hansnoi

This Red Shirt demonstration is about freedom! Freedom of speech, social justice and freedom of the press/TV. these are things we in the West we take for granted! the Thais are demonstrating for their freedom, Democracy, social justice, these are the elements of democracy. The press Thai and International want you to believe it is about Taksin, it is not about Taksin, it is about democracy. The Thai elite have held 24 coo's undermining democracy in this country Thailand. The elite Bangkokians are 20% of the population they own 60% of the income and wealth in this country. It seems it is OK to come and enjoy the hospitality of Thailand, but when Thailand needs support from the resident Farang's who enjoy these simple freedoms in their home country, Farangs turn coward and run to their safety and security of "jeaprodizing their stay visa" in Thailand, cowards! Where did your fore fathers get their freedom? It was never given to them, they had to take it. Go back home and take your pension income, from your rich country with you, or stand up for human rights, freedom and show what it means to cme from a country with democracy, or have you forgotten?

I guess you already bought a one way ticket Phuket-Bangkok? Feel free to do so, but don't patronize and insult foreigners here who like me fail to see things like you do or don't wish to participate physically in a struggle which is not theirs. My forefathers fought for their freedom and democracy in their OWN country. I may remind you that the yellow shirt movement when they were protesting on the streets also claimed to fight for democracy and freedom against a corrupt government. It would make a nice cartoon to see the foreign redshirts fighting in the streets against foreign yellow shirts. It is already quite ridiculous on this forum....

This is an appeal to all the 'farang' active on this forum. I don't care if you prefer yellow or red, but stop your bickering on behalf of one of the parties. Try to think about how each of you could contribute to a peaceful solution of the current crisis instead of shouting your expert advices to... yes to who? To each other? Try to look at what is happening with objectivity and being concerned about the well being of Thailand and it's people. When you do that, you can only be concerned about the imminent future. There is a government confronted by civil unrest. This government declares the state of emergency for parts of the country and orders the arrest of red shirt leaders. To enforce this it has - like any government in any country - to rely on police and eventually armed forces. If they do not act it may be a sign that police and armed forces are as divided as the rest of Thai society. In that case the threat of civil war is a real one. Nobody will gain from that, everybody will suffer. Demonizing the opponent serves nothing. So lets hope and pray that the THAI who are in a position to do so stand up and act wise with the sole objective to do good for this country.

Funny you mention Berlusconi.

Was explaining situation to a colleague from Serbia and when mentioning T's got a Montenegro passport, he said "No wonder, mafia sticks together".

I said that in that case Thaksin should move to Italy instead, when an italian collague passed, saying "Berlusconi doesn't like competition"...

There you go...

Not by coincidence I mentioned Berlusconi. Know the Italian situation very well and my ironic comment was ment as a reminder for all those on this forum who act as if in western democracies everything goes by the book. But thanks for the good joke. And on a more serious note: I am not an expert in Thai politics. But being here and very interested in what's going on I see many parallels between the Italian political scene and the one in Thailand. OK, there are differences: Thailand is a kingdom and the army seems to play a big role behind the scenes and Italy has the Vatican and the maffia. But the real resemblance between the two is the art of bashing: fruitless blaming the 'bad guy' for everything what is going wrong in the country without offering a real alternative and a united force to lure the voters away from the 'force of all evil'. I hope in the end the Thai will be more smart than the Italians!

forget about Thaksin, he's running on a triple mood standard.

Yeah, this Thaksin calling the courts biased, but using the same to sue even now. Think about.

I wonder why non of the red and yellow shirt parties have called on the mediating services of mr. Silvio Berlusconi. Like Thaksin he has a lot of experience in mixing his business and political interests. Like Abhisit he knows how to model the rules of parlementary democracy to his own political advantage. And like many expat members of this forum he loves beautiful women. So he should come immediately to Thailand. I guarantee, in no time all parties embrace each other in tears of laughing and there will be no energy left for bloodshed. To avoid disaster and loss of lifes all means should be tried.

I certainly hope this doesn't reflect some kind of anti-foreigner sentiment.

Would sure be ironic if it did!

I think it highly unlikely that more than 5% of the country bumkin redshirts even know that foreigners have to renew their re-entry permits or visas or whatever let alone consider that by their actions they might be inconveniencing a few farangs.

this looks like a typical example of painting local people (shirt colour doesnt matter) as stupid/dumm.

