Two of the most Theravada Buddhist (sometimes labeled "Southern Buddhism") countries in the world, Burma and Thailand, have been rocked by a massive quake with thousands dead from the collapse of buildings and powerful aftershocks.
Magnitude 7.7 earthquake hits Burma with damage reported in Bangkok, Thailand | BBC
A skyscraper under construction has fallen
(BBC News) March 28, 2025: A huge 7.7 magnitude earthquake has hit central Burma (Myanmar) with aftershocks, tremors, and damage felt in Thailand and south-west China.
The epicenter was located 10 miles (16 km) north-west of the city of Sagaing, Burma, at a depth of 10 km, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) says.
Videos show cracks in roads in Burma's new capital Naypyidaw (moved by the totalitarian government from Rangoon/Yangon) and people evacuating into the street in Thailand’s capital Bangkok.
What does this seismic activity portend for San Andreas Fault California becoming an island?
.
What has happened today suggests what California is facing because of its massive San Andreas Fault. Experts warn that the most populated state in the USA is facing similar danger to today's catastrophe. Caltech Lucy is bound to be interviewed. California, most of which is still in Mexico (Baja and Sur), used to be an island (presumably not only because of a myth and misestimation but because of higher sea levels in the past).
Then in 2023, with less drought, Lake Tulare returned
Water went up from the Gulf of California (near San Felipe, Mexico) and around to the Salton Sea, to surround part of Alta California, annexed by the USA for its empire, and link up with the ancient Lake Corcoran (to say nothing of Tulare Lake and Lake Manly) that once occupied most of the state until it was drained.
Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Rescuers break through to trapped India miners in Uttarakhand | BBC News
(BBC News) Nov. 28, 2023: Rescuers in India say they have broken through to 41 workers who have been trapped in a tunnel in the Indian state of Uttarakhand since November 12, 2023. The miners became stuck after a landslide nearby brought down a mountain of debris, trapping them. They are expected to be [and have now been successfully] extracted one by one via a 90cm diameter pipe inserted through the rubble of the collapsed tunnel. #India#Uttarakhand#BBCNews. BBC is a British public broadcast service.
How ‘rat miners’ rescued India tunnel workers
(South China Morning Post) Nov. 28, 2023: Indian rescuers pulled out all 41 workers trapped inside a collapsed tunnel in the Indian Himalayas with some help from a group of people who do so-called "rathole mining," which is effectively banned in the country. Authorities tapped the “rat miners” for help when heavy machinery broke down during a rescue operation that had dragged on for more than two weeks. For more on this: sc.mp/ltfe. Subscribe to YouTube channel for free here: sc.mp/subscribe-youtube #scmp #Asia #India
Incredible rescue: Aussie hero saves 41 miners trapped in India tunnel
(7NEWS Australia)
Nov. 28, 2023: There have been jubilant scenes after 41 workers trapped in a tunnel in India for 17 days have finally been brought to the surface and to safety. The drawn-out rescue mission gripping viewers around the world was guided by a heroic Melbourne rescuer. Watch the full interview with Arnold Dix. Key Chapters in this video:
00:00 Miners Trapped for 17 days
01:51 Joined by Arnold Dix live.
Now even the BBC is seeing through Israel’s lies and propaganda campaign to justify its genocidal invasion and killing of noncombatant civilians
(Novara Media) Nov. 18, 2023: Novara Live broadcasts every weekday from 6:00 pm on YouTube and Twitch.
Episodes of Downstream are released Sundays at 6:00 pm on YouTube.
United Nations Rep. Nada Tarbush: "Never again is NOW," genocidal Israel
We're going to call 'em terrorists and kill 'em all
First Channel 4 (UK public TV) saw holes in Israel's many deceptive stories, press releases, and lies. Now even the very pro-Israel bias of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) can't help but seeing the holes in militant Israel Defense Forces' ham-handed video presentation of "evidence" of tunnels and Al-Shifa Hospital being used as "Hamas Central Command."
I'm not "lying." I'm just "following orders."
These are pathetic lies laughed at by the rest of the world, particularly the Arabic speaking Middle East, but swallowed whole by the only audience that matters, us, the U.S., the funders of Israel's atrocities. Who is falling for Col. Klunk aka "John Con" man (Lt. Col. Johnathan Conricus)?
