mfd101

So she says the new election is "a huge miscalculation". On who's part, I wonder? Or perhaps what she meant to say was: "Woops, I've miscalculated".

18 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I liked the 60s/ 70s. No unemployment to speak of, everyone could afford a house if they worked hard and state houses were available for those that couldn't. Sod all pollution and the skiing was better. Public health actually meant that too. Cars were real unlike the crappy lookalike consumer junk we get shafted with now,

Globalisation hadn't been heard of except in scifi, and the music was sooooooo much better than the garbage they put out now.

I could go on, but what would be the point.

Yeah, and the 1965 Holden was SO much better than a 2017 Mazda!

And no computers for us to exchange views on (come to think of it, not a bad idea!)

Beggar thy neighbour and bugger the consequences!

The one thing noone can do, short of nuclear war, is stop globalization - which is the product of demography and technology, things that noone has control over. [Oh yes we can! Forward to the 1960s! Yippee!]

All this is about globalization and the reunification of the human species: If you want peace and prosperity for all human beings, then you have to accept that people in poor countries have the right to sell their products on the world markets and that means that the products made by people in rich countries, to the extent they are the same product, are not competitive. Raising tariffs doesn't make the rich country's products competitive: it simply makes them more expensive for all consumers in their own country.

Meanwhile, who cares about the poor people of the world struggling to sell their products in fair & open competition? (the only way out of their poverty!) Oh no, lets raise tariffs & then we'll give the poor people aid funds to help them out of their poverty! What kind of sense does that make?

There is no easy solution to all of this. The theory is that the rich countries should move their production of goods & services upmarket to areas where the poor countries can't compete. But that's the kind of ratrace that Oz is not too good at ... though, of course, 'services' (education, health & finance) now make up easily the largest part of the Oz economy (as they do in UK & US).

Visiting vs Living in: 2 different experiences & attitudes.

2nd round: Macron vs Mélenchon? [in which case Macron wins] ...

3 hours ago, steven100 said:

Is that why they let TELSTRA place their call centres in the Philippines, costing thousands of Aussie jobs    ??????

 

Is that why they let NBN use Indian staff in India to build their jobs on computer,  costing thousands of Aussie jobs     ??????

 

Absolute hypocrites   ........       they make me sick   

You want things in Oz - goods & services -  nice & cheap? Buy from o/s or from service providers o/s [cars, computers, clothes, solar panels, smartphones, dentistry, health care ... ].

You want everything cheap & Oz? Buy Oz! [um ... coal, uranium, iron ore, wheat, gas woops no not gas, electricity woops no not electricity ... ]

The only people who objected to the 457 visas were the unions who thought it threatened their lurks 'n perks. The fact is that most 457 foreign workers were working in jobs that Aussies don't want to do (eg seasonal fruit picking). So now there will be legitimate screams again from small employers across the country saying they can't get workers for this or that job ...

Sanders would of course be considered 'right-wing' in France. To compare him with Mélenchon is ridiculous. The latter would certainly be considered a Communist & therefore untouchable in Usofa.

Well, currently Macron is looking like he may have peaked a bit early ... but there are so many 'undecideds' & likely 'abstainers' that any prediction on the outcome of the 1st round is now impossible.

1 hour ago, webfact said:

"It would be an earthquake if we were represented by anti-Europe candidates. We can't take this risk, we're nothing without Europe," the former Socialist voter added.

How true. And, in Britain's case (or maybe it will be Little England's), we shall see.

33 minutes ago, Will27 said:

It would be preferable to have a letter of employment but it's not a deal breaker.

 

Your wife is going with you to visit Australia and you she will be returning with you back to Thailand.

It would be a different situation if you lived in Oz and she lived in Thailand.

Entirely agree.

That's true but it would be naive to think there's much distinction of substance between 'Communist' & 'Fascist' - both are about putting the walls up, leaving the EU, rewriting the Constitution and achieving all that thru demagogy, populist referenda & ever higher (for France) levels of government intervention in all areas of life.

(1) Do it yourself. Stupid to pay agents (who may be incompetent or dishonest). Given the details of past visit & current employment, should be no prob. Dealing direct with the people at the Trendy in soi 13 Sukhumvit is probably helpful - they see you & she are nice, truthful, well-dressed, no b/s ...

(2) You're an Oz citizen returning home to visit family for 2 weeks. The fact that you now live in Thailand is not an issue. Your WIFE (with marriage cert) is accompanying her HUSBAND on family visit. Return air tickets might be useful but not essential (if she's already been once and obeyed the rules, there should be no trouble - the key is: Always enter on the date planned & LEAVE on the date planned). Not sure her bank balance (or yours) or her employment details at the hospital will help, but can't do any harm.

