MaxYakov

It wan't looting! I was simply a peaceful protest (with benefits) and the cops started shooting for no reason. ????

1 hour ago, Tug said:

Naaa trumps cronies are busy wrecking the post office allready 

Did they hire Miley Cyrus to do the hard parts (pardon the expression)?

"Wedded to a Soviet-style economic model, Lukashenko has struggled to raise incomes and living standards in recent years. He also faced anger over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which he dismissed as a "psychosis" while suggesting drinking vodka and playing ice hockey as remedies."

Is he suggesting playing ice hocky while sloshed?! Getting so totally wasted that one could not even leave one's abode would work for me.

14 minutes ago, Tug said:

Even many republicans say trumps proposal is (slop)it’s also an attempt to defund Medicare and Social security this on top of wreaking our lousy health care system as it is just enough of this guy he’s failing as potus in the most ugly way let’s get rid of him and his inablers just pathetic and senate stop shirking your jobs and get to work

Biden/Pelosi in 2020. Make America Ameritopia! (MAA)

39 minutes ago, bellboy said:

 And you know this because you are up todate on all the conspiracy theories .. 

Today their were over 1000 deaths in India . The death toll from Whan cronoviris is rising .  personally i would wear a gimp mask. If i thought it would stop one death!.  

 

I'm wearing a fairly self-protective respirator style mask and not a "gimp mask" because the only death I'm genuinely concerned about is my death. Please reference TVF comment HERE [ link] and heed if you haven't already.

If I contracted the virus, I would self-quarantine alone until I either recovered or died in my apartment so the mask would not even be an issue unless I decided to go to a hospital (probably by walking (or more likely, cycling) and anti-social distancing to Bumrungrad IH at/near Soi 3).

On 8/8/2020 at 3:08 PM, phantomfiddler said:

Having read an article a few years ago stating that 40% of indian pilots were flying commercial passenger jets on forged qualifications, I am amazed that this sort of thing does not happen more often ???? and let,s face it, surely this practice is not going to be confined to pilot,s licences ! Does anyone know the name of Delhi,s equivalent of Khaosan Road ?

What that article stated may be true (or it may not be). However, according to a PPRuNe comment with a photo, this particular pilot was highly qualified and even a picture of him with his female partner was posted with the comment. Even the best can make mistakes. Ref: HERE [link] and HERE [link]. No, I don't know Delhi's equivalent of KSR (and don't even want to). ????

The Good News: The Victoria covid-19 virus infection rate has stabilized.

The Bad News: The Victoria human population has destabilized due to lockdown and the resulting cabin fever.

25 minutes ago, IAMHERE said:

Port officials likely wanted money to 'release' the ship. That explosion was a direct result of the ship owner just not having the money to stuff brown envelopes for the port authorities. Don't tell me the ship wasn't sea worthy,  Lebonon cares less if people die once they leave their waters.  Just a ruse to encourage bribes and then it became steal the cargo. YMMV

It was a direct result of failing to store a potentially explosive substance properly, IMHO. If a child finds a carelessly stored firearm and shoots him/herself or somebody else with it, you wouldn't blame the gun store where the firearm was purchased (or whatever was the source of the gun) would you? So, I guess MMDV.

41 minutes ago, Redline said:

16 hours ago, MaxYakov said:

Teens who abandoned a car with an AK they said they "found". Let me guess...

We’ll, there are 390,000,000 guns in the USA-owned by civilizations, and that’s only legally sold.  So it could be one of them was laying around, or someone else dropped it being chased by the cops 

It could also be that the USA (often single mother households) has raised a generation or two of violent, criminal thugs. Liberally apply Occam's razor [Wiki link].

Please reference my comment regarding historic, violent, criminal thugs (deceased and did not possess firearms at the time of their arrests) HERE. [link] Any way you cut it, these so-called "teens" (race not disclosed) were either in possession of stolen property (probably including the car) or borrowed or purchased the AK illegally. Either way they're young, criminals learning the hard way, Capeesh?

For Karma believers here's a good example. All this over port fees for the ship that brought it in to Beirut?!

