Good morning,

If in doubt, blame the foreigners – it has worked for decades for Thailand’s right-wing and it seems as if they are not going to give up any time soon – today, three Rohingya men have been arrested and accused of human trafficking, drugs smuggling, arms trafficking, sales of fake passports possibly even to the terrorists who committed the September 11^th, 2001 attacks in the USA, as well as links to Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Well, with such terrible people about, surely the government will have to take extra steps to protect us from these evil foreigners – hang on, here’s a convenient government spokesperson in the very same story: “Gen Watanachai Chaimuanwong, former deputy army chief who was in charge of the southern insurgency under the Surayud Chulanont government, warned that the situation in the far South could escalate as more terrorists are trained by Jemaah Islamiyah and al-Qaeda.

"The terrorists have completely overhauled their plans," he said.

"Their war will be more violent. Government authorities cannot fight them because we still adhere to conventional strategies." Conventional strategies appear to include causing 80 men to be suffocated to death after being stuffed into military vehicles for hours, as at Tak Bai (all military personnel exonerated by a court decision) and a long string of controversial acts.

Fortunately, we have the military puppet Abhisit regime to protect us and the cabinet has approved large new budgets for the army to put in its pockets invest in much-needed new equipment: 66 million baht (US$2 million) will go to buying ‘anti-riot equipment’ for soldiers and another 122 million baht (nearly US$4 million) on 24 urgently-needed bulletproof cars. Perhaps if we had a return to democracy, people would not see the need to protest? Well, the fascist yellow-shirts would be back on the streets with their expensively-supplied weapons …

Speaking of the integrity-challenged Quisling, PM Abhisit has denied hiding the truth about the number of H1N1 infections in Thailand. He does not seem to have explained why he will not be asking for the resignation of Public Health Ministry officials who revealed the plan to hide the truth about the number of H1N1 infections in Thailand.

Back tomorrow at some stage, not sure entirely when.

Burton Al-bi-onnnnnn.