micksterbs

Third world, and always will be!

No, IGNORANT world...

Window dressing, just window dressing...

What, no hubs?

I used to be a policeman in England (many years ago) and I thought a policeman's duties were to catch criminals, when they were thieving etc. at all times not merely on a specific week-end as a publicity stunt.

Quite...

At the end of the day not a lot changes , so we can all stay here !. Imagine if they were to actually stop corruption , uphold the law , put working cameras in the traffic/speeding cam boxes , arrest and actually charge people for speeding , jumping a light , going down a street the wrong way etc , resulting in fines , penalty points, increased insurance costs etc , hell we might as well go back to the countries we all got out of where most of us were too low in the food chain to be involved in Western Style Corruptuon which is only for the western elite ( politicians and corporations especially )

Yes it is corrupt in Thailand but not just for the Thai Elite

Not quite sure what you're getting at here. I think most western expats would be only too glad to see some facets of Thai life more resemble "home". An impartial, professional police force. An independant judiciary. A free press. State health/education that wasn't a complete joke. You make it sound as if we came here due to the absence of these things but maybe I'm simply mis-reading you...

Typo - reason for edit

You make it sound like you want it just like you had at home. Only I would bet you would not like the measures they take to raise the money. TAX

No, not at all; I loved Thailand because it was so totally different. But the examples that Sadoc used, stopping corruption, upholding the law, etc, etc, are issues that I would suggest are quite dear to most expats' hearts and I'm sure that you, like most of us, could cite many examples of corruption and dodgy policing. You can love a country without being blind to its shortcomings just as we do with our own countries.

Exactly. Prison is for the great unwashed. Nice people don't really break the law, as such; they are just having a bad day.

Make a donation to the appropriate person, release a few fish and/or birds and look contrite for the camera and all's well.

Edited for typo

And...Go and do a month in a Monastery and then visit as many monasteries as you can the following month and the charges you will get off with will not only be corruption, but terrorism and incitement to murder as well!

How could I forget?

So no political discussions that could quite possibly have made reference to Number One.

She could have done that on ThaiVisa!

He is politics.

He is above politics.

Yes, that's what he'd like you to think...

I cannot speak for other farangs , but If all the corruption in Thailand was to be commandered by the Elite as it has in the west , who then take my money to impose their big brother ideas on me , tax me to the hilt to give it away to the third world or spend it on bombing people , Then yes I think it would be time to leave Thailand .

The western way has simply not worked , In the uk we have a generation of illiterate innumerate cretins running around the streets either dealing or stealing , when they are caught we don't punish them , we try and cure them with goodwill , parents are not allowed to discipline their children ,

schools are not allowed to discipline the children so nobody does .

I prefer this corrupt society where although I may have to pay a policeman tea money to catch the culprit , that b'tard who robbed me is going to a crap jail for a long time . In the uk I cannot even offer the cops money to come out for a burglary nowadays , and if perchance they trip over the burglar on his 90th offence he can expect a few easy months in a single cell ,with three squares, tv & playstation , and I get to pay for that as well .

I find myself in agreement with some of what you say about the general malaise that seems to be creeping through the West like a cancer and that was a reasonably-sized part of what brought me to LOS in the first place. But as for "take my money to impose their big brother ideas on me", then I think you'll find Thailand to be a hundred times worse. At least in the UK and the West we have a free press and freedom of speech. You'll struggle to find that in Thailand where newspapers, TV and radio stations are owned and run by the army or their proxies and where one has to be very mindful of lese majeste laws.

I returned to the UK when our daughter was born. We realised that there was no way that state education would even come close to what we wanted for her (my wife and I both taught in Thailand; my wife is Thai) and so we uprooted and came to the UK, imperfections and all.

Sounds like a perfect way to make sure the graft is controlled from one central clearing house.

Anyone not on the bosses good list gets prevented from getting any,

and anything being syphoned the wrong was sends up flags.

It of course also allows the opposition to be hung out to dry,

or burning those fallen from grace as sacrificial lambs to appearances,

thus giving the impression of a cutting down on graft.

Ooh, how can you be so cynical?

At the end of the day not a lot changes , so we can all stay here !. Imagine if they were to actually stop corruption , uphold the law , put working cameras in the traffic/speeding cam boxes , arrest and actually charge people for speeding , jumping a light , going down a street the wrong way etc , resulting in fines , penalty points, increased insurance costs etc , hell we might as well go back to the countries we all got out of where most of us were too low in the food chain to be involved in Western Style Corruptuon which is only for the western elite ( politicians and corporations especially )

Yes it is corrupt in Thailand but not just for the Thai Elite

Not quite sure what you're getting at here. I think most western expats would be only too glad to see some facets of Thai life more resemble "home". An impartial, professional police force. An independant judiciary. A free press. State health/education that wasn't a complete joke. You make it sound as if we came here due to the absence of these things but maybe I'm simply mis-reading you...

