eldar1

So yeah vote buying matters and it does influence elections (if it didn't I doubt people will still do it).

The only thing you have convinced me of is that you believe your own point of view.

Maybe we disagree because I didn't come from a herd.

Not a mammal then, are you?

It won't help in recovering your mobile, but you could ask the police to message bomb your phone. I'm not sure if this is possible in Thailand, but i had it done in holland when min got stolen. At least you'll have the knowledge that the person who stole it can't use it either.

That remote tracker program cools nifty, too bad it's for windows mobile so it won't work on my phone.

Your name is Eldar, so I will talk slow.

Please show some proof that people feel obligated to vote for the party from whence they took the money from. From what I have gathered, If someone offers cash, the cash is taken But on Election day they will vote the way the most influential person in the family says to vote.

Why would it be any other way? Thais aren't stupid, but vote buying is.

Ahh yes, I’m sorry for not understanding you convoluted poor attempt at sarcasm, next time try harder, it's not that difficult.

I could turn around and place the burden of proof on you, but since that would be futile and infantile I won't. The fact is that humans do what you tell them to do, we have been raised that way and our biological herd instinct enforces it.

I'll try to keep this simple, so that you may understand. When a stranger asks you to do something, say like hold a door, tell the time etc. This is normal behavior, now add a monetary payment in the mix and people will do even more, examples like, here is a tenner could you wait 5 minutes while etc, plenty of examples. People to the weirdest things for money, hence why there are plenty of humiliating game shows and such.

Now vote buying is the norm here in Thailand, most people cannot remember an election where there hasn't been vote buying, so the ethical dilemma people face while exchanging cash for votes is either diminished or not there at all. So all that is really left for people is to think about any future bribes and the potential for adverse situations like physical violence (plenty of reports of intimidation at voting booths)

put all these things together and you get a person very willing to vote the way the person who is paying tells them to vote.

As for your influential family member, while that is certainly an issue here in Thailand, if you pay that person and they then tell their family what to do it all kind of boils down to the same thing.

So yeah vote buying matters and it does influence elections (if it didn't I doubt people will still do it).

First your gun rights then your freedom of speech.. there is a reason why it's the 2nd amendment in the US.

Is this were the phrase "Kill first, ask questions later" comes from?

One of my friends got paid to vote from both sides he said it was just a bit of extra pocket money.

He then voted for the party of his choice. I mean imagine somebody paid you $200 dollars to vote for them what would you do?

Tell them no thanks? no you would take the money then vote for who wanted to vote.

Not everybody is like that, most people will actually do what you pay them to do. sabaijai mentioned this aswell

This idea is based on the high ethical standards we experience in Thailand, Thai nationals reputation for telling the truth no matter what, and the high respect Thais have of their governments (no matter how many prime ministers they have in a given year, through various methods. None of course resembling an intention to observe democracy or the rule of law).

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say. i can see that you were going for sarcasm but i fail to grasp the point you are trying to make.

Vote buying happens here, people usually vote for the guy who pays them, has nothing to do with ethics, just human nature. Sure they lack respect for their government and the ideals of democracy. Thai's do lie but so does every other person.

Or are you trying to say that thai's take the money but then lie who they voted for and vote for the actual person they like and there by uphold the ideals of democracy while having no ethical qualms about taking money for their vote?

Unfortunately the main drawback of transparent is not the caching of dynamic content but the censoring of certain content, a very large problem here in thailand. There are ways around transparent proxies, but i will not discuss these here as this is a felony offense in thailand. Google is your friend as always but tread carefully.

Concerning the speeding up effect proxies can have, yeah that a pretty good feature of them. Thai ISP's do a decent job of maintaining them and making sure the cache is large enough to actually be usefull. Their deal with Akamai certainly helps, i get full speed downloads when watching the daily show and colbert nation and downloading extremely popular files through their content system is again blazing fast (for thailand).

One of my friends got paid to vote from both sides he said it was just a bit of extra pocket money.

He then voted for the party of his choice. I mean imagine somebody paid you $200 dollars to vote for them what would you do?

Tell them no thanks? no you would take the money then vote for who wanted to vote.

