jas007

Correct. The world is now on the verge of a catastrophe and the idiots in charge of France, the U.K., and the US keep upping the ante. Putin is not joking. NATO forces in Ukraine = WW III. It’s just that simple. Russia would see any such escalation as an existential threat and they will respond . For Europe and NATO, none of this is really necessary. The survival of Ukraine is not an existential matter for the for any NATO nation. Russia has no interest in reestablishing the old Soviet Union. They went bankrupt trying to hold it together years ago, and they won’t repeat that mistake. So, why all the interest in starting WW III? Western leaders have been brainwashed by the spin doctors. The military industrial complex is huge. It profits enormously from defense spending and they have good spin doctors. They have a good propaganda machine. And the politicians are well rewarded. And so we hear tales of Russian aggression and its desire to conquer Europe. Russia is demonized. Putin is demonized. Of course, no one asks the voters in Europe or the US if they are ready to sacrifice their remaining time on earth for an unnecessary war so that a small group of people can continue to profit. Most people don’t even realize how close they are to death. This war won’t be another WW III. Once it starts, it’ll be over in a few hours. Maybe here in Thailand we’ll last a little longer. Then again, I wonder about the nuclear fallout. I once read that New Zealand might be a safe place to be. Out of the way.

I wouldn’t vote for a Democrat at this point, mainly because they aren’t real Democrats any more. They lost the plot somewhere along the way. At this point, they’ve simply scary. Authoritarian war mongers, and that’s to put it politely. And so I would vote for Trump, simply to oppose the Democrats. What’s wrong with RFK Jr? He makes more sense than either Biden or Trump. The day he announced his candidacy, I donated money. If he wins, great. If he takes votes away from Biden, great. Either way, it’s a win.

My fun? It is fun. That’s sad, but you can’t say it isn’t fun to watch. Anyway, Biden is obviously not making any real decisions. He can’t even find his way off stage without someone leading him.

I think the days of finding a house for $100k are over, unless you have a sense of adventure and can you do a little renovation. Maybe wait and watch. If the economy implodes and you have some cash, anything is possible.

If I were visiting CA today, I’d perhaps check out the area between La Jolla and Newport Beach, or the area north of San Francisco. Forget the big cities. I’m pretty sure the whole state hasn’t been ruined, yet.

Biden may be the president, but not really. Clearly, others are now running the country. As for who could replace him on the ticket? Is Hillary still interested? It would be fun to watch her lose again.

California used to be great. Now? Not so much, unless you’re a billionaire and don’t mind all the taxes and inflated property values. The only people who are doing OK are those who bought their homes years ago. Thanks to Proposition 13, the property taxes are not crazy. So they stay.

I’m not sure what qualifies as D list, but if you’re just looking for a roof over your head and proximity to health care, shopping, transportation and so on, there are many places. The Midwest comes to mind, so long as you don’t mind four seasons and the occasional tornado. Or the Deep South. Just find a small town within an hour’s drive to a big city and you’re all set. Still, unless all the inflation subsides, it’s anyone’s guess is you’ll still be able to get by on a small Social Security check. Food prices seem to be crazy lately.

I’m sure Biden would like nothing more than for this entire mess to disappear. The US is aiding Israel and that probably won’t change anytime soon. On balance, hardly a popular stance and certainly no way to gain votes from college students. I’m old enough to remember the Vietnam war protests, the Democratic convention riots in Chicago in 1968, and Kent State. And until recently, I’ve wondered what happened to the anti-war movement and the Democratic party. Until the current Middle East thing began, the Democrats have been all about war and destruction, and the kids in school have been silent. No anti-war protests at all. And then, all of a sudden, the kids are all about peace. The issue of free speech is also interesting. The Democrats and the corporate media do everything in their power to censor speech they don’t like, calling it “misinformation,” and yet we’re now hearing about the protestors free speech rights and how they should be protected. Hypocrisy. Anyway, much of the madness is apparently being well funded. Another summer of trouble, just in time for the election? Maybe that’s the point.

Off the top of my head, I think I remember seeing or reading about an interview with Trump about what he said to Putin about Ukraine. Trump told Putin that if Russia invaded Ukraine, the US would bomb the Kremlin. When I heard that, I found it hard o believe, but maybe Trump really did say that, and maybe Putin didn’t want to FAFO.

