scorecard

In these villages nobody would dare to not vote RED.

So 'certified' means thet have a 'nice' app. Was there any check/survey about reliability, punctuality, safe driving, politness, lack of touching of female passengers, requests for extra tips, etc.,etc?

Trumps arrogant beloved / highly desired by daddy daughter changed to Jusaism to marry Kushner, I wonder how that fits, NOW, with daddy's current situation.

So how come there's no signs anywhere / any country saying: 'STOP, if you keep walking you'll fall off the end of the world!

Well aware of that. Buddy lived in a condo at Phya Thai. Various marketing organizations continuously left piles of A3 size and envelope size advertising handouts in the condo office. Each new item was pasted on the imside of the small glass doors on the office counter, each handout had a price writtn on it from 100Baht to 5 Baht. Many owners continuously paid the price to get the new marketing handouts, especially if it was cosmetics and jeans. Office manger was pocketing all of the payments, making a fortune.

Our old condo in downtown Bkk had a plastic card on a string, everyone was welcome to use it to open the main door. The card disappeared from time to time. It was discovered that a 'pretty girl' who did live in the build had lost her card for her condo, so she took the card from downstairs and tried and it did open her condo door. Security? None.

If it makes him happy (as it would for millions of Thai folks) then why not? My Thai son provides well for his wonderful Thai wife. She needs nothing. For her birthday, Songkran and for Christmas he gives her a small very thin gold chain (real gold). She's in heaven. Ten minutes later it's in her box in the family safe. She's a happy camper. It does have meaning.

Maybe business has been slow, they needed the business.

Here's new one, big foreign company on Eastern seaboard had another office in Bkk, plus fleet of various vehices (all on hire) and team of drivers. In the first year of start-up/operations many staff did numerous trips to Bkk for meetings and back. Drivers told again and again by company staff to slow down but the owner of the agency where the drivers came from pushed them to drive fast. Many accidents, and after several accidents a snr. cop from a police station along that route came to every accident. One day friend of mine doing this trip and a Thai driver crashes into the back of the company car causing a lot of damage. Cop comes, asks for license of Thai driver os comany car and license of the farang passenger. Cop checks something and says 'this car nevr in accident before and Thai driver of the company car and the foeigners never in car before so he will write up the report they are all responsible and must pay for the dmage to the car and river that had rear ended them. Farang protests, Thai mngr from his company appears on the scene and tells the farang to back off because this is all planned. Then farang GM fins out and demands an investigation of the 'planned sharing of responsibility' which goes nowhere and comapny ends up paying all the bills. Then a twist, it's discovered that a lady from the leasing company who is responsible for insurance and road tax etc., on all these leased vehicles is pocketing all the premiums and she's got piles of fake insurance policy documents and there's fake stickers on every vehicle.

Further - PR holders ...foreigners who hold a Thai Certificate of Residence (Permanent Residence - PR) can't get exit/re/entry stamps at airports. They can get exit/re-entry stamps at immigration offices. The last time my white book was replaced (full) was at CW but the last 2 times I've received exit/re-entry stamps was at Chiang Mai immigration, with no hesitation.

Re-send: - schools: One school part private owned part gov't owned One fully gov't, has an excellent bi-lingual program, English, Chinese, Japanes, Maths, Science all taught by non-Thai teachers. School has excellent results and popular with parents and kids. Visit the school and you'll instantly see a whole different admin. approach, parents prompted to ask any questions, always get complete answers all in English. One school full gov't owned (kinder and prathom) has a strong well organized English language and Chinese language program with strong emphasis on conversation skills, Has non-Thai teachers at 3 levels. Excellent results, Granddaughter is developing english very quickly and I can see it's all structured, and they use most up to date coloured/cartoon like pictures, text and w'books are from England. The several English teachers are well qualified Brit folks, mostly late 20s, all well focused and keen to ensure kids are developing.

