impulse

You need to watch more Jason Statham movies. Or more Equalizer, with Denzel...

Good catch (if true, and I'm not doubting it is...) , but that doesn't negate the fact that they were balls deep in the Boeing tragedy, the opioid crisis and the health insurance debacle. "If Allstate moved from "Good Hands" to "Boxing Gloves," as McKinsey described it, policyholders would either take a lowball offer from the good hands people or face the boxing gloves of extended litigation." All resulting in thousands of deaths and millions of lives ruined. And they're buying their way out of being held personally liable and risking prison, behind the corporate shield. Proving once again that if you have a lot of money, good lawyers, and the right business structure, you can kill people and just pay your way out. Yet another reason for public outrage... And it's not just the partners. They have thousands of employee consultants doling out the horrible, greed driven advice. I've been subject to several McKinsey audits and "studies" at various employers and never felt clean when it was all said and done.

One or both of those hatches must have been leaking. Probably lost the rubber hatch cover(s). Easy to do, especially on a hotel loaner. The plastic itself floats, even with no air in the hull. But just barely. Could just as easily have been me, kayaking solo off Koh Chang. With plenty of daylight left, I started toward some smaller islands to the south. They were further than they looked. Discretion turned me around after paddling a mile or 2. And my kayak wasn't a rental or a hotel loaner, so the hatches were intact. Kudos to the guy for wearing his life jacket.

I can't help but wonder if he paid "less", and that's the reported insurance value.

Speaking of McKinsey... A consulting giant that helped fuel the United States’ deadly opioid epidemic agreed to pay a massive settlement to avoid criminal prosecution, according to court papers filed Friday. McKinsey & Company, an international management consulting firm that advised Purdue Pharma to “turbocharge” sales of Oxycontin during the height of the opioid crisis, entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice (DOJ) that will require the firm to pay a $650 million settlement over five years. Now, McKinsey is going to pay out a settlement with innocent shareholders' money to shelter their guilty employees from prosecution. For leading to the deaths of thousands. Yup. He got the wrong guy... And while I personally disagree with his methods, it's not hard to figure out why he's become something of a folk hero. ‘Source Of Profound Regret’: McKinsey Pays Half Billion Settlement To Avoid Prosecution For Fueling Opioid Crisis | The Daily Caller

I'm not claiming they're woke, or lefty or anything. But Google "Mangione T shirts" or "Mangione coffee mugs" and the guy has become something of a cultural icon. What we used to call a Poster Boy...

There's always a mechanism for a challenge. I'd see that as a likely outcome if Biden starts keeps pardoning people for crimes that haven't even been tried yet.

President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance will make their way to Landover, Maryland, on Saturday to attend the Army-Navy football game and will be joined by Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran recently acquitted in the subway chokehold case in New York City. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-vance-attend-army-navy-game-daniel-penny/story?id=116774267 That sound you're hearing, from all the way in Asia, is race baiter heads exploding.

Yeah. The NY Dems will push open the statute of limitations for a brief window to get yet another Trump. For something he didn't do 30 years ago.

The biggest risk that I see is lefty heads exploding and maybe a lefty rush to the northern border: ‘Disturbing': Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c631558a457188d2bd2b5cfd360a867 Stay hydrated.

You need one of those dolls, so you can show your next Thai masseuse where the Bad Orange Man hurt you.

Wow. You really have to go over the river and through the woods (and up around the bend, to mix a couple of musical metaphors) to take religious offense at a guy wearing a Santa outfit to increase his business. I'd rate that about as offensive as a Thai cutie wearing lederhosen to sell beer...

Here's the stamp in my passport from 2016 when the same happened to me at the One Stop in Bangkok.

But who's going to walk that far with a woodie and that afterglow?

And yet, so often we read about city officials saying "Hold my beer"

A little more grist for the mill... A federal lawsuit filed in May by the City of Hollywood Firefighter's Pension Fund alleges months before learning of a U.S. Department of Justice's 2022 antitrust investigation about its acquisition of Change Healthcare, Thompson "sold over $15 million of his personally held UnitedHealth shares." The suit also alleged UnitedHealth Group Inc. Chairman Stephen Hemsley "sold over $102 million" of his shares. After news of the DOJ investigation went public that year, the stock price tanked, "erasing nearly $25 billion in shareholder value," according to the filing. So, the guy's already making $10M a year, about what 200 of his $50K employees or customers make, combined. But that's not enough for him. He's gotta do some insider trades that (the suit alleges) tanked the stock value by $25B. That's what half a million $50K employees make in an entire year. People that are depending on their 401K investments for their retirement. Erasing the equivalent of what 12,000 people make in their 40 year careers, assuming $50K for round numbers. While I don't condone violence, if there was such a thing as karma, it would have been a bolt of lightning on a clear day instead of a crazed Ivy Leaguer. The article sheds a lot more light on the whole of the fustercluck that is health insurance, and this guy's company in particular. https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/united-healthcare-ceo-killed-company-problems/

Not until they apologize for every Seth Rogen movie I've wasted bandwidth downloading. I'd be even more cheezed if I actually paid to watch those turds, compelling me to sit through more than 5 or 10 minutes of them.

I found out this week that my niece's home doubled in value. Win, right? Now she can't afford to live there. Insurance has doubled to keep up with the value, as have the property taxes. She can't afford the higher costs. So she has to sell it.

Is that why NYC mayor Eric Adams requested $12 billion in federal funds to care for their 110,000 undocumented immigrants? That's $36K a head, per annum. That's kind of the opposite of "contributing".

If I suddenly feel an irresistible urge to curl up and take a nap a few minutes after a meal, I'm pretty sure they piled on the MSG. Never happens after eating in places that don't. Rarely (if ever) happened outside of Asia. Some are sensitive, including me and most of my family. Some, not so much. I doubt it's harmful, but not a condition that I relish.

All he'd have to do is quit feeding and housing them (on my dime), and millions would have no choice but to Remigrate. Which seems to be a thing in Europe now... Remigrate.

I've got a little bit of empathy for Wray. None for his boss (Garland) and even less than none for his boss, Biden. Almost everyone who's ever worked in a hierarchy has experienced doing distasteful deeds because that's what the boss tells (and pays) you to do. Wray wasn't steering the boat. He was just rowing. That said, he needs to go so the new management can investigate how deep the rot is, and was.

That's certainly not unique to Thailand. Here's the aftermath of a festival in Glastonbury, where they had 40,000 trash bins. https://weather.com/science/environment/news/music-festivals-and-the-trash-left-behind We had the same problems on the beach in Galveston where I was a Covid refugee for a couple of years. The difference was that we had trash bins every 50 yards on the beach, even more near the parking, and a crew that drove down the beach every morning to pick up after the slobs. That's what successful tourist areas do. I spend a lot of time walking around Bangkok, getting in my target 10,000 steps a day. When I finish a bottle of water, I often walk with it for 10-20 minutes before I find a can to bin it. That's not how you appeal to tourists.

I wonder if the area is like so many public spaces in Thailand where it's a long hike to the nearest trash receptacle? If you want to improve the image for tourists, I suggest more trash cans and more public rest rooms. You'll have less trash and fewer videos of people pooping and peeing in public.

That was before Obamacare. For which I was paying $1,400 a month with a $5,000 deductible. So I wasn't too impressed with ACA, either. (But that's another timeframe and a whole 'nother topic) I was pleased when I hit Medicare age...