Slip

Like anywhere else in the world, read any documents/contracts very carefully before you sign. Your signature confirms that you"ve understood the terms and conditions in a contract. Doesn't really matter what you have been told, as long as it was not a lie. You really have to pay seven years and you really get 1,000,000 paid out. The 15 years are for sure writen down in your documents. No big chance to change this...

I'll guarantee the 15 years is in the contract. I have read it.

OP- It ain't looking that healthy friend. Nevermind- at least you've got a mill coming in 15 years.

I always thought Singha water smelled of wet dogs.

amnesties? Is there something I don't know or do they mean amenities? Wonder what they were?

There is NO way anyone is going to mistake me for a marine, no matter how much makeup they make me wear

what if they want you to play a mangled corpse would that work ok

I'd have to be an officer- too old and fat to be a grunt, even a mangled one.

There is NO way anyone is going to mistake me for a marine, no matter how much makeup they make me wear

Rimmer- the link is to the start new topic window, not P1 News.

When you see results like this you have to ask what was wrong with the test. Many years ago I was talking to a guy who was teaching introductory accounting in English at a newly opened Thai university (St. John's, if it matters). He was telling me the Thai University Affairs Office, which set the curriculum standards, required him to create final exam questions of a level of difficulty he would expect to find on the United States CPA (Certified Public Accountant) exam -- an exam taken after a person has studied accounting for four years and worked at least two years in the field. In other words, the people writing the test questions were not trying to discover how much of the material that had been presented to the students they had learned, they were simply trying to create a barrier to success so that the only students who could get a passing grade were those who cheated or those who got favorable treatment one way or another. I'll bet this exam was the same.

By the way, when I was trying to teach high school mathematics in English, I couldn't get a copy of the curriculum in English, so I bought a number of the books students use to cram for the university entrance exams. The topics covered included things like symbolic logic, calculus, and trigonometric equations. Since the school week allowed for four hours a week of study over three years, I can guarantee no students could have learned all that subject matter.

So the problem is with the people making the tests. It may be true that many Thai teachers really do not know their subject matter, but the tests are not properly designed to show that. Any time you have 80% of testees "fail", your criteria for failure are not valid.

[My bold]- Yes indeed Acharn, as any teacher worth his salt knows. Presumably not this lot then Competence seems to be inversely proportional to position in the food chain in Thai education.

Feel free to look up who the leaders of the PAD were. He wasn't one. Nor did he act as their spokesperson.

The question is not what precise role Kasit had with the PAD movement.The question is - was his appointment as FM a sensible decision which enhanced Thailand's reputation given that he participated in and spoke approvingly of an illegal occupation?It can be plausibly argued that this terrorist action by PAD and its quasi fascist leadership set the precedent for more recent events.As it happens this absurd and splenetic little fellow has proved to be an incompetent, so Abhisit can dismiss him on performance grounds alone

No- You are quite incorrect. Here is the original 'question' as it was posed by Clausewitz, leading to JD's rebuttal:

After all Kasit promiya - the pad yellowshirts spokesman

Do try and keep up old man

Maybe The Thais have realised that you're an enemy of the state and are taking extreme measures.

All Brits know this quite well already. The purpose of the article was merely to remind them to start planning their next vacation. In fact, it was probably funded surreptitiously by the TAT.

Sixpack are you a 'NoththeNation' staff writer?

EDIT: The prostitutes in the pic in the article seem to be of the 'other' variety.

Forgiveness- For your own good not the other party's.

Failed state this, failed state that...

Get a grip people.

^^ Lool- God no- it's grim up North.

EDIT: But it's Scarborough you want for the Geordie Riviera

Glad it worked out properly UKMatt.

Does anyone know the international standards for evicting a large mob of criminals from a barricaded section of a major city? What is done in the UK or the USA when armed terrorists occupy the streets and attack security forces? Suggesting that there is a standard method for dealing with the Thai crisis is ridiculous, when has a similar event happened anywhere else?

A similar event occured in in Thailand in 2008, when a large mob of facist criminals barricaded different sections of the city for a total of 192 days. The government response was to allow the protest to continue until the large mob of criminals got what they wanted and the protest ended.

Ummm no

In 2008 a (by far and large) peaceful group of protesters staged an illegal act of civil disobedience for a long time. It did not cripple the financial center of the city.

The Reds were told they could remain at PanFah Bridge as long as they wanted. The problem is that Thaksin needed faster action which is why they moved to try and cripple the government by both armed terrorism and financial terrorism.

It was mainly peaceful I agree with you, it was mainly peaceful because the security forces made hardly any effort to remove them. On the one day that a sustained operation was enacted to remove the PAD 7/10/2008, 4 police were shot, a PAD supporter died trying to detonate a car bomb, 3 police seriously injured after being run over by a pick up truck and numerous ping pong grenades were thrown.

The PAD were not labeled as terrorists, instead the police backed off ( the army had no role in security operations against PAD) and allowed them to take over the airport.

Since then the only action taken against the PAD has been to make one of them foreign minister, hardly a heavy punishment.

Can you confirm who you're referring to?

I remember a young girl being blown up by a car bomb or something, but that doesn't sound like what you're talking about. Do you have a link please?

Parliamentary immunity.

Thaksin went to Eastern Kentucky and Sam Houston State??!! Sweet mercy everyone... sometimes amongst the skyscrapers of Bkk I feel like I'm in first world country... but then I hear stuff like this, a supposedly 'hi-so' foreign education among wealthy Thais, consisting merely of some crappy American backwater 'universities'! I really have to wonder if there are respectable, well-education world citizens living in Thailand or if everyone's a bit sketchy around the edges...

Well, don't worry too much, the chap from the other side was schooled at Eton and Oxford.

I wasn't trying to scare. Just in my experience immigration seem to consider overstay as 'all bets are off- you need to get a new visa'. Mind you, my experience has been with people with b's not o's- I had missed that the OP has an 'O'- apologies to all. Anyway, I don't really see what's so scary about popping to a neighbouring country for a couple of days?

^^ What would worry me about that, is once you are on overstay, I think that your visa is automatically cancelled for future entries. So you might have to do a Laos/ Cambodia run anyway.

^^Indeed- if Laopo is on the fence, then I'm a Welshman.

It's not that easy to tell the size, but I bet you could get a case to fit, some of these amulets seem to be about an inch thick and are still worn round the neck.

Many of us believe that Central World should not be rebuilt. Instead a People's Park should be built with a large memorial to the citizens slaughtered by the military in the 1976, 1992 and 2010 pro-democracy demonstrations.

Unbelievable- post number 2 and the trolls are out already.

Thanks for the answers guys- despite having an A level in economics AND a degree in accountancy, I'm a real financial numbskull.

Myself and my other half are both working teachers, with only Thai income or assets. Our income far outstrips our spending, hence the modest savings, which at the moment are just sitting in a deposit account doing nothing. My thinking had been along the lines of keeping 1/2 on deposit and doing something with the rest. Mostly my worry had been about the protests and a sudden collapse of the Thai economy leaving me sitting on a pile of useless baht.

My personal strategy is to highlight the most asinine part of a post and just add a:

Wow..

Wow..

(Sorry- it's called leading with your chin).