Baloo22

Living in the West, we are used to public schools at least striving to prepare students to advance in society and move on and up.

Last year I had a conversation with an expat who has lived here around 20 years and he explained to me that the Thai public education system is designed to first properly indoctrinate and then to educate the lower class only to level required to perform their part in Thai society as farmers, menial laborers, drivers, etc. It's part of the whole system to ensure the continued effective control and position of the higher-class "pu-yai" or "better people" in Thai society. He also said that any parent that cares about their child and has any kind of money sends their child to a private school.

I do not blindly accept what anybody tells me but I will add that I had many conversations with this person and many things that he has told me about Thai society and life here that I have been able to substantiate have all turned out to be pretty much right on the mark.

Another lesson on why it's a bad idea for a falang to try and run or own a business here in the Land of Corruption. Another board member said it best for falang thinking about owning or running a business here. If I remember it correctly it was: "Some how, some way, somewhere down the road, it will all end badly!" Well, it just went bad for Larry.

Where have you been for the past few decades? Where have you been? This is Pattaya, Thailand we are talking about!

Land of Corruption? yes, but how does this relate to Larry and Secrets? Secrets is just one of hundreds of businesses in Pattaya doing the same thing. It's what "Sodom and Gomorrah by the Sea" is all about. Thousands of fish swimming up the river and this one fish has been arrested for, wait for it; swimming up the river!

Did he run a "clean" business? NO. Was he "pimping" girls? YES. Is it Legal? NO "Clean" business? This is Pattaya we are talking about. And if you believe the Thai Police, you are ready to buy that bridge in Brooklyn!

If this(something illegal of this magnitude) was in the West, he would be charged, sentenced and most likely loose his house, while here, he will pay "HUGE" penalty and back to business. Yes, this is true. It is also true that in the West, most of the Thai Police force would be arrested, tried, convicted, and serving prison time for being corrupt thieves.

What is your point? Are you saying that it is acceptable for other bars to be raided and owners to be arrested but not acceptable for Secrets? Are you saying that Secrets does not pimp out girls? and their girls MUST NOT be bar fined? Are you now saying that all business in Pattaya involved in prostitution? Are you saying he was not aware what girls did before/during and after work? Common get real Bar was raided and he was caught red handed, pay the fine and move on, just like all other "similar" business in Pattaya and across Thailand. All get raided at one point and all pay.

On a side note, i do find it very interesting that yourself and a few other members all happen to be interested ONLY in this topic, have the same amount of posts and all defending Secrets and denying the story.

The points that I made above are pretty clear. Read them again.

You say "Common get real". My use of the term "Sodom and Gomorrah by the Sea" and Land of Corruption state reality.

Your "On a side note,..." is nothing more than a bunch of silly, uninformed drivel. I have posted on multiple other topics here. And though I have stayed in Secrets hotel several years ago, I never met this Larry fella. Take the nearest exit off of the Multiple Posters Conspiracy Highway and take the night off.

Another lesson on why it's a bad idea for a falang to try and run or own a business here in the Land of Corruption. Another board member said it best for falang thinking about owning or running a business here. If I remember it correctly it was: "Some how, some way, somewhere down the road, it will all end badly!" Well, it just went bad for Larry.

Where have you been for the past few decades? Where have you been? This is Pattaya, Thailand we are talking about!

Land of Corruption? yes, but how does this relate to Larry and Secrets? Secrets is just one of hundreds of businesses in Pattaya doing the same thing. It's what "Sodom and Gomorrah by the Sea" is all about. Thousands of fish swimming up the river and this one fish has been arrested for, wait for it; swimming up the river!

Did he run a "clean" business? NO. Was he "pimping" girls? YES. Is it Legal? NO "Clean" business? This is Pattaya we are talking about. And if you believe the Thai Police, you are ready to buy that bridge in Brooklyn!

If this(something illegal of this magnitude) was in the West, he would be charged, sentenced and most likely loose his house, while here, he will pay "HUGE" penalty and back to business. Yes, this is true. It is also true that in the West, most of the Thai Police force would be arrested, tried, convicted, and serving prison time for being corrupt thieves.

I thought I read Larry was caught red handed handling the "pimp" money ?

We can read a lot of stuff. We can believe the Thai Police story. We can also believe in the Tooth Fairy, little green men from Mars, and the extra assassins on the grassy knoll in Dallas!

Another lesson on why it's a bad idea for a falang to try and run or own a business here in the Land of Corruption. Another board member said it best for falang thinking about owning or running a business here. If I remember it correctly it was: "Some how, some way, somewhere down the road, it will all end badly!" Well, it just went bad for Larry.

Remind me never to poke fun at any technical colleges whilst I am over here in the "Land of Smiles"!

I wonder! Does Thai law allow the defendant the right to conduct an in-person deposition of the plaintiff? Can the defendant demand that the plaintiff appear in court for testimony and cross-examination?

......

If the international community has any sense it will stay well out of the conflict in Syria let them destroy each other because if we help, in the end they will turn on us as Libya has done.

