catweazle

During my early nine years living on Kata Beach, there were numerous deaths by drowning reported for Karon Beach. Karon is the most dangerous beach for swimmers in all of Phuket due to the strong undercurrents it produces. A friend of mine actually almost died himself trying to save a tourist at Karon Beach some 15 years ago. Both in the end were rescued by a Thai man with a long rope attached to his body with several others pulling them back to shore.

Yeah, the clever ones here write - "Why do they all ignore the red flags?" - reason is, because most tourists don't understand what they mean. In my opinion, Karon should be closed off completely from public access from May until October/November and is in desperate need for a largely increased amount of rescue guards who need to monitor the beach from sunrise till sunset while the whole beach is fenced off completely during night time. Instead of those little red flags, there should be huge warning signs in the most common languages, translated by native speakers, and more education about this in newspapers and maps. Karon Beach sucks - literally!

A muslim, an Israeli and a gay walk into a bar.......

DONT STOP THERE!!!!!!!!

Didn't that joke start with, "A muslim, an Israeli and a gay walk into that Hitler fried chicken store in Thailand..." - just love it when things come together and start to make sense eventually

Just heard this earlier:........

The Iranian Ambassador had just finished giving a speech and walked out into the lobby of the convention center where he was introduced to a U.S Marine General. As they talked the Iranian SAID '' I have just one question about things i have seen in America ''. The General said '' Well; anything i can do to help ? ''. The Iranian whispered ''My son watches this show called Star Trek and in it there is......Scotty who is Scottish....Kirk who is Canadian....Chekhov who is Russian....Uhura who is black....and Sulu who is Japanese.....but there are NO Muslims '' ''My son is very upset and wants to know why there are no Iranian's, Iraqi's, Afgan's, Egyptian's, Pakistani's,Saudi's or Syrian's on Star Trek ? '' The General leaned towards the Iranian Ambassador and whispered '' That's because it takes place in the future ''

Oh, I eFFin' LOVE this one!!!!

I heard that Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat inquired with the TAT to be aggressively promoted as top destinations for this very attractive elite of high end tourists listed short as "Gaysraelims" in the recently released TAT pamphlet "Outlines for explosive and dynamic Tourism in the Deep South of Thailand"...

This is what happens when Testosterone and brain matter (if applicable) dissolves and mixes to convert into belly fat or muscle mass

I love the stupid look on the bloody face of that Cro-Magnon Hulk.

How long does it take before contaminants actually enter the food chain? Would they be detectable after a week?

Found this here: http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/oilspill/seafood.html perhaps it helps.

The photo is absolutely hilarious as is the whole seafood testing story. Feels like straight out of a Monthy Python movie - one should do a Thai version on this one, like "Monty Python and the oily Crab"

As the old saying goes; "Steal a cow and they'll hang you. Steal a herd and they will negotiate with you."

Even though this sounds like a good start and a glimmer of hope for Phuket, I read between the lines that the core and most pressing issues, like Tuk Tuk and taxi mafia, the parking situations, IMPACT of LOCALS on TOURISTS (i.e. bludgeoning, stabbing, beating, head-on collisioning them to death), safety, water, waste, etc. will remain virtually ignored. It takes a little more than beach cleanups, whining about people's greed and pointing out previous achievements to clean up and reinvent Phuket and restore confidence not only in Phuket as a tourism destination but Thailand as a whole.

Excellent post and identification of the real issues. Cleaning the beaches is so far down the list of real priorities but he can say this as it is directed at no one in particular.

Thank you very much, Halion!

Even though this sounds like a good start and a glimmer of hope for Phuket, I read between the lines that the core and most pressing issues, like Tuk Tuk and taxi mafia, the parking situations, IMPACT of LOCALS on TOURISTS (i.e. bludgeoning, stabbing, beating, head-on collisioning them to death), safety, water, waste, etc. will remain virtually ignored. It takes a little more than beach cleanups, whining about people's greed and pointing out previous achievements to clean up and reinvent Phuket and restore confidence not only in Phuket as a tourism destination but Thailand as a whole.

