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nisakiman
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Posts posted by nisakiman
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14 hours ago, Golden Triangle said:
My Mrs was watching a game show recently, I just happened to look up and noticed the Leo advert in the background so I asked her they got away with advertising beer on the TV, she told me it was Soda water, like you I have never seen it in any shops here in Patts.
That's how they advertise their beer now. All the big name sodas are named the same as the big name beers, so when they advertise the soda, they are also advertising the beer, as everyone is familiar with the brand name. Why else would there be both Singha and Leo brand sodas? It's only fizzy water, probably from the same source.
It's quite a clever ploy, actually. Sidesteps the beer advertising ban quite neatly.
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All these big busts seem to be as a result of a 'tip-off'. Who on earth is doing the 'tipping-off', and why? The gangs transporting and selling the stuff must have security like a sieve. Or loose tongues after a bottle or two of Lao Khao. I can't imagine that the BiB have a particularly efficient network of undercover agents, somehow.
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19 minutes ago, StayinThailand2much said:
One country opened its borders wide to foreign investment, while the other did it less so and in a reluctant way. The result is, that Thailand is falling more and more behind. It's a bit like the story of South Korea and North Korea. Which example will Thailand choose in the future?
Yes, I've always seen this attitude as Thailand's biggest Achilles Heel. There was a recent thread where Thailand was claiming to be one of the best countries in the world to start a business, citing low labour costs etc etc.
What tosh.
When the government refuses to allow foreigners to own property (and the security which comes with ownership); treats all prospective business owners like undesirable aliens by creating onerous visa requirements; and applies draconian restrictions on what type of business any foreigner is allowed to operate (which seems to apply to most types of business - there are very few business areas open to foreigners), then they are unlikely to attract foreign investment. They seem to think that allowing global companies like Toyota and Sharp etc to open factories here is sufficient, but the engine room of any economy is small to medium businesses, and without allowing that sector to flourish (and by flourish, I mean allowing small foreign businesses with big ideas to operate freely and compete with local business, thus raising the bar for all), there will never be any real growth from within. A closed shop doesn't expand it's customer base, it tends to go broke.
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21 hours ago, Tony125 said:
Your jesting right ? The statute of limitations on prosecuting him run out in Sept so if he is not found by then he's home free.
I realise that that is the plan - to stay out of reach until the statute of limitations runs out; however, the case has stirred up such a media storm (not just in Thailand, but globally), that I honestly don't think the government will be able to let it go that easily, much as they might like to brush it under the carpet. They'll be under all sorts of international pressure to bring the guy to justice, one way or another. Had the case not become so high-profile, chances are he'd get away with it. As things stand, I'm not so sure.
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I can't believe how stupid this guy is.
With his money and connections, if he'd dealt with the situation at the time, he would have ended up paying the cop's family what for him would be small change in compensation, and maybe been given community service, which he probably wouldn't have done anyway. Now he's in deep sh*t, and even his money isn't going to save him.
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7 hours ago, webfact said:
If marijuana use is implicated in cardiovascular diseases and deaths, then it rests on the health community and policy makers to protect the public."
No, it doesn't rest on the 'health community' and policy makers to 'protect' the public. We've gone much too far down this road already, with the lifestyle police telling us how we should live our lives.
Inform - yes.
Force through application of unjust law - no.
'Public Health' has over the past few decades gone from an institution designed to ensure clean water supplies and to react to communicable diseases and has turned into a many-headed serpent intent on micromanaging people's lives according to the latest PC fashion of the day. They've destroyed the pleasures of tobacco with their draconian bans, medico-porn plastered all over the packs and persecution of smokers; they are in the process of trying to do the same with alcohol, already demanding 'warning labels' and 'plain' packaging for booze, plus numerous restrictions on how, when and where you can drink; sugar is the next dragon they wish to slay with punitive legislation, salt too. The list gets ever longer.
Oh, they won't run out of stuff to try to ban. Their existence depends on creating scare stories about stuff which they can then lobby gullible politicians (who generally know sweet FA about the stuff they legislate) to ban. They've been at it for years. "Experts have said....", "Research suggests...." are their favourite introductory phrases, usually culminating in "More research is needed...", which roughly translated means "We want more taxpayer's money".
