RSD1

It’s an interesting question, but one I don’t really have a definitive answer for. A lot depends on what you value most in life, and I can’t think of a single country that checks every box. Ideally, you’d want to grow up in a place with a great climate, no extreme weather, beautiful nature, good food, low crime, a strong education system, no wars, no religious fanaticism, freedom of speech, a widely spoken native language, and a passport that makes global travel easy. Very few countries, if any, meet all these criteria. But if I had to pick, Switzerland and Spain seem to check more boxes than most.

Is that like "Just asking for a friend"? 🤣

Didn't forget it. I’d say illegal cannabis exports from Thailand to India are minimal. India grows more than enough of its own. In 2021, the seizure of 1,800 kg of ganja in Maharashtra suggests there is significant local supply already. India also has a much longer history with it, both culturally and agriculturally, than Thailand and the economics don’t favor high-volume smuggling there. Thus it would be much harder to turn a profit there with contraband cannabis from Thailand than in the richer countries in the world. Surely there's some going into certain niche markets there. But Thailand’s traffickers are better off targeting countries with stricter prohibitions, higher prices, or less local supply, think China, Southeast Asia and Europe.

Possibly at least 5X the size of the legal domestic market. Thailand’s main illegal cannabis exports are likely to: 1. Malaysia - Close proximity, strict laws, steady demand. 2. Singapore - High enforcement, high prices, regional hub. 3. Indonesia - Large population, harsh laws, maritime access. 4. Vietnam - Nearby, illicit networks, growing use. 5. China - Massive market, border proximity via intermediaries. Of what makes it to Europe; Spain, The Netherlands, UK, Germany, France.

Most people possess the ability to judge their political leaders with at least some level of objectivity, acknowledging both their strengths and weaknesses and to hold them responsible for their obvious missteps and poor judgment. Yet, Trump’s followers seem to exist in a bubble, a flawed hemisphere if you will, having abandoned all critical thinking faculties and surrendering their judgment to a man whose words and actions are accepted without question, even when he does things that clearly harm their own personal well being. Fact and fiction, right and wrong, consequence and reality, the things most humans hold dear and apply to various aspects of everyday life all become irrelevant in the face of their unwavering allegiance. Even when his policies drive up inflation, increase unemployment, weaken consumer protections, dismantle government oversight, harm allies, weaken political alliances around the world, or threaten economic stability, his base remains steadfast. Their loyalty is impervious to evidence, detached from rational self-interest, and more akin to prostrating themselves to a supernatural faith than what is viewed as a normal level of political support for a public servant. What drives this kind of devotion? Is it ideological? Psychological? Or is it simply the human tendency to seek certainty in an unstable world, even at the cost of not believing in truth itself? Such blind allegiance is not without historical precedent. The fervor surrounding authoritarian figures of the past, from the early days of the Nazi regime to the rise of countless demagogues, all followed similar patterns, merely an elevation of a flawed mortal into a near-mythic figure, beyond reproach and beyond reason. What makes this phenomenon particularly perplexing is that this is all unfolding in an era of unprecedented access to information, where deception should, in theory, be more easily recognized and exposed. Instead, we see a willingness, perhaps even a need, to embrace comforting fictions over uncomfortable truths. Alas, all authoritarian and political cults eventually collapse under the weight of their own contradictions, and this movement will be no exception. A few decades from now, perhaps even far sooner, it will be little more than a historical footnote, maybe even reduced to a largely forgettable meme. But for now, it remains one of the most bewildering spectacles of our time, a testament to both the fragility of reason and the enduring power of belief in something that brings more harm than good to humanity, unmoored from scrutiny or reality.

For me it's the bum guns, hands down!

Over 30 years ago, I used to hear locals in Bangkok using the word quite often. Nowadays, and for the last 15+ years, as education levels have risen in Bangkok, many locals tend to use a more polite three-word phrase in Thai that translates to “person of a different ethnicity” when referring to foreigners. Interestingly, I now mostly hear other foreigners using the word, and to be honest, it does makes me cringe every time.

disagree

Absolutely no clue what it means. Not only am I lacking in having a grasp of basic English language vocabulary, but my dictionary just broke down at the worst possible time. Please enlighten us with one of your usual lengthy posts filled with music video links from YouTube and various other assorted tangential graphics.

He operates out of the business center at The Street, the shopping center on Ratchada I believe, unless he's moved. Just check with Lloyd's first to be sure that they will accept a notary certification of the passport copy by a Thai lawyer who isn't registered with the The Law Society in the UK.

