impulse

No one should EVER receive a pardon except obviously innocent. Everyone, including the ruling elite, should be subject to the laws of the nation. In an ideal world, I'd agree with you. I'd also hope that voters wouldn't have elected such a vulnerable candidate had they known the laptop was real. Once he was inaugurated, national security should have taken precedence, and he should have eliminated all the potential conflicts by pardoning Hunter. That way, there would have been no risk he'd be compromised in any negotiation.

Biden should have pardoned Hunter on day one of his term, just to reduce the appearance of sitting across the negotiating table from adversarial world leaders that may have had evidence that could put his kid away for a loooong time. It would have hurt him at the polls in 2024, but it would have been the right thing to do for national security. And 2024 took care of itself anyway. BTW, I say that, not as a fan of Hunter or his antics. But national security (and world peace) are bigger than one addict's penance.

The wingnut side of me suspects that's the real reason they want to get away from it, in favor of a newer, zoomier and more profitable product that's still under patent.

If there was any justice in the world, lefty tears would be declared toxic and they'd all be fined for pollution.

But aren't you giving away half of the food for the service?

While I agree, winning the genetic lottery sure makes it easier. In that respect, it's a lot like women. The ones that were born with the right genes don't have to work nearly as hard (or be nearly as lucky).

The hypocrisy is that if you did meet someone who looked like Eleanor Roosevelt, you wouldn't give her the time of day. The hotties that would grab your attention can be as flighty as they want. It will serve them in the immediate gratification realm, but not in the long term. I wouldn't want my kids to Google their mom and find an OnlyFans page. The Wayback machine is forever, and it's brutal.

Had Harris been elected and Mexico showed any genuine interest in slowing it down, they'd be flying them in directly from south of the Darien Gap on chartered flights. Not to mention, Mexico didn't have a genuine interest in slowing down the flow of money for the cartels and money from future remittances. She was just hedging against a Trump win, and the threat of tariffs.

One big difference, of course, is the percentage who were apprehended and then released into the country after pinkie swearing they'd show up for their asylum case in a few years. The other difference is the number who weren't even apprehended. They just snuck in between border checkpoints, and nobody bothered to stop them, only to parole them into the country.

We had an amazing team of competent Thai people working for our company in Bangkok and Songkhla. International oil company. Admittedly, we paid them well. (Edit: But still a tiny fraction of what we'd have to pay "back home" for the same jobs and performance). If you can't find good ones, you may want to ask yourself why. Of course, we'd get an occasional dud, but they didn't last long. The competent Thai people didn't let them drag down the team.

Have your sinuses checked.

Sure, Give the work to Boeing or Raytheon. We'll pay twice as much, it'll take twice as long, and in the end the project won't perform half of what they promised. But they're in good with the Pentagon...

To carry those 7 people on scooters, there would be 3-4x as many vehicles and 3-4x times the chance of a crash, and perhaps 10x (or more) the odds for someone to be killed. On a per km basis, studies in the US and Aus show scooters to be 20-40x as dangerous as a 4 wheeler. Even in the back of a pickup, you have a lot of steel.

The good news is that he keeps making the case for no bail, no way stronger, with every act. Now they need to go out and round up everyone that's aiding his intimidation, coercion and witness tampering. And no bail, no way for them, either.

Good luck doing anything without federal funds.

In the hierarchy of traffic dangers, I think riding a scooter is more dangerous than riding in the back of a pickup. If you ban that, aren't you relegating them to an even more dangerous mode of transport? I wish everyone could afford 4 wheels, tons of steel and seatbelts. But that's not the economic reality for most Thai people. Cashed up expats are the ones who have a choice.

Can't say I blame any port for declining the cargo, especially if it was compromised in any way. An ammonium nitrate explosion killed about 600 people in Texas City in 1947. https://texascitytx.gov/464/First-Explosion https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/texas-city-disaster Edit: And apparently, the SS Grandcamp only had 2300 tons loaded when it went off. I can't imagine 8x that amount.

I hope he checked the tank on the roof for dead bodies first.

The problem, of course, is that if they aren't held to account, they'll do it again next time. Guaranteed. These won't be revenge prosecutions. These will be completely foreseeable consequences for their actions.

The "party of law and order" rioted for a week, all over the country after their candidate took the L in 2016. Burned and looted and fought the cops... Made Jan 6 (one afternoon, one location, BTW) look like a rowdy school field trip.

Maybe the hawker was just saying hello to his own mistress, who was dressed in blue.

I've flown into Swampy every month for the past 19, and I've been extremely pleased at the short immigration queues. Mostly, less than 5 minutes with one or 2 times being 20 minutes. None longer. Departure immigration has also gotten shorter with the automated lines. Worlds better than clearing immigration into the USA... That's a cluster something that rhymes with duck.

You mean like they let Biden off the hook for Tara Reade?

What I'd like to see is honest statistics of road accidents and fatalities by km driven, broken down by heavy trucks, passenger vehicles and scooters. I suspect driving a car in Thailand isn't nearly as dangerous as most expats think it is, and riding a scooter is a crapshoot in any country. Once I got used to Thai road etiquette, I had no problems in my pickup. Edit: And I'm a much safer driver back home, where the defensive driving skills I learned in Thailand stay with me.

If you mean the ones who have heavy student debt paying off useless degrees, I can understand why they'd vote Blue. They want their debt expunged. No mystery there.