Sydebolle

What is it with all those balcony "incidents" predominantly happening in Pattaya - for years?

a) THB 141,000 "repair" on a bike you can buy brand new at THB 479,000 (not discounted yet) .......... b) an individual named Ibrahim Laamiri, traveling with a Canadian passport, does not mean, that Laamiri is essentially a founding father of Canada - possibly .......... I might suggest not to push the "Canada" fact too strong as it has - really - nothing to do with the country whose passport is held by the accused.

The shortage, if not complete absence, of petrol (namely diesel) was and is not a price problem but rather a logistic problem. A petrol company has contractual logistics with a third-party trucking company - or their own fleet - based on the petrol company's need (pre-war) needs. Due to poor communication and the fact, that literally nobody follows instructions nor believes the government all advice went out the window and Thais started to hoard fuel. In the past they went for 200 - 500 Baht refills, now they show up with jerrycans, old milk containers and what-have-yous. The Achilles heel of Northern and Northeastern Thailand is and remains diesel; the backbone of Thailand's working class. These millions of farmers run everything on diesel, i.e. their Kubota-buffaloes, Klong-drainage pumps and aged pick-ups to bring their produce to the market place. The governmental "subsidies" - another smoke screen to the taxpaying voters. The tax taken from the buyer at the petrol station got reduced, i.e. the government did not subsidize anything but simply got less tax income on petrol sale. Let's wait and see, if the latest spike will change anything. In Laos the market dried out although pre-war diesel was LAK 20,000; in certain areas people (who could afford it) paid LAK 200,000 - tenfold the price. As Laos' grid of roads is despicable, it is literally impossible to provide the logistics when the market panics. It remains a fact, that the actual need of petrol has not changed since the war started. It is all in the mind of the lower/uneducated customer, panicking over contradicting/incomplete and/or partly blunt wrong information by all those press speakers. For ages the tourism figures in headcount and undecillions of Baht are not even taken note of, as it does not affect anybody. With petrol, as the present example shows, it is a different ball game!

To be understood as a legitimate question; has the Senator been posted to Pyongyang before as Ambassador to the Kingdom?

Happened more than once with Flash. The photo (as proof-of-delivery) has in its meta data the GPS location of where the photo was taken and, wonders never seize, the photos were taken in Flash's distribution warehouse (in Nong Khai where I live). I sorted matters out with the warehouse manager of Flash here and told her in no unclear terms, that I would file not only a complain with Flash's head office but would also inform the seller over this. It happened a total of three times by three different messengers. As I never took matters up with Flash head office (I just threatened) it did not happen again. If you report that to the courier's company head office and the fellow is losing the job, you can expect some retaliation at your address which these fellows have.

Death penalty is the only answer to rid society of such monsters, avoid them to ever do anything like that again while saving millions of Thai Baht to the tax payer!

Well, there is little else left. The Chinese are also not the icing on the cake and all other tourist sources dried up, some of it due to problems in their home countries and others simply because of the bureaucratic corruption, dual pricing, cheating and lying from early mornings to late evenings. Complete absence of common sense did the rest. Deal with it and try to make the best out of it. As the semi-divine hardly want to accept mistakes or the will to learn/adopt, only future will tell, what happens with the tourism business. By figures 7% of the Thai population drive in ⅓ of foreign reserves so you want to be having second thoughts before blaming the dirty farang for this, call them "rich" or scare your children with "the farang will eat you" (as so heard twice in queues at supermarkets by mothers not being able to manage their completely spoilt brats behind me in the queue).

All caucasians left their home country, where they grew up in but none of them ever really arrived in Thailand. The hosts here make it crystal clear that you arrive, stay, depart/die as an alien - which is a substantial difference to South American expatriates from the Northern hemisphere. If you can live with this, you manage beautifully but never ever believe that you're an integrated part of the Thai society.

Don't count your chickens before they hatch .........

