thaicbr

A talented blessed with large breasts bubblehead...

Had Thaksin stayed in Thailand and faced his charges, served what ever little time they would have given him, like the red shirts are doing now because of him, none of this would have happened. No red shirts dead from all the violence, no red shirts in jail. And Thaksin could be fighting shoulder to shoulder with his red shirts, instead of playing politics from behind the curtain like a puppet master.

CaptainSplod, on 2012-05-18 19:20:46, said:

There is little to tell actually...previously I had got a Dr's cert and headed off to Nackon Sawan immigration and THEY said I needed a NON B visa and would cancel my NON O visa...but admitted that they had never been in that situation before..( The experienced people that I had got to know over the years had all been promoted and left desk service)

Today I went to another clinic for a blood test..then lunch paid for by the school....3 teachers came along and we hit the Kamphaengphet government offices. So into the Employment offices we go...They said I needed certification to be able to teach and that had to come from BKK. The clincher came when they confirmed that with a NON O one year married to a Thai visa I was allowed to work...


.A few calls were made to the school Director and I suppose he must have said something like  "Sod this for a lark. Get the fat English bastard in here working Sparrow's fart Monday morning and I will pay the whinging pommie bastard. We can cut down on the gruel rations  for the snivelling snipes and blame it on him. Let's see how he handles the buggers then"

Even Mr T must be laughing at this. He might even burst into song,

"It's my party and I'll apply if I want to...."

I suggest you all read today's column by Voranai Vanijaka in "The Other Newspaper".  He lays out the entire sordid affair clearly.  Its all gray areas.  Both sides are right - and both sides are wrong. The problem is that the TV red shirts - Phi, and others, refuse to see that their "side" is wrong in any degree, while the TV yellow shirts see everything the red shirts do as evil and having a hidden agenda from Thaksin.  Therein lies the problem  No compromise means no progress.  

The army killed red shirts - yes
The red shirts killed army - yes
Thaksin paid red shirts - yes
The army used live ammunition and killed innocents - yes
The red shirts fired RPG rounds and used human shields and parked NGV trucks near residential areas - yes
The yellow shirts invaded the airport and forced its closure - yes
The red shirts invaded a meeting of world leaders and forced its closure - yes
The red shirts burned down lots of buildings and invaded a hospital - yes

All these things happened.  Not just some of them.  ALL are at fault.  ALL need to try to restore a sense of balance.  I actually think Thaksin understands that.  It seems the TV red shirts do not, TV Yellow shirts, and anyone else who constantly refuses to view both sides of the issue are at fault - which is most of us.

thaibeachlovers, on 2012-05-12 17:45:49, said:

I solved this irritating problem by starting a chimney sweeping service. Not only were my children not heard, they were hardly seen.

It was annoying when my teenage son got stuck in a chimney in Glasgow, the customer refused to pay so I just left him there, went home and told the wife that we would need to make a new son.

The little bandit managed to free himself and make his way home, so I sold him to a gypsy. I'm not having kids hanging around my house looking for love and affection, if they are not making a profit for me what's the point of having them?

Some interesting reading....

The Down-Trodden Rural Poor of Thailand


It's not quite what you think
                                                                                  



Here's what you need to know about the rural have-nots of Thailand. They are the richest poor people in the Third World. And they owe none of their affluence to Thaksin Shinawatra.


Fugitive former Prime Minster Thaksin, a billionaire wanted in connection with corruption and tax-evasion on a staggeringly egregious scale, has done a remarkable job of convincing the world that he is the champion of the rural poor in Thailand, and that such prosperity as the farmer enjoys is in some way due to him. Yet all of "his" programs have been in place for decades. His well-financed public-relations machine merely invented catchy new terms for them.


In Europe and North America, farmers tend to be affluent. A comparison is therefore not at all meaningful. But take a village carpenter in Thailand's northeast and compare him with a wood-worker in a small town in Iowa. To the American, the Thai seems impoverished, his house appalling basic, his expectations in life distressingly limited. But the Thai carpenter probably lives on family land rent-free, pays nothing to moderate the climate, produces his own vegetables, chickens, eggs and pork, and rides his own motor-cycle to his jobs. He's seen the American lifestyle on TV, and it's so far beyond the range of his experience, he doesn't feel deprived or envious.


Every village in Thailand was on the electricity grid long before Thaksin came on the scene, and virtually every village family has a refrigerator, electric rice-cooker, TV, radio and a couple of oscillating fans. Almost all rural households have a motorcycle, though it may be old and battered. In every village several families own pickup trucks. Animals are no longer used for farm work except in extremely remote corners of the kingdom. If farmers don't have a mini-tractor of their own, they rent or borrow one from a neighbor.