Got frightened by meridian and thought, ok, i,m beginning with this site to protect my privacy better. Tried numerous times to change my 'personal picture' and avatar. But the old ones are popping up all of the time and even after hours the new ones don't appear! Since I love complot thinking: probably synchronising TV with ..... (who knows!) .... takes a lot of time. Obviously deleting my account will not protect me either. Oi, oi, oi

After a good night sleep and recurring internal server errors(?) everything seems ok. I guess all my data are stored

now where they need to be. Am too old and too insignificant to really worry.

QUOTE from the original story:

SE Asia is a favourite happy hunting ground for sex tourists, in general, and paedophiles in particular. The ideal conditions of abject poverty, statelessness (as in the case of refugees and hill tribe people), lax or ill-defined laws, corrupt police, bribery and corruption among the authorities, abandoned children, low education and a lack of specific training in law-enforcement all make for exceptional opportunities for such individuals, leaving young victims irreparably damaged and the perpetrators rarely reported or prosecuted, or frequently if they are, miraculously reappearing on the streets after supposedly having been imprisoned, as has been the case in several instances in Pattaya.

unquote

food for thought this quote. For all kind of hunters...

Thankfully, forums like Thaivisa don't require you confirm your real-world identity, but there are other places that are completely anonymous. For world news, (not all of it is serious anymore, which is a pity), try reddit. For a forum where you don't have to make an account to post, try 4chan. For image hosting without creating an account, try imgur. Enjoy your freedom!

agree with your concerns. but in that case your advice for users of facebook should be ignore Facebook. And even: don't use Google at all, especially Gmail. As for myself, that's to much paranoia but I am a big fan of complot theories!

Got frightened by meridien and thought, ok, i,m beginning with this site to protect my privacy better. Tried numerous times to change my 'personal picture' and avatar. But the old ones are popping up all of the time and even after hours the new ones don't appear! Since I love complot thinking: probably synchronising TV with ..... (who knows!) .... takes a lot of time. Obviously deleting my account will not protect me either. Oi, oi, oi

Modern social media is the one thing I don't like about the progression of the internet into daily lives. I've been on the internet since 1990, (ah, the days of Gopher, Archie, and command line access), and the origin of many of the types of social networking today came from Usenet. Usenet was a great way to communicate with other people who had similar interests as you, and it was as anonymous as you wanted it to be.

Unlike some (former?) posters on here like Sean Moran, I think that privacy on the internet is of utmost importance. You are creating a somewhat permanent record of your thoughts and opinions. If they are tied directly to you, companies and governments can use this information against you for the rest of your life. You may say "I have nothing to hide", but if you make a comment in the heat of anger, under the influence of something, or even out of the enthusiasm of youth, (remember some of the things you said as a teenager?), these things could be used to decide whether you are given a job, a visa, or even cause you to be "watched" at any time after, (the only google search connection to my real name is from an anti-RIAA petition I signed in 1993).

A less sinister, but still exploitative part of this, is the buying and selling of your personal information, along with your interests, hobbies, and everything else about you that you post on the net.

To this end, I always suggest setting up accounts based on information that cannot be directly tied to you, (Gmail accounts can be made with any personal information you want, you don't have to use your real info), which can then be used to create accounts on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. Don't use your regular email account, as it will then be connected to your daily emailing, and therefore your personal info. Never use your real name for sites like Facebook, if you want to connect with old friends, look for them manually on Facebook, (NEVER give Facebook your email password!!!), and send them a note along with the friend invite that tells them who you are. Don't post pictures of yourself on your account, or allow other to "tag" you on theirs. This might seem harsh, but makes it more difficult for larger groups to find out who you are.

You don't have journalistic or diplomatic security, (unless you are a journalist or diplomat), so you have no support once you have lost your privacy. Over the past decade, many of our personal liberties and freedoms have been damaged in the name of security. It's up to you to defend your privacy, no one else will do it.

I don't have anything to hide, but I still think that my basic personal privacy is a right that I should have as a human being. You can say I'm paranoid, but I think there has been enough proof that many larger groups have plans to re-structure the internet so that there is no privacy, and this is an example of it. If they start to require some form of digital proof of who you are, (such as, when Facebook asks for your mobile number to confirm your identity), they are forcing you to give up your privacy.

