China asks help over Internet piracy

From AFP:

BEIJING (AFP) – China said Thursday it faced “very big difficulties” coping with rampant piracy on the Internet and called for international help to make an ongoing crackdown more effective.

A lofty, yet ironic goal for China. China is the largest source for piracy in the world, and going out onto the street markets in Chinese cities, one shouldn’t have any problem whatsoever in finding pirate and counterfeit goods. So why does China have such a hardon to stamp out internet piracy in particular? In my opinion, the people who make pirated DVDs and other entertainment media are losing out a truckload of money to people who can just download this stuff for free over the net. And who are these pirates? Most likely influential people in the Communist party. Yes, in an ironic twist, the physical pirates have been relegated the same boat as the RIAA and losing out to digital content distribution. And now they want “foreign countries to help China in its endeavour would be by sharing the registration information of local servers to help find the pirates.”

China is in no position to ask for this. They are one of the most repressive regimes in the world that censors all of their media, in print and on the net. Them asking countries to fork over confidential, private information to help nail pirates could also be used to nail their political enemies as well. All they would have to do is say that these guys are pirates.

So what does this have to do with Thailand? Other than the fact that Thailand is China’s bitch and will gladly bend over and comply with anything the Red Army wants, the new computer/internet law that was passed under the military junta was in reaction to the same thing: The DVD and MP3 pirates are losing a huge chunk of sales to the proliferation of highspeed internet access and the ability to download content for free. So they go and make such activities punishable by 20 years in prison. And who owns these pirating organizations? Well connected criminals/politicians and the corrupt national police.

It’s funny to see how the pirates are able to shape national, and in the case of China, world policies. But that’s the black market for ya.

Lottery graft

So apparently, the AEC is trying to nail the Thaksin government regarding the two and three digit lotteries again.  To this day, I have yet to hear where exactly did every single baht of the lottery money go.  This has never been made clear…in fact, it seems the lottery money simply goes to ‘expenses’.

Each ticket costs 100 baht, which is actually quite pricey for a lottery ticket.  Then if you happen to win, you get paid 1M baht.  That might seem like a lot, but to put it into perspective, the California Lottery tickets cost $1 (about 32 baht) and if you happen to win, the payoff is a minimum 3M USD (about 96M baht).  So you pay for a ticket stub half the price but get paid out at least 96 times more.  Did I forget to mention that the CA Lottery money is very clear cut as to where the money goes, adn that only a fraction of the money is actually paid out to winners? Hmmm!

What this says to me is, the lottery generates a ton of revenue, pays out a pittance to the winner, and the 99.9% that is leftover from the lottery ticket sales just simply disappears into thin air.  Unfortunately politician’s heads are full of plenty of air, so the money mysteriously gravitates to them for some strange reason.

TPBS Takes first steps (Gives empty promises)

In a move that seems more in tune with heartless and cruel corporations, the Thai government closed down and laid off the entire workforce of channel TITV without bothering to tell any of the workers. They showed up in the morning to find they were without jobs. From the wreckage, a new channel called TPBS (like PBS except..Thai!) has been setup and is now hiring new people to fill positions. No mention of severance pay to the former workers was made.

From the Bangkok Post:

…Mr Khwansuang stressed that the new station would adhere strictly to the principles of public television and be independent, balanced, transparent and accountable.

Thank you for throwing out a whole bunch of buzzwords that Thailand has heard about a million times before. And out of those million times, 0.0000% of those utterences was actually adhered to. The last two in that list, transparent and accountable, are the most damning. Firing an entire channel’s worforce without even a hint of a warning doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of transparency, and ruining the lives of many of those workers who now have no income but still have bills and mouths to feed hardly seems accountable at all.

But at least it’s nice to see when the powers that be lie about ethical principles, that they break their promise immediately and out in the open as opposed to trying to hide the fact and denying anything wrong happened after the news comes out a year or so later after the fact.

Bravo TPBS, you are the epitome of Thainess.

Cop killer fugitive’s mother claims her son killed by police after surrendering

From The Nation:

Ayutthaya – Mother of a cop killer suspect – found dead with two friends early morning Thursday – insisted her son had contacted police to turn himself in but was then killed extrajudicially.

Police denied killing the three and suspect their deaths resulted from “silence killing” among criminals.

Rattana said she would not file a compliant against police out of concern for her family’s safety but just wanted society to know that her son tried to turn himself in but was extrajudicially killed.

