<p>Every day has been a hard day at the Article 63 Enforcement Office of the Royal Thai Police, ever since the Samak government forced through the constitutional amendment on the right of the public to hold rallies.</p>

<p><span>The newly-minted Thai Foreign Minister, Tej Bunnag, hit the ground at some speed, scoring a notable success on his first day at the office. <span>&nbsp;</span>He met his Cambodian counterpart at Siem Reap and achieved the first step in defusing the tension over the Preah Vihear dispute by securing an agreement to remove the Thai and Cambodian troops occupying both sides of the border.</span></p>

<p><span>The increasing difficulty of staying on the right side of the l&egrave;se majest&eacute; laws can be seen in the travails of two of the leading cabal of the People&rsquo;s Alliance for Democracy, a movement that up till now has tried to portray itself as firmly in the royalist camp.<span>&nbsp; </span></span></p>

<p><span>Executives of the ruling Peoples Power Party, and of its coalition partners the Chat Thai and Matchimathippathai parties, have been red-carded by the Election Commission of Thailand. <span>&nbsp;</span>Their parties consequently face the possibility of dissolution.</span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><span>It is so useful when you can bank on your country&rsquo;s ignorance of its own history.</span></p>

<p>The quinquevirate that rule the PAD have issued a call for a &lsquo;new politics&rsquo; that will strengthen the political power of the people by removing their right to elect 70% of political office holders. </p>

<p><span>One would have thought that after &lsquo;Siam Mapped&rsquo; by Acharn Thongchai Winichakul, we&rsquo;d all grown up a bit.<span>&nbsp; </span>But no such luck.</span></p>

<p><span>There is a common perception in Thailand that democracy is a delicate flower.<span>&nbsp; </span>It wilts easily, and not just because the military keep yanking it up by the roots.<span>&nbsp; </span></span></p>

<p>Rizwaan Sabir is a graduate student at Nottingham University doing research on terrorist tactics.<span>&nbsp; </span><em>Now is that wise?<span>&nbsp; </span></em></span></p>

<p><em><span>&ldquo;That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as much&rdquo;--</span></em><em><span>(William Shakesomething)</span></em><br /><span>It all depends on what you call something.</span> </p>

<p><span>I really had no idea how difficult it was to be rich in Thailand.&nbsp; </span><span>M L Nattakorn Devakula, in his last column for the Bangkok Post before a &lsquo;semi-political&rsquo; break, relates his experiences in pretending to be an elected politician (or perhaps that should be &lsquo;rehearsing&rsquo;?) and trying to file a declaration of assets</span></p> <p><span></span></p>

<p><span>Yesterday morning&rsquo;s Bangkok Post had an interesting caption to a photograph.<span>&nbsp; </span>The picture is of a protestor outside the offices of the Land Transportation Department and his sign concerns the rise in fuel prices, which the government only sort of controls, and the implication for bus fares, which the government does control quite strictly.</span></p>