zydeco

And, btw, Richard Barrow tried for a second time to get stopped and searched at Asoke. Again, nothing. No sight of anything either. Promised to keep trying. Signed off with this:

Richard Barrow ‏@RichardBarrow 8h8 hours ago

I think I’m going to need some more tips about how to get stopped by cops in #Bangkok. It’s never happened to me once in more than 20 years.

He probably should have talked to the experts on TVF, I guess.

Assure you that Russia is about to fall. a thousand years have passed and she did not fall but only getting stronger and stronger. Do not you think it's suspicious? as if you did not lie to your government when Russia does not not fall))) we have thousand year history and all the thousands of years we fought. War in our blood))

Mongols are in your blood.

I have heard that the standard A levels are considered harder than the qualifications at the end of US high school. I wouldn't know personally.

FYI, high school study in the US has evolved into what is essentially a two track program. There are students who take Advanced Placement classes and a vast majority who do not. AP classes especially matter for applications to universities with competitive enrollment standards.

He also said he did not see any stop and searches...

I am now starting to get a bit worried about you, Are you sure you are not a Spy, or even from the Thai SAS ? ( i will tell you what SAS stands for later )

granuaile makes a perfectly reasonable point. The threads on this topic have compared the Thai police to the Gestapo and the interrogation of tourists to the Warsaw Ghetto. So, it isn't unreasonable when a major blogger like Richard Barrow spends the day trying to get arrested and not only doesn't get arrested but sees no evidence of any stops. Look, the problems with the Thai police are well know and undeniable, but this topic has been elevated to such a point of intensity that there needs to be some verifiable evidence that precludes talk of hysteria. Barrow said he will return and try again tomorrow. Let's wait and see. But as of now, Barrow has zilch.

Yes ok I suppose so! The point is Richard Barrow, To me he means nothing,sorry I do not wish to be rude but who is he? Am I being thick?

The old biddy that woked for the BBC ( cant remember her name ) she reported on the trouble in BKK in 2010 also on the floods ( we lost most of our house)

That was also a utter load of bullsxxt,so who can you beleive ???

Yes, you're right. We deal with an agenda driven media at just about every level, especially at the level of social media. Who can you believe? Sometimes, only your own eyes. Again, there is a history of problems with the police, especially the Thong Lor police. (Didn't a few upper ranks get caught in a kidnapping scheme a few years ago and only got caught when some kidnapped Italian tourists escaped?) But when I put together the sources for this story--Facebook, Stickman, Stickboy, Coconuts, and a hit piece on the government in the Wall Street Journal, I have a tendency to think things are being blown out of proportion. Not that stops are not being made and some people tested and harassed--but not in the "boxcars to Auschwitz" fashion that has been described in some of these posts.

I'm sure it is still possible to do 2 circuits Nana to Ekkamai and not get searched those 2 times.

The point is things are happening to a certain unlucky %.

He also said he did not see any stop and searches...

I am now starting to get a bit worried about you, Are you sure you are not a Spy, or even from the Thai SAS ? ( i will tell you what SAS stands for later )

granuaile makes a perfectly reasonable point. The threads on this topic have compared the Thai police to the Gestapo and the interrogation of tourists to the Warsaw Ghetto. So, it isn't unreasonable when a major blogger like Richard Barrow spends the day trying to get arrested and not only doesn't get arrested but sees no evidence of any stops. Look, the problems with the Thai police are well know and undeniable, but this topic has been elevated to such a point of intensity that there needs to be some verifiable evidence that precludes talk of hysteria. Barrow said he will return and try again tomorrow. Let's wait and see. But as of now, Barrow has zilch.

Next step, Orion and the SLS.

Money talks and BS walks. Compare the starting salaries of the UK and USA MBAs in the below chart.

Business at that level is international and starting salaries reflect the quality of education received.

If you want to compare professorships that's easy. Compare salaries. Good professors always follow the cash. In the USA I studied under professors who graduated from the London School of Economics and studied with Keynes.

If you really want to see the battle of the economic titans check out the battle between a Harvard educated economist and Keynes at Bretton Woods and tell me who won?

If you read my last post you will see that I agree with you regarding MBA's, there is no better place to study them than the US.

As for professorships, having a US give away is likely to get you shunned throughout the European academic community as it merely represents having been a lecturer for a short while, whereas in most all other countries it means you not only have a PhD but have also led research groups. It is extremely difficult to attain professorship in the UK, I know part time lectures from US colleges who were awarded the title in their second year. Sorry, but US professorships are a joke the world over.

And, by the way, it is not all about salaries in the academic world.

