Valentine

I too saw the message which was a little ambiguous but offered some hope. It stated they will be stopping transmission by C-band to sub Saharan Africa & switching to KU band. Not sure if this means they will still have a C band transmission directed elsewhere. I guess we wont know for sure until Tuesday.

If found guilty of human trafficking, these guys deserve to spend the rest of their lives in jail. If for no other reason than to send a message to other traffickers.

I agree. To pass it off as an arrangement agreed upon by all sides cannot condone the fact all these young girls will have to endure many years in the sex trade. It is a truly desperate parent or one with no conscience who allow their daughter to suffer this fate. One approach to help prevent this would be for communities to pull together & educate families about this scourge. There will also need to be better opportunities for the poor, not just handouts, but sustainable programmes so they can become self supporting where they can see an improvement in their lives.

Even in the darkest, deepest recesses of my mind can I imagine my daughters being in the sex trade but then again the Thai/Asian mindset is not the same as mine.

I don't think the organizer of the Phuket Film Festival was actually asking for a direct cash handout, he was lamenting the fact TAT were unwilling to spend any funds promoting the festival which in turn may have persuaded more tourists to come in these lean times.

Can anyone confirm this is current ? and I'll add to the TV contact list.

Larry is still the honorary consul.

PSD_3_little_pigs.mp3

How did this post get resurrected? OP is 2008 and the 2nd to most current is 6 months ago.

Any how, I'm just curious who does the PSD songs/jingles on 91.5 is it the band from Scruffy Murphy's??

I think their songs (the adds for PSD) are great!

Just for you ozy

Once upon a time ........

I always thought it was you.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LE13Ae01.html worth reading

I have been thinking for a while they were using Maoist tactics & the article points it out quite clearly.

On a BBC interview with Mr Korn, last night, she tried desperately to have it portrayed the government crackdown was really bad but Korn was far too clever for her. In the end she asked if he believed Mr T was the cause of all the problems. Without hesitation he replied "absolutely".

Seems strange entities like BBC like to portray the Thai govt in a bad light without truly evaluating both sides of the story.

I am on the TOT "up to 4MBs" package & when I first upgraded a few weeks ago the speed was fast & reliable but this past 10 days it has dropped to under 1MBs download. I recently conducted speed tests to San Francisco, Singapore & Bangkok & all showed the same slow speed. Emails have not been going through to yahoo.com & on Monday when internet was down I was advised it was an area problem (I am in Chalong so unsure if the area was wider than that).

So far I have not had any problem getting through on their help line but at this time the speed is still slow although a couple of days ago a message went through to @yahoo.com.

I am on TOT 4 MBs service & was great when I first started with their service a little over a month ago. However, the last 2 weeks have been pitiful & cannot get more than 0.85 MBs download to either San Francisco, Singapore or Bangkok. Complaints to TOT have produced no answers nor any resolution to the fact that all emails to yahoo.com do not go through (I know others experiencing the same yahoo problem who are with TOT).

Abhisit is such an idiot.

He knew exactly what would result if he used force. Congratulations Abhisit, now you have it

He should have stuck to negotiations.

Abhisit is a disgusting excuse for a human being.

Is it worth answering this BS ... naa not really, have another beer

Seems to me the reds kept shifting the goal posts after initially agreeing to the road map. If they wanted to negotiate on the finer points, well & good & at that time everyone could have taken a step back. However, reds kept issuing demands which were nothing to do with the original plan & so it seems they changed their mind & really just wanted to go to battle. We have all seen the reports of disagreement within the reds & the hardliners won out, resulting in the current tragedy.

I was at a presentation last night given by the organizer of the upcoming Phuket Film Festival & he stated the TAT is giving absolutely zero support for this event yet in the past they gave 39,000,000 Baht to corruption tainted Bangkok Film Festival & 19,000,000 to the World Comedy Festival (I wonder how many of you heard about this one). Given the current economic situation & the fact tourism is down across the board I wonder why TAT is not supporting an event that has the potential to grow & draw a different set of tourists or do their vested interests lie elsewhere?

Almost 100 soldiers admitted to hospital with gun shot wounds.

Kind of speaks for itself.

Pathetic propaganda at its best

Stop talking BS . Thanks

For your information they are reports by eye witnesses that rogue soldiers on the roofs started shooting at

red shirts and soldiers alike on the ground , killing many .

Soldiers on the ground returned fire on those rogue soldiers , and red security did the same .

Abhisit himself spoke about this in similar terms .