Ukraine is next door to Russia. It’s in Russia’s orbit, like it or not. The point is that Nuland was meddling in Ukraine’s affairs, stirring up trouble. That was her function. That’s how she got her job. Demonize Russia. Demonize Putin. Try to destabilize Ukraine. Cause trouble. Typical Neocon crap. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, there will likely be serious consequences unless this war ends sooner rather than later. Russia cannot be defeated by either Ukraine or NATO. Perhaps a peace of some sort can be achieved. The alternative is WW III. And once that happens, we won’t get a do over. Anyone not worried about that is delusional.

The USA has been trying to provoke Russia for years. But for CIA and State Department meddling, none of this would have happened the way it did. Look up Victoria Nuland. They have her scheming on a taped phone call. So yes, the biggest danger to the world. How some people seem to think that WW III would be a good idea escapes me. Where are the responsible adults?

Surely, people must know that the military industrial complex in the US is huge. Over the years, trillions of dollars change hands. Lots of money for corruption. And the merchants of war can afford to hire the best spin doctors on planet earth. And they have. And, in conjunction with the help of their corporate media buddies, they demonize both Russia and Putin. And the politicians are funded, of course. And so we are all on the brink of nuclear annihilation, all so that some fat cats and some bankers can make big bucks.

Don’t forget, Russia has a legitimate and very reasonable concern with security. Belarus is in their neighborhood, within their sphere of influence, so to speak. Riussia doesn’t want enemy nukes on their border. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, when Russia was promised that NATO would not expand Eastward, NATO has been doing just that. And so Russia is concerned. Moving nukes into Poland would be like waiving a red flag at a bull. Thinking the Russians will sit by and do nothing is not realistic. Image an enemy power moving weapons and munitions (including nukes) into Tijuana, on the US border. The US would most definitely respond. That situation would not be tolerated. Or go back to 1962 and the Cuban missile crisis. Again, the US had a problem with that and we almost had a nuclear war. The bottom line is this: ignoring Russia’s legitimate security interests isn’t going to work. Western leaders who seem to think otherwise are delusional morons of the highest order. Putin is not another Hitler intent on reassembling the Soviet Union. That’s just propaganda. The Soviet Union fell apart for good reason. Russia won’t make the same mistake twice. Anyway, the war to date has been a failure for the West and a disaster for Ukraine. The country is destroyed. Hundreds of thousands are dead. For what?

The sooner this war ends, the better. WW III would mean disaster. The end of the world as we know it. I’m not sure why everyone doesn’t understand that. And yet Poland is now suggesting that its territory be used to base nuclear weapons. I can’t imagine Russia standing for that.

I’m sure there are big warehouses in Bangkok filled with used electronics. Of course, new gear is easy to find. With the Japanese Yen dropping, maybe a person could find some good deals. Back in the states, I always tried to have quality equipment. Every once in a while in Thailand I get that urge, but so far, I’ve only bought some KEF LSX II speakers for my TV that are also good for streaming music. They have an internal amp, so that’s all you need. I can stream Roon, Tidal, Qobuz, Apple Music. Not bad little speakers for not too much money. I think they were around 50,000 baht. Anyway, I’m trying not to accumulate too much junk. I’m sure I cave in at some point, but so far, I’ve resisted.

I’ve got this same problem. When I came to Thailand this time, I had a Mint Mobile SIM card. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of removing it from my phone to install a Thai SIM card. I left the Mint Mobile SIM card on the nightstand and forgot it was there. The maid threw it away when she cleaned my room and I didn’t realize it right away. So, no more US number and no way to do 2FA. Google Voice for my US number wouldn't work. I’ve since switched to using a Thai eSIM, so that much works. My bank still recognizes my IPad, but that’s about it. Anyway, I’m not really in the mood to fly all the way to the USA just to activate a U.S. phone number.

