Thai PM commits nation to 'digital transformation'

Hello, Welcome to Fishwrap, straight out of East Bangkok where it is already Saturday, although waiting for sun-up in half an hour.
Then it's Bend Over and produce the Bulldog edition for Sunday 17 November.

The next big Jew holiday is the 8-day Hanukkah celebration, starting (again) early morning on Christmas Day.

There are 44 shopping days to get your sweetie that special New Year's gift.
There are 56 days until Children's Day, Thailand's version of Christmas for curtain climbers. May we suggest you get busy planning that special day for your toddlers and tweens?

Some cause happiness wherever they go. Others... whenever they go.

We expect heavy rainfall next week, especially in Surat Thani, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Songkhla, Phatthalung, Pattani, and Narathiwat.
 -- That's the South. Deputy spokesmanperson Sasikarn Watthanachan reporting.

TECHNOLOGY
In Lima, Prime Minister Paethongtarn Shinawatra, better known as Ung-Ing signals that she's all-in on technology development.
Step One: Public praise for Google's billion-dollar plan for Thailand investment.
Step Two: A public handshake in Peru {PHOTO, below} with Singapore's Shou Zi Chew, chairman of Tik-Tok. Which means Thailand won't be banning or attacking the Chinese social video company.
She claimed there's a 'close partnership' with Microsoft, and told that company's Antony Cook, "I intend to pursue the digital transformation of Thailand."

Also Technology, by people who are Know Nothings About Technology.
Let's hope that Prime Minister Ung Ing isn't one of them, eh?

USA SPORTS BOXING
A sports freak show -- more like pro rasslin' than pre rasslin'
Aged ex-knockout machine Mike Tyson, 58, took on American Jake Paul in Texas. Netflix streamed the bout, which scheduled eiht two-minute rounds and pillow-sized 14-ounce boxing gloves, larger than normal.
Netflix "suffered numerous outages" during the evening, enraging viewers but also proving that Netflix has a long way to go in sports coverage.

Oopsie, almost forgot. Paul won a snoozer of a fight.

The Associated Press news agency has opened a campaign that literally begs for money.
Never in history has a news agency tried to appeal to the public for cash.
The AP is at the top of a 'news cooperative' where newspapers, magazines, TV stations etc etc etc pay for the Associated Press' regurgitated news.

The appeal says: Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business.

There is not yet a reliable audit. But the AP more than any foreign agency has dumped millions in hiring terrorists and suspects in the Mideast, particularly in Gaza.
https://apnews.com/donate

Settle in. Chair or sofa, and a small warm kitty for motionless company.'

Not everyone knows yet about Ammo Grrrll but they should. She's a terrific weekend read.
Our Girls Are Crazy, she writes today:
I saw a recruitment ad for the CIA, of all things, in which a young Woman Of Color listed among her many accomplishments in box-checking that she suffered from Anxiety Disorder. Which I thought was a peculiar thing to bring up in ANY job interview, especially for a clandestine, high-stress job. Silly me.
 I was a Goldwater Grrrll in 1964. You talk about a WIPEOUT! We picked up our AuH2O gear and got on with our lives! It was in a quaint era when many students even knew the chemical symbols! Good times, good times.

While we're still on the subject of Canada, Vietnam and the ICC as revealed publicly by U Vic, here's another excellent paper from that school, which calls it A Discussion Paper:
 The situation has become critical, necessitating some difficult conversations to determine a path forward towards justice and peace.

The report reveals how the heads of the CIA, FBI, and other U.S. intelligence agencies appointed by Donald 'Literally, Hitler' Trump, launched what The Wall Street Journal called an unprecedented campaign in early 2018 to portray China and the telecom giant Huawei as a major threat to the Five Eyes, composed of Canada, the U.S., U.K., Australia, and New Zealand.
 And then Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou of Huawei at YVR.
[Click on the red publication for the full, free PDF report]

The Culture We Deserve
It doesn't matter whether students read Faulkner or whether society thinks that's bad, except that it can be good to read things you hate.
 It is true that children are annoying. But all these hysterical stories that "prove" that the younger generation is doomed because of wokeness, illiteracy, pro-Palestinian politics or whatever. They overlook one very important fact: teens will do whatever it takes not to read William Faulkner.
Also Shakespeare, Joyce, Morrison, or any other book you want to put in front of their faces.