Not everybody is like that, most people will actually do what you pay them to do. sabaijai mentioned this aswell

Who broke into your house knowing that you were there - and perhaps your family - and didn't give a shit!

By the way, burglars often kill people with things they find inside the house (so the police do not catch them carring a weapon).

How do you know that they knew you were there? Did they make an appointment? I'm a firm believer that most people don't want to kill another person, not because i'm such a firm believe in the humanity of people, but because the trait is more or less hardwired into us by evolution.

99.9% of the time that a burglar is in your house, he is just trying to steal your stuff, not trying to kill you. If he is there with the intent to kill you, he'll probably kill you before you have a chance of retaliation. Besides a high percentage of murderers actually have a reason to kill you, it's only the real sociopaths that don't (and even then) so chances are that if an intruder is in your house with the intent to kill you, you probably a) know him and did something to piss him off enough to give him reason to kill you.

The reason i see most given for why burgalrs shoot the people in the home is if the people wake up and catch them in the act. Doesn't it then stand to reason that if you don't catch them in the act than they won't have a reason to kill you?

Imagine that, going to jail for shooting a (unarmed) burglar. What a strange world we live in! dam_n those good for nothing pesky laws, that put justice in the hands of those insufferable judges.

I do believe there will be a real democracy in thailand, albeit with a thai flavour, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. There are still hurdles to overcome, cronyism and money politics as made famous by thaksin need to be abolished, internal corruption needs to be drastically reduced, the power and influence of the army needs to be reduced to zero and the regularity of vote buying that thailand is famous for needs to stop. Once most of these issues are addressed then thailand can truly be a country with a real democracy.

I find it interesting that while a great number of people are belaboring the current government for being too weak, Jakrapob made these comments today at around 3 PM. The comments below are from www.2bangkok.com:

"Jakrapob Penkair is speaking in English on DTV now (around 3 PM today) to address the international community. He explains that the Red Shirts were ambushed and injured while trying to enter the summit hotel and two taxi drivers were shot. The Red Shirt moved into the hotel to escape attacks from people throwing rocks and to put pressure on the government. The message they wanted to tell the Asean leaders was that the Red Shirts were being attacked in their peaceful protest. He further says that the Red Shirts gatherings will continue past Songkran and will not end until the PM and Privy Councilors will resign as the Thai people are fed up with the aristocracy. He pleads with the international press to spread this message to their readers before more people are killed by the "vicious" Abhisit government."

I wonder if anyone really believes this crap.

hahaha, that's the kind of spin that i would expect on fox news or something. The reds/trt/thaksin really live in this fantasy lalaland and will use anyhting to rationalize their criminal actions instigated by their criminal leader. The fact that the army and police let this happen like they did with the PAD airport seizure means it's another bodyblow to democracy in thailand.

Is there nobody that will stand up for democracy in this country? To stand up against yellow shirted and red shirted thugs that rule this country. To lock up that authoritarian criminal thug called thaksin together with his banned posse of cronies in what ever the trt is called these days and hold some proper elections. Oh champion of the people were art thou?

Talking about now possibility of airlifting world leaders out...possibly only speculation by commentators on thailandoutlooktv.com.

I've been here for a few years and rarely see a helicopter - and just don't get it.

The cost of one helicopter would off-set the cost of a VIP caravan consisting of countless cars/motorcycles/etc. and further cost/inconvenience of motorists in and around Bangkok on a daily basis. And in this current case, the helicopters would come in handy for our stranded world leaders who have been invited for discussions this weekend.

I've heard from DStation that Abhisit went to Pattaya by helicopter yesterday and they used (or wanted to use) helicopter to move taxi at Victory Monument blocking traffic. It takes 30 minutes to move 1 taxi so they need 200 years to move all taxi having red drivers. These taxis will block tanks if Army wants to make a coup. Tank idea is outdated. It's not like 30 years ago. We are not afraid of tanks.

Not to rain on your little misguided parade, but tanks crush cars, they always have and always will, it's one of their primary features. So a line of cars is not going to stop a tank.

