Dogmatix

Nonsense article that made it to the front page of the Post.

A rambling, uninformative article that only says what is not being changed in this bill but says notice about how it will change alcohol laws.

Kindergarten classrooms and other areas need CCTV to investigate and deter abuse by teachers like this. There are good reasons why Singapore has just made CCTV compulsory in all areas in preschools except for bathrooms. In my kid’s expensive international school two teachers had to be fired for persistent bad behaviour towards a class of 3 year olds that was short of abuse but often amounted to quite nasty intimidation. It took a long time for parents to get the school to take action, as the instinctive reaction was to protect teachers and reject parents’ complaints as unfounded. But finally common sense prevailed and the two witches were shown the door. There is always a certain percentage of teachers that will go rotten, if allowed to by complacent school managements. Parents of young children need to be constantly vigilant for any sudden behavioral changes like not wanting to go to school any more or becoming quiet and withdrawn. It can happen in the poorest state school or the most expensive international school. Don’t take any BS from school management, if you need to take action.

Never knew Thai massage could be used as a form of execution or assisted suicide. I don't suppose Mr Tuck or Ms Chanida did either.

What happened is pretty clear. Thaksin dreamed up a hair brained scheme whereby he took a gamble that India would have another drought and would not be able to supply the export market with rice. So Thaksin would be able to corner the market and push the rice price up, making money for himself and cronies and maybe allowing the Thai government to make some too. Farmers would benefit up front from a high fixed price from the government. India had no drought, recorded a bumper harvest with record exports and Thaksin lost his bet and but still made big money from crooked deals where rice was exported to fake Chinese state entities at loss making big discounts and sold back to the Thai government at the rice pledging price. Farmers lost out because Yingluck dissolved the government on Thaksin's orders without giving enough time to the finance minister, former stock jockey Kittirat, to enact legislation allowing the government to borrow enough money to finish paying farmers for rice already pledged. This led to a number of suicides amongst farmers. Yingluck's role in all this. She authorized the whole scam as president of the Rice Commission. Even though she only attended two meetings of the Rice Commission, she was fully culpable and deserves to serve her full sentence without parole.

Sad for the poor children. The cops seemed to have used a man sized snake catching device on him.

So he went native. Bad idea.

Boob jobs are a very competitive business in Thailand with back street clinics competing on price and materials. I remember a story about a ladyboy in Pattaya whose new boobs got infected and had to be removed including the nipples. Inside the surgeon found not silicone sacs but knotted condoms filled with saline solution. Silicone carries risks too and was banned for breast augmentation in the US for 14 years but later re-allowed under commercial lobbying pressure. Leaking silicone can cause serious problems, requiring the removal not only of the ruptured sacs but of previously healthy breast tissue permeated by dangerous liquid silicone. The result is a flat as a pancake look and possibly no nipples. Do due diligence on the procedure and its risks before making a decision. If the breasts look fine already and it is not a case of reconstruction after breast cancer surgery, I would say leave well alone.

Yes. But justice delayed is justice denied. A South African teacher who was a serial homosexual rapist at my old school in Edinburgh and another school there is now in his late 80s and cannot be extradited to face justice in Scotland because there are now too many rape charges pending against him in South Africa from his later career in South Africa that he cannot live long enough to face justice for all his rapes. The common practice of schools then and now, even at international schools in Thailand, is to hush up scandals by offering to give the offenders a reference, if they will resign and go quietly which allows them to continue the offences in other schools. A glowing reference for the rapist at my old school was written by the headmaster, who was himself fired for sexual abuse including homosexual molestation and sadism plus alcoholism a few years later. It is amazing what parents were expected to pay for.

Zero tolerance for any type of child abuser. I suffered from homosexual harassment by a teacher at a very expensive and famous school in Scotland, that produced at least one PM, for over a year and many boys suffered physical abuse and even homosexual rape from various teachers there. The school is still facing legal cases and paying damages for what happened in the 70s and 80s. There was just an abuse case at my child's costly school in Thailand where very young children were intimidated by farang and Thai teachers. It is way short of sexual abuse but should not have happened. Patents need to keep an eye out for abuse at all Thai schools from the free and cheapest to the most expensive. Bullying by other kids and abuse by teachers are rife everywhere.

I had a similar experience with a larger piece of glass I found when I bit into a piece of bread made by a well company that also has a chain of budget restaurants with the same name. Luckily I was not injured but I emailed the company with photos and they didn't deign to reply. After that I had a letter published in Bkk Post about it and still no response, not even a criminal defamation suit. I can only suppose that glass found in their loaves of bread was such a common occurrence and accepted by Thai consumers that they didn't feel it worth replying. Thailand's food safety is close to rock bottom and exacerbated by criminal defamation laws and Thai Chinese owned businesses that simply don't give hoot about their customers, as long as they get richer and richer.

Totally agree it is not CP's thing. The damage to their image in the places you mention would not be worth the incremental profits.

The best way for Thailand to go, given that some sort of regulation is required for political reasons, would be something like California when medical marijuana was first legalised. You would need a doctor's prescription allowing you to buy what you wanted valid for a year or something. Hopefully tourists would also be eligible for these prescriptions and they would be available from licensed herbal doctors as well as regular doctors, who might not be keen to issue prescriptions.

Public hanging and flogging and deportation to the colonies. That should bring law and order back to merry England.

"Thailand is gearing up to dangle a glittering economic carrot". With this effusive imagery about dangling glittering carrots the AI program seems to be stuck on the settings for its last assignment which may have been to write the screenplay for a porno movie. No specifics about these glittering carrots. So we are none the wiser about what the government has announced.

