philw

Germany

UK

China

Thailand

where is the free Internet?

Are you suggesting for a moment that the interweb is no more free in Germany and the UK than in China and Thailand?

Well, in Thailand I never went on a page that was blocked, but I am not into discussing the royal family or gambling.

In UK I read in the newspaper (no own experience) that they block everything p0rn and they start now to block hate speech (which is a great excuse to block other political opinions).

Last time I was in Germany thepiratebay was blocked, considering how many video games, music, books are illegal/banned in Germany I guess there is a lot blocked on the internet as well.

China is blocking Gmail (or all Google) I got told which I would notice, which is strange considering how much censoring Google is doing already.

But as I told I never saw any news in Thailand blocked. I am sure there are things blocked but I think 99% are casinos and red shirt propaganda.

Still I think it is wrong but not that hot, shocking news that some Asian country is blocking some content on the internet.

For instance;

The Human Rights Watch Thailand web page, as it appeared Thursday. The government has blocked access to the page inside the country.

Trying to directly HRW.org/asia/thailand results in a redirection to a splash screen from the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, which reads "this website has inappropriate content and has been suspended."

Some web pages from BBC One, BBC Two, CNN, Yahoo! News, the Post-Intelligencer newspaper (Seattle, USA), and The Age newspaper (Melbourne, Australia) dealing with Thai political content are blocked

Then, www.dailymail.co.uk

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.

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Never mind, the Thaksin haters here will think it is perfectly justified and have no idea in what direction this country is going.

Dark times ahead for sure.

What amazes me is how few people know the speed limit here. 120kmph is only allowed on expressways. Expressways do not extend north of Rangsit, there isn't an expressway within 600km of Chiang Mai. The speed limits on motorways are as shown in the image below, taken from Google Maps on the highway south half way to Lamphun.

Thai speed limits.jpeg

Several people have said the OP was only 10kmph over the speed limit, when in fact he was exceeding the limit by over 50%. I'm not saying this is how I drive, I find 110kmph to be perfectly safe, but at least know the law.

edit: I also find the 50% difference between 10 wheel trucks and cars to be stupidly dangerous.

Hmmm according to that sign the speed limit for my pickup truck is 80 kph(50 mph) - that's ridiculous and I don't intend to obey it.

Hopefully you will get caught and made to pay a big fine. Ridiculous by whose standards, yours? You are in the country and you should obey the rules accordingly. If you dont and get caught dont come moaning here as it is your own fault

I am sure there are some on here who would love to report people for speeding and bad parking, if they had the chance.

"He was speeding officer, it's disrespectful to Thailand, cancel his visa and deport him...."

Nutters.

I have been a landlord for over 10yrs and yes I have had late payments despite me insisiting a standing order form is completed at the onset of a tenancy.

not once have I had the excuse "forgot"

I have had "the wife lost her job"... "the wifes got womens problems"..."its an expensive month"......"its christmas"....."I had to take 4 week off work with depression" "i used the money to put petrol in the car to get to work" "really I didn't know, its the banks fault"..."I am a bit short this month because I redecorated the house"

I forget the specifics of my tenancy agreement that I hand out but it says something like 5% per day will be deducted from the deposit for every day over the due date.

first port of call is to get the gas and electric meters changed to token meters as I am not being left with those outstanding credit bills.(even though I know I wouldn't)

My tenants get a strong word that it gets up to date within 5 days otherwise the house will be reposessed by the mortgagae company. I give them the sob story about their rent is paying the mortgage and I get letters from the bank to say its outstanding and in arrears. all bull hit of course but they cave in every time.

As a tenant you signed a contract to keep up with payments; so do it; its stealing; landlords are not charities and because they own another house doesn't make them able to afford a month without paying.

In life priority number 1.....................pay for the roof over your head..................priority 2...........pay to feed yourself

down the list....gas/electric/council tax/wifi/cable tv these are multi mega financially sound companies that your have little regard for especially compared with your landlord; who is human.

but you know; the plebs in life; the plebs renting property seem to think priority number 1 is Cigarettes/alcohol/taxis/internet connection/hp payments on big screen tv/...........and disposable nappies!

......................and thats why they are renting!!!!!

Rachman lives...

.......no.......moral of the story........malignant corruption at 'Stage 4 '......

...let's see if this government can continue and bring it under control......

.....and 'save the patient'......

ER.............

This has got little to do with the Government, ( whoever they may be ) and is unlikely to be instigated by them.

And the rest cannot be said.....

Like you're planning to do this again?

Planning to NOT do it again which is why I wanted to know where the camera was

NOT break the speed limit?

According to the police yesterday, disclosure of police traps is illegal

Wasn't there a thread here before where someone was asking where they were stopping and testing for drinking and driving, again so they could avoid them?

In your opinion, what is wrong with being well informed ??

Gotta love the sanctimonious posters on here yearning to create some sort of little america and another police state.

Presumably they don't really like Thailand as is ( otherwise there would be fewer complaints ) and are even less likely to have any understanding of the place.

The number of aging westerners married to non Thais who are facing all sorts of family-less end lonely end game scenarios is a serious concern.

