dizbukhapeter

Heres the short history of the name change if you didn't know:

Plaek Pibulsonggram, the military dictator of Thailand during WW2 changed the name in an effort to instill more racial pride in the Thai people and suppress minority groups. He discouraged minorities from speaking regional dialects and speak more "thai" and forbid regional dress for more western attire.

This is one of the reasons why many Thais like to poke fun at Issan or Laotian dialects, they think it's backwards and inferior to the Thai language.

Personally I hate both names, I prefer the Kingdom of Ayutthaya or any of the ancient names before the siamese era

2000 actually seems like a good deal, any Israeli made weapon is worth the price. The Thais are getting a good weapon, the Tavor earned high marks with soldiers in the 2006 Lebanon war. The rifle is fairly advanced, it comes with a built in laser aiming device and Mars holographic sight.

Israeli Military Industries is trying to get this rifle out onto the market. The global market is saturated with new infantry rifles, I think that explains why the reasonable price.

Also, it's a really cool looking rifle:

Here's another angle:

- Buddhists horrified by seeing shoes (ballet shoes are still shoes) around the neck of a Buddha statue, and demand that their faith be respected.

- Same buddhists couldn't care less about visitors to their country being ripped off again and again by taxi drivers and jewelry shop scams, tourists being murdered by well connected policeman....

Reminds me of where I live, many small business display signs that they are a Christian business (mostly mechanic shops). These shops are probably the most likely to give you the runaround and their business owners have the least regards in the community.

This reminds of the murder of Theo Van Gogh, he made caricatures of Muhammad (a big no-no in islam) and some muslim extremists took offense and killed him.

I'm pretty sure it's not what happened.

Are we witnessing a birth of a myth?

He was murdered for making a film critical of Islam.

My mistake. There were political cartoons depicting Muhammad in Denmark around the same time Van Gogh was murdered. I got it mixed up.

It used to be "if it ain't Boeing, I ain't going". But times are a changing. Boeing uses Chinese produced landing gears and other essential structural components, they've been doing this for the past fifteen years. Chances are, the last Airbus, Boeing, or Embraer you flew on, landed on Chinese produced landing gears and was held together by Chinese produced airframe components. The Chinese have a good track record in terms of aviation engineering. They have a fairly long history of producing their own aircraft and are major contractors for the large western firms. If Chinese produced aircraft and components weren't safe, they wouldn't be flying, the aviation industry is no joke about that stuff. Rest assured that Airbus and Boeing run companies are stringent about the quality of their products in their Chinese factories.

Lets just be glad that buddhists aren't killing and terrorizing people all over the world in the name of their faith.

This reminds of the murder of Theo Van Gogh, he made caricatures of Muhammad (a big no-no in islam) and some muslim extremists took offense and killed him.

You guys remind me of how it is here in Texas. The Mexicans swarm in and are turning this place into a cesspool. They expect everything to be in spanish; all govt forms are in spanish, everytime you call for support they have a spanish option, and none of them bother to learn english so they expect you to speak spanish and get mad at you if you insist on speaking english. Every other store is mexican owned and their staff cant speak english; even in a chain store the staff don't bother to learn english. They leach off the govt and expect certain civil rights because they're minorities; did I also mention they're racist? They talk in spanish behind your back. Those of you who want to change Thai culture are like mexicans, you go into a country you didn't build and whine about how they won't accomodate you even if its unreasonable.

How much about Thailand and it's military do you know? In my opinion it's a piss poor military if you're shopping around for foreign militaries. It'll be pretty hard for a white boy to form an esprit de corp among thais, especially with hardly any understanding of them. I don't think you'll be treated equally and probably taken advantage of. What exactly are you looking for? To be one of the thousands of corrupt military officers with no real jobs? Reality is far from what is shown on the military websites.

Also I think that if you join another country's military, the U.S. will revoke your citizenship and people who join the French Foreign Legion gain French citizenship after a five year contract, so they are serving for the French nation and not as an autonomous entity.

I'm joining up in the Army next year after I get out of college.

If this is serious, why don't you join the U.S. military with it's many benefits towards college and careers and become one of the many servicemen already here? Anyways why throw away American citizenship? In Thailand you'll always be an American and never truly a Thai. A dual citizenship is the rational option.

At least they're not selling sex, that'd really be low class.

I'm asian, so it'd be abnormal if I didn't like asian girls.