JCauto

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.

Interesting opinions.

I'm not afraid that Suthep will build up a Kingdom/ dictatorship or what ever for himself.

He did not have any support for that. He knows that.

He is the man for the rough ton. His goal is to stop the Shin clan.

Coincidentally, that would also mean defacto to stop the corruption in the country now.

So why everybody let him move and shout?

The police could sacked him, the army could sacked him. The courts could sacked him.

In the background the courts are working now.

- Pheu Thai spokesman Prompong gets one-year imprisonment without suspension

- Abhisit due in court over 2010 crackdown (Suthep will follow sure)

- Bt2 trillion loan bill halted, pending court ruling

- NACC to investigate backers of charter change draft (maybe they ban 312 members)

Maybe a great chance to getting the corruption down in Thailand.

Hopefully it all turns now into an clear anti - corruption movement

with concrete suggestions for improvement.

The frame is clear: Peace and unity.

PS:

- It must be prevented in the future, that a country can be completely plundered by a few unethical people just because they are currently in power.

- When public funds are used, then the public has the right to see what the representatives of the people plan to do with the money and how it was used.

Removing the Shin clan will remove corruption in Thailand? You should put in a when you tell jokes because otherwise people might not get it. In this case, it's probably worthy of a . What? You weren't joking?

You know the great corruption fighter Suthep has quite a lot of experience in this field, right? Just google "Suthep Thaugsuban" and "Sor Por Kor", then do the same with "cooking oil", and with "police station construction". This is your white knight coming to slay the corruption dragon.

I think their imagined support is simply another take, a reversal, on 'you're either for us, or against us', a classic in flawed logic.

Then there are the many thousands that showed simply because of "The Event" nature of the protests. Facebook is awash in selfies from the event.

I am curious as to how you can grant legitimacy to the reds who protested in the streets and deny it to Sutheps group. I don't think Suthep is anybodys ideal leader, but you can't deny that he led the largest protest this country has ever seen. Those people didn't turn out because of Suthep, they came because a corrupt government tried to ram through an amnesty bill to benefit an even more corrupt individual. Surely there must be some accountability for that.

I certainly agree that the reasons for the protest were the ill-considered and -conceived Amnesty Bill and that this was a cause worthy of protest. However, they've achieved their goal, the Amnesty Bill has been withdrawn and the Government has been dissolved in favour of elections.

WHY can't you get that the amnesty bill has been "withdrawn" but is NOT dead IF the current government remains for another, what, 140 days? Why do so many protester critics act so obtuse about this? The protesters undoubtedly recognize as well that re-electing the PTP will without a doubt simply resurrect this issue, along with all the other shenanigans for which they've been responsible, including the abuse of majority status to further tinker with the constitution. The PTP's lost legitimacy won't magically return with their re-election, and the protesters are demanding a better democracy "framework" than 4 wolves & a sheep deciding the dinner menu...

Thanks for responding.

Of course they're not going to re-submit the Amnesty Bill, that's dead in the water. If they don't realize that, then they're pretty dumb, and while you can accuse Thaksin et al of many things, being stupid is not one of them. It took them two years to get to the point where they thought they could bring the Amnesty Bill forward and win, and it failed. You really think they'll have another go right after getting elected so they can get kicked out again? They're very likely to lose some electoral support as a result of that miscalculation, and being professional politicians they will certainly get the message that this is a no go.

And if the goal of the protesters is to create a better democracy framework, then how on earth is this to be done when you go completely against the constitution and existing laws that govern the country and ignore the vote of what is more than half the population? You really think that Suthep's proposal will convince anyone outside of his core supporters when it doesn't even have any details of how it's going to be implemented and eliminates the participation of the people who were voted in?

You accept that the PTP is likely to be voted in if an election is held, as do practically every observer on the forum regardless of which side they're on. So why is nobody on the protesting side looking at ways to come to a reasonable compromise and involve the people that even they accept will win an election to come up with a way to solve the problem? Yingluck invited the opposition to join in discussions and was summarily rejected and given an ultimatum to get out of the country after giving concessions to the opposition. This is how you achieve these goals? This is participatory? This is demonstrating a will to come together for the good of the country? Really?

why are so many of our new and recent posters/members that only joined when this started in here to comment purely on political matters and are obvious red shirts/ptp/thaksin backers. Answer is because they can get away with it, just wish the mods would stop those that only answer in political pieces like this and not in any other general pieces about life/news in general, we are becoming a defacto red shirt paradise for their publicists.

