Bob

Nice photos. It's not that easy to take quality photos like that with most digital cameras. Can you indicate what brand and model you used?

I can understand your unstated but obvious concern at the impolite tone of Khun Thaiworthy's remarks but the announcement that you "undertood perfectly" the OP's post is a somewhat of a strange way to suggest that. And, perhaps, a bit unbelieveable in some quarters. As for Pong's apparent political proclivities let alone his method for stating same, I'll abstain for the moment in commenting on those issues and, instead, ask Pong the following: (1) Do you believe that the yellow shirts are any more or less of a "mob" than the redshirts? (2) Do you believe that there are more or less "butch-like massageladies" in the group that occupied Government house (and/or the international airport) than are or have been demonstrating in Bangkok or elsewhere? (3) And, much more importantly, do you believe that the redshirts espouse more of a concept of democracy than the military, elite, or others who engineered or supported the coup? And, if you want, is espousing democracy even a good thing?

Ah, the old "chak waaw" (ชักว่าว) expression (literal translation meaning to fly a kite although the word "chak" means to pull or tug and, of course, the "waaw" means a "kite"). Not sure if I mentioned this before but asked a Thai friend what would be the Thai words or idiom for female masturbation. He said: "Dtok bhlaa." Pretty funny as those are the Thai words that literally mean "to go fishing."

I don't have a clue so I won't waste anybody's time taking a guess. One photo - photo "E" - reminds me a bit of the promenade in front of Chapultepec (spelling?) castle in Mexico City but I wouldn't bet on it. Good luck to the participants.

That's my kind of site - banning me before I even go there! Somewhat reminds me of the line I often steal/vary from Groucho Marx: That I'd never belong to "X" if it'd have me as a member!

Well, I'll give it my best (meaning no guarantee but I do note that I think I'm pretty sure of the meaning): 1 + 2 = how much? (the answer to be in Thai characters/letters). So....guess the answer would be สาม ("saam", rising tone, meaning "three")! If I'm wrong, Khun Khortose (which, technically, should be Khun Kaw-toht!) will eat your hat....

While admittedly I wouldn't vote for Ron Paul under almost any circumstances, I've got to defend the guy a little. As misguided as he is on some (okay...many) issues, he's at least consistent and saying his notions in an honest manner from the heart. God knows that the other candidates will say next week but it most likely will be consistent with whatever the pollsters tell them at that moment (regardless if inconsistent with prior positions) that their audience du jour of rabid right-wingers want to hear. As to Ru Paul, I'm sorry, I don't accept I'm even in the same species that Ms./Mr. Paul inhabits. Sort of like a cross between Jim and Tammy Baker on methamphetamines. [Come to think of it, I wonder if John Paul (yea, da pope) is Ru's brother as they appear to have worn similar outfits....]

Romney in my eyes has also jumped up a notch in stature - given he's not showing up to this so-called debate either. The Republican show has been pretty sad so far and now their elevating it to reality tv entertainment. How pathetic.

The drivers in California whizzing through some of those fogs are simply insane. I only did it once a long time ago. I didn't dare to slow down because everybody was going like a bat out of hell and you knew somebody would ram into your backside if you tried to slow down. I was desparately looking for an exit to get out of that madness but, hell, the fog was so bad you couldn't see either exit signs or exits! A not-so-thrilling white knuckle ride. The Japan crash FH posts about sounds like a bunch of juvenile boneheads trying to outdo each other. It brings to mind the Thai idiom "som nam naa" which means "you get what you deserve" or "serves them right!"

Yep, both were big showbiz guys who were obviously talented as hell and had the personal persona (visage) of having died long before their time. We used to watch Ed Sullivan just because he was so awkwardly funny and talked so strangely (a "really big shoe" tonight). Larry King was a mild-mannered interviewer that did his job well although, at times, failed to press the really hard questions (nevertheless, a great interviewer).

How much "respect" others have for the attempted but failed putdown of poster FH? Sorry, none in this corner.

I'm not 100% sure but I think Harvey stole that one from a female comedienne (whose name I can't remember at the moment - but could have been as far back as Totie Fields). The way she said it was more like: As for men, there's not enough blood in the world to fill both heads and have them both work properly at the same time. Funny nevertheless (and, like most jokes and funny humor, relies on the fact that there's just a wee bit of truth in the concept).

Hmmm, thanks for the compliment (I think) but, in reality, I lack the capacity to express the same sentiments in such an intelligent manner (such as might be said by H.L. Mencken?). I do remember my father when being asked after a doctor's appointment how he was doing and his remarking: "No problem but the doctor did tell me not to buy any green bananas." Most likely he stole that line from somebody else. I used to have a lot of thoughts on aging but I've forgotten most of them.

