gobbledonk

US soldiers pay no tax ? Did I read that correctly ? We had to pay tax when I served in the Aust Army, and I was earning all of 25K pa as a Lance-Corporal in 1990..... sure, heavily-subsidided food and housing, free medical etc, but it was still a low wage compared to many city slickers. (even as recruits, where you get paid SFA, we still had to pay tax)

Wrecking ball cant come soon enough for the remaining hulks, can it. Wonder where all those people will park their cars when the Square is a construction zone ?

Vietnamese Dong take the cake for me, and that would be a million Dong cake ..... Getting back to the US Election, the talking heads are telling me that it will come down to the US Electoral College vote and rolling their eyes about the infamous GWB/Gore debacle. If our last election in Oz is anything to go by, you will have at least half the country pissed off that 'I didnt vote for that clown and the ship of fools that now runs the country !'. You have a different system of government, granted, but I would argue that your President has more power than our Prime Minister in terms of dictating policy. If Romney wins, you will have a President who has been described by a former business partner as a 'sociopath' (not alone - Palin and Cheney spring to mind), and if its Obama you will have a President who continues to shoulder the blame for GWB's mismanagement, Wall St greed and the continuing disaster in Europe. The 'sociopath' may well get business back on track, but I'd prefer the Devil We Know. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/13/1131181/-Mitt-Romney-Sociopath http://www.politicususa.com/hell-mitt-romney-smiling-about.html http://mittromneysociopath.blogspot.com.au/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichrist#As_Lucifer http://www.thepropheticyears.com/wordpress/the-case-for-the-muslim-errrr-i-mean-the-mormon-antichrist.html OK, so that last one is a more than a little wacko, but its all way more interesting than the Presidential debates I've seen to date !

I'm going to go out on a limb here and venture there might be some kiddies in Cambodian orphanages who could really use that money, Flash - they probably don't live your wild, free-spending lifestyle but hopefully we can get them up to speed on Western decadence. FWIW, I plan to win 70million AUD next Tuesday night. I plugged that into xe.com for a conversion to baht and I think I broke the internet .....

It saddens me that a loon like Trump can get airtime to muddy the waters so close to the election: My link If the swing states haven't come to grips with the authenticity of Obama's status as an American citizen by now, they have bigger problems than who to vote for. So much for focusing on his record and policies - much easier to let a nutjob loose on the networks.

Thought better of it - didnt want to make an ass of myself.

Geographically, Israel may be separated from Iran by Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Jordan, but I'm sure that 'flight time' between their respective borders is barely enough to get the kids into the bunker. Of the countries in the buffer zone, Lebanon is on the brink of civil war/total anarchy, Syria is already there, Iraq remains an extremely dangerous place for locals and visitors (?) alike, and the Jordanians are struggling with a massive humanitarian crisis on their borders courtesy of the above. Turkey has a very powerful military machine (atm pointed at the Syrians, oh joy), and the Saudis have long been accused of covertly funding Islamic extremists. One tiny-but-rich nation with nuclear weapons and powerful friends stuck in the middle of a powderkeg - fan-freakin-tastic. FWIW, I have long considered Turkey the elephant in the room - their government seems pro-Western, but the whole 'secular democracy' thing doesn't sit well with the fundamentalists in that part of the world. I do know how much respect they gained from their former enemies after Churchill's disastrous Dardanelles campaign - the Syrians might want to reconsider shelling their border towns. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443635404578035822373395226.html ISTANBUL—Turkey attacked targets inside Syria for a second day Thursday and its parliament authorized military offensives into foreign countries, deepening the threat of sustained conflict along the neighbors' 565-mile common border. Syria, at the United Nations, castigated its neighbor for policies it said were fueling the conflict. Ankara's military and legislative moves came a day after Syrian shells landed in the Turkish border town of Akcakale, killing five people and spurring Turkish retaliatory strikes. In spite of the military authorizations passed earlier in the day, Turkish officials suggested Thursday that further armed action isn't likely imminent. The day's moves underscored how Ankara, while it has the vocal backing of its international allies after the attack on its territory, appears to have no partners for broader military action.

Watching a report tonight on the lengths Mossad are going to in ensuring that Iran don't develop a working nuke, one of the Americans they interviewed made the point that if Israel goes to war with Iran, the US is automatically at war with Iran and its allies. A former head of Mossad claimed that any scenario of missiles being rained on Israel from Gaza/Syria/wherever had to be better than the prospect of the regime in Iran have a nuclear weapon. They also interviewed a former General from Iran's Revolutionary Guard and his prognosis was bleak - 'They (the regime) dont care about Iran, and Mutually Assured Destruction wont work because they believe they are the "chosen ones"'. The 'fanatic with a nuke' concept is nothing new, but I wouldnt want to be the guy sitting around a table with the Joint Chiefs in 2013 trying to work out what to do next when Israel throws down with its neighbours.

As appalling as that seems, at least it implies that any transition of power will be peaceful. The Cambodian people may be no better off with the new 'boss', but that has to be better than another civil war. I guess time will tell.

Interesting too that the French tolerated a monarchy in Cambodia given their own treatment of the aristocracy.