It ain't Florida.

Thanks very much and appreciate the link.

Thanks again.

Phil.

To the west of Chiangmai, perfectly aligned, the lowest being the brightest.

Situated at 10 O'clock looking west.

About 9pm.

Anybody know their names ??

"...prevent England from being annihilated..."

To use an americanism, "gotta" take exception to that.

Thank you very much for your help and let's not forget the Aussies, NZ's, Canadians, Indians, Ghurkas,Pakistanis,Chinese, Russians, Poles, Czechs, Greeks, French, Africans, Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Protestants and Atheists who also helped america win the war.

In short, "Sod off ".

And the coffee sucks.....

I normally wear shorts and a T-shirt (clean and neat,) but for a a once-a-year sit-down with an Immigration officer I wore long pants and a cotton short-sleeved buttoned sport shirt. I figured that if, by some small chance, the Immigration officer actually cared about appearance, it might speed up my interview. As it happened, I was at the desk for less than 10 minutes. I don't know if my clothing had anything to do with it, but it certainly couldn't have hurt.

Well done !!!

Thank you for sharing.

Have a polar bear stamp ( common in UK primary schools in the sixties.)

Are we in some sort of primary school???

Do try to fit in dear.

Some on here consider that ones visa rights ( we are but merely guests... ) are determined by how we dress, how many photocopies you have and the level of grovelling ( physical and intellectual ) one can display...

I particularly like the old geezers who mind numbingly high wai the photocopy machine assistant and then diligently report back that the appointment they had the foresight to book, gave them a pleasant experience in what has to be the most uncomfortable ( outside the prisons ) environment in N.Thailand.

Smugly, i forgot that, but it can be fitted in somewhere...

"My pension is better than yours" or something like that.

It is not the government's responsibility to ensure that anyone receives a wage that provides a basic standard of living; it is your responsibility plain and simple. If you think the government should make sure you can live on the money you make then maybe you shouldn't have moved out of your Mommy and Daddy's house. Just let them take care of you forever.

Nice name....

Thanks guys.

Very informative.

phil

I can remember back in 2010 walking amongst the Red Shirts at Ratchaprasong on my way home from work and the big thing that struck me was that they were all mostly old people, farmers and the like. I also remember waaaay back in Australia demonstrating against the Vietnam war (or the American War as the Vietnamese call it) and the vast majority of us were young people, uni students and the like. I thought it sad that there were no students (that I could see) protesting in Bangkok not so much because I supported Thaksin but more because it looked as though the student voice had been muted. I suspected that they remembered the Thamasat massacre of October 1976. The idealism of youth serves to reminds us of a pathway to a world of justice, equality and rights which is the cornerstone of a functioning democracy.

It is up to the Thais to work out their own destiny but all I can see at the moment is a government fiddling around the edges, fixing up the lottery sales etc. whilst at the same time redirecting the country back to a mythical past where the peons know there place in the world.

These students were brave and possibly foolhardy; but in a country where the heir to a fortune can run over a policeman whilst high and drunk and has yet to even turn up at the local station, surely their being charged illustrates the fear this government has of an idea and of a public voice.

just my 2 cents worth

Excellent, thank you.

Won't stop the nutters on here wanting to hang the students though...

Frankly the video is much to ado about nothing, other than how it effects the relationship with the club owners. Silly to have posted it..nothing else.

"The video is much to ado about nothing". No. This is about a man who is having his bootom hole licked, this is something that is certainly not natural or normal.

Also, how many people do things like get together with two friends, and then meet up with three women, and then have sex together on one bed, all three couples at the same time and in the same place ? Get real, this kind of depraved and perverted activity is very rare, almost non-existent. The presence of this video, yes, three men actually did this, it makes such depraved and perverted behaviour look normal. And also, if any one of those three men has got a girlfriend or wife in England, well, can you imagine the absurdity of trying to explain this action ?

What ? "Yes love, that's me in the video, I didn't mean to do it, I was very drunk, I didn't actually know what I was doing, the other two pushed me into it, those Thai women encouraged us, I'm really sorry, it won't happen again, ever, please forgive me, I'm actually a good and decent man". How ridiculous would it be to say that to your own girlfriend or wife ??

They are in Bangkok...............

Do you have hormones and have you been there ???

Three stars due west at 8.35pm

One bright, one less so, one quite dim, in absolute alignment to the south of west

Stars, planets, maybe satellites.

I guess the brightest is a planet but are there any astronomers here who might know ???

I noticed the same formation about a month ago.

"The wage is not in line with current labour market situation or inflation rate"

This means the minimum wage will be reviewed. It may go up or it may go down.

The agenda driven would be all over this like white on rice with their illogical baseless arguments proclaiming doom and gloom under the NCPO.

I for one hope it does not go up again as this cost is transferred onto the price of goods and services. If the minimum wage was 1000 baht a day imagine the price of Tom Yum on the street!

Remember what yingluck said when the price of goods and services went up after the last minimum wage increase..."There is no inflation, you are imagining it due to the hot weather and the children returning to school". One word to describe that statement. Contempt. Goodness only knows what the doomers and gloomers reaction would have been if Prayut said that.

