Shaunduhpostman

If they don't like him they should be happy he gets on national tv, he's his own best negative publicity.

"He said the law allows temporary selling all kinds of alcoholic drinks at beer garden once a year, or all locally produced alcoholic drinks at no more than 10 litres a year and no more than 10 days."

But if the limit is 10 liters, many beer gardens would reach that in 10 hours. But what does it matter? In their own statement a bit further on they say that selling beer at a beer garden is advertising beer.So which is is it? Is it permitted or not? Who would set up a beer garden for 1 or 2 days with a 10 liter selling limit, during which time they might get fined or imprisoned for advertising beer? What is the point here of making this public statement, if only to make things more confusing so that people cannot even obey the law if they want to? It is just a corruption opportunity creation scheme.

They are really getting pushy about the who what when where how and why about everything to do with the drink, aren't they?

Went into town the other day to do the shopping at TESCO. Usually pick up a bottle of wine while I'm there. This week I found that blank white stickers had been placed on the labels of my particular go to brand. I asked the guy stocking the shelves why he said that there was a law that they can't have "cartoons" on the labels of any alcoholic beverage. We just looked at each other in disblief, "Ba!"

Great to hear you guys have clear skies down there. I have never gone so far as to get a telescope, but I have always taken great pride and pleasure in being able to identify and locate constellations, current planetary positions, etc.

If you are originally from the northern latitudes, one thing that is special and exciting about being in Thailand for me is being able to see some of the southern hemisphere's stars and constellations that you can't see from say Europe or America. Also, if you are lucky enough to get a clear evening or two in June, July or August or even early evening in early autumn, the spectacular Scorpio/Sagitarrius zone is much better placed, higher in the sky, than it is in more northern latitudes. When you look at that area of the sky you are looking straight into the heart of the milky way galaxy, so it is particularly rich in interesting patterns and zillions of tiny stars, definitely recommnded. Being higher in the sky makes it so much clearer as well. Orion is a classic and also better positioned than it is back home, lots of stuff to check out with a telescope in that one.

I am not sure what unique southern constellations are up at the moment, we haven't had good viewing in Isaan lately. Despite the fact that it is clear during the day it fogs up around night time and people set fires and whatnot. But if I am not mistaken, by January or so, a good chunk of the constellation Centaurus is visible, it is quite a unique configuration of fairly bright stars, nothing like it in the northern sky, looks like an otherworldly sky to me also highly recommended and I am sure it has its share of interesting deep sky, telescope only features. Also the southern cross is a treat and also just visible over the far south horizon.

This web page is great for seeing exactly what is in the sky at whatever time, where ever you are in the world. You just type in your longitude latitude coordinates and the date and time and you're there:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/

Enjoy!

I am going to maybe cut a bit too close to the bone for some and share my own honest thoughts about why Thai ex-pats seem to be so negative. I apologize for that and the long windedness of my reply, but I think it is an important question and an intersting one that I find I enjoy going on at length about. I am often tarred with the "neagtivity" brush by other ex-pats and not by Thais by the way. But to return to the question as to why Thai ex-pats are more negative, I wouldn't argue with you there, is that The cultures in both Czech Republic and Honduras are basically western. So if you are talking about western expats in Thailand, the culture gap is wider in Thailand compared to those places. Its not easy dealing with such a wide gap, especially when it comes to taking care of practicalities, so people tend to get a bit grumpy and make a lot of negative comments, and some can't deal with life here at all eventually and move on. The people in Czech or Honduras have cultures and world views that are rooted in various western traditions and tendencies many of which are not to be found here. I would wager that your day to day interactions with the locals will be much easier, especially if you speak the languages of those places.

Among the cultural differences that I think make so many Thai ex-pats grumpy would be that cause and effect is not paid much attention to in Thailand. It can be very hard to stay positive when people all around you are not making the connection between their actions and the results. It is just a constant that things will get screwed up, things that are fairly easy for us like making an appointment and doing the basics to make sure you keep it. easy things because people just don't link a with b. "I didn't make the appointment because I was out drinking late last night." "Well, you have lost us 500,000 baht because you didin't come to the meeting. We lost the deal." A look of incomprehension, "why is this guy putting this on me. I simply just didn't come to the meeting, why does he blame me for losing the deal for us?" No amount of demonstrating or explaining will change their minds, with many Thais, they just aren't wired to see things in terms of cause in effect for the most part. Throw in the fact that there is very little stock put in using verbal communication to convey information or coordinate things between people and that nobody particularly listens to anyone and nobody bothers to be especially clear about anything and any life you share with most of the locals will just be your participation in their life long slow motion disaster in which no one seems to understand what is happening to them and no one can discuss it because they can't talk or understand anything. I am sorry to put it that way, but there is just one hopeless situation after the other if you try and get involved with many o fth epeople here or god forbid try and get something you need or want with their assistance. Many Thais are very well meaning but you will be in trouble if you get pulled into their vortices of great unknowing. Many of them have nice ties and clothes and an office, but in actiality they are professional card carrying paralyitcs with a license to obstruct, diddle and put off all and everything. Amazingly the difficulties do not end there. There are so many more really difficult things to try and overcome. It is no surprise that many have a negative attitude. Its can be very difficult living here.

Another major aspect of the difficulty is the much lamanted xenophobia. Though I have never been to Honduras or Czech Republic, I have spent many months in Europe and years in Mexico and Guatemala. Mexicans are nationalistic and don't like Americans, but if you show you understand them and their problems and especially if your Spanish is really good, you get genuinely welcomed by many. Europeans will warm up to you if you are not a complete ignoramus, loud mouthed ass as I am sorry to say many Americans are. But there is not much you can do to get real acceptance from others here an i am not convinced that Thais get any acceptance from Thais. Thailand has long had issues with the west as well, but we are seen in a much more negative light than many would be in Czech Republic or Honduras. There is much negativity, however unspoken, directed at anyone who isn't Thai, 24/7. It will eventually get to you. If you are not Thai your differentness and foreignness is on the order of your not even being considered a person. To describe the attitude towards foreigners of many Thais in that way would be no exaggeration. Thankfully it is not all of them, and even the ones who hold negative attitudes can be quite nice on a chit chat level. While even those sorts of Thais often put a pretty good face on such an outlook, the longer you stay the more you notice how very few appreciate your presence and that essentially you are not welcome unless you pay them. They don't believe anything you say don't respect your choices, your values, nothing, you are not their friend. But my Thai wife complains that she and nobody seems to have any friends, she has her family but that is it. I have a few friends from various foreign countries but she says Thais are not worth befreinding, its no fun and only gets you entagled in something you don't want to be caught up in. It always makes me laugh when Thais suggest that I might want to live closer to an international airport, a comment that comes up a lot more than it should. I know that on the surface they are trying to be pleasant and appear as though they want the best for me, that maybe I would want to be able to run home at the drop of a hat for my own comfort, safety etc. But the thought always occurs to me that there is perhaps a double meaning that they would also like me as close to being out the door as humanly possible.

All that said I enjoy my private life here immensely,I have long had a good relationship to my wife and her numerous family members, but I no longer have any inclination to participate in the society at large as much as I would like to. There just isn't any scope for being part of the whole society for most foreigners here. Essentially they want us to butt out. Again they are pretty nice about it mostly, but keep your distance if you want to be happy here. I also think it helps me not feel so bad about how I am seen by many as a white man when I see how negative Thais are to each other, so and so is Khmer, OH! So and so is from the south those people are jai dum! and to Indians and blacks etc. No matter who you are there is an issue that someone will have with your merely by your physical appearance or because of where you come from. Many ex-pats want to pin certain "negative" attitudes on ex-pats as though they belong solely to ex-pats. But if you win a few Thais trusts to the point that they might be honest with you about their own "negative" feelings about the country and the societies within which they have to try and live, I think you might be surprised, as I often have been, that there are many similar feelings about things as are shared among many "ex-pats". The country has real problems, they are not just the side-effect of someone's drinking binges or their problems back in their home countries, Thailand is a tough place to live especially in the social realm.

In my internet researches into the hazards of daily exposure to smoke from burning plastic, I found that some studies have found that animals and people switch gender roles under the influence of dioxin, which is the main carcinogen in smoke and ash from burning plastic and I would guess also present in the slow emanation of whatever it is you smell and taste around even sun warmed plastic. There are other totally bizarre effects from being exposed to burning plastic reguarly that you can find out for yourself with the flick of a Google search button. As Thailand deals with plastic waste mostly by burning it, one can only wonder if the high numbers of trans gender people might be at least in part caused by all of the dioxin in the air in most Thai rural areas.

Would be nice if people got advanced warning, I found about this at noon today, so letting us know today is only a very non-Buddhist exercise in boosting one's religious pride and kidding oneself that there is no alcohol in Thailand available. It doesn't help to keep people informed.

