maidu

Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov looks like a man carrying a lodestone of trouble in his skull. He should take a long vacation - find something to smile about, get a tan, drink a smoothie, get a massage. Phuket would welcome him with open arms.

Perhaps it's just coincidence that, of all the former Soviet bloc states, Turkmenistan is one of the most Islamic - and that could be a reason for those particular troubles (dearth of womens' rights, freedom of expression, etc) there.

Makro does not have a wide enough range but fresh produce is always quite competitive as is bulk booze. Yes I also had to have a card and that means unfair trade if the whole biz now allows anyone come in but it is their choice after all.

Most of Makro's fresh produce is high priced. And the quality is so-so. Sweet peppers, avocados, to name a couple, are several times the price I can get them at a local market. Bread quality is about C-. They don't have decent quality yogurt, only the sugar-laden stuff which fills 60% of the small container it comes in. I buy about 4 to 5 items there - and that's it - then I go elsewhere for my regular shopping.

The Makro near me always asks for a card, and I never have one, but they let me check out anyway. I asked whether a card entitled me to any discount, and they said 'no' so I didn't bother with getting or keeping one. I see non-stop late-model p.u. trucks pulling out of there - fully laden with MSG snacks and soda pop. They must mostly be from restaurants or mom & pop shops. The mark-up to retail for the little guys must be v. small, so they have to sell quantity to make a few baht. They drive lot nicer vehicles and have lot spiffier phones than I have, so they must be doing something right. Either that, or I'm just kee neeo (cheapskape). I think it's the latter. Plus, their vehicles are being paid on time with %. Mine are junkers, but they're paid for up-front.

Thanks hmj, for the insight and url link. I'm as intrigued by bird sounds as I am by their appearance and behavior. Sounds like were reading from the same song bird page.

I asked laborers coming from that lot where construction is on-going and was informed that it was Home Pro.

Home Pro, ok. But that accounts for one large flat parcel. What about the 455 other parcels?

I saw Ritchie perform at Sylvan theatre, right below DC's Washington monument. It was the first official 'Earth Day'. Corretta Scott King spoke there, and the Chambers Brothers performed. Great day all around. Bye bye Ritchie, love ya, dude. Interesting, but not surprising to me, that so many musicians we now hold dear, got a great springboard leap from Woodstock. Just recently, we paid homage to Alvin Lee in a similar vein. Would have been fun to have been at some of those backstage get-togethers during Woodstock.

I knew a guy in California who was a chiropractor. The first time he touched little girl the wrong way, she told her mom and the guy got seriously chastised. A few months later, same thing with a different little girl. The guy got put away in the slammer. 2 incidents and game over. How is it with this Jimmy Guy (who I don't know from a crust of bread) gets weird with 500 or more kids and we only hear about it publicly after he's dead?!

It's ironic - for all the hate the Chinese are encouraged to project towards Japan for atrocities before and during WWII

Fersure ugly things happened in that bloodiest of centuries, but the fact remains; Far more Chinese were killed by their fellow Chinese during the mid-20th century, than any 'foreign' power caused.

Chiang Mai II

Good luck

That's the trend. Chiang Mai will try being more like Bkk, and C.Rai will try being more like C.Mai.

Mae Chan looks rather nice, but maybe I shouldn't mention that.

Pakistan is becoming more stratified and polarized week by week. The best sugar-coated scenario of the past several years might describe it as: the ISI (their CIA) are rogues who take no heed of central government. Taliban-loving religious zealots are becoming increasingly polarized from any remnants of democracy-respecting moderates. I hate to say it, but Pakistan can't help but implode from the various competing factions. The government has lost control of the military - or perhaps it's the other way around. This thing with Mushariff is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg - of what's to come.

What a horrendous way to end a vacation. Korean guys save money - to go to beautiful Thailand. He sees the perfect photos in the airbrushed/photoshopped brochures. Then almost loses his life while painfully losing a leg or two. Yikes. And to top it off, he will find out very soon that there's nearly no money compensation - which cements the reputation of Thailand as a 3rd world country.

A couple of days ago I read a report of a bus crash (or minivan... I can't remeember as there are so many) in which the driver fled the scene. The following day I read in another newspaper that the rescue team spent 30 minutes trying to free the driver. Maybe "The driver fled the scene" is a standard text used by all reporters. No way could two "drivers" of the boats get away without anyone seeing them.

I think it's possible to slink away. All attention is focused on the injured at the scene, plus looking around for any fatalities, and worrying about sharks and whatever else. The drivers could just slink away like cockroaches in an oil slick.

