The 'Thailand Pass' entry rules flip, flop, then flip again
It's Friday morning, it's April 29, just one shopping day before April 30 Eve.
The 'Thailand Pass' entry rules flip, flop, then flip again
NOT ONLY is the junta discarding its 'Stop & Go Quarantine' inspections.
It is doubling down on the dopey 'Thailand Pass' programme that has quarantined more people at gunpoint than any project since Canada locked up all its ethnic Japanese.
The government has said it has not cancelled the Thailand Pass registration requirement for foreign travellers yet but it will be made more convenient and quicker to obtain.
Comely Dr Sumanee Wacharasint, assistant spokeswoman for the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), said the requirement will be retained but the procedure will be streamlined for smoother ease of entry into the country.
"The procedure involves checking vaccination certificates, proof of hotel bookings, insurance documents, and documents for booking RT-PCR tests upon arrival," said junta loyalist and former Miss Thailand Universe Dr. Sumanee, who also serves as director of the Department of Disease Control's Risk Communication and Health Behavioural Development Bureau - both of which have crashed and burned in utter failure in just three years.
The only known value of the flip and flop and flip on 'Thailand Pass' seems to be that that Thai junta is loonier than Anglin Lake.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2302026/
THAILAND ECONOMY POLITICS STAGFLATION
Starting on Sunday, May Day, the Thailand Comintern's Labour Day...
The price of diesel fuel will rise from 30 to 32 baht all across Bangkok, and higher than that, countrywide.
Workers, especially truck drivers, are threatening retaliation, including strikes to cut food supplies to markets, and food exports to ports and airports.
But the Oil Fund subsidy package is running out, and the junta needs the money.
It is wise to consider that Thailand is a "nation that runs on 10 wheels" - meaning the trucks that are the country's two-way lifeline.
PHOTO: On Wednesday, representatives of the Land Transport Federation of Thailand submitted a written request for the government to continue capping the diesel price at 30 baht per litre for a year. That won't happen.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2301814/
TOURISM
Also on Sunday,
immigration will wave you through to a holiday without fear of forced quarantine - if AND ONLY IF, you can show proof of "full vaccination" against Covid-19.
THAILAND ENTRANCE FEE
The junta has officially set August 1 as the first day that every foreigner entering the country by air, land or sea will pay a 300 baht entrance fee.
Women and children included.
While you're walking from the skyway to immigration dig into your stash and take out 11.16 loonies to give to the nice immigration man. Or U.S.$8.72 - or 300 baht in real money, or just go straight to the departure desk and buy a ticket out of Thailand.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2302134/
THAILAND POLITICS
This is an excellent, brief explanation (all in English) by the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) of how the junta uses threats, intimidation and its own recent and made-up laws against critics.
N.B. Combining multiple laws and seeking additional threats and prison time is common in political cases.
The Twitter thread is short and worth reading, but keep a dose of scepticism close by.
COINCIDENCES HAPPEN
Speaking of the exceptionally stained political survivor Pauline Pornpimol Kanchanalak (yesterday's Fishwrap) the highest ranking politician involved in her filthy plots during the Bill-and-Hillary Clinton regime looks likely to try to make a comeback.
Chuan Leekpai, who was prime minister and profited well from Pauline's doings, is currently the president of the junta-approved parliament.
The Democrat Party is looking at the 83-year-old mostly honest Trang province native as its most likely saviour.
Or, as one member of Thailand's oldest political party put it, "It's worth considering".
Within a couple of weeks of less, Chuan may be asked to become Democrat Party leader. The Democrats are on their last legs and can't find anyone better.
PHOTO: Quiet and generally honest, Chuan is fully capable of Beast Mode to criticise government and opposition parties alike.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/politics/2301542/
Thursday was a very bad, unhappy day in the up-and-down fight against the Chinese Covid-19 novel coronavirus.
14,437 confirmed new cases and 11,396 probable cases (found by testing). 77 cases were from abroad & 24 from prison.
Another 127 deaths were recorded.
OVER NOT OVER
GAWDAMMIT FOLLOW THE SCIENCE!
The totally irrefutable old dodderer and lifelong government bureaucrat trying to pass as Don Tony Fauci said the pandemic was over.
https://news.yahoo.com/dr-fauci-says-us-pandemic-223600660.html
Whoops! Did the kobold secret funder of the Wuhan Institute of Virology say the pandemic was over? No! What he really said was it's NOT over.
PHOTO: Doc Fauci during Day One of his extended two-day comedy shtick.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/27/dr-fauci-walks-back-comment-about-us-no-longer-in-pandemic-phase/
Thailand junta 'allows' more in-country holidays
The military has allotted yet another 4 billion baht to a subsidy scheme for Thais - especially hotel owners.
"We Travel Together" is a subsidy programme where Thais take holidays, then travellers and hotels submit paperwork to receive return of partial costs.
Yuthasak Supasorn, head honcho of the junta's Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) says the programme will operate until the New Year.
