SweeneyAgonistes

This now completes your lesson in compliance with state ideology for today.

Fixed that for you.

Openness in Government? If information fall in the hand of the uneducated, it could cause problem.

Indeed it could. They might see just how oppressive the Thai state is.

In which case, saying 'Thaksin did it more' isn't justified because you seem to be saying he did something different. But SergeiY's general point is very sound. All the time, one sees variations on 'It's fine for Abhisit to do x and anyway, Thaksin did x loads more', which is just illogical. Either x is acceptable or it's not. If it was wrong for Thaksin to do it n times, it was wrong of Abhisit to do it m times.

Just what exactly did these guys blow the whistle on?

Well, three off the top of my head, there's the spying on the head of the UN, american troops in Pakistan, and, most entertainingly for me, Prince Andrew being a complete cock.

So other than your peculiar, pre-pubescent attachment to smiley faces, you can't make any answer. Thanks. And good effort trying to deflect a thread about the yanks with bullshit about Islam but I don't think it's going to work.

It is called free speech. You seem to have no problem with that when it comes to Islamic hate groups, rogue nations and terrorists.

No problem with what? Freedom of speech? I don't. Objecting to what someone says is not the same as objecting to their right to say it - since when was saying 'you're wrong' equivalent to saying 'shut up'? And if it is, you're as guilty as anyone else. But more importantly, if someone at the heart of the state - any state - starts calling organisations terrorist because they are committed - possibly wrongly, but committed nevertheless - to freedom of information, I don't think I'm the one endangering free speech, do you?

Islamic hate groups, rogue nations and terrorists?

What does that mean? Not being a flag-waving reactionary, I'm afraid I don't understand your cryptic shorthand.

The point is that either it's wrong to file these lawsuits or it's not; how many are/were filed by a political opponent is irrelevant to that. If it is unacceptable ' for people to tell lies about you that can affect your reputation', then it's unacceptable whoever the 'lies' are being told about - Thaksin, Abhisit, you, my dog, whoever.

I don't know a great deal about the case and the law which governs it but it does seem extraordinary that you would sue a political opponent for defamation over the push and shove of political discourse. My initial response is to think (a) grow some balls and stop running to mum and dad every time someone says something you don't like (b ) it could at the very least be interpreted as an attempt to shut down political discourse which at the moment is, if - and it's obviously a condition which is highly unlikely to be met - the government is serious about 'reconciliation', extremely unwise and (c ) this applies to any similar cases which might be/have been brought to court by others.

That's right. Disaffected citizens - of which there are, it is true, rather a lot in Iran - typically seek to throw off the chains of state oppression by assassinating nuclear scientists. What. A. Load. Of. Cock.

^^ No, it's obviously not official policy but this is not someone standing with a placard on a street-corner - it's a figure at the heart of the establishment and who represents the - for want of a better word - thinking of a significant slice of that nation and who is trying to make it official policy.

But rather than the ludicrous, puffed up indignation about 'endangering life' - really, do these people have no shame? Can they really not see the depth of hypocrisy in that - perhaps these murderous swine might instead engage in just a little self-reflection.

^ That didn't take long. Don't worry about the record-breaking heat this year, the utterly unarguable long-term rise in temperature or the fact that increased precipitation is a consequence of a warming world.

Nice to see the Canadians getting in on the state-sponsored murder ticket. I guess they're just trying to impress dad. Talking of which, I see the incoming chair of the Homeland Security Committee is calling for Wikileaks to be listed as a terrorist organisation. So the yanks are at least now clear that 'terrorist' simply means 'people who do shit we don't like'.

Well, the americans and the zionist entity have rather a lot to gain from this and both of these rogue sates have an astonishing history of state-sponsored murder and terrorism so my money's on them.

If you had been carried back to Thailand in the arms of a supersonic genie, in the process overtaking several jumbo jets full of people who saw this, that would have been something but you asked someone for a job...and after some time they gave you one. It doesn't seem very spectacular. And that's always what happens with this woudja-believe-it stories. Someone finds their keys or their backache is temporarily cured or they get a new boyfriend. Don't you think that if magic and/or divine intervention were real, it might occasionally be used for something a little more exciting - and a little harder to explain by completely boring, ordinary, day-to-day processes - than getting a job or getting your end away? Anyone here got a story of using a bit of pubic hair and some goat blood to become Lord of Space and Time? Or perhaps some convincing proof that the 2004 tsunami was divine retribution against the Sodom and Gomorrah of Sri Lankan fishing villages? Anything like that...? No? What a shame.

If you're enough of a fool to come out with balls about evolution being 'only a theory', then this is clearly wasted effort but ...

Fossils neither prove nor disprove evolution,

Well, yes they could have been buried there by god to test your faith. But then they could have been buried there by Thor to test your faith. Or Zeus. Or the time-travelling fairy living at the end of the garden.

If evolution really worked we should be seeing more and more specialized animals in existence.

You don't understand evolution - though that's hardly the most shocking news imaginable. Species will evolve to exploit their environment. Sometimes that is done best by being a specialist, sometimes by being a generalist.

Thats why it was called the Cambrian Explosion

It's an explosion in geological time but it took place over millions of years. If for you that is proof of divine action, well, increase your lithium intake but don't think that that your nonsense has any traction with those of us of who don't share your infantile credulity.

almost as if someone or something created all the modern species in one go

Er, no. Look out of your window and tell me how many of the species which came into existence during the Cambrian era you can see.

