mfd101

We just kill a porker on the farm. The extended family stands around waiting to get their preferred bits.

Will there have to be a national referendum?

So, people are still surprised that the Chinese can produce anything of quality & high tech? Wake up, people. The world as you knew it has mostly disappeared.

Yes, lovely I thought. Certainly won't run out of water 40 metres down next drought season (not that we ever have).

True, but a post-dinosaur government that was even vaguely competent would have paid advisers to cover every inch of the highway so there could be no legal challenges constitutional or otherwise.

Productivity is the key concept, unfortunately unknown in Thailand as far as I can tell. So, fewer numbers (sack 30% of them or freeze then reduce recruitment by 30%) and require increased USEFUL outputs by adopting concepts of efficiency (input/output ratios) and outcomes, with pay levels set accordingly. Uniforms abolished: Not required in a modern egalitarian society where the job of civil servants is to serve the populace ... Yes, I know, but I'm allowed to dream in my old age. Besides, I know of what I speak. I spent most of my working life in the Canberra federal bureaucracy, and most of that in the Department of Defence. Enough to give anyone nightmares.

Could be any one of us one day.

I should have thought that would be a useful improvement. Don't forget we have to deal here not just with corrupt politicians but also with ahem um corrupt judges.

Mmmm, but I think that to rerun the Senate election on a proper democratic process (ie the people get to vote) would require the dinosaur-designed Constitution to be redesigned. Which is probably - at this stage - impossible. In any case, removing the 7 EC guys will be a key move in the right direction, if it actually happens. And if it does, what's the next step? Fascinating Thailand. As ever.

Having 4 feet (ie walking on all 4s) probably helps.

Ha ha. When I took my b/f (Surin Khmer) to Siem Reap several years ago (his first time in Cambodia) he was rather shy for a couple of days and only slowly realized he could understand at least 50% of the locals' speech and gradually got up courage to chat with them ... What struck me - both times I've been there - was the number of beggars on the street and their persistence. Plus the usual tourists-only scams.

Yawn. Is there a middle-aged person anywhere in the whole world who hasn't done at some stage in their life - and usually many stages - something embarrassing, stupid, ridiculous, vile or appalling?

Have just replaced our Daikins (only 7 years old) throughout our 2-storey home with Mitsubishi. So far the Ms are magnificent - very effective, very quiet. The Ds - despite cleaning & constant checking by professionals - started about a year ago switching themselves off after 1-to-30 minutes. At first we managed to live with them by switching off at the power board, then on etc . But gradually nothing worked any more, for reasons unknown. So we ditched them just a few days ago.

Um, I thought that's what the Veep's job is - to do nothing. Just wait for the Pres to die or otherwise move on ...

When & if that ever happens, it will be a HUGE step forward for pollution reduction, safety on the roads and efficient use of transport systems.

An impressive woman. Fascinating to watch her operate.

Yes, and it wasn't a high peak to start with.

Whether more detail on policies would be political suicide is debatable. Most people will see her only on an electronic screen. What mostly counts there is impressionistic - their view of the human being on display. The detail of policies is - mostly - for the nerds to sweat over before coming up with a counter-slogan. In any case, so far she has scarcely put a foot wrong (unlike her opponent who steps in it every day). If she can continue to manoeuvre around policies without losing herself in the detail, she's probably on a winner. We'll all know soon enough.

That has NOT been the experience of the last 2 months, as every poll in Usofa amply demonstrates. What the polls also suggest is that many people would like her to open her mouth more so that they can have a better understanding of her & her thinking.

I did a transfer from Aus$ on Wednesday and the Long Stay reason had disappeared, much to my alarm. Then I realized I was already well over the 65K฿ minimum so not to worry for this month at least. So I decided on 'Rent or other property expenses' just to see what would happen - and it came out as foreign origin as usual in my BKK bank account.

People who use the word 'liberal' to mean 'Lefty' or 'Marxist' are WEIRD. 100% of the time.

Well, unless that represents a major change in the setup for long-term stays? No announcement that I've seen. My O/A retirement visa hasn't changed in the 8 years I've had it and there's nothing there about '5 years'! Just an annual renewal (for me next month), involving trudging around from bank to medical office and on & on. And, in my case, minimum 65K฿ imported every month.

That is of course rubbish. Mixing up 2 different things.

The thing about 'hierarchy' and 'equality' is that, ironically, you need both. Hierarchy follows from the fact that you can't govern a country of 70+ million people without 'organisation' and 'administration'. There's always going to be 'leaders' of one kind or another and at various levels, and - in modern mass societies - millions of 'followers'. It can't in PRACTICAL terms be otherwise. The nearest countries to reconcile the 2 in reasonable ways are small-but-modern countries like the Scandinavians or the Netherlands or NZ. And in Australia's case, lucky to have both a strongly egalitarian culture (traceable back to settlement by convicts) and great wealth. The issue is how the 'leaders' become and remain leaders and how they are moved on when their time is up. In countries where all power is narrowly concentrated at or near the top of a hierarchy, force is usually the only means of moving people on. As to the MORAL aspects, 'equality before the law' is the basic concept. This works well in modern countries but is always subject to traditional cultural attitudes (ie who is a 'better' or 'more valued' person than another and for what reason). Thus 'snobbery' or 'class consciousness' remains strong in some otherwise modern monarchies (UK obviously), and obsession with wealth (eg Usofa) is a modern blight on egalitarian concepts. Of the 4 countries you cite above, only India has much resemblance in all of this to Thailand, and that because of the caste system - that is, an unmoveable classificatory system having no useful bearing on quality or skills or anything else. In that it resembles also the UK. China however is different, because its founding ideology is one of equality for all, but the PRACTICAL problem of running a nation of over 1 billion people means that a ruling class gradually forms and perpetuates itself (lots of sons of famous fathers) and, through corruption, begins to misuse & steal the nation's wealth. There are no simple answers. Just lots of blood, sweat & tears.

Yes but it's more than that. It's about how you structure your society (eg hierarchy & how you organize it) and the general concepts of morality that go with that (eg equality of all vs hierarchy of status & power).