impulse

The kind that can't afford to buy their 16 yo a car, like my parents did.

Nah. Sugar and alcohol are too easy... Butter would require some thought. Besides, it's not "Guns or Sugar" in Econ 101.

I'll bet butter kills more people than guns, through heart disease.

Stories like this confirm my contention that Thai laws prohibiting foreigners from buying land are a humane gesture. If they can come back 30 years later against a wealthy Thai family with connections and all kinds of legal resources, what chance does a foreigner have if the current wonks cast greedy eyes on your little patch of land?

So when did all the Thai men emigrate to the cities in the USA that are having a huge spike in violent crime, including hate crimes against Asians? CCTV images of the offenders don't look like Thai men.

Maybe if the BKK elite quit taking away land they've been farming for dozens of generations...

I think that's a wake up call for many foreigners who wouldn't consider 140K (equivalent) to be the lower end of the market back home. Between the outrageous taxes on new cars and the low cost of labor to keep them on the road for a long time, used cars just cost more in Thailand. I paid 150K for a 20 year old pickup that would have sold for less than $2,000 back home. If I'd known I'd be in Thailand as long as I ended up, I'd have bought a newer, nicer truck. But I wanted something I could resell without losing my butt if my contract ended abruptly.

Pre-Covid, there was a period of years when I had no clue how long it took for bags to be delivered to the carousel. I was in the immigration queue with thousands of tourists, occasionally well over 2 hours. I was just pleasantly surprised that my bags were still on the carousel when we finally passed immigration. Then onto the taxi queue, which could easily go another hour and result in a white knuckle trip in a clapped out car with a bad clutch and a yaba addict at the wheel. That was just the nature of flying into BKK. So in answer to the OP question, yes. Normal tourists accept that kind of nuisance. In their droves. Otherwise, the queues wouldn't have been so bad.

Lots of the OP sounds like a pretty typical international travel experience in the cheap seats, even before Covid. Some go better, some actually worse. United out of the USA aspires to do that well. But I calculate the cost difference per hour to upgrade to a nicer seat, and grin and bear it. I've done all kinds of unpleasant jobs in my life for less than $100 an hour.

You don't figure that being 10,000 km away from the war exonerates them from any war crimes?

Gotta say, I'm a little surprised that they're offering Covid extensions to tourists that entered Thailand as late in the game as 2022. Not that I have any energy one way or the other, and Thailand sure needs the tourist $$$.

The UK approved it in November, the (US)FDA approved it (EUA) in December, 2021. Australia's contribution seems to be limited to buying the stuff. Developed at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, funded by the Defense Threat Reduction agency. Abandoned by Emory due to "mutagenicity" risks. Licensed to Ridgeback Biotherapeutics who partnered with Merck to bring it to market. Here's the best part: In September 2021, Merck signed a voluntary licensing agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) that allows MPP to sublicense molnupiravir and supply the COVID-19 oral medication to 105 low- and middle-income countries. The cost of the initial purchase made by the US government was about $712 per course of treatment, while treatment with generics in developing countries can cost as little as $20. Our (US) tax dollars paid for its development and for that, we get to pay 35x as much as other countries pay for generics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molnupiravir

So are you volunteering to hold them down while someone injects an experimental vaccine that they don't want? Or take away young people's right to earn a living until they knuckle down and take a shot which hasn't been evaluated for long term side effects? I got vaccinated. As soon as it was practical. But it was a personal choice. I wouldn't dream of forcing it on anyone.

I can't think of a much better incentive to force your enemy to fight even harder before considering surrender.

In Donbas, it's impossible to tell because of the propaganda on both sides. In Crimea, 2 separate western companies did surveys a year after the annexation and both found over 80% of Crimeans wanted to stay aligned with Russia. Not hard to extrapolate that to believe it may be the same in Donbas. That doesn't justify what Putin did. It just puts it into a context. If you don't understand the history, you can't possibly understand what's happening today, or find solutions to it. Or you can believe only that propaganda that caters to your pre-conceived notions, based on hundreds of Rambo and 007 and Red Dawn type movies... https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-after-russia-annexed-crimea-locals-prefer-moscow-to-kiev/?sh=62e97ce0510d

It's never too late to prosecute opposition candidates. Not unusual to see them go after them for stuff they did 15 years ago.

Quite often, when I think I know who the good guys are, it turns out they're just turds with better spin doctors.