mfd101

Western concepts like 'productivity' or 'efficiency' or 'planning' or 'safety' or 'precision' all change their meaning when they cross the border into Thailand.

1 hour ago, Venom said:

The key words are "new normal" with the objective to repeat them as often as possible. The message is that there's no going back, the future of mankind is this "new normal" and everyone should accept this premise, and get used to it. 

Which, on the whole, seems perfectly sensible.

I had a SIL with some internal problems that needed fixing so she went to the village witchdoctor who breathed in her ear while muttering her incantations. I still got to pay for a major operation at a private hospital a few weeks later but it wasn't cancer so obviously the witchdoctor's work worked.

Looks more like a church than anything one would want to live in. Inappropriate spirits for Prayut, I would guess.

Oh dear. We were planning a trip to Loei in January. Perhaps we'd better stay home!

16 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

Why impractical? they have all the elements of a normal suit of clothes you would wear in an office, jacket, trousers, waist coat etc. No you wouldn't wear it on a building site or on a production line but you wouldn't wear a modern suit there either. The style is elegant, yes and classy because we aren't used to seeing it, certainly a little dramatic perhaps but above all not boring.

As for the girls (or indeed the boys), the clothes would be hard to get out of in a hurry (particularly when hard), and harder still to get back into. ????

Firing squad at dawn for clients and owners/exploiters. Public whipping for the workers.

Well, the girls always love gays ("Why are all the best men gay?") - because they're non-threatening.

As to the clothes, they would look OK if everyone - or at least every upper crusty male - was wearing them. But, as that suggests, they are entirely impractical in the modern world where egalitarianism and work competence are actually required of most people most of the time. These clothes are (and were 200 years ago) the clothes and the symbols of rich & leisured people.

I wonder what will happen when, one day, 20 million Chinese tourists simply refuse to leave when their visas run out. And - horror of horrors! - they refuse to do their 90-day report!

Yes, hypocrisy writ large. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

We do need to remember, when we comment on the dreams of the TAT bureaucrats that, when we Westerners use the word 'tourists' we mostly mean 'Western tourists', but when the bureaucrats use the word 'tourists' they mostly mean 'Chinese tourists'.

You need to be healthy before you run for health ...

23 hours ago, VIPinLanna said:

In the US the Pfizer vaccine is now being shipped in large quantities according to news reports.

This would be astonishing if true. As of 2 or 3 weeks ago when the 2 US companies' initial results came out, both - but particularly Pfizer's - required something like -70C temperatures at all times till a few hours before use, and NO US hospital or clinic had the facilities to sustain that.

Still, anything can happen in Trump's US.

2 hours ago, Kerryd said:

Prisoner Transfer agreements between countries are common and these kinds of transfers happen all the time. Most of the time you never hear about them because they are not noteworthy.

Which is all very interesting but irrelevant in the present instance.

Contrary to what the honourable gentleman from the Thai Justice Ministry suggested, this is NOT a two-way prisoner deal or swap or normal transfer agreement. Any half-decent 'Western' newspaper has carried the complicated 3-way details over the last 2 or 3 days, as far as they can be known. The Australian has had quite a lot, not surprisingly, also Le Monde and NY Times.

And if you believe that, there is no help for you.

These people don't even pretend. And don't feel the need to.

One day it will end in violent revolution, and all because the 5% who take 95% of everything didn't want to give up even the slightest littlest crumb. Disgusting.