Plus

Dead horse.

Chavalit obviously has not been chosen for vibrant new ideas (many who have those have been banned already), but most likely for a different level of the conflict happening away from the eye of the public - the importance of competing patronage networks, especially within the military. Chavalit has still enormous pull under many officers under his patronage, needed to counter the networks of the Guard Regiments.

So patronage is ok when it's used to red advantage.

And no, people outside red cult do not care about revelations about Prem.

Prem is not feared, he is respected, on rare occasions people even remember his existence.

And there must be something wrong with vibrant new ideas if they fail to catch publics interest. Ideas do not depend on personalities.

..attacking Prem and other Privy councilors for interfering in political affairs, and asking them to refrain from doing so

Who cares?

It's not like Abhisit sits in a waiting line at Prem's residence everyday, waiting for instructions.

Chavalit went to Dubai before taking PTP's helm, on the other hand.

These posters are propagandists and ideologues, the finer complexities of Thai politics, history and society are lost on them. Anyone that threatens their ideological framework with reasonable arguments is not a partner in a dialogue, but working for "the enemy".

The real problem with red ideologists is not that they are working for the enemy, it's that they are a complete and utter failure. They, pretty much like Thaksin himself, had a chance to introduce something really fresh and inspiring into Thai political scene, and they failed.

What did reds give us to think about? Thaksin pardon?

Now Chavalit has taken the helm of their political party. How progressive....

For repository indexes - the problem could be with ISP caching up some content and so what the ISP sends you is not the latest version on ubuntu servers.

In my case the problem was solved by updating from the terminal. Google ubuntu manual update, I think it's "sudo update" or something really simple.

For torrents I got azureus/vuze, almost as nice looking as on Windows.

Curernt ubuntu version is 9.04, Jaunty Assalope, problems with display resolution should go away as they update video drivers all the time.

Color scheme is not the best, I agree, but it's all tweakable from preferences menu.

>>>

Overall there's not much difference with Windows.

What you see when you use it is a "desktop" - the way to access and run your programs. Linux has got two popular ones - Gnome and KDE, they look different and they are organized in a different way, and menus look different and there are different right-click options. I think KDE is more advanced and it's got nice transparencies everywhere. Ubuntu comes with Gnome, but you can easily install KDE, too.

Installing programs is what is really different, though. In Linux they've got Synaptic package manager (or that other thing in OpenSuze). You select a program from the list and click install/apply, and that's all there is to it. If you want something NOT on the list, it could be trouble, but if you find your program on publisher's site, chances are it will have an installer for your particular linux (100% chance for Ubuntu, at least) and so you download it and your Gnome desktop will ask you if you want to install it and that's it.

What is the bitch is a different file system. No "program files", no "documents and settings", no "drive C, drive D" etc.

Many of the Red Shirt leaders have been politically active long before Thaksin made his name..

They didn't matter then, they don't matter now.

As a social movement it failed to transcend Thaksin groupies club, no matter how much you praise them.

Yes, there are all kinds of weirdos in the red camp, attracted by the opportunity to sign up converts - where else can you find such a large group of extremely gullible people with no previous exposure to politics or ideology?

Kasit's comments were treason

Since when promising to bloodbath to your enemies is treason?

Plus must go!

Were you drunk?

Chaturon's been in politics for over a decade. He risen under Chavalit and prospered under Thaksin, all the while being soft-spoken and intellectual. What has he done during those years of shameless abuse of democracy here? Where was he during the drug war - the often mentioned test on TV? Where was he when dozens of journalists were under secret investigations? Where was he all these years?

He led TRT before it was dissolved, and it was largely his fault as he just kept ignoring the misdeeds of Thammarak and co. Yeah, he talks... He was not the first politician with a sweet tongue.

And Nattawut - doesn't matter how good speaker he is - he's forever red who tried to burn the country to save Thaksin. He's not gong to save anyone.

