Shaunduhpostman

Last I checked Clinton and her crew were doing much to antagonize Russia, accusing them of interfering with our elections when in fact it was the DNC and Clinton who interfered with the elections, rigged the Democratic primary to block  the candidate who many polls showed could beat Trump, Bernie Sanders. I am not apologizing for Trump, but I don't understand how things would be any different if not worse under Clinton. 

I've lived in all of those areas and if I had to live in Bangkok again I would choose Rachada. Sukhumvit can serve you well but you don't have to live there and Rachada isn't far at all from Sukh and with less of a grungy urban atmosphere. Rachada has somewhat of a less skyscraper boxed in feel as well. You can actually see the sky around there, something that seems to be disappearing in Sukhumvit. It is also much more Thai. Sukhumvit is rather sort of a pan global scene mostly, but is great for shopping, restaurants, bars etc.

I suppose it doesn't help that the Clinton mob has been shown in Canadian records  to have at minimum a conflict of interest for their role in the transfer  of 20 percent of America's Uranium to the Russians between 2009 and 20013 via "donations" they received and have failed to publicly disclose, $2.35 million in donations  that the chairman of the Canadian company Uranium One made via his foundation to the Clinton Foundation.  And that shortly after, Rosatom, Russia's nuclear energy department, announced they would be acquiring a majority stake in Uranium 1 was the day that Bill Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech he gave on behalf of a Russian investment bank with direct ties to Kremlin members who were promoting shares in Uranium 1.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=1

Who or what is bad or good? Would anyone be able to get even the vaguest clue as to what that was having lived for awhile or or having been born in Thailand? Seriously. Are you blinkin kidding?

Even that aside,  the question of  who is good or bad is a childish, or even pathologically unsophistictaed notion regarding people and who and what they are. And when applied to the quite important situation as to whether people ought to be thrown out of a country because someone seems to feel they aren't "good" is barbaric.

I won't respond to this jingoistic and unelaborated slogan as to whether I think it is "effective" or not. Thailand like any place deserves better than being treated as a joke by cynical facists. And that is what this is, whether you know it or not, te rather sinister notion that there are people who are simply bad people because someone with some marginal dgree of power doesn't like them and decides they are bad.

I find it sickening that a website who prupotedly appeals to people from countries who would know better brings things down to this level of Bad people, which is absurd and good people. I am disgusted by Thaivisa more than I am by the Thai facists with this racist and destructive policy.

And to boot, it is inuslting to insinuate that I and other Thaivisa readers are  so stupid that we think the Thai immigration authorities or anyone  in Thailand is concerned with anything, let alone good guys in bad guys out, whatever the f*&! that is supposed to mean, is effective. Who are you kidding, "mate?"

The supermarket on the top floor of the Emporium on Sukhumvit (Phrom Pong Station) next to Queen's park has the only decent salad bar in all of Bangkok if you ask me. Has many many things to put on your salad and maybe 8-10 excellent dressings, a few are way too sugary, but even those are much better quality than you expect anywhere in Thailand. You also can taste the dressings with the free celery and carrot sticks they provide. The 4-5 types of lettuce never looks anything less than fresh. I'd be surprised if anywhere in the country does a better salad bar.

The "watchdog's telecom company, eh? ...well, at least they are spelling it out plainly in terms of what or whoever it is provides the internet intends to do, but who or what the "watchdog" is, it seems, is being left open to speculation. I was under the impression that generally watchdog organizations keep tabs on governments, I guess now the tables have been turned. Or perhaps the "watchdog" is simply a powerful and avid watch collector who wishes to remain anonymous for the time being.

How about not putting plastic in household garbage incineration fires? That would be another cure for cancer. Can I get a medal too?

2 hours ago, Silurian said:

 

Regarding the public and private position, this was in reference to the Lincoln movie. Here is the exact email link. Check it out yourself.

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927

 

I can't find the "bucket of losers" comment in any of the leaked emails. Please kindly post the source of this.

 

Again, can't find any "hosed down" reference in regards to the gay community in any of the emails. Please kindly post source of this.

 

OK, Silurian, Here's the quote:

“But If Everybody's Watching, You Know, All Of The Back Room Discussions And The Deals, You Know, Then People Get A Little Nervous, To Say The Least. So, You Need Both A Public And A Private Position.”*

She is clearly talking about what she herself does, not Lincoln as portrayed in Speilberg's movie, though yes, you are right she is making use of that film to to talk about and make a case for her own modus operandi. Obviously, she was not invited to speak before whatever corporate or donor audience to discuss film.  IMHO, it is rather interesting and telling choice, of all the things she could have chosen to talk about.

