Kaojai

I'm surprised nobody has called this video too uppity yet. Of course if they do, they know what's coming ....

%$%$) you very very much!

It's very nice, but apparently all gay people are in their early twenties and (reasonably) attractive?? A good response from everyone who has suffered from the antigay bigots would not have implied that gays over 30 are invisible.

IMHO this is all about money. I bet you that True have decided not to renew the BBC contract because it is too expensive. A majority of their customers are Thai, and they just don't a shit about the British minority.

The difference between the Gold and Platinum packages would probably appeal only to expats. Not much in add-ons in Platinum that would appeal to Thais. I'm not British (and don't give a shit about them either), but have enjoyed BBC Entertainment. Still, about 99% of what's available now on BBCE is repeats of what was available the previous 6 months and in decades past.

Even if BBCE had continued, when renewal time comes I would still have gone back to Gold. I love both the comedies and mystery shows on BBCE, but after seeing each episode numerous times I can almost recite the dialogue. The Vicar of Dibley and Absolutely Fabulous episodes, for example, must have been made when Thatcher was PM.

Next month I will be 60 years old. We plan to retire to Thailand in mid 2010. I have got health insurance quotes from ThaiVisa. My question is whether it is worthwhile for me to buy the insurance now, before I hit 60 even though I will not use it for the coming year. It sounds like I can still get insurance after age 60, depending on a physical exam which I would expect to pass because I in very good health. I would probably take a policy with a large deductible since I can self-insure.

If I were to take a policy after 60 and then have a major illness, would the insurer just refuse to renew me?

Are there any expat retirees out there facing these questions? Most of the discussion seems to be among younger guys.

I started my BUPA policy before I was 60 and before I became full-time resident because that would ensure I could continue to renew ... although obviously the rates I would be charged would still be at the discretion of the insurance company.

Make sure you don't confuse "health" insurance with "hospital" insurance. My BUPA policy only covers me if admitted to hospital. Generally out-patient care is cheap here and if you pay for out-patient insurance, the maximum coverage isn't a whole lot more than the amount you pay in premiums.

Although I am not sure everyone should take the Aspirin, since it will be easy to get hematoma

I was taking 81 mg aspirin. It was prescribed by a doctor, but I asked for it at different pharmacies and had no problem getting it without evidence of a prescription.

But it is not without risks. I developed subretinal bleeding which puts pressure on the retina causing loss of central vision. Can get progressively worse and cause irreversible damage. Generally called Age Related Macular Degenration, but there are 101 varieties.

Took a dramatic change for the worse. I stopped the aspirin. Things got better. One eye is permanently damaged, although it seems to have stopped "degenerating." Aspirin does not cause the problem, but it does exacerbate it.

Like most risks, what I experienced doesn't apply to everyone, but a fair percentage of people over 60 do have some risk of developing either dry or wet macular degeneration. There is no cure although some treatments help slow down the progression of the disease. The most effective involves getting monthly injections of a cancer drug directly into the eyeball.

So you have to weigh the risk of stroke against other risks as you age. If you dislike getting injections in your arm or derriere, consider how much fun it would be to have a needle "plunged" into your eyeball. No, no general anesthetic is given.

Next time over there (??), withdraw every baht from her accounts, burn the bankbooks and open a new account at a different bank.

Anybody who already "owns" land through the spouse has a better idea how to beat the system? How else can they proof that the money used to purchase the land came from you and wasn't legitimately earned by your Tirak?

Typical Thai Visa message board approach.

(1)Complain about Thais enforcing existing laws or closing loopholes followed by a call for suggestions on new ways to break the law or find new loopholes.

(2)Then when there is attempt to deal with those who are bending or breaking the law, complain further that Thais are always changing the rules.

(3) Follow up with the 1001st announcement that no more foreign investment will ever take place in Thailand or no more tourists will ever come to Thailand or that all the (visa running) "residents" will move where they are wanted.

.

It's time to say ....Sayanaro to foreign investment

Lather, Repeat, Rinse.

I just saw on the birthday list that ChrisP would have been 57 today and it reminded me of what a kind person he was and how much effort he put into the gay forum to get it up and running. He was such a guiding light for this forum and for the rest of us mods as well.

You are missed, Chris, wherever you are.

For those of us out of the loop, could you provide a little more information.

It is a no brainer.

I would say she has the advantage in that department.

What do you think?

By the way, I have contacted the school principal about this matter, and he just shrugs his shoulders so I am relocating my family to a more reasonable country.

Their loss is our gain.

