WannaGo

I take it, then, given the way you feel, that you never patronize the prostitutes, male or female, in Thailand?

Are most of you retirement age, or are some of you still working?

So, I've been doing some reading on Thaksin, trying to understand what's behind all these protests. It seems fairly clear he did some good things for Thais, or at least tried to, with his economic policies. But I can understand why people eventually would become fed up with his authoritarian style -- especially when he starts shutting down the media and people start disappearing -- and with the perception that, while he may not have broken laws, he was unethically feeding his own greed. What I'm not clear on is whether he did anything that requires a prison sentence, or whether that is just political payback. If the government can prove that he was corrupt, or that he had anything to do with the deaths in the "drug war" and Islamic rebellion, then I don't think anyone would benefit from his escaping punishment simply because he has large numbers of political supporters. But if the government can't prove it, or can only prove minor infractions, then it seems like it might be better to just let it go, rather than widening the national division. You guys who live there have a much better sense of this stuff...is this a matter of justice or political gamesmanship?

It doesn't surprise me that the military would be less than honest about the results of these tests, but I'm disappointed that the National Institutes of Health would get into these political games.

Hey, great thread, thanks for starting it. I think part of it has to do with the fact that there is only one rabid right-wing network -- Fox -- so alllll the conservatives watch it, while progressives have a choice of CNN, MSNBC, HLN, CNBC, and probably a half-dozen others. I think that if there were only two networks, one conservative and one progressive, then the ratings would be much more equal, since the US seems about evenly divided between those on the right and the left. Also, Fox panders to its audience a great deal more than do the other networks (except MSNBC, which has been trying to transform itself into a left-wing version of Fox). They aren't showing news so much as they are playing to all the irrational fears and misconceptions of their audience. You've heard Limbaugh fans called "Dittoheads," right? They don't love him because he informs them, but because all he does is parrot their own beliefs right back at them. That's what Fox does. Of course, the way a rational, thinking person forms opinions is by taking in objective information, then forming an opinion based on that available information. You have to accept that there might be some, or many, things reported in the news that challenge your pre-conceptions and be willing to do the mental work to arrive at conclusions founded in fact. But, like I said, that requires an open mind and the willingness to work your brain. I think many people would rather just take the easier route, so it's become more and more common that people don't watch the news to learn, but to reinforce what they already think. Rupert Murdoch embraced that idea very early on, and his Fox network has become experts at delivering what people want.

How old are you? I'm close to 40 (aaarrrgghhhh), and the first time I ever heard of them was when this guy died. I'm not a fan of boy bands, but it seems like I've at least heard of most of them. Wondering how I missed this one.

Extremely well said.

Maybe we're giving them the Hummer as payback for the lead-coated toys and the defective sheetrock. You guys been following this Chinese drywall situation in the States? Basically, the U.S. started running out of sheetrock in 2004 because there was a housing boom and several hurricanes that destroyed homes and necessitated rebuilding. Contractors started buying drywall imported from China. Billions of tons of the stuff. In one year, they imported something like 7 million pieces. Then, within a couple of years, bad things started happening in the homes with this drywall. The people who lived there were complaining about smelling sulfur, they were getting headaches and bloody noses and having constant episodes of nausea, and all the metal in the houses started getting corroded. The government started looking at the sheetrock. What they think is that the gypsum that the stuff is made out of is contaminated with chemicals that decay and emit sulfide gases. The gases apparently are causing the medical issues and the corrosion. Property insurance won't pay to get the houses fixed -- it can cost $100K -- and there are supposed to tens of thousands of houses with this drywall in them. Now everybody is suing the Chinese manufacturers and the companies that brought the stuff into the country. There's a huge class action case going on in New Orleans. But some of these Chinese companies are actually owned or operated by the Chinese government. And at least one of them so far has just ignored the suit. Lawyers in the case say they think most of the Chinese companies are going to do the same...and there's not much anybody can do about it because they aren't required to play by American court rules. All this means the home owners are getting screwed. They can't live in their houses, they can't get money to fix them, so of course a lot of them are going into foreclosure. At some point, the U.S. is going to have to impose some rules on Chinese companies that import these defective products.

I'm not sure I get your point. So he had a long-term relationship with her. The way the others have been described, they were just fucking.

Nope.

Sure they are...from all the altar boys. Just watch the news.

The ones who kill me are the people who've been taught better, but still talk like sister-fucking rednecks or gangbanging hood rats and are actually proud of the fact that they don't speak anything approximating proper English. Yes, confirming your ignorance with every word that falls out of your mouth is something that should always make you proud. Jackasses.

Wait...aren't Canadians supposed to be nice?

Christ...I'm not sure you can turn on a cell phone in the States without going over that. Not without signing a 10-year contract that has to be sealed in blood -- and requires your left testicle, the sacrifice of an unwilling virgin and angry loofah sex with Bill O'Reilly if you break it.