He's the clunky Jewish voice of Israel's professional military, the IDF's special [propaganda, psyops] forces, the unblinking speaker, a kind of gentle-voiced monster, a Herman Munster, a pockmarked face, a blemished caricature of a serious, unbiased voice of reason.
He's just showing and telling what he is told to show and tell -- psyops, propaganda, lies -- even as it changes on what the IDF claims is continuous video (one shot with no edits) footage. It's faked and therefore fake.
"We walked into a wasteland," says the BBC's Jeremy Bowen embedded with Israeli militants committing war crimes as they enter Gaza under an IDF banner.
The BBC's international editor Jeremy Bowen has travelled with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) into Gaza, Palestine.
While the BBC had editorial control of the report, the section with the IDF has been viewed by them.
The IDF showed the BBC what they said was a Hamas [Al Qassam Brigades] weapons factory, below a home in which children lived.
Subsection
Middle East, published by the BBC on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023.
Christina Randall, 6/20; BBC News, A Current Affair, WSJ, 6/20/23; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly
(WQ) Do people know what an implosion is? Most do not. It is an explosion. Why? When the pressure outside is greater and a crack forms, the pressurized space collapsing with tremendous force. So forceful is the collapse, the implosion, that it immediately causes an explosion. Try it. Take a fluorescent bulb or better an old TV tube. Set up a high-speed camera. Then make a crack in it with, say, a baseball bat. Now play the tape back in slow motion. See how the tube draws in then immediately, with explosive force, shoots out? That is an implosion, which triggers an explosion. So what happened at the bottom of the sea or below the water at some as yet unknown depth? The pressure outside the submersible capsule got too great. At the bottom, where the Titanic sits, the depth is 4,000 feet. And the pressure is 6,000 lbs. per square inch. That means that one inch of the sub is bearing the weight of two SUVs, and this is true for every inch of the sub. When it cracks -- and it was bound to crack because it was only built to withstand pressure to a depth of 1,300 feet, according to reports coming in. The sub had been used multiple time, each time pressurizing and decompressing it, which would apparently weaken the structure. It would, therefore, not take much to instantaneously cave in and immediately obliterate the contents as the sub descended. It was doomed. And the view from it is bad, very bad, with just one small hole at the tip for everyone to look out of, no seats, and nothing to do but get claustrophobia and cold, in the dark and praying to get through it. Now they've been reborn. Will anyone else be taking the tour?
UPDATE: Five missing after Titanic sub "Titan" disappears in Atlantic Ocean | OceanGate
(Christina Randall) June 20, 2023. As a search and rescue mission continues for a private submersible that went missing while on an expedition to explore the wreckage of the Titanic, more is emerging about its five passengers. Among the confirmed passengers are British businessman Hamish Harding; Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son, Suleman; and French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet. Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, the company that operates the vessel, is also inside it, the BBC reports. OceanGate billed this trip as an opportunity to "become one of the few to see the Titanic with your own eyes." The company said the fee for securing a seat on the vessel was $250,000.00 (a quarter million U.S. dollars), according to its website. The trip was billed as more than mere tourism, however. OceanGate notes that each of its dives has a scientific purpose. More from CBS News: cbsnews.com/news/who-is-o...
Missing Titanic sub has 40 hours of oxygen left says US Coast Guard
(BBC News) June 20, 2023. A tourist experimental submersible (not actual submarine) that went missing on a visit to the wreck of the Titanic with five people on board has just 40 hours of air left, the U.S. Coastguard says.
The search to locate the small, deep-diving vessel is ongoing after it lost contact while diving near the wreckage of the Titanic.
The research vessel Polar Prince lost contact with the crew of the Titan sub an hour and 45 minutes into its dive.
Tour firm OceanGate said it was exploring all options [including discounted prices for future voyages to the bottom of the sea?] to get the crew back safely.
