Yunla

The roadside alcohol-test is not aimed exclusively at people who are drunk, it can be used randomly for anybody, and rightly so. So the "I wasn't drunk" is irrelevant, these tests were intended originally as a constant net system, to randomly catch drunk-drivers and gradually lower the numbers of road fatalities and injuries.

The VIP factor is also irrelevant, and even more so. If a VIP crashes drunkenly into me, will my injuries be less serious than if a common washerwoman had crashed drunkenly into me?

I have lost several friends due to reckless drunk drivers, it is a terrible and senseless way to lose somebody, it is very hard to find closure when you know your friend died just because somebody got drunk and didn't call a taxi. I think that for many drink-drivers, it is all fun-and-games until they crash and end up in hospital, or in an accident that kills other people. But that stage is called the "too late" stage, and the whole purpose of road-safety Laws is to prevent that tragic final stage, as often as possible.

A person takes breathalyser regardless of them being drunk or cold sober. Alcohol-testing of drivers is not related to the status or indeed the state of the particular driver. These tests exist to protect the lives of all motorists. If you don't accept the breathalyser or blood-test, you are simply admitting that you don't care about the lives of other motorists. Doesn't matter if a person likes these laws or not, the fact is that these laws were created to prevent horrific accidents whenever possible, to protect the lives of adults and children on the roads. Nobody is immune to the effects of alcohol, or the effects of vehicle crashes. We are all on the same roads, and so our driver behaviour should also be up to the same recognised safety standards.

I find this story alarming, as I do fly this same route quite often and I am shocked that a gun and ammunition may be on board either in the luggage area or the passenger area. I have no witch-hunting agenda against this gentleman, but I do have a concerned flyer agenda for sure. Every time I fly I let them poke the lightsaber thing at all my limbs and watch it beeping whenever it finds a surgical prosthetic. I hand over my bottle of fizzy pop, unfinished. All my stuff gets checked and I don't complain at all, because it is for the security of my fellow passengers. I want other travelers to feel relaxed and safe on their flight, and if it means I have to publicly come out of my mechanoid closet in the metal-scan area, or hand over my cherryade drink etc. then I am more than happy to do so. For this reason, the idea of a gun and ammunition being brought onboard is just shocking to me.

I hope that spectacular deluges of free sky-water will rain on this plastic parade. Hoarding for potential gouging profits isn't really capitalism, it is just exploiting misfortune. Real capitalism is person A providing better quality services/goods than person B, at competitive rates.

Obviously most people use plastic-bottle water when there are no alternatives, but I try to avoid it whenever possible because of the (disputed) risks of chemical leaching. I don't mind paying the normal rate for the ocasional bottle, but I think it is a truly sad day when this most basic life-substance is hoarded by those who can afford to, and price gouged to those who can't.

Dao told police she had merely accompanied her Thai husband to sell the carcasses to Phut, but police showed up and he fled.

He will be hounded relentlessly until he is captured.

Give them eleven years. You know you want to.

"They say a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, but its not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance." [Terry Pratchett.]

I agree with the OP title, and some of the article too. As other posters have pointed out, the important thing is that people use their access to the Information Age for positive things, and don't just hang round Badoo hoping to meet a rich oil Sheikh. I seem to spend a lot of time talking to twenty-somethings about all this, and how the Information Age is really the biggest change since the Steam Age, it is an epoch-making human revolution that only occurred properly in the last 20 years, and yet people seem to think it was somehow always this way. I try to explain to them about me spending whole decades sitting in libraries cross-referencing dusty old books, and writing it all down with pen and paper. And repeating that process forever, just to get a result that can now be achieved online with a few clicks. This reduction in actual physical legwork to obtain information, means that people have more free time to absorb more information. This gives me hope for the future. Although I consider that people should be made aware of how fortunate we all are to have this online automatic cross-referencing system, young people should understand how new and groundbreaking this information-facility really is.

She said she had invoked her rights as a Thai citizen to criticise the premier.

But actually the laws to stop libel and slander exist to protect those very same "citizen rights." A citizen has the right to enjoy their private law-abiding life, without malicious gossip and untruths being spread about them. These laws are one of the very finest achievements of civilisation. Without laws to stop a person using lies to tarnish somebody's name, society would regress to people killing each other over gossip, left right and centre. Even decent law-abiding people get so angry when their name is dragged through the mud, if they didn't have the legal recourse they would certainly be looking into the more colourful alternatives. That is why these laws should be so cherished and respected by anyone who cares about society and indeed civilisation.

