Yes, Bangkok Dan, you are also an anonymous PC, and dare I say, opinionated “warrior”, though I feel a little queasy to read about your all knowing opinions outside the realm of your blog.
There are many problems with the Thai system of government, not least among which are:
* Corruption is entrenched.
* Governance is not strong enough to identify and punish corrupt officials.
* While corruption is frowned upon it is expected and to a large extent tolerated by the population.
Cultural change amongst voters is required before change will occur, it isn’t going to happen overnight.
@Superanonymous: “Simon and BangkokDan: Could you please tell us to what you are referring: “A photographer goes to battlezone and ignores repeated and unambiguous warnings to leave. “As Simon said, he was warned.” What warnings?”
The government issued multiple public warnings via radio, television, loudspeaker. The warnings were broadcast in Thai and English. There was an explicit appeal for media to leave. The government was also in direct touch with major media firms, some of whom did pull their journalists. The final push was not an ambush, everyone knew it was going to happen.
I’m quite surprised to be asked about this, but I guess its an example of where people who aren’t based in Bangkok are at a bit of a disadvantage in terms of access to information. If you don’t believe me, I’m sure you can verify this via Google if you wish.
[…] that “investigations into the killings of a Japanese reporter [Hiroyuki Muramoto] and Italian reporter [Fabio Polenghi] have not been completed […]
I have no idea why BangkokDan throws in the world inequality data in his “argument” about sanity/insanity. However, readers should look at the inequality data in the UNDP report. It begins on p. 195 of the report.
I think I am right in saying that Thailand is ranked at 87 on the HDI index. Of the countries ranked above it for HDI , Thailand’s Gini is exceeded only by 15 countries. All of those are in Latin America and Caribbean, except for Turkey and Hong Kong. Below Thailand, the same pattern holds until HDI rank 125, where only the Philippines and Botswana fall outside the Latin America and Caribbean countries.
How are big business transactions normally dealt? Carloads? Drugs or something that these cash needs to be laundered! Those billions of baht cash were trucked away. That was the fact of his relatives’ withdrawals during that period of time. A big move made by a jaded politician’s is not likely single track. That is why you are doing the speculation here in this thread at NM. I wonder if the Thai senator Kriengkrai has sniffed out the fishy side of these extraordinary large cash withdrawals.?
I think you misunderstood the whole conflict. Its not only about the gap between rich and poor but rather the crash of ideology, the injustice in the jurisdiction and simply the crash of the progressive and conservative. If you look at maslow’s theory poor people actually demand more when they are wealthier, such as political recognition and so on. Matter of fact I know many red shirt who got asset in the billion (and they are not part of Thaksin and his network). So when you give Gini cof. It’s actually reaffirmed that this is not the crash of poor stupid people from the up country and the over sea graduated Bangkok elites but rather something more complex than that.
What I’ve been told is that the type of wound and the trajectory and elevation indicate sniper – if it was a sniper then Fabio was deliberately targeted and not caught in random crossfire. If it was random crossfire why wasn’t the report released? Wounds from short-range random crossfire could easily be attributed to any source. Wounds from a high velocity bullet fired from distance are entirely different.
Seems like you dodged a couple of my points particularly confirming your “they were militants” line. Yes, you make assumptions – everyone does. Without assumptions the carefully calibrated semantics of meaning would collapse. In this instance you made an assumption that someone firing grenades were Red Shirts – who told you this? You’ve still not confirmed your source or the facts of the matter.
I choose to post anonymously for security reasons – if you haven’t figured out why people might do so in Thailand then, errr, maybe you’ve missed a detail or two?
To be honest, I consider a lot of mainstream Westerns journalism in Thailand as being completely compromised – LM, family ties, Napas-led pogroms, death threats etc etc – means that many journalists, particulary freelancers who are not backed by big media corps such as Rueters, BBC et al are incredibly exposed. This exposure then causes a huge amount of self-censorship – I wonder how these same journalists would report the crisis if they had complete freedom from these intrusions?
