pastitche

I really don't care what you say about Bush but Brown having lost an eye playing rugby as a young man is completely irrelevant to any assessment of either his career or his proficiency in English. He has a PhD from a university where his subject - History - is taught in English. I expect that he would be able to spell correctly the word "technically".

He should have worn an eyepatch, it would have made him look like a pirate. He should have dressed as a pirate when he sold England's gold reserves at a $15bn loss in 99-02. Would have been easier to watch him do things like that if he'd been saying "HARRRRRRR!" and waving a cutlass around.

I was protesting at the attempt to denigrate him for an injury he sustained which had nothing to do with his success or failure in politics. I despise people who mock any kind of disabilities.

that her English is better than native speakers' Bush and Brown,

We have to give both Bush and Brown some lattitude when speaking English....one is a Texan red neck and the other is a one eyed Scottish git.....so therefore techincally not native speakers.. .....however to the question in hand...you silly billy.....sister of Brother #1 cannot speak english even reasonably close to the skils of the red neck and the Scottish git

I really don't care what you say about Bush but Brown having lost an eye playing rugby as a young man is completely irrelevant to any assessment of either his career or his proficiency in English. He has a PhD from a university where his subject - History - is taught in English. I expect that he would be able to spell correctly the word "technically".

When my wife, as she does, frequently slips her hand into mine, I am surely not going to let go and inform her hand holding in public is to be avoided in Thailand. Likewise my children.....so onlookers better get used to it......or turn away in disgust if they feel affronted

Not long ago I was in a restaurant in Kanchanaburi. There in front of me was a Farang with his Thai gf/wife.

He looked about mid 50's...she late 20/early 30's.

He looked quite sad, that look of a man that's been through a hard life. She went off to the toilet or something and he sat there looking like a shattered man. She walked up behind him and stroked his head then sat beside him and held his hand. The way his face lit up you could see she meant everything to him. It's one of those moments that stuck in my mind.

I don't judge anymore. I don't know their lives, never walked a mile in their shoes. He's happy, she's happy and probably her family is happy, everyones happy so what's the problem? The only ones that are not happy are the people that judge them!

Live and let live I say, one day we could be the ones being judged.

That's great if it is genuine on her part. If not he's likely gonna end up balcony diving.

Yours is a seriously sad and cynical post, and very unlikely to be accurate in the future of the couple mentioned. I take it that you have had a bad experience but have not yet dived from a balcony

Of course not. I have no idea and I prefer not to speculate especially in answer to leading questions.

Was Aung San Suu Kyi sending any message, subtle or otherwise, by meeting with Abhisit before Yingluck

Link to Photo:

http://newshopper.su...oto_2237102.htm

Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, left, shakes hands with Thai opposition leader Abhisit Vejjajiva during their meeting in Bangkok, Thailand Wednesday, May 30, 2012.

No.What a silly piece of wishful thinking.

Is it being wishful to ask a question?

I suppose it was silly of me to ask for a reasonable explanation as to why she chose to meet with Abhisit before Yingluck.

.

And it was equally silly to believe that you would receive an informed reply on this forum; I didn't realise you might be so ingenuous.

.... I said 52% of the population voted against Thaksin....

I honestly dislike Taksin, but your assertion that 52% of the population voted against him at the last election is ludicrous. You don't have an election to vote against someone. Elections are not that black or white, i.e you're either with us or against us. I'm sure a large chunk of the public voted for PTP just for the 300 baht minimum wage, or tablet for their child, whilst some Dem voters voted for the gradual 25% wage hike across the country, or to show their displeasure at the UDD.

Taksin is divisive that's for sure. But i don;t think 52% (i.e. the entire non-PTP vote ) voted against Taksin as the sole reason for not voting PTP

Not voting for someone is voting against them and it is actually over 52% if you include the Thais that did not vote but were legal to.

More to the point, the 17.5 million votes PTP received represents 27% of the 65million population.

Hardly more to the point, the electorate is not 65 million.

