spidermike007

Many years ago, my sister in law, was involved with a rather dodgy Brit, while living on Samui. When she finally ditched him, he was livid, and just could not handle it. He ended up coming one night, at 3:30am, and burning down her bungalow, which was made of wood and thatch. It went up like a bomb. Fortunately, neither she, nor her roommate were there at the time, or they would have either died, or ended up with major 3rd degree burns all over their bodies, which I believe was his intention. In most countries, this would be treated as attempted murder, correct? The police were able to find a video of him racing away from the scene, at around 3:35am, as there was a CCTV camera in front of the police station, only a few hundred meters away from her bungalow. They took him in, and told him he would have to leave Thailand, and could never return. Not sure what exchanged hands, for him to not have been arrested. He was also told he would have to pay my sister in law 120,000 baht for the destruction of her gold, cash, and possessions. Same for her friend. He did pay. We know that for a fact, as we were friendly with a couple of his friends. When she went to the police station to collect, she was told that he never paid, and he was already back in Thailand. But, that they had advocated for her, and made sure he could never come back to Thailand! When she pushed, and told them that she knew for a fact that he had paid them, she was told that her life was now in danger, and that she needed to back down, and go away, or her safety could not be guaranteed. The real problem is, you cannot report these guys. Not to the higher ups, not to the provincial authorities, and certainly not to the army. They are all corrupt beyond imagination. And the level of corruption simply escalates, the further up the food chain you go. They are not expected to be honest, and they are not expected to engage in law enforcement, traffic or public safety, on any level. It is an irrevocably broken and dysfunctional system. Anything hyperbole to the contrary, is just a smoke screen, intended to deceive the naive amongst us.

Well I can't argue with that, especially in Thailand. I think there are many nations where the police are corrupt, but in Thailand the RTP has redefined the nature of corruption, it appears to be a pyramid scheme that was founded upon the very premise that the government will pay a substandard wage, but the policeman has a franchise and he can be as creative as he can possibly be with that franchise, to earn as much money as he wants to earn, without fear of prosecution. The only exception seems to be with an instance where it gets a lot of media attention. Then they need to take action to save face. But even then you have to wonder how many police actually get locked up and serve a significant amount of prison time, my guess is very few.

I agree. TDS. Trump deceives his supporters.

No, I'm definitely not saying that, but it has to be a pretty extreme situation to physically assault a policeman and attempt to grab his weapon. I would say in the vast majority of these cases that the perpetrator was either insane, unhinged, very very high, or feeling overly entitled.

I think it was Woody Allen that said that the best thing about masturbation is that at least you know for sure that you're making love to somebody that you are in love with.

Law abiding, respectful of the locals, grateful to be here, and one that makes an attempt to contribute to society on some levels.

There should be an investigation all right, but the investigation should be of the Armed Forces, not by the Armed Forces. These guys are likely corrupt beyond imagination, the budgets that they handle are enormous, and the service that they provided the nation is of an extremely minimal nature. if Thailand is going to move forward in the future, it's going to have to curtail the power of the armed forces, especially the extremely toxic and nearly useless army.

With high ranking officers of the RTP it simply has to be guilty until proven innocent, as we know the nature of their long-standing pyramid scheme.

Attempting to evade the police does not seem to be a crime here in Thailand, nor does fleeing from the scene of a crime. However attacking a policeman is a completely different story, and attempting to grab the firearm of a policeman is a whole different level of silliness and not something any rational person does. Hopefully these guys will be arrested, charged and locked up for a very long time. Is Phuket now the new Pattaya, in terms of attracting lowlife expats? It used to be Samui.

Diesel vehicles are an enormous culprit, if they are not very well maintained, and most vehicles here, especially trucks are not very well maintained. So stop the obfuscation, diesel vehicles are incredibly toxic, and they are old technology that need to be removed from the face of the earth. Newer diesel engines are far better. The old ones need to be destroyed. Diesel pollution has been causing death and debilitating illness to communities across the United States for generations. That doesn’t have to be the case. There are steps that we can take—both in government and industry—that can push dirty diesel-burning engines out of the marketplace and out of our neighborhoods within a decade. https://www.catf.us/2022/01/diesel-pollution-deadly-problem-united-states/

Well I think most of us have the same opinion about Sretta. He loves fine dining, he loves fine wine and travel, and he doesn't much care for the process of running a country, nor does he particularly care for the Thai people, much less the common man. He is a do nothing PM. By contrast the nation had a real chance for progress with Pita as a leader.

I tend not to wish that kind of ill will on any man, however in this particular case I wouldn't put up much of an argument.

Best to just own a house in your wife's name if she is somebody that you love and trust. In my particular case I want to leave her a bunch of assets anyway when I move on, since she's been such a wonderful partner for all these years. If you don't have a quality partner like that better to do a 30-year lease. If you can renew it, great, if not 30 years is long enough.

