Thailand elites prepare first virtual-banking applications

12 Ramadan Nong Bon, Bangkok (Thailand) Fajr 0508 Sunrise 0618 Maghrib/Iftar 1828
This Fishwrap for 23 March, is Week 210 to flatten the curve.
  

What’s Forrest Gump’s password? Easy: 1forrest1.
  

When I use a word... it means just what I choose it to mean.
Humpty Dumpty, anthropomorphic egg, to Alice, Through the Looking Glass
More on this, below

THAILAND POLITICS
The superb Thai political analyst, and Chulalongkorn University professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak writes about... well, what else?
 The man of the month. Or probably longer
The Thaksin factor in Thai politics
 The establishment will be watching Mr Thaksin closely. He is already being kept on a leash, figuratively speaking, by a lese majeste charge immediately after he was allowed parole to return to his home.
 That happened via a royal pardon that shaved his jail sentence on corruption convictions from eight years to one year.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2758899/

PHOTO: Thaksin, centre, listens to a briefing by Agriculture Minister (and convicted heroin trafficker) Thamanat Prompow, left, during Thaksin's trip to Chiang Mai.

THAILAND ECONOMY VIRTUAL

Banking via phone: Three elites to bid for virtual-bank licence
Thailand has been more-than-ready for digital banking for years and now looks likely to get it, in a programme under joint prime minister-finance minister Srettha Thavisin.
The government will, naturally approve and license such 'Virtual Banks'.
As of now, there are three consortiums forming to bid -- all of them representing the old, wealthy families and companies.

SCB X, still called Siam Commercial Bank by many, has already signed agreements with a Chinese bank, which is still unidentified to the public, and KakaoBank, the largest virtual bank in South Korea.
SCB X chief executive Arthid Nanthawithaya says that full details of the consortium will be complete and ready for announcement, maybe, by next week.

Gulf Energy Development, aka just simply Gulf, has no known experience in banking -- yet.
Chief executive of Gulf, Sarath Ratanavadi, is also forming a consortium, 'fully ready' to apply for a virtual bank licence.
 We believe both KTB (better known as Krung Thai, a government-owned bank) and the leading mobile phone firm AIS "are ready to expand to a new business."
Gulf, KTB and AIS will have an equal shareholding of 33.3% by the time bids are called.

The huge, international family-run CP Group, already a consortium within the company, is a leader in both providing mobile phone access, and in communications and TV-streaming networks.
Suphachai Chearavanont, chief executive of Charoen Pokphand (CP) group and board chairman of True Corporation, said
 We are currently in the process of preparing the necessary documents and ensuring readiness before applying for a virtual bank licence.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/general/2762184/

THIS IS MANDATORY
Upate all Newspeak Dictionaries prior to COB today.

DON'T Be Evil
Holy S**T Is Right! Woke-Infested Google Busted Trying To Quietly Change Search Results For This Word.

In the immortal words of the Great Salesman Stanley Hudson
Did I Stutter?
WE'LL BE GREETED AS LIBERATORS
Joseph Biden, president USA, places Toronto, Berlin, London, Rome inside the United States.
 It was the second consecutive time that Biden flubbed the same applause line in a speech about his efforts to lower prescription drug costs.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/mar/19/joe-biden-declares-london-rome-toronto-are-america/

Related?
The United States is no longer among the 20 happiest countries in the world.
 According to new data from Gallup, America has gone from Number 15 to 23 on the latest (2024) World Happiness Report -- the first time ever that the U.S. has fallen out of the Top 20 Most Happy.
 This Gallup World Poll puts Finland (as usual) as Most Happiest and Thailand Number 45 -- behind Paraguay, barely happier than Malaysia.
Full Report (PDF); https://t.ly/Ku0ue

SPACE

U.S. and Japan push for ban on nuclear weapons in space
Yes, well... Good for them maybe, except...
The Outer Space Treaty has done that since 1967
https://shorturl.at/h1367

But it is necessary to Do Something
PHOTO: Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations

The Outer Space version of the U.S. Sierra Club

It's not, scientists claim, because of their fear of awakening and enraging the possible aliens who live there.
The scientists claim they have to keep The Dark Side Of The Moon for scientists-only.

