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Satellite Images Used to Monitor Burmese Junta
BurmesePython writes "Human rights groups are using high-resolution satellites images to reveal the activities of Burma's junta as it gets tough with pro-democracy protesters. Apparently 'it should be easy to spot groups of monks because of their distinctive maroon robes'. Like previous efforts to use satellites to monitor the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the hope is it will prod the UN and other international actors into putting pressure on the Burmese rulers."
What was maroon
Shows as red
In the street
Monks lie dead
- Myanmar Shave
It's just not right that governments should be under such scrutiny by citizens. It's like they can't do anything without being monitored anymore. Imagine you just were trying to do your job of restoring order and punishing disruptive monks, with Little Brother looking over your shoulder. This slide into an accountable society is terrifying.
Why is it that the Americans generally think that the UN is pointless? Because they heard it said on fox or cnn? What exactly is your rationale for thinking that the world would be better off and not worse off without the UN?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I'm sure it does all sorts of things, but when you watch it rendered impotent because a Security Council member is good friends with a pack of murderous military rulers, it's hard not to be just a tad cynical about its abilities.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
National Geographic has a small copy of one of the images: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070928-burma-satellite.html
I suppose China could dump all those American dollars, and you would have to call back your armies from everywhere because, well, the US would be broke and completely dipping into a major recession.
I think it's time that Americans started boning up on their history of 4th century Rome. There's some lessons there about overextension and debased currency that some might find educational.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's ironic that the "UN is useless" meme is strongest in USA, which stops the UN (Security Council) from doing anything that would interfere with US economic interests when those interests involve murderous rulers friendly to those US economic interests.
Or ignores the UN when USA wants to take part in an illegal invasion. Then whines that the UN isn't doing enough to clean up the mess that USA has made of Iraq.
Kinda like USA sitting out years of WWI and also sitting on its collective hands for > 2 years of WWII. Hitler not a murderous enough bastard for Americans?
Excuse me whilst I gag on "Yer with us our yer with the terrrrrrrsts" as I think back on that.
That's where you're spot on though. All these fools who don't see how overextending ourselves in two expensive and unwinnable (militarily) conflicts isn't eroding our national security need to get off fox news and go read some history. Islamofascism (whatever that is) might be a threat, but hardly on the scale of cold-war USSR, modern-day china, north korea... or more importantly our domestic education, health-care, social security, and sundry economic problems, to say nothing of global climate change, which threatens to be a bigger threat than all of the above.
I think that too many people want to see us recapture our WW2 era success, but without any of the domestic sacrifice that that conflict required of the average citizen.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
The UN doesn't exist to stop massacres in Africa and Asia (or Europe/America/Australia), or to stop dictators from killing their people. It exists to try and stop the big powers from getting into another huge war, by providing a diplomatic channel which hopefully won't be closed in protest to whatever it was this week. The rest is just feel good crap that is just there for show.
It doesn't matter if the guys with the big guns mess with the little countries. Or the little countries mess with each other. As long the big guns don't get used on each other all is well. Of course as with all bureaucracies it does a whole lot more, but that's all unimportant side issues.
The world hasn't been turned into a nuclear wasteland so so far so good for the UN.
"WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind..." the rest is minor nuisance stuff (stuff like genocide in Africa, human rights abuses by everyone, etc) that simply doesn't matter in comparison with turning the planet into radioactive frozen ball.
No, they can't just dump all the dollars. Couple problems with that:
1) Most of those funds are in the form for treasury securities (T-Bills/T-notes/T-bonds). Those are promissory notes issued by the US government. Basically it says "We agree to pay you this much money by this date." Fair enough, but the value is only because the government honours that agreement. So far, US securities are one of the safest things you can buy. They have always made good and have plenty of systems in place to make sure that keeps happening. However, they could if they wanted just not honour the notes issued to China. All of a sudden that wealth is gone. China can't sell the notes if the US has made it clear they are worthless, they can't redeem them, the wealth just goes away. This would, of course, have severe consequences to the US government in terms of the ability to issue more note sin the future since people wouldn't trust them as much, but it can be done.
2) China's economy is very dependant on it continuing to grow and the money continuing to come in. A big part of that is that America continues to be willing to buy their goods. Well, if America's economy got fucked up, and if it was well known that the cause was the Chinese, that would all go away. Not only does a depression put people in to a mode where they spend little money especially on non-essentials (which is largely what China produces) but there would be extensive boycotts, and perhaps even governmental sanction, against Chinese products. That happens, all of a sudden China has factories without work, people without jobs, an upcoming middle class facing the return to what is quite literally peasantry. Revolutions have started over that, and they know it.
3) China's dollar is pegged to the US dollar. For the US dollar to rapidly change is for their dollar to rapidly change, unless they un peg it, in which case it will also rapidly change. Strong and weak currencies are relative things and there is no one that is better than the other, each has advantages and disadvantages. However rapid change is problematic as your economy isn't ready for the new dynamic. Rapidly changing the US dollar would not do them well, regardless of how they chose to manage the yuan.
The problem is you cannot look at international economies in the same way you look at something like a personal economy. China and the US dont' have a worker - boss relationship. It is a customer - distributor relationship at the closest, but still different since each controls their own currency, each has real military force such that nobody else can come in and force them to do something different and so on. It's not a case of them holding the stick and the US being in trouble, it is a case of something like economic mutually assured destruction. Yes, they have the theoretical potential to hurt the US economy, however doing so would have severe consequences to them and as such isn't a real possibility.
It is difficult to understand fully since the globalized economy we have today is very new, and since on that scale things don't follow the same rules as the small scales we personally work on. Many people fail to understand this and thus misunderstand the intricacies of the situation.