Gallows humor is the worst humor, but sometimes it's the only thing for a tragic situation -- a helpless tragedy as people are dying, and the whole world is helpless to save them. That's capitalism, that's freedom, that's adventure. Climbing Mt. Everest (or the possibly taller K2) involves risks, real risks. That's the thrill, that's the accomplishment Should free agents like OceanGate be stopped because daredevils died? An airline was taken down and the bodies of the deceased never recovered; therefore, we must all stop flying commercially. It's too dangerous! We need regulations, a nanny state, restriction. Let's join forces to end travel by sea, submarine, and airplane. We need to walk and take trains. Wait, no, trains are too dangerous. Just look at Ohio and India. It's foot traffic and bikes, but all bikes must have training wheels attached, and everyone must from now on wear safety helmets. Can ya imagine? So the only question left is, Might they find Osama bin Laden's fake corpse down there? How about that diamond? And how much of a discount are we talking about? It was $250,000.00 a ticket before. Half-price now?
BBC Reel, June 10, 2022; Bodhisattva; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
How the world's oldest university was lost for 800 years (BBC)
(BBC Reel) Founded more than 1,500 years ago, India's ancient Nalanda [Buddhist monastic] University is thought to have been the world's first residential university.
The Buddha-to-be went to college at Taxila
Established more than 500 years before England's Oxford University, at its peak Nalanda hosted over 10,000 students from around the world.
It is considered by historians to be one of the great centers of learning of the ancient world.
[Two other perhaps older universities were at Timbuktu, in Islamic Africa, and the school the Bodhisattva ("Buddha-to-be") attended along with Ananda in a previous life, Taxila/Takkasila, the capital of ancient Gandhara (modern Pakistan), which is mentioned in the Jataka Tales.]
Nalanda University was destroyed towards the end of the 12th Century AD. Its legendary library was burned to the ground, and much of its ancient knowledge was lost.
Now, 800 years later, it is being revived for the modern age.
(Bodhisattva) Why Turko-Afghan mass murderer Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji burned down Nalanda Buddhist University and killed all of its resident monk teachers and monastic students: real reasons and firsthand accounts.
This established Timbuktu as a scholarly center in Africa. Several notable historic writers, such as Shabeni and Leo Africanus, wrote about the city.
These stories fueled speculation in Europe, where the city's reputation shifted from being extremely rich to being mysterious. More
[So white Europeans destroyed it, took its knowledge, then denied it ever existed. This created the joke that "Timbuktu" is synonymous with "Podunk," a faraway or nonexistent place.]
"Tell me about it. I've been a blond white dude for, like, 2,000 years." (bizarro.com)
(BBC/Security Science) "Jesus Was A Buddhist Monk (BBC documentary), the "lost" years in India.
What the hell?! Rome rules!
(TheTraveler edited by WQ) It's true, Jesus was a Buddhist monk. Read his teachings in "A Course in Miracles." They are very similar to Buddhist teachings. Christians have been misled by the Roman Empire's church (Catholicism or Universalism), which used Christianity as a form of imperial government-control, when in truth Jesus wanted to liberate humankind from suffering. Jesus was a spiritual scientist much like the Buddha. MIND is the creator of all things, as the Buddha teaches (Dhammapada, Verse 1). This is the "Father in heaven" to whom Jesus refers, not some mythical emperor man with a white beard on a cloud.
Depictions of Gautama Buddha in filmGautama, the Buddha, has been the subject of several films. The first known film about the life of Buddha was Buddhadev (English title Lord Buddha) which...
Maya (the mother of the Buddha)...story of Jesus. Z. P. Thundy has surveyed the similarities and differences between the birth stories of Buddha by Maya andJesus by Mary and notes that...
Miracles of Gautama BuddhaGautama Buddha was alleged to possess superhuman powers and abilities; however, due to an understanding of the workings of the skeptical mind, he reportedly...
Jesus in comparative mythologyperspectives on the BuddhaandJesus, when the peaceful passing into nirvana of Gautama Buddha at the old age of 80 is contrasted with the harsh image of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth as an allegedly willing...
Jesus of Nazareth Reza Aslan (amazon.com)
Rebel Jesus, not Roman myth
Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher and miracle worker walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the “Kingdom of God.”
The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established [imperial Roman] order that he was captured, tortured, and executed as a state criminal trying to overthrow the government.
