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The Washington Post story talks about events in 2002.

I don't think it has any relevance to Thailand, though. Yes, it was in Thailand, but all this topic is going to achieve is mindless ranting against political emenies of your choice. If you are red, rant against Anupong, or Surayud who was the army commander at that time. Or you can rant against Thaksin who was the Prime Minister. Or make jokes about duty free shop at the airport.

But what do you think has really happened?

US requested Thailand cooperation via usual channels (that might not even included the army, only special police). They were given a room and a key. Do you think Thais had CCTV cameras in there? Do you think the US interrogators submitted written reports to anyone in Thailand?

It's mostly the testimony to shameful US polices, Thailand is just a red herring here.

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By the time Anupong was denying their existence they were no jails anymore, so he was techincally right.

Some quotes from BKK Post

Oh, the famous Bangkok post "face off".

I've been reading them for a decade and not once Toyota came close to Honda there.

Even when Vios was outselling City 3 to 1, Bangkok Post insisted Honda was the better, sportier car.

Then, out of the blue, they admitted that it was Vios that sets standards for sportiness. I thought they finally came to their senses. Alas, it was only an introduction paragraph to yet another "Honda is the best ever" article dedicated to the glories of some City upgrade that was meant to finally destroy its competition. It was two or three "upgrades" ago, nothing happened.

Honda fans are like Apple devotees, absolutely convinced theirs is the best brand and will never let you forget about it.

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Incidentally, I think Civic's rear end is the ugliest around, now that City finally got a nice one. I thought after a few years Civic's rear would grow on me, but it hasn't. I still think the lights are disproporionally large and the shape is rather strange. Maybe new, octagonal lights look better, don't remember seeing them yet.

I also hate new Toyota rear lights on both Altis and Vios.

Well, in June Toyota outsold Honda again.

I guess it's Honda now who should buckle up.

There's 80% chance of cloud cover tomorrow morning according to weatherunderground. There will be no sun, no eclipse, nothing.

http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findwe...ekday=Wednesday

It's just that Thai pirates do not use websites to share subtitles. Someone types them up and then they pass around as part of a full DVD image instead of uploading on popular sites like opensubtitles. Makes sense, as they don't use torrents as part of their distribution channels to their clients.

Greedy monopolists - if they uploaded subs, anyone could have got English version off torrents, burned it with Thai subs, and had his own pirated DVD.

I have no doubts that Thai pirates use torrents/usenet as a source for their videos but then they don't share whatever they create themselves, like subs or DVD images.

Unless you have a steady supply of full HD media, 720p is enough, which could be 1068x720 on some plasma sets. It's 4:3 resolution, but their pixels are not square. Better sets will be 1366x720, straight 16:9 aspect ratio.

If playing 4:3 plasma off a notebook, you'll need to tamper with your player's settings to get full screen, non-stretched picture.

Practically all HD videos on torrents are 720p.

I bet all cheaper plasma 50'' sets in Thailand are in 720p, too.

LCD will give you bigger resolution, but is it really necessary? Especially when "upscaling" regular TV/UBC signal.

In my experience, when watching TV, 32'' LCD with higher resolution looks worse than 40'' plasma with regular 720p which is "crisp clear" by comparison.

Released on bail

More of what is coming:

I'll gather for a harsh retaliation against Junta's intelligences/PRs/media networks.

I guess there will be sense of humor removal program, too.

Here's what Firefox looks like, btw

I was always wondered what the red revolution would look like

May be let's start with executions...

Now I have no doubts left.

Re. airport - one week, 2% of GDP. That's just ridiculous - the whole country of 65 million produces 2% of GDP in one week, not just one airport with a few thosand employees.

Over New Year I went to a resort on Koh Chang, it was fully booked with foreign tourists. On the way back to Bangkok I stopped in Pattaya and went to Hopf Brewhouse on Beach road, it was fully packed, there was a line to get a seat.

I don't think any of those tourists were overly concerned that the airport was closed just three weeks earlier. I don't think anyone coming (or not coming) now even remembers that incident.

Very interesting - for a "peaceful" protest group the PAD have killed and injured...

PAD or PAD guards?

Even a peaceful movement has a right to defend itself from attackers by hiring a security force.

... 50 year old man who was clubbed to death in front of running cameras.

That's a spin. The whole story included a thousand strong red mob storming the smaller PAD camp in the middle of the night. PAD guards mobilised in time and beat the attackers back, one of the attackers got killed.

I think he meant that in his opinion the party that he and the majority voted into power are no longer in power without being ousted in an election.

Still makes no sense. People in Thailand do not vote for governments, MPs do.

Your friend couldn't have been robbed of a vote he didn't cast.

His elected MP, on the other hand, exercised his right to vote for the government twice last year, I assume.

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How about a little quiz - who was the candidate for the Prime Minister post proposed by PPP in December vote? Can you remember it off the top of your head? What do you know about him?

