Cory1848

I've also used Dr. Vachiraporn (basically just to give me an annual scan; I have a lot of weird mole patterns, and she makes sure nothing's cancerous). However, as someone else commented, she's busy and has a queue; I had to wait a few weeks, at least via Chiang Mai Ram (at her private practice she may have more time).

Thank you for that, and thank you for making sense. Frankly, this whole thread sickens me. On the one hand are those who “blame Islam” (whatever that means) or “inbreeding” as an excuse to stereotype a whole population as medieval barbarians, and if they’re bombed back to the Stone Age, so what, they’ve never left the Stone Age. And on the other hand are those who think that Israel should be destroyed and dissolved, its population killed or set adrift, because, well, they’re Jews! Sure, it’s an awful conflict, and the reasons for it go back 80 years and more, and solving it will require major concessions on both sides. But the irrational and frankly stupid hatred for one side or the other that I see here reminds me of a statement used in one form or another by St. Paul, Walt Kelly, Oliver Stone, and a host of others in between: We have met the enemy, and he is us.

Amazing. (And he certainly has a thing for “UN boots on the ground”!) The thing is: As brutal (and criminal) as the Israeli assault on Gaza is, nearly every nation on the planet has engaged in the same, often more than once: Americans in Vietnam, Russians in Ukraine, Chinese in Tibet, Japanese in China, Germans in Poland, Turks in Armenia, Brits and French in various colonial wars, etc. etc. Has anyone suggested entirely evicting these war criminal nations from their homes? As it turns out, and this is what antisemites like the person you’re responding to cannot acknowledge: Jewish people are in fact Homo sapiens like the rest of us, and as such they are capable of the same brutality. And ultimately they are just as responsible as all other nations (meaning “ethnic” groups), no more and no less, for the maintenance of civility across the globe. His statement that “Jews do have a lust for occupation and genocide” can be applied to any nation on earth. We are all the same.

Agreed. (1) Hamas is a vile organization whose sole purpose is the destruction of Israel (an obviously unachievable goal); and (2) Israel was born out of the trauma of the Holocaust and was immediately attacked by its neighbors, so we can grant Israel the benefit of the doubt with respect to its self-defense. That said, regardless of whether the pictures are AI generated or not, aid agencies have almost unanimously attested to starvation in Gaza, and beyond that, Israel continues to kill civilians, starving or not, at alarming rates. Gazans’ support for Hamas is tanking; most polling shows it at less than 40%, so most of those being killed are not Hamas supporters. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers in the West Bank continue to terrorize their Palestinian Arab neighbors. Claims of genocide seem valid to me. So the Netanyahu government is nearly as atrocious as Hamas. Your solution, to grant governance of Gaza to the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority, seems the most logical way out. The Palestinian Authority (not Hamas) represents Palestine at the UN, and some Western countries are now moving to recognize Palestinian independence, so these are very positive steps that may put some pressure on Israel to consider other solutions. Of course, for anything good to happen, (1) Hamas needs to be eradicated; and (2) Israel needs to rid itself of Netanyahu and establish a progressive government that would accept an independent Palestine, and in fact provide assistance toward that end. The obvious problem with all this is, getting from point A to point B. (Can Iran, somehow, help with this?)

Right: Blame the victim and laugh about it; that's really intelligent. I assume that your Putin picture is not intended to be ironic, so you also favor blowing up children and anyone else who happens to be in random apartment blocks in Ukrainian urban areas. <sigh> I keep hoping we'll somehow evolve beyond stupid and senseless cruelty, but that's probably naïve on my part …

What planet are you on? She was convicted of child sex trafficking, and the children she trafficked were raped by her close partner Jeffrey Epstein and others, with her full knowledge. To minimize her crimes is to say quite plainly that raping children is not such a big deal. Glad that you’re so on board with that. Christ …

Well, yeah, and as others have pointed out, at least a few parties were reaching out to get the shooting to stop. It's a stretch giving Trump credit for anything positive, but I don't think he made the situation worse ...

