JCauto

To be perfectly honest I wouldn't give a flying f. . .k.

She can say what she likes in my world.

Its just as well you're not making the laws.

That's what FREEDOM OF SPEECH actually gets you.

Especially before you are a celeb and in private conversations on Facebook, which however, should not matter.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH means what it stands for. Nice speech, not nice speech, good speech, bad speech, friendly speech and even hate speech.

One of the 4 cornerstones of a real democracy particularly important for Thailand at this stage of history and development.

We have to be mature enough and educated enough, to recognise what we don't like and ignore it.

People talk like this amongst themselves all the time. In her case it is so irrelevant, it shouldn't matter.

Its a beat up. The art of the beat up is alive and well these days.

Taking it seriously is the only mistake.

This new hobby of denying people the right to hate speech is the tip of the iceberg in the "control freaks", big brother armoury.

It just gets worse from there.

Absolutely she has the right to say what she wants. And we have the right to judge her based on what she says. She voluntarily entered a competition that scrutinizes people based on their appearance and what they say, thereby voluntarily forfeiting whatever privacy she may have had in regard to what she's said over the internet. So what's the problem?

Nobody is saying she should be deprived of her right to say what she wants. We're saying she should be deprived of her "crown" in the silly competition because of what she said. Given what that competition is about, surely what she says and thinks is a factor in her selection and in her maintaining her "title".

Or are you saying that her right to free speech precludes our right to saying what we think about her speech or commenting on the public contest that she won? At the end of the day, you seem to want free speech with no consequences. Freedom does not imply having no responsibility for your actions and words.

I think that every social media web and blog site, should have this quote on the Header Page.

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”

I am at least grateful that you preface ". . Or are you saying. . . "

So many here in TV, immediately presume.

Anyway. I did not say what you think I might have meant to say. I like to think what I wrote is complete in itself.

However, my response is, you can also say what you like about her and her rights to win a beauty competition and your perceptions of the "responsibilities", that come with it.

I agree with you that celebs, unless you are a punk rocker, or even an actor, should be mindful of their influence on the young, and weak of mind, however, even the young will be protected from those travails, should they have a good character and good upbringing.

My reaction to the original post on this subject was humour. That would be a lot of executions! How anybody took these musings of a beauty queen competition seriously, I don't know.

Apparently she wrote or made the offensive remarks before her win and now she is receiving her deserts. That's a life lesson.

I have been in the public eye. People crave recognition, however, there are great freedoms in being a non-entity.

You also use the "royal" plural of We. Are you 'we' the people, we of some club, you and everyone you know thinks like you?

I wish I had such an instant research tool, which tells me which group I am in.

Now there, is an open door.

Fair enough - I had misread what you said to imply that one should be allowed to say whatever one wanted without consequence, which is quite different than just being able to say whatever you want.

As to the "we", I was referring to all of us. We were talking to her as the specific person, whereas I was referring to anyone else (which includes myself, and yourself among others) as the "we". I would love to have this tool also, please don't forget to copy me if you find it.

If all is coasha here, why the need to hide anything the government deems unfit for its own stance?

"Coasha"? I believe you must mean "Kosher", which refers to Jewish dietary laws. So if something is "Kosher", in common parlance, it means it's been checked and is according to the way it's supposed to be.

Not criticizing or making fun, but I've in the past misused words based on having heard but not seen them, or vice-versa, so am always glad of a correction for future use.

By saying that I am not assuming all red shirts don't love the King. Forget about yellow propaganda.

Read my words again and try to not put your bias into it.

She quite rightly expressed her concern about the red shirt violence. Her stance had nothing to do with her future pageant entry.

But consequently, she has been abused for her political stance.

As an aside, it does seem that the redshirt leaders do not respect the King but through tricky words they persuade loyal subjects to the red shirt cause.

She expressed her concern about red shirt violence by proposing their summary execution. You don't see anything wrong with that?

To be perfectly honest I wouldn't give a flying f. . .k.

She can say what she likes in my world.

Its just as well you're not making the laws.

That's what FREEDOM OF SPEECH actually gets you.

Especially before you are a celeb and in private conversations on Facebook, which however, should not matter.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH means what it stands for. Nice speech, not nice speech, good speech, bad speech, friendly speech and even hate speech.

One of the 4 cornerstones of a real democracy particularly important for Thailand at this stage of history and development.

We have to be mature enough and educated enough, to recognise what we don't like and ignore it.

People talk like this amongst themselves all the time. In her case it is so irrelevant, it shouldn't matter.

Its a beat up. The art of the beat up is alive and well these days.

