crobe

Europe as an economic model is hardly the star in the firmament right now, and is on the verge of imminent collapse. The parallel with ASEAN is...?

That's not quite true. The Eurozone is experiencing problems due to excessive debt in a few countries. Some of this is due to not abiding by the fiscal rules put in place (Germany was first but is OK), some like Spain due to a property bubble which burst. The economic crisis in 2008 exposed this causing the problems we see now. Much should be learnt from this both in Asia and Europe. The European Union which is different from the eurozone also has problems but no more than could be expected with so many nations involved. It also creates the situation where the workers in one country find those from another country coming to do their jobs sometimes because they are cheaper. Of course if you have a large increase in your minimum wage but only apply it to your own nationals as Thailand seems to have done then you will get companies moving close to the border to take advantage of cheap foreign labour to which the law doesn't apply. I believe this is happening now.

To take this subject further.

The European union has been an outstanding success in terms of political and democratic achievement, remember it was not too long ago that Spain was a fascist dictatorship and half of Europe was a communist bloc run from the Kremlin, so the change over the last 40 years is astounding, and still continues today with more countries wishing to join.

The Euro project, with a set of binding rules for fiscal stability, was torpedoed by France and Germany when it did not fit their domestic policies and the direct result can be seen in the Greek crisis - they only have themselves to blame

This should be a lesson to ASEAN (it was only two tears ago that there was talk of an ASEAN currency union, and even the Japanese offered to put the Yen into this), and so the ASEAN project will be more of a free trade bloc than a political union.

Where ASEAN can learn from Europe is the tough actions taken on ensuring that free market rules and competition is adhered to, and any infringement can be taken to a higher court than the national parliaments and stiff fines levied.

When Denmark joined the EU it had 200% taxes on imported cars that had to be abolished - sound familiar??

The danger for ASEAN will be too little regulation and penalties, allowing countries to maintain protective barriers and justified by "saving face in not criticising a neighbour".

Added to this there needs to be a very tough anti-corruption legislation at ASEAN level, which would take the prosecution out of the hands of national governments where it concerns pan-national trade - i.e. a Singapore company paying a bribe to a Thai official - and both parties being sentenced.

A functional free market and tough regulation would be a welcome wake-up call to Thai companies and politicians alike.

Crobe

Where were these boys when the floods came?

Thailand has satellites up there?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Thaivisa Connect App

Actually Thailand does have one satellite up there, has been in orbit since 2008, and they also take data from the American LANDSAT satellites, and have a centre (ASIAES) to process other satellite data that is the most developed in the ASEAN region.

A replacement satellite for Thailand is in the planning stage

GISTDA are probably the only agency that came out of last years floods with any credit, they gave the government all the information they could, and have reached out to other governments and agencies to help as they are part of a wider scientific community that does share information.

The Japanese agency JAXA, has set up an office in Thailand for this.

Because of this they were probably the most apolitical and objective agency, and so you did not hear much about them.

Crobe

I think these discussions should go to a new topic "Thai Space" and I will answer anyone there, to avoid confusing this thread

In the meantime the answer to your question, as for every other country, is "whenever the government funds it"

"GISTDA is currently working with Japan, figuring out rain amount by using satellite information."

The work with japan is to combine the satellite data from the Japanese satellites with that of Thailand - mostly using precipitation radar - it is possible from satellite imaging to tell the soil moisture content - i.e. the amount of water retention already existing in the land and therefore how much more water could be absorbed before saturation point and extensive flooding occurs, but the most useful way of doing this is with radar in the L-band and as far as I know the Japanese satellite -ALOS - with L-band radar failed last year, but there are other satellites in orbit - such as the European SMOS, that can provide this data.

No plans for concrete as far as I know

Crobe

Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA)

Bugger the floods, I'm waiting for the press release on their progress with the space program.

What do you want to know??

When's the Thai shuttle to the ISS?

2020 - if the Thais want to spend the money for the current plan and assuming the ISS is still being funded for operations

Crobe

Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA)

Bugger the floods, I'm waiting for the press release on their progress with the space program.

What do you want to know??

This is gonna be sweet, but I didn't even know there was a "Thai motorcross scene". I posted a while back about where to ride motocross in Thailand and no one ever replied. Ahhh!! It just came to me why no one replied...it's 'cause I'm a girl!

