Neurath

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Does the present regime accept this forecast - especially since other data suggest that BKK will be largely underwater much sooner, ie within the next 15 years? If so, what exactly are they doing to mitigate the likely disastrous consequences? If they don't accept it, what are their reasons for this and who will be accountable if they are wrong?

If Thaksin is still alive, I am sure some will attempt to blame him.

Well, his inflated sense of self worth could conceivably float an entire city and so lift Bangkok out of its alluvial depression.

There already are laws and punishments for such wrongdoing. The laws are clear as are the consequent punishment for their violation. Problem has never been with that, but rather with their selective application (when they're applied at all). Selective and capricious application of the laws is as good as having no laws at all - something that everyone in a position to profit from said violations knows and something they act on with impunity (while it lasts) whilst pointing fingers at other for being 'corrupt'. It's Thailand's hysterical game of musical chairs and social anxiety - a nightmare version of Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame.

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

"The two pilot projects are the procurement of a NGV bus fleet by the [bMA] ..... There have been no reports of procurement irregularities for both pilot projects"

REALLY?

BMTA required a total of 21 interested bidders who earlier bought bidding documents but only two submitted the documents with proposals for the first lot of 489 NGV buses. BMTA acting director Mrs Pranee Sukrasorn said although the bus bid drew only two firms, the bidding process would continue. No information has been released as to who the two bidders are - that does not promote TRANSPARENCY. Furthermore, citing the urgency of the bus procurement project, Mrs Pranee said in case of only one bidder being qualified to enter the final bid, it will be accepted [as] a winner but the BMTA will negotiate the lowest price with it. So the bidding process is discarded!

Selection of one bidder out of a pool of two bidders borders on sole source procurement. This forced procurement should not take place until there is an adequate number of bidders to assure FAIR MARKET PRICES.The idea that the government will "negotiate" a price with the only bidder is a procurement irregularity!

And since when did urgency trump procurement procedures? If inadequate number of bidders respond, CANCEL the purchase! Anything less implies conflict of interest and possible collusion by the government.

Absolutely and entirely hypothetically speaking - that is, in a fictional world in no way referencing the real world of government procurement in this country - I suppose it is actually possible and possibly actual that bid evaluation committees could work together with favored suppliers to ensure that a bid evaluation committee is faced with 15 non-compliant (and so rejected) bids out of 16. Of course, it would be unethical and morally irresponsible (not to mention dangerous) to cite any actual cases as this would embarrass the country and this is a far greater sin than the collusive practices themselves and the consequent drainage of public funds into private hands.

A comprehensive lesson in Ethics could be had by looking into the establishment and funding of the www.moralcenter.or.th and the conference on which this post reports. Look too hard and you may be taught an ethical lesson - that being, don't look too hard because it's culturally inappropriate and damages the country. And that's the lesson. This sterling moral stance is perfectly exemplified by the following: it is ethically irresponsible to investigate or report on gross ethical and human rights violations in Thai fishing industry. The real ethical violation is not the original violation itself, but causing embarrassment by reporting on the violation and so making it visible and faces red. This is the very particular sort of morality and ethics that the Center will propagate and that this government exemplifies - and I do have to hand it to the government, because it is a very special (though not unique) Thai cultural achievement. Champions.

If I wanted my own state in the lands previously under the British Mandate, I suppose I would go about it in pretty much the same way that the soon to be Israelis did. Shows that you can build a democratic state from inauspicious and very violent beginnings.

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

The Death Penalty never works. More you execute more you promote homicides. Compare the States of US and their bill.
Texas is at the top for killing even proven innocents.. *Thaksin made his PHd in extrajuridicial killing where?

The death penalty works perfectly. Nobody executed ever commits a crime again.

And executed innocent people never get the chance to prove it!! How many incarcerated condemned to death in the US have been found to be innocent? No doubt about it, some countries love to shoot from the hip, and lip.

The condemned get exhaustive mandatory appeals

So I suppose the claim is that whilst it's possible to condemn an innocent person to death, it's not possible that they're executed.

Have there been any post mortem appeals against an execution? Probably not, given who get's their ticket punched.

And if my uncle had tits he'd be my auntie. Wake me up if and when Israel annexes the West Bank. Though I guess neither you nor the yet to be named Palestinians had any problem when Jordan occupied the West Bank between 1948 and 1967.