Cuba Runs Out Of Money.
 So commies limit bank access to a business's own cash, and they're shocked that businesses stop depositing in banks.
 This happened a week after a 'secret visit' to Cuba by AOC and the Quad Squad but maybe, possibly that's just a coincidence.

https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=57528

ENTERTAINMENT SPORTS
Best and most readable sports column of the week, by the American babe who calls herself Ammo Grrrll, with a great anecdotal ending
 What We Can Learn From Professional Sports – Especially Baseball
[Not the Sunday Joke Of The Day -- But Better]
 In one interview after his retirement, a sportscaster asked the unmatchably great Ted Williams, "What do you think you would hit in the current baseball era."
 Williams said, “I don't know, probably about .220.
 The sportscaster was stunned. "You had a lifetime average of .344, and you think you would only hit .220 today? Why? Because of the way managers use several pitchers a game?"
 "Naw," replied big Ted. "Because I am 70 years old."
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/03/thoughts-from-the-ammo-line-518.php

TECHNOLOGY
Mac OS 14.4 may have another trick up its sleeve: Deleting your files. (MacRumors)
If you're using iCloud for storage because you bought a 256GB MacBook Air and it filled up instantly and you can't upgrade the storage, well, if you delete the local copy of a file you have on iCloud it might just delete all the backups on iCloud as well.
This is not good.
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/19/sonoma-bug-destroys-saved-versions-icloud-drive/

The US House of Representatives is doing something vaguely useful for once: It just passed a bill banning the sale of your private information to the nation's enemies. (The Verge)
No, not Washington DC. They already have your information. The other enemies.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/20/24106991/house-data-broker-foreign-adversaries-bill-passes

As many as 5.8 million U.S. children could be suffering from Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy, a.k.a your mom should take up day drinking and leave you alone. (CBS)
But COVID is no different there from the flu, or indeed from a cold. What this "study" is measuring is that 5.8 million US children either (a) don't want to go to school, (b) have mothers who seriously need a hobby, or (c) both.
"As many as..." So exact.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/millions-kids-long-covid-study-symptoms-mother-searching-for-answers/

If you were watching the VMWare mess and feeling glad your company chose Citrix well there's bad news on the way for you as well. (The Register)
Now that the competition has destroyed itself, Citrix is doubling its pricing.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/15/citrix_channel_changes/

The Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Fold 16 2024 is actually good. (The Verge)
Specs are lacking because the review focuses almost entirely on the screen, but then the device is almost entirely screen, so that sort of makes sense.
Problem, as usual: Ir costs about US$3,000 or, say, 110,000 baht in real money.
https://www.theverge.com/24099045/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-fold-16-2024-laptop-review

NASA's old supercomputers are causing mission delays. (Tom's Hardware)
What missions?
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/supercomputers/nasas-old-supercomputers-are-causing-mission-delays

SPACE ACTUAL SCIENCE ASTRONOMY
It’ll appear as a bright 'new' star for a few days with the naked eye, and a little over a week with binoculars, before it settles down again for another few decades.
 A relatively dim star is expected to become one of the brightest in the sky later this year.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/a-relatively-dim-star-is-expected-to-become-one-of-the-brightest-in-the-sky-later-this-year/

Taiwan man freezes his legs -- and his brain
TAIPEI: Mister Chang and his old school buddy Liao came up with a plot.
They bought a number of insurance policies for Chang and then purchased a large bucket of dry ice and then strapped Chang's legs into it for 10 hours.
Chang went to the hospital with severe frostbite and doctors severed both his legs. Chang told everyone who would listen that he suffered frostbite while riding his scooter around Taiwan during the winter.

But then... the story's not complete just yet.
But then Chang tried to cash in those eight insurance policies worth NT$41.26 million, or around 47 million baht in real money.
Very alert National Police Agency detectives and investigators from all eight of the insurance firms smelt the fetid fraud.
The insurance companies told Chang, "Nope, not one dollar." And the sad (?) ending is that Chang won't be able to walk into court for his attempted con job.
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/5114699

Chang (right) and Liao are led into criminal court.
Observers are left to wonder
 Is it stupider and crueler to freeze and amputate your own legs, like Chang,
 Or is it more savage to blow up an entire Cathay Pacific airplane in order to kill all the passengers and your hooker-girlfriend and your own daughter to get the insurance money, like Royal Thai Police Lieutenant Somchai Chaiyasut die in June, 1972?