YimSiam

Sweden is a tricky case - the social welfare system is so supportive, it attracts huge numbers of people who are then able to maintain a separate existence. I think they've had especially high numbers of Somalis and Iraqis, now Syrians. Somalis - especially the older generation - are notorious for failing to integrate (though the children will probably do fine), in USA or Sweden. Many of the post-Saddam Iraqis were used to a high standard of living, and happy to sit and enjoy benefits - and the numbers were large. Much more balanced to have refugees come to places like the US, Canada, Australia, UK, I think. Deeper diversity already in place, less chance to sit back and enjoy govt benefits past the initial arrival period. For those coming into Europe now, as long as there's going to be a rethink of Dublin and the reception rules, etc, I'd go for a system of temporary admission, right to work, support for the disabled and elderly - and send them back when the situation improves in their country. Maybe Afghanistan and Syria aren't likely to improve, ever, but at least the host community would feel that the protection is humanitarian and related directly to the conflicts. I think this is what much of Europe did with the former Yugoslavia? Let 'em in, confirm their status as refugees (deport the non-refugees, promptly), let 'em stay and work, and they go back when the situation permits. Or hell, just build some big fucking camps, and warehouse the people in these groups the same way refugees are generally warehoused in Africa... Restricted to camp environs, some shelter, primary health care, 2100 kcal a day, and twenty years later - you go back where you came from... To bring it back around to Thailand - that was basically the approach to Burmese, until the US started taking people from the camps to resettle. But very soon, the remainder are going to be on their way back to Myanmar.

Ko Lan - bad enough to have to spend a few hours on boat and walking around with some bar girl, but to get stuck out there for who knows how long, without a room and no way to put her in a taxi? This is why I've never been to Ko Lan. (Also, I regrettably tend to be too intoxicated to reliably locate the ocean in Pattaya, that would also be an explanation. The fact that the trips are during the "daytime"? Also an issue.)

The Assad family, for instance, seems relatively committed to staying on. You may see some big elements from Syria still remain to depart - Aleppo has already emptied, and that was the other major urban area outside of Damascus. Much of the Damascus suburbs are destroyed or thinly populated now, though certainly if/when Damascus falls, there will be an immediate wave exiting. So far, though, IS is in the north and especially east - vast empty desert out east, but they are moving in bit by bit from the deserts to the populated areas, and they and Nusra must ultimately plan on pushing the Alawite regime into the sea from their coastal heartland (and early slogan: "Christians to Beirut, Alawite to the grave!"...) Damascus and more so the Alawite heartland will be fights to the death, if it comes to that. Everyone in Syria has either left, has a departure plan in the works, or is watching out for events that will be their cue to leave - except, of course, for Mr. Assad. At this point, his departure might not even make that big a difference - you'd still have Sunni factions IS and Nusra and many others competing for dominance, Kurds wanting autonomy, and the Shi'a-Druze-Christian-Alawite strange bedfellows trying to avoid a genocide. The war doesn't end with Assad's departure - the core issues remain. Maybe our Russian friends have got it right: tell Assad to abandon all but the coastal zone and Damascus, build airports, ports, roads, fortifications - in preparation for an Alawi pullback and division of Syria into two states (sorry, Kurds - you STILL get fucked, no matter what...), with Assad (or, better, a successor) able to defend an Alawi heartland state with Russian and Western support. And then, for the rest of the country? Maybe Conrad flagged it, or at least pointed to the inexorable logic of the colonial world and clash of civilizations: Exterminate All The Brutes...

City Airways? Quadrupling their fleet in one go, good for them. I've flown on enough Russian aircraft, I'm perfectly glad to fly Chinese - at least the Chinese were relatively sober when they put the thing together.

Yeah - the nearby, unrich countries of Lebanon and Jordan are completely swamped, one out of every four people in Lebanon now is a Syrian refugee. Similar in the US if you had 100 million refugees arrive... Amazing Lebanon has not collapsed into civil war again... But it's the Gulfis, the oil sheikhs and gas barons, who are doing nothing to assist. Maybe they feel generous, they send a few tons of dates for the eid holiday - but real support, and demonstrated solidarity with their Muslim brethren? Fucking nothing.

And I absolutely don't let girls photograph me - can play with your mobile all day and all night, but if that camera lens tilts towards me, she's out the door...

yeah, it's not the camera itself that's the issue, it's the context, dynamic, substance - who's doing what to who exactly, and who might care... I'm pretty confident no one's out there making the grand compilation tape of random pairs at the soi 3 shorttimes, but I can imagine many circumstances where targeted tape would be made... Anyone heard of something like that? Small-scale blackmail, extortion, guaranty for a rainy day?

Kim Gordon, Girl In The Band - memoir of the female component of Sonic Youth. Loved the band and their mythology in my younger years, this generally superficial or just unremarkable explanation of what it was like disappointed, and casts a bit of shadow over the whole Sonic Youth thing - clay feet, chinks in the armor, whatever. Sometimes better not to know too much, I guess -just take the music for what it is.

Maybe it was just that particular night, but as a farang friend and I were walking down from soi 31 around 2, we realized we didn't see a single other farang on the streets and no girls or businesses active - felt wrong, so jumped into Insomnia 'til close!

What, he thought he could just lounge around Thailand for thirty years as a professor and with UN jobs, and not have to get in line like everyone else? Dumbass. You file a complaint in Thailand, you better have your bags packed already... you are not long for the scene.

