thaibeachlovers

Malaysia is a great place to visit. Just don't talk politics or be an obvious Jew. Yes a lady did spit on my face there for being American but stuff happens.

I doubt they care about Jews per se. It's Israel they have a problem with, like most of us, and most of the world. Just don't have an Israeli flag on the backpack and you'll be fine.

The west will never again have growth like in the 50s and 60s. Having exported most of the unskilled jobs to China or other low wage countries, and the remaining industrial jobs being rapidly taken over by robots, there are simply too many people trying to get too few jobs and that isn't going to change. The latest job killer I have seen is the automated petrol station- no human being to be seen. Automated car parking buildings, soon every possible job that can be automated will be and that'll be even more people competing to stack boxes in the supermarket. As for the kids that thought they didn't have to get a school qualification- they are going to be the new subclass of never employed and unemployable.

Times are going to get very hard in the not so far away future- enjoy it now while you can.

Interestingly, TVF posters do not seem to be interested about this.

Given all the other threads about refugees to Europe in the past few months I'm not surprised not many are interested. Europe is barking for taking them all, and it's going to end badly- what more is there to say?

I have always laughed at this notion that families visiting Pattaya is something new.

Yep, it does appear that many people seem to think this is a new concept, not just the reported increase in families visiting.

Between 1988 & 1999 I knew Pattaya intimimately, before Jomtien was even developed. Pattaya, during that time period was always aimed at family holidays. But this seemed never to have been recognised by those who frequented the areas that weren't 'family friendly'. Seems nothing much has changed over the years.

Oh, and during that particular period, there were very few restrictions endorced, very few rules and boundries yet the families kept coming back year after year. The only thing lacking was the violence.

Sure, different times I grant you, but Pattaya didn't build the shopping malls, restaurants and all the 'western conveniences for the sex-pats or the retirees only......

From the 70's, it has always been a family holiday destination.

I was there a lot early to late 90s, and I fail to remember it being aimed at family holidays. Also, Jomptien was well developed from at least 1990. Those big condo buildings didn't just spring up overnight.

Certainly, there were a lot of resorts that catered to families on Beach Rd from Central Rd to North Rd, and on the south end of Naklua Rd, but they were of the sort where you didn't leave the resort except on an AC bus tour. I recall no families in the south Pattaya area or Walking Street.

It wasn't till the Russian invasion that young children were seen on WS at night.

Pattaya has always been a big boys playground, till recently.

Anyone claiming that Pattaya is becoming a family town had better take themselves on a walking tour of Soi Buakhao and see how many "families" they can count, LOL.

Why would someone want to take their family to Walking Street or even Soi Buakhao at night? They have their own reputations.

A line from my original post: "But this seemed never to have been recognised by those who frequented the areas that weren't 'family friendly'."

And sorry, as for Jomptien being developed in 1990? Seriously? The lights used to go out at about 21:00 every night. Check your photo album for 1990................................

Hmmmm I used to take the girlfriend over to Jomptien to spend the day at the beach and swim. Loads of people and plenty of beach umbrellas over there. Don't know what time the lights went out as gone back to Pattaya by dark.

I certainly will see if my early photos of Jomptien are on the computer, but if not, can't check as have thousands of pics of Thailand stored and would take ages just to find a few.

I think some of you are totally missing the point when you talk about Pattaya being, or not being a resort area suitable for families. Specifically, the poster suggesting we take a walking tour of Soi Buakhao--presumably to show that Pattaya is not suitable. Using the argument of, I suppose, a street being aimed at adults to place the whole city off limits to families is really weak. There are plenty of other places in the Pattaya area for tourist families to spend their time without having to go to Walking Street, Soi 6, etc. Most cities have adult areas--it doesn't mean families have to avoid going to a city.

You misunderstand my post re Soi Buakhao. I was responding to the posters saying that Pattaya was now a family town, when obviously places like Buakhao are not. I also said families stay at the big resorts and have been doing so since at least the early 90s.