I believe the mother is right, the guy decides to surrender, is taken by the police to somewhere and then executed. Everyone in Thailand knows that the police are little more than a legal crime syndicate; they do whatever they want and get away with it. They shake down shops for protection money, extort money out of motorists, chop off women’s arms and cover it up, and shoot innocent people and call them drug dealers by planting a pill or two on the bodies to justify their screwups. So is it plausible that the police executed this guy in revenge? Most certainly. The fact that the police insist that this guy was killed by other criminals to prevent him from talking is even more damning. The police in Thailand must be super psychics or something to be able to determine the motives behind the murder that seems to ever so neatly cover their ass . It is very well within the realm of possibility that the police executed this guy, so why is it being ruled out so readily? This is why I feel the police are guilty and this woman is most definitely right.

Smoking bans at pubs, entertainment venues start next week

From The Nation:

Lighting up anywhere in airconditioned entertainment establishments and parts of outdoor public venues, including the Chatuchak Weekend Market, will be banned as of February 17.

“For the openair food courts or markets, smoking will be allowed only in designated corners,” Dr Hatai Chitanondh, chairman of the Thailand Health Promotion Institute, said yesterday.

Offenders will be fined Bt2,000 for smokers and Bt20,000 for operators.

Puffing on cigarettes and the like is already prohibited in airconditioned restaurants but the Public Health Ministry’s regulation to include airconditioned pubs, discos and bars will take effect 45 days after it is published in the Royal Gazette.

Hatai admitted that some owners of pubs and nighttime hangouts might resist, as they believe a smoking ban will hurt their trade.

“But our research has found that the businesses might suffer some impacts only in the beginning. After a while, pubs and entertainment places will not only get their old customers back but will also attract new nonsmoking patrons,” he said.

The nosmoking rule will also be good for the health of customers and staff, he said, adding, “Music performances will be better because musical instruments won’t be exposed to the smoke.”

All I can say is THANK GOD! One thing I abhor is walking into a club and seeing a miasma of smoke blanketing the crowd. When I go home, my entire body is saturated in the smell of tobacco and I shudder to think what my exposure level to second smoke is. It’s about damn time they got around to this. I just hope they enforce it when it comes into effect.

8 Soldiers killed in brutal ambush; PM in denial

From The Nation:

Eight Soldiers were killed yesterday in a savage ambush in southernmost Narathiwat province while they were on a security patrol.

It was the deadliest attack against the military in the region since the ambush of a security team in June last year in which seven troops were killed.

Shocked officials said about 20 insurgents triggered a bomb as an Army Humvee armored patrol car (APC) carrying eight soldier drove through Ban Dusongyoh Chanae disctrict…

The Humvee was overturned in the explosion and the insurgents who had been hiding in the jungle along the roadside, emerged and fired into the vehicle…

One of the slain soldiers had been decapitated… They decapitated the commanding officer in the group and left the others with gaping stab wounds in their necks.  Police said the wounded soldiers who surivived the blast were stabbed and shot to make sure they were dead… The militants took eight M-16 rifles, one M-60 machine gun and one 11mm pistol belong(sic) to the unit.

Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said the attack was typical of insurgent violence in the region.  “It’s not an indication that suggests a worsening situation in the region, but we still need to be more careful,” he said.

This is just blatant incompetency on the part of the Thai army, and typical statements of denial and lack of accountability by the Prime Minister.  An entire patrol is wiped out, their CO is beheaded, their equipment is looted like it’s a shopping mall, and all the while the PM is saying this is typical and not worsening??

This is by far the most brutal attack on the military to date and also shows that the insurgents have a high level of organization to plan and execute a textbook ambush.  I also call the military incompetent because their entire patrol was wiped out. This shows a fundamental flaw in their deployment of soldiers on patrol and how ill equipped their tactics are in fighting the insurgents.  It also raises questions of the training our soldiers are receiving and just how combat ready they really are.

When the insurgents are more well organized than the military,  then it’s just a hopeless cause;  we are losing the fight in the south.

The Rib Room

The Rib Room is located on the 31st floor of the Landmark Hotel situated on Sukhumvit Road in the heart of Bangkok. They claim (along with the reviewer for the Bangkok Post) that they are a high end steak house that dedicates itself to making world class steaks. Me being a serious cook and foodie, I simply had to check them out.