Your last sentence is quite right. A1 is survival level language ability, whereas TOEIC is aimed quite a bit higher. The TOEIC scoring system is not pass/fail and although I don't know what score UK immigration want, because it tests at a much higher level, any meaningful score is going to be more difficult to get (though whether or not that's a problem obviously depends on your partner's abilities).

...his advocating the dismantling of the country....

What a bizarre, and bizarrely unjustified, thing to say.

Giles never rants. He's not a particularly skilled writer but he's not a ranter either.

Of course, the type of Socialism which Giles supports has very marginal support in Thailand. That's certainly true but the point is that - and sorry for harping on about this but you seem remarkably deaf to a very simple idea - saying that the reds are Thaksin is disproved by a single counter-example. I've made that counter-example. Now you might want to admit this and amend your claim to something along the lines of 'Thaksin has an influence over the reds', which is certainly true but which is also significantly different.

What some seem to forget is that there is a significant difference between party line, party leaders and the 'common' members. Enough examples can be found to say Thaksin = PTP = red-shirts = PTP = Thaksin.

Saying "Thaksin and the reds are the same" is not the equivalent of saying "Thaksin and some of the leadership of the reds are the same". The latter might be true, the former clearly is not.

Since your claim was that the reds and Thaksin were one and the same, it doesn't really matter whether or not they've said anything about Giles's Marxism. And whilst you may not agree with it, it - Marxism - is a perfectly legitimate political position to take so please, save the crap about 'ranting'. As for Giles talking about Thaksin, he's certainly mentioned it on his blog - I remember very clearly reading it there. He may have said something in his most recent book but I can't remember off the top of my head and I can't now remember where I put it so I can't check immediately.

It's not a situation of having a double standard.

The cases against TRT and PPP were both filed within the requisite time frame.

It's a hoary old cliche that justice doesn't just need to be done but needs to be seen to done but it's true and in this case there seems - but, I'm no expert - that there's a hole big enough to sail a QE2-full of doubt through. If you believe that there are double-standards in Thailand - and there are pretty good reasons for thinking that there are - this is not going to do much to disabuse you of that view.

Perhaps she saw you more as an easy mark, rather than a golden goose, in which case it might have been quite sensible.

It's not Thai logic. It's a combination of these dreadful ABAC polls and the reactionary politics of the Nation. Bangkok Pundit recently quoted a particularly nasty question from an ABAC poll on abortion:

"Question 4: If you were the child who was to be aborted and you could speak, would you beg/plead for your life?"

That isn't a poll. If it wasn't so vile, it'd be laughable. Anything that comes out of ABAC can - and should - be instantly ignored.

I will, however, point out one aspect of your post and that is if people do support the red shirts, then they do support Thaksin.

That's just not true. If you look at someone like Giles Ungpakorn, you'll see that he's very sympathetic to the reds but was a critic of Thaksin.He's very clear about this and, in fact, it's hardly surprising that a Trotskyite would be critical of a capitalist bastard like Thaksin, whilst being sympathetic to a movement predominantly of the urban and rural poor. The reds are clearly a broad church - maybe too broad - and whilst the inane Thaksin-red-Thaksin-red merry-go-round may read nicely in rags like the Nation, it's balls.

The survey, conducted on an unspecified number of respondents

There you go - right at the head of the article, it declares everything it's about to say is worthless.

23 million Thais under the age of 18 spent five hours a day watching television and another three hours surfing the Internet.

The population of Thailand is 67 million. So this 23 million is 34% of the population. The sentence claims that all of these 23 million are under the age of 18 and all of them spend 8 hours a day either on the internet or watching TV. It's maybe just about possible that there are 23 million Thais under 18. It's fuc_king ridiculous to claim that every single one of them spends 8 hours a day either on the internet or watching TV. I know Thaivisa has some kind of contractual obligation to republish the seemingly endless sewer of shit coming straight from Thanong central but a schoolchild could see what's wrong with this.

Magic in some form or other is involved in most of the world's major religions. Is it harmful?

Only to ones intelligence.

Not all Nazis supported Hitler - but they were still nazis!!

So if we swap what I take to be the equivalent terms we get: Not all reds support Thaksin - but they are still reds. Is that what you meant?

One mans "suffocatingly yellow" is another mans freedom and liberty from burnt buildings and grenade attacks - you are wrong of course!!

I see. So when I write Thaivisa is suffocatingly yellow, what I mean is that Thaivisa supports freedom and liberty...but I'm wrong.

You do seem rather confused about what you believe. Why don't you go and lie down for a year or two and think it through.

Those are all popular beliefs with no actual supporting evidence of any kind. Currently supported by the modern establishment (that doesn't make them true or real)

The fact you can't see that, merely reflects on your personal belief system.

You're talking out of your arse but you're a believer so there's nothing too surprising about that. There's a world full of evidence for both evolution and climate change and I've not noticed too much establishment support for telepathy or time travel.

Your fantasy/reality/beliefs aren't any more valid than a person who believes in God or magic ............ merely different.

So there's no objective reason to believe in God, which means that there's no reason to believe in God. Good. I knew I was right but it's nice to have one of the congregation confirm it.