Other off limit areas for families would be Boy's Town and the sois next to it, Soi Post Office and the one next to it ( forgotten the name- getting old ), Soi 6 and Walking Street plus the area behind it, also Soi 7 and 8, the bar complex at the north end on both sides of 2nd Rd and the bar area on the Naklua Rd.

Sailing News media speaks out strongly against Malaysian anti-Jewish racism.

Malaysia ... never again. Not more international sports events for you. I hope they enjoy this one because it should be their LAST. I say that because obviously they won't change. The obsessive anti-Jewish racism of their government is that deeply ingrained.

BTW, I have already provided an abundance of good evidence, from Malaysia leadership voices themselves, that is not a narrow thing about disagreement with Israeli government policies. Rather, it is mostly about racist Jew hating in the tradition of Adolph Hitler. Imagine how Hitler would have loved a gold medalist waving a Star of David national flag singing the incredibly beautiful and inspiring national anthem of Israel.

Learning from this disgraceful occurrence, World Sailing must add to its contracts a severe monetary penalty, of say US$500,000 to events that discriminate against countries in this manner. If events bid for World Sailing championships, without written assurances from their national governments that Visas will be issued to all potential country participants then they should incur that penalty.

If that means that countries like Malaysia do not bid for World Sailing events, tough!!

http://www.sail-world.com/World-Sailing-must-make-sure-this-discrimination-never-happens-again/141088

I really wish you wouldn't keep calling Israel Jewish. There are Muslim Arab Israelis as well, so to call Israel Jewish is to ignore the Arab Israelis. If you think Malaysia is preventing Israelis going because they are Jewish, they could train some Arab Israelis to wind surf and they could go to represent Israel.

Questions I'd like to see answered.

Did they build on unsuitable areas because of population or economic pressure?

Did they make the area more likely to flood because they cut down the trees or blocked natural water channels?

Same reason it happened here. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

They've been building on flood plains for ages in Britain. It won't stop till insurance companies refuse to cover flooding on flood plains.

At least the economy, quarter on quarter is growing, not as fast as projected, but growing nevertheless.

Might delay any proposed interest rate hikes though which is good for our economy, but maybe not so good if you are living in Thailand and hoping for a better exchange rate.

The zero interest game is the biggest con ever. It means that banks make vast profits while the people that put their money in the banks get nothing. The people that thought that one up are nothing less than crooks.

However, it doesn't make any difference as the economic system is rigged for the benefit of the rich anyway.

Such a lovely, warm human being.

I don't think he has it in him to go the distance to the actual election. As it gets closer to the election and the nation gets tired of his shtick, after losing a couple of primaries, he'll declare victory and bail. I give him another couple of months.

It doesn't matter who the Republicans prop up there. They're toast.

What a fun election. Fun like funhouse fun.

If your wish comes true and you get HRC in you will no doubt regret it. Obama is bad, but I hate to think of her really stuffing it up. If it was just the US I wouldn't care, but the US affects the whole world, ergo, she'll be stuffing up my life as well.

Given anyone of a dozen or more countries around the world, Trump would have ended up as a harsh and uncompromising dictator.

Indeed. He can't help himself. He's just an undiplomatic, crass, uncouth, bully.

Sounds like that other clown, Bush the second. He got elected twice.

CNN keeps sensationalizing Trump's national poll leads, but national polls are not how you become the party nominee. You get delegates state by state, and that's an entirely different matter.

If the Donald won the popular vote and a delegate overrode the popular vote to give their support to someone else they'd better have a helicopter on standby, move to another state and never come back.

What I would love to happen is someone with enough tenacity causes Anti-Israel discrimination to have a cost, as happened with the scuppering of two code sharing agreements involving Arab airlines who refused to accept Israeli passengers.

