Gecko123

If he believed both victims had been mortally wounded, maybe he thought he had enough time to flee the country before the bodies were discovered.

Dated stereotypes and hackneyed clichés too numerous to mention. Interacting with bar girls does not make one an authority on village life. These days most foreign men and Thai women in relationships are more savvy and realistic than the article suggests. Couples with extreme disparities in age are also far less common than in years past. May I suggest an upcoming article topic: 40-50 year old digital nomads discovering that their dreams of supporting themselves by becoming a travel blogger or vlogger may not have been very realistic.

Comments from John Bolton quoted in below NYTimes article shred Trump's claims that the documents were declassified: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/14/us/politics/trump-documents-explanations.html Mr. Bolton, who served as Mr. Trump’s third national security adviser over 17 months, said he had never heard of the standing order that Mr. Trump’s office claimed to have in place. It is, he said, “almost certainly a lie.” “I was never briefed on any such order, procedure, policy when I came in,” Mr. Bolton said, adding that he had never been told of it while he was working there, and had never heard of such a thing after. “If he were to say something like that, you would have to memorialize that, so that people would know it existed,” he said. What’s more, he pointed out, secure facilities for viewing sensitive material were constructed at Mr. Trump’s clubs in Florida and New Jersey, where he often spent weekends as president, meaning that the documents wouldn’t need to be declassified. And if they were declassified, Mr. Bolton said, they would be considered subject to public record requests. He continued, “When somebody begins to concoct lies like this, it shows a real level of desperation.”

Let's face it, no matter where they're from, many retirees couldn't realistically repatriate even if they wanted to. And that was before housing and food inflation took hold. Here's another thing to consider: climate change is making water resources and food security concerns political hot button issues worldwide. There are projections that millions and millions of people will be under pressure to relocate due to climate change, and that process is already underway. That suggests to me that many countries will start limiting and becoming more selective about who they let across their borders. Don't assume Thailand will always have an open-door policy, because no one knows what the future holds. I'm not saying to get down on your knees and kiss the ground, but it might be in our collective long-term best interests if we were all more appreciative that Thailand is as hospitable as it is.

If he had swiped silverware from the WH dining room, perhaps. This is different.

There's an awful lot of evidence that's out in the public domain. The endless lying, the Mueller investigation evidence (which certainly did not exonerate Trump of wrongdoing), the January 6th committee evidence, tax and banking records in New York, Georgia election officials sworn testimony and recorded phone calls documenting Trump's behavior, the "top secret" documents seized during the execution of the search warrant at Mar-al-Lago. There's a clear pattern of conduct, more than enough evidence to draw conclusions about his character and integrity.

There was no love lost between Macron and Trump. Their relationship deteriorated early on in Trump's presidency and never recovered. Hard to believe the file on Macron was kept for sentimental purposes. On the other hand, Macron being a key supporter of the European Union, I'm sure Russia would have been very interested in any and all intelligence on him.

The rumors about the types of classified top secret documents recovered are very disturbing. If true, it is difficult to imagine what would have motivated Trump to take those documents with him after he left the presidency. It sounds like the primary value of that type of info would be to foreign adversaries. What use files of this nature would have had for Trump personally is hard to fathom. The man is a menace to America, freedom, democracy, and truth. He belongs in jail for inciting the January 6th riot, Georgia election interference, tax and insurance fraud in New York, violation of record keeping and espionage laws. There is a strong possibility that he has been compromised by Russia. Anyone still supporting this vile and corrupt man is a brainwashed fool.

Expats should be setting the example when it comes to traffic safety. Any steps to improve road safety should be applauded. If your Scottish friend is living here he should get a Thai driver's license. If he's truly getting fined on a daily basis, my advice would be for him to stop driving until he's gotten his Thai driver's license and taken a 4 week driver's training class. If OP is concerned about affordability of car seats, find someone who needs help buying one. Suggesting getting your windows heavily tinted as a way to circumvent enforcement of seat-belt laws is irresponsible. Heavily tinted windows are a serious safety hazard at night. Even though this editorial is anonymous, I've got a pretty good idea who wrote it.

