WannaGo

Do they have topless and bottomless strip clubs, or are the go-go bars mostly bikinis or just topless?

When they say buying amphetamines, are they talking about crystal meth, or something else? Does Thailand have a meth problem? I would assume heroin is an issue there, but don't really know what other drugs of choice are popular in Thailand.

The whole world should take a lesson from two events in American history: Prohibition and the "War on Drugs." That lesson? The more you try to control human vices, the faster and wider you spread them. It's like throwing water on a grease fire. Also, the the further you force people involved in these vices toward the fringes of society, the more corrupt and violent the situation is going to become. I don't know if prostitution actually is the world's oldest profession, but it certainly has been part of human history for thousands of years. Supposedly, the legal Code of Hammurabi from the 18th century B.C. contained references to the inheritance rights of prostitutes. I'd be willing to bet that, as a practice, it is nearly as old as the human race. Do the morality police really believe they can stamp out something that is part of human nature? Prostitution can operate as a safe and profitable enterprise for all involved, under the right circumstances. I remember visiting the Altstadt (Old City) of Nuernberg, Germany when I was a young soldier stationed over there. Prostitution was legal and tightly controlled. The prostitutes had physical protection and regular medical check-ups (although I understand this is no longer a requirement). Because this was conducted in clean, legal brothels and not in sleazy alleys and backstreets, there usually were no worries about getting hurt or robbed for either the sex workers or the customers. The prostitutes even paid taxes. Prostitution is just like marijuana...common sense says we all would benefit from legalizing and regulating it. I do feel strongly that it should be regulated to ensure that prostitutes are not being forced to work against their will. We've all heard about the trafficking of women from Eastern Europe and parts of Asia for the purposes of prostitution. No woman should ever have to endure that, and governments must take action to stop the practice. One way to do that is to bring prostitution out of the dark corners, so that regulators can offer protection to all sex workers. The non-profit ProCon.org has an excellent page here that gives information about the prostitution policies of 92 countries around the world, including Thailand. A quote from a 2003 newspaper article cited on the page: "The industry is estimated to account for an estimated 3 percent of Thailand's economy, or about US$4.3 billion a year."

I have to echo what Beer Chang said about Katrina. The situation you are describing in the Philippines sounds very much like the federal response, or lack thereof, to Hurricane Katrina. Delaying the decision to evacuate until the last minute, sending survivors to undersized and ill-equipped shelters and failing to respond quickly with proper supplies cost more than 1,500 lives. If not for the hard work of the US Coast Guard -- the one federal organization that responded with efficiency and competence -- in rescuing more than 35,000 people, the number of dead would have been much higher. Hopefully, once it's all sorted out, there will be more justice meted out for the people of the Philippines than the people of New Orleans and the U.S. got after Katrina. So Michael Brown lost his job and Kathleen Blanco decided not to see re-election as governor. Woo hoo, justice served! I'm sure the families of all the dead feel much better. I'll never understand how that idiot Ray Nagin managed to get re-elected in '06. I think a lot of the deaths in New Orleans can be laid directly at his feet for his waffling on the evac order. Eleothegreat: One caution on giving money to aid the victims of the flooding. In the wake of Katrina and after the 2004 tsunami hit Asia, there were all kinds of scam artists (see here and here ) popping up to solicit money, ostensibly to pass on to the Red Cross, but in fact, they were stealing it. Not saying that's the case with those linked above, just noting that generally, it's better to give directly to the Red Cross or other relief agencies than to groups promising to pass on donations.

A question comes to mind, especially after I see the phrase "police assumed" in the article: How do they know this was a matter of spiked drinks, rather than, say, an overdose during recreational drug use? It's too soon to have lab results on the bottles/glasses back yet showing the likelihood of one scenario over the other, and the surviving friend could simply have given police a self-serving statement, rather than admit they were all four partying and taking drugs.

Is this right, guys?

Give this one another 10 years, and we'll be back there. As it is, 20 percent of homes have dropped landlines in favor of cell phones. Isn't that called "emo" now? Sigh...the good old days. I have a hard time believing this number. Do you know what the source is for this one? The Department of Justice puts the U.S. homicide rate at 4.2 per 100,000 in 1909. The U.S. population was about 90,000,000. So, that would be at least 3,700 homicides. Interestingly enough, after a couple of spikes in the 80s and 90s, the current homicide rate is back down to 1960s levels at 5.2 per 100,000. Of course, the spooky thing is that only 6 out 10 murders are cleared by arrest.

