• News & article

  Out of the box

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 20/01/2019

  » For kakistocrats who have failed for four years-plus to organise reconciliation, bring back happiness, fight pollution in the air and on the beaches or even to organise so much as a date for an election, our all-male green-shirt regime sure has a lot to criticise about the rest of us.

• News & article

  Rule by law

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 18/11/2018

  » As RoboCop said to arch villain Clarence Boddicker in the climactic scene of the original movie: "I'm not arresting you any more." Rather than bringing them to justice, the green shirts now hope to be able merely to bring the world's only brother-sister fugitive ex-prime minister duo to heel.

• News & article

  Into the political fray

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 30/09/2018

  » Last June 30, the sometimes-accurate online Wikipedia updated the opening line of its entry on the general prime minister. For the first time, the introduction read, "Prayut Chan-o-cha is a Thai politician..." Before that, according to Wikipedia, Gen (Ret) Prayut was just a retired army general and head of the military junta -- which is what he claimed to be.

• News & article

  T-Minus 195

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 12/08/2018

  » The founder and chairman of Asia's only military kratocracy passed a milestone last Tuesday. Gen (Ret) Prayut has now been in office four years and 82 days, more than half the time of the general he had hoped was his mentor, the leader of the 1980s, Gen Prem Tinsulanonda.

• News & article

  Punch lines

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 29/07/2018

  » If the general prime minister has his way -- and it looks like he probably will -- it won't be politics or police or the justice system that he'll finally reform.

• News & article

  Life without populism

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 06/05/2018

  » Once upon a time in a land very, very far away with a "government by the people, for the people" there was a plan to fix recalcitrant taxi drivers and make them pick up passengers, politely, and then to reward the drivers with a fare increase. And that plan was carried out in the faraway country, and passengers were happy to reward deserving, hard-working, uncomplaining taxi drivers.

• News & article

  Data security a foreign concept

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 22/04/2018

  » You'd think that just about the worst thing that could happen in today's charged smartphone-internet intersection is the theft of many thousands of the most important identification documents and personal details of mobile phone owners. But you'd be wrong.

• News & article

  You had one job

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 09/07/2017

  » Today's media control tip is when the Royal Thai Navy can't get the job done, send in the army and the Ministry of Interior. (More on the navy in a moment.)

• News & article

  NBTC punches above its weight

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 02/07/2017

  » The lightweight recently fighting as a middleweight got official ranking as a heavyweight and took it to heart.

• News & article

  No, really, Big Brother is watching

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 25/06/2017

  » The Big Three of International Computing have convinced tens of millions of customers to spy on themselves. Considering this, what's the big deal when the government listens in too -- well, apart from the going-to-jail part -- at least?

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