Latest updates on this case summarized from Matichon and Nationtv news articles published 8/11/2022: Police have now narrowed the date of the killing to on or around July 17. The case is requiring a large amount of coordination with neighboring country officials. Overseas communication with deceased individual's family has also been necessary. Although it has not been 100% confirmed, the two deceased are now believed to have been in a romantic relationship. CCTV footage in the area surrounding the crime scene is being investigated, but has not yet been completed due to the large amount of traffic. Police now suspect that the killing may have a connection to major drug lords, specifically the transnational smuggling and trafficking of "ice." The reason for this is that a house in a neighboring country where the deceased individuals used to live has been identified as a transport house for drug smuggling. However, officials are still not fully convinced that drug trafficking is directly linked to the deaths, so further evidence needs to be gathered. The type of cement mortar used to conceal the bodies is being analyzed and police are in the process of trying to identify the manufacturer of the mortar. Regarding the firearm used, details about the barrel thread and slide frame cannot be revealed for fear of compromising the investigation. https://www.matichon.co.th/region/news_3500930 https://www.nationtv.tv/news/region/378882635

Would like to gently point out that all of the solutions proposed on this thread have drawbacks of one form or another: 1. (probably the best idea) Invade the space of the kids in the back of the room in order to get their attention and disrupt their activity. Drawback: kids up front lose focus and the rhythm of the lesson is disrupted. 2. Negotiate with the kids in the back of the room by allowing them to do whatever they want as long as they don't disrupt the class. Drawback: effectively abandons the goal of engaging them academically. Sends the message to the rest of the class that academic performance and effort is optional. 3. Throw them out of the class. Drawback: they may never come back, and when they do, they'll tell you, 'hey, you told us you didn't want us in class.' Undermines your moral commitment to their education. 4. Walk off the job if you don't get the administrative support you need. Drawback: completely disrupts the educational momentum of the entire class, including the kids who were fully engaged. 5. Use verbal methods to control the kids: cajoling, rewarding, threats, humiliation, shaming, ostracizing, bullying. Drawback: Can be more detrimental to the child's self-esteem and development than corporal punishment. 6. Enlist the help of home room teacher, principal, and parents to reinforce discipline. Drawback/limitations: That type of support is non-existent at many schools. They might come to your rescue on occasion, but if it's a chronic problem, you're on your own. Parental support is rarely an option. 7. Be such a wonderful and captivating instructor that the kids will eagerly look forward to your class, hang on your every word, complete every homework assignment, beg for extra credit assignments, applaud you after every lesson, and get perfect scores on all the tests. Wouldn't that be nice! I'm not, as some have probably concluded, an advocate of corporal punishment. Yesterday evening I tried to think back if I had ever hit a child in any of my classes, and I couldn't really recall any instance. I think I spotted an M5 student once who should have been in class lounging around in the hallway and shoved him on the shoulder back into class. On occasion I would use my thumbnail to apply pressure to the sensitive skin above a misbehaving kid's fingernail and give him a knowing 'I mean business' look. I never whipped, spanked, slapped, punched a kid, ever. But I very much sympathize with the occasional teacher 'caught on camera' engaging in less egregious forms of corporal punishment because I know the challenges they are faced with, and I also know that, more often than not, the alternative is complete capitulation and just going through the motions, and I don't believe that's preferable (from the student's standpoint) to the occasional judicious use of corporal punishment as a disciplinary tool. I believe that many of these teachers 'caught on camera' are actually some of the more dedicated and committed teachers in the school. Many teachers who will never find themselves being shamed on the 5 o'clock local news are just going through the motions and are comparatively disengaged from the students. I also know that the parent-student-teacher model for reinforcing academic values simply doesn't exist in many rural and underprivileged areas, and teachers are forced to step into a parenting role which does include teaching the child discipline.

Whoa! Ridiculing or joking about a teenage child's sexual orientation or inferring that a child might be gay (even in a joking manner) in front of their classmates strikes me as incredibly inappropriate and psychologically abusive. I'd sooner fire a teacher for doing that than for paddling someone's behind with a ping pong paddle.

