plachon

I'm all for draconian censorship, early closing hours for websites, keeping the riff-raff and impressionable youth out of such elite forums for the old skool, as this one Tuts! Just call me "Tok-sin" Plachon for short and we'll have floggings at dawn for miscreants and dissenters on Sanam Luang before I've finshed my term of office. Who needs "freedom" anyway? A quaint notion, only cherished by those born on the wrong side of the Atlantic and birds of a feather.

The Elite Card was a wonderful idea dreamt up by Prime Minister Taskin, but unfortunately the implementation of the card has suffered on account of inexperienced staff work by political appointees. I am confident that if the Prime Minister had the time to design  the scheme himself, it would have been a great success.

My advice is to either get the thing rolling in the next 90 days or kill it. Of course, full refunds must be given to the current card holders.

They acted on the concept without any planning whatsoever, and made policies on the run. Doomed from the outset.

Sounds like the entire TRT regime to me. "Foot in mouth " disease is endemic with this lot. How can you run a country where only one person is allowed to have any ideas?

Hey, Khun Pawana Chanpong. This is hilarious.

You run your business, and once going smoothly, the resp. lady runs away with all your money. Happened twice already.

Now give me a break, you want to sell your negative experience to make out positive?

Can you introduce me to one (or both) of the ladies who run away with your money? I think they do have brains.

C'mon Axel - the guy's a born genius at making money and love! He deserves a break in Malaysia, after all that poop hitting the proverbial fan of life.

5. More honest people, the Thais although they might not steal your motorcycle helmet are terribly dishonest, everything is a wall of lies, misinformation and double pricing and bull****. The women (of any age) are as bad as men for lies and untruths.

Who sez Syd? I've had 3 motorbike helmets nicked in the past year alone. I now can't leave it on the bike for fear of it not being there when I get back, which is a right pain in the butt for like going in the Post Office, disco, etc!

Yeah, it is a bit quiet down in the Scumclass cabins these days, eh? Even you've been a bit quiet Chon, like you caught a dose of the old clap or bird flu or summat, mate. What's been keeping you at bay, instead of kickin' red-necked arse left, right and centre? There's a new Oz dude, one "Gent", who's stepped into your shoes in the Bear Pit and likes a good scrap with the opposition and our Gallic friends, who are always happy to share a round of Cab-Sauvignon, when the Pit gets to heavy. Sante et salut! Axel is as steady-eddy as ever, but Kwiz seems to have faltered at the last furlong. Wonder if he still thinks we're one and the same?

you still dont get it do you Georgie Boy - you are funny though.

You have nothing of importance/wisdom/facts to post about - it is only going the same way, it always goes - I post, you react - thats it!

There is nothing left to talk about , you are part of small minority of people who cant see through the smoke and mirrors - that comes down to your political education - we will see how things transpire in Iraq and now and again I will give you an update - I can now see, it is going to take some time

I honestly don't think he's part of a small minority that have no idea that the wool is being pulled over their eyes, by their govt. There's a massive great majority in the US like him. But the small minority he is a part of is the one that has a reasonable level of literacy, and yet still think the Bush admin. can not only do no wrong., but is also under the impression that any verbal attack on it, is an attack against the whole nation. So he has set himself up as a one man crusade against anyone who so much as mentions Bush, the Republicans, US foreign policy and it's implications to world stability and peace in the same email/letter/breath. For that, we can only sympathise with his misplaced loyalty and laugh at his tenacity to not let go of the rag, even when the rest of the puppies are breaking their teeth on new bits of furniture or lying quietly in their baskets.

I got bored of the circularity of the argument long ago, but he does have a habit of popping up unannounced like a breath of stale air, so it's still not time to call it a day. got a feeling, the matter won't be resolved until a/ Bush decides to withdraw from Iraq due to pressure from home (HIGHLY UNLIKELY) or b/ he gets beaten in the Presidential elections (GETTING MORE LIKELY BY THE DAY).

