Kerryd

READ the WHOLE thing.
TOO many people got to "requiring platforms with an income of 1 billion baht" and decided that didn't apply to them so they STOPPED reading.
LOOK at the last 2 paragraphs:

Quote

 

"Previously, the department revised the criteria for tax residency, mandating that individuals residing in Thailand for at least 180 days per year and earning foreign income must pay personal income tax if that income is brought into the country within the same year it was earned.

 

However, this rule will be revised again, effective from 2024, requiring tax payment on foreign income regardless of when it is brought into the country, reported Bangkok Post."

 

So what they are saying is they are planning on taxing YOU on ANY income you have made ANYWHERE in the world - even if you DON'T send ANY of it to Thailand.

So YOU are going to be treated just like any other Thai citizen - except you can't buy land, vote, get a passport (ect ect). 

Essentially "taxation without representation" which I suspect is not a consideration in Thai law.

Though I wonder how they will verify that you have made any money anywhere in the world if you don't tell them about it ? I seriously doubt too many gov'ts in the world are going to divulge that information about their own citizens.

The tourists apparently tried running a scam at the bar.
3 guys each had their own "bin". 1 guy's bin was 2,800 baht.

The other two guys paid their (smaller) bins, then one of them and the guy with the large bill left the bar.

That left the guy in the white shirt who waited a bit and then tried to leave as well.

Staff stopped him because his friend hadn't paid. That is when an argument broke out because "white shirt" was going on about having paid his bill (which he had as a part of the scam).

The cashier called for Security and when they showed  up the other guy suddenly agreed to pay his bill. The cashier thought that would be the end of it but apparently "white shirt" for some reason decided to shove one of the security guys.

(In her words he "rushed to push him" so I'm guessing she meant "shoved him".)

And that's when the fight started.

Apparently there is CCTV footage of the whole incident in the bar showing what happened before it went out into the street and the police have a copy of that.


People have been trying to scam their way out of paying their bar bills for years.
Couple guys go to a bar, run up a tab then one of them leaves.
Couple minutes later the other guy "suddenly gets an important call", stands up, walks around and tries to "wander off" while pretending he's distracted by the phone call.

This has happened a couple times on Walking Street in the not so distant past. Guy in a go-go, runs up a tab, suddenly gets a call and tries to "step outside to take the call" and then "forget" which bar he'd been drinking in.

Which often leads to "security" reminding him and him ending up on the front page.

I've watched people try those scams. 2 Indians in my buddy's beer bar tried the "one guy leaves then the other guy gets a phone call" routine but the girls stopped him before he could get to the street.

In another friends go-go bar. Guy runs up a tab and "gets a phone call" and tries to go outside to talk, pointing out that he'd left his cigarettes and lighter on the table.
The cigarette pack was empty and the lighter was dead of course.

They all think they've come up with the perfect scam to stiff a bar out of a bill they've run up but they don't realize the girls/cashiers/mamasan/managers are watching them like hawks.

And they've all seen people try those same scams over and over again.

Like the guys trying the "I'll just go grab some money from the ATM and be right back to pay my bill" scam.

Which is why the bars usually send a staffer with them so they don't (conveniently) forget which bar they'd run up a tab in.

The actions by the guards was excessive, even if "white shirt" initiated the physical part by shoving the security guy.

And kicking him in the head when he was down and out on the ground is just plain criminal.

The police should be looking at training, testing and registering anyone that works as Security. Weed out the psychos, addicts and criminals.

Oh right, I forgot where we are.

20 years ago I'd run up bar bills of 12-18,000 baht in a night. Once in a blue moon I'd be short on cash and ask the momasan where the nearest ATM was and she'd send a service girl with me. I knew why she was there. No big deal.

Normally, if I saw I was getting close to not having enough money - I'd simply pay my bill then and there and then go find an ATM machine on my own. 

31 years of coming here/living here and never had a problem in any bar or go-go club.

Funny how that works eh ?

I would never chose a country where religion plays such a huge role in people's day-to-day lives and where they'd happily kidnap, beat/torture/rape and behead you on video because their religious leader said they had a right to.

