newtronbom

Well said and very accurate. It still amazes me, how restrained both police and army have been, given the level of provocation. Standing in the heat all day, listening to insults and being told to do nothing, would strain the patience of even a proffessional, let alone some under paid, raw recruit. As you rightly point out, any officer worth his stripes would be prepared for the possibility of live firing, especially given the track record of these protesters. There are too many "armchair generals" posting in this thread.

Not a good idea to have live rounds at all. In the stress and heat of a situation, it is very easy for a soldier to load the wrong bullets or forget if has rubber or live rounds in the weapon. Even if the army was shooting into the air the bullets will fall back to earth and potentially injure or kill someone.

It amazes me that people with absolutely NO IDEA and NO EXPERIENCE in the field think they know best. Coming from this type of background I can tell you theres absolutely no way I would be taking orders to walk into this situation without live amunition.

Wake up and smell the coffee, this is the real world not the movies, do you think the bad guys actually annouce their intention to switch to real weapons allowing the military to retreat and gather up their arms before the action starts.

Nice video. Good shots with a bit of humor mixed in.Looking forward to part 2!!

I have not carried my passport while in T/L for over 10 years. I use my intntl drivers license card and a photocopy of my passport. Have flown many airlines inside T/L and booked hotels and rental cars. Take the advice of sending your passport for renewal through the US embassy.

My wife is short (1.44 m), but brave.

She says Mr. A. is a coward who evaded military service and is now hiding behind the military.

I think this also applies to some former American presidents.

So ... your wife is short, and a apparently gullible and ill-informed? Does she have her "Thaksin, My Hero!" poster ready? Backing a group that is so against democracy is shameful, I am surprised you accept it!

When this becomes Yankvisa.com we can discuss former or current US presidents

Seems ironic you mention brains not being in idle at the end of your post. Yours is clearly not even in idle. The red shirts demand democracy. They want free and fair elections with the winner being accepted as the winner. The whole political unrest in Thailand has come about because of the Democrats refusal to accept the mandate of the people.

Do a Wikipedia search of the last 5 generals elections and see who were the winners were - it wasn't the Democrats.

It may not have been the democrats who won those elections, but your reason of thought needs a lot of sorting out. This "red rabble" who you are espousing, are a minority of 200 odd thousand, out of a population of over 65 mill, who want to bring back in a convicted dictator to run the country, who has a proven track record of corruption, as opposed to a government who is legally in place from an elected party, who made a parliamentary decision to have Khun Abhisit as their leader. The "red shirts" are a very small minority with huge financial backing, who are being dictated to and "brain washed" from overseas, by a power hungry maniac, who is now shown to have not the slightest regard for the welfare of the country of Thailand as a whole and who is just trying (and succeeding) to create as much dissension and kaos as he can, out of petty revenge for having failed to maintain his post as leader and being shown up for the power hungry charlatan that he is. Another post quite accurately pointed out how this megalomaniac used the taxes and government funds at his disposal, to hand out a few million baht to some "rural villagers" in a failed bid to gain a few more votes. There is no "mandate of the people" as you say,that the government is refusing to concede to. The government quite rightly, is refusing to bow down to a small well paid mob, who do not have the "best interests" of this country at heart. If their man is so good and so clean, let him come here in person and stand up in the "light of day" and tell us all, just what magic formula he has, for getting this country back on its feet without any corruption and with fair (read unpaid) open elections. With all the media focus, there would be no chance of foul play( by either side) and he would have nothing to fear. Instead, he sends some pathetic video extorting this rabble to keep up their futile efforts, in the vain hope that this government, who in my opinion, are doing a very good job in an impossible situation, will crash. If they do succeed, god help this country, as there is nobody better qualified that can ever hope to get the country back on its feet. Without this present mess, I am sure the economy would be a lot better and fight against corruption would be proceeding a lot quicker. No one can ever hope to clean it up in a short time. Impossible. Any claims that it could be would be outright lies. Khun Abhisit (who does not have a corrupt history) should be given another 2 to 3 years, to allow his plans to succeed. He could then be judged and voted upon his success or lack of it. Anytime less than that, does not allow him or anyone else a chance to change anything for the good of anyone. Neither he nor anyone else, is perfect, but we can only go with the best that there is to offer. I think most of his plans are well thought out, embracing the interests of the country as a whole at heart, not just the interests of a few rich minorities. He will have to "pander' some to them though, as without the support of those "super rich" companies and individuals that we are all too familiar with, he unfortunately cannot hope to succeed. He must draw the line though, at letting them have too much control and say in the overall running of an efficient and democratic government. My main criticism of him and this government, is that I think they have let this "red rabble" run too long. Time to stop it now, before more people get injured and the country gets further down the drain. thebom

Sweltering here in Bangers, that sounds like a bit of "paradise" to me. Some pics would have done a treat I agree. Nice post.