I wouldn't worry about it. I have been using those forms for 5 years with no problem.

They do look a bit strange though with different size print.

Likewise. I downloaded the forms, filled them in on the computer and saved them with changes. Now I just open them, change the dates and print them. Although there may be a slight difference in fonts, it's still easier to fill them in on the computer rather than by hand each time and more legibile. I don't think Immigrations gives you extra points for graphic aesthetics and they do seem to appreciate that it's easy to read.

I mistyped the word "legible" and was going to change it, but as soon as George posted his message, the "edit" tab on my posting disappeared. Why?

May I suggest that the guy tries a couple of other sites ajarn.com and ajarnforum.net, he may gleem some useful information from someone there.

I've looked in on those sites from time to time and found the standard of English deplorable. Truly a case of the blind leading the blind ... if you can "gleem" what I mean.

It’s sad to see the Thai waiting staff exchange glances in disgust, with the perpetrator slouching there quite oblivious to the offence he or she is causing.

I don't think it's just a question of being oblivious to Thai sensibilities and it's not only Thais who find it disgusting. They who expose their pale white or lobster red, hairy, sweaty blubber are simply low class, obnoxious slobs ... as they probably are in any country or context. At the beach or in the bar beers along the beach it's no less attractive, but more or less acceptable under the circumstances, but anywhere else it's neither attractive nor acceptable.

There are times at the beach at Jomtien or at the pool at my condo when women choose to appear topless. Based on my observations, this urge to share only motivates women over 50 who have lost the battle with gravity in a big way. Similarly there are some men at Jomtien who have decided to throw caution to the wind and wear the briefest of thongs. If this is some mating ritual designed to attract the attention of either eligble women or other men, Darwin must be spinning in his grave. Apparently these people stay in homes or hotels without mirrors or possibly they've misplaced their white canes.

I agree this is not something that requires laws, police and courts. One of the many things that makes Thailand attractive is that it doesn't try to legislate or police every aspect of human behavior. I'm sure we all benefit from that one way or another.

It seems like there ought to be some more subtle form of social pressure that would wake these people up, but then most have managed to live 40, 50, 60 years as totally self-absorbed, numb individuals, so I guess there's little hope of anything penetrating their shells.

I wouldn't worry about it. I have been using those forms for 5 years with no problem.

They do look a bit strange though with different size print.

Likewise. I downloaded the forms, filled them in on the computer and saved them with changes. Now I just open them, change the dates and print them. Although there may be a slight difference in fonts, it's still easier to fill them in on the computer rather than by hand each time and more legibile. I don't think Immigrations gives you extra points for graphic aesthetics and they do seem to appreciate that it's easy to read.

I'm Thai living in Australia. I wonder what would happen to me if I tried to steal things here and said it was just a prank and then verbally abused the police.

Phuket police went too easy on her. She could go to jail for that abuse and bribery. She actually needs to thank them.

I'm so glad that she wont go back to Thailand.

The answer is simple. According to the Court of Thai Visa Fulminating Farang Fantasy Fanatics,

1) If you're a Thai in Thailand, you're wrong.

2) If you're a Thai in any other country, you're wrong.

Or to put it more succinctly, according to the Bombastic Bar Beer view of the world, farang right, Thai wrong ... no need to bother with facts, reality, fairness or sobriety.

If you're wondering why these same geniuses still come to Thailand and remain here ... don't look for logic.If they all left it would cut into booze sales, but otherwise have little effect.

How big was her hand bag then

The 'bar mat' that started the whole controversy was 145cm (4.75721 in Feet) by 45 cm (1.47637 foot long) and made of thick rubber.

Welcome to the 'News of this World'

Kan Win

At least someone reacted intelligently, unlike the macho Viagra poppers' hysterical defence of a fair damsel in distress with the usual TV soupcon of racism.

ANNICE Smoel needs our help. So let’s lay off giving our usual moral lectures to the Thais.

Given the kind of Australians they see in Patpong, Pattaya and Phuket - and who I’ve talked to in their jails - I doubt they’d be impressed.

They’d be less likely than even Indonesians or Singaporeans to respond well to our usual flaming outrage at wicked Asians, which proved so useless in helping Schapelle Corby, the Bali Nine, or Nguyen Tuong Van.

But here we go again. In fact, it may be precisely our brand of abusive finger-wagging at Asian authorities that got Smoel into this pickle.

The 36-year-old mum from Montrose, in Phuket to celebrate her mother’s 60th birthday, was grabbed two weeks ago by police who accused her of stealing a bar mat from the Aussie Bar.