And here is someone who hasn't got a clue. Poorly paid and poorly supported faculties in the UK especially can't compare with their counterparts in the US or Europe. I have taught as a full member of the faculty in Germany, the Netherlands, and the US. I once interviewed for a job at the University of Birmingham but the pay was so pitiful that I told the search committee during my interview that I couldn't afford to work for such a salary and asked to be excused.

It's true that UK universities do not pay well, there are secondary school teachers earning more than professors in the UK. My only question is why once again have you steered a conversation about standards of qualification onto salaries? In they UK the job of teachers and lecturers is a humble position taken on by those who truly care and want to give. If all .you concerned with was your pay check then I am glad you didnt stay as you clearly have no place in a British institution.

Somebody has been watching too many reruns of Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

Yeah, I was a bit lost with that one. I think their point is that if it takes much longer for the American MBA to reach the same standard then the starting point must be different therefore the entrance degrees are not of an equal standard.

I'm waiting for someone to compare UK with US professorships, that'll be a laugh.

Money talks and BS walks. Compare the starting salaries of the UK and USA MBAs in the below chart.

Business at that level is international and starting salaries reflect the quality of education received.

If you want to compare professorships that's easy. Compare salaries. Good professors always follow the cash. In the USA I studied under professors who graduated from the London School of Economics and studied with Keynes.

If you really want to see the battle of the economic titans check out the battle between a Harvard educated economist and Keynes at Bretton Woods and tell me who won?

If you read my last post you will see that I agree with you regarding MBA's, there is no better place to study them than the US.

As for professorships, having a US give away is likely to get you shunned throughout the European academic community as it merely represents having been a lecturer for a short while, whereas in most all other countries it means you not only have a PhD but have also led research groups. It is extremely difficult to attain professorship in the UK, I know part time lectures from US colleges who were awarded the title in their second year. Sorry, but US professorships are a joke the world over.

And, by the way, it is not all about salaries in the academic world.

And here is someone who hasn't got a clue. Poorly paid and poorly supported faculties in the UK especially can't compare with their counterparts in the US or Europe. I have taught as a full member of the faculty in Germany, the Netherlands, and the US. I once interviewed for a job at the University of Birmingham but the pay was so pitiful that I told the search committee during my interview that I couldn't afford to work for such a salary and asked to be excused.

I'll say it again, those who are gearing up to leave or have already left for greener pastures, I say, you have made the right choice....this place is going down hill and going fast. I was hoping to get out this past September, but now it looks like I'll have to wait until March or April....

From the sounds of it, perhaps you can get together with the other TVFers on this thread and get your own charter flight.

I would guess it is impossible to get a thorough education inside Red China due to the controls on what the Party takes as wrong or just not to be taught. Anytime a political system interferes with the free and protected search for and teaching of the truth as the professor sees it, then schools under that system can not be ranked very high and certainly not equal to the genuinely free universities.

Other than the damping effect of Thai culture's desire to go along to get along and to remain accepted by a group, I found MU very free in regard to research and teaching. Probing critiques are not encouraged, as would be expected, which retards the standard scientific method of repetitive checking of findings, however. This factor limits use or consideration of Thai-originated research in many fields which also takes Thailand out of the international exchange and testing of ideas and techniques. The factor also limits how Thai professors will link into fine tuning and INTERchange their research/teaching via international critiques and testing.

These facts make Thailand isolated intellectually, even if nearly completely free for free individual thought.

On an allied matter, because Thailand censors art extensively, its artists' works are suspect and almost impossible to take a valued place on the world stage. A good example is the Thai national who made a film (about Boomea) could win the Cannes highest award, the Palm Dor, but can only show uncut versions of it inside Thailand if any. This situation further isolates Thailand from the genuine world intellectual community.

As you well know, the single biggest problem facing Thailand, including MU, is faculty hiring, especially among Westerners. They're mostly inexperienced, unqualified, or escapees from some academic misdeed back in the West. And they bring their inexperience, lack of qualifications, and unethical/illegal behavior to Thailand with them. Thai students are lazy and will cheat. But that is only because of the corruption and illegitimacy they see around them in the classroom. First year students often start out enthusiastic and eager--and quite a few are talented. But the universities let them down. How does a student cope with the fact that he or she has more ability than their Western professor who is just there to get a paycheck? I'll tell you how. They play the game by the rules they're given. They cheat, avoid work, and simply pass time until getting their degree. With social media, students can make instant comparisons to what their friends and relatives are getting in the US. And it doesn't take long before they realize they're getting the short end of the stick. Thai universities are populated with Western faculty that have no business in a real university. Oh, and about that lack of reading. Try ordering a text for your class in Thailand. You must go through a centralized system and make purchases through Chulalongkorn. Absurd and hopeless.

