OPINION

Easy to cast blame

Re: "Sad litany of flood missteps", (BP, Nov 30).

According to Seree Supratidm, an expert on flood and disaster management who developed the cell broadcast warning system, the first flood evacuation warning was sent on Nov 18. No one heeded it.

It's convenient to blame everything except ourselves.

Hit the archives

Re: "When data speaks", (PostBag, Nov 29).

Since arriving in Thailand in 1979, I dare say I have been called a "conspiracy theorist" more often than any other contributor to PostBag.

This trend really took off in early 2020 when I was among the first to use scientific reasoning to criticise the Covid-19 vaccines and pandemic containment measures. Since that time my comments on geoengineering, satellite weaponry, climate change fraud, agrochemical pollution, nutritional, medical, and general scientific nonsense have generated countless replies from writers resorting to the pejorative term, "conspiracy theorist".

When Paul Sumner uses "conspiracy theorist," he is dismissively categorising me as a person who is irrational. He presumes his stigma-labelling will trigger emotional and cultural associations in the reader which can neutralise my argument.

He resorts to authority bias and oversimplification in a cognitively effortless and well-worn rhetorical method which offers all the advantages of persuasion without any of the requirements of reasoning.

I would invite Mr Sumner to visit the Post's archives which include hundreds of my letters. Some offer more lengthy examinations of the flaws inherent in satellite measurement of sea levels and the superior quality of datasets obtained by historical tidal gauge observations (also see realclimatescience.com).

Clearly, Mr Sumner might benefit from being relieved of the emotional burden of disparaging others to find his chosen path of maximal expediency. I hereby wish him well in this regard.

Mopping up

Re: "Hat Yai death toll jumps to 110", (BP, Nov 29).

The photo that accompanies this lead story shows smiling Hat Yai mayor Narongporn Na Phatthalung, bowing to the PM is disturbing to say the least.

While not wishing violence upon anyone, that smile should be wiped off his face after he "downplayed the threat" as he acknowledged in his apology, also on the front page. What a disaster, one of Thailand's worst, with thousands more facing life or death partially caused by his incompetence. Clearly, more fatalities will follow.

Lastly, in the same article, how strange that reporting of the fatalities fell into three categories, of which the first was "patients who died in the hospital from natural causes during the disaster", as if relevant.

Always one-eyed

Re: "Eye on Hat Yai", (PostBag, Nov 28).

Last one Ellis O' Brien wants "someone please explain" why the BBC hasn't reported more on the flooding in southern Thailand.

Well, as a Brit living here 24 years who had to endure the inherent biasness of this outfit for a long time prior back in Blighty, I can tell you: they are obsessed with everything woke, and bad as the deluge was, it didn't involve Israeli attacks on Palestine or Trump bullying South American people. I think my country's public service broadcaster's days are numbered, hopefully.