Bugs and gnats swarming about.

Get out the roach spray.

Squishing them is hardly necesssary.

These are nuciance tactics which express and expose the Redshirst desperation.

Maybe the worst is yet to come, but if the Redshirts accuse the government of buying time, the same can be said of the Redshirts. Time is the critical factor.

Strange that you write this given your signature, or is free speech only allowed for the people you support?

I thought his post was accurate and well balanced. This pathetic rally has gone well past the point of free speech and does not speak for the bulk of the 65 million Thais out there, who are just as sick of the obstruction to their daily lives and the waste of the countries resources as we are. If I have a criticism of this GVT, it is that it has allowed this farce to go "well past it's use by date"!!

Actually, the score is from 1.0 to 7.9 in Win 7. I get pulled down by my SATA 2 HDs to "5.6" (was 6.9 when I first installed Win 7)but I have 2 x 500 GBs and I am using over 600 GB of that 1000. All my other scores are 7.2 and 7.3 (see screen shot attached)- Having only a 30 GB HD with just the OS on it, is going to improve the performance anyway. That said, I have heard great things about these new drives and like you will be interested in his score too.

Normal HDs get blown clear out of the water by SSDs. Particularly the small random read/write which is the most important measure for application performance. Even the fastest HDs in RAID configurations can't compete. Seek times near 0 do the trick

The only problem is that SSDs still have some issues that need to be sorted out. They get a lot slower when they fill up. But the controllers are getting better and it's probably not going to be a problem for very long. Anyway even when they're 50% slowed down they beat hard disks... so I guess the only real remaining problem is price and capacity. HDs will remain relevant because the price/capacity gap doesn't seem to be shrinking. SSDs get cheaper and bigger, but so do hard disks.

Hi. Are they that much different? I guess I need to upgrade if the drive makes that much difference. I really get pulled down by my SATAs, raid does not perform as well as "AHCI" and I have tried every iteration of raid I could! I'm sure raid works well for a big multi disk system like a server and such, but for my work, I just backup regular (P in the A). Any idea of price for a small drive, say around 150 to 250 GBs? I don't get into town much at the moment, so would appreciate any info you may have on the cost. Cheers.

Put together 5 Desktops now with Win 7 and not a single issue with any of them. 2 of them ran 64 bit mode. Could be an issue with older hardware though. Updating the BIOS shoud have sorted that though. As many have suggested, I think it's a BIOS configuation problem. Just needs a little "tweek" here and there. Good luck.

PS: congrats on solving the issue as well.

Loving my Intel X-25M too, but I find I quickly got used to apps opening instantly

Not sure about the obsession with boot times (not just you, see it everywhere on the web too) - must be a Windows thing. OS X never gets rebooted. Ok for software updates sometimes but that's so rare boot times really don't matter. Anyway since Win7 Windows has decent sleep modes too, so booting should be a thing of the past.

Quite correct. Mine just sleeps these days. Instant boot. 3 months with no hassels at all.

Ways to improve your computer's performance

Performance Information and Tools lists tasks that can help improve the performance of your computer, and it also shows information about your computer's performance capabilities.

Click to open Performance Information and Tools.

The left pane of Performance Information and Tools includes tasks that can help you improve your computer's performance. This table describes these tasks.

THERE'S A RATING FROM 1 - 6, THE HIGHER THE BETTER.

Actually, the score is from 1.0 to 7.9 in Win 7. I get pulled down by my SATA 2 HDs to "5.6" (was 6.9 when I first installed Win 7)but I have 2 x 500 GBs and I am using over 600 GB of that 1000. All my other scores are 7.2 and 7.3 (see screen shot attached)- Having only a 30 GB HD with just the OS on it, is going to improve the performance anyway. That said, I have heard great things about these new drives and like you will be interested in his score too.

I'm not worried about my Thai wife either, after 7 terrific years together, but if she has an accident.............I hope you will add the info you get from the land office regarding a 30 year lease to this post. A USEFRET would amount to much the same thing wouldn't it?

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It's not going to work as planned.

Ok, maybe a bunch of people will show up, but the existing government will be fine after the dust settles. Have there been reports of payments for attending?

The Abhisit government is legit and decent. There's no real groundswell against him and his administration. It's another last-ditch and desperate means for an extremely selfish man to try and put his hands back on big money and absolute power.

I see the OP photo of Thaksin with the words "Thailand needs change" He's trying to copy Obama's success with that line. Yes, Thailand needs change, it needs to get good people in leadership roles, and get away from the ugly patterns of having people like Thaksin in the driver's seat. Thailand needs to change being so tolerable to treasonous people like Thaksin. It needs to change being so forgiving to Thaksin's puppets, like Sae Daeng, who toss explosives here and there.

