Gecko123

59 minutes ago, bunnydrops said:

What is the active ingredient? Ivermectin which is used for head lice is in one ant power at 1%. I (not a doctor) wouldn't think it was very toxic to animals in small doses.

Thank you. Was not aware of this. Active ingredient of SanJia is 1.05% Hydramethylnon, which appears to have a low toxicity rate for mammals as well.

I just wanted to give people a heads up on the importance of proper disposal of ant bait which has been mixed with ant poison.

I've used SanJia ant poison for many years. 

For those who might not know, this product is designed to be mixed with meat, starch, or sweeteners (depending on the type of ant you're trying to get rid of). The problem is that there is usually bait left over after the ants stop eating it which then needs to be disposed of.  In the past, I usually disposed of the uneaten bait in the trash which then got incinerated in a backyard trash pit.

I wanted to alert people that even a partially incinerated or relatively small amount of food laced with this ant bait can still attract pets and other animals in the neighborhood and end up poisoning them. Apparently, dogs cannot easily recognize that there is ant poison in the food. Yesterday, I found a used container of ice cream in my back yard which i had laced with ant bait. I had burned it along with other trash, but the container was only partially incinerated and a neighborhood dog found it. To my horror I saw that the container had been thoroughly licked clean by the dog.

I am starting to suspect that improperly disposed of bait laced with ant poison may be responsible for more accidental dog poisonings than people realize, and just wanted to take a moment to raise awareness about this potential threat to animal safety.

1 minute ago, VocalNeal said:

 

He's Thai he will grow up expecting money from Mum/Mom. Better he have his own money to learn how to be independent. 

There are issues about being perceived as 'Chester the Molester', also issues of pride both for the mother and the child as being seen as a welfare case. If there's a father in the picture, sensitivity to not offending his status as the family provider needs to be shown. Also there are issues about the boy spending the money inappropriately.

 Unless the OP has a really fine-tuned understanding of where the boy is in life, giving him a "directed" gift, intended to "broaden his horizons" or give him a life experience he might otherwise never have, has a sketchy chance of succeeding. Take a bicycle for example. Great idea, except in many rural communities many teenage boys are well past their bicycle riding days, buzz around with their buddies on motorcycles, and would be mortified to be caught dead on a bicycle. A bow and arrow set? What happens if he ends up taking some kid's eye out with it? Whose fault is that going to be?

If you're only talking about a few thousand baht, give the money to the mother maybe suggesting to buy him some food, new clothes or school supplies. I give food gifts to a neighboring family fairly regularly, but would be extremely hesitant to give the gifts directly to the children, even though most of the gifts are intended for them (baked goods, fruit).

Nice thought, but not sure if giving the gift directly to the boy is advisable. My advice would be to give the cash to the mother and let her decide how best it could benefit the boy.

31 minutes ago, Bday Prang said:

So now you are effectively accusing me of lying, but if this it what it takes to shut you up then so be it. I couldn't find an empty bottle of easily recognisable (for you ) sang som as the recycle man cam this morning so I included a bottle of Thai cooking oil hope that is acceptable proof of my location. dated piece of paper as requested

 

 

now feel free to go forth and multiply
 

a. whatever that is, it's not the traditional spinach I was talking about; maybe heat resistant malabar spinach?

b. hardly looks "thriving"; looks like the plant has totally bolted in the heat; 

c. find it very hard to believe that whatever that is it's very appetizing (woody bitter flavor)

but thanks for sending the pictures

PS: where's the rest of your flourishing garden?

@Bday Prang

A way to settle this debate: post a picture of your vegetable garden which according to your accounts is "thriving" in this heat wave. Please include a sheet of paper in the photo with today's date on it so that we can all see when the photo was taken. A close up of the spinach patch and enough background evidence to show that the photo was taken in Thailand would be useful as well. Perhaps wait until tomorrow morning when the garden will surely look better than it does in the late afternoon sun.

39 minutes ago, Bday Prang said:

Vegetables, particularly, the spinach are thriving  thank you very much, likewise the fruit trees and  my cannabis plantation is also doing remarkably well.The recent hot spell seems to have been accompanied by a drastic reduction in the number of pests, and indeed mosquitoes, another plus in my opinion

  "Whataboutism"  not exactly sure what that means but it appears to be a phrase beloved of those who's arguments don't stand up so well to scrutiny, I class it along with other non words like "sealioning" and "gaslighting" as words spewed out by the blue haired and alphabet  communities and angst ridden teenage girls consequently i tend to ignore them

   "don't worry , be happy"   sound advice indeed, you should follow that advice and stop preaching to others.  I think I will have a joint now, and indeed a refreshing cup of tea,  why not eh?  Feel free to pour yourself another whisky, I won't make a pathetic attempt to criticise you for it

    I didn't know there were lemmings on Easter Island, are you sure about that , after all , as you say it was just  a "story"

Your vegetable garden is doing just fine in 110 degree heat? Give me a break. Spinach has an optimal growing temperature of  50-60 degrees. When you claimed your spinach was doing well, I knew you were full if it.