I think at the end of the day, what matters is that who is saying this. Of course every one of us has a private and a public position. However, Hillary seems to be having difficulties of late keeping a lid on the private part and this is what bothers me and many others. The private part seems to be glaringly obvious too much of the time, few are fooled  and find her to be an appalling choice for president. They should not accept her or Donald, in my own view. So, the quote really resonates with anyone who doesn't trust her, I think that is what we are looking at here, not that in fact she was merely referencing Speilberg's movie. I suspect you well know that.

As for referencing the comments, I referenced the Huffington Post's journalist HA Goodman's Youtube Channel in my post. There is much in his posts regarding the contempt and disrespect for the electorate by Hillary and her staff as evidenced in some of the Wikileaks. The deluge of Goodman's  posts all of which are  interesting and valuable particualrly because they provide links start falling around Oct 4 continuing up to now.  He references everything he talks about in his discussions so I am sure that you can find your sources in the links that he posts just below his videos.

I think exploring his channel and the links he provides will be invaluable to you or anyone who wants to get a sense of what the significance of the Wikileaks documents are as well as the other things that are cropping up regarding Hillary more than any link I can provide to back up my point. 

Interesting that they are saying that Trump is focusing his attacks on Bill. I would guess that both his and Hillary's decision to focus on salacious material would be because this is what would interest the majority of people the most as opposed to say getting into the seemingly bottomless depths of ongoing revelations regarding Hillary's disengenuous, two-faced shennanigains with the apparent collusion of corrupt US govt agencies.

H.A. Goodman a Huffington Post journalist has the best coverage of Hillary's coming unglued on his Youtube Channel which he updates several times daily with commentary and 20-30 new links to articles and sources. A few juicy ones of late that I discovered on H.A.'s Youtube channel that Trump could make use of but somehow I can't see it (I guess I don't like him that much either, but he certainly isn't the worse of two evils if you follow the things that seemingly crop up daily about Hillary and not just from Wikileaks, but there is some good stuff there too.):

-FBI claims it has lost a laptop computer in the mail which contained Hillary's emails:

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-09-02/fbi-says-a-laptop-that-held-clinton-s-e-mails-has-gone-missing

-FBI says it found a memo from a Clinton IT worker on a work ticket mentioning the "Hillary coverup operation":

http://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/09/25/clinton-mook-fbi.cnn

-A side agreement made between Hillary's lawyers in the e-maill scandal and the Department of Justice gave them immunity to go ahead and destroy Hillary's computers. 

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/doj-side-agreements-let-agents-destroy-laptops-in-clinton-case/article/2603450

-All 35 Things Hillary Clinton Told the FBI during the email scandal investigation she Could Not Remember:
http://ijr.com/2016/09/686186-here-ar...

-Confirmation from IT people of the legitimacy of the latest hacked materials exposed by Guccifer 2.0:

http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/10/guccifer-2-0-posts-dccc-docs-says-theyre-from-clinton-foundation/

As far as the most recent Wikkileaks, the so-called Podesta emails, among the many interesting things that are emerging  are emails that reveal a culture of contempt and cynicism regarding the very people whose votes she hopes to get.  There are quotes from portions of Hillary's private corporate speeches, email discussions among staff that are insulting and condescending towards the very people who she is hoping to get votes from. One excerpt from a private corporate Clinton speech has Clinton telling her donors that she feels it is essential to say one thing to the public while keeping what she really has in mind private. She refers to Bernie supporters as people with low social capital who will vote for her eventually anyway she calls them a "bucket of losers." The Gay and lesbian community are mentioned by an aide as a group that "needs to be hosed down."  

An on and on...

There should be travel warnings issued by all the major tourist market countries that you run the risk of being arbitrarily jailed and/or fined in Thailand, that spot drug tests are run by the police in major tourist areas and that whether or not you abuse drugs these tests are known to sometimes erroneously show positive for drugs. Essentially it is possible, if things went really wrong, to find yourself in a world of trouble in Thailand for simply trying to enjoy yourself walking around the tourist street markets on Sukhumvit when the police were making sweeps.