I think this TV show is a great idea, to facilitate discussion and more importantly to promote the idea that these things can actually be rationally debated to a consensus nexus point, without needing all the placards and drama and other trimmings of standstill politics. Discussing important issues openly in the public arena is of critical importance to democracy, and students of this will know that democracy was originally based entirely on the concept of public debate. The TV discussion-show has always been a potentially powerful format for real progress and breakthroughs, because it removes all the scripts, autocues and a lot of the excuses that are used in other situations to avoid direct answering of salient points.

I think they would be wise to have long-term health visas for people who are long-term sick and disabled, people who are often receiving expensive treatment in private hospitals in Thailand. Genuine health tourists typically spend a fortune here on private care, pay for full-time disability-assistants in the local Thai community, love shopping and are well-behaved tourists.

At the same time, being sick or disabled means that health tourists are often too frail to do visa runs, or wade through mountains of beaurocracy all the time. Obviously this visa would need checks and balances to stop it being abused by groups other than the genuinely sick or disabled, and should carry similar credit and spending checks as in certain other visa situations.

Many doctors say that the climate here is very good for recuperation from surgery, and good for controlling the crippling effects of many illnesses too. I think people who want to benefit from this healthy climate, and spend money in the excellant private hospitals here, should be encouraged to do so by having an easy to understand long-term health visa.

It is truly shameful and ignorant to frighten consular staff and damage their property, or to threaten normal civilian Thais in the region. These Thais did not make the repatriation decision, and they did not take part in the repatriation. They are not involved in this process at all, and they should only be targeted with great praise for their contributions to Turkey, and all other nations where Thais live and work. This is the message I should be hearing from the Turkish authorities. We can disagree about the repatriation decision all day long, but to start blaming innocent people who are non-political and law-abiding, is shameful in the extreme. I hope that cooler heads will prevail, and this situation will pass without any more harm being done to property or people.

The sheer severity of this year's drought might be the long overdue shot-in-the-arm required to startle the authorities into action. I can only pray that this extreme situation in 2015 will spur them to take water-management very seriously in the future, to establish rigorous water controls on the user-side, and as other posters have said (far better than I could say) to take seriously the economic potential of switching to less water-intensive crops.

I think the OP raises a few good points, but with a few loose-ends, and several of the problems listed would apply equally well to many developed western nations. Mai pen rai obviously is used in positive and negative ways, it can be used positively as a way to cope with the hardships of working life, brushing off problems with a shrug. Similar phrases are used to cope with problems and to laugh-off injustices in working-class communities around the world. Obviously the same phrases can also be used negatively after a person has done shoddy work or doesn't care about something important, and in this aspect I agree with the OP.

On the "cannot endure" part I am less concurring. Most Thais I know work very hard and have strong survival traits, which is a form of intelligence that even the best schools cannot teach. So in that sense I see this nation as more resilient than many developed western nations. As I type this, the sweepers are in the street outside, as they are in even the worst heatwaves, working hard and sharing jokes and being positive about their work. When I talk to them they always share a smile with me, and it is not a fake smile either, they are tough old girls who are happy sweeping and take great pride in their work. I had my bathroom repaired recently, the workman showed up early, I thanked him for his promptness and he said "mai pen rai" and proceeded to do an outstanding job on re-bricking and tiling a large area. I paid him the small sum he asked for and tipped him, he refused the tip shyly, three times, and in the end I had to almost force the tip into his hand. He was very polite and friendly. I compare that to back home, the guys who did similar bathroom work in Leeds tried to charge me an 'arrival fee' just for showing up at my door, late, charged a fortune for the work, which was shoddy, and just scowled the whole time and spat in the yard as they left. Obviously there are good and bad workers in all nations, and I'm not stereotyping, only that in my experience Thailand should be rightly proud of its working people, who are hardworking and resilient enough to "endure" many of the issues listed in the OP. And that mai pen rai and similar phrases around the world can be used as a way to downsize huge problems and enable working people to cope with those smaller problems in their daily lives.

I do agree with the OP on the education issues, that is a whole huge topic in itself and most experts say that reforms are urgently needed in education here. I also agree with the OP on corruption etc. and the need for everyone to engage in positive consensus-seeking discussions on politics more in future. But I am slower to share the downward trend pictured here, and I don't share the views of mai pen rai as being a constant negative factor in this trend.

I prefer to have the actual stamped paper ticket in my hand, than having some numbers on a website. Even the option of printing from the site doesn't really hinder my galloping trust issues on this one.

The problem is twofold really, number one is that foreigners have their own real lives and real problems to think about, and don't have the time to listen to a lot of this stuff.