The ambiance is a little out of place in that they had the typical leather highback chairs that you can never really feel comfortable eating in, along with bright lighting that killed any hopes of an intimate setting. The view, although high above the city, was not particularly spectacular, and if one were to look down, the grunge of Bangkok in all its glory was plainly visible, even in the dark.

I ordered a dry martini to start the evening, which tasted like an ordinary martini, until I had gotten to the olive, which still had the pit intact. I promptly pointed this out to my waitress, but instead of apologizing, I was told that the bar simply made martinis this way and that was that. So much for customer service.

Next up was a basket of sourdough bread for us to snack on while we waited for our food to arrive. This was quite simply, the best sourdough bread I have ever tasted in Bangkok. The crumb had just the right give, and the crust crackled satisfactorily when bit into, but it wasn’t tough or difficult to chew. The sourness of the bread was sublime and I could tell that a very serious baker had spent the time in creating this loaf. In fact, it was so good that it almost made me forget the affront of having a pit in my martini olive. Unfortunately, this wonderful bread proved to be the only good part of the meal.

One member of my table ordered a Caesar salad, which is a staple of steak houses all over the world. The waitress wheeled out a very impressive wooden bowl surrounded by a plethora of ingredients. She stopped at the head of the table, gave a smile, and asked what would we like in the Caesar salad. Excuse me? She literally had 15 ingredients laid out before her and she was asking the customer what would they like to put into the salad? Assuming that most people don’t even know what goes into a Caesar salad, how is a customer supposed to direct a person on what to put in or not. We weren’t even given an explanations on what the ingredients were! So we had a bowl, a bunch of unknown stuff around it, and we were being asked on how to construct such a thing. In the end, we asked the woman to put in whatever she thought would taste good, and when she plated it up and placed it on the table it looked like a disaster. It was literally 4 leaves of romaine lettuce entombed in a thick goop of orange dressing. Needless to say, I have tasted better Caesar salads with the dressing coming out of a bottle.

Next up were three dishes consisting of Chicken fricassee with garlic parsley sauce, frog legs with escargot, and a terrine of tuna and foie gras. The chicken dish, although the sauce was bold and flavorful, came off with a chalky mouthfeel that was disturbing to the palate. The frog legs with escargot arrived at the table stone cold and were dull in flavor. The terrine dish set the bar for worst tuna I have had in a restaurant; the tuna was mealy and disgusting and no amount of foie gras was going to mask such a terrible ingredient.

With a brief respite, the steaks arrived. The steak I ordered was the New York sirloin cut, with a side of mashed potatoes. The steak was at maybe half an inch thick at most. It had pathetic grill marks on it, and most of the steak was a dull drab grey. It had no seasoning to speak of, and instead the diner is left with a box of salt and a pepper grinder. To add insult to injury, the establishment didn’t bother to trim their steaks and a prominent line of gristle infringed along the borders of the meat like an unwanted neighbor. This was a steak that I would expect to find coming out of the kitchens of a late night greasy diner.

I cannot recommend the Rib Room to anyone. The food is priced at over $100 a head (without wine), and the quality that you get for that price is borderline criminal. If I were the owner of the hotel, I would fire the chef immediately, because instead of enhancing the appeal of the hotel, the restaurant actually worsens its reputation.

Thailand shuts down political Web site

From the Associated Press:

“Visitors posted comments on the sameskybooks.com bulletin board, questioning claims in the Thai media that the entire country was in mourning over the death Wednesday of Princess Galyani Vadhana — King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s older sister — and criticizing official calls for the public to wear black as a sign of mourning, said Thanapol Eiwsakul, who operated the site.

The Information and Communication Technology Ministry threatened local Internet provider Netservice with closure unless it took the action against sameskybooks.com, which was closed Friday, Thanapol said.”

I am fairly sure this doesn’t fall under lese majest laws because that only protects the King, Queen, and the Heir apparent, neither of which are the subject of the sameskybooks.com board. I am also fairly sure, in my sole opinion which has no basis on any credible facts other than my own perosnal observation, that the entire country is definitely not in mourning. This is not saying anything against the Monarchy in any manner. However, I have not noticed anyone bawling their eyes out or even people in a somber mood over the passing of the King’s older sister. In fact, most Thais I have seen are going about their apathetic lives as normal. So I fail to see how people pointing out that they don’t feel anything,  contrary to the Thai media’s reports, is a bannable or illegal action. Unless the Thai government is officially saying that they can now dictate to people how they are allowed to feel. Actually, I bet that they would really like that.

