soalbundy

They look like mafia thugs demanding protection money.

Agree, and once again the military has a foot in the door, the establishment is hard to beat. Pita should have been more careful with his announcements, he has alarmed the old war horses and Thaksin will be easier to manipulate considering the legal leverage they have against him.

I can't understand how the metal roof support frames can fall down, I've watched these type of roofs being constructed in my village, they are securely welded to the rebar metal rods coming out of the concrete pillars. I can't see any evidence however of any concrete pillars so it may be just a flimsy construction to begin with.

He is intelligent and has a strong sense of morality.......that disqualifies him from being a PM of any country.

I suppose the crackdown includes buying a few more 'smart' BMW's.

Yes, quite strange behaviour considering that they must have known that all the ammo available would be used against them, one would have thought that they would enter the fray squeaky clean, stupidity or calculated? Almost as if Pita is enticing the establishment for a final showdown.

Looking at him I'd pay 10k to keep him lost.

Yes, that is what will happen, the establishment isn't stupid, ever wary of privilege and its power in the background it will give an inch here and there but never the full yard.

Those 42,000 shares don't belong to Pita........he borrowed them from a friend. That explanation has been used before so why not here. ????

Anyone who has lived more than a decade in Thailand knows that nothing here is set in stone.

might be a bit dangerous for them this time, soldiers also vote.

Banning prostitution is like banning the common cold.

commenting among ourselves does no harm.......pointless though it may be.

how do you fall into a sewer? if it was only 1.50 meters deep why couldn't scramble out?

Arrogant, rich, self entitled men who have drunk from the well of power, difficult to move men like that. They are the old guard who feel exonerated by traditions that are no longer valid in today's world. Traditions are a two edged sword, they bring stability but if written in stone they are a brake on progress. Their mode of thinking is so steeped in historical precedence that there is no room for introspection, confused old men being swept away by events they are incapable of understanding. This election was a harbinger of the end of an era which they cling to in desperation.

I'm just repeating the NHS's own rules. I know an expat who had dental treatment in the UK and was allergic to the injection, he went into a coma for 3 months and had to learn to walk again, he was given a bill for 200 K pounds but was told they would credit him this if he could prove he had come back to the UK permanently. He rented a cheap flat for 6 months, saved all the utility bill slips and put himself on the voting registry. After presenting the evidence he didn't have to pay and left for Thailand again. For those who say he should have just scarpered, that is fraud and will be prosecuted. I know a Swiss gentleman who left a load of unpaid bills in Zurich, when his time came to renew his passport at the embassy he was refused but was given an emergency passport for one trip back to Zurich. Beating the system isn't easy but you can get lucky.

Senators support the BJT so guess who they will want as PM.

Thais aren't a homogeneous people either, various areas speak different languages as well, I have met old people in Isaan who can't even speak Thai.

That news was enough to knock the Baht down, at least against the Euro.

Yes games indeed, now is the time for the MFP to lose its innocence with a series of deals with the senate, failing that we may indeed see blood on the streets which will destroy any reputation the army has of being the nations saviour, as someone once said, ''it isn't freedom if it is given to you, freedom has to be taken''.

Well good for you. It would depend on your doctors attitude, county, the length of the waiting list as well. I was having prostate troubles as well and since my father had prostate cancer I was thinking of getting checked but did some online research. I am 75 and both the NHS and Mayo clinic advised against it as statistically I have only 3.8 to 5 years of life left and if I did have prostate cancer I would probably die with it but not because of it. This was true of my father who died of a heart attack but not cancer. So now I take 'Uroflow' at 750 Baht a month and all is well. We should realize that we are mortal and no amount of medical intervention is going to make us immortal. At 75 I am fit, slightly underweight and feel healthy but 75 would be a normal death age, every year after that is a plus. During old age one should come to terms with ones own pending death and not desperately seek its avoidance at all cost, hospice would be a better humane alternative for a failing body.

Plus it isn't a free service once you're out of the system, I believe expats are charged 3 times the cost of a residing Brits cost to the NHS and they want it in advance.

The 'voice of the people' means nothing when the hard wall of reality is crashed into. Every government wants to be popular but capital is as shy as a deer at the forest edge, if markets and investors tell the government, do this or that then we will run, the government listens, central banks and the stock markets punish those who don't obey them and investors follow suit by withdrawing their money. I assume that private capital will do better than when under military rule but I'm also sure that uncle Tu and his senate have already been obeying the real masters, what will change is the birth of new ideas......if the markets allow them to bloom. Thinking about us foreigners isn't going to be an issue for any government, we can't vote.

And so the band wagon rolls on and yet there are still people who think a change of government will make a difference, it won't because nobody cares about corruption. The moving hand doth write and having writ moves on nor all your piety or wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line nor all your tears wash out one word of it.

You want to change the nation's psyche? Even the Fascists in Italy under Mussolini couldn't destroy the Mafia. Greed is human nature and Asia has turned it into a fine art. I watched a Youtube channel on super prisons in the US and the UK, there are more drugs in prison than on the outside and most providers are the prison warders, money walks the walk. There are no clean governments anywhere, don't be naive, one doesn't become a PM or president by being an honest, clean, moral person, just the opposite unfortunately, anyone who aspires to government wants power and prestige. Any newbie who has any morals left is soon groomed to be the model that the establishment wants. Revolutions, political or otherwise, have changed nothing, the trappings of power change hands but the establishment still hold the reigns.