jas007

People don’t seem to understand what’s going on. The entire left/right thing and the possible slide into socialism or whatever isn’t the real issue. That’s just the narrative. That’s what they want you to believe. Trump is demonized because he represents a threat to the continuing flow of corruption money to the military complex and the war machine. Those people need a continual state of war. They assassinated Kennedy for the same reason they demonize Trump. Anyone who thinks I’m nuts should go and spend a few years inside the Beltway. Listen to the typical conversations at dinner. Listen to what people are focused on. It’s all about money. Take a walk through some of the parking garages near K Street. Every kind of expensive car you can think of is in those parking garages. The amount of money flowing through DC is beyond belief, and much of it is for “national defense.” And the USA has the best congress that money can buy.

There are some apps available to help. The general idea is that it can help to reduce stress. I originally thought it was just nonsense, but apparently, there’s a real measurable benefit. I’ve got an Apple Watch that tracks my health 24/7. I also have a couple of apps that expand on the analytics. Everything is tracked. Heart rate variability, blood oxygen levels, wrist temperature, walking, standing, sleep cycles. It’s a lot deeper than just those metrics, though. It’s worth looking into.

The real women can stop this nonsense anytime they want. The answer is simple. If a man is in the competition, they all withdraw.

Whatever the current nutcase crazy ideas are, those are her policies. If she’s elected, we should hope she’s just another puppet, with some intelligent advisors pulling the strings.

Voters don’t need phony government statistics to know the economy is in trouble. They pay bills every month. They go to the grocery store. It’s more than obvious. Anyway, the election is still a few months away and things aren’t looking too good. The question is, who to blame for the mess. The Democrats are still trying to blame Trump for everything. I’m not sure that will work, though. It’s Biden’s mess.

They did that for me as well, on my first visit to the eye doctor in Bangkok. It took about two minutes for both eyes. The capsule can become cloudy over time, so they do something with the laser to clear it up.

I haven’t tried making a call lately, but when I came back to Thailand this time, one of the first things I did was to change the SIM in my phone to a Thai SIM. So at that point, my U.S. number wasn’t connected to any real phone. But some business came up and I needed to make a call to the U.S. I think that’s why I added some money to the Google Voice account. Anyway, I made the call. It worked, even without a U.S. phone. Then again, maybe I’m not remembering things correctly. Edit: I just looked at my Google Voice account. The $10 I added to the account still shows as being there, so it wasn’t that. Then I looked under Settings in the account. Under the “Call” section, you can choose wi-fi calling. That’s how mine is set.

I think that to set up Google Voice, you need to initially have a real phone number. After that, at least in my experience, you can make Google Voice calls from other devices. Only case, the original phone number is no longer active, but my Google Voice still works. I think I recall adding some money to the account for some reason or another. Anyway, I get spam texts once in a while, but the service doesn’t seem to work for text messages.

So another few months until the election and then we’ll see. I think there’s no way out of seeing more inflation, regardless of who wins the US election. Trump doesn’t seem interested in controlling government borrowing. Ditto for the Democrats.

It’s probably a good buying opportunity, at least for some stocks. On the other hand, some stocks seem to be wildly overvalued, so a big correction seems about right. The official narrative for the sell off is that recent data suggests that the U.S. is now in a recession, or is about to be. How anyone didn’t know that long ago is beyond me. Lower interest rates = more cheap money = more inflation and further depreciation of the dollar. In that scenario, why not have stocks? Long term, stocks seem like a better deal than a continually depreciating dollar. As the saying goes, cash is trash.

Somewhere I read that the Fed or the U.S. treasury seems to think the US dollar should be about 34 baht. So, the recent price doesn’t seem too far off. Anyway, it’s all relative. Given the demand for dollars around the world, the dollar price is supposed to be fairly stable for the next four or five years. I hope that’s accurate.

