xenomorph

a 10% energy savings should be no problem if everyone chips in.

Turn off unnecessary lights,

Turn off unnecessary AC

Use fans instead of AC where possible

This shouldn't be a problem if everyone chips in.

The lack of planning from the government is, however, a problem!

My god, its their function to GOVERN, and be ready and deal with situations like this.

There could be a lot of saving in building insulated houses that could would hold the cooled air in a room for as long as possible. The Thai practice of building houses with walls consisting of only concrete and bricks, is just such a waste of electricity when using air conditioners.

If you have won 265 out of 500 seats, why do you need to form a coalition?

Apparently (someone posted earlier), ministers can't vote in the house. So they really need an extra 20 seats or so (above a simple majority) to get their changes through.

I didn't realise that, thanks

It sounds like nonsense.

I think the reason for forming a coalition is to reduce the size of the opposition.

Call my cynical, but... The way I figure this, is that those guys want it back as it was during the TS regime. Apparently there has been too much law and order during Abhisit's rule not so good times to fill their pockets as in the good old times. I've seen too much greed where I stayed in Thailand to convince myself on otherwise.

Ohh sigh...

The history repeats itself again. The never ending story is back again. After 10 years in this corrupt corner of the world, I'm so happy that I've finally made it back to my own home country. Left my Thai wife in Thailand, were she's really belong. Found a decent work and a nice flat. Also found a beautiful western woman from my own country, whom which I can enjoy intellectual stimulating conversations with. Maybe we will have kids one day. Why did I leave my great home country in the first place? Can't answer that one. I must have been temporary insane.

Anyway...

From my heart, I wish all you guys still over there best of luck with your lives and your living. Sad to see that there will never be any changes to this country, where a poor majority is easily manipulated by those greedy minds that is fully occupied on figuring out how to rob this country in the most pleasant way.

Take care guys,

//P

Very wise move. I'll guess the boy will have a lot better childhood together with his father in UK, than he ever would in the Thai village. Most Thais don't have a clue on how to raise kids to be a healthy minded adult. The highest priority seems to learn the "sawasdee" word and gesture. Call my cynical, but personally I'm glad I still don't have any children here.

What's most important for the child is to have consistency, love and support. That can and does occur in Thailand. There is good and bad everywhere. Certainly there is more opportunity in Western countries, but what a child requires is what will cause him/her to develop self-confidence.

Very true. But, as I wrote earlier. Most Thais doesn't have a clue on how to raise, nor to show consistency, love and support. I have seen way to many neglected and psychologically disturbed young kids (and teenagers) here. The girls are taught to merry someone rich and bring money home to mom and and dad, in order to be "loved" back. It is even common to treat all the kids different from the parents side. On a group with 4 children, 1 or 2 are are getting all the love and attention from the parents. The rest doesn't receive the same love and respect from the parents, which then will suffer from psychological problems and try to do whatever then can in order to try to make their parents love them. They are becoming the family slaves, which probably is good for the survival of the others.

I've seen it so much during my years here.

I have to agree. I've seen it too. But they are not all that way. Especially the educated. That was my point. What you describe more often occurs in the poorer farming villages.

Actually No...

I've seen it through various levels of Thais. From poor families in the outskirts to better Chinese families in Bangkok. It usually happens when the family got more than 1-2 kids. Maybe it's the nature's law of bringing the fittest for survival and let the rest do the ground support for the others. Where I come from, it is very odd to not give all the kids the same love and attention. No matter of their personality. But maybe that's just a luxury in a controlled environment, which Thailand still doesn't is for the majority. I believe it's a combination of society time, development, cultural habits. But that doesn't mean it should be accepted in any means.

Very wise move. I'll guess the boy will have a lot better childhood together with his father in UK, than he ever would in the Thai village. Most Thais don't have a clue on how to raise kids to be a healthy minded adult. The highest priority seems to learn the "sawasdee" word and gesture. Call my cynical, but personally I'm glad I still don't have any children here.

What's most important for the child is to have consistency, love and support. That can and does occur in Thailand. There is good and bad everywhere. Certainly there is more opportunity in Western countries, but what a child requires is what will cause him/her to develop self-confidence.

Very true. But, as I wrote earlier. Most Thais doesn't have a clue on how to raise, nor to show consistency, love and support. I have seen way to many neglected and psychologically disturbed young kids (and teenagers) here. The girls are taught to merry someone rich and bring money home to mom and and dad, in order to be "loved" back. It is even common to treat all the kids different from the parents side. On a group with 4 children, 1 or 2 are are getting all the love and attention from the parents. The rest doesn't receive the same love and respect from the parents, which then will suffer from psychological problems and try to do whatever then can in order to try to make their parents love them. They are becoming the family slaves, which probably is good for the survival of the others.

I've seen it so much during my years here.