There are a number of risk factors. Age, a history of extreme myopia, cataract surgery, and probably a few others. I was lucky the surgery went OK, although I’m now having some trouble with the same eye. Blurry/cloudy vision that fluctuates. The internal lens that was inserted during the cataract surgery in 2017 became partially dislodged following the surgery after I had a reaction to the steroid eye drops they told me to take along with some antibiotic drops. The net result was less than 20/20 vision in that eye because of a misplaced lens. No blurry or cloudy vision, just a less than perfect focus on distant objects. Anyway, the blurry/cloudy vision came on over the course of a few weeks last fall whereas the lens has been out of place for more than a few years. The eye doctor in Bangkok is convinced that there’s nothing wrong with my eye except for the displaced lens. I’ve had full eye exams, so maybe he’s right, although I wonder. If I eat too much sweet food, the blurriness gets worse, so I thought it might be related to my blood glucose level spiking. So, I went in for a diabetes screening, but they found nothing unusual. In fact, the test results were all more or less perfect. Maybe it’s just some kind of inflammation that’s distorting my vision? Or maybe a nutritional thing. I guess I’ll have to wait and see. Maybe the problem will clear up.

I had a retinal detachment back in 2017 while I was in the USA. This was about one year after cataract surgery for both eyes. Anyway, a few days before it happened I started noticing flashes of light, changes in my peripheral vision, etc. My eye doctor referred me to a retinal specialist who operated on me the next day. That operation was successful.

Has anyone ever hired a moving service for a move? Either within Pattaya or between Pattaya and Bangkok? I’m thinking about moving. Not much stuff, really, but it’s now more than the two suitcases I came here with this time. An office chair, a computer monitor, some smaller miscellaneous items, and a few pots and pans, some small kitchen utensils. Anyway, assuming the cost of movers isn’t too high, that might be the way to go.

It’s difficult to get a good balance between movie dialogue (usually the center channel on a surround system) and the rest of the soundtrack using just two speakers. Typically, the TV settings or the streamer settings will allow for a two channel setup, which will simulate the center channel by distributing the center channel sound equally to the right and left speaker. That helps a little. You might consider using a real home theater receiver and speakers, including a center channel speaker. A 3.1 system or a 5.1 system. It wouldn’t have to cost too much, although you could also spend a small fortune, depending. I’ve noticed that on my Apple TV box, there’s a setting to “reduce loud sounds.” I haven’t tried it, but something like that might help. Turning it on would allow you to increase the volume to have louder dialogue without bothering the neighbors every time there’s a loud portion of the movie.

It seems fine to me. My old MacBook Air was from 2018, so this one seems like a big improvement. My old unit is out of service (one of the recent software updates bricked it), so I had to do a recovery from the Cloud. But the Cloud won’t update everything these days. I had to reinstall apps and so on. I guess that’s for security. I need to start using a local Time Machine backup now and then.

For what it’s worth, I bought a new MacBook Air M3 from the Apple Thailand website a few weeks ago. I needed the US English keyboard. Anyway, it was shipped from China via the express service they use.

I’m in Bangkok and just had a skin cancer check yesterday at Bumrungrad. Just a precaution. Anyway, the doctor didn’t find anything significant, but she did freeze off five or six little growths. Two here “benign” and the rest she called “pre-cancerous.” Those were little specks you could hardly see. Total cost was around 10,000 baht.

Last year I seem to remember having a problem getting my SSA online access sorted out. As part of the process, they sent a login code to my US address. Someone at that end opened the mail and sent me the code, but as it turned out, TurboTax already had the information. I guess that was a service I signed up for the previous year. They will collect all your information from SSA, OPM, banks, brokerages, etc., for a fee. Anyway, I’m in the process of switching everything over to Thailand. No US address. I’ve got to look into Schwab International. I already have a Schwab US account, but I don’t see much of a problem using the international account. It’s a stock account plus a bank. From what I can tell, the bank is US based (Citibank), so I can have pensions or whatever deposited there. Another thing I found out is that you can sign up for direct deposit of pensions, SSA checks, etc., directly to a Thai bank. Every month, the Treasury sends a wire transfer. The details on making the request weren’t exactly clear, but you do have to send an actual letter to each agency. I guess I’ll try it and see. Maybe it’ll be a simple process. This process is different than the process for sending SSA checks to Bangkok Bank.