Docno

It is a feminist over-simplification to suggest that rape is about power rather than sexual gratification (of course, nobody has ever suggested it's about 'intimacy'). If it were just about power, we would find that 50 year-olds are just as likely to be raped as teens. But that's not the case. According to the NSVRC, "Most female victims of completed rape (79.6%) experienced their first rape before the age of 25; 42.2% experienced their first completed rape before the age of 18 years." Of course, it's complex and there are often other motives such as anger/resentment in the mix.

Lots of Thai bashing going on here. Yeah, there are Thais who are abusive to animals and there are 'industries' that need a hell of a lot of reform (though remember we're talking about a developing country here). I've seen a lot worse in other countries. And I've seen a lot of Thais who are more caring toward animals than the typical people I knew back home. Case in point: my Thai ex-gf heard a dog get hit by a car outside her shop one night and brought him in and nursed him back to relative health (including having to wipe his @ss etc) ... slept outside with him at night for several days. I bought a doggy wheel-chair for him too. She named him chokedee ('lucky') ... seems to be the name for such occasions. I don't know many people who would gone to so much trouble as her.

You must be fun at parties...

Maybe this 27 year old should consider a career other than 'yoga teacher' so that she's not living at the edge of her bank account...

India taking some well-deserved knocks here, but the US also requires a visa even if you are just transiting (unless you are from a country that gets a waiver).

Seriously? When was the last time the US was attacked BY a 'Christian' country/group? Their 'overt' wars were responses to either attacks (1 by a Shinto/Buddhist nation in 1941, and 2 by an Islamic group in 2001) or where they were called in to 'protect' an ally (S Korea, S Vietnam, etc.), even those you could argue these situations were engineered for strategic reasons. Talk about covert wars, then you get into largely Christian Latin America. The point is that the US has never attacked another country with the primary or even secondary intent of imposing Christianity on it. When Bush said that he was doing God's work, he naively meant that he thought he could bring peace and stability (not Christianity) to the region.

Yes, that was terrible. But it's easy to get caught up in the numbers game. For example, I can highlight the fact that 171 school teachers were murdered by separatists in a 10-year period at the start of this century. 85 stone-throwing protesters vs 171 teachers. Could go on and on. Also, the Tak Bai protesters were victims of criminal neglect and mistreatment but it's not clear that it was a case of first-degree murder (i.e., that the police intended for them to die); the teachers, on the other hand, were murdered in cold blood.

Silly response. In what way do US armed forces project the interests and goals of Christianity? When was the last time the US tried to impose Christianity on a conquered state or even gave preferential treatment to Christian citizens of such a state? Did they try to impose Christianity on Afghanistan or Iraq? Does the US government treat Muslim citizens as being second-class? p.s. I'm not American.

You need to understand more about Islam (I've read the Quran three times, the hadith collection of Al Bukhari, and the sira/biography of Muhammad by al Hisham ... my wife is Muslim). You will then understand that in the orthodox Muslim view, the world is divided into two parts: the dar al-Islam (abode of Islam) dar al-harb (abode of war). And part of this thinking is that once land has become part of dar al-Islam any reversion to control by unbelievers must be fought until the end of time. In theory, Islam can only expand, and any contraction of the dar al-Islam demands never-ending resistance from believers. That, in part, explains what you are seeing.

"Buddhist Kingdom of Siam took control of Muslim Kingdom of Patani's entire territory by force and divided it into Thai seven provinces. " This carefully misses the year in which this happened: 1785. In other words, rightly or wrongly, Thailand has had possession of this area for 250 years. Now go look at a map of any part of the world from the late 1700s and note how different it looks from today. Should we all go back to the 18th century borders? Why even stop there? The Greeks would love to have Constantinople back.

Yes, there are surely isolated examples of where predominantly Christian populations (Serbia, for example) target Muslim populations. But that's the exception more than the rule. You don't have Christian extremist groups targeting civilians across the world in a coordinated fashion. You don't have verses of the new testament exhorting people to kill unbelievers in the name of god. Christian-majority countries loudly condemned the atrocities that took place against Muslims during the Balkan wars ... they even sent in their own soldiers to (ineffectually) protect the Muslims. Do you see that happening when terrorism occurs in western nations? Not often.

Terrorism is the use of violence, targeting non-combatants, to serve political ends. The purpose is to drive policy change by creating terror in the general population. Targeting police is a grey area and would depend on the role the police play in projecting state power and policies. There was definitely a terror component to some of the actions taken by the paramilitary wing of the ANC, but the most clearly terroristic actions taken by the ANC (beach and bar bombings, for example), happened after Mandela was imprisoned. Even the ANC tried to distance itself from some of them.

As they often do

Sure, you can always go back a few centuries. But when was the last time in history that Christians around the world were targeting non-Christians and were driven by religious sentiment in doing so? While you're at it, what part of the New Testament instructs Christians to kill unbelievers?

Having worked as a civilian member of a national police force with over 15,000 police officers, I know politics is 'part of life' (as in any organisation). But the people I knew and worked with (up to very senior ranks) all cared about their role in society and the reputation of the force. That was part of the work culture too ... pride in the uniform, etc. Sure, there would be minor political jostling, but it never came close to a clown show like this. A hell of a lot needs to change here...

Should have been, she was "holding on for dear life" ☺️

You can erase the data on your phone remotely, and it should all be backed up to the cloud, which can then be downloaded to a new phone.

Well, you deserve your name, Harry. Sounds like someone would prefer to live under the Taliban...

Yes, I said Buddhism doesn't posit a creator god. But that doesn't disqualify it from being a religion. It asserts that there is a non-material, meta-physical world inhabited by multiple gods as well as heavens and hells. That makes it a religion. Just not an Abrahamic religion.

That motorcyclist has worked up some seriously good karma! A second later on his journey and he would have been pancaked...

Not very original. We've already had a "Buddha Boy" in Nepal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Bahadur_Bomjon

Except it teaches reincarnation, multiple levels of 'heaven and hell', gods in different levels of existence, etc. How is that not religion? It just doesn't refer to a creator god.

That was only one Buddha, Gautama Siddartha. There can be many Buddhas.

Can't even say that anymore... sigh https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/03/24/blacklisted-is-racist-us-america-warns-its-spies/

Trust me, they're a lot more fun that mosque concerts (and I've actually been to both)...