If the charlatans in 'Public Health' were all sacked tomorrow, the world would be a better place. And probably healthier, too.
They have created a situation in which evidence based policy is a thing of the past. It's all now policy based evidence. Honesty and ethics left the room a long time ago.
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I've never liked AC. It dries up my sinuses and makes me feel uncomfortable. Unfortunately, my wife absolutely loves AC, and is a lot less tolerant of the heat than I am ("I worked in AC offices in Bangkok for 20 years, so I'm used to it"), so we always have to seek some sort of compromise when we're in Thailand. Where we live in Greece, summer temperatures are regularly 35° - 40° C, and I'm under pressure to install AC here. We currently use ceiling and free-standing fans, which I find quite adequate, and a lot cheaper to run than AC.
The first time I was in Bangkok in 1971, the hotel I stayed (the Malaysia Hotel) had the AC turned down to what felt like about 20°, and the outside temp was in the high 30s, and very humid. With going in and out of the hotel, within a couple of days I'd developed a serious bronchial infection, and ended up having to move to a Chinese hotel in Hualamphong which only had ceiling fans so I could acclimatise to the heat naturally. I've been averse to AC ever since. It's the thing I most dislike about flying.
When I'm wandering round Bangkok, I often wonder how many degrees the ambient temperature is raised by the thousands upon thousands of AC units pumping out hot air. It must be a fair bit, I'd imagine.
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When I was in Ubon earlier this year I was fully loaded with duty free from Doha, so didn't have to look. I'd suggest trying a few of the central seven-elevens. I picked up a pack of GV in a 7/11 in Kanchanaburi, which I know is more farang orientated, but I'm sure you'll find that a 7/11 where farang tend to go (near Big C, or something) will stock it. Failing that, get your local 7/11 to order it in and tell them that you'll be a regular customer.
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6 hours ago, Maggusoil said:
Nobody destroys anybody else's life. People with their own malice and aforethought, seek out drug dealers to buy the substances they want. If they then destroy their lives, it is their choice. Or as is the case, as many do, they imbibe a bit on a Saturday night and stay substance free the rest of the week. Freely chosen, with the risks calculated.
It is not as if the drug dealers are distributing enticing advertising in their letter boxes or online. Is it? Or standing over them with a glass pipe saying "Smoke! Or I kill you."
Get real and if you think that other people cannot take responsibility for their lives, then is it highly likely that you cannot do so yourself. You need the state to impose its guidelines upon you, because you cannot do it yourself.
When the whole of modern society wakes up to the fact that legalising drugs is the only way to educate people properly about their dangers and pleasures, we will have a more balanced society less dependent on the most dangerous substance on earth. Alcohol.
Wakey wakey people.
Succinct and to the point. One of the best posts I've read on the subject, and entirely concurrent with my point of view. I've been saying the same for fifty years, but the narrative deployed by the prohibitionists, with all the emotive BS is the only one that is heard.
It's not drugs per se that are the problem, it's the drug laws that create the misery and perpetuate the problem.
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Just now, ujayujay said:
.....so you want to make your Problem for not have a Insurance to a Problem for Thai Gouverment?
If you read what I've written, I suggested a system whereby the Thai government takes 15 billion baht per annum to cover basic hospital costs. They should end up with a profit, not a loss.
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It's all very well saying that 'everyone must have insurance', but as already pointed out, anyone over 60 will find it both difficult and expensive to get any insurance, and if they have any pre-existing conditions, it becomes almost impossible. And how many people who come to Thailand are over 60? A high percentage, I would imagine. And they probably put more into the Thai economy than young families who don't have the same disposable income.
I said this in the other thread, but the only way I see around it is to have a mandatory fee that must be paid on entry (or exit, which might be easier) by everyone - 500 Baht perhaps (500 Baht X 30 million visitors = 15 billion Baht) which would cover everyone for basic healthcare at a state hospital. The majority of visitors would prefer to have insurance that will provide a higher level of care in a private hospital, so only a small percentage would, if the need arose, have to be treated under the state scheme.