Yes, and only 'white' people need apply.

5 minutes ago, Kabula said:

Do your research.  Natural products are not as damaging as processed sugar.

Well, that's what the organic marketers would like you to think. That's why a bottle of concentrated but nevertheless fresh orange juice equivalent to how many oranges you might eat in a fortnight is really good for you ...

Like the Thais who think that if 1 antibiotic pill is good for you, 2 or 3 at a time must be even better, and why not take the whole bottle now?

20 hours ago, Kabula said:

Green tea has many health benefits.

 

People who are awake don't add sugar, but opt for Organic honey and a little lemon juice.

 

Surgar and artificial sweetener which is worse, is in most processed foods and drinks including milk.  Catchup is loaded with sugar.   I avoid all processed foods and all sugary drinks.

But honey is sugar. And organic honey is, um, organic sugar.

Well, he says he's on an Oz military pension. If I were him, I would want to do the job in Oz to ensure my wife inherited her bit without any problems after my death. But it may well work just as well with a marriage in Thailand ...

(In my case, because of the gay bit, there wasn't much choice but to do it in Oz. My partner will get 67% of my CSS pension for the rest of his life, and he's 40 years younger than me ... )

As far as I can understand his query, it's about getting married in Oz, not about getting married in Thailand. So what's all this stuff about the Embassy?

I married my Thai b/f in Canberra in 2013 (Certificate of Civil Partnership). You don't need a celebrant or any ceremony if you don't want one. You just sign a document or 2 at the Births, Deaths & Marriages office then wait 3 or 4 days to collect the Certificate. To do that, you have to show birth certificates of both partners +, in my case, divorce certificate from a previous marriage decades before, and that was about it.

[For those who are insatiably curious & will want to comment endlessly, being a gay partnership in our case, it's not called a 'marriage' by the Federal government but is recognized as such by the Federal & State/Territory governments for ALL purposes other than the name (such is politics & generalized irrationality!) - tax, pension, health, welfare, inheritance ... ]

Hide inside as much as poss. If heat & energy levels permit, I might do some house cleaning. Read & load ebooks onto my site at librarything.com. Water the newly laid (turf) lawns - in the absence of constantly promised thunderstorms. Hop on the treadmill for slightly longer than usual.

Have done my New Year's duty today, with b/f, and paid my respects to PIL at the farm (40 km away - a minimum distance, I find, from the family including multiple alcoholic "cousins-of").

It's not impossible - if Mélenchon continues his late rise - that the 2nd round will have a Communist (Mélenchon) vs a Fascist (Le Pen) - a distinction with little, in my view, difference of substance, given that (1) Le Pen has been borrowing a range of policy proposals from the Left (2) both are anti-EU (3) both would achieve their France-alone aims by essentially demagogic & authoritarian methods (in Mélenchon's case, the overthrow of the 5th Republic with a new constitution).

This is where (potentially, for the moment) democracy ends up in the Age of Twitter & Facebook: a choice between suicide and a slow death. In this context the notions of 'Left' and 'Right' (Le Pen as 'far Right') have become meaningless. The real choices voters have to make are between various forms of authoritarianism (Left or Right) vs various forms of democratic liberalism ('centrist').

54 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

If he doesn't get the "dowry" ( is it called sin sod if for a man? ) back he must be an right idiot, and I don't say that just because it's for his boyfriend and not a woman; I say it because IMO ( and that of many posters on TVF ) it's barking for a farang to pay sin sod, especially for a woman that has children, and that is the case for many farang/ Thai marriages.

Did the guy do ANY research on Thai customs?

And what if he did it for the pleasure of it? the pleasure of giving to his partner's family, supporting people much poorer than himself ...

8 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Oy vey, you really really don't like gays! 

 

(Sad.) 

I suspect he's pretty down on homosexuals too!

The amusing thing in all this 'discussion' is that (1) it is conducted in a history-free bubble, as though such 'dowry' practices & variations were not present in all human societies including our own 'Western' societies not too many years ago, and (2) the use of the term 'dowry' is mostly inaccurate - we're actually talking about 'bride price' in this case. 'Dowry' is what the bride brings to the marriage - the physical assets & property donated by her family and negotiated with the husband's family as part of the marriage contract.

6 minutes ago, Destiny1990 said:

Well either u are trolling or a dumbass..

Well, thank you for those kind words but I really don't understand what your problem is. My paying a dowry is a problem for you? How? What inconvenience does it impose upon you whom I have never met?