BKKBike09

Fully agree - I meant more that all too often (both bikes and cars) come back from being serviced, tyre change etc with tyres way over inflated. I've had 50 psi put in some in the past.

Belize? https://www.belizetourismboard.org/programs-events/retirement-program/

Good news. Should lead to a report by Canadian TSB, even if nothing much comes out here. I see that the most senior officer on board is now described as 'pilot trainee': no inference or judgment here but will be interesting to find out from investigation who was PIC / PF / PM [Pilot In Charge / Pilot Flying / Pilot Monitoring] etc.

Good try to insinuate that a Thai might have been missing something when wo stupid foreigners are involved. Right, because it's not like a Thai might be able to read the Thai characters on a number plate. Need a foreigner for that. Fool.

Both props do seem to be turning; I don't know if the RTP Twin Otters have auto-feather but I guess not. Left engine is the critical engine in a Twin Otter but the RH rotation suggests stall and yaw to the right. But all just speculation. Poor buggers. Don't hold your breath for 'a good accident investigation'.

Crazy to have so many people on first flight post some seemingly significant maintenance (reports a/c was grounded at Hua Hin for a couple of days before this flight). I'm going for RH engine failure after take off, failure to pitch for / maintain min control speed, stall / spin to the right (into the dead engine) and not enough altitude to recover. In the video clip it looks like the rotation was stopped just before impact. RIP.

Actually this will be a great little earner for the BMA: I can just see teams of those Thessakit City Police a-holes roaming city parks and streets checking whether dogs being walked have been chipped. And of course the BMA will need to procure 10,000 or whatever hand held chip scanners at a bargain price of 10x whatever the actual price is. Plus there'll need to be a BMA database project to manage the details. Get those snouts in the trough!

You're talking about tyres for big bikes, right? I've never bought tyres from Lazada or online simply because I'd rather get them from a dealer so I can see them before they're fitted. I'd worry that buying online you might get genuine, but the tyres could be several years old etc. I guess if you buy online from a bricks and mortar stockist then things are more likely to be kosher - this place seems to have a good range, good prices and good reviews (even though they can't spell 'Diablo'). https://www.lazada.co.th/products/pirelli-diabro-rosso-iii-120160180190200-17-i2236345540-s19971024354.html The other top tip is that whoever fits your tyres, don't trust them to inflate them to the right pressures ...

Just for you Jonny! I wish I could find the one where Babs is chiding someone for talking about their holiday choices: "Isle of Man" - "Sexist!" "Isle of Wight" - "Racist!"

Channel 9 Neus my friend.

On principle, I greet all foreigners with a cheery 'Bono Estente'!

I thought there was a deadline of April a couple of years back for being able to pay for missing years? Or has that been postponed? And wasn't there also some limit to how many years could be paid up? I started paying the Voluntary Contributions maybe 7/8 years ago and then paid up a further tranche of missing years just before that deadline (2023?). I'm hazy on the details re the missing years process but recall phoning them and discussing on the phone how many years / how much to pay etc, which payment I made from my UK bank account. I recall there being something that needed to be done to ensure that the lump sum went to cover missing years, to avoid it going on account to cover future NIC payments (even though those are paid from my account by direct debit). I have a feeling that 'something that needed to be done' was to call them after the payment had been made to check that it was properly allocated. I appreciate this isn't very helpful advice and of course things may have all changed as I don't remember there being any online forms involved. If it's still possible to pay for missing years then, for many people, I think it's a great deal, especially for those who don't have a large private pension pot but instead will be reliant, in their dotage, on various different income streams. I think I paid around £2,000 to pay up a further 10 years: that lifted current forecast to something over £10,000 a year if I keep paying the contributions for a few more years, or around £8,000 if I were to stop now. Since the contributions are so low and cost about the same as three pints a month (less if London pints!) it's a great deal.

That is one family you do not want to be fighting with in Thailand.

I suspect management in many service businesses have come to believe (and they may be right, sadly), that the average customer now expects servers/customer-facing staff to wear masks, even if the customer does not. All part of the social hierarchy thing here where the customer is superior to the hired help.

Buddy - we're in 2025, not 2020. Why on earth would you cite an article from five years ago, which also reported research conducted "between 1 December 2019 and 31 August this year [2020]"? Back then, the super easy to catch Omicron variant wasn't around either, and there were no vaccines. If you're going to peddle claims about certain ethnic groups being more susceptible to Covid, at least cite up-to-date research.

What twaddle. They were not.

Having lived in Bangkok since the late 1980s I can assure you that, prior to Covid, virtually no-one wore masks at any time. Seasonal mask wearing because of air pollution only started once people had access to smartphone apps warning about PM2.5 levels and even then, it was a very small minority that wore masks. It is false to suggest otherwise. This is an image from 2016. Not a mask in sight.

I'm not sure how I feel about the faux engine noise but the Hyundai IONIQ 5 N is a beast. But GBP 65,000 in UK and I think THB 3.7 million here ... if money was no object, sign me up.

