puck2

21 hours ago, craigt3365 said:

Kinda like letting a drunk drive a car hoping an accident will never happen.  Odds are, one will happen eventually.

Your comparison is far away of reality, completely wrong.

You cannot compare Kim with a drunken driver. He is driving a vehicle fraught with explosives. When you fire at it you are in an extreme danger to be shot yourself. That's the real picture.

May I correct 10)

Extreme religion has an inhuman influence on the government in Iran. in SA, too. So, why condemn only one corrupt power (Iran) and support the other one (SA)?

The government is going to cure the symptoms of the (airport) disease, but not the disease itself.

The airport disease is the understaffed counters. If the immigration doesn't want to employ more officers in order to reduce the long queues it should think about different ways for Thailand's „security“. In this case the word security is an euphemism for „TAT-statistics“. Then let the TAT pay for more occupied counters in the airports.

BTW, don't we pay 700 THB for an airport-service, now-a-days included in the ticket price (so you don't see and buy it anymore by yourself)? I guess this fee will go to the AOT. Let AOT pay the money for more Immi-officers and counters. Problem solved, we would think. But it costs …...money, !

It seems the very serious, complicated extraordinary cruel Yemen conflict now is the main subject of this thread. However it is:

Trump to weigh more aggressive U.S. strategy on Iran - sources (from Reuters).

This makes someone think: Why? Isn't there already enough fire, putting oil into the fire if you listen to Trump?!

One general problem, you never can rely on Trump what he said today and you never can trust him having a common sense. Why?

1. He has an intention to destroy all positive achievements of Obama (pure and childish envy)

   Among this the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Just to now there isn't any sign that Iran violated this pact.

2. Different from Obama Trump rushed out to Saudi A.,  just after taking office. To receive a „friendly“ (money) welcome pleasing his ego-maniacal character. SA is all but a democratic or an acceptable state, with an ultra orthodox Sunni religion and structure. Once it was important for the USA for oil. Now not because of cracking (in the US). At that time, crimes (9/11), violating human rights never was an obstacle for good relations to this pariah state – until Obama (went frosty).

3. There are dissents in the government and military to a „more aggressive U.S. Strategy on Iran“. -->OP

   - Most of his national security aides favor remaining in the pact.

   - A former U.S. official said Hezbollah and Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias in Iraq have been "very helpful" in recapturing vast swaths of the caliphate that Islamic State declared in Syria and Iran in 2014. This is in strong contrast to the repeated allegation Iran would support the IS in general.

4. Missing intelligence and competence doesn't allow Trump and his minions to think that nearly all conflicts and wars in the ME have and have had a religious and/or tribe/clan backgrounds, too. The last horrible example: Yemen.

5. 

6. Clan and democratic policy is like axe and wood. To understand this would help to solve a lot of problems in the ME and Arabic Mediterranean area. Trump's primitive plans would destabilize these areas again and more than before.

7. Fulfilling Trumps Iran idea would bring more and new conflicts, wars and war crimes than there are now – refugees, rapes, destroyed landscapes etc.

8. Supporting delivery of weapons to SA is like supporting warmongers. You see the results in Yemen with the horrible human fatalities. It doesn't seem to worry them. Them – that are GB - 3 billion, USA – 1 bn, and Germany among others.

9. SA tries to establish a countervailing force against Iran, pretending religious reasons, cementing an old struggle between Sunnis and Shiites. The Christians in Europe needed many hundred years to solve the religious wars. The Muslims are not yet at the point of debating or negotiating.

10. Iran has an inhuman religious influence on the government, SA too. So why support only one corrupt power?

The .list goes on.

@Brain 150 and joeyg

Thank you very much about the new, revolutionary lessons about Germany's history !

If you have an open mind you would ask yourself, why the refugees/immigrants would like to go to Germany – from far away -. The answer:  there must be desiderata, what is congruent with the general German feeling before this election.

That the majority of the Germans are content with the general direction of its political leaders has many reasons. Among the most important are the still flourishing economy, freedom, no danger of wars with its neighbors since more than 70 years, and a good social milieu in general. It's a fact that governments/parties are reelected with positive outlooks. Why should the majority of the Germans change this situation of well feeling?

