Choscura

I'm not terribly worried about this giving the thai authorities ideas. they're generally so wrapped up getting other people to wrap up around their dongles that they barely notice if their pants are on fire, much less if some whacky whiteys are making a joke. or at least this certainly seems to be the case when you look at the news.

this was wonderful. I got a bunch of friends/family to kneejerk also.

it takes a pretty messed up head to have this kind of idea and then be willing to go through with it- especially with a stranger.

worst case scenario, he wishes he was dead by next week, and wishing for something you can't have makes it all the better. the thai inmates are gonna have FUN with him.

I can see all the missionary/expat kids are going to be suddenly making a lot more friends soon, at least when it's time to buy alcohol. nobody here cards them. it's kind of funny to watch, and to see what they are able to get away with.

overall, I'd say this is a good thing, though. when I was growing up and going through those painful teen years, my dad made a deal with me: I could drink as much as I want at home and nothing anywhere else. it meant that I wasn't able to get into fights or into trouble with the police/authorities and still say to the kidiots in every high school "you call THAT wasted?". it also meant that I got looked after by someone who actually cared and would (probably ) be sober and able to handle anything I did. that was a worthwhile system. the current thai situation of 15-16 year olds passing a bottle of XXX whiskey or a few bottles of beer around in front of an internet cafe before they hop on their little scooters and ride off to school doesn't work nearly as well. social it may be- intelligent it isn't.

and while I'm at it, why don't they crack down on drunk driving as well? heavy fines and jail time- to *all* offenders- would put a stop to a good deal of it- and with the fines, the police would have an incentive to actually make arrests. I can't count the cracked-open skulls I've seen all over just chiang mai because of stupid people driving while drunk. the thai driving habits may be insane, stupid, laughable, obnoxious, and any other adjective you can think of besides 'good' (or anything really positive), but driving while drunk? seriously. come on.

I'm done now.

there are few things as phenomenally stupid as setting a brush fire and then ignoring it when it gets to your property line. I don't care who started. I just want to see this finished.

maybe perpetrators should have their homes set on fire by their neighbors while they're away at a seminar learning about fire control and management? it seems fitting, in a way...

edit: speeling

look, as far as I can tell, gun violence is linked to population. where theres a lot of people, theres a lot of violence with guns. in rural areas, I don't see the harm of having a gun to go plink with occasionally, or to shoot a rabid dog or a deer for food or whatever. poor and defenseless both those animals may be, they still aren't people and one is a threat and the other is food.

but, this is also thailand, and the police defense usually comes after somebody has died and involves comments like "wow, he's dead." "yep, he's dead alright." *prod prod* "yeah, that guy is dead." without asking too many questions other than "how much do you think the killer can bribe us not to look for him?" and "do you think he'd kill US if we tried looking for him?". my friends younger brother was shot by a gang here, and not one person has even been called in as a suspect yet because the police are too afraid (samauri gang). thai rak thai indeed.

I'm going to say this about gun control and then let it drop: there are two sides to the argument, the first says "we should keep the criminals from having guns so they have no advantage" and the second says "we should give everybody guns, not just criminals, so that the criminals have no advantage." so far, the criminals have guns and virtually nobody else. not much has been done to round these up, because the police only know where the ones the criminals don't have are.

thats it, please don't make a flame war out of this, all I wanted to know was what the options are for a recreational activity, and I got some good information out of this. if the mods close this thread now, I'll consider it a successful post.

thanks everybody.

I'd like a gun for the simple reason that I enjoy shooting. I'd like to think that theres some place, somewhere in thailand, that I can go hunting or even just shoot at paper targets *with my own firearm for the actual price of the ammunition, not the jacked-up tourist price*. another reason is that I'm fascinated by them as pieces of machinery (the same way some guys like cars) and enjoy maintaining and repairing them, and the gun laws seem like the easiest indication of whether or not I'd be allowed to do that. I'm not really worried about personal protection that much.

Thanks for the info, Peter. It's much appreciated.

I'm looking for real legal links or at least tips on where to start looking, not witty repartees. and no, you need say no more.

....children who make 20 visits to temples, churches or mosques selected to take part in the campaign....

ha!

hahahahahahahahaha!

like they're going to sponsor one of every type of religion here. no, they'll pick one small church, one mosque, and every buddhist temple, shrine, and spirit house in thailand- and if anybody complains? well, the offer is only for THAIS, so any foreign religion should be excluded... right?

pff.

I smile at other farangs for two reasons.

the thoughts behind the first reason are roughly "haha! tourist, what an idiot. he knows three words out of a badly-written tourism guide, and can't pronounce any of them. this should be fun to watch."

the second reason's thought process is roughly "haha! they've lived here for a while, they speak thai better than I do! good one, you got me! I thought you were a tourist!"