Are the port authorities and anyone else in Beirut involved in handling this ammonium nitrate situation drooling idiots? (rhetorical question). This occurred over unpaid port fees?! Looks like Karma to me. I feel for the victims of this massive, brain-dead screw-up (cock-up for you UKers).

Mustafa: Where did we store that 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate we cnfiscated?

Salim: Sorry, I don't remember where we put it. Do you want me to find its location?

Mustafa: Oh, not to worry. It will show up some day, Allah willing.

2 hours ago, rudi49jr said:

3 hours ago, thaichina said:

Anyone wants to bet you re a racist?

I merely wanted to point out that, had the kids been black, they would have been far more likely to be shot by the police.

Yeah, you're probably right because there's an off-chance that they would do something really stupid and threatening to the police (like pull an AK on them, for example) or resist arrest while having a reaction to drugs (George Floyd [link] - recently released police body cam and autopsies) or try to grab a policeman's gun and then assault him (Michael Brown [link] - Grand Jury) or resist arrest, grab a policeman's Taser and try to shoot him with it (Rayshard Brooks [link] - body cams and various videos) just for starters. Unfortunately, if the criminal acts are by black people, then it's turning out to be the cop's fault, especially if the cops happen to be white.

Far more whites doing criminal acts that are threatening the police are being shot than blacks. If one is doing any of the above, then anyone white, black or any shade of skin color is risking having deadly force used on them. Capeesh?

1 hour ago, skytrooper70 said:

2 hours ago, MaxYakov said:

Teens who abandoned a car with an AK they said they "found". Let me guess...

Guess what? At 15 yo, they're too young to have been driving a car, in FL, legally. Must have "borrowed" it and "found" the AK-47 inside.

If you don't know, you're in a pretty lame position - pretty lame across the board with your comment. Too young to have been driving a car? But not too young to play "Grand Theft Auto" for real and run from the cops for real. But I was speculating about another element of this weird story.

I hope you were simply being sarcastic (but not really very good at it, IMHO).

Keep guessing. You may hit upon it by pure random chance.

Teens who abandoned a car with an AK they said they "found". Let me guess...

Mustafa: Where did we store that 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate we confiscated?

Young people are not risk-adverse? No earth-shaking news here.

16 hours ago, WhatsNext said:

On 8/1/2020 at 2:12 AM, MaxYakov said:

No, I'm not cowering in my room 24 X 7. I'm out and about every day on a vehicle with two 26 inch wheels on both the sidewalks and, often, the road.

 

So you think a motorbike without a motor is a safe thing ? Seriously get in a car, close to 80% of the traffic related deaths in Thailand are on motorbikes as everyone knows. In a car Thailand is on par with Canada for "safety".

Maybe if you had spent as much time reading my post for comprehension as you did editing it, you would not have made such a comment. Here's the entirety of the paragraph you have extracted from my original comment which is HERE. Here is the entire paragraph:

"No, I'm not cowering in my room 24 X 7. I'm out and about every day on a vehicle with two 26 inch wheels on both the sidewalks and, often, the road. Hint: I have not purchased even a single drop of gasoline while residing in Thailand. I avoid walking in Bangkok as well unless I'm inside a building or for some good reason I do not have access to one of my bicycles."

Seriously (as you put it), I'll  be neither owning nor operating a motor vehicle while in Thailand and I actually avoid even using the machines given the well-known reputation of Thais on the road in terms of deaths, admittedly mostly with motorcycles/bikes involved maybe Thailand would be on a par with Canada, but I don't know of a source for such a conclusion, do you? Here's a link to the Wiki List of Countries by Traffic-related Death Rate [link](2016 is the latest data). According to the List, Thailand has 6 to 8 times the death rate of Canada depending on whether it's measured by population or distance traveled.

Admittedly, motorcycle-involved accidents in Thailand contribute greatly to the high death rate. Even then, the death rate on Thai roads, eliminating 75% of the deaths in Thailand due to motorbikes, is still twice that of Canada (around 5,000 - non-motorcycle rate Thailand vs around 2,000 - overall Canada) Check this out through the above link. Thailand has about twice the population of Canada, but I don't have the miles-traveled information, however, comparing the Thai road situation with that of Canada is a little dicey, don't you think (apples can be compared to oranges - they are both spherical, both have seeds and they are both fruit , but that's about it, yes ?????