You are 100% right on the mark! Western intervention in Syria will end up just like our peacekeeping efforts in Lebanon in the 1980s. Remember the bombings of U.S. and French peacekeepers? In that part of the world; "Peacekeeper" is simply another word for "target". We need to stay out of it, stay out of it, and stay out of it !!!

Larger countries just hide their corruption better. Look at Ben Bernanke, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve - he "lost" almost $600 million and has not been brought to task. I've been following this one closely, and it appears that it will be swept under the rug. And this is just one case of just about every U.S. politician, each of which should be hanging their head in shame.

You say "has not been brought to task". Do you mean sentenced to prison? If so, please point out what acts he committed that violated federal or state statutes. Please forward that information to the FBI and the New York Times also.

Keep in mind that in our justice system when a prosecutor brings a person into a court and charges them with committing a crime, they normally have to specify what acts they committed and what part, paragragh,or section of the law those acts violated. You cannot just say "bankster", click your heels three times and throw them in prison.

Does this sound like deja vu all over again?? My sarcastic crystal ball is suggesting that there may be a lot of future news articles on rainfall and fl**ding where they can simply change the year from 2011 to 2012 and then print them.

Darrel please,stop drinking when you post.The only thing the land office here is competent in is getting involved in the frauds.

Perhaps I was unduly generous. Even so I don't see illegal construction scams on that scale happening here.

I don't know if you have seen this before. Anyway, the more info on these scams that can be put out, perhaps the more people can be warned.

[media=]

Why we always read these stories happening in Phuket at a rate of 4-1 compared to Pattaya? It starts to be striking!

On the other hand I continue to say that Phuket is the center of cheating, scams, tuk-tuk mafia and crooks in Thailand. These outlaws are much more under control in Pattaya and the police over there is much more devoted to their job (and not to their extra-income) as in Phuket. I know police officer in Phuket who only know the difference between Thai and Farang but not between what is right or wrong (in the same order).

Pattaya has it's share of scams, shootings, and other crimes. There have been plenty of shootings in Pattaya and the surrounding area. Almost all of it is Thai on Thai and gang/drug related. There are repeat incidents of purse/jewelry snatching by crooks on motorbikes. The tuk-tuk/baht-bus mafia does not seem to be as big a problem. As far as the police in Pattaya; I don't think that they are any less crooked than in Phuket. Why else would the long-running jetski scammers be able to continue their operations day after day even after being exposed on Thai TV??

The Thai News is pretty good at printing crimes for all to read unlike the West where many crimes you never hear about...

You have got it backwards. It's in the West where (in most countries) you have free press/media with history of aggressive investigative journalism. It's here in Thailand that investigative journalism is little to none and cowed by strict libel/slander laws (civil and criminal) and the threat of and use of violence.

I am not trying to make light of the difficulties that the closure of this BTS station may cause some people in Bangkok but let's have some contrast here. Bangkokians have an underground rail system, the MRT. They have an above ground Sky Train, the BTS system. And they have an intra-city bus system that actually transports people.

I currently am located in the city of Chiang Mai just off of Huay Kaew Road. There is no intra-city train system, above or below ground, in Chiang Mai. In about a 1000 meter stretch of Huay Kaew Road (NW corner of the Old City to intersection of Nimmanhaemin Road) there are about six of these nice roofed bus stops. See the pic.

Only one small problem with them. There is no busses that stop at them! I was not here when the attempt at a intra-city bus system went down the craphole. I understand that the official explanation was something along th lines of "it proved not to be economically viable". From talking to several expats that were here, the real reasons was that the baht-bus/tuk-tuk drivers did not want it, conducted various "protest" blockades, etc, etc. And that was the end of that!

Disclaimer: I have been told by another board member that a small remnant still exists taking some people from the airport area down south to a place called Hang Dong.

Were all the red shirts that were shot burning down building and lobbing grenades? can you see my point? maybe the yellows that died were not involved in the violence, but the same can be said of many of the reds that died, and lets not even start comparing numbers as you will be on a loser right away, not even all those that died were red shirts, there were medical staff, reporters etc etc etc........

There is an old saying that, IMO, applies; "Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas" Even if you are not a dog!

Reality is that, if you are at any type of gathering or crowd of people and you see people making barricades, sharpening bamboo sticks, clubs, slingshots, etc, etc, then that is the time for any intelligent and sane person to rapidly remove themselves from that area. Because in that situation, sooner or later, the shit will hit the fan and you have a chance of some of it splattering on you. And all the excuses or good intentions will not matter. Whether you were throwing grenades or not will not matter. That is reality!

"(Reuters) - One of the grimmest legacies of the war in the Pacific is still being fought 70 years on, but a victory over dengue, the intensely painful "breakbone fever" which that conflict helped spread around the world, may be in sight.

The U.S. Army, which like its Japanese enemy lost thousands of men to the mosquito-borne disease in the 1940s, has piled resources into defeating the tropical killer. But it may be about to see the battle to develop the first vaccine won not in the United States but by French drug company Sanofi.

