You can now search millions of photographs from the LIFE archive through Google. Mostly older photos. There are photos of former PM Sarit , Thanom , Pote Sarasin , RFK in Thailand, numerous pictures of the royal family ( here is a picture of HM the Queen and the Crown Prince from 1960 and another of HM the King taking pictures of other members of the family), and tanks on the streets in 1957. There are not that many pictures for Thailand, but interesting nonetheless.

If you go to a protest where there are armed guards, people carrying iron bars and sharpened flagpoles,* is it unreasonable that there will be tear gas? I can't believe (ok, I can) The Nation buys in this what about the pregnant women and children argument. The PAD openly admit to using such people as human shields yet no one will condemn it. btw, use batons before tear gas? If they hit a single protester there will be outrage. *NYT describes it as "[m]any of the protesters themselves were armed with knives and clubs

The editors over at The Nation must be going crazy since the international media is not goose-stepping in line behind their lies and propaganda. I'm sure Yoon and company are gearing up for a week's worth of anti-foreigner and right-wing nationalist criticisms in response. I have been reading a lot of foreign media this week from newspapers all over the globe. It really amazes me how good the reporting has been, especially in comparison to the PAD propaganda that The Nation and Bangkok Post have been producing. In light of YouTube and other forms of media, it really is shocking how the editors at those two newspapers cling to their lies when people can see for themselves that not everything is in black and white, and that the PAD is not this democracy loving peace movement engaged in the non-violent civil disobedience like Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. When this crisis is over and the history of the period is written, I think many will be grateful to the internet for providing an alternative version of events.

CLACK. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. The clacking is from Thailand’s latest and hottest political “weapon” - multi-coloured plastic hand clappers ( mue tob ) that cost 25 baht (RM2.50) each. And the fury of the mue tob is heard 24/7 at Bangkok’s Government House (the seat of the Thai government) which the anti-government People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) has illegally occupied since Aug 26.

Now in this game of smoke and mirrors every side paints their own picture of what happened on 7 October 2008. In this post I will try to describe what I saw, and how I felt about what was happening. I do not have any sense of an overview, and nor do I claim to. I was only there from 5.00 am to 11.00 pm, with a short interruption at midday, and from 1.00 pm to 4.00 pm to file some images, and close my eyes for 30 minutes. I could not have possibly been everywhere at the same time. It was generally not possible to know what was going on even 100 meters away. The attack by police started at about 6.00 am. At the time I was in the area held by the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD). As soon as I saw the police forming for an attack I left that area and placed myself at the front of the police lines. I felt safer there because I knew that in order to disperse the protesters heavy force would be deployed. Police had one of their loudspeaker lorries and first issued a warning that protesters should disperse as they would be attacked, and teargas would be fired. Police constantly mentioned that in this conflict nobody could possibly win, that they were all Thais, and should not fight each other. The protesters did not disperse and soon after the attack started with a barrage of teargas grenades. It...