So, I’ll remain underground and get to say what I want, when I want without recourse to government attack.
And I’ll do anything I possibly can, from the confines I have to work in, to make sure this govt is held to account. That’s my agenda.
Anger? Yeah, you’d know about that. Your anger during the Red Shirt protests was revoltingly self-evident by your continual applauding of the incredibly violent government actions. If you consider a few angry words on a blog as equal to that then I’d suggest you lack any sense of perspective whatsoever. Sorry you and your kid couldn’t play football but entirely innocent people, like Fabio, were getting their brains blown out. Your selfishness is utterly grotesque.
Any idiot knows this isn’t about economic equality (though that is a factor) – it is only about political equality. That a poor farmer may have to take shit for 3yrs 364days out of every 4yrs but on one day in that time frame his vote makes him an equal to the most venal Thai hiso. But that’s being taken away.
The T word? You mean Thanarat? Or Thanom? Or Tinsulanonda? Those 3 Ts have done more to damage Thai democracy than 100 Thaksins.
Words I wouldn’t use to denounce my ex-wife, if I’d be divorced. But the choice of words reflects the anger. Running out of clear reasons and arguments blind hate must do.
Am just a family guy who tries to make a living here. Who tried to go play football with his son during the mayhem. The red rage orchestrated by a egotistic red elite didn’t make life easier for us. It’s better again, as it’s better for millions of Thai people.
And I quote commenter Surie from my unimportant silly little blog:
Actually according to the latest figures from the UNDP Global Development Report 2009, Thailand’s level of inequality as measured by Gini Coefficient stands at 42.5 which is same as Singapore (42.5) and lower than Hong Kong (43.4), Mexico(48.1), Chile (52), Venezuela (43.4), Brazil (55), Turkey (43.2).
And as measured by the gap between richest 10% to poorest 10% of population, Thailand’s figure stands at 13.1, which is lower than that of U.S. at 15.9, U.K. at 13.8, Singapore at 17.7, Hong Kong at 17.8, Portugal at 15, Chile at 26.2, Mexico at 21, Venezuela at 18.8, Brazil at 40.6, Turkey at 17.4.
There goes your argument for the insanity.
Long live the anonymous PC warriors who know it all.
A Don Quichotte’s task really to post such stuff on this forum, but been there, saw the tunnel-vision mentality. There’s a much broader, richer world out there. And not as black and white as you wish.
Oh, and don’t let me mention the T-word. Some would say that’s the one who got them all killed.
Given your critical view of Thein Pe Myint, would you be more sympathetic to Maung Htin? Like you, he was also critical (for example, in Ngaba) of the anti-Indian and anti-Chinese fervor of the nationalists.
But to be fair to Thein Pe Myint, although he sought to explain (and therefore justify?) the anti-Indian riots of 1930s along class lines (i.e. Burmese labourers against Indian capitalists), he also tried to distinguish between Indian capitalists and Indian labourers. In a contribution to the Nagani Book Club (here) he praised the Indian labourers for siding with their Burmese co-labourers in the oil-field strikes, as quoted here:
But actually, I don’t think the ordinary poor Indians, who came and lived in Burma are ungrateful. They never attack the Burmese. They don’t treat the Burmese as their enemies. And sometimes they work together with the Burmese for better or for worse. In oil-field strikes such as Yenan-gyaung and Syriam and some other strikes, Indian workers and Burmese workers were inseparable. And it is certain that even if the capitalist and middle class Indians try to break their unity, they will not be divided.
Sanam Luang is closed for renovation now so the main event was held at Royal Plaza.
A few days ago a snapshot taken from the back circulated, showing mostly empty rows of plastic chairs. I didn’t save the pic. Maybe someone else can help posting it.
Chris,
In Pattaya the fireworks celebration was arguably the best ever put on locally.