Had other countries with contestants in the windsurfing championships threatened to pull out that would have perhaps caused enough bad publicity to force Malaysian officials to change their minds.

http://m.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/The-Travel-Adviser-Biography-of-a-gadfly-438523

Dream on. What western country is going to pull out because Israel got binned? Perhaps the USA, but I doubt anyone else cares. People just don't support Israel anymore, and it's been self inflicted.

Pattaya can be both a major brothel and family destination. The sex trade is a night trade by nature. family activities are done during the day. Families should be in the hotel pool side by 9 pm. No need for kids to see walking street at night. When I was young and with my parents after dinner it was family time near hotel not wandering the streets. Parents who let their child go out with them late in the evening arenot that good of parents to begin with, so would not matter where in the world they were, the children would have bad influences daily in their lives.

I really wish posters would stop referring to Pattaya as a brothel. The only brothels are for the THAI trade. The girls that cater for farangs are free agents. Anyone with more than a superficial knowledge of Pattaya knows that.

I have always laughed at this notion that families visiting Pattaya is something new.

Yep, it does appear that many people seem to think this is a new concept, not just the reported increase in families visiting.

Between 1988 & 1999 I knew Pattaya intimimately, before Jomtien was even developed. Pattaya, during that time period was always aimed at family holidays. But this seemed never to have been recognised by those who frequented the areas that weren't 'family friendly'. Seems nothing much has changed over the years.

Oh, and during that particular period, there were very few restrictions endorced, very few rules and boundries yet the families kept coming back year after year. The only thing lacking was the violence.

Sure, different times I grant you, but Pattaya didn't build the shopping malls, restaurants and all the 'western conveniences for the sex-pats or the retirees only......

From the 70's, it has always been a family holiday destination.

I was there a lot early to late 90s, and I fail to remember it being aimed at family holidays. Also, Jomptien was well developed from at least 1990. Those big condo buildings didn't just spring up overnight.

Certainly, there were a lot of resorts that catered to families on Beach Rd from Central Rd to North Rd, and on the south end of Naklua Rd, but they were of the sort where you didn't leave the resort except on an AC bus tour. I recall no families in the south Pattaya area or Walking Street.

It wasn't till the Russian invasion that young children were seen on WS at night.

Pattaya has always been a big boys playground, till recently.

Anyone claiming that Pattaya is becoming a family town had better take themselves on a walking tour of Soi Buakhao and see how many "families" they can count, LOL.

No one really cared when the big bucks were being made. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. At least with smog, the rich in their mansions are just as affected as the poor serfs in their slums. Expect to see major relocation by the rich to cleaner areas of China.

Questions I'd like to see answered.

Did they build on unsuitable areas because of population or economic pressure?

Did they make the area more likely to flood because they cut down the trees or blocked natural water channels?

Just as well as the Malay surfers would have lost the compaction surfing wearing Arab drabs and veils,

Yeah I know stupid comment yes? and so are most of the contributors here who advocate for more

hate even in sporting events, that interestingly enough, started in ancient Greece to compete among

rivals armies in sporting events instead on the battle fields...

Malay males don't wear that sort of thing ( and the women don't wear veils ). In Malaysia it's not compulsory for women to wear all covering clothes, though string bikinis might be a stretch.

Amir Gill, chairman of the Israel association, also told local media that Malaysia had placed "unacceptable" demands by forbidding athletes from carrying their country's flag or wearing any symbol on their attire and surfboards that showed their country of origin.

Seems like a reasonable idea to ban flags etc. It's supposed to be about sports, not trumpeting that your country is the best because you won some competition. That's why I ignore the Olympic games.

Conveniently failed to mention these restrictions were targeted at ISRAEL only.

I wasn't referring to that situation. I only commented that it seems like a good idea to take nationalism out of international sporting events. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Personally, I couldn't care less about international sports of any sort. Sports are supposed to be what individuals do, not some great media event boosting nationalism and advertisements. It could all vanish tomorrow and I'd cheer.

This time, I'm not referring to Israel directly.