Finally the Blether understands and respects us real Thaivisa posters. Because we live here we have a higher status as people on holidays. We need to be treated with respect, our opinion should be the only one to matter. Based on how long we have been here the more valid our opinion is

We are the master race on Thaivisa, i am happy you finally acknowledge this fact. Maybe once you can join this brotherhood of men and woman. We are so much above you and others that we get dizzy looking down on you guys.

Bow before us... respect us.

I am on my knees as we speak!

Thank you for giving me the respect i well deserve to survive here among the natives. With the hardship it bring. Only my gin and tonic carry me from day to day. Educating the natives for queen and country. You short term guys and girls have no idea how it feels.

Re adjusting my monocle, by jove an other day passed among these savages who can't even produce good beer.

(i hope it was clear to everyone i was joking)

Nah It was just clear you were Dutch; you guys never really got the hang of being colonial; it's much more subtly offensive.

Thank heaven that my chambermaid Matilda who was trained in Rev Frobisher's household is here to assuage the .......

When we bought the car, it had of course to be blessed by an abbot. Being very important and obviously psychic he could tell that I had previously (in another existence) been in Thailand and in a relationship with a Thai woman but I had to go back to Farangland,while promising to return. Apparently she is/was still waiting for me......

I hope that it was the present wife in her previous incarnation. If it works that way I want her next time around.

I call it a senior moment and I generally have about 3 or 4 a day now I am 68.

Thing like deciding to empty the trash bags then going to my storeroom and trying to remember why I am here, loading a slide in the scanner and wonering why it isn't scanning and realising I was playing Hearts and had forgotten to start the scanner.

Is that the sort of thing you mean?

At 68 you still get to play against HMFC? Theblether will sign you for Motherwell.

Who wrote this? They do not seem to know much about Australian Politics. Julia Gillard is the "Prime Minister" and not a "Premier"

Prime Minister - Federal Politics

Premier - State Politics

It is like calling the President of the United States the Govenor of the United States. Disrespectful to the position.

I wonder if Julia can press charges against the reporter and Editor under the Thai Defamation laws for this public insult.

I think that you may be a touch over-sensitive. It is common practice in the UK for the Press to use the term Premier when talking about the Prime Minister and I am sure I have seen that also when the UK Press were talking about the Australian government's PM.

If a distinct legal difference exists in Australia, as you suggest, it is not well known internationally.

Prime Minister and Premier in Australia a two very very different things. 3 Levels of Government 1st being Federal and the Highest which carries the title of Prime Minister, the 2nd level carries the title of Premier (State) and the 3rd the title of Mayor. It is disrepectful to address the P.M by a lesser title. You would not address an Army Colonel as a Major.

I agree with you that the Commonwealth has a Prime Minister and the states have Premiers. All I was suggesting was that these are not well-known differentials internationally and Prime Minister/Premier are used as synonyms widely outside of Australia so I don't think that there was any intentional disrespect.

Who wrote this? They do not seem to know much about Australian Politics. Julia Gillard is the "Prime Minister" and not a "Premier"

Prime Minister - Federal Politics

Premier - State Politics

It is like calling the President of the United States the Govenor of the United States. Disrespectful to the position.

I wonder if Julia can press charges against the reporter and Editor under the Thai Defamation laws for this public insult.

I think that you may be a touch over-sensitive. It is common practice in the UK for the Press to use the term Premier when talking about the Prime Minister and I am sure I have seen that also when the UK Press were talking about the Australian government's PM.

If a distinct legal difference exists in Australia, as you suggest, it is not well known internationally.

Amnesty have a somewhat unwieldy definition of abuses imo. More people die from poor driving standards on Thailands roads.....

The standard of driving in country has nothing to do with human rights.

It is the governments responsibility to install and maintain regulated training schemes for drivers,and for doing the same for traffic police and road-builders. In Thailand successive governments have neglected to do this causing untold numbers of deaths. My point was that "neglect" is also "abuse". Thais have the human right to travel to school and work safely, yet their government denies them this basic human right by not creating safety laws and by with-holding essential monetary fund for infrastructure development. See also water mismanagement & monitoring / control of toxic substances ( excessive spraying in residential areas where kids are playing for example) etc. It is all unregulated because regulation costs money & the Govt. need money for their own crooked schemes - that is human rights abuse.