It has not gone unnoticed that you're very dismissive towards anyone who doesn't fit your mold of proper teacher conduct. You resort to putdowns whenever you can't rebut counterpoints made about the realities of teaching in government schools. You keep questioning people's qualifications and teaching experience. In turn, I am starting to wonder how much time you've actually spent in the classroom, or whether you're just some former backroom school administrator trying to relive your officious glory days? If you were as truly concerned about student welfare and as experienced as you claim to be, you'd be offering specific and REALISTIC suggestions about how a teacher's classroom management skills could be improved upon so that corporal punishment would be completely unnecessary. For example, just a little earlier on this thread, one poster suggested a whole slew of conventional disciplinary steps a teacher could take as alternatives to corporal punishment. This was quickly followed by another poster who methodically explained why most of these suggestions lacked practicality in many Thai government schools. So my specific question to you is: what guidance can you with your presumably decades worth of teaching experience, and your walls plastered with early education and child psychology diplomas and teaching certificates offer to those so obviously in need of guidance about how to manage these classroom realities?

My next door neighbor kind of looks like this guy. Very affable and friendly, very disarming smile, but crafty as hell. Edit: But in fairness, those do look like very tasty premium jumbo prawns in the foreground.

Don't neglect the wardrobe.

For those dead set against corporal punishment, don't forget that a child can be verbally, emotionally, or psychologically abused as well. Belittling, ridiculing, humiliating, bullying, berating can sometimes leave far deeper scars than some forms of corporal punishment. And then there's what's probably the most rampant form of abuse of them all: neglect. The teacher can just ignore the kid, never assign homework, turn a blind eye to truancy, and at the end of the school year find a creative way to give them a passing grade, all the while never laying a finger on a child. If that's your idea of a good teacher, you're in luck, because there are plenty of teachers out there who fit this profile.

I'm not advocating corporal punishment or indiscriminately smacking and cuffing kids about the head and shoulder or whipping them. Everybody knows this should be an absolute last resort. But some of you sanctimonious Mr. Rogers types fingering your hari krishna prayer beads congratulating yourselves on your enlightened parenting philosophies are clueless about the realities of teaching in rural Thai government schools. Edit: @ThunglomI'm talking about you here. The sad truth is that if you're faced with the task of teaching somebody that has never learned any type of discipline, period, there probably is a role for corporal punishment, and if you strictly prohibit its use, the result is often going to be the complete academic failure of the child. And one other thing: I can tell that a lot of you that are passionately against corporal punishment are speaking from the standpoint of parents. Edit: @ThunglomI'm talking about you again here. I agree that corporal punishment should be rarely if ever used in the home, and it's usually a sign of parenting skill deficiencies when it is used often at home. But you have to remember that a teacher isn't dealing with just one child, they have a whole classroom to contend with. As nice as it is to pretend that there are always other options available, the teacher doesn't always have the luxury of practicing infinite patience, taking time outs, calling parent-teacher conferences, sending the kid to the principal's office, coaxing the child into performing better, or threatening to fail the kid in order to motivate better performance.

Bingo!

Actually I think it should be abundantly obvious to anyone who read my post that I've spent enormous amounts of time in classrooms.

These self-satisfied international school teachers need to climb down off their high horses. They're almost always teaching kids from high-income two parent households. The parents provide strong role models and reinforce the value of education for their kids. Going to a school where all the other students are similarly motivated provides additional reinforcement of these values. Parents attend parent-teacher conferences and monitor their child's academic progress closely. Another factor is that these affluent families have on average fewer children, so they are able to devote more attention and resources to the children they have. Teaching at such a school is a cakewalk compared to what teachers in rural and other disadvantaged areas have to go through. These teachers are trying to teach kids who rarely have two parents living in the household. Most are lucky if they have just one parent, as many are raised without either of their biological parents in the household. I was told once by the principal of my school that 40% of the kids at the school were in households without either biological parent present. The parent or guardian caring for the child often does not appreciate the value of education. In some farming households, education is not encouraged because the parents want the child to continue working the farm after the parents are too old to do so themselves. Then there is the issue of poverty which impacts nutrition, clothing, school supplies, and many other aspects of child development. Because of all of this, these teachers are often forced to juggle the nurturing role of mother, the disciplinarian role of a father, and still teach. These international school teachers may see themselves as academic elites, but I'll bet they'd be tearing their hair out by the fistful or whacking kids left and right if they ever found themselves having to teach under similarly challenging conditions.

