To Hun Sen-loving red-shirted Thaksin worshippers...

After having "freely-elected" Hun Sen as their "truly democratic" leader, some poor Khmers know that Cambodia is not such an awesome place for them.
Cambodian police use teargas to evict slum dwellers

Note: this post is for domestic consumption. I don't have any problem with Hun Sen or Cambodia, but I have to merely point out to some silly red-shirted Thais who appear to think that Cambodia is a magical place where Hun Sen (Khmer version of Thaksin, according to them) has succeeded in eliminated all social and economic problems.

A bunch of heartless thugs

Taking your protest too far would be self-defeating, and that had been demonstrated by the PAD. Still, it seems the Red shits, though condemning and cursing at the yellow shirt's actions, have not learned from the mistakes made by the PAD. Being more Catholic than the Pope, the Red shits decided to copy and perhaps overdo the same actions initiated by the yellow shirts they so despise.
From the Bangkok Post...

Grandma Niam, 84, passed away when she was being taken home from a hospital in Ubon Ratchathani province, where she was treated for a kidney stone since December 17. She was also diagnosed to have cancer.

Doctors said she had been on a respitatory system since the end of December and her kidney had stopped functioning.

She had been unconscious for about a week, so her relatives decided to take her home as she had requested for the last moments of her live.

She passed away shortly after leaving the hospital, and did not make it home.

Mr Abhisit was scheduled to visit her on Thursday afternoon.

On Wednesday evening, members of anti-government group United Front of Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) surrounded the hospital after they learned that the premier would come to visit Grandma Niam.

Matichon has a more detailed report on this incident which tells us that they did not only surround the hospital as reported by the Post but also allegedly went inside the hospital ward where Grandma Niam was resting with their foot-clappers. One of the UDD leaders, Natawut Saikua, confirmed that some did go inside on a telephone interview on Thai PBS, but he said the number of the protesters at Grandma Niam's bed is very limited. Normally, I tried to tolerate what they did, but I am deeply disgusted by the Red shits this time. This incident, together with an attempt to obstruct the coming up ASEAN summit, will be, like I said, self-defeating.... Modern9's prime time evening news did report the incident as well as. Surprisingly, I have not seen anything on this from Manager.

Thailand's king reigns -- but he doesn't rule - Los Angeles Times

Thailand's king reigns -- but he doesn't rule - Los Angeles Times
A very favourable op-ed indeed...

Views before the PPP, Chart Thai, and Matchimatipatai dissolution

The Post ran three enjoyable articles on its opinion page today...

Korn Chatikavanij's Shodow Boxing: PAD should quit airports and govt should resign
Key quotes:

"On the positive side, even if our country is in turmoil today, the world is too distracted by the economic crisis to pay us much attention. We are not losing out on investment flows because there aren't any. "
....

"The government should not be using the question of "then what?"as an excuse for doing nothing. Asking "then what" repeatedly is a sure way of leading ourselves into unnecessary deadlock. The government cannot claim a possible consequence in the future as a reason not to take responsibility for a real crisis today.

Unfortunately, there appears to be no chance of statesmanship from this government - a government that is now more overtly than ever dancing to Thaksin's tune."

Second, Thitinan Pongsudhirak's The spectre of the UDD's inexorable backlash
Key quotes:

"Their latest mass rally on Nov 30 on City Hall grounds, peaceful and organised for an on-time adjournment yet again, reveals the UDD organisers' strategy of biding their time and allowing the People's Alliance for Democracy's violent rage and costly rampage to persist. This will have the effect of isolating the PAD, increasing the UDD's appeal and solidifying its moral high ground. It will be a cruel irony to the seemingly untouchable PAD leaders and their backers if they end up winning myopic battles only to lose the longer-term war. They are unwittingly handing deposed and convicted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra a chance to leverage the UDD for his comeback." (Comment: Thitinan did make a point there, but let's see how long can the UDD behave.)
...
"The UDD has demonstrated that it can activate and mobilise many thousands of supporters, vastly more than the 10,000-20,000 PAD yellow shirts that have run amok and brought the Thai economy to its knees.

