CousinEddie

A bribe is a bribe, is a bribe, is a speech?

What a vile creature!

A paid speaking engagement is a bribe?

hmmm let me guess.., you are a FOX 'news' viewer?

Am I right?

And they would all be alive today if no one had access to a gun

Yeah, like only guns kill people. Total ignorance.

Guns only killed around 32,000 last year in the USA. About 1 shooting every 15 minutes.
About 1,700 killed with a knife, 850 by strangulation and 575 with blunt objects.

Suicides accounted for 21,175 of those gun deaths.

Oh, that's okay then!

And they would all be alive today if no one had access to a gun

Yeah, like only guns kill people. Total ignorance.

Guns only killed around 32,000 last year in the USA. About 1 shooting every 15 minutes.

About 1,700 killed with a knife, 850 by strangulation and 575 with blunt objects.

There are currently 193 member states of the UN. 175 signed this accord. So what happened to the other 18 ?

Apparently they were at a Creationist Symposium.

I too have noticed the climate change deniers are usually the type to tell you God created earth in 6 days.

These gullible people usually get their news from FOX and claim every other news source is mainstream liberal nonsense.

Hey ho ! and "climate change" is THE new religion. Must be so because anyone who disagrees is called "a denier". Smacks of the Spanish Inquisition"

Smacks of stupidity, is more like it when you ignore the worldwide scientific community and side with the politicians & lawyers that represent the business interests of the major polluters.

There are currently 193 member states of the UN. 175 signed this accord. So what happened to the other 18 ?

Apparently they were at a Creationist Symposium.

I too have noticed the climate change deniers are usually the type to tell you God created earth in 6 days.

These gullible people usually get their news from FOX and claim every other news source is mainstream liberal nonsense.

All Presidents and important politicians have a desk piled high with invitations.

Ronald Reagan famously traveled to Japan for a $1million speaking engagement right after he left office. That was big money back then.

It's not always about underhanded influence. It's about prestige. Having a photo op for all your executives to hang on their office wall, or an invitation to a golf outing with the President or a seat at the Kennedy Center or State Dinner or even have Hillary show up at your kids wedding. A wedding present from the President is something to talk about!

"Ronald Reagan famously traveled to Japan for a $1million speaking engagement right after he left office. That was big money back then."

Try to catch up.

The $1 Million that Reagan hauled in pales to insignificance in the face of Hillary's $21.6 Million in just two years after leaving the State Department.

Besides that is the fact Reagan had no intentions to run for another elective office. It looks like Hillary had no such intentions when she made those paid speeches.

Following is a list of all the six figure speeches Hillary made after leaving the State Department. Anybody willing to read it might find it interesting.

http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-all-the-six-figure-speaking-fees-that-hillary-clinton-received-after-leaving-the-state-dept-2015-5

...and...

http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/20/news/economy/hillary-clinton-goldman-sachs/

It's OK if Reagan did it.

Silly boy. Turn off the right wing propaganda.

All Presidents and important politicians have a desk piled high with invitations.

Ronald Reagan famously traveled to Japan for a $1million speaking engagement right after he left office. That was big money back then.

It's not always about underhanded influence. It's about prestige. Having a photo op for all your executives to hang on their office wall, or an invitation to a golf outing with the President or a seat at the Kennedy Center or State Dinner or even have Hillary show up at your kids wedding. A wedding present from the President is something to talk about!

Would never have happened if everybody carried a gun.

That's a ridiculous thing to say...would you really want little kids carrying guns? Now I do spot a few trees in the area, arming them might help (they could act as a special branch of the police)

haha...he is having a p!ss take at Trump with the ISIS shootings in France. The stupidity with Trump is that while a primitive mentality shoot out like the OK corral may have resulted in less French dead "if everyone carried a gun" (or may not have) is then you get normal everyday America where the dead numbers in all the nut case shootings added together come in away beyond the odd ISIS massacre. But then American shoot them up mentality sure works well for them not only on their home front but most of the modern conflicts they have been in since Vietnam where there is now a long trail of American cock ups.