If Thailand is supposed to be a free democratic country, why is our media censored and controlled almost as much as Communist China?  Can someone explain to me why this is acceptable?  I didn’t think so.

Fighting the insurgency

As some people who live in Thailand will know, the Thai military made a lot of purchases for themselves before they lost control of the government due to the democratic elections. According to Saab owned Gripen “The Thai Cabinet has approved a budget of 34,400 billion baht (US$ 1.1 billion) for the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) to procure 12 (twelve) Gripen multi-role fighters, to replace its ageing fleet of F-5 B/E aircraft, and 2 (two) Saab Erieye AEW aircraft, together with associated equipment and services.” From reuters“Since the coup, Thailand’s army-appointed government has approved a 66 percent increase in military spending… Last month, the post-coup interim cabinet approved the 6.7 billion baht ($211 million) purchase of Israeli guns, Ukrainian armored vehicles and Chinese missiles.”

It is all too easy to point out the blatant abuse of power, as many other people have done so already. But the real questions, the one that no one has really asked and no one has ever analyzed, are “Why does Thailand need this military equipment?” and “Is this equipment even any good?”

It is fairly safe to say that Thailand is no immediate danger of going to war with any of its neighbors. If anything, Thailand and its Southeast Asian neighbors want to coexist peacefully to bring economic stability for all. In fact, the only thing that Thailand sees in terms of military deployment is fighting the insurgency in the South, and protecting the borders from various criminal elements. Unfortunately, the equipment the military wants to procure does nothing to help them in the fight against the insurgency.

The insurgents in the south make their camps in the jungles of Thailand. These camps are very hard to spot, and require patrols of soldiers to wander around the forest hoping to blunder into them. When the insurgents are not in the jungle, they can wander freely in the populated areas because, quite frankly, they look like everyone else. This is the classic example of gueirella warfare. So how does purchasing attack jets help us in rooting these insurgents out? How about used, broken down, outdated armored vehicles? Or those Chinese missiles? The navy has even been mumbling about buying a submarine for themselves. What are we going to do, fire torpedoes into the jungle?

Sadly, the military has no idea what it is doing, or how to combat insurgency. Instead, it flails about buying new superfluous toys for itself. Instead of blindly buying equipment that helps the country in no logical way, how about analyzing the type of conflicts which are most pressing and urgent, and procure equipment based upon the actual needs of the country?

For example, instead of sending out soldiers into the jungles to blindly wander around like Hansel and Gretel hoping to come across some breadcrumbs, why don’t we buy UAVs that can be sent out to patrol vast spans of jungle in the time it would take a platoon of soldiers to patrol a single square kilometer? Not only can they patrol more efficiently, they sure as heck cost a lot less to own and fly than a Fighter jet that we have no use for. To supplement the UAVs, we could have squadrons of troop transport helicopters to bring platoons to remote areas quickly in response to what the UAVs find. We could also have a squadron of attack helicopters to quickly eliminate any major threats that require immediate disposal. One billion USD can buy a whole lot of UAVs and helicopters…

So why aren’t we doing this? Or more precisely, why are we buying things that have no relevance to the safety of our country? Unfortunately, there is no single answer, and the convoluted web of lies, under the table money deals, and petty power struggles is beyond the scope of this post. Suffice it to say, as long as we maintain the status quo of allowing incompetency fester in the military and the public sector in general, the insurgency will continue and more people will die everyday.

The Thaksin Strikes Back!

So TRT2 wins, pretty much.  No surprises there.  My prediction for the upcoming new government?  They will abolish the military drafted constitution (you know, the one that absolves them of all crime for the rest of their lives), they will grant the 111 TRT executives pardons, and Thaksin will be back as our Prime Minister.  Also in the cards,will be the punishment of the coup makers, although this will be lenient, maybe due to higher authority figures stepping in behind the scenes.

As for the “laws” that were hastily passed by this joke government, I think there will be a few that TRT2 will keep,  namely the Internet law.  It gives the government and the police such absolute power over the people, why should they give it up?  Most likely they will pick and choose which ones to keep, and the personal freedoms of the people will be thrown back to 50 years ago.

As one of my foreign friends asked me, “Has the past 15 months been a complete waste then?”  Yes, yes it has.