She was locked up for two days until she raised bail, and now can’t leave the country until her charges are dealt with. Worse still, she faces up to five years in jail, when she has four children at home.

What makes this case seem even more wrong is that one of Smoel’s girlfriends confessed to police that she’d actually popped the bar mat into Smoel’s handbag as a prank. There is also surveillance footage at the bar, which Smoel insists should clear her.

So, on cue, 3AW this morning was flooded with callers eager to dam_n Thai police as corrupt, stupid and brutal.

It’s this same sad story every time, actually, even when we’re talking about someone as plainly guilty as Corby. dam_n those shifty Asians for seizing one of our virtuous own!

But two factors need adding to this story of Australians betrayed. The bar mat, for a start, was no mere coaster but a $60 souvenir, and when police questioned Smoel she did a runner.

Second, one of the Aussie Bar’s owners, Steve Wood, says Smoel made an even bigger mistake when she was taken to the Patong police station: she “verbally abused” the police chief.

A local tourism publication, Phuketwan, yesterday claimed the same: ”Phuketwan has been told that Ms Smoel ‘went ballistic’ at the time of the incident, abusing officers all the way up to the local chief of police . . .

“While bad language and anger are tolerated these days in many Western countries, they are not condoned in Thailand and usually only compound the problem for any tourist in trouble.”

I don’t know what was said. But I do know it’s a mistake to think that us now berating Thai officials is the best way to help Smoel get out of a trouble allegedly caused by berating Thai officials.

Do we really not understand that our raucous manners and big mouths don’t charm many foreigners? Do we really need to be told that abusing and lording it over Asian police and judges in particular buys us nothing but trouble?

I don’t deny that Thai justice has its quirks, and there may be more to this than a stolen bar mat and a tantrum.

Some claim this was actually a sting, for instance, which I don’t think is a wise allegation to make, or a fair one.

That said, it is of course true that Thai justice works slowly, and sometimes seems to work best when cash does some oiling, I’m sorry to say.

I’ve heard stories of money making charges vanish. I also know a few Thai police aren’t such sticklers for propriety, having had one in Pattaya give me a lift on his motorbike to a brothel when I’d actually asked for the address of a good hotel.

And as the paper’s Asia correspondent, based in Bangkok, I covered the case of Lisa Marie Smith, daughter of a rich Australian businessman, who was mysteriously given bail by a Thai court and allowed to keep her passport despite being allegedly found with 4kg of hashish and hundreds of amphetamine tablets.

That was in 1996, and Smith has not been seen since she popped into our Athens embassy months later for a new passport, no doubt considering the $74,000 surety forfeited by her father, plus a few other legal expenses, was money well spent.

Such things might make one speculate as to why Phuket police, with everything else going on in their sex resort, made a stand over a bar mat.

But here we get to not only the odd priorities of Thai police in upholding a law against stealing bar mats in a town bursting with prostitutes, which the same law insists are illegal.

We also get to the real reason it might suit us to protest respectfully. It’s not just that Thais, like most people anywhere, are proud, having never been colonised, and don’t much like hectoring from farang.

Nor is it even because crying “corruption” tends to make officials in such places freeze into a show of by-the-slow-book propriety.

(Much better to do a Michelle Leslie, who made no such claims against the Indonesian police who arrested her for alleged possession of ectasy, but - unlike Corby - kept her mouth shut, her head respectfully covered by an Islamic scarf, and flew quietly home after more than $130,000 went “missing” from her legal funds.)

No, we should mind our mouths because the kind of Australians many Thais see are the kind whose preaching on morals would raise not a blush of remorse but a laugh. Or even anger.

Have you been, say, to Patpong or Pattaya? Think of Sodom and Gomorrah, but with neon lights. Then add thousands of Australians among the loiterers there, many with tatts on their backs, bar girls on their arms and beers in their hands.

Even in more “refined” resorts such as Phuket, you’ll find thousands more Australians boozing, screeching, ogling, pawing, bullying and haggling over everything from T-shirts to a girl, as if every dollar saved from a Thai was worth a hundred to an Aussie, rather than the other way around.

Or if you really want a trip with a difference, try a tour of Thai jails, starting with the Bangkok Hilton.

There I found Australians ranging from pedophiles to drug smugglers and back again to men who thought the usual moral rules against molesting young girls didn’t apply if their prey were Asian and desperate for money.

Look, I know I exaggerate. There are many thousands of Australians touring Thailand respectfully, or living and working there by all the good rules you’d wish. Fine people in a fine place.