The "landless peasant" class exists, but is very small when compared with the Philippines, India and much of South America. The rich absentee farm landlord is almost unknown. Most farming families tend a small plot of land they own outright, mortgage-free (due to unscrupulous practices in the past, an outdated, paternalistic law prevents them putting up land as security with money-lenders, though they may borrow on anticipated harvests.) They sell a small cash crop through a co-operative. Their grown-up or adolescent children supplement the family income from jobs they hold in the cities.


Thailand, like the U.S., has a fallen-through-the-cracks underclass. While statistics*, as everywhere, have to be taken with a large measure of skepticism, officially 10% of the population is below the poverty line (12% in the U.S., 14% in Britain, 36% in Bangladesh). Of course, that means the poverty line for Thailand and no international comparisons are invoked. Poverty doesn't necessarily mean doing without TV or not being able to lean a beat-up old 100 c.c. Honda Dream by the door.


Unemployment in Thailand is 1.4% -- among the lowest in the world. Here it has to be cautioned that employment statistics are notoriously unreliable. Even in advanced countries, economists cannot agree whether to include the under-employed and those not actively seeking work. But unskilled work, if not well-paid, is not hard to find. My Bangkok apartment building has had a "security guard wanted" sign out for weeks.


During the dry season, many farmers supplement their income with construction work in the cities. But some prefer to do without extra luxuries and live the slow-paced, well-fed rural life. Two or three years ago, I found it impossible for several weeks to find a plumber to put in a new bathroom. Many "peasants" have become self-employed entrepreneurs and done well for themselves. Thaksin's policies had no discernible impact on the labor force.


There is no population pressure in Thailand, since each female, on average, gives birth to 1.6 children in her lifetime. That is well below replacement level, so the population will in time shrink unless immigration is vigorously promoted. Reduction in family size was achieved through education and the perceived economic benefits of smaller families, the same way it was reduced in Europe and Japan. This got started in the 1960s.


Wealth distribution in Thailand is no more extreme than in most industrialised countries. The poorest 10% of the people of Thailand own 2.6% of the nation's wealth. The richest 10% own 33.7%. In the U.S., the comparable figures are 2% and 30%, in the U.K. 2.1% and 28.5%. These statistics may not be wholly reliable, but distribution of wealth is unquestionably much more equitable than in China, India, Brazil or South Africa. Even isolated Thai villages, especially in the central plains, would seem very prosperous to rural Pakistanis and positively utopian to most Nigerians. Thaksin's much-vaunted "village revolving development funds" financing local enterprise had their antecedents in the 1970s.  


All main roads in Thailand are paved (close to First-World standards), and most secondary roads are surfaced, as are a good many of the tracks that lead into remote villages, even in the poorer north and northeast parts of the country. It was like this when Thaksin was still a bankrupt ex-cop.


There are slums in Bangkok, but you have to go out of your way to find them. Since almost everyone is employed, squatters on state land in the cities often live there by choice because it is rent-free. You certainly do not have to go out of your way to see red-light districts. Incomes from the sex industry (obviously denied to those lacking looks and personally) exceed factory wages fivefold or more. The blind and maimed can apply for state aid, but street begging is often more lucrative. One sets one's own moral priorities.


There was care at government hospitals and health clinics long before Thaksin came along with his fancy $1 scheme. Treatment is not world-class but it is medical care nonetheless. People in need of operations get them for small fees, and if they have no money the charge is written off. No one is turned away from emergency rooms at government hospitals. Doctors who went through medical school on state scholarships owe as  many years of modestly paid service in rural hospitals as they had in tuition.


Almost no Thais are unable read & write. Girls on average get 14 years of schooling and boys 13 years (note that girls are ahead). About 1.75 million post-secondary students (over 20% of their age group) are enrolled in universities (ranging from world-class to barely respectable), two-year colleges or vocational schools. Bright kids from poor families get government scholarships, so up-by-the-bootstraps success stories are so common as to be unremarkable. This high rate of upward social mobility goes back at least half a century.


Infant deaths per 1,000 live births in Thailand tallies 17, compared with 180 in Angola, 153 in Afghanistan and 6 in the U.S. Life-expectancy at birth is 73.1 years (78.1 in the U.S., 66.1 in Russia). HIV-positive people make up 1.4% of Thailand's population (0.6% in the U.S.)


With a population of 66 million, Thailand has 62 million registered cellphones and 7 million landlines. Service is as reliable as it is in Europe. One-fourth of the people regularly use the Internet. Thaksin's own company, which prospered prodigiously while he was prime minister, had one-third of the nation's mobile-phone customers. He sold the firm to an investment arm of the Singapore government (and paid no income tax).


