Plus

there is little evidence of an emerging Blue movement

So far it's behind the scene machinations for MP control. As it stands, blues don't need to take to the streets at all. It will be done through control of parliament, not through wide public support.

Whites are idiots.

my bet is not on intrigue what will bring Abhisit to fall, but the red shirts on the street.

What red shirts on the street?

Clean people are those who take politics as means to serve the nation and not to enrich themselves. Of course every aspiring poiltician should have hunger for power, but also the ability to make sacrifices for the sake of the nation.

Even that old rat, Suwat Liptapanlop, was talking about necessity to make personal sacrifices if the country is to move forward. His interview is in today's Nation.

It is important to emphasize that Thaksin succeeded in making villagers feel empowered in a way that no previous regime has done.

I don't think it's important at all, or important for the wrong reasons.

Villagers should have been actually empowered instead of feeling empowered.

This "feeling" without any actual progress empowers opressors, not the people.

Well, there aren't enough clean people in Thai politics to support Abhisit indefinitely and Newin is going for a kill.

At least it's not about saving Thaksin's ass anymore. Next few years will be spent on the big battle of people vs politicians, which is fine.

2007 const writers got it right - don't give politicians too much power so that if they screw up they won't do too much damage. The country should be able to function regardless of political wars.

Again, we are looking at a quick fix - few amendments, big referendum, new polls, and no hope of preventing the same problems popping up all over the place right after the fresh elections.

Thanks,

It was just a few days before Election Commissioners were jailed en masse and the whole election plan was scrapped, two months before the coup.

Oldmanriver said somewhere that elections were scheduled for 15 October 2006 - that's a factual mistake, no dates have been mentioned even tentatively, let alone announced. At the time of the coup there wasn't even functioning Election Commission.

Yes and no. You are right that the Oct. 15th date wouldn't have happened, but there many articles in the media that mention that the tentative date was set at October 15, 2006. I attach a link below where it is mentioned in The Nation, as an example.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/07/01...cs_30038672.php

That article was published on 2007/07/01. It relies on information posted on wikipedia, the source of that date is from another wiki article:

"..it was decided that new elections would be held on 15 October 2006. Due to delays in the nomination of a new election committee the election were likely to be moved to November.."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thailand_legi...n,_October_2006

There is no source for the Oct 15 date given.

It probably doesn't matter, but your original post made it appear as if the army staged a coup less than a month before scheduled elections, that would put the coup right in the middle of electoral campaign. Of course it was nothing like that.

Let me tell you one thing. Thaksin is not stupid. And he would have hired the best ppl there are to get this transaction done without breaking any laws. And that is why it got thrown out of court.

When his wife got convicted, she got caught supplying an allegedly decade old document signed with the title she recieved several years later. That kind of forgery doesn't sound smart.

Current case regarding his frozen assets is based on Singaporean bank accounts where Thaksin still has his signature despite officially selling all his businesses to his children. That's another slip up that can cost him 2 billion dollars. Not too smart, is it?

Once the richest man in the country, holding the highest executive position - the Prime Minister, is running around the world incognito on dodgy Nigerian passports - smart people don't screw their lives like that.

And I don't remember any of his cases being thrown out of courts. Some court back in early 2006 refused to consider Shin sale case on technicalities, that's all that happened, and it ultimately forced people to demand justice on the streets.

Also Securities and Exchange commission, under charimanship of Thaksin's personal banker, found no case of insider trading, while Thaksin was still the PM - no one expected them to rule against him anyway.

Oldmanriver said somewhere that elections were scheduled for 15 October 2006 - that's a factual mistake, no dates have been mentioned even tentatively, let alone announced. At the time of the coup there wasn't even functioning Election Commission.

Overhauls for a neo or altis cost about 10k+.

Sounds more like regular maintanance to me than overhaul, the word itself is scary - proper overhauls cost over 100k.

As for diesel LPG conversion they are all over the place. My co worker just installed one on his older pickup (strada)..

I'm still sceptical - we had a whole thread on old Mitsu conversion here just over a year ago, LPG+diesel was NOT an option then, only engine swap.

