heybruce

Largely agree. I especially agree with "...no diff from any restaurant row in the world looking to attract free-spending tourists...". I liked Nimman better when it wasn't a tourist oriented restaurant row. I liked it better when you saw very few tourists or expats. But I recognize that nothing stays the same, and that's a good thing. I still like Chiang Mai and I know there are still good places to go. I just need to find them. "Nothin' shakin' on Shakedown Street Used to be the heart of town Don't tell me this town ain't got no heart You just gotta poke around" Shakedown Street by Grateful Dead Yes, I'm that old.

For people who are unclear on what news is: If you watch programs where people spew out bile, anger and insults and rarely bother with facts and logic, you are not watching news.

I'm sure your correct about the rents. Nimman was great for a while; many interesting, affordable places in easy walking distance of each other. Not too many foreigners, especially down the sois, but that was ok.

Family situation required me to return to the US. I visit Thailand, mostly Chiang Mai, when I can and hope to live there again. Next time I will look into staying in Nakornping Condo or thereabouts. Close to Santitham, which seems to have the best casual restaurants and bars now.

Perhaps responsible doctors in the 1950's were saying there was no evidence that smoking caused cancer. Of course there was no evidence because no studies had been done. Few if any doctors definitely stated that smoking did not cause cancer. However doctors have suspected for at least 100 years that smoking wasn't healthy. I recall a scientific article from the 1920's hypothesizing that lower male life expectancy was in part due to men being more likely to smoke. Doctors never have known everything and never will. However they know a lot more now than they used to, and are better able to make judgements regarding health than people who like to speculate.

Really? When did doctors, or more important, the medical establishment say that smoking does not increase the risk of lung cancer?

Nimman has gone way down as a dining mecca if you liked the casual, outdoor Thai restaurants/bars such as BlarBlar, Lism, Dayli, OMG and many other smaller places. It is also not the student hangout it used to be. I think it's boring now.

The 24 hour news channels chase ratings. If you want real news by real journalists, read.

So you don't care that Tucker Carlson isn't a journalist and doesn't report news. As placeholder shows, neither does Tucker Carlson. However if all that matters to you is rating, here are 100 programs more highly rated than Tucker Carlson: https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/most-popular-tv-shows-highest-rated-2020-2021-season-1234980743/ Interesting that "60 Minutes" is on the list (number 24) but Tucker Carlson isn't. In fact I didn't see any Fox News programs.

Ratings have nothing to do with news worthiness. Either you don't know the difference between news and punditry, or you are embarrassed to admit that you watch Fox for entertainment, not information. Here's a link to transcripts of Tucker Carlson's shows. Why don't you point out where he is reporting news? https://www.foxnews.com/category/shows/tucker-carlson-tonight/transcript

Published after Trump had been in office 15 months. It ends giving a few reasons why a trade deal with Trump was unlikely: "Finally Britain must navigate what one official calls Mr Trump’s idées fixes, such as his obsession with balanced trade (a problem given Britain’s sizeable current-account surplus with America) or his desire to equalise tariffs imposed on German cars entering America, and vice versa. Insiders predict that Britain will be pressed to scrap all import tariffs for American-made cars, even if Britain is still imposing them on cars from the EU. As it happens, the largest single shipper of American-made cars to Britain, accounting for 20,000 sales last year, is a BMW plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina." Of course we now know that no trade deal happened under Trump. I don' thing there was much of a push for one.

Can you point us the the parts where hard evidence of sabotage by the US is provided?

Yeah, watching fools say and do silly things has always been a popular form of entertainment.

You clearly don't know the difference between pundit programs and news.

And the facts show that those viewers are wrong.

None of those are news programs. They are pundit programs. They are for entertainment, not information.

You had to go back two years to find a lie told by a pundit on MSNBC for a desperate attempt at deflection. That doesn't make Fox News look good.

Well, it could be said for every one that was hauled into court for supporting the big lie.

I don't think you can call that a real election, and I don't think anybody with any brains believed Prayut. If the next "election" is held with the same rules it will give the same BS results.

If you are arguing that there are no perfect governments, I agree. If you are arguing for apathy and resignation, I disagree. Corruption is like weeds in a garden; it takes a lot of work to clean things up when the place is overrun, but then you can have a reasonably functional government/garden through constant vigilance. The problem is that there are no quick fixes. After the 2014 coup a lot of westerners who should have known better argued that since a few years of democracy hadn't solved corruption it was time to give Prayut a chance. They actually believed Prayut when he promised a war on corruption. Not very bright of them. Democracy in Thailand is always precarious. A genuinely democratic government that immediately started locking up generals, senior civil servants and those affiliated with he-who-must-not-be-named would trigger another coup. Democracy must be established long enough for military rule to cease to be considered normal, and then longer so it doesn't seem at all acceptable. That's how country's that have successfully made the transition from corrupt military rule to reasonably clean democracy have done it. It takes many years, but it's worth the effort.

In countries in which the press is independent of the government and free to criticize the leaders I trust to competition. Many news organizations work to earn a reputation as impartial and reliable. None are totally impartial, but competition ensures some reliability by having these news organizations fact-checking each other. Of course there are other faux news organizations that pedal outrage instead of facts, but they are easy to spot. The 24 hour news television channels are especially rife with this ilk. That's why I prefer reading the news.

Begins with "And my perception is...". So it is opinion, not fact.

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Fake news is news that is fake--stating things happened that didn't happen. For example Trump's repeated claim that the election was stolen is fake news. Is that clear?

Regarding the above posts: Just because the Thai people know they have to pay bribes to get things done doesn't mean that they like it. Most Thai people would welcome honest government. MP Padipat Santipada is stating the obvious, but stating the obvious can be dangerous when it upsets those in power. I hope corruption becomes a key election issue, even though any government attempting to eliminate corruption will probably trigger another coup.