Update on Thailand

(I was going to add this as an update to the post below, but it got too long.)

The protesters accomplished what they set out to do in Pattaya: Managed to force a red-faced Thai government to quickly and fearfully shuttle their big brothers from Korea, China, and Japan out of the country with all due haste. Now the red shirts have moved their protest back to Bangkok.

The Thai government has called out the army, and tanks are once again in the streets of Bangkok... but things aren't working out quite right as the red shirts seem to be having picnics and parties on top of the tanks. (Lots of photos at ThaiVisa.com.) One person commented that the problem is that the current government didn't take any legal action against their own supporters, the yellow shirts, after they shut down the Bangkok international airport last November, which pissed off the army. Interesting thought, that.

Ultimately, I predict that the red shirts (the conservatives) are going to run government instead of the current yellow shirts (the liberals) once there is another election: The country, more or less, is two-thirds conservative (mostly in the rural north) and only one-third liberal. The only reason that the government is "yellow" right now is because the liberal yellow shirt protestors made themselves enough of a pain in the ass, and conservative red politicians ran a dirty campaign in the last election (which they would have won without the need to cheat), and the surpreme court ruled tossed them out of office. I wouldn't be surprised to see Thaksin voted back into the Prime Minister's office (if he isn't dead first) within the next 10 years.