Lexus was an upscale Toyota brand for overseas market only until very recently, in Japan they had all the equivalents under regular Toyota badge. Now they finally separated them in their domestic market, too.

Still, Harrier is not exactly Lexus - it has an option of 2.4l engine that costs cheaper from grey importers than RX, and the menus are in Japanese only.

you can't rewrite history now

Just watch him

Man, they never learn do they?

Apparently not.

Kind of flies in the face of postulate that all men are created equal.

Basically it's a movement against people's interest in politics.

Timing in perfect, though, people want a moment of peace now. In the meantime parliamentarians are busy taking full charge with zero accountability, and don't you dare stop them - there's a new sheriff in town, new movement to crash any people dissent. I'm sure they mean well.

Red Shirts being brutally beaten by a mob

Just an example of gratitude for staging "people revolution".

Pravit of the Nation delivered the quote of his career describing that day - "not everybody loves reds".

The big question here is how to get political differences back into the parliament,

First step would be to stop mobilising red masses on the streets when PTP lost the parliament battle.

Then they'd perhaps see that MPs do not represent them, they'd see them for self-serving, greedy bastards that they are.

Yes, sweeping the rubbish off the streets and into parliament would relieve the tensions for a while, but the rubbish is still there, and it appears to be gaining the upper hand.

When Abhisit got his position many people sighed and thought that at least the problem with parliament was fixed, but it was just a temporary glitch, the parliament doesn't function as representative of the people.

Then we had so called "no confidence" debate that demonstrated that the parliament is not being used for its purpose, then we had PTP walking out on amnesty/amendment commission. I thought it was clear by then that the parliament is hopeless. But now Chai has managed to put two commissions together, and people again think that parliament is working.

Reminds me of treating infected Windows - every now and then some ignorant user can open a page, so he thinks that the system is ok, the cleaning is not necessary. When you eventually clean it for him, he doesn't want to take safety precautions, thinking that if his Windows is not infected now, they are not necessary. Then he scares the shit out of everyone by demanding to scan each and every USB stick that touches his machine, only to open some e-mail attachment to "download ringtones" and get everything infected again.

Come to think of it - the usual virus behavior - first it installs some "helping" application, like a magic toolbar or download accelerator, something it tells you can't live without. then it disables your avti-virus software, resets your home page and doesn't allow you to ever tune into any other internet site as your home. Then it replicates itself all over your system and suddenly it's everywehre and you are not in control anymore - it locked you out of registry editor, you can't install anything that threatens it, and the only way to "solve the problem" is to erase the whole disk and lose everything. Or maybe you can disable it by running a special AV cleaner from USB stick, but if you don't do a complete cleanup aftewards, it will come back, and even if do a complete clean up, you are likely to download it again if you don't change your surfing practice.

Some AV programs put viruses into a "chest" - safe location in your computer where they can't do any harm. Then some idiot decides to see what happens if the chest is unlocked and all the caught viruses are released, maybe they were "false positives".

I believe some facts are mixed up in this article - zoning rules implemented/amended a few days after the sale allowed a high rise building on that particular site.

Also, participation of two [biggest] property developers who were very close to Thaksin administration rather raises the suspision of collusion than dispells it. It would be very naive they didn't know the identities of other bidding parties.

Besides, in relation to Thaksin the court didn't have to prove the alleged bid rigging - simple fact of his wife's participation was illegal.

Political office holders answer to different set of rules than simple citizens, largely because of the power they have over investigating and prosecuting agencies.

Look at this guy in Bangkok. PAD and the blues are known for having slingshots, not the reds.

You mean to say this guy is attacking reds? He surely has lost his mind as I can count about a dozen red shirts BEHIND him. He's shooting in the wrong direction!

Re. Abhisit's popular mandate - his party got the largest number of party list votes in 2007 elections.

According to the latest polls 60% oppose House Dissolution and 70% oppose Abhisit resigning.

These are the facts that the losing party, the reds, are refusing to recognise against all reason. Why should we believe they'd recognise new election results?

What constitution the new elections should comply with to satisfy the reds? There's only one in place - 2007, and they don't like it. Thay can't have snap elections before amendment process is complete, which will take months, why demand elections now?

