bentrein

For part one, please check here.

Part TWO - No, I'm not really running; I couldn't fake a Thai birth certificate after all. A Hawaiian one was hard enough...

A Thai general election is under way; the date is set. The parties are campaigning, and so are many others. I have a large network of friends and foes within every political party in Thailand, and will shed some light on the bits and pieces that hit the news in the months to come.

As with every election, posters and boards have hit the streets. In the course of the coming months, I expect that – as with every general election – all streets will be littered with the signs advertising the different candidates, making Thai roads look like the garbage bin of the world. I commented on this while having a noodle soup by the roadside last night.

“Isn't it a shame?” I asked. The woman selling the soup did speak a bit of English, but I didn't really understand what she was on about. Here's what I heard; you make of it what you want.

“Is no mall! Evely time we have big erection. This time vely very hard. We don't know who can do.”

The soup was exceptionally good though...

One of the signs by the side of the road are advertising for a man looking an awful lot like Chuwit Kamolvisit – a man who got rich through high-end massage parlours, which in Thailand is synonymous to brothels. The reader should know that technically, prostitution is illegal in Thailand. But the Thai attitude to that is similar to the Dutch attitude towards drugs. I remember last time, Chuwit advertising with a huge hammer, saying he would crush corruption. No one believed him.

This time his signs read something like: “Bored with politics, yet we have to vote!” He named his party: 'Love Thailand'. I guarantee you, if he becomes Prime Minister, politics will never be boring again; or if it is, life won't. Pubs will be open again all night. Massage parlours will be open – and as common – as 7-elevens. What more does one need?

Another party running in the election is the current largest opposition party Puea Thai (For Thai). This party has always openly supported ousted and banned former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawat(ra). Recently it has elected said criminal's sister – YingLuck Shinawat(ra) – to lead the party. One serious newspaper in the country commented: “With Yingluck’s candidacy it should be clear to everyone that we’re ready to break away from the old politics of elitism, nepotism, cronyism and the shady dealings of powerful families.” And that's all that can be said about that...

This party – as far as I can find – has two main policies once it will for a government.

Firstly, they've promised to give every child a tablet computer. This sounds awesome, and I went to an early campaign event, and talked to some party executive. This party is very much like the Thai military, and has tonnes of 'executives'. I forgot the name of this one; there was free booze available. I did ask him what the budget was for this project.

“One billion baht. We are getting the first version of I-pad for a discounted price of ten thousand from Apple. We are very happy with that.”

I quickly did some maths. Somewhere between five and six million children in Thailand, ten grand a tablet...

“One billion baht? Is that enough?”

“But of course! We're not giving every child in the whole country a tablet computer. There are many that will never have the need for computer skills, so they're not getting one of course. And we're also excluding many of the undesirables, such as the Akha, Hmong and Karen that hide in the bushes in the north. They don't have a need for computer skills either. Bushes grow without electricity anyway.”

“That still includes more tablet computers than you can buy for a billion...”

“Well, first of all, they go to the children of the people who helped us buy our way into power. Then to our own children, and then, if there are some left, we hand them out to international school children that don't have one yet. They will need computer skills in later life.”

People at Apple Thailand have no knowledge of an offer being made to Puea Thai.

And so, the table is set for an exciting election. See you next time for my inside information on the different election campaigns – and the second point in Puea Thais campaign!

Part ONE - admin, feel free to move this somewhere you deem more appropriate. And no, I'm not really running; I couldn't fake a Thai birth certificate after all. A Hawaiian one was hard enough...

A Thai general election is under way; the date is set. The parties are campaigning, and so are many others. I have a large network of friends and foes within every political party in Thailand, and will shed some light on the bits and pieces that hit the news in the months to come.

Months ago, something that had been common knowledge behind the scenes, suddenly became public knowledge, when a leading newspaper in Thailand published it: political candidates often find it cheaper to kill their opponent than to beat them in an election.

Why cheaper, you might ask? Well, anyone familiar with Thai politics can tell you; you're not voted into the House of Representatives, you buy your way in. Pay people twenty or a hundred baht – depending on social background and education – and they'll vote for you. The race is not who has the deepest pockets, but who reaches all villages first.

But of course, having your opponent shot may very well be a cheaper option. Exactly this happened, the day after the House was dissolved – in acid one might hope.

The Samut Prakarn Puea Thai candidate was shot in his car, while stuck in one of the perpetual traffic jams close to the capital. However, the person paying for the shooting – I'm not allowed to say who, I might be next – thought to save fifty baht by hiring a gorilla from Dusit Zoo. The car had well over ten bullet holes, yet the candidate escaped with minor scratches to his rather large ego. The number of bullets that made the press was much less, this in an attempt not to embarrass the person who paid for the disaster.