That there are some troubles in spite of this feeling of well-being is normal, too. There is no doubt that Merkel didn't use her brain – but her heart – when she opened the door for so many - far too many - refugees without any control. Most of the Magreb and African refugees are economic migrants, victims of tellers of fairy tails that Germany is a land of milk and honey. The Germans probably think we already have integrated nearly 5 m muslims (status end of 2015) why bother about another million or two ???? I also believe the Germans snarlingly accept the refugee policy out of a guilt feeling from WW 2.

Because of the giant number of refugees/migrants there are dangers and problems to solve in the future. But that doesn't seem to worry the Germans, at least at now – look at the headline.

2 hours ago, bert bloggs said:

There is never going to be a "border " between N AND S Ireland it would be impossible to manage it .

Very easy to manage this problem:

Give NI back to Ireland. No tax- customs- immigrant-problems etc.   

In 2013 the Reps refused to lift the country's debt ceiling because they mainly didn't want to support „Obama Care“. Now they are not ashamed to ask for a higher government debt because of building a wall. Within the next months they also are not ashamed to reduce the taxes of the rich - the costs for that within the "new" ceiling, too.

Under Obama it specially was intended for the poor people, under Trump it should restrain the refugees on the Mexican border. Although it is very doubtful if this wall can stop the flow of the refugees it should be done only to fulfill a nonsense pee-election promise of the Lotus (Liar Of The ….).

This casts some light on the quality/moral of the Reps. A more appropriate name for this „quality“ would be hypocrisy. As there are exemptions of refusing refugees mainly for the low paid workers in dirty jobs you recognize, the Reps welcome them for economical benefits and nothing else. Being useful, come here, otherwise not!

But when it concerns the poor and underprivileged people in their own US state the Reps are not ashamed to refuse supporting them.

2 hours ago, Baerboxer said:

Don't disagree with the analysis, that Turkey under Erdogan is unlikely to become a EU member state but why, again, do we have a German national politician feeling he can speak on behalf of the EU and decide for all the other member states?

The EU has a team, selected from member states, of people to do that. Again, signs that German politicians believe they are ruling the EU?

Baerboxer, if you would know the conditions then we wouldn't read your „alternative facts“.

From --->

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_the_European_Union#Criteria

<------>

Once the negotiations are complete a treaty of accession will be signed, which must then be ratified by all of the member states of the Union, as well as the institutions of the Union, and the candidate country. Once this has been completed it will join the Union on the date specified in the treaty. …..

Therefore the small Luxembourg with a population less than 600,000 has the same power/vote as Germany with more than 80,000.000. As a consequence of the EU regulation Gabriel, representing Germany, has the same right to say no to the Turkish request as Luxembourg, i.e. .

That is „ruling the EU“? Concerning the population one could say, Germany is disadvantaged, but that is not the problem/subject here.

On 19.8.2017 at 11:30 PM, swissie said:

Have been suffering from a mild form of RLS for the last 40 years (not keeping me from eventually falling asleep).

Still, I would like to know what causes it.

<------------->
 

Maybe this would be interesting. Different reasons and solutions of the problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_legs_syndrome

Trump remembers me a man on a one-way street driving in the wrong direction and complaining:

"damn, OMG,  thousands of  ghost drivers" ! 

2 hours ago, johng said:

Yes its a good idea...if nobody wins that round then the prize money should "rollover" so next draw prize will be twice the amount if no one wins again prize gets bigger and bigger more people are attracted to buy more lottery tickets.

 

A few years ago they already had a company with all the ticket machines allowing choice of own numbers ready and waiting to be rolled out a 7/11 etc but someone in government killed the idea.

 

Off course the winning numbers will sometimes coincide with a large number of lucky number choosers who will unfortunately find that their lucky number wasnt so lucky after all because they had to share a prize.

 

Killing the idea is explainable, because the GLO cannot fix all the different prizes in advance. I.e. The first prize, as now, will never be 6,000,000 THB etc. If there are a lot of 1^st prize winners, the GLO would loose. A special percentage in each prize category (1, 2, 3, …) of all sold tickets has to be figured out. This means, the winning prizes change draw by draw. As far as I remember the money going back to the winners in Thailand is ~60% of all sold tickets.

To reckon up the total sum of all sold tickets in a short time – i.e. within 1 or 2 day/s - seems to be impossible for the GLO, at least at now. For that arithmetic job it would need a full computerized and reliable system, starting at all selling stations.

