YimSiam

Wow, just incredible nonsense, the whole thing. Nice picture of the cops seeming to say "you're pointing the wrong way! you point over here now!" ... Spend 5,000 baht to come work in Thailand for next to nothing, on a small island, and the first thing you do is pop a couple of tourists and anally rape the woman? Doesn't seem right... Anyway, the investigation is so fucked at this point there's not likely to be any truth revealed, ever. Just further varieties of nonsense.

"Korbchai then spoke publicly to the police, calling on them to not work on the case in an aggressive manner and not find scapegoats. "Don't harm innocent people or frighten them," he said." What I think is not included is the subtext: "But if you have to harm or frighten an innocent person, could I suggest that bastard taxi driver Prasit Sukdam? Prasit Sukdam. Prasit Sukdam. Remember that name, gentlemen. Do what you need to do..." If there was a textbook for bad policing, a 'what not to do', this would be a great case study... YimSiam

Too early in the game for the junta to start playing the 'defend the country from external forces bent on our destruction' card, I say. Let this pass quietly, and save that one for when you really need it, guys!

That is one incredibly gay license plate design, traditional-chinese or otherwise. Just one step from My Pretty Ponies or a unicorn orgy on a rainbow...

Forgotten? Not me - that was my first TG, out of Firecats in '95...

Another bubble bursts! I have completely misunderstood the 'spinner' concept, apparently, for years and years.

So that's what the conveyor belt in Firecats was for! Learn something new every day...

I've been wearing something that says "I'm a Tourist - Fuck Me!" for years - it's really working, too, but expensive sometimes... Party areas, goes back to Purachai and the "nightlife zones" - remember that? When we all feared they'd actually go through with a plan for Bangkok? What will the rest of Koh Tao be zoned for, if not tourists? Anyway, they've got things upside down - the tourist areas are supposed to be where the laws are NOT enforced, isn't that the idea for fun party places? Maybe it's me that's got things wrong - though it would be the first time in decades that I was wrong. YimSiam

Waan, Tu, Dee, Fah, Fai, Sec...

Goes to show it's not formal education necessarily that makes a girl smart and effective - there's some geniuses in the bars who didn't make it past first grade, and many who can keep three guys wrapped around her finger while juggling a near infinite number of others despite no school. If you had a comprehensive Connect Four championship involving all the best players in Pattaya, I would not be surprised to find a couple of girls applying phD level math and psychology...

Ah, grade nine by law! I've always wondered how those Isaan girls were so darn well-educated...

I guess the textbook producers eventually had to choose who to keep in: that Japanese porn star in the maths book, or Thaksin in history. It was an obvious choice, I suppose...

Just tried to access the photos in my office - the web shield blocked me, sadly. The reason? "Not Allowed: Sports". Hmm.

Thank god, for a minute there I thought they were serious about cleaning that place up! Even if I rarely go there, and when I do I don't stay long, it's just a comfort knowing that particular vortex of vice and filth exists.

But it's the internet! I thought we all know everything here? At least, that's the assumption I've been working under...

"Yessir, Pattaya will be a squeaky clean family-oriented tourism destination immediately, sir yes sir!"

I'll bite - was the other third right? If so, one would expect that the prior 2/3rds would have changed their mind after a round... or two... of elections, and stopped voting for the 'new' option. But that didn't happen - people kept voting for the 'what the hell, I'll try him' option, years after they first 'tried'. They tried, they liked, they voted again... and again... and even for his sister! You're a professorial type - what's your logic to saying that 'he's a blow-hard', when he's has been repeated chosen whenever people have a chance - no matter what untrustworthy stuff he's done, as well. The logic I see is: "if the military has to step in to remove you and your family, despite the will of the people, you must be some kind of blow-hard". Doesn't stick, Teach... YimSiam

Ah, Flash, you will come around eventually, posting articles like this... "A drop in the number of poor was seen to have been a result of more education provided to children in the poor families, plus government measures to lower living costs and increase incomes." What's that then? Lower the living costs, improve access to services and incomes of the poor, and those most in need see improvements in their lives! In exactly the provinces that we love the most! Populist measures imposed by a billionaire and his family members - regardless of what they themselves have and steal, admittedly, but that is not the issue - have steadily improved the lives of farmers and steadily lifted Thais out of poverty over the last decade-plus. That's why they like him and vote for him. Let's see how it goes under a junta and the oligarchy they represent. If legitimate agencies are permitted to assess these figures over the next few years (questionable - if Kim Jong Un doesn't allow it, why should they?), I'm predicting a stagnation or rise in the number of poor - but a big boost in the income and assets of this .1 percent, who hardly needs it. Sakdina. Why the current junta doesn't just say it outright, I don't know: they want they old way, when it was clear that the vast majority of people are worthless, while a few have great value, by nature. When il duce starts handing out sakdina numbers, we'll know it's time to get out of town...

They show up on the streets, they'll get shot by the boys in green or strung up by this century's right-wing militias - the regime is not new to this game and these circumstances, Thammasat '76 seems like ancient history to some but recent memories to others. However, my guess is they won't make it as far as the streets in Bangkok, once their leaders get the message that it's shut up, or wake up dead one of these mornings...One of the benefits of having a dictator obsessed with deck chairs, bikinis, and soap operas is that when any real issue comes up, everyone is so freaked out by his irrationality and lack of coherence that they worry he'll be as mad on their issue, too... Nixon's 'mad man' strategy with Kissinger and the Chinese: 'that guy is so nuts, I can't even guess what he'll do next! don't set him off!'

Il duce is making easy to conclude that virtually any other arrangement, no matter how despicably 'populist' (read: chosen by the population) those others might be... How crazy does it get before it gets better? I'm guessing a 'young turks' coup-of-the-coup might be in the cards if things go on too long without an intervening Grand Event, as the current deal has virtually no potential.

Pattaya police arresting him when he's only got 7,000 baht left? That's unlike Pattaya cops - they're 43,000 baht too late to take their piece of the pie!

I wish the whores were stupider, wherever they come from. They seem to run circles around me, year in, year out...

That begging German fucker down in Pattaya?! What a week he's having. As far as Suthep goes, he should head west and join up with the neo-fascist monks over in Myanmar - there's is just something about him that screams "Triumph of the Will" about that guy...

Sadly, this Heineken out of the mini bar? 1,100 Syrian pounds, the bastards! YimSiam

And the astrologer's Magic 8-Ball kept coming back for Nancy with "Just No Say"... "Just Say No"... "Just Say No"...