The proper way to resolve this is not to harass pensioners who are being defrauded of their pension increments by the British government. despite having made NIC contributions their entire working lives, but to pay the increments to everyone regardless of residence. There is no justification for paying increments to someone in the Philippines but not to someone in Thailand or paying someone in the US but not someone in Canada. My brother lives in the US and gets the full UK triple lock, having continued to pay in voluntarily after leaving the UK, and US social security and medicare.

Yes; Your 30 million baht investment is all gone once your 30 year expires. It's not really an investment, it is paying rent for 30 years up front. In addition, if the land owner dies or sells the land, the new owner is not bound by the lease because it is a contract between two parties and not automatically binding on new owners. It might say that it is in the agreement and it might also say you have an option to renew but the Land Department is not empowered to enforce anything but the basic Land Code provisions and what is registered at the Land Dept and written on the title deed. The Land Dept is not allowed to register the lease agreement or any details over and above the provisions of the Land Code. This all means that you cannot go to court and get the Land Dept to enforce provisions like registering a new lease for you, based on an option to renew or bind a new owner to the terms of the lease agreement. What you can do, is sue in the civil court for financial damage caused by the other party reneging on the lease agreement. So you have to present evidence of the financial damage, e.g. the cost of new lease. However, if the land owner is dead or is a company that is bankrupt or dissolved, it will be difficult to sue. Basically lease law needs to evolve a lot more before it is an attractive alternative to freehold, not just extend the time period allowed. However, their are loads of farangs who have chucked away their money signing 30 year leases. I know someone who bought the family home, a nice condo right in the CBD with about 25 years to run on a 30 year lease on the basis that the owner, a prominent institution in Thailand, had given verbal assurances that the leases could be renewed for another 30 years. The units were sold at auction and the sellers came up with that tall story . Friends advised not to buy or accept that it would not be renewable. Anyway the long and the short is that the lease expires next year he is now looking for a new family home.

Makes sense. Saves a lot of trouble and expense. Thailand's prisons are overcrowded enough. I think the crime is quite minor in Thailand anyway - exporting a legal substance without an export license.

I think a German court might have been more lenient on the smuggling charge because possession of certain amounts is now legal there. He should have taken a direct flight to Frankfurt. I guess the Thai authorities don't want to bust these guys for illegal exports because it is still export business for them nonetheless.

555. That's right. The motorcyclist was a hero for being clipped by the truck, even though he probably would have scooted off pronto, if he knew he was dealing with a huge truck bomb. I don't remember any consequences for the plods who were too lazy to inspect the contents or the truck that had been abandoned in suspicious circumstances by a Middle Easterner and left it for days with the potential to blow up and the whole cop shop plus some surrounding buildings, including the Israeli embassy. A few years later there was an incident where Iranians who had set up a bomb factory in a house in Ekkamai on behalf of their government had a shoot out with police. I think someone had reported them as acting suspiciously in that house. One of them tossed a home made bomb at police and instead of harming police blew off his own private parts. The Thai police managed to arrest a few of them on that occasion but the government decided to exchange them for trade benefits with Iran after short spells in prison. Thai police and government performance have been very comforting for Israelis on both occasions.

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Israelis should have full confidence in the Thai plods ability and willingness to protect them from any dastardly plots from nefarious Middle Eastern characters. Some years back there was a plot to blow up the Israeli embassy in Bangkok. Some malefactors rented a house in the suburbs of Bangkok and prepared to make a huge truck bomb using a large metal tank on the back of a pick-up truck. A large quantity of liquid bomb making chemical was ordered and the plotters took the precaution of murdering the delivery man, who was probably suspicious when he saw the order was from a group of Middle Easterners with no obvious commercial use for it, and dumped his body in the tank, so the evidence would be blown to smithereens. Once the bomb had been prepared and armed one of the plotters was tasked with driving it into town to look for a convenient spot to park it in close vicinity to the embassy. He decided to stop off in Central Department Store, Ploenchit on the way. But, as luck would have it, he collided with a motor bike taxi as he was exiting the car park onto Chidlom. Some minor damage was done to the bike's paintwork and within seconds a crowd of motor cycle taxi drivers surrounded the truck demanding compensation. The driver apparently panicked and said he would go to an ATM to get cash to pay for the damage but ran off, leaving the truck blocking the exit and never came back. The plods were called and drove the truck bomb to Lumpini Police Station and parked it not far from where the Israeli embassy was at that time. They didn't bother to inspect the truck or its contents but just waited for the driver to come back with a wad of cash to reclaim the truck. After 10 days still no one came and someone complained there was foul stench coming from the truck. So the plods finally decided to investigate it and discovered the body of the hapless delivery man inside a huge truck bomb they had parked outside their own cop shop and within possible striking distance of the Israeli embassy. All the plotters had by this time fled the country and no one was ever arrested.

No satisfied with legally selling weed, he sells illegal substances and brings weed shops into disrepute. What an idiot.

They are pumping raw sewage into the sea. So why not?

The Firearms Act doesn't say you have to be Thai and, until only 3 or 4 years ago, it was quite easy for foreigners living in Bangkok to get permits for guns, if they had PR or at least a WP. As a PR I got 5 going way back without any difficult questions asked. There are still many foreigners with legally owned guns, quite apart from the embassy guards and DEA and other foreign agency types on secondment. It all got very difficult after the Paragon incident, even thought that was nothing to do with legally owned guns. Now it is virtually impossible for anyone with anything about them that the racists in the gun licensing office consider foreign. Thai includes Thai look krung and naturalised Thais.