Very wise move. I'll guess the boy will have a lot better childhood together with his father in UK, than he ever would in the Thai village. Most Thais don't have a clue on how to raise kids to be a healthy minded adult. The highest priority seems to learn the "sawasdee" word and gesture. Call my cynical, but personally I'm glad I still don't have any children here.

Anyone who knows why Wikileaks web server is barred in Thailand? Have this website published anything insulting against Thailand, or what?

All I get is this:

This website has been blocked by ICT

.

[quote name='thaif' timestamp='1282282140'

Maybe you have not heard of a little pest country call Cambodia.

Cambodia's airforce is not a threat to anyone. The concern is China and also the need to respect obligations in respect to air piracy. There is a need for aircraft capable of intercept. The current Thai equipment isn't up to snuff. Thailand does need modern aircraft for basic sovereignty requirements. The Swedish product while not up to the advanced capabilities as the F-35 that countries like Australia, Canada & the USA are purchasing, will meet the needs of Thailand within the budget constraints.

Yes, it's a multipurpose aircraft that suits Thailand's need with in budget but it's not a "budget solution", for instance JAS have a fully functional linksystem which aircrafts like block 60 and F22 don't have. I've "heard" that it will be delivered with P5 platform (newer than new) which is an improvement.

Mind you, in the airforce base some old ladies frequently complain about the noise of aircrafts. They are in for a real treat. Gripen sounds like an boiling teapot on steroids . The will miss the old F-16.

Agree!

The Gripen is a highly under-estimated military Jet, which on the market sale have been losing against mainly US products due to the US government's threats (towards potential byuers) of getting a "less favored" in terms of business or "military protection" if they don't purchase the US equipment. Didn't the Bush family have some shares or tight connections to Lockheed Martin? But since the US printed paper money (thanks to the Federal Reserve) just started to catch up with reality, the Asian and especially Chinese economies is becoming the world's financial center. The US threats of "less favored" in terms of business is becoming more like the sound of someone banging empty trashcans.While the rest of the world is moving forward, American companies, at homeland, are left suing each other over for patent infringement as main revenue.

Has it ever crossed the minds of the cretins at TAT to ask themselves why so many millions of Thais choose to live in another country?

Has it ever crossed our own minds to ask ourselves why so many westerners are (still) living in Thailand?

When I was a child, it was 25 Baht/US and no one complain. 32 baht? Big deal.

How much did a Coke or a bowl of noodles cost when you were a child?

This strengthening of the baht makes life more difficult for us farangs who work abroad but try and maintain a life here in Thailand. Basically Thailand is becoming more and more expensive for us. What I am seeing is that less farangs are coming over from Europe or the US; the flight is becoming more expensive and there are much cheaper places to visit closer to home. So how far can you take downsizing your life here in Thailand before you decide you can no longer afford it and up sticks to live elsewhere, or simply give up the presence you maintain in Thailand? For me I have seen Thailand modernise so much that it has lost alot of the original charm that brought me here. Maybe its time to move somewhere much cheaper and less developed? All I can say is that it is constantly on my mind.

Depends on who you ask. The still active and fairly young working guys, like myself, can always move on to another place.

But the retired ones who moved here because hope of a better life than back home due to low retirement payouts, are probably stuck here and left to what devices they may have left in life. Moving back home is not an option either, since they've probably spent their savings on a house somewhere in the outskirt villages which will render impossible to sell for a decent price. I'll guess a condo in a bigger city would be easier to sell though. The low retirement payouts doesn't offer a livable life back home either. Many are also in more or less bad health with hearth conditions, on medication and such. So... For great deal, the low dollar rate is no fun reading at all.

Sounds like bitter taste for expat Americans on retirement here. Not so great for the exuberance...

Are they running some sort of special promotional campaign for the UK?

In addition to Briton Stuart Scott Crawford for murder and Briton Fletcher David John for child rape, there's also Briton Paul John Stone being extradited for:

Briton Paul John Stone gestures as he waits in a prison cell at the criminal court in Bangkok August 6, 2010. The court ruled to extradite him to the United Kingdom where he is wanted on charges of fraud and money laundering.

Reuters

Reminds me of someone...

Any news about our friend, good old John Savage? Anyone??

.

This is probably true...

During the Red Shirt's destruction orgy in Bangkok, many posters here in Thai Visa forum also suffered from the "I hear what I want to hear" symptom. So this is not only a 3rd world and poor education issue. Like supporting the football team no matter how bad they are performing. It's like a belief. Almost religious. The more someone says you're on the wrong side. The more you probably raise your guard. Admitting you're on the wrong side, will cost you both a lot of prestige and a lot of personal belief in yourself.

