Tom Parkinson

Does anyone know if the junior traffic officer who gave her the parking ticket and posted the video has been duly reprimanded and punished? I can only presume it's now time to shoot the messenger...

I'm just wondering... We all know that one can be charged with defamation in Thailand for making public information that is damaging to someone's reputation, even if the information made public is absolutely true.

So does Chidchanok now have a valid defamation case against Piyawat Supanwong, who took and posted the video?

Jeez... Exactly what "prostitute" services were being procured for 400 baht?

Methinks they (the RTP) doth protest too much!

Hasn't 13th until 26th been removed from that account?

Just curious... Has anyone checked the "Waybackmachine" for any of these deleted items?

I believe that A grade Thai blokes marry A grade Thai girls. But the A grade girls are not always geniuses, they however come from the correct families and have the right looks. I cant remember seeing or knowing any foreigner marrying an A grade Thai girl. That leaves us with the lower graded girls, thats devided between the rest of the Thai guys and the foreigners.

Princess Ubolratana went to MIT, got a BS in mathematics and a Masters at UCLA. I would call her A grade. She married Peter Jensen, an American.

This sums up - in a nutshell - why the Thai police are considered by many to be totally corrupted

I also want to add that I asked my Thai family if this news story had featured on Thai language TV news reports.

They had not seen any news reports about this, (although maybe the cartoon channels don't run news stories...)

This is the interesting aspect of this case. All of us here on TV are aghast that the police chief could be so brazen as to state publicly that he is above the law and then instruct his subordinates to conduct training of these volunteer officers so that they will not repeat the "mistake" of asking a senior officer to take a breathalyzer again. We cannot fathom how the police chief could say this and not get his head knocked off by the PM.

But the case doesn't make the Thai news. Why? I presume because it's not news... A police chief announces that he's above the law. All Thai people know this already. Moreover, they probably accept that this is the natural order of things. So why would this qualify as news-worthy?

Oh, really... Where's the fun in having power if you can't abuse it!

If there are any sceptics out there I suggest watching the film 'Z.'

Do you have any more info on this film?

Check... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_(1969_film)

Cheers, TP

Not sure about 2b. I hope that's wrong. If the bodies were cleaned before sending to their home country, then that's despicable. However, after observing all the other screw-ups in this case, it wouldn't surprise me.

What makes you think thoroughly cleaning the bodies was a screw-up? Wouldn't that be essential in a cover-up?

If I were a political enemy of Gen. Prayut, I would be sitting on the sidelines salivating, in hopes that he would sign the purchase order... What a political victory for the opposition that would be!

But if they do buy them, I do hope that buy some spare parts and a maintenance contract. I'd hate to see them have to cannibalize two of the subs within five years so they could keep the third running. But then, the Navy must certainly be more competent than the SRT...

Did I miss something? This General Tawatchai says that some unnamed father claims a "foreign organization" brainwashed his son over the course of two evenings... Really?

Why can he not say which of the 13 sons has been brainwashed? Why can we not name this subversive foreign organization? And why can the father not speak for himself? What evidence is there that there's any shred of truth to this story whatsoever?

I'm sorry... I'm going to wait for a real news story before I post again...

Sorry, but there's nothing anyone can say that will convince me that these two "midgets" committed those murders.

Sorry, but there's nothing anyone can say that will convince me that these two strong physical laborers did not commit those murders.

Sorry, but there's nothing anyone can say that will convince me that anyone on TV could possibly have evidence one way or the other. Yes, you can choose to interpret the meager evidence in one direction or another, but at least from what I've seen discussed, there is not obviously solid evidence of anything. But maybe you folks are hiding something from me...

My reason for wanting to learn Thai is that I do not like feeling "clueless" in my environment. I like the feeling of knowing what's going on...

Also, many years ago I had a small experience that humbled me. My then GF was working in a hotel in southern Germany for the summer, so I flew over to travel around with her for two weeks. I flew into Dusseldorf, then took a train to Stuttgart. I then had a five-hour layover before catching my next train on to Munich.

When I got on the train to Stuttgart, I sat in a compartment with a late-30ish women, whom I presumed to be German. I tried to make polite conversation using my very fractured and minimal German. It turned out that she was German, but had been living for the last decade in the US. So we had a nice conversation. She was just returning to visit her sister. She said that they were going out for lunch in Stuttgart... Why didn't I join them, and they could drop me back at the train station after lunch? I agreed that was a lovely offer and accepted.

Her sister and three-year-old son met us with her car at the train station. The two sisters got in front and I got in back with the three-year-old. He tried to chat with me, but I could only understand a little of what he was saying, so naturally I had trouble replying to him. But I understood what he asked his mother all too clearly...

"Mom, why is this man so stupid?"

It really stings to be put down by a three-year-old!

I don't like that feeling of ignorance and helplessness... That said, I have not been able to commit the time and energy on a sustained basis to be able to learn more than taxi Thai. Starting up a consulting firm and traveling three weeks out of four is just not conducive to studying. But I plan to retire at the end of the year and hope to learn then -- if my aging brain will cooperate.

There are wonderful Thai women who can speak English and wonderful ones who cannot. Before I met my wife, I dated on a popular website here in Thailand. I have a Ph.D. from a good American university, so I often got contacted by women with advanced degrees, many of whom could not comfortably converse in English. I so much wished that I could speak Thai!

Why? Dating is competitive... men compete for the attention of women (and vice versa). Economists analyzing competition often refer to the "theory of comparative advantage". What fraction of western men can speak passable Thai? Let's be charitable and say 10 percent. What fraction of Thai women can passably speak English? Let's suppose it's again 10 percent.

What this means is that fully 100 percent of the western men here can compete for the 10 percent of the Thai women who can speak English. For western men who can speak Thai, however, they are 10 percent of the male pool, but competing for the full 100 percent of the female pool. Their odds are 100 times as good as the men who cannot speak Thai! That's comparative advantage at work...

For me, one of the joys of living in Thailand is meeting Thai women who speak no English and have maybe never before even met a farang.

So to those who prefer not to learn the language, that's just fine by me.

Agree. I prefer Thai women who cannot speak English. These "normal" Thai women--who represent the majority by the way--are much less likely to be "in the business" and don't have "fleece the farang" as their number one goal in life. Yes, there are some English-speaking Thai women who are not on the take. But I'd rather take my chances with the non-English speaking ones. There's also many more attractive ones to choose from.

I work all around SE Asia. My office and official residence are both in Hong Kong, but I think of Bangkok as my home. I generally travel during the week and return to BKK for weekends and the occasional week. Last year I made 37 separate visits to BKK. My longest stay was 18 days.

Quite often when I go through immigration, the agent flips through my passport, clearly noting the many Thailand entry and exit stamps. But I've never had them say a thing... So if there really is a "6 visa exemption limit", it's quite selectively applied.