ukrules

I would think it's highly likely that Thaksin had many supporters in all levels of government so I'm not surprised by this at all.

Blaming everything on a former prime minister is not a good precedent to set. How many failed court cases / legal actions are going to be required ?

Serving Prime Ministers should bear this in mind because one day they will no longer be in office and what happens next is up to their successor.

I fully expect the next government to scrutinise every action of the current prime minister but I suspect he already knows this and is acting accordingly : strictly in line with the law.

I've found issues when firefox consumes around 2 GB of RAM, it's fine before it gets to about the 2GB mark. I have 32 GB of RAM in my main computer so 2 GB should be no issue at all.

I occasionally get a black page inside the browser, in fact this happened yesterday. I leave my computer turned on all the time and the browser will never be closed unless this 'black page' issue happens.

This memory bloat is obviously due to memory leaks. Terminating the process in task manager and restarting fixes it every time for me so it might be unrelated to your issue but I have also disabled Flash which probably isn't a bad thing as it's behind of a lot of security issues from what I've heard.

So for me firefox has issues when memory consumption reaches 2GB or more, right now it's working perfectly with about 1GB consumed.

I don't remember reading all the news reports about people being caught mailing drugs over the years. Maybe I missed them.

If you are sending legitimate stuff, what is the big deal in showing your identity so it can be traced back?

Passports are for international travel.

'Papers please'...where have I heard that phrase before ?

I also heard this and saw a notice which was apparently made by the post office. Apparently there's people sending illegal stuff via the post service.

They obviously don't want him back.

A Lese Majeste charge will guarantee that he gets asylum pretty much wherever he chooses.

Lets not think for one minute this was done in error, it's a deliberate move to keep him out.

It's especially unusual when you consider the amount of government tax that's charged on long haul flights out of the UK.

I have a couple of less than 24 hour overstay stamps in an old passport that the officer did when he stamped me out of the country. They are in Thai and say that I overstayed for less than 24 hours.

Me 2 !

Two stamps which date back some 8-9 years ago !

Interesting, was this from BKK airport ?

Per above. At airports there is a 1 day grace period, at landborders not.

In both cases the passpot gets stamped as having been on overstay and at the airport you should allow some extra time for this. (Normally it doesn't take long, but don't check-in at the last minute).

The last time I did a one day overstay (over a year ago) there was no overstay stamp at the airport, it was completely disregarded and I only received the regular stamp out.

I have done multi day overstays in the past where I had to pay a 500 Baht / day fine and got the stamp so there is no confusion here.

Maybe they've changed the policy recently.

I suspect a lot of this corruption is historical and related to illegal use of land which belongs to the state.

I know for sure the army have been spotted photographing various buildings around these parts recently.

There's definitely going to be trouble for some people ahead. Things are going to accelerate.

If you're flying out of Bangkok there will be no fine for 1 day overstay. I can confirm this as I've done it a few times.

The might call a supervisor over to authorise it but that's about all.

Don't go to the bank at lunch time.

I just paid 10k bond to bangkok bank for 10k limit credit card. Anyone can do this. Im not a millionaire...

That's not a proper 'credit' card. It sounds more like a pre paid card that they issue to children in the western countries. Like a gift card.

I have to go to the Hua Hin immigration office to do a combined extension of stay / 90 day report early in June so I will ask them to confirm about this while I'm there

It will take a high court / appeal court judge to overrule this decision and order the government to release the information. The courts will have the final say in this.

This happens on a regular basis but the UK government will delay and fight any legal action even if they know they will eventually lose it just to buy time.

It will cost a lot of money to do this.

Ok, but shouldn't one be able to perceive how their words will potentially hurt someone's feelings?

The problem is, in the Thai culture the concept of empathy does not exist. They are not capable of "putting themselves in someone else's shoes." Mind you, there are plenty of what I feel are great things about Thai culture...but they are incapable of empathy (unless they learn it from another culture, outside the country). It's not dysfunctional for them except in rare cases, like the one you mention...for the most part, they don't even notice it.

This also explains how when you're walking down the street, Thais will often walk straight into you and collide with you. You know how when you're deciding--even subconsciously--what path to choose when walking, you take into account the obvious intended path of other people coming the other way, and make whatever adjustments you need to avoid them? (think about it---you know you do this) Thais can't do that...they only think about where THEY are walking, and will walk straight into someone who gets in their way. This explains a lot about the way they drive, too. Again, within their culture, it's the norm so nobody notices it...it's only when us outsiders come in, used to foreign concepts--like empathy--that the conflict comes up.

