ronnie50

The problem the United States has, politically, is its two-party system. Both sides can flame away - often with very good reason - at geriatric leaders' and their age-related odd-ball, nonsensical actions and their inability to function in a required way to run a complex government, which just happens to be administering the most powerful country in the world. The end of Empire for the US is directly related to this catch-22 IMO. The country needs multi-party democracy with run-off presidential elections as needed until a choice by the people is elected - a real choice - not a choice of this or that. A real stateman (or stateswoman).

Yeah, The plantation owner families. At some point a Chinese guy would have married a dark skinned southern Thai. Their kids would naturally assume the darker gene.

You're joking right? There are gorgious ethnic Indian girls in London. I would constantly be rubber necking on the Underground.

This refers to the TDAC, I guess. Are they really planning to ditch it just months after launching it? Or is this an AI mix-up combining an old story with a new one? Also, as above posts, I thought the visitor numbers were down 8% as of yesterday's news..

Right, VOA. I'd forgotten that. Not an abandonded airbase.

When I first moved here (long ago), I met a German guy who was running some kind of private English tutoring service. Aside from a funny remark that he beleived there were more Mercedes Benz's in Bangkok than Germany, he said 'the only reason farang come here is for the p@ssy!' Sitting next to him was his drop-dead gorgeous assistant.

Interesting post. Good luck in your move. While you don't really like urban living, I wonder if living in 'bannock' and not Bangkok might have swayed your views. I know what you mean about these small places and how they have such disregard for so many things. In my view, much of it relates to being poorly educated and poverty - the rubbish everywhere, the alcoholism, the domestic violence (though that can happen anywhere). It's like they don't care. Personally, I would go crazy - faster - in this country if I had to live in a village upcountry. But that's just me. I would never be able to adapt. Anyway, good luck back in the U.S.

Do the government hospitals in Bangkok typically charge foreigners a different price for the same procedures and meds than Thai patients? As there are a few quite professional looking government hospitals (by that I mean not run down and apparently well-equipped). Chulalongkorn Hospital seems okay, and Ramithobodhi and Siriraj are worth looking into - though I'm sure they are very, very busy. Anyone know for sure? I think there is a middle gound too, right? Sort of quasi-private like Vichaiyut? (could be wrong, maybe Vichaiyut is fully private)

Thailand was rumored to be among the 'third countries' - it was claimed the black site was a former abandoned air base and monitoring station in the northeast (allegedly). The various third-country names leaked out through rumor mills. Not sure if the locations were ever officially published/released.

And here is the USDOL nazi-like promo for apprenticeships

I wonder if anyone will try to torch the huge banners of Trump's face that are being unfurlled down the sides of US government buildings in DC. Honestly, those huge banners of Trump's face hanging on government buildings, coupled with the posters advertising apprenticeships for Strong American Workers that look like 1930's German propaganda = when take together - really do look like Nazi retreads.

Best to read the SCB terms and conditions - section 3.3 - in the App. The 50K per day transaction is now standard at SCB (so it seems) but you can phone their hotline and get a temporary lifting of that.

Agree. LA, with the exception of the expensive areas where wealthier people live, is just one strip mall after another. Drive down Hollywood Boulevard away from the strip and into 'Thai Town' and it's just a run down strip of Asian grocers. San Francisco is too expensive, and many people (including me) make the mistake of going there with school age kids during summer vacation time - only to find it very cold in August, socked in with fog, and generally pretty miserable (our bad for not researching that, but you can only travel as a family certain months of the year).

Don't ever recall seeing that happen away from the actual border crossings. Only State Troopers. Along those lines, some 30 years back, a friend of mine was crossing into the US from Canada with his shiny 2 year old pick-up truck (4x4). He was pulled over for a spot search. They (US Customs) took the interior apart looking for drugs. They had a 'zero tolereance' policy and had been stepping up inspections. They found a few marijuana seeds in the ashtray. It was enough for them to confiscate the vehicle permanently as a 'proceed of crime'. They sent him on foot back across the border. He never got the truck back.

Get a grip.