It's not a perfect system, but 500 Baht is not so much that people would refuse to pay (or refuse to come to Thailand). We used to have a 500 Baht departure tax, and everyone just paid it. We may have grumbled a bit, but it wasn't a bank-breaking sum.
Also, the idea of having to check everyone's insurance is just a non-starter.
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Are we talking about this:
https://pikfly.com/images/products/141/21052.jpg
or the real thing:
Now the arrival of Czech Budweiser really would be something to celebrate!
American Bud is distinctly underwhelming - I'd rather have a Beer Lao.
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If they really want to cover unpaid medical bills, as has already been suggested, a fee of 500 Baht on arrival for all tourists would be the easiest to administer. That money should then be ring-fenced to pay any medical fees in a government hospital for the uninsured. Most people will still prefer to have private insurance anyway and be treated in a private hospital. I don't know what the estimated costs of treating uninsured foreigners is on a yearly basis, but 500 Baht times 30 million(?) arrivals is 15 billion Baht. I would have thought that would cover it. And 500 Baht isn't a huge sum of money that people would recoil in horror at paying.
It would, of course, require the airports to install enough ticket / token dispensing machines that can take multiple currencies throughout the whole arrivals area of the airport, which would be the sticking point, probably.
There's no way they would be able to check the insurance of each and every arrival. It would be an impossible task.
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The only place I know is Jay-Jay in Nakhonban Road. I've never used them - I only know because the in-laws live just down the road from there, and I walked past it often. They've been in operation for at least ten years (which is when I first saw the shop), so I guess they must be fairly reliable to have stayed in business that long. Scam artists don't tend to hang around.
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On 29/05/2017 at 11:01 AM, Thongkorn said:
Smokers contribute littel to the Tax, One operation can cost thousands of pounds, smokers never could pay enough tax for that, And then there is aftercare, people think becasue they pay tax it runs into infinity and never runs out. The British NHS system was never set up to treat any self inflicted injuries. That includes Car accidents, fat people, Sport injuries, That's why the NHS is on its knees, along with people from other countrys who think its free
Smokers contribute little? Are you serious? Have you any idea what the figures are?
According to the (doubtless exaggerated, but we'll take them at face value for now) NHS figures, 'smoking related' diseases cost the NHS £2.7 billion per annum. The UK government collects £12 billion per annum in tobacco taxes. So smokers pay more than four times as much in taxes than they supposedly cost the health service. So in effect, smokers are subsidising the health care of everyone else. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
And the reason the NHS is on it's knees has absolutely nothing to do with smokers, drinkers, fatties or footballers. The biggest cost to the NHS (which they desperately need to address, and soon), is the money paid out in compensation claims. Of the total NHS budget of £116 billion, fully HALF goes on compensation claims. Yes, HALF THE TOTAL BUDGET. Just think what they could do with an extra £58 billion a year!
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Well, my goodness! So many misinformed / brainwashed posters on here tonight! The smoker-haters are really out in force! Propaganda is a powerful tool indeed!
I don't suppose it's ever occurred to any of you indoctrinated ones that the 'Baby-Boomer' generation, of which I am one, grew up in a constant fug of tobacco smoke. And many of us went on to smoke ourselves for years, if not all our lives. And that we are the fittest, healthiest, longest-lived generation ever. Fitter and healthier than the current generation, who seem to be plagued with allergies, asthma and obesity. And I suppose it's just one of those oddities of life that the majority of super-centenarians were for most of their lives smokers. And that the countries with the highest smoking rates are for the most part leaders in the longevity stakes. And that as smoking rates have fallen, the numbers of non-smokers getting lung cancer has inexorably risen (80% or thereabouts of lung cancer cases are now in non-smokers). It couldn't be, perhaps, that smoking wasn't the cause in the first place, could it? And it's odd, too, that before the 1940s, lung cancer was a rare disease, and then in the late 1940s, it suddenly spiked.
Now that could perhaps be because diesel engines were being increasingly used:
http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/diesel_lung_cancer.html
Or it could have something to do with this?