But when I heard Smoel complain that Australian consular officials seemed reluctant to assume she was as innocent as she said she was, I wasn’t quick to condemn.

I’ve seen some of the Australians such officials have had to help, such as the loser who flew in to visit his drug-smuggling wife in jail, only to get as high as the hanged - so high that he forgot to give her the present made by her children.

I remember helping that same man - since dead of an overdose - check out of his Bangkok hotel, his suitcase clanking with bottles stolen from the bar fridge, along with a wooden clothes hanger taken from the wardrobe and a Buddhist book the hotel placed by his bedside as an aid to a more moral life.

If Thais sent to us the kind of people we sent to them, what would we think of the rest of their kind?

And what would we think when one, arrested by our police at some local dive, screamed of false arrest?

So, yes, let’s please work for the release of Annice Smoel. But asking politely for justice would suit us much better than our usual sneers and snarls, and would help her more.

So, my dear Thai Ambassador - as a sign of mercy, benevolence and goodwill to a country whose tourism you welcome, would you please help to restore this woman to her family? We thank you for your efforts, and please forgive us any offence we may have given.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewb...s_like_they_do/

Visa runs, visa run fraud, ed-visa for grandfathers, not verified income statements, better not go to the utmost cause rules will change again, from bad to worse, even for people who behave properly.

Yes it sounds like people are openly advocating lying to the embassies about your income or getting around the bank balance requirement by taking out loans and other methods to circumvent the law or at least the intention of current regulations.

As an example, the reason the "three month bank balance" rule became policy is because too many people were shifting the same money from account to account just before they applied for an extension of stay.

Once these "tricks" become common knowledge then the rules and regulations will be tightened or made more onerous and the same people who were playing the tricks will bitch about Thai Immigrations constantly changing the rules.

Another option is to stay in Thailand and "Home school" your kids. Home schooling can be better than public school as your kids would be more focused on learning instead of other society related distractions. I read of a father in the US who home schooled his 2 daughters and they were ready for the local community college at ages 14 and 12. You can use older revision textbooks and supplement school courses with the internet for educational material--saving money and time.

While there have certainly been some remarkable success stories associated with home schooling, in most cases the results will depend on the skills, resources, experiences of the parent as well as the time he/she has available. The potential for mediocre results, as well as a total unmitigated disaster, are great. If things don't go well, schools in the US might allow the child to reintegrate into the system. I would guess most schools in this part of the world are less flexible. What would you do if you decided to stop after a few years and the work you did with your child is not accepted at any decent school?

Even if things go reasonably well at the primary school level and maybe the secondary school level at home, what colleges or universities or even trade schools at the tertiary level in this part of the world will accept home schooling for admissions? How many parents are qualified to provide support in preparing for entrance examinations? Universities in the western world, when considering admissions, also look to verifiable extra-curricular activities and social service. How would these experiences be provided outside the school system?

While O'Levels are dead easy, if that's a path you choose to follow, they do still adhere to very specific syllabi and are not open to anyone who wants to "give it a try." What one can learn at the secondary level in mathematics, for example, can vary a great deal. If what you study doesn't include everything in a certain syllabus, the related exam will be a disaster. And generally you’ll need a couple of science subjects. Feel up to teaching physics and chemistry?

Then, assuming you haven't lost your mind, there's A-Levels or Advanced Placement courses. Certainly some dedicated, motivated people have prepared for them at home, but I would guess that most people who decide they'll pick up all they need from "A-Level Physics Made Simple," etc find the going very frustrating and go up in flames.

Your child also loses some of the valuable socializing skills (along with the bad) gained from interacting with other children & adults in classes and school related activities. If he/she spends all his/her time at home with you, the Lord and Master of all he surveys, how will he cope when he leaves the cocoon and needs to compete with all those who have learned how to deal with all sorts of people and situations while at school?

I'm not sure what's on offer in Thai government schools at the secondary level, but generally classes are geared toward entrance exams ( yes, the horrible teaching-to-the-test, but that's life in the real world) and offer laboratory experiences impossible to duplicate in a home setting.

I’m sure we’ve read about someone who built his own airplane or 3 bedroom house or computer that turned out to be superior to those available in the market, but how many of you feel up to trying that? Providing an adequate education may seem pretty easy and the schools (in Thailand, UK, US, etc) can seem pretty hopeless, but being sincere and motivated doesn’t ensure your success and if you waste 3 or 4 years of a child's life, that's not easily made up.

