Why Clark Will Tell What He Knows

Anonymous asked in a comment on my earlier post on the Clark plea:

I believe that he is guilty as charged-- but do you think he would tell more and fib a bit and tell the FBI what they want to hear, as well?

Well, the 2nd Addendum linked by the ADN shows the Prosecutors have the same concerns, and they pretty much locked him in. Basically it says if Clark

• lies, fabricates, or implicates innocent people
• if he tells the truth, but withholds something relevant because they didn't ask the right question,
• if he stops cooperating after sentencing

it will be considered a breach of the agreement (and all promises to ask the judge to reduce the sentence are off) AND he could be prosecuted.

I don't know what charges the prosecutors might have had on him that they dropped or what else they may have ceded to him (like they promised Bill Allen they wouldn't go after his kids), but on Clark's side it looks like total surrender.

Detail below. The whole document at the 2nd Addendum link. I was hoping these would be a little bigger, but you can double click on them to see them more easily.








The rest is about how the prosecutors can only recommend, but the judge has the final decision and things like that.

Morning Birds - Black Crested Bulbul

It's at times like this that I'm jealous of whatever camera Anonymous has at Bird Anonymous. But I've left my ancient pentax and telephoto lens at home because the Canon Powershot fits in my pocket and I can have it conveniently with me all the time. But still, times like this I wish I had a better camera. My pics here are only to help me document that I saw them and to help identify them and I leave the fantastic close ups to Anonymous and the lucky times a bird lands on my nose.

So, here are some sketchy shots from our fourth floor balcony of today's visit by the Black Crested bulbul. Also saw to greater racket tailed drongos fly by. Thought maybe they were the ones making the the two toned doorbell like call in the video. But a little googling got me to Dave Farrow's incredible pages on SoundSnap which have different calls for that drongo.

So turn on the video and listen to the bird calls while you look at the bulbul shots. And you can go here for some better shots of the black crested bulbul.







It's in the middle, just to the left on the branch in the middle of the tree. You can double click all of these to enlarge them a lot.

Khao Lam - ข้าวหลาม

Tuesday, March 4, 2008, 11:30pm

While I was going through goals and objectives and outcomes earlier today, someone came in with two Khao Lams. Khao lam, one of my favorites, is sweet sticky rice, in this case with some black beans, cooked inside bamboo. mmmmmmmm.

Plea By Jim Clark, Frank Murkowski Chief of Staff, Means He's Helping Feds

Chiang Mai Time: March 4, 2008 1:50pm


Reading this ADN headline from Chiang Mai means everyone else knows a lot more about what's going on than I do.

Former Murkowski chief of staff pleads guilty to corruption

The charge to which he pleaded guilty, is relatively minor in the big scheme of things - charging $68,000 in political polls by Dave Dittman to Veco - but is bigger money than any of the three already convicted legislators saw.

Specifically, from the ADN link to the plea agreement, here's what he pleaded guilty to:

[NOTE: Double Click on the Images to Englarge Them]

For this, according to the documents, he's facing:

These are recommended sentences from the prosecutors. Nothing binds the judge, and all this is dependent on how well Clark cooperates, meaning how well he shares what he knows, testifies as a government witness in court, etc. The recommendation is for a three level downward departure from the sentencing guidelines. So far Judge Sedwick, in the one case of a cooperating witness in this series of cases - Bill Bobrick - has followed the recommendations of prosecutors.


From the ADN link to the Factual Basis for the Plea are more details:





More important, is that Jim Clark must have worked out a deal, meaning that he's been telling the FBI and Federal Prosecutors what he knows about the Murkowski administration. This could get interesting.

Thanks to the ADN for posting the court documents on their website.

Tarongchai's very special hand made cards

You never know what you'll see in the night market along Thanon (Road) Suthep. Mostly it's food, but there's a guy who just sells cardboard boxes, and stalls with clothing, and one with potted plants. And then we saw this one tonight.

These are popup cards that the man you see in the picture makes. A college grad, he finds this more satisfying. And his cards are really special. They all close flat like normal card, but they have intricate cutouts inside.




He gave me his card and I said I'd post his email. He has an online catalog he'll send you. There's a chance the email address isn't quite right. My email to him hasn't come back yet. So maybe it's ok.

ken-popup@hotmail.com

Bugs

The grasshopper was on our sliding glass door yesterday - on the outside.




On the east end of the Sunday night market there were lots of bugs flying around the lightbulbs in the stalls. They weren't very big and looked a little like termites. But then we got to a point where we could see the streetlight and there seemed to be millions of them.

Meetings

Monday night, March 3

I did my seminar this morning. We got into things like productivity and time management - particularly identifying the task people do then trying to connect them to the organizational goals. I've had several weeks to hang out with these people and the organization. They've got good documentation because they had to set up standard international mission statement, goals, objectives, etc. for their grant from Oxfam.

My Thai continues to frustrate me at work, but I had the Powerpoint (had to save my Keynote presentation as powerpoint then fix a few things that got lost in the transition - I have to see if I actually have a cord for my Macbook to a projector so I can just present from my computer) with enough Thai and pictures that everyone could understand what I was trying to convey. Well, even American students have problems with the concepts, but they at least understand the words.

When the boss came in - he had to go visit someone in the hospital and was late - my sense was that he was pleased with the message I was giving. At the end when I told them to talk among themselves, from what I could understand, he was reinforcing many of the things I'd been saying.