I was surprised to see the Palace still intact when I arrived in PP in 2010 - I thought that the events of the last 40 or so years would have seen it turned into an administrative building in the same fashion as many of the vestiges of French colonial occupation. My guide didnt proffer an opinion on the King, one way or the other, and I left it there. She would have been old enough to remember tanks firing on the streets of Pnomh Penh - I still shake my head that the madness went on for so long. The guy with the biggest gun won the day, and he's still there - let's hope his exit sees a smooth transition of power.

My link King Norodom Sihanouk dead at 89. Norodom Sihanouk, the former Cambodian king who was a key figure through decades of upheaval, has died. The former king died at a hospital in the Chinese capital, Beijing, after having a heart attack. He had been in poor health for several years. Sihanouk, who was 89, came to the throne in 1941 and led Cambodia to independence from France in 1953. Despite long periods of exile and his abdication in 2004 due to ill health, he remained an influential figure. Sihanouk abdicated in 2004 in favour of his son, King Norodom Sihamoni. "His death was a great loss to Cambodia," said his assistant and relative Prince Sisowath Thomico. "King Sihanouk did not belong to his family, he belonged to Cambodia and to history." His body is expected to be returned to Cambodia for an official funeral at the royal palace in Phnom Penh. King Sihamoni is flying to Beijing to accompany the late king home, a Cambodian government spokesman said. A statement from China's foreign ministry hailed Sihanouk as a "great friend of the Chinese people".

Yongda Huang Harris ? What kind of fucked up combo is that ? Just watching a lefty doco on the early months of the Obama administration and the absolute shitfight they inherited from GWB and his band of merry men. Apparently Biden was the only one in the room calling for Obama to think long and hard about withdrawing from Afghanistan - the President was railroaded by the Brass and Clinton into sending more troops. Biden was also slammed for getting into a shouting match with Karzai on his first official trip to Afghanistan as VP, and I know he cops plenty from comedians in the US, but I believe history will prove that he was right about Afghanistan. Sending more soldiers into an unwinnable conflict makes zero sense to me.

Doughy cunt bitches, eh ? Nothing mean spirited there. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about said bitches, but then I don't spent a lot of time thinking about hot young guys with washboard abs having sex, either. The article was clearly a piss take - I probably wouldn't let it ruin my year.

Sad to see those last two photos, Munchy. Cant say that I spent a lot of time in either bar, but it was obvious to anyone who walked into either than a lot of love (aka money) had been thrown at each of them. I did think the old ladyboy theatre was an odd choice for a brand new sports bar, but I assume the owners were given a killer deal on the rent.

I still have trouble imagining that people once lived in the apartments above the bars, but apparently they did. Would have been interesting back in the day - no Emporium, no Skytrain, no Benjasiri Park and a lot more punters.

I get tired of the constant 'massaaaage ?' whiners as I walk down 22 anytime after midday. The irony, or not, is that the genuine massage places - the big ones where you can see people being massaged from the street - dont have anyone outside touting for them. Kinda obvious that the others are rub-and-tug/'special' massage shops. Its still a long ways better than Soi 4 - rarely see anything resembling flower girls or those hideous women who try to sell you the wooden frogs and silly hats. I've been an outspoken defender of Soi 4 for the last few years, but the more I think about it the more I can see why so many here loathe the place. Its a circus, pure and simple.

Other than having to dodge them on the narrow footpaths, I've never had a problem with the Indians - or Arabs - that stay in the big hotels in and around Soi 22. Didn't enjoy one of the little buggers trying to lowball one of the Filis I was with in KL last year, but he scurried off when he realised she wasnt interested in negotiating. KL isnt the first place I'd go if I was looking for cheap sex.

HT, your trip report will be the most current and comprehensive of anything I've seen on that part of the world. Sadly, the photos I've seen of AC leave me cold - might be very different inside the clubs etc. The pool parties look OK, but I dont know how often that happens.

It has never bothered me - confronted an Australian girl openly staring at me with my Tilac in a Pattaya baht bus back in 2002, and we ended up laughing about the whole thing. It could have gone the other way, but I sensed that she wasnt that drunk : either way, I don't just sit there and take it. The women here have become even more feral in the last 10 years - particularly where alcohol is concerned. Thankfully, I wont have to put up with them much longer.

What exactly are they going to do to me, YAR ? Tell me to return my tray to the upright position and turn off my mobile devices ?

Southern Baptists must be apoplectic given their current choices for POTUS. Some of them are still scarred by the fact that a womanising Catholic once occupied the Oval Office. The horror, the horror.

A Mormon in the White House - am I the only one who finds that more than a little surreal ? Still, I guess many would have said the same thing about a black man 10 years ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NyvYwfZR38

A Mormon in the White House - am I the only one who finds that more than a little surreal ? Still, I guess many would have said the same thing about a black man 10 years ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NyvYwfZR38

Toto ? Jesus, next you'll be digging up Asterix and other characters that Hollywood is yet to dredge from the bowels of the comic universe. As a kid, I read everything I could get my hands on, including an Asterix comic in French. That was relatively easy to digest compared to my copy of Jane Eyre - written entirely in Scottish Gaelic. There is a point where cutting the alpabet back to 18 letters becomes counter-productive IMO ..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Gaelic#Common_words_and_phrases_with_Irish_and_Manx_equivalents