And secondly, Thailand is advertised as a tourist destination, and when you are a tourist you are thinking about things like suncream and planning what historic sites you will visit etc. Most tourists do not want to be thinking about complex political issues, when they are going on holiday to relax and enjoy themselves. Obviously all tourists should be aware of current national laws, local etiquette and other things that will hopefully make their travels problem-free. But beyond noting those basic travel-info facts, they are going on holiday to relax and be happy, which is the opposite of entering the surreal doors-inside-doors realm of politics in some nations.

When someone approaches you and ask you to pee in a bottle that will soon jolt reality. People spend a lot of bucks on a holiday and for some it is a once in a decade experience. The modern traveler is no longer just a brochure browser.

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I totally agree with you that the digital age has made tourists more aware of world news, and made it much easier to get whole libraries of information on tourist destinations at the click of a button, along with warnings and so on.

I agree that the percentage of smart tourists has increased greatly, although there are still some impulse tourists who are fairly cocooned in the brochure dream holiday fantasy.

My point was not so much relating to tourists being unaware of strict laws or basic current events in tourist nations, more with the OP idea of "explaining coups" to foreigners. That is a whole other can of worms. The situation is very complicated and jaundiced by partisan views, none of which agree on how to "explain coups" and so it would be even harder to explain it to an outsider without synching with one of those viewpoints. It is the complexity of explaining all this, versus the carefree holiday essence of tourism, that I find hard to image.

It is like inviting all your friends and workmates round to your house for a great party, with a fun relaxing party atmosphere. And then inbetween the canapes and cocktails, you ask them all to understand a complex algebra problem that has baffled mathematicians for decades. They had only come to the party for the booze and fun, now they have to understand something that even the experts can't solve.

The problem is twofold really, number one is that foreigners have their own real lives and real problems to think about, and don't have the time to listen to a lot of this stuff.

And secondly, Thailand is advertised as a tourist destination, and when you are a tourist you are thinking about things like suncream and planning what historic sites you will visit etc. Most tourists do not want to be thinking about complex political issues, when they are going on holiday to relax and enjoy themselves. Obviously all tourists should be aware of current national laws, local etiquette and other things that will hopefully make their travels problem-free. But beyond noting those basic travel-info facts, they are going on holiday to relax and be happy, which is the opposite of entering the surreal doors-inside-doors realm of politics in some nations.

This brings back nightmares I used to have of Wincey Willis becoming a modern storm god and ruling the world with her mighty weather powers. I think I've always been afraid of weather presenters and forecasters after that. Now it is all coming true!

Maybe those subs are for escaping in after all.

Sorry, but I must disagree about the cry for help thing. Most often, those who self-harm are looking for help, but someone who ODs deliberately is not. My step-daughter, in M-6, has just returned from trying to console the family of a classmate who said at 4:00 today that she no longer wanted to live. At 7:00, she was dead from an OD of sleeping pills. Now we have to be careful, because although it's rare, it's not unheard of for several teenagers in a town to take their lives within a few weeks. We are grief-stricken, of course, but I've told my wife to keep checking in on our daughter and her friends for the next few weeks.

Oh, yeah, I've dealt with many dozens - maybe hundreds - of attempts and successes, including my own son when he was a teen, due to a missed diagnosis. Fortunately, he survived three attempts because I was around. And yes, it is different when it's your own.

This is completely true. Cries for help are typically in public, for example sitting on a rail of a busy bridge or building, where people will see you and talk you down. The intention being that in future your problems will be taken more seriously by counselling-staff. The cries for help are most common in groups that have previously had their long-term emotional distress downplayed by others, not had their problems taken seriously etc. In the case of the OP, there was apparently no history at all, it was a single event followed by an prescription-drug OD, which as you explained so well, is most commonly intended as a permanent solution, and also usually taken in private.

I don't think it is possible to talk enough about these things in social media, there are so many misconceptions which only make the problem worse. Suicide is never the solution, and there are always some people willing to listen and understand a person in distress, even if other people have blanked them for this in the past. People should never give up hope, and always keep reaching out. Eventually it will be worth it, and in the future they can look back on it all, and feel so glad they didn't make that tragic decision.

Weren't they locked up for contravening the rule of law. The law, like it or not, is no public rallies of more than 5 people for political purposes? Like all laws we don't like them but adhere by them, without them, anarchy. Imagine that? They knew the risks and elected to go with them, so if they want to be stirrers, then cop the consequences.

And you are right, there are things that I would never countenance in my home country. It relates to many things actioned by the previous government but we are blind to that aren't we? Or were they just so good, that all the criticism levelled at then them was unjustified. Of course there are issues that have never touched me, and nothing foreigners will say or do will ever change anything. Who are the 10% that it affects, are you in that group or the former, if the latter, lets us know how it affected you? I must be in the 90%, as nothing brought in by the Junta has affected me in anyway.

