Photo of the Day: Dowsing with the Fourth Army

For those following the GT 200 scandal and the military's continued use of the million-baht-coat-hanger, this photo might be amusing.

It is an actual dowsing rod from the Sufficiency Village training center across the road from the Sirindhorn base in Yala province and was being used to show local villagers how to find water. I guess they might as well have been looking for explosives.

Gen Pichet Wisaijorn is observing. November 2009.

Batman saves Bangkok residents from certain doom!

Background:

Red Shirt protesters have commandeered a gas tanker and have threatened to ignite it in a heavily populated neighborhood.

The army and police seem reluctant to use force to retake it.

A dangerous standoff ensues.

Until Batman (or possibly an enterprising firefighter who just happens to have a superhero costume) takes the initiative to introduce a scenario absurd enough to ease tensions so the tanker can be safely removed.

Simply brilliant!

Update: the same guy or a rather cool superhero trend in Thailand?

Henry Kissinger with Thai Foreign Minister Chatchai - 1975

This conversation is funny in its deadpan tone, astounding in its cavalier scope, and shocking in the themes that were being repeated then just as they are now. Simply, a brilliant read!

The Actors:
"The secretary" - US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
"Foreign Minister" - Thai Foreign Minister Chatchai Chunhawan
"Mr Habib" - Philip Habib, Assistant Secretary East Asia and Pacific Affairs.

Date: December 15 1975

Context: Thailand had just pased the October 14 uprising against the military junta of Thanom Kittikachorn and at the cusp of the brutal right-wing paramilitary attack on students at Thammasat University and the return of the military on October 6, 1976. In addition, the US troops were being withdrawn from military bases in Thailand shortly after their defeat in Vietnam.

Scene opens: The Secretary then arrived. He told Chatchai of the forthcoming Presidential trip to China and asked the Minister about his most recent trip to Peking. Chatchai said he had gone to Kunming, the Thai capital 2,000 years ago.

The Secretary: What is the Cambodian attitude?

Foreign Minister: The Cambodians want salt and fish. They wanted to barter for these items.

The Secretary: Did Ieng Sary impress you?

Foreign Minister: He is a nice, quiet man.

The Secretary: How many people did he kill? Tens of thousands?

M r . Habib: N i c e and quietly!!

Foreign Minister: Not more than 10,000. That's why they need food. If they had killed everyone, they would not need salt and fish. All the bridges in Cambodia were destroyed. There was no transportation, no gas. Thats why they had to chase the people away from the capital.

The Secretary: But why with only two hours' notice?

Foreign Minister: (Shrugs)

The Secretary: What do the Cambodians think of the United States? You should tell them that we bear no hostility towards them. We would like them to be independent as a counterweight to North Vietnam.
...

The Secretary: We would prefer t o have Laos and- Cambodia aligned with China rather than with North Vietnam. W e would try t o encourage this if that is what you want.

Foreign Minister: Yes, we would like you t o do that.

The Secretary: And then after we do it you can kick us around. You can c a l l ambassador Anan (Anand Panyarachun) home and thereby keep the students happy.

Foreign Minister: The right wing is what we really have t o worry about, not the left. The Chinese are 100 percent: in support of Cambodia's being friends with Thailand.
...
Foreign Minister: The South Vietnamese are not at a ll happy with the Northerners.

The Secretary: The North Vietnamese have t o be the meanest people in the world. The North Koreans and Albanians are pretty difficult, but the North Vietnamese are by far the worst. They can lie to you effortlessly.

Foreign Minister: W e talked with Phan Bien and he asked about you.

The Secretary: Who?

M r . Habib: Do you remember Phan Hien? He is the vice Foreign Minister now; he was Chief of their American Division I earlier. He was on the North Vietnamese
delegation to Paris. He was the one with the smooth dark hair.

The Secretary: Oh, that's really helpful. You mean there are some Vietnamese with curly hair?

Mr. Habib: No. He was the one with the really smooth hair. He had it slicked back like Rudolph Valentino.

The Secretary: Are there any blond Vietnamese? Anyway, the Vietnamese in Paris used to make the same speech every morning. They used to say that if we would make a major effort, they would make a major effort. One morning the leader of the Vietnamese delegation said that: if we would make a major effort, they would
make an effort. At the end of the speech, I asked whether I had understood or whether he had in fact dropped an adjective. Be explained that yesterday they had made a major effort, but we had only made a minor effort. So, today we would have to make a major effort and they, in turn, would only make and effort.

Ambassador Anan: That's very interesting.

The Secretary: (To Mr. Habib) At any rate, give the man with the straight hair my affectionate regards.
...
The Secretary: I like the residence in Bangkok very much. It is a very nice house.

Foreign Minister: The Thai government owns it.

M r . Habib: And we get it for a very low rent.

The Secretary: If you ever want a really tough negotiation with the United States, just mess around with our housing. You can form an alliance with the Soviets, link up with the Vietnamese, or come under Chinese influence and you'll only get a very mild protest. But if you interfere with our housing, then you will really have a problem on your hands.