Political system as it is forces people like Abhisit go out and hug folks like Newin. That's unavoidable, unless there's a major change in the way the representatives are elected, and the only proposal so far has been Pad's new politics. No alternative solutions from the reds, sadly.

If reds are really abhor Newin so much, they should think about what would happen if the amnesty goes through and Newin comes back to power legally, along with some real nasty characters of Newin's vintage. That somehow doesn't bother them, which makes one wonder - when will they start thinking about "real" democracy instead of returning Thaksin and his crooks to power. My personal answer - NEVER. They have no credibility as a democratic force in this country.

After 1997 foreign banks were allowed to buy anything they want here. Later Thaksin has enforced financial master plan that limited them to operating just one branch or selling majority to Thai partners.

I'd be very sceptical about him talking financial deregulation.

It's nothing, just a regular pep talk to show people that he is in charge.

Or, for conspiracy theorists, he got inside information from the courts that in eight months Thaksin will have nothing to fight for left, and on their own red leaders are not a threat.

To be honest, I don't know what Communist is, so I laugh when people said the reds, we, are Communists, and I laugh when seeing some reds wear Communist clothes.

But I guess it's simple like this: Communist people fought for liberty, to beat those who come to their countries to rule.

Just look at this line from Koo.

How can you blame people for thinking that reds are stupid and ignorant lot?

Yeah, I know, we can't paint them with the same brush bla bla bla.

Surayud is our aim too.

For what? For being a traitor to his father's communist cause and reaching to the top of the "elite" society?

How about Chavalit? He is from Bangkok but his origins are also rather humble.

And yes, Prem was appointed - so what? You think he wants to prove himself and run in the elections again?

He already had enough of running the country, he resigned himself and set a stage for elections, that was twenty years ago. The man is retired now.

the 'new social order' was praised by many, including TVboard member 'plus'

Did you just make it up, Hagenvon?

I can't remember myself talking about "new social order" in either positive of negative way, I think I registered two years after it was all over, but since you mentioned it - please refresh my memory with a quote or something.

these dregs of society live like kings on the pittance they have

Speak for yourself, Granpops.

They are the product of the education system that has been put in place by the very people you rail against!

So.... is it good or bad? I can't make heads or tails out of it. Nevermind that I simply quoted Pravit from the Nation and personally think he is full of shit and his arguments are crappy.

there was also an essence within the PAD of "no taxation, no representation"

So we done with blasting new politics for trying to appoint real farmers into parliament and it back to "no representation" again?

You know what this argument reminds me of? I once saw two boys playing paper rock scissors, the winner got a right to blast any imaginary opponent with any imaginary weapon. That was all they did - imagine anything you want and beat the crap out of it. Boys were totally absorbed in their dream battles.

I said that Prem is head of the elite and army group who wants to run Thailand. I see on tv all the years that every big police and big army pleases Prem. Otherwise they cannot be big. No big police and no big army is from poor families. They must be from that group only, the group of about 200 famous family names in Thailand.

Prem wants to run Thailand? Are you nuts? The man is nearly ninety, and he has been Prime Minister for seven years in his "youth".

How about Surayud? He is a son of a communist insurgent killed by the army. Was a Supreme Commander and the Prime Minister and now is a member of Privy Concil.

Kind of flies in the face of your theory.

And the alternative - promoting Thaksin's own cousin to the top military post?

Give me a break.

He is in another country, how can you have agents to swoop in? It's not a movie.

Besides, they might not be really using a phone - it's all broadcast from Chinese, not Thai satellite, how can you backtrace the signal without access to it? Can you backtrace signal from Thai satellites, for that matter?

Maybe its just me, but after reading all of that, the only thing I thought was "ummmmm, what?"

You read this stuff?

It usually is very insulting to person's intellegence.

I hope it's not addictive.

>>>

Really, there are SO MANY things wrong in those posts that clarifying them would take a full time job, and I don't think the poster wants to be corrected or continue discussion, there are usually three more posts with even more nonsense on the next day.

another soft suck from the mealy mouthed Thai justice system.

Didn't you read official red pamphlets that specifically state that Thai justice system is cruel and unfair and extremely prejudiced against people like Jakrapop?