What the PAD and its backers, along with all of Thailand's stakeholders, should fear is the UDD's fully unleashed sound and fury. It has been pent up, having absorbed the PAD's punches blow after blow with little response. The UDD will no longer be denied and dismissed. When exercised, its wrath will be ferocious" (Comment: then, wouldn't it suffer low public approval rating like the PAD?)

And lastly, William Pesek's Philanthropist Thaksin wants to shape Asia's future (I find this quite entertaining, by the way.)

Key quotes:

"Thaksin is a better example of how not to lead or inspire Asia's future." ( Comment: this is an extraordinary good line.) [...]

"Look no further than the wreckage he left behind in Asia's eighth-biggest economy. It's disingenuous to blame Thaksin alone for Thailand's political crisis. Thaksin was elected and then went about bastardising Thailand's democracy over a five-year period. He was sentenced to two years in prison for helping his then-wife - the couple divorced last month - buy land from the government. And now he won't go away."

...

"It's not that Thailand's $246 billion economy lacks potential, or that great things shouldn't be expected of its 66 million people. Five years ago, Thailand was more of a success story than a cautionary one. Living standards were rising, stocks were buoyant and neighbouring leaders envied Thailand's progress. That is a distant memory now." (Comment: there are three factors why such growth happened, improving global economic environment, Post-1997 Democrat's economic reform, and political stability provided by Shinawatra. So, if you're thinking it was because of Thaksin alone, it wasn't.)

...

"No single person gets all the blame for where Thailand is today. Yet the leaders of tomorrow should think twice before tapping Thaksin for insights. That is, unless one is looking for examples of how not to run a country."

I like the last sentence. He really played his motif well.

Pro-Thaksin Protesters Rallying at the British Embassy

From the Nation

Wearing red shirt, they burnt effigies of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary of State David Miliband to show their anger after UK revoked visas of Thaksin and his wife; Khunying Pojaman.
...
The protesters showed banners which read, "Why the United Kingdom which is icon of democracy revoke Thaksin's visa?," and "Why the United Kingdom did not respect the UN Conventions."

Were they asking rhetorical questions?
Anyway, it's good to see these red-shirted people being themselves again, you know ... burning effigies and doing other uncivilized thingies.

That November 1st show was awesome, by the way.
Kudos....