Well done to the government for aligning and linking the wage scale to economic conditions instead of a populist knee jerk reaction to win votes and make the price of my wife's Tom Yum go up. This increase negated any wage increase and works still got the same goods and services that they did before the wage hike.

​About time we had some sensible well thought out, planned and economically aligned proposals.

​"About time we had some sensible well thought out, planned and economically aligned proposals."

Wow.

A wage cut for a few million people is a sensible, well thought out decision.......

Truly mind boggling but doesn't really matter, they're peasants anyway and if they object too much our snipers and sharp shooters can always murder them..............

What is the Zombi Apocalypse. ?

And how does one prepare, as you did??

H90.

I sure hope the OP hasn't shut down the supply line for those of use who use the USPS to bring our vitamins and supplements into Thailand.

Incidentally, it isn't just vitamins and supplements. Last year for Thanksgiving, I organized a very special dinner at party at home and just had to make the family succotash, which involves lima beans. You can't buy canned or frozen lima beans in Thailand (well, maybe at the PX at the U.S. Embassy, but I couldn't score entry into there). Dry lima beans just weren't going to work, so I decided to buy canned lima beans from Amazon.com, yes that's right, and have one order shipped via DHL and the other order shippped via UPSP.

Sure enough, the DHL order got hung up in customs and hit with a duty and the USPS order took longer to arrive, but no duty. Both shipments got manhandled and the cans arrived severely dented. I had to open the cans and decided to risk saving the lima beans by freezing them. I decided a week or two in a dented can wasn't going to kill us. Oh, the price per can was about $15, incidentally. Not something I'm going to do again.

Oh, the pain of it all...

I fully agree.

The PTP tried to shelter the PM from actually doing anything while she was in power. They sent her on "road trips" to obscure countries that have no economic ties with Thailand, put her on trains to nowhere for photo ops, controlled her Facebook narrative to project a competent leader, allowed her to read from a script when she had to stand in front of an audience and say something in public. This was all done for one simple reason and that was to shield her from any responsibility when accountability for the undemocratic decisions the PTP made come to light. This news article is a classic example of why she was boxed up and packed up like a barbie doll (no offence to Barbie) and let out in a very controlled fashion. (Yes, yes, yingluck was elected, but then a "Barbie" at Robinson's would have been to if it offered 40% above market value)

There is one sentence that rings like southing church bells in the PTP's ears. A reason they kept "Barbie" on the shelf in the dark. "No connection" is the magic word the PTP love to hear. "No connection" epitomises yingluck when describing her in relation to her responsibilities as PM. "No connection" comes to mind when hearing her polished Kentucky State University English. "No Connection" is another word for yingluck, but longer and with different letters!

"No connection" is also why she is being held to account for the rice scam.

Wow, great stuff man.

An accurate, incisive, unbiased, without prejudice or hatred, assessment of Thailand's first female PM.

Very well done, three stars.

What is "southing" the bells ??

An instruction to the helm?

Next they will be demanding prayer rooms, toilets facing away from Mecca, Korans and of course halal everything, they never change. They love to play the victim, but the truth is very different.

Your wisdom, erudition, sagacity, compassion and intelligence is truly beyond measure.

Will they be wanting toilet paper as well as the right to life ??

Nothing wrong here, they're just being typical Moslems, demanding special treatment from the rest of the world.

Islam, the religion of perpetual indignation.

Very similar to the muslim refugee's in the US protesting because the free food they are getting isn't Halal. Send them back home.

So you would be happy provisioning non kosher food to Jewish refugees ???

The Islamaphobia and racism on here is pathetic.

maybe this is just lost in translation or bad journalism, but do I now understand from this report that

Pol Gen Somyot Pumpunmuang

who hates the PTP and Thaksin is now claiming that his critics are pressuring him to strip Thaksin of his rank???

And that he is instead going to do it because he is a just, upright, and honest cop?

someone help me out with this so that I can then ROFLMAO...

Correct.

Could it be that things are afoot in Thai society that go beyond the comprehension and simplistic hatreds of the anti Thaksin league on here???

Surely not.

Absolutely. In real democratic countries as we come from police officers retain their rank when getting out, going into business and politics, or get convicted, sentenced and do a runner. Obviously to even want to have Thaksin's police rank removed means someone is a hater of democracy in general and Thaksin specifically.

Uh ???

Too many reds ??

Wine I mean.

Drive with the traffic not against it. You would not do it in your country so why do it here.

Yes, i have done.

I don't know which is safer, but every once in a while some obnoxious foreigner starts yelling at me for going the wrong way when I am riding my bicycle in a bicycle lane that goes in both directions. It is always a white person, if that makes any difference.

Interesting point.

I also have experienced that.

Thanks

I often ride my little honda against the traffic for a couple of blocks, especially when going to Rimping, but I had a bad experience with a foreigner who quite deliberately tried to run me off the road.

Why someone from a western country should do that is another question...

I notice that most Thai people, in the same situation, drive on the pavement.

Which is safer ??