Boo Radley

From the BKK Post article: "...Pol Sub-Lt Supot Toket, Pol Sr Sgt Maj Rassami Theptha and Pol Sr Sgt Maj Chamnian Khandaeng, of Bang Chan police station, are shunted to inactive posts..." It's strange, but when you meet some people for the first time and try to guess their profession, they have a look about them that they're either policeman or criminals. There's such a thin line between the two, you just can't decide. PS CCTV footage of the incident. http://youtu.be/iz8Htb89zHc

Wonder if Fiery Jack's shoplifting accounts for some of that crime?

Looks like she has hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid), which caused her weight gain. Knew I remembered that from somewhere. http://pages.citebite.com/n3t5i2q2u5eks

Last surviving Hiroshima bomb crew member dies The last surviving member of the US air crew that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima has died in Georgia aged 93. Theodore Van Kirk, also known as "Dutch", was 24 when he became the navigator of the Enola Gay, the aircraft which dropped the bomb. The attack killed 140,000 people in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Van Kirk said he had "no regrets" about the mission and defended its morality, saying it helped to end the Second World War. His son, Tom Van Kirk, paid tribute to his father, who he said remained active until the end of his life. "I know he was recognized as a war hero, but we just knew him as a great father", he told AP. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28548475 29/07/14

A while back, there were news stories of Hong Kong citizens complaining about mainland Chinese using the HK subway for the first time and letting their children relieve themselves in the carriages too.

Some shaky footage off Youtube

I read somewhere the staff lose bonuses and wages if they don't retain enough customers so there's pressure to behave like that.

Firefox crashes for me too on some flash pages. Don't like the way new versions break old extensions too.

Paris birthday bash Yingluk also made it over to the UK today and was photographed at the London Eye adjacent to the river Thames with her son Nong Pipe. It's reported she also took the opportunity to look at some schools in the area with the intention of sending her son there to continue his education. http://www.dailynews...งเมืองผู้ดีà¹à¸¥à¹‰à¸§ 28/07/14

The moment was captured for posterity on video too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymZce_SgGys

Wow. Bad story. Just showing off to his friends I guess. He also seems to say at one point, "It just goes in one ear and out the other." Most of the comments I saw on Youtube etc from Thais condemned the behaviour of the student in very strong terms and language. The article from Mthai news says that apparently the school was in Chonburi province (although they don't name it) and when the school found out the student was punished by being made to GRAHP (prostrate himself) in front of the teacher and apologise. As a kid, one school I went to had similar ill-discipline eg chairs thrown around classrooms by students etc. Unsurprisingly not much got learnt there. Another school was much stricter. The teachers ruled by fear and embarrassed you if you stepped out of line. Still, wouldn't like to be a teacher with unruly kids to deal with. http://news.mthai.co...ews/369981.html PS Here's his apology video he was made to post up by the school. Apparently the incident actually took place in 2011, but the video only surfaced in the Thai press and became news 2 years later in Aug 2013 and in the English press only just recently. Maybe it's just me, but he doesn't come across as particularly contrite in the video, occasionally smirking etc. http://news.tlcthai....ips/176062.html

MAE HONG SON — A school in Mae Hong Son province is investigating a teacher who allegedly attempted to saw off the ear of one of her 4-year-old students. Parents of the boy said the Kindergarten teacher punished him in the classroom by using a metal ruler to cut his left ear. The incident reportedly took place on 17 July inside the school, which is located in Mae Sarian district. According to his parents, the child needed five stitches. School director Praewnapha Thamniamton said an investigation has been launched into the incident. The teacher's identity has not yet been made public. Ms. Praewnapha said the school administrators have twice received complaints from parents about the teacher's violent punishment of her students. "We already put her on probation and the teacher promised us she would not do such thing again," said Ms. Praewnapha. As for the latest case of alleged violence, the teacher insisted on her innocence, yet all of the students in the classroom said she was guilty, Ms. Praewnapha said. "We will find facts about this and give fairness to all sides," the school director said. Corporal punishment is common in Thai public schools, where students are subject to rigorous discipline and uniformity. http://en.khaosod.co...wsid=1406110148 (23/07/14)

Picture of Thaksin and Yingluk at Charles de Gaulle airport posted up on Instagram by Thaksin's son Oat. (24/07/14) http://www.khaosod.c...9PQ==&subcatid=

Looks like she's put on some weight recently. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX1QEWNIgcM

I remember being dragged along to see the movie Red Bike Story in 1997 when it was just out. She had a part in that too and was just 16 at the time I think. Got the movie on disk somewhere. Must take another look. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tztzlD4sazk