I'm looking for information on what the actual gun laws in thailand are. I've heard any range of things, from "not enforceable" to "easily planted *corrupt* arrest excuse", and would like to know what is legally allowed and what's not. asking police officers has just gotten a few people angry and a lot more laughs, and I'm not willing to ask any more since it isn't taken seriously (wait, TIT).

thanks in advance.

I'd say this sounds like a hit also.

I'd reccomend the 150cc honda cbr. you can get a used one for a good price (I just sold mine for 30,000, you can get them cheaper), they're good reliable bikes, the only reason I sold mine was that I don't have enough money to have 2 bikes and I need to go long distances sometimes (about 4-600 km at a stretch). it'll support your weight and your wife no problem, the handling is good, never had any engine trouble with it.the only trouble I've had is when I first got it, one of the mirrors lost a screw and nearly fell off, but that's since been fixed with no problems.

basic politics: it's easier to drop a brick from high up than throw one high from the bottom. translation? go to the top and drop your 'brick'. alternately, you could get the police in on this, get a small digital camera and collect evidence, and get that ###### supervisor fired. you won't make many friends, but if the principle of the thing is important and it's a government job, you'd be doing the world a favor.

I see the merit of what the christians are actually doing. there are exceptions, but most missionaries I meet here are at the very least involved in some sort of humanitarian aid of some sort, even just giving food out at a church service or teaching for free.

I can't find much fault with this format. It's the same basic format for a lot of things. you don't win the lottery until you've at least bought a ticket, and only students who go to school learn anything. if you're going to give presents like this out in a community, you may as well give them out to the people who show up and actually ask for them. people will, even here. the fact that it's a religion that has come to be pretty much despised in the west rubs across a few nerves, but so far as I can tell, theres nothing worth being too concerned about.

also, somebody's comment about any benefits coming at a heavy price (the cultural heritage) is ridiculous. if a group of people abandons one religion for another- for whatever reason- then that IS their heritage. it's just not as old as the rest of their heritage. look at buddhism, it did the same basic thing. I find it frustrating that I can't find any old (thai, not tribal) folk tales that don't have buddhist underpinnings- much less anything else in thai culture, folk tales are just an easy example- so as far as I can see, it's simply a case of pick your (cultural) poison.

Good and bad.

Good that they actually do background checks on people. Unqualified teachers makes EACH AND EVERY farang in Thailand look bad, be they tourist or teacher, qualified or not.

Of course, Thailand will find itself short of teachers if it actually does enforce this requirement. This will lead to either relaxing of standards (but hopefully looking to make sure they aren't pedophiles or otherwise undesirables) or raising pay. Both of these raise the general quality level and benefit farangdom generally through Thailand.

If the former, (the most probable, IMHO) than unqualified teachers will benefit because they will now no longer be unqualified to teach @ the jobs they are already.

if we look bad, at the very least its because of things we ourselves do. the stereotypes don't help, but those are there because of us too.

this will end badly.

they look moroccan to me. maybe half moroccan, half french.

and only thai prison guards and police and a few judges deserve thai prisons. this kind of shit doesn't earn that kind of hel_l.

solution: don't allow refugees (backpacker tourists) into thailand.

problem solved: cuts out virtually no income in the tourism or any other department, since usually these guys want to pretend they're 'just like the locals' without taking the time most of us who live here do to learn the culture, language, history, and other little things that most of us on the board have learned enough to at least get by on. acting like a local is something that must go hand in hand with BEING a local.

on second thought, there should be a ten-drink minimum, or some equivelant thing that will a) force them to spend money, inebriate them, and c) open up the possibilty that they will lose more money. maybe give the burmese/tribal flower sellers the keys to hotel rooms so they can wake you up at 3 AM and demand money for a bunch of week-old wilted roses. politely, of course.

"chuay! chuay! pom payayayam tot tae luat maa ok!"

"help! help! I tried to fart but blood came out!"

what song is that? it's going to bug me now, because I hear it fairly often in the clubs.

oh, and merry chrstmas. or else.

In order to regulate foreign short-term capital inflows, several countries have imposed reserve requirements on such inflows during critical times. The BOT views that the present situation warrants the introduction of such measure to prevent speculative pressure on the Thai baht. The BOT will closely monitor and assess the impact of this measure.

which countries? it would be so nice if they provided a list. it sounds like something only a moderately rich country would do, which rules out a few.

regulations? regulations... regulations....

OOOOH, you mean like the traffic regulations requiring all motorcyclists to wear helmets!

or like the regulations on bars and such places requiring them to close at 2 AM!

or like regulations that lanterns can't be set off within a certain distance of the airport in order to keep them from getting sucked into jet engins and killing a whole lot of people!

pfft. regulations mean nothing in thailand. I don't mean to diss on the thais, they're lovely people, but when it comes to regulations, they just don't get it.

about 4 minutes ago as of writing this, my house (in chiang mai) was just hit by a minor earthquake.

since I'm writing this 4 minutes after it happened, you can probably tell that the earthquake hasn't knocked out power or anything of the sort.

cheers, looking forward to more info.