Appealing to people to stop belittling those who get by without air conditioning, and reminding people that its excessive use has an environmental cost is not the same thing as "berating" and "preaching" to others about using air conditioning.

Reread my post. The use of the word "lemmings" was in reference to people following the behavior of the person in front of them, or continuing to do something they've always done, ignoring the dangers of doing so. Lemmings are famous for running off cliffs in blind stampedes. I doubt Easter Island has any lemmings.

Your feeble attempts to portray anyone who is against cannabis tourism as a "must-be" alcoholic never cease to amuse me and reflects poorly on your reasoning skills. I have never been a heavy drinker, and have not touched a drop of alcohol in close to 10 years.

Just now, charleskerins said:

no ac   damn

yet, here I still am 😃

deleted

19 minutes ago, Bday Prang said:

I agree keeping ones overheads as low a possible is common sense. No point in pouring money down the drain.   But with the likes of China India Brazil etc allegedly  pumping millions of tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere every single day, berating people here for setting their aircon a couple of degrees too low for a few moths of the year is pathetic and  expecting it to make one iota of difference  is laughable.

      It is an attitude like this that alienates normal people from the self obsessed climate change fanatics. Its actually a rather unpleasant form of victim blaming

Good grief. I see 'whataboutism' is alive and well on this thread. You pointing to other polluting countries, and the other guy pointing to Bill Gates' jets as justification for  continuing behavior you know is contributing to the problem.

You should read Jared Diamond's 'Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.' There's a story in there about how the Easter Island society died out. They think it's because people cut down the last tree, and were no longer able to leave the island due to a lack of canoes. The lemming 'keep on doing what you're doing, change is pointless' mentality is cited over and over again in the book.

Do you have a vegetable garden? How's it doing this year? What if there were power outages in Thailand due to inability of the power grid to keep up? Just buy a generator, roll another joint, and don't worry, be happy, huh? Good luck with that approach. I think you're gonna need it.

6 minutes ago, John Drake said:

 

Some even come with a punkha wallah.

A "wallah" is someone who flips the fan back and forth for you, right? I don't think I would be comfortable sleeping with someone sitting in the corner flipping a fan back and forth.

A woman reading under a punkah at her residence in Berhampore, 1863.

But perhaps I could rig something up where the operator was in another room. I can only imagine the look on my neighbor's faces if I offered them a job to be a punkha wallah for me. 

6 minutes ago, frank83628 said:

you mean pencil neck

He was referring to Congressman Adam Schiff, the former chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who showed great leadership and courage during the Trump impeachment hearings and who will soon be the next Senator from the great state of California, and who I am proud to say I voted for in the primary election, and will do so again in the November general election. 

Just now, frank83628 said:

hahaha, they hacked the dnc server, yeah ok then.. Julian Assange has already stated that those emails didn't come from Russia either. it was an internal leak, remember Seth Rich?
on a side note... how many elections have the US interfered in over the years? and now they're crying like they got picked on by big bad Russia!!!

Russian troll/bot. alert.

crazy like a fox

The Plaza accord, mentioned in the Politico article as a possible template for what Trump's policies would be, was designed to weaken the US dollar so as to make US exports more competitive in Japan. Japan artificially suppressed its interest rates in the process, causing all the capital that Japan was earning from its exports to go into the Japanese real estate and stock markets (because bond and savings yields were so unattractive) and created a huge bubble which burst in the early 1990's resulting in decades of deflation which Japan still hasn't fully recovered from. It's doubtful that after that fiasco, there are many countries out there who would enter into such a scheme with the US again.

I suspect the dollar's headed lower after the elections no matter who is elected.

Inflation is going to remain "sticky" for the forseeable future, which is going to tie the Fed's hands in terms of lowering rates. I don't expect any rate cuts between now and the election. The main drivers behind the inflation are deficit spending which is pumping trillions of "extra" dollars into the economy, as well as climate change which is driving food prices higher. Every indication is that under this "higher for longer" scenario, something is going to "break".  

My guess is that it will most likely be the banking system that is struggling to retain deposits, is sitting on trillions of unrealized paper losses on their bond portfolios, and is facing a looming risk of commercial property loan defaults due to reduced demand and valuations for office and retail properties due to remote working and on line shopping. Other likely potential "breaking" points could come in the housing market due to high mortgage rates cutting into demand or a drop in the stock market as investors realize that interest rates are going to remain high.

When that breaking point comes, the Fed is probably going to slash interest rates and when it does, the dollar is going to crater like we haven't seen in a long time. Were Trump to respond to the next financial crisis  by slashing taxes (probably mostly for the rich) or engaging in additional rounds of fiscal stimulus which would further balloon the Federal debt, this would greatly amplify the negative impact on the dollar.

As far as I can determine, the outlook for the US dollar going forward is poor. The occupant of the White House will have a huge impact on who will likely suffer the most as a result of the devaluation, but I don't see (m)any magic bullets to make this structural problem disappear. 

