Speeding on the Bangkok Motorway

Before my arrest for copyright infringement by the Thai Cyber-Cime Police I owned a Toyota Altis 1.8, the poor man's BMW, although my Thai friends referred to the car as a souped-up cab, since the Altis 1.6s. On drives from Pattaya to Chai-nat I avoided driving through Bangkok to avoid the predatory cops on the elevated motorway, although sometimes when the traffic was light I zoomed through Krueng Thip to cut 50 Kms off the trip. Once I was stopped by the police at the tollbooth. I had done nothing wrong, but the officer said my license plate was out of order and demanded a 1000 baht fine. "Mai mii." I showed the 100 baht bill in my wallet. "Khun mai mii taeng?" He couldn't believe that a farang was busted flat. "Mai mii." "Farang kee-neo." He waved me on with disgust hoping to recoup his loss with more lucrative victims. In recent years the motorway police had enlisted a new weapon into their repertoire and have operated a radar gun, so anyone going over the 120 KPH speed limit will be subjected to a fine, since the actual speed limit on the Motorway is 80 KPH. The fine remains the same, which is as much as they think you can afford on the spot.

Years ago I drove to Berlin through East Germany. The speed limit was 90KPH. Any faster and the DDR cops stopped with with machine guns drawn to extort the $100 fine. This announcement by the Thai cops meant that they were turning back the clock to the time of Emil Honecker, the DDR dictator, although they assured the public, "Do not fear, we will not be going after anyone traveling faster than 120."We are only after habitual speeders."

Habitual means everyone.

In 2011 over 29,000 speeding violations were prosecuted to the fullest penalty of 500 baht. More than 5000 were women and the police said nearly 61,000 violators were caught by radar, meaning you have a 50/50 chance of not having the fine by blowing past the cops if you can outrun them.

The fastest speed ever radared by Thai police was 227 KPH, which is well below the European record set by a BMW 7 series at 325 KPH on the French Autoroute outside Strasbourg. The fastest I've driven on the Bangkok motorway is 170 KPH

I once drove a VW GTI Golf at 240 on the Belgian highway. I thought the speedometer was broken, but no one ever worried about the police crackdown, because the police targeted cars four times a week at rush hours and never on Saturdays and Sundays when they're recovering from hangovers financed from their unreported traffic stops plus the police are supposedly going to post signs saying 'speed traps ahead' in Thai and English.

So full speed ahead, which depends strictly on your engine and road conditions which off the elevated motorway is 160 at best.

None of those fines go to fixing the roads.

In plain language they suck.

No More Cars

Gas prices in Thailand are running about 38 baht or $1.25 a liter. These prices are as expensive as the USA and sucking money out of people's wallets faster than the cars can drive on the Asia Highway. There is no shortage of gas, but prices have been pushed up by oil speculators to reap profits from each crisis from the Middle East, despite the true cost of getting oil out of the ground is around $15. I have predicted the end to cars for years and have been proven wrong every year, but public transit is booming in the cities and train ridership has never been higher. The end is inevitable, but suburbs without access to trains are cut-off from the malls by the price of gas. The new suburbs of the world need cars, so how do we combat the cost of gas?

By doing nothing, because if oil was ruled by the laws of supply and demand then the price would have fallen along with the driving miles, however oil has become a speculative asset and the investors will push the price until it reaches the bubble's breaking point.

$200 a barrel?

$300 a barrel.

$500 a barrel.

At this point there is no ceiling, since capitalism only wants profit and not happiness.

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Amtrak Pepsi Crisis

Every civilized country in the world subsidizes its rail system, however the USA had decided that the federally-owned railroad must turn a profit in accordance with the rules of capitalism and this year alone Amtrak lost $84.5 million on its food service which charges $2 for a $.50 can of Pepsi. Yesterday a Florida representative attacked the losses in the Washington Examiner by stating, “Over the last ten years, these losses have amounted to a staggering $833.8 million. It costs passengers $9.50 to buy a cheeseburger on Amtrak, but the cost to taxpayers is $16.15. Riders pay $2.00 for a Pepsi, but each of these sodas costs the U.S. Treasury $3.40.” I have to admit that any business should operate in the black with 400% profit on a can of Pepsi and who knows how much they make on those wretched hockey pucks they call a cheeseburger. Capitalism is failing on Amtrak, but then it's failing everywhere in the world. It's just that the capitalist can't hear the footsteps of doom. Of course no one mentions how heavily the government subsidizes the auto industry to the tune of billions and billions of dollars, because that's good socialism.

Boycotting the Olympics

No nations attended the 1916 Berlin Olympics due to WWI and WWII canceled the 1940 and 1944 Olympiads. In 1948 the USSR sent no athletes to London, but it wasn't until the 1956 Olympics that nations boycotted the event to protest political differences with Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon withdrawing after the Suez Canal invasion by France, England, and Israel, while Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland didn't attend in protest of the USSR's brutal repression of the Hungarian Uprising. Larger boycotts struck 1976, 1980,and 1984 Olympics as well as the 1988 Olympics. No one has ever boycotted the Winter Olympics. Every nation has gone to London, but I am leading a boycott of one. Not for any reason in particular, although the commercialization of the Games might be # 1 on my list followed by the continued war in Afghanistan by the USA and UK and I'm in Thailand and just couldn't give a fig, although I lifted the ban so that my son Fenway and I could watch a YouTube video of the fireworks, otherwise I haven't seen a single event. It's easy boycotting the Olympics in Thailand. All Thais want to watch are their soap operas and they never let farangs near the remote during those broadcasts, which happen to coincide with live coverage from London. But once the football starts for the Olympics and it's another story all together. The Thais ie men love footie.

The Olympics Truce

Morte A Coca Cola

Coca-Cola is the world's most famous brand. Its sodas are sold in more than 200 countries and the corporation is a big sponsor of the 2012 London Olympics, but this week Bolivia announced that Coa-Cola will not be available after the end of the Mayan calendar. “December 21 of 2012 will be the end of egoism and division. December 21 should be the end of Coca-Cola,” said Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca and added, “The planets will align for the first time in 26,000 years and this is the end of capitalism and the beginning of communitarianism." Bolivia doesn't have a McDonald's, since the fast food chain had failed to operate in the red for ten years. I stopped drinking Coca-Cola years ago, which only hurts when I want a Cuba Libre, so I'm in accord with Bolivian President Evo Morales' rejection of the global giant. As for his plans to legalize coca leaf consumption. It really is the pause that refreshes.

Friend and Family

My paternal grandfather had qualified to represent the USA in the pole vault for the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, unfortunately Frank Arthur Smith I broke his leg at an exhibition in Portland and he was replaced by the alternate jumper. Harry Babcock of the USA won the event topping the height of 3.95 meters. My grandfather remains the only person in my family to have achieve the distinction of an Olympic athlete. In 1979 my friend Lisa from Palm Beach had qualified for the USA women's field hockey team. Her arduous training for the Moscow Games was for naught, for President Jimmie Carter pulled out of those Olympics in protest of the USSR's 1979 Afghan invasion. A confirmed progressive she speaks badly of Carter as the president who ruined her chances to win a gold medal. No one else I know has come close to competing in the Games. I could have attended this year's games in London. I had a place to stay on Moscow Road. Instead I'm sitting on a porch on the edge of Thailand' Western Forest, where there is no live coverage on TV, since the household is addicted to Thai soap operas and nothing can cure them of that addiction.