Following this incident, the police published a list of wanted hit-men that would be detained till after the election. Unlike under the Thaksin administration, the people on this list weren't randomly chosen citizens – remember the war on drugs? – but actual hit-men. The police has known their profession for well over a decade, but instead of rounding them up, they haven't done anything to capture them – till now – because of suspected bribery.

An inside source high up in the national police force told me through an anonymous phone call: “Some of them have paid the police to ignore their murders. Others however, have been used by the police to eliminate... how to say... people who disagreed with us.” Those people being innocent bystanders at police brutality, or people blowing the whistle at police corruption.

The same source confided that the police mean business this time “We're going to keep a close watch on the comings and goings of the hit-men. We know all hit-men in the country; this is our country. There are no secrets here for us. We will make sure all politicians who promise to keep our position in society unchanged will be safe.”

And so, the table is set for an exciting election. See you next time for my inside information on the different election campaigns!

I would hope there would be something to detect that scenario.

It is a weird question, I agree. To take away some of your doubts; I'm asking for the hero of the novel I'm writing in Dutch. He's being followed, and flies out of Bangkok (among many other places to come). He bribes the immigration to stall the guy following him, and is checked in on two flights, so the guy following him doesn't know where he's gone. Once the guy's stalled by immigration, he informs one of the flights that he's not really coming, and boards the other one.

So don't worry about the extra delays...

Anyone? Anyone know anyone who works at the check-in counters?

PingManDan: Thaksin's policies were pretending to work for the poor people, but only few ever really did. Read your history books, and the facts. But without turning this into a political mudslinging contest, I think I agree with the first sentence of kevozman1; the only thing I disagree with, is that change is coming. Nobody but the suffering want change, and too few people here are truly suffering. You'd be surprised how accepting people are of their fate.

This is a purely theoretical question, and not a discussion on why one would want to... But if I had for some reason two different tickets in my name leaving Thailand on the same night (flight times say an hour apart), and I'd be okay with wasting the money of at least one ticket, would it be possible to go to Suvarnabhum(i) and check in on both flights at the same time - without luggage?

Does anyone know if there's a security built in that alerts for attempts to be checked in twice on different flights?

I'm wondering about legal responsibilities of land owners.

The land behind my housing estate is owned by Pruksa - you know, the cheap-ish developer, and has been for a while now. Recently they started developing it, with at the moment trucks rolling in, filling it up. I'm not complaining (here) about the noise (on Sunday night at 8). That's something I know how to take up with Pruksa. However, since they started developing it, and shipped in a town-sized-slum of builders, there's been a break-in in my estate every two to three nights. Trails obviously lead to Pruksa's land, and deeper into it (but can't be followed into the town-sized-slum due to the rain (well, let's say it's that).

Would there be a way to scare Pruksa into setting up security? I would find that highly entertaining to try out.

Now I'm off buying and mistreating a pitt-bull, or whatever mean dog there is.

My international internet connection - True, Bang Phli, Samut Prakarn - has been extremely slow, or non existent for the past couple of days. Yesterday, when I called them there was a recorded message before I talked to the call-center-incompetent. This message said:

"Due to the state of emergency, you might not be able to use high-speed internet."

Followed by the standard apology. Has anyone else heard this? Noticed this? Any website other than speedtest.net, or Thai websites, basically don't work. Other services - like Skype or Dropbox - do work, but opening the dropbox website takes 20 minutes (I'm on a 5Mbit connection).

Has the Thai government really resorted to cutting off the internet as a (almost) whole???

Anyway, I've finally managed to get it to work, and here's a short how-to, for those interested in the Bangkok Post on their desktops. Two versions, a quick one, for experienced users, and a lengthy one, in case you still have trouble.

1) Quick guide:

Add (at least) the following code to your conkyrc file, assuming your conkyrc is in your home folder, and not in a sub folder:

${execi 300 /home/youruser/.conky-rss.sh http://www.bangkokpost.com/rss/data/breakingnews.xml 5 3}

Now download and save this tarball to your desktop. Unpack it, and put the conky-rss.sh into your home folder. Now rename it to .conky-rss.sh (spot the difference!). Now chmod 744 this .conky-rss.sh

Restart Conky.

2) Long guide:

Install Conky, code as above or:

su -
[i]password[/i]
yum -y install conky

Download and save this tarball to your desktop, and unpack it.

Delete your current .conkyrc from your home folder (to do this, open your home folder in e.g. Nautilus, choose View -> Show hidden files and folders, and you'll find .conkyrc somewhere in the list; select, and press delete).

