Image story: Boys rescuer

Two Thai boys trying to help a pup out of the cannel.  No big deal but it’s not a familiar sight if you’re from a city.

Sexy dancing, freedom and some hypocrisy

This guy from a Thai press complains about sexy dancing at the recent Thailand Motor Expo. OK. But when Thai government interfered with the press (the media), a lot of people asked where the freedom of speech at. Must there be a line between freedom and decency? Where is that line? Is freedom..

the absence of interference with the sovereignty of an individual by the use of coercion or aggression

Or do we need to keep modifying its definition until it fits whatever we feel “right?”

Ready to die: Thai singer Yod Ruk has 6 months to live

In his 52nd birthday party (February 6), Thai Loog Toong (a genre of Thai music known for folksy lyrics) legend, Yod Ruk suggested he might not have his 53rd B-day. Yod Ruk said he has been recently diagnosed for liver cancer and that he might not live longer than 6 months from now.

He said the medical bills are killing him worse than the cancer and jokingly said he’d rather drop dead if he would have to pay for one of the more expensive programs in hospital. He also said he doesn’t want chemotherapy because losing hair as a common side effect would make him look “less handsome” once he died.

Yod Ruk is now selling some of his properties to pay off his debt (due to business ventures) and medical bills. His big bother just announced that a 10-acre land inherited from his mother is now available for sale to help raise more money for Yod Ruk.

I know a lot of people who could sing at least a few Yod Ruk songs, and some probably don’t even know the songs are his. Yod Ruk has been around forever. He seemed to be on a comparable level of James Brown for Thai people, except that, with this news, Yod Ruk would probably drop much earlier.

He’s releasing new songs written for him by a lot of people. You can listen to them on his website. A lot of his old hits are there for listening.

Happy Chinese New Year. Make sure your chicken is Bird Flu free

Happy Hot Rat Year 2008 from Thailand. Officials from Phichit province assure the people their chickens and ducks served during the celebration of new lunar year are safe from Bird Flu. The chickens in the above photo op are so brown they must have been deep fried. Yet the birds served in most family of Chinese descent here in Thailand look more like the picture below. Super hot dip on the side helps you forget all about the Bird Flu.

Thai girl : Hot or Not?

What do you think? More here.

You! Buy cheap pirated DVDs from Thailand.. Online!

Disclosure: I don’t condone piracy nor am I a customer or affiliated with the website I’m about to mention. My intention is almost entirely for amusement.

If you read Thai here’s another one of those pirated VCDs, DVDs shops you can order your:

• Desperate Housewives season 1 – 6
• Lost
• PrisonBreak
• 24 Hours

Or if you ride the Korean waves:

• Love Holic
• GoongS
• Princess Hour

Of course there’s plenty of Thai drama series, Chinese and Japanese too. How about Tohoshinki Live Tour 2007 Five in The Black DVD.

All those at a whopping 30 baht (1 US dollar) a DVD.

How could you have a full fledge pirated DVD shop without some hard core japanese/anime porn? That comes at a juicy 60 baht (2 dullaz) a month subscription!

Order your pirated DVDs here at your own risk (and it’s very very little). That, if you can read and write Thai, of course.

Beach volleyball comes to town .. with no beach ..

Visit a small town of Sisaket, Thailand, and you might find yourself entertained by bikini volleyball on sand. Give a feel of beach volleyball for a place hundreds of kilometers away from the beach. Do check out the behind scene:

Paradon scored woman and a 50 mil house on the cheap?

So the tennis fad star Paradon Srichaphan and his trophy woman, the former Miss Universe Natalie Glebova, are buying a 50 million Baht (1.5 mil USD) house. That’s news? The Thai gossip mill is saying the couple got the house for free and that they’re doing the press conference about them buying this house to promote the property developer. Apparently Paradon denied all this and saying he bought with his own money. But when asked, the property manager/ owner said the couple received a very special discount.

And I’m telling you this so I can show this picture of the fiancee who’s looking real hot. Congratz Paradon, you’re boning this hot chic, I’m jealous. And I’m even more jealous because you, Paradon, do this at quite a discount. According to the press conf, Paradon put down just 1% for the house using his credit card. (500,000 baht or about 15,000 USD) . Lesson learned, there’s more than just money to score a hot former miss universe. Maybe millionaires in pursuit of a miss whatever should consider buying a new equipment down low than a new fancy car or house?

By the way, the couple is planning to get married in a few months. .. Or so they said.

Thai election campaign Kamen Riders girls

The Thai government is campaigning for ummmm clean and fair election. Have some old people doing Kamen Riders thing in public. I guess the cross means the vote cross. But check out the cutie on the left. How she get in there? If you like, there’s more.

Phuket Thailand plane crash comments and videos

After checking out some international news sources, words are such that this is an accident due to bad weather. Is the weather really that bad that people can’t do anything about it? Say NOT landing or take other options? Back in the Tsunami days, if you really have to blame someone, you could name the incompetent warning system for not being well prepared for atypical situations. This is a little different. The so called wind shear doesn’t seem to be such unique circumstance, does it?