Perhaps because major events with serious consequences are of far more interest and concern to those living in Thailand than ordinary forum discussions and they perceive a lot of inaccuracy in the posts from those based in Bangkok who haven't spent much time in the countryside?

You don't find it ironic that you are trying to remove alternative points of view even from an open forum primarily inhabited by expatriates when you're coming from the side that has been accused of subverting democracy and ignoring the viewpoints of the majority of the country? I do!

I think their imagined support is simply another take, a reversal, on 'you're either for us, or against us', a classic in flawed logic.

Then there are the many thousands that showed simply because of "The Event" nature of the protests. Facebook is awash in selfies from the event.

I know 3 PTP voters who protested and they have vowed to never vote for any party with a Shin involved in the future.

Sorry to p**s on your box of fireworks... But that is the actual reality.

I have heard of no Dem supporter abandoning their chosen party.

While I don't doubt your information, you surely realize that this is an infinitessimally small sample size. And it's in Bangkok. Hardly representative. Which is the whole point of the opposition to the PRDC.

While Suthep is known for getting carried away in his speeches his protest is the one out there trying to fix something which is not right. If there is a very large part of population disagreeing with what he does his enemies would utilise it a long time ago. Everywhere i go i see people watching blue sky tv bangkok and provinces. And I do believe majority of thais following this political drama want a genuine change which he is promising .

I think they understand clearly that one of the strategies is to get a strong opposing protest into the streets, thereby precipitating the inevitable violence between the two sides and resulting in the Army stepping in to take over. In fact, this is the only logical path that Suthep has at this point. You saw this already in the brief Red shirt counter-protest. Should the government get taken over by the Army rather than a new election, you can count on there being quite a number of Red shirts around. History repeating.

It's quite amusing to see how many of the opposition supporters claim to be speaking for the "silent majority" of Thai, yet are terrified of having an election knowing that they will lose. You cannot see the contradiction there?

Such a load of disingenuous <deleted>. And of course, no mention in the attribution that the author was formerly a Democratic politician and Minister, as if that isn't relevant.

A single paragraph acknowledging how the "amaart" look upon the rest of the country (a.k.a. the majority of citizens) as ignorant buffaloes, but no serious analysis of how they resent being disenfranchised repeatedly by a political party who haven't been able to win an election in how many years? If they're the "silent majority" then please explain that, smart guy. Oh right, the "votes are bought" canard. Thoroughly disproven already; try again Doctor Pitsuwan. Pretty poor research in my opinion but what do you expect in an education system that the elite were quite pleased to use to inculcate the buffaloes when they were easily led, but now find inadequate since they've started voting for their interests.

If you seriously think that the Democrats or any other party don't reward their supporters with patronage when elected, then you know nothing of Thai politics.

So, Yingluck is willing to dissolve parliament and call new elections, yet the protesters aren't satisfied and demand basically to take over the government. And there have been many scholarly articles and opinion pieces supporting the right and voice of the street as a genuine democratic response that is worthy of comparison to elections in this regard. So let me ask those supporting this view, including Dr. Pitsuwan, how would you feel about the army returning to barracks and setting a date for the Reds to come visiting and settle it in the street? How do you think that would go? Who do you think would win? I think you know the answer.

Fact is, Bangkok happens to be their home stadium, and they can buy all the tickets so guess which team makes the most noise in this event? Their view is that the other team has too many supporters and a rich owner, hence shouldn't be allowed to play at home. Not only that, they should play with 10 men right from the start, because they work in the fields and are therefore naturally stronger and more athletic than the urban people who don't have this advantage.

The Democrats made a timid but somewhat successful attempt to establish themselves in the Northeast in the 1990s and gained a foothold. However they soon found it too tough to maintain, especially since it was in those awful boondocks where there are hardly any decent high end restaurants and wine bars for them to patronize and retreated back to their familiar grounds. Now they whine that they can't have elections since they can't win them due to "vote buying". In fact, they tried vote buying too, but soon realized that they were paying money but getting no return on the investment since the rural folk can see quite well who acts in their interests and who does not. Hence the latest attempt to subvert democracy altogether. Sad that this is what passes for the "elite".

