Truth is stranger than fiction. You cannot make this stuff up because nobody would believe you. Today the Thai Criminal Court sentenced 61 year old cancer patient T. Ampon to 20 years in jail, effectively a life sentence for sending 4 text messages to the secretary of the prime Minister of Thailand. The texts were deemed insulting to Thailand's King Bhumibol and Queen Sirkit.
Mr. Ampon was held for a year in jail without bail until his sentence today. At his trial Mr. Ampon testified under oath that he did not know the recipient of the text messages, he did not know how to send text messages and he did not possess the SIM card used to send the Thai text messages.
The Thai court exercised leniency because the maximum sentence on each charge was 15 years. The owner of the website upon which the messages are sent is also liable to the same sentence. American citizen Joe Gordon of Colorado is vacationing in a jail cell in Thailand today awaiting his sentence on the same charges. Joe Gordon pleaded guilty to posting a link on his website to a book critical of Thailand's King Bhumibol.
Internet censorship and eavesdropping has now spread to North America. Protecting net neutrality is now the least of our problems. Any American visiting Canada will be well advised to leave their Macbook, iPad and iPhone at home because Canada is now bringing in legislation allowing the police without a warrant to monitor all internet communications. Sidney Crosby said that the goal is to stop terrorism.
If you mow your lawn and cut the weeds, the weeds will always come back. Unless you get down on your hands and knees with your $2 weeder and pull out the roots of the weeds the weeds will always come back. The root cause of the American 15 trillion dollar deficit and the impending world wide economic collapse is the clash of religions, which led to retaliatory wars, about to become nuclear world war III the extinction of life on Earth. Like doctors our politicians treat the symptoms of the illness instead of preventing it by rooting out the root cause.
Thai King Bhumibol said 'Take my wife, please.' Take 9/11. 9/11 happened because the accurate translation of the Everyman Koran says "Make war on the Christians, Jews and Infidels and in return you shall have eternal paradise, 72 virgins, 80,000 servants each, crystal clear springs and wine with no side effects." (Koran 9:5, 29-30, 111, Koran 56, Hadith). When the 9/11 pilots crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11 they fully expected to wake up the next moment in Paradise. Instead of outlawing this 'religion,' we will protect it and jail our 5 year olds for making fun of Thai King Bhumibol on their iPads, like Thailand just jailed Mr. Ampon today, in Bangkok, Thailand.
Interfaith Harmony dot com may come in handy right about now, with Stephen Hawking predicting our imminent extinction unless we colonize another planet or learn to travel in time. In the meantime just sing 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon' as the Titanic rolls over and sinks in the icy Atlantic Ocean.
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