The Paris-based firm hopes for positive results in September from a key trial among children in Thailand that would set it on course to market a shot in 2015 which would prevent an estimated 100 million cases of dengue infection each year. Of 20,000 annual deaths, many are of children...."

Insight: Dengue vaccine in sight, after 70 years

IMO and from lessons learned (I worked in the IT field for 15 years); It's usually a wise procedure to wait a at least a few weeks after a new software release before installing it yourself. Let someone else experience the problems and bugs. Just about all new software has bugs. In fact, for any Microsoft Operating System, I would always wait until after the first "Service Pack" was issued before installing it myself.

More trains running more frequently as in every 3 min is no different than adding more cars and running every 6 min, same throughput.

Don't think it works like this. You also need to add the costs of extending the plattforms at each station.

All BTS and MRT stations are already built for 6 cars. The extra cost for more frequent trains would be the extra drivers.

I'm not a train engineer but I believe that adding more cars to a train makes it heavier. Then it requires more time to get up to speed leaving a station and also more time stopping at the next station. I suspect that it's a little more complicated issue than just adding cars to certain trains and the car capacity of the stations.

I truely do not understand why anyone likes Facebook. How cares about every little detail or brain fart of someone else's life. One thing I have come to resent are all the LIKE buttons that have appeared all over the web. Some people must have truely shallow lives.

It is one of the ways of communicating with your family and friends and keeping up with some of the things that are going on in their lives while you are living on the other side of the world. Both my son and my daughter (and their families) are active on Facebook. My 5 year-old grand-daughter has a Facebook page (under close supervision of her mother.) Facebook is not inherently a bad thing anymore than this message board is. On both we need to remember we are on the internet.

My nephew's girlfriend told him she was on the pill and he believed her. Foolish boy, but when he found out she was lying and got pregnant he did "the right thing" and married her even though she had lied to him. They are still married, not happily and he supports his child. This is a pretty common scenario where I live.

In this case, she can take him to court and get some money out of him but most likely will have to do a paternity test if the child is born out of wedlock and he does not accept paternity. But if they are poor and have no money, not sure what the point is. If he cant support the child when they aren't together I am not sure how different it is if they were together.

It does take two to tango and the virulent anti-Thai man brigade certainly enjoys leaping in when they don't know or care to know anything other than what they choose to believe.

The "girl told boy she was on the pill and boy did all his thinking with his little head" occurs all over the world. It is also totally irrelevant. The child deserves the support, financial and otherwise, of both parents. If the man does not voluntarily cooperate in a paternity test, the courts should force him to do so. And if he is the father and does not contribute child support, the government and courts should force him to.

I have not seen this "virulent anti-Thai man brigade" anywhere here. I does not matter what race or nationality the father is. A man that does not contribute to the support of his child is not a man at all. The government needs to put a far higher priority in action to assist in obtaining child support. It is far more important than the white-washing of a certain fugitive in Dubai or whether an old man sent a few text messages from a cell phone.

I think that this lesson fits in two categories. The first would be: "There is no such thing as a free lunch!". The second is: "If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer. You're the product being sold!" Or in this case, you can be part of the advertisment.

On Facebook, ‘Likes’ Become Ads

Who has more control over media on this and what would be medias agenda. No prudent lawyer defending her or her firm should comment on case with an ongoing criminal investigation as such is unethical in civilized judicial systems.

The problem is that this event is NOT taking place in a country with a civilized judicial system. It is happening in Thailand.

Would you like Red Icing or Yellow icing on your cupcake??

Will it really make any difference in the lives of the average people here?

Thailand is a land of 10,000 laws, very few of which are enforced. Or, they are enforced only upon person A, and only when person B pays the police or government official to do so. On and on and on.

IMHO, Thailand's number one problem is the systemic corruption that permeates every part of Thai society. What difference will any laws passed by Reds or Yellows make when enforcement can be avoided by simple payment to the proper police "officer" or government official.

Example1: Last year, one day and night of heavy rain flooded most of south Pattaya. Hundreds of homes and small shops damaged by flood waters. Turns out a "canal" (drainage ditch) that was part of the drainage "system" would have carried much of that water out to the sea. Except that several parts had been filled in and structures build on it. How in the world could that happen?? The right payment to the right official. So what if hundreds of people get their homes flooded.

Example2: I came up to Chiang Mai this March during the "smoky season". Smoke from all kinds of fires was causing health risks to thousands of people. Some airline flights into Chiang Rai to be cancelled the smoke was so thick. Large signs were put up with pics of the PM and some other politico and saying "Don't Burn". Does anyone think that the police were enforcing any kind of "burn ban" on anybody? Forgeddaboutit!!!

Example3: Multiply Example1 and 2 by thousands throught Thailand. On and on and on and on.

I have eaten quite frequently at the food court in Tops Market in Kad Suan Kaew. I do like to be able to watch at least some of the food prep. I now tend to stick to one after observing how they keep the raw chicken in the refrigerator, not left out at room temp all day. Also I have observed that they use one set of tongs to put the raw chicken on the grill and they use a different set of tongs (stored by the veggies) to put the salad/raw veggies on my plate.