Yingluk was photographed flying out of Suwwanpum airport to Paris today (23/07/14) on Thai Airways flight TG 930 with her 12 year old son Nong Pipe to attend her brother Thaksin's 65th birthday on 26/07/14. When asked by reporters at the airport on what day she was planning to return she declined to answer, replying "I want to take a break before returning and we'll chat then". Former Deputy Prime Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul was also at the airport travelling to Thaksin's birthday party in France but stated he is due to return on the 27th of this month. http://www.dailynews...0 บินไปà¸à¸£à¸±à¹ˆà¸‡à¹€à¸¨à¸ª 23/07/14

One way round unwanted snooping is to encrypt your emails via 3rd party software such as Fsekrit. Your message is stored in an encrypted .exe file which you can send to the recipient. http://f0dder.dcmembers.com/fsekrit.index.php

I remember him most from the Rockford Files in the 1970s. Brings back memories watching him with my Dad. As I recall, the starting theme always began with a phonecall, a different one each episode, which was intercepted via his answerphone as he was out. His recorded message told the caller to leave their name and number and he'd get back to them. Wonder if he ever got robbed after advertising the fact he was not at home to strangers like that all the time? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg1Cx26-928

Hmm. Good point. I think if you hold your breath, the oxygen already in your blood stays there giving you more time before you pass out. If, however, you start breathing in air with insufficient oxygen, any oxygen remaining in your blood and cells is quickly exhaled and removed and not replaced with new oxygen so you pass out quicker. The funny thing about hypoxia is that when breathing in air with insufficient oxygen (ie it's mainly nitrogen) you experience no sense of suffocation. You just gently pass out and die within a short space of time. Which apparently actually makes it useful as a humane way of executing people. There was a case recently in the USA where they ran out of sodium thiopental, one of the 3 drugs used in executions, so they tried a new combination of drugs which didn't work properly and the prisoner regained consciousness 20 minutes after the drugs had been administered. Some executions have now been put on hold there while they figure out what to do. If however, you just get a person to breath in pure nitrogen from a cylinder via a mask, you are essentially despatching them via hypoxia in under a minute. (not that I'm for the death penalty). Anyhow, with the rapid decompression of the aircraft at 33,000 feet, I would imagine you wouldn't be able to hold your breath. All the air in your lungs at higher cabin pressure would be forced out. Hypoxia might have been a mixed blessing.

I think you would also be overcome by hypoxia at that altitude and pass out within about 15 seconds due to lack of oxygen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYUvpYE99vg Ryan Block simply wanted to cancel his Comcast internet service Instead of a short phone call with the company, however, his experience turned into a 20-minute ordeal, as Block and his wife were berated by a Comcast "retention specialist" who doggedly refused to accept the request. "Help me understand why you don't want faster internet?" he repeatedly asked. "I'm trying to help you. You're not letting me help you." Mr Block, a technology journalist who works for AOL, recorded the final eight minutes of the call and shared the audio with his 82,000 Twitter followers. The speed at which the clip went viral - the Soundcloud audio file had almost 4 million plays within two days - reflects that Mr Block is not alone in his frustration with major telecommunications providers. The nameless Comcast employee took a fair amount of bashing on social media - he was called "psychotic" and "crazy and a little bit scary" and compared to a "condescending, needy ex-boyfriend from hell". When Comcast engaged in textbook public-relations damage control, however, apologising to the Blocks, laying the blame at the feet of the customer service representative and promising "quick action", the company became the focus of the internet's rage. Maybe, commenters speculated, the pressure Comcast puts on its employees to do anything they can to prevent cancellation has created a culture that led to this particular worker's over-the-top hysteria. "I hope the quick action you take is a thorough evaluation of your culture and policies, and not the termination of the rep," Mr Block tweeted. "Nice job throwing your rep under the bus," tweeted Peter Welch. "Doubt he wanted to be on that call any more than @Ryan did." "As someone who works in a similar company, while that rep was excessively aggressive, we're trained and held accountable to do that," tweeted Fabian Cruz. On Reddit, someone claiming to be a Comcast employee explained that retention representatives are compensated based on how many cancellations they prevent. If they fail to reverse at least 75%, they get nothing. "These guys fight tooth and nail to keep every customer because if they don't meet their numbers they don't get paid," txmadison writes. It's a sympathetic perspective that the Awl's John Herrman finds compelling. "The customer service rep is trapped in an impossible position, in which any cancellation, even one he can't control, will reflect poorly on his performance," he writes. "By the time news of this lost customer reaches his supervisor, it will be data - it will be the wrong data, and it will likely be factored into a score, or a record, that is either directly or indirectly tied to his compensation or continued employment." Comcast is currently attempting to obtain approval from the US government to merge with fellow telecommunications giant Time Warner Cable. But a monopoly-aspiring Comcast, staffed by belligerent customer service representatives, is just the sort of nightmare scenario some commentators are imagining. "What happens when the same corporate financial goals and institutional pressures that encourage an individual service rep to go berserk on the phone are applied to a huge sector of the entire US economy?" asks Salon's Andrew Leonard. "That's what so scary about this Comcast call - what we are hearing isn't just one guy losing it; it's the howl of unrestrained market forces, red in tooth and claw. Give a company monopoly power, and it's the only sound we'll hear." http://www.bbc.co.uk...ending-28335713 (16/07/14)