University rankings and list making have become a lucrative industry. Mostly, it has very little meaning in substance. The case of China's "rise" is a good example. Chinese "scholars" are notorious for plagiarizing their work in some of the most basic cut and paste jobs imaginable. Large portions of their publications are in phony peer reviewed, online "open source" journals whose designation as "scholarly" contrasts with the fees they charge their authors in order to publish in them. The fact is that people who teach in universities know who is good and who is not, whose work is valuable and whose is not. Lists and rankings are for the rubes.

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21586845-flawed-system-judging-research-leading-academic-fraud-looks-good-paper

I don't know about Chinese universities through personal experience but I'm sure that there's a great deal of truth in what you say and you're right that rankings can be a bit of a waste of time. However, I see a lot of papers from Thai academics (of a sort) as well as dissertations and they are regularly of just diabolically awful quality. These go into exactly the journals which you describe - publications which exist solely for a kind of academic vanity publishing - so it's not as if the same complaints can't be made against Thailand.

Yes, some of the so-called research published in Thailand is dreadful, if not fraudulent. But it's not just the Thais; it's also common among the Westerners employed at Thai universities who could never get a job in an American or European university. Some of them literally seem to come in off the streets and are hired because they can speak English. I know of one of those top ranked universities where Westerners without a Ph.D. are hired to teach subjects for which a Ph.D. is required in the West and where there is likely1500 Ph.D. applicants per position in the US. Here, they come in with no research record and no ability to publish in real journals. And, as a result, fraud takes place in order to keep people in their jobs. But bad as they may be in Thailand, it is far worse in China, where Western scholars have found their own work looted from solid and prestigious journals and published under Chinese "scholar's" names in fake online journals. Here are some basic discussions of the problem:

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/32426/title/Predatory-Publishing/

http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2013/oct/04/open-access-journals-fake-paper

I was watching the litter police do their thing in the Nana area.

There are about 12 of these predators stalking farang cigarette smokers.

They each nab 2 or 3 tourists per hour I estimate. Thats 192 - 288 tourists being harassed & fined 2,000Bt. every day.

The motive?384,000Bt - 576,000Bt per day. OR 12,000,000Bt - 18,000,000Bt per month!

That's a lot of money! I wish I could get one of the worthless layabouts in my wife's family to get on the force.

University rankings and list making have become a lucrative industry. Mostly, it has very little meaning in substance. The case of China's "rise" is a good example. Chinese "scholars" are notorious for plagiarizing their work in some of the most basic cut and paste jobs imaginable. Large portions of their publications are in phony peer reviewed, online "open source" journals whose designation as "scholarly" contrasts with the fees they charge their authors in order to publish in them. The fact is that people who teach in universities know who is good and who is not, whose work is valuable and whose is not. Lists and rankings are for the rubes.

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21586845-flawed-system-judging-research-leading-academic-fraud-looks-good-paper

Personally I would rather wait and see what the report from Bell has to say.

They probably have more knowledge of more Bell helicopter crashes than any country in the world.

As the maunufacturers they also have the responsibility to send copies of all crash reports to all the operators worldwide with their recommendations for a fix as well.

Similar accidents may have happened elsewhere and perhaps not followed up on.

Bell's investigator left the day before Thanksgiving. This crash was not due to the chopper.

Is this near Crimea?

Turn out the squatters.

And you thought the guys on History Channel's Ancient Aliens show would say anything to make a buck when they said Leonardo was an alien. Seems he is everything but an Italian.

Germany is an immature democracy. Any country that is so constitutionally fragile that it must ban and outlaw not only designated political parties but political opinion and even clothing with political opinions on them is no model for the world. Not to mention banning publications and even speech. Freedom of political speech, no matter how repellant to the majority or the plurality, is the one and only criteria for a strong democracy. Germany doesn't fit that role.

Nan is quite nice. Reading this, maybe I'll go back there over the holidays. Besides, outside of Bangkok, it was one of the first places in Thailand to be the subject of an Academy Award winning Hollywood film.

Watch out for people who shave their heads.

He's over 60-years-old. I thought forced retirement took place at 60. How did he stay in a teaching job?

What language are they learning, is everyone on the same page here, German certificate world wide , a certificate of what, just because you went to a German school doesn't get you anywhere , it is the degree that only counts.

BMW hq in Bangkok conducts its business and training in English.

Forced retirement at age 60. Emphasis on youth culture in advertising. Hard to get a job past age 35. Where is all that respect for elders?