milesinnz

"Webster said their travel agent managed to arrange three additional nights of accommodation in Thailand, but after that they have had to make their own arrangements".. is it really that hard to book accommodation yourself in Thailand ???

New Zealand immigration is sick and pathetic... you have to go through stupid procedures to do the online application. NZ is more like a third world country but the cost of an expensive first world country. I tried to get a visa for a Thai girl friend to visit - she has already visited me 10 years ago for 2 months. She has since been to Japan 7 times = NO VISA... so I will spend my money in Asia.. NZ is a joke of a country. An internet friend from Laos easily got a visa to visit a guy she met for only a few weeks - to Germany... absolutely no drama - I was really shocked at the difference.

She is Thai.. why is her residency or citizenship not revoked ? Western countries are really such a soft touch...

oh... do you take them intravenously or do you snort them ?

I guess you don't know that Alcohol is the most damaging drug to society ???? but then it would seem you don't care.. says a lot..

I wonder what happened to the submarine ? maybe it is a stealth submarine so we won't hear any more about it ?

i've not seen any "global outrage".. why is there no "global outrage" about the 2 MILLION Afghan refugees being thrown out of Iran - fellow Muslims.. and I read a similar number are being thrown out of Pakistan.. maybe it is because "outrage" only applies when it is a European country kicking illegal criminal immigrants out ?

"There's a specific concern regarding the discontinuation of requiring foreign arrivals to declare their Thai address on form TM.6"... Right, I have nefarious intentions, maybe some fraud, but I will put my correct address on the TM6 = Thai logic.....

Just call themselves a religion and they will be safe from any government action....

ever heard of 9/11 and Bin Laden.. ever heard of the 10 year war between Russia (USSR then) and Afghanistan. You care to explain why such events by Afghans are not seen in Russia ? Of course you will know nothing about the 2 million fellow Afghan Muslims being thrown out of Iran - do we see such events in Iran ? You clearly failed in history...

Can't wait for Thailand to boost tourism with "close ties" to North Korea....

and you can be assured we will not be told of the ethnicity nor the immigration status of these "nurses"...

The consequence of the entitled arrogance of the established Parties, who refuse to listen to the People...

I had virtually no family from when I was about 10. The story was enough to give a psychologist a full blown breakdown right in front of me. He was covering his face as he was balling his eyes out - so I quietly got up and left the room. I don't really feel that sorry for myself as I have met many people much worse of than me - and they did have family. As younger people we all need mentoring and usually that comes from psychologically healthy parents - but it does not have to be them. I regret there was no one just to give me a few hours of advice and how different my life would have been. Now at 70, I seem to spend all my time mentoring others - and here we are mostly talking adults. I support some long term prisoners in NZ - as a mentor more than anything else. The crazy thing is, when I was a teenager, all I wanted was a girlfriend. Now in my old age - I am surrounded by girls - and no, it most certainly is not for money. I even have a 7 year old Khmer daughter. She is the only person I will call my family. I choose to remain "non family" even when I get offers all the time to be part of someone's family. I have to say for all their good intentions, I do not trust them if the chips were down. I write on crime, social issues and psychology. I am constantly learning. And it has just occurred to me that western children when they become older, as in mid teens and later do tend to have unrealistic expectations of their parents. They expect their parents to be "perfect" and when they are not, they feel they have been cheated. I do see a lot of lonely people in social forums. I think they are often consumed by fear, fear of (further ?) rejection and thus so not try to reach out to people on a very personal level - which means exposing just who you are - and hence they will stay the way they are. When I am trying to teach "my prisoners" how to be heard and express themselves, and they start to do it, and I have to point out where they need to improve, I remind them that it has taken me 25 years to get the communication skills I have and for them not to expect to get there in two years. Another point I like to make is "we spend all our lives learning the lessons we need to learn, then we die and the next generation have to start all over again".. crazy eh ? but then we are only random cosmic accidents made from star dust to which we will return...

maybe he should be cremated in Thailand and have his ashes scattered where he was living out his dream ?

there is a difference between socialism and social policies (support for the poor).. Immigration is what has destroyed Europe and I cannot see it helping the US... those on the left have supported immigration for all sorts of bizarre reasons and their justifications are factually incorrect. But going back to Thatcher/Reagan, immigration worked well for them as it broke the unions - excess supply of low skilled workers who are desperate to work - exactly what exists now. So those of the left and the right were happy and still are happy with immigration no matter what the longer term social costs are. Germany is now paying the price for this policy. We also have some sort of social idea that we must not upset anyone - I have caught chatGPT out on this where in one sentence it, quoted mutually exclusive terms and when I pointed it out.. it throws out a meaningless apology, then repeats the same nonsense again - very dangerous - just goes to how dishonest the bias is, which is programmed into it. But at a live person level, those of the left and the right play the same game to appease their voting base, then do what they (the leaders) own agenda dictates..

I put a question to chatGPT "what is the probability of a Great Depression 2". Initially it replied 50%. But chatGPT is programmed not to offend and upset people so - I cannot remember the exact words, I challenged it with facts, then it changed it's view to 90 to 95%.. and apologizing and gave some sort of explanation as to why it does not look at facts critically which I had forced it to do... chatGPT does carry with it a lot of social dangers if you just take what it says uncritically.. but the one thing it cannot do, is to run away - so you can bring it to account and get some sort of "real" answer. I listed the many similarities to the 1929 Great Depression. Some are quite striking like the introduction of AI. The introduction of the tractor in the 1920's led to a huge loss of jobs as horses were no longer needed - not unlike the manufacturing changes we are seeing now. Nothing needs to be said about the dangers in the financial markets particularly with the very very high levels of private debt... so an economic storm in Europe would be par for the course - and it will not only be Europe. Of course many less than first world countries are already in economic hurricanes.. South Africa, Pakistan, most of South America and and other parts of Africa...

I don't know who paid in the end.. I was eventually handed to my Banks Visa department. They told me to contact Visa International (gave me an email address), then I got my refund - but it could have been the Visa International department of my Bank - I don't know for sure - but I kept the email address !!!

I wonder how make people are aware of credit card "charge backs" ? I have only used it once on an Aliexpress purchase where they sent like xxx size and clearly it was not even M ... contacted my Bank's Visa department - seems most people at the Bank did not even know what I was talking about, then sending me in a few circles - but I got my money back from Visa. I don't see why this would not work with someone like AirAsia ?

"exercise caution in areas with large Arab populations due to a climate of hostility and potential danger". It is the duty of the Police to REMOVE this danger. Perhaps send them back to where they will feel less "hostility".. I wonder how Europeans would get on in Arab states if they exhibited anger and hostility.. would the leaders of Arab nations just warn fellow Arabs to be careful ?

This has only made the news because it involves mostly White attractive young females.. it is not an unusual occurrence in Cambodia and I expect the same in Laos. Perhaps there needs to be more education of tourists to the dangers in these countries - but I doubt if that will change anything viz tourist motorcycle accidents in Thailand. If people really want to remain blind to the dangers of these sorts of destinations then they cannot be surprised when things do go badly wrong. There are thousands of cases of Malaria and it can be fatal. Then there is Dengue fever..

guess it could be safer than on the roads in Thailand...

The religion of peace at work again.. Just remember, Hamas = Iran as does Hezbollah = Iran... be very careful who you back...

as far as I know, Thailand is not signed up to these.. time for European countries to withdraw.. they are no longer fit for their original purpose... the US could withdraw as well.. that should satisfy you ?

I think this should be the first deployment of the new Chinese submarine... they can dig a big hole...