1,000 Baht. Done. https://bangkoknotaryservice.com/

Sounds almost like a suicide mission. Not too "sharp". https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/woman-arrested-phuket-airport-trying-smuggle-43kg-meth-luggage-singapore Woman arrested at Phuket airport for trying to smuggle 4.3kg of meth in luggage to Singapore A 65-year-old American woman was arrested at Phuket International Airport with 4.3kg of crystal methamphetamine, according to multiple reports. The woman, identified as Melba Geraldine Sharp from California, was reportedly set to board Scoot Airways flight TR653 to South Korea via Singapore on Sunday (Feb 23), according to The Phuket News. The methamphetamine, worth 1.29 million baht (S$51,500), was discovered after Sharp was flagged down during a routine risk assessment of passenger profiles, The Nation reported. Officers had received a tip-off about possible drug smuggling through the airport and an X-ray screening revealed suspicious objects inside her suitcase, Customs director-general Theeraj Athanavanich told media. While examining her luggage, police found four sets of bed sheets that were unusually heavy. Authorities opened them to find rectangular packages wrapped in multiple layers of brown tape, Bangkok Post reported. Chemical tests revealed the packages to contain the methamphetamine, weighing a total of 4.3kg. Sharp was then arrested and charged with attempting to smuggle Category 1 narcotics and illegal possession of methamphetamine under Thailand's Narcotics Code and faces further legal proceedings, The Phuket News reported. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act in Singapore, offenders convicted of trafficking, importing or exporting more than 250g of methamphetamine may face the death penalty.

Pollard Row bus stop in London. https://www.instagram.com/share/_dUPJTLz8

Hello London. The whole caper has a very Banksy feel to it. God bless him and the Pollard Row bus stop. https://www.instagram.com/share/_dUPJTLz8

Musk cutting off HIV funding support to Africa could cause over 6,000,000 deaths over the next 5 years (according to this clip), while causing a resurgence of the spread of the HIV virus globally.

Saw the Cars decades ago. Outdoor concert in a small tennis stadium. Listening to them play "Drive" in the rain. Wang Chung opened for them. It was epic. Sad that Rick Ocasek is no longer with us.

Yes, you could say that’s the case between Sukhumvit Soi 39 through to Thonglor, Sukhumvit Soi 55, or even to Ekamai, Sukhumvit Soi 63, the areas with the highest concentration of Japanese expats living in Bangkok. But this Japanese food phenomenon extends far beyond those neighborhoods. It’s everywhere. Malls, Silom, Siam, it’s Japanese food non stop. As for what some call “fake,” it’s really just locals adapting Japanese food to match Thai tastes. In many of these areas, it’s mostly Thais eating at Japanese restaurants, not Japanese expats. So naturally, the flavors evolve. You get a lot of garlic in the food, which you rarely find in Japan. Ramen broth tends to have more chili and spice. Sure, it’s not exactly authentic, but it sells, and locals enjoy it. Pizza in Thailand is no different. People pour lots of sweet ketchup on top of it, stuff fake crab meat that gets cooked into the crust, things you’d never see in the US or Europe. It’s not authentic, but it caters to local tastes. If restaurants didn’t adapt to local palettes, locals might try it once but wouldn’t come back.

Stay away from the main tourist corridors in Bangkok like Sukhumvit, or any of the other nightlife areas, and you'll never smell it in the streets again. DONE.

In my neighborhood, there are at least 10 Japanese restaurants within walking distance, but not a single Thai restaurant. That wasn’t the case around 15 years ago when I moved into the area where I stay. Back then, there were plenty of great Thai restaurants. But as rents went up, it became impossible to sell a 40 to 60 baht bowl of noodles and still cover costs. That’s when the local Thai restaurants started disappearing and everything started shifting toward Japanese food. Why? The basic ingredients are almost the same as Thai food; rice, noodles, a little meat, a little fish, and some vegetables. So ingredients cost is nearly the same for a locally owned restaurant. But add some Japanese décor, a name written in kanji, and suddenly that same bowl of noodles can be sold for four or five times the price. It’s a smart business move, and with landlords charging higher rents in prime areas, restaurants have had no choice but to start to sell food at much higher prices to survive. And it’s not just my area, it’s happening all over Bangkok. Japanese restaurants now outnumber Thai restaurants in many parts of the city center. Sure, you can still find plenty of Thai food in mall food courts and Chinatown street stalls, but in prime locations, most restaurants are now Japanese. It’s a shame it turned out this way. I’ll admit, ramen is fantastic, gyoza is great, and Japanese curry is tasty, but overall, I’d take Thai food any day, especially at a fraction of the price. Fifteen or twenty years ago, small family-run Thai restaurants could survive because rents were lower, and there wasn’t as much pressure to “elevate” casual dining. But now, with commercial retail and real estate so expensive, many of them have been pushed out. The reality is that Bangkok people just won’t pay higher prices for Thai food, especially for typical rice and noodle dishes. No matter how good the quality is, it’s still seen as common, so there’s a limit to what people are willing to pay. Unlike Japanese food, which locals often view as more premium, partly due to their general infatuation with anything from Japan, Thai food doesn’t carry that same perception, making it harder to justify higher prices. Restaurant owners have had to adapt by switching to a cuisine they can charge more for; otherwise, they wouldn’t survive. With that in mind, it seems unlikely that Thai restaurants will make a comeback in higher-rent areas and prime locations, even if they wanted to. Do you think that could ever change, or is this just the new Bangkok reality?