The media never seems to report what happens to people who test positive. Given the rather draconian laws, in theory, people could be serving 5-10 year sentences simply because they smoked a bit ganja at a party back home or even worse because the tests were triggered by a legal perscription medication, as can happen. One can only hope that in the end the police are, in practice, letting people go after paying some relatively minor "fees." 

Also, if you don't like the taste of Ya Nang you can add coconut milk and again better you get coconut that you know hasn't been saturated with formalin or some other noxious chemical that Thai farmers and retailers get silly with.

I actually don't use any herbs other than psyllium husk which is simply used to soak up toxins and to help move everything through the intestinal tract when fasting with juices. I just mentioned it in my previous post because many others use herbal teas for cleansing.

In my own juice fasts I use the leaves off the many wild Ya Nang vines on our property the leaves of which are used to make a green chloryphyll heavy juice or broth for soups and curries  in Isaan. Ya Nang is also commonly available in Thai cities at supermarkets as well in the juice section. Personally I don't trust the quality at all and can't recommend commercially made ya nang. 

I very often pick about 100-200 ya nang leaves stick them in the blender with some water and then strain out the pulp. I add water again to the remaining ya nang juice and I have what is probably a mostly chemical free juice which tastes pretty good and which is said to be helpfull for helping to lose weight as well as in removing toxins. In fact I will forgo dinner tonight and have a large glass of ya nang and a plate of guava, Kiwi fruit and dragon fruit all of which are low pesticide if any at all. If I do a fast I usually do something similar. 

Tho I don't eat them, being a vegetarian, mostly, for the last 30 years, I don't see what is wrong with hamburgers or even pizza. They are maybe not at the top of the pile nutritionally, but eaten in moderation they perfectly legit nutritionally. The problem is with what is eaten along with burgers, ie soft drinks and fries/chips which obviously are nothing of benefit and even simply a minus other than they taste good to some people. Staying happy is also important and part of being happy would be enjoying what you eat, so to me, a balance in all things is what is needed not strict adhereance to any regimented diet or exercise program.

I have never been the athletic outdoorsy type but rather someone with never enough time to pursue interests as deeply as I would like: music, writing and reading in a perhaps too wide of an array of interests which get seemingly added to with each passing week. So, while I much value regular exercise I keep it minimal, 3-4 times a week. I like to do fast walking these days and incorporate various arm pumping routines to get added upper body and aerobic intensity to my 3-4 kilometer walks. A problem in Thailand is often inclement weather, too hot or too rainy or too much smoke and I find myself deciding to cancel my exercise, such as now, it is raining in buckets. So, between bad weather and becoming inextricably involved in some book or project, I often find that I have only gotten out only twice and sometimes even only once for exercise within the course of the week.

Also, I have practiced some form of meditation for over 30 years and recommend anyone who feels inclined to pursue it for health and happiness. For most people a meditation practice seems rather unthinkable, either because they don't believe there could be anything to it, or that it is perhaps too flaky and weird or exotic for their personal style or because they are not disciplined or motivated enough to do it to the point that they actually become proficient. However, depending on your talent for meditation, and the effectiveness of whatever technique and school you practice, within usually a years time you can really begin to create tangible results and create a source of well being and contentedness that nothing else can equal. Normally we are dependent on some external situation for our well being and happiness. Meditation swings the ball into your own court and I have found this is quite essential. It is something that we can do that makes us feel at ease and even joyous come whatever may, we are no longer nearly as bothered by anything our situation can dish up. Mastering any of the various meditation techniques will give most people a nearly invincible inner strength that no one and nothing can take away from you. I don't think the value of an effective meditation practice can be overstated. Once you learn, even if you stop practicing, just knowing by experience what is available should you need it, opens a door for you that adds much to your overall happiness and health. Just my penny's worth.

There are many things you can do to work around ending up as a volunteer snarfer downing sewer pipe loads of toxic waste from oil refineries that the chem corps package and sell to the agriculture industry as pesticides fertilizer medicine etc. 

There are lists out there of which fruits usually have way too much pesticide and the good fruit which don't require pesticides to grow. Of course, it wouldn't surprise me if Thai farmers get suckered into buying pesticides for fruit that don't need it, but going with those fruits that don't would be a better bet. The following is probably more or less correct. I read up on it and memorized what I can buy and can't. 

