Gsxrnz

I've followed him (and JBP) for about a decade. He is a very grounded individual and you won't catch him out on a lie. Unfortunately, he is a realist that tells it how it is - this doesn't go down well with circa 50% of the general public who favor feelings over facts.

He is seen as a traitor to his former liberal cohorts because he quite simply interprets the world based on what is observable. That's a giant red flag in this age of cognitive dissonance.

He stood still in the middle while the wokery pushed way out to the left, so now he is by definition, far-right. Go figure. 

He thought he was driving in the left slow lane and wondering why the hell every other MF on the road was driving in the wrong direction. Don't ask me how I know. 

Probably an occasion to reflect on the much maligned "Rivers of Blood" speech from Enoch Powell.

Quoting one of his costituents, "If I had the money to go, I wouldn't stay in this country... I have three children, all of them been through grammar school and two of them married now, with family. I shan't be satisfied till I have seen them all settled overseas."

The man finished by saying to Powell: "In this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man".

Powell went on "Here is a decent, ordinary fellow Englishman, who in broad daylight in my own town says to me, his Member of Parliament, that the country will not be worth living in for his children. I simply do not have the right to shrug my shoulders and think about something else. What he is saying, thousands and hundreds of thousands are saying and thinking—not throughout Great Britain, perhaps, but in the areas that are already undergoing the total transformation to which there is no parallel in a thousand years of English history. Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. So insane are we that we actually permit unmarried persons to immigrate for the purpose of founding a family with spouses and fiancées whom they have never seen."

And that was at 50k immigrants a year. What is it now - a million? 

It's been done before. 

She managed to upset the French AND the Germans. Kudos  

11 minutes ago, GreasyFingers said:

Can someone tell me why bitcoin mining is illegal in itself.

Bitcoin mining in Thailand is legal. Probably need to register as a business, pay tax, and abide by business regulations.

The crime is nicking electricity.

Question for the OP.

Has your German bank told you to specifically gat a Thai TIN,  or have they asked you to certify if you are a tax resident in Thailand, and if so, what is your Thai TIN?

In my experience, most of these bank letters give you an option to attest that you do not have a foreign TIN.

I'd be more worried about the damage done to the engine on the cold starts between (presumably) very extended periods of time. While sitting for a long time, oil can weep excessively out of critical wear points and that next cold start is a killer.  If not using it much, better to start the engine once a week and run it until operating temp is achieved.

Oil doesn't break down from "sitting" in the same way it breaks down from being used in a running engine. The oil companies would have you believe unused or lightly used oil does get old and should be replaced. I believe some now even have a use-by date on the labelling. Simply a marketing ploy.

I wouldn't be changing oil after a mere 14 months and 500klm. By the same token, if the recommended change is at 10K or 12 months, and I'm at 9K and 14 months, I'm waiting to hit 10K before it gets changed.

In your case I would be starting it up once a week. Back in the day when I had too many motorbikes and cars to use frequently, it was my Saturday morning job to crank or kick-over every engine for 30 seconds (spark plugs removed for the winter), check the battery trickle chargers, bounce the forks on the bikes, depress every brake lever or pedal, and roll them forward or backwards a foot or two.

EDIT: However, if a warranty situation is in play, as others have said, follow the manufacturers guidelines.

Putin won't agree to a ceasefire without knowing the terms/demands for an eventual treaty. Strategically, he'd be a fool to do so. A ceasefire would allow Ukraine to build up their weapons stockpiles, reinforce their supply chains, and rest and relocate their troops. A ceasefire offers no benefit to Russia, other than a reduced death toll.

Who would agree to back off so the enemy can become stronger, with not even a vague idea of what the eventual deal would look like?

Seeing two blokes on a scooter on Patters 3rd road carrying an unboxed 65" Samsung TV at 3am is not an unusual experience. 

In every single European conflict in the near or distant past, it seems odd that all the straight (and a few not so straight) chalk coloured men were selected to don their armour, carry their sword or Enfield .303, mount their equine charger, their Centurion or Panzer tank , Sopwith Camel, Supermarine Spitfire or Junkers 88, and go forth and lose their lives for their Motherland - leaving their families behind in relative safety.

And then we were told that 5'0" personages of the opposite gender (or no gender at all) were equally as capable of doing battle. I'm all in favor of gender equality - let's start with the workplace death rate and go from there. 

Regardless of the reason for taxation on any activity, few people consider the true outcome of mathematics and how much of their production is being confiscated by the government.

If you earn 30k (dollars, pounds, baht - doesn't matter) and are taxed at source say a net 25%, you are left with 22,500.  Then assuming you spend all of the remainder, they hit you with 20% VAT, that's 4,500.  The combined tax bill on your 30K income is 12,000.  That's an effective tax rate of 40%.

That means you're working Monday and Tuesday JUST so the government can steal it from you. It would almost be tolerable if the government got real value for everything they took for you, I mean I'm all in favor of a socialist utopia where everything is free and nobody suffers - but effectively they get $1 value for every $10 they waste spend.

Long live the revolution counter-revolution.