I don't know your answers, but I suspect it wasn't such a big, memorable loss after all.

A western educated Thai friend of mine voted this way and he certainly has no love for Thaksin but considered these parties to be the best option at the time compared to the Democrats as is his democratic right. In elections way back he was a staunch Democrat. As he said to me "How would you feel if your vote was declared null and void not once but twice?"

What was he talking about?

There's a good chance his elected MP is still in parliament, drawing his salary.

If he meant 2006 coup - parliament was dissolved half a year earlier, there was nothing to declare "null and void".

If he meant bans on party executives - those provisions were in 1997 constitution, and there were by-elections to fill the vacant seats.

His complaint just doesn't make any sense.

PAD has been rallying peacefully since 2005, however, in 2008, when they were brutally attacked in Udon and a few other places they concentrated in one, well protected camp in Bangkok and hired massive security force that was responsible for most of the violence attributed to PAD itself. That force comprised of all kinds of guys looking for fights, including notorious vocational college students.

That security force wouldn't have been necessary in the first place if not for continuos red attacks. When reds were beaten back at their own game, they screamed at PAD violence.

Hypocrites.

Bangkok Post seems to think that the hit from the airport closure was closer to 3% of GDP of Thailand. I initially thought it was only 2%. Still that's a lot of Baht for 2 weeks of airport occupation.

It was only one week.

So much for credibility of these scary numbers.

I just opened google.com in FF 3.5, clicked on "Google.co.th offered in: English", and that was the end of it. Does it fall back to Thai version in your FF? It stays in English in mine.

Oh, I believe Google sets a cookie to remember your preferences. I've got two google cookies at the moment, one of them has "LD=en" setting.

Sorry, it was Adisai Bodharamik, not Pongpol, who was the founder of Jasmine.

Adisai's son, Pete, is the current CEO.

After the crisis Jasmine went bust, but when TRT came to power, Adisai got the Commerce minister post and Jasmine got 70% debt reduction. Eventually it was also able to get hold of TT&T after TOT break up.

Two million people signed a paper that makes no sense whatsoever?

That's impressive.

Biggest prank in history, I guess.

Jasmine is a rather small company that is owned by Pongpol Adireksan, former Commerce Minister in Thaksin's cabinet and a key TRT figure. He managed to get hold of much bigger TT&T and his company has been reaping huge profits from TT&T which, in turn, had been accumulating huge debts.

The creditors want P Planner to restructure TT&T, and they want Jasmine out, and so Jasmine comes with an ulitmatum

The BKK Post/Nation are agenda driven media

Yep, they need to sell their papers, and keep the reader numbers up so that they can sell advertising space, too. The plus side is that they can't afford to lose readership by publishing anyone else's propaganda and news articles that don't check out.

So, Mosha, is 63 your final answer? Or do you think you need a bit more ACD?

As far as I understood, Kasit said that if he had done something illegal and was charged, he'd resign. So far he hasn't been charged, and the charges look ridiculous. They probably do not cause him to stop and think to himself: "Maybe I was wrong"

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Imagine what kind of uproar would be here if red leaders were charged for simply appearing on the stage, because the stage was illegally erected or something.

This freedom of speech doesn't seem to apply to red opponents. Apparently they should be put in jail for even daring to speak, even if they didn't say anything remotely illegal.

If you want to compare Thailand and Iran - it was PAD who have lost the elections and took to the streets to overthrow Thaksin's regime, as Iranian opposition does now, and reds are basij militias who protect Supreme's Leader grip on power. Of course Iran is a couple of years behind Thailand, they just started their fight against a dictator.

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The petition is a non-starter, they might just well have signed under "I'm too stupid to understand what I'm signing for" statement. Just demonstrates how many idiots are there who think they are politically active.

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Losworld, I was simply saying that your appeal to Abhisit was rather vague and implied that he doesn't work towards reconciliation.

Kudos for the PM. This really isn't rocket science. He has to reach out to the disenfranchised North Easterners and chip away at Thaksin's base. Once he does this Thaksin is sunk.

He should be making speeches and drafting policies of inclusion not exclusion. One simply must ask why Thaksin had the support of the northeast. Sure he bought votes but aside from this he paid attention and at least gave the impression he was listening.

The answer is not to polarize one group against the next but to implement politics of inclusion.

Why don't you practice it yourself, I feel excluded from the meaning of your post.

Do you have any particular examples of Abhisit polarizing one group against another, of not reaching out to Isanese?

Apart from that, why does he have to be the favourite politician of each and every Thai? It is simply not possible, he just has to settle on being acceptable to all Thais, and he does it a lot better than Thaksin who pissed off half the country and made in ungovernable.

Personally, I'd be appalled if Abhisit pretends to be an Isan farmer with four years of education and love for som tam just to score their loyalty. He doesn't have to win their respect by drinking lao kao either. That's be just so.... Thaksin.