mfd101

People who use the word 'liberal' to mean 'Lefty' or 'Marxist' are WEIRD. 100% of the time.

Well, unless that represents a major change in the setup for long-term stays? No announcement that I've seen. My O/A retirement visa hasn't changed in the 8 years I've had it and there's nothing there about '5 years'! Just an annual renewal (for me next month), involving trudging around from bank to medical office and on & on. And, in my case, minimum 65K฿ imported every month.

That is of course rubbish. Mixing up 2 different things.

The thing about 'hierarchy' and 'equality' is that, ironically, you need both. Hierarchy follows from the fact that you can't govern a country of 70+ million people without 'organisation' and 'administration'. There's always going to be 'leaders' of one kind or another and at various levels, and - in modern mass societies - millions of 'followers'. It can't in PRACTICAL terms be otherwise. The nearest countries to reconcile the 2 in reasonable ways are small-but-modern countries like the Scandinavians or the Netherlands or NZ. And in Australia's case, lucky to have both a strongly egalitarian culture (traceable back to settlement by convicts) and great wealth. The issue is how the 'leaders' become and remain leaders and how they are moved on when their time is up. In countries where all power is narrowly concentrated at or near the top of a hierarchy, force is usually the only means of moving people on. As to the MORAL aspects, 'equality before the law' is the basic concept. This works well in modern countries but is always subject to traditional cultural attitudes (ie who is a 'better' or 'more valued' person than another and for what reason). Thus 'snobbery' or 'class consciousness' remains strong in some otherwise modern monarchies (UK obviously), and obsession with wealth (eg Usofa) is a modern blight on egalitarian concepts. Of the 4 countries you cite above, only India has much resemblance in all of this to Thailand, and that because of the caste system - that is, an unmoveable classificatory system having no useful bearing on quality or skills or anything else. In that it resembles also the UK. China however is different, because its founding ideology is one of equality for all, but the PRACTICAL problem of running a nation of over 1 billion people means that a ruling class gradually forms and perpetuates itself (lots of sons of famous fathers) and, through corruption, begins to misuse & steal the nation's wealth. There are no simple answers. Just lots of blood, sweat & tears.

Yes but it's more than that. It's about how you structure your society (eg hierarchy & how you organize it) and the general concepts of morality that go with that (eg equality of all vs hierarchy of status & power).

The UK spent almost 200 years reforming itself and generally getting its act together. And - as my remark above suggests - there's more than one institution at stake.

Because 'moving forward' can happen only with fundamental reform of all related institutions, something the affected parties cannot contemplate. It will happen one day at a time in the future unknown, when the stress becomes more than The System can contain. It's likely to be very violent.

Mmmm, I wonder whether Mossad is open to some after-hours work.

Never a dull moment in Thailand - politics, corruption, sexcapades ... What more could one want?

Better check your phone for explosives.

Mmmm, nasty but fascinating.

Obviously a top secret RTAF high tech development project. We should be careful talking about it or the CC may have something to say.

Clearly this is a splendid method for ensuring that all governments are composed of gentlemen (and even ladies) as pure as the driven snow.

Not sure about 'many'. A small minority, I would say, including the wife of one of my Khmer family's sons. Noone in the family can understand a word of it, despite its connections to Khmer.

And so the thousand-year history of the reunification of the human species pursues its merry way. Modern technology makes the process quicker and therefore easier or worse (depending on which end of the process you're at). Just about every country in the world faces the issues that arise. Lucky & wealthy ones - such as Australia , founded & prospering on non-stop immigration for over 200 years - cope mostly pretty well. Others less so.

Democracy - real democracy, not the pseudo b/s kind - is ALWAYS what's best for the poor and downtrodden people. It's their only way forward, if at all. For the rich, running a b/s version is best - as in most of the non-Western world and partly also in some parts of the Western world (Usofa?). For the middle classes it depends ...

So, does anyone have background knowledge on his activities & what he stands for? Has he spent time in prison for lèse-majesté matters? What political crimes have been committed against him? ...

Low turnout; bye-election; new PM ... Clearly PP have work to do for the big one when it comes.

Announcement: Trump resigns from race for the presidency. Goes in to hiding. Now that would be good: Kamala vs JDV.

In my b/f's village - Khok Salaeng in Phanom Dong Rak part of sth Surin - the old folk speak mainly Khmer amongst themselves. My MIL (age c80) also speaks rural Thai. My PIL (age 78) speaks Thai with a heavy accent and is much more comfortable in Khmer. Neither of them is literate in either language. Their offspring of multiple marriages (ages 60 down to my b/f at 35) all speak both Khmer & Thai and swap back and forth in mid-conversation as they choose. They are mostly illiterate or semi-literate in Thai only. Their older kids in turn mostly understand Khmer but seldom speak it and often refuse to do so, subject as they are to heavy nationalist propaganda at school. In other words, Thai Khmer is steadily dying out. Lao speakers are also common throughout south Surin but - if not in the towns - mostly live in separate neighbouring villages unless intermarried.

Unfortunately, because of 'Western' (specifically US & German) palpitations, it looks like it's heading towards compromise or a Korean standstill. With which noone will be happy. And both sides will be preparing for the second round in 3 or 4 years.

Over time the US has shown great capacity for reinventing itself. A capacity which gives continuing hope for the future and not just of the US, whatever the current mind-boggling problems might be. As his performance in The Debate suggests, Trump has no capability now for self-reinvention. He has nothing more to offer than what we all saw the other night. Which was pretty awful and - in my view - rules him out for the Presidency. But La Harris is learning & growing on a daily basis. Does that make her perfect? No. There'll be many a stumble but she'll grow in to the job and ... Well, we'll see. So the choice is between hopeless and hopeful.

Would have been fascinating to actually see it happening. (From helicopter likely the only way, I guess. Given that it went on for 9 days, it should have been possible.)

In general I would say that having ANY unnecessary operation carried out on any part of your anatomy is crazy. Try the alternatives first!

I saw my first one of the season a couple of days ago. On past performance there should be 4 or 6 of them around each day for the next few months before they disappear again. Very beautiful and lovely to watch as they peck peck peck their way across the lawn-covered clay. I think of them as woodpeckers who are after a change of scenery. They certainly (at least to my entirely untrained eyes) look like woodpeckers.