English is a far more difficult language in my opinion. I am talking about getting to a basic level where you can engage in reasonable conversation, rather than reading newspapers and books mind. The reasons are:

1. Grammar. Thai and other related languages (Lao, Khmer) are incredibly easy from a grammar point of view. I can't imagine how a non-Native English or other Romance language speaking person can figure that out.

2. Pronunciation. While tones throw a lot of people off, I found them not to be a problem. I just repeated what I heard and let my sub-conscious sort it out. As I'm closer to monotone in my speaking, the tones don't matter so much, and the Thai seem to be able to pick up what I get wrong based on context.

3. Opportunity. The Thai are happy to speak with you (or at least they were when I was learning it, but this was 24 years ago and in Isaan) and will spend inordinate amounts of their own time to do so since it seems to amuse them and, well, they have more time available. Plus, they're very social people and if you've got the right attitude then you can quite easily gain the chance to practice, usually while eating great food and drinking pseudo-whiskey with bucketloads of soda. Mind you, again, it helps greatly to be in rural areas for this to be the case. Or hanging with tuk-tuk drivers, bargirls and the rest of the Bangkok underclass...

I would encourage you to learn the basics of reading also. This helped me a lot in understanding words, and placement of words within sentences. As I often found myself sitting on some form of transport and looking out the window, it provides more opportunity to improve your understanding throughout the day.

My caveats are that I'm pretty good at language I guess, and learned Hebrew as a child so I think got used to the idea of weird characters and sentences without spaces. But even those whom I knew who weren't so lucky managed to overcome their barriers with effort. I would also suggest taking 4 weeks and doing a daily language course that includes reading, and not having work distractions during this time if you can manage it. I found having this foundation enabled me to get going quickly, and with that and being a social person I was able to have basic conversations within 6 months. The improvement it provided in terms of quality of life and enjoyment of the country was exponential as a result. Good luck!

It is really strange to read all the support Suthep Secretary General of the people bla bla bla gets from foreigners in this forum. Occupying government buildings, telling his followers to go for broke, demanding air time and so on, and the most tragic one, wanting a state with peoples comittes to run the country. Things come to my mind, Pol Pot, Soviet Union, North Korea these failed states were and one of them still are, great with democratic word play. Things that also comes to my mind is murder platoons that drag you out of your cell early in the morning and shoot you because you have a different way of thinking than their leaders. I can in my heart not understand nor find, any logic reason why so many people in here support the methodes of Dear Leader Secretary General Suthep, in his fight to change the political system in this country. After what i can read and what i can see, his reasons for starting the madness going on these days, is personal and not for the greater good for Thailand. And i ask, would any of you like to see this kind of thing happen in your country.

I don't quite see how this generalized rant has much to do with the specifics of this thread. But just a point for you to consider. There is only one side of this unrest that has ties to anyone connected with Pol Pot. The affinity of a certain family and many Redshirt leaders with Hun Sen is undeniable. And Hun Sen was a member of the Khmer Rouge. Case closed.

Speaking of generalized rants without much to do with the specifics...Hun Sen fled Cambodia for Vietnam in order to escape from Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge were quite factionalized, with the Pol Pot clique at the center in control. They descended into a spiraling purge of the "unpure" elements within the KR that included particularly the "Vietnamese minds in Khmer bodies" of the Eastern Zone. That was Hun Sen's group (he was a minor cadre at the time). But never mind the facts, so long as we can demonize one side or the other!

So, you're a supporter of Hun Sen and his "faction" of the Khmer Rouge that started to fragment after gaining control of the country, with each trying to get total control. Just a "minor" member of the Khmer Rouge, too. His total contribution to the Killing Fields not all that much. Got it.

Uh, not sure where I said I was a supporter of Hun Sen and his faction, just pointing out the inaccuracy of your hyperbolic post. But as the other guy said, let's keep it on topic.

Speaking of which...I often wonder about the vitriol directed Thaksin's way, after all, it's not like he was the first completely corrupt or megalomaniacal Thai PM. In fact, those who aren't are by far the exception rather than the rule. And it's not like the Thai, even those protesting, are all that disturbed by corruption, it's a way of life that extends through the entire society and it would be quite rare to find someone who hasn't participated in some way or another.