How can I have a healthy and enjoyable evening meal for my guests if I cannot buy any wine? Easy enough to buy Leo beer or Whisky at the village shop, but the health benefits of these drinks are somewhat less than wine. In a sense, I am actually obligated to others to provide wine tonight, but I fail by not being able due to this busybody law that isn't followed or enforced particularly well anyway. There are myriad other scenarios that are plausible in which this law is just causing problems for people.

Joining the TPP will cede much of Thailand's sovreignty to closed door corporate appointed tribunals. If the European-US version of the same thing, the TTIP, is any indication, Thailand will have to start cedeing authority to the TTP corporate group just to begin talks and negotiations.

There was an article in the English language Thai press last week that, in contradiction to their current trade laws, the European UNion has already just recently had their arms twisted into allowing tar sand based petroleum imports, 5 different GMO products and a chemical treatment on imported meat that disguises the real appearance of the meat. The reason? The claim in the article was that if they didn't allow these violations that negotiations and talks would be suspended.

I don't think the Junta would be happy with the very heavy handed nature of the TPP. But I suppose if they stand to gain enough personally, then Bob's your cleaning lady.

If, as previously claimed a few days ago by CAT, the hackers failed to break into the CAT system, why the need to keep issuing statements nearly a week afterwards? Seems to just further confirm that the screen shots posted by Anonymous proving the break in were not indeed hoaxed.

Doesn't make any sense to me at all. How is it that suddenly there are all of these people who have crossed into Thailand circumventing border crossings by being ferried across rivers in the middle of the night, mucking through swamps, slashing their way through the wilderness etc.?

That 9000 have been caught in seemingly one fell swoop suggests that Thailand is having a sort of Hungarian refugee crisis, that they are beseiged with people who are desperate to get here.

My guess is that either there was some shoddy translation and reporting with plenty of missing details or the police are not bothering to mention that the 9,000+ are in violation of a range of immigration laws.

Not this one again.

No really! This time really there is a ban!

There is a serious level of insanity to this:

You say we should not have the single gateway, but can you prevent your group from writing things that defame the nation and government? Chan-ocha told local reporters Wednesday, according to Khaosod. If you cannot, then dont tell me what method should be used.

He actually said this. He actually said this! - in other words - we dont want a single item of criticism against the government. Thailand is moving so far away from reform. So far backwards. With a failing, aging, worn out and broke demographic I cant see what future the country will have in the 21st century.

The last few days have seen, (read about it on the front page of that other Thai English language newspaper we are not allowed to post links to), Der Generalissimo vowing a "blitz" on a particular type of speech crime that has been widened to include anyone who is outspoken regarding democracy. Arrest warrants will be issued and arrests and jail terms given for these crimes he deems crimes whereby people are wanting "unlimited democracy." There seems to have been a change since his return from the UN where his rhetoric and approach is nothing short of heavy handed.

We'll see what happens. What these guys say doesn't have much meaning at this point. But it doesn't sound like the single gateway idea was feasible from the get go.

I'm sure they will continue to work to develop some other way to get tighter control over the internet and that they could get much help from the Chinese towards those ends if they aren't already. And that we won't know what hit us for awhile if they do it correctly. Seems pretty daft that they come out announcing what they will do.

This may sound cynical, but articles like these really seem to be more as PR for the rest of the world than anything else. There is quite a disconnect between what the research is focusing on and what is actually happening on the ground in Thailand. The function of these articles is just lip service to the international community. They cannot admit the long standing realities in education and the entrenched attitudes and tendencies in the society that make this research look rather like a charade.

In a country that has always been in authoritarian mode, people's motivation, beyond motivation to appear to be in line, is the last thing you can ask. Anyone who is too motivated is going to be cut down, seen as an upstart and the cause of loss of face fand/or a threat to those who can't compete. It isn't about anybody's motivation except a ceo's or a boss or any other overseer in this kind of a society. In fact, your success and even survival depends on your not knowing anything, on your ability to forget and defer to your superiors.

That there is a culture of favoritism and corruption that renders real achievements irrelevant is the issue. That is the real motivation killer and it doesn't matter what kinds of programs you want to cook up for the schools, they aren't going to work past a certain age, past the age that kids learn that its a done deal, that it is about who you are or how much you can pay, not on your abilities or achievements. In any case, If people running the schools and education programs have problems with motivation themselves, it isn't going to happen.

Wow, a 0.0021% non compliance rate is very good.