I'm with Khun Thaiworthy on this one. I just don't see the point or the need. I'd hate risking changing the tenor of the board just to join the gabillion other websites that have nudity. Plus, while I'm not offended by it at all (and can see the beauty occasionally), I almost never go look at it anymore anyway. Maybe a sign of age [or, like the kid in the candystore (I live most of the time in Thailand), it loses its allure after seeing it a few million times]

Our governments or subsections of same sometimes come up with the most god awful ideas. Recently, our ATF (Alcohol, Firearms & Tabacco) was engaged in an operation dubbed "Fast and Furious" to attempt to trace weapons to the higher echelons of the Mexican drug cartels. To do that, the bozos (ATF agents) furnished thousands of weapons (including some exceptionally nasty ones)across the border into Mexico to lower-level drug dealers. So....not that anybody should have "thunk" of this at the time....the ATF loses track of hundreds of these guns, mant of which have been linked with many violent crimes (including the murder of a border agent) within the US (god only knows how many crimes or deaths occurred within Mexico itself due to all these guns). They get an "A" for the intent to hunt down the higher echelons but, of course, they get less than an "F" for coming up with this wacky idea as to how to do it. Come on, you don't give thousands of dangerous weapons to a bunch of drug dealers in Mexico (or is that too obvious!)! The surviving relatives of the border patrol agent must lay awake at night wondering why the hell their relative died from a gun given to drug dealers by their own damn government. I'm sure the US and British governments actually have come up with some really bright ideas lately; unfortunately, I can't think of any at the moment.

No ire from me but that doesn't mean I agree at all with your analysis (well, conjecture). We've got enough of what we sometimes call "conspiracy nuts" in the US and it'd be nice if we could convince our British friends to spend more time worrying about what the British government does rather than what they think the US government is withholding from its own citizens. With respect to events prior to 9/11, there have been some legitimate arguments that our intelligence services (along with the FBI) could have put 2 + 2 together had there been more coordination of the services but that's simply hindsight and flyspecking certain data (much like picking out one small part of one daily briefing as you have done). The word "deliberate" you used expresses intentional conduct and that's where I part company from your allegations. While I can understand someone arguing incompetence, deliberate conduct is way off the chart in my view. And untrue (or, perhaps better said, there's no rational basis to believe it is true). Frankly, most of our politicians and technocrats are just too damn dumb to keep a true secret for very long. And if it's a secret that could ruin somebody's career or reputation, that's almost sure to come out in the wash. Credible in-the-know authors/journalists such as Bernstein and others have dug as deep as you can into the subjects you raise and even they don't hint at or suggest that there were deliberate or intentional failures or mistakes with respect to so-called warnings leading up to the 9/11 attacks. That's good enough for me.

It's my view that anyone who's fairly read the newspapers in the years following 9/11 knows the "true" story of what happened (to the extent that anything can be known). Saying otherwise is simply baseless conjecture. And, while I strongly disliked Bush, Jr., and detested some of the neo-cons (such as Cheney and Wolfowitz) surrounding him, even I wouldn't make the claim that any of them "deliberately ignored" information that might have led the government to avert the attacks. Do you really think it's fair to use words like that ("deliberately ignored") without any reasonable basis in fact to do so? And saying the Bush administration was "complicit in the attacks" - under any type of context - is absolutely beyond me. Even Bush's harshest political enemies wouldn't use that kind of language. It's inflamatory, baseless, and just plain wrong.

Out of curiosity, was it the Ambassador herself or the embassy that sent the letter? Presuming it was the embassy (there are personnel who's job it is to assist American citizens involved in foreign criminal proceedings), do you have any information whether the Ambassador knew about the letter? As to the contents of the letter (which I believe was given as information to the court for sentencing purposes after the guy pleaded guilty to the murder), can you advise of why you indicate there was any factual errors in it?

No problem at all with flooding there or anywhere near Chiangmai. The flooding we had only lasted a few days and that occurred well over a month ago.

I understand the intellectual question posed but, with all due respect, I reject the underlying tone there. Before attempting to answer something impossible to answer, perhaps someone might first tell us if the effort and money spent by England to research and combat HIV/aids around the world has been even 1/100th of the US effort? Or didn't they know about the problem across the pond?

I've never been on their grounds but a couple of falang who stayed there told me they liked it. But I agree with you about the location (not at all located for walking to anywhere or near anything of that much interest) although those with their own transportation probably wouldn't mind that at all.

Good questions and ones I've wondered about too. If/when I ever get crazy enough to build a house up here around Chiangmai, one of my main concerns is that the house will meet reasonable ("reasonable" in the sense of nothing like I've seen in most of Thailand) plumbing, electrical, water, and sewage systems. If you know, PM, how was the septic set up? Was there a vent system set up for the waste pipes in the house? Grounded electrical system? Just curious.

While I don't know if it's true, a few Thais have told me that the hotels are "full" up here due to an influx of the flood victims. With the Loy Krathong activities starting tonight and going through Friday, you might not want to simply show up and expect to get a room this week. Some of us rather like the Chiangmai atmosphere just as it is (while the "enhanced gay life" of Bangkok is perfectly fine for Bangkok, I do hope it's not exported up here).