The worst fruits are:

1. apples

2.grapes

3. strawberries

4. cherries and plums

If you have to have these fruits I have read that soaking them for 30 minutes in water and another 30 minutes in a fresh tub helps disperse some of the chemicals. I find it hard to resist grapes. I have not tried vinegar or baking soda as others have recommended and have no way of knowing of even soaking helps, but it seems to make intuitive sense, so why not soak and then wash before eating.

Fruit with thick skins are better because the pesticides can't penetrate to the fleshy part of the fruit and because we don't usually eat the their skins.

1. oranges

2. bananas

Fruit that shouldn't have any pesticides because pesticides are not needed in growing them:

1. guava

2. mango

3. pineapple

4. papaya

As for green veggies, basically grow your own or hang it up, or at least as far as I know. That said, exercising regularly, doing fasts and detoxes with effective herbs and juices that are known to be chemical free is what needs to be done. I know that I feel significantly better, higher energy levels, better concentration, better mood, weight loss after doing a couple days of juice only diets for cleansing. There is no way to avoid becoming a sponge for all of the crap everywhere. Even our furniture and the building materials of our homes, offices etc. emanate toxic fumes that we take in and accumulate. So, you have to be pro-active or risk getting ill. What I like is that you get a real lift from exercising or occasionally fasting that is tangible immediately.

They are simply deliberately creating laws that cannot be abided by. In essence they are saying we are not interested in having "good guys," we'd rather make law breakers out of everyone, including your Thai citizen friends and family so that we can collect  fines. Not that that is a new thing but rather the same old same old and really the way laws are viewed as a whole and always have been here, as simply ammunition for someone to use to take advantage of someone else. 

The problem I have with all of this is that, in some cases, as with the issuance of bans on people coming back to stay in Thailand, there seems to be this contradictory attitude that, "well, you can't come back because you don't respect our laws and cooperate. This is our country and we have a right to put limits on how long you can stay here, and if you don't respect our laws and country enough to abide by visa and immigration requirements, you aren't welcome back."  I fully agree with that, but in essence something always crops up, such as being asked to fill out paperwork at the police station everytime you venture out, which indicates that they are completely disinterested in whether you comply or not and seem to feel you are a bad guy no matter what you do. Essentially it is all about paying fines not about helping the country manage the situation with all of these foreigners living here and sadly I'd bet that that insight would be completely lost on the majority of these guys talking about good guys in and bad guys out.

I do not want to be some kind of invasive presence in Thailand and  as a guest I would like to respect the laws and wishes of my hosts. Unfortunately, there are some, such as immigration, who seem, by creating absurd laws that cannot practically be abided by and by not making immigration rules and regulations consistent and clear  or even vaguely uniformly enforced, to be saying in essence, "we don't care if you abide by rules or not, let's see you try and abide by this, wise guys!"

Essentially, once again, they are making a mockery out of the notion that anyone of us would be well intentioned enough to want to cooperate and actually be an asset to the country in any way other than coughing up money. And, they are showing that at the end of the day they are more interested in creating pre-texts to extort that money from people and that is all it is, that they are not interested in performing a service to all Thais that they are in a position to be doing which is helping to protect their own citizens from as they put it, the "bad guys" who would be arriving from other countries. Essentially immigration is saying do anything you like, we don't care, being a good guy is nothing more than paying arbitrary fines.