One thing that I think may underlie the anger is that Thaksin's policies went quite beyond the usual practice of vote-buying in the rural areas (a traditional, established and long-accepted practice of all Thai political parties) followed by doing whatever you wanted once you got in power. In those days, governing basically involved carving up the pie among the elite who were elected and their cronies (both urban and rural). Nothing was really ever passed along to the rural locals, whose 500 baht election bonus was considered as the full benefit they gained until the next election.

However, Thaksin opened up Pandora's box by actually enacting policies that materially affected and benefited the local people (OTOP, Tambon Councils and the cheap Health Care). This likely contributed to a shift in thinking that got the so-called buffaloes from the provinces to realize that you could actually get a lot more than just your election bonus, you could actually gain something from government when your guys got into power and did something for you rather than the usual "big" projects for the elite to gobble up. Once that cat was out of the bag, you now have the majority of the population from the rural areas moving from passivity and acceptance of business as usual into political activism and challenging the urban elite and "a-maart" for their share of the pie. Hence our current merry-go-round.

Don't you think this is part of the source of the anger against Thaksin, since it has fundamentally changed the way politics is run here?

It is really strange to read all the support Suthep Secretary General of the people bla bla bla gets from foreigners in this forum. Occupying government buildings, telling his followers to go for broke, demanding air time and so on, and the most tragic one, wanting a state with peoples comittes to run the country. Things come to my mind, Pol Pot, Soviet Union, North Korea these failed states were and one of them still are, great with democratic word play. Things that also comes to my mind is murder platoons that drag you out of your cell early in the morning and shoot you because you have a different way of thinking than their leaders. I can in my heart not understand nor find, any logic reason why so many people in here support the methodes of Dear Leader Secretary General Suthep, in his fight to change the political system in this country. After what i can read and what i can see, his reasons for starting the madness going on these days, is personal and not for the greater good for Thailand. And i ask, would any of you like to see this kind of thing happen in your country.

I don't quite see how this generalized rant has much to do with the specifics of this thread. But just a point for you to consider. There is only one side of this unrest that has ties to anyone connected with Pol Pot. The affinity of a certain family and many Redshirt leaders with Hun Sen is undeniable. And Hun Sen was a member of the Khmer Rouge. Case closed.

Speaking of generalized rants without much to do with the specifics...Hun Sen fled Cambodia for Vietnam in order to escape from Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge were quite factionalized, with the Pol Pot clique at the center in control. They descended into a spiraling purge of the "unpure" elements within the KR that included particularly the "Vietnamese minds in Khmer bodies" of the Eastern Zone. That was Hun Sen's group (he was a minor cadre at the time). But never mind the facts, so long as we can demonize one side or the other!

So, y'all doubt that someone would let their emotions get the better of them and take it out on Yingluck's son when even supposedly better edumacated Falang on TV would advocate the exact same thing? Sounds plausible to me. As is the possibility that it was entirely fabricated. Who knows?

As to the political elite going to expensive private schools...is there any country where this is not the case? Probably somewhere in Scandinavia. Obama's kids are at an exclusive private school, as were all his predecessor's. It's shocking to everyone that the political elite in Thailand from every party and shirt colour are outrageously rich and privileged? Is there a coffee shortage that is preventing you from waking up?

What's particularly interesting is how the Falang have adopted the emotions of the Thai and sided with one or the other in this fight, throwing their supposedly better judgement and experience out the window in the process.

Oh Yingluck,if you can't stand the heat,get out of the kitchen.

Don't you mean "go back to your kitchen" in this case?

By the way, remember that stuff works both ways. I take it you won't be complaining when protesters start dieing in droves, seeing as they decided to be there and if they can't stand the heat...

For gods sake. If blowing a whistle is considered that bad, we all must be persecuted on average maybe at least 5 times everyday. I for 1 would be quite happy to see a ban of all whistles in Thailand, I have often wondered if the security guard downstairs at my apartment could still blow it if I rammed it somewhere else.

Well, there's only one way to find out! Look forward to hearing the results of your scientific research.

I think that a missing "l" in the title may affect the interest and responses you get from this post...

I really loved the fried rice at that coffee shop, even after we'd ditched the hotel (too mouldy) we'd go back for breakfast regularly when in town. Always good food, and nostalgic.