But with either of those scenarios being a possible reason for the sudden rise in cases of lung cancer, the governments of the day had a very strong motivation to find a red herring to explain it away and avoid very expensive litigation. And what better than smoking? We can blame it on what people are doing to themselves! Brilliant! That absolves us of all responsibility! Plus we can tax the hell out of it and tell people we're doing it for their own good! Magnificent! Win win!
And the fact that the connection between smoking and lung cancer is still only a hypothesis which has never been demonstrated under scientific conditions only lends weight to that theory.
Personally, I would imagine that if someone is genetically inclined to contract lung cancer, or has been exposed to known carcinogens like radioactive plutonium fallout, then smoking will quite possibly exacerbate the situation and is probably not a good idea, despite all its benefits. Although when a cohort of rats bred to be susceptible to cancer, and who when exposed to tiny amounts of radioactive plutonium died 100% of the time were found to be protected from that cancer if exposed to tobacco smoke first, it makes one wonder. That finding was accidental, by the way. There was a mix up with the cohorts being used for experiments, and the rats who were smoking the equivalent of a hundred or so fags a day were accidentally sent to the plutonium experiment. Imagine the consternation when 60% of the cohort survived! Ha! I bet some heads rolled! It was hushed up, of course. Mustn't send the wrong message, must we now? Smoking is BAD! BAD! BAD! Ok?
QuoteThese strong opinions for and against smoking were not supported by much evidence either way until 1950 when Richard Doll and Bradford Hill showed that smokers seemed more likely to develop lung cancer. A campaign was begun to limit smoking. But Sir Ronald Fisher, arguably the greatest statistician of the 20th century, had noticed a bizarre anomaly in their results. Doll and Hill had asked their subjects if they inhaled. Fisher showed that men who inhaled were significantly less likely to develop lung cancer than non-inhalers. As Fisher said, "even equality would be a fair knock-out for the theory that smoke in the lung causes cancer."
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Five year’s later, in 1964, Doll and Hill responded to this damning criticism. They did not explain why they had withdrawn the question about inhaling. Instead they complained that Fisher had not examined their more recent results but they agreed their results were mystifying. Fisher had died 2 years earlier and could not reply.
This refusal to consider conflicting evidence is the negation of the scientific method. It has been the hallmark of fifty years of antismoking propaganda and what with good reason may well be described as one of the greatest scandals in 500 years of modern science.
http://members.iinet.com.au/~ray/TSSOASb.html
QuoteTRUTH WAS AN EARLY VICTIM in the battle against tobacco.
The big lie, repeated ad nauseam in anti-tobacco circles, is that
smoking causes more than 400,000 premature deaths each year
in the United States..................................................
The war on smoking started with a kernel of truth—that cigarettes are a high risk factor for lung cancer—but has grown
into a monster of deceit and greed, eroding the credibility of
government and subverting the rule of law. Junk science has
replaced honest science and propaganda parades as fact. Our
legislators and judges, in need of dispassionate analysis, are
instead smothered by an avalanche of statistics—tendentious,
inadequately documented, and unchecked by even rudimentary
notions of objectivity. Meanwhile, Americans are indoctrinated by health “professionals” bent on imposing their lifestyle
choices on the rest of us and brainwashed by politicians eager
to tap the deep pockets of a pariah industry.
object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/1998/10/lies.pdf
I realise that all you indoctrinated ones are going to pile in now with all your propaganda soundbites that you read in the Daily Mail or New York Times or wherever, but that's because you don't understand the nature of the beast known as Tobacco Control. Tobacco Control has grown into a huge global industry, drawing its billions of dollars budget from the massively overtaxed smoker, the vested interests of the pharmaceutical industry and the unsuspecting taxpayer via the WHO. There are so many snouts in the Tobacco Control trough that it's budget is more than most small countries. So of course, the gravy train must be kept rolling. And the propaganda machine must be kept funded. And because people get tired of being shouted at, they are constantly having to ramp up the shrill rhetoric. Whereas originally it was enough to tell people that smoking gave them lung cancer, as that palled, the stakes had to be raised. "Smoking clogs your arteries!"; "Smoking gives you gangrene!"; "Smoking causes diabetes!"; "Smoking makes you infertile!"; "Smoking makes you impotent!"; "Smoking turns you blind!"; etc etc etc. Every time they think interest is flagging, they commission some new 'research' (the results of which are preordained) and churn out yet another 'smoking-related disease'. They're running out of stuff to blame on smoking now, but it doesn't half make the figures for 'smoking-related deaths' look good! Just about everyone dies a 'smoking-related' death now! Doubtless we'll be told that smoking causes ingrown toenails and mountaineering accidents next. Because that's what Tobacco Control do. They lie. Blatantly. And if anyone calls them out on any of their lies, they immediately accuse the whistle-blower of being in the pay of 'Big Tobacco'.