Within decades after his shameful death, his followers would call him "God."
Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Prof. Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history’s most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived: first-century Palestine, an age awash in apocalyptic fervor.
Scores of Jewish prophets, preachers, and would-be Messiahs [Maitreyas] wandered through the land, bearing messages from God. This was the age of zealotry -- a fervent nationalism that made resistance to the Roman occupation a sacred duty incumbent on all Jews. More
Video journalist Jeremy Howell (BBC); Ananda (DMB), Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
"Men didn't understand my medicated tampon business"
Two years ago Valentina Milanova had an idea for a tampon with built-in pain relief, which she says is less prone to leaking. But taking on the big multinational companies that dominate the industry would not be easy.
(March 23, 2020) Elisabetta Abrami is 32, single, who loves travel and friends. Now, like the rest of Italy, she’s stuck inside in her small apartment in Rome. Here's a sincere diary of her first week amid moving moments, hilarious practical matters, fears, and hopes. Filmed and directed by Elisabetta Abrami and produced by Anna Bressanin.VIDEO
"From NPR and WBEZ Chicago this is Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!: the NPR news quiz." This is Part 1 of NPR's most popular radio game show from WBEZ Chicago, which has been on the air since 1998.
This video is a broadcast pilot for a proposed television version from 2011. It came as a result of a joint venture between NPR and PBS with the BBC for a possible TV adaptation.
It proposed a TV format for both US and UK versions. As it turns out the idea didn't pan out. No one wants to see radio faces on the air.
So there was no more talk about the TV version either in the US or in the UK. But it is rumored that this episode aired on Chicago's PBS affiliates. This show definitely aired on local Chicago radio, broadcast, and cable TV, as well as nationwide on US and UK radio and cable TV channels on December 23, 2011.
WARNING: Gratuitous gun violence, killing, and general absurdity with ~530 million views!
Last weekend multi-talented singer, rapper, songwriter, and actor Childish Gambino (aka Donald Glover) used his Friday headline slot at Coachella as a lecture.
He played feedback from festivalgoers earlier that day who were skeptical about his slot. He smoked out a surprised young man in the audience by offering him an enormous joint [of legal cannabis].
He talked about the death of his father. And he reminded the crowd that by the laws of probability it was highly likely one of them wouldn't be alive next week.
Insider breaks down some hidden meanings in "This is America."
During his final song, "Redbone," and specifically the lyric “stay woke, niggas creepin',” his camera crew were focused on a group of white frat boys singing the lyrics back. This felt intentional.
Gambino’s performance was provocative. It was daring. And it was quite unpopular. It was also one of the biggest talking points of the Coachella Music and Arts Festival.
The following day many revelers said they didn't get the escapist moment they had bargained for. Over the course of the week, some were even so bold as to ask: Did people enjoy Childish Gambino's set?
So all eyes were on what would happen the second time around. On Friday (April 19th), we found out. More
Police moved in to prevent people voting in Sunday's disputed election (Getty Images)
Spain should crush Catalonia! - C. Columbus
CATALONIA - The Spanish government's
representative in Catalonia has apologized to those injured during
police efforts to stop Sunday's independence referendum.
But Enric Millo blamed the Catalan government for holding an "illegal" vote.
We're already like a police state. - Franco
Meanwhile, the government in Madrid has issued a decree making it easier for
companies to move their headquarters away from Catalonia.
A Catalan minister told the BBC his government would go ahead with an independence debate in parliament.
Catalonia, like Portugal, is its own country
"Parliament
will discuss, parliament will meet," said Catalan foreign affairs chief
Raül Romeva.
"Every attempt the Spanish government has used to impede
things to happen, they have been demonstrated completely not only
useless but counter-productive," he told the BBC in English.
In the first apology by a Spanish government official over the
violence on Sunday, which saw hundreds injured by police as police, trying to
enforce a Spanish court ban on the vote, attempted to seize ballot boxes
and disperse voters, Mr. Millo said he could not help but "regret it and
apologize on behalf of the officers that intervened" [and legally beat the hell out of ~1,000 Catalonians trying to cast ballots in a democratic vote]. More + VIDEO
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