Of course yellow fanatics wont admitt it , so easy to put blame on reds

Why do you consider it is only yellow fanatics who blame the reds. Many posters here have stated publicly they are neither red nor yellow supporters but post what they observe & hear. Your prolific posting since you joined last month lends the impression of being a paid poster for the reds. I have not read many of your posts but so far not impressed by your lack of neutrality.

It seems that civil war (which was the original intent when the protest started) is still on the table judging by the latest posturing.

Mine is definately from the ground water that I use to top off the pool. A lab tested the 'total alkalinity and max was 150.....mine came in at 250 [ppm, I think]. And further proof of it is water staining of anything glass....mirrors, glasses, counter tops, truck and even the faucets.

A membrane would get stained just as fast as my tile.

I may experiment with buckhumyai's advise on a smaller pool that I have and if it works, then I'll get an amount for my larger pool, which is 84cu mt.

A waterproof membrane on a tiled pool is applied to the concrete surface before tiling. Many so called "pool builders" do not follow this very basic guideline when building a pool.

Silly question but have you tried reducing the hardness with soda ash? You have to be careful as it can also increase the pH but is much more user friendly than handling acid.

Gimme a break.. surrender to the police...the PM of Thailand... that is totally hilarious Micky and Donald will love to hear the news..

Amazing what??

not PM, Deputy PM.

You are obviously not reading the news. The PM also said he would surrender to the police when the next parliament session ends.

Whenever I click on one the stories in The Nation the message below pops up & was wondering why. I also get problems in that I cannot view video clips from Facebook which always recommends upgrading flash player & which I have done, currently version 10. I use Win 7 Pro 64 bit.

Error: Error #2030: End of file was encountered.

at flash.utils::ByteArray/readUnsignedShort()

at koondy_skin_banner_v2_fla::MainTimeline/onComplete()

The option is then to click continue or dismiss all even though the article has already loaded.

Forgive me, but I haven't bothered to read all 39 pages...

Has anyone discussed or brought up the point that the November date is probably the lowest he can go so as to accommodate Anupong's reshuffle/replacement?

Also, I'd really like to read some more specific details of the road map. This is in effect his election manifesto - is there a version somewhere (in English) that goes beyond the bullet points? I'm sceptic of how anyone can propose to fundamentally change a society within a 6 month time frame. Whilst the intention might be there, it just doesn't seem feasible. We're talking major reformation of public institutions and investments (again, I need to see read the details of the proposal) on a grand scale (where will the money come from?).

What he has set out to do seems more like what a government would propose to accomplish over 4 years or more.

As long as the plan/manifesto does not include some way to begin the process of disassembling army influence from businesses and political life, I don't see how much will change. And I don't see how, from his current position, that he'll be able to do that. In fact, the first point of the road map seems to reinforce the role of the army?

I'm not against the proposal per se. I just would like to know the actual practical steps it proposes.

I think a lot of good changes are in place already, they are just not well publicized. The Dems seem to be living in the dark ages when it comes to PR.

What a misleading topic heading! He didn't meet with the "protesters"; he met with banned TRT and PPP executives, Chaturon, Phongthep, Noppadol, etc.

These men are opposition figures, but not protestors or terrorists.

The US opposed the coup in 2006, so politically they have no conflict with coup-deposed former ministers like Chaturon. The fact that these people have been banned from political involvement in Thailand is a consequence of this country's ancient practice of punishing everybody associated with a wrongdoer (at least they don't execute them and their families now). A TRT executive was caught buying votes, so the whole 111 executive members were banned. Weird. Why shouldn't the US spokesman meet with them? And there's no need for government representatives to attend a meeting between an overseas official and opposition figures.

Xangsamhua, I am stunned at how naive, nosy and embarassing the U.S. Assist. Secretary of State is. Here is a quote about the U.S.'s position from the lead article:

"Campbell's statement reflects Washington's support for the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD)'s campaign."

It just reeks of cluelessness.... the crap that follow are word from an IGNORANT BUREAUCRAT - embarassing, uninformed, political BS.... just nice flowery bullshit.

How embarassing... I am an American and his behavior is so incredibly STUPID!!!!

See my post above in this thread presenting the whole and complete statement of AsstSec Campbell. Moreover, your rhetoric is silly and rediculous. The position of Assistant Secretary of any Executive Department of the government of the United States is not the bureaucrat General Service (GS) position but, rather, is a Senior Executive Service (SES) position, the difference being that one who holds a SES position is nominated by the POTUS (Obama) and must be disposed by vote of the US Senate after appropriate public hearings into the qualifications of the president's nomineee to the SES position.