No, he didn't commit treason under Thai law. He just didn't care if he hurt the country in pursuit of his sick games.

For Kasit and Hun Sen it's a bridge under water, they are long past that little spat.

Without character assassinating Chaturon, but what he has ever done that separates him from the pack? His only distinction is that he can carry presentable image and pontificate on democracy.

And Nattawut - that's a tough sell.

Both are demagogues of the highest order, I give them that.

The bloody recording is a year old dead horse no one pays attention to. Two days ago Kasit and Hun Sen were shaking hands for the photo op at some Asean function, now Chalerm is out to stir the pot.

It is treasonous, he IS hurting the country in his quest to get to Kasit.

mobile phones do contribute to increased income in rural communities. A study out of Kerala has shown that extremely well

In Thailand the scheme was operational for about four years during Thaksin's terms and not a single study has been released to show those alleged benefits, and that's despite TRT having the best polling teams in the country. Not even a study on overall village funds performance.

The million baht scheme has not increased debts under farmers, it has regulated borrowing, and enabled farmers to borrow to acceptable interest.

One way or another household debts have doubled in four-five years. There were some numbers regarding village funds themselves, not from the government (which never disclosed any such information), and they showed that in some villages nearly a third of loans were non-performing. In many cases the loans were paid on time by borrowing from loan sharks specifically to make the fund look good on paper, then, a couple of days later, money was taken from the fund again to repay those illegal money lenders.

Given TRT and Thaksin's reputation to never shy any good publicity, the fund probably hasn't produced any results worth showing.

In some cases local funds were managed very effectively, but the government still doesn't have any tools to separate success from failure and reward/punish fund operating committees accordingly. On the national level the fund is managed exceptionally poor. I wonder who is in charge of it now and what Democrats are going to do about it, if it's under their jurisdiction.

If the outcome depends on the amount of money invested, you can't talk about free and fair.

Thaksin came from the business world, so he threw junkets and PR events around just like one would do to promote your company. It still starts with money, even though the people/customers see and experience lots of other things. Free food, free transport, concerts, giveaways or cheap (subsidized) consumer products, warm and friendly service, impressive hi-tech presentations - all that stuff matters.

Policies still mean very little to the voters and to the parties, too.

In the last elections it was proven once again that strong local candidates is the bread and butter and they bring the victory, not policies.

On party list votes that reflect political platforms and policies PPP was beaten by Democrats, but they pulled a comprehensive victory when it came to voting for local candidates.

Asia Foundation survey shows the same thing, too. Party policies are way down the list for the voters (from memory).

Vote buying is a lot more sophisticated now than just handing out banknotes, there are a lot of other forms of fraud that are probably more effective. People on this board often use the term "vote buying" for its simplicity. What they mean is any form of fraud that translates money into votes.

As for the 3 conditions;

1. The national economy must stabilise considerably,

Hmm, the false recovery is just taking shape, and the downslide should show up around Christmas, so I dunno.

2. The election rules must be acceptable

Huh? More specifics please, otherwise some might think that means his gang says who gets to vote as in 3 votes for Bangkok residents and literacy tests for the northerners in order to be eligible to vote. Wouldn't want that would we?

3. The political atmosphere must be peaceful.

That's like saying when the airport is tout free and when the government attacks corruption. Oh bah, might as well say never.

1. Election means several months of uncertainty in implementing govt projects - those in the pipeline get suspended from the election date announcement and probably ditched when the new govt reconsiders them.

The economy must be fairly stable not to depend on those projects, especially if they are massibe infrastructure investments.

2. Before holding the elections, everyone must agree on the rules - 2007 version as it is, 2007 version amended, or 1997 version restored. There's no point in holding the elections if the losing party doesn't recognize the result because it doesn't accept the rules.