I spent 8 days there back in 2005. I was on a Nile Cruise boat when terrorists bombed Sharm el-Sheikh. That's when I found out there was an armed policeman on our boat. (We were nosed into the shore to wait our turn through the locks. I was outside taking photos and saw a couple police cars pull up and a guy in civilian clothing - packing a submachine gun - stepped off the boat and went to talk to the cops onshore for a few minutes then returned to the boat. Shortly after we learned about the bombing.)

After I'd finished the Aswan/Abu Simble bit I took a 1st Class sleeper train back to Cairo. My car was at the back of the train and every time I stepped out of my cabin I saw a guy standing on the back ledge having a smoke - with one hand on the submachine gun he had partially hidden under his jacket.

The authorities were really concerned that other fundamentalists might target other popular tourist destinations.

And the whole country is literally a powder-keg as the fundamentalists try to take control of the country one way or another. Many are upset about Egypt's non-aggressive stance towards Israel.
Many want the authorities to destroy all the old temples, shrines and monuments - because they predate Islam and are constant reminders to the people that there were (and are) other gods besides their own. Trust me - they really, really hate that.
I had to tread lightly when I was there as I learned that some of them really don't want to admit there were any gods before theirs - even when they are giving you a tour of places full of statues and paintings and carvings depicting those older gods.

When the Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt branch) pretended they'd given up "violence" and wanted to be a straight-up political party, they won an election. (Basically they just out-sourced their violence to different splinter groups that do their bidding.)
And almost immediately there were calls from their supporters to start destroying all the ancient sites. (I'm sure that may have gone a long way towards the Muslim Brotherhood being ousted from power soon after. Not to mention the rampant corruption they immediately started committing the instant they got into power.)

During a politcal storm in Canada over people wearing Niqabs (Muslim face coverings) I did some research.

I came across a Youtube Video shot shortly after Egypt had their first democratic election. The new President was addressing a crowd of people (all men) in a large conference room. Maybe 200+ people.

The President was telling the crowd that he'd recieved a letter from the leader of the (terrorist) Muslim Brotherhood demanding that the new President immediately pass a law to force all women to start covering their heads in public ! (Headscarves - like in Iran and other places.)

Take a wild guess at the reaction from all those men. All Muslims themselves of course.

They LAUGHED. They laughed at the idea of passing a law to force women to cover their heads.

In fact, Egypt did pass a law - that women in public positions like News Anchors on TV - were NOT allowed to cover their heads !

Take a wild guess (again) at one of the first laws the Muslim Brotherhood overturned as soon as they got into power. Yep. They threw that one out immediately because they wanted to start forcing women to cover up.

Now consider that they have the volatile situation in Gaza on one side. The loonie asylum that Libya has become on another side. Whackos to the South (in Sudan). 
And they are very close to the problems in Yemen and Ethiopia/Eritrea as well. (Ethiopia recently opened a huge new dam on the Blue Nile, a few kms from the South-East border of Sudan, which has caused a lot of concern for the countries downstream.)

I personally would love to live in Egypt. Egyptology is a favourite psuedo-hobby. (It would be a hobby - but not really practical in Thailand - so I spend time on ancient Khmer temples and history instead.)

But the reality is - you'd never really feel safe there. And you'd stick out like a sore thumb anywhere you went. And that would make you a potential target for any fundamentalist looking to earn a "merit badge" with his particular faction.

I spent 10 years living and working in Afghanistan, made many trips to Dubai and some other places as well as the trip to Egypt. As they are now - even if I was Jeff Bozos rich - I wouldn't live anywhere in that area.

Societies that show leniency towards the worst criminals do not show a reduction in crime.

I'm guessing that societies that take a harsh view towards serious crimes have many fewer criminals left to reoffend.

What do places like Vietnam, Singapore (and most Muslim) countries do with murderers and drug dealers ?
Little chance they'll ever re-offend - or write books about how hard they had it.

LONG read below. Feel free to skip it.
 

3 hours ago, Andre0720 said:

“A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.”

― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

That's actually a (common) misquote and is misattributed apparently.

The actual quote:

Quote

 

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
 

Alleged to be from Dostoevsky's House of the Dead, but no such quotation is present.