So AsstSec Campbell is a presidential appointee confirmed by the Senate after a fully private White House vetting followed by a fully public Senate Q & A vetting both by vote of the appropriate committee of jursidiction and subsequently by the entire Senate. No General Service 'bureaucrat' appointed to the GS Schedule is in any way subject to this procedure, vetting or process. The man is not a bureaucrat. He's a policy decision making expert specialist who is fully qualified to make executive level decisions and directly to consult with the Department Secretary (in this instance SECSTATE Clinton), appropriately to advise

the Department Secretary and, on occasion, the POTUS himself.

You're another clueless and pathological America basher who needs to get up to speed but who clearly hasn't the human resources ever to do so. You therefore are one of those who are emminently dismissable in these matters, not to mention so many other matters pertaining to the United States of America.

You're getting grumpy. Bear with us as we aspire to bash less and reduce said cluelessness...

This is not about how he was appointed, I couldn't give a toss, but is all about an official rep of the US govt meeting with banned politicians. Clarification of why he did this will go a long way to clearing up any confusion. Right now I think the Thai govt will be making their feelings known to the US ambassador. To me this meeting appears to be outside of official protocols.

What a hypocrite! I can't believe the guy would even talk to these red terrorists.

maybe check out the asiatimes online article by Shawn Crispin it lays a how the USA may be involved.

Don't know how much of this article you were able to read ,,,,,, but it seems to be blocked or censored thie morning..... anyone else have a problem opening it ???

I would be interested in what it has to say.

Seems the US doesn't have enough problems of it own ...... poking noses in again where they would be better off taking care of their own problems

I just googled this, shawn crispin asia times & it came up OK.

Was his visit officially sanctioned? If not why did he meet with banned politicians right during the middle of a positive peace negotiating deal being brokered.

I have Silver package from True plus local cable. The cable gives most of the rugby, cricket & a several other channels I like to watch. Unfortunately it seems we will lose the feed from DSTV at the end of this month which means losing Super Sport. This is going to be serious not only for me but for many others including bar owners, who make a living providing a comprehensive sports coverage, & their customers who depend on said bars to get their weekly dose of sport. This loss will also effect all those who are using their own satellite dish. I am sure there are many trying to find a way around this such as using an internet feed. My cable company claimed to have no idea DSTV was going off soon but would look into it but so far no response on what their contingency plan is. They did not seem to understand the concept of C & KU band & the footprint which those bands cover.

The cable companies have been creaming it for years by taking illegal feeds & spreading it around for a modest fee. They could still make bucket loads if they did it legally.

I am likely in the minority of those who have no interest in the World Cup but for the multitudes of you who are it seems like you will only get Thai language broadcast, better than nothing.

I have seen this at other intersections resulting in many near misses. Many people to tend to go when the countdown ends rather than actually waiting for the lights to turn green. I used to travel though an intersetcion in Kathu most days while taking my kids to school & every time at around 6.50am the red number would countdown to zero but the light did not change to green, A few minutes later it also often happened at the T junction in Sam Khong.

Don't be silly, Thaksin isn't the enemy...he cut poverty in half during his term in office...the only PM to do anything for the poor...I don't get all these people blinded by hatred...hatred uses up so much energy...stop hating and open your mind...

My mind is open, no hatred, but I would like to know the data used when you make the statement "he cut poverty in half during his term in office". The main financial beneficiary of his term was the man himself. All the data that I have seen indicates an increase in debt due to his loan schemes. It's just a pity that he was away during the coup - all this bloodshed could have been avoided with a bit of defenestration.

I agree. Personal debt rose dramatically during Mr T's tenure. Handing out money with no controls meant much of it was spent on new cell phones, motorbikes etc which benefited those in power. All the handouts should have been monitored & used to create more self sufficiency which was often presented as the way forward by the King. Present government is putting a programme in place for many to get out of the clutches of loan sharks.

Anyway, the current conflict is not about hatred, but is all about power. Hatred is one of the seeds used to work up the mobs. The latest attacks are part of the original plan which was to put the country in civil war.

The PM's "road map" was far from fair. Since his party would still be in power in the all important month of September, he would be the one to win in the long run regardless of how the November elections turned out.

It's fair considering Abhisit should be in power until Dec 2011.

Remember, the reds are fighting for "democracy". They don't care about the army reshuffle.

Every Thai government in the past has taken advantage of the annual reshuffle.

Something that could be contributing to your problem is calcium leaching out of the concrete & coming through the grout. I have seen this many times & is usually because no waterproof membrane has been applied before tiling.