Anybody who thinks Isaan is one big open-air brothel or that young woman will be eagerly throwing themselves at middle-aged and older foreign men is going to be sorely disappointed. Small villages/small towns: Forget it. I said forget it. Not going to happen. You think some cutie waitress is going to throw her apron on the floor and run off with papa Tommy Bahama with a rental car? Read my lips. Not going to happen. Most of the farm girls who end up working bar only do so after their teenage marriage fails. Usually they've got a child or two as well. They tend to be the prettier girls, but they also tend to be the less smart ones, and the lazy as hell ones. The ones who stay behind in the village are less attractive, but harder working, more dutiful wives with pleasant personalities, know how to cook, etc. So everyone's already married, usually fairly happily, with kids. Smattering of older divorced women and widowers. In most villages, there's a demographic wasteland of mid-20's to mid-45 unmarried women. In some rural areas there's an actual shortage of women; anyone even halfway attractive is snatched up on waivers, practically sight unseen. I see a lot of Thai men with women who are older than them, or couples where the guy is more physically attractive than the wife is physically attractive. People gossip like crazy in villages. In a village setting, no woman is going to be dropping her drawers for you out of fear of being labeled a Jezebel. Her reputation would be lost forever. Most of the people she knows she's known all her life. Someone who just shows up one day is going to be like a shape shifting T-1000, yeah, an alien, that word everyone bristles at. Whirlwind romances with foreign men are a dime a dozen down in Pattaya, but scarce as hen's teeth in a village. Larger towns and cities: Yeah, there might be co-eds thinking they can turn you into a side hustle, but if you're looking for a serious girlfriend or wife, it doesn't seem very realistic to me. Those girls have more options than they did in the past. Plus, what contribution does the predatory behavior of luring college co-eds into P4P arrangements make to Thai society? Oh, I forgot, you're financing her studies, you philanthropist, you. LOL. Shopkeepers, waitresses, bank tellers? Color me skeptical. Their free time is so limited. But then there's always 7-11 clerks, so please don't say I'm all negative. 555. You'll probably end up looking for companionship in one of these seedy karaoke bars or outdoor live entertainment halls which cater to mostly Thais customers, where the waitresses sometimes sit with customers, are older and oftentimes not very attractive girls, and some of whom have returned to Isaan after long stints in Pattaya or other red-light districts. What I guess I'm saying is I don't think Isaan wants or needs any roving p*$$y hounds masquerading as tourists.

Any time a Thai male commits a crime of passion, Aseannow's armchair sociologists are quick to label them pampered man-children who were never taught to self-regulate by their over-indulgent mothers. Pretty lofty Alpha male pronouncements, I must say. But yet, when something similar involving a Thai female occurs, our resident experts on Thai society suddenly draw quiet, seemingly reluctant or unable to offer any social commentary at all. Just sitting here wondering why that is the case.

Latest updates on this case from a Thairath News article published 8/5/2022: Information has been developed that before her death Ms. Nguyen Thi Van was in a relationship with a black man. No immigration records for the arrival of either Ms. Nguyen Thi Van or Mr. Anaebon Chika Henry have been found and it is now believed they entered the Kingdom illegally. Witnesses from the area reported seeing a gray bronze Toyota van, Bangkok registration, suspiciously parked near the burial site as well as a report of two men driving around the area in a black 4-door pickup truck, unknown registration, before the body was found. Police are expediting the checking of CCTV cameras in all routes entering and exiting the burial area. https://www.thairath.co.th/news/local/northeast/2464607

to speculate: to pursue truth by conjecture or thinking No developments over the weekend. Hoping for update today.