 

Is misattributed to Dostoevsky though it's hard to find who may have originally come up with it. (I've done some searching and it's the consensus that Dostoevsky never wrote that quote - but no one is sure who actually did. Most quote sites give credit to him - but can't reference where the quote was written and it's NOT "Crime and Punishment" either.)

Dostoevsky had been arrested in 1849 and sentenced to death for being a member of a conspiracy plot. He was taken to a spot to be executed along with 8 others in late Dec. They were divided into 3 groups with Dostoevsky in the 2nd group. As the first group was being lined up to be shot, a courier arrived with a note from Tsar Nicholas I commuting their sentences. They were then sent to prison where Dostoevsky spent nearly 5 years in harsh conditions.
He was released in early 1854.
His book "House of the Dead" was published in 1861 and the first parts of Crime and Punishment 5 years later.

AND - it is very possible the quote does NOT mean what most people think it does.

While it may not have been Dostoevsky that wrote it, it probably was another Russian. Perhaps a friend or fellow writer.

And that person may have thought that locking people in prisons for life was cruel and unusual punishment and that they should be given quick, painless executions instead.

That is actually a sentiment that many people believe today, though many of them also don't believe in capital punishment. (Which begs the question they don't like being asked - if you won't execute prisoners and think locking them up for long periods is inhumane - then how do you think society should deal with murderers, rapists, drug dealers, war criminals and the like ?)

In any event - places like Thailand still believe that (poor) people who break the law should be punished. Not sent to country resorts where they spend their time idling in luxury at the taxpayer's expense. (That's saved for the rich, powerful and politically connected criminals of course.)

I mean - sheesh - a few years ago a Canadian with a long history of criminal convictions and prison time came to Thailand using "stolen" ID (that was never reported as stolen of course).
After a year here, he murdered his girlfriend, mutilated her face, dismembered her body and discarded the remains in a local swamp before hopping on a plane back to Canada - still using that "stolen" ID.

He was arrested - for violating his probation - and sent to prison. Thailand spent years trying to extradite him and was finally able to in what, 2010 ? He was sentenced to life in prison and sent to Bang Kwan.

5 years later his lawyer and a newspaper reporter in Toronto concocted a sob story about the poor guy suffering in a Thai prison for "half a decade" after being "wrongfully convicted" (because, in his opinion, he should have been tried for manslaughter, not murder).
(They deliberately used "half a decade" to try and make it sound longer than "5 years".)

He applied to the Canadian "Public Safety Minister" (a scumbag Liberal that never met a criminal - or terrorist - that he didn't want to set free and put back on the streets) for a Prisoner Transfer.

Which that Minister agreed to - even though he'd been personally informed (by me actually) about the guy's long criminal record and exactly what he'd done to that girl he murdered.

Didn't matter. Not only was the guy brought back to Canada almost immediately (and in secret) - he was released within a couple weeks !! FREE and clear ! NO probation or anything !

I found out when I read that he'd been arrested in Canada less than a year after he'd transferred, for a string of armed robberies he'd done after he'd been released !!

THAT is what "Canada" considers "punishment" for a career criminal that murdered a woman, chopped her body into pieces and threw it into a swamp.

How should a society like THAT be judged ? 

It seems in a lenient society, criminals are more likely to re-offend because they have NO fear of the consequences.
While in a harsh society, most criminals do not want to go to prison again because they DO fear the consequences.

 

It would take a competent investigator about 3 seconds to determine if the victim had been killed at that spot or killed elsewhere and dumped there.
Even AFTER the rest of the cops had already contaminated the crime scene.

Remember the Koh Tao murders when they showed the crime scene and even allowed civilians (and possible suspects) to saunter through it before they even knew what had actually happened. It was far to easy to "drop" some evidence (or remove some) as it seems no one was trying to control the area.

Bleeding from the ears and nose might indicated the victim had been beaten/tortured before being killed. Probably the reason for the stab wounds as well. The gunshot to the neck was probably after the victim told them (whatever).
An autopsy would determine that as well as an approximate time of death.
Lack of documentation could be from the attackers keeping it - or "someone" rifled the body before calling the cops.

With all the CCTV cameras everywhere these days, they could try to find some along the route to where the body was found then review the footage from the evening of 14 May to the morning of the 15th (when the body was found) and look for any vehicles that drove towards where the body was found - and then drove back within a few minutes (or so depending on how far between the cameras and the location of the body).