Taking it seriously is the only mistake.

This new hobby of denying people the right to hate speech is the tip of the iceberg in the "control freaks", big brother armoury.

It just gets worse from there.

Absolutely she has the right to say what she wants. And we have the right to judge her based on what she says. She voluntarily entered a competition that scrutinizes people based on their appearance and what they say, thereby voluntarily forfeiting whatever privacy she may have had in regard to what she's said over the internet. So what's the problem?

Nobody is saying she should be deprived of her right to say what she wants. We're saying she should be deprived of her "crown" in the silly competition because of what she said. Given what that competition is about, surely what she says and thinks is a factor in her selection and in her maintaining her "title".

Or are you saying that her right to free speech precludes our right to saying what we think about her speech or commenting on the public contest that she won? At the end of the day, you seem to want free speech with no consequences. Freedom does not imply having no responsibility for your actions and words.

ON Topic. . . . It is really refreshing to see someone from this industry make a non-house and garden comment about anything.

This sort of girl would be a cult hero in the West.

In a Kingdom. You can't go wrong supporting the King.

Just as well she's on that side of politics is all ......

Right...so if Miss USA said "I love freedom and the constitution, and I think Democrats/Republicans are dirty and should be executed", you're okay with that? You think this is a person who should represent your country?

Beauty pageants are idiotic, as are many of their participants, but that is beside the point. Fact is that this person said something terrible about at least half of the population she purports to represent at this competition. That alone should get her disqualified as unsuitable to represent the entire country she is from.

In the past it was mostly petty corruption.

You could compare the span of corruption nowadays to a lake as opposed to a few drops before.

Most people are NOT AWARE of high level corruption because as in its name, its high level, you don't come into direct contact with it nor can you understand the complexity as corruption has been fine tuned so much to avoid the radar and the law at times.

You're not very well informed in this case. Do you recall why the Chatchai government was known as the "Buffet Government"? Do you remember why it took so many years to fill up Swampy and how those contracts would be re-tendered each time a new government formed? Do you not remember any of the previous agricultural subsidy scams? I too could go on and on.

How is it that everyone is so sure about how much corruption occurred at this time or that time such that they feel so confident in comparing their scales? Even the poster acknowledges this in his post.

I find it amusing that those who denigrate polls (those that don't favour their own party) are the same group that advocate elections to solve all political problems.

Are they not similar means of finding the thoughts of the public?

No, they're not similar at all. A poll is a small sample that purports to represent the larger population. An election is the actual choices of the actual population. One is hopefully representative but can be quite distorted if the polling agency is pushing an agenda rather than being objective and neutral.

A poll phrases questions to gain feedback, and the way said questions are phrased is a major influence on the feedback. An election simply asks respondents to select this candidate or that one, without ambiguity.

In one of the previous poll threads, I posted a picture from the Terminal 21 protest site that showed the NIDA booth within the actual protest site with the slogan "NIDA for change" plastered on the front of it. This at the very least calls into question the likelihood of NIDA being an unbiased and neutral polling organization.

In my opinion, the protesters threw away quite a golden opportunity with the election they boycotted. If they'd participated and made the Rice Scheme failure and Amnesty attempt the cornerstones of their campaign, they may well have won. Instead, they lost all credibility by pushing all their chips onto the table with Suthep holding the cards. They've now folded their hand and lost their chips.

Anyone who still thinks the man in Dubai dos not have a unsatible lust for greed and power should think again.

His sights are on Thailand. He will stop at nothing to fulfill his megalomanic, narcissist ego.

What if I told you...that you could think Thaksin is a greedy power-monger but that you still think the protest and PDRC are completely misguided and that you should compete and win at the ballot box in order to defeat him?

I suppose the editorial would have been more cogent, and just as relevant, if they had simply substituted this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfl6Lu3xQW0

I believe I have resolved the issue of NIDA's methodology and impartiality. This from the Asoke protest site on Monday night...

One additional point - the whole point of democracy, and presumably a poll purporting to represent those within it, is that it should reflect the ideal of one person having one vote. Unless the poll consisted of mostly rural farmers, with a numerical spread matching that of Thailand regionally, then it's not representative of the country or of what would happen within an election.

Hence I question where is the methodology and the composition of those polled. I'm rather suspicious that this elite Bangkok institution is jigging it such that those who are more on the elite side of things get a bit more of a say than those farming in the provinces...

Are we supposed to take this article seriously? A "pollster" is a person administering a poll, yet is referred to throughout the article instead of referring to those who were polled. The title of the article is misleading as well, so it's clearly slanted.