Some victims’ families are saying they still don’t get paid from the airline insurance for the damages. One Two Go (the airline) said they’re working with the insurance to up the payment to about 120,000 USD (about 5 million bahts) from whatever money I don’t know. Anyway, searched Youtube and found some videos. Take a look:

US

UK

Plane crash in Phuket Thailand 89 died

First, I’d like to express my sympathy for those who have lost the loved ones in the plane crash in Phuket. From how I understand it, fingers are pointing back and forth between the Airline (One-To-Go Airline) camp and the airport authority camp over the misguided/misjudge landing.

According to a transcript of the conversation between the control tower and the plane, ground officials informed the Indonesian pilot, Arief Mulyadi, about wind shear at the airport but he decided to land anyway, the Air Transport Department’s director-general, Chaisak Ungsuwan, said on The Nation TV channel.

Since the majority of the passengers are foreigners (non Thai), this again likely will be a major hurt to Thai toursim. I’m all for the good good good for this country I call home but if shit like this keeps happening, visiting Thailand will not be a top choice for people (unless the rest of the world is screwed worse) .

WordPress.com banned in Thailand.. not totally.. not all the time

Yes it is banned in Thailand and the reason I didn’t post anything new for almost a year is not because of the WordPress ban. This blog has been live in Thailand just fine. I’m just lazy.

Politically motivated or not, some blogs on WordPress.com are banned and I don’t know why because I’ve never read them, though I came across links to them which are now redirected to a web page of my ISP in Thailand.

Recently (maybe since about 10 days ago) I noticed the entire WordPress.com, with the exception of the front page, were redirected to my ISP page. But it happened only during daytime working hours up until around 10 pm in Thailand. Other than that, I can read most WordPress blogs.

This is not related to this post but can we have the tags search capability back on WordPress.com front page?

Thaksin uses Bush’s lobbyist service (apprently not “enough” politics for him)

Now that Thaksin’s news are floating around international arena again. Lets see how all of the sudden (and months after the former PM has been ousted), the foreign media is interested in Thaksin again. (I just use the word “again” again?) Seth Mydans reported from Singapore for The New York Times:

In recent months, Mr. Thaksin has been traveling through Asia, from Hong Kong to Bali to China to Singapore to Japan, meeting with supporters and keeping his name in the newspapers at home.

He is represented in Washington by Barbour Griffith & Rogers, a prominent lobbying firm, and he has hired the public relations firm Edelman of New York to help arrange meetings with the news media.

In a telephone interview from Hong Kong, Alan VanderMolen, vice president for Asia and the Pacific at Edelman, said, “We’re working with him in his capacity as a private citizen and supporting some media outreach to support his efforts to return to Thailand.”

Who’s Barbour Griffith & Rogers? A lobbyist company for Bush administration run by Robert D Blackwill who once served as “Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Planning under President George W. Bush.”

Here’s a Lobbying Registratoin document from the US Senate:

Thaksin has recently spoke through the media in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan. On a CNN program in Singapore, he said “enough is enough” when asked if he would be back in politics again.

Now the information above didn’t agree with what the man just said. If you were to quit politics, why would you try so hard to get yourself back in the news paying for all those coverages and lobbyist services? Just to get return to Thailand?

If Thaksin just wanted to be back in Thailand, the government already said that all Thaksin needs is to say he will “stop all (political) movements and express that his family wants to live in peace.” Hiring a formidable US lobbyist firm and paid for media exposure to return to Thailand? Oops, I don’t think this sounds like a man who has “enough” politics. (A minus point for you, Mr Thaksin.)

Thaksin’s lawyer still lied all over TV saying Thaksin didn’t use the service from the BG&R and only met with the “old friends” at BG&R because, he said, Thai government used the service from BG&R when Thaksin was the PM. Fact is (and confirmed by Thai officials), Thai government has never used services from BG&R before. It was Thaksin’s old company, Shin Satellite:

Acorrding to the US Senate information, Thaksin’s old company, Shin Satellite, used the service from BG&R to lobby for investment for the IP-Star satellite. And Thaksin lied, back when he just got elected the second time, saying he had never used the service. (2 minus points for you two, Mr Thaksin and Mr Lawyer.)

When the news broke here in Thailand that there’s evidence Thaksin hired BG&R, Thaksin’s lawyer changed the tone and said Thaksin only hired BG&R to reserch on some information that may have been miscarried out since the coup. Oh, you gonna change just like that? (One minus point for Thaksin’s lawyer.)

OK I agree it’s not like everybody says the truth in politics here. But a regular is a regualr, right?

So today we have a total of 4 minus points for the tagteam of Mr Thaksin and his lawyer. An image of Thai pinup girl below to wash the politics dirt off your mind:

More new policies, foreign investors grumble + warn against Thaksin news

Some updates about Thai politics:
Thaksin needs a visa to stay in China (and 50 other countries) now, The Nation reported:

Thai government informed China on Thursday that it has decided to revoke diplomatic passports of deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife, Khunying Pojaman, implying that they needed to request visa to stay in China.