CANADA REAL SPORTS (not soccer)
Sunday evening is Grey Cup, something like America's Super Bowl Sunday but a h**k of a lot bigger.
The gridiron showdown in Vancouver will be Winnipeg  Blue Bombers* vs TorontoArgonauts for the second time in three years.
Argo QB Chad Kelly was stretchered off last weekend with a gruesome broken leg, so Bomers are the betting favourite.
*Photo: Winnipeg veteran quarterback Zach Collaros of Steubenville, Ohio, and U. Cincinnati

Fishwrap Review: Barely Watchable
National Geographic (and Apple) showed their three-part, three-hour show last week, The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth.
It's the best popular report so far on the 1971 attempt by a clearly deranged university professor to 'prove' his inner conspiracy that everyone everywhere has a hidden personal flaw of violence. 'DOCTOR' Philip Zimbardo set up an experiment where he separated male uni students into two groups, guards and prisoners. The prisoners were locked into a three-cell 'prison basement' and guards were put in uniforms, issued large clubs, and instructed to harass and when necessary to beat down the 'prisoners' to show that average-ordinary young men could be turned into violent fiends at a stroke.
 Zimbardo made and continues to make big money by pretending the horror show was real. Participants were paid US$15 per day to abuse or to be abused, and they remember every moment. The alleged 'experiment' was called off by uni authorities after six days, about a week too long.
 The docu plays out with prisoners and guards remembering what happened, and terrifying kinescope-video of the violence is shown.
 Many readers will be unable to binge the entire 3-hour docu; it's a horror show but honestly, totally fitting for Stanford, U.C. Berkely and other sickos of northern California, even 53 years ago.
 
 Fishwrap Review: Almost Unwatchable
Billed as a Canadian fantasy, the dystopian Rumours is an end-of-the-world -- literally -- show about marvellously stupid 'leaders' of the G7, who meet in Dankerode to discuss and solve problems of the world, as all dumb G6 or 7 or 8 claim. In Rumours lead actress and (alleged) German chancellor Hilda Orimann played by remarkably dreadful actress Cate Blanchett takes fellow 'leaders' to an archaeological dig of 2,000-year-old Iron Age mummies who -- what a surprise! -- reanimate and cause all aides and security and cooks to disappear as the ageing dumbbells tuck into dinner at a remote gazebo which also has no transportation. So Hilda leads them into the woods which are haunted. What a completely novel concept, eh?
The American pres wants to sit down and die. The total idiot Canadian leader goes insane before our eyes, and so on.
A few critics (The New York Times) found it all so uplifting -- even though we watch the literal End Of The World.
The Canadian prime minister Maxime Laplace is played by Roy Dupuis of New Liskeard and Kapuskasing (so at least he's actually a Canadian) turns 100% insane before our eyes but he has a brilliant soliloquy as the moving picture ends -- a speech so dumb, so ridiculously stupid that it sounds and feels exactly how every G7 statement and press release goes, except in this movie so does the entire human race.

THAILAND NATURE ENVIRONMENT
Dugongs On the Brink
The underwater 'little giants' are about three metres and half a tonne. They are the only vegetarian mammal of the seas, grazing on... well, maybe 40-to-45 kilos of sea grass per day. They give birth to babies who drink mama's milk and hide behind her for protection against the only real predator animals who think they taste good -- saltwater crocs and killer whales.
But dugongs are dying at a too-rapid rate at their Thai sanctuaries and grassy pastures off southern Trang and Krabi povinces.
Noted marine biologist Thon Thamrongnawasawat reported that from 2023 to 2024, it was recorded that 35 dugongs had died -- an almost three-fold increase from an average of 12 per year over the past decade.
The in October another 10 animals died. Global warming and plastic pollution, of course. But in the real world there is something bad going on.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2901198/

We're Number Six! We're No. 6! We're No. 6!
The United Nations' UNESCO... who knew they do this?
Anyhows, UNESCO has just declared that Suvarnabhumi airport (BKK) is the sixth most beautiful airport on Earth, and parts of explored space planets.

That includes the midfield new satellite Terminal 1.
Top 5
Zayed International, UAE; Felipe Ángeles International, Mexico; Changi Terminal 2, Singapore; Logan Airport Terminal E, Boston, and Kansas City International, USA.

The region's best Sunday read points out that the Guy Fawkes failed-revolution celebration and fireworks and the U.S. election victory of Literally, Hitler occurred once again on the same day.
 Remember, remember the 5th of November
After four years of politicking, Trump prevailed.
At least in Britain they get the whole thing done and dusted in six weeks, although many feel that's still too long.
Watching the U.S. presidential candidates slagging one another off like squabbling children in the playground hasn't been the most uplifting of experiences. These politicians still have something to learn in the art of insulting behaviour.
And Rog dives into histories of brutal political insults -- real and failed.

Time to champion free education
by Bede Sheppard, Human Rights Watch
Girls Suffer Most
PHOTO below: The Migrant Learning Center (MLC), which cares for 15,139 stateless students in Tak province, northern Thailand.
Failing to provide free pre-primary and secondary education disproportionately harms girls and women. In certain parts of the world, parents with limited resources feel societal pressure to prioritise their boys' education, so the cost of secondary education often prevents girls from attending school.

Bede seems serene about twin jobs at HRW and the University of Oxford, England. But he is bizarrely uninformed and unlearned about the 150-year-old history of education in Thailand.

Trump's first White House press secretary is another stunner, the quite bedable Karoline Leavitt, a veteran of the Trump election campaigns.