goatfarmer

I have been taking an ice bath daily for the past few years. I add a 10kg bag of ice to the cold bath: it only brings temperature down to 22 or 23 degrees, but that's still quite a shock when taking the first plunge. It's quite relaxing and sucks out the heat of the day. I recently had shoulder surgery. The ice bath brings instant relief to aches and pains. So too does a hot bath 40 degrees. I recommend it.

"New research finds...." wouldn't be a headline that would worry me. Too vague and sensational. Lo and behold, the link doesn't link to any 'new research'.

My Thai house staff insist on wearing a mask when they go to the supermarket. The reason: because everyone else is wearing a mask. This sort of sequaciousness will perpetuate itself indefinitely. It has nothing to do with perception of risk, and everything to do with appearance.

Obviously it's up to the individual decision. The question is whether or not it's a rational decision. I've been to 8 countries since July last year. Only the occasional person wears a mask. I think if you see how the rest of the world is dealing with yesterday's emergency you might behave more rationally.

The term in Thai law is pretty well defined: (italics added) Section 6. Whoever, for the purpose of exploitation, commits any of the following acts: (1) procuring, buying, selling, vending, bringing from or sending to, detaining or confining, harbouring, or receipt of any person, by means of threat or use of force, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power, or giving money or benefits to a guardian or caretaker of the person to achieve the consent of the guardian or caretaker of such person to allow the offender to exploit the person under his or her control; or (2) procuring, buying, selling, vending, bringing from or sending to, detaining or confining, harbouring, or receipt of a child; shall be guilty of human trafficking. Merely giving a bus ticket or taking a paid person on a holiday would not fall within this definition. http://web.krisdika.go.th/data/outsitedata/outsite21/file/ANTI_HUMAN_TRAFFICKING_ACT,B.E._2551_(2008).pdf

Indeed. My maid was involved in such a scheme several years ago. Minimal education. No idea what she was getting involved with. Sucked in by a scammer telling her some <deleted> story about starting a company in Thailand and promising to be her boyfriend. She got arrested, carted off to Bangkok, incarcerated for a night and charged. Fortunately, when she turned up to court to hear her case, several weeks later, the charge had been dropped. Of course, all of this background merely goes to mitigation. There is no question she was guilty, but it seems pointless to pursue such naive, vulnerable, ignorant people who get sucked into a scam by unscrupulous operators who are the real culprits.

"The 1951 Refugee Convention is a key legal document and defines a refugee as: “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.”" Draft dodging would seem to imply opposing the war. Is that not 'membership of a particular social group' with 'a political opinion'?

Audi alteram partem: you can't draw a conclusion about what is going on until you hear both sides.

Yes. I was told that the first photos that I submitted were of too low resolution to be scanned.

Not just anyone: I would expect someone from India to be more street smart.

It has nothing to do with perception of risk and much about herd mentality. They will stop when they see a critical mass of others stopping. That critical mass might be higher than other countries, such as India, where masks have largely been abandoned, but where society is more fissiparous.

"This sort of nonsense" is prevalent in more than 30 countries around the world. The safest thing for tourists is either to stay home or do a little research before travelling. https://vapoholic.co.uk/2022/02/11/where-is-vaping-banned-countries-with-strictest-e-cig-laws/

I own a few cars but only drive one. All tickets come in my name. I asked my driver what happens if the owner is not the driver. He called the number on the ticket. They said you have to go to the Land Transport Department to change the driver. I can see this is going to cause a lot of confusion, even for one car families where the car is shared between husband and wife.

The biometrics - fingerprinting all fingers on each hand - is a time consuming and questionable process. Processing time would be much faster if they simplified this procedure, or better still, abandoned it.

Antibodies will decay. Memory T and B cells shouldn't decay with time.

That seems rational. Hope you were wearing a helmet too.

Old habits die hard. Peer pressure mixed with fear of something and 'the precautionary principle' probably will probably keep mask wearing going. I just returned from Europe. Almost no one, but for a few stalwarts, was wearing a mask. I wonder why Europeans are so keen to dispense with masks, while in Thailand, they seem to be a security blanket?

As urban populations grow flood risk increases. Bangkok: 2.5% growth per year = double the population of late 80's. https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/22617/bangkok/population

It can be linked to climate change if 'climate change' means whatever you want it to mean.

Seven (out of 9) in my household tested positive for covid a few weeks ago, all at the same time. None of them had had it before. All were vaccinated (sino+astra). They were all sick in various degrees from mild to moderate, but all of them were back on their feet within a week and tested negative five or six days after testing positive. No one was freaked out about it, as they would have been a couple of years ago. They just treated it like any other respiratory infection and waited for it to pass, which it did. Ok, this is just an anecdote, but it tends to suggest that Covid is no longer the emergency that it was when it started. It's spreading like wildfire because there is no widespread immunity, but it is not the threat that it was last year and the year before. Slowing down the spread now is only prolonging the agony and promoting fear. The sooner we all get it and get herd immunity the better. We can then find something else to freak out about.

Straw man. We've known for years that some diseases, like flu, can't be prevented by vaccines.

Two weeks ago, seven of my nine staff had covid. All of them had sailed through the previous two years without a sniffle. Some had mild symptoms, others suffered a bit, coughing and feverish. All of them were negative after a week and back to work, albeit not at full steam.

So if all of these questions have been addressed by climatologists and your man, Richard, is one of them, you should have a ready answer to my point. But you haven't. Instead of making a polite, rational, respectful, civilized, reply, we see, as is usual with alarmists, name calling, vague reference to an authority, ad hominem, and dummy- spitting rants. It's so ludicrous as to be almost satirical.

I wasn't addressing Richard Muller. You left that paragraph off without making a point.

Here we go. When the alarmists are challenged, it's 'hit the panic button', hurl abuse, anything but rational, civilized conversation.