I doubt there's another country anywhere in the world that can claim a 99.9979% complaince with all the rules and regulations.

But the generally low level of numeracy (such as needing a calculator to add single digit numbers) would preclude any grasp of what the difference between 13 out of 6000 and say 13 out of 100 is.

You really are treading on thin ice just showing up in Phuket. Go to a bar and then proceed to let it all hang out and you are begging for trouble. If you must go to Phuket and then be unable to restrain yourself from going out to a bar, to be safe you should conduct yourself as though you are going to a library. Keep your voice to a whisper, don't disturb any of the others, they are trying to concentrate on their work such as being a security guard or cashier or waitress. It is difficult for them and they should not be disturbed. If you are noisy, well, just like a library, you shouldn't be surprised that you are asked to leave. Personally, I'd rather holiday where it is fun to do so, not in some place where I have to tiptoe around the library lest I annoy someone and get into trouble.

One more tip is to network with other people nearby. When one of us calls TOT and complains and asks for the speed issues to be fixed, they are slow to deal with it. If we all call at once there is a much better response. Unfortunately, in my area, the others are so fed up they just use their phones for internet now.

Agreed, it is probably weather and the international cable being damaged probably explains a lot of other irregularties I am having myself.

That said, you can't count on TOT to provide the speeds they say they'll provide. It has been the best its ever been up until about a week ago and steadily disintegrating. I hope things get back up soon but that hasn't been my past experience. It is almost as though, once things get fouled up, they see you'll keep paying your bill, so why bother to fix things. We usually have good connection speed for 6 months and then 6 months of mostly very poor speeds, not even half a megabyte. Very late at night you can get very good speeds for a few hours, so I don't think it has to do with us.

Also, different areas seem to get very different levels of service and different kinds of responses from TOT. We learned, in fact through a helpful techy sent out to fix our problems, that it isn't the best idea to call the call center. They simply won't or can't relay the message. Problem in our area is that the employee turnover is so great that everytime we call the technical guy he says sorry he doesn't work for them anymore or that he's been transferred to a desk job or another area. It never occured to me to give them a tip, so maybe that is the real reason.

I noticed too that there is never a problem with their end, according to TOT. The stock response is that your problem is the wi-fi router. A few guys have tried to sell me an upgrade which I bristle at and tell them nothing doing. Then they go ahead and fix the problem. So they will, as you might expect fib and even try and exploit the situation if you let them. We already fell for a scam one tech guy pulled on us, early on, for a claim that our antenna was broken that we needed a new one. We bought a new one, another 4 thousand baht, but I have since learned i can fix the same problem simply by unplugging the router and the antenna waiting 5 minutes and starting up again. I told the guy I wanted to keep the old antenna, maybe have it fixed, but he grabbed it when i wasn't looking. So I suspect that was his way to make a living wage was tell non-tech savy people their antennas were broken and then probably re-sell the antenna to smeone else. Anyway, the point is, you have watch TOT. If I had another option out here I would have ditched them long ago.

Also, I discovered that by running a speed test by OOkla, you can Google that or internet speed test and find the site, you can actually solve some of the bad connection problems. I have no idea how that works, perhaps by running the speed test TOT understands that someone is now watching and they get into PR mode and suddenly your speed is back up to 9.5 megs for a 10 meg connection you are paying for. Anyway, that used to work a charm, but dosn't seem to work anymore, tho as I said, the connction has been at top level for about 6 months until last week. The speed test by Ookla ma ybe be something to try anyway. I've never have gotten 10 megabytes from TOT which is what I pay for, but 9 or even 6 suits me pretty well, I can even run baseball and basketball streaming on 6.

Good luck with them, it really is a part time occupation we have just trying to keep the internet going.

It would not be surprising if she was just protecting you and herself from her mom and the rest of the family, so that you two remain free from the meddling and demands that might be put on you and her from her family once they found out you two were involved. Of course, I don't know, but many Thai families feel entitled to as big a slice of your relationship as either of you have, so that wouldn't surprise me if that is what is going on.

I can't see as this will amount to their actually locking things down under a single gateway. But it wouldn't surprise me if they mess the internet and financial services infrastructure up quite a bit for many years to come with some botched attempt or some other equally asinine scheme.

Even if they actually do back down from their position and find smarter ways to monitor people and control content and communication on the internet, the way they are handling this is hardly good advertising for anyone needing or wanting a stable country. They come off as desperately disorganized, clueless as to how to mask their intentions and oblivious to the enormous range of consequences their meddling with the internet could have. It doesn't even seem that they grasp that or care if they happen to understand it. This isn't going to be lost anyone who may want to loan them money, grant them favors, do business with them etc.