3. If reds go on rampage again, or block their opponents from campaigning, it would be a sham Zimbabwean style. Political parties must be allowed to campaign without fear or intimidation. So, in a way, it's in red's hands now - if they want elections, they should learn to behave. Unfortunately when they behave well, no one remembers what they wanted to say. Watch out for Oct 7 PAD rally, too. If yellow demos descend in violence, there won't be elections anytime soon. Yellows are not pressed for time, however. Their party is far from ready.

You underestimate the importance of ideology in Thailand..

Apart from Democrats, no party has any ideological platform and voters don't care.

Ideology seems important only to those who have one, and they are rare breed on Thai political scene. Their numbers are too small to matter and they can't sustain their ideological aspirations once they absorb themselves in this profession.

Politics in Thailand leaves no room for ideology.

Now that you puked - what was Chalerm thinking?

It looks like he is trying to enlist Hun Sen in a political war against fellow Thais.

He wants Hun Sen to come and smash Kasit and Democrats, so that Thai government can collapse.

Unbelievable.

So now there's this fundamental shift in red ideology - they won't recognize the election results. Elections don't matter anymore.

Great. When will they come around and start talking New Politics?

there will be much the same sort of extra-constitutional interference in case PT would win as we had last year

Why not two years ago?

Remember when PPP leaders spent a month shuttling between Bangkok and Thaksin in Hong Kong, trying to cobble up a coalition, clipping their own electoral platform trading ministerial positions in exchange for support from reluctant partners.

What part of that was constitutional?

Reds are not calling for elections now, are they? They want return of 97 constitution first.

Avast works just fine on Win7.

For me it's the best, and my major criteris is that it's the least annoying of all AV software I've ever tried. Unlike Avira it doesn't run a splash screen on every boot, for example.

..

The interesting details here are that the ones who have been shouting loudest that "it won't work", and that they would impose on the monarchy, dragging the institution down into politics were the ones who in 2006 made a petition themselves asking to have Thaksin removed, and replaced with a royally appointed Prime Minister. This petition though did not work indeed - it was shot down by the King himself during a televised address to the judiciary.

And the very interesting part that those have also forgotten is, that an elementary and maybe most defining aspect of the relationship between monarchy and people here in Thailand, according to Thai state ideology, is that every citizen of Thailand has the right to petition the king. This, as every Thai child learns in school, dates back to King Ramkanghaeng, in front of whose palace was a bell that anybody with a grievance can ring, and his problems will be attended to.

It's not Sukhotai era anymore and people DO NOT have the right to petition the King.

Previous refusal to appoint a PM to replace Thaksin should give reds a clue about prospects of their petition, in case they presented it as airing of grievances, and Publicus explained it once again why the petition as a pardon request won't work either.

..How about giving them the right to vote, just for starters. The current administration was not elected by the people. That seems to be a key point the red shirts are making....

That doesn't make any sense - all MPs are elected by the people. The election of Abhisit was televised to the whole country, and every MP, elected by the people, had cast his or her vote.

And if reds want the administration to be elected by the people directly and not via their representative in parliament, why do they want to restore 97 constitution that doesn't have any such provisions? It makes no sense whatsoever.

Phetarol, you have a point on fair quote use. BP is in no position to get back at all mis-quoters, however.

I wasn't arguing with you, I was just taking your flag and carrying it farther, though probably not to the same place you intended.

Didn't someone have a go at me for bashing Thailand earlier?

I have to admit that neither the BP or ThaiVisa seems very creative about solving the issue...

Be realistic. No one knows what the best solution for all parties is, that has to be negotiated first, and there are many other websites, not just Thaivisa, that would also want to take part and Bangkok Post needs to offer a solution suitable to all.

Then there are technical issues. BP's webmaster has to implement that solution, and that would take time, but it's even worse for TV - it buys the standard forum software from a third party and so has very limited ability to tweak it, and it's also going through the major forum upgrade, and that is not going as well as they hoped.

I have no idea how TV would implement the RSS feed into discussion board. I think in the end BP will allow members to post headlines and short quotes with direct links, but not as topic started by TV team itself. Better solutions are just beyond the local level or expertize.