Now copy the files you've just unpacked into your home folder (drag and drop from the desktop into the still open nautilus window). Select each file individually, press F2, and Home, and . (this renames the files into .conkyrc and .conky-rss.sh respectively).

Open .conkyrc with gedit.

Under the heading "Bangkok Post Headlines", change the word 'youruser' into whatever your username on your computer is.

Under the heading "Email" change the word 'Account 1' and/or 'Account 2' into nicknames for the accounts respectively, and in the string after that, change 'mailserver' into the mailserver of your IMAP account, login into your login name on that server, and password with your password. This will show how many emails there are in your inbox; you can also just remove that text altogether (from "${color white}Email:" to "-i 1000}").

Save and close.

Open a terminal.

su -
[i]password[/i]
chmod 744 /home/[i]youruser[/i]/.conky-rss.sh
exit

And close the terminal.

Now (re) start conky (ALT+F2 and type 'conky'.

And before I forget, here's my screenshot.

Just be sure the new company paperwork is in order for you to extend. It kind of sounds iffy - as you should not have to use marriage extension of stay but they seem to be telling you that you do.

They're not telling me that I have to, they're telling me that I should, because it is easier, and doesn't involve leaving the country... They're very ready to supply my with their paperwork to go get a Non-B anywhere I want. But as I'm married - seen from the posts above, I am going to try to do it without leaving the country.

Just to be sure you understood what i said.

Thanks for that; however, I thought that would be the same hassle with paperwork. It isn't? Do you know what I need for this?

An extension based on marriage is always a lot of hassle.

What I see posted here, I can see that! I sincerely thank all, but as I have the time, I think I'll train down to Penang and fly back. I hear it's no hassle getting a 3 months single entry there...

Thanks, both, for the quick reply.

Pictures, map, interview with the wife... Yes, we live together, yes we're happily married, but my wife also works, for somewhat of a ^*&^* boss that most likely won't give her a half day off for this. It sounds to me that it's easier to fly to Penang and get a 3 month non-o, as I myself have a week off between jobs... Especially as they say it's very very quiet there...

I have a non-B visa, which I got back in 2006, and I have had a work permit ever since. I left the country, but I'm in the process of changing employment. My new employer insists that - as I'm married to a Thai woman - I don't have to leave the country now either, as I can simply transfer my visa into a Non-O before my current employment ends. Then I can - according to him - apply for a new work permit.

Is this true? If so, does anyone know what kind of documents I need, and how to go about it?

I work in Bangkok, but live in Samut Prakarn. My new employment also is in Samut Prakarn. Would it be possible to do it at the Paknam immigration?

Assuming that URI is correct, try it in quotes as shown here:

URI="http://www.bangkokpost.com/rss/data/breakingnews.xml"

The URI is what the Bangkok Post gives, and works when you subscribe with Opera's rss-reader. But this didn't help - much. Now there's more space under the title, but no headlines. Too bad. I still think it's got something to do with the xml extention. Somehwere on the web it says that is a problem.

Anything after a hash (#) sign won't be noticed until whatever is parsing the file comes across the next carriage return symbol IIRC.

You know more about coding than I do! I added the $ in front of EXEC, and there's a small change: there's a larger empty space at the bottom now, so something is working. But still no headlines showing. I saw somewhere else on the web that conky doesn't work with rss's that end in .xml, for some reason. Thanks for the help; I'll try to bug their forum more on it. If I can find a conky-specific forum. Later!

My guess would be that your <code sinp>

should actually be <code snip>. That's the first thing that stands out.

Thanks, but it didn't help. I'm new to this kind of coding, and I don't want to sound condescending by any means, but it didn't surprise me very much, as I've been told that anything after # won't be displayed or considered; no matter where where it's put. So all that happened is that my code now looks more common and prettier. Still no headlines.

As for the coloring advice, thanks. I'll take that into consideration once I actually get headlines.

And lastly...

cd ~ && ./conky.sh | ~/Desktop/rss.txt

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that my computer can't find a conky.sh anywhere... But then it wouldn't work at all, would it? This command also won't create a rss.txt on my desktop; it either says 'no such file', or (after I created the file) 'permission denied'.

It may have something to do with the fact that I'm not using Ubuntu, but Fedora 11. Perhaps? I don't know...

Is there anyone here who uses Conky?

I've recently started using it on Fedora 11, 64 bit. It works fine, except for the rss-reader script. I've added this to the bottom of my conkyrc

${color }Bangkok Post headlines
${color #707070}${hr}${color white}
${execi 300 /home/bentrein/.conkyrss.sh}

And now that .conkyrss.sh looks like this - I nicked this off the Conky-wiki.