However the local people were more excited about the Fireworks than in the reason for the celebration. A lot of people mentioned Fireworks but I heard only a few references to “Mother’s Day” as the reason.
Also attendance was way up as a lot of people from Bangkok came down to watch the spectacle. It must have been heavily promoted.
In the past the celebrations were centered around the Bali Hai Pier. This time the fireworks were along the entire bay.
1. On 21 June 1997, Cambodia requested United Nations assistance in organizing the process for the Khmer Rouge trials, in early 2006 the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) were formally established.
2. The General Assembly convened a conference in Rome in June 1998, with the aim of finalising a treaty. On 17 July 1998, the Rome Statute of International Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted by a vote of 120 to 7, with 21 countries abstaining. The seven countries that voted against the treaty were China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, the United States, and Yemen.
3. Cambodian people decide to combine ECCC plus ICC to make the objectives of ECCC (No.1 + No. 2). The purpose of ECCC is to try senior members of the Khmer Rouge for serious violations of Cambodian penal law, international humanitarian law and custom, and violation of international conventions recognized by Cambodia, committed during the period between 17 April 1975 and 6 January 1979. This includes crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.
4. “Duch” used to be the governor of the Tuol Sleng prison, a centre of torture. In the late 1970s, an estimated 16,000 people were tortured there, of whom only seven or ten are known to have survived. It’s crimes against humanity by any measures.
5. And here’s what I understood Mr.Widyono’s points of view quoting from his article above-mentioned.
“International coverage of the Duch verdict eclipses two issues. First, the international community is ambivalent about the tribunal. Many consider it deeply flawed by corruption and interference by the Cambodian government. Others, especially in the West, insist that the tribunal must continue, as if this were the only road to justice and reconciliation in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia.”
“If the international tribunal were to end tomorrow, Cambodia would continue on its path to progress and reconciliation, aided by private investment and generous donors, whose efforts continue to lift Cambodia from poverty. This, understandably, is the subject that concerns Cambodians today.”
6. Lastly, Lee Jones and Benny Widyono, during the Cold War period, the organization was still SEATO not ASEAN because the bloc at the time had only 5 original members: the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. SEATO was U.S. military alliance during the Cold War, not a neutral organization. Thailand maneuvering reflected SEATO’s military objective as well as to serve Thailand own national security. The possibility of invasion (Vietnam + Cambodia) was prominent from the Thai military perspectives and thinking, thus Bangkok requested military assistance from China and the U.S. Hence, using Sattahip U-Tapao Navy Base was in the interests of Thailand’s national security.
(Here’s the short summary of SEATO became ASEAN. The bloc grew when Brunei became the sixth member after it joined on 8 January 1984. On 28 July 1995, Vietnam became the seventh member. Laos and Burma (Myanmar) joined two years later in 23 July 1997. Cambodia was to have joined together with Laos and Myanmar, but was deferred due to the country’s internal political struggle. The country later joined on 30 April 1999, following the stabilization of its government.)
“Secondly, I’m afraid “deliberately targeted” in this instance means being shot by an army sniper.”
Even this is an assumption. A sniper is a professional sharpshooter. There is no proof that Fabio was killed by such, or by the massive amounts of bullets fired by the soldiers into the Red Shirt area from the Saladaeng barricade – where i was.
The only thing we know so far is that there is an overwhelming likelihood that he was killed by a bullet fired by the army.
And yes, there are more than a few indications that there the government is not exactly forthcoming with information regarding this case, maybe even doing a “cover up”. Lets wait and see what the government will come up with.
You said:
“Also, as a journalist, I’m sure you’ve considered anonymous sources, tip-offs etc on more than one occasion.”
Yes of course. There is a basic difference though: I stand with my real name and reputation behind my sources that are known to me, and not with an anonymous handle. Over the years i have built a reputation, none of the facts i have presented have been disputed yet. I corroborate, verify and make sure that my sources do not lead me on (there are many of those attempts). If i would not do this, my professional reputation would be destroyed and i would have to face a mountain of legal cases.