I agree with you. I find myself greatly divided over the protests / detained students issue. Because on one level they are basically typical idealistic youngsters. But on the other side of it, this is in the context of a law that was passed to prevent small protests, which in turn was in response to the potential for three-month mass-protests as we saw before.

I read the international press about the freedom of speech / detained students topic, and those journalists in the UK etc. never approach the subject of a mass-demonstration that lasts for over three months in the capital city, bringing chaos and losses for local business. In the UK and most democracies, protests in major cities would be arranged to last from morning to evening, after which the protesters would have had their chance to make their statements and are escorted from the area if necessary.

But here we had 2010 protests that went on for more than three months in the capital, and with no plans to leave the area. That would never happen in the home nations of the journalists worldwide who are writing clever pieces about these arrested students. I don't know any governments worldwide that would tolerate those marathon protests in the capital, and in the aftermath they might well create harsh laws to prevent it happening again. That is the context, and the students did know this, although as I said I think they're typical idealistic youngsters and I would very humbly urge leniency in their case.

That photo looks so strange to me, four photographers in a line, filming a person praying barely a metre away. It is just bizarre-looking to me on every level.

I actually think she is tormented by guilt, I do really believe that. But I still think she should have been tested for alcohol at the scene, even just to prove her innocence and give her some personal closure in a tragic accident. Or of course the alternative.

I hope she recovers physically and emotionally, both for her own future and for the happiness that she brings into the lives of her fans.

This is a positive small step, but paedophile teachers are a tiny niche group compared to the larger group of paedophiles who pay to exploit, exchanging large sums for access to children in poorer parts of South East Asia, Africa and the wider world. They are typically exploiting children in the poorest rural areas where big money is hard to refuse, no matter how many misgivings the adults may have about it.

For this reason it is the responsibility of the home nations to prevent their registered paedophiles from travelling to the poorest parts of the world where they can pay to exploit.

Yeah, I thought you were losing the argument too.

I honestly didn't realise I had entered a contest. I thought I was just defending my point of view. Since you have judged me as the loser, is there a runner-up prize for me, or is it winner takes all?

Did you respect the Armed Forces around Greenham Common in the 1980's ? I was also there, on the other end of the abuse serving my country

Nothing wrong with your opinions, but how exactly do you hold the General in such high respect, when he's about as transparent as a lead blanket in an x-ray machine? Have you personally witnessed his strategic brilliance (worked well down in the South under his Command too eh? ).

I know guys who served their country for their 22 years, and they were bell ends in the Army then, and they're still bell ends now. Like I said before, respect is earned, not demanded, and should not be expected either, I know of Officers who were outstanding during their Battalion careers, but once they got to Staff level, also turned into bell ends.

But based on all I have read on the eastern Tigers, and what they have done in the past (coups), respect is pretty much the last thing I would offer up.

I was only thirteen years old at Greenham 83. I actually saw the camp address in a newspaper scrap in the Wakefield gutter where I was sleeping rough, and hitch-hiked down there to see if I could stay with them. The Greenham ladies gave me food and warm clothes, and one of them gave me a small tin crucifix and prayed with me, which changed the rest of my life. She later sent me to Mission Work for the next eleven years, even though I often joke about being an ex-Nun, I was just a Mission Worker. I wasn't suitable to be fully wimpled, for various reasons. I wrote a book about all this in the 1990s (including the Greenham stuff) which was quite well received. At Greenham there were some angry radicals, but there were also many very nice ladies, and some of them were married to soldiers too. It was an anti-nuke camp, not an anti-soldier camp, although there were a few radical crazies who were opposed to *everything* it seemed to me.

I agree with you about there being good and bad people in all groups including soldiers, and indeed doctors teachers etc. But in the interests of brevity I will always say "I support all the troops" instead of saying "I support all the troops except those who are criminal deviants etc." as that is a given.

I respect the PM because I believe he is working hard for peace and stability, and battling corruption. I also respect him for forty-two years of service, as I said at the start. Also as I said before, I can respect and admire a person while still thinking that some decisions are flawed, and I note those flawed decisions but I still believe that things are better overall with that person in charge. I feel more hopeful than I've felt in quite some years, and I hear this generally optimistic feeling echoed by my Thai friends quite often, even though they politely disagree with some policies.

In any case I think it is wrong to insult anyone on the web, if I have never met the person before, and if I met them I might really like them, so it would be just plain foolish to insult somebody that I don't know at all. This applies to leaders too, I would judge them on their actions, and comment on it within the law, and not resort to insults.