A bomb with a clock and batteries.

tick tick

tuk tuk

taxi taxi

I have dealt with more than my fair share of intoxicated people. People from all backgrounds, business people, professionals, labourers you name it. Most very civilised decent people until they get the turps into them and then they change.

The victim may have been a successful business man and a good person. What I am saying is with some people booze creates Jekyll and Hyde

I would sign that!!! Had a few friends who would become completely different personalities once they were drunk. Mostly it happens when they move from beer to harder stuff, like whiskey, vodka or tequila. A ususally friendly and organized businessman suddenly turns into an aggressive a$$#ole that starts to argue and fight about minor disagreements. One of those "lose cannons" I just recently waved goodbye and don't really miss him in my selected circle of friends. To be honest, I have the feeling that this special kind of "Jekyll and Hyde" people are wearing a mask whenever sober and the mask comes off when they are intoxicated and lose control over their camouflage. I call those people double-faced and don't want to have anything to do with them, neither private, nor in business. For myself I can say that overall I still remain the same person even if I am completely $#itfaced, regardless of what kind of alcohol I had; I'd become a little more talkative and pull more jokes than usual, but that's about it. Once I meet my limit (still able to walk home without having a blackout), I get tired and just want to go to sleep. This would happen max. three to four times per year being a pure "party drinker". I just recently said to a friend, "If you want to meet the real person behind a man, make him/her drunk, real drunk." It is one of the best pieces of advise I can give to anyone.

Statement of Bobby Carter the 3rd, son of the deceased.

"There is nothing that can justify the murder of my father.

He was there spending money that he didn't have to spend there .. he was just a customer who was leaving upset from a place he didn't feel gave him what he paid for..

The band then should of took a different roal as they didn't they followed my family outside the exit door where they where leaving (hello leaving out the EXIT door...)

He wasn't stabed inside the salon he was killed outsid on the sidewalk...

That means the band got off the stage and followed him outside (where again he was leaving) then got right up in his face and stabbed him

where also my stepmom was hit by a shotgun (which they fail to mention)

my brother tried to save my dad where then he was also stabbed in the arm...

I mean come on since when is it ok to kill your unhappy customer...This is so low ... that other news are making it seem like my dad went to this bar picked a fight with band members .. and then dragged them outside to be stabbed by the band...))

That's the way they make it seem... Hey its all about keeping it on the low so that the next family will still come to there stupid bar to sing with a stupid band who wants to get paid but not make the customer happy.. if it wasn't for tourist they would be begging for food from us... I mean how you going justify this..

Yes Bar+Beer+people= a night spot ..

Do you really think there are sober people spending money at a s*** hole of a place.. when your there you would want to relax and enjoy your Bday with your family ...

I cant believe this has happened... My dad gone because of ungreatful idiots..RIP dad I love you.."

As much as I can understand Bobbies anger and frustration as sad am I to read the swear words and accusations saying that Thais would be begging for food if there weren't tourists... Firstly, since this text is obviously out in the open, I fear that it makes things worse and will not help much to get justice served by a >Thai< court. Secondly, tourism in Thailand stands for a mere 6% of the country's GDP ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Thailand ) so cut the crap saying that Thai people can't feed themselves if tourists stay away.

My sincerest condolences, but let's get real please!

This is THAILAND & it is THEIR COUNTRY...let them do what they want to do..it is not for US to judge a Thai persons action..If this LADY were Jewish and an ARTIST living in NEW YORK CITY...her Scooter would be a 'work of art" and worth thousands...this scooter,which to me it is a Work of ART should be used as a ADVERT "to

do your own thing in THAILAND" She should do TV Commercials...I would rather see this type of news than 99% of what we read today....travel the villages of Thailand and see the "REAL THAILAND"...lots of folk art and humor...and PEOPLE WHO STILL SMILE.

Quite possibly the most annoying post on Thai Visa this year. For many reasons.

1. No one is judging her.

2. Mentioning 'Jewish' and' 'New York' in the most irrelevant way possible.

3. The random words in capitals.

Well done, you won the internet.

are you kidding !!…… this one's only richter 2 on TV annoying post scale…… you should see the old farts ranting when somebody admits an overstay of more than 1 day….. hilarious...