Check out this Colbert Report from last week, talking about the racism of Obama's critics, particularly on Fox. I laughed 'til I choked when Colbert put up Beck and Limbaugh in black face.

George Bush pursued a foreign policy that was immature and completely without nuance. I absolutely believe that there are some regimes that must be changed and can only be changed by force. However, when you start from that position, you leave yourself no room to maneuver. You have to begin from a position that offers you as many options as possible. I bet Bush was a lousy chess player.

Delta Burke was hot. Just sayin'.

Hey, you've been to where I live! It's amazing, I moved here from Tallahassee, which is one of the few historically blue counties in the state. It has two major universities, a large community college, a growing community of tech companies and, of course, the state government, so there tends to be more open and free-flowing thought there. I felt like I left civilization and landed in the middle of Green Acres...if all the characters in Green Acres were small-minded and spiteful.

And sex would probably be kind of pointless after that.

I think people would be willing to pay if they felt like what they were paying was reasonable. Although, I could be wrong. These scientists believe that our brains may actually process the concept of intellectual property differently than physical property, explaining why people who wouldn't steal someone's CD would illegally download a song.

That's so funny...it's hard to imagine the "Demon Dog" being humble enough to be flattered by a fan. Very cool. I'm going to the library tomorrow. I'll see if they have Tabloid, so I can start again at the beginning. If you're looking for new authors to try, I recommend Charlie Huston's Caught Stealing. Or, if you want to get a little retro, James Crumley's The Last Good Kiss. I'm actually thinking of starting a blog site dedicated to crime fiction and crime movies.

Can I nominate the Atlanta airport as one of the worst?

By the way, this piece in Salon says it better than I ever could.

Hey, thanks, guys. I put Beautiful Boxer in my Netflix queue. By the way, what do you guys do for movies over there? Do they have English language theaters, or can you buy English language DVDs? And better yet, can you get great-quality bootlegs of recent releases?

Bob, just curious, how come you don't like the Smoking Gun?

I'm with Bob on this one. The guy committed scumbaggery in the first degree. I understand the victim just wanting it to be over, but in something as serious as child rape -- and this wasn't some May-December thing; it was molestation -- you can't allow the victimizer to escape justice just because he was clever enough to stay out of the law's hands for long enough. It's not as if it was a traffic ticket or even an old pot charge. And the 13 year old is no longer the only victim in this case...as pompous as it might sound, the law also is a victim. I do agree that DOJ has better things to do than fool with such an old case, and I wonder why they didn't put more effort into catching him 20 or 30 years ago when there was still a chance of getting him some actual prison time. But it's still an important matter of law, and they can't just overlook it. From what I understand, the judge in the case did renege on the plea deal, but judges are never required to approve a deal the prosecution offers the defendant. I wonder why the hell the prosecutor even offered such a deal in a case like this...these kinds of things usually hinge on the testimony of the victim, so maybe she would have made a weak witness, and he felt like he had no choice. Or maybe it was just the political climate of California at the time. Whatever the deal, this case has been an embarrassment to the justice system. Justice delayed is justice denied.

Now there's a story I would like to hear more about. And how nervous did that make you? Ever afraid you might go to sleep and wake up with some body part severed? Years ago, right after I got out of the service, one of my first jobs was working for a security company on the Florida State University campus. A couple of times a week, I was assigned to the Chi Omega house, where Bundy had killed two sorority sisters about 15 years earlier. Bundy had gotten into the house through a back door the sorority girls frequently left unlocked. One of my duties was to check that back door...and wouldn't you know, girls were still leaving the damn thing open? I don't think I ever would have lived in that house if I was a co-ed...but if I did, I'd definitely be paranoid about keeping it locked.

stills = steals

Squeaky Fromme, another Manson follower who was not part of the Tate-LaBianca murders, also was recently released on parole from federal prison. She served almost 35 years for pointing a loaded gun at President Gerald Ford. Or at least, the gun was sort of loaded...bullets in the magazine, but not the chamber. She is 60 years old now, and when she was released, she was being held at a federal prison for sick inmates in Texas, so it wouldn't surprise me if she's ill and dies soon, too.