Its not huge, but I went to the local races acoupla months ago. In the boonies. Some semi? pros were there kitted out, but also guys in flannies and Dunlop volleys, no gloves. They were still racers though, I think prizemoney in one class was 10k baht but didn't hang around for the prize giving. I've seen a few tracks around in other places.

I hope they can carry this off OK I will make the effort to come down for sure

I used to ride AMA (not WMA) Class A, so nothing could ever compare to that experience, but it would be fun to race again before I slip into my twilight years of mediocrity. So It looks like I'm gonna ship my bikes over from the States, dust off my pink helmet and up my medical insurance!

Check how much that is going to cost you, otherwise your nice bikes will end up being ridden around bangkok by a police colonel who got them "cheap in an auction"

How do you think most of the Ferrari club of Thailand- who are police - got their cars???

But in 30 years time the Chinese may have major social and economic problems, not least due to their one-child policy, and they will not be the largest country by population, that will be India, so maybe we should look ahead and all now learn Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi or another Indian dialect

Crobe

The ones who are using this to try to bash English and the western world should read the OP.

Chinese (Mandarin) is the most popular elective language, and the decline of the other western languages such as German and French are also elective languages - i.e additional languages chosen.

English is not an elective is is part of the core curriculum, at least to some degree, within the school system and is therefore not considered an elective.

As the OP states, there is an upturn in the languages due to the imminent AEC in 2015, but there is no prospect of using mandarin, or any of the other Chinese dialects , as a pan ASEAN language after 2015, as all of the constituent countries oppose this.

The countries of ASEAN are in the same position as the fledgling EC in Europe, where they had competing languages, and for a long time the French were insisting on using their language only, but the other countries insisted on English (the UK was not a part of the community at the time).

The AEC could be the same with Indonesia insisting that their language should be used as they have the largest population, however, in reality, the working language for legal, contractual and technical documentation is in native language and one common language - English.

I provide some technical briefings to Thai delegates to ASEAN committees and these are in English and Thai.

We are also now discussing pan-ASEAN infrastructure projects for science and the common language again for these is English, mainly due to technical documentation.

This by no means an excuse for the Brits, Americans, Austrailians, Canadians etc. who have English as their native language and are abysmal at learning a second or third language, and I am guilty of this myself.

What you have to understand is the difference between the English language and native English speakers - the language itself is now a world property, there is no ownership of this by the native speakers, which is why the language is so diverse (2-3 times larger than French and growing) and so grammatically unstructured.

Native English speakers are not just lazy, but have a difficult choice in their school years - I personally have worked in more than 10 different countries (not including the English speaking ones) and so the choice of a second or third language is not just whether but which one.

In my school years one of the major electives was Russian (due to the cold war), and in the 80s it was Japanese as this was the rising power at the time - complete with scary headlines of Japanese companies taking over America and about to rule the world.

Who has the benefit of 20/20 foresight to say that in 30 years time the prediction of the rise of China is true, and that it does not go the way of Japan, or the USSR.

So for the next 30 years the most important second language for Thai schools will remain English, but there is a value in learning the languages of your major trading partners and so Chinese as an elective is not a bad thing

Crobe

I have just flown out and back into Suvarnabhumi today and I can tell you I have never seen anything like it.

I checked in early and entered the immigration at 09:45 - there were no queues at all, and I went to an immigration officer waiting for a passenger - not many at the security check and I was through by 09:48 and 2 1/2 hours to kill before the flight.

On the way back at 8pm this evening the same, no queues, so either everyone has cancelled their flights or they are now processing people quicker - why could it not have been like this for the past 5 years?

Crobe

From the look of their website, Westfield Thailand are trying to sell kits here, but not clear from the website if these can be made road legal or are only for use on track days.

http://www.westfield-sportscars-thailand.com/downloads/westfield_factorybuild_03-09%20%282%29.pdf

Crobe

Anyone who buys one of these cars is not only rich, but stupid. Seriously A Merc, BMW,Aston Marin here costs three times what it would in the UK. You would have to be a serious jackass to waste your money in such a way.

The majority who own these cars are not stupid, merely totally corrupt.