The anti-smoking issue isn't about health.
It never has been about health.
It's about social engineering, It's about money. It's about power. And it's about control.
And the people directing the anti-smoking pogrom are completely devoid of morals, honesty or compassion.
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5 hours ago, Shiver said:
EDIT: Actuaries suggest that smoking can take 7-8 years off your life. In other studies, drinking a lot of green tea can add about 13 to your life. You could do both and be a net +5 years compared to an RDA follower.
Ha! Love it! :)
I'll remember to start drinking lots of green tea!
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Countries don't have drugs problems, they have drugs laws problems. Had the moralistic, self-righteous finger-waggers not prevailed nearly a century ago, there wouldn't be a 'drugs problem'. I've seen the results of the heavy-handed prosecution of drugs laws unfold before my very eyes.
I arrived in Melbourne in the early part of 1971. When I got there, there was loads of home produced grass on the streets. Zombie grass, they called it, and it was cheap and plentiful and good. Ok, it may have demotivated some of the kids somewhat, but it was basically a benign alternative to booze and did no-one any harm.
The Australian authorities, in their wisdom, decided to crack down hard on all this grass on the streets ('can't have people enjoying something we personally don't approve of, can we now'), and over the course of the next year or so managed to pretty well eradicate all the growers and the dealers and remove it as a choice. Of course, busting people for grass is pretty easy, because it's bulky and it has a pungent aroma. To turn a good profit, you need to ship truckloads of the stuff.
Inevitably, as supplies of grass diminished, supplies of heroin increased.
When the grass was around, the heroin users were a tiny subset that were so few in number that you wouldn't have known they existed. But heroin is concentrated, easy to conceal (you could fit a king's ransom's worth in a small suitcase), easy to cut with other stuff like sugar, and high profit margin. So where the grass disappeared from the streets, it was largely replaced by heroin. Over the next few years I lost several good friends to it (people who I know would never have been tempted to even try it had they had access to their buzz of choice; grass), and heroin addiction was reaching almost epidemic proportions.
This was a direct result of drugs laws. Without those laws, nobody would have been interested in taking heroin. Without the demand, there would have been no supply.
And the same applies to Thailand. When I travelled through Thailand in '71, I was offered a bong (bamboo water pipe) nearly everywhere I went. It was part of the culture, and nobody thought twice about it, even though it was technically illegal. The police didn't seem interested. There was no meth on the streets in Thailand then, or if there was, I never saw any evidence of it. It's only since there has been a crackdown on grass that the more easily concealed and higher profit margin drugs have made an appearance, to devastating effect.
Portugal has been mentioned several times in this thread, and not without good reason. They (the Portugese) have looked at the problem, and have come to the (correct) conclusion that the problem lies more in the law than it does in the drugs themselves.
As long as drugs are illegal, they will continue to be an escalating problem.
Prohibition doesn't work.
It never has, and it never will.
And that applies equally to drugs, tobacco and alcohol. All you achieve with prohibition laws is to drive the trade underground, lose any semblance of quality control and create a highly profitable criminal network.
All laws criminalising drugs should be abolished, and then the huge problems those laws have created should be addressed in a pragmatic and humane way. It would take a generation or two, but it's the only hope we have of dealing with the human cost of the stupidity of prohibition.
Drugs, per se, are not the problem. It is the drugs laws that are the problem.
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1 hour ago, Destiny1990 said:
Well its a plan and better regulations and safety and more space for pedestrians are welcome.
Indeed; and most certainly better than the stupidity of declaring that all street traders were to be cleared off the streets.