Bless you. 🙏🏻

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-doge-social-security-150-year-old-benefits/ No, 150-Year-Olds Aren’t Collecting Social Security Benefits | WIRED By Andrew Williams Feb 17, 2025 3:02 PM Elon Musk has repeatedly claimed that his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project had uncovered massive government fraud when it alleged that 150-year-olds were claiming Social Security benefits. But Musk has provided no evidence to back up his claims, and experts quickly pointed out that this is very likely just a quirk of the decades-old coding language that underpins the government payment systems. Musk first made the claims during his Oval Office press conference last week, when he claimed that a “cursory examination of Social Security, and we got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone that's 150? I don't know. They should be in the Guinness Book of World Records … So that's a case where I think they're probably dead.” While no evidence was produced to back up this claim, it was picked up by right-wing commentators online, primarily on Musk’s own X platform, as well as being reported credibly by pro-Trump media outlets. Computer programmers quickly claimed that the 150 figure was not evidence of fraud but rather the result of a weird quirk of the Social Security Administration’s benefits system, which was largely written in COBOL, a 60-year-old programming language that undergirds SSA’s databases as well as systems from many other US government agencies. COBOL is rarely used today, and as such, Musk’s cadre of young engineers may well be unfamiliar with it. Because COBOL does not have a date type, some implementations rely instead on a system whereby all dates are coded to a reference point. The most commonly used is May 20, 1875, as this was the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the Convention du Mètre. These systems default to the reference point when a birth date is missing or incomplete, meaning all of those entries in 2025 would show an age of 150. That’s just one possible explanation for what DOGE allegedly found. Musk could also have simply looked up the SSA’s own website, which explains that since September 2015 the agency has automatically stopped benefit payments when anyone reaches the age of 115. However, on Monday morning Musk doubled down, posting a screenshot of what he claims were figures from “the Social Security database” to X, writing that “the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!” The figures suggested that over 10 millions people aged over 120 were collecting benefits. “Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security,” Musk wrote. The database Musk took the screenshot from listed almost 400 million people, which is more than five times the number of people receiving benefits in 2024, according to the SSA’s own website. It’s also significantly more than the entire US population. The fact that the Social Security system contains millions of entries from people who are dead is likely distinct from a potential COBOL-caused error, and also not news. A report written by the SSA’s inspector general in 2023 found that 98 percent of those aged 100 or older in the Social Security databases are not in receipt of any benefits. The report added that the database would not be updated because it would cost too much money to do so.

Elon Musk’s recent assertions that individuals aged 150 years or older are fraudulently receiving Social Security benefits have been widely scrutinized and debunked. These claims stem from outdated records within the Social Security Administration (SSA) database, which, due to historical data entry practices and legacy systems, list numerous individuals as over 100 years old without corresponding death records. However, extensive audits and investigations have consistently shown that the vast majority of these records do not correspond to active benefit recipients. The presence of these anomalies is primarily attributed to administrative oversights rather than widespread fraud. Experts emphasize that while maintaining accurate records is essential, the issue does not represent a significant financial threat to the Social Security system. https://apnews.com/article/social-security-payments-deceased-false-claims-doge-ed2885f5769f368853ac3615b4852cf7

It's just a shame that Musk turned out to be such a dirty, bad actor. At one point he seemed like the golden boy. Now he's just Trump's golden toilet.

Dunno, let's get even further off topic. What about the price of tea in China?

Every month or two, another post like this one gets added to the pile talking about "the good old days" in Thailand. But, yes, the late 80s through the late 90s were a great time and Thailand still had a level of fun spontaneity that has since faded over the last 25 years. Back then, Bangkok was filled with amazing, affordable street food, temples everywhere were peaceful and uncrowded, historical sites upcountry were still fun to visit, and the islands retained a natural, untouched feel. The country was less commercialized and Westernized in general. Accommodations were incredibly affordable, and there was far less bureaucracy and formality in getting things done. Visa rules were much more flexible, and overall, there were fewer restrictions. The locals were more tolerant of foreigners, happier, and less transactional. There was also a stronger presence of local culture, vibrant nightlife, and an easy-going atmosphere. With no social media and no Chinese and Indian mass tourism, the place didn't feel oversold or commercialized the way it does now.