Neglect is not abuse, look at any dictionary. AI is criticising the Thai government for what AI sees as ignoring the human rights of Thais in the systematic maltreatment of of non-ethnic Thais in the South, the failure to bring to justice anyone for the killings in the Redshirt protest/insurrection (choose your own label) and the misuse of the Lese Majeste law and Computer Crime Act to repress dissent.

IMO this country is sufficiently aware to know that none of these is necessary but they are being exploited for a different agenda which suits those with power.

Oh dear, I didn't realise you supported the coup. Wouldn't you rather have had the Democrat Party do the democratic thing and vote Thaksin and his party out at the Polls in the October Election? They would only have had to wait about a month before they had their chance. They obviously took it seriously as they were campaigning this time as opposed to boycotting.

D'oh! The coup was conducted by the RTA, not the Democrat Party. The fact that the Democrats were seriously campaigning suggests that they had no idea it was about to happen.

How do you produce such twisted logic?

I was upbraiding rubl for choosing a coup as a democratic alternative to removing an elected PM and government rather than relying on a good old fashioned election that had been announced. I'm sure the democrat party had nothing to do with carrying out the coup, that's why I pointed out they were campaigning for the October election.

Sometimes elections do not work.

Sometimes countries are not ready for elections. Look at China and India. India has a democracy and the country is extremely corrupt and the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. China is doing much better without a democracy. People must be ready for a democracy to work. Some countries are just not ready. And this has mainly to do with education.

Are you saying that when you are elected you can do whatever you want? What if an elected leader is corrupt as hell? What if he buys his way around any legal system? Who should stop these kind of elected leaders? Or should we just watch and see and accept what he is doing because he is elected?

You are making an interesting point but what are you suggesting should be the way forward for Thailand? Democracy may not be the only style of government but is certainly the most legitimate. I agree that education of the electorate is important but who is to judge when their education is sufficient?

Democratically elected government intends to have cases heard by an independent court: NOT ACCEPTABLE

Decision taken by a court, set up by an illegal coup: ACCEPTABLE

The military did not set up any courts....same courts same laws as before the coup.

And the coup wasn't illegal....only unsuccessful coups are illegal.....else the US government and all the European governments would be big in troubles.....

Some European countries have been subject to military coups eg Spain, Portugal and Greece but that cannot be said about the USA, UK or most other European countries.

A good reminder to all that the laws on defamation of character and slander in Thailand are NOT the same as in Austrailia.

This is Thailand and you can not pubicaly say certain things as perhaps you could in Austrailia.

I don't know the details of this particular case....but just remember....the laws in Thailand are different.

So don't open your month and stick you're foot in it.

It was apparently said in private and not publically.

But said in front of other potential business associates or investors.

So from a Thai business stand point members of the public were there,

even if it was an open meeting free to all the public.

And most of the partners are high-net-worth Thais, not Malaysians,

he is just the point man for this, possibly because he was running the meeting.

It was said in front of her boss, the complainant and a member of the board, according to Nisa's link. How can you make that "potential business associates or investors"?

It's a nonsensical case even by Thai standards and if what she and her company say about who was present, the confidential nature of the meeting and the impermissible recording is true it will go no further

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who is currently visiting Australia, is reportedly due to hold a press conference in Sydney today, where she will address the matter.

Read more:

http://www.brisbanet...l#ixzz1wDgnVsyZ

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who is currently visiting Australia, is reportedly due to hold a press conference in Sydney today, where she will address the matter.