Thanks for the advice guys. It's what I suspected, though the amount of interest earned on any UK or offshore a/c these days is so minimal as to be not to be more than a piss in a pot. But, if I decided to open an offshore account, can anyone give any impartial recommendations of the choices available for a savings-based a/c, with an idea of yearly charges. I've already checked HSBC's website, but what about the others?

If I'm classified as a Non-resident in UK, then i want to transfer some foreign earnings back to a UK bank a/c, is it liable to tax as income?

Watching 3 girls ride a moped, one side saddle and one bunched up at the front and all with gorgeous legs and faces (and none with a helmet to protect their lovely heads, but we won't mention that).

Sitting and stuffing your face with khao tom at 4.00 am after a mega-sesh and getting back home just as the monks are filing out on their alms round.

Wandering up and down the night market stalls and wondering which of the 500 hundred types of food you're going to sample.

Watching an Isaan festival parade where everyone is having a good time without exception and you can just about put up with the obnoxious drunk in your face, saying "whiskey Thai, you drink me".

Being remembered by someone you met briefly 5 years ago and long forgotten, but they can remember every detail as if it was yesterday.

Aye, it can be a bloody lovely place on occasions.

Chamlong needs to bring out some of the products of his "leadership school" and see what they have to say for themselves.

It was Chamlong that brought Dear Leader into politics. Can't see him introducing a potential rival to his protege.

I'm well aware that Tox got in to parliament first time round on the shirt-tails of the Palang Dharma party and feigned interest in Chamlong's schemes, but once he set up TRT and got in as PM, he soon forgot all that mullarkey about prudent spending, self-sufficiency and strict self discipline a la Maha and was soon doing it his way, and his way alone. I think you'll find that there's not much love lost between the two these days, and Chamlong is probably rueing the day he allowed him & Sudie into the "Moral Forcers". Now they are a spent force in national politics, it would be interesting to know what the party faithful think of the present situation. (Maybe the midnight closing order was a concession to them?)

holy baloney rentoul...are you still pontificating...lets talk about Coleridge, De Quincy, Baudelaire and others for whom substances were assistance. In a previous life on acid I composed Les Fluers de mal but the man ripped of my effort.

Think about the personnel on 'Kind of Blue'...Miles, Coltrane and Bill Evans all stone junkies. Would it have been the same otherwise?

you maybe thought that I was dead but I ain't...

Tutsiwarrior

Holy-schmoley, if it ain't the old Tuts!!!! Where've you been mate? Thought maybe you were doing some time, like old Glenn here will be doing soon, for mebbe growing the wrong sort of grass round those duck/fish ponds of yours. Missed ya dude. The board too has missed your input and well timed wisecracks. I even put out a few calls for you to check in if you were reading without responding, somewhere out there in the ether, but to no avail. Even got to worrying that your good Missus caught you dabbling in another pond, and called in a flock of Muscovies. Figured you could be having reconstructive surgery, if not full-on reattachment! But, now you're here - WELCOME BACK!!!!!

There's some of the old faces and a lot of new. You'll soon learn which of your countrymen are letting down the side something chronic and which are a tribute to the Stars n' Stripes. Get down to that all new Bear Pit as soon as you dare Tuts., there's fresh, live meat for the tearing (and occasional guest appearances by our old buddy, Mr V). But no sign of the incomparable Bud Zumwalt. He should be due back just about now for his latest nose job. Or I forget, was he only here for the blow jobs?

plachon, you left here with your tail between your legs weeks ago.

We'll let Membrane call the contest.

He's got some pride left; He's much more impartial.

