A recent comment on the New Mandala blog said of the Pheu Thai rice-pledging scheme: ‘It stripped wealth out of Thailand to about 800 billion baht, on a criminally stupid rice scheme and maybe another similar amount to the Thaksin and cronies.’ OK, you have to excuse the ‘and cronies’ stuff.  The poor dears who make comments of this ilk seem obligated to use such flaming language.  I am beginning to suspect they have a programme on their computers that waves red flags if they fail to include ‘crony’ or ‘clone’ or ‘fugitive from justice’ or the like.