impulse

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.

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.

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?

Some people just don't know a chick magnet when they see one...

My WP expired several years ago, and I'm on visa exempt with 6 or 7 entries in 2023. My US passport expired when I was a Covid refugee. Went into K-Bank this summer to update my passport number on my K-Bank account and had no problem. Took a long time for all the forms, but there was never any suggestion that I wouldn't be able to keep the account. Edit: Because I don't have a Thai address any more, I didn't ask for a new bank debit card. No place for them to mail it...

How do you figure they get the crew out to those offshore rigs? The rigs that are too far out for boats to be practical...

According to the linked article, the real question is whether her story (now deleted) is even real.

Don't skimp on your transformer unless you enjoy a loud 50Hz hum. I'm not going to claim to be an expert, and I offer no advice on what type of transformer to buy. (Except that there's cheap ones and better, shielded ones) But I had a horrible hum when I put a US stereo on a transformer in China, where the power is the same 220V, 50Hz. Even worse when played loud and I suspect the transformer was clipping. You may wanna go by Fortune Town in Bangkok or one of the other markets that sell high end audio equipment and get their advice. Ban Mo electronics street market near Chinatown is another good place to look for sound equipment.

45 year old hookers are charging the same as they did 20 years ago, when they were 25... Some of them, even more. That's criminal.

Is that the number of patients hospitalized WITH Covid, or the number of patients hospitalized FOR Covid?

In an equally impartial study of EV economics, the Texas Public Policy Foundation estimates that driving an EV costs the same as paying $17.33 per gallon for an ICE car. That includes the cost of gub'ment subsidies, purchase, charging stations, electricity, and a myriad of other hidden costs. Adding the costs of the subsidies to the true cost of fueling an EV would equate to an EV owner paying $17.33 per gallon of gasoline. And these estimates do not include the hundreds of billions more in subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act (2022) for various aspects of the EV supply chain, particularly for battery manufacturing. https://www.texaspolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023-10-TrueCostofEVs-BennettIsaac.pdf Which one's true? Hard to tell... Edit: And even if ya don't own one, you'll be paying for it... Home and public charging stations used by EVs put a significant strain on the electric grid, resulting in an average of $11,833 in socialized costs per EV over 10 years, which are shouldered by utility ratepayers and taxpayers. Direct state and federal subsidies for EVs average $8,984 per vehicle over 10 years.

And I suppose you're okay with picking 12 of these fine upstanding DC citizens, empaneling them on a jury and letting them decide who I'm allowed to vote for next year? That's justice? That's democracy?

If you're going to Laos by land, you can do that 2 times in a year and come back to Thailand visa exempt. If it's by air, there's no limit. But in both cases (and always), it's at the discretion of the immigration officer. I'm assuming the OP doesn't have a history of living in Thailand, or black marks (like overstays) on his passport.

Years ago, I used to post a link to a summary of the Thai laws around BB guns, pellet guns and airsoft guns. I'm not going to look for the same link because the laws may have changed. But 2 things that were illegal stick out in my mind. One is shooting at animals to inflict pain, and the other is shooting metallic projectiles. You can probably get away with "persuading feral cats" unless one of your neighbors rats you out, either because they like cats or don't like you for some reason. I had an airsoft pistol and 2 high power pellet rifles (all bought in the open in Chinatown). Then Thailand had one of their occasional crackdowns. I kept the airsoft pistol and used it for target practice into a paper filled box in my apartment. I gave away the 2 pellet rifles to someone braver than me, who claimed to have a bird problem.