I love you guys

C'm on and let's all chip in to buy that girl a decent chopper - she surely deserves it

However, her outfit doesn't fit in the picture at all. The bird thingy is quite cool.

Reg. all the safety fuzz, I believe that bike is not more dangerous than those downstripped street racers with bicycle tyres, no brakes, lights, etc. these 15 to 18 year old crystal meth lowlife guys use. Some of them do 150km/h or more.

This appears to be a photo of the band taken from their facebook page.

IS IT A SURPRISE that the musicians on the photo perfectly fit my description earlier in my longer comment on page 7... ?

Oh, man, the HiSo Thais would just love the media coverage of that with orders for such buckets with local goldsmiths and DFR Tuxedos with indian tailor shops going through the roof

Ummmm... Come again?

Have one more coffee and read it all again - no sense of humor, hhhmmmm?

Think there's a mistake in the headline - since Al-Qaeda was created by the american government and CIA in the first place. So it should read, "CIA role can't be ruled out in Thaksin video..."

People looking for answers should ask what might be the reason behind the timing of this event (I think any muslim extremist would give a rat's a$$ about a convicted criminal and ex Thai PM), and most important, "Cui bono?"

Perhaps just a media stunt to get Thaksin back into people's minds again. Maybe now some Thai officials will openly beg him to come back and help taking care of the oil spill (wearing a custom tailored Desaster First Response Tuxedo and italian sneakers, using an elaborate hand engraved golden bucket with a handle covered in precious stones).

Oh, man, the HiSo Thais would just love the media coverage of that with orders for such buckets with local goldsmiths and DFR Tuxedos with indian tailor shops going through the roof

When will it finally happen that one of those so-called Thai "experts" is bludgeoned to death in a public place with piles of computer printouts of their stupid forecasts and expert opinions?

Wasn't it "experts" too who proudly stated that all will be gone and back to normal in 7 days - something not even a three year old would believe?

My forecast is that a giant clusterf#$$ will hit mainland shortly and that the long term damage to reefs and beaches in the gulf (let alone tourism) will be far beyond imagination. Well done, PTT - thank you so much!

Wow, tough to see this thread turning into a bitchfight between Thaksin fans and haters... I appreciate some of the points GeorgeO has listed, but can't really agree to most that was written there, even though his post received an avalanche of "likes". Many of the points, like the thefts and robberies are stuff that happens all over the world on a daily basis and even worse.

Some examples: In Germany, old innocent people are beaten to death in subway stations by immigrant youth gangs who might receive some hours of community service and a one year sentence on probation for killing a person in cold blood, while a German who defends his girlfriend against three immigrat assailants (in his own country!) is sentenced to four years w.o. probation because he used "unnecessary excessive force" (I would use EF as well if I were alone against three men for Pete's sake). In today Germany, I as a German would be an alien in my own country. German youngsters are learning what we would call "pidgeon English" here, a slang language and low life pronunciation that avoids them from being outed as Germans at school, because at some schools the immigrant/German ratio is 90/10 or even less. This I call frightening and disturbing!

The government in Germany is as corrupt as the government of any other country and this includes the US of A and the "holy, untouchable" Great Britain. Only difference there is that western governments are not corrupted by money, but power and powerful entities. In Europe you have hundreds of catholic priests allegedly raping and torturing altar boys, you have ancient underground tunnels from male monasteries to female monasteries with hundreds of aborted fetuses (from pregnant nuns inseminated by monks) buried in their walls. Don't get me started on the Vatican! Do these western examples of misconduct executed by religious leaders balance out Thailand's version of the "Monk who sold his Ferrari" and the dog and child raping Thai monks? I think so.

You can basically take any other point in George's post and mirror it to similar shortcomings in western countries. We even have western farmers who are betrayed by their governments on a regular basis, squeezed into a price war forcing them to dump their dairy milk onto the streets in protest, etc. - we westerners aren't so great, you know... neither in our political nor in our very own private ways.