Yes, the heartless and fools without a shadow of a doubt. Please check your recent history, it was your idol Ronald Regan that started the road to ruin in the states, aided and abetted later by turncoat Clinton with the repeal of Glass/Steagall plus NAFTA and it was the Cheney/Bush regime that brought us the crash, Iraq, Afghanistan the hatred of much of the world, and loss of jobs, not Obama. You can find your cherry picked right wing bullshit anywhere on faux (not the) news, bratbart and various other lying right wing hate blogs etc. The real dumb "protesters" are the teabaggers that can't even spell much less understand what they are protesting, ahem hands off my Social Security/Medicare, oh give me a break. And, the Trump supporters are exactly what you say. Trump couldn't get elected dawg catcher in a national election, better check my link again, that's not a Rasmussen (Republican) poll.

I assume you are referring to me with "your" though you don't quote.

Reagan was never my idol- he was a war criminal that should have been locked up. The crash was brought by the banks- the very ones that Obama loves. Certainly he has done nothing to punish the scum bankers that brought it about. Given the large number of ex Goldman Sachs in the White House I'd say he has a cosy arrangement with the very crooks that ruined millions. HRC voted for Iraq. Obama has done nothing to stop US jobs going to other countries like Mexico, despite having had 7 years to do so.

BTW calling Clinton a turncoat doesn't make him any less Democrat, in fact there is very little difference between the parties when it comes down to it. They both like going to war, and are incompetent at running the country. It's just a change of face at the elections, not a change of "real" policy. That is why many US voters hate Congress and would vote for a newt if it stood against the establishment.

Just as well as the Malay surfers would have lost the compaction surfing wearing Arab drabs and veils,

Yeah I know stupid comment yes? and so are most of the contributors here who advocate for more

hate even in sporting events, that interestingly enough, started in ancient Greece to compete among

rivals armies in sporting events instead on the battle fields...

Malay males don't wear that sort of thing ( and the women don't wear veils ). In Malaysia it's not compulsory for women to wear all covering clothes, though string bikinis might be a stretch.

Amir Gill, chairman of the Israel association, also told local media that Malaysia had placed "unacceptable" demands by forbidding athletes from carrying their country's flag or wearing any symbol on their attire and surfboards that showed their country of origin.

Seems like a reasonable idea to ban flags etc. It's supposed to be about sports, not trumpeting that your country is the best because you won some competition. That's why I ignore the Olympic games.

Often it's not the direct fire threat which destroys homes, but the blown glowing embers which can come ahead of the fire-front by many kilometres/miles which is the true hazard.

I tried to find a wildfire related explanation, but the best I could do was this one from Australia. Seems quite comprehensive though.

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s794270.htm

The video is quite good, if sad to watch.

While that seems like a reasonable explanation, if everyone had a swimming pool and a pump, they could surely wet down the houses so that the embers didn't start a fire. That, combined with clear felling might work, but doesn't seem to have been tried. No doubt there are some greenie laws saying that they can't cut the trees in there somewhere. Personally, I'd have to question the wisdom of building in a fire risk area at all- equal to the stupidity of building on a flood plain and then complaining when the house gets flooded.

Yeah, right. Like learn from the US system where they have metal detectors at the entrance of most (or all??) public schools, where the there is a deputy sheriff stationed at the school to discipline school kids as young as 8 years old by handcuffing them as the teachers and principals can't do it.

Thailand IS Thailand, and not has to be copied from other countries. Sure, improvements can and should be made, but not necessarily by copy/paste from other cultures and societies.

"The US system" that brought you the computer and the internet and the smart phone and much of what we call the digital age could teach you a thing or three.

"The US system" is so advanced and fast moving that IBM published a dictionary of new American tech terms and it has 18,000 entries. 18,000 new "English" terms that NO Brit or Aussie could hope to pronounce correctly, much less could a Thai attempt it.

Just start hiring American teachers if you want to keep up and get things done.

