Plan B Forum

Posted: **Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:13 pm**

Buddhists sentenced over Burma riot

Twenty-five Buddhists have been sentenced to as many as 15 years in prison for murder and other crimes during a night of rioting, burning and killing in central Burma (also known as Myanmar), following weeks in which it seemed only Muslims were being punished for sectarian violence aimed primarily at members of their own religion.

But the sentences issued Wednesday and Thursday did not erase a sense of unequal justice: A day earlier, a Muslim received a life sentence for murdering one of the 43 people killed March 20 and 21 in the central Burma town of Meikhtila.

A wave of violence over the past year in this predominantly Buddhist Southeast Asian country has left more than 250 people dead and 140,000 others fleeing their homes, most of them Muslim. The attacks, and the government's inability to stop them, have marred the Southeast Asian country's image abroad as it moves toward democracy and greater freedom following nearly five decades of military rule.

Most of the sentences were handed down Wednesday, and the toughest stemmed from the deadliest incident of the Meikhtila riots: a brutal mob attack on an Islamic school, its students and teachers that killed 36 people.

Buddhist mobs torched Mingalar Zayone Islamic Boarding School, Muslim businesses and all but one of the city's 13 mosques following a dispute between a Muslim and a Buddhist at a gold shop and the burning death of a Buddhist monk by four Muslim men. While security forces stood by, a mob armed with machetes, metal pipes, chains and stones killed 32 teenage students and four teachers. Video clips online show mobs clubbing students to death and cheering as flames leap from corpses.

The state-run Keymon daily said eight people - seven Buddhists and one Muslim - were convicted Wednesday in Meikhtila district court for crimes connected to the school massacre.

Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/Buddhists-senten ... z2ZXIMejCz

Posted: **Sat Jul 20, 2013 2:09 am**

If I am not mistaken this is the result of significant provocation.

Posted: **Mon Jul 22, 2013 2:27 pm**

I will never understand how people can hate each other so much on the sole grounds that they are of a different religion.

Posted: **Mon Jul 22, 2013 3:47 pm**

Yep Thích Quảng Đức hated Catholics soooooo bad he set himself on fire...

Posted: **Wed Jul 24, 2013 4:40 am**

I await with 'bated breath Lord Jim's thread on "Those Peace Loving Christians".

Oh, wait. His church has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people ....

Posted: **Wed Jul 24, 2013 11:15 am**

Isn't the central theme of Buddhism "Every man for himself"?

Posted: **Thu Jul 25, 2013 8:04 pm**

Crackpot wrote:Isn't the central theme of Buddhism "Every man for himself"?

Quite the contrary:

Just as all the previous Sugatas and the Buddhas generated the mind of enlightenment and accomplished all the stages of the Bodhisattva training, so will I too, for the sake of all beings, generate the mind of enlightenment ....

Posted: **Thu Jul 25, 2013 8:30 pm**

Thus proving that Andrew doesn't have a sense of humor.

Posted: **Thu Jul 25, 2013 8:42 pm**

you want to continue with you thoughts on the Famous Belgian philosopher Aristotle and the political movement known as the London Underground?

Posted: **Fri Jul 26, 2013 2:44 am**

Have you been eating dgs49's corn flakes?

Posted: **Fri Jul 26, 2013 2:28 pm**

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Wanda: [after Otto breaks in on Wanda and Archie in Archie's flat and hangs him out the window] I was dealing with something delicate, Otto. I'm setting up a guy who's incredibly important to us, who's going to tell me where the loot is and if they're going to come and arrest you. And you come loping in like Rambo without a jockstrap and you dangle him out a fifth-floor window. Now, was that smart? Was it shrewd? Was it good tactics? Or was it stupid?
Otto West: Don't call me stupid.
Wanda: Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I've known sheep that could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?
Otto West: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man for himself." And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.

Come on Andrew try to keep up...

Posted: **Sat Jul 27, 2013 8:34 pm**

The reference was oblique. Get over yourself.

yrs,
rubato

Posted: **Sat Jul 27, 2013 8:51 pm**

He's the genius, I knew how to look it up...

