We regret the interruption. Too-long story, short. Late on Wednesday evening, we had just printed our two main up-country editions and trucks had left for the airport and Bang Sue roundhouse, several staffers were watching a soap opera in the Magnificent Fishwrap Break Room (amber beverages in some cases) and suddenly, literally in an instant, All internet was gone, every terminal showed Site Cannot Be Reached; DNS Attack Possible, while TV screens were black -- all screens including key news connections and streaming. 'All' as in Every Blessed One. This was for all of Nong Bon and several tambons adjacent. It took two days simply to roust an expert Fixerman, a period without email or, tragically, connection to our payments division. Life Without Internet will not be fun.
Reminder: The haemorrhoid clinic is on Tuesday mornings -- SRO, Standing Room Only.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS, Chapter Wyth Deg Chwech We'll be back in two minutes and two seconds. -- Last words of TV Love Connection dating-game show inventor and host Chuck Woolery, dead at his home in Texas at 83, RIP.
There are 22 shopping days until the (supposed) birthday of that Christ child. Meaning there are 29 days to shop for your Sweetie's special New Year's gift. And 40 days to plan what you'll do with your rug rats for Children's Day. And 50 days to get that U.S. visa before Literally Hitler literally becomes president.
ASEAN THAILAND CAMBODIA Latest development in the murderous, intra-nation crackdown on citizens who defy their governments: Thailand deports six Khmer activists and the 5-year-old son of one -- and the thing is that they were in Thailand with official U.N. protection, so once again displaying the value of United Nations"concern". The Cambodians were living in Pathum Thani, just north of Bangkok, but now of course they're under arrest in Phnom Penh. FILE PHOTO: The Cambodian Candlelight Party is an unofficial opposition group.
Hun Sen and his son Manet's government already have charged five of the six, so they may never be free. The child is being moved to the 'care' of a state agency. Human Rights Watch is quite angry.
THAILAND WEATHER Heavy downpours in the Thailand South. PHOTO: The road into Hat Yai city. As it does every year, the weather rains like open spigots across the southern provinces, especially those closest to Malaysia. Prime Minister Paethongtarn Shinawatra, better known as Ung-Ing and some of her ministers claim that they are 'increasing their efforts' to help southerners deal with it.
Officially, 240,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed. So far.
FLOODS NORTH Meanwhile, up North, where Shinawatras all are born Prime Minister Paethongtarn says her government has put 19 billion-with-a-B baht into a fund to fix the flood damage in her native Chiang Mai and adjacent Chiang Rai provinces -- call it US$554 million in a round number. The Thai cabinet's plan calls for both urgent and long-term projects for those two provinces, which suffered massive damages in the annual storms early this year -- and new rains are coming.
PHOTO: In The Pink: Ung Ing chaired a 'mobile cabinet meeting' at Chiang Mai.
I'm not here to enjoy the beaches. Rabbi Mendy Segal, atop Chabad Phuket House
Segal is chief rabbi of Thailand, based in Bangkok with Rabbi Yosef Kantor. (Above, Bangkok. Below, the rabbi in Phuket.
PHOTO: A Jewish-owned restaurant at Patong, Phuket.
'The pad Thai is bland'. The meat's from Argentina and it's a pretty ordinary pad Thai, especially because young Israeli tourists claim they don't like spicy food. And Jewizh kosher law bans tamarind, which is an essential ingredient of "real" pad Thai.
We have just been assured by a Limey quasi-intellectuals daytime TV game show that the novel Atlas Shrugged "is a book that's utterly loved by the American right wing," just about the 3ooth reason not to trust the pommie press on their alleged 'reporting' of American politics. Actually and authentically, Ayn Rand sold 10 million copies, and it's ranked No. 20 on the latest List of America's Favourite Reads (previously No. 43)..
TECHNOLOGY Windows 12 is still developing Slowly, in the infamous Redmond of Washington state, U.S.A., and we already know it's packed with more artificial intelligence than the last (one hopes) military dictator of Thailand, that’s how we already know it'll be shit. Ask your parents for a pony for your birthday, not Windows 12. But wait! there's more. We also know that Bill Gates, the world's leading medical authority on new viruses has already wangled a healthy percent of Windows 12 sales income -- not profits, straight income. And you know who else is flat-out expert on AI and digital stuff? Right! Paethongtarn Shinawatra aka Ung Ing, poor thing.
Reddit is back online. (Tech Crunch) Some people actually noticed that it went down. https://t.ly/R-T_t
WOEING BOEING LAYOFFS DISMISSALS After their worst month for deliveries since the MAX groundings in November 2020, Boeing has laid off (aka permanently 'fired') another 2,200 employees, most of them engineers who will depart in January. So Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Boeing Engineers!
