impulse

Looks like the same nightmare I have all the time. Only, I usually show up at the office nekked in mine.

Probably not... https://apnews.com/article/unitedhealthcare-delay-deny-depose-insurance-online-criticism-2d9c9a1a2a551876e72a11a93fc7624c https://apnews.com/article/unitedhealthcare-ceo-manhattan-shooting-death-dee5ad726a345a8209ecc0df7e44756e https://apnews.com/article/unitedhealthcare-delay-deny-depose-insurance-online-criticism-2d9c9a1a2a551876e72a11a93fc7624c https://apnews.com/article/unitedhealthcare-ceo-shooter-b6a0bcc8f517604bb612511acea164b9

Missed opportunities...

That's how it's supposed to work, but in the OP, a German helicopter got too close to a Russkie warship and the Russkies fired warning shots to back them off. You and I won't know what really happened (or where) because they'll prosecute any whistleblower who releases the classified information that shows who was where and did what. That is way too much risk of a misjudgment that could "accidentally" turn into a hot war. It'll look like "defense", but it's really poking the bear to elicit the response that will make the warmongers and their companies richer. Edit: TBH, I'm thankful we got through the 2024 election without someone triggering Armageddon to get the votes to stay in power.

Were those kids and/or their Mom drunk?

You're hanging out in the wrong places. My favorite resort in Jomtien catered to Russkie, Uke, East German and other Eastern European family groups. They were delightful. Very cordial to me, an American. I just avoided the monger parts of town where the drunks of all persuasions congregated.

I'm glad to see Thailand run (generally) for the benefit of the Thai people. Otherwise, we'd all be squeezed out. It's amusing that the same posters that hate the Russkies and the Indians and the Chinese are the ones who would love to see Thailand allow foreigners to buy up land and homes and 100% of condo projects. Throw the projects wide ass open... And do away with those pesky reporting and visa requirements. Even if it's just 1 rai of land and one condo per foreigner, imagine what would happen if billions of foreigners bought a rai of land under their brothers' or their neighbors' passport... We'd have Russkie towns pooling their passports and buying up entire islands. Besides, I can't imagine the massive energy sink that comes with hating on so many people around me. But I guess some people thrive on it. Or they think they do.

Stay hydrated. You don't want a UTI.

Apart from Thais working in the tourism sector, does anyone actually want Russians here? The Ukrainians they're not shooting at are pleased. Same guy who's mortified that some Thai people can't afford scooter helmets that would actually protect them in a crash. Trying to bring the nanny state to LOS.

They'll use the ol' amnesia trick. "I don't recall..."

But they are not for profits, as are many of the best hospitals in the US. One problem with "not for profits" is that's where the illegals and the off-the-grid-indigent go for their free care. Which has to be recouped by overcharging the rest of us. Another problem is the delta between the top line margins and the bottom line. Too many straws and layers of parasites sucking their blood. Like "charity" CEOs taking home $$10s of millions in salaries. I got charged $1500 for 5 minutes with a physicians assistant when I had a toothache and just needed some pain pills to tide me over until the dentist opened the next morning. At a non-profit ER. The icing on that cake is that they wouldn't allow me to take the pain pill at home so I could drive safely. She insisted that I take it right there and risk a car wreck driving home under the influence. I declined. They did give me a script for 3 of them. So I had to wait for the pharmacies to open the next morning. $1500 for nothing. How's that for non-profit?

So whoever's taking over the reins for Diddy will hold a 2 week shindig. Congress will be a ghost town.

I don't buy shirts in Asia online for that very reason. I can go to one kiosk in BoBae market in Bangkok and an XL fits fine and the next one, it'll be 2XL, and the next it will be L that fits. Theres' no consistency in shirt sizes. (Edit: And no consistency in fabric quality) And I'm not a serial returner like a lot of people, so I'm stuck with what I ordered online. My bad. I rarely go out specifically clothes shopping in BKK because it's so hard to go anywhere and not find a bunch of clothes for sale. I just buy what I find when I'm out doing other stuff. The one exception is Songkran shirts out of season. I love 'em, and I'll make a special trip to the BoBae area just to buy them out of season.

Half the foreign guys in Thailand are passport bros. Some of the rest are going to take a hard look at the ball and chain they're traveling with and become passport bros. The rest of us are here for the temples and the culture.

The man was Martin Shkreli, the former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, who was called before Cummings' committee in February 2016. After hiking the price of an old drug for parasitic infections to $750 a pill from $13.50, Shkreli became the poster boy for pharmaceutical greed that helped define the past decade. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/12/31/792617538/a-decade-marked-by-outrage-over-drug-prices

I don't recall ever meeting an American without a "health insurance screwed me" story. I certainly have mine. Lots of them, though none of catastrophic magnitude. But that's a tough way to live- doing everything right and still being afraid of going bankrupt. Edit: So, in that respect, it is a great unifier. You can have lefties, righties, Blacks, whites and Asians all around the same dinner table, and that topic will have them all agreeing. It does go off the rails when solutions come up for discussion...

I'd suggest staying well hydrated so shedding all those liberal tears doesn't cause a urinary tract infection.

In the history of the entire world, has there ever been a coup prevented because it was illegal? That's why they call it a coup.

It's a public service from our brothers, to incent American women to lose a few dozen pounds and learn to be nicer. They'll live longer and be happier. BTW, YouTube is blocked here, but I think I've seen that video a dozen times, or a at least dozen more just like it.

That's why God Satan invented lobbyists.

I believe that Biden's going to issue enough questionable pre-emptive pardons that the Supreme Court will have to get involved and they'll reverse the ones where there's been no prosecution before the pardon. No clue what all they're being pardoned for. And Biden's administration won't be around to advocate that side of the arguments in front of the SCOTUS.

Asking the wrong question. With scooters being 20-40x as hazardous on a per km basis, and helmets only reducing that risk by 40%, the real safety Rubicon is crossed when you throw a leg over a seat instead of buckling into a ton of steel. I'll always take a car (or the BTS or MRT) if those choices are reasonably available. But I realize that's not always practical. Not that I don't hop on motosai scooters for short trips down sois where taking a taxi just isn't practical. In those cases, I look at the helmet they may (or may not) have on offer, and make a judgment call. Usually, they're as good as nothing.

That one is easy, but exasperating to explain. The lobbyists want all the money spent with their client companies. That's Big Pharma, insurance companies and all the hospitals and healthcare giants that have been bought up with private equity.

I saw the bill for my heart bypass at Bumrungrad (most expensive hospital in Thailand, I think) and it was $60K USD. Same week, I read a story about a guy in the USA that had paid over $900K for the same surgery in a US hospital. If he had 20% co-pay, his copay would have been 3x my total bill. And my care was world class. Confirmed when, 9 years later, I did a CAT scan (I think) in the USA that showed my 4 grafts were still working great. BTW, with Euro insurance, they paid it 100%. I only saw the bill to approve payment. Americans are getting hosed on healthcare and insurance. There's gotta be a good market for medical tourism, given that I would have paid 3x as much deductible as my total Bumrungrad bill. Seems like tacking on a few weeks of recovery in a tropical paradise would be icing on the cake. Also leads me to question why US insurance companies wouldn't get in the act and offer to send their policy holders to Thailand...

I'm more jaded. I think he promised not to pardon Hunter because it would have lost his party votes. Had he done it in January, 2021, the backlash would have subsided by November 2024. But maybe not by the 2022 midterms...