One Night In Bangkok: September 2008

Friday, September 5, 2008

Sarah Palin Is Annoying

(NOT a real picture of Sarah Palin)

Of all the intelligent, highly educated women in the Republican Party, Sarah Palin is John McCain's pick—a woman with a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Idaho. This is an insult to the women who supported Hillary Clinton. We want the best and brightest women to rise to the top and lead the way. We don't want a consolation prize from a man who obviously doesn't get it.

—Angela Baronello, Chicago

OK, not to be snarky, but is anyone else out there annoyed on a gut level by Sarah Palin? And does anyone else think John McCain has lost his mind?

I overheard someone say, "Maybe Hillary supporters will vote for her!" and I about spit my Diet Coke across the room! It's like just because she's female, we women will go, "Wow! Look how shiny her hair is! I bet we both use Pantene! I'm voting for her!" Do people really think we're that stupid? Seriously, I think another almost-dead white guy would probably do more for women then Sarah Palin.

Right. And Sarah Palin has lots of foreign policy experience because "Alaska is right next door to Russia!" LOL.

And SERIOUSLY, lest I start sounding like some left-wing nut-job, I'm disturbed that this person isn't practicing the family values she espouses. She has a pregnant daughter and a newborn with Down's syndrome. Don't they need her support right now? No one, man or woman, should be running for VP when they've got so many family demands!

And here's an article online about how Sarah Palin went to 5 colleges in 6 years. They didn't come right out and say she was having, er, academic difficulties, but seriously . . . can you even begin to dream up another scenario that would explain that? With John McCain graduating something like 894 out of 899 students, that sounds like a real winning ticket!

State of Emergency

So I live in Jakarta for a whole year and all is peaceful . . . move to Bangkok and one month later its a State of Emergency! Before you get to carried away, please understand that the State of Emergency was declared by the Prime Minister, who is (naturally) the one most affected by all these protests, and perhaps feeling the emergency more than anyone else. The trouble seems to be limited to about one block of Bangkok - although there was talk of shutting down the airport, cutting off the internet, shutting off the electricity, so far nothing has really happened.

The People's Alliance for Democracy is the one arranging the protests, aimed at the resignation of the Prime Minister. They say that the PM wasn't democratically elected, and that his People Power Party is really a front for the Thai Loves Thai Party that was deposed in the last coup (2006).

I asked some Thai hashers about the election. They said vote buying is the norm. One was offered six-hundred baht (about 20 USD) to vote for the current prime minister.

The big worry now is that a major telecom company has joined the strike and is threatening to shut off all of our internet if the PM doesn't step down. That would be a REAL emergency!

Yesterday, it was agreed that Thailand would have a referendum vote on the new government. Here's hoping it will shut everybody up and the airport will stay open so that we can go to Phuket next weekend!

So far, the King has refused to step in and settle the matter (he did help out in the last coup, which was very smooth and bloodless, as coups go)

Here's some pics (SERIOUSLY! NONE FROM NICHADA, NONE TAKEN BY ME!) from the Bangkok Post: