Johpa

Chomsky is a liar, a hypocrite and self-hating Jew who is traitor to both his religion and his country.

If he was on fire, I wouldn't urinate on him to put it out.

And of the ten most cited authors in academic literature, ranging from Shakespeare to Einstein, he is the only one alive today. His insights have revolutionized studies ranging from linguistics to information sciences. His political views are indeed controversial, yet insightful. I suppose that if he were on fire you would probably place his books upon him to burn too to show your disdain for your own inability to argue against a greater intelligence. Your opinions on the man are Kristal clear.

Meanwhile, I'll still be here.....in RURAL Thailand.....the real Thailand.

Thailand is a good place to live, but places like Pattaya have deteriorated to the point of only being a destination for a certain type of 'Tourist'.

The sea is dirty, the crime is rampant, traffic conditions are bad, even the police wear masks to protect against the air pollution. Rather odd for an international beach resort I think.

Thank god for Rural Thailand, as long as one has a Car to run to Pattaya for a few days every now and then.....

Pardon me, but I believe Pattaya, the lone town in Thailand where nary a single resident ex-pat pronounces the name correctly, deteriorated to what you accurately describe decades ago. That never bothered many folks and never prevented Pattaya from becoming a tourist boomtown.

Look, if there is a downtrend in Farang tourism, it is probably because increases in oil prices have put a damper on overall spending and not because of any foolish decsions by the Thai elite, nor by current events down south, nor by visa restrictions.

There was a recent interview on TV with the CEO of Walmart, Lee Scott. Scott noted that the primary causative influence on sales, and he has oodles and oodles of data, is the price of oil. People can not so easily afford to travel to Thailand anymore. Look at airfares from North America. For many years they hovered below $1,000. Today, apart from the few off-season months like September or October, fares are all well over that $1,000 psychological cost barrier. It is simply not as affordable to travel to Thailand for a vacation aas it once was. Really just Economics 101. By the way, the father of my newest Thai relative by marriage owns, arguably, one of the top ten tourist destinations in the Kingdom, and reports are that sales are down there.

I like the way you and others suggest that I may be unqualified to comment about a subject I deal with on a daily basis about people who I know well here in Thailand then you go all international and Salafi "wahabi"are devils on us. Let me ask you this? Why would any Thai Muslim buy anything from Israel or America? Would you actually know the difference between say a Salaf or a Sufi if you met them on the street? I rather doubt it, Do you know any of these people? Have you ever been to their homes? Met their wives? Know their children by name? Have any idea what they are about? Or do you as Dr. Abuza comment from one side of the fence having never even entered the no mans land you established in your mind, beyond which lay only evil, evil which may exist only in your head.

This entire situation is a ongoing tragedy but one that nobody in power "Government" tried to put the brakes on when you could see the wreck coming from a mile away. What will be the end result? Im not sure but I believe the situation will only get worse unless you bring some people to account on the government side and that just ain't going to happen.

I agree with Mai Khrap that the tragedy down south was a train wreck waiting to happen, and might have been avoided at some point in the recent past. But at this point I am pessimistic that even bringing government people to acount will be able to put the train back in the tracks. There is far too much momentum and money trying to move this train onto another track. And one buries one's head rather deeply in the sands to deny that the source of the money is not the petrol dollars used to bribe the Wahabi to maintain the status quo, the power of the Saud clan, in Arabia.

And although I have known and been to the homes of traditional Sunni families and known their wives and kids, I would posit that I would never be able to ever say all that for a true Salafi family as I, being a Kaffir, a non-believer, would never be able to become familiar and engage in conversation with a Salafi woman.

Now I might not be able to walk down the street and determine exactly who is Salafi and who is Sufi, although I could point out who is not Salafi, and there are some modes of dress that I can point to and say, hey that man is Sufi. And I know that most Salafi hold Sufism as being Takfir, heretics to Islam. And I know that although the historical roots causes of conflicts in Thailand, Palestine, and Chechnya are all unrelated and quite different, that the common thread that now exists and unites the actors on these different stages is Sunni extremism, whether it be called Wahabism or Salafism. And what enables that union between what once were unrelated political causes is the petrol dollars given to the Wahabi who use it to export their ideas and the more recent advent of the Internet, the great enabler, the technological embodiment, if I may go out on a metaphorical limb, of Shiva.

Just read this thread for the first time and almost laughed my andouillette off. Having onced spent over a decade in the rural hills of Chiang Mai, I have eaten just about all the exotic rural Thai delicassies mentioned in this thread, and a few that have not, such as pangolin, squirrel currey (kheng kharook), curried dog meat with my Akha pals, and of course the signature delicacy of Chiang Mai, raw minced pork (laap dip).

