outre99

Once again a perfect example of barking up the wrong tree. A much easier and lower hanging fruit are buses that zig zag across 3 lanes of traffic and stop in the middle or sometimes right lane. This causes terrible jams and creates high risk to the safety of the passengers and other traffic. They do it in predictable and repeatable patterns that do not require a high-tech system to catch. An officer could park himself at a single location for half a day and ticket every bus driver who does that. I'm sure he'll be able to cover his monthly ticket quota in a few days. This will create a much bigger benefit to the flow of traffic then an electronic dummy at a much lower cost to the taxpayers.

I know the D-word is not allowed, but it does seem like an awful lot of decision-making is in the hands of one man. [Not that I object to this decision]

If other senior government officials keep coming up with these nuggets of wisdom like banning alcohol during New Year and Song Kran, it's really a good thing that a sensible guy has veto power.

I really would love to be a fly on the wall in some of these meetings where such decisions are made. Like the recent visa crack down that was quickly reversed. Is it possible that these people do not possess powers to mentally trace cause-effect relationships prior to acting? Is there some kind of neural decease that makes a large proportion of the population completely unable to think ahead for even a single step?

And it's not just complex public policy issues. It's observable at every level. All too often i've seen Thais get off a moving escalator and immediately stop causing everybody else behind bump into them and each other. The look on the culprits faces is that of utter bewilderment and surprise at how it could possible happen.

I've made a point to try to note how i'm dealing with the regular business of living among other people in a complex urban environment. I observed that i automatically try to make assessments and predictions about events around me and adjust my own trajectory and effort in order to avoid harm and get what i want. Watching a motorcycle coming down the sidewalk 10 meters away and moving to the site to avoid being hit. Or slowing down in advance when driving when i see a lot of break lights 200 meters ahead. Or walking a few additional steps and hailing a taxi on a side soi rather than at a major intersection in the middle of rush our traffic. Or thinking through the many negative implications and high improbability of the desired result when suggesting to ban alcohol during the largest holidays of the year in a country heavily dependent on tourism.

I really don't get it. They seem to be constantly unaware, unconcerned, and undisturbed by all this. Is it culture, education, religion? I'm not trolling. Just genuinely curious.

The one thing that i noticed after reading this article is the competent and comprehensive approach the police exhibited during the investigation. Checking all of the relevant residences, interviewing neighbours, even drilling through the concrete floor.

Me thinks the use of the Martial Law is a convenient procedural way for them to hold the suspects so they don't flee.

If anything we should give credit to the police in this case for actually doing their job properly.

The thai people have been robbed twice by coups and their demroracy shredded along with the constitution .

The yellow elite propaganda machine while working overtime at the beginning of this latest farce but now the wheels are falling off and the people are starting to wake up that this latest coup is of no benefit to them and it's just the same old grab for power that they can't win legit so they take by force

Unfortunately for the yellows the ones they refer to as buffalo brains are not quite that stupid and love their demroracy and their elected leaders who win time and time again via the ballot box.

Preventing them from voting then taking away their elected leader in yingluck has the exact opposite effect on the people on which the yellow elite desire .

Hold an election tomorrow and the PTP would walk in and the junta knows it that's why anywhere yingluck goes she is closely monitored because they know how popular she is.

You know the people are wearing thin of this government when you have seen the press over the last couple of weeks asking a little bit harder questions of the government and the angry no responsive answers they are receiving .

Koh Tao is a big player in all of thus as the PM has thrown his weight behind the RTP which is looking very shaky.

The thai people have been robbed twice continuously by corrupt PTP governments and their democracy shredded along with the constitution by blatant opportunism and cronyism of the same .

The yellow elite red propaganda machine while working overtime at the beginning of this latest farce for the last 10 years could only reach the least educated and informed population of Thailand.

but now the wheels are falling off and the people are starting to wake up that this latest coup is of no benefit to them and it's just the same old grab for power that they can't win legit so they take by force

is actually trying to solve the nation's problems however awkwardly and say so in a poll after poll giving their support to the current government.

Unfortunately for the yellows reds the ones they refer to as buffalo brains followers are not quite that stupid and love their wouldn't know actual democracy when it hit them in the face

and their elected leaders who win time and time again via the ballot box only do so through the broken electoral system, on the strength of the cult of personality of one man, and the shortsighted populist giveaways to their shortsighted base to the detriment of the future of the whole country and future generations.

