Re: "Conscription call 'to make army better'", (BP, March 1). Why does the army need conscripts? Definitely not to clean for some general or in fact any superior officer. As one general said, we have remote-controlled drones which can be fitted with cameras to guard the borders. A few of the drones can cover a large area without putting any lives at risk, and can also pinpoint where the enemy is. Something for the army to think about.
Barry Wallace
Airline is in a tailspin
Re: "THAI 2018 losses deepen to B11.6bn", (BP, March 1).
It's been the same story with this airline for decades. Billions in losses, changing the CEO every several months -- often with people who have no industry experience and who always promise a big "turnaround" -- and, like in this case, buying new planes despite the losses.
Even more ridiculous is that this mismanaged business had the nerve to start Thai Smile -- despite its atrocious track record.
This company is a basket case that in any free market would have been bankrupt 20 years ago. What this airline needs is an experienced airline foreign CEO -- but this is the "national flag carrier" which has to have only local management and board members. They can walk around getting free first-class tickets and "big face".
It would be better to sell off the airline or let it be taken over by a budget carrier. No more big cake. They can sell all their airplanes and sell Puff & Pie.
Larry the Liquidator
Government supports animal cruelty
Often people respond to my letters about the atrocities committed against animals raised for food or research by claiming the horrors I refer to are rare occurrences, or aberrations. So I'd like to share with the readers the following quote from the book Rethinking The Way We Treat Animals:
"It is heartening to learn that most people care about animal cruelty. In a Gallup poll, 72% of the respondents said they agree with the goals of the animal rights movement -- 30% strongly agree. Unfortunately the general concern for animals doesn't always translate into behaviour. Often people are unaware of the need for change. They assume wrongly that egregious cruelty to animals is illegal in the United States. They don't know that animals used for food are exempt from the Animal Welfare Act, so they don't know the extent of the cruelty they support at the grocery store. People expect the government to police egregious cruelty, not realising that the government subsidises it."
Sadly in the United States the laws can be dictated by those who make large contributions to political campaigns. That is bad news for the animals, because two of the strongest lobbies are the farm lobby and the biomedical lobby -- industries in which the most animals suffer for profit.
Eric Bahrt
When pot gets too expensive
Re: "First legal pot farm unveiled", (BP, March 1).
The GPO revealed the 100 square metre marijuana growing facility cost 10 million baht!
I recently read about a young American teenager who assembled a working nuclear fusion reactor in his parents' garage for a tiny fraction of the amount spent by the GPO to grow a few pot plants. I find this expenditure to be truly obscene, particularly in light of the fact the GPO will be unlikely to produce products that will be competitively priced due to government control on the issuance of patents. In a free market the state, as the expenditure illustrates, simply cannot compete.
Mr M
Stop the plastic scourge
I have been jogging at Lumpini Park for the past 8 years. On March 2, I saw a dead monitor lizard in the pond. The cause of death? Plastic garbage.
Tulashi Gautam
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