Posted: **Sat Jul 27, 2013 9:35 pm**

rubato wrote:Doh! I didn't get it either..

yrs,
rubato

Fixed.

Posted: **Sat Jul 27, 2013 10:17 pm**

Gob wrote:
rubato wrote:Doh - I get it all the time.

yrs,
rubato

Fixed (again)

Posted: **Sun Jul 28, 2013 8:38 pm**

Rick wrote:He's the genius, I knew how to look it up...

Re: Those Peace Loving Buddhists...

Postby Crackpot » Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:30 pm
Thus proving that Andrew doesn't have a sense of humor.

Not 'getting' a somewhat obscure and oblique reference does not prove that Andrew does not have a sense of humor. The idea is stupid.

yrs,
rubato

Posted: **Sun Jul 28, 2013 8:38 pm**

Gob wrote:
rubato wrote:Doh! I didn't get it either..

yrs,
rubato

Fixed.

speaking of stupid.

Posted: **Sun Jul 28, 2013 9:26 pm**

rubato wrote:
Rick wrote:He's the genius, I knew how to look it up...

Re: Those Peace Loving Buddhists...

Postby Crackpot » Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:30 pm
Thus proving that Andrew doesn't have a sense of humor.
Not 'getting' a somewhat obscure and oblique reference does not prove that Andrew does not have a sense of humor. The idea is stupid.

yrs,
rubato

The idea that Andrew doesn't have a sense of humor is not new.

The fact that Crackpot comes up with a great many obscure references (some more so than others) is not new
either.

However Andrews comment to CP about cheerios instead of even trying to get it seemed a bit over the top for me, thus my comment based upon my assessment of the previous comments.

Humor is not that hard even for one that is as dry as Andrews...

Posted: **Sun Jul 28, 2013 9:28 pm**

Rick wrote: The idea that Andrew doesn't have a sense of humor is not new.

The fact that Andrew has openly admitted to not having much of a sense of humour would underscore that.

Posted: **Mon Jul 29, 2013 1:12 am**

I was hanging there, staring down – a long way down – at a brick staircase, and I had an epiphany.

I’d already seen one of the guys holding my ankles. As I was walking down the main drive, there he was, with his leather forearm-shield covered in metal points, playing some sort of volleyball. He, a guy with a twisted spine, and another guy with what looked to be several braces retainers wrapped around his lower face were swatting something that was once a soccer ball over a small pine tree.

The other guy I’d never seen before. It would turn out later that he had four combinations of first and last names, depending on his mood, and woe betide whoever guessed the wrong one.

From the main drive, I’d entered the main house, where I’d been greeted with a security regime, notable mostly for its inability to detect contraband, run by a woman for whom “Praise the Lord!” seemed to be an obligatory phrase in reference to almost everything. (As I was to hear all too many times later “Washing the dishes, Praise the Lord!” “Taking out the garbage, Praise the Lord!”)

I’d made my way up to my new abode, a room called Jericho. (The original Jericho sign hangs to this day above the door to our guest bedroom.) Eventually, I would become quite the cosmopolitan: I have lived in Jericho, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Hebron, Damascus, Bethany, Bethsaida, and probably some other places I don’t recall.

Before I’d even got settled in, the leather-pointy-things guy and the what’s-my-name-today guy had grabbed me, carried me to Damascus II, and shoved me out the window, holding me by my ankles.

And then one of them said, loudly, “I’m losing my grip!”

There I was, face to the wall of what had once been a beautiful Julia-Morgan-designed mansion, my head aimed at what could soon be the site of my death or, perhaps worse, my mangling.

And it came to me: Whether I live or die has very little to do with me and mostly to do with other people whose behavior I cannot control.

So I abandoned my desperate clinging to the shingles, let my arms hang down, stared the staircase right in its mortar-encrusted face, and let go of everything.

I’m still here.

Edited for hyphenation.