UKRAINE RUSSIA USA Putin puts trust in Trump (Literally Hitler, https://t.ly/f5PbL) At a Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) meeting in Astana on Thursday (photo) Russian new-dictator Vlad Putin told his media that 'Trump can navigate the Ukraine crisis. Oh, and he can mend the rip in Russian-American relations.
In America President-elect Trump, who is Literally Hitler, nominated retired three-star General Keith Kellogg to be U.S. Special Envoy for the Ukraine-Russia War. Kellogg believes and has written
Bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to a close will require strong, America First leadership to deliver a peace deal and immediately end the hostilities... A combined failure to engage Russia diplomatically and the Biden administration's “risk-averse pattern” in arming Ukraine has prolonged the conflict.
Joseph Biden who, remember, is president of the U.S. for 51 more days, appealed squintingly for lame-duck credit for everything he's done.
On this day, my message to the Ukrainian people is clear: The United States stands with you. https://shorturl.at/r2zz7
RELATED USA POLITICS In their cruelest act since overthrowing Biden last July, senior savants of the U.S. Democratic Party sponsored and emitted a tweet by their election-loser Kammy Harris in which she appeared intoxicated after five days of holidays at a luxurious resort in Hawaii. Shhe wassh addreshing her shupportersh. https://x.com/TheDemocrats/status/1861550359161745529 Canadians and tens of millions of Americans in specific geo-zones know the very, very old rule: Never give alcohol to an Indian.
Settle in. Chair or sofa, and a small warm kitty for motionless company. Or a puppy, we will not judge you.
Primo -- it isn't a weekend without Thoughts From The Ammo Line. Ammo Grrrll's topic today is ROOKIE MISTAKES.
I honestly don't even remember WHAT dish I was fixin' to make, but it had only 7 ingredients listed, so I thought perhaps I could give ‘er a whirl. The very last ingredient was 1 Cup of Brown Sauce (see page 357). In turning to page 357, the recipe for Brown Sauce, which had ELEVEN ingredients, began, “Take five goose livers”…and I said aloud, “Well, THAT's not going to happen!” Almost 60 years later, I still have never had 5 goose livers on hand.
The monthly Full Moon Party at Phangna Island in the Gulf of Thailand was on Friday. Mossad, Royal Thai Police Special Branch have been busy infiltrating and breaking up plans by small gangs to specifically target young Israeli tourists, who love the Full Moon events and attend in large numbers. As always, Special Branch have kept the work at low-level secrecy but it is known by Fishwrap that at least three different groups have been targeted and broken up, including with armed police violence. The warning yesterday to Israeli visitors to keep a close eye out for possible attacks. A key part of this: No Thai has (yet) been implicated in any manner. Some of the groups smashed by Special Branch are Israeli citizens -- Arabs with Israeli passports and extremely violent intentions.
This opens once again Fishwrap's questions to alleged "analysts" who blamed the most recent Amsterdam pogrom on the Israelis who were attacked by mostly North Africans attempting to kill them. Why only in Holland and not in Canada, America or, now, Thailand? Since 1972... ALL attacks upon Israelis within Thailand have been by outsiders, mostly directed by Iranian controllers but occasionally directly by Hezbollah or by Hamas 'Palestinians'.
PHOTO: Israeli students and short-time visitors love the Full Moon Party and probable debauchery.
POSSIBLY TRIVIA Bangkok has a large community of Shi'ite, run almost entirely by the embassy of Iran but totally, completely unwilling to perform any type of violent acts, especially terrorism and most especially against foreigners in Thailand. The community conducts, or tries to conduct an annual Al-Aqsa parade in central-eastern Bangkok, preferably with extensive property damage. The parade has been banned for several years.
Yingluck's Coming Home Her friend and her government's loyalist Worachai Hema (photo) says the ousted ex-prime minister will put up with whatever legal manoeuvring her haters put up, but.
"I was treated unfairly." She has now publicly urged her opposition to quiet down and not to turn her return into straight-up politicisation.
TAIWAN CHINA War games show Taiwan needs to fend for itself for a month if China attacks Chinese blockade would likely prevent US from reinforcing Taiwan for up to 4 weeks
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.
Something we watched, just before our internet tumbled down Friday The 13th (1980, Part I of... 12? (4/5) First Jason-Snuffs-Teens slasher. Q: If you and Honeybunch are canoodling on top of the comforter and a large guy in a Jacques Plante mask swings his 30-inch machete and decapitates you, would she lie absolutely still but emit a scream louder and longer than a good AC-DC rocker? Just wondering. Best line, not best scene: 'My sweet innocent boy Jason. He couldn't swim very well.'
