Gaccha

This is genuinely fantastic news. The sheer malevolence and cruelty of the American Empire was displayed in the treatment of this man. He simply showed the world who America is, and America did not like it. Americans have been subjected to years and years of propaganda against Assange, so they will recoil at this news. For everyone else, this is the day where freedom of speech has actually triumphed.

I'm not going to specifically check English Law, but the Canadian courts faced the identical issue, and allowed historical offences to be charged using the buggery law: '...historical sexual offences, such as section 159's predecessors, gross indecency and buggery, can still be used in historical cases, as long as the conduct amounted to sexual assault or child sexual abuse.' [link] If it relates to new charges laid, then that could well be shoddy journalism. As an ex-lawyer I know that journalists are almost always wrong on the legal procedures and issues of cases, so I struggle to get stressed over these things. It's complex.

This rather depends on whether Kanchanburi has changed its policy in 2024, in line with Bangkok Immigration and others, so that every time you return from abroad you must do a 90 days in person. If you never leave Thailand this will not matter, but if you do, you are certainly not going to have 364 days trouble-free...

To quote Mr Marx, "society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic." I love the idea of having the free time to go fishing after having a good argument at dinner, but I get a bit of a spine chill because Mr Marx is dangerously vague on how the state will be doing the regulating. It sounds like they ("society") will be regulating others, coercing others. The only way I can see to achieve this is "fully-automated luxury communism", where humans are no longer the slaves of the production mechanism but instead robots and AI do all the work. And I don't think this is a pipe dream. It would be absurd to imagine that capitalism will last another 500 years, so why not imagine this fully automated communism instead. I just don't believe it's possible yet.

I think the economy of the world is inevitably changing with profound social changes. Many people speak of Technofeudalism (rentier capitalism), and I don't really think this can be stopped. The world is set to be a very cruel place with a few winners and a lot of losers. I think in America the situation in a sense is totally hopeless and totally fantastic. The American people are absolute believers in the beauty of capitalism. They really think that if somebody fails it is their own fault. Yet the inequality of America is clearly structural (rampant nepotism and trustafarians etc), more so than Europe. This same mindset which guarantees a country of great cruelty also guarantees the country will be very wealthy, as we can see with America's remarkable economic success compared with Europe over the last 15 years. I think the only real credible ameliorating change is the introduction of Universal Income (basic income) across the developed world. I know that South Africa is right now about to introduce it.

There is a huge and quite exciting rupture going on here between the "people from somewhere" and the "people from nowhere" (technocratic, globalist, cosmopolitan, neoliberal, socially liberal). The latter are trying quite desperately, in their final death throes, to hold on to their monopoly of power across Europe. In the UK the Blairite domination of government is overwhelming. The best possible outcome for the People of Somewhere is, ironically, a destruction of the Tory party; this would scare the Labour Party more than any other possibility because they will appear to lack legitimacy if they have no real opponent. With the rise of a new party (I don't have much hope for the neoliberal Reform party), the socially conservative and economically liberal (unquestionably the majority of the UK public) could finally get a voice. Blair was a member of a Trotskyist group at university. This was only revealed a few years ago but it is very significant to understand him. The Trotskyist aim is to enter and co-opt the system from within. The Tory party has been a model demonstration of success of Blair on his influence of UK politics. The Tories have had 14 years to reverse the Blairite excesses, such as the Equalities Act and the Human Rights Act. They haven't done so because they truly believe in them. After all, it is the Tories who had the first woman prime minister, the Tories who had the first minority leader of government, and it is the Tories with the huge number of members of parliament who have committed acts of sexual degeneracy. They are true believers just as many of us are. After all, I like the idea that gays are not murdered on the streets of the UK, or that women don't have to wear hijabs. In fact I have a lot of sympathy for these Trotskist values. The Tories at their best are exemplified by Spiked Online magazine, which was formally the Trotskyist 'Living Marxism' magazine. It stands for true free speech, a distaste for the feminine risk-aversion afflicting modern society, and libertarian values. But the authoritarian tendencies of both parties have tended to prevail. They went too far. What we are seeing now is the parties quite radically moving to the right ("putting the Woke away") but not doing it quick enough to satisfy the electorates across Europe. For example, Starmer, straight out of the playbook of Blair, just a week ago, accused the Tories of being too "liberal" on immigration. Just 5 years ago this would be regarded as fascist and yet here we have the Labour leader saying it. All parties of Europe have a problem. There are far too many Boomers. As a huge and powerful voting bloc they always get their way. And that means voting for themselves very nice pensions and low taxes. In the UK for the very first time pensioners' incomes are greater than the wages of workers on average. This is unsustainable. There is no magical remedy except the importing of huge numbers of migrants. The extra migrants in the UK was the equivalent of 4p off income tax. How do you square this circle? The indigenous population is dying off. The accusation of "far-right" has clearly lost its rhetorical impact. Fascism is, if we consider it carefully, simply "capitalism without capitalism"; that is, having the appearance of traditional values but with the capitalists continuing on behind the scenes. Since capitalism always creates social frictions the far-right government tend to opt to blame people for these frictions: Jews, the Lizard Council, Freemasons, Muslims, aliens. It appears from the election of far- right Meloni in Italy, and the exceptional extent she has been invited into the inner core of Europe, that the leaders of Europe have resigned themselves to the lurch to the right. They will then do what they always do: some agitation against migrants. They are going to reopen the playbooks of fascism-lite until things cool down. Ironically, this is true democracy in action: forcing the technocrats to act on behalf of the people. We can expect lots of borders closing, economic suffering, and then with the gradual death of Boomers, finally some economic resurgence, possibly in 10 to 15 years.

