Gaybutton

If that 1300 baht figure is correct, my guess is that was what was asked for both the room rental and the 'tip' for the boy. Regarding the attorney for the bar, I'd love to be the attorney too. The attorney will get a retainer for doing nothing. I have yet to see any of these bar raid cases ever make it as far as a courtroom. Fountainhall points out that subjecting farang customers to urine testing is not new. Granted, but it certainly is rare. As far as I know, in the Pattaya gay bar scene it is virtually unheard of until now, although I do recall reading about it on rare occasions involving Walking Street bars. At the time I'm posting this, it's just after 10:00pm in Thailand, so it might be a little early yet, but if anyone reading this was in Sunee Plaza this evening, please let us know if Nice Boys is shut down or open and if you heard any more about this incident. You know you're in trouble when the most accurate reporting about these things ends up coming from HeyGay rather than the English language media. So, HeyGay, if you are reading this, what have you heard?

If people would like to have a meet-and-greet, what's wrong with everyone ordering his own drinks and paying his own bill, without looking for discounts?

Is he? Maybe he's on a secret mission. He hasn't said anything to me.

I don't know how accurate they are, but to date I have never heard anyone who had to submit to it saying the test was inaccurate and I have also never heard of anyone testing positive when in reality it was due to meds they were taking. That, of course, is not to say that it can't happen. Once again, if all the bars were doing what they are supposed to be doing, nobody would have to worry. But until that day comes, it certainly is a legitimate concern. "Balthasar is a good man. But until all men are like him, we must keep our swords bright." - Hugh Griffith (Sheik Ilderim), 'Ben-Hur'

Not yet. GT is not currently present in Thailand. It might be something we will consider doing once he returns.

That's one my peeves. If I had my way, any bar caught employing under-age boys would be immediately shut down - permanently. It really gets beyond annoying when the customers are the ones who end up having to take responsibility for checking ages, having to deal with the possibility of being caught up in raids, urine tests, etc. It also gets beyond annoying when you consistently hear that the powers-that-be are working to rid Pattaya of the pedophiles, and yet even when caught most of these bars are allowed to remain open, are shut down for only a short period of time, are permitted to reopen under a different name, and the people responsible for letting under-age boys work in these places never seem to have to stand trial and be sent to prison. Instead, they pay a fine and are right back plying their trade usually within 24 hours. Those who are not pedophiles end up directly affected by all of this nonsense and so do the bars that operate legitimately. There seems to be no end to it. If the bar has been shut down, I doubt it will take very long to find the same boys working in other bars and/or a bunch of new faces suddenly appearing on Gay Romeo.

I don't know whether an "undercover agent of foreign nationality" has ever been used, but the part that I'm wondering about is the 'anonymous tip.' Why is it that everyone seems to know what goes on in some of these bars except the police? I also don't know why Nice Boys would have been involved in this crap in the first place. That's one of the few bars that seemed to be doing well, but there you have it. This is also the first Sunee Plaza raid I've heard about since before the Red Shirt demonstrations. I can't help but be a little suspicious that there was more behind this raid than the police suddenly figuring out that a Sunee Plaza bar just might be employing under-age boys or just might have employees on drugs. They needed a foreign undercover agent to give them a clue? Ok . . . There is a second article on Pattaya One: Underage Boys found in Police raid of South Pattaya Gay Bar | Pattaya One News Both articles are essentially the same, but the Pattaya One article says that the farang customers were also subjected to urine tests for drugs. That is unusual. During raids the farang customers are usually just told to leave, but apparently not this time. Neither article says whether the bar will be allowed to remain open or if it is now shut down. If anyone happens to be in the area this evening, please let us know.

I doubt it. I don't know of any kind of agency that keeps such statistics other than hotel occupancy and tourist arrival numbers. However, even when the TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand) publishes those numbers, I'm very skeptical of the accuracy and honesty. The numbers they publish just don't jive with what anyone can see with their own eyes. You don't need statistics, though, to easily see that numbers are way down. Using just the bars as an example, it wasn't very long ago that you could walk into any bar and find plenty of customers. Lately, however, even in high season you can still walk into a number of bars and find yourself to be the only customer. In some restaurants, where before you were lucky to get in without a reservation, now you see the waiters standing around forlornly hoping at least somebody will come in. I haven't encountered a business of any kind recently that isn't complaining of low customer numbers and low sales. Even the businesses that are getting customers are complaining that people just are not spending the amounts they used to spend. Within the past year I've seen more bars and restaurants close their doors than I can remember ever in Thailand. With the bars, it used to seem as soon as one closed, somebody would snatch it up almost immediately and reopen. These days, however, that doesn't seem to be happening nearly as much. Most bars I see close remain closed or I'm seeing long periods of time go by before anyone invests in reopening them. In short, numbers or not, things are really tough right now, and the high season is still several months away. One thing my group of friends has noticed, though, when it comes to restaurants, the better ones, good quality food, reasonable prices, good service, etc, are still usually quite busy.

Well, maybe I can make it up to you this way: The reason I was there was because a group of six of us wanted to try a fairly new Korean barbeque restaurant called Red Kimchi, which turned out to be very good. To find it you exit the Royal Garden shopping mall on the Beach Road side. Don't go down the steps. Instead, make an immediate right turn and you'll see it just past the Burger King. If you get as far as the TMB currency exchange booth, you went too far. Go on a Tuesday or Saturday. If you go with another person, on those two days it's 2-for-1. Our dinner, based on that, was 220 baht each, including water and tip. It's buffet style and it's not the usual Thai buffet at which you find low quality foods. This was all high quality and very good. We all enjoyed it. So, you might not get the DVD you hoped for, but if you enjoy that kind of food, it's worth trying. One Thai young man was with us and he liked it as much as we did.