The majority of members of the Ferrari club of Thailand are Royal Thai Police - go figure.

If the DSi wants to do something useful (it never does), instead of just spouting hot air, then it should investigate how government servants such as police can afford 25-30m baht supercars

Crobe

Sparebox

No, you obviously do not understand,

it is not the EU bureaucrats that have picked English as the default language, it is the multi-national companies and the projects they are working on that have gone this way in order to have the communications, technical documentation and standards in a common language,

Your argument about picking a language from one of the ASEAN countries does not hold water, is like the EU opting for Esperanto - could be an official decision but in practice would not be used

Crobe

If Thais need English language skill to go to work in Singapore.

I hope the Thai govt return an eye for an eye, and request Thai language skill for Singaporeans to work in Thailand. (Complimentry Thai language skill may be picked up in Nana & Soi Cowboy)

You are missing the point - it is not that English is spoken in Singapore and so there should be a quid pro quo, it is the fact that there needs to be a common language for people to work on large and pan-national projects, and the hope of the ASEAN Economic Community is that more of these should be forthcoming - if you look at the way the European project has developed (in terms of langauge), you do not get many Finnish doctors moving to be GPs in Portugal without knowing the language there, but on large programs and projects it is English that is the default language - companies such as EADS - the biggest defence contractor in Europe, may be majority owned in France and Germany but the default language inside the company is English.

A lot of technical work is done in English, and although people see the rise of Chinese, I do not see Mandarin, Cantonese or any of the other Chines languages taking over in the near future.

I am glad to say that some parts of the technical establishment in Thailand are taking these matters seriously, and are trying to raise the skillbase in technical and language terms to be able to compete after 2015.

For the first time I see them now opening up and accepting external help to prepare them.

the ASEAN experience could be the biggest shockwave to ever hit the insularity of the Thais.

Highlighting the skills of the Malaysians and Singaporeans is not a bad thing as this is the internal competition in ASEAN and the regional rivalry is the only thing that makes the politicians listen

Crobe

The way to fix the baht bus problem is to have dedicated routes and limit the numbers - at the moment it is very difficult to know which baht buses go up the various roads away from 2nd road, or whether they just turn around and go in a circle on the 2nd road/ beach road circuit.

There are too many on this circuit and not enough going on other routes.

It would be better to have a coloured badge for the baht buses so that you would know the circle route, the jomtien route, the naklua route, the Tai route, the Klang route, the Nua route etc.

They tried this with an aircon bus service, but it disappeared, not surprising given the amount of competition from the baht buses.

There needs to be a limit on the number of baht buses on the main route.

If you reverse the flow of Beach road and second road there could be some advantages, however, the majority of poeple using the baht buses on beach road get off at shops, bars, restaurants etc - on the shop side of the road not the beach side, so you would increase the numbers of people crossing, or more likely, the baht buses would just swing across to the shop side to set down and pick up and block everyone else, so no real benefit

Crobe

i think you need a few solutions in parallel

1) Introduce the sprinter train service every 30 minutes from pattaya to the airport - taking away a lot of the - dangerous - minivan taxis - and at Pattaya station introduce a parking area for Sontaews, standard 20 baht fare to any area in Pattaya - large hotels could have their own dedicated free sontaews.

2) Introduce a large free parking area at the junction of the motorway 7 and Sukhumvit - again a sontaew service into town.

3) Introduce proper parking bays and meters on all roads from sukhumvit (Nua, Klang, Tai) into pattay and also on beach road, second and third road - operate them from midday to midnight - no exceptions for "motorbike renters" - they should have a proper premises and not use the public roads

4) No traffic on all sois from second road to beach road from midday to midnight (have to leave the mornings free for deliveries) - use a raising bollard system on the entrances to each soi to enforce this.

5) An incorruptable (ha-ha) traffic police service that will ticket double and triple parkers and illegal parking, given the latest tools (video headsets linked back to a base), and the authority to have serial offenders or those that have not paid tickets towed away.

6) Enforce a strict 1 meter pavement (sidewalk) on the shop side of beach road - fine any shop or stall encroaching on this.

The parking fees and fines will cover the costs of enforcement

Crobe

Hi

I have 2 children at Regents for the last 4 years.