The FBI has done studies with the 'armed citizen hero' scenario.

What happens?

The hero usually kills the wrong guy or the hero gets killed by police.

There are currently 193 member states of the UN. 175 signed this accord. So what happened to the other 18 ?

Uh, they watch FOX and still think it's a hoax?

Hi Boomer, I agree with your take on Bernie but not HRC. She is double speak personified. Even her reluctance to release her transcripts of her supportive Goldman Sachs $675,000 speeches because it would hurt her image of supporting the poor, is a good example.

As for Trump I always believed he was deliberately projecting the image that has brought him fame (or infamy) in the commercial world onto the political stage and it has worked proved by his popularity, coinciding with a general groundswell of public discontent economically and with perception of loss of political representation. Whether you hate or love him, he is well known, bad news travels faster than good as all marketers know. Once he has captured the disillusioned and they have no where else to go, then he has to work on the moderates of Middle America. This would be achieved by moderating his message and also identifying with them. Next he will target women with a very toned down and less misogynist message. I may be giving him too much credence that this is his original game plan all along but there is sense in it. His private life seems a contrast to his public projection, hence the talk of "two Trumps".

We will have to wait and see what happens...

Trump supporters are funny. They like him because they don't believe he will follow thru on the stupid stuff he says.

I notice many of them are not very capable of critical thinking or reasoning.

Like, what happens when you: slap a 35% tax on imports and trigger a trade war?

Or.. What happens when all your vegetable pickers are suddenly deported? or ...You build a wall and block access to hundreds of miles of the Rio Grande?

or you intentionally piss off a majority of decent Muslims,

or you call for boycotts of Macys, Apple, Carrier, Ford Motors...

or EVERYBODY should carry a gun.

or you claim the 2,000 distinguished Scientists at the National Academy of Science that advise the President are stupid,

or your gonna tear up the Iran Nuclear Deal even thought 6 major countries support it and won't go along with more sanctions or "bombing the hell out of them."

or when your Generals refuse orders?

or World leaders thing you are an idiot.

Great CousinE, you're actually talking instead of grunting. You'll have to ask Trump supporters those things.

Why waste our time with really dumb remarks?

I have noticed some extreme type ladyboys trolling the Jomtien beach area till dawn, looking for holiday makers to rob.

I'm guessing this pack of 'criminals impersonating women' have been chased out of Pattaya for numerous offenses.

Easy to spot the troublemakers but the police are too lazy to put the hammer down on these freaks.

Ah yes another earth day. It is amazing how we have survived this long. Here are seven of the doom and gloom predictions made on the first earth day by esteemed professors and scientists.

“Civilization Will End Within 15 or 30 Years.”

Harvard biologist Dr. George Wald warned shortly before the first Earth Day in 1970 that civilization would soon end “unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” Three years before his projection, Wald was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/22/seven-earth-day-predictions-that-failed-spectacularly/

People that mock Nobel Science Prize winners are: ____________________________ fill in the blank.

Considering the inebriated state he was in, it's just as likely he stumbled and fell on the uneven pavement and smashed his face...probably spent the 4000 baht drinking at said beer-bar.

Exactly right.

Thai ladyboys are world famous for their mugging and drugging of tourists. That's what they do, but in this case he must have fallen.

Ah yes another earth day. It is amazing how we have survived this long. Here are seven of the doom and gloom predictions made on the first earth day by esteemed professors and scientists.

“Civilization Will End Within 15 or 30 Years.”

Harvard biologist Dr. George Wald warned shortly before the first Earth Day in 1970 that civilization would soon end “unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” Three years before his projection, Wald was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/22/seven-earth-day-predictions-that-failed-spectacularly/

Harvard graduate and Nobel Prize winner...The guy must have been a real slacker.

