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.

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 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?

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.

Picasa’s bad translation

I’m a Picasa fan. Great image organizer, snappy photo editing. Lately, I downloaded a new version and it got Thai interface. All the menus and buttons are in Thai instead of English.

Most of the time, a Thai language interface is very confusing and not very useful. I can start the list from Microsoft Windows XP’s down to Thai breeded softwares. (A lot of what’s in the TV’s and electronic appliances just look really bad.) Bad use of language and just pain in the ass to use. I can understand the limitations of most translators that they may not have much awareness in terms of usability. But this time in Picasa, Google took it to the next level.

In place of the buttons and everywhere “I’m Feeling Lucky,” they use Thai phrase “ดีใจจัง ค้นแล้วเจอเลย” which in English means “I’m so happy I search and got the results.” Well, the button is supposed to automatically enhance/edit the photo for me. Nothing to do with search here.

Despite the excessive “I’m so happy” part (I don’t think users look for happiness here.. they just want to search and got a result right away) this phrase “I’m so happy I search and got the results” does not represent the functionality of this button in Picasa at all. It’s OK if use in Google search (although, still quite awkward and sounds really stupid). But to use in Picasa for automatic photo enhancing, is just embarrassment for Google.

I wonder who Google hires for Thai language extension/ interface translation. Is he/she/it a human at all? Could it be the computer that does all this work for Google all along?