Al Jazeera's 101 East on Thai Politics

One of the biggest mistakes the PAD has committed is declaring its idea of "New Politics."
I've been following news coverage from international media for a while, and I can certainly say that the PAD would be in much better position if it did not announce this idea publicly. Being me, I don't care if the idea itself is bad or not. I actually love the idea oh having no elected representative at all. Anyone can have an ideal government system in his mind, but it is stupid to think that international media outlets would not pick this thing up and thus discredit the PAD's claim of championing democracy.
It is a costly mistake.
Now that everyone from the People's Power Party uses this as an excuse not to give in to every demand of PM resignation or house dissolution, a PAD leader, Sondhi Limthongkul said to CNN that the idea of "New Politics" is simply just a suggestion. It doesn't have to be the proportion that the PAD proposed (70% appointed and 30% elected). It is up to negotiation, according to Mr Limthongkul.
But, that negotiation will never happen(publicly...just in case). Seriously, if the PAD really wanted to go for this, keep it a secret and then float the idea after a new coup (which could happen). Opponents of the PAD are now pointing their fingers at the PAD and scream "you undemocratic mobs ...we will just use this against everything you say... don't you dare move your feet...we know what you're up to!" And, do the PAD think they'll get a new coup when everyone keeps a close watch on the army?
What they said actually prevents them from getting what they want, as a result.
...
Now the above informative Al Jazeera program gives us a perfect example of how the PAD's naivete backfires.
It is very difficult to defend the PAD on this. Dr Buranaj from the Thai Democrat Party made a right choice not to defend them and reiterated that the Democrats would support the PM's decision to dissolve the house of commons. I'm in fact very impressed by his performance on this program, very gentlemanly and well articulate.
The Democrats have been unfairly criticized for not being consistence on their call for house dissolution. I've not yet seen that they are so. Yes, you saw Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Senate Speaker and the House Speaker announced that they would try to mediate the conflict, but that doesn't mean that they no longr support house dissolution. Instead, it means they're doing everything they could to solve the country's problem while the PPP are whining and screaming that life is not fair and that they woud lose some seats if snap election is called.
As for the referendum proposal, the Democrats are against it, but they have said nothing to indicate that they don't want to give the power to the people. I think it is more to do with impracticality of the idea itself. I mean, when governments want to renew their mandate, they call a snap election. Would it not be easier and quicker to just dissolve the house?
Jakrapob still thinks the planet is occupied by idiots. Well...that's only half truth. But, saying that by declaring the state of emergency Samak did not want to use the army to crackdown on the PAD, Jakrapob has again proved he is full of shit.
Samak declared the state of emergency because he wanted to "stop the media presenting one-sided news and politicizing the event?" Then, why didn't he close down Veera Musikapong's "Truth Today" on the government's state television, NBT, first? NBT is as bias and provocative as ASTV is, and NBT's got government funding. And doesn't saying that the decree was intended to maintain the social order "in every aspect" make it worse when he was asked why the PM cannot maintain social order?

The problem with Jakrapob is that he is delusional.
"The government was not allowed to perform." Huh? What kind of service can Samak serve? Cooking "Kao-Na-Kai" for everyone in this country? This government hasn't been able to perform because it can't. Period. They didn't have the technocratic ability from the first place. Everything they touched, it was fucked up.
And again... Jakrapob kept repeating what he's said for kazillion times... "invisible hand wants to get rid of us" ...." "we're democratically elected, so we're always right"... blah blah blah....
I don't see the need to invite him to the show, actually. Next time, I think Al Jazeera should use his sound bites from the previous editions. It'll be as good.

Should have kept it to himself!

From Bloomberg

Thaksin's advice to the ruling People Power Party, which was founded by his loyalists and won the first post-coup election in December, suggests he wants to continue exercising political clout, said Suriyasai Katasila of the Campaign for Popular Democracy, an activist group that opposed Thaksin when in office.

``He is running the government behind the stage now, and will come back for sure once he proves his innocence in front of the justice system,'' Suriyasai said. ``His words on the economy have much influence because the team running Thailand's economic policy at the moment is basically his.''

Thaksin, who remains a popular figure for his policy of grants to poor villages, presided over Thailand's fastest economic growth in a decade. In the interview, he said the Southeast Asian nation's interest rates need to be lower to boost confidence among consumers and investors.

I'm not saying that I'm an economics genius, but shouldn't we keep the inflation in mind? One thing that I can say for sure is, cutting rate is not an answer in this economic situation.
Sure, Japan did it, but again ... Japan did it... in the 90's!
Is that really what we should follow?
Also, low interest rate won't help in boosting confidences. Oil and food prices will keep the consumers down for a while, so the only thing lowering interest rate would do is, fueling inflation, which consequently punishes those who save money, kills the poors and makes Thailand a laughingstock like Shinawatra himself.

Update: Tarisa Wantanagase, the Bank of Thailand governor, in the Post...

Ms Tarisa said easing monetary policy _ cutting interest rates _ to boost consumption was out of context as it would only further increase the cost of living. Central banks worldwide tighten monetary policy in the face of rising inflation.

''An interest rate reduction is impossible. The central bank is the only institution to look after inflation. If [the central bank] fails to create confidence that inflation will be well taken care of, public psychology will be that inflation is on the rise,'' Ms Tarisa said.

Looks like I'm an economics genius after all :P