Things other than cyclical political unrest do happen in Thailand.
- Severe flooding upcountry has killed 41 people and affected about 30 provinces. Thailand's alluvial plain drains into the Chao Phraya River, which reaches the gulf through Bangkok. Those waters are now hitting the Thai capital.
- U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon hits town Tuesday. He is not expected to say anything terribly significant. Activists still hope to air their complaints.
- While occasional violence in Bangkok grabs headlines, southern Thailand remains a frenzy of with frequent bombings and assassinations in the Muslim-Malay provinces seeking independence from Bangkok. Some observers have been teasing out a link between radical elements within the red-shirt movement and the southern extremists after a bomb-maker accidently blew up his Bangkok apartment, and himself, earlier this month. That same day, authorities extended their emergency powers in Bangkok and other provinces through the end of the year.
- Sadly, I lost Democratic MP Sirichoke Sopha as a friend on Facebook before I could look at his Mafia Wars profile. The new Facebook feature which shows you what applications and games people are using showed it among his favorites. Sopha, who's been trying to keep a lower profile after several embarassing incidents, seems to have deleted his profile.
- Thailand's judiciary, which in recent years has been accused of being more political puppet than independent authority, is considering whether to disband the ruling Democratic Party for alleged campaign finance violations. The Constitutional Court -- created as a parallel to the Supreme Court under the 1997 Constitution with broad oversight of political practices -- has dissolved several parties before. Their dissolution of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's Thai Rak Thai ("Thais love Thais") party following his ouster by the military four years ago didn't do much to burnish their credentials as an independent body.
But now they've got the status quo in their sights. Last week, several surreptitiously filmed videos were leaked onto YouTube in an apparent effort to discredit the court. One shows a Democratic MP meeting with a court official in what is being described as an attempt to influence the outcome. Speculation is it was an inside job; the court secretary has been fired.
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