Light of Myanmar newspaper. The story covers a ceremony bringing together Burma’s prime minister and Benjamin Teh, described as “an official representative of Fortinet.”

You’ve got to be careful of that new light when you’re creeping around in the dark. Congress is, of course, gravely concerned, but lacking spinal columns, incapable of rising off the floor to accomplish anything meaningful.

Moves are afoot in Washington to take a harder line against censorware exports. High-profile congressional hearings last year examined the roles of Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, and Cisco in helping China censor the Internet. Rep. Christopher Smith (R) of New Jersey has introduced the Global Online Freedom Act, a bill that would, among other things, study the feasibility of restricting censorware exports.

You have to wonder, how many Myanmarese will have been tortured, murdered or disappeared per page of the feasibility study when it is released some time perhaps in the next decade.

John J. Kruzel: War can inspire great writing, like a series of superlative dispatches from servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan compiled in a new book that offers an arresting glimpse of life on the front lines. Conceived by Garry Trudeau, creator of the long-running, satirical comic strip Doonesbury, “The Sandbox” is a 309-page compilation of roughly 90 online…

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, Robert Feinman, Peter Sayles and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.

DO NOT CARRY CAT URINE INTO WAL-MART…! OK, so this story really belongs in the Stupid Criminal category usually found on News Of The Weird, but when I read Cynthia Hunter”s tale of woe, I couldn”t resist. Clearly Tampa does not have a share agreement with CSI: Miami. Keep reading…

IT”S FREE, WE”LL PAY YOU, COME IN, PLEASE…! Wal-Mart has yet to go that low, but it”s really starting to look like Wal-Mart is so desperate to please Wall Street that it will do nearly anything to make investors believe that the company is a good place to put their money. Keep reading…

WAL-MART WHISTLE BLOWER KEEPS A JOB… Business Week reports four months after she followed Wal-Mart”s ethics guidelines and alerted the company to possible insider trading, Chalace Epley Lowry, has a new job: with Wal-Mart. Albeit in a halting and clunky manner, it appears that the system worked. Keep reading…

WAL-MART WINS FIGHT TO SELL BEER…? Even in it”s home state of Arkansas, Wal-Mart has to fight the forces of darkness that would inhibit its inalienable right to sell cheap plastic crap made in China beer. Yes. Beer. At the, and I”m not making this up, Flippin Wal-Mart. Keep reading…

DO YOU SUPPOSE THEY WERE MADE IN CHINA…? Take a hole. Fill it full of garbage. Tamp it down really, really well. Cover it with dirt. Plant grass on top. Sell the land to Wal-Mart to build a store. Sounds like part of Wal-Mart”s whole we”re greening the world initiative. Right? Keep reading…

I KNOW SOMETHING YOU DON”T KNOW… Are you one of those people who gets annoyed when someone spoils your joke by shouting out the punchline or ruins your surprise by gushing what”s going to happen just because they can”t contain themselves? Keep reading…

REDS GLOAT OVER UNIONIZING WAL-MART… I”ve written before about the poetic justice of the world”s largest communist nation forcing Wal-Mart to unionize it”s stores. Granted, unions in China are not the same as Service Employee International Union here. Keep reading…
HEAD COPY. Keep reading…

AT THE WALLY PLEX… There are sound stages on Hollywood”s back lots smaller than Bentonvile”s behemoths, so it”s no surprise that budding video talent has been sneaking cameras in at odd hours. And now for the midnight show at the Wally Plex featuring Starmarcmj. Keep reading…

THIS IS A GOOD SIGN… While Lee Scott still hasn”t appointed an Executive Vice President of Product Recalls, this news release is an encouraging sign that Wal-Mart is getting out in front of it”s recall problems. Way to go Mr. Scott! It”s good to know you”re listening. Keep reading…

THIS IS WHY WAL-MART DOESN”T GIVE BREAKS… A, thankfully, unidentified Wal-Mart worker in Lafayette, Colorado, could be the poster child for why Wal-Mart seems to have such a problem with giving its workers breaks and lunches. It really just has their best interests at heart. Keep reading…