Another Thai problem. Such a computerized system would be a loss for some people in this special money industry. It's hard to believe there will be a system change.

On 8/18/2017 at 8:42 AM, Scott said:

I don't have strong feelings one way or the other.   I've seen some of them (actually in the North).   At this point, they probably need to be moved for the protection of the statutes -- and they do need to be protected.   Many of them are pieces of art work, whether you like who they are of or not.  

Get real.

Monuments of intolerable history should be kept because they are artworks?

As already mentioned here in this thread, what would you say if the Germans build „artworks“ of Hitler, Goering etc. and the Italiens of Mussolini? All these dictators “fought for what, they believed“.

I think you forgot that monuments of people like Lee, Hitler, Stalin, Mao – the list goes on – are a symbol of what the people believe in and giving them inspiration to follow their old, mad and rotten ideas.

The Lee-monument in Charlotteville was the reason for the US racists to come together. The announced demolition was the symbol for the racists that their ideas should be razed. The same situation if the Germans would allow building Hitler-monuments. BTW, in Germany it's forbidden by law. Why demolished the US  military the Hussein monument in Baghdad?

Such monuments deserve to be demolished. There are others ways to learn about history.

Trump and friend/s ???

Every culture has its own definition of a friend.

It seems that friendship partially has a some different character in the USA, i.e. economical interests. Citing --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship

• …....For Americans, friends tend to be people whom they encounter fairly frequently, and that are similar to themselves in demographics, attitude, and activities. While many other cultures value deep trust and meaning in their friendships, Americans will use the word "friend" to describe most people who have such qualities. …..

Therefore I guess Lotus (Liar of ….) Trump will not lose all his friends = being „friendless“. There are a lot of Reps in both chambers of the Congress who worry about their future job if they vote against him, especially in the rust belt.

The question will be how many Reps (out of the rust belt) will feel pressed by their electorate to vote for an impeachment. Their alternative: losing Trump's (buyable) support. That's a problem between the self and public interest of a representative in the congress.

14 hours ago, Retiredandhappyhere said:

I believe David won!

When you believe in the bible, then you are right.

In real life it's normal - especially in the economy - that Goliath wins.

BTW, following madame May's staunch words "Brexit means Brexit" then please with all consequences. That means not cherry picking. If you had to make a "deal" where your former partner only would like to pick the cherries after leaving you , would you then give him all the cherries he/she  wants?

If the UK doesn't like regulation, custom-free trading with the EU, free movement for EU people etc. then it should build it's own laws. Surprisingly nearly all of the EU-regulations/-laws will be adopted into UK law. Only a low percent is to be changed. Most of it will be like "replace EU by UK (or maybe England at that time)". And that process will take a lot of years for finishing.

One thing already is obvious, the Brexiteers made propaganda with big mouths like Johnson and Farage, but without any single plan/strategy  how to go on. Farage left the Brexiteers like a dog jamming his tail between the legs.

Most of the people in the EU, including me, would like to see the UK wouldn't leave the EU, for many, many positive reasons. There will only be losers. The UK alone against the EU, US, China and other upcoming countries will be a dwarf with a national pride, but no real power. The EU power is diminished, too.

What disappoints me mostly is that the UK missed the point to belong to an international community that was free of inside wars, supporting weaker members, fighting cruel capitalism and strong nationalism. The list goes on.

The question for "Yearly Income"  truly is for security reasons !

12 hours ago, cyberfarang said:

I don`t blame President Trump. The real culprit is the power of the social media, like YouTube and fakebook.

 

It`s loaded with fake news, crackpot conspiracy theories, extremist propaganda that is aimed at the gullible and easy influenced which radicalizes people, especially the young. This includes the ultra right, ultra left and religious fanatics.

I<------>

 

New US extreme right-wing logic: the message-bearer is the villain, not the rascal himself.

BTW, it seems you only are able to deliver Trump's babble-propaganda. What about facts ?

32 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

trump appears to be bucking for some kind of war because the Russian investigation is quickly closing in on him. Classic tactic of corrupt authoritarians with very low approval. This situation is not funny.