But one of the more memorable dishes was eaten soon after I was married and had relocated deep into the hills. We had discovered the entrance to a wasp or bees nest on our property. I believe technically they were wasps as the nest was in the ground. So late that night this old Uncle shows up with a can of cheap tobacco. He creates this oversize chillum out of two pieces of bamboo, but instead of inhaling the tobacco he gets it going and then sticks one end of this chillum into the entrance of the nest, and exhales the smoke into the nest. Soon the ground is literally vibrating with the sound of far too many very upset wasps and I soon stood quite a distance from the commotion ready to further distance myself at any moment. But eventually the sound and feel of the earth trembling subsided as the tobacco smoke did its thing, and the old Uncle grabbed a hoe and quickly dug into the nest and pulled out several large round objects, like a dry honey comb, which contained the wasp larvae. And that, I learned, was the object of the exercise and the larvae were soon placed into a curry.

Again, stop posting UK law here. This is not the UKVisa, its not a UK case, and the people involved are not citizens of the UK.

Daft buggers (some UK slang for your UK lovers out there)

Although, as a footnote to this discussion, UK Internet libel law was based upon a case related to Thailand.

Your case is rather flawed - I am sure you read more than one source while getting your degree!

Anyway - I am happy in big pharma - bloody big bonus this year that went towards my new Patek Philippe ;-)

Keep taking the pills!

I usually refrain from making overt ad hominem attacks on these boards (and the only pills I take are generic naproxen) but you are a very little man indeed. So best to scurry on over to the congregating place of similar small-minded people who would be impressed with your new watch, an object I don't even bother to own.

But really, I am happy for you that you have found happiness in your work.

Johnpa has read one book and he thinks big Pharma are only marketing companies which is basically <deleted> ;-))))

He then extrapolates the argument to say they do not manufacture their own products which if Pfizer have 32000 direct employs in manufacture and we are pretty big too would leave a lot of people not doing much!

First, I have read many books, I am an avid reader, and read about one book a week.

The one book I specifically referred to in this thread was Marcia Angell's The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It has been read by many and quoted by many as well. Perhaps you might care to see this particular book footnoted in another of my current favorite author's books, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz's Making Globalization Work .

Here is a link to a synapsis written by the author: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244

Here is her current professional CV at the Harvard Medical School.

And what I said, which is what Anglell argues, was that the big pharma companies are primarily marketing companies, that a majority of their resources, and finances, goes into marketing. The research that they do in-house tends to be aimed at creating slightly altered chemical structures of existing drugs in order to market a new patentable version of drugs about to go off patent (whether the drug works better is not important and is not forced to be tested against existing drugs by the FDA) as well as research aimed at me-too drugs, drugs such as erectile dysfunction drugs ( a lifestyle drug) and cholesterol lowering drugs.

Or perhaps you are correct and this mindless poster, Dr. Angell, and the Nobel laureate are all full of <deleted>.

you do not have to quote me the one book you have read - I can see you do not take it in as I quoted you the book you take your biased picture from.

Its rather like one reading for a degree and using only one text book - utterly ridiculous but if thats what you want

I rest my case.

We are already engaged and had ceromony, so I assume that was mun. However there is still perfectly reasonable pressure for the wedding ceromony, as there would be anywhere when the couple are engaged.

I couldn't personally care less about a Thai Ceromony and I am not ready for legal marriage. I am willing to pay the dowry and go ahead with a Thai ceromony which would seem to keep everyone happy as I do want to stay with my GF and get legally married one day, but just not in the near future.

Anyway, there must be a difference between the Mun (engagement) and wedding ceromony or else there would not be any pressure, so the Mun or engagement is not sufficient.

Like I say, I am happy to accept what I understand to be the responsibilities of a Thai wedding ceromony and support my GF and be part of a family - But not new or additional finance for the extended family too though. If things stay as good as the last 4 years generally, then we are fine and if not, I have no legal commitments. Only moral ones.

My reluctance to marry legally is inspired by her previous and temporary cold feet and what if it should happen again although I feel we are very strong and it was just the shock of cold Engalnd and feeling homesick etc before.

I am not looking to take on extra responsibilities right now simply because we have a Thai wedding ceromony, which I would be doing because we have a relationship that is worthy, and for her and her family. Would I be taking on more and if so what might that be? I do it for her and give a dowry, not to get additional financial or any other sundry requests/demands.