Correct. It is an astonishing and absolutely exasperating change. A real setback, reminding me of the pre-online days. The people hit the hardest will be those leaving Thailand around 2 to 4 times a year.

I think you are exactly right. Unless they are connected up to the airports, they could no longer track us. Obviously, the logical thing would be to get connected with the airport immigration system. But that would require time and effort on their side. Much easier and cheaper for them is to place the workload onto all of us. But ultimately they also lose in that regard, because there is now a huge increase in the number of people at the A1 counter at Bangkok Immigration. I can recall going and finding only 10 or 15 people ahead of me in the lines before COVID. When I went this week there were over 350 people in front of me (and I tried to time my trip to avoid the crowds). By 7 pm you could see the staff snapping. They made everyone remaining stand up in a line to try and rush through the process. There were two staff on the lines simply badgering each "customer" to put down a name for their apartment (they seemed obsessed with this issue). Forcing us to stand up in a long line reminded me of the dark days during the floods of 2011 when we got to experience the immigration offices where the "Three Nationalities" (Burmese/ Lao/ Cambodian) are made to go; they are treated like cattle made to stand in long lines for hours on end. The Thai Immigration staff treat them with contempt.

It's interesting that they have started to give reasons in the rejection emails. The rejection I received simply made no sense because it was based on an entirely new policy which I had not heard anyone else speak about (that Bangkok immigration now requires an in-person application after every travel abroad). What they need to do is include a part in the application for us to explain some anomaly or provide extra information.

Big News The policy at Bangkok Immigration has changed. I checked with the Immigration Officer today. Every fresh entry to the country requires an in-person visit. Online has now become impossible. To anybody who travels 2 or 3 times a year using a re-entry permit, this is a major inconvenience. It is unprecedented. The Officer said they were receiving complaints about this new policy every day.

I think Sheryl recommends the BIDC. Another decent, cheap alternative is the St Louis.

I understand that the 90 days starts over again but that has never been a problem for well over 7 or 8 years. Is the new Bangkok policy really now that every single time I make a quick trip abroad, 90 days later I am going to have to waste a day at the immigration office? I am in disbelief. This is absolutely enraging.

Has Bangkok immigration changed their rules on re-entering the country for the 90 days? I have re-entered on a visa extension via a re-entry permit from a quick trip abroad. They rejected my online application twice, and the second time even gave a reason: This never used to be the case. I've come and gone many times over many years without having to make a physical journey to Chaengwattana.

That is a steroid (readily available in Thailand) and a local anaesthetic (easy to get). So if the OP is motivated to act then he could go and get a couple of creams today to sort himself out.

Is there a link to download your Excel sheet on prices? It really looks impressive. Thanks.

