dhream

The country has been running better than when under Yingluck & prior"democratic" Gov'ts & PM Prayut has & is doing a good job.

Realistically,there has been little change to day to day living & in some respects has improved.

Yes, I know, the "naysayers" will say,"keep taking the medicine" !!

Eggers, in some respect you are right, but it all comes down to the price you are willing to pay for your 'smooth running country' by the time you (or more correctly, the Thai people) decide the price is too high, it might be pretty difficult to hit the 'reset' button.

There is ALWAYS a price to pay for such efficiency, it is rarely worth it when everyone looks back over the carnage that results from the inevitable backlash. Thailand itself, barely 40 years ago, during the epoch of another coup, people were burned alive for being 'suspected' Communists.

Such accusations can be made, and made to stick, in totalitarian regimes, just because your neighbour dislikes you.

Be careful what you wish for.

Looking at the articles pic, they pixelated her bum crack from a 3/4 angle, IMO totally redundant, but wait there's more!

At the top of the picture, nothing less than a life sized poster of "HOOTERS" coming soon to the Suk, TiT sure enough!

Ok update, we installed fibre yesterday, through my missus I explained to the tech that if possible I wanted him to run the last leg from the wall box to my Linksys, and omit their router.

This he did, and we have enough cable to mount the router itself about 2 ft from the ceiling, in the center of the house, as we have an upstairs floor.

I used the Telstra Wi-Fi Maximiser to heat map the upper storey, and we have almost full strength signal on the 2.4 Ghz band just about everywhere, including it beaming across the road.

Only my 2009 Macbook has an 802.11g/n/ac radio, so that's the only thing that can presently get the 5ghz signal.

But were thinking of getting a TCL telly with ac capability and built in Roku as they're highly commended and inexpensive for what you get. (I used a TCL Octo-band smartphone on loan to me last year and it was a great piece of kit, albeit built for the China market. Costs about a third of the western market offerings with similar spec. If they ever start selling them here I'll be getting one!)

I can't yet test the 5ghz signal apart from playing HD video via youtube on the Mac, which is in the corner of the spare room (a.k.a.my office) upstairs and it's a stunning picture with no interference.

FWIW I have already seen our download speed at 20 Mbps down to 13 Mbps, then in the late evening up to an astonishing 76 Mbps on various test sites. But that particular result was with VPN off.

All I wanted was music and movies with minimal buffering at the beginning, if that, and considering we're looking at media coming from overseas through a VPN it's a right old result!

Sure I paid a bit more for the router and SiNet 25/8Mb, THB 11,548 for a year upfront included the fiber install, and THB 9,200 for the router, but that router price is on a par with buying an shipping it from abroad. The savings will come utilising all the lovely free stuff out there in the cloud, instead of paying for 'take it or leave it' cable channels. The Mrs is not much of a TV watcher, and what i can get online locally keeps her more than happy. Win win.

The tech was a contractor and quite chatty, we discovered he worked for 3BB and AIS before going independent, he now contracts for SiNet and AIS, says they both run fiber into our baan, but SiNet is best and he has it at home himself.

He also told us that only 5 other homes have it in our baan. I did a channel scan tonight, and our signal towers above the neighbor's' wifi's so I doubt if we're sharing the line, as some claim they have to in apartments.

It's early early days, but so far I'm a very happy (fiber) camper. Thanks to all who contributed here, particularly to 'Chicog, mate, I looked at the Archer. I was actually going to buy it having read about it on another post here, then read about the big Linksys, and felt it was best for what I wanted to do, the price was not too much of a Thai uptick, and it.s also going to be future proof for a good old while.

If oil prices stay low and the Saudi's run into financial problems, then I would guess that so would much of the Arab world, so the Hajj would be a very different event. Not a lot of wealthy people spending money.

Many of the non-Arab Muslim countries are relatively poor.

Do not worry the American Tax Payer will bail them out

Saudi Arabia to Big to Fail

to paraphrase 'the bern'

Any entity that's 'too big to fail', is too big to exist.

I think that's one of the most sage comments made by a US politician since Eisenhower.

Saudi Arabia Could Go Bankrupt Within Five Years - IMF

Who would fund ISIS then.........................

I think you'll find IS and the Saudi Royals, don't quite get along.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8bba2ab4-2b00-11e5-8613-e7aedbb7bdb7.html#axzz3prD9QlC4

However, muslim media have found 92% of the Saudi rabble support IS style of governance and jihad!

Bankruptcy may be the least of their worries.

If WE had any smarts, we'd step aside and let the asrehats get on with it!

Then go in (as a coalition of the west, China & Russia) mop up, and divide it all between the big five global players and govern it EU style from Jerusalem.

I am moderate in all my ideas except that militant islam and fundamentalist Arab nations should be destroyed, utterly.

Yeap, Sow-Dee !