Cheers.

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Are the internet, smart phones and the digital age actually a good thing for society? Kids walking around like zombies with smartphones glued to their ear- hundreds of digital friends and no real ones, the internet- great for porn and spying on everyone.

While I'm as addicted as anyone to the internet, I do wonder what I could achieve in my life if I wasn't wasting it debating with a lot of people that I'll never meet.

Believe it or not, there was life before digital.

Why the obsession with age ?

I am not from the 'holier than thou' brigade, I am normal.

Put a relative in the young girl's position, or maybe you would have no problem with your barely legal daughter/niece, being with a sexual predator ?

Hmmmm While I doubt many young girls in my country are having sex with older men (60+ ), the popular belief is that few make it to 16 ( legal age ) as virgins. So, in your world view, are all the boys that bonk underage girls nonces, especially as most of them would be underage as well? I know a solo mum that put her 14 year old daughter on the pill as she was having it off all the time with schoolboys.

Generally speaking how do Military people know anything about Education? When will Thailand wake up & start to take advise from the world leaders regarding everything from human rights to education to road safety. This country is going to be in deep do-do if they don't embrace what other countries are doing. Countries that were devastated by war not that long ago (Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia) are progressing at a faster rate than Thailand, when Thailand should be leaps & bounds ahead because they haven't been overthrown,persecuted or decimated by a foreign country. They have always had an ongoing infrastructure but I suppose not much guidance including now.

You obviously know sod all about the military. They train the military to instruct ( another word for teach ) the lower ranks on everything from combat to first aid. They know as much about how to teach as most teachers.

I certainly hope they don't take notice of NZ re road safety. The drivers there are terrible. Very few have any idea as to the safe distance between cars when driving, and they are the worst tailgaters I've ever seen.

Can anyone explain why they don't go in with chainsaws and just clear cut around the houses when fires are likely to destroy them?

Of course the increase in population has increased the use of fossil fuels. All 7 billion of us want to drive a car and have lots of shiny toys powered by electricity ( generated by -------------- yes, fossil fuels ).

Sure no argument there, the argument is, do we lower the number of people that use foccil fuels or do we change the fuels they use?

One must remember that this planet is awash in energy , so much energy that it threatens our existence.If it was not for the magnetosphere we would be extinct. winds threaten to blow our homes down, in Hawaii and other places lava will burn your house, etc etc

Yet we are trapped with using Fossil fuels . WHY

very simple

Fossil fuels were discovered at an age when there were not so many of as, and we did not have the technology to use anything else, they were necessary, plentiful, and easy,

now there are much more of as, and fossil fuels are not plentiful, easy or necessary.

But there are those who have invested a lot in fossil fuels, are making an incredible amount of money, and as a consequence have a lot of power, and are not about to give up the money or the power.

It really as simple as that.

Even if they sterilised every human alive today, there are already 3 billion too many. So it has to be different fuel. The technology exists, so now it's up to governments to bite the bullet and subsidise alternative powered public transport to the extent people no longer need to use private cars. I'm not holding my breath though.

some of the solutions are simple but the politics complicate them

Take electric cars, the solution for an unlimited range electric car is here , but the politics will not allow it, dont have a link it is my own idea , I am sure others had it, also sure politics will not allow it.

No no , it's not a very long electric cord

Standardize the battery compartment and make it detachable, develop an automated system for exchanging battery pods.

So you drive into a battery exchange station, stop over the exchange machine, press the exchange button that releases the battery pod, a robotic system lowers the pod into a place where it will be recharged, a new fully charged battery pod is raised into your car, the whole process takes less time that it now takes to fuel your car ,re engage your new battery pod and you are on your way

all the engineering, materials and technology necessary to do this is available right now

what's missing is the political will.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but I thought of the exchangeable battery system years ago, and if I and you thought of it you can be sure the manufacturers have thought of it. As to why they won't do it, I have my suspicions but no proof.