I'm not a fan of Duterte, but Obama, as a representative of the US and its actions world wide is no better. At least Duterte doesn't waste anyone's time with hypocritical  charades about being for democracy and human rights. It is a bit tiresome at this point to listen to these people continue to spin the lie about being the good guys after at least a century of sponsoring regime changes in scores of countries in the best interests of no one except US corporations and wealthy elites ,  and  that would also mean a century of not being above extra-judicial killings if thats what regime change and maintaining a stranglehold on power takes. Yet, on cue once again, just as they have been for a century, these crocodiles are sitting up there sobbing yet again about human rights and democracy any time someone they don't like does what they do. I don't recall that Mr. Drone assassin went to a court to OK drone assassinations, to take just one example. So, wouldn't Mr. Human Rights be engaging in a bit of extra-judicial killings? He was fighting an illegal war? Well, maybe Duterte has decided that's what he is doing. War on Drugs ring a bell? What's the difference? Who are kidding here Mr. Obama? Anyone who reads a bit about what the US has been up to for well over a century sees the irony here, Mr. Obama, the Phillipines is one of these very countries that the US has committed war crimes in and to this day what happened is largely covered up. As many as 300,000 civilians died in the 1890's when the US invaded, they put people in concentration camps and most certainly commited extrajudicial killings. Last I checked the Philippines hasn't exactly flourished since that rather exceptional time where perhaps a mistake was made in the way the Philippines was dealt with for perhaps struggling to maintain their indpendence in lieu of being  liberated by the benevolent beings in America's marble halls who from the vestry one fine Sunday morning with mere pens strokes fed the starving Philippine masses and liberated them from their oppressors and   in a magical golden era of enlightenment and  prosperity all courtesy of their benevolent democracy loving American overlords, the Philippines like a glorious beacon for all of Asia has for decades stood like a sentry of hope in the dark night of the 20th century. If Obama wants to cry about what Duterte is doing, then he needs to go on a major reform  of the extrajudicial killing militarized American police departments killing black people and soon to be killing you if you go out and protest any of it. Obama needs to restore human rights in his own country where he has directly been responsible, via his Patriot Act amendments, in revoking many human rights not least of which would be a right to a fair trial should the military decide that, as with Duterte, they don't happen to like you and that therefor you are a menace or a terrorist and decide to arrest you. Yes you can be arbitrarily detained without trial  and indefinitely in America, Mr. Obama, and that is against human rights principals right up there with extrajudicial killings and in some places is called kidnapping. Duterte would likely have learned from the US military's best about strong arm tactics for 3rd world countries, and Obama deserves nothing less than being called a son of a bitch and told to go to hell, no matter what kind of mass killing goon Duterte may or may not be. Duterte is right, the Philippines has gotten little to nothing from the US and have been waiting for 100 years and yet they remain one of the poorest most corrupt countries in Asia, they have nothing to lose telling America to go to hell. Who is Obama kidding, America needs the Phillipines not vice-versa, in fact, considering what the Philippines seems to have gained, the record seems to show that after 100 years they are not benefitting much to put it euphemistically. I just wish Duterte would set him straight with the facts and what the reality of the Phillipines' and America's relationship is and what it has been. The reality in simple plain polite language would I am sure be much worse than a couple of expletives. Perhaps Duterte has already done just that, but seeing as for some reason there seems to be a need to try and bury what the US has done over the last century in the Philippines, they just won't print it.

I suppose when possible and if it is worth it, it might be better to use Fed Ex, DHL etc. I have never had anything important not arrive in anything but a timely manner and all intact in 17 years of being here. Tho, I always feel like I have dodged a bullet every time I get my packages. That said, 6-7 years ago I sent some documents overseas via Thai Post, the receiver had nothing other than a PO Box, so Fed Ex would not accept the package and as I semi-expected, Thai Post bungled the registered mail express delivery. According to the tracking report the package sat in waiting at Don Meuang for two weeks and then they simply stopped updating the status, though at the other end, they finally received the documents 3 weeks later. Basically it seems they decided to stiff me on the express delivery. A few weeks ago I received a notice from a brokerage firm. Just a trivial notice, but the envelope had clearly been opened and with no attempt to conceal that fact, it arrived with one end ripped open. Nice of them to send it on to me anyway after seeing there was nothing they wanted, I suppose. No harm done, but a confirmation of what many have told me about having problems with mail, and as with all things in Thailand, it seems it is really against the whole culture and mentality to hold anyone accountable for anything and in the end, that is rather too bad and sad for Thailand, they just make things more difficult mostly for themselves with this can't be asked can't be bothered modus operandi even in the most important situations such health and safety or in matters to do with huge amounts of people's time and money, or even people's lives, as we all know and see almost daily it doesn't mean scat and usually it seems no one ever has to face the music because it would cause a loss of face, unless some bigger fish has an agenda and needs a reason to go after someone.

As bizarre as it might sound, the technology likely exists for hyper-light speed travel, but for the masses these technologies have been suppressed. Ben Rich the head of Lockheed Skunkworks said himself that they already have made interstellar journeys using it, but that it is all black project stuff and that he was not at liberty to say anything more about it, though if you read around you'll see that , as usual it is being hidden in plain sight. The technology does not seem to involve conventional propulsion but rather utilizes the enormous amounts of energy to be found everywhere in the cosmos at the zero point back ground and uses the energy to create extremely energetic vorticies  to create a gravitational field capable of  twisting and folding space time. So basically space time is moved to wherever or whenever you are travelling and in theory travel  is instantaneous, no propulsion ever happens. I am not a physicist or even good at understanding any of it, but that is as best as I can get my head around these technologies which according to some are actually not that difficult to achieve or develop and have likely been been achieved and developed many times over in humankind's 200,000+ residency on earth. There are too many indicators corroborating this from many countries and many sources for there to be nothing to it. 