Like yourself, we were looking for schools for our kids when we moved across and decided on Regents due to the curriculum and location

It is quite expensive compared to the other schools, but has the advantage that if you have to leave to go back to the UK then they can fit in with the schooling without a break.

Some friends of our have preferred to move their children to St Andrews, but this is more of an American or baccalaureate based curriculum.

The main deciding factor is that we met and got on wth the staff and found that we could easily talk to them about anything - I now know and have a lot of respect for the current headmaster (Mike Walton), and I feel confident in having my children in his staffs care, which as I work away a lot, is very imortant for me.

They also now have a sister school in the UK, and I have got to know these people aswell, so I am confident if we have to return then I will have a place at a good school for my kids.

As to the standard, I would rate them much higher than a state school in the UK, but maybe not as academically challenging as some of the more expensive public (private) schools in the UK.

If you have younger children than I believe there is also a plan for a Montesorri school to be opening shortly in the same vicinity, on the other side of the new motorway extension.

Hope this helps

Crobe

@teatree

I doubt either Buzz Aldren or Jack Schmitt believe that the moon landings were faked seeing as they actually walked on the moon, but they both happen to be climate skeptics. Next time you attempt to discredit climate skeptics by using an association fallacy try sticking to the tried and tested ones such as shape-shifting reptilian aliens ruling the world, Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster...blah blah blah...

It is a pity you choose to invoke the name of someone and cannot even spell it correctly.

I think you mean Buzz Aldrin - someone who I am proud to say that I have met on occasions and have had many discussions with regarding the future of space programs.

You may be interested on his latest views on climate change - we have been discussing the use of greenhouse gasses as a means to terraform Mars - a process which would take some hundreds (up to thousands) of years to complete - this has now sparked an interesting debate between those who would terraform - and those on the planetary protection side against contaminating a pristine world.

If you talk to the man himself - and do not fall prey to the usual comments taken out of context for the reasons of tabloid journalism - you would know that he advocates colonisation of Mars as a "promising laboratory to study climate change on Earth" - however I will accept that he remains a sceptic - and I would defend his right to be one - but would - and have - argued against him.

Really - taking a headline as proof is the worst form of ignorance

the very ice cores you refer to clearly show that temperature leads CO2

Actually they show that there is a feedback loop of rising temperatures and rising CO2 levels mostly arising from the evaporation of the CO2 in the upper levels of the ocean covering - the instigator of the initial temperature rise has historically been through a natural global warming event - obviously because for the most part of history there was no human involvement - however - it has now been shown through testing at various institutes that the (assumed) man-made warming we are now seeing could instigate that very same feedback loop.

Science is open, that is the scientific way. Scientists do research and then leave it open for scrutiny. The truth has nothing to hide - unlike Mr Mann.

And here I agree with you - which is why in my posting I also included the fact that scientists are also actively looking for natural causes to account for the warming characteristic - however - being open also means looking at all the evidence - on balance, and not taking a single item out of context - a pitfall you have again fallen into by quoting just individual studies and not being able to look at the whole context - that is a very lazy option.

Amazingly, the IPCC does not factor fluctuations of the Sun's output in any of its models. Science?

If you look at my posting you will see that the sunspot fluctuations and the known cyclical variations have been taken into account for the latest data - you are obviously a scientist of some merit and publications so please point me to the sun cycle variations that have not been accounted for - there could be a Nobel in it for you if you have found a new one.

The big thing being pushed on us by government is carbon tax and once that is up and running the focus will be on developing a carbon quota system where everyone is given an amount of carbon they can use and anything over that is penalised.

Not something I have been advocating in my posting - so please stop trying to put words in my mouth for your benefit.

I quoted one form of regulation - a mandate called the clean air act in the UK - and there are other forms of regulation, subsidies and regimes that could also be of a benefit to ensuring a more carbon-friendly future.

California mandated fuel consumption - not always successfully - but it did focus the carmakers attention on fuel-efficient engines for a while - Germany has a solar-panel subsidy and grid resale system - again not always successful as Germany does not enjoy the highest levels of sunshine, but is an example of another form of government intervention - also France mandate 85% of their electricity from nuclear - but as you see from my post not something I am in favour of - not because of environmental luddite reasons but because I think the full decommissioning and safe storage costs are undervalued in the electricity production pricing.

