mfd101

Political corruption & cynicism on one side of the frontier does not imply virtue on the other side.

Yes. We arrived back from 11 days in Bangers last night to our home in Prasat Surin. Brother-in-law picked us up at Buriram airport, surrounded as we were by many swanky bemedalled uniforms & snappy salutes (though not actually aimed at us). House here still in one piece. Woke at 0600 this morning to the first guns going off - distant at first but seem to be getting closer as the house gets a bit of a shake each time. Outgoing, I think. Only BIL & FIL left at the family farm in Khok Salaeng (Phanom Dong Rak), the rest now distributed around most of Surin. Last time we had half a dozen here spread across the living room floor ...

Sad, really. And on display for all the neighbours. And this is a country that wants to be taken seriously! No wonder even the incompetent little Cambodgies feel able to p..s over the frontier whenever they feel like it.

As the drone flies? [It takes us max. 2.5 hours to get from Prasat Surin to Buriram airport - 2 hours if my b/f is driving.] According to Google maps the distance by road varies between 149km, 159km & 165km depending on the route chosen

No. Dissolution of the Parliament about now & calling an election was the People's Party's condition for Anutin forming a government. Recent polls had the P'sP around 30% and all others around 10% or less. Which should mean that the P'sP gets first go at forming a government post-election, but it will then lose out to most of the others ganging up on it ...

So, dear Hun Manet, why have rockets from peace-loving Cambodia been raining down on my town (Prasat Surin) and on my partner's home village & hospital (Phanom Dong Rak) for the last several days?

What's in it for Cambodia? Nothing except death & destruction. What's in it for Hun Sen? That's a different matter.

I & my partner are in BKK currently. Hoping that our home in Prasat Surin will still be standing when we return at the end of this week. Currently Cambodian artillery & rockets are raining down in that area and in our home village in Phanom Dong Rak. Hoping the Thai army & air force will finish the job properly this time.

His problem is that the pre-communist empire of the C19th & early C20th has been lost, and he wants it back ... Not just Ukraine but Belarus (temporarily in his pocket but no longer regarded as part of the Russian empire), the 3 Baltics, parts of Finland or preferably the lot, and the 5 stans (Kazakh, Uzbek, Tajik, Kygyrz, Turkmen - all conquered in the C19th). Then there's the Far East rapidly being infiltrated by millions of Chinese settlers and tradespersons - never to be restored to Russian rule if the Chinese imperialists in Beijing have anything to do with it. So, lots to be going on with, and his first sally isn't exactly progressing as planned.

Many reports over the last few days that the Kremlin circles are breaking up, senior members arrested for conspiring against Putin, a Russian general defected to Ukraine, major tactical-level Russian losses on the battlefield ... While it's hard to assess the truth of such reports, it's not obvious that Ukraine is losing this war.

A minor clash (of which there will be more as nervous soldiers finger their weapons) with carefully organized overreactions on both sides: Hun Sen & his boy need tensions to remain high to preserve their wunnerful guvamint, and Anutin & the Thai military are anxious about the likely upcoming election in February or March. Same answer on both sides: Maintain tensions and keep the peasants on the move after every little clash.

Arrived here in Asoke yesterday from Surin, for 11 days holiday. Can't say we've noticed the pollution yet (but we did arrive around 1900 yesterday after a delayed flight). For us, Bangers is our second home. We always have a sense of excitement & 'return' when we arrive. I don't suppose the pollution will change that, only the waves from the Gulf of Thailand in about 30 years.

Much the same as the Oz SAS post-Afghan charges.

What other outcome would anyone expect given the state of Thailand's education and political systems? Compare them with China's equivalents ...

Abhisit the Ever-Hopeful.

Interesting concept for a 3rd & 2nd-world country: 'rising xrate' = 'good performance'.

Been in the 30s here in south Surin for the last 4 or 5 days.

Letters from Oz to here in south Surin take anything from 2 weeks to 2 months to arrive. Very difficult to get some organisations - banks in particular - to do business by email ...

And here was I thinking that Lukashenko's own regime is looking shaky. If that were true I doubt he'ld be flying all the way to Myanmar ... Unless he were surveying the territory as a possible refuge for if 'n when. Which would suggest he's off his rocker. Mmmmm.

Hadn't even thought of that! Must try it (though at night I have my b/f). Here in south Surin it's lovely today because no wind. So 18C is fine. Not so fine the previous 2 weeks or so with gale-force winds. We're heading to Bangers next week for a few days, where it's almost invariably 2 or 3 or 4 degrees warmer at any time of the day or night than it is here.

Same in Australia. Cheap land for poorer people to build on ...

First response to public display of long-term institutional incompetence: Find a scapegoat.

How to make friends and influence people.

Well, that doesn't help when the government defensive actions should have been taken months or years ago ...

The trouble - for members of the public - is to be able to distinguish between serious evidence-based warnings and populist hysteria. The current business re 3I/Atlas is another example. And the Trumpist guvamint. The question is: Who do we trust? And on what basis?