That is a profound strategy, I think. I don't really understand what the plan is, exactly, but when you run a dictatorship and need to finalize a document with the approval of your hand-picked panel members, it takes a singular talent to have your document roundly defeated... Was on the lower Suk streets last night around two am - abandoned, a ghost town. Felt more like I was violating curfew than it did during the PDRC armed encampment days... At least the PDRC guys were friendly to farang, and full of Thai manners - towards guests, at least.

Wow, what a fortunate coincidence! The translator only knows one word in Thai, and it happens to be - guilty! What were the odds of that...

That's an impressive dynamic - a bunch of foreigners at a match, setting up a protective cushion for Mr. Shirtless, with utter disregard to the fact that it's the Lao police they are pushing back as if it's the most natural thing for them to be doing - like they own the place (or work for the guy who does). Reminds me of seeing at times - various countries - local bigshots/mafia/money/dealers in nightclubs, with bouncers and protectors creating space for the VIP, free of irritants and little people. At least in nightclubs, the guy really has earned his spot and his treatment often enough, and may well own the club, the club-owners, or who knows who else... And for fuck's sake, flares? Of course they should be banned - not the first time, not accidental, not safe, and so on. But as said earlier - would be interesting to know who these few are, and why they get away with this. Just for my usual morbid sense of curiosity.

Yup. Just way more expensive, and with some parts that can be swapped in or out - if you're looking for drugs, money, gold, bombs, pangolin, rosewood, whatever - they got a little card for you to put in. Completely useless versions are in use in high-risk environments all over the world, but I think Thailand and the Middle East experiences have got the most coverage. The fact that the people behind these schemes have gone to jail for fraud doesn't seem to deter people from continuing to use them - I guess it's hard to toss it in the bin, if you or your boss authorized the tens of thousands of dollars for plastic dowsing rods... Perhaps the logic is that the terrorists might not know that the things don't work, so the deterrence factor is still in place. Embarrassing job for the guys who handle these things all day long,... At least a guy classically dowsing for water can use a bunch of visible indicators to help him 'guide' the wands to reasonably good locations - not so easy when you're checking the same armored SUVs all days for explosives stashed somewhere.

Depends on what you think their job is, of course. They may well be doing a perfectly good job, somehow, depending on the ToR.

Chinese tourists spend money? Where?

http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2013/07/04/thai-royals-and-the-border-patrol-police/ These have a certain rustic, rugged charm.

Indeed. There's girls, booze and chemicals almost killed me, but I still love 'em and love my stories about 'em. Not all of that goes away once you realize the clock has run out on the romance.

There's probably one good reason why they haven't caught people smuggling guns into Vietnam by air - because it's SO FRIGGIN' EASY smuggling by land!

I see your point, but there's a line between making light of the deaths, and of the response. Like the Boston Marathon bombing - sure, I feel sorry for the people that were killed and injured, and their families, it must have been very difficult. But the whole "Boston Strong" bullshit, like the city had somehow collectively survived cancer while climbing Mt. Everest together, a grand pat-on-the-back pity circle jerk for the next year or so? Fuckin' ridiculous. Ah, feck it. Truth is, i'd make fun of virtually anything, as long as I got a laugh. Because when we can't make fun of candlelight vigils, the terrorists have already won... and if you can't make fun out of senseless death of innocence, what CAN you make fun of?! YimSiam

Well... Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church schooting - On July 27, 2008, Christian Right sympathizer Jim David Adkisson walked into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee during a children’s play and began shooting people at random. Two were killed, while seven others were injured but survived. Adkisson said he was motivated by a hatred of liberals, Democrats and gays, and he considered neocon Bernard Goldberg’s book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, his political manifesto. I know, I know - not the same, but thought I'd throw it out there: weird shit does happen. This thing is indeed a whoddunit, and everyone's trying to sort it out and get to the truth, except of course for the ones that done it. The Erawan shrine might be beloved somehow - a talisman for the superstitious, a power-point for those who respect black magic. But it's not Buddhist, I think things that happen around there can be seen thru a complicated black magic lens by Thais. But I'm just talking, I don't know this stuff.. I agree that as a political strategy, the red shirts getting associated with an attack on a national good-luck charm would be bad (unless, of course, you were the red shirts' opponents) - so that doesn't make much sense as a red shirt move. But beyond that - I'll bet those able to connect to the Hindu deities with the right offerings and intermediaries, they might be able to negotiate circumstances with the gods that let them get away with stuff like damage to the deities shrine, because they are jealous and petty gods, and can be easily persuaded... So, he drops the bag off the bridge - it sits on the floor of the khlong over night, and then it either accidentally blows up, the timer goes off, or it's remote-detonated? What a weird story this all is. So weird, you'd almost think: only in Thailand! Because these weird things happen all the time there (I'll bet they actually happen much more in Cambodia and Indonesia, but far fewer people around the world care about those two...) YimSiam

There's the giveaway for you: there are no English language reporters capable of translating a Thai statement into that English, and no TAT official who'd use that formulation. Must be fake.

Assholes, surely. It's natural to say that human life is more valuable than physical things, and that the tens of thousands of lives lost in this war outweigh any material losses - but somehow, the loss of the symbols of shared cultural heritage across western Iraq and eastern Syria casts its own type of shadow. Assholes. What they're after is an apocalyptic battle and the end of days, rise of Christ and Anti-Christ and all that nonsense - which makes it a special disappointment that when they finally get what they deserve, an ultimate smackdown by overwhelming military powers supported or led by the West, it will be just what they have been looking for... Fuck them, the fuckers.

I'm with Cavanami as above, basically - but voted for Aussie backpackers just to expand the circle of suspicion.

I have been known to exaggerate for effect and entertainment value...