It's kind of hard to ignore tens of thousands of people standing outside your office window. Well, hard to ignore unless you work for Fox News. Check out what the Daily Show had on how Fox blew off the protesters (so to speak).

Ditto...and then some. I hate my glasses with an absolute passion, and contacts are such a pain. The other day, I was leaning back in my office chair to rest my eyes a minute. I'd taken my glasses off and had them sitting on my stomach (the one bonus of being a fat-ass...a handy storage shelf). My cat jumped up on me and landed on my glasses...scratched the right lens with his claws. Fucker. Now I need new glasses.

Very true. And if most workers of any type took such a poll, their answers would be the same. I think the key here, as it relates to prostitutes, is whether they hate and feel degraded by what they're doing, or if they just don't like it, the same as any worker would rather be doing something else. I've known several prostitutes and/or strippers who've said they aren't crazy about what they do, but they chose it over a straight job because it pays them more and doesn't have a set schedule. I don't think customers necessarily are victimizing the ones who feel that way.

You'd think if they were willing to kill so many people to reach some unknown goal, they'd actually be a little more forthcoming about what exactly the goal is.

LMAO Yep, it's right there in the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." (By the way, I love the way this thread started out about Thais picking blueberries and ended up on massages with happy endings...shows where our minds are )

This caught my eye because I had no idea there was organized labor in Asia. I always thought of it as a strictly Western institution (and a dying one at that). We always hear so much about little Asian kids working for a nickel a day. It's good to know that workers there are organizing and looking out for themselves. Unfortunately, the movement doesn't seem to have really caught on, even though it's been going since the early '70s. According to the State Department: "...less than 2% of the work force is unionized. In 2000, an amended State Enterprise Labor Relations Act (SELRA) was passed, giving public sector employees similar rights to those of private sector workers, including the right to unionize. In 2009, efforts to streamline the State Railway authority met resistance from the powerful railways union, including a short strike which halted trains nationwide, showing that organized labor still has some potential political clout." GM says strike at Thai assembly plant settled after agreement with union By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (CP) – 2 hours ago BANGKOK, Thailand — The Thai subsidiary of General Motors says it has reached an agreement with striking workers at its assembly plant that will allow production to resume Thursday. Its factory in the eastern seaboard province of Rayong, which makes one-ton pickup trucks and passenger cars, had halted production on Oct. 5 when several hundred of its 1,700 workers began striking for higher pay and better conditions. More

I respect those who speak their true minds. Of course, I know they won't last long in the public eye, but I still respect them. Even though he was talking out of his ass, I love that Obama had the stones to say the police "acted stupidly," and that, not talking out of his ass, Kanye is a "jackass."

Oh, gimme a break. He didn't fall in love; he was just getting his dick wet. And when you're chasing tail, you aren't looking for 'inner beauty.'

Ha! If he's doing it in defiance to her, then I applaud him. But I suspect he's just another oxygen thief, like Britney, K-Fed, Kanye, Lindsey, Paris, Brody and all the rest of them.

It's the same deal you get with kids who grow up in shitty neighborhoods and start slinging rock on the corner. Were they forced into it? You could make the argument that they didn't have a whole lot of options, that with the lack of education and opportunities and given the choice between making minimum wage at Mickey D's or making $3,000 a week selling rock (which, to them, everybody seems to be doing), it's only natural they would be out on the corner. Is it a valid argument? On the one hand, a lot of kids from that neighborhood don't start selling crack. On the other hand, it's very difficult to see all your options when some of them are very tiny and others loom so large. The kid probably doesn't make an informed choice so much as he just gradually slips into a life that's extremely difficult to get out of. There are always choices (except for those forced into something against their will, of course). The reality is that no one has to sell crack or become a prostitute. But, when you're in certain circumstances, your perception is that there are no other choices. I guess your view on this subject depends on whether you accept that because people sometimes can't see all their choices, it means they effectively didn't have them. But regardless of whether a prostitute made an informed decision to choose that life, are you victimizing her by using her services? I'd say it depends on the prostitute. If she hates doing it, feels degraded by it, but does it because she feels like there is no other way, then, yes, you're probably contributing to her victimization. But if she's OK with it, sees it as just another job and would rather be doing that than working a 9-5, then no, there's nothing wrong with it.

I didn't realize this had spread to Thailand, or that there was much of a Muslim population there. One thing that is weird is that the story says the Islamic extremists have never come out and said what exactly they want. Three Muslims killed in southern Thailand: police PATTANI, Thailand — Gunmen have killed three Muslims in separate attacks in Thailand's insurgency-plagued southern region, local police said Monday... ...the south, where a bitter rebellion erupted in January 2004. Since then, more than 3,900 people have been killed in the Muslim-majority southern provinces of Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and parts of Songkhla. More