Month: January 2007

On Elephants in Thailand

Those of you that attended our wedding last year, keep those memories safe because Thailand has done what they’ve promised to do for years and are now actively enforcing the “no pachyderms on the street” law.
Well, this is what many people think of the new law:

I just saw the Thai equivalent of COPS where the bad guy – I shit you not – was trying to get away on an elephant. The ele wasn’t so big and I’m sure if this had happened in any other country it would have ended in a barrage of 12 gauge slugs… but there were tons of cameras following the “getaway,” and Thais love elephants so much that they basically let it run wild down the wrong side of a busy Bangkok street at night. It made for good television. In the end, they kind of directed it to a narrower street and into an empty lot, where they presumably gave the handler (AKA the bad guy) a ticket for riding an elephant on the street.
Hey, I’m all for letting the animals live in their natural environment and not exploiting them and all, but you actually have to think about this a little harder than, “Let’s return these 3,000 pound critters to their natural environment so they can be happy and natural!” – THERE AIN”T NO FUCKIN’ FOREST LEFT FOR ALL THE ELEPHANTS, PEOPLE! Besides, being hand fed sugar cane on the dirty city streets of SE Asia beats the hell out of being hunted with AKs and RPGs in an African nature preserve, yo…
…I’m just saying.

Tribute to School of Rice

First of all, let me explain my recent absence from here: I was busy, and now I’m sick.
Moving on:
It’s too bad I took down the School of Rice (which now lives here), because this photo would have fit so well there….

The abomination created by the kid across the street.
Just to let you know, a few weeks ago, the 18″ high rear spoiler somehow got torn off, ripping half the trunk along with it. When it came back from the shop, the original black sticker set was augmented with this bold fashion statement. My only guess is that the owner must have decided to go “VIP” instead of racing style.
To proactively answer a few questions:

  • Yes, the owner is a girl.
  • Yes, she is older than 13.
  • No, she’s not hot.
  • Yes, the car is automatic.
  • Yes, it’s a Lancer (lowest spec).
  • No, it was not featured in Tokyo Drift (although it should have been).

Small commenting change

Due to a huge spam attack yesterday, which took me a while to clean up, I’ve decided to add a small step to commenting – the good news is that it’s very easy for anyone to figure out. You can still comment anonymously and without leaving an email address, but I’m sorry to place any part of the burden created by viagra-selling assholes on my readers… Necessary evil and all that.

Hogshit

This is one of the most disturbing articles on the environment I have read in recent months:

If the temperature and wind aren’t right and the lagoon operators are spraying, people in hog country can’t hang laundry or sit on their porches or mow their lawns. Epidemiological studies show that those who live near hog lagoons suffer from abnormally high levels of depression, tension, anger, fatigue and confusion. “We are used to farm odors,” says one local farmer. “These are not farm odors.” Sometimes the stink literally knocks people down: They walk out of the house to get something in the yard and become so nauseous they collapse. When they retain consciousness, they crawl back into the house.

and

Smithfield is not just a virtuosic polluter; it is also a theatrical one. Its lagoons are historically prone to failure. In North Carolina alone they have spilled, in a span of four years, 2 million gallons of shit into the Cape Fear River, 1.5 million gallons into its Persimmon Branch, one million gallons into the Trent River and 200,000 gallons into Turkey Creek. In Virginia, Smithfield was fined $12.6 million in 1997 for 6,900 violations of the Clean Water Act — the third-largest civil penalty ever levied under the act by the EPA. It amounted to .035 percent of Smithfield’s annual sales.

(full story here)
On the brighter side of things, yesterday, I saw a pig that grew up in someone’s front yard slaughtered with a sharp knife and sold off in pieces, just like they do everywhere else in the third world. To me this kind of pig actually tastes natural.
(thx M)

Bangkok Bombing Update

The Australian is reporting that the New Years bombings in the capitol were the work of Jemaah Islamiah. Originally the focus of investigation seemed to be on the former (Thaksin’s) regime; now they seem to be coming to the conclusion everyone else came to thirty seconds after the explosions: Muslim separatists from the south (Religion of Peace reprazent!)
Full story here.
I went to a local carnival yesterday (which I hope to write about soon) and was surprised to find so few people in attendance. Asking around this morning, it seems many people are afraid to go to big events now because of bombs. That’s just fucked. I, myself, think there is a 0% chance of that kind of shit happening here, and the fear response is just what the baby killers want… Fuck that.