Foreign Minister: We only. charge you $200 a month for the residence in Bangkok.

The Secretary: I'll go to Bangkok and move in.

Foreign Minister: But we already have enough refugees.
....

The Secretary: But I can't have it, Perhaps I could go to Thailand when I leave this job and become a cabinet member. I could learn to speak Thai with an accent. After all , I speak English with an accent. What are the problems between the United States and Thailand?

Foreign Minister: There are none. I came just t o reaffirm having friendly negotiations about your withdrawal. There is only one problem. Our armed forces equipment is very old. We have no ammunition plants. We have to reshape and reorganize our armed forces.We want to re-equip 16 battalions. We have no F-5s too oppose the 250 former US aircraft left in Vietnam.
...
The Secretary: It i s important that we still have a presence in Southeast Asia. We appreciate what you did in Vietmam. I am, personally, embarrassed by the Vietnam
War. I believe that if you go t o war, you go to win and not to lose with moderation.
...
Foreign Minister: I asked the Chinese to take over in Laos. They mentioned that they had a road building team in northern Laos.

The Secretary: We would support this. You should also tell the Cambodians that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we won't let that stand in
our way. We are prepared to improve relations with them. Tell them the latter part, but don't tell them what I said before.
...
The Secretary: Have you an extradition treaty with us? As I told the people in Detroit yesterday, I am going to China because they have no extradition treaty with us, and if Congress does not give us what we need, I won't come home and no one will be able to make me come home. If there is no extradition treaty with Thailand, I may go to Thailand. We will make an effort to help you with your problems. The Bureau of East Asian Affairs will support a modernization program. We want Thailand to be strong. Have you received any arms from China?
...
Foreign Minister: Communist China is very poor, especially in the South. The people are barefoot and dirty.

The Secretary: That is very unusual.

Foreign Minister: When I asked to go to Kunming, they asked why I wanted to go here. I said it was the former Thai capital and I wanted to liberate it. It was very poor; the food there was the same as in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. The people speak a Thai dialect. When I got there and they raised the Thai flag over the place where we were staying, our escort said "See, you have already liberated Kunming"
...
Foreign Minister: On our side; it is all O.K. There is no problem. It is only on your side--with your press--that there seems to be any problem.

The Secretary : The press, is impossible.

Foreign Minister: Ours is also troublesome. The problem is now that we have too much democracy. I would like to thank you again for having us at lunch today.

The Secretary: We will do our best within our constraints to help you.

For the completely frank and utterly commical reading, click here.

Also thanks to Michael Montesano who forwarded this on the TLC mailing list.

Third Hand Seen Shaking Invisible Hand

The People's Aliance for Democracy (PAD) hand clappers are cheekily declared 'The Third Hand' on a shirt for sale near the PAD encampment at Government House.

Oh, my! Over at Not the Nation, there a must read article about the powerful and mysterious forces manipulating Thai politics.

"BANGKOK – Newspapers in Thailand are reporting that a third hand was spotted firmly shaking the invisible hand last night"

To read more: Third Hand Seen Shaking Invisible Hand.

And for further background on the third hand, Not the Nation also offers: Anonymous Man Flexes Political Muscle

Ministery of Defence an Attack Site?

Over at the Bangkok Pundit, there was some question over Thai ISPs censoring Google searches.

Another curiosity of note is the Thai Ministry of Defense web site which apparently tries to install malicious software on your computer.

Even more interesting is what Google claims is happening. According to Google:

What is the current listing status for mod.go.th?

Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer.

Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 16 time(s) over the past 90 days.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 178 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 20 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2008-11-20, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2008-11-19.

Malicious software includes 21 trojan(s), 11 exploit(s), 6 scripting exploit(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 6 new processes on the target machine.

Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days, mod.go.th appeared to function as an intermediary for the infection of 1 site(s) including sanook.com.

To read more about this site click here.

Or try your luck and click on this link for the Thai Ministry of Defense.

PAD English Lessons

*all photos copyright *

Since August 26, People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protesters have been loitering in Government House.

In addition to 24-hours of ear shattering anti-government and anti-Thaksin propaganda, they also can enjoy free food, free medical care, take in a massage, or buy souvenirs.

Or, they can learn English. The following statements, written in a cute little notebook, were presented to me and I was asked to edit the grammar.

From the top of the page, to the bottom it reads:

• God damn! Taksin
• Taksin! go to hell
• Send Taksin back to Thailand
• go to prison, Taksin.
• Taksin, Cheating man on our tax
• Son of a bitch

Very useful English phrases for the seething PAD masses whose anger has been sharpened into an irrational and dangerous hatred for their former Prime Minister.

Stereotypes

I know the clips are not new, but two of the most reliable American...ah 'journalists' - Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert - take a cheap, albeit very funny, stereotype pot shot at Thailand:



"Apparently, he was the only world leader smart enough NOT to bring a date to Bangkok."



