Cory1848

Stop being pedantic. That's why I left the words "who crossed him" outside quotation marks.

He’s “coming for those” who crossed him? “Revenge will be sweet”? This is what responsible administration and leadership is all about for you -- revenge and retribution? It will be “sweet” when this deranged, chest-beating, neanderthal sickness recedes back to the nether fringes of the political spectrum where it belongs.

I was responding to someone else, who said that a “vast majority” of Muslims living in the West want sharia law; I would say, rather, that a vast majority simply want to lead normal lives under prevailing (Western) laws, and it’s only a handful who are radicalized and commit violence, as at the recent festival in Germany. Unfortunately, it’s this radicalized handful who get all the headlines, thus causing an overreaction on the other side who are quick to blame all Muslims for the crimes of a few, and the problem spirals out of control. As for the growth of Islamic radicalism in the Middle East, I would suggest that part of the problem is economic: young men there face limited prospects in their lives and thus become susceptible. Muslim countries that are better off and provide better prospects to their citizens (Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, perhaps Morocco, the Gulf states) seem to have fewer problems with homegrown radical Islamist movements. I have many Muslim friends also, mostly assimilated into Western societies, but I’ve never lived in any Muslim countries as you have, so you would have a much better feel for this.

Ideally, yes. There might be issues like, given that the US has a volunteer army, from a legal standpoint how can the child of a high-ranking politician be forced to serve if the child of a bus driver can choose not to. But the bus driver of course doesn’t have a say in policy (other than having one vote out of tens of millions in the next election). It’s good to look for any possible disincentives. I often wonder, especially in unjust or unnecessary wars (as most wars are), why the soldiers themselves fight, why they shoot at perfect strangers who have done them no personal harm. I’ve never been in a war (never even fired a gun), and it all seems so irrational.

No, the “vast majority of Muslims in the USA as well as in other western countries” do not want to implement sharia law; they want the same things that you want, to raise their families and provide decent opportunities for their children. Have you ever met any Muslims?

I agree with everything you just wrote. I was only saying that a president is also a parent, and if the president knew that their child would be sent to the front lines, as the original poster suggested, that would necessarily factor into their decision on whether to send troops or not. A parent by nature cares more for their own child than other people’s, regardless of how unfair that might be in a case like this. There’s no easy answer here. A president should be entirely objective in deciding on whether to commit troops, but because they’re also a parent they can’t be objective with respect to their own child. If it’s a group decision, as you suggest, that might help.

I love the deterrent aspect of that. However, there’s also a potential appeasement aspect. Sometimes there’s a war that needs to be fought (e.g., from the US side, one that would involve NATO), and I’m not sure I’d want a US president to be weighing their own child’s welfare as a factor in whether and how to engage.

You are definitely on to something. Americans vote for leaders who have an existential effect on citizens of other countries; Russians likewise. Palestinians vote for leaders whose sole agenda is the destruction of one particular foreign country, which has no say in it; Israelis vote for leaders who likewise seek to unilaterally annex the land of their neighbor -- whose own residents can’t vote in Israeli elections. Cross-national voting might make us all a little more aware of our common existence and equality, speaking of humans generally. I sense that you were being a bit sarcastic; I’m not.

You know, of course, that a week or so ago Kennedy approached the Harris campaign about a meeting, and the Harris people turned him down, and only then did he come up with the Trump endorsement. What this tells me is, Kennedy is mercenary who will do whatever it takes to get a job close to the White House (“one of those Black jobs”); that Trump will take on any stray dog if he thinks it will get him a few more votes; and that Harris actually has some principle, and a fairly clear idea of where she wants to take her campaign (and her presidency). But, yeah, whatever.

To each their own. I renewed my retirement visa myself for years (in Chiang Mai), and as you say I rarely had to wait more than a few hours. Then one year I needed an agent about a special issue, and I’ve continued to use the agent: less than 5,000 baht annually to renew the visa plus do the 90-day reporting. I’ve gotten lazier, the cost is certainly not excessive, plus I can pop in and talk to someone at the agency whenever I have a question about something. For me this works, but I totally appreciate the DIY approach as well.

Well, no. In the present-day environment, I would define the “Far Right” as those who agree with most if not all of the policy proposals in Project 2025, a lengthy document that’s available to anyone who’s interested. Some of it is racist, and some of it is fascist. So, without intending to pigeonhole large swaths of the public, I think it’s quite possible to make some broad statements about who the Far Right are and what they believe.

Don’t be absurd. The Democratic candidate will support Israel almost as much as the Republican candidate will, even if pushing back against Netanyahu a bit more forcefully with regard to atrocities committed in Gaza and the West Bank. But the military aid is not going to dry up no matter who’s in the White House. What’s wrong with “being friends with Islam” by the way? Can’t we favor security for both Palestinians and Israelis?

