bendejo

Yet Another Russian Arrest in Phuket (YARAP) Maybe it's time for the private prison business to come to LOS.

I took MAL from KL to Capetown to Buenos Aires (in 2010). I thought the checked bagged allowance was 40kg. At the airport I discovered that such baggage allowance was for the Capetown-BA part of the trip, while for KL-Capetown was 20kg, and the price for overweight was ridiculous. The fellow at the check-in who explained this tried very hard to convince me to check my bags as they were RIGHT NOW, which made me suspect there was some incentive for himself. I found a quiet corner and poured through my things, discarding nearly half my stuff (I think this was not unusual, there were a few airport maintenance staff hovering in the near distance waiting for me to go my way and get at the flotsam). I know the value of the stuff I tossed was much less than the fee would have been.

They like to say "you are only paying for what you need" but you end up paying more than you would have before the improvements were put in place.

I haven't been keeping up with the news on this, but I think Oregon is in the process of getting rid of it. It turns out it has made the state a prime destination for the hobo population that travels up and down the west coast from San Diego to Seattle. The few times I crossed into BC from the US I found the customs & immigration process to be quite attentive, so I wouldn't expect it would be easy for them to slip in.

My guess is that Big Boss is trying to clear his name by hanging the incident on his then-underlings; as they would say in corporate hierarchy "what have they done for me lately?" Maybe he fears the International Criminal Court (aka The Hague) will be paying a visit, and places Boss in the same category as those guys in Myanmar. Will he be officially put in a position of power or just be the hand up the puppet's ass ? Jack Smith, the one in the US investigating their former president, was previously working a case in The Hague involving incidents that took place in Kosovo 20 years before, so yeah, waiting 20 years for this one to ripen sounds about right. (Not to digress or discourage, but I see it as quite feasible that US case will not be settled in this decade.)

In New York City it's "shoulda woulda coulda."

If you've traveled by bus in Hat Yai you may have noticed the bus terminal has a wall around it. Up until the time of the unrest down there it was completely open. One day a bomb went off in the downtown area, I had been around there a half-hour before.

Anyone remember the Kathy Griffin to-do when DT was in the White House?

Conservatives are obsessed with going backwards in time. Each has their own quest for how far back they want to go. I used to work with this old Pakistani guy (how old? he was in the British Indian Army in WWII). He liked to tell how Nasser (first president of post-colonial Egypt) handled the fundamentalists: he put all the mullahs on a boat, then sank it. He always laughed when he told it.

This is a surprise. You-know-who is back in LOS and he really really does not like this topic. Shortly after it, as he headed to an ASEAN meeting, he said "if there is any mention of Tak Bai I'm walking out." He explained it away as the casualties were caused by bullets that were fired into the sky then fell back to Earth.

There is another one gaining prominence, Nancy Mace. Get in between her and a television camera and your life is at risk. (Actually, that statement was recycled from a joke about DT from the 1990s.) You may recall her from that Stephanopoulos accusation a few weeks ago. What I would like to see is a Thunderdome-style MAGA cage fight for VP: Mace, Margie and Boebert: "3 women enter, only one leaves." Here she is in one of her finer moments. https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/10/11/mace-house-speaker-jordan-democrats-scalise-jake-tapper-lead-vpx.cnn As for that old quote about getting the face you deserve, just about anything that blows up in Margie's face would be an improvement.

But the great existential question must be answered: how much you pay?

A lot of American Black folks, even some who claim to have been to college, are completely ignorant of the geography and population of Africa. Bro Jino here probably wouldn't know Eritrea from Estonia. Sometimes Trevor Noah tells of his experiences among his US brethren, at times laughing in their faces (figuratively).

Oooooooo, some non-Black people used that terrible word that begins with N! This clearly was a hate crime! An international criminal case! A human rights violation! All he was doing was trying to offend people and start a fight while in another country, what's the big deal? If he weren't there this wouldn't have happened. (NOTE: this message consists of 100% sarcasm)

"You're not in Pattaya, buddy!"

Fighting over a farang customer probably. So there's another fantasy that guys can come to LOS to live out: have women fighting over you.

I worked at the Music Hall as an usher when I was in high school. At that time it was a first-run movie theatre, with the stage show, of course. It was ok, but they kept bugging us to get haircuts (it was the late 1960s). Saw "The Odd Couple" so many damned times I think the entire dialogue is stashed in my memory somewhere.

If he can handle a country with 246 kinds of cheese, he may be able to handle the EU.

I like "Don the Con," as in confidence man. There's "The Man With The Golden Toilet" but TMWTGT needs work.

All those poor birds dying of cancer for naught.

Ok, I will not mention Ladyboy Alley off of Pattaya Soi 6. Sing it, Jim. Can you believe it has been more than 55 years since?

He should paint his face orange, like the other guy.

Ok, karma. Or maybe "It was God's will." You can get a lot of mileage out of that one. Or as the US Protestants like to say "thoughts and prayers."

DT and his more dastardly enablers (like Roger Stone) were supposedly trying hard to get Assange extradited when he was in the WH. I suspect they were looking to make use of his talents in the 2020 election, not stick him in a supermax.

customs inspector: "Is that a sausage in your pocket or are you happy to see me?"