Yes, it should. But it's always an eye opener how many foreigners get sucked into buying a condo here when it costs most of their savings. They assume (I guess) that they will make it their home forever, without due regard for what limited financial resources they have left after the purchase, and whether that and a meagre state pension income will suffice for their remaining 10-25 years of life. Having said that, many foreigners living here have significant resources and more than enough to buy a place for their primary residence here and maybe buy other smaller places to rent out - I know a few people like that. Maybe they also still have property in their home country. So I guess it depends on the individual, their personal wealth position (or lack of), their financial awareness, and their ability to think ahead.

National ownership of natural resources like water, minerals, forestry, energy, public transportation, education are many of what most socialists would think is common sense, because the profits are returned to the country as a whole rather than to a corporate interest and its shareholders. But in many cases, private companies are offered the chance to bid on extracting, providing or managing the nationally-owned product. Using tax money to buy up shares of private companies (part ownership) is quasi-nationalizing - as the expenditures aren't compensated and the tax payers don't have any real say in the profit sharing, whereas if the above are fully nationalized, the whole company is owened by the people.

Hmm. Nationalizing 10% of a huge private US corporation. Isn't that what MAGA types on this board would equate with the road to 'communism'?

Which part of 'hospital' did you miss? Also, they are all Gaza natives (journalists) because Israel won't allow foreign journalists in - not to mention barring food to ease the Israeli-inflicted famine - so I guess they didn't have much choice but to be in Gaza, now did they.

Agree 100%. The main Thai banks work well enough, for the most part, for what we need to pay rent, buy groceries, show to immigration and other local business. But I keep my life savings far from Thailand. As the old saying goes: 'Never invest in anything in Thailand that you can't afford to one day walk away from' (or run away from).

I know a couple of Americans who said the same thing 'if he was elected'. As far as I know they are still there. But what a lot of Americans of working age (who say they want to leave and will do so) fail to take into account, is that they can't just move to another country and start working there like they did at home. As we know here, if you are retired or are not working and meet the criteria, Thailand is a pretty good place to move to, but to actually come here and work (on a whim) is not so easy. Nor is it in most other countries.

Wow. How did something like this turn into 9 pages?! Maybe the "Georgian" guy can reply. It's just not worth jumping out of a car and freaking out. These days everyone has a dash cam. I remember the viral video 8 or10 years ago of some south asian Asian guy jumping out of his personal car with UN plates (the solid blue plates), and screaming at other drivers. Thai motorists stopped and videod the guy on their mobiles.. must have embarrassed the local UN office.

Associated Press is a famous American newsgathering agency.

Many have heard the phrase 'the first casualty of war is truth'. Of course there's no reason to think that reality would be different in this conflict between Thailand and Cambodia. Spin doctors work on each side trying to influence the mainstream news reporting - that's normal. What's not normal, however, is that some of that propaganda is being published by, otherwise, respectable media outlets without any obvious fact-checking or standard journalistic rigor, or even publishing quotes that counter the main takeaway of an article's content. It just repeats what the spin doctors on one side have uttered. There are big international spin companies that make a profit on advising governments in their approaches to spin during conflict with another country - Hill & Knowlton is the best known, but I'm not suggesting they have been contracted by either side in this conflict. Whether it's just each side's own psy-op groups stage managing and churning this stuff out, or whether a professional, seasoned, international company has been recruited to do it, there's no doubt much of what we're reading and being informed about this conflict is deliberate spin designed to influence (and maybe fan hatred) unlike the other straight-up news reporting. For example, while I usually like reading KhaoSod English, its FB page looks increasingly like a propaganda mouthpiece. It's not alone of course. I support Thailand, but KhaoSodEnglish's more recent style and tone of reporting, often without citation, is disappointing. I can understand some of the other Thai media following that path or the monotonous drone of Sorayuth each morning on Ch3 going on and on about this conflict to his huge daily audience. But come on KhaoSod English - do better.. https://www.facebook.com/KhaosodEnglish/

AP and Reuters sent a jointly written letter to Israel that spells out how Israel cannot be trusted to investigate its own war crimes, and how they are deliberately attempting to block the world's view of the ethnic cleansing through murder and other means (my words) that Israel is attempting.