(I seem to recall something like that happening not that long ago. Police reviewing CCTV footage identified a possible suspect vehicle seen driving towards where a crime had happened and then seen driving back again. The details are fuzzy but I think that even though they could make out the make/model of vehicle, they couldn't identify the possible owner/driver or something.)

(I was going to go with the "apparent suicide" joke as well but someone beat me to it !)

Surprised that the Chinese would even bother doing scam business in Thailand when they could do it in Cambodia far easier - and cheaper - and probably have full police protection as well. (The Sen's are very, very friendly with China. Just like a former PM who was also very friendly with the Sens - and China - and just happened to be the one that brought the whole Elite Card business into being.)

And gee - what is one of the BEST ways ever to launder money ? 

If you said "casinos" you'd be spot on. Especially when those casinos are set up on land that keeps most police from investigating anything.

Now it's even better as criminals can launder cash through casinos and get their "winnings" in Bitcoin that they can send pretty much anywhere without it being traced.

While not "laundering" heres a clue. Not long after Trump opened his casino in Atlantic City, he was losing money (somehow - probably by skimming too much off the top for himself).
He got to the point if he missed the next mortgage payment, the bank would foreclose on the casino.
His father sent one of his trusted accountants to the casino with $3 million in cash. The accountant bought $3 mil in chips - and then gave them back without ever making a single bet. The casino got $3 mil and could then turn around and sell the chips again. Pure profit.

(It was illegal as it violated some financial laws but the Feds wouldn't learn of it until many years later it seems.)

But it illustrates how easy it is to simply drop a ton of cash in a casino and walk out with (whatever percentage) of "clean" money that can't be traced. (Or have it in Bitcoin and sent anywhere in the world within minutes.)

Hmmm, I wonder who is behind the push to open money-laundering centers - er, I mean "casinos" - in Thailand ?

Pathetic.
Remember when they took the 750 Baht "Departure tax" and hid it in the cost of airline tickets (the airline charges you the tax as a part of the ticket price and remits the money to the gov't).

Then a couple years ago Anutin whined that "foreigners" were skipping out on their hospital bills and they (the hospitals) had lost around 300 million baht.

So they proposed a new tax be added to airline tickets to cover those costs. At a time when they were getting nearly 40 million "arrivals" every year.

10 (TEN) baht per ticket would have easily covered that cost. So what did they do ? Decided to levy a THREE HUNDRED baht tax instead. 

So instead of collecting 400 million (to offset the 300 mil in unpaid hospital bills) the gov't want to collect 12 BILLION in new revenue. Gee, I wonder where the surplus 11,700,000,000 baht would go ?

And now they want ANOTHER 300 baht per ticket because they are getting too many tourists ??? Gee, that's another 12 bil in the kitty. I wonder whose pockets that will go into.

I wonder what their Chinese masters will think about that (unless the tax is only applied to tickets NOT coming from mainland China of course).

It is NOT "Thai culture".

If you think it is then you have NO idea what "Thai culture" really is.

The endless water fights have evolved from the traditional Thai Songkran celebration. Originally, it was a celebration of the end of the "dry season" and a time when wandering Buddhist monks would find a temple to settle down at during the coming rainy season (from back in the times before paved roads and trains and cars and such. When cart paths would turned into muddy quagmires for months at a time) In the old days, monks would often leave their temple at the start of the dry season and walk to - somewhere else. You still see that to this day. I often pass lone monks or small groups of them walking along a road somewhere in the middle of nowhere, on their way to a new temple or somewhere that needed more monks.

Thais would celebrate by washing the feet of their parents/grandparents/elders and thanking them for all they've done.
It is also a time when people would wash/clean Buddha statues in temples. (Basically like a big "spring cleaning".)
People would dab a bit of powder on other people's faces and use their fingers to sprinkle a little bit of water on the heads of others (symbolically "washing" them).

It was never a "endless water fight from dusk 'till dawn".

It was also a ONE day event, which would start in the Northwest (Mae Hong Son/Chiang Mai area), then the next day would move to provinces a bit South and East and the next day it would be in other provinces further South and further East and so on.
(Songkran dates back to the days when most people had to walk or ride in carts pulled by water buffalo. And of course, no phones or mail or even telegraph back then. Hence why it would start in one place and slowly work it's way across the country.)

