jackdawson

i mean , could u make the s h * t up ?

first , 40,000 in bangkok is small money . keep that in mind . 60,000 would make a BIG difference .

it is SUPER important to have a place here which you look forward to coming home to (i.e., not a 6,000 a month thai style "dump")

living here with the heat , humidity , crowds , noise , pollution can be brutal on the senses . if u do it right ur home will be ur oasis .

paying 50% of you income for a place , though , is too high . the correct proportion is one-third .

sathorn / silom is like the most expensive part of the city ; even 60's not enough to live there . look along sukhumvit and u wanna be at most a 5 / 10 minute walk to the BTS (elevated train) .

good luck and wrangle like h e l l for the 60 k salary

unarmed civilians[/quote}

posters who talk about "unarmed civilians" being killed are being EXTREMELY disingenious .

for this falls under the tenet that "if you play with fire you are likely to get burned"

the "unarmed civilians" were mixing and were admidst EXTREMELY dangerous and volatile armed black shirt thugs (as witnessed by grenade attacks , arson , rampaging of hospitals , road blocks , destruction of private property and babies being held over barricades) .

as things heated up , the "unarmed civilians" had two months to decide whether it was worth risking their life for the (daily 500 baht payments provided by the) montenegran. many / most apparently decided (wisely) it was not and at the end the crowd dwindled to a shadow of what it was when the squatters first moved in to ratchaprasong / lumphini .

considering the hardship they inflicted upon BKK and the violence they propagated , less than 100 dead in returning the central city to it's inhabitants does not seem out of proportion . and perhaps more importantly a lessen was administered .

kudos go out to the thai armed forces for their patience and professionalism .

of course , once the APVs started rolling over the tires and sharpened bamboo sticks, the campers could not retreat to the "safety" of wat pathum FAST enough . saw that one coming from a mile away .

ps that part about an unarmed seh deang (khittiya) being killed was really funny . thanks for the laugh. this guy was provided with a mile of rope and he used it predictably to hang himself .

Daeng Rivers

brilliant !

And while academics may agree with parts of the red shirt manifesto the fatal flaw is who the red shirts expect to implement it, as Jayboy has identified, and what methods they use to do so. Inciting hate through doctored "evidence" should really be setting the alarm bells off, and this was months before the serious use of force by the reds.

The reds needed a serious manifesto in order to gain support. Problem is the people funding and leading the movement are the last people in Thailand I would expect to see it through.

well put

they fought for it to decide themself if to wear a helmet or not.

cool ! they "won" the right to die instantly in a crash . or worse to linger on in a coma w/ blunt force trauma .

Excellent post !

thank you !

It is time that the heads of the anti-government movement make good on their declarations of care for the Thai public and step back from their rally posts and allow the healing to begin.

it's at times like this i am reminded of woody allen's GREAT line from "annie hall," "nice speaking (in this case , reading) with you , but i am due back on planet earth now."

NE comrades have lost their livelihoods

alas, 'tis true.

the isaan invaders now back in their raised shacks greatly angered the gods and indeed incurred their wrath w/ the bloodshed , violence , death and destruction they gratuitously visted upon their bangkok bretheran.

in their wisdom the gods have repaid the favor by keeping the skies of the north and northeast clear, the rain clouds away and the fields dry. the great reservoirs are ruinously empty . just today it is reported there will likely be no 2nd or 3rd rice crop this year .

can the montenegran and PTP save their supporters from this fate ? money can finance shopping strolls along the boulevards of paris but can it buy water from the sky ?

red women make merit at wat pathum but far away the isaan gods do not sleep well...

Thank you for this useful and intelligent insight

ur welcome

have them expressed with such clarity and incisiveness

thank you

I hope you will not be shy about sharing your insights

i shall try my best

re:

generosity of spirit ...human understanding

u mean the same "generosity of spirit" and "human understanding" the reds showed the owners and users of central world / center one and the innocent bystander killed at the sala daeng station when grenaded from lumphini ?

like i said before

the joke that was the CNN/BBC reporting makes u think about all the other western reporting from hot spots that has come before (tiananmen , iraq , etc.)

if u live in bkk (walked among them like i did) and lived through the two month-long red squat in at ratchaprasong , u know they were a combination of uneducated , murderous black-sheathed thugs (i.e., motorcy and tuk tuk drivers and out-of-work soldiers) and paid-by-the-day (from montengro) large sized middle age isaan houswives between rice crops w/ absolutely nothing to do but come down and f up the nation's capital

before burning a lot of it down

i don't know how a reporter having flown in the night before and staying at a 5 star hotel with a great breakfast buffet could have missed this

someone who I'd lent my car to

is she hot ?

god what a country !

ur better off chalking this one up to experience (or lack thereof)

u got the resources to take on the legal dept of the 5th biggest company in the world ?

I live in the heartland of Red country

that explains it

my sympathies

CM is just so 1999

no one goes there anymore

fyi

watching the red and yellow gangs slugging it out to get control of government finances???

that's how it works here (and in most / all of asia)

and it ain't changing anytime soon

Thaksin has no desire for anything but good for the people of Thailand.

did someone actually type this ?

that's the funniest thing i've heard all day .

but it's still early.

re: the reds .

i think i just read yesterday the thai armed forces as a strong as they've ever been .

hate to quote g. bush but if the red issan campers and arsonists wanna' try heading south on rt .2 again towards bkk

"bring it on"

ps why to go "nation" for bringing this to everybody's attention and keeping those that should / need to be vigilant .

ms. ye if you're reading let me be the first to offer whatever assistance i can. feel free to bring a friend.

what goes on in australia ?

who raises these kids anyway ?

what a country !

he could end up in jail

he's IN jail

Freelancer with income from abroad

i know a couple of girls like that

not sure what kind of visa they're on though

ask the nearest cop .

or preferably have a thai do it .

shouldn't we embrace this as one of the few times where people who deserve to be held accountable for their actions actually are?

He does not want me to be an investor

u should listen 2 ur boy

They have not converted UDD supporters

who wants 'em ? these "supporters" r only as good as the 500 baht they got each day 4 shaking their clappers .

This is the lull before the next storm.

bring it on . next time it won't take so long to send the reds running back to the rice fields . in fact , they probably won't even make it south of korat .

they have no premier material to put up

wrong . finance minister korn .