Russia really wants their top Number One international arms trafficker/smuggler back. But it's complicated.
HELLO WORLD and all the ladies, gentlemen, comrades and future friends in it, today us Sunday, May 15, and it is a cool 83 degrees in downtown Bang Na, unless you're Canadian in which case it is 29 degrees with a bit of a breeze.
Eight Years Ago Today
Four ex-commanders of the Royal Thai Army were slapping each other on their backs and smiling like a butcher's dog for successfully carrying out the 19th military coup d'état in 82 years.
Those smiles have turned into more of a Chess Cat grin but at least Yingluck has fled and Prayut is the Number One man, so everything is going swimmingly.
Thailand went three years without a military coup. Now they've lived eight years with one.
THAILAND BANGKOK ELECTIONS
If you have not yet read the Roger Crutchley column for May 15, then you're way way, WAY behind in catching up on news of Thailand. And Bangkok.
Today, Crutch is on about next Sunday's election for the governor aks HPYICC (Head Phu Yai In Complete Charge).
Crutch doesn't mention that the winner has been known for a month, and Thailand's junta and army and alleged 'government' are really pissed.
For about a week, major market-and-coffee-shop gossip has been about a TV advert by Chinese-owned Lazada (Thailand).
Self-styled "loyalist royalists" have gone ape-spit because they claimed if you squint a bit and hold your head just so, you can see that the advert was completely, totally against Thailand's royal family.
The junta bought this and over the week has banned Lazada sales, upbraided deliver companies for carrying their packages - and now banned all Thai military and civil servants to using the Lazada website and ordering goods.
Lazada is the Asian equivalent of Amazon. It is owned by billionaire (and Thailand BFF) Jack Ma, and is a unit of Ma's gigantic Alibaba.
It took the Chinese embassy in Bangkok a week, but on Sunday, it described the junta's attitude on Lazada in a word - UNACCEPABLE.
The statement effectively backs the junta. It's worth noting that the Chinese Communist Party has disappeared Jack Ma almost three months ago.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=378159747689873&id=100064875510284
Earlier
Thai army boycotts online retailer Lazada after video enrages royalists
https://bityl.co/CCq7
RUSSIA PRISON EXCHANGE VIKTOR BOUT
Reports from Moscow on Saturday claimed that Putin and Friends are desperately seeking the return of Viktor "Merchant of Death" Bout - who was caught in a U.S.-Thai police sting in 2008 in Siam Square, Bangkok.
 The Russians have supposedly approached the U.S. State Department to try to make a deal to exchange Bout for the women's basketball star Brittney Griner.
Griner, 31, was arrested and then locked up at a Moscow airport in February on charges of carrying vape cartridges that contained cannabis oil in her luggage.
Bout (disarmed but never disarming as one of his arresting officers put it) is the most notorious arms trafficker of our generation. He is a 25-year guest of a U.S. federal prison in Illinois.
THAILAND CORONAVIRUS
During the 24 hours of Saturday, Thailand recorded
6,736 new and confirmed cases of coronavirus
54 deaths
This, and a tonne of info and graphics at (and near)
https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/thailand/
My old pal and troublemaker* extraordinaire Major Mark "Zippo" Smith (hardcore, prisoner of war in a hole in the ground for 10 months, Vietnam) pointed out, when he saw yesterdays headline that
Biden makes it rain in Southeast Asia.
"Oh yeah, like Operation Popeye!"
Punny.
Background
U.S.A. 'scientists' and 'intelligence experts' believed they could probably win the Vietnam War for the Good Guys by controlling the climate.
Not a joke: Operation Popeye seeded clouds in specific areas of South Vietnam to make it rain and Rain and RAIN.
It's actually a long story, which should be written and video'd. Long story short:
U.S. military experts and scientists said Operation Popeye was a magnificent success, with increase rainfall everywhere they wanted it.
North Vietnam won the war.
PHOTO: U.S.A. "experts" thought that if they could bog down the North Vietnamese Army, the rest would be simple.
https://www.popsci.com/operation-popeye-government-weather-vietnam-war/
* He sued president Ronald Reagan, for one.
CORONAVIRUS STATISTICS QUESTIONS
Who had "Thailand" in the 'First Country to Admit Miscounts' in the Coronavirus Sweepstake?
New Evidence Casts Doubts on Accuracy of Thailand's Official Coronavirus Statistics
https://bangkokherald.com/coronavirus/new-evidence-casts-doubts-on-accuracy-of-thailands-official-coronavirus-statistics/
AFRICANS PREFER PFIZER
A healthcare worker administers the Pfizer anti-coronavirus vaccine to Simphiwe, 13, in Johannesburg.