Read more:

http://www.brisbanet...l#ixzz1wDgnVsyZ

I don't doubt you but when I looked at this link, it made no mention of her addressing this matter at a press conference

PM Satisfied with (Australian) Trip

Sorry guys, but without naming a particular PM this could be just about any PM speaking on return from a trip abroad. I may have missed some speeches, but please remind me, when last did any PM come back from a trip and report 'it was a complete disaster'? Some even reported 'peace in our time' returning from a trip :-)

I must admit I'm a wee bit puzzled by this remark, unless it signifies what our American friends call "positive discrimination":

"Ms Yingluck said that meeting between the two women leaders could provide an advantage in helping strengthen bilateral ties."

Because it is unlikely she said that, perhaps? More likely she said something like "my meeting with..." or even just "our meeting".

The fact that two women were involved seems to me far more likely to have been a point from the journalist.

Your view of democracy is simplistic and ignores its acknowledged inherent weaknesses. Democracy depends on an educated electorate capable of making rational decisions based on information made easily available by a free and critical media. If you think those conditions are met here you are delusional.

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute talk with the average voter." - Winston Churchill

"Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time." E. B. White

Ozmick you appear to be using a lot of quotations nowadays, did you get a book as a birthday present?

The struggle for universal suffrage was always opposed by those, like Churchill who came from a privileged background. I suggest you look more deeply at his time much earlier as Home Secretary rather than PM in WW11, to understand his political viewpoint.

The UK was dragged into allowing its masses to vote at a time when education was perhaps as poor as Thailand's, using rote learning, nationalism, imperial history, a culture of servility, leaving school at 11 years old, etc. In fact it was probably worse since there were far fewer sources of information than today.

That was changed by the mobilisation of the working classes by idealists such as Keir Hardie in the late 19th century.

I accept that there is, as far as I know, no Thai Keir Hardie but suggesting that voters must have a high level of education is nonsense. Power would never change hands since the legislators have the ability to decide upon how well the state education system operates and what is the level of education required to vote.

In Thailand it already requires that an MP must be a graduate, that has never been the case in most real democracies

Well aware that Churchill was a prize prick, but a great leader when needed.

I don't believe I said anything re a "high level" of education, though a better standard than that available in rural Thailand would certainly help. And I would expect that the UK had a higher degree of press freedom than available in Thailand during the Thaksin years, internet sure but not to many, and paid attendance at "democracy schools" peddling propaganda.

I also believe that the requirement for an MP to be a graduate has been dropped.

Not a book, Tropico

I don't have any axe to grind on this - the educational standards in the UK in the early years of the 20th century were appalling, literacy was low and the press were purely a tool of the ruling class, free from official censorship perhaps, but in no way impartial. That is why so many young men died in the trenches of Flanders and so many Aussies and Kiwis in Gallipoli and elsewhere, fighting out of patriotism for an imperial class who cared nothing for their sacrifice - on both sides. The Kaiser's grandmother was Queen Victoria.

The real difference in the mass movement of the Red Shirts and the working class in the UK at that time was that the UK was by then industrialised and the new kids on the block were the Trades Unions which did educate members in the ideas of socialism. Their approach was not all that different from the Red "democracy schools".

Your view of democracy is simplistic and ignores its acknowledged inherent weaknesses. Democracy depends on an educated electorate capable of making rational decisions based on information made easily available by a free and critical media. If you think those conditions are met here you are delusional.

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute talk with the average voter." - Winston Churchill

"Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time." E. B. White

Ozmick you appear to be using a lot of quotations nowadays, did you get a book as a birthday present?

The struggle for universal suffrage was always opposed by those, like Churchill who came from a privileged background. I suggest you look more deeply at his time much earlier as Home Secretary rather than PM in WW11, to understand his political viewpoint.

The UK was dragged into allowing its masses to vote at a time when education was perhaps as poor as Thailand's, using rote learning, nationalism, imperial history, a culture of servility, leaving school at 11 years old, etc. In fact it was probably worse since there were far fewer sources of information than today.

That was changed by the mobilisation of the working classes by idealists such as Keir Hardie in the late 19th century.

I accept that there is, as far as I know, no Thai Keir Hardie but suggesting that voters must have a high level of education is nonsense. Power would never change hands since the legislators have the ability to decide upon how well the state education system operates and what is the level of education required to vote.