URI=http://www.bangkokpost.com/rss/data/breakingnews.xml #URI of RSS Feed
LINES=10 #Number of headlines

#Environment Setup
EXEC="/usr/bin/curl -s" #Path to curl

#Work Start
$EXEC $URI | grep title |\
sed -e :a -e 's/<[^>]*>//g;/</N' |\
sed -e 's/[ \t]*//' |\
sed -e 's/\(.*\)/ \1/' |\
sed -e 's/\.//' |\
sed -e 's/\"//' |\
sed -e 's/\"//' |\
head -n $(($LINES + 2)) |\
tail -n $(($LINES))

The headlines however don't show up on my desktop. The text Bangkok Post headlines does... Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong? It might very well be a problem with the bit under #Work Start, as I honestly don't have a clue what that does.

Your chances of getting a work permit for the au pair are next to zero. The Labor Department will say there are plenty of maids and baby sitters in Thailand already.

Thanks... Due to a mistrust of her countryfellows my wife unfortunately won't have a Thai nanny or maid... :S

My wife and I are considering the option - haven't made a decision yet, just exploring to possibilities - to have an au pair from Indonesia (West Papua as a matter of fact) help us out for a year or two taking care of our son.

Can anyone guide me in the right direction where to find information on the possibilities and legalities around this (short of driving to the immigration office and asking)? What is necessary for a work permit? What are the costs of such a work permit? I believe it's not the same as for Europeans...

For the record, I use Fedora 9 X86_64, and I'm a near complete Linux noob.

The installation went fairly fine, although skype still gives me sound, but no microphone. Other than that, I'm (almost) ok. The only real problem is that I still can't type in Thai. It displays Thai fine (afik), especially online. But I can't type Thai.

Please give me some advice on how to enable it!

Anybody else the same problem?

Nope, but I never use the system update. I go through terminal -> su -> yum update

It gives me weekly several MBs. Occasionally I try only Fedora specific: yum update fedora-release

Hope it helps.

I went ahead and bought one too... It looks similar to Corey's thing. I have no complaints about the range - it does actually 40kms (they promised between 40 and 50). I've only two real cons so far:

1. The spedometer measures the amount of power going through the engine (or something like that) so whether I'm going up a steep hill at walking speed, or down one at high speed, as long as I keep the accelerator full open, the spedometer will say that I'm going 55km/h. I'm still not sure what the actual top speed is on a flat road; guessing somewhere between 30 and 40 km/h.

2. The lights are of a weird make. I opened it up today, because I want to go for halogen lights - I need my bike at night, want to be really visible - but the size of the fitting is not standard. None of the motorbike (or car!) part shops have this type of light (not halogen, nor ordinary glowbulb). I'm curious what I'm going to do when the bulb gives.

Other than that, it's lovely not to contribute to the pong or the din on the road. I haven't had trouble with people not hearing me - people look when it's really necessary. Only inside my moo ban I've made pedestrians jump.

We have had one for about a year now, it easily does 60, probably moer like 80 really, but they are not as stable as a Dragstar so I don't. Yes it is registered cost about half a much a normal bike.

Sorry for misunderstanding... Does your bike reach 80 km/h, or does it have a one-charge-distance of 80km?

Also, is your bike a Toyotron, or another one?

Here's what my dealer says:

With an engine over 500W, they'll have to be registered - and can be. (So my Thai friend, see first post, was wrong).

Other considerations regarding the engine is that a 1000W, pulls a lot of power out of the battery at once, which (supposedly) decreases the battery's lifetime. Hence my dealer only does 500W engines.

However, they've got smart, before I had the chance to buy a scooter, and they're turning their 'warehouse' into a shop, which sells the things regularly. As of some time early July, they're getting a new type - also 500W engine, but it runs up to 60 kmph. However, a battery lasts only 60 km...

The search continues

Oh, ps.: I couldn't take a picture, as they're still in the process of refurbishing their shop - so no bikes are in it at the moment.

Edit: They're Chang Cheng

After the King's latest birthday, lots of news came out on Biodiesel. His Majesty had mentioned it in one of his speeches, I believe.

The news was that several police stations in Bangkok had started producing it...

My first question is: How good/bad is it? Many say, it's no better than normal diesel regarding Global Warming. Why is this? Because the way I see it, is that if it's produced from plants, theres a lot less total CO2 emission...

My second question is: What cars can, and what cars can't use it?

My third question is: Are these coppers still selling it? If so, which stations are?

My fourth question is: Is it financially interesting to use it?

The oridinal numbers are only so I can edit the subject...