As for the whole disturbing the ASEAN meeting, well it makes thailand look like a fool, better to organize the next meeting in cambodia since they unlike thailand could actually organize some security.

I just wish there was a pro-democracy movement, that would certainly be welcome and needed in this country

Thai tv channels report Red shirted protesters going to the house of PM Abhisit

Waerth

I can confirm that there are red shirts around abhisit's house, my wife just passed them in the taxi

I received a warm reception in the few places I stopped (or was stopped). It was almost a party atmosphere, where everyone was laughing and having a grand 'ole time.

More here...

Btw - I'm not for red or yellow (and now there is blue too?). And while I am all for getting Thailand fixed (who isn't?), I'm just not sure what the fix is.

Great pictures, thanks for posting them.

I think that that is the problem, no one really know how to fix this mess, let's hope some brainiac somewhere is trying to come up with a solution.

Chinese PM, Japanese PM, NZ PM, SK president trapped in hotels - THE NATION -

Pattaya - The Chinese prime minister, New Zealand prime minister, Japanese prime minister and South Korean president could not leave their hotels to attend the Asean plus dialogue partners summit.

The hotels were blocked by the red-shirted protesters.

The Chinese prime minister and South Korea president stay at the Dusit Thani Pattaya Hotel, the Japanese prime minister at the Amari Pattaya Hotel and the New Zealand prime minister at the Dusit D2 Pattaya Hotel.

>>>>>>>>>>

Looks like the red shirts are upping the anti a little -

Somehow virtually holding 4 heads of state hostage does not seem the best way to endear you and your movement to the world.

When you spend money on tv ads, campaign rallies, etc you are trying to get your message across to the voters and hopefully your message is attractive enough for them to vote for you. Your opponent is trying to do the same and which ever message the voter identifies closest with gets that voters vote. In this situation the decision is still with the voter and both sides have equal opportunity to swing the vote in their favor.

When you buy votes, you take the free will and equal opportunity out of the equation. Since you just gave money to the voter in exchange for their votem, the voter vote for you no matter what their actual feeling towards your policies. Your opponent also do not have a chance anymore to change that persons mind since you have already paid for it.

Democracy= Voting + free will + equal opportunity

Voting alone a democracy does not make, classic examples are middle-eastern countries (Iraq with the most famous example) and African countries (Zimbabwe again being a prime example)

On paying people to protest, well i guess the thing is that a protest is by the people and thus comes from them and the moment someone else pays people to protest it's not really from the people anymore and thus nothing more than a really big and loud marketing campaign for someone elses' ideals.

I think I did say at least ten times now for the hard of understanding, I am not recommending Thaksin, I am recommending a step forward to true democracy and freedom of speech via an immediate and fair election...

Hmm i carefully read those sentences right below your instructions to read carefully and you are saying that while you are not pro-thaksin you do support him and his movement because they temporarily align with your goals and have enough support to maybe pull it off. I just don't see how you can separate the 2, at what point do you stop supporting the reds then? right after they overthrow the government but before they install thaksin back into power? the thing is that by supporting them you are helping in their end goal which happens to be diametrically opposite of your stated goal of reform. Or are you hoping that the red mob will make the government step down, call elections and then have thaksin or TRT not contest them?

*edit, had to snip most of the conversion because of the maximum nested quotes rule

.. it is about being against a state ruled without any true democracy or freedom of speech

Precisely why Thaksin is so disliked - under his leadership we had neither true democracy nor freedom of speech. Were you here then Edward? I really can't believe you can of been.

Ok, for the LAST TIME, read carefully....

I am not pro-Thaksin. I am pro-reform and he is the only one with enough support to change the old guard!!!

I am not pro-Thaksin. I am pro-reform and he is the only one with enough support to change the old guard!!!

I am not pro-Thaksin. I am pro-reform and he is the only one with enough support to change the old guard!!!

As long as you continue to attack Thaksin and say nothing about the 'puppets and muppets' we currently have in power, you are keeping your head in the sand!

