rickudon

The Israeli propaganda machine is in full swing.

Gave up cigarettes at 24 years of age. Never a heavy drinker, soon learned that too much alcohol made me sick, not drunk. Maximum amount of beer in a day is about 2 and a half pints, or half a bottle of wine. But go weeks without drinking alcohol at all, I only drink on social occasions. Rarely drink wine now, too expensive in Thailand.

Yellow book and pink id - waste of time, not needed them in 14 years here. Local amphoe wanted lots of docs (expensive to get authorised), my poo yai baan (not a friend of our family) and a bribe - I said no way.

It was recently announced that by 2030, 99% of information on the internet will be fake thanks to AI. I suppose we will still be able to rely on Truth social? 🤣

Utter rubbish. Only the first paragraph is close to truth. Rest a total misrepresentation. CO2. During the glacial periods CO2 levels were sometimes below 200 ppm, In Interglacial periods, CO2 did nor rise above 300 ppm, over the past million years. Humanity seems to have done quite well before the Industrial revolution, population grew from about 5 million at the start of the interglacial to around 700 million in the 18th century. All that farmland we would gain in Canada and Siberia? we would also loose a lot of existing farmland in Africa, the Mediterranean (both already happening) and probably many other places. Some current ecosystems would collapse (e.g. coral reefs). There would be less land (sea level rising). As for China, totally wrong, CO2 emissions will peak by 2030, actually there is a 50/50 chance it will happen in 2025. Chinas aim is to be Carbon neutral by 2060 (not dissimilar to the USA, and that is without Trump screwing it up). Instead of watching stupid denialist tiktok and youtube videos, try actually doing some proper research

I looked at those flimsy Y shaped concrete supports - and wonder how easily they would fall down, let alone the road on top. And how good are the foundations. Here in Udon Thani they built a new flyover on the ring road, supports are much more massive. It was built to last.

Never had this problem, in Thailand or the UK. Seems like they have rotted. Have you tried washing them? They will last much longer!

The reality is, that if at the next election the vote shares are similar, the Liberals will be the king makers

Putin thought he could overrun Ukraine in 2 weeks; he wanted all of it. if he had it would have been a fait accompli and not much the west could do about it. In 1993 Russia and Ukraine signed the Budapest memorandum, giving up its nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees and territorial integrity. Ukraine has been an independent state for over 30 years.

Nothing to do with Labour. It was a Conservative government that failed to ensure he was locked up indefinitely. Do not see why he cannot be stripped of his UK citizenship and sent back to Libya, as he was born there.

All seats other than the 50,000 discounted ones will now be 20-100% more......

Has not been mentioned - how about setting up an annuity or a private pension in her name. She would get a monthly payment and hopefully if setup correctly she would not be able to cash it in to give away.

Obviously countries which did not agree to join the ICC fear the risk of their subjects being prosecuted. Up to them, but it doesn't mean that the ICC cannot issue arrest warrants for their citizens. Eventually some will be caught.

Scale of destruction in Gaza. The scale and pace of destruction and damage of buildings in the Gaza Strip ranks among the severest in modern history,[908][909][910] surpassing the bombing of Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined during World War II,[911][912][913][ah] and included apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, religious sites, factories, shopping centres, and municipal infrastructure.[913] As of January 2024, researchers at Oregon State University and the City University of New York estimated that 50–62% of buildings in the Gaza Strip had been damaged or destroyed.[915][916][ai][aj] The damage to buildings in northern Gaza reportedly exceeds that in Bakhmut and Mariupol in the Russian invasion of Ukraine,[912] Aleppo in the Battle of Aleppo,[908] and Mosul and Raqqa in the War against the Islamic State.[908] The 29,000 munitions Israel had dropped on Gaza in three months exceeded the amount (3,678) dropped by the US between 2004 and 2010 after its invasion of Iraq.[919] According to satellite analyses, 68% of roads, 70% of greenhouses, and nearly 70% of tree crops have been damaged or destroyed.[920] After a year, the UN estimates that a total of 42m tonnes of rubble clutter the Strip, to clear and rebuild which might take 80 years and cost over $80bn.[921] An earlier estimate worked out that 300 kilograms of rubble on average existed per square meter of Gaza.[922] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel–Hamas_war#cite_note-174

Ok provide a reliable source. As far as i am concerned, any Israeli government source is not reliable. You know, they do actually lie sometimes (maybe a lot.). There is a reason they will not allow Foreign journalists and many others into Gaza. I believe the UN more This a UN update from May- https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-168 Another UN report - https://www.axios.com/2024/11/08/un-report-70-gaza-dead The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/17/gaza-publishes-identities-of-34344-palestinians-killed-in-war-with-israel

Energy minister is being paid off by the fossil fuel companies; sack him.

I'm a British pensioner, so business and first class are out of the question. Price is important, but not the only factor. A380 preferred as less engine noise and less turbulence. I like Emirates (A380) and food quite good, have Cointreau in stock and hundreds of films to watch, Like a wine for dinner and a liqueur after. Aisle seat as at my age toilet is important. What to do on flight? I watch films until tired, doze a bit (never sleep). take a book but read only sometimes. inwardly laugh at all the passengers who get up and queue upon landing, and stand there for 15 minutes. Once the plane nearly empty, I getup and leave. Other important factors - timing. Availability of domestic flight to Suvarnabhumi affects getting morning international flights; Landing in the UK must arrive before transport out of London shuts down (for me. that means an arrival time before 9 p.m.), Coming to Suvarnabhumi it means no morning flight in the UK, as hassle getting to airport; also overnight flight better as then options for my domestic flight in Thailand. Arriving back this month all domestic flights were full, only expensive seats left (5,000 baht plus!), had to overnight in Bangkok and catch early morning flight next day, which was a pain. Time they put more domestic flights on.

