impulse

You mean like the 1st Amendment rights of the Jan 6 protestors? Because you can't have it both ways. Unless you're a Dem. Then, you can have the FBI go after concerned parents at school board meetings while giving a pass to liberals shouting "Death to America". 'Cause conservatives are a threat to democracy and liberals will probably vote your way, right?

There's no "cult of Biden" because Biden doesn't stand for anything, except buying votes and delivering for donors.

I wouldn't go down that rabbit hole. All they need is one dude to service the reproductive needs of 10,000 wimmuns. 20 or 30 dudes could service an entire city and prevent in-breeding... And with anyone able to identify as whatever gender they want, they could do it with 20-30 "women" like Lia Thomas. Edit: But God save the city if any of them get a flat tire...

Head over to Old Siam Plaza in Bangkok Chinatown and you'll see that Thailand isn't one of them. Dozens of gun shops within a stone's throw. But eye watering prices...

If they did a GoFundMe to raise this guy's bail, half the guys here on AN would kick in.

Using a WW2 analogy, we currently have the equivalent of the Brits and the Yanks sending France weapons and money to kill Krauts. All that would have caused is more deaths. Ukraine is a spent force. The only way for Ukraine to get back Crimea and Donbass is NATO boots on the ground. That means WW3, millions dead, and the prospect of nuclear annihilation. Many of us don't think it's worth it. That doesn't make us Russian apologists. Just realists.

Is that possible at age 16?

The problem isn't what we read. It's what they're not revealing. Like a cause of death, a toxicology result, or even a statement whether they suspect foul play. Zip. Nada. Just that it's an open case. Is there any surprise that social media is filling in the blanks with wild conspiracies, especially with the Burmese duo making the news? Solving the case is just one of the jobs of the police. The other is to communicate with the public, especially on an island that counts on tourist money. Gotta wonder how many British holidaymakers have changed their plans since the news hit.

Ukraine already lost. Crimea, on Obama's watch and Donbass, on Biden's watch. They've made no meaningful progress on any front for over a year, in spite of tens (hundreds?) of thousands of deaths and $Billions of treasure squandered. I'd like to see the killing and the dying stop, and those $Billions spent on rebuilding what's left. Or, you can keep poking the bear, then lament what you've pretty much forced him to do.

The last year in Thailand, every hotel I've stayed in posted notices of a 2000 baht fine for smoking in the room. And most of them don't have an in-room balcony.

Where else do you go for a smoke?

Self selection bias. We usually don't hear from the >99% of tourists who sail through immigration with no problems. We just hear from the guys who had problems, often leaving out salient details of their history. Next week, I'll be on my 13th exempt entry in a row (monthly, for about a week each trip), after having worked in Thailand for about 7 years. Then 3 or 4 exempt entries and an in-country extension before Covid put a stop to my travels for a couple of years. My buttcheeks tighten up on each entry. But so far, nothing but a smile and a stamp.

I miss sanity in the media. They've always been biased. But not so loony. That's relatively new.

I'd agree, but I'd add that there's no such thing as a 220V LED bulb, nor an LED bulb that runs on A/C voltage. They all run on D/C, at much lower than 220V. What you're really trying to control is the circuitry that converts 220V A/C to whatever the LED bulbs themselves require. And makers of "220V LEDs" have a very mixed bag of how they do that. That's why some dimmers work and others just gum things up.

Flip of a coin... The airline could have referred you to a gate agent from the auto check-in. I get asked for an onward ticket about 3/4 of the time when checking in. So it's not worth the risk of showing up with fingers crossed and no ticket. My other guess is the SG looks at the cost of flying a passenger back to where they came from (Singapore), estimates the odds that errant passengers will be denied entry and the odds they won't be able to get the passenger to pay (cha-ching, because that's not going to be a discount fare) and made an economic decision not to ask for an onward ticket. But it's up to the airline.

FWIW, he was apparently a male escort... The Sydney knife attacker had advertised himself online as a male escort and tried to join groups of gun owners, it’s been revealed. https://metro.co.uk/2024/04/14/sydney-stabbing-attacker-killed-six-people-named-joel-cauchi-20643570/ Linked article also has some very tragic details about the victims.

I disagree with you there. There's a public interest in knowing whether there's an active murderer running around Koh Tao. They may not solve the case in a month, but they know whether there was foul play by now.

No. I'm suggesting that griping about it is futile, and working up negative energy about it doesn't serve me, or my health. So I'll let that cloud go by without yelling at it... You guys can give yourselves ulcers if you want.

From the linked article: Thai police said they are waiting for the post-mortem results. Generally, I get suspicious when they withhold details like cause of death and autopsy results. Even a preliminary report of any injuries they found. A month later, it's almost as if they don't want the public to know that (much less how) the guest died on their island.

Have you compared your property tax bills? Back home in Texas, my property tax bill alone was more than 90% of Thai people make. And for that, we got beach cleaners that came by every morning, trash bins every 50-100 meters along the beach, curbside trash pickup once a week, and some level of confidence that the trash contractors didn't just dump it on a quiet road. Texas has its share of pigs (just like Thailand). But we pay a buttload of money to pick up after them. Money that Thai people can't afford.

I think the cops back home can arrest someone if they catch them in the act, but not 2 or 3 months later, like this case. On the evening of April 13 last year, during Thailand’s New Year celebrations, the teenage victim was enticed by the suspect... ...after obtaining an arrest warrant issued by Thonburi Criminal Court on July 11, 2023,

Though I get where the OP is coming from, I think I'll let that cloud float by without yelling at it.

Who's programming the AI, and to what purpose? To identify criminals, or to identify political opponents and look for the crimes? (Google "3 felonies a day").

It's social extortion. Had they found OJ guilty, there would have been rioting in the streets. Works both ways... If they had found Chauvin not guilty, there would have been rioting in the streets. In spite of the fact that Floyd had a lethal dose of fentanyl in him, which would have given any fair jury reasonable doubt. I wouldn't have wanted to be on either of those juries, and felt responsible for causing rioting by doing the honest thing. They'd have both been hung juries... And the mayhem would have started.

I'll confess ignorance... How is a condo allocated to the "foreign quota"? Does the developer declare it when he first offers them for sale? Is it first come, first served, closing when 49% are bought by foreigners? Or are they pre-allocated? If I own a "foreign quota" condo, can I sell it to a Thai? If I do sell to a Thai, is it still in the foreign quota? Once a condo is part of the foreign quota, is that cast in stone, or can the status change? I can see where being in the foreign quota may make a condo easier to sell (perhaps at a higher price), but I'm not clear on how that works if a Thai person wants to buy a condo from a foreigner. Does that then open the possibility for another condo in the project to be bought by a foreigner if it results in less than 49% foreign ownership?