There's a good reason why modern royalty, politicians and celebrities prefer to have their children educated in a school setting rather than at home with a series of highly qualified tutors. A lot of what one learns during education is not contained solely in text books.

they dont value life as we do and dont consider the consequences of their actions, .

Just amazing. Everything comes down to "They" and "We."

All Thais do not value life and all Farang regard the lives of others with the greatest respect.

Can someone say something this alarmingly, amazingly stupid based on some well thought out belief or is it just copied from a page in the Ku Klux Klan handbook?

It's a tragedy. People who use guns to settle their problems are idiots. Drunks with guns, drunks driving cars are especially dangerous people. The world is full of these idiots who have no regard for the lives of others.

To use this unfortunate, sad situation to further promote a platform of Thai bashing is just beyond belief. Most Thai people value all forms of life with great respect. Considering the death and destruction caused by & in the farang countries, the idea that "we" all value life so highly is ridiculous in the extreme .

Yes, Truevisons (UBC) are to cancel BBC Entertainment from 1st June, according to the ticker at the top of the BBC Entertainment channel's screen.

Nice of them to give one months notice.

Time to look at cable alternatives since BBC Entertainment was the best channel they had.

Some of the stuff I watch used to watch:

Spooks

Judge John Deed

Silent Witness

Waking The Dead

Dr Who

Life On Mars

etc.

Bye-bye True. Hello P2P.

There certainly are some good shows on BBCE even for those of us who are not British. I've really liked

Waking the Dead

Gil Mayo Mysteries

Inspector Lynley Mysteries

Lead Balloon

and others.

The problem is that most of these programs seem to have no more than a few episodes extant and those have been repeated ad nauseum.

Some things like the Vicar of Dibley and Absolutely Fabulous must be at least 15 years old and are still being recycled over and over again.

I was sorry to see the notice that BBCE would be dropped, but looking through their current program guide, about the only thing that I might want to watch that hasn't been repeated endlessly would be the new (???) episodes of Waking the Dead.

I may go back to a Gold membership since the BBCE was about the only thing that made the Platinum worthwhile but on reflection, with or without BBCE, Platinum probably isn't worth the extra charge.

I believe this article is still true, which says 6 million pixel for a medium sized print are enough.

Many pocket cameras offer much in excess.

My question= putting the pixel setting at 6 or slightly above million, does such cutting away of unneeded pixel make a quality difference? (about 2000x3000)

Or..... does the cut have no influence over the pixel density?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/technolo...ogue-email.html

I just received this in a monthly email from Olympus:

Pixel Mapping

The more pixels your camera’s imaging sensor (CCD) is made of, the more likely some of them may fail. Think of the lights on a Christmas tree. When the string is smaller, the lights usually fire without incident. But the longer the set of lights, the higher the probability one or more individual lights will need repair. These “stuck,” “dead,” or “hot” pixels, as they are often called, can cause the quality of your images to be compromised. Nearly every digital camera, regardless of the manufacturer, includes a sensor that experiences this to some degree. The issue may not be severe enough to be noticed, but if you do notice this phenomenon to occur, look into Pixel Mapping.

Some digital cameras come with an Automatic Pixel Mapping function right inside the camera that helps prevent faulty pixels from affecting image quality. The feature can be manually selected from the camera’s menu and takes approx. 10-30 seconds to complete, depending on the camera model. By doing so, the location of the faulty pixels will be determined and stored to memory so the camera will automatically compensate for the missing information or incorrect data in subsequent exposures. It is recommended that this function be used at least once a year and if so, your camera should enjoy a much longer period of high-performance.

Check your digital camera's instruction manual to see if the Pixel Mapping feature is included. If not, you may be able to send it in to an authorized Olympus factory service center to have it done. Either way, your camera and the pictures you take using it will be better for it in both the short and the long run.

That's not true! Nobody ask you from where the money comes.

You have to bring along a letter from the bank manager in which he states which deposits originated from outside Thailand. Also, in the passbook each transaction has a code, so the deposits from foreign sources are clearly indicated.

I ensure that I have a minimum balance of B 800,000 for the three months before I renew, but for the rest of the year I draw down the balance, replenishing it whenever it appears that the exchange rate is fairly good.

I believe that one of the things that Immigrations looks for is some evidence that you are using this foreign sourced money for your living expenses. If the money "just sits there" they could ask to see a bank account that shows periodic withdrawals for personal use.

It would not be surprise me if the brilliant promotion is valid for Thai nationals only...

That's a POINT !!!! i can 1000% agree with you !

well said !!!