In any case, it makes little sense to me to wait 20 years to develop the technology to send people on years long trips just to go to Mars. Stephen Hawking's people and their recently  publicly revealed statements about the feasablity of sending very small nanocraft to Alpha Centauri is much more interesting. If I am not mistaken Hawking or his cronies said that these craft are feasible now and can travel at 30 percent the speed of light getting us a window on a system that already has shown to have an earth sized and goldilocks zone planet and getting us there in 15 years. Within  a few more years I'm sure they could get something designed that would be even faster.

As much as I like Musk's cars and ideas, I suppose his vision has to be compromised by what could conceivably make money and what could be mass marketed. Of course if he started talking about wanting to research and develop electrogravitic zero point energy vortex time-space warping hyper light speed craft to one day send the masses to Andromeda, the oil people would do what they have done to many inventors who threaten their profits, not least of whom would be Nikola Tesla, many of whose papers remain classified and unavailable to the public today, and put the proverbial ice pick upside the back of his head or incarcerate and discredit them.

Taiwan is a fairly small island and word will get around, and if the authorities ignore the case and the villas rental company be allowed to continue with impunity, as we might expect, given what usually happens, then I'm sure a dent will be made in the numbers of Taiwanese who choose to holiday in Thailand. The Taiwanese are a good deal wealthier than their mainland cousins and by that a good deal pickier and more informed about alternative holiday destinations. Unfortunately for the Thai tourism industry, they are probably completely blind to that, perhaps even willfully and at the end of the day, the robbery will likely be shrugged off and forgotten.

6 hours ago, joeyg said:

friends ask me what Thailand is like.  One of the things i often say is you really have to try hard to get in trouble here.  Unlike the Nanny United States.  Thailand is pretty cool...  I fought "the Man" for years in the streets .  Took my lumps, wound up in jail and have a record because of it.  I gave it a good shot  and did things I won't state in an open forum.  I gave up.  You gotta pick your battles.  If this is yours stop talking and do something about it.

Talking about it is doing something, Joey. People work out their positions by discussing these things, sharing information etc. in the face of multi-national news monopolies that don't discuss the issues by and large and don't keep us informed about what is being done to us, we talk in th eface of repression for just having said something. I could go to prison for everything I post on here, so honest and informed talk is not cheap, it is part and parcel of an open and free society, and I won't stop talking because it is our right and it is essential that we talk.

1 hour ago, joeyg said:

I can assure you people don't care about Natural Fruit Company.  Americans, 62% have less than $1000 in savings. 21% have zero.  Believe me they've got "other things on their minds.  Other countries are in similar or worse condition.

In 1962 at 10 years old I was working in a shoe store for a $1.25 per hour happy as a clam.  Gave most of the money to my family  and I got a small allowance.

 

Later the US government paid for undergrad and grad school on the GI bill.  Now retired in Thailand.  Life is good.

Of course it is just one isolated incident that may seem insignificant to you and to most people, but it is exemplary of the kinds of things that are happening to many people on a wide scale in Thailand and globally: they are increasingly being attacked by their rich minorities, the corrupt governments etc. The problems people are having everywhere  are directly connected to what is happening with the Fruit Company case, it is that powerful people are running amok and unchecked, accountable to no one and nothing. Some people do care about these things Joey, and I care and many  care that Natural Fruit Company abuses it's workers and now appears it will continue to do so with complete impunity, that it uses its influence to abuse the law and the courts in Thailand.

You were happy with your shoe store wage, and you were taken care of but it didn't materialize out of the kindness of your employers' hearts. I am sure you recall a time when American workers fought for and got things like a weekend or a free education. People fought for these things and this is what is going on here, or appears to be, so for that reason it is interesting and I care though it is just some no name fruit company in the faraway swamps of Thailand. The Burmese workers had serious complaints, among them were not being paid, if I remember correctly. This is an issue for many people who work in Thailand, not least of whom would be Thais, so this is a case that for once  people are not just getting screwed and nothing is coming of it.

