Here’s the old flag:

Here’s the new flag:

Hard not to agree with the anonymous comment that the new one looks like it was done with Microsoft Paint. And it’s very hard to know (especially from my safe vantage point far removed from Myanmar’s repressive regime) why they think the new one is better than the old one, although one of the comments cited at Global Voices points out that the old flag used the U.S. colors.

According to a Reuter’s article quoted by James Bow, “The order stipulated that the old flag had to be lowered by someone born on a Tuesday and the new flag had to be raised by someone born on a Wednesday, he said.” Ah, when astrolgers run countries.

Equally puzzling, at least to me, is the military junta’s decision to change the country’s name from Union of Myanmar to Republic of the Union of Myanmar in advance of the November 7 Parliamentary elections (which will keep the military in power). Why not just go whole hog and rename the place The Free Democratic Republic Union of Myanmar and Picayune-Times Express?

Except that Myanmar is no laughing matter.