+1

Yes, it seems Trump tries to whitewash his policy and personal failures by playing the strong man and missing again all common sense. Furthermore he is completely unable to learn a little bit. Within the last 2 decades the US has already tried to impose democracy in states where democracy wouldn't work, as i.e. in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, although never tried to do the same in Saudi Arabia i..e. 

This threats against V. are understandable, but incredible and arrogant, because contradicting the US-behavior in other cases.

.

1 hour ago, lungmi said:

For me it's a dangerous show off  by these two chest drumming gorillas.  I hope the zoo-keepers of the ape houses

can calm them down.

I have read the the same appropriate words from a German professor:

Trump and Kim behave like gorillas pounding on their breasts.

I don't understand why there is no stand up by the US crowds to this completely sick and childish policy of the POTUS (LOTUS= Liar Of ...). Worse: why is there no stand up of the congress to kick him out of the White House ?

26 minutes ago, realenglish1 said:

<------>

Further to this argument Non O visa holders who live in retirement or go to school hold a visa so where does this argument go from there 

 

This is fear of foreigners not anything elses They feel the need to control everyone 

 

If you are a believer of what you say then Allow Non 0 visa holders to opt out of filling in a  card and allow them to go through Thai lines at immigration 

Yes, ... with reference to the passport.

2 hours ago, tomacht8 said:

I have also doubts whether the information on the tm6 is at all usable. They will not be digitized.

The cards are probably every evening picked up by a truck and stowed somewhere in a large cellar.

 

Also my idea.

Did we ever hear or read about the immigration catching people for illegally staying in Thailand - only because of the data written on TM6 ? I seriously doubt it that this "document" is needed for security reasons. Face saving.

The same is valid for the (nonsense) 90-day-report. Whenever did we read about a foreigner caught because of missing the 90-day-report. We only read when catching a foreign criminal that he has been in Thailand already x- or xx-years without such a report. They have not been caught immediately because of not reporting.

Bureaucracy at it finest without any serious consequences.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will avoid recession in the coming year but economic growth is expected to lag the euro zone, a Reuters poll showed on Thursday.

Just to now I didn't know that polls decide on a recession anywhere in the world.

On 7/27/2017 at 7:01 PM, Khun Han said:

 

You can look at it any way you want, but the Polish judiciary is currently self-perpetuating and is in the hands of cronies of the old regime. The current government is trying to address this problem.

Concerning your comments, it's time to write new EU history books for schools and universities. It's a pity that most of the history scientists don't know that

"the Polish judiciary is currently self-perpetuating and is in the hands of cronies of the old regime"  (=Kaczynski's predecessors),  !

Bombs should be dropped on both very, very sick people ..... . Problems solved

AOT lifted the airport fees and reduced the personal. Not surprising .

I don't know if AOT must pay money to the IMMI/police-office. But I guess IMMI won't do it without  any fee.

If so, Prayut should make the AOT ,too, responsible for this disaster. Nice that he reacted immediately to the problem. But he should fire the Min.o. Tourism and Sports, Kobkarn, for her stubborn behavior,  not abandoning the TM6 for all, including foreigners. Why are so may other states able to get information about tourism - without a form like this?

Before this disaster I thought, oh, the dates are to control the datas of incoming people. Now I realize they are only for T+S-ministry for bragging about the tourism in Thailand.

On 8/9/2017 at 6:23 AM, F4UCorsair said:

The left wing loonies may now be happy that they have a strong, decisive leader who will, if necessary, take on this vertically challenged worm in North Korea.   Nah.....too much hate against the Republicans.

 

If the previous administration had balls, the situation would not have deteriorated to what we now see.

It seems that LOTUS (Liar Of The United Sates) Trump has the same highly arrogant, controlled and intelligent ministers and advisers as you would like to be. The US are able to shot an apple of your head standing on the moon. But history improves that they are not able to win a war in Asia. Guess why?

Wrong analysis in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq certainly was one reason for that.

Trump, far away of being as intelligent as his predecessor, would make the same mistake starting a war. China officially condemns the NK fat boy. But why don't work all the sanctions against NK ? Because the Chinese – and probably the Russians – don't like to have the USA as an immediate neighbor. Therefore they support Kim secretly. That means, the „worm“ Kim has giant worms in the background.

And don't forget Trump aims at diverting the public of his numerous flaws and failures. No problem for him, because he will not lose any member of his family or any $ in a new Korean war.