I am sure Americans would be interested in how an entire country runs itself in this kind of manner, that paying people who work extremely hard  is a mere option and if you try to do anything about it you could find yourself in prison and with a 10 million pounds sterling compensation bill to pay. Just because people don't care about something doesn't mean it isn't important and later on they may care if they don't now. 

If there were more of these fights back home, Americans wouldn't be in the kind of shape you say they are in. What is happening to people in America or anywhere is not in essence any different than this kind of garbagio from the Natural Fruit Company: corrupt justice systems, big business bought off corrupt governments, attacks on workers rights, wages and general well being and farcical elections, among other things, I'm sure I don't have to tell you.

Earlier in the thread, some commented to the effect that Andy has somehow lost simply because the court has decided to punish him and how silly it all was, you can't win in a Thai court. To my mind that would be missing the point, whether he loses or not is ultimately immaterial, I would have thought it would be obvious to Andy from the get go they wouldn't win their case against Natural Fruit.

The whole point of Andy filing a case against Natural Fruit, I would guess, would be because it was the best strategy to expose them to the rest of the world and perhaps more importantly the nature of labor rights and the Thai justice system as he has also seemingly tried to do in the Kao Tao case. He has already won on that level.

I can't imagine he would have filed the case thinking he would win in court and everything would be neatly taken care of, it's similar in developed countries where anyone who wants to go against corporate abuses has to be in it for the long haul and sometimes the very long haul. It isn't stupid or naive, its ballsy as hell and what needs to be done. You want to fight, you will have to pay, perhaps even with your life, but if you are lucky you end up simply spending the best years of your life fighting something and ultimately raising awareness of problem, the courts are there ultimately for the corporations, the governments and the powerful to use, not us, and certainly not just in Thailand either.

Of course, human trafficking and children in prostitution is appalling, that it happens in Thailand as well as many other places not least of which would be the USA, is hardly news tho that said,  I am glad there are people who are concerned about the problem and I am certainly not one to say that underaged prostitution and abuse of children in underaged labor in general is something that does not exist here. However, not only does the FBI's contribution here do nothing more than echo the usual media story that crops up in various and sundry "news" outlets around the world probably monthly, but it is one that shows no willingness or apparent sincere interest in the problem, as is often noted anytime the story comes up, you are not, as the FBI claims, going to find that Walking Street in Pattaya or any of the other red light areas in Thailand are crawling with under aged prostitutes. It is rather irresponsible to tar entire tourist zones in Pattaya with a rather wide brush stroke and seemingly suggest that the whole area is some kind of pedo-zone. Looking at the FBI's video,  the scenes in which it is suggested that these child prostitutes are working are quite clearly populated with scenes in which adults are plying their trade. Essentially, the FBI, with all of their credibility is suggesting to Americans and the whole world that anyone who goes to say Pattaya is visiting a place for underaged sex.  It doesn't take more than an hour of walking around Walking Street to see that it is much less seedy than the shadowy scenes that appear in the FBI's video and that it certainly isn't some place you go to have sex with children anymore than a shopping mall or a bar in any major U.S. city where I'm sure that  if you asked around enough you could certainly get hooked up for sex with minors. I would also think it would be at least one plus point on Thailand's side in the view of these self-righteous purveyors of what is best for Thailand, that the age limit for what is considered underaged sex would 20 years or younger. So could we here in Thailand say that the most U.S. states promote pedophilia because the legal age is 18? It wouldn't surprise me if a few states in the south had the age set at 16. I would be left to conclude that this whole story complete with the ugly American ambassador is as much about other agendas than what it would seem on the surface, ie that we are so concerned about Thailand's young people. As a US citizen I find it alarming how with each passing year it is easier and easier to fall afoul with US authorities or the general public for simply living abroad, whether it be draconian tax penalties for simply not having reported what was in your bank account, a well hidden and completely obscure requirement that even a yearly tax reporting citizen such as myself would overlook because there is no reference to it anywhere in the tax forms, to some official at the FBI who has likely never even been to Thailand saying something to the effect of, "Hey, Chumley! Why don't we make this week's PR video on ya know that place Pattayore or whatever its called up there in Hong KOng or Taiwan or whatever that country is. We need to make people here at home in America think we are aware of how these problems are affecting us." Its not enough that we must be some kind of a bunch of terrorists because we open a foreignn bank account and live abroad for years. I would suggest that if the FBI were interested in this problem, or interested in keeping U.S. citizens truly informed that they present programs that treat the topic with some seriousness and depth. Additionally, human trafficking is not just about prostitution but about procuring bonded if not enslaved people for all types of work. If the FBI is going to take the high moral ground then they ought to look at the entire basis for their lifestyles, that is sweatshop and slave labor produced goods and services and the general trend for the increased criminalization of all people and for the increased trend of people being pushed into poverty as a direct result of the US's foreign and domestic policies.  Anyone who wants to get real about reducing child prostitution and human trafficking does not simply treat it as a law enforcement problem, its roots are in poverty and social chaos much as the US has been directly implicated in for well nigh on century abraod and from the  get go in 1492 domestically. As it is, with this kind of ill informed soundbite or sound-fart they are just doing a form of smear and gossip that is potentially damaging to many who have nothing to do with pedo sex tourism simply because they live in or have visited Thailand. Most Thais don't much care what the FBI thinks, the smear on Thailand that it is just a place that is full of a bunch of prostitutes has rightly been ignored, the hysteria, not to mention bigotry to sit up there and point the finger as though the problem doesn't exist in your own country, of these puritains is age old in many western countries, Thais and others never hear the end of this. I would hope the FBI knows that and assuming they do, I think it can be assumed that the target for this kind of seemingly lazy reporting is again US citizens who live abroad and thus make it perhaps inconvenient for the national security state and that they would like to make people subject to the pressure of if-you-as-American-citizen-live-Thailand-you-are-a-pedophile. Just another front on which the national security state  wages war on its own people but  what else could we expect from the FBI who exonerated Hillary Clinton of crimes that many lesser officials have served time for, so where are we to find the den of crooks, on Walking Street? This kind of flatulent emanation from the FBI is an outrage, it is assumuption of guilt without looking into the reality of Thai red light districts.  it is just a drop in the bucket along with all of the other things that the  post 911 regime is doing  that frankly I couldn't be bothered with. Good luck with your friendship with Thailand, nobody likes dealing with a patronizing, smug hypocrite good luck trying solve the problem of human trafficking without even bothering to look at the root causes and doing what needs and must be done about US policy both foreign and domestic.

Nana plaza was shut down at 1:00 am as well. Nobody understood why and tonight all management and bar staff I asked were baffled as to why or what is going on. There was no police presence at all either. Just the lights unexpectedly came on and we were barked at to pay up and leave. Yet, not surprisingly, the sidewalks were alive with all manner of sidewalk drinkeries which I assume were allowed to continue as usual until sunrise. I have seen and occasionally been on the receiving of far more problems at these places than say Nana plaza bars or Soi 11 bars. Again, it is not about protecting anyone from anything as they claim their strong arm tactics with  the internet are about and more about corruption and self interest.

"Being overseas or even being a foreigner overseas does not help either, as the new 17(2) says computer “misuse” crimes are an extraditable offense. One can imagine many a foreign judge laughing when the extradition requests start flying.

Worse still, the National Legislative Assembly is trying to extend Section 16(2) to cover Section 14. Section 16 is for images, while 14 applies to any information deemed untrue or defamatory. The punishment is incarceration for up to five years.

“So if I grab your phone and write 1+1=3 on it, you can be charged under the new, extended [Computer Crime Act] Section 16(2) if it goes through, couldn’t you?” I asked Arthit.

He laughed and called me silly. Then he paused to consider what he’d just said about presumption of guilt."

But, if the law says you can be charged for any untrue information found on your internet device, it does indeed mean just that, anything that isn't true including 1+1=3.  It is the law that would be silly if it weren't so sinister, not the the guy questioning Arthit. If the new laws are sincerely meant to be put in place to protect people, there is nothing stopping anyone from clarifying what is meant by "untrue." But you can bet that won't happen and it will, as usual be left open and unclear to be interpreted in whatever way by whoever needs to. Millions of innocent people are at least in theory put in danger of being put in a Thai prison  by such a travesty as this law is. So, it seems the real objective is to make it convenient and easy to destroy anyone at anytime, not just the political opposition and not to protect people from cyber crime. Not that human rights seem to matter anywhere in the world anymore, but Thailand has probably signed agreements that would say this new law is a violation of the terms, not that any international body will care unless, once again, ironically, unless they need to selectively go after Thailand and need an excuse to put sanctions on them.