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From Chavalit's answers to the press on the day of his return:

Q: What has former PM Thaksin Shinawatra asked you to do for his Pheu Thai Party?

A: I haven't talked to him yet.

Q: Pheu Thai is very closely linked to Thaksin. What's your direction for the party?

A: This party will try to be a party for the masses. Everything will be in accordance with the Thai people's aims and wishes. Wait a while and you will see (what I mean).

Q: Thaksin only wants to negotiate with real power. Who do you think should be talking to whom, then?

A: There are protagonists (on both sides). Who's quarrelling with whom? We should find that out in due course.

Q: Perhaps, the dispute may be between Thaksin and General Prem (Tinsulanonda), president of the Privy Council.

A: You are getting him involved again. If my memory serves me right, today he is no longer in Bangkok. General Prem is not in Bangkok.

Q: How can there be reconciliation when Pheu Thai Party members are still severely attacking General Prem?

A: They might have been attacked by General Prem's people, too. How can we fight those in power? These days, we have to look behind our shoulders all the time.

Q: Will you follow your policy of being the "middle link"?

A: Today, I am no longer the "middle link". I have joined a party to the conflict. I will therefore try to solve the issue from my position here. That should be easier than being the "middle link".

Q: Are you ready to be prime minister again?

A: There is still time, isn't there? Why are you so impatient?

Q: Does the movement to overthrow "state, capitalists and royalty" (that you raised recently) still exist?

A: It's difficult to abandon ideology and thinking. But it isn't a difficult issue anymore today. People know that the way to make sure this country survives is through democratic means.

Taken from opinion piece by Yoon in the nation:

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/10/08...on_30114004.php

by your own admission in another thread, that the process of the coup is essentially still in progress

The coup and Thaksin are like Siamese twins. One cannot exist without another.

As long as Thaksin is trying to stage the comeback, the coup will be in progress. For Thaksin it most certainly is, for the rest of the country it's history.

When reds move past Thaksin, the coup will lose its importance to them, too.

Once they realize (if they realize) that the coup belongs to the past

If you read Paul Chambers' extensive research paper, presented during and endorsed by a recent ISIS conference, you would realize how factually wrong your statement, and all you following opinion based conclusion, is.

Oh yeah?

Go ahead, protest and rally against a three year old event until you are blue in the face, no one else cares. The rest of the country has moved on.

PAD has broken up with coup makers pretty fast, and Anupong is now a traitor to their anti-Thaksin cause, not to mention military involvement in Sondhi assassination attempt.

It all happens under red noses, but they are still fixated on 2006. I think they are hopeless.

<snip>

PAD has not used monarchy in its last campaigns as much as in 2006, if at all.

Reds have not realized that elected politicians are their enemy, too. They are still under Thaksin spell, and he was an elected politician, and he was overthrown in a coup, so they follow that line.

Once they realize (if they realize) that the coup belongs to the past and Thaksin has no place in the future, they will reassess their position on bureaucracy vs elected politicians.

Are they happy with their current representatives? I guess not, even if they are united by the common goal of saving Thaksin. What will be their relationship with PTP once Thaksin is no more? Will they grow fond of Chalerm and Chavalit?

I'd love to give them benefit of doubt, but I think without Thaksin they'll cease to exist.

Their main disagreement is Thaksin. Beyond that they might find a lot of common ground and they might join forces in a highly hypothetical scenario that reds finally decide to ditch Thaksin from their agenda and start thinking of the country instead.

Afaik it's the same Ubuntu plus extra codecs and different looks. Does it use Gnome or KDE desktop?

Apart from desktop itself being different, some programs are built specifically for Gnome or KDE, and ubuntu repositories do not include KDE specific versions, even if you can install KDE and it will work just fine.

I once had this problem with Opera - Gnome was still running qt3 (the thing that draws system wide buttons, drop down menus, right click menus etc), but after I installed KDE I got it upgraded to qt4, and generic Opera qt3 for ubuntu looked absolutely terrible because of the mismatch. I had to get Opera qt4 version which was hidden deep in their website.

I hope Mint can use all the regular programs built for ubuntu without problems, good luck.

It's October, btw, the month of the new version of Ubuntu, 9.10.

Politicians in parliament decided on constitution amendments with alleged goal of reconciliation.

Now one of the main protagonists came out and say they won't have any of it.

That should stop the process right away - instead of reconciliation it brings street politics back to life, with people scared that it would go bad again.

Even if Abhisit decides to honor his promise to the fellows MPs and goes on with the referendum, what else do you expect other than mass campaigns pro- and against them, and PAD is just starting early.

Dems would eventually jump on it, too, campaigning for "no" vote on most issues.

Maybe reds should take out ads in classifieds:

URGENT - Mass demonstration needs an inspiring cause, the winner gets a free trip to Dubai.

They've got everything lined up already - speakers, clappers, t-shirts, they've got magazines and even a TV station for self-promotion. The only thing missing is a reason to demonstrate.

Maybe they can copy that from PAD, too - would do wonders for national reconciliation.

Would you really paid a million? Do you care that much for poor old Sondhi?

Nowadays he seems to be a pebble in every shoe.

Would you really paid a million? Do you care that much for poor old Sondhi?

Nowadays he seems to be a pebble in every shoe.

Legally the parliament can pass the amendments without any input from the people, and now it's on the House agenda.

Abhisit promised to hold a referemdum but the option of amending two minor articles on its own, just because all parties in parliament agree on them, is still there.

Also PAD is the only group of people feeling strongly enough about the amendments to take it to the streets. Finally we can hear people's voice, albeit only one group of people. Still it's a change from lonely Abhisit carrying the torch, even if he does alright so far.