My charger would switch on okay but, as soon as plugged in to car, would flash an error message about current leakage and would not charge (the car would charge fine at PTT and using granny charger, so I figured it was the wall charger, not the car). It was not installed for me by BYD because back in Jan 2023 there was a queue of a month or so for the free install. I paid another firm to install (WallBox). They also supplied / installed the replacement charger. Like you I would turn the charger off at the breaker when not in use, since generally I was only charging the car once a week. The WallBox guy has now advised that it is best to leave switched on all the time. I wanted to try and repair the Duosida unit but the WallBox people said there are no spares for it. Anyway, I've given it to a Thai friend who likes fiddling with electronics and said that if he can fix it, he can have it. The new charger is a Zencar WPRO - the 7.4 kW version of this: https://www.zencar.net/product/zencar-ev-charging-station-wpro-11kw-22kw/

Now must be a great time to buy a second hand EV. With all the continuing discounts probably can't give them away! I'm very happy with my Atto 3, which I've had since Jan 2023, but I'd not recommend someone to buy any EV new right now unless money / resale doesn't matter. Just spent nearly 20K on a new wall charger as the old 'free' Duosida one gave up the ghost last month ... just outside the two-year warranty. Good time to buy second hand cars generally, whether EV or not (confession: I just bought a second hand Volvo - pure ICE - for highway journeys). Now, if the Hyundai Ioniq 5N wasn't 3.7 million ...

Ah, but I cut and pasted from the SUPREME COURT ruling which poked more holes in the earlier court orders than can be found in a hunk of Swiss cheese. No sad sack lower court piffle required. The SUPREME COURT ruling also gets to the heart of this whole sorry saga: While respondents challenge Abrego Garcia’s “removal to El Salvador,” they acknowledge that the “government could have chosen to remove [him] to any other country on earth,” thereby separating him from his family. Id. at 46a. Because respondents take issue only with where, not whether Abrego Garcia was removed, the harm that they claim from family separa- tion is not implicated or properly redressable here. Post 2019 DHS did not need a hearing to deport him to anywhere, they just couldn't send him back home to mom and her pupusa stall in San Salvador. Of course, if you were to argue that the hands of DHS were, in fact, effectively tied by that prohibition, I'd agree with you. If this guy was only a national of San Salvador, what other country would accept him as a deportee from the USA? Once again, book 'em, Dan O.

Thanks buddy. I always like to be told I'm special. Nonetheless, this dude did not have the legal right to be in the US: the judge in his case only granted him 'withholding of removal to El Salvador', which - as per the recent Supreme Court ruling - does not confer any lawful status within the United States while DHS remains free to remove the person to a third country other than the country to which removal has been withheld. The guy himself also accepted back in 2019 that he could be deported. Book him, Dan O. In October 2019, after Abrego Garcia had “conceded his removability as charged,” an IJ ordered Abrego Garcia’s removal from the United States under Title 8. App., infra, 7a; see id. at 60a. The IJ determined, however, that it was more likely than not that, if Abrego Garcia returned to El Salvador, he would be subject to persecution on account of his affiliation with his mother, whose “earnings from the pupusa business” had been allegedly targeted by “the Barrio 18 gang.” Id. at 15a.2 The IJ therefore granted Abrego Garcia withholding of removal to El Salvador under 8 U.S.C. 1231(b)(3). App., infra, 11a-15a. Withholding of removal “only bars deporting an alien to a particular country or countries,” INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U.S. 415, 419 (1999)—in Abrego Garcia’s case, to El Salvador. Because “withholding of removal is a form of ‘ “country specific” ’ relief ” but does not confer any lawful status within the United States, DHS remains free to “remov[e] the alien to a third country other than the country to which removal has been withheld.” Johnson v. Guzman Chavez, 594 U.S. 523, 531-532 (2021) (brackets and citations omitted). https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A949/354843/20250407103341248_Kristi Noem application.pdf

I'll stick with the facts. No need to distort anything. He was not granted legal status in 2019; he was subject to ICE Supervision: in 2019, an Immigration Court agreed that he had entered the US illegally at an unknown date and time and thus should be deported. However the judge in 2019 also ruled that he could not be deported back to El Salvador. The "administrative error" in his case is that he was sent back to El Salvador,

This all reminds me of the bleeding hearts in UK who bemoaned the fatal police shooting of Chris Kaba, portrayed by them as an innocent victim of police brutality as opposed to a gang member who'd recently shot another person in a crowded nightclub (caught on CCTV), amongst other crimes and misdemeanours.

Let's not gloss over the facts that the 'Legal Alien' to whom you and the OP's article refer wasn't some person who got randomly picked up a few weeks ago and shipped off to a max security prison in El Salvador. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is a native and citizen of El Salvador who entered the US illegally 'sometime around 2011'. In March 2019 he was arrested in Maryland with three other men. "Ensuing proceedings established that Abrego Garcia was a ranking member of the deadly MS-13 gang and thus presented a danger to the community". At an immigration hearing in 2019, DHS presented evidence that Abrego Garcia had been “arrested in the company of other ranking gang members” and the Immigration Judge specifically cited “the fact that a ‘past, proven, and reliable source of information’ [had] verified [Abrego Garcia’s] gang membership, rank, and gang name.” In October 2019, after Abrego Garcia had “conceded his removability as charged”, an immigration judge ordered Abrego Garcia’s removal from the United States ... So this guy should really have been sent back years ago and has been living on borrowed time. The complication was that the immigration judge also said he could not be sent back to El Salvador because he might be persecuted by a rival gang - the judge did not say he could not be deported. It's all in the court docket. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A949/354843/20250407103341248_Kristi Noem application.pdf