Plans for a bridge to Koh Samui made public
Yes, it's Tuesday again, for the 126th time under Emergency Decree.
The prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Daily Fishwrap is back. Find a comfy chair and a small kitty or adorable dog to pet, set back and read.
Welcome to this "civilized" world.
Thailand politics is heating up
The Pheu Thai Party and a group of other opposition groups are about to take token coup leader and ex-army general Prayut Chan-o-cha to the Constitutional Court. Tomorrow.
They want a ruling to (legally, bloodlessly) force Prayut to resign as token prime minister. In other words: They asked for an injunction to
suspend Gen Prayut as prime minister starting Aug 24 when some believe he will have served the maximum two four-year back-to-back terms, as stipulated by the constitution.
Bear in mind that this constitution was directed by Prayut and written by his loyalists after he seized power in May of 2014.
When reporters asked Prayut if he would resign, he said "Nah".
For now, the dwindling number of Prayut loyalists claim that he can legally stay on as 'prime minister' for five more years.
Prayut's main No. 1 male spokesman Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana told the media on Monday that the opposition political parties "have no business asking the Court" to suspend his boss.
https://bityl.co/DpxA
It does get better.
Thailand's public and social media have declared the top four (4) candidates to become prime minister if the court unseats Prayut.
The media has chosen three members of the current junta administration and the daughter of Thaksin Shinawatra as most-likely candidates.
 Prayut himself
 ex-general Prawit Wongsuwon, planner of the 2014 coup
 Anutin Charnvirakul, the current loyalist and 'minister of public health
 Thaksin's last daughter Phaethongthan "Ung Ing" Shinawatra
As of today, there might be an election early in 2023. But that is flexible.
Tatmadaw piles on Aung San
A cringing court in Myanmar added yet another six years to the prison sentence of Aung San Suu Kyi - now 77 and unlikely ever to see sunshine again.
The court met in a special compound inside a prison in Naypyidaw, the Myanmar capital city. No spectators were allowed.
Mandalay Region High Court Judge Myint San ruled that Suu Kyi caused the State to lose more than 24.2 billion kyat (copy3 million) by leasing land in Naypyidaw to build the headquarters and related projects of Daw Khin Kyi Foundation, a charity.
The ruling Tatmadaw (Burmese army) dictators have killed at least 2,200 civilians and arrested more than 15,000 since they overthrew Suu Kyi's elected government last year.
Soldiers have lynched at least seven supporters of Suu Kyi in the past month.
The junta had accused the deposed leader of misusing public donations to the foundation to build her residence in Naypyidaw and accepting bribes worth $550,0000 from a businessman as a donation to the o the charity in 2019 and 2020.
Suu Kyi said it was nonsense and pleaded not-guilty. She is already serving 11 years from an earlier case.
PHOTO: This demonstration was at the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, last month.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-15/aung-san-suu-kyi-convicted-on-four-further-charges/101336172
Remember when human rights groups and some civilised nations supported Aung San Suu Kyi?
Ah, those were the days, right?
Over to the east...
[AP] U.S. congress members meet Taiwan leader amid China anger
https://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/international/2022/08/15/us-congress-members-meet-taiwan-leader-amid-china-anger/
'Taiwan is China's Taiwan'
[CNA] The People's Liberation Army (PLA) accused a delegation of U.S. senators visiting Taiwan of disrupting and destroying peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait through their visit to Taiwan and announced additional military exercises in the strait.
The PLA claimed that the visit by the senators sends the "wrong signal to Taiwan independence separatist forces, and fully exposes the true face of the U.S. as a disruptor and destroyer of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait." The Eastern Theater Command then announced that it organized multi-service joint combat readiness patrols and drills in the "sea and airspace around Taiwan Island."
The statement alleged that "Taiwan is China's Taiwan" and that no foreign interference would be allowed to interfere with the "Taiwan issue." It warned U.S. and Democratic Progressive Party leaders that the strategies of "Using Taiwan to control China" and "relying on the U.S. to seek independence" are "doomed to fail."