I KNOW WE”VE ASKED THE QUESTION BEFORE… At The Writing On The Wal we realize that we”re often preaching to the choir and that those we”d like to reach aren”t reading. The inverse is that we sometimes forget the basic messages like that articulated by the blogger at ridiculous in the middle of nowhere: Keep reading…

LEAVING CASH IN UNATTENDED REGISTERS…? When I was back in college I worked a register in the Jewelry department at Hart”s in Marietta, Ohio. One of the things you never, ever did was leave your cash in the drawer at the end of the shift. You counted it out and signed it over or took the drawer to the safe. Keep reading…

SMELLS LIKE STEELYARD COMMONS… One of the reasons I keep posting at The Writing On The Wal is that I want other communities to have the benefit of the institutional memory we represent. The blog started as No Cleveland Walmart nearly three years ago because we didn”t believe a local developer. Keep reading…

TRANSFORMERS… SCAM ARTISTS IN DISQUISE…! My youngest brother collected the Transformer toys and I remember watching the TV show with him, but I haven”t seen the movie. But it”s obvious that blogger BurgandySkies has and man is she pissed. Not at the movie. At Wal-Mart. Keep reading…

DOMO ARIGATO… NOW GET OUT OF OUR WAY… That”s the message that I got from reading the news this morning that Wal-Mart will increase its position in Japanese retailer Seiyu from 50.9 percent to 100 percent after failing for five years to make the company profitable. Obviously the problem can”t be Wal-Mart”s, right? Keep reading…

PAVING PARADISE… Stacy Higa is a Hilo, Hawaii, councilmember. He decided that paving over a portion of the Big Island of Hawaii (the one with the active volcano) and building a Wal-Mart supercenter to let people stretch their dollars as far as possible was a good thing. Keep reading…

A SAD DAY FOR CLEVELAND, OHIO…
In a little more than 24 hours the doors open on the Steelyard Commons Wal-Mart. At 8:36 a.m. on 19 May 2005 citizens who opposed that store came together and turned the lights on at No Cleveland Walmart intending to stop it from every being built. Keep reading…

SUPERCENTERS RULE…! WELL, NOT REALLY… Despite the cheerleading from Wal-Flack Ron Mosby and claims that the Supercenter concept is the one that provides customers the greatest response to their needs., citizens in California have let the company know that they find the behemoth stores offensive. Keep reading…

RUT ROH… Keep reading…

WAL-MART”S VERSION OF PICKETT”S CHARGE…? On 3 July 1863, the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee ordered the disastrous assault on the Union forces under Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock. The term charge here is a misnomer. Keep reading…

YES, JONATHAN… WE”RE (I”M) STILL AT IT… Jonathan (Adler not Rees) at National Review Online seems to think that interested citizens are busy bodies and that $32 million in handouts from our Port Authority aren”t government subsidies. Then there is the matter of the sales tax abatements from the state. Keep reading…

I WON”T GO THAT FAR… Above Wendy Bound”s Wall Street Journal story yesterday, she placed the headline: Forget the War. It”s Wal-Mart That Divides Us. I won”t go that far; dying American service personnel are more important than sales of cheap plastic crap from China. Keep reading…

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

Tech Support: “OK. At the bottom left hand side of your screen, can you see the ‘OK’ button displayed?”

Customer: “Wow! How can you see my screen from there?”

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from A Room Of One’s Own by Virginia Wolf.

“Currer Bell, George Eliot, Sand, all victims of inner strife as their writings prove, sought ineffectively to veil themselves by using the name of a man. Thus, they did homage to the convention, which if not implemented by the other sex was liberally encouraged by them (the chief glory of a woman is not be talked of, said Pericles, himself a much-talked-of-man), the publicity in women is detestable. Anonymity runs in their blood. The desire to be veiled still possess them.” p. 50