Preventing them from voting then taking away their elected, incompetent, and corrupt leader in yingluck has the exact opposite effect on the people on which the yellow elite desire saved the country from the disastrous economic, trade, and social policies, not to mention saving the national treasure from being completely looted by the red gang at the top.

Hold an election tomorrow under the same perverted and hijacked political system and the PTP would walk in since they were the ones doing the perversion.

and the junta knows it that's why anywhere yingluck goes she is closely monitored because they know how popular she is for no reason at all, which speak volumes of the red political machine and their followers.

You know the people are wearing thin of relieved that this government is actually focused on governing and solving real problems.

when you have seen the press over the last couple of weeks asking a little bit harder questions of the government and the angry no responsive answers they are receiving . Because they are impatient and expect the government to deliver results forgetting that the current guys had only a few months to dig out of the hole that the red governments spent years digging.

Koh Tao is a big player in all of thus as the PM has thrown his weight behind the RTP which is looking very shaky. This is the only reasonable point in the whole post.

This seems to be a sad pattern among Thai leaders regardless of the color of their shirts. A complete tone-deafness to basic PR management. They seem to be their own worst enemies when it comes to dealing with these episodes. The proper way for the good general to have dealt with this would have been to take advantage of this unfortunate event in order to strengthen his position as a different kind of Thai leader by having DSI take over investigtation and invite Scotland Yard to participate, which would have demonstrated to the world that the new government is very serious about tourist safety and their fight against corruption. Instead he left the Koh Tao somchais to do their best at being the worst and bungle this beyond any recognition and make Thailand and him the laughing stock once again.

Don't they have a PR team to advise PM on these matters? It seems like this would be taught in politics 101. It's not about reality but perception of reality and they need to pay attention to that.

They've done a fairly good job of it in Phuket by going after the taxi mafia and the beach encroachers and publicising it in a favorable light. This would have been such a slam dunk for them in terms of international PR, a good excuse to clean up Koh Tao and Samui mafias (they already started it in Phuket), not to mention doing the right thing by the unfortunate young victims and their families.

I swear any decent PR firm from New York or London or Singapore would be worth their retainer in gold for the PM. Thaksin's got several working for him. No wonder he's winning the public opinion war.

 

 

Another lefty who wants to legalize drugs.

And yes in all my yeara here, I've not heard of a drug dealer with that much money being busted. So yes, good job general!

 

 

It has nothing to do with ones political leanings.  It has everything to do with an intellectually honest person observing reality and making logical conclusions.  Fact: alcohol when abused or addicted to is very damaging to individuals and communities.  Fact: prohibition doesn't work as the misbegotten 18 ammendment to US consitution and decades long trillion dollar war on drugs has demonstrated.  Fact: large illegal markets always attract suppliers with their artificially high profit margins.   So, as hyperdimension pointed out it makes no sense to spend trillions of dollars and destory millions of lives prohibiting only some drugs.  The "degree of damage" argument doesn't hold water.  Pot is much less dangerous than alcohol or pharmacuticals.  Just read the side effects disclosure next time you are purchasing legal drugs.  There's no rational rhyme or reason for the current separation of legal and illegal drugs.  By the way, food is also a drug, and there are many people who have addictive relationship to food.  Should the food be banned? 

 

The society is ending up paying 3 times,  first individually to purchase drugs, and then collectively to fund the failed prohibition enforcement and to house the victims of that enforcement.   A better approach would be to make all drugs legal, regulate and tax them so the new revenue can be spent on improving society, educating young people about the consecuences of drug abuse, and provide treatments to people who can't handle them.

 

The whole premise of prohibition is intrusive and arrogant to the core.  The govenment should not dictate to individuals what they can and cannot ingest and how much.  The concept that the government can presuppose and legislate that if I ingest X, it will make me commit Y is preposterous and goes against the fundamental principle of "presumption of innocense".  If I want to have a couple of glasses of wine, or joints, or whatever, or if i finish a bottle of vodka or a bottle of pills  by myself, as long as i don't disturb anybody else or infringe on anybody elses rights I should be able to do as I please.  The consequences of my actions are mine alone to deal with since they only affect me.  Now if i start disturbing others, infringing on others' safety or property that's the behavior that has to be checked and for which we have devised a criminal code.

 

I am yet to hear a resonable and factually accurate argument for the "war on drugs".  Care to provide one?