No need to annex anything - just build settlements and then kick the Palestinians out. Or kick the Palestinians out and then build settlements - whatever takes your fancy really. Israel's claim to ownership of West Bank through the material fact of it's sponsoring the building of settlements in it, is no better justified than Saddam Hussein's claim to Kuwait.

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

The Death Penalty never works. More you execute more you promote homicides. Compare the States of US and their bill.
Texas is at the top for killing even proven innocents.. *Thaksin made his PHd in extrajuridicial killing where?

The death penalty works perfectly. Nobody executed ever commits a crime again.

Or is actually able to be declared innocent and still be alive at some future date. We've had quite a few high profile cases of overturned guilty verdicts in the UK, since the abolition of the death penalty.

I'm a strong death penalty proponent, but when a conviction turns out to have been false (any conviction for anything, not just capital crimes; but NOT talking about acquittals here - just convictions), someone should be taking a hard look at the investigators and prosecutors that were involved in the case. If there are any indications of exculpatory evidence having been overlooked or concealed, leads suggestive of innocence not as aggressively pursued as those pointing to guilt, or criminal investigations not being impartially and professionally conducted, then the officials involved, ALL officials involved, should be vigorously prosecuted at the felony level and severely punished themselves. And in the case of a capital crime, such misconduct should be classified as attempted premeditated murder itself. Justice depends on a fair and impartial process all down the line, not just in the courtroom and not just by judge & jury, and the incentivization of police, investigators and prosecutors simply to get convictions at all costs is an abuse of the public trust and NOT due process.

Like this one? http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/24/arizona-debra-milke-cleared-22-years-death-row

I'm sure that when this woman was (wrongly) convicted there would have been a jackal chorus howling for her immediate execution.

In light of this case and the very may like it, I suppose the only argument that could be made for immediate execution of the death condemned is that the State must proceed with the execution of the innocent in order to deter the bad intentioned. It's either that, or subscribe to the notion that due process is always served - a proposition whose truth is as likely as the marriage of Ted Cruze and Hillary Clinton.

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Ignoring the Israel demonizing voices from those who are obviously and hatefully hostile to Israel's very existence and live for the day she might fall, Bibi's walking back his two state election flip flop was entirely predictable. Most people already realized he understandably didn't think there was any legit side to negotiate with, especially terrorist Hamas from Hamastan (Gaza). However, he did say what he said so explicitly and the world heard it not only Israeli voters, so to actually successfully walk it back, he is going to have do something more than words. Don't be shocked ... he just might. A right wing Israeli PM is actually in a better position to make a deal with the Palestinians than a left wing one ... in a similar way that only right wing American Nixon could have opened up relations with China. Will it be Bibi ... from these dark days it doesn't look like it, but things can still change.

Especially since when a 'left wing one' does make a deal, he gets shot dead.

More often than not, the US on a bad day is better than China on good day.

Recently read Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder. Covers the period, places and issues 'discussed' here. There's an overview of it here if anyone is interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodlands

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

How can this man be trusted on anything he says.

He is not exactly the first politician whose position has "evolved" over time. alt=whistling.gif>

I do hope he hasn't, as he'd then be a living refutation of US Creationists who so fervently back him.

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

If a man was meant to marry another man then they would have been created with the ability to conceive

And you find gay marriage inconceivable. Married are you?

He insults American Jews as well ... who are overwhelmingly democrats.

Hes Zionist first, Israeli second and Jewish third, hes a warmongering nutjob, about time American Jews realised it.

Bibi is doing for Israel what Bush did for the US in popularity ratings aboard .... the sooner hes gone from office the safer the world will be for it.

Quite right, the world loved the U.S. and was a paradise before GW. Never mind that they tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, Khobar Barracks in 1996, two U.S. Embassies in one day in 1998, U.S.S. Cole, and numerous other, smaller attacks.

And those attacks you listed began when? Right after the US attacked Saddam, right?

The US military bases there are the root of the problem.

It's a fact that when the US set up the bases in Saudi to attack Iraq in 1991, it triggered BinLaden into jihad against the USA.

The US Military does not have a base in Saudi Arabia nor has ever had one to the best of my recollection.

https://militarybases.com/saudi-arabia/

US Military Bases in Saudi Arabia.