Trump has not understood that all this warmongering cannot save the petrodollar and that is, what the whole conflict is all about. For reference see: Iran - Mosaddegh wanted to nationalize Iranian oil which did not go down well with the British who brought the US and its CIA in to "unseat" Mosaddegh Irak - Saddam Hussein wanted to sell his oil against the Euro Libya - Ghaddafi wanted to sell his oil again the Gold Diner Venezuela - Maduro sold his oil to China against the Yuan Fueled by the chosen people sitting snugly in Washington DC and along the US east coast, we talk about most serious amounts of money here - again. The US has to understand, that gunned foreign policy does not work; a message they have not understood since 1945. Iran's domestic issues are to be solved domestically as all changes have to come from within. Is the US trying to avoid it currency's swan song?

Well, Zelensky does not qualify in the camp of the Fidels and future will tell. Putin, with a Soviet mindset, warned NATO over and over and over, that he did not want NATO on his doorstep as NATO in essence is an extension of the US. For clarity, read the Minsk conference details whereby Soviet Gorbachev agreed with Germany's Kohl to let the GDR (German Democratic Republic or East Germany) get reunited with West Germany. That also meant, that GDR leaves the Warsaw Pact to join NATO. The deal was agreed by both leaders and the NATO Secretary General Wörner (by coincidence also a German) was there to witness and ink the deal. That was 1991; by 2009 the NATO had expanded all over Eastern Europe, on behest of Washington DC and Putin (meanwhile on the throne for a quarter of the century) kept highlighting the Minsk conference. Putin might be a headache but that would be dealt with the Russians and the Russians only. If you keep teasing anything for long enough, the dam breaks and this is what happened in Georgia and Ukraine. Latter being a bombastic money shredder by the tens if not hundreds of billions, earned and paid for with European tax money. Turn off the money supply and the whole thing will go up in thin air. The US have been screwing around, unsuccessfully since 1945, with their foreign policy. Putting their noses into literally anything has created nothing but fear, tensions and in many cases ultimately wars. Same applies to China's uneasiness; they keep North Korea alive as they do not want to see any of those 28'000 Yankees stationed in South Korea. Taiwan is and remains a hot potato as the US has its fingers in Taiwan. But yes, don't you worry about your kids in Norway; there the chances are less that they learn Russian; I would focus on the teachings of the Fidels with Halal food, steamrollering any tradition rules and laws of the host country and if you have a nine years old daughter, beware of the (arguably few) bearded pedophiles, who can by law even marry four of them and if they hand in their dinner pale, there are 72 virgins waiting somewhere. Putin is by all accounts not my chosen leader but remains a domestic Russian issue; the Ukraine story, like the Gaza disaster and the present steamrollering attempts of Iran carry all signatures of Washington!

Good riddance

For once the dinosaur bank with the land's possibly lousiest customer service, Bangkok Bank, managed that particular issue beautifully. I have a foreign currency deposit account with them, linked to the THB account with the same bank. I can transfer by desktop (browser) money from foreign deposit account to THB in real time; same applies to their App on the phone. It is, however restricted to the opening hours of the bank so after 6pm or weekends it does not work. As said, I never switched from Bangkok Bank despite their off-the-ground understanding of customer service, banking products and modern way of banking but this, strange enough, works beautifully.

Maybe it is time to get rid of Zelensky and his cronies, once and for good; it is absolutely unbelievable that such a clown tries to blackmail Europe into a corner, for which the Americans don't even get verbally reprimanded.

Changes have to come from within and that also applies to Iran. While Trump and his warmongering congregation of clowns "criticises" NATO members "cautious approach" (in clear English - No, Thank You) the American leadership might note, that the rest of the world criticises America. Has been politically raped for the last 100 years and it seems, that they (quite rightly so) say, "enough is enough". Let them deal with the medieval Mullahs and their flocks of bearded Neanderthaler; none of Americas business.