This on the other hand would be good news....................

Back to the desert, tents and goat herding while keeping the stove running on Camel dung.

But then, I am sure the imbecile Europeans will bail them out.

With what? Drachmas?

"Thailand is not the only country where big money makes people become absolute morons, but it must be said that their specific set of 'nouveau riche' behaviour puts them in the top ten list of the worst, right up there with Chinese millionaires and Russian mafia."

Honorable mention to those many thousands of unimpeachable <deleted> and hangers on... step forward the House of Saud!

Another nutter like Phil Spector and Oscar Pistorius.

You can expect laughing boy to get out in a year or two, if he gets sent down at all, only to blow someone away in the not too distant future.

This particular brand of gunslinger loonies can't help themselves.

They get ever more dangerous until somebody dies.

There's a glass bottomed bridge somewhere in China, it's very high up, they give walkers fabric overshoes to keep the glass nice, you would not get me near that for all the tea in China.

Below link has pictures and a story about a panel cracking, causing a mass panic. Nobody died.

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAUQjhxqFQoTCJuz67ft5MgCFQF5pgodbUEEQg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.elitereaders.com%2Fchina-glass-bridge-cracks-breaks-tourists-scream-stampede%2F&psig=AFQjCNHofaUDZtamj7kWwPngY0su0uwp7Q&ust=1446110939566900

I wonder how she paid for her taxi.

"Ass, gas, or grass, no one rides free!"

Remember the old T shirt?

Of course Public Authorities will try to make her appear mentally deranged, so there is some explanation. Things like this are simply not supposed to happen! A murder in the dark, who cares... but a girl walking naked in the streets, Oh my God!

I get your point about the law, but in all seriousness, my money says she is likely to be mentally ill. Hopefully she will end up in protective custody until she gets repatriated, instead of being tossed in jail with the real badsters. While her behaviour has been great for gags here, I do feel a bit for her situation, I wouldn't want any woman I know to have this happen to them.

She (as a Westerner OR an Asian) could have done the same thing in Berlin, Prague, Barcelona, hell London or Miami & it wouldn't be THAT big of a deal.

A blonde white girl does it in Thailand and it's the talk of the town.

I'm still trying to figure out who the victim of this crime is as well???.... OK, she could have caused a traffic accident I suppose.

Try doing it in Singapore and I'm sure she'll be jailed

Yawn! Yes, quite.

'Singabore' through and through... must be why I see so many amatuer young Singaporean sorts flashing their 'chee-bai' all over x-hamster these days.

Love will find a way, steven!

Probably she was just trolling for customers.

Beats the hell out of just trolling.

Except one can troll naked, but only in one's home.

Many years ago, 1979 to be exact, there was an blonde Australian girl who was in a bar with he Aussie boyfriend. on PatpongRoad.

She had to much to drink, and went up on stage to dance with some of the local bargirls who were topless (and sometimes a little more also).

She was being encouraged by her Aussie boyfriend to "take it off".... which she did, at least until she was also topless.

Went she went to go the final lap, to total nudity, the "Mamsan" who ran the bar turned off the lights on the dance stage and hustled the Aussie girl of the stage.

The Mamasan said that the police wouldn't let a young Farang girl dance totally nude on stage as he local police wouldn't allow it and she would lose her "license" to have "dancers" performing on stage.

Apparently, naked Thai female dancers were allowed, but a young Farang female dancing naked was forbidden.

I guess that went beyond the accepted limits then in Patpong. even in those days.

So, those of us watching never had a good answer tot he question, "Was she a "natural blonde or not"?

I didn't realise 'Go-Go Dancer' was on the list of farang restricted occupations?

Well there you go-go, you learn something new every day.

Any more pics of this chick?

ImageUploadedByThaivisa Connect1446021668.646933.jpg

Best Tinder Profile I've seen in LOS so far!

We still dont know what was the motive? being famous? or cool? maybe just a celebrity thing? or a feminist run off? who know maybe it was a social experiment how the people will react... she should have had some body paint or some Ad on her at least, anyway she looks a bit similar to the Lucy character from the movie kinda being lost nude in public after a brain reset or something

why didn't you forget the most probable reason - yaba? it's "ba" for a reason...

Yaba or ya-ice will do many things to a person, but stripping off and walking down the street is not one of them. If that were characteristic, half the people in every club in the world would dance nude.

Some designer drugs in enough quantities MAY do this, but since they're banned, nobody can do research, so we still don't know if these drugs, in scientific doses might even afford benefits to medical science.

This in turn means the public get their drug education from the tabloids, rather than the Lancet, and we get assumptions as per the above. 'Drugs m'bad mmm'kay!"

LSD has been found to cure cluster headaches, of course right now sufferers have to rely on inhaling expensive and near useless tanks of pure oxygen. There are many myths about LSD, and in fact it's safer than aspirin, if used responsibly.