HAHAHAHA! That just shows what an observant fellow you are. I haven't been anywhere, just observing that you continue to get a drubbing on a daily basis by The Gentleman and others and STILL don't get the message. Not even part of it! It would be sad, if it wasn't so darn funny. You're a glutton for it Lardarse!

plachon, couldn't agree more with your last post, and it makes me really sad to hear the trends i have observed are apparently country-wide.

these people will realize their mistakes when their kids send them off to retirement homes (ask a thai what they think of these establishments, or the concept of not staying close to your own family in old age).

this is of course unless educators succeed in instilling the "healthy" fear of ancestral ghost revenge in the youngsters (according to a pasted news clipping in a previous post by George, although it was then being used to stop kids from having premarital sex and smoking drugs).

my advice to remedy this:

give a hoot. now.

The "retirement homes" will be strictly for those that can afford to pay for them, which I suspect will be considerably less than 50 % of the popn. For the rest, when they decide to abandon their parents/grandparents, it's either a life of utter poverty at home, or ditto, but a few square meals a day at the temple. But again, this begs the question, how much longer has the admirable practice of donating food to monks going to endure? I see less and less people lining up by the roadside on a daily basis, during my early morning rounds, and the average age of those who do, increasing gradually. So, either there is going to have to be a massive swing back to traditional Buddhist practice (unlikely, when even young orange robes are packing out games rooms to have their turn at Ragnarok) OR, there is going to have to be a massive rearrangement of the national budget to support the abandoned elderly.

Yes, I agree, give a hoot now, if you love this country.

At the moment, Thai politics is noteworthy for the fact that there is NO heir apparent waiting in the wings to replace the incumbent jester. Things might have been different, had the Democrats voted in Abhisit as their leader, who MIGHT have given Tox a good run for his money in a well orchestrated campaign, and isn't tainted with the whiff of mega-corruption. But this is all academic, as they chose another Chuan-clone, who will um and ar and krapom his way into eventual obscurity. Chamlong needs to bring out some of the products of his "leadership school" and see what they have to say for themselves.

This has been even better than the Chonabot vs Mr Vietnam handbags at dawn showdown last year. In that bruiser the final result was UK 8.5 : US 3.0. In this G-P vs OZ Battle of the TITians, my panel of expert judges has posted up scores of OZ 8.0 to US 2.5. (DISCLAIMER -I make no apologies for an impartial judiciary).

The conclusions are clear - that some people, if not some nations, would be better off brushing up on their facts, keyboard manners and learn to listen a bit to other's viewpoints, before entering arenas where they are clearly unprepared to swing their handbag, no matter how much McLard may be behind it. Good day gentlemen.

Mooh-hah-hah-hah-haaaaaaaah.

That is very, very sad news. As if Thai people would need urging to believe in ghosts?

Fear breeds fear breeds violence... but stops people from breeding?

I thought ancestral spirit worship was more connected to Chinese culture than traditional Thai beliefs - except for up here in the north, that is. Not that most Thais I know would care if it's Thai or not, as long as the children are scared into pleasing and obeying their elders.

This is one scary idea that doesn't appear to have the PM's fingerprints all over it. Doesn't quite gel with his stated ambitions of turning Thailand into an "information based society" using cutting edged technology in every school. Or perhaps Shin Corp now sells patented "ghostbuster" mobiles to the non-impressionable youth on the sois? "Guaranteed to keep all pi's at bay, yaa baa in Burma and the knickers on teenage girls if used frequently"

Tou must be logged on in order to reach the Bear Pit forum!

Members only area!

I was logged on yesterday George, or at least thought I was - how else could I post a question? Still, mai pen rai, found the Bear Pit today but was almost scared off by the bilious anti-Ozzie sentiment emanating from certain quarters. Still, those guys from down-under are quite able to look after themselves, even if they did lose the Rugby World cup to a mere bunch of poms. Not so sure about the vocal little minority, who dare to pour petrol on the embers of their own sorry demise into has been neo-colonialists.

Yes, it is primarily the lack of parental guidance, even interest in their kids development, plus poor role models around them that is at the heart of the problem, but continuously playing extremely violent and graphic, will not be doing little Somchai's mind much good, either. I don't doubt for a minute that European, American and other kids around the world are also playing these kind of games at younger and younger ages, but its only Thai 4 and 5 year old boys and girls that I see "abandoned/pacified" by their parents in front of Ragnarok, Laghaim, etc.