But as for the internet, hopefully some smart and brave people will step up and help us out of whatever hole we are going to be dragged into by these bumbling cyclopses, if simply using a VPN isn't enough.

To perhaps state the obvious, it is crystal clear that they did not back down.

Interesting that they feel they need to explain now that they have had their computers hacked. Not that what they have said means anything.

I think also, that no matter what they try and do, people will eventually find ways around it. The technology is too flexible and innovations will likely be coming if they aren't already here to get around these things. The internet is problematic for every government on earth for many good reasons and these guys think they are going to win the struggle by simply proclaiming that they will call the gateway something else and that people will just shrug it off and accept that?

Will be very interesting to see how this pans out. I for one will not just forget all about it by next week, next year or the next decade and I'm sure many people are the same.

It all suggests that the govt. are up against the whole country and the whole world with their internet battle which itself is predicated on a lack of understanding of the internet, how it works and its importance to the whole country.

Earplugs. You can't wear them all the time without them bothering you as well, but at least when noise from the neighbors gets to be too much you have some alternative.

I would guess you could do other things to get yourself feeling better in general. Be sure you are exercising and eating right that also can help you relax more and not be half as bothered.

Agree that TOT internet has been sporadic and weird the last couple of days. Early yesterday morning, I think around 1 am, Facebook was "unavailable" according to a message on the screen for about an hour. Never seen that before. Youtube has worked really well for at least the last 6 months, it is now back to not playing most videos beyond the first third of the video or so before hanging indefinitely. May be a coincidence, who knows. But on the eve of the coup my own service went completely to hell, went from excellent to unuseable most days for months and nothng TOT could or would do about it. That is a pretty weird coincidence if indeed it is one. Seems they periodically throttle the whole country when they get paranoid, perhaps Prayuth being at the UN is making them do this, but again who the hell knows?

It seems the government has little to no understanding or even concern about how much the economy and the country depends on this key infrastructure system to any modern nation. What, were the plans drawn up on a dinner napkin and presented as such the very next day? Seems they reckon the internet is only used for a bit of chat and a few games. And of course those things are important too, but what is really scary is how tied in so much of the economy and business transactions are totally internet dependent and depend on a functioning internet. The internet is probably so complexly intertwined with everything, I am sure no one really knows what affect launching a single gateway will have. Yet these guys seem to have no idea nor care not one whit about that and are willing to start wagering on really long odds that they will be able to make it all work. It takes little more than a semi-informed view on how the human life on this planet works in 21st century and grain of common sense to see a single gateway is not going to work to put it mildly.

And for what? As for controlling what people say and see on the internet, for anyone even semi-determined they can use encryption along with a few other tools to bore right through the Great Fire Wall of China, so I think Thailand is going to be hard pressed to stop people from accessing content and otherwise doing as they please on the net. There are detailed instructions on other threads on this very website about how to do that and it is not rocket science and will only get easier as more and more people worldwide face obstacles to internet access presented by over-reaching governments. And as I understand it, even just using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) the government or anyone cannot even detect your presence on the internet let alone read or see what you are doing if you don't post anything on sites they have been given access to or easy access to. In fact, the United Nations themselves recommend that anyone using the internet now use a VPN to avoid problems such internet crime and human rights violations by our various sundry self-appointed caretakers throughout the planet.

So, to my luddite mind, it seems then the only way these entities can limit us is by bottlenecking the internet. They cannot detect us if we exercise due dilligence and mask our presence, but guessing we are going to be there if given the bandwidth, they can just make the whole system semi-unuseable and shut people down that way. Unfortunately that semi-unuseability may include the the whole intenet dependent financial system. And of course they cannot just announce that their intention is just to narrow everyone's bandwidth, that would create a strong reaction, so better to just cook the frogs to death slowly by gradually raising the heat this way with the excuse of incompetence or sorry it was all a mistake in the planning and send the scapegoats off to inactive posts.

From the article it seems the junta is unable or unwilling to work with people who have a clue about internet, and that is just par for the course, they seem to know it all and have all the answers. What they are proposing seems to be tied in with and will affect nearly every avenue of this economy, nation and society. So, what's up next, a nuclear plant powered electricity grid for the country planned by the main junta genius honchos off the cuff one afternoon during a coffee break down at the golf course?