impulse

I wonder what that was According to the 73-year-old driver of the pickup truck, Mr. Somlak Wattanasombat, the victims reportedly swerved to evade another vehicle before they lost control and crashed into him. Chonburi police were examining CCTV footage to identify his claim. He may be lying through his teeth. I don't claim to know. My main takeaway is that he survived to tell the story because he had 4 wheels and a seatbelt.

Title is inaccurate. The 3 were killed in a scooter accident. The driver of the car (in this case a pickup truck) survived to tell the cops what happened. One more data point. Car and a scooter in an accident. The same accident, with the same crash dynamics. The driver with 4 wheels and seatbelts walked away. The scooter riders perished.

Reminds me of a story about a horse and an open barn door. It would be useful to see how previous asylum seekers are doing, finding work, assimilating and getting off the dole.

Between Fortune Town (MRT Phra Ram 9), MBK (BTS National Stadium) and Chinatown, (huge repair market one block south of Khlong Thom market, MRT Wat Mangkon and a short walk) you'll find hundreds of kiosks repairing mobile phones. I don't worry so much about my history with them because there's so many, I lost track of all that I've used. I just look for one where the guy looks like he has some snap and is available right then. Look for the kiosks with dozens of phone cadavers that they're repairing for resale and parts in their display case. Edit: I'm not going to claim there's no bad ones out there, but getting a smartphone repaired in Bangkok has been like getting the oil changed on my car back home. They'll all get the job done. Just a matter of finding one that's convenient and available right then.

I know it's none of my business, and I'm pretty sure we'll never know, but I am curious about the guy's story. How did he find himself naked and howling at the moon in a beach town in Thailand?

Just a point of information for this Yank, please... Does the Met issue a permit for such a gathering?

With due respect and appreciation for the site even being here, I'd have saved that budget money and invested it into making the feedback emoji's no longer anonymous. I miss the days when we could see who left the feedback, if only to figure out whether to re-think what we posted, or ignore the feedback because it came from a troll.

One of the few times I actually agree with you in public (though we're not as far apart as I'd lead you to believe on a lot of issues) I think it's a disgrace the the USA doesn't have universal health care. But at the same time, I cannot imagine the turmoil when millions of employees no longer have to stay in their crap jobs, just to keep their insurance. The labor market would be a zoo for a few years. That's not a bad thing in the long term, especially for employees. But that's why it'll never happen. The political donor class won't allow it.

I wonder just how far south he wants them to go. https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-population-transfer-hamas-egypt-palestinians-refugees-5f99378c0af6aca183a90c631fa4da5a

You mean a petro state that exports tons and tons of grain and fertilizer, strategic metals like titanium, diamonds, and tier 1 military gear like Migs and Sukhoi's and AK's? Said state being able to leverage all those strategic materials, along with their oil and gas, to upset world markets if they chose? A state that has 4x the population of their adversary and all those petro $$$ to hire mercenaries from all over the world if needed? Ukraine will run out of warm bodies long before Putin, no matter how fast the west feeds it weapons. Which seems to be slower and slower...

He'd package it a "stopping the killing and preserving the rest of Ukraine". Putin gets the 4 Oblasts and Crimea, which he already has. The residents of the 4 Oblasts and Crimea will get the leadership they actually voted for, (even if the methods and results were questionable). Ukraine gets entry into NATO, which is an absolute guarantee against further Russian aggression. Instead of sending $$billions for bombs, the West will send even more $$billions to rebuild, and that political hot potato goes away for every politician whose constituents question the wisdom of sponsoring a forever war. Oh, and Trump gets to blame the "L" on the other guys, because Putin took Crimea under Obama and the 4 Oblasts under Biden. Crickets under Trump's watch...

That was the theory behind penalizing people who didn't sign up. All in, it was a good enough idea, just poorly implemented because of donor pressure. "Donors" being the insurance companies and their ilk in this case.

