See, this is why I think there's something to be said for the New Freedom Movement: the Pirate Bay is the first site I've seen rocking the "free Burma" banner.

Monks and students in Rangoon, Burma (or Yangon, Myanmar as the dictators would have it) protesting their cruel military Junta. They're calling it The Saffron Revolution. We don't see much about this on the TeeVee, but Al Jazeera is on the scene. So was a Japanese photojournalist, who got himself murdered:

The last time this happened over there, the military killed a few thousand students. Hopefully it won't go down like that, but who knows. There's not much I can think of for people here to do for people there, but if you feel the cause of freedom, you can stay informed at least.

There's also this: US Campaign for Burma.

When it comes to information, the rules are changing:

[Burmese] bloggers rely on word-of-mouth, cell phones, online chat groups, instant messaging, and firsthand accounts of protesters facing barricaded streets, tear gas and gunfire from Burmese security forces. The best blogs provide photos, video and text updates purportedly by eyewitnesses, which are later confirmed by news organizations or, in some cases, can't be verified.

The nation's military regime has refused to grant visas to foreign correspondents, and has even blocked visa requests for many foreign tourists after the mass uprising worsened this week.

As a result, blogger accounts have captivated the outside world...

Update: on the other hand, the state apparently has the power to cut the internet and news is drying up.

Will any of this matter? People were watching Tiananmen square too. Really, China has the most sway of anyone over the Burmese military junta. What with their big "coming out" hosting the Olympic games this summer, maybe they'll try to cool it out. On the other hand, they're already in for some criticism from the west over the far more chic cause of a Free Tibet, so they may not want to "show any weakness" here.

I actually have a but more sympathy for the Burmese cause, being that Tibet (although cool and all) was a relatively unpopular theocracy that still permitted slavery prior to being annexed into the People's Republic. Burma, on the other hand, liberated themselves from British colonial rule after WWII and had a promising democracy before the military took over. But I digress...