Do you corroborate/verify/stand with your real name behind your information?
You asked:
“As for agendas – well, Nick, everyone has one of those. It just needs a bit of self-awareness to realise that. Yours is to sell your books, no? And to imply the agenda I have is to distort the truth is based on what evidence exactly?”
I do not know you, therefore i do not know what your agenda may be.
“Selling” my books is not my agenda, by the way, that is the agenda of my publisher. If that would be my agenda i would do more profitable books. My agenda is researching and making books that satisfy me. If others like them, and buy them, then this is just means that i did a good job.
Not the Nations satire is so close to the truth it is embarrassing, well for the Thai apologists anyway. I have never been to Cambodia but it appears also based on the Thai/Chinese model of absolute unrestrained corruption and outlandish wealth through government.
My ex-wide dreamed of her sons entering public service/army/police through bribes to a high position (the price was actually a bargain for the return) so they could partake in the rape of the economy and screwing the peasants, in retrospect seems she was right.
Parents, get your kids into the public sector, it is a growth industry, even in the US public parasites now make more money than the private even without the mandatory bribes. Over here, it is the only way to go for undereducated swill of the wealthy to attain more wealth and maintain social standing through screwing the competent.
Pity my son is half western, doors to the old semi-literate corruption establishment are closed to all that are not Thai or Chinese/Thai, not that racism exists of course. Just look how many half westerners are in government, the army, the bureaucracy and the police in Thailand.
I do think the what really happened the day he was killed we will never know. As there was no marterial law declared, nobody was responsible, as there was no action………..
Excellent satire – ASEAN has a long way to go before it buries the hatchets of past conflicts, to anything like the degree of success (by no means total) which the EU has achieved.
Once again Notthenation probably sails very close to the truth. In these Orwellian times the gap between truth and satire appears to be far less than the gap between truth and lies.
Thanong take note.
Reviewing events since 2003 it occurred to me that this was a very real possibility some weeks ago. I’m not even sure if it is satire anymore
I wonder if Khun Abhisit has time to read it? I think we should be told.
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Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
Yes, Bangkok Dan, you are also an anonymous PC, and dare I say, opinionated “warrior”, though I feel a little queasy to read about your all knowing opinions outside the realm of your blog.
Good deeds and parliament
There are many problems with the Thai system of government, not least among which are:
* Corruption is entrenched.
* Governance is not strong enough to identify and punish corrupt officials.
* While corruption is frowned upon it is expected and to a large extent tolerated by the population.
Cultural change amongst voters is required before change will occur, it isn’t going to happen overnight.
Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
@Superanonymous: “Simon and BangkokDan: Could you please tell us to what you are referring: “A photographer goes to battlezone and ignores repeated and unambiguous warnings to leave. “As Simon said, he was warned.” What warnings?”
The government issued multiple public warnings via radio, television, loudspeaker. The warnings were broadcast in Thai and English. There was an explicit appeal for media to leave. The government was also in direct touch with major media firms, some of whom did pull their journalists. The final push was not an ambush, everyone knew it was going to happen.
I’m quite surprised to be asked about this, but I guess its an example of where people who aren’t based in Bangkok are at a bit of a disadvantage in terms of access to information. If you don’t believe me, I’m sure you can verify this via Google if you wish.
Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
[…] that “investigations into the killings of a Japanese reporter [Hiroyuki Muramoto] and Italian reporter [Fabio Polenghi] have not been completed […]
Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
I have no idea why BangkokDan throws in the world inequality data in his “argument” about sanity/insanity. However, readers should look at the inequality data in the UNDP report. It begins on p. 195 of the report.
I think I am right in saying that Thailand is ranked at 87 on the HDI index. Of the countries ranked above it for HDI , Thailand’s Gini is exceeded only by 15 countries. All of those are in Latin America and Caribbean, except for Turkey and Hong Kong. Below Thailand, the same pattern holds until HDI rank 125, where only the Philippines and Botswana fall outside the Latin America and Caribbean countries.