Only having a focus on a tax issue neglects the range of other - complementary - actions that can be taken and again is an example of being lazy and taking a single item out of context.

Crobe

I don't usually post on this forum, however the ignorance of some posters regarding this topic can be amazing.

Mostly this ignorance is fed by lazy journalism and sensationalised press that cannot be bothered to actually research or understand the topic they are writing about.

Why does everything have to be a conspiracy theory - there is no great communal effort on the part of science to extract funding for outlandish theories, just some academics trying to increase the overall knowledge by doing some research - just as they do for particle physics, medicine, biotech etc.

If we all ignored the science we would still believe the earth was flat, the moon landings faked and that AIDS was caused by divine damnation.

RickBradford - we do understand the climate cycles a lot better than we did - we derive that from the ice core samples going back millenia - we also now have a better understanding of the solar cyclical variations (11-year, 22 year Hale cycle - 27 harmonics thereof, and up to the 6000 year cycle) - we also know about the Maunder minimum of the 17th Century and the fact that we are in the present maximum from 1950 onwards.

Just because some tabloid reported that it was colder in 1600's, does not mean that this has not been taken into account and you are the first person to have noticed this.

If you have some startling new research that will explain it all then please share it with the community (with a peer-reviewed paper of course)

Just because some institute in East Anglia did not want to give out all their data, in fear that a tabloid journalist would take one reading out of context and then make a headline "proved - sea levels rising is a myth", does not make for a conspiracy theory.

I have been privileged in my career to have been involved in the technicalities of global climate study - as a satellite engineer I was part of the team building and launching the first European climate satellites in 1991 - which has now given us 20 years of continuous data - yes this is still not enough (though the US has slightly more), but it gives us enough to test the models and predictions that we are making against real measurements.

I have had access to this raw data, but I would not claim to be one of the brains that interpolate this, but what it does show is that there is a significant increase in the amounts of global warming gasses - consistent with the warming that began with the start of the industrial age - and if anything - the raw data is more extreme than the models and predictions have been estimating.

Having taken all of the known and theorised natural effects into account (please note - no conspiracy to ignore such possible effects), then there is still a significant and increasing effect present from 150 years ago to now that cannot be explained - the best fit for this is that man-made activities are causing this.

About 30% of the scientists involved in this field are actively looking for other natural causes that could account for such a change, but as yet they have not been able to identify any.

It is possible to test this empirically - we can not only model the environment using this data, but we can also do real tests in the laboratory as to the effects of an atmosphere with greater abundance of CO2 and other warming gasses, and verify this against the levels we can detect in the historic past.

We are not yet perfect - we never will be - and anyone who takes a single event - whether it be a hurricane or a cold-snap as proof one way or the other - is doing a disservice to the people who are trying to bring an understanding of the overall picture - which will take some decades to average out.

It could be that a violent volcanic eruption could spew enough ash into the atmosphere and cause global cooling enough to mitigate the current climate change patterns (this has been extensively researched from historic data), but we cannot just hope for this - we have to prepare for the worst case that our best estimates at the moment can give us.

We also know from history that there was a time when the sea-level was LOWER by some 50 metres - you could walk from Scotland to Denmark without getting you feet wet - so even if natural phenomena were only taken into account - there would still be some need to study the effects of rising sea levels.

For those living in the coastal regions of Thailand, that could be a sea level rise of some inches this century, and by some feet by the end of the next - this is not a great worry for our lifetimes as long as coastal defences for vulnerable parts could be built or improved - however - as the Dutch are now finding - it will be impossible to shore up the defences enough to protect the built up areas around the coasts if the worst case scenarii happen. For Thailand that would mean re-locating the vast population of Bangkok and other areas.

In my view it is not therefore a scam on the parts of government or institutions to advocate that we move to renewable sources - such as wind/wave (I am a bit sceptical over the long-term usage of nuclear), but rather this is just prudence.

Remember in the early part of the last century the London smogs, caused by a combination of burning coal and natural fog, caused many deaths and increases in respiratory problems - anyone spending a day walking around Bangkok will feel similar effects.

This was solved by government intervention and the clean air act - not so far from the current legislations under consideration in many countries to mandate renewable energy - it may just be an act of prudence.

Crobe