Yaowarat in particular is probably one of the finest street food markets in the world, and to destroy that would have been vandalism beyond comprehension.
Still, it seems the outcry following the proposal to clear street vendors hit home, thankfully, and brought them to their senses. The plan to police the hygiene and waste disposal is good news, and won't adversely affect the traders to any great degree. All the situation required was a bit of common sense, which as Voltaire said, is unfortunately not very common.
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17 minutes ago, tukkytuktuk said:
What a fuss over a round piece of metal cemented into the middle of a road. Before it was removed I bet none of you had even known it existed.
The plaque itself is irrelevant. What is of importance is what the plaque represented to the Thai people, the way in which it was removed (and by whom), and the actions / reactions of the incumbent administration to the questions raised by its removal.
The directive forbidding the FCCT to discuss the subject merely serves to confirm what a sensitive issue this is, and how the government was complicit in the skulduggery that was employed in its removal and replacement.
The whole affair doesn't bode well for Thailand.
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Just a thought directed at admin.
This thread would be very useful if it was pinned. In fact perhaps a general live music thread, maybe subdivided into musical categories for the Bangkok members (and others) to keep updated.
There's some great information here, but because the thread drops back down through the pages, it doesn't get updated, and a lot of the stuff listed back in 2013, when the thread started will now not apply.
When I'm in Bangkok, it would be great to have an up-to-date thread to check to see what's going on in the Bangkok music scene, and where. And there are many TV members living in the city who know that info and would be happy to keep the thread updated, I'm sure. People who are into music like to share their enthusiasm.
Like I say, just a thought
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Presumably U-Tapao will be in addition to, rather than instead of Suvarnabhumi?
Because unless you either have a connection that runs out of U-Tapao or are going on to Pattaya, it's not exactly a convenient location.
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I have a much older model (can't remember offhand the model number) which I bought back in the '80s. Similar power and size blade, but with a 25.4 mm bore. Fantastic piece of kit. Still going strong, never had a problem with it. And it's been used professionally for much of that time. It was manufactured in Japan, but the last Makita tool I bought (½" router, a couple of years ago) was made in China. I think their QC is good, though. Not had a problem with the router to date.
Makita is, to my mind (as a professional carpenter) one of the best brand power tools available.
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4 hours ago, kingstonkid said:
When I was growing up in the stone age the drinking age was 21 in the US and 18 in Canada. Most f us that were 17 knew the risks and took the chances that our fake ID would get us in.
Clubs should be checking for age appropriate ID all all people. Letting a 16 yearold or younger go into a club and party and drink is never a good thing.
Also looking at the maturity leve of most young Thais I would suggest that it should be raised to 30 in clubs if you are Thai so that you have the maturity to take responsibility for your actions.
I would love to know how many in Onyx and these other big clubs are UA.
If I was the general I would do a sweep of RCA on a Friday or Saturday night.
Penalties
Shut down that night for first ofense
Closed for 2 weeks and 1 milion baht for second
Closed of a month and 1 milion baht for 3d
Closed permanenetly for a 4th
OH yeah and closed means closed padlocks on doors no renavating or anything allowed to happen
For the kds
1.000 baht fine and barred from all clubs easy to do just set up a computer program for all clubs to check id
second offence 10,000 o 2 days in jail
3rd offense 100,000 or one week
4th 1 month in jail and permanent ban from all drinking establishments
Drugs over DUI ;eve; Jail and then rehab
not properly licensed CLOSED
Boy, you sound like a barrel of laughs. Bet you're the life and soul of the party.
You should lighten up a bit. There's more to life than punish, punish, punish for things you don't agree with.
Thailand’s weird crackdown on boozy photos makes global headlines
in Thailand News
Posted · Edited by nisakiman
I watched a live (pretty sure it was live, anyway. I'm not the football fan, my wife is) international match in Bangkok about six months ago, and they had software to pixellate the flashing banners round the pitch when the Heineken logo started moving across the banner. When the insurance company logo came round, the pixellation disappeared.
It was rather disconcerting, because you got players playing on the wing with their head and shoulders pixellated out as they played in front of the beer banner.