In Thailand it already requires that an MP must be a graduate, that has never been the case in most real democracies

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra presided over the opening ceremony of Thailand: Kitchen to the World

Great news from the PM of Thailand. It shows some vision for the future at a time when global food security is increasingly threatened by population growth, water shortages, energy uncertainties and climate change. Thailand is in a good position to make a positive response, but farmers here are very badly remunerated, poorly resourced in terms of modern technology and seriously undervalued as keystones of the nation. I am hoping that Yingluk will lead a revitalisation of Thai agriculture and the status of farmers.

News from the previous PM of Thailand in a speech during the 20th World Economic Forum on East Asia nearly a year ago on 13 June 2011:

In the food industry, Thailand has long been known as the Kitchen of the World, not only from our wealth of tastes and spices, but as the world's biggest rice exporter.

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Is there a point being made here because it eludes me?

You know exactly the point being made - this is TVF, Abhisit said it first and of course said it better, apparently.

I keep a fridge on the porch stocked with beer (and ice too, I'm a convert) and have a little farm shop 100 metres away which ignores alcohol-selling laws, so no problem other than half-eaten items that the 9 year old puts in there for later....

That little shit has been reading my posts and knows that I can't kill him without distressing my wife and affecting her next incarnation. His behaviour is now beyond the pale.

I have tolerated his insouciant attitude and aberrant lifestyle but he has gone beyond anti-social now.

On Tuesday he demanded to be let out of the home in the evening and was warned that he should come home at a reasonable hour; I gave him no money in the hope that he would avoid his favourite haunts and the debauchery that exists in such places.

However my admonishments were to no avail; he returned this evening at 8:45pm reeking of Lao khao and catnip, a herb apparently used to induce psychotropic sensations. Is such a substance legal in Thailand? Anyone with a modicum of knowledge is aware that it causes completely chaotic behaviour in cats, particularly young males who remain intact.

He ate his sister's dinner, then another large portion which I gave him because I realised he had eaten very little in his 4 days away.- there were obviously other attractions. Astonishingly he is not sleeping as is his wont when he has returned from indulging in degeneracy and indeed I have heard the calls from outside of what I can only assume was his latest paramour.

It beggars belief but the scoundrel has been trying to ingratiate himself with the whole family since his return; the dog and the daughter are delighted to see him, my wife is happy that he has not been killed by roving dogs, his sister was initially pleased but seems now to think that he has let down the aristocratic side of the family and is paying no attention to him.

I have spurned his advances and believe that he is a ne'er-do-well.

But ... I worried when he did not come home that I might not see him again

Mine is marvellous too; she even let me marry her in a kilt and made her cousin wear one as well, as "Best Man". Where else would I have found a woman who would have accepted such bizarre behaviour on such an important day in her life?

The Italians had a good idea in this. Rather than selling their national asset AirItalia to bloody foreigners President Silvio managed to talk his local business associates and friends into taking over the lot at a friendly price, allowing some cleanup and a fresh restart with the useful assets and less people.

Meanwhile back on topic as you are wont to say, what has a corrupt Italian President got to do with this case? I think you need to spell it out more because I seem to be missing the point, if there is one.

Touchy today, aren't you? You must have got out of your bed wrongside.

Anyway as you point out the OP has nothing to do with the former Italian president. It's just that Alitalia had the government as major stakeholder and the buyer/conditions had to be approved by that government.

The link may be the business approach, transparancy, and what so all, Alitalia was known for and Thai is known for.

Hope this helps. Now hop along and get your morning coffee or tea, you'll be in a much better m d soon then

Tut tut uncle - it's almost 3pm in the UK.

Thida Thawornseth, UDD chairwoman said Thaksin "was just playing his role" in his video link.

And what role would that be?.....asshol_e of the century?

Judging panel chairman Hun Sen presenting the prestigious award

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Rectum Prolapsum Profundis non Faux Pluribus Maximatum

Well you have destroyed my faith in the Scottish education system where I studied Latin for 5 years. I can make no sense of this - would you translate for me , please teacher.