Having said that, there is this:

I do not want to be involved in any accidents on the road in Thailand whether its in a car, Tuk-Tuk or motorbike. I will share the roads only under duress with Thai people and only in a bus or while on a bicycle or walking and, ideally, while facing oncoming traffic as would a pedestrian. Capeesh?

I said in the first paragraph of my comment (that you edited down to a single sentence) this:

"I early-on, over ten years ago, resolved to not do two things: Not to earn the Thai language (written or spoken - only a few elementary phrases) and not to own or operate a motor vehicle of any kind (I expanded this to avoid roads in Thailand altogether unless I'm in some sort of bus - in a taxi only under duress)."

So where do you get off advising me to buy a car? There are other reasons why I will neither own nor operate a motor vehicle while in Thailand, but I'm (unbelievably) trying to keep this short.

Do you think cars in Thailand are "safer" than bicycles? What do you know about cycling in Thailand? Are you an experienced cyclist in urban Bangkok (the only place where I allow myself to cycle and even then it's largely on the sidewalks/pavements)?

Do you have ten years experience cycling in urban Bangkok as I do? Are you going to pay for my owning a car in Thailand? How would you pay for my (still existing even in a car) risk of driving on Thai roads that are infested with largely poorly-educated (especially on motorbikes) Thai people whose road skills are infamously bad and even involve unlicensed children? Then again, there are issues of the quality of the roads in Thailand and the quality of their law enforcement.

The bottom line is I want to entirely eliminate (or get as close to it) my risk of being involved in a road accident in Thailand, especially an accident where I could be seen in any material way as being at fault.

Bottom, bottom line: I don't like the way the roads are run in Thailand or anything else about them and have and will continue to minimize my participation in them. Again, Capeesh?

EoR (End of Rant)

Rice or nukes, rice or nukes, rice or nukes? It's a tough decision the DRNK (aka the short, fat guy).

3 hours ago, essox essox said:

why are there many many motorbikes on the roads WITH NO MIRRORS....I see brand new bikes on trhe roads WITHOUT MIRRORS....why are they allowed to be sold and put on the roads ???

Why are you assuming they were sold without mirrors? Thais are very much into style and group conformance and can possibly figure out how to remove them. Bicycles aren't sold with mirrors and the Thai cyclists generally eschew them (farangs as well, BTW). I had a young, relatively HiSo Thai cyclist tell me he didn't have mirrors because he could hear the motor vehicles behind him. I guess it's just like the helmets and wide-open exhaust systems - effective absence of law enforcement.

21 minutes ago, teacherclaire said:

The sad part is that way too many Thais believe that wearing a helmet is only for the police, not for their own safety. Again, it's the lack of education. 

Yes, education is important, but morality and virtue are also important and largely originate in the family with a moral and virtuous parents and society. An immoral and virtueless people cannot be governed/participate in an effective society - it results in anarchy: Nobody see, nobody know - a quote from a Tuk-Tuk driver who had thrown his styrofoam food container into a storm drain on Sukhumvit Road. 

76 road deaths on Wednesday after 2 days or more of national holiday and a weekend.

Multiple choice (aka guess) hypothesis:

1) People had forgotten how to operate motor vehicles after 4 days of holiday

2) People were suffering from severe hangovers from drinking too much

3) People were still inebriated from the celebrations

4) People were simply having a "bad road day"

5) All of the above

3 hours ago, fredwiggy said:

