spidermike007

He was genial and he was likely responsible for a very limited number of killings, but nobody knows how much money he stole, nor how much money his cronies stole. We do know one thing for sure, the army here is not exactly famous for integrity. The degree of financial malfeasance can only be estimated, as there is a total lack of investigative journalism here. We all know why.

I don't really understand the complaints here, as an ex-con it sounds like he's highly and uniquely qualified to be a senator in Thailand. The real question is how many senators are there here who are moral, righteous, and NOT influenced by outside forces?

I had a few too many beers and I just thought that every woman in Thailand was here for the picking, that's what some of my friends have told me, and I believed them. So I just carried her to the taxi figuring I would have my way with her. If this story is true, it almost leaves me speechless. There are so many good looking women in Thailand that ready, willing and able to perform. Why would you want to push yourself on somebody who is not willing? It takes an incredibly small man to behave like that. I hope he is punished to a significant degree.

Yes, progress and forward movement can be a terrible thing for the super rich. Nothing like having cheap labor to exploit.

I definitely understand the desire to visit Japan, it's an incredible country with incredible culture, food, architecture and a lot of fascinating things to see. It's very high on my bucket list. South Korea is not there at all, and China's is nowhere near my bucket list. I don't know if I would go, unless I was paid $25, 000 by a sponsor.

I am sure with his resume as a government worker and the university degree he could get a decent job in the corporate sector, and begin to climb up the ladder. All it takes is vision, ambition, and perhaps some patience. Nobody ever said government jobs paid a lot they just offer security and low interest rates on loans. And the ability to work for bottom of the barrel people who have been selected based on cronyism. Moaning and groaning is not going to change anything.

You are giving moral bankruptcy, power mongering and corruption a sheen of legitimacy, which it does not have. The last election was stolen from the people, plain and simple, no rational explanation can deny this fact.

Srettha: Prices are up, inflation continues its march, and income for many Thais who are not successful entrepreneurs, or government workers, is down. Tourism will not recover anytime soon. The quality of tourists continues to drop, the average spend is down, and occupancy rates are low. In addition, exports are down, and we have not even seen a real recession hit yet overseas. Nor has the market correction come yet. So, there is still alot of headwind that Thailand faces. So why does Thailand want to join BRICS? There’s probably a good deal of their governments playing up for their local audience. Thitinan Pongsudhirak, someone always worth listening to, argued that this “hasty and misguided move” was intended for domestic consumption, mainly because Srettha has a litany of unfulfilled promises: No progress on joining the OECD No Schengen visa-free deal No real progress on a trade deal with the European Union And major pushback on his government’s “digital wallet” and “Land Bridge” schemes. “BRICS is thus played to domestic audiences as a deliverable achievement,” Thitinan argued. Pita and Move Forward: The recent election shows that the people are both sick of being led by highly ignorant dinosaurs, with no interest in progress, and are interested in smart, young folks, who are serious, accomplished, capable of change, and interested in insuring that Thailand has a good future. Pita is exactly what this nation needs, at this point in time. However, he was too progressive, and the goons had to stop him, in the name of regression. After all, this is a man who interrupted his studies at MIT, during an MBA program at Sloan to rescue his father's rice bran oil business, Agrifood, after this fathers death. He was successful, and is paying down the 100 million baht his father borrowed to start the company. This is a serious man. Very unlike the failures before him. He then went back and finished his MBA, at one of the top business schools on the planet. He is an accomplished man, unlike all the army goons, who are only good at bossing young men around. Nothing else. Nada. Zero. Nunca.

I definitely don't need bigger, and I think oftentimes bigness is overrated when it comes to cultural events and many other things. But better is a different story, I think it's wonderful when humankind continues to strive for better, especially when it comes to things of a cultural or international nature.

Call me whatever you want, I have pretty thick skin, so names don't hurt me. No, I did not like it, and no I do not like very unattractive people doing absolutely nothing, but looking unappealing. Dr. Jill doesn't even register on my personal meter, so do not care what she says. The world is full of people doing and saying things these days that me absolutely nothing to me. Maybe I'm getting old. Ha!

If you compare it to the past several Opening Ceremonies especially Beijing, it was really marginal, there were no outstanding moments and there were some very bad, cringe worthy moments. I think labeling it is okay it's not really much of an endorsement. The ceremonies are supposed to be a lot better than okay.

Reform is drastically needed here, and Pita was on the right path. If this court does dissolve Move Forward it will certainly demonstrate to the nation how spectacularly corrupt, and how morally bankrupt they truly are.

Nonsense. I thought he was horrendous. If he looked better, it is only because Srettha is showing such a dismal performance to date. Prayuth had zero credibility, on any level. He was stunningly incompetent, and had long overstayed his welcome. He failed the nation miserably with covid, and the vaccines, which could have easily been avoided, had some precautions been taken by locking down Samut Sakhon province immediately, and later locking down Bangkok, as the army creeps promised they would. It was just another failure to uphold any and all promises he made. His word was about as good as the word of a snake oil salesman, in Tombstone, in 1872. Same applied to Anutin, Prawit, Phiphat, and the rest of that band of failures. What ever happened with his promises to root out bad apple immigration guys, on the border? They likely let in thousands, to line their greedy pockets. How about his promises to clean up the RTP, customs and immigration? Do they care at all, on any level, about anything other than their own enrichment, and the vintage of ridiculously expensive champagne or wine they would consume in the evening? There is no saying the extent of the corruption in the last administration, but the army is not exactly known for integrity. Likely the same applies to this failed Srettha administration.