This comes after a series of bombing in the middle of Bangkok during new year festivities. I’ll repeat myself again that this kind of terrors have never happened before in the city of Bangkok. Well, not in my memories anyway. Thai people may be violent at times. But they don’t do this kind of stuff. This is totally new. People suspect the Thaksin’s group was behind all this. Earlier, political figures with close ties to Thaksin flew over to China. It was reported that Thaksin was also in China at the time.

Another news: some foreign investors are critical about the Thai government’s recent accouncements regarding foreigners’ controls over companies operated in Thailand:

The most recent confusion came with an announcement Tuesday that Thailand would tighten rules for foreign companies operating in the country. But according to The Associated Press, Finance Minister Pridiyathorn Devakula told foreign investors in Bangkok Wednesday that the new, more restrictive rules would not apply to telecommunications companies, a reversal of Tuesday’s announcement.

Looks like some people /person in the policy making bunch are trying to help make the scandalous tax-free Shin Corp sales by Thaksin to Temsek Holding a “clean” one. Lets change the word “government” in the above quote to “Finance Minister Pridiyathorn Devakula.”

More Thaksin news recently in the media here in Thailand. In fact too much news for an ousted man and the government expresses it’s concern. Thai media publishers/ broadcasters are warned against news from Thaksin’s lawyers who apparently having a media war with the government.

Lastly, check out my new uploads on flickr. Old pictures, cute girl.

Slowly fixing the telco connections in Taiwan

My internet is being fixed. International connections (connecting to WordPress.com, for example) will be slow at least for a good while (according to CCTV news):

Telecommunication operators and Internet users need to sit tight a little longer before service returns to normal. Authorities say damage to undersea cables caused by an earthquake off Taiwan is more serious than previously thought. And repairs are still ongoing

I’m hopeful I’ll be fast browsing international porn websites again by the next quarter.

More new year bombing

Apparently the new year bombing in Bangkok didn’t stop since I posted last time. I said 2 killed and more than 6 explosion. Here’s an update from Bangkok Post:

In all, three Thais were killed and 36 people were wounded, 27 of them Thai.

Thaksin denied bombing (what a piece of news. Would you admit you killed your wife? This guy didn’t. )

People’s Daily China pointed out (after reading the same newspaper I read: The Nation) that:

Thai government fails to establish culprits of Bangkok bomb attacks

Lets replace the word “government” with “police” in the above sentence. The bombs exploded near police stations/booths. While 36 people wounded and 3 killed by the bombs, no police officers had any scratch. All police officers are so lucky to be far enough away from the bombs. Hypothesis:

Bombers didn’t want to hurt police.

Why?

Happy New Year from Bangkok

New year is here in Thailand. Have a great great 2007 everybody. In the picture is the Rama VIII bridge in the city of Bangkok — still calm and beautiful, despite the scare earlier tonight.

Bombs in Bangkok ruined new year parties

People here in Bangkok got their new year celebration parties ruined by six or more bombs that went off in the city earlier tonight (Dec 31st). There are 2 people dead already and the mayor cancelled 2 celebration parties in the city for precaution. From BBC:

At least six blasts at widely-scattered places occurred within an hour or so as streets were filling up with people ahead of New Year’s Eve celebrations.

From a Thai perspective, we know the militants in the south has the least bit to do with the bombing. They have never gone beyond the near-border provinces. This kind of terrors have never happened in Bangkok before — or at least I have never heard of such in my few decades of livining here. We have seen undercover police beating up 70 year old man who was protesting the Thaksin regime a few months ago (before Thaksin was ousted). Hence the suspect (from The Nation):

A security source said the Council for National Security may order the seizure of assets of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to cut money supply for financing disturbance in the country.

The source said the CNS believed Thaksin was behind the series of seven bomb attacks in Bangkok Sunday evening.

The source said the CNS noted many bombs were launched at police booths but none of police officers were injured.

Makes sense to me because Thaksin is about to lose neary everything he’s got (stolen) since the current government took over and open series of investigations and lawsuits against all that invoived in (possible?) mega corruptions.

See picture here.

Unplugged in Thailand (The Asia-Wide Internet Down Time)

There was an earthquake in Taiwan yesterday. Internet here in Thailand was almost disconnected from the rest of the world. Google was unreachable (except a few sub domains like image.google.com, news.google.com). Technorati and a whole horde of sites were also unreachable. CNN has an update on the news:

Nearly all Asia’s earthquake-disrupted Internet service and 80 percent of its phone service should be restored by noon (0400 GMT) Thursday, a Taiwanese official said following one of the largest telecommunications outages in years to hit Asia.

…

The 6.7-magnitude earthquake and aftershocks on Tuesday night and Wednesday caused disruptions for major telecommunications operators from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, China, Singapore and South Korea — with ripple effects spreading beyond Asia.

Add that tiny litle Kngdom of Thailand in that list too. No time to check news on what happened in neighbour countries like Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar .. (List goes on.. sorry friends if I forgot to mention your country. Doesn’t mean we aren’t friends