In the classic sense LSD isn't a 'drug' by that I mean you can't 'fiend' on it like say, Cocaine. if you take LSD too soon after an initial dose, it does precisely... nothing. One needs to wait at least a week before any 'recreational' effect can be re-uptaken. If only alcohol were like that.

It was banned because Timothy Leary coupled with the powerful but temporary mind altering effect of the substance, scared the FBI shitless. Fearing a potential mass youth counterculture uprising, they simply shut down all research, and promptly scheduled, and there you have it.

Another reason current policy is arse backward.

PS: The US Govt has granted licences to selected Scientists to re-examine LSD as a medicine, there is a very interesting doco available on youtube about this development, including interviews with several senior LEO's on the legality of LSD and current policy.

Any more pics of this chick?

She's not Scarlet Johansson, but to say she's 'butt ugly' is a bit uncharitable, I wouldn't crawl over her to get to the guys who make that claim.

Girls just want to have fun!

Bless their hearts!

I recall seeing a thread a while back about some drunken-crazed male farang being caught naked in Pattaya, replete with blurred pictures just like this one.

Some hotel staff brought him a blanket and helped him back to his room. But if a woman does it??? OH NO!!!

I don't advocate this behavior, even though I have been to nudist clubs and beaches, but there seems to be a horrendous double standard.

She was outside Nana Plaza for Crissake, not parading thru some Catholic or Muslim 'Boys Only' school filled with 9 year kids.

But TiT for TAT.

There is no nudity, no prostitution or naughtiness, no gambling, no drug taking, no drinking.

People only come here to pat baby elephants (granted you can do that in some bars, but I digress) see temples, and snorkel at 'James Bond' island.

Nude people are evil and must be punished!

Nicking Nongs for nakedness at Nana is nuts.

Police traced her by following the Snail tracks,

my lord, are you 5?

Isn't 5 a bit young for a lord?

No wonder Hitler is so popular in Thailand, all the old Nazis moved here, Argentina was a decoy!

Well if we're fighting a war, the object is to win. So if we obliterate their cities, we win, plus no refugees!

There you go, two opposing views in one neat post, have fun with that, I'm unfollowing...

It's an oil war, people. Fracking of shale in the USA has changed America from an oil importer to an exporter.

The Saudi cost of production is less than $10 a barrel, and well depletion rates are low. The American cost of production is $40-$50 a barrel, and well depletion rates are high.

The Saudis are hoping to bankrupt American producers by overproduction, driving the price down to levels where US wells lose money. US wells are heavily indebted, so they are hoping the flow of fiat money at very low interest rates will continue.

Who will blink first? Good question. My money would be on the Saudis, not because I particularly like them, but because the only asset America has now is the acceptance of the greenback as the world reserve currency. There's only so much money a country can print before the rest of the world starts calling debt in.

bazza I was thinking about the dollar, and the debt, and the fed, etc etc.

Some of my nest egg is in gold, and the only way I can see gold improving is by the dollar collapsing, drastic to be sure.

What if China calls in its Treasuries? Will the fed will be rooted? Surely to repay that they'd need to print? With the dollar then dropping it could become a death spiral as they print more to pay china in dollars worth less each week?

What if China is accepted as a reserve currency then starts messing with rates and so forth to destabilise the dollar?

What if the Fed itself collapses under the weight of domestic debt in the trillions?

I don't know much about high finance, but these sums are just astronomical, how can they ever get the debt under control? Will they just write it off somehow?

I'm astonished that there has been no meltdown yet, the ECB is little better placed with the on again off again greek tragedy, it's all seemingly a on a knife-edge, but it just seems to get forgotten until the next 'scare'.

Do you think it's possible there even will be such a catastrophic event as a direct result of this situation in the near future and how do you think it will play out?

All other posters are welcome to add their thoughts, on the demise of the dollar and the western banking system as we know it, what do ya reckon guys?

Be kind gentlemen, I never claimed finance was my major, so if I'm talking out my ass, realise I'm ASKING not STATING anything above as a fact, i have no idea to be honest!

If it's too good to be true...

Maybe Russia or China will 'glass' them seeing as Uncle Sam prefers to fellate them.

We can but hope.

I always have enough for a month!

It's a bit of an initial expense, but it's then just a matter of adding a case as needed, and rotating the stock, as it were.

Why a month?

Earthquakes, floods, decrees, yes, mainly, the decrees, just like this one.

I expect more as time passes.

Perhaps not even being allowed to drink it for a while, never mind buy it!

PS: I left lots of spaces so savvy expats could read between the lines.

So even hotels are not allowed to sell alcohol today?

Why does this come under the Department of Disease Control?

Because religion is a virus that infects the mind and makes people think they have a kind (or murderous, it depends on the day) uncle sitting in Felix Baumgartner's balloon who gives a 'Shiite'.