what happened to just getting a bag of peanuts and a bad inflight movie?

The Jatukham Rammathep craze has literally gone sky-high. The Royal Thai Air Force took some much-sought-after amulets on routine flights on F-16 and F-5 fighters in the hope of boosting their supernatural powers and market value.

the Air Force's deputy commander, could not explain the logic behind his reasoning but maintained the jets' supersonic speed would quicken one's good fortune, protection and prosperity.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/06/20...es_30037352.php

Several of my staff have purchased these amulets. Walking round in the office looking like refugees from Saturday Night Fever...

I know soldiers in the field / on the ground are quite superstitious, but this sounds really daft coming from someone in authority. Probably.

I like the part about the Jatukham cookies. At least some Buddhists understand how silly this makes Buddhism appear. If you don't stand for anything, you'll fall for eveything I guess. (was that John Cougar)

I saw a guy wearing 15 assorted amulets the other night. Looked so very intelligent.

The Air Force's action bemused respected archaeologist Srisakara Vallibhotama. "Why didn't they take them up to Mars?" he asked sarcastically.

Srisakara questioned the attitude of the Air Force, which is a security-related institution, towards the Jatukham hype and said the process by which these amulets were created lacked moral authority.

"You are doing something against nature. How can things produced by an unnatural process contain Dharma of the Buddha, as Dharma means nature?" he asked.

Went past the market yesterday & there was this shifty looking guy with a small stall absolutely cleaning up selling the beaded Jatukam necklaces. I had a good look at them, they couldn't have cost more than a 100B to make one. He had a queue of people waiting to buy them at over 700B a pop.

Unbelievable.

Soundman.

Entirely believable. The Thais, in general, are very superstitious people. Who remembers the magic lottery tree by Sukhumwit road south of Pattaya? What about the woman who's son died and she was convinced his spirit returned in the form of a monitor lizard and could predict winning lottery numbers? Then there's the visitation by the esteemed politicos including members of the current bunch to various psychics, astrologers and mystics - a practice undertaken on occasion by certain western leaders.

In days past any woes suffered by an administration used to be put down to the effects of "dark influences".

I am an athiest, thank God, and completely free of all superstitions and nothing bad has happened to me...............touch wood.

Two years ago I was hired buy a big Thai company to headhunt a MD (Thai, not an expat), he was going to replace the Father (family business) over a 12 month period, found some good candidates and eventually it boiled down to just one, this was a big position, 450k a month salary and big benefits, my candidate was really put through the wringer and met with all the family who owned the company, after 5 interviews the Owner called me and said he really liked the candidate and would offer him the role, as to what the ofer was, he would think about it over the weekend and come back to me on Monday.

Come Monday morning, he called me and said "I spoke to my Chinese Astrologer on Sunday and he said its not a good time to hire someone, so please let him know I wont be making an offer and thank him for his time"