Thankfully, forums like Thaivisa don't require you confirm your real-world identity, but there are other places that are completely anonymous. For world news, (not all of it is serious anymore, which is a pity), try reddit. For a forum where you don't have to make an account to post, try 4chan. For image hosting without creating an account, try imgur. Enjoy your freedom!

agree with your concerns. but in that case your advice for users of facebook should be ignore Facebook. And even: don't use Google at all, especially Gmail. As for myself, that's to much paranoia but I am a big fan of complot theories!

Don't be so sensative. We simply have set posts invisible that said april fool, as to not to spoil the joke. In addition we stated that some posts were deleted because of flaming as to give an explanetion for the missing posts. All "deleted" post should now be back again.

Thanks for the explanation. My compliments, got two times fooled by this move. Not oversensitive but like I stated an April Fool all the time. Goodnight

Following this nice April Fools topic, posting an innocent comment and seeing it deleted was very instructive for this newbie here. Showed me not only how oversensitive and blessed with a lack of selfknowledge people can be when feeling addressed with the word Fool. It demonstrated also that forum rules can be at will interpreted/used by the socalled moderators. A substantial part of the content on TV consist of (direct and indirect) insulting, downgrading and sexist language much stronger than the word fool. But who cares, it's our farang world here baby and you may call me April Fool any month of the year!

I guess the fact that we foreigners already pay more for food, clothing, transportation, entrance to parks and shows, housing, rentals and pretty much anything else is not enough.

The fact that the only reason why Pattaya exists IS because of foreigners and their drinking habits-hence so many bars-still does not mean much.

Daily reports in Pattaya show 98% of Thai causing problems, such as drunken fights, motor accidents due to driver being drunk(Thai), hit and run, again driver was drunk(again Thai)

This is just amazing! first they give out free visas and spend millions to attract tourists, now they put up prices, which will push tourists away to cheaper places. Thailand is not a cheap holiday destination and has not been for a while.While one can still buy cheap house, the living costs are getting higher and higher.It does make me wonder with all the increases how to Thai people do it, who are on low paid salary's

Thank Buddha for all those fools on the First of April

"Foreigners should know Thai culture strictly forbids nakedness and nudeness and respect should be the order."

euh... this is THE land of prostitution of the planet earth

but nakedness and nudeness is forbidden...

PLEASE stop all the GO GO bars and prostitution parlours or stop your hypocrisy

joke or not, story and reactions here show again how original, well mannered, intelligent and tasteful many representatives of the great superior farang culture are.

called the mental health hotline with the result of the stress test and asked them to pick me up. They laughed their socks off

Some thoughts from a Dutchman living in Thailand.

I feel ashamed, being a Dutchman, for the behaviour of this man.

If you have sex with a woman and do not use anything to stop her getting pregnant, morally you should take care of the child.

And I am not talking about the mother, because she made the same mistake.

The child is not to blame, and should have all possible help from father and mother

thank you fellow Dutchman. totally agree with you and feel the same. For Sarahbloke: i was not trying to insult you. but wordings in your post like 'these ladies', going for a free meal ticket and putting all the responsability to the Thai woman were for me, i am sorry to say so, a demonstration of a wrong mentality towards citizens of our host country. Hiding behind bad behaving Thai men cannot be an alibi for 'fleeing' farang. In their own countries they never would get away with this. Glad to read that you take care for a Thai child, I am doing the same for a child of a German coward. So let's conclude that we know what we are talking about and not ridiculise the topic as you did in your last post. Have a nice day.

Surely the person who chooses to have the child should be the one who has to pay for it?

Nobody is forcing these ladies to conceive or give birth!

Contraception is free, a five-year implant is no bother at all.

also no one can force a woman to have an abortion. 'conceiving' means two persons are involved and responsible. the (thai) mother takes her responsability by raising the child and paying for it. The bloody farang runs away and doesnot bother to share any responsability I would be happy to see these guys when they re-entry Thailand DNA-examined and obliged to pay there share in the costs of upbringing their child. Since Thai society is also paying (in terms of education, health etc) it would be fair when running away from paternal obiligations was considered to be a crime punishable by law. I do not see all Thai (women) as angels and all farang as sinners. But sadly enough there are far too many farang men who treat Thai citizens like shit and the above mentioned comment ishows for me the same mentality.