The sooner Thailand changes from being harassed from Thaksin and his followers, the sooner Thailand can get moving forward to improving quality of life and cleaning up the environment and doing the many other things that have been put off because of the incessant hassling from Thaksin and his paid intimidators.

I have just got back online. I think your post says it best, except that you forgot to say that all those billions of baht, that are at present being wasted on this mob, would do a whole lot more good, spent on the community and the people and areas that need it. I agree that the Govt should put a stop to this lot now. Too many lives have been lost over a lost cause. Let the big man come back, do his time, then try for another run at the top job, which I personally don't think he could do any better than the present man anyway.

I think that all in all, the Court made quite a reasonable decision, under horrendous pressure, both internal and external, the results of which, could only be described as potentially/literally explosive and damaging to our Thai society. I think too, that any money the government has seized, would not even begin to scratch the surface of the damages that the "red shirt" movement and others have done to this country. The dramatic fall in tourism alone, has caused severe financial loss for this country, with many operators even going out of business. These, along with the huge cost of extra policing, army and security etc. will leave the government in debit for quite a while, I should imagine. It is beside the point really, who is right or who is wrong. Which ever way you look at this thing, it is something Thailand could well do without. I only hope that now, people will give the present government a lot more support and start trying to recover the economy and repair some of the damage caused by just ONE MAN!! He is a brilliant businessman and some of the charges against him are undoubtedly politically motivated, but I still think he abused his position in government for personal gain - which I agree was the norm and still is, to some degree, the norm for Thai politics(and many western politicians) - but it seems to me that the times are a changing - albeit slowly - but I see change for the better happening under Khun Abhisit and his team, so I say that we should all try to help them, not just toss criticism and abuse. This government is the best chance for Thailand that I have seen, in the 20 plus years I have been coming and living here. I really hope it can survive this crisis and be given a chance to get Thailand back on track. The " Big Rich Boys" have been given the message, that they are no longer untouchable and will be accountable for their corruption.

Only a matter of time before there will be no where to hide in the world. All the governments will be connected. Of course the honest folks have nothing to fear but it seems we are getting closer and closer to Orwell's 1984 where pervasive government surveillance is the rule. I am happy that some of the scum will be dealt with but fearful of government control over every aspect of our lives.

You make a very valid point. Like you, I could do with less scum as well, but also like you, I fear that there will be a huge downside, where there may be too much control over our daily lives, in the hands of "the authorities" and as we too often see, abuse of such power by "less principled" members of those same authorities. We only have to look at the current abuse and corruption, that still prevails our "modern society" today, both here and elsewhere. The low salaries paid out to these people combined with sheer greed, coupled with the potential for abuse, that such a system offers, will be too much for many to resist I fear. I for one, don't think this is all going to be good. Honest folks will still be in danger, more so in some ways, with the access this kind of system allows............thebom.

For Tramadol, try tramcap, which is the Thai generic brand and is exactly the same - for 30 baht per 10 x caps. Be careful with the NSAIDS as they can knock the hel_l out of your stomach. There is a new and better alternative to Tramadol, called Tapentadole.This is not yet available here in LOS, but should be soon. Same family as Tramadole, but much stronger. Half way between Tramadole and Morphine, without the tolerance, dependence side effects of Morphine - but be careful! Tramadole does have a hook if you have to use daily it for more than 2 x weeks!! Of course not as bad as Morphine, but nasty all the same. I got up to 10 x caps of Tramadole Daily, before I was put on Morphine. I just wish there was Tapentadole here, as that would have been the safer option.... good luck.

There are some very good ponds in the Phuttamonthon Sai 2, Sai 3, Sai 4 areas too. This is just outside BKK past the new Southern bus terminal. Prices go from 40 baht a day up to 100 baht a day. Doesn't matter who you are, prices are the same for all. Most give you the first 2 KG of fish caught free. I have caught 4 - 5 KG Snake heads, 3 KG Pla Nin, a 4 KG Pla Duk(catfish) put up a fantastic fight. Several of the ponds have the "giant catfish" (Pla Buk) and many are well over a 100 KGs. The same ponds say there are "Amazon" fish there too, but I have not seen one caught yet, so can't be certain. There is a huge variety of fish in all the ponds in this area. Food on sale varies, but is generally cheap and tastes OK. Beer and such are not expensive either. Rods and gear available at most places I have fished for around 100 baht a day. Have attached a jpg of a catfish I caught recently. They couldn't work the camera, so I had them hold it. Took me well over an hour to bring the fish in, with the rig I was using. The other pic is a fish they call a Pla Gene. PM me if you want more details.

All aliens engaged in any kind of work in Thailand must hold a valid work permit, issued principally by the Department of Employment of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare pursuant to the Alien Employment Act B.E. 2521 (A.D. 1978).

The term "work" is defined very broadly, covering both physical and mental activities, whether or not for wages or other remuneration. Working without a valid work permit even for a day is a criminal offense.