Given Truth, the Misinformed Believe Lies More

In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that misinformed people, particularly political partisans, rarely changed their minds when exposed to corrected facts in news stories. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

Read the article here:

Exposed to Facts, the Misinformed Believe Lies More Strongly

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But it seems like here in Thailand, people are just carrying around hundred thousand to millions without any concern.

Well, until they get robbed.

Remember when I bought my shop / town house here. The seller wanted me to deliver 5 million Baht to his home in order to arrange the house sale. I just said:

"-No way! I meet you inside the bank where the cash will be held behind the counter fully visible to you. The bank clerk will then give you the cash after I received all the house papers signed and verified. Then you can do want you want with the cash. If we don't do it in this way, the deal is off!"

He then agreed to show up at the bank.

Couldn't he figure out by his own brain that he would get into BIG troubles if he would anticipate in the Bangkok spectacle?

During my first year here in Thailand...

I was really amazed of how much money that was handled around by "ordinary" people on the streets. At the bank, waiting for my queue number to turn up, I saw people just stacking up 1,000 Baht big packs at the counter, carried in ordinary bags and even plastic bags. I've never seen that in my life before. But it seems like here in Thailand, people are just carrying around hundred thousand to millions without any concern.

Amazing country indeed...

"Since the fishing industry suffers from a severe shortage of workers"

Wouldn't the poor in, for example, Issan be interested on doing work on a fishing boat, instead of burning down shopping centers in Bangkok and complaining about poverty?

Question remains:

Is it acceptable? He was involved with the child's mother as her husband. Couldn't he simply just spend a couple of days trying to sort things out the best way for the child? Besides... What would happen in your home country if you dumped your wife's 8 months old child at a hospital, just because your wife got arrested? Would the authorities tap you on the shoulder and say: Good work?

Why is the personal threshold on morality so much lower just because you're living in a country other than your own?

.

Because the moral compass of this society doesn't turn to my whim. We are forever lectured about if you don't like it go home. This is how Thailand is, love it or loathe it. It accepts men abrogating their responsibility every day be they policemen or fathers.

The system you see in my and maybe your own home country aids in every which way it can to prevent this kind of thing.

There is no comparison between a foreigner in Thailand (of what means we don't know) being able or not able to provide for a baby, and me being saddled with presumably someone else's children in a my home country by a woman half my age with a dodgy habit. Ron is a plonker who had no idea what he was getting into.

Indeed, the moral compass of the society in which you are staying is directly related to the level of support society affords you. People are formed by the society around them. If society in Thailand provided for women such as this the way that the system provides in my home country, I doubt very much that she would marry a man from a country 5000 km away and of his age as a husband to provide some kind of long term security.

You cannot compare the moral compasses of Thailand versus the West when the Thai system cannot even compel a Thai man to take financial and legal responsibility for his own offspring.

It is the weakness of Thai society that put this girl in this position and it is not a foreign man's responsibility to save the world when society around him does not assist him legally to do so. Tonight up country, there have probably been a dozen babies abandoned in the same way born in Thai/Thai marriages, and yet these stories are not making the front pages.

I donate to an orphanage in my family's hometown every 6 months. I have been told 200 to 250 babies per year, 99% abandoned, not because both parents are dead. This is the reality of Thailand every day. Ron 60, is the tip of an iceberg that makes good news copy.

The humanity is gone then. Do as bad as your environment is doing. Don't feel any regrets or moral scruples since you are surrounded by wrongdoers. You can defend your bad actions by the existence of others there are always doing more bad than you.

Isn't that lovely? You moral is relative to other's doings. How relaxing. Welcome to paradise!

.

And why did he do it all wrong, ending up in news media? The child's mum is his wife. If he wanted to do it the right way, not a drop and run, he would contacted the authorities and do it the properly. It would maybe take a couple of days of his life, but...

What it's all about: YOU SIMPLY DON'T TREAT CHILDREN IN THIS WAY!

Can you find any other reason on why this have been blown up in this way?

Other then: "You simply don't do it like this?"

.

This happens all over the world, every single day.

Even worse, people leave babies in dumpsters and under shrubs in parks where they freeze to death in other parts of the world.

No one wants to do things this way, but it happens. Why has it been blown up? Because it makes good print to paint farangs as heartless.

If he has ever even visited the in-laws up country I doubt. They probably believe their wonderful daughter is working hard in a factory somewhere. If he had, would he have been able to even remember how to get there to probably nakhon nowhere just 50 clicks east of sakhon somewhere.

A relevant question is, where is the original dad? I bet he contributes plenty to the upbringing of this kid. Ironically, if she is given a custodial sentence, if the kid isn't paternally his, I believe he has little legal right to bring the kid up anyway.

Even if people got mugged, raped, killed every day... Should we accept it and just don't bother? Why do we expect to be left alone and safe against evil, when we at the same time just don't bother what is happening around us? Build your personal bunker and drive you tank to work. As long as I'm safe myself...

