YimSiam

Brick. Kind of a stylized old-school noir, but told through high school students rather than your classic cops, starlets and businessmen gangsters. Silly, but worth a watch, I thought. But then, I love that classic noir stuff, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett.

Throw in a military dictatorship, and that famous Thai hospitality turns downright surly in places.

Eek - I'm glad my family members don't post a Missing ad every time I am unheard from in Thailand for a week or two - that' s my usual modus operandi: radio silence while in LoS... Although it's a bit different if you're expected to return, and don't. And were supposed to be visiting Koh Tao.

Sombath was much more high profile, and the disappearance got some attention. The Luang Namtha case was less of an event, but still noted some places - e.g: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JB02Ae01.html http://www2.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=693

All the way from the Delta to the DMZ...

Incredible how much that pudgy little dude's willingness to pass around big wads of money in full view of cameras damages Thailand's image in the eyes of reasonable people. If they changed the word "Banana" to the name of the country, it would have about the same impact. And what the fuck, NOW they are going to throw in the possibility that it was a contract crime committed at the behest of possible domestic actors?! I thought that keeping that possibility at bay was kind of the point of the whole investigation - or are they so overconfident in their powers of persuasion that they assume the world and the Thais will only see the Red Shirts as the potential sponsor? Anyway, I just like to spend my money, enjoy myself like any quality tourist in the Kingdom... I have no opinions. I am farang.

For God's sake, man, don't delay over a bit of bad weather! Just go, you'll get to know the Taiwan airport - some very cute Chinese girls pitching perfume! - and you'll get to Pattaya, and the weather in Pattaya is fully as reliable as the electricity: the weather is wherever exactly the level that the bars set the A/C to... For those of us without the option at the moment, it's just too great a shame for your to miss the trip. It's not even a super typhoon anymore, anyway.

I think it's rude to piss in the river. So Chinese. The rest? Good plan.

I've only been back for a short visit last year, to the south - I was struck by the risk that the new rich (the Chinese, their pawns and proxies, etc) are able to take advantage of this moving-but-slow process, and gobble up whatever Laos has available. Not as ugly as the privatization after the fall of USSR, but something along those lines - there's a coffee mogul down around Pakse, seemed to be putting himself forward as new royalty, economic royalty - and the Chinese up north with the plantations, etc. I'm sure the Thais have their bits and actors as well. But still - what lovely people - what a great transition to fly out of Bangkok and soon find yourself at one of the provincial airports in Laos, checking yourself through immigration in dusty silence, except for the computers - that may or may not be working - a sudden jump 30 years or more back in time.

If only you could ensure that other people's mobiles had no cameras, that would afford me a bit of comfort in some situations.

That one's real old - back when there were TREES in Thailand!

Get those boys in a decent refugee status determination system, reject 'em promptly, and put 'em on a plane back to Pakistan. A quick and effective asylum claim assessment is good medicine in these days of mass migration...

... especially when your name is Gaylord.

Are those the tears of having murdered your imaginary friend, I wonder, or the tears from having called the cops to your own house in your lunacy, to have them discover your illegal machine gun and drug stuff? And to think - a couple hours of sleep instead of rushing straight to the cops, and it would have all been fine... Once he's in jail, I'll bet he really starts to regret killing Mr. Happy - messy imaginary friends are so much better than real prison friends...

Exactly thereabouts. Sad story - sweet young wife left alone, the issue got a little press attention at the time but not much, and I haven't heard anything for ages. Just - done. I've also had a lot of interactions with elements of the Hmong community - the Hmong can be enough to drive anyone insane, but some of the treatment they've faced has been brutal - all that charm and uselessness suddenly falls by the wayside, and you've got fully effective brutal nastiness. In the case of the Hmong, perhaps the Vietnamese are more relevant than the Chinese in those problems, but in the hands of the right puppeteers, things can get very ugly with the Lao...

