impulse

I recall reading about a scandal where a company was importing fully assembled cars and all the Thais were doing was adding the hood ornament. I'm not sure if that was real, or an urban myth. But that's a good example of a "zero dollar investment".

I could scrape by on 500 million baht.

I'm still betting Nestle takes it in the shorts eventually.

I'm one of those guys that everyone hates that sets the cruise control at 5 mph over the speed limit so I don't worry about Big Brother. I can drive for hours on a US freeway without ever reacting to another driver. (I also ignore the ones giving me the finger as they blow by at a high rate of speed.) Not so in Thailand where defensive driving is such a necessary skill. And yes. I do drive in the slow lane unless I'm passing an even slower driver.

They asked for my passport when I topped up some cards (MRT and BTS) after I'd been MIA as a Covid refugee for about 2+ years. I've got 3 or 4 Rabbit Cards and 3 or 4 MRT cards because I bought them when I forgot mine at home or at the hotel. (Only one Elder Card. I suspect they'd prevent someone from buying a bunch of them to sell on the black market, but who knows?)

A few months ago, I posited a question pondering the black market value of an MRT Elder card. Seems like they could be worth something... FYI, I've topped mine up a few times since they quit offering the discount to foreigners and that didn't trigger any changes.

I don't disagree it will be more crowded than the status quo, but there's a difference between free rides and 20 baht rides. (And it's not just 20 baht) People were probably riding on a lark when it was free, even if they didn't need to go anywhere.

I was still grandfathered in last month using my old Elder Card on the MRT. I was curious so I checked. Half fare. But they apparently won't offer it to foreigners who buy new cards. What I don't know is whether foreigners can buy Elder Cards even if they just qualify us to sit in Elder seats. Just to be clear, I always offer up my seat to old farts and kids. But sometimes I'll sit in an empty Elder seat just to open up a normal seat for someone else who's reluctant to sit in an Elder seat. BTW, I didn't ask for an Elder Card. I didn't even know they were a thing. That's just what they gave me when they saw the DOB on my passport. It's nice, though...

And I still contend that Thailand ranks that high because it's at a precarious economic point where so many people can afford scooters but can't afford cars. Any poorer, and they'd be walking or bicycling. Any richer and they'd be in cars with seatbelts and 2 tons of steel. In either case, traffic fatalities would go down. I didn't enjoy driving as much in Thailand because the habits and etiquette are so different than back home in nanny land, but I rarely felt at higher risk on a per km basis in my pickup with 2 tons of steel and seat belts.

So you don't figure one of her clients gave the DHS her email address as a contact point and she can clear this up in a phone call? It is clickbait. Micheroni says she won't be reaching out to Homeland Security, and figures this is an administrative error. She hopes nothing more comes of it. That's a responsible response, eh? For an attorney, no less.

Neither did the J6ers. You can tell because they left their guns at home. Had it really been an insurrection, they could have been armed to the teeth. But it doesn't surprise me that people believe it was an insurrection (it wasn't), or that there was $2.7 billion in damages (there wasn't). That was the narrative of the MSM and Dems out to get Trump. Repeated 10,000 times. The worstest thing to happen since the civil war, right up on 9/11 level. Hogwash. It was a day of protest with some stoopidity thrown in that did about $2-3 million of damage. And a lot of that damage was in reaction to the cops that went full Rambo on the protestors. Not an entire season that did well over $2 billion of genuine physical damage. That was the BLMers.

Mea Culpa. It was $1.5 million in actual damages. Not the $1 million I claimed. Jan. 6 by the Numbers: 775 Arrested, $1.5M in Damage to Capitol Jan. 6 by the Numbers: 775 Arrested, $1.5M in Damage to Capitol – NBC4 Washington Here's Buzzfeed, appalled that the number is $2.5 million (not billion) if you include the booze that was pilfered. Capitol Riot Damage Estimated At Over $2.5 Million You're only off by a factor of 1000. (I wish the links would work)

Sham trials are expensive. How much physical damage was done? How many cop cars and buildings were burnt down? Maybe a $million in honest damage? And $2.699 billion chasing down and prosecuting grandmas who walked through doors being held open by cops...

As I've stated above, they required me to enter a phone number that started with +66. Which I didn't have at that time. To be fair, I probably didn't try every one of the half dozen (or more) options. I'm just not that bound and determined to get free wifi.

Out of 16,421 arrests, 70 went to prison. That's one in 235. What's the stat for J6ers? One in 1.5? MCCA-Report-on-the-2020-Protest-and-Civil-Unrest.pdf

Not to mention they were emboldened by the utter lack of consequences for the looters and arsonists. Jan6 would have looked entirely different if BLM'ers went to jail and no Dems had stumped for bail money.

Gotta love what Sen John Kennedy says about AOC: I think she’s the reason there are directions on a shampoo bottle. Our plan for dealing with her is ‘Operation Let Her Speak.

As I recall, this was where I got tripped up. They wouldn't accept my US phone number. I think the number had to start with +66. And I didn't fly in with a Thai SIM at that time. But that was over a year ago and today I have a Thai SIM. And my brain has leaked since then, every time I sleep.

That's an annualized rate of 10,775. Seems like there's fewer deaths on holidays. Or is there a flaw in their count?

I called you on it and you still doubled down.

I'm not so sure. I recall having to enter my Thai phone number to access a lot of the "free wifi". In any case, it's pretty convoluted for the average noob tourist.

Sure there were. A few of them should have gone to prison. But not the grandmas who walked through doors being propped open by the cops. And that was one event on one day. BLM was around 8000 protests over an entire season of love and mostly peaceful burning and looting. Resulting on over 2000 cops injured and 97 cop cars torched and $$ billions of damage to mostly innocent businesses. Keep up that "sane" thing. It worked so well for HRC in 2016. "Deplorables" wasn't the only reason she lost, but it probably tipped enough votes to make the difference. Yesterday on Fox, a Dem operative predicted that Harris would be their candidate in 2028. We can only hope... What was Einstein's definition of insanity?

If they're selling $1.4 million of electronics to the USA (2022), they're sure smarter than the average penguin.

That's the difference between you and me. I think you're entitled to voice your opinion no matter how much I disagree. In fact, that's a difference between lefties and conservatives. Nobody burned down an Anheuser Busch brewery or a store selling Bud Light. TESLA cars, drivers, charging stations and dealerships? Lefties are attacking in droves.

That's intuitively obvious to anyone who doesn't have the syndrome. Edit: Even those with the syndrome knew it before, during and after 2016 and 2018. But they clammed up after 2020. I wonder why. Not.