Typo - reason for edit

How on earth can one meet Prem and not talk politics? He is politics. There's only one real reason for a tete-a-tete with him but to expand upon that leads us into forbidden territory, doesn't it?

Exactly. Prison is for the great unwashed. Nice people don't really break the law, as such; they are just having a bad day.

Make a donation to the appropriate person, release a few fish and/or birds and look contrite for the camera and all's well.

Edited for typo

sex in thailand ???,..................who would have thought this type of thing would happen here ? .amazing , the girls seem so sweet too !

Well, quite. Until we started letting those wicked foreigners into our tropical paradise, everything was just rosy. The women were sweet and demure, the peasants obedient and submissive and all policians were honest and honourable.

If only we could just turn back the clock... wail, wail!

Yingluck (you little cutie) to have an impact upon graft, corruption, extortion etc you will need to ruthlessly clean out the government first. So, after the house is empty, what then?

Cutie for sure

But would look nicer with a Pearl necklace

that she likes to wear

.

Ooh, you forgot to mention the kneepads...

Yingluck (you little cutie) to have an impact upon graft, corruption, extortion etc you will need to ruthlessly clean out the government first. So, after the house is empty, what then?

Cutie for sure

But would look nicer with a Pearl necklace

that she likes to wear

.

Steady, boy, steady...

Are these people REALLY politicians? or are they comedians? It would be difficult to make this stuff up.

I'm afraid that, as in every other country, the Thai people end-up with the government they deserve.

Hmm, a Thai politician in charge of an anti-graft drive. Isn't that a bit like King Herod sitting on the board of Mothercare?

Well, I'm sure that Hopewell would be more than willing to build the new circuit...

<br />

<br />I'd love to take Abhisit (disguised) around my last school in Khon Kaen province. I was one of two native-speakers and there were six Thai English teachers. All the English classrooms were on the same floor and we had to walk past the other rooms to get to our own little office. The "lessons" in the Thai teachers' rooms were full of students but invariably minus a teacher. It went something like this; Thai teacher walks in, settles the kids down, takes the register, tells them to open their books to page 94 and do the the first three exercises, says she has an important meeting to go to and be quiet until she gets back. She then toddles back to the air-conditioned staff-room and sits with the other teachers eating som tam and watching television.<br /><br />Non-teachers amongst you might be forgiven for thinking I'm exagerrating. I'm afraid I'm not.<br /><br />By the way, we soon realised why the Thai teachers were so "kind" as to give the two of us our own office, well away from theirs...<br />

<br /><br />I know this is happening on the secondary level but have never experienced in on the tertiary level. Nevertheless, it is part of my campaign to educate the educators, make the teachers able to teach. And create some motivation among the teachers too: How can the students be motivated to learn if their teachers don't lead by example?<br /><br />Stuff for the Minister of Education to take up.<br />

<br /><br /><br />

I'm not a teacher, thank God, but I WAS taught to re-read my stuff before submitting it.

'Eccentric'. 'Exaggerating'. '...never experienced in (it?) on the tertiary level....'?!

Your own accuracy would lift your own credibility (already high) even higher.

Hmm, often get that one wrong, damnit.

Won't lose much sleep over it however...

I'd love to take Abhisit (disguised) around my last school in Khon Kaen province. I was one of two native-speakers and there were six Thai English teachers. All the English classrooms were on the same floor and we had to walk past the other rooms to get to our own little office. The "lessons" in the Thai teachers' rooms were full of students but invariably minus a teacher. It went something like this; Thai teacher walks in, settles the kids down, takes the register, tells them to open their books to page 94 and do the the first three exercises, says she has an important meeting to go to and be quiet until she gets back. She then toddles back to the air-conditioned staff-room and sits with the other teachers eating som tam and watching television.

Non-teachers amongst you might be forgiven for thinking I'm exagerrating. I'm afraid I'm not.

By the way, we soon realised why the Thai teachers were so "kind" as to give the two of us our own office, well away from theirs...

Well, as we don't appear to have an emoticon for shaking one's head in disbelief, you'll just have to imagine me doing it.

In view of the often exasperating nature of Thai military/political affairs, might I suggest we add such an emoticon?

It will only work when the PAD and alike are being kept out. Lots of work to do internally I think.

Did anyone notice picture 2 generals toasting each other with champagne. This is a bloody champagne. Are they toasting to the 14 dead people?

This is what you die for in the Thai or Cambodia army?

Yep. i heard it specially flown in from a undisclosed location.

I imagine from the Cambodian side - one of the many benefits of being colonised.

Hmm, there is that. But, champagne aside, being colonised has done precious-little good for Cambodia. Yep, I realise your remark was humorous but I often wondered what Thailand would be like now if it had fallen-prey to the British or the French. Better in many ways, I'm sure, but...

Of course, Thailand wouldn't be the first developing or third-world country to play the nationalist card on the run-up to an election. Nothing like an external enemy to get the voters motivated. Especially when one can practically see the generals pulling Abhisit's strings anyway; a win-win for the Army.