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

The war on drugs can never be won. But legalizing all drugs will not help a bit either. For some it will be like reaching heaven. For others it will be like greasing the rails on the down hill slide into hell. As I said earlier and no one seems to be able to answer it. What would be the limit of drugs you could ingest at one time? Who is going to say?

 

The answer was not even on this planet. It had that big word IF in it. If this if that if only if if if if and on the dreams go. This is a real world and as I said the profit on illegal drugs is huge. They will just cut their prices to the point where a for profit company plus tax can not compete.

 

Also I don't believe for a minute that no one will mind being seen going in and out of the legal drug dispensers. There will always be people who feel guilty about the amount they use and don't want their boss or neighbors to know about it.There will be the one's who feel the police might follow them or start to keep them under observation.

 

So far in my opinion some posters just want to make it easier to get their drugs and have no sound plan for dealing with the problem

 

We know the war on drugs is a loosing one. We know no manufacture is going to produce them if they can't make money. So how about starting an educational program in the schools. How about testimonials from hard core drug users on how they got started with the softer drugs. How about a program that shows the extent of damage they can do to a person's body. Also throw in the they will make you feel good. Give them both sides of the story show them. It is not going to be an overnight fix but it will have long range results. For the legal end take a look at Portugal. It has been a while since this came up but a few years ago the same topic was on Thai Visa and Portugal had the most successful program in dealing with drugs. I have no reason to believe other countries have changed.

 

Most of your points make sense except for the "But legalizing all drugs will not help a bit either." You seem to agree that the status quo is unsustainable and must be replaced with a different approach.  One could make an  argument that only the drugs that have large user populations should be legalized while other more obscure ones kept illegal.  However, in that scenario you will still have to bare high costs of enforcement with very questionable benefits.  Removing government's influence from personal decisions about what to put into one's body is, imho, the best way forward.  The savings on enforcement will more than cover the costs of regulation, and the additional tax revenues will help cash poor local and central governments.  It is time to stop treating people as children trying to prevent them from making mistakes. 

Everything you said about education, outreach, and treatment programs is and will be necessary since we do need to prepare children and help adults who can't deal with it.  The model for this exists and has been an integral part of the society from the dawn of time - Alcohol.  In respect to the drink the governments let individuals decide what and how much to drink.  The fast majority deal with it responsibly, a minority does not, and pays legal consequences, an even smaller fraction get addicted and need help.  So wouldn't it make sense to create public policy for the majority and make provisions for the minority rather than doing it the other way?
 

In the photo the officer on the left looks like a farange. Could America's DEA be operating in Thailand in this bust. I was of the opinion that the various world government drug agencies were only allowed to investigate trans-shipment drug deals destined for outside Thailand.

I did notice this as well. I've heard that DEA's presense in Bangkok is the largest on foreign soil.

As the previous posts have demonstrated there are 2 major options for your own site.

Option 1 - DIY: There many online services that would allow you to use their tools to create and configure a decent website both informational and e-commerce. Many technically savvy proprietors go this root at the beginning to save the money. The focus of these services is on pure web presence, which is only the first step for doing business online. The lion's share of work lies in marketing and optimization. Marketing online is no different than traditional marketing. It has to be done continuously. Members above who say that they are updating their site once a year do not understand the nature of the web and as such will have the sites that nobody goes to and that look like it's 1999. Web design, development, and marketing is a complex set of skills that professional spent years learning and perfecting. It is no different than any other profession. If you are critically ill you would not self-medicate or go to a cheap doctor. Why would you entrust the success of your online businees to the same? However if this is your hobby and not "mission critical" than by all means use it as a learning experience, but keep in mind that the first draft is never a masterpiece.

Option 2 - Hire professionals: If you need to do it right the first time you need to hire experts to do it for you. Many posters above have outlined all possible factors that you need to consider. The reality today vs 10-15 years ago is that the technology platforms have become a commodity. While in the 90's most companies had to build their web solutions from scratch these days there are open source options that can be had for free or very cheaply. Content Mangement Systems (CMS) and e-Commerce platforms remove the need to develop things from scratch and thus lower the prices. Any web expert you hire will use one of those packages as a starting point and customize it to your needs.

