impulse

Keep in mind that's not the case if you renew your passport while the DL is valid. Mine had my old passport number on it for about a year. Then the DL expired. It's a case of YMMV, because a lot of us are in different situations, in different locations and different branches. K-Bank (Kasikorn) always asked for my passport for counter transactions, at a BKK branch in a building teeming with foreign companies and employees. But that's the only situation I can speak for.

I disagree with RFK, Jr on a lot of things. I do agree that, with 4% of the world's population, (the most expensive health care in the world), and 16% of the world's Covid deaths, there's very little to celebrate or to honor here. Not to mention the incredible damage done to the reputation of the healthcare industry and the public trust in the CDC that will take decades, maybe generations to fix. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/07/11/kennedy_us_has_4_of_the_world_population_and_16_of_covid_deaths_because_of_bad_policy.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/30/health/us-coronavirus-toll-in-numbers-june-trnd/index.html

Boy, won't this be a kick in the nuts to Dems who think they're importing a bunch of future Dem voters... CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said Tuesday that foreign-born voters were favoring former President Donald Trump over President Joe Biden. https://dailycaller.com/2024/06/04/no-sign-backlash-cnn-data-guru-more-foreign-born-voters-back-trump-biden/ https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/04/politics/video/trump-biden-2024-election-us-immigration-ldn-digvid (Watch around the 2 minute mark on the CNN video... CNN mind you. Even CNN is bailing on [deleted] Joe.) Obviously, Team Biden had to know he's losing the (legal) immigrant vote. You figure that's why they're pretending to do something at the border? For many months, the wingnut conspiracy guy in me predicted the polls would force Biden to do something (anything...) with the border, that he'd renege on the day after the election. Turns out that based on the info coming out, he won't even have to do a 180 because the actions he's taking are meaningless, especially if they won't enforce anything.

The problem with prosecuting Boeing is that >99% of the people who would be punished are innocent of any wrongdoing. That's thousands of stockholders and thousands of employees who did nothing wrong. They need to criminally prosecute the individuals who filed false inspection reports, those who covered them up, the team(s) that hid MCAS from regulators, from customer airlines and from the public, and those who covered for them. Starting as high in the organization as the investigations take them. Toss a few of them in the hoosgaw and see if anyone files a fake inspection report next month... But don't punish grandpa in Michigan that has Boeing stock in his retirement account, or Millie who makes the coffee in the Boeing employee dining hall.

Do they have the slight aroma of buffalo chips?

As fun as it is to rag on everything Thai, I wonder if this is just a race for the cheapest labor, with Thailand's GDP per capita being 170% of Vietnam's? And when the Vietnamese people start catching up to Thais with their economic quality of life, global businesses will take their investment money and flee Vietnam to the next country with the cheapest labor. Putting millions of Vietnamese out of work and creating yet another globalization mess. Seems like the best thing Thailand can do to satisfy the globalists and increase exports is to suppress the labor rate. (More than they already do...) I'm not sure the average Thai would like that. I'm not claiming to have any answers. But I don't think competing for the bottom in terms of labor rates is the best one. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?iframe=true

No review is complete without a general pricing guideline. Even the best burger at $20 USD (plus fries plus a drink) is not a good value. Edit: I'd add that they're pretty ordinary, but you can doll up a MOS Burger and end up with a great burger at an affordable price. And find them in malls all over town. There's something to be said about the mass market model where you get a consistent product at a decent price. Ray Kroc got that part right, and changed the world.

"Make America Great Again". We may disagree on how that's best done, but anyone demanding "Death to America" is probably not a unifier. Or calling out the USA as racist... Or burning down city blocks in the name of justice. Or insisting that the few percent of the citizenry with gender dysphoria, or Islamists, should dominate the landscape. Personally, I'm in favor of letting the voters decide. Not the Dem machine and 12 voters from a 90% blue city.

You know what was tough? Waking up with the left side of my face numb, losing my sense of balance and the non-stop fatigue I've had since the day after my 2nd Pfizer. Exacerbated by the ER claims (at first) that "we don't know what's going on, but it isn't the jab". Then years later, they admitted that they've been getting quite a few patients with the same symptoms after their jab. Plus, all the nurses that confided in me that they see a lot of what I reported, but they're not allowed to talk about it. That was at UTMB in Galveston. Look up their participation in the Pfizer approval process...

I don't know that demand is dwindling as much as satiated. Those who want one, and can afford it, have already bought one. If I ever become a 2 car kind of guy again (like I used to be), my primary car will be an EV. But EV's can't meet 100% of my driving needs like an ICE, so I'll stick to gasoline in the USA and diesel in Thailand, largely because of the relative cost of fuel. On an aside, last week I noticed my first Xiaomi su7 here in China. Absolutely gorgeous car. So are several of the BYD's. Tesla's going to have to keep upping their game, and GM and Ford are getting lost in the dust.