Latest developments in Thailand leading to civil war? You must be kidding - there are other hot spots right now on this pale blue dot we call earth, such as Europe and perhaps even the US of A, when people realize that their new messiah is not the knight in shining armor hey hoped for, but nothing than a obedient string puppet babbling empty words while ruining the country to the point of no return. Yes we can... camp! Yes, we can... ruin the US of A.

So who are we (westerners) to point fingers and tell Thais what is right and what is wrong? And who are we to whine about misconduct and shortcomings here, while misconduct clusterxxxxx are hitting western shores on a daily basis? I love this country (Thailand) and have high hopes for it, even though at times I am sitting with an open jaw and shaking my head in disbelief when I read some of the Thai news. But at the end of the day, I rather live (I mean REALLY LIVE) here, and make (to me, small) compromises than being slave of the system back in Europe with no quality of life, with my Euro being worth only 81 cents, and freezing my a$$ off nine months out of twelve.

That's all I have to say about that.

Looks like Thailand gonna run out of buckets very soon... What I don't understand is why not the oil companies themselves do the cleanup, respectively why oil companies (worldwide) are allowed to operate without having set up, or each oil company chipping in to another separate disaster response and rescue company or something like that. How about tougher safety regulations (sorry, forgot - this is Thailand....). But isn't it always the same scheme?

Oil cluster f#)kups: Oil company, creates the mess - others have to clean it up, like in this instance Navy, national park and government, volunteers, etc. while the oil company gets a slap on the wrist along with a laughable fine.

War cluster f##)kups: Western countries invade other, what they call "less civilized", countries they want to "liberate" so these people (the few ones who survive) can have "democracy" and in the process bomb that country to bits, killing thousands, up to millions civilians - Red Cross and other, similar foundations along with volunteers move in to clean up the mess. Not talking about the fortunes made by reconstruction, done by the company owners and cronies who gave the ok for the invasion in the first place.

Economy and money cluster f##)kups: The banks and their henchman ruin the world economy and everyone's livelyhood by creating money out of thin air, giving loans to people they know they'll never be able to pay it back, create toxic "investment packages" no one knows what they contain and throw them on the market, selling them to their best customers while betting against these papers in the same moment, etc. etc. - and in the end, these banks are bailed out with tax payers money and pushing whole countries into decade long recessions or bankrupcy, while the managers get a pay rise and bonuses.

And on and on it goes....

btw - where the F are Sea Shepherd, Greenpeace, etc. now? Where is the public, nationwide outcry, the demonstrations against PTT (quote "this is our 4th spill so far").

One member in another thread related to this spill asked when we mention UFOs now while free and renewable energy was brought up by me (what in his view are conspiracy theories)... Well, all I can say is that if there are any (UFOs and aliens) with an advanced mindset and advanced technology, I don't think they would ever have the urge to neither contact, nor meet or mingle with, nor rescue us humans who obviously are speeding along a suicidal one way road straight towards the wall of self destruction. I hope that at least earth will survive and recover. As for us (humans) I have no hope that we will make it.

Ah, we get the typical TiT bashing comments...

Now let me dig into my memory a bit and throw some spanners around:

Alaska...anyone?

Well, that's quite a long time ago...lets try this one: BP...Gulf of Mexico... Anyone?

Accidents like this happen. Everywhere in the world.. I dare say that the US of A seems to hold first spot on Cluster Xxxxx in this type of accidents....

Yes, it's a serious accident, but if you're only half way sincere, you'd not be driving a car and use public transport or maybe taxis to get around so less oil needs to be refined and less chance for an accident to occur...

Before anyone starts:

- I use taxi's or car-pool with my employees..

- Living oil free is impossible, but you can make a difference by using less..

Schuimpge, I salute you!!! The US of A holds first spot for a lot of other cluster xxxxxxx as well and is always first in pointing fingers as well.

If the photo with people in charge wearing life jackets, pointing at the sand, represents the way this major PTT f%*kup is investigated and punished, we will see one of the PTT directors getting a slap on the wrist along with a ridiculous 2 or 3m Baht fine and the case is closed, while private investors and resort owners along the coast will lose everything and will not get a single Baht in compensation.

Great would be a thailandwide boycott against PTT gas stations, but I fear this will just remain a dream...