This seems like making a deal with the devil and not expecting to go to hel_l for it. You are right in your ideals of democracy, but trying to get democracy by supporting an authoritarian leader seems like a bit counter productive. The only way forward is for thaksin to go to jail for the crimes he has been convicted for, the red and yellow mobs to disperse and the remaining TRT members to end their political careers once and for all. After all these things happen we can have a free and fair election (maybe UN monitored?) and democracy will be restored

It's not too bad, i'm not really into the whole khao sarn road type thing, but otherwise i really enjoy songkarn. If you don't want to participate just go to the CBD in bangkok, you never get splashed there. I really enjoy songkran around the phitsanulok area, there is less water and more alcohol.

2000 baht each to stop 10 million demonstrating was it? Or was there some other reason?

So succesful was the stimulus package that the country continues down the pan, but at least for now the reds have been kept to just over 100,000 at peak levels in a single place.

So perhaps another round of 2000 baht cheques will need to be promised in June to stop more joining the reds in the months ahead?

You are serious going to tell me you believe that the economic stimulus cheques were a bribe to keep 10 million people from joining the red mob ??? You're winding us up aren't you?

All Abhisit and the Democrats appear to have done so far is jump in bed with Newin and his ilk to gain power, go out and borrow loads of money, throw it away by giving out 2000B cheques, have scandal after scandal and basically stand by doing nothing whilst hundreds of thousands of Thai's lose their jobs. All the while appointing PAD people to powerful positions and advisory roles to the government.

The funny thing about the 2000 Baht cheques is that only government workers were eligible, who are not the ones that lost their jobs due to the PAD demonstrations last year.

No cheques for the tourism industry workers that lost their jobs.

No cheques for the people working in the factories that closed down.

No cheques for the farmers who lost and are still losing due lost export contracts.

But 2000 Baht shopping cheques for government workers, who already have a higher salary than most average Thais.

That's Abhisit.

That's bull, most of my wife's extended family have received the stimulus cheques and they all work regular jobs in factories around the country.

Le Banyan on soi 8 for french <---- By far my fav restaurant in thailand and my 3rd fav french restaurant in Asia

L'Opera Suk soi 39 for Italian (not as good as it used to be)

New york steakhouse in the Marriott for a decent steak.

I used to go to china house for chinese, but the last 2 times i was there the food was not that good, so it's not really worth the trip all the way across town for it.

The Killers - Day & Age

well, some people are simply not smart enough to understand what political motivated studies mean.

Since you can't back your claims, that no money was lost during the airport occupations, with facts, you may as well call the others stupid.

The economic losses are not just goods shipped through airplanes. They are tourists that have canceled their trips, lost investor confidence, canceled business deals, airlines suing for damages, import/export companies suing for damages, Thai jobs lost and much more.

Please point me to where I told that no money was lost!

just the numbers are nonsense. Take a calculator and a statistic sheet of Thailand.

lost investor confidence??? After military coup, Samak and Somchai???

Canceled businesses: I didn't hear of any, because of a 2-3 day delay, but there might be a few.

Please point me to an article about the airlines/import/export companies suing Thailand.

I don't doubt the canceled tourist trips and loose in confidents of Tourists.

h90, with the greatest of respect I think you totally underestimate the damage done! Wow.... It was a catastrophe and the effects are still not totally revealed. Wait a couple of months and you will see desperation here and yes, not all as a result of the airport closure - global economics and the other shortcomings in Thailand too like un-educated workforce, corruption and lagging infrastructure etc but a big chunk is the airport closure!!!

Yes there was damage done to the economy, but not 10's of billions of dollars worth. Most export goes through seaports which were unaffected by the airport seizure. You have a valid point on investor confidence, it would have had an effect, but so do the current problems. It will be difficult to know the true extent of the damage caused since a second event completely over shadows the airport seizure and that event is the global recession we are currently in.

"The Redcoats Have Taken Over Downtown Chiang Mai, streets blocked"

The English colonial army has taken over Chaing Mai !????

sorry i just could not resist

Can't help but notice what a lovely avatar! Sorry I just could not resist.

Does she (in the avatar) only do that or can she do more???

I'm afraid it's all she does and she has a phobia for phones, that's my story and i'm sticking too it