The web companies have 2 basic business models: Selling technology and selling services. The first one is easy thanks to the open source software mentioned above and this is the model most web companies in thailand follow. They promise the world to technically uninformed customers then do a passible job creating the initial site, which they through over to the customer, get paid, and move on. In the worst cases they don't release the source code and/or login details and force the client to pay for any update. There's very little incentive or interest in helping the client's business succeed. It's a pure high turnover game. Unless you're got technical skills yourself or planning to hire somebody on a long term basis you'll end up with a site that you can't fully leverage. I've been called many times to come in and try to resurrect and dying website that nobody touched for years.

The second model is much less common. It is the one i finally arrived at as it provides the real value to the client and satisfaction to me as a web professional. It is similar in many respects to the relationship one has with any other professional. It's a long term partnership focused on creating continuous return on investment (ROI) for the client rather than a one time sale. I would actually offer the technology for free or at a very deep discount. Then once the site was live i would charge for monthly work to optimize, market, and improve the site to support client's business. Monthly charges depended on how agressive the client wanted to proceed, which in turn drove the amount of monthly work required. At the end of every month we would review the results and adjust the strategy to direct future efforts. Besides the initial commitment of 6 months which is usually the minimum amount of time to build the site and see any kind of results from SEO and marketing there is not lock in. The client is free to stop or change direction if demonstrated ROI is not satisfactory.

So when you're evaluating potential web vendors you shouldn't really focus on the initial cost of creating a website. Instead look at the long term cost of ownership. First determine your business strategy and then see what each vendor can do for you to help realize it in the long run. Their incentive structure should be tied to your long term success.

Best of luck.

Rice farming can't be an easy way to make a living BUT it seems to me that one of the unexpected effects that the failed pledging scheme has had is to put farmers into a ' dependency ' frame of mind where they now expect to be looked after without question.

Very timely post and I agree. It is easy for a populous to become dependent on government hand outs. Case in point. The Food Stamp Program, administered by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, is proud to be distributing this year the greatest amount of free Meals and Food Stamps ever, to 47.5 million people. Some of the recipients are fourth generation recipients.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U. S. Department of the Interior, asks us "Please do not feed the wildlife." Their stated reason for the policy is because “The animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves.”

Social democracy and the entitlement mentality have destroyed freedom and social fabric and empowered thieves and rapists of a nation.

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Wow, a good'ol American conservative spouting out Fox, Beck, and Limbaugh actually made his way to LOS. Never thought i'd see that since the salt-of-the-earth folk like that tend to stay put and not venture out of the state of their birth for the benefit of the rest of the world i might add.

But i digress. I'm sure you're a rugged individual who got himself up by your own bootstraps and can live off the land and don't need no stinking government to do anything for you. Good on you mate. But for the millions of people who have been driven into poverty by the corporatocracy that have hijaked the America Republic over the last half a century enabled by the politicians corrupted by the unlimited campaign contributions and unwavering votes of the low information American voter (mostly your fellow Fox watchers), the American dream has turned into nightmare. The wealth gap in the US is the largest than in any other industrialized nation. The education spending is way down, while education costs are up thus drastically limiting the options of all but the very wealthy children. The health care costs are through the roof as well as the health spending, but the results are abysmal putting US at the bottom among other idunstrialized nations. The idiotic war on drugs, war on immigrants, and just plain'ol war fabricated and forced on the American people by the said corrupt (mostly Republican) politicians pandering to their low information religious base have drained the treasury, ballooned the national debt, and forced even more people from middle class into poverty. While the top elites made billions playing the games that they wrote the rules for almost bringing down the world's financial system in the process.

So back to the food stamps. As a civilized society and directly in response to the great depressions of 1930's we decided that it is in our collective interest not to have hungry families begging in the streets en-mass. It might reduce property values and all that. Hence the social safety net programs like the food stamps. No program of that scale can be 100% efficient. And yes there always will be people trying to get something for nothing. Just look over the gaggle of bar girls sitting next to you. But food stamps do not destroy freedom. Do you know what does destroy freedom? Lack of affordable education and health care, out of control police state, pervasive unconstitutional surverliance, corrupt political system: exactly the platform of the Republican party supported by the conservatives like you. So do the world a favour, stop writing about things you know nothing about a go catch your dinner.

My dear outre99 thank you for your response. I shall ignore your illiberal rabid degrading supercilious personal attack. I normally do not respond in kind as it serves no purpose except to show my intolerance toward your basic rights to your own beliefs and opinions. Interestingly enough you are the second person who has spewed forth this type of vile pomposity toward me in the nineteen years I have live in LOS. The first person being a young intern at the US Embassy in Bangkok when she asked me sarcastically what someone from Kentucky was doing in Thailand. Oh and by the way I am and have been a registered democrat for the past fifty one years.