Thailand routinely exports more than it imports. It is attractive for foreign direct investment. It therefore has enormous foreign reserves, and even though the country has few natural resources to sell abroad, its reserves, at $138 billion, are the 10th highest in the world. (Britain has $56 billion, Australia $45 billion). This means plenty of capital for employment-creating new manufacturing jobs, which entice rural folk seeking work in cities. The Thai currency is so strong that even recent political troubles have not budged it.


Contrary to a widespread perception, the country's main exports are not agricultural products, but cars & trucks, motorcycles & vehicle parts (made by foreign-owned subsidiary companies). Exported pick-up trucks, the biggest single-selling item, contain negligible imported parts. One Japanese manufacturer sources its world-wide production of one-ton pickups, including those sold in Japan, from its Thai factories. Machinery is another big export, as are components for computers and other electronic goods, textiles, garments & footwear, processed food and animal fodder. Way down the list of foreign-currency earners are rice, sugar and tourism.


Over the years the Thai government has routinely produced a trade surplus, a current-account surplus and (though not this year) a budget surplus.


Since 1960 (when Thaksin was 11) no "developing" country has exceeded Thailand in average annual per-capita GDP growth. The farmers are still poor by western standards, but they've had their share of this rising affluence, and they are better off than rural folk in any other nation on earth for which we reserve the term Third World.  ✹


* All statistics quoted in this article were independently cross-referenced from at least three of these sources: UNICEF, UNDP, World Bank, Asian Devt. Bank, IMF, CIA, WHO, Bank of Thailand, Thai National Statistics Office. In no case is a figure quoted from purely Thai sources. In addition, plausibility comparisons were made with the statistics of a number of other countries.

wana, on 2012-05-16 09:51:52, said:

No back pedaling Wana,

I've ridden the new CB'r' 250 a few times and have seen dozens of them blow up at various Moto 3 races and I remain thoroughly unimpressed with this particular bike.

That said, I think the thumper engine makes a LOT more sense in a dual-sport / dirtbike frame, and initial report all indicate that the new CRF250L is a winner.

Hopefully Honda has had a chance to iron out some of the problems that many CB'r' 250 owners have reported on this and other forums.

If you've never ridden a real CBR250RR you are ignorant of how underwhelming the new CB'r' 250 is. But then ignorance seems to be your MO; I lol'd at your BMW 1250 post yesterday

I'm no "Honda-hater"; I've owned a lot of Hondas in the past and my next bike is going to be a Honda. (But it sure as heck won't be a CB'r' 250!)

Happy Trails!

T

Quote

Shouldn't that be something like "Inviting them would depend on their qualifications and how they might fit in the cabinet and be able to further the government's policies as stated in August 2011." An invitation should certainly not depend on their wishes, unless it's in the negative like 'I don't want this or that'.

I would have thought that the fact that there aren't any tablets available should be a somewhat more major concern,  I suggest these people at OBEC reconfigure their horse and cart.

How about... and here comes the shock headline... a projector screen and teach the kids together as opposed to having 30 kids in a room; half playing games and FB, the others watching the same thing at different times, some with dead batteries, others who have left their tablet at home or had it knicked from them...so many reasons why this tablet idea is just rubbish.

prefabs, on 2012-04-16 12:26:23, said:

There are probably ways of personalising FB but they don't seem adequate. I have turned off everything I can find and I still get daily requests from unknown people asking me to add them. I originally joined to please my daughters, I now seem stuck with a growing crowd of their friends and friends of friends. Frankly I just don't see the point of it, email satisfies my needs. Perhaps I'm just a Luddite.

whatever article i read about this Thai subject there is always 1 thing missing.
how to provide ( THAI )children with SELFDISCIPLINE !

endure, on 2012-03-25 02:37:46, said:

Excused as I am from this debate, I must interject to say that Engiish is now the World language. There are 250 million Chinese learning it, on top of 1 billion Indians that speak it, and that is before you start tacking the traditional English speaking nations.

English language skills are highly desirable, if not essential for international business. People have to be able to communicate.

The question at hand is should a BTS guard be able to speak English? I say yes, there are so many tourists of all nationalities pouring through Bangkok every day it would be ridiculous to expect them to speak Thai. It is imperitave for safety reasons that BTS personnel should be decent at English.

I would also point out that many Asians from other countries and non native English speakers rely upon English in Thailand too. Its not arrogance, it's essential for communication.

Should every Thai be fluent in English? No, should people dealing with foreign nationals  every day? Yes.

As the Japanese say, the most important language to speak is the customers language.

Its not arrogance, its reality. Maybe we expat types forget the vast majority of foreign visitors to Thailand are short term visitors.