The validity period of a work permit is governed by the holder's immigration status, i.e. a work permit usually expires on the last day of the period of stay allowed by immigration officials as shown on the alien's visa. Aliens holding transit and tourist visas are not permitted to work.

Link:

Thanks for that good link. I don't think I will look at applying for a work permit, unless my wife starts making serious money. She has family coming up here end of next month, so hopefully they will take on some of the load. I do speak fluent - almost "native" - Thai, so I guess I will stick to carrying and chatting.

If you are seen to work you could be fined or given community work. In a friendly village where you make an effort to get on with people and the local police a blind eye may be turned on the small things you do, but beware of jealous are vindictive neighbours and competitors. Humping stock is usually acceptable. Carrying out some work out of sight is OK too. Stocking shelves, tidying and rotating stock (not a common practice here) is OK. Don't serve or pack customers' bags. Don't clean. Don't do anything at all right in front of people.

Use your time to spot what someone else might do and to make sure that everything is done properly, including licences and insurance.

Don't make your presence too obvious because some village folk assume that a farang shop is expensive.

The activities that you list are OK, I would say, but always be aware of the boundaries and keep within them.

Good luck to you and your wife with the venture.

Thank you for the advice and good wishes. As you say, the "jealousy" thing is a fact of life here to be aware of. Have seen this ruin many good things and will be very wary of it. I also agree that I can not "be seen" to be helping around the shop, except maybe after closing. The local BIB around here all know me well and are usually quite decent. They are never off duty though and I am sure they won't be adverse to an odd hand out. I have a small advantage in that I am a "Gummagun Moo Barn"(kind of an administrator) for our village, so I get more respect than is usual for us Falangs who live here. I guess I will just have to be extra careful. Thanks to you all for the help and advice on this.

Hello to all. I have done a forum search, but couldn't really find the answers to the following questions. My wife and I have nearly finished building a small, rustic, low profile restaurant next to the entrance of our "Moo Barn". This is entirely her operation and idea. I have no financial interest in it. She has done it all her self(with me carting rocks and rubbish away, along with some construction help). I would appreciate any advice on what I am legally allowed to do to help her. I know that without a work permit, I can not sell, serve or cook(not that I can cook anyway!), but am thinking more along the lines of going to the local market early each morning and picking up fresh veges, meat and fruit etc, as that will save my wife carrying what will be quite a heavy load and save her some time too. Am I allowed to wash dishes for her? Help clean up? Talk to the customers? Sorry, but I have no experience at all with this situation. Any good advice appreciated. Thanks.

According to that chart posted near the top, my blood could be used as a plasma, as I am AB+. I am in BKK though, so there will most likely be more suitable doners down there. My best wishes for the guys recovery though. What a holiday.

Did you install MS Excel after you installed Win 7? If not, it will default to a word doc....

MS Paint is pretty limited, but it will convert the files you want to convert to JPG or many others. It is free with any windows platform!!

If you can stand the mental torture, look at any of the "weekly Thai soaps" these days and you will see foot flirting is very much the in thing(in that social"hiso" group anyway). So it must be the done thing right? We all believe(Thai ladies do anyway) that the crap on those shows is actual life......all that aside though, those horrendous soaps do pretty much follow the latest cultural trends. Is it so surprising, that other countries follow what they see at any "EGV Cineplex"? To answer the posts question, I don't think any normal male would have need to ask this question to begin with, let alone ask it on an open forum, where he is in for a drubbing at best. I smell hints of egotism in his writing.

Baby, let me assure you, the vaccine is NOT safe. Not only is it NOT safe, it's quite likely deadly. Furthermore, Einstein, the med/gov are/is lying through their teeth when they say the vaccine will prevent the flu. Even if it did, which it definitely does NOT, nor did any vaccine ever prevent a disease, I'd much rather die a relatively quick and violent death from the swiney flew than the slow, agonizing, expensive death that the medical industry wants to stick me with. Can you read my lips?

I think that your statement was stretching it a bit when you said vaccines never prevent disease. My age lets me remember "Polio Meningitis" and the millions of kids that drank the wee cup of vaccine that saved them from agony and deformities of their legs - I know of many other successful vaccinations too, but I won't rub it in However. These days I will agree that the big $ does seem to be more important than ethics in many countries, but you can't just make a broad statement that "all vaccines" are lethal..... way outside the box, if not complete ignorance.

This is not a "troll" post! I am getting 3 to 5 email offers of sex or dating from Thai girls a week, who have found my email address here on TV. Anyone one else have this problem? They all say they saw my "profile" here and want to get in touch. This may sound flattering to some, but I am a bald old fart and happily married too. None of them have so far given any TV name, so are these just casual visitors? Apart from hiding my email adds here(which I don't want to do) is there any easy way round this?