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4626929
Photo via Weibo, PLA Eastern Theater Command image.
CORONAVIRUS TOURIST TAIWAN
Effective immediately...
You no longer require a PCR test to enter Taiwan.
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4626784
Papers, please!
Officer, you may not realise that you can recycle single-use face masks. Follow the science fgs!
https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environment/3597482-yes-single-use-masks-are-recyclable-heres-how/
During the 24 hours of Monday in Thailand, Rona
• infected another 1,663 new virus victims
• killed another 30 coronavirus carriers
The Monday numbers were almost exactly the same as thoe reported on Sunday.
The best news is that hospitals and clinics released 2,335 Covid victims and sent them home, cured.
Since the pandemic started in early 2020, there have been 4,622,088 Covid-19 cases, including 2,398,653 this year, with 4,569,974 complete recoveries to date.
The accumulated death toll stood at 31,858 since the beginning of the pandemic, including 10,160 so far this year.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2368503/
WHO did that.
Prominent epidemiologists and members of the global health community claim that earlier outbreaks of monkeypox, which were first reported in 2010 then again in 2017, were ignored on the public-health stage.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/12/monkeypox-virus-origins-nigeria-sexual-transmission/
We're all going to die, aren't we? Monkeypox is going to kill us all, isn't it? Give it to us straight, doc.
Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, director-general of the  Disease Control Department (DCD), said the 25-year-old woman was infected in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and she had symptoms before she took a flight back to Thailand so it was easy to detect her condition.
The other dreaded virus.
The polio virus has now been detected in New York City’s sewage, suggesting the virus is circulating and spreading.
https://apnews.com/article/health-new-york-city-wastewater-climate-and-environment-8df014e9b38a70606c04234492bb3fb4
Mama (below), YumYum or WaiWai
Those aren't the only three instant-noodle brands by any means, but they are the biggest sellers.
Instant noodle makers seek 33% price hike from 6 baht to 8 baht per package - from 17 U.S. cents to 23.
The "average" Thai eats an entire pack of instant noodles once a week.
https://www.thaienquirer.com/42841/instant-noodle-makers-continue-to-apply-pressure-to-raise-prices-as-cost-surges/
Electricity prices going up
Come September, Thailand's electricity providers will raise the cost for households and businesses.
The country's Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) announced Monday that rates must increase by a whopping 35% a month - because the cost of importing LNG (liquefied natural gas) was rising. At the same time, production by wells in the Gulf of Thailand is dropping.
https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/national/40018919
Veteran ASEAN journalist Kavi Chongkittavorn steps out of the region and notes in a commentary:
ROK-China relations face challenges
While United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has long departed South Korea for home, the news headlines generated by her stopover in Seoul continue unabated.
Kavi picks the old and thorny issue of THAAD - installation of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system as a prickly roadblock harming relations between South Korean (ROK) and the Communist Party of China.
For now, both countries have agreed to the THAAD issue in the goal of progress in their bilateral ties. But it won't end happily.
PHOTO: Murals denouncing a THAAD system decorate wall in Seongju, South Korea.
[The Tuesday Morning Joke]
A pastor was 10 minutes into his sermon when he noticed his young son in the balcony with a pea-shooter.
He was leaning over the "balcony" - aiming, and popping people in the head.
As the pastor prepared to deliver a very public scolding of his boy, the 7 year-old son hollered out, "You keep preaching Dad, and I'll keep 'em awake! (h/t Ace)
Two old solid-white farang guys in Speedos went jogging down the road in Jomtien - and Karen was outraged.
"If a Thai person went jogging in nothing more than underwear, they would be charged with public indecency," said Karen, possibly correctly.
Jomtien is next door to Pattaya. Residents don't want to see old almost-nude foreigners.
PHOTO: EE-Yew! These ugly old men are showing much more than decent Jomtien people want to see.
https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/national/40018903
Grieving for the turtles
Hobbled down to the corner store for a few takeout Cokes - and all they had was plastic straws! Oh, the humanity!
Papers, please!