You have seen her 148 times since 2001? Using my calculator, that roughly once every two months. Amazing! -- And she is really talented, I love her music.

I personally think Trump is the least qualified person to ever become US president, but even that doesn’t forestall the possibility that he’ll sometimes have a positive effect. I’m even willing to wait out the longer-term effects of his bombing run over Iran: I know people in Tehran, and they are living in a heightened state of fear, but at the same time they despise the mullahs and especially the Revolutionary Guard, a genuine “deep state” that the mullahs created. As for Nobel prizes, I agree that Obama’s was inappropriate. In fact, it would be best if the prize were awarded less often to politicians and more often to groups who engage in humanitarian work on the ground, who work with limited resources and put their lives on the line.

Wow, this feels kind of strange, sharing a forum page with someone who is so casually accepting of pedophilia and child rape. Your slavish devotion to Trump surely has no bottom.

Trump made a few phone calls encouraging a ceasefire and I’ll give him credit for that, even if he used tariffs as the “stick” end of the arrangement. But a Nobel Peace Prize? Trump crying publicly that he doesn’t have one, that he wants one really bad, that he deserves at least five of them, is an embarrassment. What a crybaby.

Mawlam singer Jintara Poonlarp is from Roi Et, and she’s a national treasure. Of course, I don’t know if there’s anything around town that would indicate that, or if she performs there much. I visited maybe 15 years ago and thought it was a pleasant enough place, though I tend to like most places I go to.

You wrote that “bombing just hours before an agreed ceasefire is nothing if not duplicitous” (I just gave the comment a “thumbs-up,” if that helps). I think you’re quite right, but, as at least one other person has commented, the Thais are not the first to engage in such tactics. A few hours before the November 11, 1918, armistice for World War I, the Germans launched some attacks, which were futile and stupid and killed a lot of people (one of these attacks is reenacted at the end of the 2022 remake of the film “All Quiet on the Western Front”). And I’m sure there are tons of other examples. Not that that makes the Thai actions any less questionable, but now apparently the Cambodians have broken the ceasefire, so there’s that, too. As for the “cowards behind a keyboard,” I often wonder why people on this forum respond as they do, either verbally or anonymously with an emoticon. All I can think of is the caption to an often quoted New Yorker cartoon: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

There will certainly be assimilation all around; hopefully one positive will be, it will lead to less conflict, or one fewer reason to enter into conflict. Though perhaps that’s wishful thinking. On things that make cultures distinct and interesting, people can be pretty proud of their culture, even as they absorb other cultures, so I think much of it will linger, or adapt. Your example of pizza is a good one: Naples lays claim to having invented pizza, and if you have a restaurant that serves Neapolitan pizza, you can get certified by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana -- showing that you prepare the pizza in the traditional way, that certain ingredients come from Campania, etc. Peppina in Bangkok is AVPN certified; I’ve been there a lot, it’s great. But when Italians moved in large numbers to the US in the late nineteenth–early twentieth centuries, they developed New York pizza (I imagine using ingredients at hand), which is totally different, and just as good. (And there’s a lot more wiggle room as to what makes a New York pizza.) The consensus via Google search shows that Chef Bing’s on Ruam Rudi has Bangkok’s best New York pizza; haven’t been there. Anyway, this is all way off topic. Hope you make it up with your siblings at some point!

Wow, that’s really scary -- you live in such a scary world, with Woke Policepersons, bearded Muslims with sabers, and other bogeymen hiding around every corner. And what’s with all the death in your last paragraph? Wow. I’m sorry if you believe I insulted you. But, among many other things, you said this: “I do not agree with homosexuality.” There is absolutely no difference between that statement and a statement such as, “I do not agree with the blondness of people who have blond hair.” No difference whatsoever. What is one to make of such a statement as that, and the mindset that came up with it? What are the countless millions of “homosexuals” around the world, if they were to know, to make of the fact that you do not “agree” with their reality? Again, sorry if I insulted you. You take care now, OK?