"Then, your busy bottle takes a quick jaunt to Bangkok for a well earned massage....with happy ending."

Vested Interests or Bad Journalism?

Its not exactly news that the press in Thailand has troubles.

Not only is the press severely curtailed by government manipulation and censorship but, a common complaint, is the obvious political bias.

The Thai press might see their role as a watch dog of public interest but the obvious question is; who owns the watch dog?

A logical answer to that question was proposed by academic Duncan McCargo who, in his book Politics and the Press in Thailand, wrote "...the Thai media is frequently the captive of various interests. Its trickiness derives not from its lack of loyalties, but from its multiple loyalties, the plurality of its obligations and the diversity of its stakeholders."

In addition, a lack of professionalism is also common in the press and, in particular, the English language press.

In what might be a combination of vested interests and sloppy work, The Nation offers its readers these contradictory side-by-side reports:


Apparently the Olympic torch relay was both 'trouble-free' as well as 'greeted with protest'.

Now, the question might be, is this simply a lack of professionalism or an attempt to placate diverse interests such as the paper's western readers and the Chinese business community?

Just Give Me The Damn Sepak Takraw Ball

"The following steps should NOT be taken"

Thanks to Not The Nation for the following helpful article on how to NOT bypass the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology's clumsy and ethically questionable attempts to censor the internet.

From Not The Nation:

The following steps should NOT be taken by those attempting to bypass the Ministry of Communication and Information’s blocking of websites

It is ILLEGAL to use this guide to quickly and easily access the world of free information on the internet. NTN provides this information in the public interest as a clear example of what not to do, right now.

1. DO NOT log onto to www.torproject.org
2. DO NOT download the latest package on this page: http://torproject.org/download.html.en.
3. DO NOT open the file, which will automatically install all the software you need.
4. DO NOT notice that a small icon now appears in your system tray, shaped like a small onion.
5. DO NOT right-click the onion and select “Start” from the pop-up menu.
6. DO NOT use the same menu to select “Message List” to see the Tor system slowly develop an anonymizing network.
7. Once its tells you “A circuit has been built” DO NOT then enjoy safe, censorship-free surfing to banned sites such as YouTube and MindightUniversity.
8. For even greater convenience, DO NOT download Mozilla Firefox, a superior web browser program available free at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/ , and DO NOT then download an add-on called “Tor Button” here at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2275 that allows you to switch Tor on and off easily while browsing.
9. If you do successfully download Tor, DO NOT keep a copy of the downloaded installation file which can be easily emailed as an attachment to all your friends or distributed on a CD-ROM or flash keychain drive.
10. If the Tor download page is blocked, DO NOT seek out other similar services and software such as these: http://freenetproject.org/ or http://www.freehaven.net/ or http://marabunta.laotracara.com/english.php.
11. If these services are not available, DO NOT do a Google Search for “anonymizer” or anonymity networks” and DO NOT learn more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Anonymity_networks.

Hello Kitty and Thai Police - Together at last!

This photo was nicked from Bangkokpost.com but I, along with almost everyone who is following this story, will be eagerly scouring the Bangkok streets to take a souvenir photo of the real thing.

Thai police don't have a great reputation. And, as numerous critics might argue, their ongoing corrupt and violent antics certainly don't deserve a good reputation.

But Hello Kitty might help.

Officers guilty of "failing to report for duty, parking in a prohibited area, fighting, or being the subject of a complaint about poor service" would earn the above pictured Hello Kitty arm band.

Acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division, Pongpat Chayaphan, told the Bangkok Post that ''This new approach is intended to engender a feeling of guilt and discourage them from repeating the offense.''

I would like to suggest a couple of other offenses, ones that I have personally witnessed, that should also win a cute pink kitty arm band.

• For arresting the victim of a violent beating instead of the group of thugs that dispensed the beating. I am beginning to think this is actually common practice as I have seen it a few times times.


• For taking 50-100 baht bribes from taxi drivers.


• For giving an on the spot 'fine' of 2000 baht to a tourist near Khao San road for littering. (the fine was bartered down to 1500)


• For drunk driving. Very common.


• For drinking whiskey on the street with motorbike taxi drivers before both police and taxi drivers ALL get on their bikes and drive away.


• For charging me 100 baht to fill out a report of a lost phone.


• And for one of my favorite memories of Thai police; For drunkenly throwing a police helmet in the street while in a rage for not being bribed enough by a motorist.

This list could actually go on and on but I think the point is made.

I was tempted to add; For wearing skin tight uniforms while being comically overweight but I think half that problem rests with the department's decision to outfit their force with 'painted-on' tight uniforms.

Hello Kitty arm bands will certainly make for some humorous jokes at the expensive of the police but it does take the focus away from the a very serious crimes that Thai police are involved with.

But lets not venture into the real world now and look forward to spotting the first Thai cop sporting Hello Kitty pride. สวัสดีตำรวจ!