Our neighbour's little boy doesn't play video games (yet), but is functionally unable to speak the most simple of sentences at age 4, is prone to temper tantrums and has a violent nature. It's taken us a year to try to persuade him that throwing sand in other children's faces is not the way to go. Other mitigating factors: his father, (when around, which is rare) is totally disinterested in him and his mother leaves the TV on all day for him, while she sleeps (she has a night job). I don't think this scenario is that unusual in Thailand these days and wonder what the future for this "lost" generation holds 10 - 15 years from now?

Yes, Axel, you are reading for "free" up to a point, but like being handed a freebie newspaper in a European city, the publishers make their money from the advertisers, whose products and services you are then tempted to buy whilst trying to filter out some "news". There's no such thing as a "free lunch", but there are many convenient and open-access websites offering "free" news on SE Asia and the world, which the Post and their advertisers would do well to remember. I'm just using Thaivisa for local news and BBC/Guardian for UK / global news more now. Problem solved.

I've scrolled up, down, sideways and every which way, but no sign of that darn bearpit at true bottom or elsewhere. Perhaps there's a false bottom, you're not revealing IT? The bears are getting restless and the chains are starting to fray..............

I didn't even bother trying to register for the Post, as they did this without any consultation or pre-warning, as if readers' loyalty and opinions mean nothing to the autocratic suits on high in Post Publishing (revoltingly snuggled up close to the TRT gods, if you ask me). But I suspect, their real motive behind this move is to try and reverse flagging sales of the hard edition, by making it so hard to log on and register locally, that they imagine people will start paying 20 baht again on the newstands. Wrong dudes, at least as far as I'm concerned. They also, no doubt, want to use the opportunity of registering to "share" the details of subscribers with other commercial organisations who are often willing to pay top dollar for reader's email addresses to spam them. Was there any specific clause protecting subscribers from this loathsome practice?

At least it makes a change from slippery balcony syndrome from Fawlty Towers, getting fatally twisted up in the phone flex or a good ol' viagra overdose. PSSSST. But just don't tell the tourists.

please get some young people into the government and modernise thailand because we love this country.

fatty (egg head)

This is the "youngest" govt. Thailand has ever had, both literally in average age of cabinet members and now, it seems figuratively, in the way they have tackled this avian flu crisis. Unfortunately for the opposition Democrat Party, who recently elected a new party leader, they opted for age over youth, and effectively minimised their chances of presenting a promising option to the electorate in the form of Khun Abhisit. And most people would have to agree that Thaksin has "modernised" the country in every field, apart from governance.

Whilst I realise it may have slipped the attention of some members, I rarely, and the other admins less so, delete postings, close threads, or delete topics which go against our personal views.

I would request ALL members to please refrain from suggesting, implying or stating up-front, that just because an admin doesn't like the content of a thread, it is likely to be deleted, unless it goes against the terms of service. This applies to all members, irregardless of their faith, politics or orientation. We actually take the job of admin quite seriously.

I would beg to differ about this IT. Whilst you are a pretty fair adjudicator most of the time, there is one Administrator who has quite frequently deleted posts of mine with no comment (but one rather strange PM threat), as they seem to run against his delicate constitution. I have a little notion too that he is a good part of the reason why so many other formerly regular, entertaining, illuminating and prolific posters just seem to drift away into the ether without a murmur. Could be wrong, but these days there's so few of the old faces left to check with.

Even old Chonabot seems to have done a runner. What is this site coming too? Glad to see that Rinrada and Lopburi 3 are still around and as sage as ever.

They say that prune juice would really help with plachon's condition.

Is that honestly the best you can do G-P on this thread? You wouldn't happen to have a slight chip on your shoulder, the size of a FELLED American redwood, would you?