Yeah, that's true - the Chinese are always lurking just around the next corner... I suppose I mean I love their frequent uselessness, some of the charming incompetence, which I came to know about 15 years ago, working briefly in the north. But also had a friend 'disappeared' in the classic sense, most likely due to a conflict between plantation business, Chinese interests, and ostensibly govt-supported conservation efforts. So, I've seen the dark side - don't mean to be unconditional in my love - for anyone, ever... except Mom.

So he has confessed, they say. And now, one would presume, the forensic and other evidence that supports the confession, helping to eliminate that nagging suspicion that a suspect is perhaps a patsy, or confessing simply to save his ass from execution... Certainly seems that with the sheer number of guilty parties identified so far, there is likely to be a compelling and very detailed body of evidence available. I don't suppose the reenactments offer much, but somewhere in all of this it seems a solid explanation comes out. Problem with the 'smuggling ring' explanation, is that smuggling rings operate most successfully - and certainly in Thailand - through deeply complicit authorities, so there's going to be a point at which the smugglers' stories rub up against the version of events the police would prefer to put into the public. I don't mean the smugglers didn't do it, or that the police were complicit in the bombing, but only that both parties will have a very cooperative history at some level, which could make clarity difficult to find. Anyway, haven't seen the latest, only just vaguely noticed a long parade of suspects identified in past days! I guess the Thais will be expecting the tourist trade to come roaring back to life... They may be disappointed for some time to come...

I have watched this movie. And its predecessor. I believe the second one had something to do with an uplifting message of some kind. There were Segways involved. I may have been inebriated in some way, because beyond that, I can't say much about this one. Fat jokes, there were fat jokes. Or could have been. At least one hot chick - but now I might be describing Lucy. Mall Cop 2. Seen it.

I love the Lao, the Lao country, the people, even the government - but I cannot put much faith in their capacity for reliable analysis. Something about 40 years of deep Socialist logic leaves a reason deficit not likely to be quickly overcome...

By sms or verbally, in person? If by sms, you are mistaken in assigning meaning to the apparent message - it is simply "one sms", and should be scored that way, to look deeper into the actual words and possible intended meaning is to angle after the red herring. Message sent, message received, score one for Pam upon return from Gaoli. If, of course.

Different as in "differently-abled", "special", and on the short bus.

Thailand is hardly alone in grappling with this issue - throughout Buddhist communities, there are pushes for women to become ordained, despite local prohibitions. For Tibetan nuns in India, I know that for some time the preferred route was to go to Taiwan, where it's possible for women in the Mahayana community to ordain with full vows - I didn't realize Sri Lanka was an option for some as well. More power to 'em, I say - I've had contact over the years with Buddhist nuns, and had a few healthy crushes, too. Something uniquely attractive about a honey with a shaved head, placid and enlightened demeanor, who's totally inaccessible - well, so far, totally inaccessible... But every mountain can be climbed, in due time... Something for the bucket list, that. YimSiam

They'll pay someone else to serve for him, they've had all this time to locate a willing volunteer....

I guess "seized" has a different meaning than I thought... So the officers and crew get picked up after an international chase and hullaballoo, their boat and fish is impounded, they are told to stay in Thailand, they hand over fake docs, and then a few months later they quietly wander back on board, fire up the engines, and leave without anyone noticing? Wow. Not a very good indicator for the commitment to end illegal fishing, is it.

It's just staggering what these guys feel comfortable saying and doing publicly, so lacking in logic or consistency. It amazes me that trains run on time and the water and electricity are reliable in that country, when the public faces of the government suggests they must have had help tying their shoes in the morning. And yet - developing country, good income, plenty of great food, big industries, and tons of consumption. Odd. Maybe it's just clash of civilizations with these investigations - for them, finding a putting away a culprit is always a show and guilt/innocence not as important as visible outcome - but then, these big cases are conducted in front of audiences that expect something different, a type of rational approach that does not come easy - so then it looks like chaos and incompetence. But they're competent at doing it their way, it's just not our way...