I was just reading about this. With a male lecturer, the Thai press usually report it's sexual favours that are traded for grades so was wondering about the strange household items requested here. Turns out it was a female lecturer in this case! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zU_7cCjY1c Wonder if it's the woman in the purple jacket standing behind the Ratchapat director, who later on goes in the room. She looks a bit guilty. PS Bit more in Time magazine here: http://time.com/2990...hat-university/ Also, here's the original clip uploaded by Youtube user ส้มโจ่ย. Looking at the clip of her scolding the students, she seems a bit of a harridan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5qwiz1y2HM http://www.manager.co.th/Local/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9570000079767

PHUKET: The power of modern technology saw a happy ending in less than 24 hours today when a Thai couple who helped a British family 10 years ago after the Asian Tsunami were identified. The Phuket News - Tuesday 15 July 2014, 05:57PM Ben and Emily Willgrass, were in Phuket on holiday with their parents when the tsunami struck on December 26, 2004. Their mother, Louise, was killed by the wave but they and their father were helped by a Phuket couple who took them in and then, because Phuket Airport was shut, drove them to Bangkok. Ben and Emily are planning to return to Phuket on July 20, and wanted to meet the couple to thank them properly. But all they knew were the names "Upin" and "Pitchat". See earlier story here. This afternoon, just 15 hours after Ben first posted on Facebook, asked for help, the Thai couple have been identified as Pichet and Yupin Sengmuang. One of Pichet’s relatives spotted one of the many reports on the internet and called Khao Sod newspaper, which promptly ran a story online. Ms Yupin, the newspaper said, is from Nakhon Sawan while Mr Pichet is from Phattalung. Some 10 years before the tsunami they moved to Phuket to open a food and grocery store at Trai Trang Beach. Ms Yupin told the newspaper that after the tsunami, they met the Willgrasses, who were searching for the mother, Louise. They fed them and bedded Ben and Emily down and looked after them while the children’s father continued to search for Louise. He later discovered that she had died in the Ocean Shopping Mall in Patong. The couple said they took care of the children, trying to encourage them and explaining about the situation. Since Phuket Airport had a problem, the family were unable to fly out, so Mrs Yupin and her husband drove them from Phuket to Bangkok. Mrs Yupin said that she was glad to know that the children – now grown up – would be coming to see her on July 20. She added that she and her husband helped them because they felt very sorry for them and she wanted to do her best to help them. She said that she would never forget the day. The couple are now, sadly, divorced. Mr Pichet moved back to Phattalung, but Ms Yupin is still in Phuket. This afternoon Ms Yupin could not immediately be reached by The Phuket News, but Mr Pichet told us, "I missed them and I am so glad they are coming back to see me. I really appreciate it. Ten years ago they were just children. I have no idea what they will be like now. But please tell them that Thailand welcomes them back. "I will probably travel up to Phuket to meet them – they probably won't know how to find their way to Phattalung." The Phuket News contacted Ben Willgrass with the news, and with phone numbers for the former couple. Ben replied, “It has been a mad 24 hours for us, but thank you for your message. “We never expected quite the response we have received, but it just shows once again how amazing the Thai people are. I will be in contact in the near future to talk more. Told what Pichet had said, "I'm really happy to hear that, if you speak to him again tell him we are both very excited to see him." http://www.thephuket...found-47359.php http://www.dailynews...อังà¸à¸¤à¸©à¸£à¸­à¸”สึนามิ

How sad. Being electrocuted - no one goes to help her...

One of the biggest and most trusted kids' entertainers in the 1960s and 1970s. Are there any TV shows from the 60s and 70's left that they can still show?