impulse

No. My argument is that there are over 2 million people living in Gaza. Over 99% of them didn't kill anyone this week. The ones that did, need to be eradicated. The ones who armed and supported them as well. But not the vast majority, who have absolutely no say in what happens. They're just living as best they can, mostly permanent residents of refugee camps. But that's another topic.

I'd like to think we're better than that. Because if we're not, what's the point?

Simple statistics tell us there's a bunch of 6 year old Palestinian kids living in Gaza. Do they deserve to be killed? What about unarmed teenage Palestinian girls?

Here's the problem with collective punishment. You can't kill people fast enough, because for every innocent you kill you create a dozen new zealots. I think they should round up the guilty participants, take them out back and shoot them. Download every photo and video and do a facial recognition profile on every one of them, and hound them across the earth. But I draw the line at collective punishment, especially kids and elders. (And I'm pretty sure that international law agrees) Or they're no better than the Nazis who purged entire city populations to punish the actions of a few resistance fighters.

How long you figure they'll last without food, medicine, water, electricity or fuel, all of which have been cut off by Israel? https://aseannow.com/topic/1308831-gaza-soon-without-fuel-medicine-and-food-israel-authorities/ My memory isn't what it used to be, but I seem to recall international laws against collective punishment of innocents, especially children and the elderly.

Could be worse. Lots of American women will berate you and tell you they can get their own frickin' door. Apparently, the Biden administration has told stranded Americans to book their own flights, while acknowledging that many commercial flights are being cancelled. https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/09/joe-biden-americans-israel-hamas-flights-evacuation/ https://il.usembassy.gov/security-alert-information-on-flight-availability-from-ben-gurion-international-airport-october-9-2023/

Who the F are you calling hostile?

Probably, it happened exactly as described. But I hope they at least investigate the possibility that there may have been foul play afoot.

Me. And "cities across the US". And the FBI and DHS... https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/07/us/us-cities-increase-security-houses-of-worship/index.html

How many does it take to blow up an airliner, or crash it into a packed stadium? We'll see what happens.

I know it's wishful thinking, but at the very least, I hope they have facial recognition technology that can match faces from the horrendous Hamas photos and videos, and catch any of them trying to enter Thailand. I'm forecasting a massive grass roots interweb effort to go through those photos and vids to publish those faces. One of the things the interweb was just made for...

Licensed for free in India, where they can then do the human testing required to get it approved in wealthier countries like the USA where it will sell for $$ billions? Edit: That is a question mark... And one of my pet peeves. Drugs that sell for gobsmacking prices in the USA are available in other countries for less than 1/10 the price. Sometimes, virtually free. So I suspect a commercial motive, rather than a humanitarian one.

I was there during Songkran this year and it was still very active. I don't know if it shrank, because I found what I wanted very quickly and didn't wander around as much as I have in the past.

You can go the therapy/ support group/ exercise route, and I encourage that. They've done me a world of good. But I'd suggest you first make sure there's no chemical imbalance, vitamin deficiency, sleep problem, or other physical issue. All the exercise and kumbaya in the world won't treat an underlying physical problem. Make it better? Sure. But you still have the problem. That means a trip to a qualified doc.

Staying on the fence as usual Plenty of time for condemnation, later when none of their citizens are held as hostages and there aren't tens of thousands of others in the line of fire.

There's a foreign employment consultancy that seems to have pegged 120-125K as the correct amount for expat rent in Bangkok. Real estate agents love to see them coming...

Strongly discouraged nowadays. A couple of days after I got here, my GF got a phone call from the security department of her ISP. They said someone on her account is using a VPN and that needs to stop. So I stopped. Not worth the risk in today's environment. Before Covid, I used one all the time.

Human nature... The company's paying so the employee doesn't do much diligence. The agent makes a lot more money leasing the expensive ones, so they don't even show the cheaper ones in the same building.

Let me connect the dots for you. Sending a warship in defense of Hamas' enemy is likely to trigger reprisals. They're not going to attack a carrier fleet. They're going to attack a softer target. It's not hard to believe that may have pre-positioned some soldiers in the US to do that. The wide open US border would be the perfect way to get them into the country.

When I moved to Bangkok, my company paid a nice salary but no perks like rent, car, driver, etc. Four years on, company got bought by a Euro corporation and their employees got a much smaller salary, but 120,000 monthly rent allowance. Consequently, I had a 20,000 baht apartment in one building and my workmate had a similar sized apartment, same management company, 50 meters away from my building, and her rent was 120K. Both near Asoke. Her building was slightly newer, but that's not the difference. Real estate agents will find you an apartment that matches any ridiculous budget a company will allow.

I'm currently in China, anxiously waiting on my Thursday flight to BKK. That's why this piqued my interest. Honk your horn and your bank account gets locked. Threaten, and call on your followers to kill health care workers, and she's free to go on.

We'll see.

I hope for the US' sake you're right. But don't be surprised if they commit reprisals in the UK as well. This attack was long in the planning. And shows a certain lack of concern about the consequences. That the intelligence communities didn't see it coming is rather disturbing. Not hard to imagine they've pre-placed soldiers all over the world.

Britain was fighting to save the World from Nazi domination, that was rather more important than the Palestinian issue What did the Nazis have to do with the Balfour Declaration of 1917? But again, that's another topic for another thread.

Maybe, but you can always decide not to take them after getting a complete workup. I'd go for the professional help.