impulse

If there had been no grass roots pushback, we'd at least be required to show our vaccine passports to board a flight and enter a lot of venues. This is just the next logical step. "Logical" in a Dr Evil sense of the word. And a lot of AN posters would have been leading the charge and shaming (and threatening) anyone who didn't get onboard.

I know that mentioning the syndrome around Trump is blocked, but are we allowed to mention PDS?

Where do you get your pearls of wisdom? The USA is a net exporter of oil. If you took Canadian oil completely off the table, we'd swap out a couple of valves and reroute a few tankers and the Canadian oil would soon be replaced with oil from elsewhere. It would be painful for a few months... Canada, OTOH, would be royally hosed. Because they're extremely limited in their capacity to ship oil anywhere beside the USA. I think somewhere around 75% of their oil would be locked in Canada because of the port limitations. They need the US market more than Americans need Canada's oil. So who's the crazy one?

Ummm... Trump leads the current administration. It was the previous administration whose watchword was "Don't". And that weakness got the world into wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Some british <deleted> wanted to fight me earlyish this morning We had cupcakes for breakfast! With raisins. John Wayne fans should get the reference.

Gosh. I wonder if there's any significance to the temporal correlation between the change in the Oval Office and the release of hostages.

I was an absolute hazard when I first got my DL at age 16, in spite of extensive driver's ed and knowing the rules backward and forward. Being young and bulletproof (but poor), I was more afraid of the cops and expensive tickets than I was of a fiery crash. So I practiced driving to avoid tickets, rather than to avoid the one the in a zillion chance of a fiery crash. Turns out, that was good practice to avoid fiery crashes, too. I think that the key to compliance is to increase the odds of negative and immediate consequences for bad behavior. Systemically, I think that's what's missing in Thai road safety. The negative consequences for crappy driving are catastrophic but nowhere near certain enough. If cops enforced the rules (actually pulling violators over), driving habits would improve. Just receiving a traffic camera summons days or weeks after the infraction won't be effective. It's got to be immediate, and a high probability of getting caught out. They need to confiscate some Lambos and Porsches, paint them up, and use them as chase cars...

Regarding cashless, I have no QR payment system on my phone and I get along fine 99% of the time. The exceptions are the vending machines that are popping up everywhere (including airports), and a very few restaurants/ coffee shops in Exhibition Centers. (I haven't tried in town Starbucks since they went cashless in Bangkok, but there's always another coffee shop nearby and the Starbucks in the airports generally do take cash). There's also a few kiosk style convenience stores that have no attendant, but most of them (7/11, Lawsons, etc.) take cash. A few shops (Decathlon, and Sam's Club pizza shop for instance) have 1 cashier that takes cash and 2 or 3 for QR payments only. But it's no problem. QR payments are convenient, but cash still works. Edit: About the only time I wish I had a QR payment app is for the cute sleeping pods in some airports, for long layovers. But that's more a matter of curiosity. I love the concept, but I'm not sure how they work in reality.

According to the OP, it's worth about twice what it was a year ago. Of course, they focus on the recent decrease...

One fight at a time. Knowing where the money's going (and who's getting it) is fundamental to any financial system.

One fight at a time. Knowing where the money's going (and who's getting it) is fundamental to any financial system.

I did that about 30 years ago for 6 months. Carried a tiny notebook in my back pocket and recorded everything, down to a pack of gum. It was an eye opener, and I highly recommend it. Should be a lot easier with a computer in your pocket in the form of a smartphone, and they have apps for that.

So, a 10-25% tariff will add 45% to the prices. Tells me all I need to know about the credibility of the article hit piece.

Cutting Social Security to legitimate retirees is just scare mongering. What they may do (and I'd be in favor) is to cut programs that allow able bodied people to live an entire lifetime without ever working a day. Is that common? I don't know. Let's find out. Finally.

Not to beat a dead horse, but just look at immigration for an example. There are so many programs under so many agencies that we don't have a clue how much illegal immigrants cost taxpayers. They're costing FEMA money, education money, health care money, defense money, and on and on. Until we get an accounting, we'll never know ('cept NYC Mayor Adams who let the cat out of the bag, at $36K per head per annum.) Time to turn AI technology loose on the task and at least identify the cost. What they decide to do about it is a separate issue.

I don't think DOGE is going to be a silver bullet, but nobody knows where all the money's going. It's gotten too complicated for humans to track it. (And I don't think that's accidental). Turning loose AI to scour the payment system may at least reveal where we're spending the money. The problem is that even (especially?) the most wasteful spending has proponents, both Demicans and Republicrats who are buying votes and campaign contributions with our tax dollars. It's tough to break an addiction like that. Especially without the willingness. They're going to be sabotaged at every turn.

You mean the CULT of not wanting the country to continue swirling down the toilet bowl? Where do I sign up?

That is a good question. But does that make fox "news" any better? It's funny that TedG's post doesn't even mention Fox, but everyone and their dog now knows that Fox was the only MSM reporting the truth about Biden's condition.

Out of the 195 countries in the world, how many are ahead of us? Kudos to those who are. Now, let's look at the total numbers. Not the per capita numbers... Is any country even close?

Today's reality...

Me? I'm thoroughly enjoying the lefty tears. The tantrums, not so enjoyable.

It's difficult to do an actual analysis of Thai road safety without a breakdown of fatalities per km driven, broken out by 4 wheel and 2 wheel fatalities. Not fatalities per capita. That's meaningless in some countries that have a lot of people and virtually no motorized vehicles. It's also meaningless comparing Thailand's numbers to countries where 99% of the vehicles have a ton of steel and seat belts. I shudder to think of what the USA's number would be if the vast majority of Americans were on scooters. Or Brits, or Aussies, or Kiwis, or... I think a lot of Thailand's bad numbers are because of the economics that put so many Thai drivers on scooters, which are 20-40x as dangerous per km driven. A little poorer, and they'd be on foot. A little richer, and they'd be in cars. Both of them are safer than scooters.

Maybe not. But the history of Dem and MSM lying about his condition is still very relevant. Do they think Americans are going to forget their deceit?

I don't guess you put any weight on the fact that it took almost 4 years, a bunch of subpoenas, the threat of Congressional contempt charges, an election cycle, and the certainty of a new boss to get them to admit there were 26 FBI confidential sources in the crowd. And that's what they admit. No telling what the truth is. For a few more weeks anyway. It's going to get good...

I think you're missing the important part. He took something with no intrinsic value and now they're worth $$ Billions. It's not his fault that early adopters got over exuberant.