You are spot on with your observations and I am happy that someone else has noticed this phenomena.

Being on crutches after an accident for a while and walking in Big C it was and still is even without the crutches very frustrating to have to avoid those who would seemingly just walk into you, it's as though they are in another world, another dimension where they dont seem to see anyone on a conflicting trajectory!

At first I was a bit angry, as I was when holding a door open and people just continuing to walk through whilst I was holding it open. They dont seem to be fully aware of what's going on around them do they?

I would not say it was a culture thing, more a lack of a culture really but I dont get annoyed anymore because if you gently remind them of what is going on in those circumstances they usually respond in a very kind and courteous manner so I dont think that this slightly eccentric behaviour is in any way malicious.

Im not sure you have pinned the correct word in using "empathy" though, more like they are just ignorant in the truest interpretation of that word.

I suppose that they could be ignorant of Empathy, maybe you are correct! 5555

This reminds me of a post I read here on this forum a few years ago.

When walking in a straight line try this...look one way and the person walking towards you will change their direction to the opposite way you're looking accordingly.

As stupid as this sounds I've tried it on numerous occasions. If you walk straight ahead you can control the direction of those who are looking and walking towards you merely by moving your head left or right. Try it, you will be surprised at the results.

I believe this behaviour is on a subconscious level.

Ok, but shouldn't one be able to perceive how their words will potentially hurt someone's feelings?

That depends on the culture.

Or lack of it.

Ok, but shouldn't one be able to perceive how their words will potentially hurt someone's feelings?

Must admit it does seem harsh but some Thai's are just brutally honest, you're too fat, too skiny etc. Don't think there's any malice meant, it's just they presume you will be aware of their observation. 99% of the time you are aware and they are right.

I wonder if they also go around being brutally honest and saying 'blue shirt' when someone wears a blue shirt or do they only do this when it comes to something which will be guaranteed to annoy someone else regardless of where they come from.

I think you know the answer, they do it to annoy people.

They're ignorant and it's done out of malice, they intend to make her feel bad which is the motiviation for doing it in the first place.

It's like young children pointing and laughing at the kid with some serious handicap / deformity, they generally won't know any better because they haven't been taught how to behave in a civilised manner at that stage in their life. If they miss this stage out they grow up to be 'the uncouth' which is what you have encountered.

I believe you'll find that a Thai license is required if you're staying in Thailand on a long term visa for more than 90 days at a time. This is how it was explained to me by the traffic police.

More than a 90 day stay = Thai license required. If you're doing visa runs every 90 days then you will obviously never stay for more than 90 days.

If you bring your original US license you should be able to get a Thai license issued based on already passing a test back home but this depends on what type of visa you hold.

I did this process with my UK driving license about a year and a half ago. First they issued a 1 year license, once that expired I renewed it and got a 5 year license issued.

Why don't you get a triple entry tourist visa instead of a double entry ? You can get just under 9 months out of one of those.

I guess it also depends where in the world you will be applying for the visa, some embassies don't appear to be encouraging long term tourism.

Check the nearest Thai consulate (not embassy) to where you are now.

If you get the car back this guy is going to be looking for all of his money back.

If you don't give it to him then there will most definitely be problems.

If you've only been here for 60 days on a tourist visa you can get a 30 day extension at immigration for 1900 Baht.

Just bought a house in Samui. No problems at all. Set up a Thai company and register it all in that name. Easy.

A company that you can only own 49% of.....

Unless you're from the US and you set up an Amity treaty company...

Is this one of the streets full of bars ? A tourist area ?

I'm registered at immigration already and I'm pretty sure I won't be filling out any other forms until my extension.

No this is a quiet residential area.

That is strange. Were they knocking on doors or just stopping people they stumbled upon ?

In a quiet residential area I doubt there would be too many people walking around so if they were knocking on doors did they knock on only certain doors, doors where they know foreigners live or every door ?

What I'm getting at is : I wonder if they're looking for people who live in properties where the landlords / owners haven't filed the correct paperwork when a foreigner comes to stay.

If it was an immigration thing it would be the immigration police who came looking instead of the tourist police so I doubt it's anything directly related to immigration which is why I'm wondering about the paperwork required for foreigners staying at an address.