That ferry is top heavy. On windy days it scares the bjesus out of everyone feelin like it will tip over.....and of course only a few life jackets! Its taboo to complain here, they think you are rude and resist in principle, no matter what the circumstances. Very strange. I was on the upper deck of a bus once, first row seat on an all night trip to bangkok from up north. The entire bus was asleep and the driver started to fall asleep and started swerving off both sides of the road. I went down and banged on the driver/s cabin door and he stopped after a few minutes and walked it off. the train is far safer, I'll never do a late night trip again on a bus!

If you bang on a driver's door (and I respect you for that), you can get strongly rebuked and/or get a fist or a knife shaken in your face. Embarrassing a Thai is more severe (in their view) than any sort of physical injury which may ensue.

"Mr Musharraf "is not afraid of arrest and hasn't fled from the city," Muhammad Amjad Chaudhry, a senior official in the former military ruler's All Pakistan Muslim League party, told reporters..."

Reminds me of the ending of 'The Wizard of Oz' ....."Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

Or Nixon's "I am not a crook"

Or Thaksin's "Of course I'll return after the Olympics. I just wanna take my family to watch some sports. You don't think I would run off do you? I'm offended that you would even entertain such a thought about someone as important and trusted as me."

"

There seems to be a plethora of ever more fantastic allegations and very little evidence of real progress.

It really doesn't help if people keep going to press with these theories or whatever they are. Just arrest and charge the suspects and then tell your stories to the courts. The papers can publish the stories then.

It's Thai style - for VIP's to tell their minions what happened, as soon as the VIP's hear the first inkling of news.

Thaksin did it all the time when he was PM (and still does it). Whenever a story broke, he would immediately tell everyone around him all the details - who did it and why. Chalerm does it also. It's a paternalistic society where most people want to be told how to think by elders and VIP's. Alternatively, adept investigations would lead to the actual perpetrators and motives. Thais don't want to wait that long. It happens each time one or more farang die mysteriously in Phi Phi or other tourist places. As soon as the news breaks, a governor or police chief chimes up and says 'poison fish' or 'ibuprophin overdose.' It's only weeks or months later that a semblance of truth emerges, and usually that stems from farang investigators, not Thai.

from the OP

Police were following up on information supplied by the wife of a Hungarian Expat, who is already in custody charged with another gruesome murder of a fellow countryman.

It sounds to me as though the wife of the Hungarian was the one who showed investigators where to dig, as if she knew all along, for the past 2 years, where the body was. The sentence appears to indicate that the wife is 'in custody...' whereas the latter part of the sentence is probably referencing her husband. Shoddy sentence structure.

In order to not get implicated for being 'an accessory to a crime' - perhaps she plea bargained - by imparting the crucial info. Someone asked earlier on a different thread: 'Do Thai cops have sniffer dogs?' That's a valid question here also.

Any armed eruption in the Koreas would be losing proposition for all players. Nothing good could come of it. As Publicus mentioned, the clean-up costs would fall mostly on the US, for both sides, as the US is most often the cleaner-upper of such messes, regardless of the extent of their prior involvement. GK made a good point of how, with all this saber rattling, much resources are put towards arms and defense. Wouldn't it be cool if such resources could instead be put toward habitat enhancement (for people and all other species) or alternative energy or outer space exploration?! N.Korea needs a flower power movement. Perhaps someone could put LSD in their drinking water supplies, so at least the younger generation could find ways to think outside the iron box their elders have put their minds in. Ok, I jest (about the LSD) but really, what a sad and destructive mental state their leaders are stuck in. They make suicidal cult leaders (Jim Jones or the Dravidians come to mind) look benign in comparison.

It's also a reflection of over-population. If you put an on-going breeding species on a finite space (the Earth), then eventually, they will increasingly run out of habitable space. If you don't believe me, try raising rats in a closed room. When that species gets too saturated and low on resources (N.Koreans are starving) then weird things are imminent. It might be disease (Africa), it might be senseless killing one another (Middle East), or hassling over resources (China and all its maritime neighbors), or it might be saber rattling, as is happening from N.Korea.

Having a bad day are we?