Wait a minute... Hold the presses... Did Ivanka or Jared lie on a Federal Firearms form? Because that's what this case is about. I'm amazed at how many lefty gun control fans would be happy to ignore this violation.

Had to chuckle a little at that one. It's a right wing rag, but I love the GP for what they'll cover that nobody else will. The Revolution Eats Its Own: Pro-Hamas Agitators Crash and Block Philly Pride Parade While Confronting Angry LGBTQ Marchers But pro-Hamas agitators decided to temporarily depart from bullying Jewish people and harass liberal gay marchers instead. Thus, an unusual scene of left-on-left fighting was witnessed in the public square. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/06/revolution-eats-its-own-pro-hamas-agitators-crash/

You mean like you, your wife, and millions of people survived Covid, so it wasn't a threat at all?

Another sliding narrative. First, it was going to stay at the injection site. Then, it may get into your blood, but not into your organs. Then, it may get into your organs, but it won't stay long or change your DNA. Not to mention that they changed the definition of a "vaccine". Because mRNA didn't fit into the traditional definition of a vaccine, being a snippet of genetic code. Which, apparently, I'm not allowed to refer to as "gene therapy", despite it being exactly that.

That's a sweeping assumption. I was with Progressive, too. Got quotes from several others. It's largely a function of where you live. Some states require the insurance companies to "subsidize" uninsured motorists. Texas, being close to the border, has a lot of uninsured drivers. In addition, I didn't have a current US credit rating since I haven't borrowed any money in over 20 years and my US bank accounts were closed out because I didn't have a US address. And I paid off and tore up my US credit cards in 1999 when I couldn't receive the bills where I lived in China. So technically, I'm sure I have a US credit rating and it's not the kind that insurance companies like to see, with no activity in over 20 years. Edit: I'd add that my car insurance rates went way down when I moved from Texas to Wyoming in the '90s, then went way up when I moved to California a couple of years later. Same cars. Same coverage limits. Same credit history. The only thing that changed was the location. Made a huge difference.

And I forgot that some can dish it out, but can't take it.

What's this "we" crap? You got a mouse in your pocket? Yanks don't even need Thai nominees. We can own 100%. That's gotta sting.

To renew my BOI work permit each year, my company had to show evidence that I paid income tax on at least 80,000 baht a month. Normally, I think it's a minimum of 50,000 baht a month, but my WP was in oil and gas. That's an expensive ask for anyone holding a WP and not making any money. Unless, of course, the agent was paying off gub'ment employees to forget about the income tax requirement. My heart goes out to any participants who legitimately thought they had a legal company. And anyone who gets caught out in the future. I suspect a lot of guys posting here could get caught up, even though they think they're doing everything legally.

I always get oily skin when in Thailand. I always chalked it up to the oily food and sweating like a pig in the heat. That's unscientific, but the temporal correlation is that it gets less noticeable when I'm not in Thailand eating fried foods and soaked in sweat. I'm all for finding a good doctor and doing the tests, but the first thing I'd try is to avoid fried and oily foods for a few days and see if that makes a difference.

Who was it that, thousands of years ago, predicted that a democracy will fail when people can vote themselves money from the treasury? Politicians are giving away money in return for votes and campaign donations, bankrupting the treasury. In return, voters who want their benefits to continue and their student loans to go away are voting for them, and corporations who want favorable policies are donating to them. And millions more are illegally crossing borders for the freebies, who will eventually become voters. Probably sooner than the law currently allows.

I still haven't recovered from my last mRNA shot over 2 years ago. Based on discussion with my doctors, I expect to live with the debilitating effects until they throw dirt in my face.

Back home, they call it the septic tank overflowing, because of all the rain. I guess the rain is a natural phenomenon. But not the poorly designed septic tank that overflows when it rains.

Seems reasonable to register street vendors, if only to know who has permission to hawk their wares in that location. I doubt the tax implications are too onerous, especially if they self report. Are they local? Are they Thai? Are they wanted in another province? The taxing Rubicon will come when every transaction has to be accompanied by a sales tax invoice (like a 7/11 receipt). That would allow the Revenue Department to track revenue and start enforcing taxes. But I don't see that coming for awhile.

If word got out that you could overstay without a fine, they'd have millions of overstayers. And I'm always open to the possibility he had open warrants they wanted to look into. I'm assuming, of course, that he was detained because he couldn't cough up the 20,000 baht on the spot. I'd agree with your sentiment if he had the dosh and they still took him to the cop shop just to add to his misery. (and to make him miss his flight, $$$...)

As long as you're not planning to return to Thailand for a year or so...