If you don't care about other's lives or kids, why would you expect others to respect and bother about yours. Let the wrongdoers be wrong, but do never accept it! If you do, you're morally equal guilty as they are!

.

The kid got delivered to a hospital. Infinitely better than happens every minute of every day all over the world. Of course no one wants to do this kind of thing, but assuming the child is not his delivering the baby to a hospital would have been the least worst option in my opinion.

So far we hear, boyfriend, husband, drugs, girlfriend.

In many ways, if the kid was adopted by someone who wanted to take real care of her, it would be infinitely better than being with a 60 year old dad who patently has no real interest or feels little moral obligation to care for the child. Lest we forget, a divorce can probably be granted in 30 seconds in this country, and legally he has no legal obligation whether married or divorced. Legally the kid is still responsibility/under the control of the paternal father irrespective of her marrying a foreigner. No one can take legal responsibility of that child without the paternal father's permission.

That is the system here, if you don't like it, campaign to change the law so that paternal dads (Thai men) have to take financial responsibility for their offspring.

There is so much that we don't know about this situation that filling in the blanks can't lead to a good ending anyway. 60 year old husband, mum in jail and 8 month old baby. Catastrophe written all over it. Baby should go home to in-laws asap.

Question remains:

Is it acceptable? He was involved with the child's mother as her husband. Couldn't he simply just spend a couple of days trying to sort things out the best way for the child? Besides... What would happen in your home country if you dumped your wife's 8 months old child at a hospital, just because your wife got arrested? Would the authorities tap you on the shoulder and say: Good work?

Why is the personal threshold on morality so much lower just because you're living in a country other than your own?

.

WHY DO SO MANY OF THESE THINGS END UP BASHING THE FARANG , OR WHERE HE COME'S FROM , WHAT HAS IT GOT TO DO WITH IF HE IS AN AUSSIE OR NOT , HE WANTED SOMEONE TO LOOK AFTER THIS POOR CHILD WHO'S MUM ID A DRUG ADDICT

And why did he do it all wrong, ending up in news media? The child's mum is his wife. If he wanted to do it the right way, not a drop and run, he would contacted the authorities and do it the properly. It would maybe take a couple of days of his life, but...

What it's all about: YOU SIMPLY DON'T TREAT CHILDREN IN THIS WAY!

Can you find any other reason on why this have been blown up in this way?

Other then: "You simply don't do it like this?"

.

This happens all over the world, every single day.

Even worse, people leave babies in dumpsters and under shrubs in parks where they freeze to death in other parts of the world.

No one wants to do things this way, but it happens. Why has it been blown up? Because it makes good print to paint farangs as heartless.

If he has ever even visited the in-laws up country I doubt. They probably believe their wonderful daughter is working hard in a factory somewhere. If he had, would he have been able to even remember how to get there to probably nakhon nowhere just 50 clicks east of sakhon somewhere.

A relevant question is, where is the original dad? I bet he contributes plenty to the upbringing of this kid. Ironically, if she is given a custodial sentence, if the kid isn't paternally his, I believe he has little legal right to bring the kid up anyway.

Even if people got mugged, raped, killed every day... Should we accept it and just don't bother? Why do we expect to be left alone and safe against evil, when we at the same time just don't bother what is happening around us? Build your personal bunker and drive your tank to work. As long as I'm safe myself...

If you don't care about other's lives or kids, why would you expect others to respect and bother about yours? Let the wrongdoers be wrong, but do never accept or sanction it! If you do, you're morally equal guilty as they are!

.

Man... This is starting to look like the discussion on rights and wrongs during the red-shirt spectacle in Bangkok.

It really show that whoever you are and wherever you come from, the definition on what's right or wrong really only is in the mind of the beholder. Honestly, I'm really glad that the society got rules and a law system. Otherwise it would be a total anarchy where anyone is doing to others what they like and only the weight of the metal is obstacle to keep you alive.

.

Hands up anyone who thinks that baby looks like a "luk kreung"?

Doesn't matter. It's still the child of his wife!

You simply don't do it like this.

.

WHY DO SO MANY OF THESE THINGS END UP BASHING THE FARANG , OR WHERE HE COME'S FROM , WHAT HAS IT GOT TO DO WITH IF HE IS AN AUSSIE OR NOT , HE WANTED SOMEONE TO LOOK AFTER THIS POOR CHILD WHO'S MUM ID A DRUG ADDICT

And why did he do it all wrong, ending up in news media? The child's mum is his wife. If he wanted to do it the right way, not a drop and run, he would contacted the authorities and do it the properly. It would maybe take a couple of days of his life, but...

What it's all about: YOU SIMPLY DON'T TREAT CHILDREN IN THIS WAY!

Can you find any other reason on why this have been blown up in this way?

Other than: "You simply don't do it like this?"

.