Thitinan on Thailand’s “Dead-End”
How are big business transactions normally dealt? Carloads? Drugs or something that these cash needs to be laundered! Those billions of baht cash were trucked away. That was the fact of his relatives’ withdrawals during that period of time. A big move made by a jaded politician’s is not likely single track. That is why you are doing the speculation here in this thread at NM. I wonder if the Thai senator Kriengkrai has sniffed out the fishy side of these extraordinary large cash withdrawals.?
Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
BangkokDan -43
I think you misunderstood the whole conflict. Its not only about the gap between rich and poor but rather the crash of ideology, the injustice in the jurisdiction and simply the crash of the progressive and conservative. If you look at maslow’s theory poor people actually demand more when they are wealthier, such as political recognition and so on. Matter of fact I know many red shirt who got asset in the billion (and they are not part of Thaksin and his network). So when you give Gini cof. It’s actually reaffirmed that this is not the crash of poor stupid people from the up country and the over sea graduated Bangkok elites but rather something more complex than that.
Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
Nick
What I’ve been told is that the type of wound and the trajectory and elevation indicate sniper – if it was a sniper then Fabio was deliberately targeted and not caught in random crossfire. If it was random crossfire why wasn’t the report released? Wounds from short-range random crossfire could easily be attributed to any source. Wounds from a high velocity bullet fired from distance are entirely different.
Seems like you dodged a couple of my points particularly confirming your “they were militants” line. Yes, you make assumptions – everyone does. Without assumptions the carefully calibrated semantics of meaning would collapse. In this instance you made an assumption that someone firing grenades were Red Shirts – who told you this? You’ve still not confirmed your source or the facts of the matter.
I choose to post anonymously for security reasons – if you haven’t figured out why people might do so in Thailand then, errr, maybe you’ve missed a detail or two?
To be honest, I consider a lot of mainstream Westerns journalism in Thailand as being completely compromised – LM, family ties, Napas-led pogroms, death threats etc etc – means that many journalists, particulary freelancers who are not backed by big media corps such as Rueters, BBC et al are incredibly exposed. This exposure then causes a huge amount of self-censorship – I wonder how these same journalists would report the crisis if they had complete freedom from these intrusions?
So, I’ll remain underground and get to say what I want, when I want without recourse to government attack.
And I’ll do anything I possibly can, from the confines I have to work in, to make sure this govt is held to account. That’s my agenda.
Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
Bangkok Dan
Anger? Yeah, you’d know about that. Your anger during the Red Shirt protests was revoltingly self-evident by your continual applauding of the incredibly violent government actions. If you consider a few angry words on a blog as equal to that then I’d suggest you lack any sense of perspective whatsoever. Sorry you and your kid couldn’t play football but entirely innocent people, like Fabio, were getting their brains blown out. Your selfishness is utterly grotesque.
Any idiot knows this isn’t about economic equality (though that is a factor) – it is only about political equality. That a poor farmer may have to take shit for 3yrs 364days out of every 4yrs but on one day in that time frame his vote makes him an equal to the most venal Thai hiso. But that’s being taken away.
The T word? You mean Thanarat? Or Thanom? Or Tinsulanonda? Those 3 Ts have done more to damage Thai democracy than 100 Thaksins.
Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
Words I wouldn’t use to denounce my ex-wife, if I’d be divorced. But the choice of words reflects the anger. Running out of clear reasons and arguments blind hate must do.
Am just a family guy who tries to make a living here. Who tried to go play football with his son during the mayhem. The red rage orchestrated by a egotistic red elite didn’t make life easier for us. It’s better again, as it’s better for millions of Thai people.
If you have some spare time, read this:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2009_EN_Complete.pdf
And I quote commenter Surie from my unimportant silly little blog:
There goes your argument for the insanity.
Long live the anonymous PC warriors who know it all.