The importance of being on this group is something akin to the importance of collecting ash from a volcanic site, or collecting sand from the beach. It just doesn't mean anything, just wave them goodbye, and be grateful that you escaped with a modest amount of aggravation.

The first warning sign was to pay through Facebook or Line instead of through the hotel website. The second red flag was to pay a key deposit prior to arriving at the hotel. Sorry, but your wife simply should have known better, she's learned a lesson, and fortunately it was not that costly. I blame alot of it on social media. Alot of people just do not understand how corrosive, damaging, degrading and nasty social media can be. There are an infinite number of scammers, predators and fraudsters out there. Most of us have the good sense to avoid them, and not get taken in by their unwillingness to do actual work for a living. It boggles the mind, to consider the number of people who fall for these scams. Someone calls you, or contacts you online, and you send them money? Someone you have never met? Someone you have not researched? What gives? Where are the survival instincts?

One exiled convict, forgiven by the army, in exchange for surrendering his political party, one heroine dealer, and one failed PM, was was not democratically elected, but rather appointed by the army. Hmmm. Such impressive group. So, why aren't foreign investments going up here?

Wow, that was a rather strong reply, but it was very amusing so I applaud you for that. The one thing that has always struck me over the many years that I've been here, is that there really is no such thing as a deterrent when it comes to the police nor the highway patrol, so as you say most Thais really are model citizens, in a sense that they're behaving because they think it's the right thing to do. Where I come from alot of people behave because they know the consequences of not behaving are incredibly harsh. It's really not the case here if you think about, it is a testament to how good hearted most Thais are, and that is quite profound.

In addition the trucks absolutely tear up the local roads, and do not seem to be responsible for fixing or even making a contribution towards the repair of these local roads, they are absolute parasites. The entire sugar industry is heinous and should be eliminated entirely from the landscape there are far more progressive crops that these farmers could be growing.

There is a very simple solution to this problem. If the authorities were interested in solutions. The burning has to stop. There are alternatives, to this 19th century technique of burning after the sugar cane harvest. Either the government starts to encourage farmers to switch to more environmentally friendly crops, or they start to penalize farmers for burning. The refiners must be punished too, but since this is Big Agra, the coward leaders don't have the guts to stand up to them. This heinous burning, is leading to a tremendous degree of environmental degradation, and alot of lung disease. So here is what I propose- 1. Fine the farmers 5,000 baht for a first offense, and give them a stern warning, that burning is now prohibited, and the second fine will be very harsh. 2. For a second offense, fine the farmer 100,000 baht, payable within 15 days, or a lien will be out in their land, and warn them that if the burning continues, their land will be confiscated, on the next offense. 3. On the 3rd offense, confiscate their land. Period. No questions. No legal proceeding or appeals on the part of the farmers. Allow others to come in and purchase the land at a fair price, with the caveat that sugar is prohibited as a crop to be grown on that land. The news would travel faster than the toxic smoke, and farmers would change their ways overnight, and move into the 21st century.

There do seem to be some foreigners here who are bad actors, but they pale in comparison to the Thai mafia. And in all fairness one must include the army, immigration, the RTP, and customs as parts of the Thai mafia system, it's only fair. Likely elements within the government too.

I tend to like the varieties of goat and aged manchego cheese, however they're ridiculously overpriced here. I just saw some manchego yesterday at 3,000 baht a kilo, which is insane. So I usually bring my cheese from the US in my carry-on and keep it in the freezer, which does affect the texture a little bit, but it's still good to go.

Well there he goes again with his ridiculous, hateful and violent rhetoric. He thinks he's clever enough to disguise his pleas for violence in a poetic fashion however this numbskull always seems to bring out the worst in people, and he's doing it yet again. Quite the opposite is true, it will likely be a further disintegration of America if he gets re-elected, the harm that this man could bring the nation is untold. I do consider him to be one of the most dangerous men in the world, and an absolute wannabe fascist. Lock up Trump.

Very good article, surprised to see so much detail revealed, one has to hope that the super corrupt Prawit eventually gets the prison term that he's so richly deserves. Hopefully someday Prayuth and Big joke will be convicted too. One can hope and dream right? For now Police Corporal Kornsasi Buayaem deserves life in prison for her crimes. I am certain she will be treated warmly by her fellow inmates. A good result. More RTP need to be locked up for their many crimes.

We likely started practicing lying on his mother and grandmother at the age of four and has continued ever since. He is filthy.

Yes. It was a disgusting and totally unnecessary war. The US is estimated to have wiped out 2 to 3 million Vietnamese and Cambodians. Likely most were civilians. However, that in no way excuses Putin's aggression. He is a hoodlum.