You were literally on the phone with the people who could answer your question.... Obviously, the thing to do is enter into the dispute mechanism of Lazada. Every single time I have disputed in order I have always won. And that includes times when no item arrived in the package. There is an enormous advantage in paying in advance. For those who are not tech savvy it does feel like paying on delivery is the best way to go. But it simply isn't the case. Had you paid in advance, your case would be much stronger with Lazada. Part of the reason for this is because Lazada are able to give a trust rating to you; people who are highly trusted will automatically receive a refund. I know this because they sent me an email telling me they did this with my refund request. A seller disputed my refund request I sent the package back to them, and as soon as the package was scanned at the post office the refund was made. The seller was forced to comply. If you have paid in advance they can rule out lots of scams which are completely endemic to ordering online. This massively favours you.

Let us know please if things have progressed!

In 2013, the Thai police listed the top 10 crime hotspots. It created quite a buzz: 1. Soi Lat Phrao 101 2. Soi Lat Phrao 107 3. Soi Sukhumvit 105 4. Soi Phaholyothin 52 5. Soi Suphaphong 6. Soi On Nut 7. Soi Chalermprakiat 14 8. Victory Monument 9. Sanam Luang 10. Ramintra Market Many can be explained by being areas of deprivation, others for their exciting nightlife, and others for being deserted at night.

From many years of working as a lawyer, I found that the key is in the details. Details, details and more details. The details reveal your intentions, whether they are innocent or criminal in nature. I'm no expert on Thai law, but there seem to be several possible criminal acts here, including money laundering and an attempt at extortion. The question is would a reasonable person believe that the act of moving a large sum of money for the benefit of somebody they barely know have a criminal aim? I think they would. Would your various further actions be the actions of a person with innocent intent or a person with criminal intent? The vagueness of your story and your explanations, remind me of criminals in court trying to evade the facts. As the other learned commentators have pointed out, your story sucks. Whether the prosecution will succeed against you, will simply depend on little details that we don't have, and that I'm sure you don't want to provide. Many of the extremely annoying banking rules that waste hours and hours of our time, are because of money launderers. It is estimated that about 20% of all money in circulation is dirty money. It's a huge problem. These people deserve the greatest punishment.

As usual, the 'silent majority' reactionary boomers are out in full force. Magic mushrooms were legal and obtainable in many countries around the World until the early 2000s. In England, they were legal in a wet state, and in Japan they were legal in a dry state. In Tokyo, at the famous neon-lit pedestrian crossing, there used to be a large store only selling magic mushrooms. The obvious benefits and remarkable lack of drawbacks makes them a true no-brainer. They have been so successful for treatment of depression in research experiments that they were fast-tracked to legalisation.

Totally agree. My engagement with the site is down 90%, although I imagine most people don't arrive via the RSS feed, so it's a very low priority for them.

@george Please don't forget to bring back/recreate this feed. My interaction with this forum is far lower quality without it. That feed gives instant updates on every page that I can drop in on. Thanks.

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Out of curiosity, I visited the Tak Bai district police station about 10 years back. They had a wall of random objects like desks, chairs mixed in with barbed wire, covering the front area of the station. But otherwise, there was nothing strange about the village. The only police officer I saw was jovially chatting to locals at a nearby crossroads. Should you be interested, I can recommend the astonishingly beautiful beach nearby.

One of the many remarkable and stupid things during the Covid crisis was the total failure of the governments to tell us to stay fit and strong. Not only was it extremely obvious to the attentive during the Covid pandemic that the healthy were the least likely to suffer, but the mass panic actually caused many people to give up exercise out of anxiety of the pandemic. I can recall seeing a newspaper headline stating some remarkable percentage of British women simply quit exercise. If you looked at the infamous categories of risk, almost all were related to failures to look after their bodies. One factor held in common by most of the risk categories was being overweight. Only the risk factors of pregnancy and old age were truly out of the patients' control. To make matters worse the governments actually introduced restrictions on visiting parks or going outside, making it very difficult to exercise. It really was stupidity built upon stupidity. Government policy controlled by public anxiety and paranoia is never the best way to govern. I hope they have all learnt from it.