Then we all had a lunch that someone brought in. The afternoon was another meeting. Same six people with several more people from another office. The pictures are of the meeting, not the morning seminar. I tried to understand and I caught phrases and words regularly, but not enough to be certain what the point was for sure. It's clear that people's northern accents are one factor, but I just don't have the vocabulary I need. So when I heard them repeating a word, I tried to write it in Thai in Thai2English.com and see if I could get the English word. The problem was spelling it right because that program doesn't give you things that are close, only the right
spelling. At least in Chinese you write the pinyin (phonetic in western letters). But I did get, finally, ข้อมูล spelled right and learned it meant data, information.

The organization's candidate didn't win - #1 did. Apparently vote totals weren't available today, since no one new how many votes those two candidates got.

When I got home, J told me about her first Thai lesson. This is out of sync for the classes so she has a one on one lesson with what she described as "a real teacher" who knows how to get the most out of their time. She likes her so much, she rather go there than to the University class (which she checked out) even though the university is much closer.

We met Melissa for vegetarian dinner. This was the third time I've been there in a week and they were very nice to us and the food is really good. In the restaurant and in the shops I can tell my Thai is much more fluent than when we first got here, something I don't feel at the office where I'm always listening to and stretching for words I don't know. Talking about the meaning of efficiency, organizational goals and objectives, and how to measure one's work output is a lot more abstract than ordering food or asking if they have a lid for the frying pan.

I've got some catch up posts and pictures and I'll do those separately.

Zohar Offers Onion Video and Other Good Stuff

I don't remember how I got to the The Zohar Class a while back, but I went back again today. It's worth plugging. (I have absolutely no personal connection to Zohar, just found him on-line, never met him, and think his blog is terrific.) He says he's a 'non-stop' reader and that's reflected in the kinds of things he finds to post and how he comments on them. Recent posts include videos on Facebook's and Google's threats to your privacy, books being given away on-line and why, what I think is Zohar's map of corporate connections, and this great video from the Onion.


Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot


Why great? Because it makes us to look at things we take so for granted that we don't actually see them for what they are. After watching this video, who can ever look at tv news visuals with a straight face again? Great satire.

I can only guess that the ridiculous cigar in Zohar's picture is also intended to be satirical, but I think he should get a new pic without it.

Dinner with Steven LB

I'd met Steve LB at the strawberry party last week and we said we should get together again. We met at the organic vegetable shop on the Chiang Mai campus where he left his bicycle - outside the gates after I learned that lesson last week - and we started to walk across the campus and caught one of the free shuttles that took us the center of the campus. From there we walked to the main entrance on the north, passing the department of statistics along the way.

Steven's been running a business that brings US students to cultural immersion programs in Nepal and Peru. He's spent nearly the last six months in Thailand and we went to the vegetarian restaurant I'd been to before. After dinner we had coconut ice cream - J and I had coffee and Steven had durian.


Then we walked through the night market behind the resturant - lots and lots of little shops aimed at the students on campus across the street. Steven found a new friend at one of the shops. They had a good laugh.

Steven is headed south soon so we probably won't get to see him again this trip, but we had some great conversation and we're sorry he's leaving. I'm sure everyone at the strawberry party last week has interesting stories like steven does.

Most of the day were stayed inside, resting, and I did some work for my seminar Monday.

Thai Elections - March 2, 2008

Tomorrow, Sunday, (it's Saturday afternoon in Chiang Mai as I write) is election day for the Thai Senate. I know an election is going on because of all the signs up and the election trucks. Plus where I work they are supporting one of the candidates and so there was election work going on and the truck have been at our compound. But I wasn't sure of the date.

Apparently, according to this Bangkok Post story not that many Thais really know that much about the election either.

There's a senate election?

By Mongkol Bangprapa

Despite campaigns by the Election Commission (EC), fewer than 30 per cent of Thais were able to tell a pollster that they know there is to be an election for 76 senators countrywide on March 2.

According to the latest Suan Dusit poll by Suan Dusit Rajabhat University, of the 3,266 people surveyed, only 29 per cent could tell the interviewers how important the election is for the parliament, while 57 per cent said they had "scant knowledge" of it.

A surprising 12 per cent of respondents admitted they knew nothing of the coming election.

Most people surveyed admitted they were less aware of the senate election than they were of the Dec 23 election for House of Representatives.

There are 18 people running for the seat from Chiang Mai I was told - one seat per province - and the candidate my Thai colleagues are supporting is one of the candidates who has a chance to win. They think he needs at least 100,000 votes. This is for the Senate.

74 people have already been appointed to the Senate, according to MCOT English News. The rest get elected tomorrow.

Election Commission names 74 appointed senators

BANGKOK, Feb 19 (TNA) - Thailand's Election Commission on Tuesday announced the appointment of 74 members of the Senate who will represent half of the Upper House while the other half will be elected nationwide on March 2.

The 74 senators represent a ratio of 6 men to one woman. The oldest is 72 years old and the youngest 42.

EC secretary general Sutthiphon Thaweechaikarn said the appointed senators came from diverse backgrounds including academics (15), government officials (14), private sector (15), various professions (15) and other sectors (15).

They represent almost every field of career from university lecturer to former national legislator, lawyer, journalist, medical officer, nurse, engineer, architect, former provincial governor, farmer, university student, telecommunication specialist and financial expert.



Bangkokians dominate the list with 43 representatives while five are from the South, three from the North, two from the Northeast and 21 from the central region.

Asked if there has been behind-the-scenes lobbying for the seats, Mr. Sutthiphon affirmed that the screening committee has thoroughly and carefully studied the background of each appointee and the votings among committee members were carried out in an open manner.

The EC allows 30 days for anyone objecting to the appointment to file his/her complaint while those disagreeing with the screening committee's decision can file their complaints with the Supreme Court within one year.

The appointed senators will be in office for three years. The other 76 senators, one from each province, will be elected nationwide on March 2. They will serve for six years. (TNA)