ourmanflint

How great. As mentioned Taruatao national park will be no more if this goes through. The last natural paradise of an island in Thailand will be gone for good.

Poor Farangs wife and kids are none too happy though!

I have a suggestion for you. Try reading the article again! You might grasp the fact that the article says the two of them have been together for 8 years, alternating between Thailand and Germany, and nowhere in the article is there ANY mention of "wife and kids". Your ignorant bias is clearly on display with this one.

You completely missed my point because you're just such a nice caring person. The point is that taking someones photograph without their consent and publishing it on Facebook where it goes viral is just not on. It is a far far greater wrong! So what if the European guy did have a wife and kids, is it right or fair for this kind of thing to happen?

Get off your high horse once in a while and think about the wider picture.

Poor Farangs wife and kids are none too happy though!

Somebody had better remind those cleaners that as soon as the doping the monks use wears off, they will be breakfast!

I so hope this goes forward! Samui, Phangan and koh Tao need a good clean from top to bottom.

Also very difficult to find answers on to how to solve these deeply entrenched problems.

Not just a matter of making a law and expecting it to happen or even arresting a few and making an example of them.

I don't agree. Any reform has to start at the center and not at the periphery, that means government and civil service have to be reformed first. Major infrastructure projects should not be undertaken until this has happened to ensure transparency. There should be a zero tolerance approach to anyone working within the government, and real actual effective punishments for those that transgress. By that I mean actually doing jail time, not suspended sentences.

To achieve that, the legal system from the police to the courts has to be beyond reproach and be evenhanded. So that is where I would start, the police! Without reforming the police first, no progress can ever be made elsewhere.

So banning so called "drug-precursor chemicals" will stop those making drugs will it? I'm guessing the instigators of this move don't really really understand how chemistry works? You cannot ban just one or two intermediate compounds, when they are probably even easier to produce from drug precursor precursor chemicals, and so on and so on. Chemistry is piss easy for anyone with the determination to synthesize drugs, you don't need anything special in particular.

A good idea that should be encouraged.

Yes only 14 years after the launch of TopTable in the outside world, Thailand catches up. What next Thailand? Amazon, eBay? Whatever it is I'm sure Thailand will be the best at it and a big song and dance will be made...

So no free bus passes for the elderly in Thailand then? Can't imagine it would cost that much to give something back to those over 60.

I would have to agree with everything the old dears have said! The rise of selfishness and rudeness in Thailand over the past decade has been astonishing.

The first thing the junta should have done, was to make much stronger ties with other Asean member countries to boost trade and confidence, instead it gets into bed with the regions two biggest bullies.

Not only do I fail to see how this bombing would benefit the red cause. I also have trouble understanding why someone would post about it before hand on Facebook.

Not that logic and caution have a big role in decision making here.

Wait a couple of days and the RTP will call a press conference to reveal.

1. Red shirt memorabilia and ID cards have been found at the crime scene

2. The bomb was marked TS

3. The suspect M Redshirt had implicated three other suspects: N Redshirt, O Redshirt and P Redshirt

Case solved, and elections put on hold for another decade...................

Your posts are better with a sprinkle of humor!

REG: Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Red shirts are the <deleted> Russian People's Front.

P.F.J.: Yeah...

JUDITH: Splitters.

P.F.J.: Splitters...

so what exactly is Russia getting out of this?

oh dear! About time the general explained his orders to his men so that they understand them properly. Next they will be moving off anyone found encroaching on the beach by sitting down or walking along it.

If it sticks, then this is a very good move for the future of Koh Phangan.

I suspect Suthep knows he is in the firing line, and has been for a while, hence his longer than usual encampment in robes.

I see a few "tried and true" Junta arguments have been advanced:

1) Thailand was on the brink of civil war, necessitating the coup - this theory has almost no evidence to support it. The trajectory in the several months preceding the coup was toward less confrontation. I was in Bangkok one month before the coup. The protest sites were reduced to Lumpini Park. I was there for one of the last sizable demonstrations, a march by Siam/MBK. No violence; a lot of people peeling off for shopping in the midst of their "outrage". True, there were distinct and sporadic acts of violence, and real casualties of that violence in Bangkok. But nothing even remotely approximtaing a civil war or a violent conflict preceding a civil war. After the coup, there were a few notable arrests of some ragtag groups, including the group of 22 or 23 in Khon Kaen; and their ability to wage a civil war was virtually non-existant. Some people have invoked "secret knowledge" that has not been shared with the public to suggest the situation was much worse than that reported or actually observed. This sort of specious argument is the last refuge for those bereft of evidence.

2) Thailand was not a "true democracy" before the coup, and had many defects such a corruption, and undue influence on politicians. This argument is a variant of the "No true Scotsman" argument, in which it is necessary to invoke an ideal condition in order to argue against an average condition. The conditions in Thailand were well within historical norms for Thai politics, corruption, police inaction, etc. None of that would normally be considered a crisis. But if we invoke the "true democracy" argument, then Thailand was in horrible shape. A logical fallacy at best.

A well written and articulate post, but not sure it is relevant to the OP, as the reasons for the coup whilst being debatable are not the real issue and it would seem that a huge majority of Thais are now quite happy that the coup happened.

This is a good move, these squatters, and almost all khlong side residents spend every day of every year of their lives polluting the canals. I just hope moving them away will be enough to stop their appalling habits.

A heartless comment and I pray that you never find yourself homeless and destitute

Why do these people squat? Because they have nowhere else to live and culturally squatting is seen as "O.K." Why do (might) they pollute? Because they either know no better or have nowhere else to throw out their garbage. Yes, it is a problem that needs to be solved and I agree with the government's action. But please treat the people with dignity.

Not heartless at all, just pragmatic. Its about time something should be done about bringing the khlongs back into everyday use, and back into a less polluted state.