Stop, take a deep breath, look in the mirror, and admit to yourself you are not ready to be married. Give the woman enough money as a parting gift to save face on her part, and then leave before you get deeper in the doggy doo doo cuz you clearly have no clue about this life you have built for yourself in Thailand.

Johnpa has read one book and he thinks big Pharma are only marketing companies which is basically <deleted> ;-))))

He then extrapolates the argument to say they do not manufacture their own products which if Pfizer have 32000 direct employs in manufacture and we are pretty big too would leave a lot of people not doing much!

First, I have read many books, I am an avid reader, and read about one book a week.

The one book I specifically referred to in this thread was Marcia Angell's The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It has been read by many and quoted by many as well. Perhaps you might care to see this particular book footnoted in another of my current favorite author's books, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz's Making Globalization Work .

Here is a link to a synapsis written by the author: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244

Here is her current professional CV at the Harvard Medical School.

And what I said, which is what Anglell argues, was that the big pharma companies are primarily marketing companies, that a majority of their resources, and finances, goes into marketing. The research that they do in-house tends to be aimed at creating slightly altered chemical structures of existing drugs in order to market a new patentable version of drugs about to go off patent (whether the drug works better is not important and is not forced to be tested against existing drugs by the FDA) as well as research aimed at me-too drugs, drugs such as erectile dysfunction drugs ( a lifestyle drug) and cholesterol lowering drugs.

Or perhaps you are correct and this mindless poster, Dr. Angell, and the Nobel laureate are all full of <deleted>.

I just spent some time in the mountains on the India Nepal border, things were tougher there. Sometimes no water, no tissue, no hang nam, and very few trees for cover. Darkness is your best friend in that situation. Watch were you're walking at night though

A few months training in a combat field unit in any military will cure your need for seeking darkness as an ally.

China Airways flies from a number of North American west coast cities with the connecting flight to CNX. But the fares were a bit pricier, a few hundred dollars more per person than flying into Bangkok when I checked for my family's visit this summer, a peak travel period, and seats available were few and far between.

With the current clusterfruck at the Bangkok airports, I sure would like to see more flights direct to CNX from transit points such as Narita. I have the family arriving in late June into Bangkok and I still don't have plans for the transit to CNX.

Another underlying issue in transliterating Thai, apart from complications arising from the borrowings from Pali/Sanskrit, requires an understanding of phonetics and an understanding of the difference between phonetics and phonemics. I am sure Richard can give a better and more detailed explanation, but I will try to give a brief explanation of why confusion reigns.

A phonetic sound is something that can be physically measured, usually with a good microphone and a blackbox oscilloscope. So anyone trained in phonetics can record a Thai speaker uttering the words for aunt (paa), crazy (baa) and cloth (phaa) and clearly see a physical difference as to how the sounds in the words are created, articulated being the preferred term, in the mouth. And a native Thai speaker will clearly hear three different words with three very different meanings. The fact that the change in how the consonant is articulated in the mouth can change the meaning of a word means that, in Thai, there is also a phonemic difference between these sounds and thus Thai has different symbols in its writing system to represent the sounds. Different languages select different subsets of such features from a limited set of features to create meaning. English also uses an unaspirated /p/ sound in words like spot or spank, but the sound is not phonemic in English, it carries no information regarding meaning, and I could speak English all day long using only an unaspirated /p/ and nobody would likely hear anything odd. There are no symbols in the English alphabet to distinguish between the aspirated and unaspirated consonants, there is no need as there is no phonemic difference.

In the English language, the language has not selected aspiration, a common manner of articulation, as making a phonemic difference, a difference in meaning. (I believe Korean uses three levels of aspiration to create meaning.) English speakers simply do not hear a difference, even though a difference can be clearly measured physically, and distinctly heard by Thai speakers. Thus native English speakers tend to vary a bit as to how they hear, or more precisley how their brains parse the sounds. Some listen to a Thai say the word for aunt (paa) and hear the word spoken the same as the word for cloth (phaa) whle others hear the word for crazy (baa). Confusion reigns.

So there is often no easy way to transliterate perfectly between most languages unless one resorts to complicated combinations of letters to represent foreign sounds (the reason there is so much "porn" in Thail when in fact the /r/ is there only to "flavor" the vowel) or to use lots of diacritical marks (umlauts and the like) not found on most keyboards. Some compromises must usually be made for public consumption. Don Muang is, IMHO, a far better compromise then is Don Mueang, a confusion based upon a vowel sound that is not phonemic in most English dialects.

what about the toilets without the bum guns? the ones with a tub of water and the round plasic bowl ?

how do those work? I assume you pour it down your lower back, hoping some of it trickles its way down under... unless one is meant to somehow reach under and project it upwards in a splash, risking a slip & possible contamination.