Netanyahu is not a credible source. He claims 14,000 civilian deaths in Gaza, and that only half the dead are civilians. But various, VERIFIED sources all claim that the 43,000 plus death toll is credible, and 70% of the deaths are women and children. That the remaining 30% are all Hamas is laughable. This total does not include bodies buried under the rubble which are unreachable without heavy machinery, those who have died of ill health and being unable to access medical care due to IDF destroying most hospitals, and those (mainly children) who have died of disease and starvation due to Israel denying most aid deliveries. Also, the Russian war in Ukraine, for the last 2 and a half years, afflicting a population of 40 million, has only resulted in 12,000 civilian Ukrainian casualties. Even Russia cannot kill as many civilians as Israel does.

Back to the original post, yes, hard for graduates to find Jobs. My Thai nephew finished technical college in 2019, and was promised a government civil engineering job, but told had to wait for new year when they would have funding for the post. Then Covid. Job never happened. He spent 3 years killing chickens for his Dad part-time, apart for a few months doing some dodgy online computer stuff ( I think it was for an online gambling site). Finally got a job in Bangkok end of 2023 using his qualifications. Two nieces both did accountancy, elder one got a good job, the younger one got exploited by employer who demanded overtime every evening and never paid for it, also often not paid on time. In the end just left and got a shop job. I do agree too many do crap degrees with little chance of related work. In the UK graduates also find jobs hard to get. These days often need to do over a hundred applications to get a decent job. Son had a first Batchelors degree and then a masters from Cambridge, still took him a couple of years, eventually became a civil servant (but not in his speciality). Now, with a 3 year University degree costing you 50,000-60,000 GBP, then taking 20 plus years to pay off, it is questionable if a degree is a sensible financial decision, except for a few subjects.

Lockdowns where a tool, and if used correctly helped slow the spread of the virus and hence deaths. We should bare in mind that the most draconian lockdown happened in China - and was very effective in stopping the virus. Air travel was responsible for a lot of the spread, should have been curtailed earlier - not stopped, but all travellers quarantined. The question is - no lockdowns may have caused the collapse of health services, and even greater numbers of deaths, but come at an economic cost. What price on a life. As for which countries did best - hard to tell - the collected statistics for most under developed countries probably missed most cases, and in the first year many deaths were not recorded as Covid, but implied by excess deaths usually twice as high as recorded deaths, As for USA and nearly all of Europe, death rates were fairly similar - usually over 0,3%, with some Eastern European countries over 0.5%. So nothing these countries did got better results than neighbouring countries. Australia and New Zealand, due to shutting down air travel and applying selective lockdowns, did best at 0.1%

Somewhere in hi-so land, some people are jockeying for power. Will we ever know the details?

Ok. some data. CO2 levels have risen by about 60 ppm in the last 25 years, or about 17%. At the current rate, that means 600 ppm by 2100 and 1000 ppm ppm before 2200. At 1,000 ppm breathing starts getting difficult and strenuous activity becomes difficult. Methane (CH4) - the second greatest cause of warming - this tends to increase somewhat erratically - average of about 10 ppb per year, but sometimes goes down, or up by as much as 20 ppb. At the beginning of this millennium , it hardly changed over 5 years but then shot up again. 40% of methane comes from natural sources (typically wetlands) and 60% is caused by man. Agriculture is responsible for 50% of man made methane, but in reality reducing such emissions is problematic - lower productivity and if land is returned to nature it would still emit some methane, The main non-agricultural source is fossil fuel extraction - and fracking is a big source. The Obama administration made cutting methane releases a legal requirement, but the fossil fuel industry in USA objected - and legal requirements were reduced or scrapped under Trump. Fracking and lack of methane emission controls may be behind the current surge. Finally, the genie in the bottle - methane release from frozen Tundra and methane clathrate could rise rapidly as the arctic warms up. If all the methane was released, we would see temperatures rocket to levels which would cause a global extinction event (think Permian extinction). Climate change (i.e. weather). The world is already experiencing more extreme weather events - category 5 Hurricanes, more intense rainfall (Spain recently experienced this, over 200 people dead and massive damage to infrastructure), droughts and heatwaves. This will damage agriculture, infrastructure and cost lives. These events are already causing billions of dollars in losses every year, maybe one trillion will be peanuts in the future. So no complacency please. Sea level rise - ok, only about 3 mm a year - doesn't sound like much. As water warms it expands, and of course ice sheets and glaciers melt faster. But slowly it increases rates of coastal erosion - we need more coast defences, or managed retreat - both cost money. These are just direct effects. The synergy between the different elements may cause unexpected, or shall we say undesired outcomes - mass migration, war, new or growing disease outbreaks.

Obviously you did not read it.

Ok. and the link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Israel–Hamas_war#:~:text=As of 5 November 2024,including 179 employees of UNRWA.

Ok, do you deny the deaths or claim other wars killed more?