A Don Quichotte’s task really to post such stuff on this forum, but been there, saw the tunnel-vision mentality. There’s a much broader, richer world out there. And not as black and white as you wish.
Oh, and don’t let me mention the T-word. Some would say that’s the one who got them all killed.
Peace be with you.
Burma in Limbo, Part 2
Thanks Hla Oo, another interesting post.
Given your critical view of Thein Pe Myint, would you be more sympathetic to Maung Htin? Like you, he was also critical (for example, in Ngaba) of the anti-Indian and anti-Chinese fervor of the nationalists.
But to be fair to Thein Pe Myint, although he sought to explain (and therefore justify?) the anti-Indian riots of 1930s along class lines (i.e. Burmese labourers against Indian capitalists), he also tried to distinguish between Indian capitalists and Indian labourers. In a contribution to the Nagani Book Club (here) he praised the Indian labourers for siding with their Burmese co-labourers in the oil-field strikes, as quoted here:
Letter from Sirikit to Napas Na Pombejra about CNN?
Sanam Luang is closed for renovation now so the main event was held at Royal Plaza.
A few days ago a snapshot taken from the back circulated, showing mostly empty rows of plastic chairs. I didn’t save the pic. Maybe someone else can help posting it.
Letter from Sirikit to Napas Na Pombejra about CNN?
Chris,
In Pattaya the fireworks celebration was arguably the best ever put on locally.
However the local people were more excited about the Fireworks than in the reason for the celebration. A lot of people mentioned Fireworks but I heard only a few references to “Mother’s Day” as the reason.
Also attendance was way up as a lot of people from Bangkok came down to watch the spectacle. It must have been heavily promoted.
In the past the celebrations were centered around the Bali Hai Pier. This time the fireworks were along the entire bay.
An alternative view of the Duch verdict in Cambodia
Let’s exchange points of view based on facts:
1. On 21 June 1997, Cambodia requested United Nations assistance in organizing the process for the Khmer Rouge trials, in early 2006 the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) were formally established.
2. The General Assembly convened a conference in Rome in June 1998, with the aim of finalising a treaty. On 17 July 1998, the Rome Statute of International Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted by a vote of 120 to 7, with 21 countries abstaining. The seven countries that voted against the treaty were China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, the United States, and Yemen.
3. Cambodian people decide to combine ECCC plus ICC to make the objectives of ECCC (No.1 + No. 2). The purpose of ECCC is to try senior members of the Khmer Rouge for serious violations of Cambodian penal law, international humanitarian law and custom, and violation of international conventions recognized by Cambodia, committed during the period between 17 April 1975 and 6 January 1979. This includes crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.
4. “Duch” used to be the governor of the Tuol Sleng prison, a centre of torture. In the late 1970s, an estimated 16,000 people were tortured there, of whom only seven or ten are known to have survived. It’s crimes against humanity by any measures.
5. And here’s what I understood Mr.Widyono’s points of view quoting from his article above-mentioned.
“International coverage of the Duch verdict eclipses two issues. First, the international community is ambivalent about the tribunal. Many consider it deeply flawed by corruption and interference by the Cambodian government. Others, especially in the West, insist that the tribunal must continue, as if this were the only road to justice and reconciliation in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia.”
“If the international tribunal were to end tomorrow, Cambodia would continue on its path to progress and reconciliation, aided by private investment and generous donors, whose efforts continue to lift Cambodia from poverty. This, understandably, is the subject that concerns Cambodians today.”
6. Lastly, Lee Jones and Benny Widyono, during the Cold War period, the organization was still SEATO not ASEAN because the bloc at the time had only 5 original members: the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. SEATO was U.S. military alliance during the Cold War, not a neutral organization. Thailand maneuvering reflected SEATO’s military objective as well as to serve Thailand own national security. The possibility of invasion (Vietnam + Cambodia) was prominent from the Thai military perspectives and thinking, thus Bangkok requested military assistance from China and the U.S. Hence, using Sattahip U-Tapao Navy Base was in the interests of Thailand’s national security.
