shawndoc

1 hour ago, bluesofa said:

What's the point of listing 20 countries plus Taiwan, rather than 21 countries? Is it part of the ongoing giant kowtow to China, by not acknowledging Taiwan is a country, I wonder?

That's exactly what it is.  A lot of countries don't recognize Taiwan as its own country, and many that did have switched back under pressure from China.  

Has Uber managed to get a toehold on the island yet?

The problem isn't jetskis. The problem is inability of the Thai police to do their jobs. We've already seen a ban on jetskis doesn't work, simply because the operators will ignore the ban, and the police will continue to look the other way.

Basically all we can tell from the video is that the bomber was skinny. Probably has forearm tattoos that were covered up by the arm bands. Likely the baggy distinctive shirt and pants were to help disguise identity. Wouldn't at all be surprised if that was a wig as well.

This is a great idea! Instead of going to Pattaya, they can come to Phuket. The Phuket Jet Ski scammers have been missing out on their share of the Indian money tree.

The west is just as delusional. Pick up any weekly or independent newspaper in the US, and you'll find prostitutes publicly advertising their services, often with full page ads. We just call them "escorts" instead, and pretend we are paying them for their time, rather than for the sex.

He no longer is on active duty, yet is still working at the police station. Wha?

Good.

The discovery of these mass graves is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

Why don't they just say these officers have been fired? Why say 'moved to an inactive post'?

Perhaps they have not been fired yet.

There is always the little matter of proof of what they have supposedly done before thaey can be charged with a crime.

They can however be transferred to a place where they can do little damage and an eye can be kept on them.

When was the last time someone who was transferred was later fired or convicted of a crime (or even charged)? Either the media is horrible at following up on big corruption stories, or it never happens.

i thought the Thai police didn't like it when girls went around with an exposed breast?

I love when people try to pretend a billionaire wasn't one of the "elites" or that whoever won an election has carte blanche to treat the law as a buffet, picking and choosing which laws they have to follow. The fact is, this is a battle between different groups of "elites", and none of them seem particularly interested to do more than pay lip service to the idea of Democracy as it is practiced in the west and removing the corruption from the current system.

The generals are correct that Thailand needs a better constitution than what they've had, and will withhold judgement until it is presented. But I am not hopefully that they will actually deliver.

I'm surprised at how many people can actually pull out that much money from an ATM. My bank limits ATM withdrawals to around B10,000 a day. If I was to go to the bank counter, I have no idea which bank in Thailand partners with my bank overseas, but even if I could figure that out, I'm sure I'd have to jump through all sorts of hoops before my bank would let me pull that much money out at a foreign bank.

NST city has been growing quite a bit in the last 5 years. New hotels going on, more farangs around town, etc.

Phuket and some of the other islands have figured this out.

After being caught assaulting a foreigner, always claim it was self defense and the foreigner attacked you first.

Then the BIB will go to the foreigner and give them two choices. 1) They will confiscate the passport, stranding the foreigner in the country until a trial can be set (often months away) and the courts can determine who started the fight. or 2) Allow the foreigner to leave the country if they promise to never come back. This may also include a requirement to apologize to the Thai for starting the fight

Has more come out on the DNA testing? I remember originally they said it was sent to Singapore for the analysis. The reason I ask, is that means some of the original DNA might still be in the Singapore lab outside of the BIBs reach, that would give a true sample to test against.

Wouldn't hold out too much optimism. Singapore could only have what RTP labeled and sent.

Has more come out on the DNA testing? I remember originally they said it was sent to Singapore for the analysis. The reason I ask, is that means some of the original DNA might still be in the Singapore lab outside of the BIBs reach, that would give a true sample to test against.

Don't worry, the person arrested will be let go with no charges filed once he paid the booking officer a 1,000 baht 'fine'.

Time for the PM to step in, order the local boys off the case and send in a team from out of town with no links to the local politicians.

I fully believe the police know and have known who was involved since almost the beginning.

If this is a plastic replica, or a cheap air-soft gun (99% plastic) it would be very easy to smuggle it on-board. Simply place it in a large pocket or tuck it in your waist band before going through the metal detectors. Since there's no metal to detect, nothing will go off.

The fact that the elephant got up so quickly after the mahout signaled him up makes me think there's a good possibility the "collapsed" baby was trained to collapse in areas to get attention/sympathy so the mahout could gather more money.

So far almost nothing has changed to the better on Phuket regarding the Taxi and Tuk Tuk Mafia. Neither me ( farang ) nor Missus ( very Thai ) understands authorities behavior when it comes to this mob.

Roads a re still full of illegal taxis in no parking areas, fares are still a rip off and they are still touting for illegal tours...

However, you can't find a deck chair for rent on any beach on Phuket...

Anyone can explain, as we have to rule out the envelopes now ?

They are supposed to be setting up a call center and central parking lot. However these don't currently exist yet, so they are allowing them to operate mostly as before (minus the illegal structures on public land) until the parking lot and call center are ready. They are also giving many of the illegal taxis time to convert to legal taxis.

To show they are really serious, the generals should rent this bad boy for a month, and start demolishing all illegal taxis and tuktuks on the island.