1 hour ago, Barnet1900 said:

The points you make are effective within themselves but I fail to understand why you keep treating this as a poor farmer burning his fields against the expat.

It was triggered by early posts on the thread suggesting that the deceased farmer deserved little sympathy. Presumably some of these comments were made by expats living in areas where smog from agricultural burning is at its worst. While I can empathize with their frustration with poor air quality, I found the suggestion that the farmer deserved what happened to him to be offensive.

Rice farmers have some of the lowest incomes in the agricultural sector. The man was elderly, as are many of the members on this forum. You would think more empathy would be shown towards a fellow senior citizen, and the disrespect for his humanity, in my opinion, bordered on racism. I live in a small farming community - not much rice is grown here - but many of the farmers are elderly, and something like a farmer getting caught  and dying in a field fire would have had a traumatizing effect on the whole community.

Everyone is assuming that what he was doing was illegal in his area, but it's not clear that this was the case. The news article references another instance of illegal agricultural burning getting out of hand and resulting in damage to structures elsewhere in Thailand , but burning ordinances are not universal in Thailand, and the article did not say that this particular farmer was breaking the law by burning the field.

The burning of rice stubble produces a tiny fraction of the smoke generated that a field of burning sugar cane produces. Even if a thresher came in and just harvested the rice grains leaving the stalks in place, the amount of smoke wouldn't be that extensive. At most, the stalks would be knee high, unlikely to cause a conflagration which the farmer couldn't escape from, which is probably why the police and his family are speculating that he had a medical emergency. I would also like to add that from personal experience I can attest that it is not that difficult to misjudge wind speed and direction when burning.

As I said in an earlier post, an indigent rice farmer in all probability has a fraction of the carbon footprint of the typical expat retiree zooming around in a gas guzzling SUV, sitting in air conditioned comfort in his house, leading a consumer oriented lifestyle, enjoying international and domestic travel and ordering stuff on-line. For someone leading such a lifestyle, when that lifestyle is made possible or at least subsidized in large part by the exploitation of local labor such as the deceased farmer's to ignore this truth and to also overlook their own contribution to air quality and environmental degradation was more than I could stomach. 

26 minutes ago, Brickleberry said:

 

I couldn't care less about the Farmer's carbon footprint. I do care that he was poisoning everyone with his thoughtless actions. Whilst it is sad that he died, I find it hard to have sympathy with the way he died - it is a sort of poetic justice really.  

Air quality. That's your issue. Got it.

Let's talk about your impact on air quality, shall we?

How many miles did you drive last year? How many air miles did you travel? How much electricity did you use last year? What is the thermostat on your air conditioner set at? How much trash did you generate? How much did you order from overseas? How much plastic trash and air freight carbon emissions did it generate? How did you dispose of that trash? Did you burn it? Do you recycle? Etc., etc., etc.

My point is that if you compared all the CO2 this farmer's activities and lifestyle generated over the course of a year, it would probably be less than yours. He probably didn't have air conditioning, drive an SUV, take international trips, order much stuff on line, use the internet or buy Bitcoin (all of which use a lot of energy), or generate a fraction of the garbage you do.

Still don't get my point? I'm saying look in the mirror.

15 hours ago, soalbundy said:

I admit I can be flippant on occasion. Of course if I saw something of the sort happening I would attempt to help. Impotent anger at farmers who cut and burn is the cause, laws aren't adhered to, there is nothing people can do. My wife doesn't have her extensive fields burnt, much of the straw is collected for the neighbours cows and buffaloes the rest is plowed back into the ground at next years planting. My village is surrounded by rice fields and yet I see no burning. I used to live in Chiang Mai and although the burning didn't affect me I knew people who did suffer and the smog was horrendous seen from Doi Suthep. One doesn't see farmers in Europe burning after a wheat harvest, there is obviously no real need to do it, perhaps the ash is a fertilizer or it's done out of tradition.

Appreciate the explanation of your perspective.

22 hours ago, Brickleberry said:

I'm struggling to find any sympathy for this man, or his family.

 

He was outside, burning his fields - causing a huge problem for everyone in society. How many more need to die or get sick before they finally crack down hard on all of these fire starting idiots?

Would be interesting to compare this farmer's carbon footprint to your carbon footprint. That goes for all the other Little Cesars on this thread as well.

19 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

He wasn't growing fish and chips was he, a hamburger, Spaghetti, roast pork?

Have to tell you SB, I am rather surprised by your flippant remarks on this thread. Perhaps I am misrecollecting, but didn't you write a while back about listening to early morning chanting coming from different temples during your early morning walks? It's an experience I've shared, and I attributed a certain sensitivity to you as a result. Would like to think I wasn't wrong in this assessment, but as I take another glance, your member name is spelled soalbundy, not soulbundy, so maybe I was just projecting. Do you not live in a community with elderly farmers? Is it that difficult to imagine a neighbor of yours meeting this terrible fate?