While calm and “friendly” protesters in Bangkok continue to try and shut down the government in a calm and friendly way, prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has survived a no-confidence vote in parliament. (Her party controls most of the seats.) From the Guardian:

Her Puea Thai party and coalition partners dominate the lower house with 299 seats and comfortably survived the three-day debate during which the opposition grilled Yingluck on a 3.5 billion baht (£66m/US$108m) water management scheme and financially troubled government rice intervention scheme…

The demonstrators, a motley collection aligned with Bangkok’s royalist civilian and military elite, accuse Yingluck of being an illegitimate proxy for her billionaire brother Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister and populist hero of the rural poor who was ousted in a 2006 military coup.

The demonstrators are occupying the ministry of finance and have shut down others. Our Man in Southeast Asia says Richard Barrow’s Twitter feed is the best source of information on the nuts and bolts of what’s happening. Despite the Wall Street Journal‘s fretting that “democracy is under siege” in Thailand—they seem to side with the populist, allegedly corrupt billionaire Thaksin and his sister Yingluck—Barrow seems fairly mellow:

Early this morning, Our Man in Southeast Asia sent an update:

So, things are getting a little weird.

Thailand goes its own way. The police HQ has had power cut, several government ministries have been closed, but everyone is really mellow. I can’t imagine what this would be like in another country.

The real test will be on Saturday when the “Red Shirts,” the opposition to the occupiers (who are, yes, wearing those “V for Vendetta” masks) come to town.

But no-one will want to mar the King’s birthday on Thursday, so there is that. Both sides fight to show how they love the king more.

I really like this country. They do things so differently. Everyone thought that after the floods things would fall apart, but the sweet Thais just worked hard to get it together, which is maybe why Yingluck has not had many problems until now.

The last time the pro-Thaksin Red Shirts came to Bangkok in a big way, back in 2010, there were rocket-grenade attacks in the business district, military snipers picking people off, and around 100 deaths. Let’s hope they and the military don’t give a repeat performance.

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....