mfd101

I'm not a conspiracy fanatic but, in the current situation in Europe, I can't help thinking: Russia trying out its systems? Poland and the Baltics next.

Nice to see police with a well-developed sense of humour. Good for us all.

Sadly, you may well be right. The golden age for 'Westerners' & their friends is over, everywhere. We need to get used to the rise of China and its bullying tactics - ruthless even by Usofan standards.

This is the key para. above. Pretty gloomy. Thank goodness we live in Thailand, so clever at twisting and turning in the breeze.

What is interesting is that you can have the whole project planned & mapped out & approved for years, but you're still negotiating land acquisition hectare by hectare years later even as the bridgework appears just around the corner ... Thailand, global hub of incompetence & corruption!

Yes, sad for Friends of Usofa - Oz & Japan & Taiwan & most of the Europeans.

Which - given that California has 40M people and Japan 123M - is astonishing. Japan still suffering the effects of 30 years of economic doldrums from which it does seem to be slowly emerging, though still struggling with aging population effects. As for California one might conceive of a day when the Far West secedes from Trump's Middle America ...

Sorry, which war was that? WW2?

Really? Why?

Yes. It's not for nothing that 'Nazism' stands for National Socialist German Workers' Party or 'national socialism' for short. And Stalin's slogan was 'Socialism in one country!'. See any link? Apart from that I can't help thinking - as a non-Usofan - that Eco's list describes pretty well a VERY widespread culture infecting many many Usofans.

Interesting that the Palestinian reps are also objecting to the ICC's jurisdiction ...

Yes, my b/f - now 35 - went to school for the first time at age 10, and for one year only (during which he learned to spell words out painfully slowly in Thai - Khmer was his main language). On his first day he turned up stark naked, having no clothes and no food. Teachers had to run around to find him a pair of shorts ... That was 25 years ago. I guess it's a bit better now in general, certainly in his large family as I supply the needy. But there are probably many kids no better off today than he was then.

Thanks. I'll check them out next time in Lotus or Tops.

For the 20% or 30% of the population who have basically no income at all or so small you wouldn't notice, paying for scouting uniforms is an impossible or painful and completely stupid imposition by corrupt bureaucrats and politicians who have no idea what poverty is like.

I wasn't aware of that. Name? Availability (eg Lotus)?

The sensible approach would be to ban Nestlé from using the word 'coffee' to describe its products.

Full of sugar. You'ld do better with Australian.

Thailand needs to learn to expedite justice rather than having cases drag on for years or even decades. Firing squads at dawn could be a useful innovation.

Probably not. Western racism & condescension at work.

(1) Swivelling to the Swedes. Don't need the more expensive F16s any more. (2) Negotiating on tariffs. (3) Combine (1) and (2), et voilà!

So the wheels keep turning.

I am shocked. I'm going to have to make my second short black of the day!

All non-Usofans everywhere need to be adjusting their attitudes and thinking about the state of the world and its evolution for the next, say, half-century. Uncle Sam declining economically & strategically, and not just relative to China but absolutely, and that's not going to stop when Trump leaves office (whenever he does). China on the rise, the new top dog in the pack. And though it won't be all smooth for the Chinese, there's nothing obvious that is going to stop that rise. The US & Europe are already falling behind in many areas of technology. The Chinese social and construction developments (trains, bridges, AI in daily use ... ) are breathtaking. For this Oz, an interesting process of world-view adjustment is under way.

Lovely uniforms and impressive rows of medals but. Clearly more attuned to wartime duties than to running an economy and reforming a nation's culture.

Not a list that gives one much confidence in their ability to ensure sensible management - including technical functioning - of the airline.