Perhaps it is partly a reflection of my mind-set. I first came to Chiang Rai 30 yrs ago, and chose to reside here 15 yrs ago. Of course I knew things would grow fast, but the recent land grabs and scrapings are exponential. My outlook is also a reflection of the degree I care about C.Rai. With a modicum of aware planning, the developments could transpire in a less hectic manner. As it is, with the lion's share of investment coming via Chinese or Chinese-Thai speculators (as mentioned above post) it's being done in a money-rules-all mentality. Here's the basic game plan: find a large flat parcel. Find the owner and, without letting on about who you really represent, offer as little as he will possibly take for it. Then bring in land scraping machines and hundreds of loads of fill dirt, and render the parcel flat and lifeless. Draw a grid and pack in as many units as possible, with no thought for park space, and minimal space for cars. Sell units for as much as possible, and pay no mind to the farmer who laments how he was duped in to selling the land dirt cheap. And pay no mind to anything for kids to play on, or a bulletin board for notices (that stinks of community) or any construction that doesn't involve right angles and concrete. Make sure there are a proliferation of walls and security devices everywhere. It's the same consciousness which enables a person to die in her apartment, and no one notices until months later, when there's a stench in the hallway. Yes, maybe it's a bad series of days for me personally, when I observe Chiang Rai embodying impersonality and anti-community - at an ever-increasing hectic rate. It doesn't have to happen this way. There are better ways to develop bedroom communities, but Thais and Chinese can't be bothered to look at anything but money.

Drive around Chiang Rai, just outside the city area, and you're bound to see many dozens, if not hundreds of large parcels which have been scrapped of anything green. It's obviously for construction, but does anyone reading this know who or what consortium it may be. In past decades, Sintanee did this sort of thing, but not on such a grand scale. Maybe it's them? Regardless, does anyone know if the scraped parcels are for houses or apartments or malls or.....?

Many of the parcels are getting fill delivered. To do that, entails digging massive amounts of clay soil in other nearby areas - usually hilly places. The trucks used for that, nowadays, are several times bigger than the trucks used just a couple years ago. There are rural roads near me, which have ten large earth carrying trucks pass by every minute, from sun-up to sundown. It destroys roads, fills whole regions with dust, levels hills. I've always known Chiang Rai city fathers were awol as regards any type of planning. This recent stuff is the pits. And let me guess: there will be no playgrounds built for kids, and the developments probably won't even have a park bench or a tree to put one under.

Wells have been drying. I've got 3 deep wells on as many parcels. None have dried up, but their recovery rates (water entering the well) have lowered. What happens is: pumps keep pumping, and when there's not enough water, the pumps overheat, seize up, and die. There's no fixing them (not by Thais, anyway). Pump sellers love it. There is, however, a low priced item called a 'low water sensor' which could preclude that problem. Surprise! No one in Chiang Rai stocks or sells them. Why sell a $30 safety device when you can sell a $400 new replacement pump to each customer, once every year or two? That LWS may be available in C.Mai or Bkk, I don't know. If anyone finds one for sale let me know. Alternatively, if someone can design or construct one, that would be cool. Let me know. It could save me hundreds of dollars/year. .......as well (pun intended) as hundreds of thousands of other land-owners in Thailand.

P.S. I'm switching to solar. 1 of my 3 pumps is already solar, and it's working best. Granted, it will be costly to change over, but solar is better for several reasons, not least; a person gets off the AC electric grid. Once it's paid for (estimate 4 years of not paying added AC electric to pump), a homeowner/farmer can save hundreds or thousands of baht per month.

ZhouZhou, you can't answer about the invasion? Instead you try to deflect and blame it on the US?

Oh, and nuclear weapons would most likely not be used. They would just not be the most effective method of dealing with NK. There is not a lot of infrastructure to knock out. It's a very rural country and there are not large population centers that present a danger.

First off, N.Korea's nuclear capability is anemic at best. Of course, nuke threats are not something to be trifled with. Yet even so, the US in not going to get drawn in to that dangerous game, nor drawn down to the immature level at which N.Korea leaders conduct themselves. Any armed conflict with N.Koreans will almost entirely affect the Korean peninsula. The US won't want to pour kerosene on the flames, started by a sucker punch by the likes of tubbo king Kim Un.

If the US bombs N.Korea, it won't do it with nuclear weapons. Even if the N.Koreans would be so imbicilic to try and launch nukes, the US wouldn't retaliate in kind. The US has plenty of weaponry and delivery systems to render N.Korean military targets a smoldering twist of steel and sandbags within hours of any serious conflict. The repercussions from global opinion will preclude the US going nuclear. Indeed, the US has many folks working diligently to phase out nuclear weapons from all countries, including the US itself. It has even given substantial funds to Russia (and its former satellite states) to try and help them keep a lid on their widespread nuke arsenals from cold war times.

Investigative journalism at its peak. Try reporting the story and not the journalists assumptions. Deal with facts.

....at its nadir.

the thai police dog was also celebrating songkran maybe ?

do thai police have sniffer dogs ?

They might possibly have trained sniffer dogs if they could find anyone in Thailand who could discipline a dog.