Took about a week. 1 day each in different areas of the country. It's still like that in some places though now they too have "water fights". Couple years ago I was in a small village in Sa Kaeo during Songkran and basically the entire "festival" was held at a local temple. People did the feet washing and thanking their elders in their homes before going to the temple to wash the statues and clean their family "chedis". In the afternoon there was party and "water fight" in a grassy area that quickly turned into a mud pit. The kids and young adults played and the older folks sat at tables around the "fight" eating and drinking while music blared from huge speakers.

And that was it. No one was throwing water outside the temple grounds or in the village. And the next day, things were back to normal.

And then the tourists came along and basically ruined it because they thought it would be more fun to throw water at other people than to "lightly sprinkle" some on people's heads (as was the custom before).

And that led to Songkran turning into a massive water fight, mainly in touristy areas (which tells you it is NOT about "Thai culture").

And then it expanded to being 3 days in some places. I remember that in Pattaya when they started "playing water" the day before the "official" day up to the day after. (And that made people a bit "salty" even then !)

Then it expanded to starting the same day in Pattaya as it traditionally started in the Northwest. And it went for a week. 

Now it's nearly 10 days ! People started throwing water on Soi 7 a few days ago and the "official" day is the 19th.

3 days - OK.
10 days - no thanks.
(Many of my Thai friends went back to their home villages for a week to celebrate in the Traditional way and get away from the city.)

 

Quote

It is believed the pair got drunk with other holidaymakers on the island of Koh Tao on March 18 before he vanished.

Quote

 

By

Monica CharsleyNews Reporter

09:17, 12 Apr 2024

UPDATED10:02, 12 APR 2024

 

So the guy goes missing on 18 March and NO ONE reports it ?
Not even his girlfriend ?
What happened to her ?
Why didn't this make the news - until nearly a month later ? And in a UK "media site" of course.

Funny, the Mirror article says she "posted several tributes online to her partner." 
Must be on a private platform or on a different profile. No public posts on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. 

Same for Theo. Of the nearly 20 "Theo Bailey" Facebook profiles I looked at - none are this guy.

I find it really hard to believe that he'd be out drinking with his girlfriend of 10 years, go missing, be found dead the next morning - and she makes NO mention of it ? Until it appears in the Mirror a month later ?

(Keep in mind that media sites like the Mirror and Sun "buy" people's "horror travel stories" and "buff" them before publishing them. One advertisement I saw proclaimed they'd "pay for your holiday" if you had a good(horror) story to tell.)

And no - there's no way "they" could cover this up for a month.  (I just found a Twitter post about this from a lawyer in the UK dated 30 March - with no links or references to where he heard it from. I responded to his tweet and asked where he got his information from.)

Funny, literally no information about "Theo Bailey" other than he's 31.
But we know she's a teaching assistant from Chelmsford and who she's working for and where (Welwyn Garden City, Hertsfordshire).

No mention of where he came from, or his job, or even if his parents were notified or what happened to his body.
And the article says:

"The authorities said that the case "was still open", however, no arrests have been made at this time."

"Thai police said they are waiting for the post-mortem results."

Riiiight.
I looked and no "GoFundMe" - kind of hard to start asking for money a month after the event happened. 

Lots of unanswered questions.

Likely drunk, passed out, hit his head on the sidewalk. Bled for a bit, sat up, taxi guy sees him and calls for help.

I remember back in the late 90s when bars had to close by 6am but were allowed to open again at 10 (which just meant they turned off the lights and music and put the customer's "bin cups" below the counter and continued serving them).
I used to jog from my hotel down to Walking Street then around the far end and up to the Big Buddha and back to the hotel.

One morning I jogged past the bar I'd been drinking in a few hours earlier and there was a drunk passed out on the side of that little path across from the Marine Bar (that goes past where the Blues Factory used to be and comes out behind the Marine Hotel).
He was off to the side of the path with his head in the little rain gutter, people sitting on bar stools behind him. Staff in the bars looking bored (or sleeping) and no one paying any attention to the guy.

Just another morning in Pattaya. Probably happens somewhere in the city literally every night.