Even with referendum - while it sounds like a good idea on paper, the fact is that the proposed amendments ARE self-serving, politicians just want public approval for their schemes. That is not how it's supposed to work. Reds probably want the referendum because it can speed up the elections - also not a good reason to change the highest law in the land.

Bottom line - the constitution is not a problem, tinkering with it without a reason is not appropriate. The mindset of persuading people by all available means to support hidden agendas is not appropriate.

do you beleve newspaper headlines or do you think for yourself

I don't believe in a massive conspiracy to hide good red ideas from the public, especially on their sympathetic websites.

I don't care for Sonthi, but bombs really aren't the solution to a problem.

They tried to assassinate him, too, if that's better. The perky chink just wouldn't die.

Calling him such names ss offensive and derogatory, but I hope mods lest slip this little joke. There were nine bullet fragments in his head, and yellow "Thai - Chinese save the nation" t-shirts were the talk of the town last year.

Manager group is bankrupt, he'd probably be happy to offload it.

Cougar52 (I try not to think why you chose that nick), maybe you should pray more and read less of ThaiVisa. Problem with you being tired of reading my posts solved.

Or you can block me and never see my posts again.

Or you can try talking about the topic and not personalities.

Kasit has made that comment a year ago, and it was all over the news at that time.

By now it's a dead horse, Kasit and Hun Sen had countless meetings, the latest one only a couple of days ago. That comment is water under the bridge. Even your stereotypical woman doesn't bring up arguments as old as this, and let's not forget that Kasit-Hun Sen relationship is none of Chalerm's business.

The concern that appointing Kasit as FM would damage Thailand was valid last year. Now it's time to evaluate it, not warn about it. So far there seems to be no damage done. Internationally Thailand is doing fine, and the biggest hiccup, the Pattaya fiasco, was not Kasit's fault.

It was perpetrated by the very same people who thought Kasit would be a problem for Thailand's international image. Yeah, they really care...

Plus, you make a lot of unsubstantiated suppositions

What exactly are you talking about?

Did I get local headlines for the past couple of weeks completely wrong?

there are many serious blogs and websites who deal with related issues, to name a few: New Mandala, Bangkok Pundit, Prachatai. Read them, they are very educating (i bet you won't take the advice

From Bangkok Pandit, just for the occasion:

"On the reds, they don't really seem a threat for now. They need an issue to run with, but don't have any now. They can bring up all old issues, but it is a new one (ie a political scandal etc) which then need to put life back into the rallies."

http://bangkokpundit.blogspot.com/2009/10/...leadership.html

There's nothing new on Prachatai or New Mandala either, same old same old.

Fact is - no one is hiding the interesting and inspiring red agenda, they just don't have one.

PAD didn't "commit unrest" on that day. They surrounded the parliament, and then the police started full blown assault without negotiations, warnings, or even escape routes.

PAD has released a VCD of that event, and while people might argue it's lopsided, the gore and violence were very real an undeniable.

Double standards? You bet, reds have never had it that bad, even during Songkran.

Is that just your opinion, or is it supported by any study?

The massive local media interest before every Red Shirt rally should show you the opposite.

How about the study of local media interest?

It spikes before every major rally, but no one talks about their demands, only about possibility of them turning violent.

Look at the latest stories that got people talking about - Sondhi elected the party leader, Chalerm and his clip, Chavalit return, Niphon's resignation, Map Ta Put ruling, agreement on Constitution amendments, power play behind police chief and so on.

Notice the complete absence of reds in those discussions. Not just as newsmakers themselves, even as commentators. They have nothing to add to current political discourse.

"Thaksin remains in Dubai" - booring.

Why Red Shirts .. attack the Privy Council i really don't need to explain to you

Maybe you should - because no one knows why. They accuse Prem of being behind the 2006 coup, which is a three year old story and has no evidence behind it. Yeah, they have evidence that two Privy Councilors and a former judge had a dinner once and talked politics. After three years of attacks, couldn't they come up with something more interesting?

Notice how Prem and the council are absent form current discourse, too. There's plenty on Anupong's and other military guys politicking behind close doors, as you mentioned Chavalit sudden ascendancy, but nothing on PC position in police chief affair. Some say he backed Jumpol, but then they also say they back Abhisit who insisted on Prateep.

It's far more plausible explanation that reds focus on Prem just for their internal purposes of keeping the herd together - they need an enemy to unite them, with widespread apathy to their cause.

It ends when Thaivisa and Bangkok Post sort out the exact rules.

Here it is again, without "profanities". I thought forum software sorts them out, not the mods.

How could you get the idea that i find it "OK" to re-install Chavalit? I doubt that in any of my posts i had ever anything good to say about Chavalit. I simply explained for what reasons Chavalit most likely pulled into PPT, not that i would think "it's OK".

I'm not talking about you personally but about reds in general. They seem to be ok with it. They didn't mind when Chaisit Shinawatra approved of a new coup, too.

After more than 3 years, how many election victories of TRT/PPP/PT, how many more mass demonstrations of ten thousands, if not more than 100 000 people on occasion, does it need to convince you that these ideas have the support of a more than sizable portion of the Thai population?

After Songkran the air went out of that balloon. They had their chance and blew it.

Thaksin support is sizable but shrinking.

The fact is that outside the red circle itself no one knows that they are on about and don't give a ***. "Let's have a two months anniversary of the pardon petition" - who cares? Old news.

Equally, no one cares about tomorrow's PAD demo either. There's something happening outside the colored meetings, and it's called life, and at this point both groups are largely irrelevant, and ignored.

Booooring.

I ditched Azureus for uTorrent on Windows, but on Linux is doesn't seem to matter.

**deleted for language**

He's legally eligible, he'd be permanently disqualified if he spends any actual time in jail.