But I digress. Part of your post is accurate and part is not. In my opinion the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were mistakes and should not have happened and did add significantly to the federal deficit. As for your statement, “but for the millions of people who have been driven into poverty by the corporatocracy that have hijaked the America Republic over the last half a century enabled by the politicians corrupted by the unlimited campaign contributions and unwavering votes of the low information American voter (mostly your fellow Fox watchers), the American dream has turned into nightmare”, might I remind you that for the past seven years congress has been controlled by the democrats. During this seven year period the federal deficit has increased over seven trillion dollars. All laws, appropriation and spending bills originate in congress. To lay the blame of poverty in America solely at the Fox watchers and low informed religious base speaks volumes about your understanding of the real causes. I am sad to say that since the time of Lyndon Johnson my party, the democrats have created a dependency class of Americans under the guise of government assistance.

Currently over forty nine percent of Americans receive some sort of government assistance. The takers nearly outnumber the producers. When Obamacare is fully implemented Americans earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level will qualify for a federal subsidy to buy health insurance. Now that's a novel idea and a great way to spend my taxes, not. I have no issues with assisting people who truely need assistance including food stamps. As for your statement “As a civilized society and directly in response to the great depressions of 1930's we decided that it is in our collective interest not to have hungry families begging in the streets en-mass. It might reduce property values and all that”, laughable at best. I did not state food stamps destroy freedom. I stated social democracy and the entitlement mentality have destroyed freedom and social fabric which is absolutely true. And thanks for the advice that I should stop writing about things I know nothing about. If I ever consider doing that, hopefully I’ll remember your admonishment. You’re going to have to take care of the gaggle of bar girls for me as I’m just too old to go to bars.

Have a great Sunday and please overlook any typos as Mr. Arthr is paying my hands another visit today.

Well sir i do appreciate a response but unfortunately you have once again your statments demonstrate lack of knowledge of basic civics and pertinent facts. When such statements are limited to one's own private musings they are and should be a personal matter. But when they are posted to a public forum without supporting facts they should and will be ridiculed. "illiberal rabid degrading supercilious personal attack" ??? Really??? If you're taking this forum personally than perhaps you should grow a thicker skin or refrain from posting et all.

Democrats have not controlled congress of the last 7 years, they've controled the Senate while the House has been firmly in control of the Republican party. W inherited the country from Clinton with the budget surplus. The ridiculous tax breaks to the super wealthy and the corporations, who don't pay much taxes anyway, plus the wars that were put on a credit card took the country way into the red. Now, politicians of both parties must bare the blame for this but it is the Republicans who have abandoned the voter given remit to govern and compromise for the sake of all citizens i favor of extrimist posturing in order to placate the base. In many respects that occured due to the primaries system and the wide campaign of redistricting launched after Gingrich's "revolution". GOP's long slide towards the fringe was helped along by the fact that the vast majority of house seats are actually uncompetitive. These representatives can trample personal freedoms (Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, FATCA, etc) and even shut down the government based on pure ideology and still be guaranteed a re-election thanks to the aforementioned low information voter and some very creative gerrimandering. I suggest you look into the maps of recently redrawn districts. Contiguous and logical they are not.

So to confuse the terms Senate, House, and Congress shows a rather a flawed grasp of basic facts. Democrats were not in charge of the budget. And whatever weak attempts they've made to reduce those tax breaks have been rolled over by Republicans. Ever since the New Deal the Democratic party's philosophy was that the government is the force for good and it can and should help people. Now i don't know you, so they only reference i have are your stated opinions, which are not those of a life long Democrat, hence my conclusion that you must belong to the other side of this political divide. Just out of curiosity, by what standards do you consider yourself a Democrat?

Let's go over the Affordable Care Act, which you mistakenly describe as the subsidy from your tax dollars. This shows your rather poor understanding of the problem. US spends more on healthcare than any other industrialized nation with results worst out of those same nations. Where does all this money go? A huge proportion of that money goes to health insurance companies, big pharma, medical malpractice lawyers and so on. It seems that America has hypnotised itself into beliving that anything private is always better and more efficient that anything government. This is taken on faith and seems to govern much of the ideas and behavior of the Republican party and its followers. When in reality it is far from certain. Fact: Medicaid's administrative costs are 7% while any of the private insurers spend 15-30% on administration and marketing.