PHOTO: A man rides a horse at mostly deserted Cha-am beach in Phetchaburi province, south of Bangkok.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2302230/
Right-wing fascist pro-Hitler Trump voters twisted Fauci's words that, "We are out of the pandemic phase" actually meant "We are out of the pandemic phase."
Guantanamo Bay? Or is that too lenient?
Related (from the Huffington Post, so you KNOW it's totally factual)
Republicans Cheer As Congressional Candidate Demands Fauci's Execution By Firing Squad
https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-cheer-congressional-candidate-demands-064818033.html
Editorial: Too soon to be endemic? https://bityl.co/BzBW
BUT AT LEAST THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED:
Studies prove that most politicians and experts handled COVID terribly.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/27/studies-prove-that-most-politicians-experts-handled-covid-terribly/
THAILAND 'SOFT POWER'
Columnist and well-known Chulalongkorn University Professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak, writes this morning about, 'The local politics of Thai soft power'.
By the time he's finished he's making me homesick for the 20th century days when Canadians who wanted to be something - Giselle Mackenzie, William Shatner, Ryan Reynolds, Peter Jennings, Gordon Lightfoot, Dan Aykroyd, Joni Mitchell - had to go to the U.S.A. to do it.
He writes:
Until this situation changes, much of Thailand's talent will be kept down and below their full potential.
Thai governments and especially Thai military dictators always attempt to take the glory of successful expats.
This will not change in our lifetimes or our children's lifetimes.
PHOTO: Less than a day after rapper Milli tore down the house at Coachella in California, Prayut and junta cronies were trying to steal the fame and misuse the 'soft power of mangoes and sticky rice'. True story.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2302082/
The funny-haha funny-ironic part of the story is that Milli has been an active member of the anti-junta, anti-Prayut groups for several years.
GLOBAL WARMING
Southern California suffers its eleventyfourteenth record drought in 10 years. Beautiful lawns suffer most.
"This is a crisis. This is unprecedented," explained Adel Hagekhalil, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
https://bityl.co/BzCH
VIDEO: Not enough snow
The International Department of the Soviet Communist Party had a large, complex Department of Desinformatsiya to handle subversion, disinformation and propaganda.
The U.S.A. government now has a composite Disinformation Governance Board, run by the Department Of Homeland Security. Dependably loyal Nina Jankowicz will use the department "to counter misinformation related to homeland security, with a focus specifically on Russia and irregular migration," whatever the hell they decide that is.
Okay, I have a question:
Is 'Russian disinformation' like 'hate speech', which this department won't define because it can't?
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-biden-administration-creates-disinformation-governance-board-under-dhs-to-fight-misinformation
All about Nina:
https://slate.com/culture/2022/04/ukraine-ambassador-marie-yovanovitch-trump-deep-state-memoir.html?via=rss
Very Closely Related
The department is already advertising for experts on propaganda, censorship, etc.
https://dhs.usajobs.gov/
Remember Kissinger on the India-Pakistan War*? Can't we do that again?
China and Hollywood: A Doomed Relationship?
https://stream.org/china-and-hollywood-a-doomed-relationship/
GLOBAL WARMING
Lovely weather. Al Gore, IPCC and 97% of scientists suffer most.
Weird background, small irony.
For reasons far above my pay grade, all hurricanee/cyclone/typhoon warnings and after-storm reports are done at (the former aggie) Colorado State University, in the heart of beautiful downtown Fort Collins, which like pretty well everywhere inland never-ever has a cyclonic storm.
It was, however, where we lived for 6 years, and I visited that Prediction Center many times.
No crystal balls were seen.
(AOTA aside, Colorado does suffer derechos, which are not hurricane and are not fun.)
Good job, in a way. No stress at all, and the worst thing that could happen was better weather than predicted.
BOTTOM PHOTO: My occasional CSU pal professor Bill Gray, who began forecasting hurricanes for Colorado A&M Aggies a few years before God created the first typhoon, and preferred Coors Original over all other brands including those darned bloody Fort Collins craft breweries until his death six years ago, age 86.
Quote du jour on the above
Dr. Gray, if he were alive, would tell you it's because a storm surge can't hit you at 5,000 feet - that's why we do the forecasts in Colorado.
https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2017/08/29/how-colorado-became-hurricane-forecasting-hot-spot/612978001/
Banning Russia, Banning Russians
Canada: "We're Going Full Liberty Cabbage"
Hypocrites, sure, but "hypocrite" is not half-strong enough for this.
Russian, Belarusian Players Ineligible For 2022 Canadian Hockey League Import Draft.
"The Canadian Hockey League remains committed to the safety, well-being, and the development of all of its players regardless of their country of origin," the statement reads.
The mandate is likely to affect at least 20% of players, as in the 2021 CHL Import Draft, 16 Russian and 11 Belarusian players were selected out of 120.
https://www.outkick.com/russian-belarusian-players-ineligible-for-2022-canadian-hockey-league-import-draft/
"I cannot support the banning of individual athletes from any tournament, simply because of their nationality."
Billie Jean King
Finally! A Windows operating system that works!