The Republicans that represent the polluters are obviously right and the scientists are just playing games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wald

As a postdoctoral researcher, Wald discovered that vitamin A was a component of the retina. His further experiments showed that when the pigment rhodopsin was exposed to light, it yielded the protein opsin and a compound containing vitamin A. This suggested that vitamin A was essential in retinal function.

DELETED

Steve Doocy on FOX says global warming is a hoax and the 480,000 members of the National Academy of Sciences are a bunch of incompetent liars.

Of course no other presidential candidate would dream of projecting an image. The horror of the idea!

Ok, to some extent true. But with HRC and Sanders, what you see is what you get. Even Cruz is consistent.

It's a matter of degrees. With Trump, you get 87% the-image-he wants-to-project, 10% tough-guy act, and 3% real.

In sum: the person his fans are voting for is the not the person he will be in office. Even one of his top fans, Carson, said as much; "there are two Trumps."

Comic relief: What's black & white and red all over? Answer: a blushing zebra. Alternative answer: a newspaper.

Modern version of that joke: What's red and white with an orange comb-over? I don't know, but it rhymes with dump.

Hi Boomer, I agree with your take on Bernie but not HRC. She is double speak personified. Even her reluctance to release her transcripts of her supportive Goldman Sachs $675,000 speeches because it would hurt her image of supporting the poor, is a good example.

As for Trump I always believed he was deliberately projecting the image that has brought him fame (or infamy) in the commercial world onto the political stage and it has worked proved by his popularity, coinciding with a general groundswell of public discontent economically and with perception of loss of political representation. Whether you hate or love him, he is well known, bad news travels faster than good as all marketers know. Once he has captured the disillusioned and they have no where else to go, then he has to work on the moderates of Middle America. This would be achieved by moderating his message and also identifying with them. Next he will target women with a very toned down and less misogynist message. I may be giving him too much credence that this is his original game plan all along but there is sense in it. His private life seems a contrast to his public projection, hence the talk of "two Trumps".

We will have to wait and see what happens...

Trump supporters are funny. They like him because they don't believe he will follow thru on the stupid stuff he says.

I notice many of them are not very capable of critical thinking or reasoning.

Like, what happens when you: slap a 35% tax on imports and trigger a trade war?

Or.. What happens when all your vegetable pickers are suddenly deported? or ...You build a wall and block access to hundreds of miles of the Rio Grande?

or you intentionally piss off a majority of decent Muslims,

or you call for boycotts of Macys, Apple, Carrier, Ford Motors...

or EVERYBODY should carry a gun.

or you claim the 2,000 distinguished Scientists at the National Academy of Science that advise the President are stupid,

or your gonna tear up the Iran Nuclear Deal even thought 6 major countries support it and won't go along with more sanctions or "bombing the hell out of them."

or when your Generals refuse orders?

or World leaders thing you are an idiot.

My brother in law built a nice resort. Very popular... until... some politician built a competing resort across the road...then had the road department put barriers on the highway that blocked the turn into my families business.

This Is Thailand.

Once you go Asian, you don't go back to Caucasian.

Would never have happened if everybody carried a gun.

Thank you all for the responses - my husband immediately said it would be a bad idea and it turns out that he was right. I had been thinking of somewhere close to a big police station or immigration office and only renting to junior officers, who would almost have an obligation to pay on time and be well behaved, particularly if a more senior officer could be contracted to collect the rents, but he said the less we have to do with the authorities the better, although I like to think that there are more good people than bad here (or anywhere else). I know we hear lots of terrible stories, I'm sure that there are hundreds of thousands of expats living very nice happy lives here with no problems - but as Black Cab said, they aren't the ones that stick in your mind.

So, just something for ourselves. Again, not wanting to get into a debate about what will happen in 30 years when we have to walk away from whatever we've renovated or built, and as we never want to be worth more dead than alive the lease would have to be somehow structured, perhaps by use of a trust fund or equivalent owning the lease (I don't know the laws on trust funds here, but I'm sure they exist) so that should we die before the 30 years were up the land owners would have to deal with our estate to honour the 30 year term, although they could offer to buy it out rather than having it sublet. All details, we wouldn't do anything without very solid legal advise from a reputable company not Somchai the solicitor down the road. Also, no more money than we could afford to walk away from, our Superannuation fund can take a hit of $30k without it leaving us on bread and water.