It isn't just the cops fault but their lack of responsibility on monitoring the roads is a major reason. When you catch people breaking the law, and by being aware you will, especially here, and take money from their wallets, that is the biggest teaching tool after the defensive driving course, which here means little, as it's too easy. There are many police here, especially in and around the cities, and if they actually did the job they were hired to do, protect and serve, it would maker a difference. In Texas, for one state, the minimum driving age for scooters is 15, and you have to pass a test. Here I see 8 year olds driving scooters, and on all major roads, and many without helmets. This comes from a lack of parenting skills, or inability to care. These statistics will never change until laws are followed, and made, to protect the young riders, who, if they don't get killed first, will grow to be adult drivers in trucks and cars. Going from a scooter to a car without education is a disaster. A car can't maneuver like a scooter can and what they've got away with on a scooter won't work with a car. Here I've seen that most Thais don't look anywhere but straight ahead, being ignorant of what bot behind and to the sides of them. Every day I have to pass drivers that are going too slow and driving right next to the center stripe, and when I pass them, their gaze is directly ahead most of the time. Inconsideration for those around and behind you, not moving over to let others pass because you are going too slow, is a recipe for disaster. Whether it's ignorance or being inconsiderate, this is something taught in classes in the US, and in most places, you can get a ticket for driving too slow on a highway. The road department leaves much to be desired here also, with potholes on most major roads that aren't fixed for over a year at times. The 30% of children left with grandparents to raise doesn't help either, as these kids aren't watched and are allowed to do whatever they please, including driving scooters at age 8 and less and without helmets. Education costs money, and that's the governments job. If they want to save lives, they would do something about this.

In general, I believe your comment makes some good points but one thing: What makes you think it's the Royal Thai Police's job is to "protect and serve"? I have read their sort of mission/behavioral statement at the Government Complex at Chaeng Wattana and it is, indeed, an impressive document. However, watching them in action and by their very name I believe that have "higher" priorities. I would hesitate to use the "stated" USA model of "protect and serve" when describing the role of the RTP.

Don't fall into that common trap of assuming things operate in a foreign country (especially Thailand) as they are said to work in the USA - Thailand is not the USA and one should be careful when comparing it or to any other country.  Capeesh?

I also take issue as to whether it's the "governments[sic] job" to educate, rather than what they actually do in the classrooms in Thailand, but that's another subject and I'm trying to keep this short and it would probably be flagged as off-topic and political.

40 minutes ago, torturedsole said:

If they all drove cars then the death toll would be the same.  It's not the motorbikes that are the problem.

Avoid editing someone's post unless it can be done without absolutely not creating an out-of-context situation and the editing process is indicated in some way in your comment. It's also a good idea to wait until the editing period has expired for the comment you desire to reply to (about 10 minutes at least).

I did not say to substitute cars for motorbikes, did I? Besides, are you somehow not aware that motorbikes are involved in 75-80 percent of the road deaths? How could it be possible that you seem to not be aware of this fact? 

I believe many motorbike uses by Thais are trivial/frivolous if not completely unnecessary, but the Thai people on the road are impatient and lazy at the same time (as well as generally relatively poor and uneducated). There are already too many cars on the road to be carried safely by the vehicular infrastructure. Have you not noticed this fact?

Go back and read my post - you replied too soon as I was editing my post at the time. Please go back and carefully read my latest version of my comment for understanding/comprehension HERE.

Also, take the advice from me to avoid operating or being a passenger on a motorbike in Thailand (unless you believe you are an Immortal or, better yet, actually are one). ????

I early-on, over ten years ago, resolved to not do two things: Not to earn the Thai language (written or spoken - only a few elementary phrases) and not to own or operate a motor vehicle of any kind (I expanded this to avoid roads in Thailand altogether unless I'm in some sort of bus - in a taxi only under duress).

I believe these two decisions have saved me a lot time of my life here if not an early death. I eventually expanded these two into a General Rule: Avoid doing what Thai people do. I'm physically in Bangkok, but I'm really here only mentally. My major concern is that I not be at big risk of being a victim of this road carnage.

My advice to Thai people would be: Do what it takes to eliminate this motorbike infestation from your lives and, ideally, from the entire country. Either do that or at least separate motorbike operation from larger vehicles altogether. I realize this would be very difficult or impossible and will never happen so the carnage will continue.

No, I'm not cowering in my room 24 X 7. I'm out and about every day on a vehicle with two 26 inch wheels on both the sidewalks and, often, the road. Hint: I have not purchased even a single drop of gasoline while residing in Thailand. I avoid walking in Bangkok as well unless I'm inside a building or for some good reason I do not have access to one of my bicycles.