The current system of private insurers paid for largely by employers have not served the country well. The costs are up and millions of people don't have any medical coverage at all. The uninsured either don't seek any medical attention at all or wait till the last moment and go to emergency rooms when the treatment is expensive and short term. Somebody has to pay for this both in emergency room charges and lost work hours. That somebody ends up being hospitals, employers, the states, and federal government, i.e. your tax dollars. ACA is not a new subsidy program, it's a joint state-federal programs that's trying to reduce the out of control medical expenses and to make medical insurance accessible to everybody regardless of pre-existing conditions. This will allow people to take care of their medical problems when they are small and easily treatable, gives them stability, and improves productivity. And lastly removing the responsibility of medical coverage from employers helps especially small and medium businesses and gives employees more freedom. This is what public policy should be: the most good for the most numbers.

Your opposition to the Affordable Care Act readls like Fox talking points and i called it as such. I'm yet to hear a logical and informed argument against this program from anybody. Mostly it's just ideological tantrums.

And lastly.

"I stated social democracy and the entitlement mentality have destroyed freedom and social fabric which is absolutely true." Saying that something is true does not make it so. Just take a look at thriving social democracies of Sweeden and Singapore for example, both of which are constantly included on the lists of best places to live. Can government safety net programs be improved, of course. Are they the cause of the decline of the American empire, not in the slightest. American social fabric has been destroyed by the rise of the Military Industrial Complex and Corporate control of the government and the media which created a reverse wealth distribution from the poor and middle class to the economic elites on an unprecedented scale. Hence my reference to the enormous wealth gap and the lack of educational and health opportunities in addition to the struggling job market, declining wages and repeated shocks caused by little oversight of financial markets . For the first time in the modern history young Americans are uncertain if they'll be better off than their parents, which was the difinition of the American Dream.

Now to be sure the Republicans are not the only ones to blame. One cannot stay pure playing in the mud. American electoral system has been corrupted especially since the Citizens United ruling by USSC. That was the last nail in the proverbial coffin of the American democracy. US politicians must raise tremendous amounts of money to run for office, they have to go where the money is, and once elected they have 2 masters: electorate and financiers. When those interests conflict it's easy to see who prevails. In the face of these systemic and fundamental problems arguing that somehow American modest social safety programs cause the downfall of the nation's ambition and productivity is indeed laughable.

Bravo. The buses should be next. Bus drivers continue to cause traffic jams by stopping in the middle or even right lanes to load and unload passengers. Driving 3 abrest thus blocking all traffic. Driving between lanes. Etc, etc.

A lot of traffic problems in Bkk can be eliminated by focusing on illegal parking/stopping and public transport vehicle behavior.

While they're at it incent the police with the % tickets they give out on an adjustable scale. So they get more money for enforcing rules more conducive to the smooth flow of traffic. Or maybe incent them on improvements in the flow of traffic. They might actually start doing some good for the public rather than shaking down bike riders.

Of course the Yingluck 3 trillion infracture project was pure wastefulness, well that was the claim the other day, wasn't it?

Now the army approves the same project more or less, so the rightful government's projects get approved after all and quicker than as expected as well.

Soon the army will be asking for guidance from the Shinawatra clan as how to run the country prosperously, after all the country did well economically under Thaksin even if some of you hate to admit it.

aaah but the difference sonny is that yingys 2trillion baht loan didnt have to say where the money was spent..no checks and balances..but i guess you forgot that little chestnut eh

So you're saying a military dictatorship is better at spending money than an elected government where opposition members of parliament have a chance to look at and debate the bills out in the open? Oh dear me some of the readers on this forum have really lost it....

And you must be blind because if you looked around you'd see that this is exactly what's happening. When was the last time the Shin government televised they budgeting meeting for all people to see?

So this sort of suggests that the dual tracked lines won't be electrified and they will continue to run diesel train services. This is exactly why we can't have military generals who have no idea what they are talking about from running the country....

Yes, because all of the recent civilian governments paid so much attention to the rail network and did such a great job of it.

2 grams of "ice" is approximately 500 Baht.

This guy just threw his life away.

Drugs destroy lives.

Why do so many people need drugs nowadays? Is life that bad?

