mfd101

Here in Prasat sth Surin we received this afternoon in 45 minutes more rain than we have had since last October. So the monsoon has at last begun here. For the last month before this we have received an occasional few drops, a light & brief shower 2 or 3 times, but not enough to give more than a few patches of brown earth a slight greenish look. A kind of aspirational lawn. Here are 3 photos from my library:

To describe the new Pope as 'woke' would be ridiculous. He is a cautious conservative with a deep social conscience. Nothing 'woke' there.

Exemplary punishments may mark a turn for the better in the whole Thai construction business ... Well, there's always hope.

Mmmm, I wonder ... More than that, I wonder who was the clever monkey that invented a voting system so complex that no reasonable person (not even me!) could understand it.

While the US Administration is clearly the source of the current round of self-defeating nonsense, any country - such as Oz - that has been the victim of Chinese trade bullying in recent years would laugh cynically at Chinese moral posturing.

The main thing that's missing on the Russian side is military competence. And no sign of it improving. Au contraire. As opposed to the Ukrainian side which, despite terrible constraints of resources of all kinds, continues to go from strength to strength tactically, technologically & strategically. Astonishing all round.

"Putin expresses hope" ... No, actually he's just done again what he does regularly, but slightly more blunt this time: "Putin threatens to use nuclear weapons if Ukraine doesn't immediately stop beating his incompetent armed forces in the field."

Solar panels?

Yes, even my strongly pro-ALP friends in Canberra recognised that.

(1) The CSIRO report has been criticised as inaccurate in various ways, both relating to the costs of small modular reactors and as to the total costs of renewables. Basically it doesn't compare like with like. I have no independent view of the matter (beyond irritability generated from irrational anti-nuclearism); (2) Agree. It seemed like an interesting idea when Morrison came up with it, but that was before everyone began learning lessons - still continuing on a daily basis - from the Ukraine war. Even Australian industry is capable of building drones, but the notion of them - even way way down the track - building nuclear submarines is ridiculous. Can't even maintain our pathetic handful of subs & frigates ... (3) GST is a good tax because of its efficiency & basic unescapability. Its regressive nature is easily countered by raising the tax-free threshold from the current c$19000 to say $28000 or even more: poor people greatly benefit and can take responsibility for how they spend the extra money in their pockets; as can the middle classes; and the rich won't even notice.

I expect that the lunatic Climate Change & Energy Minister in the Albanese guvmint (or his successor in that role) will be undertaking an urgent study tour to the Iberian Peninsula.

And so Oz continues its slow decline into mediocrity. Which - sadly - would have been little different if Dutton had won. Which is why he didn't. (Wodda we get from you that's any different from Albo?) The challenge now is for the Liberals to find a new strong leader who can form & articulate sensible right-of-centre policy, including reducing expenditure (WAY out of control under Labour, though it was heading that way already under the Morrison government), reform the tax system (inter alia increase GST to 15%), a more focussed welfare state (sigh!), MAJOR effort to lift productivity across the economy, new focus on a post-Trump world of trade competition, focussed Defence policy (eg Oz-made drones, instead of just arm waving) & rethinking/refocussing the AUKUS alliance, and a more sensible - reality-based! - energy transition that includes nuclear-generated as well as gas ... And on & on. For the last 3+ years Oz has been slowly sliding down the international comparative performance measures (eg GDP per capita - used to be in the top 4 or 5, now way down the list). It's not the Albanese guvmint that's going to do the job. And, after this debacle, the Libs may take 6 or more years to recover ...

Nonsense & poppycock. The Liberal Party - at least since John Howard - is about 6 inches to the right of the Labour Party (which is about 6 inches to the left of centre). And both parties are WAY to the left of Usofan Democrats ... Dutton lost for personality reasons and because he was - despite LOOKING strong - too weak to produce sensible rightwing policies that would have differentiated the Liberals from Labour. The one exception being his weak & under-detailed proposal for nuclear-generated electricity. He didn't have the strength to push for strong new economic & financial policies and his pro-Defence ideas were weak and badly sold. And he had next-to-no support from his team - no ideas, no decent articulation of policy. His economic/finance spokesman was weak & all-but-invisible.

Yawn. Just another day in Oz. And getting to vote for either of 2 lots of mediocrities unable to manage anything larger than a packet of chips.

Too much sugar and sawdust, not enough coffee beans.

Hope they're checking the construction beams.

Corruption 360 in all directions. All possibilities covered.

Well fine. But on that basis there's no hope for Thailand ever to grow in to a fully-fledged corruption-free democracy.

Sorry, my brakes failed.

No mention of the real issue, namely that probably at least 30% of parents throughout Thailand have no financial means to buy the ludicrous uniforms currently required.

Some things just leave a sensible Westerner entirely perplexed ... Or is that an AI-generated sentence? so expecting common sense would be foolish.

Given that the only (permissible) alternative is military rule, the Shinawatras are the better choice. As for the People's Party (or whatever it's called this week), we shall see after the next election. If The People were to vote in overwhelming numbers for them (at this stage unlikely), that might be difficult for the no-change establishment to overthrow (at least for the first 6 months) ...

Wikipedia has an article - 'Automotive Industry in Thailand' - well worth reading as background up to 2023 for those interested.

Tourist behaviour on crack ⇒ Tourist behaviour crackdown

With the photo as it is you can't make a judgment either way.