The Apple ad revealed a lot of truths about Thailand that many Thai people do not want to face, the reality is that Thailand is a third world nation with a few modern spots like Bangkok. The reality is that when you step into a taxi in Thailand you're likely to be stepping into a old Corolla instead of a Mercedes or BMW or something quite nice, that you might get in Europe. There are so many realities that were reflected in this ad, but it's always easier to deny and to deflect than to simply admit that your country is a little bit behind the curve. Apple simply had to bow to the disease of political correctness.

It has to be assumed that in most negotiations with Russia we are going to get out played, as they play with bad intentions, their game is a heinous one, and lives mean nothing to them. When negotiating against an amoral entity, you are always going to be at a disadvantage. It would be even moreso with Trump, as he is obviously compromised and Putin has his ace cards.

Well a lot of people believe that there is just one God, but there are a lot of faiths that believe in multiple deities, and it can be argued whether or not they are Gods, Prophets, Deities or just symbols. And of course the Greeks had multiple Gods that were simply representations of various elements, that doesn't mean that they were all Gods, they were just symbolic deities. These kinds of arguments have been the cause of many wars over the past couple of millennia of recorded history. The bottom line is if you have a comfort level in your own belief system you really don't care what other people think. That's why I have such an issue with contemporary Islam. Their hypersensitivity to criticism and ridicule makes me question how deep their faith really is. I love this part from True Detective, season one, about religion. Transference of fear and self-loathing to an authoritarian vessel. It's catharsis. He absorbs their dread with his narrative. Because of this, he's effective in proportion to the amount of certainty he can project. Certain linguistic anthropologists think that religion is a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain and dulls critical thinking. “I think the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming. Stop reproducing. Walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight. Brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.” Great stuff. Dark, but brilliant. When I am approached by someone trying to push their religion on me, I ask: tell me about your own realizations. What kind of wisdom have you been able to glean, from the countless hours you are spending in prayer, talking to God, contemplation and deep meditation? What universal knowledge do you have, that you can share with me? Often they will quote scripture. I tell them a parrot can do that. I am asking for some personal realization. It really shuts them up. It never fails to cause them to excuse themselves, and walk away. A truly foolproof technique!

He did. In Charlottesville. It was called a white supremacists for Trump meeting.

I would have thought that that would have made you like her even more, since you seem to favor very wealthy candidates.

Total BS. Her dad is black from Jamaica. Her mom is Indian. She is of mixed heritage. Hard to understand how many conservatives find that so utterly confusing. Or perhaps it's just that typical MAGA denial. Also right now it must be fairly difficult to watch your own party melting down, after they have picked the worst VP candidate in history, along with Trump becoming less coherent, weirder, more insane, and more bizarre, by the day.

Between China and Russia, Thailand is fast becoming the land of scammers. We need to be very careful. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. If we can't properly vet a seller, we don't buy. Never send money to someone you don't know, unless they are a reputable retailer. Basic safety is required to survive and thrive these days. There are an increasing number of lowlifes who absolutely refuse to work for a living, and simply want to prosper by scamming people and relying on people's poor judgment. Don't let it happen to you!

Always refreshing when somebody speaks truth to power. Alot of what he says is true, Trump should not be underestimated, he is not a good leader, he's a terrible campaigner, an even worse orator, he's not particularly intelligent and he's a terrible negotiator, however his true genius lies in his ability to pull the wool over his supporters eyes, get away with being a charlatan and huckster, and get them to believe in something that they want to believe in, but something that is entirely made up, which is the promise of a great Trump presidency.

The digital wallet scheme will barely make a dent in the current Thai economy, they need to come up with creative and realistic ways to stimulate the economy. It has been greatly harmed by the Prayuth Decimation and nearly a decade of incompetent army rule, and now it's being run buy a house of goons who are completely devoid of talent, skill or vision. Pita would have figured out ways of helping the people. Not Srettha. And not the sold out PT.

Two factors to bear in mind when reading such a fake and misleading post. 1. The police force that exists in Thailand today (written 2010) is for all intents and purposes the same one that was built by Pol. Gen. Phao Sriyanond in the 1950s. . . . It took on paramilitary functions through new special units, including the border police. It ran the drug trade, carried out abductions and killings with impunity, and was used as a political base for Phao and his associates. Successive attempts to reform the police, particularly from the 1970s onwards, have all met with failure despite almost universal acknowledgment that something must be done. 2. The Anti-Corruption Organization of Thailand (ACT) is one of the most feeble and ineffective of all the tools Prayuth and now Srettha have used to deceive the people into believing that they are fighting corruption. Who was the last high level authority, in the police, immigration, the army, or the active administration they arrested, charged, tried convicted, and sent to prison? Nobody. Zero. Nunca. Nada. Why? Because they have a mandate from the beginning to do the very opposite. To protect the elite, the super wealthy who are guilty, those that are connected, and those who are in power. Just think Dark Tao. Just think Red Bull. Look at Thaksin. The list goes on, and on, and on. Only the most naive amongst us believe they or ACT secretary-general Nitiphan Prachuabmoh are sincere about this. It barely matters. These guys are above the law. Any and all laws. The only time they are arrested is when it becomes big news, or it is reported internationally, and Thailand gets a ton of egg on it's face. And even then, it normally does not result in a conviction. Very, very few current (not former) police, immigration, customs, cabinet officials, army officials, or administration officials are arrested here, tried, convicted and imprisoned.

Number 1. The public lands are sacred to me, and the dems do a far better job of safeguarding them. Trump almost got away with selling off timber, mining, and oil rights , on tens of millions of acres of pristine wilderness. Thankfully he was blocked by the dems, and one of the first things Biden did, was to reverse the heinous and nearly catastrophic "Trump land rape and abuse plan".

This is true, and that $800 million smile doesn't hurt either. If only he was a man of action, and if only he believed even a little bit in what he is doing, and cared for the masses one iota.