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

The US Department of Defense does not lie.

alt=cheesy.gif width=32 height=20> alt=cheesy.gif width=32 height=20>

They all work for Obama.

Cleverly picked upped!!

It's like I said earlier: It's really pretty clear. When the US Department of Defense agrees with me it's because they're telling the truth and when someone else disagrees with the US Department of Defense when they agree with me it means they don't support the troops - they're borderline traitors whose love of Country is in serious, serious question. Of course, when the the US Department of Defense doesn't agree with me it's because they're at the beck and call of an administration I don't like. See, simple really.

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

http://forestpolicypub.com/2014/03/17/the-bonfire-of-insanity-woodland-is-shipped-3800-miles-and-burned-in-drax-power/

Thanks for the link. Looks like and interesting conflict over the issue.

From the same publication here another piece putting the counter point:

http://forestpolicypub.com/2014/03/12/study-finds-transatlantic-pellet-trade-results-in-significant-ghg-reduductions-over-fossil-fuels/

Apparently 20% of Swedish energy generation comes from similar biomass burning.

I don't know enough to comment either way on the issue but expect to see far more conundrums like this one where one 'environmental' asset is traded off against another.

E.g., turns out that intensive factory production of livestock may well be better 'environmentally' that pasture/free range farming. If only for the simple reason that the life span of the livestock is so much shorter. And that intensive farming takes up far less acreage of course. All trade offs.

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

I'm glad we have people like Ms Figueres in such positions, rather than one of the thousand Chinese or American billionaires who see everything purely in how many dollars they can squeeze out of it

I would bet that if Ms Figueres got her way, she could do much more damage to the planet and its inhabitants than a thousand Chinese or American billionaires.

The problem with these modern Green/Left types is that they think everything works by magic; that all you need to do is dream of a utopian future and it will magically appear. They have neither the capacity nor the willingness to think through the consequences of their actions.

To take an example: the UK's energy policy. Flown by noble-sounding dreams of renewable energy, the UK has set a legally binding target to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. It will fail miserably, of course, but the energy policies it has put in place are so ruinous that the country, the 6th biggest economy in the world, is facing electricity blackouts despite having a vast oil field just offshore and large oil and gas deposits onshore.

The landscape is littered with wretched wind turbines; lawyers, the landed gentry, and organised crime are getting rich on carbon subsidies; the average citizen has seen their electricity bills double in 10 years; industry is going offshore to stay competitive; old people are dying in record numbers because they can't afford to heat their homes.

In a final tip of the hat to environmental lunacy, one of the country's biggest power stations, Drax, no longer burns local coal (because coal is 'dirty'). Instead, it ships wood pellets 6,000 kilometers over from American forests to burn instead, at a rate of 7.5 million tons per year. That doesn't cut CO2 emissions, and depletes native forests, but biomass is 'renewable', you see.

It just goes to show how wonderful the world is for people whose mental processes are arrested at the level of a five-year-old.

And just how wonderful the world would be once Ms Figueres had finished playing with it hardly bears thinking about.

Wow, Drax sounds absolutely crazy! Would you flick on some references so we can read up on it?

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

t>

Completely wrong. You said the strike stopped Iraq's nuclear program in it's tracks. It didn't. Well, not if the reasons given for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 were true.

Please stop the silly spin. You just said that the program in 2003 was a "complete lie" a few posts back. The Israeli strike DID stop Iraq's nuclear program. You have outwitted yourself. alt=giggle.gif>

Two conditionals at once can be real tricky for some folks.

The 1981 strike by Israel prevented Iraq from ever developing a successful nuclear weapons program - which is all that matters. Is that clear enough for you?

Your reasoning abilities sure are.

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

But their use is in not using them and the only way to ensure that no one uses them is by everyone having them. Responsible use of Nuclear weapons, as they have been used responsibly since 1945, is in not using them and they have been responsibly used by more people having them. Pakistan uses them responsibly by not using them on India and India uses them responsibly by not using them on Pakistan. But they can only use them responsibly by having them and not using them. This is why everyone having them will make everyone responsible and ensure peace by deterrence.

This was what I was told by my teacher when I studied political science at university in northern Europe, he was only refering to US-Soviet and the cold war though.

A beautiful thing isn't it? We're still living in it's loving embrace. Would but all world peace be like that brokered by the two great nuclear peacekeepers. We should all learn from their proliferating kindnesses.