Gee the Thai bashers are out in force today. Having read through the first page of messages (who could stomach more than one page?), not one person knows anything about the actual terms of any promotion, but that doesn't retard ( ) the rush to pick it apart, deride Thai intelligence, mock Thai business logic ...

What a bitter bunch of little old ladies. There should be a separate forum for the cranky grannies to tsk, tsk, tsk as a chorus even if there's nothing "newsworthy" to tsk about.

... retarded Farang ...

That's not just politically incorrect, it's an oxymoron too...

It's hardly an oxymoron, but it is somewhat redundant.

Deal with the reality that the Thai people have allowed themselves to be enslaved in a most racist system, and that racism and resentment breeds the tripe that "farang" have to live with, until THEY DON'T HAVE TO LIVE IN THAILAND AND PUT UP WITH THE BS ANY LONGER. The pitiful truth is that these people need US much more than "we" will ever need them, and they know it. My gf had to force herself to face the reality, and as painful as it was, it was the reality of Thai society, nevertheless.

Posting this sort of comment on ThaiVisa, the citadel of racism, would be funny if it weren't so sad. The very fact that you think you are so desperately needed, is the root of the problem. You think you are special and want to be treated like Little Lord Farang. This attitude is generally held by people who were on the bottom rung back in farangland and thought they could come to Thailand and be treated like aristocracy. Most of the people who come to Thailand to live/work/retire would never be able to afford the lifestyle they have here back in their home country. They retire here because it's cheap and because they can afford a live in companion who is not anywhere near as ugly as they are. In other words, in most regards farang don't want to be treated like Thais. They want to be considered special. Unless it involves money. If you really want equality, one step would be to communicate in Thai. In virtually every country in the world, residents are expected to operate in the local language.

While I have no idea about Dreamworld, most places will offer Thai pricing to foreign residents with work permits or Thai driver's licences, etc., so it's not really racism. On the other hand, other tourists of the Asian race, e.g. Japanese, Koreans, et al, would be charged non-Thai rates, so again it's not racism.

In any event, some of you are getting blown all out of shape because of discrimination based on race or nationality for a fairly limited issue ... that allegedly happens no where else in the world.

Looking at the bigger picture, are you suggesting that race, economics, education are never factors in the way people are treated in your own country or anywhere else in the world? Hard to believe. If a middle class and educated Thai (or more especially a poor, uneducated Thai) managed to get into your country, would he or she be treated equally with nationals of your country?? How about someone from Africa or Turkey?

Would you rather be a white European/American/Australian visiting or living in Thailand or a person of Asian/African/South American origin visiting or living in Manchester/Texas/Sydney? If you answer the question honestly, you should be willing to admit that practical discrimination in Thailand is nothing compared to the rampant, deadly, debilitating, humiliating, dehumanizing racism practiced in farang-land.

"In a related development, the international ratings agency Standard and Poor's has lowered Thailand's local currency rating from "A" to "A-", saying the outlook was negative and could be downgraded further, Associated Press reported yesterday. The country's foreign-currency rating was left unchanged at "BBB+" with a negative outlook."

Could someone translate that for me, into layman English. I am not familiar with the grading system. I'm serious and not being a smart butt.

It should be "credit rating." The reference to foreign or local currency would mean debt issued in Euros, dollars, etc versus Baht. They are not rating the currency, but the risk of default of debt to be repaid in different currencies. If exchange rates deteriorate that means a debt that must be repaid in dollars, etc will require more baht to satisfy it, thus putting a greater burden on the issuer. Apparently in this case, however, the risk for foreign issued debt remains unchanged while debt raised locally has become more risky.

STANDARD & Poor’s cut one of Thailand’s credit ratings yesterday , saying investor confidence has been “significantly damaged” by violent political unrest in the country’s capital.

The international ratings agency lowered Thailand’s local currency rating to “A-” from “A” and said the outlook for the rating was negative, meaning it could be downgraded again. The country’s foreign currency rating was left unchanged at “BBB+” with a negative outlook.

No need for shooting, just simple police crowd control - AS IS PRACTICED IN MANY PLACES AROUND THE WORLD WITHOUT THE RECOURSE TO LIVE AMMUNITION.

Like after football matches in Europe? The death toll from football "fans" out of control in the more "advanced" countries seems to exceed that caused from demonstrators in Thailand.

I've linked this before, but it's well worth watching ... British police in full retreat from demonstrators wielding plastic traffic cones. Really inspiring.

http://www.weaselzippers.net/blog/2009/01/...protesters.html