Many, many more lives are destroyed by misguided, ineffective, anti-drug policies and laws. Completely legal market with age restrictions, public education, and treatment programs are the one solutions. Prohibitions never work unless you live in North Korea.

Several years ago when i took the tests (one for the car and one for motorcycle) i remember the test proctors were calling in their friends to gauk at a farang who got 99%. The tests were a joke so making them more difficult is a step in the right direction.

Unfortunately the main thrust of the reform should be focused on the skills and understanding of what it takes to be a safe participant in the vehicular traffic and the current test changes don't do that.

For example the aspiring drivers must be drilled that when entering a highway from an entrance ramp one must accelerate to match the speed of the flowing traffic and then merge one lane at a time, and not come to a coplete stop at the end of the ramp and then try to merge across multiple lanes of traffic from a stand still.

Or that any moving manuever must be executed as quickly as possible and not pull out half way across the traffic and stop to see what the oncoming drivers will do. Or that the rightmost lane is for passing only and if one is moving at or below the speed of the traffic flow one must be using the left lanes and leave the right one open. On and on it goes. And of course the root cause of the problem is any lack of enforcement. The cops are too busy shaking down motorbikes for tea money. I know it's hot out there and it's much more difficult to catch a moving violation but with all of those advanced camera systems along the highways and motorways that could be a nice revenue stream. Alas its not being used that way.

And don't get me started on trucks and busses. Those clowns think they own the road. Every day in bangkok i witness a bus dropping off passengers in the middle or even right lane. They do it all the time at the same locations and the cops are not doing anything to stop that. I'd say that 20-30% of bangkok traffic is caused by people driving as if they are still back in their village without any regard for others.

God The Nation is the most pathetic propagandist I've ever seen, they'd make Chinese state media blush.

Yes, the talks were "Stalled"..... after two days of talks. This isn't House of Cards, people know that what was happening with the talks as just for show and the military did a poor job of covering that fact up with being so quick to seize power for themselves.

How many more years of stalemate and unrest would you suggest the military allow before stepping in and removing these clowns? 1,2, 10?

They've had plenty of time to negotiate and compromise. That's what statesmen do. But these are not statesmen, they are spoiled children throwing tantrums when they don't get their way. The military gave them one more chance and when that failed stepped in and took power so this country has a chance to heal.

I applaud general Chan-O-Cha for taking responsibility and making hard decisions for the sake of the country.

Tv censored, media censored, freedom of movement banned, constitutuion suspended, economy ruined - woohoo this must be the great victory so many on here have wanted all along. Let the party start, North Korea style

Yeah blame it on the last guy. It seems to me that the previous red clad drivers that drove the country into the ground. Now you got to turn the engine off and get the vehicle up on the lift to be able to fix it.

Some of you just couldn't get it through your skulls than this being nothing other than a coup.

The couldn't break the PTP by choking Bangkok, they couldn't break the PTP by blocking the election, they couldn't break the PTP through a judicial coup, so the scoundrels have resorted to a military coup.

Get it through your heads. There will be no election. The military/yellows will run the country indefinitely.

Guerrilla warfare will become the norm in Bangkok. It's the only way if Thais in the north and north-east of the country want to retain their civil rights.

Or make the constitution even more one sided!

Really, because the red governments have respected the civil rights of the people in the north and north-east. Go ask the rice farmers who still haven't been paid, or factory workers who lost their jobs because the government couldn't pull their heads out of their asses and do some prevention before the predicted floods devastated the country.

" In commercial areas, pedestrians were also seen expressing their support and giving flowers to troops for their action. "

Unsurprisingly, this is the public reaction. Prayuth's actions have brought an immediate calm and order to the situation. The rallies continue to exist but movement is prohibited, as is the operation of a number of UDD TV and radio networks and Blue Sky. CAPO has taken a vacation. Niwattumrong was not informed - according to a press release issued from his office this morning - and there is great significance in that, as this follows Niwattumrong's meeting with the Senate yesterday where he affirmed he would not be stepping down. What this means is that the Senate, the Constitutional Court, the National Anti-Corruption Commission and all levers of the judiciary and independent agencies can proceed peacefully, constitutionally, and without provocation. This is very, very good news.

Closing TV and radio stations is never good news.

It is when the said TV and radio stations are spewing nothing but propaganda and lies. The other side of the Free Press coin is responsibility and impartiality. It seems these days that not only in Thailand but in the so called 'Free World' the press is more concerned with making money than informing the public.