When I lived in Thailand, I thought Obamacare was a good idea, especially the "no exclusions for pre-existing conditions". Then I moved back to the USA and had to sign up... First year cost me $1,000 a month for a plan with $5,000 deductible, meaning I'd have to be out of pocket $17,000 before it kicked in. Then they jacked up the rates to $1,200 a month and $7,000 deductible, meaning over $21,000 out of pocket before it kicked in. Fortunately Medicare kicked due to age in before I had to renew for a 3rd year. There were cheaper plans available, and plans with lower deductible, but they had very significant co-pays, with the sky being the limit. And I bought insurance to keep from being bankrupted in case of catastrophic medical events. ACA is a gift to insurance companies. Not too good for average Americans, unless means testing allows you to apply for gub'ment subsidies. In which case, it's still a gift to insurance companies, and a burden for taxpayers. BTW, that was after a couple of years extending my Thai employer provided insurance with great coverage (after my contract and WP expired) for about $250 a month. Quite a shock to re-enter the US market.

He needs to be strung up by his nuts and she needs to stay off Tinder until she learns how to use it responsibly.

So, you can rip into Yanks, Russkies, Brits and just about any other entity. But leave the Israelis alone or you go to jail. Once again, conflating anti-semitism with legitimate criticism of a government. Nothing controversial about that.

Wonder if he was rushing because it was an emergency, or because the first ambulance to the scene gets the business? Kinda like tow truck drivers back home. They'll run your butt right off the road to get to the scene first.

Que Bumero. (that's Spanglish). I would hope there's a similar market in Chiang Mai, and someone may come along and chime in.

I don't know how far the OP wants to take this, but if it were me, I'd take the unit down to Ban Mo electronic street market near Chinatown and I'd bet someone can rejigger the power supply to take 220/50. I'm always amazed when I wander down a new alleyway there and see someone rewinding a cheap fan motor or resoldering components on stereo circuit boards. One of the things I love about Thailand, where labor is cheap enough to actually fix stuff instead of binning it. For something at that complexity level, it would be good to bring a Thai speaking friend to translate. And let them negotiate, they've been haggling prices since they learned to talk. Edit: Caveat... Ban Mo isn't for everyone, but anyone with an interest in DIY, especially electronics and "maker" stuff, it's like a toy store. But it may take time to find exactly what you want. Especially if it's in the bowels of the buildings surrounded by the street market. I love the place.

Sadly, over the years I've come to the conclusion that my gub'ment's "strategy" on Russia is to stick it to them whenever possible, regardless of what 3rd party it harms, and how much taxpayer money it costs. And since the mid '90s, I've felt that they didn't learn a thing from history and the Armistice. The Germans capitulated in 1918 and it took them 21 years to regroup, re-arm, get their war finances lined up and make another go of it. Anywhere during that period, WW2 could have been prevented had the French (et al) eased up on the punishment, and Hitler would have never come to power. Took the Russkies a few years longer, but here we are. Anyone who claimed the Cold War was over, and the West won, just didn't learn from their history.

I don't know that degraded is the correct term. They have forced Russia to ramp up weapons production, train up a lot more personnel than they would have, and season them with the most realistic (and tragic) war game possible. Russia's going to come out of the debacle a lot stronger than they were going in, and certainly stronger than they would have if Ukraine had capitulated when Putin faked toward Kiev.

Showing my age... I still recall the machines they used to swipe credit cards to make several copies on carbon paper. Pumped gas during high school and will never forget that sound.

Good cautionary tale. I ended up scraping the aftermarket tint film off the windows (and especially the windshield) of my Mitsu pickup truck because I just don't see that well at night any more. The truck was nominally warmer during the day, but much safer at night.

Good info. I'll go by and ask for one next week on my monthly visa run to Thailand. I thought they had to emboss my name on a card and mail it out (or hold it for me at the bank), and I'm generally only in LOS for a week or so. Edit: I'd add that I don't really use the account I just kept some money in it in case I want to use it in the future for a retirement visa, given the difficulties I've been hearing about a non-resident foreigner opening a new account. But it would be handy to have a debit card...

1800 out of an under 18 population of 73,000,000. So, a 0.002% chance of dying from Covid.

Interesting that there were never any excess deaths in the under 25 age group (even before the vaccines were available), yet they're pushing the latest round of vaccines for everyone over 6 months old. Is it any wonder that the CDC is trying to regain the trust of the public?