At least the challenge of balancing, cleaning and escaping without slipping, falling and contaminating my clothing etc gives a warm sense of accomplishment.

As I hinted in a previous post, the sprayers are used primarily to wash the fingers of your left hand, just as is the water you place into the little plastic bowl floating in the adjacent larger water urn or container. Just about everything down there is water soluble and washes off in an instant. Another little hint, as a westerner, you probably can not squat down to the same degree as a Thai, so place your feet a little forward of the foot marks usually found on a low rise commode, with only your heel resting on the footmark. And for gosh sakes people, bunch your pants up around your knees. No need to take off your pants and no need to walk back out into public like a silly Farang with a wet behind, despite the great mirth it provides to many.

Now if they'd decide to get settled with some of the other variations:

Wittiyu/Vittiyu

Chatuchak/Jatujak

etc.

The most logical transcription is from Mary Haas: Then it should be written Catucak

Take ten people from different countries/langauges and have them read this aloud one by one. Thais (and foreigners who can read and speak Thai) will crowl on the floor from laughing.

Suggest we let Mary Haas do something else and stick with the royal transcripts.

Prof. Hass passed away over a decade ago. Yet her Thai-English dictionary is still considered by many, including moi, to be the best, by a long shot, such student dictionary on the market.

That being said, rendering Don Muang to Don Mueang, will not in any manner increase the likelihood that a native English speaker will pronounce the name correctly anymore than the road signs around Cardiff would allow me to pronounce Welsh names correctly.

Lived in Asia many years, and am used to squat toilets.

However, what still is a mystery is how Thai people can do their duty, use the water spray to clean up (with no toilet paper or towels) and then exit the facilities without water running down their legs or a wet spot on their trousers.

What's the secret?

Well it helps alot if you don't try to use that small jet sprayer as a bum douche.

Meanwhile just remember - every baht we spend is still extra to the Thai economy, compared to what there was, before we moved here. And due to the 'multiplier-effect' - it adds several baht to the Thai GDP .

Which is why the Thai government might try, with appropriate safeguards of course, to encourage more foreign-residents. If they really want to boost the domestic economy as claimed.

I am not sure exactly what "appropriate safeguards" might entail as I fear I am not part of the ex-pat community preferred by the Bangkok elite.

And not every baat ex-pats spends adds to the Thai economy. Money spent on imported items does not stay in Thailand long. And the multiplier effect is quite limited as most imports are controlled by monopolies and the owners of those monopolies tend to move their profits quickly offshore. Same goes when you buy from Lotus or Tesco, profits from the sales are not incorporated into the local "multiplier effect". Once funds enter the corporate coffers, the multiplier effect that benefits the larger society is greatly reduced.

The great sales pitch on the coup has vapourised into reality of old greedy farts getting their hands on the money making machine of large corporations in thailand.

Only problem is, in this day and age you need a few more guys at the helm who can keep the machine well oiled and producing lots and lots of cash.

The money making machine is breaking down and now the old greedy farts are having to resort to desperate measures to keep their new pots of gold well managed for the future.

As for the sufficiency economy 'what a joke'

so a guy with 8 mercedez benz doesnt buy his 9th, but the poor guy has to think that a bowl of rice is sufficient for his daily life.

Only a crack addict would come up with such an insane idea for an economy.

The "sufficiency economy" is more a philosphical viewpoint than a recipe for structuring macro-economic goals. It is really no different than telling my son to hang up the towel to dry after he showers and reuse it rather than pull a fresh one out of the closet every day.

The joke is that Thailand continues to be a country run by, as you say, greedy old farts (and young ones too) who continue to manage the country in a colonial manner, exploiting natural resouces and cheap labor and then sending the profits offshore. The ruling Bangkok Sino-Thai elite, and its allies, rule the country little differently than did the Dutch rule Indonesia, the French rule Vietnam, or the Brits rule India. And they even have their little neo-Sahib white men running their IT infrastructure for them with a host of other neo-Sahibs setting up shop to cater to the needs (food, education, entertainment other than cheap sex) of this newly expanded neo-Sahib community.

Chaiyo!

Around the world there are many flavors of the sound represented in English by the letter /r/. Some are trilled, some are retroflexed, and some are just plain odder than others. But although the sound is scarecely heard in the informal usage of khrap, it can still often be detected in the following vowel sound if you listen carefully.

It would be an interesting experiment to ask Thais to judge the word spoken informally by Thais against the same word spoken by Farangs who intentionally and completely leave out the /r/ in khrap to see if they hear a difference.