I'm afraid I owe you an apology. It's been well over a year since I was last in Royal Garden. This evening I was there. CD Warehouse is closed and gone. When I asked I was told they have not reopened elsewhere.

Northwest Airlines Found to Violate FAA Rules From Allan Chernoff, CNN July 23, 2010 (CNN) -- Northwest Airlines violated more than 1,000 Federal Aviation Administration safety directives, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel has found, substantiating complaints of an FAA whistleblower. Northwest, now merged with Delta Airlines, engaged in "systemic non-compliance with FAA Airworthiness Directives," the investigation concluded, referring to government rules designed to remedy an unsafe or potentially unsafe condition. Northwest Airlines violates FAA rules

The last sentence in that article says, "Mr. Pletnevs

I really wasn't very interested in this case until this occurred. Now I would love to know the explanation as to why this step was taken. If he would have been found guilty, then why would Thailand not want him sent to jail like any other pedophile? If he would have been found not guilty, what would Thailand have had to lose by exonerating an innocent man? There must be more to the story than has been published. Why would Thailand want this case to just fade away? How far up the ladder did it go before this decision was announced? It would be difficult to believe such a move would have been made in a high profile case like this without it first going to the very top. As far as I know, doing things this way is unprecedented in Thailand. It's probably unprecedented anywhere. I've never heard of any government anywhere, ever in history, revoking a visa in a manner that effectively quashes prosecution of a case, especially a high profile case. As far as I know, this is a first. Now I'm waiting to see a warrant issued for his arrest because he failed to show up every 12 days to report to the court. That sounds nuts. This turn of events definitely gets a prominent position on my "I Don't Get It" list.

I love it when the weird stories get even weirder.

I know this is a dumb question, but why would it matter if the link can be traced?

I understand that. Maybe I'm just getting senile, but I don't understand the sarcasm.

I think that is a reasonable idea too, although I don't know how much of a software modification would be necessary or whether it can be done that way at all. However, I can see a few problems associated with it. If it is possible to do, I would set the editing time limit to two or three hours or after a reply has been submitted, whichever comes first. I would also allow an editing time of at least one hour even after a reply has been submitted because quite often a reply is made virtually immediately, which would mean the post can't be edited at all. I think a time limit of at least one hour is reasonable because quite often people have second thoughts about what they said, the way they said it, or they think of ways they want to add to or otherwise improve their post. Sometimes they decide they want their post removed entirely. I think they should have a reasonable amount of time to be able to do that whether their post has been replied to or not. The only other problem I can see is unless a post is edited almost immediately, a lot of people who had already read the post as originally submitted will never see that it has been edited. It won't show up as a new post, even with use of the 'View New Content' feature. Maybe that can be modified somehow too, but I can also see problems if that is done. I also think simply proofreading, carefully, both before submitting the post and again immediately after would solve most of the problems. Use of a spell checker wouldn't hurt either.

It's not the non-Thai beggars I have anything against. It's the people engaged in the human trafficking who brought them here in the first place that I have plenty against. If I give money to the beggars then that means I'm giving most of it to them. No thank you very much. They're not getting one baht of my money. I'm very sorry for the beggars and the horrible lives they lead. If I thought putting money in their begging cups would actually help them in any way, I'd be doing it. But it won't help them. Their lives are not going to improve one iota through begging and I'm not about to contribute any of my money so some human trafficker piece of shit is that much closer to buying himself a new Porsche. I can only hope the day will come when the traffickers end up sitting on a sidewalk with begging cups themselves, or better still sitting in the middle of the Bangkok Hilton. I also don't give to the Salvation Army. I'm waiting for the Salvation Navy. I don't understand what you are driving at in your "I must be some sort of asshole" statement.

Trust me on this one, those upper limits don't mean squat. See for yourself. Send messages to a couple of those boys. Even try the ones whose upper limit says 30. Tell them you're 80. If they're money boys, and often even if they're not, you'll still get an "I want to meet you" response.

I don't agree with that statement at all. I don't give to the beggars. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. And it has nothing to do with making me feel good. It has to do with common sense. You almost never see the same beggars in the same place more than once. Many are incapacitated. Ever wonder how they got there? Ever wonder where they disappear to at the end of the day? Ever wonder how they know where the most likely lucrative begging spots happen to be? Ever wonder what becomes of the money they collect? I never see any of them trying to buy anything anywhere. Ever notice how most of them don't talk? That's because most of them can't speak Thai. You know why? Most are not Thai. I have no way to prove they are mafia controlled, but people in a position to know these things have been telling me for many years all about it and that the mafia keeps 80% of what they manage to collect. But even if that's not true. Even if the beggars are able to keep every baht they collect, I still won't give them anything at all. That's everybody's individual decision. If you want to give them money, go right ahead, but don't expect me to do the same.

Neither do I, but I'll bet whatever it's called, it's not called Manna from Heaven.

In Thailand there aren't too many other options. You could always download the ones you want, put them on a DVD, and then watch them on TV. Personally I prefer that anyway. No commercials.

You might also try Amazon and eBay. If they have it but won't ship to Thailand, maybe you can have a friend bring it over for you or have it sent to a friend and then have him mail it to you. I think CD Warehouse is either on the top floor or one floor below the top at Royal Garden.

You don't have to miss her anymore. Go to YouTube and search for Judge Judy. There's dozens of them there. I'm a big fan too. That's how I found the one I posted.

It's been ages since I was there, but at the Royal Garden shopping mall there is a shop called CD Warehouse or something like that. They carry a lot of DVD titles you don't find elsewhere. You might want to have a look there.