Well, not willing to face the music? It is clear that his strangulation of oil supplies to China against Yuan has backfired big time and the chosen people, albeit at the controls of all this, have miscalculated the situation as well. Obviously the old say "Don't count your chickens before they hatch" is reinforced, once more again and it is, by all accounts, not a good idea to stand onto the toes of the Red Brethren in the North. The Petrodollar has outstayed its welcome and the rusty metal starts to shine through the poor coat of American lacquer. Wondering, how delighted the US taxpayer will be to foot yet another war bill; the Vietnam and Afghanistan bills are not settled yet either .........

They will be next in Trump's clean-up exercise after Venezuela and Iran ......... It is the seventh - predicted - war in full swing! Just hope that those in charge are aware, that even they can't eat money :-(

Nonsense, the US is printing money as if there is no tomorrow. All those costs will be but on Iran's account by those who run the United States, the chosen people, as we know. Once the war is over, there will be (sheer) endless oil supply heading to the US in compensation of reparation payments for the (lost) war. So happened in Iraq, Libya and on all other oil fields which were attacked by the Americans. Same with the Ukraine saga, those costs were billed (and promptly paid) to the European Union and NATO. So, if you report anything, bring up the WHOLE picture and do not nice-paint the US as the semi-divine police force of planet Earth :-(

Well, it is not the Men of the Cloth but the local yocals hanging around in those endless halls of the parliament. Laos, Myanmar/Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam - just to name a few, also practice Buddhism among the large majority of the population and Lord Buddha there is not linked to any prohibition. Just another way of keeping the underlings at bay or "welcome to Stone Age". Clear indication of how retarded the system is without reason. Most people I know have no problem with this ruling yet it remains at the discretion of each and everyone to enjoy a glass of wine or an ice-cold beer if and when considered appropriate by the consumer.

Well, the TAT forked out a fortune to get "Lisa" to promote New Year's Eve in the Kingdom. Never ever heard any success reports on the issue though ...........

Double standards in Thailand? Nooooooooo, who would say such a nasty thing. Non-Thais: TM30 for required four times yearly with the authorities; online still unreliable and punishable with steep fine. Thais: Millions of Thais do not live at their registered residence in Northern-/Northeastern Thailand as they work in urban areas like Bangkok and surrounding, plying the trade in Pattaya, Phuket and elsewhere Non-Thais: pay sometimes exorbitant fees to access museums (coloured entrance tickets), national parks, monuments, palace and some temple compounds Thais: enjoy ridiculously cheap fees (i.e. some national parks - black/white tickets - are 25 times cheaper than for an alien) Non-Thais: buy condominiums up to 49% of the building at substantially higher prices than the locals Thais: can buy the majority of condominiums yet refuse to contribute to sinking funds etc. which in many cases turned condominium towers into ruins due to lack of maintenance of elevators, swimming pools and other recreational facilities Non-Thais tend to pay higher prices in hotels and resorts Thais: enjoy "Thai only" discounting in many places As long as the doctrine reads "foreigners are rich" (ฝรั่งรวย), overheard often almost everywhere, it clearly proves an inferiority complex towards the alien or dirty farang (as so proclaimed by no-one else than the acting prime minister) there will always be a gap. Before getting hammered now by some keyboard warriors; I have no problem with all that. I can and do choose what I do and where to spend my money; if too much is too much then vote with your feet, simple as that. As you cannot change anything, live with it or move elsewhere ;-)

"Inbetweenies" - every day is school day; thank you for today's lesson. Hilarious!

Splendig, fantastic news for all those aunties and uncles upcountry who hardly can handle a normal GMS phone ..... To make matters worse, SCB stopped their browser-based banking facility which let at least me to give them a miss. I prefer all banking transactions to be done on a desktop with keyboard and printer. In my opinion a classic case of when the motor is faster than the entire vehicle .............

Keep up the good work ........

A diplomat tells you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip. The person who coined above sentence could have crafted the "under suspicion of misconduct in public office"; congratulations are in order and give the copyright holder a solid platinum medal for that ;-)