But it would have much more credence if they published the composition of the poll, in terms of the walks of life and locations of those polled, and how those people were selected. I went to the site, but while it published the results, including a nice graphical depiction of a poll form, there was nothing I could see that provided that information. Anyone know where that might be found?

"We will not get involved with politics … Our duty is doing banking business. KTB is not a tool to serve politicians."

Oh, the irony!

Nor will overwhelming scientific evidence and consensus stop Luddites from drawing completely incorrect and unsupported conclusions.

Here's a free clue - global warming is a macro-level phenomenon. Because of the increased energy within the atmosphere caused by manmade activities (a.k.a., anthropogenic), this causes climate disruption, also referred to as "Climate Change". This disruption takes the form of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns and higher energy storm events. So in fact we can expect unusual events such as cold snaps of unprecedented drops in temperature where normally this would not take place. This is therefore evidence of climate change, which is a consequence of global warming. It does not mean that everywhere on earth the temperature rises by a uniform amount.

Kapeesh?

It's called changing your predictions to fit the outcome. And in this case, no matter what happens, it can be explained by the new theory. Great science there.

Again, we know the correlation between sun spots and climate. Therefor it's reasonable to assume that we are heading towards a much cooler climate. And if that happens, surely you people will explain it by your new, very scientific, theory.

Right. So the overwhelming consensus of thousands of qualified scientists holds no weight for you? And I suppose you're among those who posit that this is some sort of a massive conspiracy among all these scientists in order to ensure their funding? Because, after all, there's such a strong financial incentive for someone to prove global warming. You know, like the energy companies (Exxon, Shell, etc.) who want it to be proven so that their products are more heavily taxed and become more expensive and less used. Oh, sorry, those guys are spending millions upon millions of dollars to try to DISPROVE global warming. Yet despite their funding, they've come up with nothing that stands scrutiny. Same with the Koch Brothers and the coal lobbies, etc. The idea that there are well-coordinated groups of scientists marching in lock-step to fake data or analyses to reach this conclusion is from cloud-cuckoo land.

You really think someone who demonstrated that global warming was a hoax wouldn't become richer than Croesus? They'd be swimming in pools of Benjamins like Scrooge McDuck.

"overwhelming consensus" More propoganda from the chicken little brigade

An article here explaining the reality of this so called consensus: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/

Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

Move up http://i.forbesimg.com tMove down

Warmists Display Cowardice and Hypocrisy In Avoiding Global Warming Debate James TaylorContributor

Is It Hollywood Or Washington? Global Warming Activists Control Government Climate Report James TaylorContributor

The Overwhelming Judgment of Science Rejects Obama's Global Warming Claims James TaylorContributor

TaylorContributor

The survey results show geoscientists (also known as earth scientists) and engineers hold similar views as meteorologists. Two recent surveys of meteorologists (summarized here and here) revealed similar skepticism of alarmist global warming claims.

You'll note that all of your contrary information comes from James Taylor, a lawyer with no climate science background who is funded to write his drivel in Forbes via the Koch Brothers. Click on the links and you'll see the rebuttals. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/28/meet-the-climate-denial-machine/191545

Anyway, climate change is so far beyond doubt that arguing with the skeptics is not unlike having a debate with the Flat Earth Society. How the international scientific community will weep when they discover they'd gotten it all wrong and in fact the truth was out there the whole time - but on Thai Visa of all places! It saddens me though that the world my children will eventually inherit will be paying the price for such widespread ignorance.

That's because of Global Warming!

Record cold temperatures around the world won't stop the global warming industry with their dire predictions.

Nor will overwhelming scientific evidence and consensus stop Luddites from drawing completely incorrect and unsupported conclusions.

Here's a free clue - global warming is a macro-level phenomenon. Because of the increased energy within the atmosphere caused by manmade activities (a.k.a., anthropogenic), this causes climate disruption, also referred to as "Climate Change". This disruption takes the form of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns and higher energy storm events. So in fact we can expect unusual events such as cold snaps of unprecedented drops in temperature where normally this would not take place. This is therefore evidence of climate change, which is a consequence of global warming. It does not mean that everywhere on earth the temperature rises by a uniform amount.

Kapeesh?

It's called changing your predictions to fit the outcome. And in this case, no matter what happens, it can be explained by the new theory. Great science there.

Again, we know the correlation between sun spots and climate. Therefor it's reasonable to assume that we are heading towards a much cooler climate. And if that happens, surely you people will explain it by your new, very scientific, theory.