Earlier today, I bought a bottle of wine for 989 baht. That same wine in the USA costs about $11. In other words, somewhere along the line there’s a huge markup. According to some websites I’ve seen, wine under 1000 baht shouldn’t be taxed at all, except for VAT. And if that’s the case, does it really seem that the price in Thailand is fair? If that’s the way it is, that’s the way it is. Maybe I should be trying some Australian wine? Or wine from somewhere closer to Thailand? South African wine? Thai wine? Is there a workaround? Decent wine in the US can easily cost $50. A really good wine, $500+. I don’t mind spending money, but surely, there’s an easier way.

Left wing farangs in Thailand? Who knows? Most of them are well and truly brainwashed and don’t seem to realize that the Democrat party in the U.S. is attempting to establish a dictatorship. Don’t like your opponent? No problem, do everything possible to throw him in jail. Don’t like the news? No problem, just use fake news and propaganda. And it seems to be working.

Harris = WWIII. That you can count on. The Deep State seems to be intent on starting WWIII, and Harris will no doubt be just the puppet they’re looking for to continue where Joe left off. Of course, from the looks of current events, we might actually get a global war during what’s left of Biden’s term. Anyway, if you value life on Planet Earth as we know it, hope Harris doesn’t win.

I go through phases, depending. There were times when I would have a drink or two every day. And then there were entire decades when I didn’t drink anything. I think it more or less depended on my life at the time. School, work, retirement. Location also mattered. Consider Pattaya. The entire city seems to revolve around restaurants and bars. Probably not a good place for an alcoholic. Big cities can also be like that. Bars and restaurants on every block. Anyway, I’m sure genetics plays a role as to the extent of any resulting health issues. My grandfather came from Europe and always had wine every day, and yet it never affected his health. I wasn’t around my other grandfather all that much, but he smoked and drank. Both of those guys lived to about 90. Actually, everyone in those families lived to almost 90. Some lived to be over 100. These are people born around 1900, when the life expectancy was a lot less. Good genes, I guess.

True alcoholics really do find it difficult to quit. I’ve seen the cases. Smart people, but they’re addicts. They can be in the hospital, on the verge of death, and yet they’ll check themselves out against medical advice and head to the nearest bar. And before long, the family has a funeral to arrange. I once worked with a guy like that. Smart guy. Yale law school grad, good career, millionaire, and yet alcohol was ruining his life. He somehow couldn’t stop. I think a lot of the problem stems from the culture. Some people can navigate through, others get tripped up.

Trump isn’t backing away from anything. He just said that he’ll wait to make arrangements with the Democrat’s official nominee.

You probably shouldn’t expect immediate results. Just be patient. After my first surgery, I couldn’t see much. I thought I was in trouble. But in a few days, my vision improved.

Did they do both eyes at once? When I had my surgeries, they were one month apart. First the right, then the left. The first few days after surgery are important. Wear the eye guard at night, use the drops like you’re supposed to, and don’t get your eye wet in the shower. If you go outside, wear sunglasses. You don’t want to screw this up. Within a few days, you should notice some improvement. Keep using the drops until they tell you to stop.

For what it’s worth, Amazon will send texts to a Thai number for verification purposes.

I sort of feel sorry for Joe as a person, and because of what they put him through. He was out of it, for the most part.

Don’t forget how “accurate “ the polls were in 2016.

Thoracic outlet syndrome?

For what it’s worth, Palantir doesn’t work the way you apparently think it does. They don’t know “everything about everyone.” That’s a common misconception. Palantir does not retain data. They make software that is supplied to customers. The customers are the only ones with access to the data. Anyway, the company was initially founded with money from the CIA, and much of what they do is classified. Let just say that they make the tools necessary for the government to know everything about everyone. Palantir now has a commercial side of its business and that segment is growing quickly because the world is waking up to the importance of AI and the use of large language models. They have no real competition and they’ve been working in the space for years. Fortunately, Wall Street does not understand the company, so the stock is still “cheap.” I picked up a bunch in the $6 to $10 range, and lately, it’s been approaching $30, so I’m happy.

I’m not at all sure how bots work, but this website absolutely could have members that are bots, assuming they could sign up.