Not true with all schools, If any of my 3 grandkids are sick/need to be absent for a logical reason either my son or his wife call the school before 8:00 am in the morning. They call because they think it's the correct thing to do and becaue they know there will be call from the 3 schools before 10:00 am asking 'why isn't your kid at school?' - 2 bi-lingual schools - 1 gov't kinder/prathom school which has an excellent English language program.

I wonder if there's ever been any check of the decibel level of the noise from the school? Maybe it is too loud?

Me too, however you can find ignorant / rude passport officers in all countries. Worst I've encountered: - Most worst was in Houston Texas. - Second most worst was in New Delhi India. - Third, Taipie but that was decades back when the government was a military function, at the airport they treated arriving passengers as very naughty ignorant sheep who all needed to be abused and yelled at. Very different today.

Go to parts of the Philippines and you will see the wild wild west where there's either no police of the police cannot control that area/district, or a local powerful rich ruthless thug big wig controls the police.

'imfamous' is part the meaning for some. But not all, I'm well aware that many Thai folks use the term with zero negative conitation.

Like it or not many Thai folks believe the laws about stopping at zebra crossings are wrong because it disrupts the flow of traffic. Clearly there needs to be a very major long-term education campaign and bigger penalties, perhaps also new camras / relocation of cameras so that there's clear evidence and rego numbers are available. A job for big joke, he seems to be quite determined and effective.

Yes the list of 'cannot do' is extensive. Seems to me that list has been progresively built from case by case situations. And will probably be added to as more situations deelop/occur. Nothing on that 'cannot do' list is IMHO surprising.

30 minutes wait for luggage. Try Changi, a very very busy airport, deplane, at passport desk within a few minutes, through passport within a few minutes, pick up luggage 5 minutes later or less, in a taxi 3 minutes later. It can be more efficient if the Swampy folks applied themselves to continuously forecasting manning needs. They have continuous new data and fast access to historic data. If they wanted to they could be much better at forecasting. But is always seems to remain: - Ohh, there's a problem, how did that happen? - Lots of 'we're going to' after the event. - Little real result/improvement.

Which is the very reason why advanced countries give very good/focused experience based training to their new soldiers about 'the arc of fire' and more elements, to train them to not fall into the trap of shooting their comrades. And to train the soldiers and their leaders in well constructed on the ground strategies and equip them in terms of controls, strict following of orders and more.

Plus the international language of business is English but (as recently show a few days ago in a global ranking) Thailand's overall English language capability is falling further and further behind.

Perhaps this might push some Russians to realize that their president putin is neither capable nor concerned nor compassionate. Plus it's clear from many reports their military leaders on the ground are also incapable and have no concern for the welfare and the lives of their troops.

" 9 hours ago, mistral53 said: Really?! Somebody else fell for the marvelous Ukrainian propaganda..........lol If there is anything the Russian army will excel in is their winter gear - but hey, if it fits your narrative, lets believe what we want tot believe and be happy." ""If there is anything the Russian army will excel in is their winter gear..."" So how come there's been report after report about the russuan soldiers severely lacking in equipment, clothes etc. Just 2 days ago a report about russian soldiers depatched to a contact area with no rifles and NO SOCKS.

Yes we do. The embassy has said many times they don't/can't give handouts to everybody and not surprising. But if you read their script a bit further there are other possibilities. Another slant, if you call consular they are very willing to calmly talk and discuss, and I learned some valuable information about 'who should be informed in Australia when an ozzie passes away abroad' and several other concerns. The consular lady ended with a polite 'don't hesitate to call us anytime if you need clarification, advice of what's possible etc'.

Agree, I saw this on service in Vietnam; One CO was a tyrant and enjoyed finding fault and did nothing in terms of support and welfare. Also he was an alchholic. A couple of times was found early morning asleep in a ditch. Next CO exactly the opposite, took 24 hours or less for all under his command to see that he was focused, he was highly capable, he recognized that his troops mattered and deserved support, respect and care. He visited sections and platoons every day and where possible drank cofffee out of a discarded rations can, he listened and he explained. And he followed up on every promise etc. His troops were highyl committed to him and it showed.