Right. So the overwhelming consensus of thousands of qualified scientists holds no weight for you? And I suppose you're among those who posit that this is some sort of a massive conspiracy among all these scientists in order to ensure their funding? Because, after all, there's such a strong financial incentive for someone to prove global warming. You know, like the energy companies (Exxon, Shell, etc.) who want it to be proven so that their products are more heavily taxed and become more expensive and less used. Oh, sorry, those guys are spending millions upon millions of dollars to try to DISPROVE global warming. Yet despite their funding, they've come up with nothing that stands scrutiny. Same with the Koch Brothers and the coal lobbies, etc. The idea that there are well-coordinated groups of scientists marching in lock-step to fake data or analyses to reach this conclusion is from cloud-cuckoo land.

You really think someone who demonstrated that global warming was a hoax wouldn't become richer than Croesus? They'd be swimming in pools of Benjamins like Scrooge McDuck.

That's because of Global Warming!

Record cold temperatures around the world won't stop the global warming industry with their dire predictions.

Nor will overwhelming scientific evidence and consensus stop Luddites from drawing completely incorrect and unsupported conclusions.

Here's a free clue - global warming is a macro-level phenomenon. Because of the increased energy within the atmosphere caused by manmade activities (a.k.a., anthropogenic), this causes climate disruption, also referred to as "Climate Change". This disruption takes the form of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns and higher energy storm events. So in fact we can expect unusual events such as cold snaps of unprecedented drops in temperature where normally this would not take place. This is therefore evidence of climate change, which is a consequence of global warming. It does not mean that everywhere on earth the temperature rises by a uniform amount.

Kapeesh?

I was looking forward to hearing the middle ground compromise about what the Thai could agree about and use as a basis to start forward. Must have missed it somehow. Instead, it sounded like someone from each side trying for some reason to convince the extremists on that side that everything they think is wrong. Usually, in my experience, that isn't very effective.

"In the letter which was somehow leaked to the media..."

Droll.

A-ha! I now understand what happened to all the legroom on the Bangkok-Chiang Mai flights. They bloody took it and put it on the Thai Scandinavia flights!

And all their Nordic pretenses towards egalitarianism. They don't even think of us Third World passengers crammed into their seats just so they can ride in luxury. As far as I'm concerned, their breath smells of lingonberries.

Of course the rich élite are worth a lot more they pay more tax so poor people are not worth anything not even a vote.

I understand that this is sarcasm, but just wanted to point out that it is more likely that the elite DON'T pay more tax than that they do. This is true in the USA, and I'd be pretty surprised if it were much different in Thailand. I am speaking of course in terms of percentage of income and including all taxes including sales tax, etc.

No, this is how you deal with someone who has dealt with YOU using deceipt, intimidation and heavy-handedness, demonstrating that they cannot be trusted and owe their allegiance to a puppetmaster working from abroad, unable to even show his own face even as business is being done in his, and only his, best interests. In other words, this is how you deal with someone who has no credibility, and an obvious agenda that is not in the national interest.

Okay, so two wrongs actually do make a right? And this won't throw the country into the next stage of the cycle, where the Reds come and bring Bangkok and the government to a standstill and the cycle repeats. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

...Hoisted on your own aphorism...

I pick #2 (doing the same thing over & over again - i.e., once again putting one's faith & trust in the Thaksin-loving PTP - and expecting a different result) .

Hardly. #2 is the inevitable consequence of #1, hence my point being that you can't keep trying to install a regime through non-democratic means and expect it to work. It's been tried, it has failed, it will fail again. I have further pointed out that the constitution that currently exists is one that was prepared by a similar means and by similar people, and it has again resulted in the same old cycle. Why would you expect it to change? Oh yes, get rid of the evil Shins, and all will be unicorns and rainbows, as if other oligarchs and corrupt politicians don't and have never existed. Including Suthep.

Here's one that hasn't been tried - let the elected government serve out their term, maintain a strong opposition to act as a check and balance along with existing institutions (which has already been demonstrated to work) and as an opposition engage and promote pro-poor policies that appeal to those outside of your (too) narrow political base so that you can gain a mandate to implement whatever changes you want to make rather than using illegal means to force your minority views on the rest of the population. You can't disenfranchise a large sector of the people and expect them to swallow what you force feed them and wonder why they keep voting you out.

As I understand it you are correct that if the current party are re-elected then the Amnesty Bill will automatically pass. The (unelected)PM might change but doesn't matter so long as it's the same party.

There is no such thing as a bill that "automatically passes". Can you explain what you mean? My point was that it is now crystal clear that no Amnesty Bill can be passed because it triggers a protest and is not politically viable.