South Africa since the onset of the SARS Cov-2 novel virus: population: 59.3 million
Confirmed cases: 3,879,434
Deaths: 100,744
THAILAND HOLIDAYS TOURISM
Halfway through Thailand's four-day holiday weekend, hotel owners have long faces, complaining that the expected tourist rush just isn't happening.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2309894/
The U.S.-ASEAN 'summit' in Washington was a disappointment for Biden, who failed to move one ASEAN member off its Ukraine-Russia stand.
But it did live down to the low expectations of ASEAN member countries. They expected Biden to give a dry and unsurprising speech, with many clichés - and that's what they got.
Biden is the fifth U.S. president in a row to flatter political leaders of the Southeast Asian bloc:
"It's a new era," said Biden.
A great deal of history of our world in the next 50 years is going to be written in the Asean countries, and our relationship with you is the future, in the coming years and decades.
It was pretty much a straight lift from a Clinton address, as well as W. Bush, Obama and Trump.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/2309982/
https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/2309918/
One step forward, no steps back
Biden announced that he had nominated Yohannes Abraham to be ambassador to ASEAN.
He didn't mention an ambassador to Thailand, but apparently that is in the works.
Baby leopard to go wild
Just east of Bangkok, park rangers at the  Krabokkoo Wildlife Rescue Centre of Chachoengsao province, park rangers came across (don't ask!) a cute and tiny leopard kitten.
They named it 'Simba' and took it to their headquarters for several weeks.
Simba is now ready for release back into the wilds of the park.
Leopards are rare in Thailand, and are one of the most-trafficked animals.
Great pictures of the cute kitten at
https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40015560
THAILAND BUDDHISM CORRUPTION SEX
Editorial in Saturday's newspaper
Temples of temptation
Reports of Buddhist monks being caught having sexual relationships or embezzling temple money have become common.
... It is time for the NOB and Sangha Council to audit temples’ finances in a more transparent manner.
Giving monks carte blanche to handle temple money only undermines Buddhism.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2309814/temples-of-temptation
(NOB: National Office of Buddhism. Thailand has total freedom of religion, unless you step over some line or other.)
Cutline du jour
Describing the shit-eating, pee-drinking leader of a small group of loyal women in Chaiyaphum province:
Cult leader Tawee Nanra used non-scientific health treatments
Ya think?
TECHNOLOGY
(possibly... probably criminal)
ICE "now operates as a domestic surveillance agency". (Engadget)
 ICE is illegally outsourcing to private companies illegal data collection operations on U.S, citizens that would be illegal for the agency to conduct itself.
https://www.engadget.com/ice-surveillance-report-us-government-193206600.html
Shock and Ah-h-h-h
Why tech workers on six-figure salaries still feel underpaid. (Toolbox)
 Well, partly it's the 80 hour weeks. Partly it's the insane housing prices of cities where high tech industries tend to concentrate.
 But partly also because even those salaries aren't keeping up with inflation.
https://www.toolbox.com/tech/it-careers-skills/articles/tech-salaries-why-techies-feel-underpaid/
Samsung is reportedly planning to increase chip prices by up to 20%. (PC Magazine)
That would push up the price of everything else - literally everything else - but given that the price per transistor has fallen by a factor of about a trillion over the past few decades is not entirely unreasonable.
https://au.pcmag.com/components/94033/samsung-is-reportedly-planning-to-raise-chip-prices-by-20
Spain debates 'period leave' for women
Makes total sense and is compassionate, right?
But what about the womyn?
https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/2309954/
Thai junta reduces prices, for some
If you are exceptionally rich. And a foreigner.
Cheaper LTR visa gets green light
BRIEFS P3 - 11 May 22
RESIDENCY: The cabinet has approved the Interior Ministry’s draft announcement about granting long-term residence (LTR) visas to select groups of foreigners to help spur the economy and promote investment, deputy government spokeswoman Rachada Dhnadirek said yesterday.
Ms Rachada said the LTR visa would be offered to four categories of foreigners set by the ministry, allowing them to stay in the kingdom for up to 10 years.
They comprise wealthy visitors, foreign retirees, people who want to work remotely from Thailand and highly skilled professionals.
The offer also covers the visa holder’s spouse and children aged under 20, up to a maximum of four people.
Moreover, the price of the visa has been halved from the original plan and will now cost just 50,000 baht, including all family members, Ms Rachada said, adding they can also submit work permit requests.
The new measure will take effect 90 days after it is published in the Royal Gazette, she said.
SUNDAY READ MUSK TWITTER
Brendan O'Neill is a London-born Limey who has been around and about quite long, enough to earn respect and attention.
He has written carefully of "Muskophobia" for his old web site Spiked, claiming credibly (with facts) that "the globalist elites are determined to crush Musk's dream of a freer social media."
It's an article deserving of serious thought, and it's at
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/05/13/elon-musk-and-the-battle-for-control-of-the-internet/
VIDEO
Why you shouldn't snap the ends off asparagus
Okay, but how else can you fit it in the trash bag?