Officer, you may not realise that you can recycle single-use face masks. Follow the science fgs!
https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environment/3597482-yes-single-use-masks-are-recyclable-heres-how/
Thailand's junta is considering a major infrastructure plan to build an 18-kilometre bridge from the Thai mainland to Koh Samui, an island known only as a tourist destination.
Part B of the plan is to dispatch embassy and tourist officials worldwide to claim that the Gulf of Thailand island is a "wellness destination"
Wanwalee Tantikarn is president of the Samui Spa Association, which attracts mostly local, Thai visitors. But she is fully on-board with the bridge plan, and push Koh Samui as a health resort.
 "Many tourists are now paying more attention to their health. If Koh Samui becomes the country's premier health and wellness destination, it will draw more tourists. This will benefit local people as they will have more health treatment options as well."
PHOTO: The proposal tabled on Monday includes a four-lane highway bridge from Surat Thani procince to Koh Samui.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2368403/
A temple caretaker in southern Songkhla province said he beat a man to death on Sunday because he was planning to rob the temple and sleeping monks.
Pinyo Suwanno, 48, a layman hired by Wat Sisawangwong aka Wat Koh Sua as a servant and watchman, told police he had heard the victim bragging on the phone that everyone was asleep, so the robbery could go ahead.
He grabbed a wooden staff and struck the man, and kept beating him until be was dead.
Pinyo claimed he reacted instantly because he knew that 400,000-500,000 baht in cash was kept inside the temple.
Hat Yai city police charged him with murder.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2368873/
BITS and PIECES
One year since the Taliban returned to power, it is uncertain whether Afghan girls will ever be allowed to go back to school.
https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-one-year-later-girls-education-50fabcb133db9f5f7c2b0559534d1eb7
Getting stabbed almost to death is good for business
Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses Shoots Up Amazon Best-Seller List
Iran's supreme leader in 1989 issued a fatwa against Rushdie over the contents of this novel.
Repeat: 33 Years Ago
Biden and Missus said they were quite sad about Rushdie. They didn't mention a possible motive for the attack, or the name of the country currently cheering the attack and lamenting its actual failure. Iran is still responsible for paying a US$500,000 bounty to anyone who kills Rushdie.
COMMENTARY: https://www.westernjournal.com/bidens-appalling-statement-rushdie-attack-ignored-important-detail/
also
The mother of the 24-year-old Shi'ite twerp who tried to kill Salman Rushdie disowns her son. In a major clue, she says he 'changed a lot' after returning from a trip to the Mideast - no country mentioned.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/14/mom-of-salman-rushdie-stabber-hadi-matar-says-she-wont-speak-to-son-again/
SPORTS GRIDIRON FOOTBALL
Two years after former NFL players sued the league over the treatment of Black retirees in the organization's USD$1 billion concussion settlement, hundreds of men whose medical tests for dementia were rescored to eliminate race bias now also qualify for monetary compensation.
 A 2020 lawsuit unearthed the horrifying fact that dementia tests had previously been adjusted by race according to a framework that assumed that Black people have a lower cognitive-baseline score.
 Of the 646 Black men whose tests were rescored, nearly half now qualify for dementia awards.
https://apnews.com/article/nfl-concussion-settlements-more-dementia-cases-4bb73e9d399f3438972f95caaf14d4f4
It pays to increase your word power. Watch this (pun intended).
horology - n. - The study and measurement of time. The art of making clocks and watches.
escapement - n. - A mechanism in a clock or watch that alternately checks and releases the train by a fixed amount and transmits a periodic impulse from the spring or weight to the balance wheel or pendulum. This is what causes the clock's hands to advance in a mechanical clock.
Free on Gutenberg:
WATCH AND CLOCK ESCAPEMENTS
A Complete Study In Theory and Practice of the Lever, Cylinder and Chronometer Escapements, Together with a Brief Account of the Origin and Evolution of the Escapement in Horology
There is so much math here, I know you'll love it.
Plus quite a few new words and phrases to increase your word power.
https://bit.ly/3JCJUaT
This edition of the Daily Fishwrap has been presented by Roofs.