If we are able to find the perfect piece of land, with or without a basic house on it, I am assuming that there would be no problem with me doing work to my own property. Of course, I'm not a machine and I can't do heavy stuff, so I'd have to bring people in to do some work, but apart from that, on a retirement visa, doing a bit of DIY on my own property wouldn't be an issue would it? And bringing someone in, say getting a quote from Bob the Builder to put a new roof on, that would be acceptable within immigration rules wouldn't it? I wouldn't be 'project managing' as it is thought of back home, I'd be doing most things myself and getting in people to do what I am not capable of doing myself.

Thanks again, very informative and helpful replies - I was kind of dreading a tsunami of misogynist condescending posts and you have very pleasantly surprised me.

"I'm sure that there are hundreds of thousands of expats living very nice happy lives here with no problems"

Yes, there are and they don't have a business plan to 'work' with illiterate day laborers and do business with Thai police.

You want to enjoy retirement, be a tourist & mind your own business..... otherwise, you are gonna see a side of Thailand that you wish you hadn't.

I don't see a problem with the work permit. The problem would arise with having Thai tenants living right on your doorstep.

Listen to me when I say this. I work for a company that owns lots and lots and lots of cheap rooms that are 99% occupied by Thai people. In the last 12 months we have had the police raid our buildings for drugs (they found them). We have had a group of guys turn up with guns intending to shoot one of our tenants (they didn't find him). We have had anti social behaviour like you wouldn't believe (food and rubbish thrown off balconies; loud music; one couple having sex with their door wide open). We have had one guy drink toilet cleaner then drive his car through a neighbours fence. Non payment. Runners. One woman jamming God knows what down a drain until we were at a loss about how to unblock it. Last night one guy got so drunk he didn't know which room he lived in (lots of choice) so he banged on all the doors. One single female living alone got scared and climbed over her 3rd floor balcony to escape and fell off. I don't know how but she's mostly ok and didn't die.

Trust me when I say this: You do not want tenants living in cheap accommodation on the same land as you. Believe me, it would be the worst mistake you made for quite a while.

(I will add that we have many very decent and good tenants, but they don't stick in your mind as much).

For heavens sake, do you have to be so frank and honest, couldn't you add some sugar and

flowery language, you balloon popper you.

Ps, i know the apartments you are referring to,, they exist in every city in the world.

He did sugar coat it.

^

My brother in law is a policeman and his wife a senior public servant, and they think it's a huge joke every time I tell me wife I cannot help out / do chores etc. as I don't have a work permit. Well, they thought it was funny the first five or six times they heard it.

I don't know for certain so don't take my word for it, but I believe technically you are not allowed to do anything, even DIY. But common sense does exist, even in Thailand! So unless you upset someone (the landowner who'd like to terminate the lease say?), you'd have no problems. We are preparing a plot of land for our retirement, and I work side by side with my BIL the police sergeant all the time.

Your policeman, brother in law thinks it's a joke...until he decides to hate you....and he will.

Awesome bike rode my friends while i visited him in Chiang Mai last weekend. I sold my X1r and Sonic but will look around bangkok for one of these.

Only thing i dislike is the scooter front/head light looks horrible, but you can always pop that off and drop the bars and maybe put a shield. like all the underbone manuals there will be tons of aftermarket parts.

Not sure what that would cost though. Anyone know?

Yamaha is doing great things these days but they missed the boat by not including clip-ons with this bike.

Pattaya police surely know who the buttplugs are. They arrest them often, but always let them off with a smirk, some giggles and a tepid warning. If cops there were doing their jobs, there would be less scum on the streets.

A Thai told me, the cops really don't like farangs and they will let the perps go for 50Bt.

Penis size.

3 inches, 3 minutes, 3 thousand.