Anybody here into Thai films? I've seen three recently, and have really enjoyed them. Got another half-dozen in my Netflix queue that I'm looking forward to seeing. Don't know yet whether I'll start to like Thai stuff as much as I do Korean movies, but it's looking good (although technically, most of the Thai movies I want to see have been made by the Pang brothers, who are Chinese.) These are the ones I've watched so far: Shutter: This is a horror movie about a photographer named Tun and his girlfriend, Jane, who are haunted by mysterious images that show up in his photos. I ended up giving it 3 out of 5 stars on Netflix. It's got some intensely scary bits, and the ending is creepy and effective, but it has the same continuity and editing issues that I think many Asian horror movies have -- unexplained leaps of logic and too many important developments that occur off-camera. The movie is slightly confusing because at first, you think the it's about Tun and Jane being punished for a hit-and-run accident. The two are driving home from a friend's wedding and hit a woman who walks out in front of their car. Instead of stopping to help, they drive on. The images begin appearing in the photos soon after. Meanwhile, Tun and Jane can find no evidence the accident even occurred. There's no body, no police report, nothing. SPOILER ALERT!!! But, as the movie develops, we learn that it really has nothing to do with the crash. The woman from the street, whose face we can see in Tun's photos, actually is an ex-girlfriend of his who died and has come back to haunt him. She appears to be targeting his friends, as well, because they all begin dying mysteriously, although almost all of this happens off-camera. We learn of the deaths in a quick rush of dialogue about 2/3 of the way through the movie. I won't tell you why the ghost is after these guys, but let's just say that karma sometimes actually is a bitch. The ending, in which we learn the reason that Tun has had recurring neck pain throughout the movie, is meant, I think, to remind us we should never easily shrug off guilt. Bangkok Dangerous: This is a crime thriller by the Pang brothers that was remade last year into a steaming pile of excrement with Nicholas Cage. Even though the Pangs made that one, too, these movies are not even comparable in terms of quality. The plot combines two familiar story lines...the brutally efficient assassin who finds love, and the assassin who turns on his handlers (for a reason unrelated to the romance). Kong, a deaf mute hitman in Bangkok, meets Fon, a pharmacy worker, and falls in love about the same time that things go very wrong in his set-up with the crime syndicate that arranges his hits. But instead of being the same old tired stuff, we get to see nuanced characterizations (except for some of the bad guys, who are played a little cartoonish) and rich emotional lives from the main players, especially in one scene when Kong delivers a letter he has written to Fon. Plus, did I mention, the Pang brothers make awesome action movies in the John Woo tradition, so there is plenty of stylized violence. Ong-Bak: Thai Warrior: I'm not usually into martial arts movies (I'd rather just watch real fights), but Tony Jaa is absolutely amazing. Watching this movie knowing that he does all his stunts and fight scenes without the use of wires, special effects or CGI just makes every scene seem 10 times as dynamic. The story is as basic as the come. Jaa plays Ting, a country bumpkin from a tiny little rural village suffering through a drought. A gangster from Bangkok stills the head off the village's religious icon, and Ting, a skilled Thai boxer, is sent to retrieve it. In order to do that, he has to punch, kick, knee and elbow about half of Bangkok, it seems. My favorite character in this is Muay, a female con artist that Ting meets in Bangkok. Besides being attractive, she's got one of those cute, expressive faces that can tell a joke without uttering a word. But the real star of the movie is the stuntwork. In some places, it reminded me of District B13 or any of the other action movies that feature parkour, except that Jaa puts his own interpretation on urban free-running. As he's being chased by a group of thugs, he manages to fold himself in half and fly through a circle of barbed wire. In another cringe-inducing scene, he does the splits in order to clear a row of sharp metal gardening implements. And when he's finally cornered by the thugs and faces a fight he cannot win...well, you just have to see how he escapes. Oh, plus he does his patented flying double-knee strike at least two or three times in fight scenes late in the movie. Gotta love that. I think the next one I'm going to watch is Dorm, a horror movie. You guys got any favorite Thai movies? I'm mostly interested in horror and crime, and I'd love to hear any suggestions for good ones that I should see.

Sorry about that. Think I'd just finished reading one of Michael's posts when I landed on this thread.

Hahahaha...Smoker, I swear, sometimes I think I want to bear your children...you know, if I had the parts.