(Here’s the short summary of SEATO became ASEAN. The bloc grew when Brunei became the sixth member after it joined on 8 January 1984. On 28 July 1995, Vietnam became the seventh member. Laos and Burma (Myanmar) joined two years later in 23 July 1997. Cambodia was to have joined together with Laos and Myanmar, but was deferred due to the country’s internal political struggle. The country later joined on 30 April 1999, following the stabilization of its government.)
Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
“End of Days”:
You asked:
“Or did you make an assumption?”
No, I did not assume.
You stated:
“Secondly, I’m afraid “deliberately targeted” in this instance means being shot by an army sniper.”
Even this is an assumption. A sniper is a professional sharpshooter. There is no proof that Fabio was killed by such, or by the massive amounts of bullets fired by the soldiers into the Red Shirt area from the Saladaeng barricade – where i was.
The only thing we know so far is that there is an overwhelming likelihood that he was killed by a bullet fired by the army.
And yes, there are more than a few indications that there the government is not exactly forthcoming with information regarding this case, maybe even doing a “cover up”. Lets wait and see what the government will come up with.
You said:
“Also, as a journalist, I’m sure you’ve considered anonymous sources, tip-offs etc on more than one occasion.”
Yes of course. There is a basic difference though: I stand with my real name and reputation behind my sources that are known to me, and not with an anonymous handle. Over the years i have built a reputation, none of the facts i have presented have been disputed yet. I corroborate, verify and make sure that my sources do not lead me on (there are many of those attempts). If i would not do this, my professional reputation would be destroyed and i would have to face a mountain of legal cases.
Do you corroborate/verify/stand with your real name behind your information?
You asked:
“As for agendas – well, Nick, everyone has one of those. It just needs a bit of self-awareness to realise that. Yours is to sell your books, no? And to imply the agenda I have is to distort the truth is based on what evidence exactly?”
I do not know you, therefore i do not know what your agenda may be.
“Selling” my books is not my agenda, by the way, that is the agenda of my publisher. If that would be my agenda i would do more profitable books. My agenda is researching and making books that satisfy me. If others like them, and buy them, then this is just means that i did a good job.
Thailand-Cambodia agreement!
Not the Nations satire is so close to the truth it is embarrassing, well for the Thai apologists anyway. I have never been to Cambodia but it appears also based on the Thai/Chinese model of absolute unrestrained corruption and outlandish wealth through government.
My ex-wide dreamed of her sons entering public service/army/police through bribes to a high position (the price was actually a bargain for the return) so they could partake in the rape of the economy and screwing the peasants, in retrospect seems she was right.
Parents, get your kids into the public sector, it is a growth industry, even in the US public parasites now make more money than the private even without the mandatory bribes. Over here, it is the only way to go for undereducated swill of the wealthy to attain more wealth and maintain social standing through screwing the competent.
Pity my son is half western, doors to the old semi-literate corruption establishment are closed to all that are not Thai or Chinese/Thai, not that racism exists of course. Just look how many half westerners are in government, the army, the bureaucracy and the police in Thailand.
Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
I do think the what really happened the day he was killed we will never know. As there was no marterial law declared, nobody was responsible, as there was no action………..
Thailand-Cambodia agreement!
Excellent satire – ASEAN has a long way to go before it buries the hatchets of past conflicts, to anything like the degree of success (by no means total) which the EU has achieved.
Thailand-Cambodia agreement!
Once again Notthenation probably sails very close to the truth. In these Orwellian times the gap between truth and satire appears to be far less than the gap between truth and lies.
Thanong take note.
Reviewing events since 2003 it occurred to me that this was a very real possibility some weeks ago. I’m not even sure if it is satire anymore
I wonder if Khun Abhisit has time to read it? I think we should be told.
Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
Thaler,
I always thought the army was the sponsor of the black shirts, just a different faction of the army.