As usual Meadish knows what he's talking about. IMO it definitely stemmed from Thais hearing falang say "my friend" and considering it to be one word.

Sort of like, eh, all those who thought, based upon hearing the lyrics to Purple Haze, that Jimi Hendrix was gay.

scuse me while I kiss this guy

Here's the basic pattern

English

numeral + noun

Example: Two glasses. 'Two' is a numeral. 'Glasses' is a noun.

English

numeral + adjective + noun

Example: Three red cars.

Sometimes it helps English speakers who are begining to learn Thai to point out to them that English also has sets of nouns that require classifiers for counting. These nouns are called mass nouns. They include liquids and items composed of small particles. In Thai, all nouns are treated as mass nouns.

I will have three glasses of milk. (the noun milk must be counted by using a classifier)

I will take two cups of sugar. (the noun sugar must be counted by using a classifier)

Many Thai classifiers are based upon the general shape of the object. But just as we can count mass nouns in English with a number of classifiers, so to there is sometimes a limited leeway as to which classifier one uses for any particular noun in Thai.

Although a bit awkward in the beginning, your brain will adjust pretty quickly to this linguistic difference.

I agree with what Dupont said; "Also, inferior products with insuficient active dose, causes resistance. Mostly caused by pirate medicine companies scrimping on ingredients and corrupt governments doing the same. Can a Thai company provide the consistency and quality of this drug and will the Govenment be able to guarantee this?"

Again, the large pharmaceutical companies do not manufacture the drugs, they market the drugs. Much of the manufacturing occurs in low wage countries like India. I would think that a Thai manufacturing company could easily provide consistently high quality drugs. The problem is that the Thai (Bangkok) business community has no issues cutting corners to increase profits, whether it be manufacturing cement or manufacturing drugs. And yes, the government needs to get involved and regulate such quality issues, but it can esily be done.

Generally speaking, you put "krap" or "kha" at the end of the sentence to make it more polite. For example, You can say "Khop Khun" which means "thank you" and you can make it more polite by adding "krap" if you are male. So you can say Khop Khun Krap.

However, you might hear some women say "krap" when they talk to a boy or some men say "kha" to a girl. You do not need to know why they say that. In these two cases, they can speak it that way but it is not really correct.

If you are using the formal second person pronoun khun you should maintain the level of formality by placing the polite particle at the end of the thanks every time without exception.

Ok, I am not Thai, and not having lived in-country now for nearly 15 years I am the first to admit that my Thai has gone seriously downhill. But I find the following two utterances as almost being ungrammtical:

khop khun

khop cai khrap

the silent อ might or might not be considred as an initial consonant sound.

I think you have found the point of contention right there. Nice one!

Absolutely, as the glottal stop represented by a syllable initial อ is not recognized phonemically in English nor in most Indo-European languages although it does exist phonetically. Thus it is often inaccurately described as a "silent" letter. But it is recognized in Thai as well as in other language such as Arabic.

How can you be worried about bees whilst we are still fretting about the paternity of Anna Nichole's baby?

Medicine and drugs should not be developeed for profit - pure and simple - the rich governments of the world should properly fund research instirtues that should be responsible for development of new treatments available worldwide irrespective of a countries ability to pay. commercial companies could be licensed for the actual production of the drugs providing they are sold at cost plus a reasonable profit margin - however there would need to be some kind of worldwide tarrif in place to ensure that countries paid for them according to their means not according to their wealth.

This would lead to higher taxation in wealthier countries which is something nobody "likes" but in a global civilisation should governments still be taking decisions on the basis of what "people like" - what it ultimately means is that the rich help the poor - can someone argue that this is not morrally right

Well what you have described is pretty much how most truly new drugs are indeed developed. The largest funder of drug research is the US National Institute of Health. There are other smaller yet similar government funded agencies in Europe. What happens is that in the US, the big pharma companies and their lobbyists have created a system of laws that, once a drug has passed the early high risk trial phases, allow these companies to swoop in and purchase the patents for a song.

The companies do not often, if ever, actually manufacture the drugs. There are other companies world wide who do the manufacturing. What the big pharma companies do is to market the drugs. They are, at heart, marketing companies. What research they do in-house is most often aimed at protecting their patents by creating slightly new patentable variants of drugs that are going off patent, you know the marketing slogans, "new and improved". They also fund research into creating "me-too" drugs, similarly slight variations to a competitor's new drug, which is why we get competing drugs for everthing from cholesterol lowering drugs to the always popular in Bangkok erectile dysfuction drugs.