People can be genetically predisposed to alcoholism; this has been scientifically determined. So, no, “mental weakness” is not the whole story.

AA started out as a Christian-based group and the word “God” turns up a lot, but now it’s usually phrased “God as we interpret him” or “Higher Power as we interpret it.” Religion is not an issue at AA.

Alcoholism is broadly considered a “disease” with both a genetic component and an environmental, or learned, component. It is a progressive disease -- the more you drink over time, the worse it gets. There is no cure for alcoholism, but the treatment, obviously enough, is to not consume alcohol. AA meetings are not scary, or at least they shouldn’t be, and I can’t say why your friend is reluctant to talk about it. AA as an organization has weathered a fair amount of criticism, some of it perhaps warranted, as being cultish, religiously oriented, and so on. However, I think that such criticism misses the point. AA meetings serve a very basic purpose -- if you want to get through the day without drinking, it’s a place where you can go where everyone in the room shares the same desire. You can take whatever you need from an AA meeting, or whatever helps, and leave be whatever doesn’t. No one in an AA meeting is judging you. I wish your friend all the best and hope that he continues to benefit from AA, if that’s what’s helping him stay sober, and I believe that you should support him in any way you can. All the best --

The Duke’s makes American-style pizza; I think the best in Chiang Mai, though I haven’t sampled around that much. There are other places that serve Italian pizza (or “real pizza”), which is another item altogether. It’s hard to compare the two. I haven’t been to Pizza My Heart, which you mention, but there’s another Italian restaurant in Nimman called “Why Not?” that serves fabulous Neapolitan pizza.

That’s all I need to know. “Doing your own research” means reading articles on the internet that you like reading, that reinforce what you think you already believe. This reminds me of a meme that was floating around, which addressed vaccines and not climate science, but the psychology is the same. The first picture is labeled “vaccine research” and shows a group of people in lab coats, doing work in a lab setting with test tubes and other equipment. The second picture is labeled “antivax research” and shows a woman with her pants down, sitting on a toilet and staring into her phone.

I think you’re obfuscating the issue. The vast consensus among climate scientists with respect to the effects of human activity is incontrovertible; it’s not something the media just made up. And I think the scientists have gotten pretty good at modeling. Many effects that were predicted decades ago are now happening. As for your comparing inaccurate weather forecasts with long-term models created by climate scientists, now you’re the one mixing up “weather” and “climate.” Do I really need to point out that projecting the long-term effects of continued CO2 emissions is quite different from predicting whether or not it’s going to rain tomorrow?

What you seem to be “denying” is the human cause of climate change since the Industrial Revolution, greatly accelerated in our own time. For evidence of “overwhelming consensus” among climate scientists on this point, you can start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change Some scholars I’ve worked with are skeptical of Wikipedia, but this article is well annotated, with 86 endnotes that lead to source documents you can refer to. There may be other causes for climate change as you point out such as natural cycles, but the human factor is undeniable. This is real science; all you have is a lot of “hot air” (pun intended). Science is indeed based on evidence and data (and there’s a lot of that in the Wikipedia page and its source documents); consensus is what happens when scientists, working independently, reach the same conclusions after examining that evidence and data. And that consensus is 99 percent with regard to the reality of human agency in climate change.

What “climate change deniers” do not seem to understand is that their own so-called “research” is laughable in the face of the overwhelming consensus among actual climate scientists that current climate change is very much caused by human activity. If you are not a climate scientist, whatever you may have to say on the matter is immaterial.

I don't think about tampons one way or the other. All I know is, I don't need them myself.

If the availability of tampons is what concerns you, I would say you're easily distracted by non-issues.

You can take it up with the forum moderator, who appears to have removed the original post for unwarranted crudeness -- as they should this entire sorry excuse for a dialogue. The thing is, really, all Trump supporters have left is crudeness and vulgarity; they’ve got nothing else to fall back on. So go wild, by all means. P.S. My own sexual habits are none of your business, and, using every last effort of will, I managed to phrase that as courteously as possible.

No, that’s not a fact. Harris had an affair with Willie Brown in 1994-1995; Brown was married but had been separated from his wife for thirteen years. It wasn’t until eight years AFTER the affair that Harris won her first election, as district attorney for San Francisco. Neither Brown nor Harris have ever denied their affair. Your guy, on the other hand, cheated on all three of his wives, boasted about assaulting women, and was found by a judge and a jury to have raped E. Jean Carroll. These are the facts. But of course Trump has programmed his minions to ignore facts, behind a bluster of exaggeration, false accusations, and outright lies. Good luck with that. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kamala-harris-willie-brown-mistress/

No. The person who posted that Kamala Harris was committing obscene acts should “lighten up.” If he chooses to follow his Great Leader’s example and drive political dialogue straight into the gutter, I feel entirely justified in pointing that out, especially as such dehumanization often leads directly to violence. Don’t be part of the problem.