scorecard

No visible plate on the bike but you rented it anyway. Hello.

I honestly think SOME of these girls have been desperately let down and suffered great misfortune. As a single mum at 18-20 and maybe with the total responsibility for the welfare of their parents in old age, many girls here show much more moral courage than the chavs who sit on their arse in the UK collecting benefits and social welfare handouts. They prostitute themselves to provide an education for their children and food for their parents. Some are con merchants, others are not and genuinely long for nothing more than a faithful man who will take up the role as head of the family. It is easy to play on the emotions of such fragile girls and to make them believe you are going to change their lives, this, if your intent is otherwise, in my opinion is far more morally bereft than prostituting yourself.

For a girl from a village to be even offered a trip to Hongkong, she would be so excited and truly believe you were changing her life and her families. She would go along with last minute changes no problem, as she would never want to run the chance of ruining this new life. I imagine many of those girls weep in prison every night about how stupid they have been and that now how their children and parents are now in dire straits, many with little chance of seeing their parents alive again. Sure there will be some bad ass girls in there who deserve to be there, but there will be others who granted, with hindsight were stupid, but did what they did unsuspecting for the love of 'their man' and their family. Brings a tear to my eye. I wish they could come up with a fool proof 100% lie detection system and get the innocent out of prison and the guilty in.

Jessi, on 2012-05-17 15:10:41, said:

Correct. It all started with the 'invention' of money and credit.

TheCure, on 2012-05-13 16:04:16, said:

Wow, so sensitive. That could be record time. Note that his "intellectual honesty" wasn't even being challenged in my last post.

But, even still, what you're effectively suggesting is that once you've been placed in the line of fire when covering your chosen subject, nobody should be allowed to challenge their account of events until they put themselves through the same...?

I nearly got shot at the shooting range I visited this morning. Maybe. Am I now qualified to post?

Were these folks on the "top 25 most wanted drug dealer list?"

TheCure, on 2012-04-27 18:47:43, said:

Less than 20 miles of track at a speed of less than 100mph to a station that seems deliberately designed to inconvenience passengers hardly seems something to boast about.

Posted with Thaivisa App http://apps.thaivisa.com

joey88tc, on 2012-05-01 07:56:48, said:

most 7/11s as well as mom and pop stores sell these shotguns. they will also let you try out the various 'distintive' (sic!) sounds. and all the guns come with half a dozen signs for your gate and fence "you and your lowlife friends better beware!"

So ok, they have shown that the photo could have come from a smart phone but with about 86 being in Parliament at the time, how does this prove it came from the democrats phone??

DNPBC0, on 2012-04-28 10:08:36, said:

No, that's corporatism.

By far very different things, since both socialism and corporatism counts on the governments intrusion into the market place.

pimay11, on 2012-04-28 09:08:12, said:

The problem with capitalism is that it allows investment bankers to turn other people's money into global financial crises.

DocN, on 2012-04-14 19:57:06, said:

Agreed...why not just get some stocks, put him in them and let people throw tomatoes at him. If the guy broke the law, arrest him, put him in jail and take him to court and let a court decide the punishment, again reinforces to me how backwards the justice system in Thailand is.

Would they have done this to a Hi-so who had grabbed some boobage ?

Guess they could have handed him some balloons and then proceeded to beat him around the head

Am I the only one, who has a negative feeling about this?

Babcock, on 2012-04-13 00:16:49, said:

This reply reminds me of the saying about the fool and the wise men.

k. Thaksin's crime (or the only case which could proceed because he was still here) is none of what you write. He's not convicted because his wife bought some land, he's not convicted because he was married to the wife (at that time), he was not convicted because he was the PM. He was convicted because he had violated a conflict-of-interest law while in office and was sentenced to two years in prison.

The rest of the post is equally incorrect, but I'm not going to bother with finding all the details to correct a post which might have taken a foolmember two minites to write down.

Have fun and try a bit harder to stick to the truth.

Its actually quite incorrect to say phrases like 'you are foreign and therefor this is none of your business' regarding State-level fraud and embezzlement & jaw-dropping corruption.
In the years when Thaksin was committing macro-scale financial crime within the Thai govt. & building a family nest at the top - giving prominent government & business jobs to his family members rather than to people best qualified for the jobs, and stealing state assets etc.
The amount of tourist and expat money funnelled into Thailand means that you do actually have the right to *opinions* about where your money going, and the right to feel unhappy about the money you are paying in general living taxes / land-office taxes / road tolls / visa-charges etc.etc. is going to a private bank acc. in Dubai as opposed to the Thai road-building programme or water/food-safety programmes. If money is not spent on those things, or the top jobs for those critical  govt.  departments is given to somebody inept just because they are friendly with Mr.Thaksin,  that actually puts your life in danger as a tourist in Thailand and that makes it very much your business.
You don't actually have a right to act on your views since you are not a citizen of this country & have no vote or "voice" but since it is your money being squandered & your health/safety being compromised you certainly have the right to have an opinion & voice it in the correct manner.
The simple fact is that, as visitors to this nation, we should behave appropriately and show respect & honour our hosts. But this is balanced by the fact that we are honoured guests & if we think the roof is leaking or indeed about to collapse we have a right to point it out.

Re the Western culture posts.......

I would say as a rule of thumb Western culture should rightfully come second to Thai culture if you choose to marry a Thai and live in Thailand.

On the other hand you need to learn how to discern between Thai culture and Thai taking the p*ss.