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

For all the tough talkers here who are constantly claiming how Obama is a failed president.... Obama has no idea what he is doing, Obama is weak..... Blah blah blah.....

I have one question. What is the alternative to an attempted deal?

Target and completely destroy all of Iran's nuclear facilities. Israel has done it twice and stopped two different nuclear weapons programs in their tracks.

Iraq's was one of these programs.

Completely wrong. Operation Opera was a surprise Israeli air strike carried out on 7 June 1981, which destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor under construction. It had nothing to do with what you are trying to divert the subject to.

Completely wrong. You said the strike stopped Iraq's nuclear program in it's tracks. It didn't. Well, not if the reasons given for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 were true. That is, the Iraqis did have a Nuclear Program posing immanent existential threat to the US and to Iraq's neighbors. If the Iraqis has a nuclear program capable of producing nuclear weapons - the Mushroom Cloud spoken of of Condoleeza Rice - then the strike didn't stop anything in it's tracks. Just like it in all probability wouldn't with Iran.

Maybe you had a different nuclear program in mind that was stopped by Israeli strikes, in which case I'll pull my head in.

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

And now global warming is causing the permafrost to explode with huge methane blasts!!!!

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/sci-tech/scientists-know-there-are-more-giant-craters-in-siberia-but-are-nervous-to-even-study-them-20150226-13q7b5.html

Thank for that, very interesting. As far as CO2 release is concerned, those are nothing compared to even a small volcanic vent, but a very interesting phenomenon just the same. I wonder what is the source of ignition.

So far for sure, but look at this!

Melting Arctic permafrost could trigger "unstoppable climate change" as it releases ever increasing levels of methane gas, scientists have warned.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/5049214/Melting-permafrost-could-trigger-unstoppable-climate-change.html

Seems to be what they were warning of. Of course they - the main stream media - want us to remain calm and so don't tell us the whole disastrous truth, but just look at the pictures from Siberia - looks like Manuel Noriega's face!

Well it could conceivably happen. This planet has recorded some huge shifts in global temperature before. And there isn't anything that could have been done to stop it then - just like now.

True enough. Some time in the next 100 million years - maybe sooner maybe later - this planet is sure to be hit by a huge planet killer asteroid. Of course that doesn't mean that we should rain rocks and boulders down upon hour heads and say "it's gonna happen sooner or later anyway".

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

"Climate change poses another significant challenge for the United States and the world at large. As greenhouse gas emissions increase, sea levels are rising, average global temperatures are increasing, and severe weather patterns are accelerating.

This is not true, for 20 years now, and the rest is a scario based on the part that is not true.

The US Department of Defense does not lie.

Oh yeah I forgot. alt=whistling.gif> alt=cheesy.gif width=32 height=20> alt=cheesy.gif width=32 height=20> alt=cheesy.gif width=32 height=20>

Look, it's pretty clear. When the US Department of Defense agrees with me it's because they're telling the truth and when someone else disagrees with the US Department of Defense when they agree with me it's because they don't support the troops. Of course, when the the US Department of Defense don't agree with me it's because they're at the beck and call of an administration I don't like.

But their use is in not using them and the only way to ensure that no one uses them is by everyone having them. Responsible use of Nuclear weapons, as they have been used responsibly since 1945, is in not using them and they have been responsibly used by more people having them. Pakistan uses them responsibly by not using them on India and India uses them responsibly by not using them on Pakistan. But they can only use them responsibly by having them and not using them. This is why everyone having them will make everyone responsible and ensure peace by deterrence.

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

And now global warming is causing the permafrost to explode with huge methane blasts!!!!

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/sci-tech/scientists-know-there-are-more-giant-craters-in-siberia-but-are-nervous-to-even-study-them-20150226-13q7b5.html

Thank for that, very interesting. As far as CO2 release is concerned, those are nothing compared to even a small volcanic vent, but a very interesting phenomenon just the same. I wonder what is the source of ignition.

So far for sure, but look at this!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/5049214/Melting-permafrost-could-trigger-unstoppable-climate-change.html

Seems to be what they were warning of. Of course they - the main stream media - want us to remain calm and so don't tell us the whole disastrous truth, but just look at the pictures from Siberia - looks like Manuel Noriega's face!